I have this nagging need to take care of her, because I suspect she hasn’t let anyone help her with anything in a long while.
Maybe not ever.
“It lost its luster a long time ago,” she admits candidly. “Even fresh out of high school, when I first moved to L.A., all the lavishness seemed excessive. We grew up…not poor, because Dad always made sure we were okay, but certainly not well off. So, when I’d go to a restaurant on a brand invite, and I’d see how much was being spent on a meal that left me hungry…I don’t know, it sat like a rock in my stomach. Five hundred dollars per person, and I would leave and find the nearest taco truck.”
She starts walking away from where we had paused at the mouth of the market, and I’m helpless but to follow her.
“What was it like? Growing up in a small town and then moving to a place like Los Angeles?”
She thinks on it for a minute, biting the inside of her cheek, before answering. “I find that people are the same everywhere you go. Only the landscape changes.” There's a bite of bitterness in the words as her eyes trace a sandwich stand.
“What do you mean?”
“In my world, I have rarely seen the beauty in people, they’re always inherently selfish, oftentimes cruel. When I was twenty in L.A., it was someone cozying up to me, becoming my friend, only for me to hear them bashing me behind my back at a party, or a male business associate assuming I was the assistant, not the CEO. I’ve been cornered in aboardroom after everyone else left and felt up because they wanted me toprove myself. That happened more than once,” she says wryly, and I want to fucking break something. “It doesn’t matter how powerful I am, there will always be someone who wants to invalidate me, take something from me. My power, my body, my money. No one ever wanted to give me anything without receiving something in return.”
“Do you find people in London the same as everywhere else?”Do you findmethe same as everyone else, is what I’m really too scared to ask.
I study her face, trying to decipher an answer before she says anything, but her expression is unreadable. It’s making my palms sweat as we weave in between stalls.
“Yes,” she finally says, and my stomach drops. “But not everyone. Some people,” she glances up at me before looking away, “are warm and kind. The type of person who made a lonely stranger in a pub feel a little less uncertain about life. Some people here have given me hope. I haven’t felt that in a long time, maybe not ever.”
“Hope for what?” I ask, waiting on the edge of a knife, begging for any morsel, any word out of her lush mouth.
She finally looks at me, a shy smile playing across her lips. “That thereismore to life than what we see through a screen. I just had to leap across the ocean to find it.”
I grab her hand, bringing her to a halt. Jade’s breath hitches, and she glances down at where my fingers wrap around hers, where my thumb is now brushing lightly against the back of her hand.
“If I were to invite you over for dinner, what would you say?” It’s a shot in the dark, and my heart is beating out of my chest. Every time we’re together, I can see the reluctance ebbing away like smoke drifting from the tips of a flame.
“Ask me and find out,” she challenges, a spark catching and flaring bright in the blue of her iris. God, that fire is addictive—it makes me feel like anything is possible.
“Jade, would you let me cook dinner for you tonight?”
She makes a big show of deciding, and it’s driving me out of my mind to the point that I’m practically bouncing on the balls of my feet like I do pre-match. “I don’t know…” She trails off, a smile starting to engulf her face, and the sight is so beautiful, my chest aches.
“Don’t toy with me, Hellfire. You know you want to say yes.” Her face scrunches a little. “Are you allergic to anything?”
“Cocky rugby players.”
The smile she shoots at me in combination with the coquettish look in her eyes has me acting on impulse. Reaching out, I wrap my hand gently around her neck and pull her toward me, curving down and sealing her lips with mine.
For a brief second, she stiffens, but her surprise swiftly melts away, and she’s sighing into my mouth. Her lips are soft and warm, and I feel dizzy, like London is experiencing a magnitude six earthquake, except it’s just me—her, making everything about my world tilt and rearrange itself with seismic intensity.
How is everyone around us acting like the world isn’t caving in and falling into place at the same time?
Jade coaxes my mouth open with her tongue, and the taste of her has me groaning, tightening my grip where it’s still settled around her neck. She whimpers in response, left hand clutching my shirt as her other settles around my wrist, securing my hold. Sensation sparks through every fibre of my being, making the hairs on my body stand on end, and my flimsy athletic shorts tighten.
With monumental effort, I wrench myself away, resting my forehead against hers and moving my hand to thread through her dark hair. “If we don’t stop, I’ll be locked up for public indecency.”
Her eyes are closed, her chest rising and falling as she concentrates on leveling her breathing. “It might be theonly way to get us to stay away from each other at this point.”
I huff a laugh. “Solid steel bars couldn’t keep me away, love. Don’t you know that by now?”
Her only response is a hum that vibrates through my whole body.
“Let’s go shopping, gorgeous. We need groceries for this meal.”
I don’t give her a moment to hesitate or pull away, leaving no room for argument or refusal as I thread my fingers through hers once more and pull her around the market.
