Loving Jessie

by Dallas Schulze

  The bed dipped as he sat down, and she heard the soft thuds as his running shoes hit the floor. He stood, and her mouth went dry at the quiet rasp of his zipper and then the rustle of denim sliding down his long legs. She knew without looking that he was standing on the other side of the bed wearing nothing but a pair of plain white briefs. He would stretch, his back arching a little; then he would run his fingers through his hair, tousling it into thick dark gold waves. Then he would slide the briefs off and walk naked into the bathroom to drop them in the hamper. If she rolled over, she could watch him walk away, watch the play of muscle in thigh and buttock, the long, smooth line of his back. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and stayed where she was, barely breathing until she heard the bathroom door close behind him.

  She used to love to watch those bedtime rituals of his, the little habits that even he was unaware of, patterns only she recognized. Now the familiar sounds made her stomach knot with a mixture of pain and fear and hunger. A year ago she would have felt only anticipation for the moment when Reilly would slide into bed and pull her toward him. Whether they made love or not, she always slept in his arms, wrapped in his warmth. The memory of it made her ache with regret. With need.

  It had been so long. Almost a year since she’d slept cuddled against his broad chest, feeling his arms around her, the moist warmth of his breath stirring her hair. She’d missed that closeness even more than sex. And now it had been months since he’d turned to her even for that. She’d wondered if he was going elsewhere. He’d broken his wedding vows once; what was to stop him from doing it again? But she didn’t really believe he would.

  That was the most pathetic irony of the whole sordid mess. She believed him when he said he would never stray again. She’d always believed him, even when the hurt was so fresh and raw that she’d wondered if she was actually bleeding inside. It wasn’t the fear that he would stray again that had made her build walls to keep him out. It was the terrible fear that it had happened the first time because she was inadequate, that she’d failed him, the same way she’d failed her mother when she lost the crown Roxanne had coveted so desperately.

  Reilly said he loved her, yet he’d taken another woman to bed, a woman who was not particularly pretty or wildly witty or exceptionally brilliant. Just an ordinary woman, but Reilly had wanted her, had made love to her. What if it wasn’t just a moment’s madness brought on by too much booze and proximity? What if he’d been trying to find something that was missing in his own wife? What if, like the pageant judges, like her own family, he looked at her and found her wanting?

  Dana heard the bathroom door click open, and she closed her eyes again. She couldn’t hear his footsteps on the plush carpet, but she knew he was walking toward the bed. What would happen if she rolled onto her back and opened her arms to him? Opened her heart. Would they be able to put the last year behind them, start building a new life from the ashes of the old? She wanted to believe they could, but she couldn’t bear the thought that it might not work. That was one failure she didn’t think she could survive.

  The bed dipped as Reilly slid under the light covers. He liked to read in bed. Right now, the latest Tom Clancy novel was on the nightstand, but he didn’t pick it up. She knew he was looking at her. She could feel the weight of his gaze on her back.

  Without giving herself time to think about it, Dana took a deep breath and rolled over, looking up at him.

  He was sitting propped against the pillows, and the soft glow from the lamp on the nightstand silhouetted his body and threw his face into shadow, hiding his expression. She didn’t need the light. His image was etched into her mind, into her heart. Lamplight gleamed on the golden tan of his skin, caught in the dark blond curls that dusted the heavy muscles of his chest. She’d spent her life around beautiful people, both men and women, but she’d never seen anyone who made her breath catch in her throat the way Reilly did. From the moment they first met, she’d felt this shining awareness of him, a need that was physical as well as emotional.

  Dana stared up at him, her heart beating in her throat, fear and excitement dancing in the pit of her stomach. She knew he wouldn’t reach for her, but she had only to stretch her hand out to touch him, to tell him that she wanted to find a way through the wall between them. He wouldn’t ask why or demand explanations. He would take what she offered without questions. She wanted to bridge that gap. She ached with the need to touch him. To be touched by him. It wasn’t about sex. Or it wasn’t only about sex. It was about trust, about taking that first step toward repairing their marriage.

