I rinse out the shampoo, slather on conditioner and feel like a new person. I’ll get out of the shower, thank him for being here for me when I needed him, and we’ll both get on with our lives. Sure, we’ll see each other around town, in one the size of Nassau that’s inevitable, but we can be grown up about it.
As I step out and wrap my head in a towel, I push the thoughts of what it would be like to watch him get married and have a family out of my mind. I’ll deal with that when it happens, even if I’d rather walk through glass barefoot.
I dry off and get dressed in a pair of shorts and a matching tank-top. They were cute on the rack, but I stare at them in horror in the fogged reflection in the mirror.
In my haste to get away from Jack, I couldn’t have picked a more revealing outfit. The shorts barely cover my ass and I forgot a bra, or even a camisole, to put under the tank-top. If I walk out there it’s going to be like putting on an advertisement.
I bang my head softly against the mirror.
“Sofie?” he calls from the other side of the door. “You okay?”
My head shoots up and knocks against the overhead shelf. “Shit,” I whimper, cradling my head in my hands. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I say to Jack. “You can let yourself out,” I add for good measure.
“Not gonna do that,” he replies.
More concerned about his words and my head than my clothes, I open the door. Steam billows out behind me as I step through. “What do you mean you’re not gonna do that?” I take a cautious step forward, still holding the towel on my head and nursing the sore spot.
My vision clears and I take in the sight of him sprawled over my bed. If the knot on my head wasn’t already making the world spin on it’s axis, having him in my bed would have.
He traded his jeans and a T-shirt for basketball shorts and no shirt, looking like every teenage fantasy I’ve ever had of him. Of course, back then he hadn’t been quite so big and ripped. The combination of military training and constant working out at the gym had been very, very kind.
I grip the door jam for support and forget what I’m supposed to be upset about. His abs shift as he crunches to tuck his legs under the blankets and I count a twelve pack. The sheets come to rest around his hips and he looks very nearly naked. In my bed.
Sweet baby Jesus.
“I mean,” he says and I drag my eyes from his stomach to his well-defined chest, to his unsmiling mouth, “I want to stay here, with you.”
Swallowing thickly, I towel off my hair to give my hands something to do because otherwise they’d be trembling. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“I think it’s the best idea I’ve had in years.”
“What about Donnie and Rafe?”
“Pretty sure they got the idea when I had my mouth on you, babe,” he says.
“You don’t think that’s going to be confusing for them? They’ve been through enough as it is.” I grab lotion from my toiletry bag and start slathering it on. I keep my eyes on my hands as I sit on the side of the bed instead of looking at him.
“Think they got used to me being here when I stayed after your mom died. And when I helped you guys when you were sick.”
Lotion finished, I have no other excuses not to look at him, so I start to lift the blankets up to slide in and then slide back out again. “I’m going to go get some water,” I say.
“Sofie,” he says and I stop in my tracks. “C’mere.”
“I don’t know if I can do this.” I keep my eyes on the door as the words spill out of my mouth in a rush. “I’m not the same person I was when I left. I know you aren’t either. I can’t stand the thought of losing you again when things are just starting to go back to normal.” I take a shuddering breath. “You’re were my best friend, Jack.”
“You were mine,” he says. “Get back in bed.”
I obey, finally looking at him as I get under the covers and curl up on my side next to him. He’s got one arm under his head now, the other resting lightly on his abdomen. I inhale deeply, which only serves to fill my senses with his scent, citrus and bay and a little bit of male.
“I used to have a shirt of yours that I’d sleep in when I was away at college that first year,” I say. “I wore that damn thing nearly every night. I think my roommate thought I was a nut job or poor because I refused to wear anything else.”
His free hand comes up to push my hair back. He doesn’t say anything, but the touch is more than enough.
My breath catches, but I continue. “It smelled like you. After a while it went away, but for a few weeks it was like you were there with me.”
