Hit the Wall (Blythe College) (8 page)

I peeked at the grill, where the chef was preparing a gigantic mound of fried rice and eight sets of what looked like a shrimp appetizer of some kind. “You really do mean as much as I want. That’s a ton of food.”

He grinned at me and a slight blush crept up his chiseled cheekbones. “I might have gone a little overboard.”

I reached out and place my hand over his. “No, you went exactly the perfect amount overboard. This was a very cool thing to do, Jackson.”

He nodded before he grabbed his sake and gulped down the rest. “How about more sake?”

“I don’t know. Did you order eight servings of that, too?” I teased him.

“Nah. I thought about it but then I wouldn’t be able to drive you home,” he said, shrugging his broad shoulders. “Hell, neither of us would even remember this date if we drank that much.”

“And this is where I should admit to something. I know I’m a bartender, so this will probably shock you, but I hardly ever drink. I would say I make for a cheap date, but you’ve pretty much proven that wrong with all of this.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing you can drink all the tea you want.” He poured me a cup and put it by my plate. “You don’t have to finish the sake if you don’t want it.”

“No, I really like how warm it makes me feel,” I giggled.

“We better get some food into you,” he said as he handed my plate to the chef so he could pile some shrimp on it before giving him his own plate. I really liked how it felt when he did small things like that—pouring me drinks and getting me food.

“Delicious,” I declared as I took my first bite. I enjoyed the whole meal, tasting a little bit of anything that caught my eye. He really had ordered some of everything. We had chicken, two different kinds of steak, more shrimp, and lobster to go with the rice and vegetables. The chef made a volcano with an onion that he set on fire and kept doing tricks like tossing shrimp shells into his chef’s hat. It was really entertaining and the food was amazing. It was absolutely the best dinner date I could ever remember having.

“I’m so full,” I said as I rubbed my stomach, trying to get comfortable. I really had eaten too much.

My sweater rode up a little and Jackson’s gaze landed on my bare skin. “Here, let me help with that.” He reached over to move my hand out of the way and replace it with his. His warmth seeped into my skin as he gently rubbed in circles.

“Jackson,” I murmured, lost in the feeling of his touch.

“Kaylie?”

“Yeah,” I said drowsily.

“Ready for the next part of our date?”

My eyes popped open at his question. “Next part?”

“I thought we’d take a little detour on the way back to campus. You game?”

“If your detour is as good as the rest of the night has been, then count me in,” I answered.

The waiter boxed up all the leftovers and put them into a couple bags for us to take. Jackson handed him his credit card and paid for our meal without even glancing at the bill. He carried both bags as he led me out of the restaurant to his truck and helped me inside. A girl really could get used to all this pampering pretty easily. Jackson might have been new to the whole dating thing, but he sure knew what he was doing.

He turned the music on low and switched it to an alternative rock station. The Foo Fighters came on, and I leaned back in my seat to enjoy the music. Jackson drove to the outskirts of
town to the lake and pulled off the road onto a dirt path. We drove a few more minutes before coming to a summer cabin. He parked in the driveway and hopped out before I even thought to ask what we were doing here.

“C’mon,” he said as he pulled me out of the truck. “It’ll be fun, I swear.”

We walked around to the back porch, and I noticed the sleds piled in the corner. I glanced down at my outfit and looked at Jackson like he was crazy.

“Hell no! I’d freeze my ass off if I went sledding with you dressed like this.”

“I already thought of that.” He gestured to the sliding glass door. “This is my parents’ cabin. Some of Aubrey’s winter stuff is inside. I pulled it out of the closet for you earlier today. Grab some snow pants, gloves, and a hat.”

“But Jackson,” I complained.

“Just once, Kaylie. Please,” he asked.

“Fine! One time down and that’s it. I don’t really like being cold.”

“If you’re not having fun, then we’ll stop. I’m not going to make you do something you hate, Kaylie.” He gave me puppy-dog eyes. “I just thought you might like this. That’s all. Give it a chance. You liked the flowers, sake, and dinner. Right?”

“Right,” I huffed before stomping inside.

This was not how I’d pictured the end of our date. I never imagined that the infamous campus playboy would want to take me sledding.

I grabbed a pair of snow pants and slid them on, my skirt bunching up inside. I wasn’t changing my boots even if they weren’t designed for playing in the snow. I picked out a set of
gloves with a matching hat and headed back outside. Jackson had already put on a pair of snow pants and pulled out a small toboggan.

“Ready?” he grinned up at me from the back of the sled.

I climbed in front of him and he pushed off before wrapping his arms around me. We went whooshing down the hill onto the lake and finally skidded to a halt. Jackson leaned back and tugged me with him.

“Look up,” he whispered.

