Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (27 page)

“Princess,” Jaxon said, his eyes smoky and his
voice husky. “Where do you think you’re going?”

He was so close that his lips grazed against
her ear as he spoke, and his breath brushed against her skin.
 
Desire burned through her body, from the
tips of her fingers down to her toes.
 
Even now, even after all these years, she could still remember exactly
what it felt like to kiss him.

Anna pushed him away, hard, then turned and
started stomping across the grass toward the house. She wasn’t about to start
getting all crazy, not over stupid Jaxon Hale.
 
The man was bad news, always had
been.
 
So what if he was an amazing
kisser?
 
So what if she’d spent the
last thirteen years wondering what it would have been like to make love to him,
what would have happened if she’d decided not to play by the rules for once and
taken off with him to Lost Angeles? Would they have ended up together?

Probably not.
 
With that sexy Southern accent that made
him sound dangerous and sweet at the same time, and the glint in his eye that
always made it seem as if he was picturing you naked, Jaxon definitely wasn’t
the commitment type. Anna knew she’d made the right decision all those years
ago, even if her body was trying to tell her different.

The kitchen of Katie’s house was empty, with
everyone outside enjoying the party.
 
Anna’s face felt flushed and hot, and she poured herself a glass of
water.
 
Stop,
she told herself as she took a sip.
He was trouble before, and he’s trouble now.

She felt his hands on her before she was able
to slow her heart.
 
He turned her
around, his blue eyes burning as he met her gaze.

“Jaxon,” she started, ready to lay into him.
But he silenced and startled her with a passionate kiss.
 
His lips were warm and surprisingly soft.
 
His tongue slid into her mouth, not
asking permission.
 
Anna’s pulse
quickened as her body surrendered to the kiss.

Suddenly she was on fire, her nerve endings
burning from head to toe.
 
A low,
simmering need settled in between her legs, and it was all she could do not to
beg him to take her right then and there.

But then Jaxon broke off the kiss and gave her
a mischievous grin. “Just like I remembered,” he declared.
 
He tapped a finger on her nose, gave her
another maddening grin and then walked out of the kitchen.

Anna stood there, gazing after him, her heart
pounding as anger welled up inside of her. Just like he remembered!
 
What an asshole!
 
She took in a deep breath, hating herself
for letting him get to her like that.
 
After all this time, he still stirred something inside of her, something
that had been dormant for a long time.

She wished she’d never come.
 
But now that she was here, she was
determined not to let him chase her away.
 
She would return to the party and do her best to support Katie.
 
But this time, she would make sure to
stay far away from Jaxon Hale.

C
hapter
T
wo

Jaxon walked back into the yard, his cock rock
hard against the fly of his jeans.
 
Anna had tasted just as he’d remembered -- like peaches and cream and warm
summer nights.
 
But she’d rejected
him once before and he wasn’t going to let her crush him again.
 

He’d kissed her just now because he’d needed to
prove to himself that he could walk away from her, that he could leave her the
way she had left him all those years ago.
 
And, physical reactions non-withstanding, he’d been able to do it.
 
Now he could move on.

“Hey,” Katie said, looking up from where she
was pouring a glass of fruit punch.
 
“What were you doing in the house?”
 
She gave him a suspicious look and then handed him the glass of the
fruity drink.

“Nothing.”
 
Jaxon took the glass and had a sip.
 
“Ugh. Disgusting.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Anna come
walking out of the house, her smooth and silky hair swinging behind her.
 
He remembered what it felt like to run
his hands through those long gorgeous locks, letting the strands slip through
his fingers as he kissed her.
 

He turned away and back to Katie, desperate for
a distraction.
 
“Can I help you with
anything?” he asked.

“You can, actually,” Katie said.
 
“You can go start the grill.” Her green
eyes surveyed his face.
 
“Are you
sure you’re okay?”

“Besides the fact that I’m at a baby
shower?
 
Yes, I’m fine.”

“Okay,” she said.
 
“Because if you want to leave, you can.”

“Why would I want to leave?”

Katie bit her lip, looking nervous.
 
“I know you and Anna have a history.”
“Katie,” he said, and rolled his eyes.
 
“We were children.”

“I know, but –”

“I’m
fine,”
he insisted.
 
“Now where’s the
lighter?”

She pointed over to the picnic table, where the
lighter was sitting on top of a stack of paper plates, napkins, and utensils.

Jaxon busied himself starting up the grill,
then spent the next half hour grilling hamburgers and barbeque chicken for the
guests.
 
He served the meat onto
their plates, watching as they then moved over to the buffet table and loaded
up on an assortment of salads and chips.

“So what’s good?” a voice purred in his
ear.
 

Anna.
 

But it wasn’t.
 
It was another guest, one of Katie’s
friends from work whose name had slipped Jaxon’s mind.
 

“Depends on what you’re in the mood for,” Jaxon
said, trying to appreciate the woman’s warm smile and the high curve of her
backside in the short shorts she was wearing.

