His jaw is set hard, but his tone stays deadpan. “I’m sure they’d make an exception for you.”
I wiggle my brows, messing with him some more. “You want to go with me? Hey, how about we do that? Just like a couple of bros. We’ll get massages. Get our nails done.”
Jackson shakes his head. “Things that will never happen.”
“I don’t know. I could use a massage to work out the kinks.”
“Yeah, work out the kinks. That’s what you did tonight,” Jackson mutters.
I latch onto the way he said kinks. That last word seemed to rankle him. I sit up straighter, deconstructing once more. Replaying his words, how he talks. There’s something in his tone. It’s got a hint of . . . jealousy?
Is that it? Is that what I hear in Jackson’s voice?
Suddenly, I’m holding a few key puzzle pieces—first, the “Don’t you need to return to your private party?” one, and now the “That’s what you did tonight” piece.
And they might fit together, if I can turn them just so.
But I’m not sure, so I keep up the razzing. “You know, I think I am ready to get reacquainted with thousand-thread-count sheets and my big-ass bed overlooking the Strip.”
“Let’s get you back, then.” And his tone now is calm, centered. It’s the one I’m used to. He likes my answer, as if he’s glad I’m choosing shut-eye over partying.
We leave Speakeasy, traveling through the casino. Along the way, some fans spot me and shout their hellos. I say hi back as Jackson stays right by my side, but mostly we avoid the spotlight.
Once we’re inside the elevator, we’re quiet.
That’s unlike me, but my brain is buzzing.
It’s turning over all those words he said.
What they might mean.
They’re a song I can’t stop hearing, a chorus that won’t quit playing.
It’s a drumbeat inside me, loud, insistent.
I can’t ignore it.
I have to face it.
Have to know where it’s coming from.
When we reach the top floor, I stop a few feet outside my room. I swivel around, meet his eyes, and cut to the chase. “Why did you ask it like that—if I was going back to my private party?”
He swallows a little roughly. His gaze flickers with a hint of irritation, but he erases it quickly. Then he answers me in a toneless voice. “Because that’s where you were.”
“Yeah, that’s where I was, but . . .” There’s something else to his words.
I flash back on the last hour at Speakeasy, the way we talked, the things he said. Was there something in his eyes all along? Was he looking at me in a way that I damn well understand?
My skin sizzles at the possibility. My dick twitches in my jeans.
I don’t want to let myself think anything this tantalizing, this tempting.
But you don’t feel jealous unless you want something you can’t have.
Was Jackson jealous of Callum? Over me?
My skin tingles from that possibility.
That alluring, enticing possibility.
Curiosity grips me, wraps its arms around me. My gaze stays locked on his. “Let me ask again, Jackson. Why did you say it the way you did? Like it bothered you?”
There’s a challenge to my words. Some desperation in my tone. I feel wildly desperate right now.
I’m dying to know if I’m reading him right.
If I’ve been wrong about him all along.
He shrugs, his gorgeous face giving nothing away. “No reason. Just a normal question.”
But see, I’m the dog with a rope toy, the kid with a lollipop. I can’t let this go, because my Spidey senses are tingling. Straight guys don’t ask questions like that with a hint of jealousy in them. Straight guys ask with a wink and a nudge, like it’s bro banter.
Jackson’s question didn’t sound like locker-room talk. Nor did it sound like a professional interest in my agenda.
I’ve got a feeling, a tantalizing feeling, that his question was born of envy. It was bred from longing.
I know those sentiments. Hell, I know emotions inside and out. Mining them, exploring them, excavating them from the depths of the soul is my damn job.
I’m not a man who’s afraid of speaking his mind. “I don’t think that’s why you were asking. I think it bothered you, the idea of me going back to the private party.”
Once I say that—bothered—I’m dead sure I’ve read him right. As sure as I’ve ever been of anything.
It’s intense, this certainty, the way it shifts possibilities around. Reorders thoughts. Opens up options.
The way fantasies start to feel tangible.
He breathes hard through his nostrils. Licks his lips. Stares at me like he’s weighing this, like he’s debating whether to answer me, whether to reveal something.
I rub my thumb over my forefinger. I am definitely hoping, most fervently wishing for a particular answer.
Absolutely wanting a particular answer.
I push for it one more time. “Why did it bother you, Jackson?”
I hold my breath. I’m hoping so damn hard for him to upend all the assumptions I’ve made about him, knock them upside down and inside out.
My bodyguard stares at me, unflinching. A thousand debates seem to rage in his eyes.
And in one move, he settles them. He steps closer and lowers his voice to a rasp. “You want to know, Stone?”
I nod savagely. “I do.” I want to know so damn badly, more than I’ve wanted anything in ages.
“You sure?” The question is hot, full of fiery intent.
“I absolutely want to know.”
“Then I’ll tell you,” he hisses.
In a second, or maybe less—it all happens so damn quickly I can barely process it—he shoves me against the wall, slams his arm across my pecs, and pins me.
My breath catches. Shock radiates through me, but it’s a good kind of shock. A filthy kind of shock. This is the answer I was longing for.
Lusting for.
His forearm bands tighter against my chest, sending sparks over my skin, making my dick throb.
His possession, his intensity is such a turn-on. He’s in my space, up against me. He’s so close, and his voice is low, a mere whisper in my ear as he finishes the thought, giving me the white-hot answer to my question. “Because you didn’t need a different bodyguard for your fantasies.”
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?”