Until Lexi

Slipping my hands underneath my crop top, I watch Jake as I pinch and pluck at my nipples. He mutters a curse from between my thighs.

Two thick fingers slide into me and when I feel them graze that sensitive spot over and over again, I’m lost.

My orgasm hits with the force of a tsunami, making my back bow and my knee buckle. I come so hard I almost forget where I am as I fall apart and crash toward the floor. Jake somehow catches me, settling me on his lap while I catch my breath and put my pieces back together.

“You good?” Jake asks, and I can hear the smugness in his tone.

“I’m still fucking hungry,” I grumble against his chest.

A loud laugh bursts out of him.

He slides me off his lap and stands, helping me up off the floor. The sight of his hard cock bobbing in my face on the way up almost has me saying “fuck it” to dinner and finishing what he started instead. I don’t know what Jake sees on my face, but the grin that stretches across his is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.

Jake licks his lips and eyes me up and down, then he shakes his head without saying a word. I stand there, still weak in the knees, as he squats down and helps me back into my jeans. When he finishes buttoning them, he drops a kiss to the top of my head and crosses the room to grab his own clothes.

“Why don’t I run out and grab us something?” he suggests as he gets dressed, garnering no argument from me. I’m not in the mood to go out anywhere. “When I come back, we can talk about finding a more permanent place for me to live.”

Thirty minutes later, he strolls into the living room with a bag from the Chinese restaurant near Blossom’s.

“I was thinking…” I say as Jake sorts through the containers of food. “Maybe you should wait a little longer, until we get the results of the DNA test.”

“To look for a place?” he asks, looking up from a carton of fried rice.

“Yeah.”

He sets everything down on the coffee table and gives me his full attention. “You planning on going somewhere?”

“No,” I tell him honestly. “But depending on the results… my family might be.”

“You don’t know that.”

“If Noah is Mercy’s father, there’s no way Penny will keep her from him, no matter what Hope wants. And Riley… she’s gonna wanna meet her brothers.”

He might not know them well, but he knows I’m right.

“And there’s no way you’ll go with them if they leave?”

I shake my head. “I love my girls, but I can’t up and leave. Not now. I’ve got my apprenticeship with Blossom. It’s the start of something potentially amazing for me and my future. I refuse to bail without seeing it through.”

“That’s what? A year from now?”

“At least.”

“What about after that?” he asks.

“After that… who knows? I can’t think that far ahead. I prefer to focus on now.”

“I think that’s smart, and I like that you’re focusing on yourself.”

“It’s selfish.”

Jake scoffs, shaking his head as he reaches for a carton of food and shoves it into my hands. “It’s not. The girls would tell you the same damn thing, and you know it.”

“Anyway,” I say, not wanting to argue about it. “If the results come back the way we hope, I could end up all alone in that big, empty house.”

Jake pauses, fork halfway to his mouth, and eyes me curiously. He sticks the fork back into the container and hesitantly asks, “Are you asking me to move in with you?”

“I…I mean…if you don’t think it’s too soon, but…” Food resting on my lap, I focus hard on a frayed string on my jeans, wondering if I should have kept my idea to myself.

“Lexi,” Jake says softly. His hand comes into my vision, covering mine and stopping my anxious movements. “Look at me.”

Cursing myself mentally for letting my vulnerability show, I force it back down and raise my gaze to meet his.

“I’m not against it, Lexi. I told you before… I’m all in. Hell, I’d move in with you today if it wouldn’t make things more complicated with everything else going on. I want you to be sure it’s what you want.”

Silly Jake.

“Haven’t you realized by now that I don’t do anything I don’t want to do?” I ask, giving him the look.

“There she is.” He laughs. “I was waiting for all that fire to come back.”

“I’ll show you fire,” I threaten, grabbing a fortune cookie from the table. I chuck it at him, but the bastard catches it before it hits him.

“Good. I love your fire.” He opens the wrapper and breaks the cookie in half, popping one piece into his mouth before he reads the fortune out loud. “You will marry your lover.”

This time, Jake looks at me with an arched brow.

And I’m speechless.