  It had been so long. So very long.

  Her fingers curled into her palm, and she made a conscious effort to relax them. Tension thrumming through her body, she reached out, started to close the small distance between them, stretched a hand across the chasm that separated them.

  “What do you think of this whole engagement thing with Matt and Jessie?”

  Dana stared at him blankly, scrambling to shift mental gears. “What?”

  “I’m not sure they know what they’re doing.” Reilly frowned, his expression concerned.

  “They’re grown-ups.” It was an effort to keep her voice bland, to hide the disappointment that threatened to choke her. “It’s not like they just met. They’ve known each other a long time.”

  “I suppose.” He didn’t sound convinced. “It just seems like they’re rushing things. I mean, Matt hasn’t been around much for the last ten, fifteen years. He comes back, and the next thing you know, he and Jessie are getting married. Why rush into it like this?”

  Dana thought of pointing out that they themselves had married barely a month after they met but decided against it. Considering the state of their marriage, it wasn’t exactly a rousing endorsement for rushing the wedding.

  “I’m sure they know what they’re doing,” she said, trying to keep the emptiness she felt inside from showing in her voice. “They’re not kids.”

  “It’s Jessie I’m really worried about,” he said, and she closed her eyes against the sharp bite of hurt and jealousy. He wasn’t in love with Jessie, she reminded herself. He loved her, but he wasn’t in love with her. She was sure of that. Almost.

  “Matt’s so much more experienced than she is,” Reilly said fretfully. “She’s never even dated all that much. And Matt… Hell, Matt’s been around the block more than a few times.”

  “She’s twenty-nine years old,” Dana said, reaching deep inside to hold on to the calm mask. “She’s not exactly a child. And Matt doesn’t seem like a man who would rush into something as important as marriage without giving it a great deal of thought.”

  “He’s spent the last fifteen years risking his neck in every godforsaken hellhole on the planet,” Reilly said irritably. “That’s not exactly the career choice of a cautious man.” He rubbed one hand over his face and sighed. “I just don’t want to see either of them get hurt.”

  Or maybe seeing the two of them together had made him see Jessie in a whole new light. Dana pushed the thought away. She could drive herself crazy with those kinds of thoughts. Suddenly very tired, she rolled onto her side, her back to Reilly.

  “I’m sure they’ll be just fine,” she said, her tone of voice ending the conversation more than her words. She pulled the covers up over her shoulder and closed her eyes against the press of tears she refused to shed. “Good night.”

  Reilly looked at her back, his eyes dark with frustration. He wanted to reach out, put his hand on her shoulder and turn her toward him. He wanted to slide his fingers through her pale blond hair, over the silky smoothness of her skin. He wanted to hold her and feel her curve into him, not in surrender but in welcome.

  Today, for a little while, it had seemed as if she was letting the barriers down. He’d almost hoped… His breath sliding out on a soundless sigh, Reilly snapped off the lamp on the nightstand and slid down against the pillows, tugging the covers up. Staring into the darkness, he wondered how much longer they could go on like this. What
they had now wasn’t a marriage. It was two people who shared a house and a bed without sharing any part of each other. For the first time, he faced the possibility that this was all they would ever have.

  The thought made his chest feel hollowed out and empty.

  Jessie slid out of the car, waiting as Matt came around the hood to join her. The night air was warm and dry, the neighborhood quiet around them. Matt took her hand in his as they walked up the path to her grandfather’s house. Up until today, being Matt’s fiancée hadn’t seemed all that different from being his friend. She’d dated before, but this was the first time she’d really understood how different it was to be part of a couple. There was a shift in the way others perceived them. Not Matt and Jessie but Matt-and-Jessie, inextricably linked in the eyes of the world.

