“I get that was probably not your thing but outside of that assclown bein’ an assclown and mouthin’ off, I’ll tell you how that felt for me. You’re beautiful. You’re classy. You’re sweet. You dress fuckin’ cool and unbelievably hot. I KO’d the third seed in our league in five minutes and I was prouder of walkin’ out of that room with you, knowin’ everyone knew you were mine and just how you were mine, what I could do to you and what you could give to me, than I was at watching him hit the mat.”
“That’s absurd and beautiful, both at the same time,” I blurted.
I saw his white teeth in the shadows and knew he was smiling when he advised, “Grasp on to the beautiful part, Slick.”
“I’ll make an effort to do that, Jake.”
I watched his face get closer then I felt his mouth on mine. He kissed me, it was again deep and sweet but it wasn’t long before he broke contact with my mouth and lifted his lips to touch them to my forehead.
He then dropped to his back but took me with him, holding me close to his side.
I wrapped my arm around his flat stomach and rested my cheek against his chest.
“You get on with Alyssa?” he asked when we’d settled.
“She was lovely, albeit loud and foul-mouthed.”
“She’s the shit. Good woman. Good mom. Good to Junior.”
“She asked me for my number,” I shared and his arm around my back gave me a squeeze.
“I’ll talk to Junior. Get hers. She doesn’t call you, you call her. You got me, the kids, but women need women at their backs and she’d be a good one.”
I didn’t have very many women at mine, but the ones I had, I knew this was true.
“I’ll call her if she doesn’t call me.”
That got me another squeeze before he murmured, “Good.”
He fell silent.
I stared at the shadowed angles of his chest.
I did this for some time before I whispered, “Jake?”
“Baby, we’re good,” he whispered back, answering the question I hadn’t yet asked. The question that had me most afraid. The question that might lead to what we’d done being a foolhardy act which would mean we’d lose all we’d built. And even in the short time we’d had, we’d built something beautiful I never wanted to lose.
I just wanted to build it higher, stronger and keep it forever.
“What’s next?” I queried.
“Don’t know, Josie. Just know whatever it is I want you to be a part of it and I hope like fuck you want the same.”
I closed my eyes tight and pressed my cheek hard to his chest.
I wanted the same.
I very much wanted the same.
But I didn’t expect Jake to want it.
Clearly, he did.
And I didn’t know how to feel the feeling I was feeling. I’d been content for so long I forgot how to feel happy.
I turned my head and my lips moved against his skin when I noted, “You like me too.”
His hand slid up my spine to curl around the back of my neck when he replied, “Oh yeah, honey. I like you too.”
I swallowed the emotion that was clogging my throat and dipped my chin into my neck so I could press my forehead into his skin.
His hand tightened on my neck and he urged, “Go to sleep, Josie.”
At his command, I opened my eyes, turned my head and settled in. “Okay, Jake.”
He moved his other arm to wrap both around me and I settled deeper into him. With effort, I relaxed against him and it didn’t take long before one of his arms slid away, the other one loosened, his hand resting lightly at my waist, and I knew he was asleep.
I wasn’t asleep.
The last time I got what I wanted, what I really, really wanted was when Andy came to sit by me in lunch at high school.
And that didn’t work out very well.
Somehow, it had happened again.
I’d been happy then.
I felt happy now.
Right alongside utterly terrified.
This thought seized me and I rolled away from Jake to turn my eyes to the window.
I couldn’t see the sea from where I was in the bed, but I could see the inky sky and bright shaft of moonlight.
I was barely away from him but for seconds before Jake rolled into me and I felt his arm curl around my belly.
He did nothing more. He said nothing. His breath was even. His hold was again loose.
“Jake?” I whispered.
He didn’t reply.
He’d rolled into me in his sleep.
I stared at the view and seeing that view, lying in that bed, Jake holding me in his sleep, it came to me that Gran gave this to me.
Gran gave it to me.
All of it.
She knew what she was doing from the very beginning.
So it was safe.
And it was mine.
On that thought, I felt the tension slide out of my shoulders and away from spine, my lips curved up, my body pressed back into the warm hardness of Jake’s and my eyelids dropped.
Thus on that thought, I fell asleep for the first time in over two decades doing it carefree.
And doing it happy.
Chapter Thirteen
She’d Like It a Fuckuva Lot
Jake opened his eyes and saw white ceiling and white cornices.
But he felt Josie’s hair all over his chest and shoulder, her cheek on his pec, her arm around his gut, the warmth of her soft body pressed to his side and the silk of her short nightie on his arm but his hand that was resting on her hip felt nothing but skin.
This was why he smiled.
His eyes caught on the pink of the walls and his mind brought up an image of that room which was almost all flowers, the armchair by the window, the cover on the bed, the toss pillows that were everywhere. The prints didn’t match but it worked in a girlie way that was definitely not him, it wasn’t even Josie, but it was Lydie. There were even faded pictures of flowers in frames on the walls.
With all that pink and all those flowers, it was a wonder his testosterone levels didn’t take a nosedive the instant he entered the room.
Then again, he could get it up for Josie anytime, anyplace. He knew that because he had to fight against getting hard at a fucking high school football game with just her pressed to his side.
He could definitely do it in a room filled with flowers.
He’d proved that last night.
And now.
He wanted her. He was ready for her. His mind was no longer on flowers but on the red silk nightie she was wearing.
His favorite color was blue but that red nightie was the absolute shit. Josie in it, her long hair down and even wet, her in that nightie was the hottest thing he’d ever seen.
But he’d only had one condom in his wallet. He’d taken her without one in the locker room but until they had the conversation, that was all he was going to take.
Which sucked.
This meant he couldn’t have her again and with the day ahead, he wouldn’t be able to have her until that night.
So they had to have the conversation.
They just wouldn’t be having it now.
Last night, they’d taken a giant leap forward, a fucking awesome one. Even with that, he wasn’t going to start pushing her now.
To calm his shit down, he was trying not to think of her in that sexy as fuck dress she wore last night, sitting ringside for him, following him to the locker room, that look on her face, that heat in her pretty blue eyes, when she moved her head slightly on his chest.
He knew by the way it felt she wasn’t moving in her sleep but instead moving in a way she was trying not to wake him so he knew she was awake.
Therefore he tightened his arm around her and rolled them so he was resting partly on her front, partly down her side. He hitched a knee to spread her legs and rested it almost at the heat of her as he lifted his head and looked down at her face.