Burn for You

Finally she declared, “Well I don’t know what the right word is, but anyone who adopts a special-needs child and raises money for charity and keeps his end of the deals he makes isn’t a disappointment in my book.” With a smile she added, “Even if you are stuck-up higher than a light pole.”

“Stuck up! I am not stuck up!” I exclaimed, pleased as fuck by what she’d said, even if it did end with a jab.

Bianca waved a hand in the air. “Oh please, Jackson, you’re so highfalutin, you think your shit tastes like sherbet.”

Then she slapped her hand over her mouth and stared at me in horror.

I threw my head back and laughed.

“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry,” she breathed. “That was just classless and rude.”

I kept on laughing, so hard tears formed in my eyes. Her expression was classic. Had anyone else said that to me, I’d have exploded in fury.

She begged, “Please tell me you’re not going to put a retroactive stop payment on your check!”

“That’s not even a thing,” I said between gasps of air.

She buried her face in her hands and groaned. “If my mother knew I’d said something like that, she’d knock me into next week.”

Unthinking, grinning like a lunatic, I reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve been giving me grief since the minute we met. I think I’m starting to like it.”

She raised her head and looked at me. Then she looked at my hand on her shoulder.

I snatched my hand away so fast it was a blur. “Sorry,” I said gruffly, my face reddening again.

After a minute of excruciating silence, she said, “Turn here.”

Wishing for a time machine so I could undo my colossal mistake of touching a woman who hadn’t invited me to do so, I turned the corner into Bianca’s neighborhood. A few more turns and I found her street.

“The white one on the left with the red door,” she said, pointing to a house.

As I pulled to a stop at the curb, Bianca cried softly, “Oh!”

I followed her gaze out the window. A man sat in a chair on the front porch of her house. When he saw her, he rose and stood next to the door, waiting.

At one o’clock in the morning, there was a man waiting for her to come home. A young, handsome man by the looks of it. Though the porch light was dim, it was bright enough to see that.

Shit.

Crushed by disappointment and an irrational, unwarranted jealousy, I said stiffly, “Your boyfriend?”

Bianca’s head shake was violent. She recoiled from the window. “Ex-boyfriend. So very, very ex.”

Her disgusted tone revealed exactly how she felt about the man on the porch. Obviously whatever had happened between them had left her angry, bitter, and with zero desire to see him again. My jealousy was replaced by outrage and a need to protect her that was so strong I almost snapped the steering wheel in half.

“I’ll get rid of him,” I growled. I reached for the door, but Bianca stopped me.

“No.” She turned to me with an intensity I’d never seen in her before. She laid her hand on my forearm. “I have a better idea.”

Then her gaze dropped to my mouth, she leaned toward me, and my heart stopped dead in my chest.

FOURTEEN

BIANCA

Before you judge me, let me just say in my defense that my brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders on account of the sexual tension between Jackson and me in the kitchen, fright over how erratically he’d been driving, making him laugh (a beautiful, unexpected sound), having his big, warm hand settle on my shoulder in a gentle yet distinctly possessive grip, and seeing Trace standing on my front porch in the middle of the night.

So yes. I kissed Jackson.

Hard.

That wasn’t the bad part. His lips were soft, his face was smooth, and he smelled even better up close. The bad part was that he didn’t kiss me back.

When it became clear after several long moments that he wasn’t opening his mouth, and had in fact frozen stiff as a corpse left out in the snow, I withdrew a few inches and sheepishly looked at him.

He said, “Did you just kiss me to try to make him jealous?”

I said, “Um.”

We stared at each other. I felt like every one of my nerve endings had been dipped in lighter fluid and set on fire.

He lifted his hand and slowly brushed his thumb over my lower lip. His voice an octave lower, he said, “You caught me off guard. Let’s try it again. And this time put your hand on my chest so it looks more authentic.”

I grumbled, “Lord, you’re bossy—”

But then I shut up because Jackson took my mouth and I couldn’t think, let alone speak.

He tasted like bourbon and secrets and frustrated desire and kissed like he was starving. It started out slow, his tongue gently parting my lips, his big hands cradling my head, but quickly turned hot and greedy. When I curled my hand into his hair and pulled him closer, he made a low, masculine sound deep in his throat that might have been the sexiest noise I’d heard in my entire life.

After what felt like forever, he pulled away first. We were both breathing hard.

I opened my eyes and looked at him and became concerned that my panties might spontaneously combust from the look he was giving me.

He whispered, “God, I hope you have a lot of exes you want to make jealous.”

Intensely aroused and equally shocked by my behavior—I don’t have a habit of randomly attack-kissing men—I sat back and smoothed my hands over my hair. I said, “Only the one, unfortunately.”

He jumped on that faster than a hot knife goes through butter. “Unfortunately?”

Face flaming, I groaned.

Then there was a sharp knock on my window.

Trace leaned over and looked into the car. “Uh, Bianca? You gonna sit out here all night or are you coming in?”

I should’ve guessed Trace wouldn’t be threatened by the sight of me kissing another man. His ego was bigger than the state of Louisiana. I said, “It’s none of your business what I do, Trace Adams!”

Trace pouted. “I need to talk to you, bumble bee.”

Jackson asked me, “Do you want to talk to him, Bianca?”

“No! Not now, not ever!”

Trace said, “Of course you do. You’re just being stubborn.”

Jackson growled, opened his door, and exited the car.

I said to no one in particular, “Uh-oh.”

Across the top of the car, Jackson said to Trace, “You have ten seconds to get the fuck away from that window before I make you a fist sandwich and shove it down your throat, my friend.”

Slowly Trace straightened. All I could see on either side of me was half a man’s body, torsos and legs and muscular arms, hands curled to fists.

Trace said to Jackson, “I don’t know who you are, asshole, but nobody talks to me like that.”

Jackson said, “And nobody calls me ‘asshole.’”

“Oh,” said Trace, “ain’t you an asshole? Because from where I’m standing, you sure look like one.”

Deadly soft, Jackson replied, “And from where I’m standing, you’re looking like you’re one dumb remark away from a visit to the emergency room.”

Okay, I thought. Time to intervene before we’re on the morning news.

I unlocked my door and popped out of the car, missing Trace’s crotch by a hair as I swung the door open. I looked up at him and said crossly, “Excuse me, person who claims to have found God, but your ratty old soul is showing!”