“Great. Lunch will be here in twenty minutes.” He tosses a fifty down on the reception counter. “Enjoy you two.” Kissing me on the forehead and practically running to the door, Reed leaves me no chance to argue.

***

Twenty minutes later, a freshly showered Jax comes back down just as I’m setting out our lunch. As usual, Reed ordered enough food for a family of five, even though it was to only be the two of us.

“I can’t leave the front desk, hope you don’t mind.” I motion to the chair I’ve pulled up next to me behind the counter.

“Works for me.” Jax smiles as he walks behind the tall front counter, he brushes against my back ever so slightly, his hand lingering just a second too long on my lower back as he squeezes past me. My entire body becomes acutely aware of the close proximity, with tension gripping at my knees. He waits for me to sit, pushing in my chair before taking his own seat.

I start to open the takeout containers when my phone begins to buzz. Joe Ralley flashes on the screen for us both to read. “Sorry, it’s Joe…I should answer.”

“Hello.”

Jax takes over setting up the sushi, opening the dips and putting the ginger and wasabi on one plate between us to share.

“Yes, everything’s good. Quiet.” Joe asks me about Jax. “Yes, Mr. Knight seems happy with everything at the gym.” Jax looks up, wiggles his eyebrows playfully, a smirk on his face. Joe and I talk for a few minutes more and then he hands the phone to Caden before I can conjure up a way to politely ask him not to. Joe knows we broke up, but I haven’t let on Caden’s behavior is borderline stalkerish. I was hoping to unravel my personal life from our business without dragging Joe into it and muddying the water more than it already is.

“Hey.” My voice goes lower, less enthusiastic. “How is the trip?”

“Fine,” he responds. The creek of a door closing echoes in the background and then he immediately moves the conversation to the topic of getting back together, asking if we could go away next weekend and try to work things out. “I was thinking, with Joe’s retirement coming soon, I should probably take on a bigger role with Ralley’s too.”

He refuses to accept what I keep telling him. If I had known Caden was going to get on the phone, I would’ve let the call go to voicemail. He’s been more persistent than usual, the entire conversation is obviously going to come to a head, but I’d rather have this conversation later, rather than now. And without Jax sitting next to me. “I don’t think so, Caden. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t want to go away or don’t want me to help you run Ralley’s?”

I pause. Hating to hurt him, but he needs to hear the truth. “Both.”

Jax looks at me, catching my eye, and I do my best to smile, but it comes out timid and forced. His eyes scour my face and then he pauses for a second and smiles. It’s a boyish smile and I can tell he’s up to something. Reaching over with his chopsticks to the Alaska roll positioned in front of me, Jax plucks a roll from my plate and deposits the entire piece in his mouth in one bite.

My eyes widen and I lose focus on the conversation I’m supposed to be having with Caden. I pick up my chopsticks, Jax watching and grinning as he chews, reach over to his plate snatching a piece of his Dragon roll, and deposit it into my mouth through smiling lips. It’s a mouthful, leaving me unable to respond to the question Caden shoots at me from the phone.

“Sorry…someone came in,” I finally say as I swallow the last bit in my mouth. Jax grins at my lie.

“No. I’m busy Caden. I’m not ignoring you.”

Jax arches his eyebrows, enjoying what he can hear from my half of the conversation and attempts to take another piece of my lunch from my plate. Only this time I smack him in the knuckles with my chopstick and the piece he has gripped between his sticks falls back to my plate. I point my finger at him and give him my best mock glare warning him to behave himself.

“Can we talk about it when you get back?” I ask and pause listening to him again tell me my decisions are wrong. Of course, he throws in how he was there for me when I needed him.

Not about to let me off the phone, even though I’ve told him I’m busy, Caden continues pushing. “You’re not even listening to me,” he accuses with a hardened tone.

“I’m listening to you. And I’m responding. You just don’t like what I have to say.” I pause, sighing with frustration. “I have to go, Caden.”

“You okay?” Jax asks with concern evident in his voice after I hang up, his playful face gone.

“I’m fine. Sorry about that.”

“You want to talk about it?” His voice is low and cautious, but he looks directly into my eyes, showing his offer is sincere.

“No. But thank you.”

Feeling the need to lighten the mood, I reach over to his plate and grab another piece of sushi, smiling as I bring it to my lips.

“So what did you have delivered in all those bags?” I say before popping another bite of sushi into my mouth.

“Just some stuff for dinner with my friend.” Jax shoots me a wry smile.

“Do you realize that we will have shared all three meals together by the end of the day?”

“I’m a lucky guy,” Jax replies. “And when you say shared, it’s a pretty literal use of the word.” He pinches another piece of sushi from my plate and brings it half way to his mouth. “You want to try a piece of my Alaska roll?” Grinning, he holds up the piece.

“Sure.”

Jax brings the sushi to my lips and I open, he gently slips the roll into my mouth. His eyes focused completely on my lips, I feel the heat of his gaze and it warms me inside.