The stars were clear in the sky, twinkling brightly. Everything was so still and quiet in contrast to the heart-pumping feeling of barreling down the hill.

“Wow,” I whispered back. “It’s so beautiful, Jackson.”

“That’s why I wanted to share it with you. I thought you’d like it,” he said as he tightened his arms around me. “Plus it means I have an excuse to get you in my arms since we’re warmer cuddled up like this.”

“So you even got Mother Nature to help you out with our date?”

“Hey, I’ll take all the help I can get with you,” he replied.

“I’m not sure you need any help at all, Jackson. Tonight was amazing. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Thanks for agreeing to come out with me, even if I kind of had to trick you into the date.”

We lay there enjoying the moment for a while until I shivered a little, the cold getting to me.

Jackson let me go, giving me a little push to my feet. “It’s colder than I thought it would be. We better get you back inside so you can warm up.”

We held hands as we trudged back up the hill to the cabin, Jackson pulling the sled behind him. The way up was certainly harder than down, and my boots didn’t make it any easier for me. Jackson had to steady me several times, catching me before I fell each time. When we made it back to the porch, Jackson came inside with me unlike earlier. We both stripped out of our snow stuff, and Jackson hung everything up in the bathroom to dry. There was an awkward silence as I realized the date was drawing to a close, we were completely alone in his parents’ cabin, and he hadn’t kissed me yet tonight.

“So…I guess we should head back. I have a morning class tomorrow,” I said awkwardly.

“Me, too,” he replied as he strode towards me with a determined look on his face. “But I need to do this now. I don’t want to wait until I’m dropping you off in front of other people.”

I took a step back, and Jackson kept walking my way. My back bumped against the wall, and he rested his hands on either side of me, caging me in. I knew what he’d meant, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Do what?”

He responded by kissing me. The kiss started off slow at first, his lips caressing mine before he murmured, “Open.”

My lips parted at his commanding tone and his tongue darted inside and entangled with mine. His hands moved to hold my head in place as he ravaged my mouth with his. I glided my fingertips along his back, enjoying the play of his muscles as he tilted his head to deepen the kiss even more. I wanted to get closer and clenched my hands to draw his body into mine. His hips rocked into me, and when I felt his hard cock rub against my stomach, I gasped. Jackson pulled away to make sure I was okay, but I couldn’t speak so I just nodded my head and stepped into him so he would know that I wanted him to kiss me again.

He laughed softly at my action and shook his head. “I don’t think I can trust myself to kiss you again knowing we have this place to ourselves.”

“Please, Jackson,” I whimpered.

“Fuck. You have no idea how badly I want to hear those words coming from your mouth, Kaylie. You really don’t fight fair at all, do you?” he asked before giving me what I so desperately wanted.

My body felt alive for the first time in a very long time. My heart was beating so hard that I could feel my pulse in my neck. But he didn’t kiss me like he had last time. This was softer, more delicate. And exploration of my lips with his as he licked the seams and inched away when I tried to deepen the kiss. He waited until I backed off before nibbling on my lower lip, his hands cupping my face. My eyes drifted shut and I enjoyed the beauty of the moment. This one perfect kiss from Jackson after the amazing night he’d planned for me.

“No more,” he whispered against my lips. “Shit, Kaylie. We need to stop before I decide that taking it slow isn’t a good idea with you.”

“Maybe I don’t want to take it slow,” I said, even though I hadn’t planned to do anything more than enjoy dinner and a couple of kisses tonight.

“What do you want from this? Do you want to maybe take a step towards a relationship? Or friends with benefits? Because you might not believe me yet, but I’m really not trying to just have sex with you. And if we do this now, how the hell am I supposed to show you that I’m different with you? That even though I don’t know what this is, it still means something other than just getting off tonight?”

“I don’t know what I want,” I admitted. It was the truth. Until Jackson had stormed into my life, guys and relationships had been the last thing on my mind.

“Then we need to wait. Which means that we need to get the hell out of here. Now. Before I change my mind, strip you bare, and find out if you taste as good all over as you do when I kiss you,” he said before giving me a swift kiss and pulling me towards the door.

I was completely blown away. The campus playboy had just kissed the shit out of me and then talked me out of having sex with him on our first real date.

CHAPTER 8

Jackson

The drive back to Kaylie’s dorm was hell. It took all of my willpower to not turn the truck around and race back to the cabin with her. My dick was stiff, my balls had to be turning blue, and I could still taste her on my lips. Being noble didn’t come naturally to me. It had been a new experience—one I really didn’t appreciate right now, but I hoped like hell would be worth it later.

I’d wanted her in my bed more than once, and I’d figured she’d have had an excuse to run if we’d gone too fast. And wasn’t that fucking ironic? I’d been worried about a girl not wanting to see me again after we had sex. Usually I hoped like hell I didn’t have to see her after instead.

