Roped In (Strings Book 2) Page 4

  I still felt that stirring of arousal I’d always felt around him, but it was different now. It felt deeper and more profound as if the years had morphed the feelings we had for each other. Morphed them into something tangible and meaningful.

  I couldn’t act on the attraction I still felt for him. I knew that. I knew it would just destroy us both. That didn’t stop me from savoring and enjoying the low hum of attraction that simmered just beneath the surface.

  Jack had just taken a drink of his coffee when I asked him about law school. I watched his entire body tense up the exact way it had when I’d asked about where he was working. I pushed anyway because I was desperate to hear about his life in the six years he and I hadn’t seen each other. And since law school had been three years of that, I was dying to know how it was.

  “Did you enjoy it?”

  Jack shrugged. “Sure. I liked the classes. Most of my classmates were cool.”

  “But?”

  “But what?”

  I shook my head. “Jack, the ‘but’ is so obvious in those sentences. What didn’t you like about law school?”

  Jack regarded me. “You still know me really well.”

  I wanted to take the time to be flattered and excited by his words, but I was more interested in hearing about him so I said, “And I know there’s something about law school that you don’t want to talk about or that you didn’t like.”

  “I just…” He sighed. “It’s not really about school. I just never saw myself as a corporate lawyer, you know? I wasn’t like most of my classmates that way. I’ve been working for my dad’s firm for the past year and not a day has gone by that I don’t wake up dreading the day ahead. I just can’t stand the type of people and companies we represent. I’ve wanted to be a lawyer since I was little. I thought my dad was a superhero, but I was naïve. I wanted to help people. I still want to help people, and every day I get further and further away from that.”

  “You don’t have to stay away from that, though,” I said, wishing I could do or say more to make him feel better. “You don’t have to work for him.”

  “Yeah, that would not go over well,” Jack said with an unamused laugh. “First, I break off an engagement that he had championed from day one, and then I quit my job? He’d probably have a brain aneurism.”

  Jack must have seen the look on my face and realized what he said because a second later his expression fell.

  “Fuck, Talia.” He leaned forward. “Fuck, fuck, I didn’t want to bring that up. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” I barely managed to say. My throat felt like it was about the size of a sewing needle. “You don’t owe me an apology for being engaged.” It’s not like he and I were a couple or even heading in that direction. It’s not like we ever were a couple despite how much Jack had said he wanted to be when we were sleeping together in college. He didn’t owe me an explanation or an apology. He didn’t owe me anything.

  “Not anymore,” Jack reiterated.

  I must have been a masochist because I knew it would kill me to hear about him being engaged to someone, but I asked the question anyway. “What happened?”

  Jack hesitated for several moments until he finally huffed out a breath. “Look, Rachel was fine. I mean, she was basically my mother thirty years younger. Her dad is richer than god—works as an investment banker—and the entire Saltzman family is deep in the New York social scene. Rachel was a caretaker and wanted to be there for me. She was at Harvard Law with me, and it was nice to have her companionship. But she was…” Jack glanced at me, most likely seeing the pain and anxiety written all over my face at hearing him talk about his ex, even if it wasn’t all good things. But I had no right to be upset. Jack had always wanted more with me, and the only reason we didn’t have it was because of me.

  “She was what?” I asked him quietly.

  Jack looked as pained as I felt as he spoke quickly. “She was cold. She rarely laughed. She didn’t like to go out dancing or to street festivals or farmers markets. She wanted to go to art galleries and museums, and I may be a fucking Harding but I hate that pretentious bullshit.”

  I let out a short laugh, trying with all my might to ignore the fact that the things he’d said Rachel didn’t like to do were all things he and I had done together.

  “So, you two just didn’t have much in common?” I asked after a moment.

  Jack’s eyes locked on mine for a long, charged moment before he spoke. I felt like I was trembling from head to toe with all the attraction and adrenaline coursing through me. I sent up a prayer of thanks that I was sitting because I knew if I hadn’t been, my weakened knees would have betrayed how much Jack still affected me.

