Unraveled (Holding On Book 3) (9 page)

“Jesse,” she
returned. She didn’t look back. She stood, elbows on the counter, waiting for the bartender as if her body were not already beginning to smolder.

His lips skimmed her earlobe. “A little birdie told me someone might be in need of a little revenge sex.
Is that what you were looking for last night? Is that why you came home with me? Because you have to know, all you had to do was ask.”

Her body stiffened in his grip and then she twisted a
round in his arms to face him. The little birdie with a big mouth was named Jemma, no doubt.

Last night, he’d kept his distance.
Both physically and emotionally. Seeing him up close, like this, took her breath away. She couldn’t even conjure something snarky to say.

No
, she told herself,
it’s not being this close to Jesse that has me feeling this way. It’s the alcohol. It
has
to be the alcohol.

She tossed her head to the side and let out a sharp laugh. “I am
not
going to ask you for anything.” Her voice was cold. Her
voice
was cold, but her body was already blazing. That was before she even turned around to look Jesse in the eye. His blue eyes were already devouring her. It had been so long. She didn’t want to think about that. But since Nolan, of course, she hadn’t been with Jesse at all. She didn’t
want
to be with him at all. That’s what she tried telling herself. It was a lie and every single cell in her body knew it.

Even if she didn’t want to admit it.

Revenge sex for her? Translated to an easy lay for him. She crossed her arms and glared at him.

He ignored the hostility.
Instead, he smirked as he plucked her left hand up to inspect it. She immediately yanked her hand out of his grip but she knew he’d seen what he wanted to see. His eyebrows twitched upward and emotions she couldn’t identify washed over his face. His lips finally twitched up a bit in a smile while hers twitched in the opposite direction. She blinked hard because tears of humiliation were edging a little too close.

She tried to back away, forgetting the bar was right behind her.

“Hey,” he said, returning his grip to her waist as his eyes scoured her face. “So it’s true?”

There was no trace of a smile now.
She searched his face for signs of gloating. Or amusement. Instead, Carly realized, he actually looked…What
was
that look?
Concerned
?

Despite herself, she felt some of her fury dissipating.

She glanced through the crowd and was able to find Jemma. Carly shot her a venomous look. Jemma arched an eyebrow, as if to say,
What are you going to do about it
?

Jesse’s hand slid lower, cupping Carly’s backside and pulling her in tight.
It felt comforting and familiar and possessive and—

“I’ve missed you,
” he said softly.

Without warning, the heat faded and her body felt as though it had turned to ice. “You mean you’ve missed an easy lay?” Her tone was angry and bitter. After what N
olan had put her through, she couldn’t stand to be reminded that she meant nothing to
this
man either.

He blinked at her, looking genuinely surprised. “Cricket,
nothing
about you is easy. Nothing about you has
ever
been easy.”

Just like that, the heat was back.

8

Jesse was torn between his body’s desire to go search out some caffeine and his desire to pull Carly in a little closer. It was easier when she was sleeping. There was no telling what she would do once she woke up.
She was fiery and unpredictable. His desire to hold Carly a little longer won out because he wasn’t sure if he would get another chance.

He couldn’t see her face
because she was on her side, curled away from him. That didn’t keep him from looping his arm around her waist, pulling her in a little closer. She let out a sigh but didn’t awaken.

H
e closed his eyes, trying to shut out the slant of overly-bright sunlight that was slicing its way through the crack in his curtains. His thoughts wandered to the unexpected events of the past two days.

Bart hadn’t warned him that Carly was at Shady’s. That had been like an emotional kick in the gut. Seeing her without
warning when he hadn’t really seen her or spent any time with her since…Hell, it seemed that he couldn’t even remember when.

He realized that wasn’t true. He remembered when.
Exactly
. It was two and a half years ago. It was the night before the McGrath’s annual Fourth of July barbeque. Jake McGrath, Luke’s brother and Quinn’s husband at the time, had been his best friend.

He’d asked Carly to go to
the cookout with him. She’d refused, giving him some lame excuse about too many friends and family being there. For some reason, that had pissed him off in a way it never had before. So what if their friends and family were there?
So what
?! He was so far beyond ready to move onto more than just fooling around with her.

That’s what they’d been doing for years. He’d gone along with it because Carly was younger than him.
She had a wild side wider than the Grand Canyon. He’d wanted to give her some time to live her life. But that summer, she’d turned twenty-one. He’d decided he’d waited long enough.

When he’d asked her to be his date, where—
yes
—friends and family would be, and she’d turned him down? Something in him had snapped. He was tired of the games the two of them had been playing and he thought she should be tired of them too. So when she’d declined his offer, he’d asked Betsy to go.

