BLAKE TUGGED ME inside the confessional, a favorite haunt of mine on my visits to Church, and the door shut behind us, making everything pitch black. I couldn’t see Blake anymore, but I could feel his hand on the back of my neck as he pulled me closer for a kiss. Any other night I might’ve welcomed this little interlude, but I’d left JT at the bar a while ago. No doubt one of my friends had joined him for a drink if they saw him standing alone, so I wasn’t worried about JT finding a girl to spend his time with. And maybe I’d been gone long enough to have him wonder about me. If he was still feeling even a bit of the connection between us at the party, then maybe a little jealousy would serve its purpose.
So unfortunately for Blake, this wasn’t going to happen tonight.
I pushed against his chest as I leaned back.
“Playing hard to get?” he said.
“I am, but not with you.” I found the door latch and popped it open. “Maybe another time.”
Blake let out a groan as I kissed his cheek, and then I stepped out of the confessional, leaving him inside. The man was a great dance partner, but my cock wasn’t interested. Not with JT only a few feet away.
I headed to the side of the bar where I’d left him—
But JT wasn’t there.
Frowning, I scanned the bar, the dance floor, the booths. Nowhere.
Maybe he’d gone to the bathroom.
I’d started in that direction when a hand landed on my shoulder.
“He left,” Gavin said as I turned to face him.
“What?”
“JT. I saw him leave—”
“When?”
“Just now.”
“Why the hell didn’t you stop him?”
Not that he needed to tell me why. The reason was standing right behind him, a finger looped through Gavin’s belted pants—his boyfriend, Joey.
He tried to explain anyway. “Sorry, we were busy with—”
I held up a hand and cursed. Why the hell had JT left?
“You can probably still catch him,” Gavin offered.
I ran out the door into the muggy night toward the front of the building. The limo we’d taken idled nearby, but if JT had ditched the bar, he wasn’t above ditching a ride too.
This late at night, the sidewalks weren’t crowded, especially in this stretch of avenue, and I instantly spotted his lean body about a block away. I took off at a run, not letting JT leave without an explanation.
“JT,” I called out when I was several feet away.
His head snapped toward me and he stopped.
“Leaving without saying goodbye?” I tried to keep my tone light, but I couldn’t help that a sliver of annoyance crept in.
“You disappeared. I figured you wouldn’t care.”
Oh, he was pissed. The bitter edge of his words told me that, and if they hadn’t, the fire in his eyes would’ve.
“You knew where I was. You could’ve come and joined in.”
JT gave a curt shake of his head. “I don’t think so.”
“I guess asking you to come back is a waste of time, then.”
“Yeah. I’m just gonna go.”
I could feel the tension in the air between us. “Let me give you a ride,” I said, shooting a text to our driver.
“No thanks.”
I pinned him with a look. “I wasn’t asking.”
“And I’m done following your orders. I can find my own way.”
This attitude wasn’t one I’d seen from him before. While a small part of me was irritated as shit, this was also pretty fucking hot. JT’s handsome face was set in a scowl that set off his pouty lips, and I knew I could harness the energy radiating off him into something much hotter.
If I could just get him in the limo.
“While I appreciate a stubborn ass from time to time, you have two options here. You can either get in the car or suffer the long walk home with me. I can assure you, there’s only one reasonable choice here.” As the limo slowed to a stop beside us, I lifted a brow. “So what’ll it be?”
“I don’t need you to do me any favors,” he grumbled.
I rolled my eyes and opened the door. “Just get the fuck inside, JT.”
JT narrowed his eyes on me and I could see that one part of him wanted to tell me to go to hell, but the other part…
He muttered something under his breath as he walked to the door I held open for him.
“For the record, I’m only doing this because it will get me home faster.”
Someone was definitely in a mood, and it was time to find out why.
I leaned in until only a few inches separated us, and it didn’t escape my notice the way JT’s breath caught and held. “For the record, I don’t care why. I just care that you get in—now.”
Those usually warm eyes of JT’s shot daggers at me as he finally climbed inside. I followed and shut the door behind us, and decided to sit on the opposite side of the limo to give him his space.
I knocked on the divider between myself and the driver, and as the car slowly pulled away from the curb, I settled back and eyed JT, who was busy staring at anything and everything we passed by.
That just wouldn’t do. I had approximately two miles to get him talking to me again.
“So, you gonna tell me what crawled up your ass between the moment I left you at the bar until now? Or would you just like me to look instead?”
