Loving Lies by Lora Leigh Page B

Jessie.
    â€œDon’t push me, Slade. Jessie will decide what she wants, not me, not you. Now let’s go talk, or we can fight. Those are your only choices. Going after her right now is not an option.”
    Slade clenched his fists, determined to knock Jazz out of the way and head out for the woman who had tormented him for five long, agonizing years. Before he could, Jazz, Zack and Ron moved around him.
    â€œMight as well have a drink and forget it, son.” Ron pushed a beer into his hand, his smile cold. Hard. “You’re not going anywhere tonight.”
    â€œCome on, Slade.” Zack slapped him on the shoulder, his unsmiling face lacking hostility, but filled with determination. “You’d do the same thing. Let her get used to the idea that you’re back, no matter how big an ass you made of yourself. We all need to talk anyway, it’s been a long time, and there’s a hell of a lot you didn’t tell us before you left.” There was recrimination in his voice.
    His gaze sliced back to Jazz.
    The grinning fool shrugged. “Hey, they saw you leaving my RV that last night, and their fists are almost as hard as yours. I like to stay pretty, you know.” He worked his jaw with one hand. “Let’s go share a stiff drink, man. Your fists have gotten stronger.”
    Slade wanted to shake his head, to force himself back to reality. His best friend had slept with the woman who held Slade’s soul and he was supposed to share a drink with him?
    â€œShe was dying inside, man,” Jazz told him softly. “She whispered your name, she cried for you, and I let her pretend. Which was better? Me or one of those yahoos?” He waved his hand toward the crowd behind them, his words reaching no further than Slade’s ears. “I saved her for you, man, just like I promised.” A wicked smile crossed his face. “Maybe. I’m thinking though…maybe I could win her from you.”
    Jazz sauntered off as Slade stared at his back broodingly. What the hell was up with the maybes?

Chapter Ten
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    She owned the RV Slade had sold, so there really wasn’t any place to run that Slade couldn’t find her. But she had no intention of running. She didn’t head to the small campsite, suspecting he would follow her. She drove back to her apartment instead, climbing the steps outside the offices of Rigor Construction to the large apartment she had rented from Jazz and Zack several years before. She locked the door carefully, set the security then moved through the darkened living room to her bedroom.
    It had been Slade’s apartment as well. He had slept here, in that big bed, sometimes for weeks on end while he was building his house. He had just finished the house the month before that ill-fated weekend they had spent together. Until then, this had been his home.
    No, she had never gotten over him, she thought as she moved into the bedroom. She had never forgotten, something inside her had refused to let her release the past.
    She had installed sliding doors on the back wall of the bedroom, complete with a locking screen door to allow the fresh summer breeze into the room while securing her safety on summer nights. Outside, the balcony Jazz and Zack built beckoned her, if only the weariness tearing through her would subside. She opened the glass doors, leaving the screen secured before stripping and crawling into the bed, staring through the screen into the darkened night as she let herself get used to the fact that Slade was back. Harder, broader. A more dangerous Slade. One she was no more immune to now than she had been five years before.
    She wiped her hands over her face, breathing out roughly as she fought to make sense of his return. He had left her five years before. After an incredible weekend of sex, he had walked away, claiming her immaturity as the reason he didn’t want her, and three weeks later had disappeared, taking Amy Jennings