His fingers flex on my cheek and he withdraws his hand. The bed shifts beneath me as he moves, but I don’t look up from my study of the sheets. When his hands come to my waist, my eyes shoot to his face.
“Sit up,” he says. “You let me know if you’re okay.”
My brows furrow, then realization hits as his fingers slowly draw the tank-top I’m wearing up by the hem. He does it slowly, probably more so to gauge my reaction than to tantalize, but it has the same effect. By the time he has the shirt up over my shoulders and tosses it on the ground, I forget how to breathe.
He keeps his eyes on mine, only flashing down to my bare chest for the slightest of moments, then he tugs a T-shirt over my head. It’s still warm from his body and I automatically ball the hem in my hands and bring it to my nose.
Olfactory memories are incredibly intense. For years after Damian, I couldn’t walk into a gym or a sportsplex without becoming violently nauseous. Even now, I’m not sure how I’d handle Jack’s gym from the scent alone.
His shirt, on the other hand, brings to mind much more pleasant memories. Like the night of our first kiss. I’d been sixteen and were watching a movie at his and Livvie’s house. She’d passed out on the floor with us on the couch. As the movie played the space between us diminished until our shoulders and knees brushed. Our hands lay next to each other on the cushion, pinkies touching, until our fingers knotted. Loving him felt inevitable. As sure as gravity and as unrelenting.
I’d looked up from our hands, my heart racing, and found him watching me with those green eyes. Then we were kissing, Livvie and movie forgotten. I don’t even remember how it started, just that I never wanted it to end.
Whenever I wore his shirt to sleep that first year, the smell reminded me of that kiss—how beautiful and innocent, okay, well maybe not that innocent, but how real intimacy is shared, not taken.
“What were you just thinking about?” he asks, his eyes on my face.
My cheeks heat and I drop the hem of his shirt. “Our first kiss,” I say.
His gaze heats just like it did in my memories. “You’re killing me here,” he says.
“What’d I do?” I ask.
“I’m trying to be a gentleman,” he says, nudging my shoulder until I’m laying next to him.
“What do you mean?”
“Seeing you in my shirt, being here in this room, having a taste of you. It’s like no time has passed. I like all those things too fucking much.” He turns over and flicks off the light.
In the darkness, surrounded by him, it’s easier for me to let the truth out. “I like it too,” I say.
“What do you want from me?” he asks finally. “Whatever you want, you’ve got it. I can be your friend. If that’s all you need, I can do it. I just want to have you in my life again. And not like it’s been these past few years where we act like strangers. I want my best friend back. Even if that means that’s all we’ll ever be.”
I bite my lip as I consider. “I don’t, I mean, I’m not sure if I can do more than that.”
I try to keep a bit of distance between us, but his hands wrap around my waist and tug me into his arms. Even though his shirt is like heaven, being snuggled up to him is a million times better. I wish, not for the first time, I’d had him those first years in college instead of just his shirt.
“We can take it easy,” he says. “If that’s wh
at you need. I just missed you, Sofie. So fucking much.”
“I missed you, too,” I say against his chest, my breath shuddering in my own. “I’m so sorry for leaving like I did.”
“Shhh,” he says. “That part is over. You didn’t do anything wrong. I wish I’d known, I wish I could have helped you, but I’m not going to blame you for what you did to cope.”
“I was just scared,” I say.
He tucks me closer, his heartbeat a steady drum under my ear, his arms a cage all around me. “I know, baby. I know you were. But you don’t have to be scared anymore. If I hadn’t been so blinded, I would have seen it. I should have seen it regardless.”
“It’s not your fault. Not any of it. I don’t blame you.”
“You should,” he says, and I can feel his pain in the dark because it’s an echo of my own. “You should blame me. I should have known who he is, what he could do. I should have kept him away from you.”
My hands rub his back. “No one can know what lies inside a person. It took me a long time to understand that, accept it. I didn’t know either, not really. Some people are just evil. I’m sure you know that.”
