Conquer Your Love (5 page)

“You should slow down a bit. We’re not in New
York where we know the place.” I wasn’t usually the voice of reason—or a
buzz kill—but we were in a different country.

She waved her hand and shot me a dazzling
smile. “Relax, Brooke. You weren’t this boring when you were still guzzling
down tequila shots with me.”

I smirked. Granted, she had a point, but
still.
Nothing wrong with being careful.
Better safe
than sorry, right?

“Look at that hot Italian guy.” Sylvie pointed
past a group of dancing girls to a guy with a tattoo on his neck and a black
leather jacket draped across the stool beside him. He looked like he belonged
to a gang. I couldn’t really judge whether he was hot, or not. Obviously I
didn’t have Sylvie’s hawk eyes when it came to spying an attractive specimen of
the other gender in a dimly lit club. From the distance I could barely make out
more than his height and cropped hair, ripped jeans, and what looked like lots
of ink covering his bare arms. For all I knew, he could be between twenty and
fifty years of age, with a hideous face.

“He looks like a drug dealer,” I remarked
dryly.

Sylvie laughed that tinkling laughter of hers
that told me she had probably heard the opposite of what I just said, and she
grabbed her glass. “Time to get acquainted.”

Oh,
god. Not him.

I grabbed her arm and yanked, forcing her to
face me. “Please don’t hook up with the local mafia. I don’t want them knocking
on our door, or burning down the house the moment they realize you go through
men like others change their underwear. He looks like trouble and trust me, I
have a keen eye when it comes to spotting trouble.” I raised my brow, not
stating the obvious.

Something flickered in her blue gaze. First I
thought it was a spark of realization that I was right—and then her mouth
pressed into a tight line and I knew it was determination. She was about to try
to prove me wrong.

“Oh, come on, Sylvie. That’s so stupid.” I
rolled my eyes. Sylvie yanked her arm away.

“Just because he looks like a bad boy doesn’t
mean he is one. Besides, I’m not interested in dating him. Just in having a
drink and then chatting for a few minutes. You know, meet new people, and maybe
improve my Italian.”

Sylvie didn’t speak one word of Italian.
During our flight she had been using her meager Spanish and French vocabulary,
think ‘
muchas
gracias’ and ‘merci’ when talking to
the flight attendant.

“Chatting? Really? Do I need to remind you
that’s what you always say?” I crossed my arms over my chest and regarded her
coolly.

“Chill, Brooke. I know what I’m doing.
Besides, we’re here to have fun. You might as well start having it.” She shot
me her most reassuring smile, which wasn’t reassuring at all. If there was one
thing I could say about Sylvie, it was that her taste in men sucked almost as
much as mine. Given that mine had just hit rock bottom, I could only hope she
wasn’t going to try to top me.

She leaned in to place a soft peck on my
cheek, and then she was gone before I could mentally devise a strategy to keep
her away from a natural human disaster. My eyes following her through the
crowd, I leaned forward in my seat and craned my neck so I could watch Sylvie’s
every move—just in case she was aiming for more than a drink. As if
sensing the blonde behind him the tattooed guy turned, and then they were
engrossed in conversation. Just in the blink of an eye. My heart fell in my
chest as I observed their body language. Both leaning into each other, Sylvie
smiled at something he said, and then he smiled. The next thing I knew they
were on the dance floor, his arms wrapped around her.
Her
body grinded against him as the DJ switched the tune to something fast but
sexy.
The kind of music that invited you to let the guy you’ve barely known
for five minutes play acrobatics with your tongue.

My gaze glued to Sylvie and her conquest, I
took another sip of my water when something tickled my neck and someone’s hot
breath caressed my ear.

“Brooke, what the fuck do you think you’re
wearing?”

I jumped in my seat at hearing the familiar
voice in my ear, and my heart skipped a beat. Turning, I looked up to see
him
leaning over me, barely an inch
away. The way he made my heart hammer, I knew I was far from over him.

Holy mother
of sins!

What the hell was
he
doing here?

The question played over and over in my head
as I swallowed hard to get rid of the sudden lump in my throat. It wasn’t just
my throat that felt constricted, but everything else—from my stomach to
down below, as though every inch of my body remembered the good times he and I
once had.

That was before I found out he was planning to
steal my future estate.

“J—” My mouth opened and closed again,
unable to utter his name, while my eyes remained glued to him like a moth to light.
I wanted to run; I wanted to scream, and yet I did none of those things. My
whole being was too hurt to react, too stunned by his presence.

It couldn’t be. He couldn’t be here because he
couldn’t possibly know where I was. No one did. I took a deep breath to calm
the alarm bells ringing somewhere at the back of my mind. I was in deep crap.
No, make that the deepest and crappiest of crap, because Jett was at least
twice as sinfully gorgeous as I remembered him and thrice as dangerous—to
my heart. The soft spot I thought I had for him in my heart and in my lower
abdomen, magnified in the blink of an eye.

Dark hair that brushed his collar, eyes as
deep and green as sin, a white shirt that only managed to emphasize his broad
shoulders and sculpted chest—the guy was a walking hazard to the female
population. He certainly was to me. Even though he had crushed my heart and I
knew
about the kind of jerky trick he
had tried to pull on me, I
still
couldn’t
help the tiny butterflies fluttering in the pit of my stomach. Maybe it wasn’t
my stomach, but something else. Something remembering his exploring fingers and
the way he had filled me, making me come over and over again.

I rolled my eyes at my sudden onset of
stupidity. Okay, we had amazing sexual chemistry and he definitely knew what he
was doing, but whatever he had to say I wasn’t going to listen to him. Or bed
him. Even though I sort of wanted the latter. A lot.

