Anyone but Alex (The English Brothers Book 3) (10 page)

“Now y
ou’ve gone to the other extreme!”

“
Okay. Not
totally
solitary. Or, maybe the work is solitary, but the environment is social?”

“Warmer. I’m impressed.”

“I’m very smart,” he said, winking at her. “And interesting.”

“Clearly,” she said
, grinning that wonderful, open smile that captivated him so much.

“Okay. So, you’re surrounded by people, but what you do is solitary.”

She nodded, and her ponytail bounced up and down, the ends probably tickling the back of her neck. His fingers curled and released in his lap, wishing they could fist in that soft hair or brush against that warm skin, following the curve of her neck to the base of her throat with trembling, reverent fingertips.

“Guess again,” she insisted, not letting him get distracted.

“A librarian.”

“No.”

“Warm?”

“
Very.”

“Hot
, even?” he asked in a low, flirtatious voice, because he couldn’t help it.

“Yes,” she
murmured as she stared back at him.

A waitress stopped by their table and
broke the electric moment. Jessie smiled warmly at her, ordering the bangers and mashed with a pint of cold British ale. He said “Same,” barely looking away from Jessie for a moment.

“A waitress,” he said
.

“Respectable work, but not mine.”

“Librarian was warm?”

She nodded.

“A library is like a…museum. Are you a curator? No. A docent!” He knew—somehow
knew
for sure—that he was right.

She rewarded him with a beaming smile and clapped softly.
“Impressive!”

“Where?”
he asked.

“At the Tate.
I volunteer, for now. Hoping for a paid position at some point, once I’ve proven myself.”

“Modern Art,” he said, cocking his head to the side.
“I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

“
Why is it such a surprise?”

“
I don’t know. You seem traditional.”

“I
am
traditional, but I love modern art. The edginess of it, the way it breaks the box and shatters the ceiling.”

“Will you hate me if I say I don’t get it?” he teased.

“I wouldn’t begin to know how to hate you, Alex,” she said gently, searching his eyes with a small smile. “But… I think we should take a field trip together so I can educate you on everything wonderful there is ‘to get’ about modern art.”

“T
o the Tate? Long field trip.”

“
Maybe someday to the Tate,” she said with a grin. “But for now, just to the ICA at U Penn.”

She was referring to the Institute of Contemporary Art at Alex’s
alma mater
, the University of Pennsylvania. He’d never been. He was too busy splitting his time between girls and studies at college. Not to mention, modern art had never been one of Alex’s interests, something he was suddenly anxious to remedy.

“I’ll show you what I see,” she continued. “And
maybe you’ll find something you get.”

“
If you get it, I’ll get it,” he said, surprised to find he meant it. He wanted to see through her eyes and appreciate something she found beautiful. In fact, he might stop at a bookstore on the way back to the office and see what he could pick up on modern art, just so he’d be ready to impress her a little. “Tell me when you want to go.”

“Sunday,” she said. “After brunch.”

He laughed at her audacity. If she followed his reputation on the internet as she said on Saturday night, she knew about his Sunday brunches. He decided she was teasing him and played along.

“
Oh! Are we having brunch on Sunday?”

“Mm-
hm,” she murmured confidently, looking away from him to smile at the waitress when she returned with their beer.

She couldn’t be serious, could she?

Alex leaned his elbows against the table as soon as they were alone again. Despite the fullness of his heart when he was with Jessie, he still had a firm grip on right and wrong, and being seen for Sunday brunch with Jessie was not an option. He needed to set her straight, on the off-chance that she was actually serious.

“I can’t fall for you Jess
,” he reminded her. “And you can’t fall for me.”

She lifted her beer to take a sip, but before she did, she gave him a
small, sympathetic smile. “Too late.”

***

Jessie knew that she was being forward, but she couldn’t help it. Talking to her mother this morning had given her the final drop of courage she needed to make her move. She let the cool beer stream down her throat, watching his surprised face. There was no use pretending she just wanted to be friends with Alex, because that’s
not
what she wanted. She wanted far more from him. Everything she’d ever felt as a child had been picked up with unerring precision the moment her eyes locked with his on Saturday night. She wanted Alex. There was no way around it.

Before he could start pulling away from her again and telling her what a bad influence he could potentially be on her life, she placed her glass back on the table and asked conversationally—as though she hadn’t just admitted that she
had fallen for him—“So, tell me about English & Sons. What do you do there?”

He took a quick sip of his beer, huffed once,
and stared at her with deeply furrowed brows. She could see him mentally deciding if he should argue with her about her feelings or let it go for now. She was relieved when his face relaxed, and he sat back.

“I’m the CFO.”

“The numbers guy,” she said, tilting her head to the side.

“Now who’s surprised?”

She gave him a saucy grin. “Bet it comes in handy when you’re calculating your stats with the ladies,
Professor
.”

He tensed, looking away. “I can’t change my history, Jess.”

“Alex, I was just joking.”

He shook his head. “I know
you were, but it’s still true. A lot of what they say about me is true.”

She reached across the table and covered his hand with hers, watching his face as he flipped his hand
so that they were palm to palm. His thumb and fingers curled over the back of her hand, clasping it gently, adjusting and readjusting his fingers until every part of her skin was flush with his.

When he finally looked up at he
r, he looked so lost that she had no choice but to grin back. “I told you that you couldn’t handle me.”

