Forcing Gravity Page 14

  “Great,” Jase sighed, rubbing his jaw. “Does he know we’re seeing each other?”

  I internally grinned when he said that. Apparently he thought we were still seeing each other. Yea!

  “No, he doesn’t. He’s not your biggest fan.”

  Jase rolled his eyes, no doubt assuming Ethan had made some preconceived judgment about him based on what he’d supposed was the truth from the tabloids. “He doesn’t even know me.”

  “Apparently you went to school with him for a number of years, and you did something offensive at some point, but he wouldn’t say what it was”

  I watched the color suddenly drain from Jase’s face.

  “What?” I asked. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing,” he said quickly. “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

  Dammit. I knew he was lying.

  “Alright, I’m going,” I said then, exhausted with how the night had progressed.

  “Are you okay?” Jase asked, searching my face for an answer.

  “I’m fine,” I lied.

  “Okay,” he said, not sounding convinced. I never was any good at lying. “We’re still on for Friday, right?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, why wouldn’t we be?”

  That awesome small smile appeared on his face. “No reason. I’m just looking forward to seeing you.”

  Then he leaned down and kissed my cheek, right at the corner of my mouth, and let his lips linger for a few beats. Having him so close to me did funny things to my head, and I fought to hold onto what had me so irritated just a few seconds earlier.

  “Jase, man, come on!”

  We both looked up to see Freddie beckoning Jase toward two SUVs that were parked in the street. I could see several girls hanging out the windows.

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” he called back, and Freddie shook his head impatiently.

  “You’d better go,” I told him, suddenly wishing he wasn’t dashing off.

  “Where are you headed?” he asked me.

  “Home. My roommate is staying here tonight, apparently, so I get the room to myself.”

  In a dorm, that was a rare thing. “It’s kind of a big deal for me since I haven’t really been alone in weeks.”

  “Really,” Jase said, his hand reaching out to tuck one of my curls behind my ear. He let his hand linger for a few beats before trailing it down behind my ear and down to my collarbone, making me shiver. His eyes stayed locked on mine.

  “Jase!” Freddie called again.

  Jase ignored him. “Can I come with you?” he asked me.

  I cocked my head in surprise, not sure what he was asking.

  “Where? To my dorm?”

  He nodded and reached out to take my hand, twining our fingers together. “If that’s okay. I mean, if you really want to be alone, that’s cool, but I figured maybe we could hang out.”

  He pulled me against him, so our mouths were only inches apart. I looked back at the girls Freddie had assembled for Jase and his friends. Some of them looked at us speculatively, no doubt wondering who the plain girl Jase was talking to was.

  “Don’t you have other plans?” I asked, and his gaze shifted to Freddie and the waiting SUVs.

  He looked back down at me. “I’d rather hang out with you.”

  Really? Over the make-out twins?

  “You – you would?” I asked, suddenly unsure of myself.

  “Yeah,” he said, his gaze still locked on mine.

  “Um, okay. I guess you can come back to my dorm with me,” I said, hoping I’d picked up my dirty clothes off the floor and didn’t have anything embarrassing lying around.

  Jase grinned widely, before he released me and walked around to the passenger door of my car.

  “What are you doing, man?” Freddie called after him.

  “I’ll see you later, man,” Jase said, as he hopped inside my car. I looked up to see Freddie shaking his head in frustration.

  “Is he mad at you?” I asked, as I slid into the driver’s seat and looked in the rearview mirror to see Freddie stalking back toward the SUVs.

  “Nah, he’ll get over it when he realizes there are two more girls he can divide up amongst himself and the other guys.”

  My stomach flipped, and not in a good way, as I wondered what Jase would have ended up doing with those two girls if he hadn’t run into me. Then I dismissed the thought because Jase was with me. He’d picked me over the mass of females he had to choose from who were a sure thing. That had to mean something.

  ***

  “Shit,” Jase muttered, as we pulled into the dorm parking lot.

