The General (Professionals 4)

Wanted her.

The realization was enough to have me pausing for long enough that Jenny let out a little squealing, excited noise.

“Are they closed?” I clarified before pushing it open.

“Yes!”

I smiled – big, warm – because there was no one there to judge me for it, before pressing a hand into her hip, pretending like I needed to do so to push her forward when it wasn’t necessary at all. Just an excuse to touch her. To feel the warmth of her skin in the sliver where her yoga pants didn’t quite meet the silk tank top she had on under a long sweater that trailed behind her.

It was probably just my imagination, but I could have sworn I felt a shiver course through her at the contact.

Wishful thinking, surely.

“Okay,” I said, dropping my hand, moving from behind her to the side so I could see her face – the bruises all but gone. The scratches just little pink lines.

Beautiful.

The breathtaking kind.

I knew it from the couples pictures plastered around the house – hard times hung on the walls. But it was completely different to see something in person.

Her eyes opened, falling on the long mahogany table before her, lacquered to a high shine.

“You got me a craft table?” she asked,smile going wide enough to make the skin around her eyes crinkle.

“I, ah, I actually made it. Had it hanging around. When we talked about a craft space for you, I thought it would be perfect.”

She sent me a wide-eyed look before moving forward, sliding her long-boned fingers across the surface lovingly.

A man would kill to be touched like that.

“I can’t use this for clay,” she informed me, shaking her head.

My heart sank. “Why not?”

“It’s too beautiful,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Craft tables are old and junky. This belongs in an entryway or something,” she declared, still running her fingers over the smooth surface.

“It’s nothing, really. I want you to use it for your jewelry.”

“Nothing?” she asked, quirking a brow up. “This is not nothing, Smith. Do you do woodworking often?”

“It’s a stress reliever for me. Learned it from my old man. Him from his. Whenever things in the house were unmanageable, or they were in a tiff with their wives, they’d go out to the garage or shed, put on some music, get to sanding or cutting or staining.”

“That is a very productive way to manage stress.”

“Yeah. And there was always something to show for it. Maybe something as simple as a bird house. Maybe a desk or set of nightstands. Bookcases. Hell, my grandfather carved the headboard for the bed he and my grandma shared for fifty-one years.”

“That’s amazing.”

“I have that bed now,” I volunteered, not sure why I felt the need to share that. I liked the idea of her having some parts of me, as cheesy as that may have been. No one had that information, not anymore, not since my parents passed.

“Wow. I love the idea of that. And this. I love this,” she said, pressing a hand to the desk again.

“We’ll have to drag a chair in from…”

“Right here,” she told me, grabbing her armchair, pulling it out of the corner, and placing it in front of the table, smiling the whole time she did so. “And I can get some of those stackers to go under it as well,” she added.

“My thoughts exactly. Everything within reach when you need it.”

“You won’t be able to get me out of this room,” she told me, shaking her head, shifting her feet, seeming to struggle with something. What, I wasn’t sure for a moment. Not until she closed the few feet between us, hesitantly raising her thin arms, wrapping them around me, almost barely touching me, like she was afraid I might shrink away, reject her. Her life was full of nothing but pain, humiliation, and rejection. Of course that was what she might expect from men as a whole.

She didn’t bank on the fact that not a single part of me would ever reject her.

My arms went up around her, slowly because I didn’t want to surprise her, freak her out. When she didn’t pull away, I wrapped her up tight, allowing myself to take a breath, breathe her in, feel the way her body melted against mine, her soft, subtle curves meeting my much harder lines.

“Thank you,” she said, her head turning toward my neck, her breath warm on my throat as she spoke.

“You’re welcome.”

She didn’t pull away even though the moment was gone, the appropriate length of a thank you hug was long over.

Her hands slid up my back before she realized what she was doing and they slid back down, slipping over my ribs then disappearing completely as she pulled away.

“So, semi-hot Chinese?” I asked when her gaze met the floor, cheeks tinting the slightest bit pink, maybe embarrassed by the intimacy, the fact that she had initiated it.