“You keep gawking,” she said bluntly, but her voice was soft, feminine.
“I wouldn’t say gawking,” he said and grinned. “Staring hard, yeah. I admit that.” A moment of silence passed. “I know you.”
Her eyes were big, light blue in color, and a gorgeous contrast to her caramel colored skin and black hair. She also had this faint speckling of freckles on the bridge of her nose.
“Yeah, I used to live here.” Her voice shook slightly, and he could tell she was nervous, but he couldn’t understand why.
Had he fucked her in the past? No, she couldn’t be any older than twenty-two, and he would have remembered being with her four years ago, which would have put her at eighteen. But even that was a little too young for him. Jace preferred experienced women, ones that could keep up with him in the bedroom. He liked it rough and dirty, and an inexperienced high school graduate didn’t really do it for him.
“You don’t remember me?” Jace knew she did given the fact she was acting awkward around him. That would have had him grinning in pleasure, but for some reason he didn’t want to just go in for the “kill”, so to speak. When he wanted a woman he had no problem going after her. They didn’t turn him down, so he found plenty of females to keep his bed warm for a few hours.
Jace wanted Lexi, had a hard-on right now, and wouldn’t mind tossing her over his shoulder, taking her to his place, and making her scream in orgasm all night. But he held back, his desire still there, but his curiosity on why he was getting under her skin interesting him at the moment.
“I remember you,” she said softly, her focus on the bar top now, but that only lasted a few seconds. She looked at him again.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
She shook her head and cleared her throat. “Um, no, but thank you. I’m here with my friends, but we probably won’t stay long.”
She was looking to escape, giving him excuses, and that just made him want her more. But he kept quiet and let her run in her own way. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t chase her, though. When Jace wanted something he made sure to get it, no matter what. And he wanted Lexi. Fucking hell, did he want her.
Chapter Three
Lexi didn’t understand why she was so nervous.
Yes, you do.
Okay, so maybe she did, but that didn’t mean she had to show it on the outside, right? The fact she was standing beside Jace Sterling, one of the infamous brothers in Granite, had every part of her running high. The Sterling brothers had gotten their notorious reputation because they were known to go through women like days of the week. But they didn’t come off as assholes or bastards. They were respected in the town, to a point. The older generation of Granite residents didn’t care for the “man-whore” rumors that circulated around about the Sterlings, but she knew a lot of people turned a blind eye when it came to believing bad things about the brothers. They worked hard, were assets in the town, and after their parents died they’d stepped up.
But even if she’d come to Granite to see her family off and on in the last four years, she hadn’t seen any of the Sterling brothers, nor heard any new things about them.
She breathed in heavily as she continued to feel his gaze on her.
Come on, Sully.
She turned her head and looked over her shoulder. Alexandra and the other women were laughing, talking loudly, and making a scene. But Lexi smiled. This bar was all about making scenes, and maybe that’s why she tended to stay away.
“I’ll have one of the girls bring the drinks over, Lexi,” Sully said and gave her a shot. “But this one is on the house.”
She didn’t need to drink anything hard, but she wasn’t going to pass it up either. “Thanks,” she said, smiled, and took the shot glass.
“Bottoms up.”
She looked over at Jace after he spoke, knowing her face was red, but unable to control herself. But she took that shot, needing the liquid courage right now because she felt like she was about to fall over the ledge.
He made her nervous, plain and simple. Of course, it wasn’t just that he was gorgeous, muscular, or that the corner of his mouth lifting into a smile had the most intimate parts of her clenching. No, it was the fact for as long as she could remember she’d lusted after him. She could remember when she was just twelve years old and seeing him and his brothers in town. He’d been so much older than she was, in his twenties, but she’d seen him as some kind of god. He was confident, sure of his surroundings, and that made her drawn to him. Of course, at twelve, she hadn’t found him sexually attractive, but more like an idol, a man she wanted to marry for the sole purpose that he was this “hero” in town. At least she’d seen him as such.
