Like Jack and me having sex.
Jack sits in the seat across from me, taking his menu from the hostess, his eyes fixed solely on me. “You ready for me to stop being a gentleman? Because we can leave right now and go back to your apartment.”
To bed.
His meaning is crystal clear, and the sexual tension thickens the air between us.
I can’t help the smile that tips up my lips and the words that leave my mouth. “You have to feed me first.”
So, apparently, I am going to have sex with him tonight.
Seems my sense and life rules got lost somewhere along that trail we walked the dogs on before.
That, or the sight of Jack’s tight ass walking in front of me in those jeans woke the old Audrey up. She never had any qualms with talking about sex openly. Was confident with men. Until …
Nope, not going there right now.
I am enjoying this little game the two of us are suddenly playing though. It makes me feel … alive.
The old me is back for the night, and I honestly like it.
There is nothing clean about the grin that Jack gives me. He rests his elbows on the table, linking his fingers together, stare still fixed on me.
I can’t look away from him either. I feel like it’s only the two of us in the world now.
It’s exhilarating and utterly fucking terrifying.
A shadow falls over the table, breaking the moment between us. Leaving whatever Jack was about to say a mystery.
“What can I get you both to drink?” asks the waiter.
Jack and I both order beers, and the waiter leaves to get our drinks.
I stare out the window, needing to collect my thoughts for a minute. Wanting to gain at least a smidgen of composure back. I’ve never felt so unbalanced yet more like my old self than I do around Jack.
It’s started snowing again. I watch the flakes drift lazily to the ground.
“Will your bike be okay?” I gesture to the weather.
“The bike will be fine. You and I will most likely have damp asses from the ride back home though.”
I’m already damp, just from looking at you, so no worries there.
I chuckle. More at my own dirty thought than what Jack said.
“I should get a car really,” he says. “Having the bike in this climate isn’t exactly ideal.”
I can’t imagine Jack driving anything other than his motorbike. Although a car would be nice to ride in on the way home. A wet ass is not high on my list of things to have.
“Have you always ridden motorbikes?” I ask him.
“Pretty much. Although I didn’t get to ride so much when I was in the military.”
“Too busy driving tanks?” I smile, resting my chin in my hand.
“Something like that.”
“Maybe you don’t have to get rid of the bike. You could keep it to use in the summer and just have a car for winter.”
“Does this place even have a summer?” he asks, leaning back in his chair.
“So I’ve been told.” I shrug. “I have yet to see it.”
“How long have you lived here?”
I feel my spine stiffen at the question.
Relax, Audrey. It’s a perfectly normal question.
“Six months,” I tell him. Even I can hear the caution in my voice though. So, I try to cover it up with my own question. “What made a motorbiking guy like you move to snowy Jackson?”
“Research.”
“For your book?”
“Mmhmm.”
“You write fictional crime books, right? So, what are you working on right now?”
If he has switched to nonfiction and is writing a real-life crime book, I’m out of here.
“You looked me up?” He grins.
“Your books. Not you. Don’t get a big head. I work in a library. It would be weird if I didn’t look your books up.”
He’s still smirking, and I feel like I’m digging myself into a hole.
“And?”
“What?”
“What did you think?”
“I didn’t read them. Crime is not my thing.”
He nods, as if remembering me telling him this when he first told me what books he writes.
“But they looked good. You first published when you were still in the military, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you always want to be a writer?”
The waiter brings our beers over, interrupting, and asks to take our orders. We’ve barely looked at the menu. But after a quick scan, Jack orders the yakitori, and I decide on the seared scallops.
“To answer your question,” Jack says after taking a sip of his beer, “yeah, I always wanted to be a writer. My father … didn’t see it as a viable career path. He was ex-military. He pushed me in that direction, and I allowed him to.”
“But you keep writing.”
“Yeah. My—” He suddenly stops, cutting his words off.
“Your what?” I ask out of curiosity.
He shakes his head, as if clearing his thoughts. “Sorry, I lost my train of thought there for a minute. I was just going to say … my friend, he was the one who got me published. I kept writing while I was away. I would send him the chapters I had written. He kept them all. Typed them up and submitted them to a publisher without me knowing.” He laughs to himself. “I got my first book deal because of him.”
Listening to him, I get the impression that he’s hiding something. Maybe that the he was actually a she, an ex-girlfriend, and he doesn’t want to discuss past women while trying to get in this current woman’s panties.
“Wow. That’s one good friend. Sneaky”—I chuckle—“but good.”
“Yeah. He is good. The best.”
“Where is he now?” I take a sip of my beer.
“Gone.”
“Gone? Where?”
He blinks, looking past me. “Australia.”
I feel like there is a story there. About him and some girl who left him to go to Australia. But I’m not going to dig for more information. I’ve done enough asking about his past for the night. If I’m not careful, he’s going to start asking me questions about my life.
“Wow. Well, thank God for airplanes, right?”
He just smiles in response.
A silence descends on us. Surprisingly, it’s not one I created. Something is
