Jackson: A Sexy Bastard Novel (5 page)

I
f this were a test
, he’d be passing. I hate admitting it, but this guy gets me completely unhinged. That and he just . . . gets me.

“So, uh, how do you know about this place?” Jackson lifts the flimsy paper napkin and attempts to spread it across his lap.

“How does anyone find a place? Just walked by one day, and it looked so good I stopped in.”

He stares at me. “You’re not serious.”

“What?” I widen my eyes and gaze around innocently. “You don’t think this place looks inviting?”

Meogda is without a doubt one of the ugliest joints in all of Atlanta. On the way in, we passed a fish tank, and the water was literally green. The reddish-brown floors are faintly sticky, and the walls are beige and adorned with cracks and air bubbles. There aren’t many other decorations, apart from a few sad strings of Christmas lights taped to the ceiling. Thank goodness for those Christmas lights, though, because there isn’t much other light to speak of in the whole place.

“Well,” I tell Jackson, when he doesn’t respond, “if you judged this book by its cover, you’d be missing out. It’s one of the best-kept secrets in Atlanta. The mapo kalbi will bring tears to your eyes.”

“Seeing as I have no idea what mapo-whatever is, that either means this food is supremely spicy, or supremely good.”

“Would I take you anywhere that wasn’t supremely good?”

His gaze sweeps the empty dining room. “If this food is as good as you say it is, why are we the only ones in here?”

“Because, I just happen to know restaurants better than you and this one being empty doesn’t have anything to do with the food.”

“I’m sure you know a lot of things better than me.”

He spreads his hands atop the table, and I am transfixed. They are so beautiful: a pianist’s hands, with long tapering fingers, but slightly callused, too. An artist’s hands. Hands I want on my body, at my hips, prying my legs open.

I give myself a shake.

“Well I obviously know Atlanta food joints better than you. Where were you earlier, anyway?”

“97 Park.” He shifts in his seat. I, meanwhile, try to keep my jaw from hitting the floor. 97 Park? That’s one of the most expensive places in Atlanta. I think the goddamned mayor eats there.

He took some girl—who is not his girlfriend—
there
?

Before I can react, our food arrives.

“Um, Skylar, it’s raw.” Jackson is staring at the plates of bright pink meat and vegetables being placed before us.

“Well, yeah.” I look at him dumbfounded. “This is Korean BBQ. What did you think the grill was for?” I start to lay some of the mapo kalbi across the grill, but then I stop myself. “Hold on. You should do the honors. Pop your mapo cherry.” I hold the tongs out to him, and our eyes meet.

“Well, it’s good to know you’re into popping cherries.” He takes the tongs, brushing the tips of my fingers as he does it.

“Sure. Right into my mouth. They’re my favorite fruit.”

He cocks a brow. “Good choice. Nice and juicy.”

I don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore. All I know is that I want those fingers, currently wrapped around that pair of tongs, pushing up inside me like they did last Friday.

I swallow and start to rearrange the side dishes on the table. “Well, go ahead and get some ribs on there. Show me what you’ve got.”

“I’m pretty good with a grill.” He neatly aligns six ribs across the grill. The white fat sizzles as the meat hits metal. “My friends and I usually grill out on the weekends by the pool.”

“Hold up.” I stop with a mouthful of kimchi suspended right in front of my lips. “You have a pool?”

“Yeah.” He shrugs. “It gives me an excuse to have people over.”

Is he implying that he wants to invite me over?

“You should try all of the side dishes while the ribs cook.” I push a few of the bowls toward him, describing what each one contains.

“How do you know all of this?” he asks as he scoops a little bit of everything onto his plate.

“I like food.” I shrug. “Plus, when your income limits your dining options, you start doing your homework.” Carefully, I lift a few delicate strands of glass noodles to my lips. “By the way, your ribs are burning.”

“Shit!” He scrambles for the tongs and flips the smoking meat off of the grill. “They’ll be . . . extra crispy.”

“Ok, Grillmaster.” I reach across and help myself to three.

“I’m saving us from food poisoning,” he insists, crunching into one rib.

I bite in to find that the rib isn’t all that bad; the crunch around the fat is actually pretty delicious.