Kaylie kept giving me strange looks as I drove. “What?” I finally asked while she was looking my way.

“Nothing,” she answered. “Just trying to figure you out is all. You really surprised me tonight.”

“Surprised you in a good way like a present you were really hoping for on Christmas morning or in a bad way like finding out you picked up the flu bug from kissing me?”

“Definitely the good kind of surprise. You really went out of your way to make this a good night for me, and I appreciate it. All of it.”

“Even me saying no to sex tonight?” I asked. I was a little worried that she might think I didn’t want her or something crazy like that when nothing could be further from the truth. 

She reached over to grab my hand. “Especially that, I think. It’s been a while for me, but just because I’m horny doesn’t mean we need to jump into bed together right away. I probably would have regretted it after. Your putting my feelings ahead of what would have felt really great says a lot.”

I squeezed her hand in response. “Crap, Kaylie. You can’t throw out words like horny right now. You’re killing me here,” I groaned.

“Okay, I’ll be good,” she giggled.

An image of me punishing her for being bad, smacking her ass until it was red, popped into my head. I wasn’t even sure she liked that kind of shit, but I couldn’t stop thinking about having her under my control. I’d enjoyed being kinky with other girls, and I’d always been willing to try something out if they’d asked. It had been more about what they’d wanted than what I was into, as long as I’d gotten off in the end.

But it wasn’t the same with Kaylie and I hadn’t even slept with her yet. It wasn’t that I was less interested in what she wanted in bed than the girls from before because I absolutely wanted to know what excited her, where she liked to be touched, if she preferred sex soft and romantic or hard and fast. But underneath it all, I wanted to make her lose all control and trust me with her body. I had a feeling that with her it would be about trust, and I’d have to earn it before she was willing to give it to me.

I fiddled with the radio to give myself something else to focus on, anything but the thought of driving my cock deep inside her pussy. Luckily, the drive wasn’t a long one and we were back at her dorm pretty quickly. The sexual tension in the truck had almost had me pulling off to the side of the road to kiss her again. But if I wasn’t going to take her when we were alone in the cabin, I sure as shit wasn’t going to start something in the cab of my truck on the open road.

“You don’t have to walk me up,” I heard Kaylie say as I parked the truck.

“But I’m going to anyway. This was a date, remember? And a guy should walk his girl to the door at the end of a date. Now if this was a thank-you dinner, then it would be a totally different story. I’d drop your ass off right here,” I joked.

I enjoyed how her pretty brown eyes lit up when she found something I’d said funny. And the sight of her legs in that skirt and boots as she climbed out of my truck was hot. Add in that she was sweet and I pretty much had the perfect girl. Maybe that was why everything was so different with her—because I was getting to know her as a person instead of just a conquest. I couldn’t help but wonder how many of the girls I’d screwed could have been more than that and I just hadn’t noticed. Had I been so wrapped up in the idea of
Lex that I’d missed out on other opportunities? Or was there something special about Kaylie?

We made it upstairs to her room while all those thoughts were rolling around my head, and I realized I was fucking up this opportunity by thinking too much. I opened the door to make sure Char was inside.

“Hey. Kaylie will be inside soon,” I said before closing it again. I pinned her up against the door and looked up and down the hallway to make sure nobody else was around. “I had a great time with you tonight, and I want to do this again soon. What do you think? Did I earn a third date with you?”

“I’m still not sure about counting breakfast at your mom’s as a first date, but yes, I’d like to go out with you again,” she answered.

“Soon?” I pushed.

She smiled shyly at my question. “Yes, Jackson. We can do something again soon.”

“Good. Now that I’ve got that out of the way,” I said as I leaned down to kiss her again.

“Hey!” she protested, putting her hand over my mouth. “I thought you said you didn’t trust yourself with me tonight.”

I nipped at her fingers so she’d remove her hand. “I don’t, but this is about as safe a place as it’s gonna get since Char is on the other side of this door and anyone could walk up at any minute and catch us. And it’s not like I can let our date end without a kiss.”

“Ah, so you’re going to kiss me so you don’t miss out on a dating ritual?”

“No”—I bent my head so I could whisper against her lips—“I’m going to kiss you because I can’t stop myself from doing it. Because I want my kiss to be what you think about when you go to sleep tonight. Because I want to be able to lick my lips and taste you when I’m going to sleep.”

“Jackson,” she sighed as her lips parted and her eyes closed, waiting for me to kiss her.

I didn’t make her wait long before I started to place small kisses in the corner of her mouth and then moved across to the other side to do the same there. I sucked on her bottom lip before sliding my tongue inside her mouth. My fingers slid up her neck, and I could feel her pulse beating wildly. I nudged her head back to trail kisses down her cheek and across her jaw. I licked at her pulse point and sucked gently, using all my willpower not to bite down and leave a mark.

