The crying in bed episode aside, I didn’t know the protocol, didn’t know what indulgences she would allow, what she would deem appropriate.
But, unlike all the nights over all the months over the years I had known her, I just plain didn’t care.
Taking a steadying breath, half-expecting rejection, I lowered my chin down on her shoulder, feeling her stiffen immediately, then slowly start to relax, actually leaning back into my body in the process. There wasn’t even a hesitation before my arm went around her, giving her body a squeeze.
“I’m not gonna let you drown, Jules.”
“That’s not your job,” she told me, but her voice didn’t hold that sharp edge to it like it might if we were in a different place at a different time.
“I don’t look after you out of obligation. I do it because I want to.”
Arm around her lower belly, I could feel the slow, deep breath she took, holding it for a long second before exhaling in a way that made her body shake slightly.
“Why do you like me, Kai?” she asked, making me almost shock back at the words, at the bluntness of them from someone who had always put blinders on and tiptoed around the issue.
“What?”
“Why do you like me? When I haven’t done anything to encourage it. When I haven’t lead you on in any way.”
I paused for a second, unprepared for this, this talk I had been dreading, the one she had seemed so glad to avoid ever having.
What was there to say but the truth?
“I don’t like you because you like me, honey. I don’t want you because you might want me back. I just like you because you’re you.”
There was a pause, the room quiet, but my heart was slamming so hard in my ears that it was all I would have heard even if a war was raging outside our door.
It felt like an eternity that we stood there, bodies touching, minds racing.
Her voice was low, barely audible, when she finally broke the silence.
“You don’t want me to want you?”
Her head had turned as she started speaking, her gaze finding mine over her shoulder. And I could have sworn I saw things there, things I had only gotten traces of before.
Vulnerability.
And, dare I even think it, desire.
There were no words for the electrical current that moved through my system, it vibrated at the tips of my fingers, my toes, my scalp, a surreal, overwhelming sensation I had never known could actually exist.
“I wouldn’t be presumptuous enough even to hope for it, Jules, but of course I would want you to want me.”
Her air shuddered out of her again, her lips pressing together then parting as her eyes found mine again.
“Maybe I…”
I didn’t need more than that.
I wasn’t going to blow my shot for a second time.
My free hand lifted, sliding up her jaw, lifting her chin slightly, hesitating only to see if there was a hint of rejection before pressing my lips down to hers.
A tremble coursed through her body at the contact, making my fingers crush into the flesh of her hip, using it to turn her to face me fully, looping around her back instead, hauling her tightly against me as my head slanted, as my lips pressed harder, feeling hers beneath gain boldness, become demanding.
Her hands, once balled at her sides, rose, both of them looping around my neck, pressing her body more tightly to mine.
A low, throaty moan rose from deep in her chest, vibrating against my lips, ripping every bit of self-control I had left away as I moved forward, walking her back, pressing her up against the wall.
Her gasp gave me an invitation for my tongue to move inside, stroking over hers as desire became a fire through my system.
Jules’s hands moved down my back, sinking into my ass, dragging me tighter to her body, my cock pressing hard at the juncture of her thighs. Her body shuddered at the contact, a sensation I had dreamed of for months, for years.
It wasn’t until her hands released my ass to snake up under my shirt, her fingers teasing over my skin that a thought was able to pierce through the veil of bliss that was a long-wanted dream coming true.
She was hurting.
And She was trying not to hurt.
It was no coincidence that this happened when she had gotten off the phone with her family, learning yet more bad news about her ex.
She wanted to forget for a moment, to get lost in something that felt good.
And while I was fine with being someone that felt good to her, I didn’t want to be the regret afterward, the realization that she had acted on impulse instead of actual desire.
Summoning a self-control I didn’t know I could possess when it would mean giving up everything I had ever wanted, my lips pulled from hers, my forehead pressing against hers as I struggled to even out my breathing.