The Dangerous Curves Series

Chapter 22

He frowned. “Why is that now?”

Sarah glanced up at him. “Because you frequent the crash rooms with strangers from your bar. You’ve been with – I don’t know, hundreds of women, right? Thousands, even? s*x is obviously important to you, but it’s also no big deal, if you’re willing to have it with anybody at all.” She shrugged. “You propositioned me within an hour of laying eyes on me for the first time in your life. Looking the way you do, I’m guessing that you do that a lot, and that women just fall in front of you with their legs open.”

Uh, yeah, baby. That’s usually the way it goes. Until you came along.

“OK, yeah Jax, you’re hot, and when you kissed me, it was amazing,” Sarah said quietly. “But I told you when we met that I wasn’t your type, and I still believe that. This isn’t going to happen, Stud. No way you can be happy with just one woman, especially a woman who has no experience at all. And no way I can be happy with a guy who’s with other women in some bar back room most nights of the week. If I’m going to give myself to a man, I have to trust that I really mean something to him. He has to… be mine. I have to be his. Even just for a little while.”

Jax froze, trying to think how to handle this. God knows, he wanted to be with her; he wanted it with a fierceness that took him by surprise. But when he said that he wanted to ‘be’ with Sarah, he meant more than s*x. He meant… something else. Something more.

But since he’d never had anything else or more with anyone, he wasn’t entirely sure what the hell he actually wanted, what he was really asking from this sweet, tough woman.

Uncharted territory, for damn sure, man. You gonna jump in, or what?

"Sarah… can I just say something here?”

“Sure.”

“Full disclosure, right?”

“Right.”

“OK. You’re right about the crash rooms. And yeah, I hit on you when we first met, and if you’d said yes, I’d have… I’d have f****d you and sent you on your way without a second thought. All true.” He hesitated. “That was wrong of me. I shouldn’t have… you deserved better than that. You still do.”

Sarah looked up at him, saw that for the first time since they’d met, Jax looked unsure and tentative. He was always so self-assured and confident, and this change confused her.

“But you’re – different, somehow.” He paused again. “I promised to tell you the whole truth, so here it is: I’ve never had a girlfriend. Like, the real kind. The kind that you see exclusively, and get to know, and take care of. So, I guess, in some ways… I’m kind of lacking in experience, too.”

She stared at him, totally stunned.

“And as long as I’m being completely honest with you, I should add that I’m getting pretty f*****g fed up with the meaningless one-nighters. They’re – boring, and they’re all the same. So as for being with other women if we got together… I haven’t been with anyone since we met.”

She blinked. “We met on Saturday.”

“Yeah.”

“Today is Wednesday.”

“Yeah.” He c****d his head at her, not understanding what she was driving at.

“God.” She half-groaned, half-laughed. “And there it is, in a nutshell. That’s why it isn’t going to work, Jax. How is it supposed to work between an almost-twenty-six-year-old virgin, and a guy who thinks that going without meaningless s*x in a crash room for just four days is a major accomplishment?”

“Maybe it’s just nuts enough to work, baby.”

“You think?”

“What if we talked about some ground rules?” Jax said. “So we’d both know what to expect from the other?”