“You’ve got be fucking kidding me!” someone shrieked from behind us. “Get a room! There’s one right behind you for God’s sake.”

Kaylie’s eyes popped open and she started to blush. And then she looked pissed when she realized that it was Sasha complaining about us kissing in the hall. “Really, Sasha? People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

“And girls who are about to become Jackson’s latest one-night stand really don’t have any room to talk and shouldn’t advertise that fact in the fucking hallway!”

“Settle down, Kaylie. I’ll take care of this,” I told her before turning around with Kaylie protected behind me. “Sasha, I think I warned you before about messing around with people I care about.”

“Yeah, so what?” she asked.

“Leave Kaylie alone,” I continued.

“If I had to avoid all the girls you’ve fucked on campus, Jackson, then there would hardly be anyone left to bother with,” she argued.

“Kaylie isn’t a one-night stand. I’m dating her.”

Sasha’s jaw dropped open at my words. “What?”

“You heard me. She’s off-limits to you, too.”

“But you don’t date!” Sasha protested. “You always said you weren’t interested.”

“Things have changed. I wasn’t interested in dating before, but I am now that I’ve met Kaylie.”

“It fucking figures,” Sasha muttered under her breath before glaring at Kaylie over my shoulder and stomping into her room.

Kaylie wrapped her arms around me and rested her head against my back. “Well, that was a great way to end the night.”

“Let me know if she causes any problems for you. You shouldn’t have to pay for my mistakes,” I grumbled, completely pissed off that Sasha had ruined the moment for us.

“I might not like knowing that you slept with her, but I’m pretty sure she would have been a bitch even if you hadn’t,” Kaylie said as she stepped around me and placed a kiss on my cheek. There she went again, being so damn sweet.

“There are going to be other girls who will act just the same,” I admitted, frustrated that my past actions might come back to bite me in the ass with Kaylie.

“Then I guess I’ll have to learn to deal with it if I want to date you.”

“If? There’s no getting out of it now. You already said yes to another date,” I reminded her.

“Well then there you go. I guess we’ll figure it out as we go along. But you’d better get going so I can share these leftovers with Char.” She waved the takeout bag at me. “And then let her grill me about our date before I can get some sleep.”

“All right, off to bed with you then,” I said, stepping away. I waited until she went into her room and closed the door before I left.

I made it down to my truck and all the way to the frat house before I realized that I didn’t have her phone number. Shit! I really did suck at this dating thing. Getting the girl’s number had to be the first thing a guy did, and I’d totally forgotten about it until now.

Going back to her dorm wasn’t an option at this hour because getting in meant I’d have to talk someone into opening the door since it was
locked. I glanced at the clock and realized that I only had a couple choices. I could head over there in the morning and hope to catch Kaylie before she went to class. Or I could suck it up and ask my sister if she had it. Which meant she’d ask me how the dinner had gone and I’d have to admit that it had been a date and not a thank-you dinner. I pulled my phone out and dialed her number.

“Hey, bro! What’s up,” she answered on the first ring.

“I need a favor.”

“You do? What kind?” she asked.

“Do you have Kaylie’s number?”

“Of course I do. But didn’t you have that dinner with her tonight? Why do you need it?” She paused. “Shit, Jackson. Don’t tell me you stood her up for a thank-you dinner and now you need to call her and apologize!”

“That’s not why I need it.”

“So if you didn’t stand her up, then you went to dinner with her tonight. Why didn’t you just ask her for it if you wanted it?”

Damn. Why did my sister have to be so difficult? “I forgot to ask,” I admitted.

“And why do you need it anyway?” she continued without listening to what I was saying.

“Because I’m taking her out again.”

And that stopped her dead in her tracks. There was complete silence on the other end of the phone for a minute before she responded.

“Jackson, did I just hear you correctly? You are taking Kaylie out
again
? The same Kaylie that I specifically asked you not to mess around with? And after that conversation, which you apparently completely ignored, you want me to help you out by giving you her phone number?”

“Yes, Aubrey. That’s exactly what I am saying. I’m asking you to trust me when I say this is different. And to give me the number because I am your brother and I am asking you for your help. Something I almost never do, so it’s
gotta count for something here.”

“
Agh! You just had to pull the brother card, didn’t you?” she muttered. “Fine! I’ll text you her number, but if you mess this up and I lose Kaylie as a friend, I am going to be so pissed at you.”

“Understood. Thanks, sis,” I squeezed in before she hung up on me.

My phone chimed a few seconds later with a text message from her with Kaylie’s number. Mission accomplished.