His Kiss and His Bargain

CHAPTER 7

The second half of the game was in full swing. The Raging Buffalos were winning, with his brother dominating the court like an out-of-control infectious rash. He was everywhere and scoring. Making sure his team would walk off the court with their heads held high.

Jaxson tried his best to keep his eyes on the game. Not only was he there for Hunter, but he had always enjoyed watching his brother play. And in the recent months, basketball was the only place Jaxson saw that Hunter truly let go and freed himself from the shadows that troubled him since their father’s death. 

As things stood, they were the only immediate family they each had. So Jaxson made it his priority to always make time for his brother. Even for something as simple as a college basketball game. He didn’t mind. His presence reminded Hunter that he was there, no matter what. That they still had each other.

But unlike all the other games he had come to watch in the past, this time he struggled to concentrate on his brother’s skillful moves. His eyes kept wandering to the woman in the stands. And he had noticed he wasn’t the only one whose concentration had been divided.

He had caught her looking at him at least twice before she abruptly looked away and pretended to focus on the game or on something one of her companions had said. Jaxson couldn’t deny it. He liked that she couldn’t just ignore him. It gave him comfort that he wasn’t alone in the madness that had taken over his brain.

Now that he knew she was not one of Hunter’s numerous one-night stands, Jaxson was eager to find out who exactly the woman was. And he was just as eager to re-acquaint himself with her mouth. 

The memory of the kiss he had claimed in his brother’s apartment had both frustrated him with guilt and given birth to a raw desire in him. But now that he knew he had no reason to feel guilt, desire took hold with a vengeance. He had to talk to her. At the very least, he had to find out what exactly she had been doing in his brother’s apartment.

The opportunity presented itself at the end of the game. While people celebrated the Raging Buffalo’s victory, Jaxson saw the woman slip out of the building in short, hasty steps as though she were making a run for it, and he followed without a second thought.

Hunter was caught up in the celebrations with his teammates. Jaxson knew it would be a few minutes before his brother looked for him. A few minutes was all he needed, he assured himself.

By the time she had reached halfway across the car park outside the college gym that held the basketball court, Jaxson had caught up with her.

There weren’t so many people around yet as most were still within the building celebrating the win over Ascho.

Jaxson reached out and grabbed her elbow. Effectively halting her hasty steps and causing her to gasp in shock as though a current of electricity had just traveled through her body. 

The sound of that gasp went straight through him like a Pavlov stimulus reminding his body of the pleasure he’d had the last time he heard it.

“Let go of me,” she demanded a beat later when she had taken a breath. 

She hadn’t even turned and given him a proper look, but somehow she had known who exactly had stopped her. 

“I want to talk to you.”

Chloe’s head jerked his way. Her eyes widened as she took a second to really look at him. Then she blinked as though she hadn’t expected to hear those words leave his lips. In a very skeptical voice, she asked, “Talk about what?”

“I have just discovered that you are not one of the many warm bodies warming my brother’s bed.”

Her eyes narrowed. Of course, she wasn’t. That would be her friend Brooke, but she wasn’t going to say that. “Is that what you assumed the other day?” she asked, even though she now understood they had both assumed the other’s identity and had both been wrong.

“You didn’t exactly give a great first impression with your entrance.” 

Jaxson’s brows drew together as he regarded the young woman. He had almost begun to think his imagination had been exaggerating her natural beauty, but he was mistaken. His imagination had been dulling it. She was breathtaking in a natural way. Most of the women he met on a day-to-day basis, although sexy, they always had layers upon layers of expertly layered makeup. 

He had no issues with women that used everything created by the cosmetic companies to enhance their beauty, but it had all stopped fascinating him a long time ago. But not the woman in front of him. She fascinated him a great deal.

He could see her skin was free of any makeup. A sheen of sweat even covered her face and neck. Obviously a result of the heat that had pulsed in the gym during the game. Jaxson liked it. He wanted to press his face against her neck and just take her in with a deep breath. 

 “What is your name?” he asked in a softer voice he could barely recognize as his own before giving his head a shake. He needed to get a hang of himself.

Chloe was having an internal battle of her own. She was fighting to maintain her composure despite the tingles she felt racing up her arm from where he held her. 

Somewhere at the tail end of her jumbled thoughts, she remembered they were standing in a car park. Her eyes darted around the car park, wondering if they had an audience. The last thing she wanted was to draw attention to herself. And standing with a very handsome, tall man that looked like he had just walked off a magazine photoshoot, while the man insisted on holding her elbow, was definitely the perfect recipe for gossip.

“Please, let go of me,” she said in a slightly calmer voice, hoping to appeal to the man.

“Answer my question and I might.”