  “What?” I asked, looking around. I didn’t see any cameras. There were students milling around outside, but that wasn’t unusual. It wasn’t even midnight.

  “Um, you don’t have anything I could use as a disguise do you?” he asked, eyeing the group of girls who sat on the steps at the entrance to the dorm chatting and smoking. His eyes darted around, taking in the possible landmines between us and the entrance. He looked like a trapped animal.

  I looked in the backseat, relieved to see one of Ethan’s hoodies back there. Jase didn’t need to know who it belonged to. “Here,” I said, handing it to him along with a black Hurley hat I had discarded back there at some point over the summer. “Do you want sunglasses?”

  He glanced at me with an uncomfortable look on his face, and I wondered how much he was regretting his genius plan to hang out with me.

  “Or, do you want me to drop you off at home?” I offered instead.

  Jase shook his head, as if shaking off what he was feeling, and smiled. “Sunglasses would be great,” he said.

  I handed him a pair I had stuck under the sun visor.

  He took a few minutes getting his disguise in place before he looked over at me. “How ridiculous do I look?”

  He looked like he was trying to hide, and that was a problem. He’d stick out like a sore thumb, especially since it was night time, and he was donning sunglasses.

  Without responding, I reached into my console and grabbed another pair of sunglasses that I’d stashed in there and slid them on. Then I reached back and lifted my own hood over my head.

  “There,” I said. “Now we both look ridiculous.”

  Jase grinned. “Thank you,” he said, as he leaned over and kissed me, which immediately sent sparks shooting from my stomach to other parts of my body that only he seemed to be able to ignite.

  When he pulled back, he stayed relatively close to me, and I could see the open wound under his eye. I reached out and touched underneath it with my thumb, rubbing softly the skin that hadn’t been marred by Ethan’s fist.

  “We should get this cleaned,” I suggested.

  “Will you do it for me?” he asked softly.

  I swallowed hard, my heart pounding faster in my chest as I nodded once. Jase turned to look back at the entrance to the dorm.

  “Now or never,” he said, as he opened the door.

  I met him at the hood of the car where his arm went around me, pulling me close. Keeping his head down, we walked across the parking lot and up the stairs to the entrance to my dorm.

  “Hey Logan,” one of the girls I knew from my floor called to me. “What’s with the sunglasses?”

  I smiled at her. “Fraternity social,” I answered, and she just nodded. “My date’s a little drunk, so we’re just going to head upstairs.”

  The girl, whose name escaped me, just nodded in agreement, as if accepting my answer at face-value, but I heard her whisper something to her friend.

  “You’d better get him upstairs before anyone sees him,” another girl said, and my heart skipped a beat. How the hell had they recognized Jase? Next to me I felt him stiffen.

  Knowing my face was flushed, I turned to face the pretty brunette who was watching me carefully. I recognized her as the other girl’s roommate and wished I was better with names.

  “Why is that?” I asked crisply.

  “Because it’s after h
ours. No boys allowed,” she said sincerely, and I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Make sure Riley doesn’t catch you.”

  I nodded. “Thanks for the tip.”

  Fortunately, we didn’t pass many other people on the way to my room, but Jase still kept his head down and shuffled along beside me. He didn’t say a word until we got to my room. Then he took off the sunglasses and hat and proceeded to walk the room, looking at the little details that made up my life.

  I removed my own sunglasses and dropped my hood before going over to my desk to retrieve the small first-aid kit my dad had insisted I pack.

  Jase had stopped at the foot of my bed. He looked back at me in awe.

  “That’s an amazing board,” he said, putting one knee on my bed so he could reach my vintage surfboard in the corner of the room. He ran his hand along the side of it.

  “It was my dad’s,” I said, going to stand beside him. I looked up to see that his hair was mussed by the hat he’d worn and reached up to smooth it down. “It’s the board he competed with when he was in high school.”

  “Really?” Jase marveled, still admiring the contours of the board.

  I nodded. “Yeah, he was really good. He won some regional events while he was in college and probably would have continued on to do more, but . . .”