“Look, let’s be honest—this place probably hasn’t passed a health inspection in years. If ever. Overcooking isn’t the worst fucking idea.”

“Oh Jackson.” I sigh and flutter my eyes. “You are such a risk taker.”

He looks like he wants to throw something at me, but I know he won’t. It would defy his upbringing, whatever sort of silver spoon experience that was. I purse my lips and wag my finger.

“Now, now, control that temper,” I say. “How about this: I’ll let you demonstrate just how
bad
you are by taking a strange girl home and showing her your pool?”

“Okay. Just one problem.” He swallows the last bite on his plate. “I don’t see any strange girls here.”

“Uh, hello?” I point to myself. “Strange Girl Exhibit A, right here.”

“You’re not strange.”

Guy has a good memory, throwing my words back at me, like that.

“Oh yeah? What do you know about me?”

“I know you like tacos. I know you are good at finding phenomenal hole-in-the-wall eateries. You don’t own a car, but you do have a driver’s license. You dance in a way that makes me hard as a rock. And,” he pauses, grinning, “you make the sweetest groan I’ve ever heard when you come.”

Turnabout’s fair play, I guess, but I wish I’d stopped this conversation about thirty seconds ago, because I feel open, exposed—exactly how I don’t want to feel in front of him, or anyone. Yet my body seems to say otherwise, my pulse accelerating, thighs tensing.

Maybe I just want to fuck him. Maybe these feelings of emotion and comfortable familiarity are just flukes. And if so, why should I deny my body what it wants? You only live once.

I take a giant gulp of ice water, crunching down on the cubes that float into my mouth.

“Okay, fine. So are you going to show me your pool or not?”

“Sure, I’ll show you the pool. And maybe I’ll even show you the rest of the house. If you behave.”

“Oh believe me.” I give him my wickedest grin. “I’ll behave.”

“
O
h my god
, Jackson, you’re a fucking old man!”

In the time it took me to make our drinks, Skylar has already circled the living room and found the corner where I keep my record collection. Granted, it’s not exactly hidden, but I have a much flashier sound system right out in the open beside my seventy-five inch flatscreen and in front of the Alexander Berdysheff painting—which, if I had to pick, is probably my most prized possession in the whole house.

And yet she bypassed all of that and went straight to where I keep the records and the antique turntable.

“Aerosmith? Ew.”

She is crouched beside the case, wiggling each LP out one at a time, reading the cover, and pushing it back in.

“Pink Floyd. Not bad. Oh fuck, the Eagles? Jackson, your music collection . . .”

I’m itching to tell her that it belonged to my dad, that it’s one of the only things I kept of his after the crash, actually, but I stop myself. We’ve only just met, and she won’t want to hear about that.

“Do you want your drink?”

“Definitely.” She pops up and comes across the room to me. I like watching her move: she seems weightless, as though gravity has no power over her.

“To strangers.” I hand her a glass, and we clink. Slowly, she takes a sip. I watch her lips on the glass, barely skimming the rim as the liquid eases down her throat.

“Holy shit.” She raises her glass to eye level and peers at the dark amber liquid. “That is not what I was expecting.”

I take another sip of my Old Fashioned. It tastes deep and smooth—just the way it should. I made them “Cash style,” meaning with all the usual ingredients, including top shelf whiskey, but substituting maple syrup for the sugar. It’s my favorite drink that he’s come up with, and I’ve worked hard to perfect it at my house.

“Are you a bartender? I guess I never asked what you do.” She takes another appreciative swallow and glances around. “Although as good as this beverage is, you’d have to be the best bartender in the country to live in a place like this.”

“And what if I am the best bartender in the country?”

“Well, then, kudos to you!” She salutes me with her glass. “The Porsche should have been a giveaway, anyway. No guy who drives a Porsche is gonna live in squalor. That would ruin the whole point of driving a Porsche in the first place.”

Suddenly she jumps up and peers closely at the turntable. “Does that actually work?”

“It does.”

“Can we play a record?”

“Sure.” I get up from the couch to help her set it up, but she shakes her head and motions me to sit back down.

“No no. It’s a surprise. Just stay there.”

