Reckless (Renegades #1) (25 page)

But he wouldn’t be himself.

“I’m not too good to be true, Jax. I may look good on the surface, but on the inside…” She winced. “I’m really a pretty ugly mess.”

Jax scraped one hand through his hair. He wasn’t going to try to argue with her here or now. “Honestly, babe, I’m digging this ugly mess. But…Lexi…Jesus, living here? Do you even have a closet?”

“Across from the bathroom.” She pointed to the corner opposite her bed, “Through that door.”

Jax crossed the space, peering into a dark room. “Lex, this is not a bathroom, this is a hole in the wall.” His entire living room was the size of this freaking store, and he suddenly wanted to spoil her in his luxurious house that went to waste, empty most of the time. He turned out of the space. “How much do you charge for the dresses?”

“Anywhere between fifteen and fifty thousand, depending on the work involved.”

Jax made an involuntary sucking sound in his throat. He finally choked out, “Fifty thousand
dollars
?”

“No, grape seeds,” she said, hand on her hip, mouth quirked in a little smile. “I find they’re far more valuable than dollars.”

The spark in her blue eyes, the look on her beautiful face, the sass in her tone floored Jax, and electricity sparked through his body. “You smart-ass little—”

Her laughter made him pause. Made him focus on her. Feel her. Made him realize he was holding her, one arm low on her back, one against the base of her neck, looking down at her smiling eyes. Fire flared inside him so fast he stopped breathing. Lexi’s gaze softened. One hand rose from his bicep, rested against his cheek, and a look of longing in her eyes that made him forget everything but her.

“Fifty thousand dollars a dress,” he said, “and you’re living in this lunch bag?”

“Not every dress sells for that, each dress takes a long time to make, and I have one hell of a lot of overhead. Besides, growing up poor has made me…frugal. I don’t see the point in paying two thousand dollars a month on a lunch bag of an apartment to do nothing but sleep there a few hours a night.”

He ran his hand through her hair and smiled. “You need a life outside work, Lex. It’s not healthy.” He laughed. “Christ, this is like lecturing into a mirror.”

“You’re so handsome. I wish…” Emotion flooded her eyes. She swallowed. Smiled, but the expression was sad. “I know it’s stupid to say when we really don’t know each other…”

“You’re not listening to me…” But he let her slide. “And say it anyway.”

“I’ve missed you so much.”

An emotion Jax couldn’t identify flooded him. It started at the middle of his chest and washed outward until he ached with it. Desire flowed in its wake. Deep and hot and strong. But different from anything he’d ever felt before. Far more intense.

He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to hers. “What do you wish, Lexi? I’m in the mood to make your wishes come true.”

“I wish I could have made love to you…looking into your eyes.”

The feeling in his chest magnified. A sensation of both pleasure and pain mixed until Jax felt fused to Lexi. Like he’d go insane if he had to let her go.

“Tell me what I can do to make this work, baby.”

She laughed. “I’m the last person to be giving advice on relationships, as evidenced by the lousy way I’ve handled this one from the start.”

“I’m no gem either.” Pulling back, he took her face in both hands and met her gaze seriously. “But I’ve been through enough relationships to know when I’ve found someone I want to keep. And I want to keep you.” Tears gathered in her eyes. She bit her bottom lip. “What about you, Lex? It has to go both ways.”

“Want? Yes,” she whispered, her eyes sliding closed. “Yes, I want to keep you more than I want to breathe.”

When Jax’s lips covered hers, Lexi whimpered with relief. With lust. With need. She hadn’t realized how badly she needed him until his strong arms pulled her up against his hard body. Until his lips were sliding against hers. Until his tongue touched hers and his taste filled her mouth.

They groaned at the same time. She sucked at his lips, licked into his mouth. Jax pulled her hips up against his. The jeans he wore were medium blue and deeply worn. They cupped his sex like a far softer fabric than denim, and when he rubbed against her, his heat burned through all their clothing layers.

Jax’s hand clawed into her hair from the base of her neck. The strength pulled at the strands, shooting a delicious tingle through her scalp.

