Before You(57)

Most of the people she passed in the airport were dressed in short sleeves and either a skirt or shorts, except the businessmen, who looked overheated and out of place in their business suits and ties.

A moment later Jax pulled up next to the curb in front of her. As he jumped out of the car, she noticed his familiar smile and she found herself smiling back at him. Jax had one of the most dangerous smiles she had ever seen. Dangerous in the sense that his smile was too sexy to be real. She couldn’t stop herself from staring at his lips, remembering the way they felt as they brushed against her lips, her skin, and the whispered praise he showered on her with those same lips while he touched every inch of her body.

Groaning internally at the direction of her thoughts, she acknowledged this was going to be a long weekend if she couldn’t control them. She mentally slammed the door on those memories and walked toward his car.

Almost immediately, Jax wrapped her in a friendly embrace that felt decidedly intimate, given their recent history, and she abruptly realized that letting Jax pick her up and spending a half an hour alone with him wasn’t a good decision.

“Bre. You look beautiful today. Get in and I’ll put your luggage in the trunk.”

“Ahh… thanks,” she mumbled almost incoherently. The sound of his deep voice and the blatant admiration in his eyes did amazing things to her previously relaxed demeanor. Bre watched Jax put her luggage in the trunk, then she slid into the front passenger seat of the car. Nervously, she searched through the contents of her purse, not looking for anything in particular, but trying to avoid making eye contact with Jax.

“Bre, relax. It’s just me,” Jax said, pushing her long brown hair behind her ear and letting his hand fall on her leg just above her knee.

“I’m fine, Jax. I wish you wouldn’t touch me like that, though. It makes me uncomfortable,” Bre replied with an overly bright smile. The awareness between the two of them was so strong she could almost feel it crackling in the air, reminding her of every shared touch last weekend.

“What do you mean?” Jax said as he pulled away from the curb.

“Don’t be obtuse. You can’t touch me like that,” Bre responded, rubbing lip balm on her lips to keep her hands busy.

“Why? You never complained about a hug or a touch before,” he said, his eyes narrowed.

“That was before… you know. It’s different now,” Bre whispered, pushing his hand off her leg.

A slow grin spread across his face, his gray eyes dancing with amusement. “Not entirely. We agreed to be friends and forget what happened. That’s what I’m doing.”

Bre sighed. “Yes, we’re friends, but we can’t act like before. That’s why we’re in this mess right now. It’s kills me to think about what we did to Cam. I wish I could scrub it from my brain.”

“Do you really mean that? You regret what happened.”

“Of course I regret it—every second of it. It was the biggest mistake of my life.”

“Really, that’s it? That’s how you feel? It’s as simple as that.”

“Yes.”

“Then why did it happen?”

“I don’t know. I had a moment of weakness and you were there, and I… wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“So, I could have been anybody. You would have hooked up with any man that paid you any attention. I just happened to be in the right, or wrong, depending how you look at it, place at the right time?” he asked indignantly, his gray eyes piercing her.

“Yes… I mean no. Oh hell, I don’t know why it happened. It just did and I’m sorry. My behavior was wrong on so many levels.”

“So that’s it. You don’t feel anything for me?”

“Other than friendship, no, nothing.” At that moment if someone told her that lying could cause you physical pain, she would have totally agreed. Those words sliced through her body like a surgeon with a scalpel, systematically carving pieces of her heart.

“So you basically want to pretend it never happened?” Jax questioned, his eyes suddenly cold and unforgiving.

“That’s what we agreed, right?”

Jax sighed and ran his hands through his thick hair. Bre watched, almost hypnotized by his movements. Her hand itched to touch him, feel his skin and his hair. The world around her—the cars weaving in and out of the heavy highway traffic, Cam waiting for her arrival—vanished. It was just the two of them cocooned in Jax’s car and an overwhelming desire for Jax, someone she could never have, wrapped around her like a melancholy blanket.

“Listen, Bre,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. “I know it’s complicated and uncomfortable, but there has never been another time in my life when being with someone felt so right or so good that I didn’t care about the consequences.” He grabbed her hand, his calloused thumb moving in a comforting circular motion on the inside of her wrist. “Call Cam. Tell him you changed your mind or that something came up at the gallery, and spend the weekend with me. We’ll get a hotel together for the weekend and explore what’s between us and then when it’s over we’ll decide what we want to do about Cam.”