Instead, I jerked my head out of his hold, and said, “It doesn’t mean anything, J.”

“You sure about that, babe?”

Now I looked directly into his eyes.  “Yes, I’m very sure,” I retorted, even though I was pretty damn sure I was lying.

He contemplated me for a couple of moments, and then slowly nodded, like he had settled something in his mind.  Then he changed the subject.  “Still no word on Nix’s whereabouts.”

“So we’re still on lockdown?” I asked, my words laced with mild sarcasm.

He chose to ignore my attitude.  “Yeah.”

“Okay.  I’m pretty tired after not much sleep last night, so I’m going to have a nap,” I said.  I also needed some time to myself; these unwanted desires and confused thoughts needed to go into bloody lockdown as far as I was concerned.

I left him outside; telling my pussy to shut the fuck up, she wasn’t getting any today.

***

I slept all afternoon, waking around dinner time.  J and Serena had managed to not kill each other.  In fact, they were in the kitchen, cooking dinner together when I found them.

I sat at the table and asked, “Have you two been playing nice?”

Serena poked her tongue out at me.  “As a matter of fact, we have been.  J changed the oil in my car and checked some other things too.”

My eyebrows shot up.  “Really?  How did she convince you to do that, J?”

He smirked.  “Let’s just say she had her ways.”

Serena flicked him with the tea towel and scowled, “You make it sound dirty, biker boy,” she said, and then directed at me, “I cooked cupcakes for him.”

I had to stop myself from laughing at that.  “Where’s the mess from your cooking, honey?” I asked, surveying the kitchen that was fairly spotless.  I was always the one who had to clean up her kitchen messes so I wondered who the heck had done this one.

“J cleaned it up,” Serena replied, and I didn’t fail to notice that she seemed kind of impressed about this.

J was a clever man; winning my friend over by doing things for her.  I looked at him and he was watching me, smile in place.  Yeah, he knew what he was doing alright.  The only question was – why was he going to the effort?

***

The rest of the weekend passed pretty uneventfully.  J continued reporting that Nix hadn’t been found yet, so we stayed home all weekend, only heading out for food and movies.  Serena and J kept up their bickering.  Because I knew J, I could tell that he was enjoying it, and when I tried to point this out to Serena, she just rolled her eyes and whinged that he should go home.  Having no experience of the world I had grown up in, I don’t think she realised just how dangerous Nix was.  I shuddered to think what he would do if he found us, but I didn’t share this with her.  J didn’t push the point either.  In fact, he seemed to be going out of his way to keep things light; perhaps that was why he insisted on playing with Serena – to keep the focus off the reason why we were stuck at home.

Monday morning rolled around, and Serena and I had to go to work.  J tried to talk me into not going but I stood my ground, so at nine o’clock the three of us arrived at work.  I had tried to convince him we would be alright without our own personal bodyguard but he refused to listen.

Gina, our boss, greeted us with a smirk, “I heard you had a bodyguard but they never told me he was this hot.” Gina was Blake’s sister; he must have told her about J.  She was a kick ass boss and I loved her hard.  Unfortunately, she had no filter and said whatever came to her in the moment.

“Yeah, sorry but he will be hanging out here today,” I apologised.

“No need to say sorry, darl.  Frankly, you’ve made my day.  I do love me some eye candy,” she said with a wink.

Thank goodness J was standing outside and wasn’t privy to this conversation.

We got to work, restocking the shelves and cleaning while J stayed outside for most of the morning.  He seemed pretty busy on his phone and I was grateful that I didn’t have to deal with him in the shop.

Being around him was hard; old feelings kept resurfacing and I alternated between hurt, anger and lust.  Every now and then I caught glimpses of the J I had loved and those times were the hardest; they hit me fair in the chest.  I wondered if he had a girlfriend currently.  We hadn’t really even had a friendly conversation about our lives since he had been here so I had no clue what he had been up to over the last couple of years.  Jealousy wrapped itself around my heart when I thought of him being with someone else.  I really didn’t want to know.  Fuck.  Who was I kidding?  I had a desperate need to know these details of his life.

I mentally slapped myself; time to get my shit together.

“So, darl, have you decided if you are going to head up to Brisbane?” Gina approached me.

I sighed.  I hated this question.  “I think I am going to have to, even though I don’t want to.  I really want to make sure my friend’s daughter, Crystal, is okay.  But I don’t want to leave you stuck for staff.”

She waved her hand, “Don’t worry about me or the shop.  We will sort something out.  I just want to make sure you are safe.  And I want you to go tomorrow.”

My eyes widened.  “Are you sure?”