And as the years passed and she grew, those innocent feelings morphed into something stronger, more carnal. They’d never even spoken in all the time she’d lived in Granite, and as much as she’d like to think he’d looked her way, or noticed her, she knew he hadn’t. She was as plain as they came, and the women the Sterling brothers went after were bombshells.
Lexi could be considered overweight, although she liked to call her curvy, size sixteen frame voluptuous and womanly.
She pushed the shot glass away, breathing through the burn.
“I bet that put hair on your chest,” Jace said, and she wiped away the water that started to form in the corners of her eyes. Yeah, she didn’t do hard liquor, and clearly couldn’t even handle one shot.
“I’m good.” She did look at him then, took in his blue eyes, the way his hair was short and messy around his head. He wore a button down shirt that was rolled up his forearms, showing the vein-roped and tanned flesh. He was bigger than he used to be, more muscular, the sinew and tendons pronounced.
“You left Granite for school?” he asked.
She nodded. “How did you know?”
He tipped his chin toward Sully, who was busy talking to one of the customers. “Sully and me go way back. He likes to talk.” Jace grinned, a flash of straight white teeth showing.
“Yeah, Sully definitely likes to talk.” She smiled and shook her head. Sully was older than she was, as well, but he’d lived on the same street as she did, and helped her parents out to make extra money. She’d seen Sully a lot, whether he’d been helping her dad paint the house, or helping her mom with the garden.
“I’ve seen you in town, well, before you left.”
Her heart picked up a beat when Jace spoke. “You remember me?” Lexi hadn’t meant to say anything out loud, but the words were there, out in the open, and she couldn’t take them back. Lexi also couldn’t help the flush that stole over her, the happiness that Jace had noticed her.
You’re being a fool. He saw you, that’s all. You lived in the same town.
“Lexi, what in the hell are you doing?”
Lexi turned and looked at Alexandra and the other women, all of them holding their drinks the waitress just brought over, and looking drunker than ever. She was glad Alex was having a good time. She deserved it. And here Lexi was, thinking about Jace in a way that would never happen.
“It was nice talking to you.”
God, did I really just say that? We weren’t even talking about anything of importance.
She turned and left, feeling her face heat so bad it was like it was on fire. Alex and the other girls greeted her, and for the rest of the night she tried not to think about Jace only a few feet from her, or the fact she still felt his gaze on her.
****
Lexi was intoxicated, but it felt good, freeing. The only thing she needed to worry about was getting into her parents’ house without looking like a stumbling drunk. They’d stayed at Dickie’s for a few hours, but by the time they left the bar was clearing out and last call was being shouted by Sully. She’d noticed Colton and Jace walking to their car, a woman hanging from Colton. This giddy part of her was happy Jace didn’t seem to have a woman with him, but then again Colton and Jace were wild enough that she didn’t put it past them to share.
When she’d left Granite she’d focused on her education. There had been a few guys she’d dated over the last four years, one that had just been a fling, and another that had been more serious. But things hadn’t worked out between them, they’d gone their separate ways, and she focused on her degree harder than ever. But here she was, back in Granite, working in a town that she hadn’t thought she’d grow old in because she’d only ever seen herself leaving for the “big city”.
Yeah, well look at you now.
She heard the car, which had dropped her off, leave. She’d been the last one to be taken home, but that was fine because she’d had a few minutes to herself, not having to listen to the chatter or excited screaming about the wedding. She was excited about Alex getting married, but Lexi had also been sort of an introvert. She’d never partied as hard as she had tonight, and she knew she’d be paying for it in the morning.
Getting her keys out and opening the front door was a little harder than it should have been. But when she finally got it the front door opened and she looked up to see her father standing there. Her father, Braxton, was a big man. He used to play football when he was in high school, but her father had fallen in love with her mother and the rest was history. That was the story her parents told her all the time, and their love was one that should have been written in romance novels, and a love Lexi hoped to find one day.