Nik’s face.”
Nik shot him the finger without even lifting his head. I grinned and picked my keys up off the end table where I had left them earlier. “Well on that note I think that I will head out.”
“You can’t leave. We’re going to cook out.” Jesse followed me out of the living room and stood in front of the door, blocking my exit. “I grill a mean cow.” He gave me that cocky grin that had literally melted my panties yesterday. “Come on, Layla. Don’t go home yet.”
I was so tempted. I wanted to stay, and not just to try out his mad skills with the grill on the patio. My heart was aching to be close to him just as much as my body was. That alone terrified the shit out of me. “Maybe another time. I really have to get home.” Wait, why did I have to get home? Oh yeah, the girls.
His eyes narrowed. Was it me or had his eyes actually changed color? That was so sexy! “Do you have someone waiting for you?”
“Yes.” I told him honestly. His eyes darkened and for some reason I was quick to tell him about the girls. “My sisters.”
Those incredible eyes of his changed again, turning back to the brown from earlier. “Sisters?”
I grinned. “Yes. I have custody of both my sisters. They will be wondering where I am , so I really have to get home.”
“Call them and ask them to join us. Tell them to grab a cab , and I’ll pay the driver when he gets here.” He took a step closer to me, and my breath caught in my chest. “You know you want to stay,” he whispered.
I tried to keep calm, tried to remember how to breathe , but he was to close, too alluring and smelled to damn good. “I…” I had forgotten how to form words.
“Call them.”
Finally I found the strength to suck in a deep breath. “I can’t.” I couldn’t let Lana and Lucy ride in a cab by themselves all the way out to Malibu, especially when they had school in the morning. The disappointment in his eyes— oh goodness, they’ve changed color again —made my heart ache a little. “They have school in the morning,” I told him. “I would love to stay, really, but school is important.”
His mouth lifted in half a smile. “Okay , I understand.” He stepped back enough that I was able to breathe without getting assaulted with that deliciously sexy smell of his. It wasn’t cologne, but something both subtle and hypnotizing. “Drive safely.”
Jesse opened the door for me and I was reluctant to walk out. I had to force my feet to move. The entire drive home I felt almost depressed.
Stupid, stupid, stupid! I was already developing feelings for the rocker.
Jesse
It was crazy, but I felt depressed after I watched Layla pull out of the driveway in her beat up old car. I had been thinking about her all day, had woken up hard as a fucking rock twice the night before with her on my mind.
I hadn’t wanted to go into the studio this morning because I wanted to see her again. Then when we got home it was to find Shane undressing her with his eyes and her grinning up at him like she knew it too. So I might have shoved him a little harder than was deemed playful to get him to keep his eyes to himself.
Layla Daniels had invaded my mind , and I didn’t know why, but I was willing to explore the possible answers. I wanted her with an ache that I had never felt before in my life, but it was more that. I wanted to get to know her too, and that wasn’t me. Jesse Thornton didn’t care about getting to know women. All he cared about was his band brothers and Emmie. I was a bastard like that, but they were all I knew and all I loved. Nothing else mattered.
Yet here I sat with this desire to know that little goddess inside and out. Sisters? Why did she have custody of them? How old where they? Did they look like her? Where were her parents? I wanted to call her, to ask her all of those questions and more, a million more. I had never called a girl in my fucking life!
“You’re quiet tonight ,” Emmie commented after
Learning to Kill: Stories