Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 47176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
“Yeah,” I reply, not having to guess who she means.
“I want to feel like I’ve done something,” she says.
You are, I want to tell her. She is.
She’s melting my heart, reworking my soul, reshaping me into a man who never wants to let her go.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Jennifer
I feel more than a little surreal as Jamie leads me into the basement. He’s wearing a T-shirt and shorts, making it difficult to focus on walking down the steps.
I’m thinking of Kelly, of the pain in her eyes, the warble in her voice…and the way she was trying to mask it all as if she could make me believe she has all the answers even now.
And even that’s a lie.
Not Kelly, but me – the idea that I’m thinking of her now.
I’m staring hard at Jamie’s arms, remembering the way we held hands upstairs.
Peggy and Patrick are still asleep.
As Jamie turns on the lights and gestures at the chair, he says, “Peggy always has her own setup.”
“You don’t?” I ask, walking over to him and standing close.
Close, but not touching.
Not like in the bedroom. Not like yesterday.
He shakes his head. “Work is enough for me.”
We look at each other for a moment. He’s back to how he was before we kissed and when we almost…I can’t even think about what would’ve happened then.
He’s grumpy, standoffish.
He doesn’t want me. He doesn’t…
But then wraps his arms around me quickly, pulling me right up against him.
I gasp at the suddenness of it.
I can’t fight it, even if I know I should, even if I know, it’s the only thing I should be thinking about right now.
Stopping this kiss, ending this before it begins.
But then he opens his mouth with that snarling noise of pleasure like he can’t fight it either. He’s as lost to this heat as I am, both of us sinking together, mouths opening, tongues finding each other.
His hand slips over my hip, around, and down toward my center…
Stepping away, I let out a shuddering breath.
“Sorry,” I murmur. “I just….”
“I understand,” Jamie says, even if there’s no way he can.
He can’t know that, on top of everything else, I’ve got to worry about what will happen if we ever go all the way. Not what will happen with Kelly, though that would be its own form of hell, but what will happen full-freaking-stop.
With me.
Could I do it?
“I was starting to wonder if I imagined yesterday,” I say after a pause.
He stares at me for a long time. It’s just like it used to be, at the parties… except now I look closer, and I’m sure I see the hunger there.
I know the hunger’s there – I can taste it, my body aches for it – but seeing it makes it seem somehow more real.
It’s like his lust is trying to send him surging toward me.
I think of Kelly, of her and Jamie, kissing, of all that clashing mess.
What if Kelly doesn’t make it out alive?
I turn quickly away, unable to look at Jamie anymore.
He reflects what we’re doing, the kiss we just shared, right back at me.
It hurts more.
“Shall we get started?” I ask quietly.
He moves over to a table at the edge of the room, sorting through some tools.
“You didn’t imagine it,” he says gruffly, his back turned away from me. “Yesterday, everything we shared, we did… There was nothing make-believe about that. It was….”
“What?” I ask.
He doesn’t turn to face me. It’s like we can talk more freely when we’re not staring at each other, or maybe it’s easier because there isn’t a constant risk, want, or desire of us kissing each other.
And doing more.
“What?” I say softly when he still doesn’t respond. “Jamie?”
Before he can answer, there’s whining at the top of the stairs.
“I didn’t know Peggy had a dog,” I murmur, thinking back over yesterday.
Now Jamie turns to me…and I sense the moment’s shattered. Whatever he was going to say about our first kiss, it vanished.
“She doesn’t,” Jamie replies, with a new light in his eyes, making me think of what an incredible father he’s going to make.
The thought comes suddenly, feeling true, feeling important.
This – this light, this passion – will translate to our family. I just know it will.
“That’s Lucifer. Benny will be up there too. Sometimes, if I’m away for more than a day or two, they’ll stay here…and always in Peggy’s room for the first night. They love it, the weirdos.”
“The weirdos,” I repeat, giggling. “Are they yours?”
When he nods, I ask, “Can we see them?”
It’s like everything is easier, all emotions raised, crying and laughing and screaming and moaning in pleasure. And smiling too, as Jamie nods, gesturing for the stairs.
“We’ll have to go up. They don’t like the basement stairs.”
He leads me up the stairs, his hand on the small of my back.
“I was going to say it was like the first time I discovered art,” he says, leaning down to whisper in my ear, his breath caressing me. “Us, yesterday, the kiss….”