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With pinched brows, she glances up at me. “What?”
Did he not tell her? “He has a boyfriend.”
A range of emotions dance in her eyes. Confusion. Shock.Disappointment. “Oh.”
I can’t help it. I need to know. “Do you like him?”
She nibbles on her bottom lip and gives a half-assed shrug. “As friends. Why?”
Unease swirls in my gut. I twist a lock of her silky hair around my finger as I gather my thoughts. “Just taking mental stock of how many men I have to contend with.”
She cocks her head to the side and scoffs. “You’re joking, right? Do we need to discuss your ex-wife?”
That’s laughable. “You have nothing to worry about, I promise you.”
“Well, neither do you.”
Her tone is cutting, laced with self-deprecation, and I question once again whether she’ll ever be truly whole without Jax.
7
ETHAN
Despite her denials,Aurora has been teasing me all day, so I’m not surprised when I find her straddling my lap on the couch, not thirty seconds after we get our shoes off at her Tribeca apartment.
Her red lips are deliciously swollen from our kiss, and my mind flashes to her on her knees, those lips wrapped around my cock. She works her mouth along my jaw and down my throat, a sure way to turn my thoughts into reality if I don’t slow this down.
“Baby girl, we’re supposed to be talking.”
Her teeth sink into my skin, and my words come out somewhere between a groan of regret and one of pleasure.
Sitting up, she pulls her hoodie over her head. “Not a single time have we been able to resist each other long enough to talk.”
Like a magnet, my hands are irresistibly drawn to her tits, palming them over her shirt. “More reason for us to have a rare conversation.”
“Well, if you weren’t so fuckable.”
She grinds against my relentless hard-on, and I lose all restraint. I grip her waist and flex my hips. “I’m glad you thinkso, baby. It’ll make convincing you to come home and move in with me much easier.”
Her head pops up, brows furrowed. “Come home with you?”
“Yes. I meant what I said.”
“What do you mean exactly?”
It’s obvious to me, but I spell it out for her so there’s no confusion. “You and I together. Now. Return to LA. Be mine.”
The playful atmosphere vanishes faster than Ricky when I arrived. Aurora averts her gaze and shifts in my lap, a torturous silence falling between us.
I clench my jaw and urge my temper to remain in check. “At least give me a chance.”
She glances up, tears in her eyes. “I can’t.”
My mood plummets, the tips of my ears burning. The absolute last thing I want is my world on the other side of the country. “Why? You plan to stay in New York?”
“I can’t just abandon my job, and I can’t live with you without…”Becoming attached. She doesn’t have to say it; it’s in the way she clings to me, the way she surrenders to me. “I’m not your ex, and I’m not playing house until someone of her caliber comes along.”
My heart beats an angry, violent rhythm. Does she think I’d toss her aside? Leave her and my child? Even if I previously said I didn’t want a relationship.