Jackson smirked. “You think I’m hot. Nice.” He pulled his shirt on slower than necessary. For the first time in his life he wanted a woman to ogle his body. Seemed only fair since he worshiped hers in search of redemption, salvation, and eternity.
“You realize all those tattoos are going to look hideous when you get older and your skin starts to sag from losing its elasticity and muscle atrophy.”
Twisting his lips, he tilted his head to the side, hands shoved in his jean’s pockets. “Hmm … but you’ll still love me right?”
She shrugged. “Depends. I might have to trade you in for a newer model.”
“So basically someone young enough to be your grandchild?”
Her jaw dropped on a quick inhale a split second before she launched a pillow at his head. “I was going to offer to drive you home, but after that comment you can huff it through the snow, buddy.”
He tossed the pillow back to her then sat on the edge of the bed to pull on his socks. “You shouldn’t be driving in this weather anyway.”
She giggled. “This weather? What? A couple inches of snow that’s been plowed from the streets? Not that I’ll need it but my Rav is 4-wheel drive. Well … I may need it to get out of my driveway through the solid foot of ice melt.”
He narrowed his eyes and grabbed her knee, squeezing it until she squealed and begged through a string of mercy apologies.
“Enough!” she squirmed out of his grip, breathless and beaming with a smile bright enough to melt all the snow in Omaha that day.
“Is this how it’s going to be? For the rest of our lives are you going to critique my domestic skills? Mocking them?”
Her smile faded a fraction. Then she bit her lips together as if she needed to suppress her response.
“What?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. Well, it’s just I like when you say that, and yet is scares me to death at the same time.”
He leaned over and buried his face in her neck, tasting the most addictive skin imaginable. She threaded her fingers through his hair. Her body arched into his, calling “come hither.”
“It’s you and me, babe. Deal with it,” he mumbled.
“I’d rather you deal with me.” She freed a leg from the confines of the sheets and wrapped it around his waist to pull him closer.
“I have to go.” He laughed, grabbing her leg to remove it from his waist.
“Mr. Knight, are you telling me no?” She yanked his hair until he looked at her.
He squinted, looking at her clock, then sucked in a breath through his teeth. “I’m afraid so.” After dropping a quick kiss on her lips and then one on the tip of her nose, he pulled away and sighed. “I’m going to quit my job after today. Then you can tie me to your bed for eternity. Deal?”
“It’s a mattress on a simple frame. There’s nothing to tie you to.”
He walked to the door and grabbed the handle. “I’ll buy you a new bed.”
“How are you going to do that if you quit your job?”
Jackson opened the door, lifting a single shoulder. “I’ll dig up a coffee can or something ingenious like that.” He winked and shut the door behind him.
“I love you!” Ryn yelled.
He paused at the top of the stairs. The distant echo of her words brought back the flash of a memory from his childhood—his mother yelling downstairs “I love you” to her twins before they left for school. He still hated what she did. He hated his father for living a lie. He hated his sister’s circumstances that prevented him from ever telling her.
The entire Day family had to die so the man, who fell for the woman on the other side of the bedroom door, could find the ability to love again. And he did … Jackson loved Ryn.
“I love you too, hot pants!”
*
Light flurries swirled in the breeze as Jackson made his way home. He inwardly grimaced at his overreaction to the first snow. He should have ventured out of San Francisco more in the winter months.
Stan waved from Greta’s driveway. He wore some sort of coveralls and expertly wielded a snow shovel. The guy was seventy and worked circles around men in their twenties.
“I thought our association dues covered snow removal,” Jackson called from his driveway.
“They do, but those idiots don’t know what they’re doing. If you don’t get all this snow cleared better and throw down some ice melt, it’s just going to get packed on the driveways slick as snot.”
“An ice melt guy.” Jackson grinned. “I hear ya. Lots of ice melt.”
He grabbed the small snow-covered box by the front door on his way inside then slipped off his boots.
It was a phone with a number on a small note. It had to be Jillian needing to contact him, but he had a phone, she didn’t. Why send him a burner phone?