  I drifted off, not sure how to tell him that my dad had quit riding competitively because I was born, and my mother was busy chasing her dreams, so he’d let his die. It wasn’t a fun story to tell.

  “But what?” Jase asked, looking down at me.

  I shook my head. “It’s nothing.” I unintentionally punctuated my statement with a huge yawn.

  “You’re tired,” Jase surmised, and I nodded.

  I felt bad for inviting him back to my room when all I really wanted to do was go to bed.

  “Then let’s sleep,” he said.

  I started for a moment. “You – you want to stay the night?”

  Jase gave me his trademark smile and took a step closer. “Is that okay?”

  My heart started pounding in my chest as I looked from Jase’s intense gaze to my small twin bed and back to him. “Sure,” I said, not even convincingly, to myself.

  I’d never slept in bed with a boy before, well, besides Ethan and Garrett, but they didn’t count. I wasn’t attracted to them, so I wasn’t hyperaware of them being so close. And close was what Jase and I would be if he slept in my bed. I considered offering to sleep in Henley’s bed, but in reality, the idea of waking up in Jase’s arms seemed sort of appealing – that is if I could sneak into the bathroom and brush my teeth before he woke up.

  “Are you really sure?” he asked. “Because I can ask Freddie to swing by and get me if you’re not.”

  The idea of Freddie and his gaggle of half-naked females taking Jase away from me suddenly wiped out any fears I had of him staying the night.

  I forced a smile on my face. “No, stay. I’d like that. But before we go to sleep, can you let me clean your cut and get some ice for your jaw?”

  “My jaw’s fine,” he said, and I knew he was just trying to be macho.

  “But your eye is swelling,” I said, nodding toward the area above his cut that I was sure would be black and blue the next day.

  “It is?” He rushed to the full-length mirror on Henley’s side of the room. “Shit.”

  “It’s not that bad,” I insisted, moving to stand next to him.

  “It will be,” he said, shaking his head. “Lelani is going to kill me.”

  “Lelani?”

  Who the hell was that?

  “My make-up girl,” he said, shaking his head in annoyance at his almost perfect reflection.

  “Oh,” I said, remembering he was filming the next day. Now I was even more pissed at Ethan.

  “It’s fine,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. He headed toward the bathroom we shared with the girls next door. “Bathroom’s in here, right?”

  Before I could stop him, he opened the door, and I heard a shriek. “Oh, sorry,” he mumbled closing the door in a rush. He turned to face me, wide-eyed. “There was a girl in there.”

  “Was she decent?” I asked, suddenly panicked that he’d walked in on Whitney or Tracy half-naked. They should have locked the door to our room from the inside.

  Jase shook his head, still slightly stunned. “She was walking in at the same time I was.”

  “Shit. I’ll be right back.”

  I walked out into the hallway to the outer door of Whitney and Tracy’s room and knocked. Whitney flung the door open, and the excitement on her face was palpable. “Get in here!” she shriek-whispered.

  “Hey Whit, you guys okay?”

  She nodded eagerly, her eyes dancing in delight. “We’re great,” she said, looking back at Tracy who was perched on her bed grinning.

  “Hey Logan,” she called, grinning at me conspiratorially. “Who’s the guy?”

  “Just a friend,” I said, waving them off. “I’m sorry he burst into the bathroom. I forgot to tell him to knock.”

  Tracy grinned so big I thought her face would explode. “He doesn’t have to knock. Logan, what the hell is Jason Brady doing in your room?!”

  I sighed. So she had recognized him. Dammit.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, feigning ignorance. “That’s not Jason Brady.”

  Whitney and Tracy laughed.

  “Okay, whatever you say, Logan,” Whitney said as Tracy continued to laugh.

  “It’s not,” I insisted.

  “Damn, I wish he’d been wearing less. I’d kill to see his abs up close and personal,” Tracy lamented.

  Okay, so I had to admit, she had a point. Jase’s abs were spectacular. But that was so not the point.

  “Guys, he’s not who you think he is, okay? He’s just a friend, and his name is Keith.”

