“Maybe I should’ve. If a little sting gets a reaction, you’re not the D-man I thought you were.”
His lips fight the smile wanting to grow, but he loses that fight. When he does, the dimples make another appearance, and I find myself smiling along with him.
“Who do you think I am now?”
It’s the inflection in his deep voice that makes me raise my eyes to his, the cotton ball suspended in mid-air. Something in that question tells me the answer is important to him. Or maybe I’m imagining it. Regardless, I can’t be flip about it. I can’t be anything other than completely honest. This moment feels too important.
“I think you’re more sensitive than you want people to know. I think that you have a fragile heart and that you protect it fiercely…I think that I want a tenth of your self-control.”
Done with the cleaning of the cut, I toss the cotton ball down on the table with the rest of the first-aid materials.
“I think you’re an incredibly talented artist…and I think you must have veneers because no one with a career as long as yours could still have all his teeth.”
Raising his index finger, he points to an incisor and the tooth next to it. “This one and this one. But that’s it.”
The moment expands, changes into something else. This isn’t our usual back and forth dance. This is something meaningful. Despite that he’s not at all what I would pick for myself, despite that I’m leaving and he’s staying, despite that he’s barely civil most of the time, I think I’m falling for him.
Jake is unexpectedly thoughtful and kind. He’s selfless and honest. And part of me feels ashamed that I stepped in it once again, assuming the worst about him based on what I learned from the press.
His thighs close gently around my legs, and he leans forward. My body comes alive with the knowledge that I’m about to be kissed. Even better, I’m about to be kissed by a man I want to kiss. My skin feels sunburnt under my long sleeve shirt and a suspicious heat grows between my legs. And all I have to say is thank God I have my good underwear on.
His soft lips press against mine and I breathe out a sigh of relief.
This…this is a kiss. That’s the thing with a really great kiss––you can’t explain the feeling, but you know it when you feel it.
A current of awareness runs over my skin and up my back as he ever so gently savages my mouth. Slowly, he rises from the chair, pulling me in, curving his big body around mine. His hands are in my hair, holding my head like it’s a sacred treasure.
There’s no time to think, there’s no need. I am gone. Wrapped up in him, consumed by the need to get closer. And I do. I want to get closer so badly I can hardly stand it.
My hands grip and knead his arms. Too wide for me to get my fingers around, they travel over his shoulders and down his broad chest covered in fine wool, and he sighs, sighs! sweet heaven’s sake.
“Jake…Jake…Jake…” I hear my voice echo. It sounds like a faraway supplication, my tongue and lips shaping the words in between tender teasing kisses.
He pulls away and searches my face, amusement dancing in his indigo eyes. “What?” he whispers, punctuating it with another kiss.
“Nothing,” I murmur back, so ridiculously happy I’m floating, giddy with the anticipation of more. “I just like the feel of your name of my lips.”
His smile slowly fades as he stares at me. And when he kisses me again, he does it softly, reverently, like he’s planning on making it last forever. Like this is all there is and the only place he wants to be. For the first time since we’ve met, Jake Turner is living in the moment, and that moment is me.
“I’m going back to Cali, Cali, Cali. I’m going back to Cali…” my phone rings, the tone courtesy of LL Cool J. “I’m going back to Cali…”
Jake pulls away and we both stare at my phone sitting on the tabletop, Ben’s name flashing on the screen. It’s a total mood killer and Jake’s expression proves it.
“You should get that,” he says over the sound on the music.
But I don’t want to get it. I want to get back to kissing and possibly more. “Jake.”
Walking backwards, he reaches the front door of the cottage. “Jake wait…” Damnit, I want to cry. It’s been years! And the last time wasn’t exactly all that memorable.
“You should get that.”
Rooted to the floor, I stand in the middle of the cottage, completely powerless as I watch all the amazing feelings flowing between us a minute ago disappear without a trace like they never even happened.