Footsteps drew my attention as I placed the cell phone back in my bag and there Jax was, walking into the bedroom. He’d lost his shirt somewhere between being downstairs and here, and I wasn’t complaining, because the rugged and flawed expanse of flesh was pretty darn nice to look upon, especially when his jeans hung low on his lean hips.

He was holding a beer in one hand and a juice box in the other.

My grin went up a notch. “For me?”

“Figured you could use a drink of the fruit punch kind.”

“Thanks.” I took the juice box and then sat Indian-style on the bed. The straw was already shoved in again. Perfect. Lifting my lashes, I saw him take a swig of beer and then he lowered the beer and shoved his other hand through his hair. I felt a shimmer of unease in my belly as I watched his chest rise and fall with a deep breath. “Is everything okay?”

Sounded like a dumb question.

His gaze slid sideways to mine as he tipped the bottle back to his lips again. He didn’t say anything as his throat worked, and damn, he’d drained that bottle and I’d only taken a small sip out of my juice box.

The unease grew until it was like a weed flourishing in a garden. Had he changed his mind about me staying with him? He didn’t look too happy. Maybe he was wishing he had taken Aimee with two e’s home. Given her perfect skin and smile, and a mom who currently wasn’t MIA and messed up with drug dealers, I could totally get why he was probably rethinking a whole lot of things. After all, he’d almost gotten run over today and that hadn’t been his fault.

I shouldn’t even be in the house, let alone sitting in his bed, because I don’t belong here.

All at once, I wanted to be back at Shepherd, sitting with Teresa and watching the Hot Guy Brigade from a safe distance. There I was safe, because no one knew anything about me, and I had my Three F’s, and that was it, what I knew and what I forced myself to be okay with.

Clenching the juice box to the point it almost exploded like a volcano, I started to slide off the bed, my belly doing this terrible twisty motion. “I can sleep downstairs tonight and then tomorrow—”

“What?”

My toes were almost on the hardwood floor. “I said, I could sleep downstairs and tomorrow I can—”

“I heard you.” He put the empty beer on the top of his dresser as he faced me.

I glanced around. “I’m confused. If you heard what I was saying then why did you say what?”

“Okay. Maybe I should’ve expanded on that statement,” he corrected, and with wide eyes, I watched him bend over, and then I sucked in a short breath as he gripped my hips. An acute quiver radiated down my thighs, because wow-wee, this man knew how to grab hips. “Why in the fuck would you be sleeping downstairs?”