Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (35 page)

“I know,” he said.
 
“I know we were just kids.”
 
He was looking at her, waiting for her
to say something.
 

There was a moment, an opportunity, a second
chance right there, waiting for her to grab it.
 
She felt something pass between them,
and she had the feeling that if she could just admit to Jaxon how hard it had
been for her when he left, how much she had wanted to go with him, how much she
had missed him, how she’d spent her last year of high school crying herself to
sleep on the weekends, missing his kisses, his touch, his arms around her, that
they might have another chance.

It was right there, on her lips, the confession
she’d held from everyone all these years.
 
The unspoken words that she’d never told Jaxon, or Katie, or anyone,
ever.
 
That she’d loved him all
these years, that she’d never forgotten about him.

She looked across the table at the man she’d
loved, the man who had just made love to her upstairs, the man who had moved
inside her and whispered her name and told her she was beautiful.

She opened her mouth to tell him exactly how
she felt.
 
And that’s when she saw
it.
 
In his eyes.
 
The little flick of indecision, the
little spark of fear that let her know that wasn’t what he was looking
for.
 
He wanted forgiveness,
yes.
 
But it wasn’t the kind of
forgiveness that allowed you to ride off into the sunset, making up for lost
time.
 

He wanted to be let off the hook.
 
He wanted to be told that it hadn’t
mattered to her, that even if it had been upsetting at the time, she’d moved
on.
 
Maybe it would make him feel
better for sleeping with her, maybe he just didn’t want to have any more guilt
hanging over his head when it came to the two of them.

Either way, she couldn’t tell him how she
really felt.

And so all she said was, “Jaxon, we were
kids.
 
You were an eighteen-year-old
boy.
 
I forgive you.”

He kept his eyes on hers, and she held her
breath, hoping he was going to tell her that’s not what he meant, that he’d
thought about her all these years, that he wanted to make it up to her.

But the moment brushed by them, and after a
second, Jaxon smiled.
 
“Good,” he
said.
 
“I’m glad.”
 
He pushed the carton of pad thai toward
her and put more on her plate.

The rest of the meal was spent making small
talk about their jobs and people they’d gone to high school with.
 
Anna swallowed her disappointment, and
was even able to manage a laugh when Jaxon told her about Laney Battle’s plastic
surgery addiction.

“She looks like the cat woman,” he said as they
cleaned up the dishes.

“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Anna said,
smiling.

“It is that bad,” Jaxon said.
 
“Trust me.”

They worked and talked, moving through the
kitchen in a well- choreographed dance.

“So,” he said when the last of the dishes were
put in the dishwasher.
 
“Should we
watch a movie or something?”

Anna glanced at the clock on the microwave.
 
The green numbers flashed twelve
forty-seven. “It’s after midnight,” she said.

“What are you, Cinderella?”
 
Jaxon leaned back against the counter
and grinned.
 
Anna felt her knees go
weak.
 

“No,” she said.
 
“I just … It’s getting late.
 
My parents are probably wondering where
I am.”
 
She’d called them earlier,
before they’d ordered the food, to tell them she was helping Katie with some
things and would be home later.
 
They’d probably gone to bed by now.

“If they were that worried, they would have
called you.”

He moved toward her like a cat going for its
prey, his steps long and slow, and when he got to her, kissed her hard and deep.

“Jaxon,” Anna said, pulling back.
 
“I don’t think we should –”

“Shhh,” he said.
 
He put his finger to her lip, trailed it
down over her collarbone, burning a smoldering path on her skin.
 
“Princess, haven’t you learned by now
that sometimes you just need to be quiet?”

He picked her up and sat her down on the edge
of the counter.
 
She was wearing a
pair of panties and his t-shirt, no bra, no bulky sweater or jeans to deaden
her senses to his sensual assault.

Pushing her legs apart, he slid his body in
between her thighs.
 
The hardness of
his cock rubbed against the thin material of her panties.
 
She felt herself getting wet, felt her
breath coming in short bursts, felt her pulse speed up at his touch.
 
But she’d learned a thing or two, and so
she stayed quiet, knowing that to protest or even worse, beg, would just make
him tease her more.

“Good girl,” he said, laying his body down on
top of her.

She wrapped her legs around him as they kissed,
feeling the strength of his body, the narrow V of his hips, the way he hardened
against her.
 
Finally, he pulled his
pants off, then slid his hands up under the shirt she was wearing.

“God, Princess,” he said.
 
“I want you so bad.”
 
He rubbed himself against her, on the
outside of her panties, teasing her, getting her so wet that she cried
out.
 
She thought he was going to
tease her some more, but before she knew what was happening, he reached up and
pulled her panties down and off, then entered her in one fluid movement.
 

“Oh, God,” she cried.
 
He didn’t stop this time, not even once,
letting the wave of pleasure build and build, until finally, it engulfed her.

Only then did he pull out of her.

Anna sat up, then slid off the counter and got
onto her knees on the floor of the kitchen.
 
