Mercy(White Collared Part 1)(29)

She was cautious. Which is why she’d left the past in the past and re-created a new identity without an Internet trail. No one in Detroit knew anything about her other than she’d grown up in small-town USA. She’d worked hard in college to lose her accent, although once in a while she’d slip up, especially when emotional. If someone asked about her past, she’d deflect and turn the conversation to them. Most people loved to talk about themselves.

When they reached her place, he surprised her by turning off the engine. His lips curled in disdain. “You live here?”

“I sleep here,” she clarified. “I’m rarely home.”

“The building should be condemned.”

He wasn’t wrong. The lock on the front door no longer worked, allowing anyone access. A few times she’d had to step over passed-out strangers as she climbed the stairs to her second-level apartment. The building smelled like piss and mildew and probably had black mold growing underneath the cracked tile of the entryway. But the space was rat- and roach-free, so it was good enough until she could afford both a car and an apartment in the ’burbs.

She slid out of the car, and, possibly from some misguided sense of obligation, Jaxon followed her. “If all the properties like this one were condemned in Detroit, we lower class would have nowhere to live,” she said as they darted out of the rain and into her building.

He gripped her upper arm, his thumb inadvertently brushing her breast. “Don’t call yourself lower class. You’re a lawyer.”

Tom’s words still rang in her ears. You can take the girl out of the trailer, but you can’t take the trailer out of the girl. “I’m a legal intern. No salary. After I pay tuition and books, I can hardly afford groceries.” She laid her hand over his. “I live in the city because it saves gas money and the rent is cheap. It may not look like much, but it’s relatively clean and the muggers say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’” He didn’t laugh. “That was a joke.”

“Not funny.”

She removed his hand from her arm and pulled out her keys from her purse as she climbed the bum-free stairs to her apartment. “Not all of us can live in four-thousand-square-foot homes.”

She immediately cringed, knowing she shouldn’t have passed judgment on him based on his socioeconomic status. At her door, she turned to apologize. “I’m sorry. That was—”

“I wasn’t always rich. I grew up a few blocks from here.” He spoke quietly, the words laced with sadness.

Each moment she spent in his presence, he shattered another of her preconceived notions of Jaxon Deveroux, Dominant and high-society venture capitalist. Physically, he wasn’t soft like the typical white-collared executive. No, his body was hard—harder than he could achieve with a personal trainer a couple times a week. If he’d been raised in the ’hood, he would’ve learned how to fight by the time he’d graduated from elementary school. You couldn’t show weakness or you’d never live to adulthood.

Not only had he lived, he’d escaped poverty.

She flicked on the light, trying not to be embarrassed by her meager space, and then she realized her entire apartment could fit inside his playroom. Her living room contained an old burgundy couch she’d purchased from Goodwill and a plastic end table with a framed photo of her and her father fishing off their rowboat. The narrow galley kitchen sat behind the room and past that were the bedroom and bathroom.

Butterflies danced the jig in her belly. She dropped her purse on the couch and gripped the door handle. “Do you want to come in?”

He exhaled loudly, devouring her with his eyes. “More than anything.” He crossed the threshold into her apartment. “But it’s probably not a good idea.”

She took his hand and led him further inside then shut the door. “You’re right. It’s not.”

She could list dozens of reasons why making love to Jaxon would be a mistake.

He moved behind her, curling his hand around the back of her neck and squeezing.

He breathed heavily.

She couldn’t breathe at all.

With the gentle pressure of his palm at the top of her spine, he rotated her until her breasts brushed the hard planes of his chest.

She raised her gaze to his face and saw everything she felt reflected there in his eyes.

Heat.

Desire.

Longing.

He slammed her against the door and crushed her mouth with his own. His lips were soft, softer than she’d imagined possible. But the kiss was not. It was a primal taking as his tongue parried and plunged, searching and exploring. Their teeth clacked together as she responded, no longer a passive participant. His taste exploded on her tongue, a mix of spicy and sweet.