Jo looked away and then up to the sky. Millions of stars dotted the black canvas, but none were dancing across the sky yet.
“They should start soon. I googled it while you were getting the boat. Peak should start in about fifteen minutes.”
“Cool. I haven’t seen them in years.” I folded my arms behind my head and stared up at the sky with her.
“When was the last time we did this?” she asked.
“You and me together? Middle school, I think.”
“That’s the last time I remember, too. I’ve seen them other times, but just by myself.”
“Oh good, I thought you were going to say you cheated on me and watched the Perseids with someone else. Meteor showers are our thing.”
I glanced over and caught her smile. But as soon as our eyes met, she quickly looked away.
My nerves crackled inside me, and I struggled not to blurt out what Jenna got me so desperate to say.
Timing. It was all about timing.
“Oh!” I sat forward, and the boat rocked with my movement. “I brought wine.”
“Wine?” She arched an eyebrow. “Whoa. When did we get so fancy?”
With a shrug, I pulled the bottle out of the blanket. “Figured wine went better with stargazing than beer.”
“I can dig it.”
As I stared at the bottle, I cringed when I realized it wasn’t a screw top and I hadn’t brought a corkscrew. “Shit.”
“What?”
“Um, no corkscrew.”
“You dumbass.” She laughed.
Shaking my head, I started to put the bottle down. “If the shoe fits.”
“Ooh!” She lit up and sat forward beside me. “Hold on!”
Jo grabbed my discarded tennis shoe and opened her hand for me to give her the bottle. I watched in awe as she placed the bottle upside down between her knees and then smacked it repeatedly with my shoe. After some impressive whacks, she stopped and lifted the bottle. A triumphant grin spread across her face when she hoisted it up to show the cork halfway out.
I shook my head. “That’s awesome!”
“Bartender trick.” She grabbed the top of the cork, grunting and grimacing while she tried to pull it the rest of the way out.
“Allow me to do my part.” I opened my hand, and she handed it over with some resistance.
“Normally I could do it, but my hands are tired from opening beer bottles all night.”
“I got you.” I yanked the cork the rest of the way out, grateful I’d been successful and hadn’t had to hand it back in defeat.
“And... no glasses, either.” I grimaced.
Really crushing it, Casanova.
“Do I seem like the kind of girl who requires a glass to drink wine?” Jo pressed the bottle to her lips and took a swig.
God, I love this woman.
“Nope. Not the Jo I know.” She handed me the bottle, and I took a much-needed swig.
She leaned back against the make-shift pillow and I followed, resting my head beside hers.
“This was a pretty good idea.” She pulled the wine bottle from my hand and took another sip.
“I’m full of them.”
“You’re full of something...”
We turned toward each other, our noses almost touching and laughed.
Don’t kiss her. Don’t kiss her. Don’t kiss her.
It seemed I had a new chant now that just friends wasn’t valid anymore.
“Look!” she jerked her head away and pointed at the sky.
I caught the tail end of the white streak before it disappeared. “Cool. It’s starting.”
We lay back quietly and passed the wine back and forth while the sky awakened. First one, then another, and with each passing minute more streaks shot across the sky.
“I love the Perseids. Seriously. It’s so cool, isn’t it?” Jo sighed.
“It’s pretty amazing.”
The boat bobbed along the water, and I listened to her breathing and the soft lapping of the waves on the hull.
Just tell her.
“I’m glad we’re friends again,” I started, hoping the speech I’d been preparing would come back to me. At the moment, that was the only line I could remember.
“Me, too.”
“Yeah. I’m glad you forgave me.”
“As long as you stay the hell away from Nikki and never touch another taken woman again, we’re good.”
“Never. Never ever. I still don’t know what the hell came over me.”
She snorted. “Ah, come on. I’m not stupid. I saw the little hussy flirting with you for years. I didn’t think you’d go there, but it’s not like this was all on you.”
“Yeah. Hindsight is twenty/twenty. I should have told Jake the first time she flirted with me. I didn’t want to hurt him.”
“You did a bang-up job with that.” Jo scoffed, then smiled.
“Yeah. Really bang-up job.”
“Well, I guess since you were...” her voice drifted off for a beat, “in love with her, I can kinda see the predicament you were in.”
“I only thought I was in love with her. More like a long-standing infatuation which was actually just a distraction.”
“A distraction? From what?”
You.
An in. I should take it. Blurt it out. But instead my tongue tied up in knots and I just shrugged.
This was impossible.
As a wave of fear gripped me, I wondered how the hell was I supposed to tell Jo how I felt? What if she said no? What if she laughed at me, threw me out of her cabin and out of her life? Then what?
