Page 8 of One Time Only (One Time Only 1)
I burn up like a spaceship reentering earth’s atmosphere, searing across the sky, rocketing to supernova temperature.
My throat is parched, and I can barely speak as I absorb the enormity of his admission. “You’re . . .?”
I don’t even have to finish asking. He knows what I’m saying. Because I don’t fuck around with dudes who dig women, and only women.
Jackson nods and whispers in that deep, reedy voice that makes my spine sizzle, “Yes.”
But my questions don’t end there. They’re only beginning. There’s more I need to know. Just like I don’t mess with straight guys, I don’t party in the closet.
“Are you out?”
His answer is swift and tantalizing. “I am.”
I blink, frazzled, or maybe still shocked. “Like, one hundred percent out? This is common knowledge? I’m not, like, the first guy you’ve come out to?”
He laughs, and it turns into a scoff. “I’ve been out since I was a teenager. And you simply didn’t know.”
“How did I not know?” Because I can’t believe this gorgeous, smoking-hot beast of a man who I love to mess with, who I love to tease, who I have a motherfucking blast with likes dick.
He gives a shrug. “Because this is work. And because you never asked. And for the record, I don’t sleep with women. I only sleep with men.”
Those words alone are fanning the flames in me. Sleep with men. Yes, hell yes. That’s all I want with him right now.
For him to sleep with me.
But I can’t go there.
I truly can’t.
I stare down at his arm locking me in place, but I don’t want him to let go of me. I want him to cage me in, toss me on the bed, pin me under him.
My bones hum with need. My skin prickles with lust.
Still, there are more things I need to say. Things I need to tell him. “What bothered you so much? Were you bothered because you think I touched my friend in there earlier? Callum?”
He gives me a dismissive sneer. “I don’t know what you did.”
I need him to know. Need him to understand that I didn’t touch Callum. It feels vital that he’s aware I didn’t sleep with another man tonight.
I don’t know why I need to reassure him so badly. Maybe because sleeping with Jackson is literally the only thing on my mind right now.
That wild, dangerous thought has me in its clutches, and I can’t let him think I’d want him the way I do if I had been with another guy tonight.
Women are different.
He can’t compete with women.
He can absolutely compete with guys, and that’s why I need him to know there’s no competition.
That is, if he wants to compete.
Does he?
I scramble to give him the bare truth, words toppling out at Mach speed. “I didn’t touch him. He didn’t touch me. I was there for her. I was helping out a friend.”
But that doesn’t seem to sit well with Jackson. His brow knits, and his eyes narrow. “You were just helping? How noble of you. How generous.”
What. The. Hell?
With a surge of annoyance, I push his arm off me and snap, “Yeah, asshole. I was helping.”
Jackson’s eyes flash with apology. He straightens his spine. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. That was out of line.”
“No shit it was out of line. You’ve got it all wrong. Callum is straight, and I didn’t set a hand on him, nor did I want to.”
I hate that Jackson thinks so little of me. Fuming in righteous anger, I shove a hand against his shoulder to make my point.
News flash. He doesn’t move. The man is built like a brick wall, as he should be, given his line of work.
“I was helping him.” I spit the words like bullets. “He needed a kick in the pants to see that he was in love with Ivy, and guess what? It worked. Callum is with her now. He’s my best friend in the whole damn world, and I’d do anything for him, and some men need to have things shaken up to see what’s in front of them.”
Jackson eyes me up and down for a long moment, then huffs. His tone is still laced with envy, but he’s tamped it down some. But only some. “And is that what you did? You shook things up for them?”
“Yes. That’s what I did when I touched her and only her.” I stare at him again, trying to slide the final puzzle pieces together to figure out what’s happening. The man was jealous. The man said I didn’t need a different bodyguard for my fantasies. Is he offering himself? And am I actually thinking about taking him up on it?
He works for me. That would be all kinds of wrong.
And yet it feels so enticingly right.
I drag a hand through my hair, trying to sort out my dirty thoughts, to untangle them from the professional ones. “Why are you getting in my head like this?”