He tucks my head under his chin and I sigh, remembering how well we fit together. Like two pieces of the same messed up puzzle.
“Yeah, I guess I’ve seen my fair share of that.”
“Was it hard? The deployments, I mean. I thought of you when you were there and I think that was the worst, knowing you could die and I wouldn’t be there.”
“Hey,” he says, tipping my face up. “Don’t. I’m okay. We’re okay. No more looking back.” He presses a kiss to my forehead. “No more regrets.”
“No more regrets,” I repeat.
“And yeah, it was hard. Though probably not in the way you’re thinking. It was hard coming home. Knowing I was leaving my guys behind to face it without me. Always wondering who could have lived if I’d stayed. I left them there,” he says.
“I’m sure they understand,” I say.
“Of course they do, they’ve got families and all, but when you’re there, the guys you’re with become your family.”
“Do you ever think about going back?”
He’s silent for a few seconds, then he says, “Yeah. Yeah, I do, sometimes. You should get some sleep.”
“Thank you,” I say into his chest. “For being here.”
“Any time.”
A few days pass and we fall into a routine. One of us gets the boys ready and takes them to school or practice, the other picks them up and takes them home. We all eat together, goof around, then we go to sleep. Waking up to find Jack in bed with me is quickly becoming my new favorite pastime. At first, I don’t realize where I am and in those few seconds of bewilderment, I don’t panic like I normally would, afraid and alone in the dark. My body recognizes, even if I don’t, that he’s near, that I’m safe.
I open my eyes to a broad expanse of chest, rising and falling with each soft inhalation. My arm is wrapped around his waist, my head still cradled on his shoulder. The T.V. is off, and the only light in the room comes from the pre-dawn glow through the thin curtains.
For a moment, I’m frozen, staring up at his sleeping face. The years had done him good. I always knew he’d be the type of man to carry age well. In twenty years he would probably still be sexy as hell. Maybe a little bit of gray will streak along his temples. Maybe a few laugh lines around his mouth or the corners of his eyes. A woman would be lucky to have him by her side. Damn lucky.
I give in to the impulse to feel his hair between my fingers and run a hand back from his temple and down past his ear to his neck where his pulse beats steadily against my fingers. He turns his head to me and nuzzles against the caress, causing my fingers to slide down to the firm line of his throat.
My breath catches in my throat, the contact more illicit than the past ten years’ worth of my sexual experiences combined. I can feel the bead of his nipple against the palm of my hand. He shifts again, and I retract my hand, though, I can still feel him like a brand.
I retreat to the far side of the bed and hope that the cool air will calm my burning face. When that doesn’t help, I snatch up the water bottle from my bedside table and press it against my forehead.
Then I catch a glimpse of my clock and notice I slept so deeply with him beside me that I slept through my alarm. I jump out of bed and immediately stub my toe on the dresser before I make it to the bathroom to brush my teeth.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I say, whimpering from the throbbing in my toe. I rush through my morning routine, brushing my hair, swiping on makeup, and dragging on a basic black dress to cover my hurried preparations. I’ve got another meeting with HR and the last thing I want to do is be late.
He watches me from the bed, the sheet pulled up to his waist and his chest bare which helps to distract me from the pain. “Still graceful as all hell, Sof.”
“Shut up,” I tell him, hoping my makeup covers the blush spreading across my cheeks. “The dresser was just in the wrong place.”
“Wrong place,” he says with a grin on his lips.
“Need coffee,” is the only response I can come up with by way of an explanation.
“C’mere first.”
I turn to face him. “What?”
“Just c’mere.”
I walk across the bedroom, trying to gauge his mood after the emotional rollercoaster of the past few days. When I get close enough, he surges up, sifting one hand through my hair and causing it to fall in a curtain around us as he yanks me down. My fingers twitch against his skin and when he turns, rolling me onto my back, I laugh into his mouth as he presses a kiss to my lips that feels as natural to me as breathing.
