Be with Me

Twenty-one

Things could not possibly get any more awkward.

“What in the fuck are you doing in bed with my sister?” Cam demanded.

Jase reached down casually and flipped the blanket so my legs were covered. “Well, we were sleeping.”

Cam’s jaw worked. “Naked?”

Whelp, this just got more awkward. Face burning, I started to sit up, but Jase’s arm was like a band of steel. “We’re not naked.”

“That’s good to know.”

Avery looked away, pressing her lips together.

“And we weren’t doing anything,” I said, and it sounded lame even to my own ears.

Jase glanced at me. “Now, that is a lie.” My heart stopped in disbelief as he sat up, making sure I still stayed covered, which was a good thing. I was pretty sure my shirt was twisted up around my breasts. “We weren’t doing anything right this moment and maybe not exactly last night, but we have done things. Things I’m sure you don’t want to hear about.”

Oh. My. God.

“Actually, I do want to hear exactly what things my best friend has been doing to my sister when I busted my ass to get back here after hearing what happened to Debbie.”

Avery placed her hand on Cam’s arm. “I don’t think this with Jase is any of our business.”

“No,” Jase said. “It is your business and we were going to tell you, but it didn’t happen.”

“Tell me what exactly?” Cam demanded, his hands opening and closing at his sides.

This was so not how I pictured telling my brother about Jase and me. Not while I was in bed with his best friend or when Avery stood in the corner, now looking like she would rather be standing on her head while getting a bikini wax.

“We’re together.” I cleared my throat. Couldn’t I have at least had time to brush my teeth before having this conversation? “Jase and I are together.”

My brother stared at me like I’d told him I was now dating his pet turtle. “Bull. Shit.”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“You are not with Jase,” he said, ignoring Avery when she reached for his arm. It was then that I noticed her left hand—her ring finger did not have a big old rock on it. “No girl is with Jase—not longer than a night or a hookup here or there.”

Jase stilled. “It’s not like that with Tess.”

My brother cut him a dark look. “That’s my fucking sister, Jase. This isn’t some fucking random girl. Don’t forget that I know—I know shit and you’re not getting my sister—”

“Whoa!” I shouted. “I’m not ‘some fucking random girl,’ and it’s different between us.”

Cam snorted. “Fucking Christ, Teresa, are you stupid?”

It literally was a nanosecond. One moment Jase was beside me, and the next he was off that bed, standing in front of my brother. Might make me a bad, bad girl, but I got a bit hung up on seeing Jase in his half-naked glory. The tight, black undies hugged the muscular curve of his ass like a glove. His thighs were perfectly formed, wide but not too much. The cords of the muscles in his back rippled and tensed, causing the knots of his tattoos that reached along his side and shaded into his back to move.

“Now, you can be pissed off at me all you want, Cam, but don’t get in her face. Not after what—”

“Don’t fucking step to me.” Cam got up in Jase’s face, and my stomach plummeted. I scrambled out from under the covers, tugging the shirt down as my brother’s face reddened. “That’s my little sister—”

“I’m not a kid, Cam! And you know Jase is a good guy, so stop being such an ass. We were going to tell you, but—” I gasped as I put my weight down hard on my right leg and my knee started to turn.

Jase whirled and started toward me. “Tess—”

“I’m fine.” I bent over slightly, placing my hand over my knee.

Cam cursed. “Look at what you did.”

“He didn’t do anything,” Avery said, her eyes wide. “Cam, I think we need to step out for a few and give everyone time to cool off.”

“I agree.” Jase gently pushed me down until I was sitting, which put me at eye level of his crotch, and this whole situation just got fucked up on a multitude of levels. “I think we both need to calm down.”

“Like I give a fuck,” Cam spat back, running a hand through his hair. He turned halfway, shook his head, and faced us. “How long? How long has this been going on?”

Jase straightened as he turned to my brother. “The first time I kissed her was a year ago—”

That was all he got out.

Like a speeding bullet, Cam shot forward. Avery shouted in alarm, and I lurched from the bed, but it was too late.

Cam’s fist connected with Jase’s jaw, spinning him back. He hit the wall with a loud curse and slid down, clutching his jaw. “Fuck,” Jase grunted.

I cried out, dropping onto the floor next to him. My leg screamed in pain, but I ignored it. Grabbing Jase’s arm, I glared at my brother. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

He was breathing heavily as he lowered his hands, blinking rapidly. Avery kept a hold on his straining upper arms. “He shouldn’t—”

“He shouldn’t what? Be there for me? Treat me like I should be? Be with me? Because he’s doing all those things. So too fucking bad, because he is and I love him. So you can go fuck . . .” I trailed off as tingles swirled down the back of my neck. Slowly I turned to look at Jase. Blood drained from my face so fast that I thought I might pass out. What did I just say? “Oh God . . .”

The right side of his jaw was red, but he stared up at me, his eyes a bright silver. “What?” he whispered.

I loved Jase. I knew that. I’d fully accepted that, but I hadn’t been ready to tell him and especially not in front of my brother after he’d just hit him.

