God, being in his arms felt good. In a this-is-totally-messed-up kind of way. In spite of my protests, I understood what he was saying. I even understood why it was easier for him to do random one-nighters than get involved with someone he actually cared for. He’d been told he was a screw up for a lot of his life – why risk adding one more person to the mix who might one day end up doing the same? Even I knew I couldn’t promise I wouldn’t be that person. The only thing I could offer him was someone who wanted to fall in love with him. Real love. Not the “he’s really hot and I’d like to jump his bones” kind. I wanted to know everything about him and experience it with him, the way we’d experienced the Eiffel Tower together.
“What are we going to do?” he asked.
“You’re giving me a choice?”
“Yes. Tell me what you think we should do.”
As he said those words, I turned around in his arms, knowing he trusted me to make the right decision. That if I said we should try, then it was because I truly thought we could make it, and if I said we should stop whatever this thing was, it was because I knew he was right, that the obstacles were too big to overcome.
I shouldn’t have turned around. Because how could there be any other option when I looked at the man I’d wanted in ways I’d never wanted anyone before?
“This isn’t just my decision. What do you want, Jase?”
“Right now?” He closed his eyes for a second and blew out a breath. “Right now I want to kiss the woman in my arms because I think she is just about the most amazing, fearless woman in the world.”
I laughed gently. “I’m not fearless. I’m surprised you can’t feel me shaking.”
My hands, hell, my whole body trembled because I was so close. So close.
“I feel it. But you’re not shaking because you’re scared of me. You’re shaking because you want this. And that blows my mind.”
“Why?”
“Because you get me, and you know what you’re getting into, and you’re not running away screaming.”
It was then I noticed he was shaking too, and I’d never seen that before. Not in this context. I’d seen him with women before, but not this way. Not laying himself open for them, and holding them like they were so precious he couldn’t let them go.
The way I’d wanted him to look at me.
“Jase,” I whispered. “I’m not asking you for forever. I’m not asking you to make a lifelong commitment. I’m just asking you to give this a try if it’s what you want.”
In response, Jason placed a hand on the back of my neck and slowly pressed his lips to mine.
Magic. Actual magic happened the moment his mouth touched mine. It tingled through my skin and into my bloodstream, pumping joy around my body and filling my heart with the kind of happiness I couldn’t have even imagined. The stubble on his chin rubbed against my skin and the stirring sensation in my stomach moved lower, startling me.
How could one kiss do that to me? It made me want to make sounds I’d only ever heard in movies and I, embarrassingly, pressed my hips into his. Except I wasn’t entirely embarrassed – more surprised at how fast those feelings had erupted inside me.
When our lips parted, Jason rested his forehead against mine. “Let’s just take this slowly, okay?”
I nodded. “I think slow is all I can handle.” My breath sounded funny, and I let out an awkward and uncharacteristic girly giggle that made Jason laugh.
“There’s no rush, Luce. We’ve got all the time in the world.”
Chapter 9 - Lockdown
“What in the actual fuck?” Ellie shrieked, shoving her iPad in my face as my eyelids fluttered open.
“What?” I mumbled. “Go away.”
I tried to pull my duvet over my head but she tugged it away from me and thrust her iPad towards me again. I blinked a few times, trying to work out where I was, what time it was, and why my sister was flipping out.
Prague. We had to be in Prague by now. There was daylight outside, so it was maybe… Hell, I had no idea.
I turned onto my side and as my eyes focused on her iPad screen, I let out a shriek of my own.
This cannot be happening again.
But it was. Just like the year before when the papers had gone batshit over Drew and Jason’s feud, and Ellie had gotten dragged in the middle of it, this time it was my turn to make the news.