  “It wasn’t just that,” Jack said, his voice gone rough and quiet. “I knew what it was like to be lit on fire with how I felt for someone. I knew what it was like to only want to be around that person—to miss them when they went away, to want every moment with them. And I knew I couldn’t live my entire life with less than that. Not after I knew how alive it made me feel.”

  It felt like my heart had crumbled to ash in my chest. My stomach was in knots at his words. His words that he didn’t have to say were about me. His words that reminded me of how much we’d meant to each other all those years ago. I’d never wanted to admit it, never wanted to see what was right fucking in front of me. But here he was. Dark hair and piercing green eyes that never hid, that never shuttered, that always showed me the truth.

  The truth was that I wanted him. But so help me, I couldn’t have him. I couldn’t put him through that again. What I wanted still hadn’t changed. I wasn’t looking for commitments and two point five kids and weekends at the country club. I wanted fun and freedom.

  But for the first time in my life, the promise of fun and freedom and independence felt empty and hollow.

  Chapter 5

  W e strolled along Massachusetts Avenue until the sun started to set. After we’d finished up at Green Hornet, Jack had suggested we go for a walk since it was a beautiful autumn night. And since I was desperate for more time with him, I’d agreed.

  We stopped in a book store that was a favorite of mine as well as a kitschy little thrift shop and a few other stores here and there. The thrift store had a long gold necklace with an emerald stone hanging from it that I vowed to come back for when I got paid from my next gig, and I bought a few used books from a store a few lots down.

  I wanted Jack with a severity I had never known, and it was only made worse by the fact that I knew I couldn’t be with him. I hadn’t sent him that message to rekindle an old flame. I’d messaged him because he’d said he valued our friendship and wanted to catch up. I wanted that, too, because at the end of it all, Jack had been my friend long before we’d ever slept together. He made me laugh. He listened to what I said and genuinely cared about it. In his message he said he cared about me, and I cared about him too. I cared about him way too much to fuck this up by complicating things with sex. Despite that fact that when we were at the book store, he’d been looking at a book and had pulled a pair of glasses out of his back pocket to read, and I almost fainted because he looked so sexy. I didn’t want to complicate things even though when we’d been in that tiny thrift store, he’d brushed against me so many times that I could swear he was going to be able to feel the heat of arousal flaring off my skin.

  That wasn’t what today was about. Today was, in a way, about making amends. It was about reconnecting and catching up, and it wasn’t about how hot Jack looked in reading glasses or that Henley or how his jeans hugged every curve in his ass and powerful thighs.

  Relax, Talia. Get a damn grip.

  “So, um.”

  Jack’s voice interrupted the voice in my head that was practically yelling not to throw myself at him.

  I looked up at him and he looked shy and vulnerable. Shit.

  “This is actually my place,” he said, gesturing up at the huge, gorgeous brownstone next to us. “Would you want to come inside for
a bit? I could make you dinner.”

  When he said the words, I realized how late it had gotten and how I was pretty hungry again since we’d been walking around for a few hours. But I knew—I knew this would end badly. When he asked the question, it sounded innocent enough. It was just dinner.

  Yeah, right, the annoying voice in my head piped in. Just dinner. In Jack’s apartment. Alone. At night. Please.

  There were about five seconds when I listened to that voice and planned to turn Jack down and just hop on the train and head back home. But then he smiled—that sweet, genuine, open and honest smile—and I knew I couldn’t stay away.

  “Sure,” I said, pushing all my worries to the back of my mind and telling that voice in my head to fuck off. “Dinner sounds awesome.”

  ◆◆◆

  No man had ever cooked for me before.

  This had all been a miscalculation on my part because I had no idea what a man standing in front of stove stirring sauce could do to me.

