He chuckled. “They’re kind of like baseball gloves. The more beat up, the better.”
I nodded and gave him a once-over. He was wearing dark jeans, boots, and a white shirt that read, “I am.” You couldn’t see the tattoos I knew he had because of the quarter sleeves of his shirt, and I was dying to pull them up to see if he’d added any new ones. His face was closely shaved, and his hair was mussed, from the wind or his motorcycle helmet, there was no telling. What mattered was that he looked good—better than good—and I was ogling. I needed to stop ogling.
“Hey Jensen,” a group of girls said as they walked by. His eyes left my face for a second, just to acknowledge them with a nod, but he looked right back at me.
“You want to come drink with us? We’re going to play a game,” one of them said.
He was still looking at me, and my heart felt like it was having a seizure. “I’d rather stay right here,” he said, finally, not taking his light brown eyes away from me.
“You can go,” I whispered when the girls were out of earshot. “I don’t mind.”
“And lose track of my muse? I don’t think so Road Runner,” he said, smiling, as he flapped his notebook in the air.
“Afraid you can’t keep up with me?” I asked.
His chuckle warmed me all over, and when his expression turned serious as he searched my face, I felt a shiver spike through me. “I am, actually.”
Chapter Three
Present
THE LOUD KNOCK on my car window snapped me out of my reverie. I gasped and sat up straight, looking out to find Jensen standing there with a confused look on his face. From the look in his eyes, I knew something was wrong. I stepped out of the car, closing the door behind me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. He didn’t respond—just pulled me into his arms and held me in a tight hug.
“I’m not going to slither out of your arms, you know?” I said jokingly against his chest. He breathed heavily against my head and held me tighter before finally letting go.
“Yes, you are,” he said, his words muffled.
His words made my stomach dip. “What’s wrong?” I asked again, this time pushing away from his chest.
He blinked a couple of times as he looked down at me, as if he’d forgotten what I looked like. It occurred to me that maybe in the five months he’d been away, I’d forgotten what he looked like as well. I raised my hand and flattened it against the stubble on his cheek. I ran my eyes over his face, stopping at the faded scar on his left cheek, and continuing on until I reached his full lips.
“I won’t be here long,” he said, finally breaking his silence. My eyes snapped back up to meet his.
“When do you leave?”
“Sunday night.”
I nodded, tearing my eyes away from his to look over his shoulder, at the slightly open door of the house behind him. I hated the fact that he only came to visit for one or two days at a time, but I understood. His life was in New York. Had it not been for his foster mother, Patty, I wasn’t sure how often he would come, or if he’d even come at all.
“Is Patty home?” I asked, raising my chin in the direction of the house.
Jensen shook his head, letting out a harsh breath that tickled my cheek. “She left a few minutes ago.” He put a hand on my waist then, the feel of his long fingers curling to grip me igniting a fire deep within my belly. I wanted nothing more than to push him back into the house and rip his clothes off. Something told me that he wanted me to do that. That he preferred for me to do that instead of making him talk about whatever it was that was clouding his head. So I decided I wouldn’t. I couldn’t push him to talk to me; I knew that from experience, but I also knew that using sex to try to ease his pain was something Jensen fell into when he was young, and I liked to think I could do more for him than just that. I liked to think I would be the one who would ultimately tame the bad boy in him. I already was, in a sense. I’d been his longest relationship thus far.
“Will you go somewhere with me?” he asked, making me blink in surprise.
“Somewhere like…” I prompted, confused.
“Away. Let’s get a hotel somewhere, just for tonight. I need to…” he breathed out again. “I need to be with you,” he said, bringing his other hand to my other hip and holding me there before trailing them both along my sides until he reached my face. “I want to be alone with you. Only you and me.”
He could have asked me to kill the Pope, and I would have in that moment. When Jensen looked at me like that, with those soulful gray eyes that begged for somebody to just understand him, I couldn’t say no. I placed my hands over his on my face, and then brought them in front of my mouth. He closed his eyes as I kissed his calloused palms.