JT’s eyes finally locked on mine, and his pissed-off expression had my cock standing up to take notice.
“I’ll pass, thanks.”
“You sure?” My lips crooked into a smirk that made his scowl darken even further, but hey, at least I was getting a reaction. “I’m told I’m helpful with that kind of thing.”
“Looking at asses?” JT fired back. “Why am I not surprised?”
I lounged back and stretched my arm along the seat, and when I let my legs fall wide open, JT’s eyes automatically shifted to them.
Ah, there it is… I’d been hoping to see if there was a chance that all this posturing and frustration was stemming from jealousy.
I raised a brow. “You seem very worked up tonight, Golden Boy. What’s going on with you?”
JT rolled his eyes so hard I was surprised they didn’t fall right out of his head.
“I’m not worked up. I’m just… It’s just… Is this what you do all the time? Go out, party, hook up with random strangers?”
“We’ve already had this conversation—well, part of it. So how about we just skip to that last part, which I think is the real reason you’re so fired up?”
“I’m not fired up.”
“If you were any more fired up, I would be a pile of ashes right now. You’re pissed off, and I want to know why. But since you don’t want to talk about that, let’s start with my random hookup.”
“I don’t want—”
“First off, Blake is not random. He’s a good friend who, at times, I’ve had benefits with.”
“A friend?”
“Yes.”
JT frowned as I ran my eyes down over him. The message I’d just delivered was received loud and clear: The door is wide open for you here…friend.
The question was, would he be brave enough to walk through?
“And second, I didn’t hook up with him tonight. Something you would’ve known if you’d bothered to wait for me. Instead, you ran away like you were fleeing a crime scene.”
JT swallowed and angled his chin up a fraction. “I didn’t flee anywhere. I just decided to leave. I usually do that when I’ve been ditched and left at a bar to hang out on my own.”
“Hmm.” I tapped my fingers along the back of the seat. “So what you’re saying is, you didn’t have a good time tonight.”
JT let out a long-suffering sigh as the fight seem to drain out of him. “It was okay.”
“Just okay?” I cocked my head to the side, studying him, then decided to dig a little deeper. “You seemed to be having a good time when we were talking.”
“I was,” he snapped. “But then you left.”
“Ah, I see.” And boy, did I. “That explains everything.”
“What does?”
“The reason your night was just okay. The reason it wasn’t good.” I leaned forward in my seat and whispered, “I left.”
A look of confusion entered JT’s eyes.
“I’m the good time, sweetheart. I already told you that.”
JT scoffed. “Do you think before you talk, or do you just say the first thing that comes to mind?”
“I didn’t say it. You did.”
“I did not say that.”
“Yeah, you did.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Did you or did you not just say, ‘I was having a good time and then you left’? Hence, I’m the good time.”
JT opened his mouth to refute that, then shocked the hell out of me by busting out laughing. All of his anger and annoyance left him as he shook his head.
“Admit it,” I said.
“I’m not admitting anything.”
“Eh, well, at least you’re smiling now—and looking less like you want to kill me.”
“It wasn’t you I wanted to kill.” He bit down on his lip as soon as the words tumbled out.
“JT—”
“Forget I just said that.” He rubbed a hand over his face, and the tension from seconds ago started to vibrate between us all over again.
“I don’t think so.”
“West…”
“Who did you want to kill? Blake?”
He looked to the ceiling of the limo, anywhere but at me. “I don’t even know Blake.”
“That’s not an answer.”
JT swiped his tongue over his lower lip and brought his eyes back to mine. “I’m sure he’s very nice.”
I grinned. “He is. But that’s still not an answer.”
“Well, maybe I don’t have an answer.”
“You know…” I ran my eyes down over his messy head of curls, heated cheeks, and slick lower lip, to where his dress shirt was tucked into his pants—and the distinct outline of his cock. “I might believe that if you could look me in the eye longer than five seconds and your dick wasn’t hard.”
JT cursed and went to cover himself.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I hear rubbing it just makes the condition worse.” JT snorted despite himself, and I scooted to the edge of my seat. “Why did you want to kill Blake?”
He bit down into his lower lip, and I nodded.
“You can say it.”
“Say what?”
I winked at him and reached out to draw a circle over his knee. “That he stole your good time.”
JT’s eyes lowered to my mouth, and I could see the battle with what he thought he wanted and what he really wanted playing out right in front of me.
He whispered, “Well, looks like I just stole it back.”
