“Yes, Brooke. I do. I want to see where this is heading.” His voice was deep and low. Sultry.
I peered into his eyes to see if he was joking, but his expression remained serious. Half of me wanted to jump right into his arms and never let him go, the way you see in movies. And the other half, as strange as it sounded, wished she could wipe out each and every memory that included him. Because I wanted him too much and I couldn’t handle it. Because I had never felt this way before, and it scared the hell out of me. If I gave it a try and it didn’t work out, my heart would shatter and my world would crumble. If he lost interest and broke up with me, it would kill me.
“But...we signed a contract.” I almost choked on the words. There were a hundred reasons why this wasn’t a good idea, one being that we barely knew each other. You don’t jump headfirst into a relationship when you met the person two weeks ago and haven’t really dated. And then there was that one issue that made any reasoning turn into dust.
I was falling in love with him.
“You said you had done contracts before, and that this is the way you like it,” I continued, hoping he would reveal more about his past and his feelings for me. Anything to justify the decision I had already made.
Jett shook his head slowly. “I never said I had done this before.”
“But you had a contract drawn up by your lawyers.”
He nodded slowly, his gaze darkening. “It was their idea after an ex-girlfriend tried to screw me over with some sordid sex stories that never happened.” Hesitating, he ran his fingers through his dense hair, reminding me that I had done the same thing just a few hours ago. “You’re different. I know you’re not sleeping with me because of my money.”
“How do you know that?”
He placed my hand onto his chest. Beneath his skin, his heart thumped fast and in unison with mine. “Because I feel it,” Jett said softly. “I always have. I wanted you right from the beginning, but you pushed me away, so I had to convince you. Otherwise you would never have given me a chance.”
I smiled at the memories of the last two weeks. So much had happened. Never in my life did I imagine the arrogant guy I met at a bar would interest me on more than a sexual level. Someone I might fall for.
“I want us but at the same time I’m scared because—” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, gathering the courage to share with him my biggest fear.
“It’s okay, baby.” His fingers brushed my cheek gently, settling right beneath my chin, where my pulse pumped hard and fast, matching the erratic speed of my changing emotions.
My eyes met his warm gaze in which I found the courage I needed. “My parents were so deeply in love. They adored the ground beneath the other’s feet. When my father killed himself, my mother’s soul died with him.” I laughed to mask the choking sensation in my throat. “She turned into someone else, someone I didn’t recognize. I lost her the moment he died, and no matter what I tried, she never recovered. I don’t do relationships because I don’t want to love and lose myself.”
“What happened to your family was a tragedy, but many people have loving relationships. You can’t rob yourself of that experience just because you’re scared of loss before you’ve even given it a try.”
I could see his conviction in his eyes, hear it in his tone, and feel it in his gentle touch on my body. He believed the happily-ever-after story, and I couldn’t blame him for it, when he’d never experienced the ugliness of having one’s family torn apart, or seeing one’s sister falling for the wrong man only to end up dead.
“You think I haven’t seen my fair share of shit happening?” Jett said.
Clamping my mouth shut, I remained silent. No point in arguing with him. Of course he had. I never doubted that. It just wasn’t the same thing.
Jett sat up and put a few inches between us, staring me down. Angry waves wafted from him, and I knew a revelation was imminent. “You know why I like to use my mother’s name? Because it’s one of the few things she gave me before she left us behind. You lost your dad, whereas I never really had a mother because she couldn’t stay sober. She blamed her addictions on my father’s work schedule and his unwillingness to lay off the secretaries, strippers, and every female who’d open her legs for him. In the end she finally had the guts to divorce him. She took half of his fortune and left me and my brother behind. I ended up doing some pretty bad shit, of which I’m not proud.”
“I’m sorry, Jett. I didn’t know,” I whispered and reached to touch his shoulder. My fingers lingered on the Tribal tattoo I never asked about. Even in the bright light, it looked gloomy and mysterious. Frightening and dark. I wanted to know everything about his past and him as a person. And in that instant I understood that he had insisted learning about my past and previous relationships because he probably felt the same need to know.