Page 33 of Puck Tease
My gaze darted back to the living room.
The sofa back was empty. Jax was gone. The blonde girl stood alone by the discarded beer bottles, her head swiveling, a small frown pulling at her lips.
A cold, sharp prickle crawled up the back of my neck, the immediate onset of dread.
"Yeah," I mumbled to Tyler, the word barely audible above the bass. "Maybe."
"I'm grabbing a refill. You want a shot? Tequila?"
"No, I'm—"
A hand, warm and calloused, clamped onto my bicep. The grip was familiar, a hard, possessive squeeze. Fingers dug into the muscle with enough force to leave bruises. I didn't need to turn to know who it was. The scent enveloped me—cedar, stale beer, and the electric hum of raw aggression that was uniquely Jax.
"Borrowing him," Jax’s voice rumbled, low and guttural, directly into my ear.
Tyler looked up, a flicker of surprise in his eyes, then grinned. "All yours, Cap. Try to get him to drink something other than tap water."
"Oh, I'll get something down his throat," Jax replied, the words thick with a double entendre so blatant, so reckless, that my breath hitched. Tyler, oblivious, simply saluted with his cup and melted into the crowd, heading toward the keg.
Jax didn't wait. He spun me around, his grip never loosening, and marched me out of the kitchen.
He didn't steer me toward the front door. He didn't turn toward the stairs that led to the bedrooms. Instead, he shoved me down the narrow hallway that snaked toward the back mudroom and the downstairs half-bath. It was a bottleneck, clogged with a queue of people waiting for the toilet, but Jax plowed through them like an icebreaker. "Move," he barked at a couple plastered against the wall, locked in a fervent kiss. They scrambled apart, eyes wide.
He reached the door of the coat closet tucked under the stairs. It was not a bathroom. It was a tiny, angled space where the team tossed their winter parkas and muddy snow boots. He yanked the door open, shoved me inside, and then stepped in after me.
The space was microscopic, suffocating. It reeked of wet wool, dust motes, and old rubber boots. Heavy coats hung from a rod, brushing against our faces, their damp fabric clinging. The slanted ceiling of the staircase pressed down, a claustrophobic weight.
Jax didn't close the door.
He left it cracked open, a six-inch sliver.
A sharp blade of hallway light cut across the planes of his face. The music still blared, the bass thumping a relentlessrhythm against the thin drywall. Laughter, fragments of conversation, and the shuffle of feet passed just feet away.
"Jax, the door," I whispered, my voice tight with panic, my hand reaching instinctively for the handle.
He slapped my hand away. "Leave it."
He crowded me back, his body a solid wall, until my shoulders hit the rough plaster. He pressed his length against mine, hip to hip, chest to chest. His heat radiated, a furnace through the layers of my hoodie, soaking into my skin.
"You were looking at her," he growled, his voice a low rumble, slurring slightly, the words thick with accusation.
"What?"
"The blonde. You were watching her touch me."
"I was standing in the kitchen, Jax. You were the one letting her paw you."
"Jealous?"
"No." The lie tasted bitter, sticking to my tongue like gravel I couldn’t spit.
"Liar."
He grabbed my chin, his fingers digging into my jaw, forcing my head up. His eyes were dark pools, pupils blown wide and black in the dim light. "You looked like you wanted to kill her," he whispered, a note of dark delight in his tone. "You looked like you wanted to walk over there and tell her who owns you."
"I... I didn't..."
"You did. I saw it. I felt it."
