Hit the Wall (Blythe College) (6 page)

When I turned back around, Jackson was sitting next to him. He looked amazing in a bright blue t-shirt and dark jeans, but the look on his face and the tattoo peeking out of his sleeve made him look dangerous. And he was shooting daggers at country boy. Daggers that were then aimed at me as soon as he realized what my shirt said.

“Here’s your round,” I said. “That will be twenty-five dollars in all. The first one’s on the house for being such a good sport.”

He glanced at Jackson before handing me some cash. “Keep the change. It’s just a damn shame that all the hot bartenders around here are taken,” he said as he walked away.

“Jackson,” I greeted him. “What can I get you?”

“Do you sell shirts?” he growled.

I wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but we sold the shit out of the novelty shirts the staff wore. “We do,” I said cautiously as I pointed to the display that was pinned to the ceiling above the bar.

His gaze skimmed over the selection and landed on one that just said The Roost with a picture of a rooster on it. “How about that one in a size small?” he asked.

“Sure. We don’t sell many of those. It’ll be twenty bucks.”

He slammed a twenty onto the bar and just stared at me. I grabbed a shirt for him from the stash in the storage room, but he just shook his head at me when I tried to give it to him. “I asked for a small. That would be a little tight on me, don’t you think?”

“I figured it was for your sister or something.”

His gaze dropped back down to my shirt for a moment. “It’s for you, Kaylie. I’d hate to have to start a brawl over what you’re wearing right now.”

“Wait, what?” I asked, stunned that he’d seriously just bought me a different shirt because he wanted me to change.

“You heard me. I want you to change out of the shirt you have on into one that won’t make every guy here think that he might have a chance to take you home tonight. Unless you really are into picking guys up in bars even though you said you weren’t just this morning.”

“And I would do this because why exactly?”

“Because you don’t want me to get into a fight where you work. Or you feel sorry for these schmucks who seriously think you’d offer them a piece of your ass after your shift,” he murmured. “Or how about because you want to make me happy? Do any of those reasons work for you, Kaylie? If not, I am sure I can come up with more.”

Char walked up, looked at the shirt between us on the bar, and took in the expression on Jackson’s face. She gave him a quick nod before turning to me. “I can cover for you down here if you need to take a quick break,” she offered.

She didn’t say anything more than that, but I knew what the real message was. If I was interested in Jackson, I should take the shirt and change. Shane would have pulled the exact same stunt if he’d come up and found her wearing the shirt I was in now. She and I both knew that, and she was subtly letting me know what she would do if she were in my shoes. 

But Shane was her boyfriend and had been for years. Jackson was just a guy who owed me a favor and was taking me out to dinner to repay it. Did I really want to let him get away with bossing me around like this? Then again, I was getting awfully tired of the comments from the male customers tonight.
And this was why I never wore this shirt anyway. It was just too much trouble in the first place.

“Thanks, Char. I think I’ll take you up on that offer. I could use a moment to myself if you don’t mind too much,” I answered before grabbing the shirt off the bar and stomping into the back office.

I nudged the door with my foot to close it and whipped off my shirt to change into the new one before I realized that Jackson had followed me.

“Shit, Jackson!” I swore while glaring at him over my bare shoulder. “You can’t be back here like this. You’re going to get into trouble.”

“The owner won’t get mad at me for coming into the office. He’s friends with my parents and our bank carries the loan on this place,” he replied as he turned the lock on the doorknob. “So I guess the only person I can get into trouble with would be you, Kaylie. And I’m not really worried about that right now because I think you should be the one concerned about getting into trouble with me instead.”

I pulled the new shirt on and turned to face him. “See, here’s the thing, Jackson. You’re not the boss of me. You don’t have a say in what I choose to wear. That guy at the bar might have thought you were my boyfriend, but that doesn’t make it so.”

“What if I wanted to be the boss of you?” he asked. He must have seen the confused look on my face, because he went on. “I’m not here for the drinks or the ambiance, Kaylie. I’m here because I couldn’t get you out of my head today. I knew I was going to see you tomorrow and I didn’t want to wait that long. I came to see you, and it turned out to be a damn good thing that I did because there you were with that shirt showing off your tits, offering up piece of ass shots, and putting ideas into other guys’ heads”

“But I thought you didn’t date?” I asked.

“No, I didn’t used to date,” he disagreed. “But I think that’s one rule that’s about to change. You said yes to dinner tomorrow night, so I guess I should say it’s a rule that’s already changed because of you.”

“You’re just taking me out to dinner tomorrow night because you wanted to thank me for helping you out and you’re mom expects it of you,” I argued.

“I may have let you think that to make sure you’d say yes, Kaylie. But that isn’t why I’m taking you to dinner. I could have found a million other ways to express my gratitude without spending another minute in your company,” he pointed out as he pulled me towards his body. “Flowers, a card, just about anything would have satisfied my mom. But I’m not worried about her being satisfied right now. No, you’ve got me thinking about my own satisfaction instead,” he said before his mouth crashed down on mine.

