LITMIR.BIZ

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or wonderful as Jaci, but kind and caring and loyal in her own right.

      Ian, Jaci’s fiancé of twenty-four hours, who had no problem telling the two of them apart, stood beside Justin, shaking his head in disappointment. “She looks beautiful because she’s not the one exposed to pepper spray in an elevator yesterday, you ignoramus.” Ian walked toward her, placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed in support. “Hey there, future sister-in-law,” he said and slid past her into Jaci’s condo.

      “Jena?” Justin asked, baffled, searching her face for some identifier for confirmation.

      How she’d longed to hear him utter her name that night, in the dark, in the heat of passion. Instead he’d tortured her with each, “Damn, Jaci, you feel so good.” Punished her with, “You are so special, Jaci. Do you have any idea how special you are?”

      “Hi, Justin,” she said. “Come on in.” She turned to the side to make room for him. “Let’s get this over with.”

      He took one long-legged step forward and stared down at her. “We need to talk,” he said quietly, stating the obvious.

      He stood too close, his deep brown eyes serious, his expression solemn, his scent making her weak, making her crave … “That’s why you’re here.” She backed into the condo, needed space, air. “To talk.” To have the conversation she should have initiated during her first week back in town. But appointments with doctors, hospitals and attorneys, taking care of the twins, and ensuring their futures had taken precedence.

      He leaned in close. “Alone.”

      So he could berate her for what she’d done? He couldn’t make her feel worse than she already did. To ask her to keep the circumstances of what’d happened between them a secret? Too late. “Jaci knows,” Jena said.

      Justin stared down at Jena’s deceptively beautiful face. If only she had the personality to match. Shoulder length blonde curls, her complexion flawless, her eyes a striking blue. So much like Jaci’s but different. Softer, yet guarded. Funny, he couldn’t remember ever getting close enough to notice the difference before. Jena usually hung in the background. Quiet. Boring. A goodie-goodie, judgmental, rich-bitch snob. Not at all his type.

      But something had changed in the ten or so months she’d been gone. She stood taller, more confident. Attractive. Alluring.

      The words ‘Jaci knows’ brought him back to the conversation.

      Crap. If Jaci knew that meant Ian knew, or would know soon. Ian would pound him senseless for sure. Justin wouldn’t fight back because he deserved it and, under the circumstances, would do the exact same thing if a friend he trusted took a woman he cared about to bed. Strangely, rather than apprehension at what was sure to escalate into a full blown physical altercation with one of his best—and strongest—friends, he felt relief.

      But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to deter Ian with an explanation. “It’s not what you think.” Justin walked into Jaci’s condo. Jena closed the door behind him.

      Jaci gave him a wary, perplexed look. He’d avoided revealing the truth for that exact reason. She was his best female friend. Hell, his only female friend. And they’d been getting into trouble together and looking out for one another since junior high school. He loved her. Like a sister. “I can explain.”

      Ian went on guard. “Explain what?” he asked.

      “Come on.” Jaci took Ian by the hand and tugged him toward the bedroom.

      “Wait.” Justin stood firm. It was time to come clean. “I slept with Jena.”

      Uninterested, Ian turned to follow Jaci.

      “At the time I’d thought she was Jaci,” Justin admitted.

      Ian jerked to a stop.

      “And there’s no way you would have slept with plain, boring, inexperienced Jena otherwise,” Jena snapped. “Am I right?” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.

      He’d deal with her in a minute. “Jaci was so upset when you ran out on her,” he spoke to Ian who turned around to face him. “Moping around. She didn’t want to do anything, go anywhere. I hadn’t seen her that depressed since right after her dad died and her mom was injured. That was your fault, not mine.” He pointed at Ian.

      “So you thought you’d cheer her up with some naked fun while I was off fighting a war?” To someone who didn’t know Ian, he’d seem eerily calm. But Justin could tell when he was about to blow.

      How to explain … “I’d come off a lousy shift. A woman and her seven-year-old daughter, missing for thirty-six hours. Found dead. Brutalized.” Tossed in a Dumpster like yesterday’s trash. Three years on the police force, patrolling the most dangerous crime ridden area in Westchester County, and that day had made him question his decision to forgo a cushy job in his father’s investment company to attend the police academy.

      “Oh, Justin.” Jena set her palm on the bare skin of his arm. “I had no idea.”

      Her touch, soft, gentle and feminine, moved him in a way Jaci’s never had. But there’d been a few times … “Jaci is my friend,” Justin said. “Your girlfriend.”

      “My fiancée.”

      “Right.” Justin snapped. “Still getting used to that.” And wondering how it would affect his friendship with Jaci, if they still had one after tonight. “Anyway. My point is. I don’t lust after Jaci. Hell, she’s like a sister to me.” Their relationship platonic … ninety-nine percent of the time. “But there were a few times back in high school …” When something had shifted, when physical attraction flared between them for a few minutes and they’d given in to its demands. After each encounter Jaci had insisted they never speak of it again, that they pick up the next day as if nothing had happened or risk the ruin of a friendship they both valued.

      At the narrowing of Ian’s eyes and the clenching of his fists, Justin thought better of continuing on in that vein. “In my crap state of mind I let alcohol skew my thinking. I needed a distraction. She needed comfort. Or so I’d thought.” He glanced at Jena.

      “I did.” Jena looked up at him. “That night would have been my mom’s fifty-third birthday.” She paused. “What do you mean there were a few times during high school? Times when you were physically attracted to Jaci? Like when?”

      “I’d rather not—”

      “I’d sure like to know,” Jaci said, staring at him.

      “Me, too,” Ian added, straightening up to his full height.

      Of course Justin’s cell phone didn’t ring. No emergency to run off to. No reason he could think of to turn and leave and never address this topic again.

      “Like sophomore year?” Jena asked. “Under the bleachers at the Mt. Vernon Scarsdale men’s varsity basketball home game?”

      Jaci had dropped her purse. It’d been hot in the gym. Stuffy. Her tee had molded to her full breasts. Her scent had affected him. It’d been the first time being in close proximity to Jaci had elicited a physical response. The first time she’d looked up at him with longing. The first time he’d kissed her.

      “I wasn’t at that game,” Jaci said, looking back and forth between him and Jena.

      “It was me,” Jena said quietly, not looking at him.

      Jaci’s holier than thou, prude of a sister? Impossible. “Junior year. The gazebo at the Parks’s Fourth of July barbeque,” Justin said, remembering a friendly hug after a win at horseshoes that had morphed into a frantic, heated groping session where he’d touched her bare breasts for the first time. And though he’d touched dozens of breasts before them, the smooth, rounded, silkiness of Jaci’s, capped off by the hardest, most aroused nipples he’d ever felt, left a lasting impression.

      “Me,” Jena said, looking at the ground.

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