This was so unromantic.

“Come on, Cam, let’s give them some space.” Avery tugged on his arm, and for fuck’s sake, my brother finally listened. He stumbled around, letting her lead him out of the room like he was in a daze.

I watched the door close and debated on running out of the apartment. Maybe Avery’s was unlocked and I could go hide in her closet. For like a week. I did not just admit that I loved him. Please God, let him think I said something else—anything else. Like maybe I dove you. That was better.

The tips of Jase’s fingers pressed into my cheeks, and he turned my head toward him. The look on his face, a mixture of wildness and stark vulnerability tripped up my heart. I opened my mouth to blurt out something else that probably didn’t need to be said.

Jase’s mouth captured mine, and there was nothing calm or gentle about the kiss. Our lips and teeth mashed together as his tongue thrust in. He slanted his head, spreading his hands as he devoured me. The kiss was rough, intense and sensual, overwhelmingly powerful. Shivers raced through me.

“Wait,” I gasped out, breaking the kiss. “Your jaw . . .”

“I don’t give a fuck about my jaw right now.” He slid his hands down my sides and grasped my hips. Lifting me up, he sat me in his lap so that I straddled him. The position was awkward on my right leg, but it was lost in the sensation of him pressing against my core. The thin layer of clothing between us down there left little to the imagination.

I had no idea how he’d gotten so hard so quickly.

Gripping my hips, he rocked up and raw sensation spiraled through me. His lips were on mine, silencing the needy moan building in my throat. His hands slid down to my thighs and then up under the hem of the shirt, skating over the skin of my sides. I jerked as his fingers brushed the underside of my bare breasts.

“Jase,” I whispered, breathing raggedly. A heavy ache filled my breasts, their tips tightening until I wanted to scream. “My brother is right out there.”

“Fuck your brother.” His hands moved up, closing over my breasts. Finally. “Fuck everything outside of this room.”

My senses spiraled as his thumbs brushed over my nipples and he rocked his hips up again. I moaned his name against his mouth as he gently squeezed my breasts, molding his hands around them. Pleasure streaked through me. I never was very impressed with my breasts before, but I was then, knowing they seemed to fit his palms perfectly.

Jase shuddered as he shifted, leaving my breasts and wrapping an arm around my waist. It seemed in one moment he was leaning against the wall and we were sitting and then he was standing, lifting me with him as he explored my mouth, and the next second my back was against the soft mattress.

He hovered over me, his eyes a burning quicksilver. A bruise was forming on his jaw, a harsh reminder of what lay outside the doors, but oh my word, I didn’t care. I wanted him. My body throbbed I wanted him so badly.

Our gazes found each other, and up until that moment I didn’t realize how much control Jase had been exercising every time we’d been together. That control was gone now, lost in a storm of lust and need and something far deeper.

His biceps bulged as he lowered himself between my legs. He rocked slowly as he took my mouth and drew his hand down to my thigh, hooking my left leg over his hip. I heard him moan as I matched his movements, our bodies mimicking what we both wanted. His lips blazed a path down my throat, over the skin of my shoulder, and then back across my collarbone.

My fingers threaded through his soft hair as his mouth worked its way dangerously close to my breast. My breath caught as his mouth closed over the tip of my left breast, sucking the hardened point through the thin cloth. I arched clear off the bed, grinding my teeth together to keep from crying out. His hand closed around my right breast, catching the nipple between skillful, artful fingers. My hands knotted in his hair as his teeth closed on my nipple through the shirt.

A low cry escaped me as a riot of sensation pelted me and I shivered, wanting him closer, inside me. “Please.”

Jase rose up over me, his lips swollen and moist. “You’re so fucking beautiful like this.” His hips rolled forward, causing my toes to curl.

Warmth spread through me. I tugged on his hair, urging him down to my lips, and he came, his kiss seeking and sucking. His fingers hooked around the band of my panties, and I knew what was coming if he took them off. He’d be on me and in me, and that’s what I wanted desperately.

He shot me a look that scorched. “I wanted to make this perfect. I wanted to wait, but I can’t now.”

My heart and pulse pounded, my core already rippling. I lifted my behind, pleased when the growl of approval rumbled through him. “I want you,” I said passionately. “I’ve wanted you for so long. I lo—”

A soft knock on the bedroom door intruded. “Teresa? Jase? I have a bag of ice for you.”

It was like that bag of ice had pressed between both of our legs. We stopped, breathing heavily.

“Teresa?” Avery called softly.

He dropped his forehead on mine and swore swiftly under his breath. A hard shudder rocked him, and he rolled off onto his back. “I can’t go to the door.”

My gaze dropped to his pelvis and his arousal was so visible it made me want to weep in more than one way. Cursing her timing, I reined in my hormones and cleared my throat. “Coming.”

Jase snorted. “Almost.”

I smacked him on the chest, and he laughed, curling up his knees, and once he started, he didn’t stop. The skin around his eyes crinkled and his hair was a rich, russet mess of waves, and in that second, I was reminded of why I loved him so much.