His lips were warm, and he tasted like cinnamon. I felt his hands on my ass and let out a startled gasp. He took full advantage and his tongue swept into my mouth, tangling with mine. His grip tightened as he groaned and tilted his head to get better access to my mouth. The kiss went from zero to sixty in no time at all. He mixed it up with quick nibbles on my lips and sharp tugs as he sucked my tongue into his mouth. I grabbed the back of his head to hold him in place as my mouth strained towards his, and he chuckled darkly in response before pulling away.

“Mine and yours if that kiss is any indication of the chemistry between us,” he murmured against my ear before kissing his way down my neck.

“Jackson,” I sighed before taking a step backwards out of his arms. “I’m at work. I can’t stay back here to make out with you while I’m supposed to be tending bar.”

“I know, but I couldn’t resist stealing one before you went back,” he said. “That’s the look I want you to have when you go back out there. One that says ‘look but don’t look too hard and don’t even think about touching.’”

“For someone who isn’t used to dating, you sure have the possessive alpha act down pat. And we aren’t even dating yet.”

“I’ve never felt the need to act like this in public before. There’s just something about you that brings it out in me,” he answered as he opened the door for me. “And don’t think I didn’t catch the yet at the end of your sentence. I’m just going to take it to mean that you’ve conceded to the fact that tomorrow night is a date. In fact, I think you could almost say we are dating already since we had breakfast together this morning. Technically, tomorrow night will be our second date.”

CHAPTER 6

Jackson

I stayed until Kaylie closed the bar down and waited to make sure she and her roommate made it safely to her car. I didn’t like the idea of Kaylie being alone in the bar’s parking lot this late at night with all the guys who had been drinking there all night. But I didn’t want to freak her out any more than I already had by letting her know that I’d waited for her, so I watched from the convenience store parking lot across the street. She’d backed down when I asked her to change her shirt and seemed to enjoy the kiss, but I didn’t want to scare her off with these possessive urges that were rising up inside me.

I’d always been a little intense, but it had never affected how I treated women out of bed. If a girl I wanted to bang wasn’t interested, it was no big deal because there were always others. If she was with a different guy the night after I’d slept with her, it didn’t bother me at all. In fact, it was a relief because it meant she knew the score and wouldn’t freak out when I didn’t want to go back for more. I certainly couldn’t give a shit how they were dressed and if other guys noticed. The more provocative, the better.

But when I walked into the bar and found that hick practically drooling over Kaylie’s ass, I’d had to restrain myself from tossing him out. It hadn’t mattered that she’d just been doing her job and that her shirt had probably increased her tips for the night. There was no way I’d have been able to last the rest of the night without beating the shit out of someone for making a pass at her because they’d gotten the wrong idea about her because of that damn shirt. Thank fuck that guy had thought I was her boyfriend and she’d been willing to change. Because I wasn’t sure I would have been able to restrain myself otherwise.

That freaked me out because I never had a problem with self-control. I’d been doing karate since I was little and had always been able to center myself. But with Kaylie, I felt like I had been thrown into the deep end of the ocean with no idea how to swim. It was thrilling and scary at the same time. I didn’t know which way I was going to get tossed next. I just knew that I was going to enjoy the ride.

I made it back to the frat house before I knew it since my thoughts were still on Kaylie. I could hear the music blaring before I even opened my truck door and realized that the guys had thrown together a party of some sort while I’d been gone. Not that it was unusual for a Saturday night at the house. Unless there was a big bash somewhere else with free booze, you could pretty much plan on us partying together. What was unusual was that I wasn’t in the mood to join them, but I wouldn’t hear the end of it if I didn’t at least make an appearance. As the frat Treasurer, I had certain responsibilities to uphold, some of which had nothing to do with our finances.

I grabbed a beer from the kitchen before joining everyone in the living room. The party was in full swing with the guys chugging down beers like they were water and girls dancing in skimpy outfits to the dance music they were playing. The only time you ever heard that shit in the house was when the guys had girls over for a party. It just wasn’t a party unless you had drunk girls gyrating to the music.

I wandered over to a group of my buddies to hang out when all I really wanted to do was drink my beer and head upstairs to my room to crash. I might have gotten over that bug from last night pretty quickly, but I was damn tired now. And I wanted some peace and quiet to think about what my plans would be for dinner tomorrow night. If I was going to take Kaylie on a date, I figured it was worth putting a little energy into it. Might as well make it worthwhile if I was going to break my ‘no dating’ rule for her. Because I sure as shit was going to catch hell for it from the guys, my sister, and other girls on campus once word got out.

Speaking of other girls, the sharks were starting to circle as the night wore on. I could practically smell the desperation in the air. It had been like this the last month or so once I’d stopped hitting on the girls on campus. They didn’t know what to think about the change in my MO. Usually, I would take my pick of the girls at the party up to my room for the night. Or at least part of the night, because there was no way in hell I ever let them sleep over. I had my fun, made sure they had a good time, and then showed them the door. If I was feeling particularly lazy and she was a good lay, I might decide to go back for more the next night. But that was it.