She gave him a wicked grin, then wrapped
her hand around his hard shaft, running her tongue around the head of his cock.

He moaned, and she sucked him into her mouth,
her hand still stroking.
 
She loved
the feel of him in her mouth, the way his hardness felt as she licked and
sucked.
 
His eyes met hers, and she
savored the way he was looking at her, the way she was affecting him.

She sucked him until he came, hot and warm down
her throat.
 

He pulled her up to him, and kissed her softly
on the lips.
 
“God,” he said.
 
“You’re amazing.”

He convinced her, somehow, to spend the
night.
 
They’d only been awake for a
few hours, but they were both spent from the food and the sex.
 
Anna watched as Jaxon reached over and
set the alarm for seven the next morning.
 

“We’ll get up early, okay?” he said.
 
“Adam’s probably going to want to come
back to the house at some point, and… ” He trailed off, but the intent of his
words was clear.

Adam couldn’t find them here together, couldn’t
know they’d been together.

“Okay,” Anna said simply, pretending it didn’t
bother her.
 
Her instinct was to
push him away, to run, to get out of there.
 
But when he pulled her close, tangling
his legs with hers, she immediately felt her body relax.
 
And before long, for the third time that
day, she drifted off to sleep in Jaxon’s arms.

C
hapter
S
ix

“Okay,” Katie said the next morning when Jaxon
came strolling into her hospital room.
 
“What the hell is going on?”

“Nice to see you, too,” he said.
 
He set the basket of purple violets
– Katie’s favorite – that he’d brought on the bedside table.
 
“Where’s my nephew?”

“He’s in the nursery,” Katie said.
 
“Adam’s down there learning how to
swaddle him.”

“Swaddle him?”

“Yeah.”
 
Katie picked up the remote and turned off the television that was bolted
to the wall.
 
She’d been watching
The View, and Jaxon hadn’t been about to give her shit about it -- the woman
had just had a baby, after all – but he said a tiny prayer of thanks as
the screen went black.
 
“You know,
learn how to wrap him up in a blanket so that he can’t move his arms and legs.”

Jaxon looked at her in horror.
 
“So he can’t move his arms and
legs?”
Katie rolled her eyes.
 
“Babies like
it.”

“Whatever you say.”
 
He sat down in the corduroy chair.

“Where’s Anna?” Katie asked, peering at him
suspiciously.
 
Ever since they’d
been kids, she’d had a sixth sense about when he’d been up to something.
 
She’d look at him exactly the way she
was looking at him now, her eyes narrow, her head tilted.

“She didn’t call you?” Jaxon asked innocently.

“She called me,” Katie said, the look of
suspicion still not leaving her face.
 
“She said she was going to come by, but I told her to do it this
afternoon, that it would be better for her to come then, since Adam was going
home for a while and we’d be able to chat.”

Jaxon nodded.
 
“Good thinking.”

“And then you don’t call, but you suddenly show
up here.”

“So?”

“So you don’t think that’s a little strange?”

“What is?”

“That you show up here right after I tell Anna
to come this afternoon?
 
Like maybe
you two don’t want to be here at the same time?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
 
Jaxon leaned back in his chair and did a
big fake yawn.
 

The truth was, he’d had coffee with Anna this
morning, and then he’d dropped her off at her house.
 
They’d decided it would be better for
them not to go to the hospital together.
 
Actually, Anna had decided that.
 
Jaxon didn’t give a rat’s ass who knew they’d been together.
 
But he also knew that women could get
weird about these things, and he wanted to respect Anna’s privacy.

A small smile tugged at his lips as he remembered
how she’d looked this morning, waking up, her hair a tangled halo, her cheeks
warm with sleep.
 
They’d stayed in
bed as long as they possibly could, but now he wished he’d convinced her to
stay a few more minutes.

“You slept with her.”
 
Katie’s mouth dropped open and she
looked at him in dismay.
 
“Oh,
Jaxon, I can’t believe you slept with her.”

“Who’d you sleep with?” Adam asked, walking
into the room.
 
He was holding a
bundle that Jaxon could only assume was Tyler.
 
As promised, the baby’s arms and legs
were invisible, held tight to his body with a blue blanket.

“Anna!” Katie said.
 
She threw her hands up in the air.
 
“Why the hell would you do that? You
know the doctor said I’m not supposed to have any undue stress!”

Jaxon rolled his eyes.
 
“Stop being dramatic.”

“You slept with Anna? Nice!”
 
Adam held his hand out for a fist bump,
but Jaxon shook his head slightly.
 
Even he knew that was completely inappropriate.

“No, it’s not nice!” Katie said.
 
“Jaxon, Anna’s a good girl.
 
You already broke her heart once, you
can’t do it again.”

“I didn’t break her heart,” Jaxon said.
 

“How do you know?”

“She told me.”

“And you believed her?” Katie snorted.
 
“Of course you broke her heart!”