  She’d lost track of the number of times someone had said that “the two of you” would have to do something or go somewhere. The future wasn’t just hers anymore, it was theirs. She supposed there were people who would be upset to find their individuality swallowed up by a brand-new plurality, but she had enjoyed every politically incorrect moment of it. It felt good to say “we” instead of “I.” At one point she’d heard Matt tell an old highschool buddy that he wasn’t sure what “their” plans were for Super Bowl Sunday, and she liked knowing that, even months from now, what he did would still be her business, just as what she did would be his.

  The lamp beside the door cast a soft pool of golden light onto the porch. Jessie unlocked the door and turned to look up at him, leaning back against the door frame.

  “I had a great time today, Matt.”

  She wanted him to kiss her, she realized with a little shock. He’d kissed her several times over the last week, warm affectionate kisses that had reassured her that, despite their engagement, he was still the same man who’d been her friend for so many years. Tonight she didn’t want to be reassured. Tonight she wanted him to kiss her the way he had after the party, as if he would devour her, as if he wanted to pull her inside himself. Tonight she wanted to be reminded not of their friendship, but of the fact that, in just a few days, they would be lovers.

  “It’s been a while since I had so much good clean fun,” Matt said, lightly self-mocking.

  “Obviously it’s also been a while since you played miniature golf.”

  He grinned. “I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said I let you win?”

  Jessie considered the possibility for a moment and then shook her head. “Nope. I think you’re really that bad.”

  He winced. “Please. Have some respect for my fragile male ego.”

  “I respect you too much to lie to you,” she said primly.

  He laughed and tugged on a strand of hair that had come loose from her ponytail and lay coiled against her neck. “Brat.”

  Matt drew back and slid both hands in his pockets as protection against the urge to grab her and pull her up against him. He’d spent the entire day thinking about what it would feel like to have those long legs wrapped around his waist. Looking at her now, it was hard to remember a time when he hadn’t wanted her. Somewhere in the days since he’d slipped his ring on her finger, the little girl he’d once known had receded into the past, remembered with affection but gone forever. All he saw now was the woman she’d become.

  He wished he could be sure that Jessie had made the same transition. She accepted his kisses, responded to them, but she never quite lost that faint edge of uncertainty, as if she was half-afraid that they might be doing something illicit. He only wished that were the case, but, so far, it had been a remarkably chaste engagement. Dammit.

  “You didn’t hurt yourself today, did you?” Jessie brought her hand up and pressed her fingers to his shoulder.

  He felt the light touch through the thin cotton of his T-shirt and felt an ache that had nothing to do with the bullet hole in his shoulder. The warm night air held the sweet perfume of the end of summer roses that scrambled over the trellis at the end of the porch and the faint, green tang of grass that had been mown sometime earlier in the day. Somewhere in the darkness a cricket scratched out a ragged rhythm, counterpoint to the tinny sound of canned laughter that spilled through the neighbor’s open window.

  “I’m fine,” Matt said, giving in to the urge to touch her, running his fingers lightly down the side of her face. “I’m not about to fall over and writhe in manly agony.”

  “Isn’t ‘manly agony’ an oxymoron?” Jessie’s fingers moved against his shoulder, stroking gently.

  Matt felt the light touch in all sorts of interesting places. It made it difficult to focus on the conversation.

  “You mean like military intelligence?” There was something in her eyes, a look he hadn’t seen before. Need? Or was that wishful thinking on his part? Testing, he brushed his thumb over the curve of her ear and felt as well as saw the shiver that went through her.

  “Or jumbo shrimp.” She tilted her head into his touch. Her tongue slicked moisture across her lower lip in a gesture that held both nerves and invitation. “Are we going to stand here trading witty remarks, or are you going to kiss me?”

  Matt stared at her, feeling hunger, never far from the surface when Jessie was near, surge upward in a long, slow swell that brought him to instant, aching hardness. He closed his eyes for a moment, his hand tense against the side of her face as he struggled to hold on to the control that had always come so easily and was suddenly almost out of reach.

