I’m sittingat the kitchen island brooding into my coffee when something lands on the counter in front of me with a slap.
“You want to explain this?”
When I glance up, the look on Sasha’s face has me popping an eyebrow in surprise. I don’t even look to see what it is she threw down. All I see is the fire in her eyes.
Even with her face flushed, and her hair still mussed from sleep, she’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Her chest is rising and falling rapidly, redirecting my attention.
Fuck.
I can see the slight shadow of her pierced nipples through the faded white T-shirt she’s wearing, and it makes my brain short-circuit.
“Jax!”
My eyes snap back up to her face. “Sorry, what?”
With an exasperated huff, she jabs her finger. “Care to explain this?”
Mentally shaking myself, I glance down, and my stomach drops. It’s my sketchbook. The one filled with drawings of her.The one I’m sure I’d carefully tucked away in my office drawer the day I showed her my studio. Then it hits me. I was thumbing through it yesterday when I got distracted by a phone call and must have left it out.
“Where did you get that?” I ask, caught between a nervous swallow and a flash of irritation, knowing she’s been poking around my studio.
“I couldn’t sleep last night because I was hungry, so I came downstairs to make a sandwich. The door was open, and I was curious.” Her eyes narrow. “But that’s not the point right now. Why do you have an entire sketchbook filled with drawings of me?”
She pauses as she moves to flip through it, lowering her voice to a whisper as she points. “This one?”
Shit. It’s the one from when I saw her through her window the night of the storm.
I glance back down at the book. Scrubbing my hands over my face, my mind flashes back to part of a conversation I had yesterday with Ryder at lunch.
“How do you know if it’s the right thing to do?” I ask, picking at my sandwich.
Ryder glances up, fork halfway to his mouth. “What?”
I’m not used to talking about deep shit like this, and it makes me shift uncomfortably in my seat. “Cross a line you promised yourself you’d never cross.”
“You don’t.” He shrugs. “Sometimes you just gotta suck it up and take a chance. The fact that you’re even asking should be all the answer you need.”
Now, with Sasha questioning me, demanding answers, those words mean so much more now than I’d meant them at the time. Maybe Ryder was right. Maybe it’s time to suck it up and tell her the truth. Not just about the sketch, but how I’m starting to feel about her.
I stand, quickly moving around the island. Bracing my hands on the counter on either side of her, I take a deep breath in and hang my head.
When I look up to meet her gaze, it’s full of betrayal and, dare I say, a touch of heat? As I nervously swipe my tongue along my bottom lip, the heat in them surges for a moment before shifting into what I can only describe as stubborn anger.
“It was the same night as that crazy storm we had a few weeks ago. It was an accident. Your curtains were open and...”
“So you figured you would justaccidentallywatch me get undressed?” Carefully crossing her arms under her breasts, she looks over my shoulder, refusing to meet my gaze. “Why not close the curtains?”
Reaching up, I tuck my hand under her chin, gently grasping her throat. “Sasha, please look at me.”
She huffs out a breath and meets my eyes.
“I’ve felt drawn to you since the first time I saw you,” I admit, my voice low. “Haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since. When I saw you through your window that night, I thought about closing my curtains, honestly I did. But then I saw my sketchbook sitting on my nightstand and I just... reacted. I couldn’t help myself.”
Her eyes widen slightly, and I can feel her pulse quicken beneath my fingertips.
“And what happened between us last night at Skin & Ink...” I swallow hard. “It scared the shit out of me.”
“Why?” she rasps.