“You know what I’m going to do to every guy
who so much as looks at you?” Jett’s lips brushed the lobe of my ear as his
mouth moved to the corner of my mouth, his deep tone with just a hint of a
Southern accent caressing my every nerve ending, making me want to—

Hell,
no!

I jumped to my feet to put some much-needed
distance between us and almost toppled over the bistro table. My eyes bore into
him and the music died around us. The whole room began to spin and the people
turned into a blur of distorted faces and colors. Closing my eyes, I gripped
the edge of the table for support and forced myself to take deep breaths until
my heartbeat slowed down to a bearable level. When I opened my eyes again he
was still there. Still towering over me.
Still gorgeous.
The room began to spin again and my resentment started to slip away, which
angered me. I needed to be angry because he was the bad guy.

“Sit down.” He closed the distance between us,
the deep frown between his eyebrows barely taking away the breathtaking
perfection of his face.

My mind screamed at him to stay the hell away
from me, but my throat remained constricted, incapable of following my brain’s
command. I raised my arm to stop him. Jett flat out ignored it as he clutched
my upper arm and pushed me back into my seat. He dropped down next to me, so
close I might as well have sat on his lap. I watched him sniff the contents of
my glass and push it into my hand, seemingly satisfied that it wasn’t alcohol.

“Drink up. You’re dehydrated.” His tone left
no room for discussion. I hated to give him the satisfaction of following his
command, and yet I found myself taking one sip after another until the glass
was empty. He took it from me and placed it on the table,
then
turned to regard me, his head cocked to the side, his jaw set. His stunning
green gaze wandered over me, drinking me in, making me feel completely naked.
Even though the lights were dimmed, I could see a nerve twitching beneath his
right eye. With every moment that passed he seemed even more pissed. I crossed
my arms over my chest, wishing I
was
wearing more than
the thin layer of nothing Sylvie called a dress.

“You still haven’t answered my question,
Brooke,” he said slowly, emphasizing my name.

I returned his icy stare and my tongue finally
regained its ability to speak. “Sorry, did you say something? I was too busy
figuring out whether you were stalking me.”

Jett’s expression darkened. “What the hell are
you wearing?”

“This?” I looked at my half exposed chest and
laughed. It sounded a bit strained and nervous, but he certainly couldn’t tell
with the music in the background. The tune changed to something about a girl
not letting a guy trick her twice. I snorted.

How
fitting!

The DJ was sending me a message.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said. “What’s wrong with
it?”

“You’re giving every guy in here a hard-on.
Including me.” His fingers brushed the inside of my thigh, riding as high as
the hem of my dress, which
was mere inches
away from
my thong. At his warm touch, heat immediately travelled through my belly and
pooled between my legs. I pressed my thighs together and tried to push his hand
away. He didn’t move.

“Maybe every
other
guy was the plan,” I said. “Because I wasn’t planning on
seeing you. How did you find me?”

“Once I figured you were in Italy, it wasn’t
hard. Knowing you and Sylvie, and given that this is the only club in the
area—” He shrugged. I cringed at his audacity. Who the fuck did he think
he was?

“Seriously, you’re such an arrogant jerk,” I
hissed.

His icy stare dropped a few degrees, if that
was even possible. I narrowed my eyes in the hope he’d feel my distaste for him.

“Didn’t I make myself clear enough in New
York? It’s over between us. Get the fuck away from me, Jett. I don’t want to
see you.”

If my words reached him, he didn’t react.
Didn’t even blink. For a second I thought he didn’t hear me. I opened my mouth
to repeat myself when he raised his hand to cut me off. “Look, I know what I
did was a shitty move but I can explain. I was trying to protect you.”

The protection crap again. “What are you
protecting me from? An inheritance you’d rather have for yourself?” I rolled my
eyes. “Please, spare yourself further embarrassment and just leave me alone
because I’m not buying your lies.”

His hand grasped my upper
arm so fast and hard
,
I
flinched
. He inched closer until I could feel his breath on my lips.
“Listen to me. I don’t want the
Lucazzone
estate.
There was a time when I did, but that changed after I met you in that bar and
we got to know each other.”

There was something in his eyes, a glint that
begged me to believe him, a flame that forced me to search through our history
for signs that he hadn’t been trying to deceive me all along.

“Fuck you, Jett.”

He was so close, barely an inch away from me; I
could barely breathe. I needed to get away from here, from him, from the whole
situation. And yet I remained seated, not even yanking my arm away even though
his grip was beginning to hurt.

As though sensing my discomfort, Jett loosened
his grip but didn’t let go of me. “I know you don’t trust me and I can’t blame
you. I probably wouldn’t trust myself, but this is serious, Brooke. You don’t
know what you’re getting yourself into.” His calm tone and sharp gaze sent a
shiver down my spine. Somewhere in the back of my mind I realized he had said
exactly the same words before, and the realization made me uncomfortable. Not
to mention it managed to ignite my curiosity.

“Protect from whom?” I almost choked on my
words. The entire situation sounded like something out of a Hollywood movie.
And yet I didn’t laugh. Maybe it was the dead serious expression on his
beautiful face. Or the way his thumb brushed my thigh, both soothing me and
setting my skin on fire. Or his voice that conveyed a magnitude and
significance I somehow seemed to fail to grasp.

“It’s complicated,” Jett said, hesitating. “Go
out with me and I’ll tell you everything I know.”

He almost got me.

I snorted at my idiocy. He was playing mind
games again, and this was just another ruse to get me alone so he could seduce
me or get whatever he was after.

“No way.”

“Fine. No date. Just breakfast, coffee, or
whatever you want.” He cocked a brow and a glint of amusement lit up his eyes.
Green as sin—the kind of sin I couldn’t wait to dive into and stain my
body with. No way was I going to be alone with him anywhere.