He pulled her head back, breaking the kiss. Lexi opened her eyes to his, heavy lidded and hot. They were a smoky blue-green. Not hazel at all.

“These have been the longest fucking three weeks of my life.” His lips slid over hers again, as if he couldn’t keep them away for more than a second. His tongue did sweet, erotic, wicked things to her mouth. He groaned, pulled back again. “I need you, Lex.”

“Yes,” she murmured, barely able to stand.

She fisted his shirt, a soft cotton T-shirt that melted beneath her hands, molded to his muscles as she touched him. But it wasn’t enough. She needed skin and yanked the bottom edge from his jeans. Slid her hands under and groaned at the feel of him on her palms.

He broke the kiss. “Fuck, Lexi, I don’t think I’m going to be able to go slow.”

She smiled. Laughed Pressed her mouth to his throat. Hummed with pleasure. Took a deep breath—

Lexi froze, but Jax was still moving. Hands pulling at the belt on her dress. It fell to the floor when she finally leaned back.

He glanced down at her, took one scan of her face, and stopped moving. “Lex?” His hands slid over her arms. “What’s wrong?”

She lowered her gaze. Her eyes held on the pulse beating in his throat. Her own throat thickened with turmoil. Emotion and regret tore through her stomach. She closed her eyes and pressed her nose and mouth to his shoulder. The fabric of his shirt caressed her skin as she took another deep breath, hoping she’d been wrong.

But no. Her head filled with perfume. A woman’s perfume. She closed her eyes and pushed back.

“Honey?” he said.

She forced her eyes open and lifted them to his. Her mind ricocheted for an innocent reason he’d smell like another woman. His mother, his sister…a hug from a female friend. There could be a hundred reasons other than the one tormenting her. “You…smell like perfume.”

His heavy lids widened. Surprise flashed in his pretty eyes, then guilt, and his eyes slid closed. Head lowered. “Fuck.”

Disappointment hammered her stomach, but it was her own damn fault for letting him go in New York. She waited, a sliver of hope still struggling to shine deep inside. “It’s not exactly a surprise. You’re hardly the kind of man who’s going to stay available long—”

“Lex, it’s not like that.” His head came up, gaze fierce, but still guilt-ridden.

She bit the inside of her lip, her past demons trying to force their way into her heart. Her instinct was to push back, walk away, get out of this before he really hurt her. But she’d invested more of herself in Jax than any man in years, so she stayed put and raked her fingers through his hair one more time. “What is it like?”

“I was dating someone…for a few weeks—”

“Okay.”
Ouch. Dammit.
She shook her head as her eyes fell closed. “That’s all I need to know. You don’t owe me an explanation.” She opened her eyes but stared at his chest. The thought of him with another woman burned through her. “You have every right to see whoever you choose—”

“Then I choose you,” he said, tightening his hands on her arms. “Lexi, I didn’t sleep with her. I haven’t had sex with anyone since you left me.”

“I didn’t
leave
you. Not the way you’re making it sound. We agreed—”

“You’re right. We did. And when you stuck to your end of it, I tried to move on. My buddy set me up with a really nice girl, but it didn’t work because I haven’t been able to get past
you
.”

The admission coupled with the imploring look in his eyes made her heart squeeze, then open. But she left one last barrier in place. “Then why do you smell like her perfume?”

He sighed and took her hand, leading her to the bed. Lexi’s body lit with desire, but she pulled her hand back. Jax didn’t let her go. He wrapped her in his arms, picked her up, sat on the bed, and pulled her atop his lap so she straddled him. Lexi kept her weight on his thighs, her hands against his chest. They had to get this other-woman thing straight before she completely caved. This was complicated enough without adding other people into the mix.

He leaned his back against the wall, his feet hanging off the bed. “Because I was with her earlier tonight. We went out to dinner. When we got back to her house and she wanted me to come in and I couldn’t, wouldn’t—again—we both knew it wasn’t working.