Jack
The first taste of her is intoxicating. Better than even my most explicit fantasies. Even more sexy than her sweet lips pressed to mine, is the laughter bubbling in her chest. She keeps her hands between us, pressed against my chest—the last vestige of her resistance—but I don’t let it deter me from sampling her mouth.
“You had your hands on me this morning,” I say against her lips. “I don’t think just friends touch me the way you did.”
She starts to pull away, a flush already spreading across her cheeks. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”
I keep my arm around her waist, not enough to scare her off, just enough so she knows I’ll resist if she tries to back away. When she stops struggling and looks into my eyes, I say, “I didn’t say I wanted you to stop.”
Her bottom lip drops and I can’t resist the growl rumbling in my chest. Still caught in the haze of half-sleep, between dreams and reality, past and present, I capture her lower lip and nibble, laving it with my tongue. She moans into my mouth, her fingers now clutching at my shoulders.
“Jack, I have to get to work.”
I kiss a path down her throat. “You will.” Eventually.
“As in on time.”
“Now that, I don’t know if I can do,” I say as I bite the swell of her breast exposed by her dress. Her retort gets stuck somewhere in her throat and I take advantage of her silence by peeling down the top portion of her dress until her breasts are bared to my attention.
Her hands go to my head as my lips make the achingly slow journey to her hardened nipple. I suck it into my mouth and her fingers dive into my hair to hold me against her. I flick my tongue in a wicked pattern until she writhes against me.
“I don’t…I can’t…”
“Shh. Yes. Yes, you can.” Suddenly, I want it more than anything. I want to feel her come undone under my hands. Want to see the sweet release come in waves across her face. I need to take her there. Erase his memory. Make her mine again.
Mine.
I’ll be sure enough for the both of us. I slip my hands under her exposed breasts and lift them up so I can give them the attention I remember she loved so much. I take one in each hand, my thumb and finger tweaking them ever so slightly that each subtle movement sends shocks throughout her
body.
When she’s moaning, mindless, I flip her under me, her dress bunched up around her hips. My head moves from her breasts and down her stomach to kiss her belly button. My tongue slips in for a moment and she gasps. Then I nuzzle the line of her panties with my nose.
I look up at her flushed face before I make the next move. She glances down between us and wedges her fingers under the waistband of her panties until she can shimmy out of them. I tear my gaze away from her eyes, wanting to watch her face and look my fill, and not knowing which I want more.
“This okay?” I ask, gauging her reaction as I fit my shoulders between her legs.
She spreads them in increments, thighs trembling, but I don’t rush her, the anticipation all the more monumental because of her trust. To show my gratitude, I kiss the inside of her thigh causing her to throw her head back. I kiss the other and make the slow journey down each until I reach her pussy.
I pull my hands away from her breasts and look up at her face long enough to guide her hands where mine just were. The sight of her touching her breasts wrings a groan from my chest, the vibration against her sensitive skin causes her legs to press against my shoulders in response.
“I’ve imagined you like this for the past ten years,” I say gruffly. “You’re definitely gonna be late for work.” Then I flick my tongue over her and she cries out, needy. Wanting. “Don’t worry, baby, I’ll make it worth it.”
“No, Jack, I mean it. I don’t know if I can.” She clutches handfuls of my hair and I shiver just looking up at her dazed face.
There’s a hint of tension tightening her eyes so I move up, focus on her words. “Don’t know if you can what?” She glances away and I bring a hand to her cheek to look at me. “If you want to stop, we can. We can wait.”
She shakes her head. “No, I don’t know. I just don’t want to disappoint you. This…sex. It’s not easy for me. I don’t…I haven’t done this in a long time.”
I stroke her stomach and lean up to press a kiss against her lips, tasting her, reassuring her. “No pressure here, baby. I just want to make you feel good. Just want to take away the pain for a little while. Can I do that?”
First to Fight Box Set: Books 1-5 Page 50