He didn’t smile back.
“Doesn’t it bother you?”

“That you’ve been with a lot of women?”

He nodded.

It
did bother her, of course, and when they finally spent the night together, it would bother her in myriad other ways she’d hardly dared to explore yet. But what Jess knew, and Alex didn’t seem to understand, was that her heart had already chosen him long, long ago. It didn’t matter what had happened in his past as long as he chose her to be his immediate future.

“I’m not e
xactly a virgin, Alex.”

“What does
that
mean?” he asked, his fingers tensing around hers as his face hardened a little.

“It means
I’m twenty-three years old. I’m not one for casual flings, but I’ve had boyfriends and lovers.”

He winced, taking a deep breath. “It makes zero sense that I hate knowing that.”

She ignored the pleasure she felt from his comment and finished what she wanted to say. “Our histories are irrelevant to now, to here, to this conversation. How many people we’ve slept with before today really doesn’t matter. We can’t change it, and I don’t know about you, but I really wouldn’t want to. The people I’ve known—and loved—made me who I am today. So, no, it doesn’t matter to me that you’ve had a lot of partners, not in any meaningful way.”

“
How can that be true?” he asked as his thumb stroked the pad of her thumb distractedly.

“
Because our experiences help to shape who we are, but they don’t define us.”

“I doubt your brothers would agree.”

She drew her hand away from his and watched as his face betrayed how much he disliked losing that connection with her. “Maybe it’s just best for me to lay my cards on the table, Alex.”

“Jess
—”

“
No. Just listen. Here it is… I’m here for five weeks. That’s it. Five weeks. And then I go home to my museum and my modern art and my friends and my travel and my life. But while I’m here, I want to be with you. N-not just as your friend, but if that’s all you can offer, I’ll take it.” She shrugged, hoping she appeared more collected and cool than she felt on the inside, which was a tangle of nerves, begging every force in the universe for Alex not to turn her away.

His eyes
were brilliant blue, trained on hers like he couldn’t look away from her if he tried, so she continued in an uncharacteristically nervous rush.

“
I don’t care what my brothers think. And I don’t care what
your
brothers think. I don’t care that you’ve slept with a lot of people. All I care about is not wasting this chance to spend time together, to pick up the thread from our childhood and see what happens next.”

She
calmed the trembling of her hand before raising her glass to her lips and taking a long sip of beer. He watched her in silence, his eyes deep and serious.

When she replaced her
glass and he still hadn’t spoken, she looked at her lap, starting to feel ridiculous. “If that isn’t what you want, then let’s just drink our beer and eat our bangers and say goodbye…”

She was running out of courage. He hadn’t given anything away, and she’d laid her heart bare to him.
Taking a deep breath, she started to wonder if she’d gravely misjudged this situation, and if he somehow still saw her as the child who used to follow him around during flashlight tag, unable to really see her as a full-grown woman. The idea made her eyes burn, and she reached for her purse, readying herself for a hasty goodbye, and knowing that she’d have to be quick because disappointed tears wouldn’t be far behind.

The light pressure of his fingers under her chin
forced her eyes to meet his. His glance was so hot, so resigned and sweet, that her breath shredded and caught.

He shook his head lightly. “You
take my breath away, Jess.”

“Then we’re even.”

“Five weeks,” he said softly.

“Five weeks.”

“Okay,” he said. “For five weeks, I’m yours.”

She gasped in surprise,
her mouth widening instantly into a happy, relieved smile. Then, without thinking, she leaned across the little table and pressed her lips to his.

***

Alex’s eyes shuddered closed as his blood surged, hot and fierce, in reaction to such unexpected sweetness. Her lips were warm and soft, brushing lightly across his, as though sealing their deal. His fingers scrambled on the table between them, reaching forward to find her hands, which were braced flat against the wooden surface, and he curled his fingers around them. Tilting his head slightly, he caught her top lip between his, kissing it gently over and over again, catching it and releasing it, nibbling tenderly, as he memorized everything about this stolen moment with Jessie.

She represented everything
sweet and innocent from his happy childhood. She was an injection of something fresh and new when his life felt so flat and empty. For the first time in ten years, he’d just made a commitment to someone, albeit temporarily, and it shocked him to realize how good it felt. He was bewildered by his reaction to her, stunned by the depth of his feelings, grateful to feel so alive, like maybe—just maybe—he could someday be worthy of someone as lovely as Jessica Winslow.

Alex was accustomed to much steamier,
sloppier, more invasive kissing, but Jessie’s gentle caress held more promise, more hope, more, more, more—so much more risk for his heart, it made his body weak and desperate. It made him wonder how to balance his longing for her with his fears about ruining her.

Squeezing
his fingers, she drew back from him, pink-cheeked and beaming.

“I’ve wanted to do that for
fourteen years,” she said, wiggling one of her hands away from one of his to pick up her pint glass and take a sip.

H
e laced his fingers through her remaining hand, letting go of his worries for now, grinning back at her. “So, what’s on the agenda from now until Christmas?”

“You tell me.
” She shook her head with wonder. “Five weeks with Alex English. What should we do?”

Amazingly, he didn’t flinch or internally groan at her use of the word “we
,” as he almost always did when a woman used it in reference to herself and Alex. Somehow coming from Jess it felt okay, and Alex decided he’d take any beating the Winslow brothers wanted to mete out if it meant that he could have five weeks with their sister.