Falling From Disgrace

Softening a bit, Adrianna sniffed and finally met his eyes. They stared into hers with sincerity and she squeezed his hand.

“Hey, Jack!” a female voice called from the doorway. “We’re dying in here, you coming?”

“Yeah, just a second,” he called back over Adrianna’s shoulder. “Look, Kenny will be here in about a half hour, you wanna go up to my place and wait for me?”

“No,” she answered. “I have no clean clothes and I smell like train. I’m gonna go home and shower.”

“I’ll come over when I get off then, okay?” Adrianna nodded and then Jack pulled her into an embrace. “I missed you,” he said with a kiss to her temple.

Adrianna said nothing but returned the kiss, placing a small one just below his jaw. She closed her eyes and breathed him in, a mixture of Irish Spring deodorant and light smoke comforting her. She really missed him, too.

Jack hailed her a cab and while she was driven away she closed her eyes and was relieved her shitty weekend was coming to an end.

Adrianna, freshly showered and in a pair of small, black cotton shorts and a black tank top, unlocked her door and let Jack in when she heard him knock. Raking his eyes over her barely dressed body and her damp hair, he had the sudden urge to have her wrapped around him and he didn’t fight it.

Without a word, he lifted her by her hips, taking her by surprise. Still, Adrianna wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck and let him press her into the door behind them. Jack’s lips assaulted hers, pushing her mouth open to let his tongue glide roughly against her own before taking her bottom lip between his teeth. By the time he finished greeting her, Adrianna was breathless.

“Hi,” Jack said, still holding her against the door, searching her eyes for any lingering anger or sadness from earlier. Adrianna’s eyes always conveyed what she was feeling and just then they were showing a little bit of shock and a lot of lust.

“Hi,” she answered weakly. Jack contemplated just walking to her bedroom but he they needed to talk. Talk, one; sex, two.

He let her slide slowly to the floor and then he kissed her again, three times, with closed lips. “I really did miss you,” he told her again.

Adrianna pouted and admitted, “I thought you didn’t want me anymore.”

“I’m an idiot. I’m sorry.” He ran his finger across her forehead, brushing her bangs away, trying to alleviate her worry. Taking her hand, he led her to the sofa where she curled up on his lap.

“Where you really worried that I felt smothered?”

“Kind of,” Jack shrugged.

“Oh, Jack, I don’t feel smothered at all! You’ve done so much already, I’m afraid you’re going to get tired of me.”

“Never going to happen,” Jack promised. “I love you and I want to take care of you, Baby.”

“Baby?” Adrianna grinned. “That’s a new one.”

“No, I mean Baby as in ‘No one puts Baby in a corner.’ You were supposed to call me Johnny.”

Adrianna burst into laughter, feeling better than she had in days. It took only Jack a few minutes to make her forget about any of her worries. Screw her pills; he was all the medicine she needed.

“And I’m sorry about the flirting thing,” he added. “I promise you though, the only interest I have in those women is what they spend in my bar. That’s it.”

Adrianna cuddled against his chest and Jack rested his chin on her head. “It’s okay. I wasn’t really that mad about it. You have to realize though, that the last long term relationship I was in lasted less than a year and I was seventeen. I’m a novice at being a girl friend.”

“I haven’t had that much practice either,” Jack spoke into her hair. “We’re both in unfamiliar territory.”

“But you’re so much older than me,” Adrianna joked, earning a pinch to her rear end. “Really, though, you haven’t had a lot of girlfriends? I find that hard to believe.”

“I mean, I’ve dated people but the last real relationship I was in was over two years ago,” Jack admitted, not entirely comfortable with where the conversation was headed. Not that he didn’t want to share his past with Adrianna, but guys just weren’t into talking about former lovers. Still, when Adrianna pressed him for more information he gave it to her freely.