“But you’re too much of a pussy to tell her brother to go fuck himself?” Jase couldn’t stand the fact that someone would interfere with someone else’s happiness. It wasn’t Max’s fucking business what Ashlynn or Leyton did.
“Watch it,” Leyton growled, a clear warning that Jase was overstepping.
“And me?” Jase wasn’t jealous. Quite the opposite, actually. He merely wanted Leyton to finally admit it.
“What about you?”
“Don’t play games with me. Do you fucking want me or not? I know for a fact Max didn’t warn you away from me.”
“It’s not like that.”
“The hell it ain’t,” Jase exclaimed. “Don’t try to fool yourself more than you already are. You’re just as turned on by the thought of bein’ with a man as you are a woman.”
“Not true,” Leyton said, his tone softening.
“News flash, Matheson, the way you fucking kissed me says it all.”
“You don’t fucking get it,” Leyton countered hotly, taking a step forward. “It’s not just any man or any woman that I want. It’s you. It’s Ashlynn. But I can’t have you. Either of you.”
“But you can.”
“You don’t know what you’re fuckin’ talkin’ about. And we’re not supposed to be talkin’ about me and what I want. This is about your ability to protect Ashlynn.”
“I’d like to think Max would’ve said somethin’ if he was worried about his sister’s safety. He’s got cameras everywhere. He sees everything, and he wouldn’t hesitate to put me in the ground if he didn’t approve of my ability to keep her safe. So that tells me you’re talkin’ out your ass. This isn’t about me doin’ my job. This is about me doin’ Ashlynn and you wantin’ to be part of it.” Jase took a deep breath. “Well, here’s the deal. When you’re ready to come to terms with what you want, we’ll be waitin’. Until then, keep tellin’ yourself that loyalty is what’s keepin’ you away.”
Jase spun on his heel and went for the door. He gave Leyton one second to respond, but when he didn’t, he left him there to chew on that. Leyton would come around, of that Jase was certain.
The question was, how long would the man torture himself before he finally gave in?
Chapter Eight
The question was … who needed protection from whom?
Rather than go home like he’d wanted, Leyton waited for Max to return from the hospital so they could talk. He could’ve used his phone or borrowed Max’s laptop and checked up on a few things, but instead, he had sat outside under the stars, alone.
His conversation with Jase had continued to replay in his head over and over again until he was dizzy from thinking.
But you’re too much of a pussy to tell her brother to go fuck himself?
Leyton knew one thing for certain; he wasn’t a goddamn pussy.
Did he respect Max? Absolutely.
Did he want Jase? Fuck. Now more than ever.
Did he want Ashlynn? Hell yes.
Could he have her?
Well, the answer wasn’t simple.
Max had warned him away from his sister, though Leyton still wasn’t sure why that was. Leyton had always been loyal, always put Max above everyone else in his life and for good reason. The man really had saved him, and he owed him for that. Defying him wasn’t something Leyton could bring himself to do, even if his desire for Ashlynn was eating away at his insides, ripping him to shreds slowly.
But in a sense, Jase was right. Talking to Max wouldn’t be that difficult, if only Leyton could muster up the courage to do so. Hell, he should’ve stood up to Max when they’d been busted at Trace and Marissa’s wedding, but he hadn’t. He still remembered that day so vividly.
Leyton knew the instant Max excused himself that he’d need to keep an eye on Ashlynn. The woman was known to get into trouble, and the last place she needed to do that—at least today—was at someone else’s wedding.
“Dance with me?” Ashlynn asked, smiling up at him.
“Don’t dance,” he told her, trying not to look directly into those mesmerizing hazel eyes. It was bad enough he saw those eyes in his dreams, haunting him, tormenting him.
“Today you do,” she said plainly, her smile never slipping.
When she took his hand and pulled him toward the dance floor, Leyton could only follow. He wasn’t interested in causing a scene, and with Ashlynn, that would be easy to do if she was denied something she wanted.
He hadn’t been lying when he’d said he didn’t dance. Not once in his entire life had he danced. With anyone.
Granted, he’d seen enough people doing it that he knew the basics. He took her hand in his, slid his other around her, gently touching her back. He was careful not to pull her too close. He damn sure didn’t want Ashlynn knowing just how much she affected him.
“You’re not too bad at this,” she offered with a smile.
Chancing it, Leyton glanced down into her eyes. That inferno of desperate need kicked in, the same one that showed up unexpectedly anytime he was near her. The woman made him crazy, but up to this point, he’d done his best to pretend otherwise.
After the first song, Leyton thought she’d let him off the hook, but that wasn’t the case. For the next four songs, all relatively slow, Ashlynn kept him moving around the dance floor with the other couples, more often than not, her body sliding sensually against his. By the time he finally convinced her to take a break, he was sporting a serious hard-on. There was no way Ashlynn hadn’t noticed, but he pretended not to be affected by it.
They each retrieved a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. Leyton downed his quickly, but it did nothing for him. Deciding to make a pass through the building, in an effort to do a semblance of what he’d been hired to do, he informed Ashlynn that he’d be back in a few minutes.
After walking the perimeter, then returning inside and making a pass down the various hallways of the attached hotel, he found himself once again standing in front of Ashlynn. Only this time, she wasn’t smiling up at him.
“Are you avoiding me?” she questioned, hands on her hips.
He’d known she would assume that. And maybe that was because he was avoiding her. At least by walking around, he’d managed to get his libido under control, reducing the risk of him pulling her close and crushing his mouth to hers. Only now, all that had been for naught since they were standing in a deserted hallway and she was looking at him as though she was planning to jump him at any moment.
“You are,” she muttered. “I should’ve known.”
Gearing up to argue, Leyton found himself backing away from her as he swallowed hard, trying to decide how to let her down gently and avoid touching her though he desperately wanted to.
That never happened.
Instead, Leyton found himself pressed up against the wall, peering down at Max’s sister—his boss’s freaking sister, he reminded himself—looking into her eyes and wishing like hell he was anywhere but here. She was far too much temptation for him to resist, which was the very reason he always kept a solid distance between them.
A distance Ashlynn erased in a matter of seconds.
“Why do you do this to yourself?” she whispered, her hands flattening against his chest.
Leyton sucked in a breath, unable to find words to respond. His body was rioting, turning against the logical side of his brain, which was telling him to get the fuck away from her before he did something he could never undo, something he would never forget no matter how long he lived.