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It was supposed to intimidate her.
She was supposed to back off. But no. She’d been raised in a family that taught her differently, and those fucking Wilders were all so fucking stubborn, she met that hard look with an undaunted, slow arching of her brow, and fuck if that didn’t get me even harder.
Poppy tipped her head back, finishing off her drink in a far more graceful fashion than I managed, and the glass settled back on the table with a delicate clink.
“All this time, I thought you avoided me because you were uncomfortable with my attention. Because I was an annoying kid in your eyes. Or you were being respectful of my brother.” She slowly stood from her chair. The lithe movements of her body as she shrugged off the blanket had my hands tightening into helpless fists on my lap. Then she braced her palms onthe table and pinned me with a stare so direct, so open in what she wanted from that it sucked every fucking ounce of air from my lungs. “But you are terrified of me, aren’t you, Jax?”
If I moved my eyes even a single inch, I’d be able to see straight down her shirt. I’d be able to see the color of her bra, so I kept every growling instinct focused on keeping my gaze right on hers.
“I’m not scared of anything, Poppy,” I said as evenly as possible. “Least of all you.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly, not in anger or distrust, but like she was weighing the truth of my words and found me coming up short.
I was too drunk for this.
My head was swimming dangerously, and I needed her away from me. Now.
Pushing my chair back from the table had her straightening to her full height, still so much smaller than me. But damn if she didn’t raise her chin in a dare.
“Should we switch to truth or dare?” she asked lightly.
That didn’t deserve an answer. Crossing my arms over my chest, I prayed to whatever deity who would listen that my hard-on wasn’t too visible. Thank God I was still wearing jeans from my workday. If I’d switched to my normal gray sweatpants, I’d be in trouble.
“I think it’s time for bed, Poppy,” I growled.
A mischievous smile hovered at the edges of her lips, her eyes glittering in the dim light of my kitchen. Why didn’t I have every fucking light on in the house? Why did I start a fire?
What an idiot I was.
None of this was harmless, no matter what her plans were when she showed up shivering at my front door.
I jabbed a finger in the air. “Don’t you smile at me like that. This isn’t funny.”
“It’s a little funny,” she said airily. “In a million years, I never thought I’d have Jax Cartwright running scared.”
Was my eye twitching? It had to be because the tension in my face felt like my cheekbones would shatter, like my molars would be ground to dust.
“I’ll get you a blanket and a pillow for the couch,” I ground out.
“I need something to sleep in too,” she added casually. My eyes slammed shut, the mental image of Poppy wearing one of my T-shirts had me swallowing down a groan.
“Fine.”
As I yanked a blanket out of a basket in the family room, she took a few steps closer. “If we’d played truth or dare, you know what I would’ve chosen?”
“Nope, and I don’t care,” I snapped.
“Truth, first, because I know you well enough that you’d never dare me to do anything,” she continued as if I hadn’t morphed into some grunting entity incapable of pleasantries. “Eventually, I would’ve dared you to kiss me. Just once. Just so I know what it’s like. So you do too.”
Slowly, so slowly, with the blanket clutched in my hand, I turned to face her, my brows high. “You must be drunk off your ass if you think I’d do it.”
The words were harsh in my head, something I yelled so loudly that my voice filled every corner of the room. But in reality, in that dark, fire-lit room, they came out differently. There was a distinctly uncertain edge to what I said, and my voice was choked, squeezed tight from the images bombarding my whiskey-addled brain.
Poppy didn’t respond, merely stood there with a patient, understanding look in her eye, just barely masking the banked heat in her chocolate-brown depths.
This night had turned us both into entirely different versions of ourselves. This confident, sexy version of Poppy was my nightmare, and I couldn’t even pretend to be politeanymore, the fear of her effect on me filing down any civility I had left.
I leaned closer, my voice rough and low and just on the edge of cruel. “What makes you think I kiss any of the women I fuck, Poppy?”
