Page 14 of Jealous God
He shot backwards. The hand on my thigh stilled. “Even if you wanted to?” Anger and booze made his voice thick. “Jesus, Elodie, do you know how many women would die to be where you are right now?”
“I know how lucky I am to be working for the band.”
Throwing back his head, he laughed. “Not what I’m talking about, and you know it. Every single woman in here wants to be right here, on my lap, with my hand up their skirt, and you talk like you’re doing me a favour. Please, love, don’t get cocky with me.”
And there it was, the real reason I didn’t mess around with men like Jax. As soon as their fragile male egos got bruised, they lashed out. They became nasty. He might think I was some rich girl who didn’t know how to look after myself, but he was wrong. I had been dragged up around men far more alpha than he could ever be. And I knew exactly how to deal with alpha holes… I ignored them. I didn’t give them the oxygen it took to answer them. Because they were nothing to me.
“Then get one of them.” Cocking my head to the side, I smiled at him. “Fuck your way through the country and straight into STI-ville, Jax, I don’t care much what you do or who you do it with, oh, and as for being cocky...” I slid from his lap as Tate and Dion appeared at the edge of the table. They were laughing amongst themselves, but I lowered my voice anyway. Bringing my lips to his ear, I let my breath flow against his skin, feeling him shiver. “I’m not cocky, Jax, I just have standards.” Scooting back an inch, I beamed across at his dark face. “And you don’t come anywhere close to them.”
EIGHT
Jax
Chicago went by without a hitch, and so did the next three stops on the American leg of our world tour. To anyone who looked at us, we were the old Dionysus Rising. Even Dion himself seemed to be back to normal. It was only behind the scenes that the cracks were noticeable. And they were mostly cracks I had put in us. My band mates were unquestionably loyal to me, and they always would be, but that didn’t mean that they wouldn’t chew me out if they thought I was in the wrong.
And they thought I was in the wrong with how I treated Elodie.
It wasn’t even that I was openly hostile most of the time, although spending what seemed like every waking moment with her, I had snapped more than was normal for me. But there was a coldness between us. Although coldness might be putting it lightly. More like a nuclear winter. Elodie couldn’t even be in the same room as me without her lips thinning and curling, and personally I wanted to rip my own ears off every time she opened her prim and proper mouth.
Not that either of us came right out and said we hated each other, though. We were nothing but professional. But our aloofness was putting a strain on the rest of the band. And it was beginning to show.
Still, there were only two more weeks, that’s all. And then we would be flying home. Dion could check into rehab or whatever the plan was, and I wouldn’t have to see Elodie’s smug little face ever again.
Two weeks and I could...
“God, Jax. Either go knock on her door and pin that girl down on the bed, or go elsewhere and get laid. Your constant moody fidgeting is starting to make me want to drink again.”
Guiltily, I tore my eyes from the back of the bus. From where she was. Bristling, I drummed my fingers on the table. Slowly, I raised my eyebrows to Dion, and instantly wanted to wipe the smug, knowing look from his face. “Not exactly a lot of opportunity to get laid here, unless you fancy it.” I raised an eyebrow suggestively and was rewarded by a small chuckle.
He sounded so much like his old self before all the shit with our old drummer Isla had gone down, before our newer drummer’s little sister had done some kind of number on his heart.
After a day, he had fallen for her, after a damn day, so it might have been a number on his ego and not his heart, because not even a hopeless romantic like Dion could fall in love that quickly. At least I hoped not. He sure as hell hadn’t acted like that over another woman in the entire time I had known him, which had been years. There had just been something about Lola, something that in his fragile state he had latched on to. Like he had told me, she was good, and he needed some of that in his life.
I had no idea if he still craved that light in his life. He hadn’t mentioned her for a while. But I suspected he did, and he was just playing it cool, trying his best to get clean, so maybe when we got back to the UK he would get a chance.
Still couldn’t fucking believe he had asked her to marry him, though. The very thought didn’t sit right with me.
Except part of it did. Being loved was part and parcel with who we were. We were loved and adored the world over. But it wasn’t the same as having someone who actually loved us for us. Someone that actually wanted to be with us because of the men we were and not the rockstars the world saw. That’s what Dion had seen when he looked at Lola. A chance for someone to like him for him, not for his fame or his money. And I wanted that for him.
I wanted it for myself as well.
One day.
Without meaning to, my eyes wandered back to the closed door. Behind it, Elodie would no doubt be sleeping. Or whatever else it was she did when she locked herself away so she didn’t have to be in the same vicinity as me. If it had been just Dion out here, I had no doubt she would have been out here chatting, laughing, playing cards, which I had caught them doing several times over the weeks she had been with us.
They were friends.
We weren’t.
“As tempting as that offer is, Jax, we both know I’m not the one you want to get naked with.”
I didn’t turn to him, mostly because I didn’t want him to see how true his words were. I didn’t know when it had started to occur to me that Elodie got under my skin because I wanted her. Sometime around the time I had pulled her on my lap and so much blood had rushed from my head and headed south that I thought I was going to pass out. Before that? I didn’t know, but it was starting to drive me and everyone around me insane.
“I’ve seen you naked plenty of times. You’re hot,” I told him with a wink. Goofing around with him was easier than thinking about Elodie, and the fact that having loud, angry sex with her might be the only thing that would clear the air. Bad idea, but, God, it was tempting. “I’d do you.”
Dion threw back his head and laughed. “Yeah, I know you would, brother, but wouldn’t you rather do…” He didn’t finish the sentence, instead he nodded his head towards the closed door. His voice was loud, and it would carry. All I could do was hope she was asleep.
“No.”
