“You are not taking Hakeem back to your place, not like this. He’s drunk, high, and twice your size. No way.”
Hakeem makes mild sounds of protest, but looks like he could float away any minute.
“Well, what do you suggest?” I ask, irritated with his logic and frustrated by my lack of forethought.
“Oh, now that I broke my back and a toe dragging around a three-hundred-pound seven-footer, you’re open to suggestions?” Jared shifts Hakeem into a more comfortable position. “Fucking figures.”
The twitch of my lips is just the beginning. He looks so put out, like a little boy not getting his way, that a laugh escapes me before I can catch it. And once it’s out, it won’t stop.
“Your toe,” I gasp, pointing to the foot Hakeem kept smashing as we descended the stairs. “I’m so sorry.”
“Apologies usually seem more sincere if you’re not laughing when you deliver them,” he says dryly. “You must have missed that in How to Win Friends and Influence People.”
“Oh, shut it.” After I get my borderline hysterical laughter under control, he’s staring at me, a small smile teasing his lips.
“What?” I ask, smiling back involuntarily.
“Your laugh,” he says. “I want to make you laugh like that every day.”
The comment blindsides me. We were working so well together, it was easy to forget how dangerous being around him is.
I don’t respond but walk the few steps to my car, unlock it. “We need to get him out of here.”
“So that’s how you’re going to play this? You’ll just keep ignoring it?”
I don’t answer, but that’s what I do. Ignore him.
“What should we do about Hakeem?” I ask, risking a glance at him over my shoulder.
Jared stares at me for long seconds before sighing and nodding toward my car. “I’ll follow you and sleep on your couch. I’m parked over there.”
“There’s no need for you to stay,” I rush to assure him. “To sleep on my couch, I mean.”
“Banner, it’s late,” he says wearily. “I’ve been up since four this morning. He’s not coming back to my place. He’s not staying at yours if you’re there alone. This is as much of a compromise as you’re getting.”
I reluctantly nod and help him load Hakeem, who has gone quiet—asleep but breathing evenly—into the car. He’s buckled into the backseat while we ride to my house. The whole way, I recite all the reasons it’s a bad idea to have Jared in my house with Zo not there. I pep talk myself into believing that everything will be okay. That I will emerge from this night unscathed and still faithful.
But as soon as Hakeem is tucked peacefully into my guest bedroom with the door closed, and Jared and I are alone, my confidence wavers. He hangs his jacket on the back of a stool at my kitchen bar. The muscles in his arms strain against the expensive material of his shirt. He rolls the cuffs back, eyes fixed on me.
“Would you like some water before we go to bed?” I hear how that sounds. “Uh, sleep. Before we go to sleep. Me in my room, you on the couch.”
He cocks one brow and folds his arms across the width of his chest and watches me sputter.
“Orrr . . . food?” I march over to the wood panel refrigerator and pull it open, studying the contents. “Let’s see. We have some grilled chicken. Or there’s . . .”
I trail off when I feel him at my back, the heat from his body contrasting with the cool air from the fridge.
“Some cheese or . . .” I can’t think when his hands span my waist, his thumbs seeking out the tense muscles in my back. “Leftover Indian.”
I lick dry lips and try to control my breathing that’s growing more erratic with every probe of his fingers.
“Thai,” I squeak, my voice high-pitched when he lifts my hair away and kisses the curve of my neck. “Ummm . . . or Viet-Vietnamese.”
His hands slide under my shirt from behind and come around to cup my breasts, stroking the nipples barely but insistently.
“Oh, God,” I gasp and drop my head back against him. “Jared, I can’t do this. I’m not a cheat.”
“Then let him go,” he whispers in my ear and slips his fingers under the lace cups of my bra to squeeze my breasts. “He doesn’t have to be caught in the middle of this. He doesn’t have to get hurt.”