The Reluctant Romantics Box Set (The Fall, The Mind, The Heart)

“By talking about chain smoking babies?”

“Before I open my eyes, I think of something to get me motivated. Most of them are human feats, some are spiritual. It’s just a thing I do,” Rose admitted as she began to slip out of bed. I pulled her to me with a negative headshake.

“I have surgery in three hours,” she protested, barely resisting my hold on her. She looked up at me with a curious smile, and I told her the truth. “Good morning, beautiful.” She sighed as she nestled further into my arms and I felt another switch flip. She was under my skin and beginning to filter everywhere else.

I chuckled as I thought of her telling me off as she threw that snake over the railing. I’d never in my lifetime get over that. One minute she was impossibly feminine, the next she was shoveling a side of rare beef in her mouth and wrestling reptiles.

“What?” she muffled into my chest.

“You’re the poster-child of a hot mess.” She stiffened in my arms as I continued. “You’re all over the place. Feisty one minute and full of love the next. I have no doubt in the operating room you are the picture of control, but out of it, well… I’ve never known anyone like you.”

Her arms tightened around my waist as she placed a small kiss on my chest. “Then you understand me.”

“I see what you want me to see, but you get no complaints here,” I said as I dragged my fingertips from her knee up to the top of her thigh.

She looked my way, a devastating smile on her face. “So what happens next?”

In a sudden move, I turned her on her back and moved between her legs. I slipped an inch inside of her as her breath hitched and kissed her neck as she moaned in welcome.

“I give you two more orgasms and we have coffee,” I said hoarsely as I began to push further inside her. She thrust her hips up in an effort to gain more of me, and I teased her as I circled them.

“And then,” she rasped out as she drug her nails down my back.

“And then we shower together,” I said as I pushed in fully and buried myself in heaven.

I remained still as she opened up to me. Every layer of space between us evaporated as I waited on her eyes to connect with mine. My arms locked next to her shoulders, I rolled my hips and watched her catch fire.

“This is so fucking perfect,” I whispered as I leaned in and kissed her before I rolled again and got impossibly deeper.

“Jack,” she gasped as her body began to tremble and her tightness clenched around me.

“Here,” I whispered as I placed a kiss on her forehead. “Here,” I said in the same tone as I kissed her chest where her heart lay. “Here,” I said as I pulled back and thrust hard, watching her fall apart beneath me. “Lots of this, that’s what’s next,” I promised through clenched teeth as I began to frantically move. I wanted to believe it was the truth. That there would be more nights like last night and even more of these mornings. She fascinated me and would take a piece of me with her when she left, a piece I had given to her after I had realized I was in a free fall.

It felt like a risk, but a risk worth taking.

I paused above her, positive I’d aimed for something else entirely when I’d pushed inside of her this morning, and it had turned into something else altogether.

“Jack, let go,” she urged as I spent myself inside her. And just as her words registered, my decision was made.

I didn’t want to let her go. I didn’t want her out of my bed or out of my sight. But I learned a long time ago that it wasn’t up to me. You can make a woman smile, crave, and come, but you could never make a woman feel.

And that was the most fascinating thing of all.

Jack: Good morning, beautiful.

Rose: Morning, handsome. Rap & R&B 101 Love it or Hate It, 50 Cent

Jack: Go save someone.

Rose: Go build something.

He sent a picture of a building he had co-designed, and I gasped at the progress they’d made. He was in Lubbock for a few days overseeing the groundbreaking of the project so he could spend some off time with me. He was running out of projects to help the center and decided to split his time so his reason for staying wasn’t obvious. I appreciated it more than he knew. I wasn’t ready to share yet, but it had been a week since I’d seen him and I hated it. His absence tugged at me, it gnawed. I savored every minute with him. Jack had completely taken me by surprise. Though southern gentlemen to the core and more than proud to be from his fair city of New Orleans, he was so much more than I’d originally given him credit for. Southern bred but worldly at the same time. I couldn’t wrap my

head around some of the things he’d seen and done. I was small town Texas, and he was… everywhere. Each day we spent together, we gave a little more of ourselves, our minds, our bodies. It felt surreal.

His presence excited me, his depth moved me, and his touch sated me.

Jack reminded me that life lay beyond my demanding career, a career I’d chosen and still loved. But my walks on the grounds became a lot less lonely with thoughts of my time with him to keep me company. My need for him grew each day. When he was in Texas, I spent all my nights with him at his hotel, or at the center, both of us still intent on keeping our stolen moments private, though more for me than Jack.