  I was sitting on his center island, one leg crossed over the other, holding the glass of white wine Jack had poured for me, while I admired how strong his forearms looked as he mixed the pasta in the pot in front of him.

  “Here, try this,” Jack said, turning toward me with a spoon in his hand.

  I took a bite of the creamy white sauce, and as I wrapped my lips around the spoon, Jack’s eyes bore into me, making the simmering arousal in my gut flare to life. And just because I could—just because I wanted to—I licked my bottom lip slowly as I pulled away. Jack’s eyes darkened as he stared at my mouth, and he cursed under his breath as he turned back to the stove.

  “Good?” he asked, back to me as he stirred.

  “Mm,” I replied. “Garlicky. Yum.”

  “Glad you like it.”

  His voice sounded rough. I stared at his back, watching the muscles ripple under his shirt as he made small movements. He’d pushed his sleeves up to his biceps again after rolling them down as we walked in the cool air, and his arms looked thick and strong. His forearms were veined and sure as they worked the different utensils and appliances. I wanted those arms around me, squeezing me, holding me down as he—

  My thoughts came to an abrupt halt as the large metal spoon Jack was using to stir clattered on top of the stove. Jack let out an exasperated sigh and braced his arms on the counter.

  “You okay?” I asked his back.

  He didn’t say anything for several moments. I was going to get off the counter and go to him, but instead he turned and walked out of the room. I gaped after him, slightly stunned, until a few moments later he walked back in holding a small brown paper bag. He handed it to me wordlessly and then backed up so he was leaning on the counter next to the oven, watching me with an unreadable expression.

  I looked at the bag and back at him, confused.

  “What’s this?”

  “Open it,” he said with a nod toward the bag in my hand.

  I frowned at him and looked down at the bag right before I pulled it open and looked inside. I gasped when I saw what it was, and when I reached in and pulled out the gold chain, my mouth hung open as I stared at Jack.

  “Jack, you shouldn’t have—”

  “It’s not a big deal,” he said with a shrug. He was trying to play it off but I could hear the anxiety and vulnerability in his voice. “I saw you looking at it earlier and I bought it when you were in the bathroom.”

  It was the necklace I’d vowed to come back for, the one with a real gold chain and a real emerald.

  “It’s too much.” My voice was thick and faraway sounding.

  “No, it isn’t,” he said immediately. “Just think of it as six years worth of birthday presents.”

  I looked down at the necklace and back up at him several times. It was so thoughtful and kind and too much, and he was killing me. I was trying so hard not to want him, not to let things go where I knew we both wanted, but he was making it so outrageously hard. How was I supposed to deny how I felt about him when he was giving me this necklace he knew I wanted and cooking me dinner and telling me all the parts of his life that I’d missed?

  I wanted to keep fighting it, but I wanted him too much.

  “Will you put it on me?” I asked him quietly.

  Jack didn’t hesitate. He closed the distance between us and took the necklace from my hands, his fingers brushing mine as he did, causing electricity to zing through me.

  Our eyes were on each other as he reached up to wrap the necklace around my throat. He was so close. It would be so easy to just lean in and kiss him, but I didn’t know if that’s what he wanted. But the air was buzzing, thick with tension as our eyes stayed locked and I felt the tips of his fingers brush the back of my neck as he clasped the chain. I shivered as he slid his hands down my neck and held me there for just a moment, eyes one mine, until he blinked slowly and turned away.

  His back was to me as he started stirring his pasta again, seemingly unaware of the battle he had just caused to rage inside me. We sat in silence for several long minutes until he sighed loudly and ran a hand down his face as he slammed the lid onto the pot and turned the heat off.

  I stared at his back, waiting, watching, fingers gently toying with the emerald, and when he spoke, his words almost made me come apart.

  “I want you, Talia,” he said. “I fucking want you just as much as I did then, and I’m trying not to. I’m trying to be respectful. I’m trying not to be a fucking caveman and shove you down on that island and fuck you until you can’t breathe.”

