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The one person I'm one hundred percent sure wants nothing to do with me.

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"Well,hellothere." Jax catches me right before I can collide with him. His big hands grip my shoulders.

My cheeks burst into flames as I shrug him off. He's wearing that smug smirk I've been wanting to punch off his face for decades now, his brows raised in implication, and why should I care? Yes, he did just catch me mid-walk-of-shame, but I have nothing to be ashamed of. I'm a grown woman who had amazing, incredible, fantastic sex with a guy I've been crushing on for years. If anything, I should be proud of my conquest.

The way he's looking at me makes me feel inexplicably dirty, though. All I want to do is get away.

"Sorry," I mumble, edging around him.

But he blocks my way. "What? You don't even want to say hello?"

"Not really."

He laughs, mocking. "Jeez. I was hoping if Adam couldn't do it that my boy Cayden could finally fuck that stick out of your ass, but apparently not."

Forget flames. My face is an inferno. Shame I have no freaking reason to feel burns in my gut, and I hate this guy. Ihatehim.

"Maybe you should give it a try," I spit at him, and holy shit. Where did that come from?

I regret it immediately, my mouth opening to take it back, only his eyes flash dark. He leans in closer, and my breath stutters in my chest.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"No. It was a—a joke. I—" I what?

I mean, Jax has been an asshole to me since we were pre-teens, but that doesn't change the fact that he's smoking hot. His long, brown hair is pulled back into a messy man bun at the back of his head, a couple of stray strands framing his chiseled, stubbled jaw. His full, pink lips are wet and sultry, his gray eyes piercing, and something uncomfortable turns over in my stomach.

It's never boiled over, but our sniping has always had a charged note to it. Suddenly, the tension is hot enough to throw sparks.

Only…only…

Cayden and I finally got together last night.

Shit. Maybe that's what's going on.

"Fuck off." I shove him back, and he goes, but it only buys me a fraction of an inch. "If this is some bullshit bro test, I'm not taking it."

"Excuse you?"

"You know what I mean. I finally get together with your buddy, so you try to get in my pants to see if I'm a cheating skank for him. No way."

I don't know what I expect, but it's definitely not the full-throated way he throws his head back and laughs.

"What?" I demand. God, this guy. If he isn't making me feel like whore, he's doing shit like this and making me feel about two feet tall. "Stop laughing—

He does. In an instant, his mouth snaps closed, and his whole demeanor changes. Intensity colors his gaze as he focuses it, laser-like on me. "He didn't tell you."

"Didn't tell me what?"

"Oh, this is too good."

He backs off, not much, but just enough that I can breathe.

And yet somehow, inexplicably, I miss his presence. The fierythingthat burns between us and maybe always has.

I step forward, getting in his face again. "What?"