Free Tessa Ever After by Brighton Walsh

as I pull her closer to me, wrapping an arm around her back and holding her to me. I shouldn’t be doing this. I should be the best friend I am and listen to Cade’s warning. I should respect the fact that Tessa’s here, out on a date—no matter how mind-numbingly boring that guy seems to be. But I can’t help myself. And definitely not when I get a feel of her body pressed against mine from legs to chest and every inch in between.
    “Jason . . .” The music is louder out here, and I don’t hear what she says as much as the way my name forms on her lips. Her hands are braced on my chest, and though I’m moving to the rhythm of the song, Tessa is still standing still.
    I lean down, my lips next to her ear so she can hear me over the din. “Come on, Tess. I’ve never known you not to dance. Just one song. No big deal.”
    She stands still for another moment, and then, finally, she moves. Her hips start swaying under my hands, and I have to physically stop myself from gripping her tighter, from pulling her closer to me, from grinding her into my aching cock. It’s bad enough that I’m dancing with her like this at all, never mind the fact that her date is watching from fifty feet away.
    It doesn’t take long before she allows herself the freedom of getting lost in the music, her eyes closing and her movements more fluid. She rolls her hips, her body pressing into mine over and over and over again until I’m certain I’m going to go out of my fucking mind. And then she turns around, her back to my chest, and lifts her arms over her head, finally not caring about anything or anyone but the music playing around her.
    Tentatively, I settle my hands on her hips again, diligent in keeping space between us, because the last thing I need is her ass rubbing against my very obvious hard-on. But I can’t stop myself from picturing what she’d look like, doing this for me. For only me. Dancing in the privacy of her room, maybe doing a striptease or giving me a lap dance, and I curse myself and the path my mind always seems to take when she’s around.
    The more we dance, the longer she stays out here with me—one song turning into two, then three—the more irritated I become that she’s on a date with someone like that in the first place. She needs someone who’ll do this with her. Who’s not too buttoned up to get on the dance floor—because they can see the longing in her eyes, just because they know it’ll make her happy. Someone who’ll take her to places she likes, make her laugh withstupid jokes, who’ll order a dessert they don’t even want just so she can have some.
    That thought stops me cold, because I realize with a start that I just described myself. And while she most certainly doesn’t belong with someone like Greg, she also deserves someone a thousand times better than me.
    And the sooner I get that through my thick fucking skull, the easier it’s going to be.
    tessa
    Guilt, heavy and solid, sits in my stomach. And I have no idea why it’s even there, why I’m feeling it at all. I shouldn’t be. I absolutely shouldn’t be, yet ever since those five uncomfortable minutes when Jason showed up at the table and the subsequent fifteen we spent on the dance floor, it’s been there, steady and unbreakable.
    And then on top of guilt, jealousy crept in as I watched him go back to his buddies, the blonde who’d been hanging all over his friend switching her sights back to Jason. Even though he didn’t seem to be welcoming her advances, never touched her, the fact that he could if he wanted to, that he should , sent a wave of unease through me.
    And it rocked my whole goddamn foundation.
    Jason is very nearly the exact opposite of the kind of man I’m looking for—the kind of man I want to have a future with. The kind of man who will fit perfectly into my and Haley’s lives. He’s irresponsible and wild and unsteady. He’s a bad boy, and I have no illusions of turning a bad boy good.
    I force