  Jesus.

  I’d forgotten. Forgotten how candid Jack always was, how candid he was about what he wanted, sexually and otherwise. I forgot how much it turned me on when he told me he wanted me. I forgot about how much every single thing about him turned me on.

  “Stop trying,” I whispered against my better judgment. Because right then I didn’t care. I didn’t care what it would mean. I didn’t care how I would feel tomorrow. I just knew that right then, even with his back to me, Jack was everything I had ever wanted.

  “What?” Jack finally turned around and the bareness of the emotion in his eyes was startling.

  “Stop trying to be respectful.”

  Jack groaned. “Talia, don’t say that to me.”

  “I mean it,” I said. Then, I uncrossed my legs on the counter and spread them slightly.

  “Jesus fucking Christ.”

  We held there for several moments, both of us staring at the other, lost in each other as the tension grew and grew around us. It surrounded us like a thick cloud, expanding and rippling throughout the room. My chest was heaving, taking in air difficult as I tried to breathe him in from this distance.

  Finally, Jack moved. He stalked toward me across the small space between the stove and the counter, like I was his prey, like he could snare me so easily and never let me go.

  And maybe he wouldn’t.

  As he approached, the tension grew to its apex, stretched tightly like the string of a violin. I spread my legs even more and braced my hands on either side of me on the counter. He was standing a breath away, almost in between my legs but not close enough to touch. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides and he looked even more big and imposing than he usually did. I could swear I saw a tremble in his broad shoulders as he stared long and hard at me.

  He stepped closer so that he was in between my spread legs. The sides of his thighs brushed the inside of mine, and even through the tight jeans I was wearing it felt like his skin was on mine. I wanted to rip his clothes off. I wanted him to want me just like he did all those years ago. I wanted that look of hunger in his eyes to burn me up, to never leave his face. And I knew it was wrong. I knew it was selfish and cruel to take what I wanted even when I knew I still wouldn’t be able to give him what he wanted, but I couldn’t stop. Not now. Not when he was standing between my legs and one of his hands was moving until it was resting on my knee.

  Jack squeezed gently and held my gaze as he slid hi
s hand up my thigh. He stepped closer, bringing his other hand up to my other knee and moving his hand slowly once more. Up, up, up, until both of his big hands were gripping me low on my hips. He pulled me closer to the edge of the counter as he moved in, never breaking eye contact, every move and every look giving me permission to stop anytime I wanted while still letting me know how badly he wanted it. And Jesus did I want it, too.

  When his hands left my hips and moved to my hands, I sighed at the feeling of skin against skin even if it was as innocent as his palms touching the backs of my hands. I was wearing a sort of Boho shirt with trumpet sleeves and a deep V in the front that showed off my cleavage. I could feel that my neck and chest were flushed but I didn’t care. It was obvious how much I wanted him no matter what I was wearing.

  His hands slid up my arms, slowly, dragging along my skin underneath the sleeves of my shirt until he had to move his hands over my shirt to continue his ascent. When his hands reached the skin of my shoulders, I shivered. Then he was cupping my neck and moving in closer, fingers brushing my necklace, and the only thing I had ever wanted was to feel his lips on mine. Would he taste the same? Kiss the same? Would his tongue wrap around me the same way it always had—like he was getting a sample of the most delectable thing he’d ever put in his mouth?

  He didn’t lean in immediately but instead kept staring at me, and I started to beg silently.

  Do it, Jack. Kiss me. Put your mouth on mine. On my neck, on my body. Kiss me and never stop. I want it. I know you want it, too. Please, Jack. Please.

  “Talia—”

  “Kiss me, Jack,” I whispered before he could ask for the permission he couldn’t possibly think he needed.

  I expected him to ravage me. I expected him to kiss me in a way that felt just like the fire that was brewing in between us. I expected him to suck and bite and claim. What he did was so much more devastating.