“I guess some beef,” she said flirtatiously.

It was a corny line, but Jaxon smiled.
 
He was about to ask the brunette what
her name was, when his eyes fell on Anna sitting over by the pool.

She stood up from her lounge chair and Jaxon
watched as her long bronze legs unfolded from under her.
 
She reached up and slowly pulled off her
baby blue tank top, revealing a scarlet-colored bikini top with tiny little
strings that set off her rich golden hair.
 
The guy sitting next to her –- some asshole neighbor of Katie’s
named Todd --said something, and Anna threw her head back and laughed.
 

Jaxon’s heart caught in his throat.
 
Anna looked so free, so beautiful.
 
It had taken every ounce of his
self-control for him to walk away from her in the kitchen, to stop from
stripping her and devouring every inch of her naked body.
 
But now he was tapping into reserves he
didn’t know he had to prevent himself from marching over there and punching
that guy Todd square in the mouth.

He watched as Anna unbuttoned the button on her
shorts and slid them down over her hips, revealing scarlet bikini bottoms.
 
Her body had filled out, turning the
gangly limbs of a teenager into the soft and voluptuous curves of a woman.
  

“Hello?” the brunette in front of him said,
holding her paper plate out.
 
Her
mouth was arranged in a pout.
 
“Are
you going to give me a burger or what?”

“Yeah,” he said, suddenly annoyed.
 
He plopped the burger onto her plate,
still watching as Anna laughed again at something the guy next to her said.

A real Steve Carell, that Todd.
 
What an asshole.

“Thanks,” the brunette said.
  

“You’re welcome.”
 

Anna looked up from the pool and met his gaze
across the yard.
 
Damn.
 
She’d caught him looking.
 
She narrowed her eyes at him, giving him
a look that could have made a terrorist shudder.

Well.
 
Two could play this game.

“You want to have lunch together, sweetheart?”
he asked the brunette.
 
“I was just
about to take a break from grill duty.”
 
He handed the spatula off to an unsuspecting Adam who was standing
nearby.

Then Jaxon fixed himself a plate of hamburgers
and potato salad and guided the brunette right on over to the pool.

***

The girl Jaxon had brought over to the pool was
a complete and total bimbo.
 
That
was apparent just from looking at her.
 
Everything about her was fake – fake nails, fake hair extensions,
even fake acrylic nails.
 
Jaxon was
so predictable.

Anna turned her back on him while he led the
bimbo over to some wicker lounge chairs near the deep end of the oval-shaped
pool.
 
She focused on the man in
front of her.
 
He lived across the
street from Katie and his name was Todd.
 
He was nice enough looking, with close cropped brown hair and a
sparkling smile.
 

“So are we going to go for a swim?” Anna asked
him cheerfully.
 

“I don’t think so,” Todd said, shaking his
head.
 
“I don’t want to get all
wet.”

He didn’t want to get all wet?
 
Anna’s heart sank.
 
How was she supposed to show that she
didn’t care about Jaxon by splashing around with this new man when he didn’t
even want to go in the pool?
“Come on,” she said.
 
She pulled on
his hand and put a fake little pout on her face, hating herself for having to
resort to such feminine trickery. “Let’s go in the water.”

“No thanks,” Todd said.
 
And now he was looking at her warily,
like maybe she was slightly insane.
 
Which, come to think of it, made a lot of sense.
 
She was pulling on his hand, after
all.
 
And he was a total stranger.

“Are you sure?” Anna asked, cocking her head
and giving him her sweetest smile.

“That’s okay,” he said, glancing at his
watch.
 
“I really have to leave soon
anyway.
 
Have you seen Katie?
 
I want to make sure to say goodbye.”

“Yeah,” Anna said, sighing and gesturing toward
the gift table. “She’s over there.”

She pulled her clothes back on over her bathing
suit, left Jaxon to his bimbo, and walked back into the yard to join the party.

***

The rest of the shower passed without
incident.
 
The guests oohed and
ahhed over all the cute baby gifts, Katie’s mom tried to get them to play a
game of baby shower bingo, and a strawberry cake with chocolate ganache
frosting put everyone in a sugar coma.

When it was time to leave, Anna pulled Katie
close and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
 
“I’m so happy for you,” she said.
 
“Call me later, okay?
 
We’ll
get together tomorrow?”

“Absolutely,” Katie said, her eyes shining.

As Anna drove back to her parents’ house, where
she was staying for the week, she struggled to get Jaxon out of her mind.
 
She hated the fact that he still had
such an effect on her.
 

Of course she’d been brokenhearted when Jaxon
had left for Los Angeles, leaving her behind in Connecticut to finish high school.
 
She’d spent the first part of her senior
year holed up in her room, making mix tapes of sad music by the kind of artists
who sang about lost loves and missed chances.
 
But when she graduated and headed off to
Boston and the hallowed halls of Harvard University, she’d thought for certain
that she’d forget about him.