He doesn’t believe me. I can see it in the way his fingers flex against his knee, the way his gaze burns into me. “That wasn’t a lot of time to think about it.”

I force a smirk. “Maybe I’m sick of thinking about things.”

He reaches out and links his fingers with mine. “Then why are you nervous? I can feel you trembling.”

“Because you’re intimidating.”

His brows pull together and he chuckles. “I’m gonna need more words than that, Cookie.”

I exhale slowly. “It means . . . clearly, you have more experience than me, and . . . I’m bound to not live up to what . . . never mind.”

Jase snorts, shaking his head. “My first inclination is to tell you you’re being ridiculous. My second is to ask who the fuck made you think that?”

“Forget I said anything.”

He leans back, studying me like he’s trying to unravel something. His expression darkens, his body going rigid. “Who?”

I force out a laugh, but it sounds brittle. “I—”

“Fuck You, Paul.” He says the three words like a curse, dragging a hand through his hair. The muscles in his jaw tick, and his body tenses.

I can’t meet his eyes. My fingers in my lap look more interesting than anything else here.

He exhales sharply, and in the deafening silence, shifts to face me. He lifts my chin up with his finger so that I’m forced to meet his eyes. For the first time since I’ve met him, he looks like he’s barely keeping it together.

“Was it?” he asks.

“It’s not relevant.”

His chuckle is low and unforgiving and the warning in it, or the look in his eyes as he holds mine, has chills racing over my skin.

“How about this? I’m going to make it my mission to fuck the remnants and Paul and all his criticisms right out of you. And when I do, then you’ll know just how goddamn relevant it is.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Hendrix

Before I have time to think or respond or react, his lips close over mine in a kiss that’s teeming with inspiration and predicated on what feels like anger.

It’s exactly what I both craved and feared it would be. What I knew it to be but stepped into with a knowing eye. It’s hungry and toxic and so fucking addicting.

The scrape of his stubble. The warmth of his tongue as it interlaces with mine. The brush of his fingertips up my cheekbones to cup my face. The muted sighs as we move straight past those to pleading moans.

“Jase.” It’s a whisper to myself. To him. An acknowledgment that I don’t want to think and yet my body has already leaped over the cliff without looking.