Another huge mistake because things with Betsy had escalated faster than he’d thought they would. But that, he was sure, was his own doing. The heat of their relationship had been fanned by the flames of his frustration with Carly. He screwed around with Betsy too long.
Long enough to screw
everything
up.

Asking Betsy to that barbecue had been one of the worst decisions of his life. He never could’ve foreseen how that one simple act would spiral into
what it had. In no time, it seemed, Carly had met someone else.

Never had he thought she’d end up engaged to the bastard.

And
never
had he thought she’d end up back at his house. Not under any circumstances.

When she’d
asked to come home with him the other night, he’d cursed himself the whole drive, telling himself he should’ve told her no. Sent her on her way with Jemma, brought her back to her parents, brought her over to Luke’s…Just
something
that didn’t involve bringing her to his house.

Then she’d wandered down his hall, stripping as she went. Not looking back.

It had been torture. Absolute torture. And more torturous still to just let her go to his room while he crashed on the couch. But he knew he would’ve felt even worse if he’d followed her. Or at least, he
thought
he would’ve. Because he’d thought, at the time, that she was engaged. And as he’d told her, there were some lines he just wouldn’t cross.

No matter how badly he
wanted to.

But when he’d received that first text from
Jemma last night?

Engagement is off and Carly’s looking for trouble
. Thought you might want that trouble to be YOU.

That
had changed everything.

He’d known that something had been up with Carly. He’d known something was wrong. He never thought it was
that
. It seemed to be too much to hope for. Especially since the ring had been clearly on her finger, sparkling at him in ridicule every time he’d glanced her way.

He’d been planning on a quiet
night at home. A few bottles of beer and a hockey game while he tried not to think of his run-in with Carly the night before. Or the fact that she’d spent the night. Or the fact that she looked more beautiful than she ever had. Or that by letting her slip away, he’d hand-delivered to himself the biggest regret of his life.

He’d worked hard over the years
, since Carly was a freshman in high school, to get that girl out of his head. He’d been a miserable failure.

A few more quick texts back and forth with Jemma and a call to Bart to be sure she wasn’t messing with him, and he’d been rushing out the door to Shady’s.
The thought of Carly single again and hooking up with someone that wasn’t him? Hell. No.

Even after talking to Bart, he still
hadn’t believed it.

Not until he saw that naked finger for himself.

Up until that point, he knew he’d been a bit of an ass to her. When he’d first spotted her walking up to the bar, his old, cocky habits kicked in. He was used to carefully guarding his heart when he was around Carly.

And with good reason.

Once he saw that her finger was in fact bare, he managed to wrap his head around what that truly signified.

She was free.
To be his.

If only she would agree.

The problem was, with the rocky history they had, he didn’t know if she would ever agree. Not once in all the years that they’d been together had he ever manned-up and told her how he felt about her.

But he was going to do it now.

Today.

If he could only get her to listen.

Carly let out a little groan and her hand slid up. She rested it against her temple. Her fingers pressed down for a moment and then she let her hand fall back to the mattress.

He could tell by the sudden tension in her body that she was awake.

He reached over to smooth her hair back. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she returned.

He frowned at her glum tone. “Head hurt?” he wondered, hoping it was nothing more than that.

She bounced around until she was flat on her back. Then she turned her head to the side to face him. His stomach twi
sted when he saw her expression, the dullness of her eyes and the concern etched across her forehead.

Please don’t let that be regret
, he thought.

It was the last thing he wanted to see.

Without saying anything, she looked away from him again and stared at the ceiling.

“Look
, Carly,” he started. “Can we talk?”

She groaned again, theatrically this time, as she dragged a hand through her hair. Then without warning, she
popped up.

“Any chance we can pretend that last night never happened?” she asked over her shoulder as she nearly ca
tapulted herself out of his bed. She pulled a blanket with her, covering herself.

That was a first and he didn’t like it one bit. Not because he wanted to see her—which he did—but because she apparently felt the need to cover up.

“No, we can’t. Or at least I can’t,” he said as he quickly followed. He noticed she was scanning his room. “Your bag’s in the bathroom, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

“Thanks,” she said as she took a step toward the door.

“Hey!” He reached out, latching onto her wrist. “Hey,” he said again, quieter this time when he realized that she was still avoiding looking at him. “Carly?” She finally glanced up. “I really want to talk. Can you stay for a bit? If you want to go shower, I can start some breakfast.”

“I should really go,” she said as she tried to pull away from him. “I’ve hardly spent any time with my parents.”

“Don’t you think they can wait another hour?” He looked at her anxiously. He hadn’t expected things to be so…awkward. Usually, when they got together, they just fell into a comfortable routine. Maybe too much time had passed. Or maybe too much had changed.

He narrowed his eyes at her. Carly actually seemed—it took him a moment to determ
ine how she seemed. Embarrassed? Carly was never embarrassed.