  Jessie felt her confidence draining away into the sudden thick silence. She’d read the signals wrong. He didn’t want to kiss her, she thought, forgetting for the moment that he’d shown no reluctance in that department before. She’d pressured him into doing something he didn’t want to do, made him feel like he had to kiss her. Uncertainty replaced the unaccustomed little surge of feminine confidence. Her teeth worried her lower lip as she tried to find a way to ease them both out of the awkward situation she’d created.

  “Let me do that.”

  She’d been staring at Matt’s collarbone, but his husky voice brought her eyes back up to his face, and she felt her breath catch at the blatant hunger in his eyes. Maybe he didn’t mind kissing her after all.

  “Do what?” she asked shakily.

  “This.” He caught her lower lip between his teeth, nipping at it, then soothing the tiny pain with his tongue. She shuddered and brought her other hand up, her fingers curling into the heavy muscles of his shoulders as his mouth opened over hers.

  Yes. The single word sighed through her mind as her head fell back, her mouth opening to his. This was what she’d wanted. Here was the passion, the hunger, she’d tasted the night of the party. Matt’s hand came up to cradle the back of her head, shifting the angle of the kiss, deepening it, as his tongue stroked her mouth in a blatantly carnal rhythm that made something tighten in the pit of her stomach and dissolved the strength in her knees.

  Too much. She struggled to draw a breath as he scattered quick, biting little kisses over her face. It was too much. Too much heat. Too much need. And hunger. His. Hers. Theirs. Overwhelmed by the sensations rioting through her, Jessie reached for a distraction, though whether she was trying to distract Matt or herself, she couldn’t have said.

  “You taste like mustard,” she whispered breathlessly.

  “I’ll never touch the stuff again.” He dragged his mouth along the line of her jaw.

  “I like it.”

  “In that case, I’ll eat it at every meal.” Her skin tasted like sunshine and soap and Jessie, an intoxicating blend that went straight to his head, making him almost dizzy with need.

  “Breakfast,” she gasped, a little desperately. “No one can eat mustard at breakfast.” She tilted her head to allow him access to the taut line of her throat, her fingers curling into his shirt as his tongue stroked across the pulse that beat at the base of her throat.

  Blood pounding in his veins, Matt lifted his head and looked down at her, his expression a mixture of exasperation, desire and a tou
ch of reluctant humor. “Jessie, I promise you I’ll spoon mustard on my next bowl of corn flakes if you’ll just shut up and let me kiss you.”

  Jessie’s breath fell outward on a soft sigh as his mouth covered hers again, open and eager, tasting and demanding. It still surprised her, the flare of heat, the quick rush of hunger. How was it possible that she’d lived twenty-nine years without ever feeling this, without knowing that a kiss could start a slow fire burning in the pit of her stomach, could make her skin ache with need?

  Matt felt her surrender slide over him, through him. He changed the angle of the kiss, deepening it, tasting the sweet warmth of her response. His hand flattened against her lower back, drawing her up against the length of his body, and her hips arched in instinctive invitation, snapping the already tenuous threads of his self-restraint.

  He made a sound low in his throat, his mouth suddenly voracious on hers. Instinct rather than conscious thought had him shifting them both out of the circle of golden light, pulling Jessie into the shadowed darkness at the end of the porch, pressing her against the wall, holding her there with the weight of his body while his hands pulled impatiently at the soft cotton of her T-shirt, tugging it loose from the waistband of her shorts. Jessie murmured something—protest or plea—but then his hands found the bare skin of her back and whatever she’d tried to say died away on a soft little whimper.

  “Let me come in with you,” he whispered against her throat. “Let me stay with you tonight.”

  Jessie swallowed and shook her head, her thoughts too scattered to think clearly, but Matt read denial in the gesture, and his hands tightened around her waist for an instant before sliding upward with sensual determination. His mouth caught her murmured protest as he flicked open the front clasp of her bra with easy skill, brushing aside the lacy cups and cradling her breasts in his wide palms.