You’d think after a month of me staying away that the girls on campus would have gotten the message and back the fuck off, but of course they hadn’t. There were some who wanted to be the girl who got me back into the saddle so they could brag about it to their girlfriends. And there were others who wanted to cure me of my supposed heartbreak over Lex’s relationship with Drake. That’s not to say that I hadn’t been tempted. Having hot chicks offer to do just about anything I wanted made it difficult to turn down their offers. My persistence in saying no sure hadn’t stopped them from trying, and tonight looked like it was going to be more of the same.

“Hey, Jackson,” some blond chick who’d wandered over to where I was sitting said in a breathy tone of voice that she must have thought was hot. “I’m Laurie. I was hoping I would see you here tonight.”

“Yeah?” I asked. “And why was that?”

“Well,” she said before leaning over to whisper in my ear, making sure that her tits were in my face—a sight I would normally appreciate but made me cringe a little on the inside tonight. “I heard that your tastes run dark and I’m in the mood for something dangerous tonight.”

I pulled away from her a little so I could look her in the eyes. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m not interested.”

She didn’t seem to want to take no for an answer though. “Are you sure about that? I’m not wearing any panties and I just got a Brazilian the other day. I’ve been a naughty girl walking around all night completely bare. I think I should be punished, don’t you?”

“Laurie, I get that you might have heard things about me that would make you think that I’d jump at that offer, but I’m going to have to pass,” I said without even thinking twice. “But I’m sure there are lots of guys here who would be more than happy to take you up on it.”

“I don’t want one of them,” she argued, starting to get pissed off when she realized I wasn’t joking.

“Not my problem. And you don’t want to become my problem tonight because it isn’t going to get you what you want. Now move along to another guy or leave. Those are your choices here,” I said bluntly.

Normally I could shift a girl off to another frat brother with a few smooth words before she even understood what happened, but I didn’t want to play that game tonight. I didn’t feel the normal temptation, only irritation. Luckily, one of my brothers must have realized how serious I was and pulled the girl away and out of my sight.

“Dude, what crawled up your ass?” Luke, another of my frat brothers, asked.

“Yeah, man,” Zach said. “You’re seriously
gonna turn that down? You’re gotta snap outta this sometime, and she sure looked worth some of your time to me.”

“If I wanted to get my dick wet with her, then I would have said yes. Or asked her upstairs myself earlier,” I argued. “But I didn’t, so I told her no and she still wouldn’t get lost. It just pissed me off. This is my house. I should be able to hang out with you guys without having chicks bug the shit out of me, okay?”

I leveled everyone with a stare to shut them the fuck up and headed upstairs to my room. Which is what I should have just done in the first place instead of letting my guilt for skipping out on yet another party force me into hanging out tonight. I slammed the door to my room to make the point that I didn’t want to be disturbed and flipped the lock for good measure.

Ripping off my clothes, I felt my anger start to fade away as I dropped onto my bed. The second I closed my eyes, I pictured Kaylie in my mind and felt my dick start to get hard. Shit, I’d had a barely dressed chick shove her tits in my face and offer to let me spank her and it hadn’t gotten a rise out of me. But one fucking thought about Kaylie and I was as hard as I’ve ever been before. What the fuck was up with that?

I shifted, trying to get comfortable, but my hard-on wasn’t going anywhere. It was like I had taken a Viagra or something. I slowly stroked myself, squeezing my cock as my clenched hand moved up and down the shaft. Damn, I wished it was her hand instead.

I figured she would go soft and gentle at first, hesitant until I put mine over hers to show her how I wanted it. On the next stroke up, when I reached the engorged head, I caught the pre-cum in my fingers and wiped it over the tip. I could easily picture Kaylie bending over to lick that drop off with her tongue. I repeated the motion over and over, different pictures of Kaylie popping into my head. Each one was dirtier than the
next. On her knees, hands tied behind her back, her mouth sucking me off. Bent over my bed, ass in the air, waiting for me to pound her from behind, her head tilted over her shoulder and those big brown eyes begging me to take her hard and fast.

I was so close to the edge as images of all the ways I wanted to take Kaylie raced through my head. My balls were already tightening up, and I could feel my cock throbbing. I wanted to hold back, to make the moment last. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d jacked off to the thought of someone I knew in my head. Usually I pictured some swimsuit model or watched porn.

The thought of Kaylie laid spread-eagle, her arms and legs tied to my bedposts, leapt into my mind. Just the idea that I might be able to take her that way one day tipped me over the edge, come shooting from my cock and landing on my chest. My heart raced as I lay panting, stunned by the force of my desire for Kaylie.

I didn’t think I’d ever wanted another girl the way that I did her. I wasn’t quite sure what to think about it, but I did know one thing. There was no way in fucking hell I wasn’t going to try my hardest to make every single image in my head happen in real life. She’d managed to catch my interest even when I was in the middle of that
clusterfuck with Sasha before Christmas break when I shouldn’t have noticed anyone. I’d chalked it up to my usual appreciation of a hot chick and pushed her out of my head when I went home for break and got my head back on straight. The bottom line was that I might not have had to work to get a girl in my bed before, but you could be damned sure that I was going to now if that’s what it took.