When she continued to hold her silence, Jaxson bit out, “I will find out one way or another. But it would make our interaction much more civil if you just gave it to me. It’s just a name. I have not asked you for your bone marrow.”

“Chloe.”

Jaxson smiled. “See… You didn’t lose a tooth, did you?” Before she could respond, he went on. “Chloe.” He said it like he was testing the name on his tongue. “Would you now tell me what you were doing in my brother’s apartment? Is it just a habit you have to sneak into people’s homes through their windows?… Or did you have a specific reason?”

Chloe had gone completely still the moment the man had revealed he was actually Hunter’s brother. It made sense. She had found him in Hunter’s apartment, so there was no reason to think the man was lying.

Her mouth opened and closed without a response, leaving her lips. She wasn’t sure if this new development was better or worse. Hunter’s brother had caught her sneaking into the apartment. The crime hadn’t been reported. She knew this because she had kept an ear open, expecting to hear a report about the police looking for the woman who had climbed through Hunter’s window in the night. 

And she doubted it was the lack of a name that had stopped him from reporting her. But she still wondered. She had no idea why he hadn’t. And she also didn’t know if he would report her now that he knew exactly who she was. Perhaps he hadn’t reported because he hadn’t wanted to involve Hunter, she thought. But now he knew she wasn’t connected to Hunter, so there was nothing stopping him. Or maybe he had another angle he was playing and she would pay for her sins in a different way, Chloe mused with a troubled frown.

“I haven’t kissed you yet… So there is no reason for you to be speechless already,” he said with a self-satisfied smile.

Chloe snapped out of her momentary daze and twirling thoughts. Angry eyes glared at him. “Don’t you dare,” she hissed.

With a flash of amusement in his eyes and an arched brow, Jaxson leaned in closer to her. “I don’t remember you fighting me last time. Actually… You looked pretty much into it as well.”

Warmth flooded her cheeks. Chloe knew he spoke the truth. She hadn’t pushed him away. She hadn’t even accused him of forcing her when he broke the kiss. But she would be damned if she let him think she had enjoyed it and craved for more.

“Only in your dreams, mister,” Chloe said in a voice that would have impressed an ice queen.

“Jaxson,” he drawled. “Since we are discussing such delicate matters, it is only right that you know my name as well.”

Chloe swallowed. ‘Jaxson’ she liked it. It actually suited him, she thought. Her brows quickly drew together. Was she really analyzing how well his name complimented his looks? 

Chloe gave her head a shake and shot the man another angry glare as though it was his fault her mind had gone off track. “There is no need for me to know your name, and we’re not discussing anything delicate. Unless you want to revise how poorly you kiss.”

The woman was really trying to give his ego a kick, Jaxson thought. But what she didn’t know was that he had too much experience to believe that he had kissed her like an inexperienced, overzealous adolescent, like she tried to insinuate. “Are you denying enjoying my kiss?”

“If you called that a kiss.”

Jaxson’s smile didn’t falter, even though his spine stiffened just a tiny bit. His eyes dropped to her lips. “Okay... Do you want to show me how an expert does it?”

Chloe blinked. She hadn’t expected that. “I am not kissing you!”

The hand around her elbow tagged, and Chloe found herself plastered against Jaxson’s body. A gasp escaped her lips and his eyes immediately narrowed on them. There was a hunger in his eyes that was hard to miss. He looked like a man who had just seen water after a long trek through the hot desert. 

But before anything could happen, someone walked over to where they stood too close to each other to be considered innocent and platonic. And in plain sight, for anyone to see.

“Chloe, are you going back to your room?”

Chloe turned her head slowly, almost in a dazed-like state. She stared blankly at the woman smiling at her while shooting glances at the man that still held her. Chloe could vaguely remember seeing her in the same building she and Brooke occupied. But they had never spoken before, and Chloe hadn’t even imagined the fellow student knew her name.

Although the smile was aimed at Chloe, it wasn’t hard to determine why the woman had suddenly chosen to speak to her. Teeth grinding irritation crawled up Chloe’s spine one vertebra at a time.

She tugged her arm out of Jaxson’s hold and, thankfully; he let her go. Then she took a step back. His face gave away nothing, and he didn’t try to stop her when she took another step away.

Not bothering to answer the irrelevant question asked, Chloe turned her back on the woman and Jaxson and walked away. If her breath was a little shaky and her insides melted in the heat of what almost happened, no one was the wiser.  

There was no point denying the fact that she would have kissed him again if he had just closed the last breath of gap between them. And that realization angered her to the bone more than the sudden friendliness of her college mates.

Chloe stiffened her back until it felt like her spine had taken on the properties of a steel bar. She didn’t dare look back, but she could feel his eyes on her until she turned the corner and was out of sight.