We finish our lunch taking turns eating off each other’s plate and occasionally feeding each other. The conversation flows easily, we compare art and business classes I’m taking to the ones he took in college. He tells me how he visited the Louvre in Paris and I tell him about the dozens of museums in the city he hasn’t been to yet. Both of us seemingly content with sitting around talking. Until my phone buzzes again and we both glance down at the same time to see the name flashing. Caden. Again.

“He’s persistent, I’ll give him that.” I try my best at sounding casual, but fail.

“Guess I don’t blame him.” Jax pauses, catching my eyes in his beautiful blue gaze. “I’m not a man who’s easily deterred when there’s something I want either.”

His words scare the hell out of me, but make me feel oddly hopeful at the same time.

Chapter 10

Jax

Growing up with a house full of staff doesn’t lend itself to learning to cook many things. But I can make a few good meals, mostly because my grandmother taught me to make them when my parents would dump me in Cape Cod every summer.

Lily knocks right at seven. She looks beautiful in faded old jeans, a simple white tank top and colorful flip flops. Her thick hair is braided to one side and her face is almost free of makeup, except for some sort of dark liner that makes her blue-green eyes look more jade than blue tonight.

Lily’s different than the women I usually date, she doesn’t look like a designer picked out her clothes and a makeup artist airbrushed her face picture perfect. She’s truly a natural beauty, the kind that doesn’t have to work at it. It’s effortless and simple, and the sexiest damn thing I’ve ever seen.

Growing up surrounded by men, being the daughter of The Saint, I would guess she’d been propped up on a pedestal. But she doesn’t act like a trophy. Instead she has a quiet, feminine confidence. No flaunting required for my thoughts to race from awe to indecent.

“Are you okay?” she asks, tilting her head to assess me as I stare, lost in her beauty.

“I’m great.” I smile, wrapping a hand around her waist and leaning down to kiss her on the cheek. Catching her scent, my head lingers a bit longer than it should to kiss a friend hello. “You smell good,” I whisper with my mouth close to her ear. A little tremble runs through her, I feel it, but she tries to hide it.

“Thank you,” she answers breathlessly, but with a flicker of uncertainty in her face. It makes me relieved to know I’m not the only one affected by being so near.

Reigning in a breath, I try to collect my thoughts. “I made stuffed artichokes and steaks.”

“Mmm…” Lily closes her eyes, “It smells delicious in here.”

It sure does, but it has nothing to do with the food in the oven.

“You want a glass of wine? I have a corkscrew now.” Lily follows me into the kitchen and opens the oven door to peak in.

“No, thanks.”

“Do you not like red? I had white delivered just in case.” I show her the bottle that I have chilling in the fridge.

“No, I like red, I’m just a lightweight. Two glasses and I’ll be sleeping on your couch.”

“I’ll give you the bed.”

She shakes her head, amused. “Always the gentleman, you’ll give me your bed and sleep on that little couch.” She points to the living room couch that could possibly hold half my body.

“Who said anything about my sleeping on the couch?” I dig the corkscrew into the bottle and arch an eyebrow suggestively.

Her face flushes a bit, so she tries to change the subject. “So you cook?” She leans against the counter as I take our dinner out of the oven.

“It’s one of my many talents.”

“Many talents?” She rolls her eyes playfully, but asks anyway, “I’ll bite, although something tells me I’m going to regret asking, but what are your other many talents?”

“Oh, the list is pretty long.” I grin. “I can walk on my hands.”

Lily smiles. “That is a talent. What else you got?”

“I can say the alphabet backwards, as fast as most people say it forward.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

I shrug, “Why not?”

She giggles.

“You want to hear it, don’t you?”

Smiling, she admits, “I actually do, although I have no idea why.”

“zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba” I run through the stream of letters rapidly.

Lily laughs, “Oddly, that really is pretty impressive.”

“What talents do you have?”

“Did you run out of talents already?”

“Definitely not. I have plenty more where those come from. But I don’t want to intimidate you with all my talent, so I need to slow it down a bit,” I tease.

Lily contemplates for a moment. “I can touch my nose with my tongue.”

My eyebrows arch and other parts of my body perk up at her talent confession. Folding my arms across my chest, I lean against the kitchen counter and nod my head, silently giving her the floor to demonstrate. And she does. Her tiny, perfectly pink tongue darts out of her mouth and curls high, touching the tip of her nose. My pants get a bit snugger.

“Nice.” I blow out a ragged breath, filling a glass of wine and handing her one. I take a long gulp, hoping the chilled fluid will cool the heat I feel steaming from my body.

“I can tell when people lie by their body language,” I offer, trying to impress her with a never ending list of talents.

“I’d like to see that one demonstrated.”

“You got it. Tell me three things about yourself and I’ll tell you which is a lie.”

Lily ponders for a moment, nibbling unconsciously on her bottom lip as she considers what she is about to share. I get the urge to pull her plumb bottom lip from beneath her teeth and sooth it with my tongue. Fuck, this being friends thing is not going to be easy.

Shifting her shoulders back a bit, she stands taller and brings her eyes to mine, locking our gaze and standing steady as she speaks. “My favorite color is green. I’ve dipped my toes in Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. The smell of mustard makes me gag.” She smiles confidently, sure she’s going to prove my talent a lie.