I hold his sparkling eyes because, in France, you never look away while you cheers. It’s bad luck.
Then decide to give an inch. “And to taking chances.” We clink glasses again, sipping our drinks in a brief moment of silence.
“What’s that look for, Jack?”
He takes a long sip, eyes penetrating mine over the glass, before he responds. “I’m not sure you want to know.”
The air around us seems to thicken as I hold his stare, not answering, silently begging him to go on without me asking.
“I’m thinking that kiss wasn’t enough, and I need more of you.” I raise my brows at his brazen remark, but he doesn’t stop there. “I want to feel your skin against mine and listen to the little moans and whimpers you don’t realize escape you whenever I so much as brush against you.”
I want all of that…right this second.
“A-A kiss is all you’ll get,” I lie.
“We’ll see about that,” he mumbles, knowing full well I hear him and that I won’t fight him on it.
Jack usually gets what he loves when he wants it. And what he loves are women—beautiful, intelligent women.
And I’d be lying if I didn’t say I know I’m both.
Suddenly, I’m broken out of my thoughts when I hear the chant—“Glory Glory Tottenham Hotspur”—of Jack’s favorite football club.
“Jackson,” I hiss, looking around the room when everyone turns to glare at us. “Are you freaking watching football on your phone right now?”
His chest vibrates at my embarrassment. “Footballstarts in September, B, but no, I wasn’t watchingsoccer. I checked the score earlier and accidentally pressed it again.”
As he goes to put the phone away, it buzzes in his hand and his body stills. A look of shock crosses his face. “Holy fucking shit, it happened.”
“What? What is it?” I cry.
His eyes snap up to mine, then widen in astonishment. He tries to speak, but his words get stuck in his throat.
“Jack! What’s going on?”
Glancing down at his phone one last time, he shakes his head, then passes it to me.
My eyes snap up to his to confirm I’m reading this right.
He bites his lips and nods ever so slightly.
I’m out of my seat, flinging myself on his lap in a second, kissing him hard on the lips.
Fuck my rules. He deserves a million and one kisses right now.
I pull back, grabbing his face and squeezing his cheeks hard, then kiss him again. “Holy shit, I’m kissing a billionaire.”
He chuckles. “I think I’m in shock.”
“You didn’t know this was happening? How could you not know? Tell me everything!”
He laughs at my eagerness. “A second ago, you were mortified by a two-second clip from a soccer game. Now you’re okay with straddling my lap, kissing me, and yelling in excitement?”
“Yes, bloody hell, Jack, when have I actually cared what people think? This is more important than their judging glares.”
He adjusts me on his lap to make us more comfortable. “To answer your questions, when I was younger and first started investing my money, the guys from New York and I invested in a start-up tech company, before tech was all the rage. Over the last year or so, they’ve been in the process of going public, and voilá, as the French like to say, they did it, and I made a shit ton of money. So yes, I knew it was in the process, but anything can happen with the markets changing, so I put it out of my mind until it was official.”
He makes it sound like nothing. This is huge!