  “Okay, whatever you say,” Tracy said.

  “Tell Jason we said goodnight,” Whitney chimed in, and I just shook my head and let myself out of their room.

  Jase was sitting on my bed when I returned to my room. “Everything okay?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah, they’re fine. Crazy, but fine. Come on. Let’s get your cleaned up.” I sat next to him on the bed, the first aid kit open next to me and opened an antiseptic wipe. “This will probably sting, okay?”

  Jase nodded, pursed his full lips and squeezed his eyes shut in preparation for the pain I was about to unleash on him. Instead of dabbing the wipe to his cut, I took advantage of his closed eye and leaned forward to press my lips to his. They were so inviting and plump that I couldn’t not kiss them.

  It took a few seconds for Jase to react, but soon he was kissing me back. “That didn’t sting at all,” he said, against my lips.

  I smiled. “Sorry, I got distracted.”

  “I’m so glad,” he said before he pressed his tongue to my lips, seeking entry into my mouth.

  He pushed the first-aid kid to the floor, spilling the contents, and pulled me down next to him so we were lying side by side as he continued to kiss me. His hand went to my hip, pulling me flush against his body as his lips continue their measured assault on mine, my concentration growing thinner with each passing moment.

  “Your cut,” I protested when his lips moved to my jawline. “I need to clean it.”

  “It’s fine,” he said, kissing a trail from my jaw to my ear where his lips met my earlobe and sucked gently.

  I let my head fall back, so he moved his hand behind my neck to keep me steady.

  “You looked so amazing tonight,” he murmured against my throat, and I knew he must be delusional.

  “Compared to what?” I asked, my confidence leaving me again.

  “Compared to every other girl at the party,” he said. “Had I known you were there, I wouldn’t have talked to anyone else.”

  “But I wasn’t wearing anything sexy,” I said, as his hand moved under my shirt to cup my breast.

  “You’re sexy no matter what you wear,” he sa
id, pulling back to look in my eyes.

  Then his hand moved under my bra, his fingers seeking out my nipple where they tugged and pulled and massaged it, driving me insane with sudden need. I let out a gasp of surprise and delight, and Jase smiled, his gaze still locked on mine.

  “Jase, I don’t think I’m as experienced as most of the girls you’ve been with,” I said then, hoping it didn’t ruin the mood, but he needed to know that sex wasn’t in the cards that night.

  “That’s okay,” he said, but his hand slid out from under my bra.

  “Why did you stop?” I asked, looking up at him.

  He looked taken aback. “I thought you wanted me to.”

  I shook my head. “No, I just wanted you to know that about me. That’s all. You didn’t have to stop.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I nodded. “Positive. I’ll let you know when to stop.” He didn’t move, so I sat up just enough to remove my shirt and my bra. “Please continue.”

  His eyes drifted over my bare chest for a few beats before he sat up, removed his own shirt and tossed it to the floor. I ran my hands up the front of his chest, feeling the hard planes of his abs and pecs. Good God the boy was sexy. He didn’t have an ounce of fat on him.

  Jase gazed at me thoughtfully as my hands ran over his chest, breathing evenly, before he took in one deep breath. I slid my hand around to his shoulder blades and pulled him down so we were touching, skin on skin, and guided his lips to mine.

  “You have great lips,” I said, as I kissed him, relishing in the full, soft lips pressed against mine. I could kiss him for hours.

  “They’re multi-talented,” he said, pulling away from me.

  “Oh yeah?”

  He nodded and brought his mouth down on my nipple and sucked it into his mouth. I let my head fall back with a gasp, as I tried to keep my vocalizations to a minimum. The last thing I needed was the girls on the other side of the wall hearing me make-out with Jase.

  As Jase kissed a trail down my stomach, hitting the sensitive spot just below my bellybutton, I shivered. He looked up at me and grinned. “You okay?”

  I nodded, and watched him as he continued south.

  He rolled to his side and moved his hand to the button of my jeans. “Is this okay?”