As I sit back on the couch, I imagine how Ryder or Cash would handle a situation like this. Ryder would bound across the room, grab the woman, and fuck her brains out, right there against the record player. Cash wouldn’t even be in this situation, because he’d have already set up the whole scene ahead of time, complete with mood music and candles. And me? Well, I know that LP collection back and forth, and there are few albums in there that say, “Let’s Fuck.” So maybe I’ve been reading this whole situation wrong. Maybe our banter was just banter.

Suddenly, the speakers come to life and she turns toward me, eyes closed, and her entire body has begun to move in syncopation with the music. Her t-shirt is tied up to expose a smooth, flat stomach, and I watch the muscles ripple gently, hipbones shifting beneath the waistband of her skirt.

The song is Def Leppard, Pour Some Sugar On Me. I stand corrected with the ‘let’s fuck’ choice.

“You like?” She opens her eyes and does a little spin, which looks effortless but likely would have landed anyone else on their asses. My body aches with the need to touch her.

“Come here.” I start to stand, but she wags her finger.

“No way. Sit back down. I didn’t invite you up here. This is my stage now.”

Grudgingly, I comply, fighting the magnetism that is drawing me to her. Maintaining eye contact, she lifts one leg behind her in a stretch that pushes her skirt up her thighs. I swallow. Her toes grip the carpet as she leans, raising the leg higher over her head. The farther she raises it, the farther her skirt slides up. My fingers grab the couch cushion, wanting so badly to touch that perfectly formed thigh, to feel the muscle flex.

“I love the grittiness of vinyl, don’t you?”

Her leg is down and now she’s moving toward me. In the background Def Leppard beckons a “Little Miss innocent.” Fucking hell. This girl is anything but innocent.

Her body halts before me, hips gyrating, hair swaying. My hands reach for her, but she shoves me back against the couch and climbs onto my lap, pinning my hands to the cushions with her knees. I could flip her in an instant, press her back to the couch, bury my head between her legs.

But I don’t. Instead, I remain stock still, pulse racing.

No girl has ever taken control like this with me. It’s the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever witnessed.

Her mouth is slack, eyelids closed as she grinds against me. Her shirt brushes my face, and then her hair curtains us as she leans over and hovers her lips above mine. I can taste her breath, whiskey and maple and something slightly bitter, uniquely her. With a crash of symbols, I surge upward, but she pulls away, chuckling.

“Don’t be impatient. What is it they say? ‘Good things come to those who wait.’”

Without missing a beat, she reaches down and pulls her shirt up and over her head. Her bra is black and lacy, covering small firm breasts.

And her skin. Fuck, her skin. Pale, smooth, like cream poured over her body. A body that is moving against me, taunting me. It’s all I can do not to yank my hands free. But every time I start to slide them out, she leans her weight down, and I stop. I’m hungry for her. But I’m even more interested in seeing what she’ll do next.

She reaches behind her back with one hand, and her bra pops free, exposing perfect round breasts. I press my face forward, tongue out, and she lets me lick a circle around her pink areola before pushing me away, tilting her hips so that the pressure is un-fucking-bearable.

I am so goddamned hard. I want to takeover so bad and bury myself deep in her.

But I let her keep going. Vaguely, I realize that she’s unbuttoning my shirt and kissing my neck, my collarbone, my chest.

“Please,” I groan, “Skylar, let me touch you.” Her mouth on my skin is like a burn, the tip of her tongue rough, sandpapery. Then she rocks back, relieving the pressure against my cock, and I suck in a breath of frustration.

“Shhhh.”

Lifting her knees off of my hands, she scoots back and reaches for my belt. Finally, I can see beneath the skirt, between her legs. Her thong is dark pink. The material has shifted so that I can see her thong is drenched.

My breath is coming out hard and fast, but I can’t stop. She’s released my hands, and still I haven’t touched her. It’s taking every last ounce of willpower, but I’m watching her, waiting for her cue. Ever the gentleman. Or at least trying.

She glances up from unzipping my fly, and a devilish smirk flits across her lips as she pulls down my pants and boxers to free my dick.

“Should I be gentle?”

Holy Fuck.