“After I left her, I got a call from the director of the film in New York for more work. And I thought of you, though it’s not like you’ve left my mind very often in the last three weeks, which is when I texted. And was floored you’d even consider seeing me. I thought I was going to get the big brush-off.”

Relief expanded inside her until her entire body felt tight. She chewed on her lip and forced her gaze to blur over his tanned, ribbed abdomen peeking at her from beneath the edge of his shirt.

“Stop that.” He pulled at her lip with his thumb. “It makes me crazy.”

She laughed and lifted her gaze to his. “Why?”

“Because it reminds me my lips aren’t on yours, and they want to be.” His thumb stroked her lip one more time. “What are you thinking?”

She curled her fingers in the soft cotton of his shirt, her gaze on his chest. “That if I was a good person, I’d send you back to that nice girl and tell you to try again.”

His hands closed on either side of her face and pulled her eyes up to his. “If you were a good person, you’d give me that gorgeous body of yours. If you were a good person, you’d love me like you did in New York and put an end to this misery.” He pulled her mouth to his. Kissed her dizzy, then murmured, “If you were a good person, you’d be a very naughty girl right now—with me.”

She huffed a laugh and dropped her head back, looking at the ceiling. “I am a good person,” she reminded herself, knowing she should push him away. Let him find someone far less complicated. “I am.”

His lips skimmed down her throat, pumping banked need through her bloodstream. “Prove it.”

She leaned back, lowered her head, and took his mouth. He opened to her on a groan. Pulled her head to him with one hand, deepening the kiss, searched for the hem of her dress with the other.

“Tell me…” she said as she tilted her head to the opposite side and kissed him again. “She isn’t expecting to see you again.”

“No.” He answered the same way. “I broke it…” His tongue rolled over hers. “Off.”

Lexi sighed into his mouth and sank into the kiss. Fisted his hair. Let go to pull his shirt over his head. Ran her hands over him. So warm. So muscled. She struggled with his belt, her hands shaking with excitement and need.

Jax chuckled. “What happened to those smooth hands, Lex? You undressed me faster than I could undress myself in New York.”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

He laughed again, this time against her lips. “I am…kissing you.”

“Not enough if you can still talk.”

This time Jax pulled back purposefully to drag her dress over her head. His gaze scanned her body in the strapless, sheer, barely there bra and matching tiny panties, which should really have been considered a thong because there was so little to them. His smile vanished. His arms dropped, bunching her dress in a pile on the bed, and he fell back against the wall.

Lips parted, he just kept looking, those eyes scanning, rescanning, and so heavy lidded she didn’t know how he kept them open.

“Great…color…” he finally managed without ever taking his eyes off her body. “Stop abusing your lip, or I’m going to take it over, and you’ll never breathe again.”

She hadn’t realized she’d been chewing on it and pulled it from between her teeth to tease, “Great
color
? That’s it?”

She shoved his shoulder, and he fell to the bed on his back without any resistance.

“Purple. Love it.” He made a show of wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m drooling, right?”

She started working on his jeans again. Belt, button. Couldn’t keep herself from stroking her hand over the bulge beneath his zipper.

Jax siphoned air, squeezed his eyes and pushed his head back into the bed on a deep groan.

The move tightened the muscles of his chest, arms, abs. Now she was the one drooling. She needed him. All of him. Yesterday.

She jerked his jeans open, moved her hands into his underwear, and hummed when she pulled his erection out. Without waiting, asking, teasing, she closed her mouth on the wide head and sucked his length deep.

Jax’s entire body shuddered. “Fuck, Lexi…
God
…”

His body arched, hips lifted, pushing Jax deeper until his head touched her throat, dragging a louder groan from him. He fisted one hand in the sheet, slammed the other flat against the wall. “Lexi…please…”

Oh God, the sound of him begging shot an insane dose of adrenaline through her body. The extremity of his pleasure made her suck him harder, deeper. His taste flooded her mouth, his scent filled her head, the texture of his delicate skin covering heated steel teased her tongue. She groaned and feasted.