And what if she doesn’t?
Still struggling to blurt it out, I shrugged. “Just things.”
“What kinds of things?”
“Well,” I swallowed hard.
Now or never.
“When Nikki came to school, she was the girl who helped me get over my broken heart.”
“A broken heart from who?”
With a sigh, I forced the truth out of my mouth. “From you.”
“What?” Jo whipped her head toward me, but I kept staring at the stars, too scared to make eye contact. “What are you talking about?”
With a deep breath, I rolled my head to face her. “Jo, I was totally and completely in love with you since... well, since my first memories. And then there was that kiss where you dissed me and...”
“Kiss? What kiss? We never kissed!” Wide eyes stared into mine. “I would remember if we kissed.”
Chuckling, I nodded my head. “Oh, there was a kiss. Two in fact.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, my mother has a picture of us pecking when we were about five.”
“Okay, that I can see. But what other kiss?”
“The one at Andrea’s fourteenth birthday party.”
Her face lit up in recognition. “You mean spin-the-bottle? That didn’t count as a kiss! That was a game!”
I snorted. “Not to me! That was the day you shattered my little teeny tiny boy heart.”
Confusion danced across her face. “How? What? I don’t understand.”
“Well, up until that day I held out for the fact that maybe, just maybe, you’d see me as more than a friend. Then when the bottle landed on you, I thought that was finally my chance. I was so excited when I leaned over to kiss you. Like, probably the most excited I’d ever been in my whole life.” I laughed. “But then I kissed you. And instead of the fireworks and sparks I was sure would explode around us, you scrunched up your face, wiped your lips and spit repeatedly into the sand.”
“Oh my God.” She clasped a hand over her mouth. “I did do that.”
“Yep. You did. That memory is burned in my mind for all eternity. And so that day I vowed to force myself to get over you, and a couple months later Nikki waltzed in, so I threw everything I had into liking her so I would get over my infatuation with you.”
“Holy shit,” she breathed.
“Yep.”
&nbs
p; She fell silent for a moment, chewing on her lips while worried eyes searched mine. “There was a reason I acted like that,” she whispered.
“Yeah. The reason was I disgusted you!” I laughed.
“No. The reason was that I was crazy about you and I didn’t want anyone, especially you, to know. So, I pretended to be disgusted to ensure no one caught on to me.”
My mouth fell open as I struggled to find the words. “Wait... you liked me, too?”
She sucked her lip between her teeth and nodded. “Um, yeah. A lot.”
“Holy shit. You mean you shattered my little boy heart for nothing?”
She grimaced and nodded. “Apparently. I’m so sorry. I had no idea you liked me and that my response to our kiss was so heartbreaking. You never showed it! I had no idea, Matt! My God!”
She cupped her hands over her face, and I struggled to breathe. All these years. All these agonizing years and she’d liked me back. If only I’d been braver then. If only she’d been braver. If only we’d been so many things.
But the timing hadn’t been right. And life was all about timing.
“Holy shit, Jo. I had no idea you liked me, either. I really thought you just thought of me as good buddy Matt.”
“Well, I did. But I also felt a whole helluva lot more than that.”
Silence passed between us while my brain went into overdrive analyzing every interaction I’d had with Jo when we were kids. Searching for those signs I’d missed. Signs that could have saved me a whole lot of pain. How had I missed it?
Now I knew she’d liked me then, but that didn’t answer the big question.
The most important one.
Did she still feel the same way?
I took a deep breath and watched another meteor streak across the sky. “You were my first kiss, you know.”
“And you were mine.”
“And...” I swallowed hard as I pressed forward. “I’ve never stopped wanting to kiss you since.”
Our heads turned, and our eyes locked. My breath quickened along with my heart. They were right there. Her lips. They were there for the taking, but fear roared inside my chest, my anxiety tearing me apart from the inside.
Her eyes drifted to my lips, then rose again, and when I looked in her eyes, I dug into my resolve. We’d wasted all those years hiding from the truth, and this time I wasn’t going to let fear stand between us.
Not this time.
I slid a hand along her face, pausing to give her time to shove me away. A moment to tell me we were just friends.
But the argument against my intentions didn’t come.
Instead she leaned forward, and I pulled her mouth against mine. Our lips connected, and I sighed into her mouth. I exhaled years of agony, torture, and desire now satiated with every swirl of her tongue. While I closed my hands around her face, I pulled her closer, every inch between us too many. My lips burned as I kissed her harder, and they finally claimed what they’d craved all those years.
Her taste.
Her touch.
Her passion.
This time she didn’t push me away, spitting out my affections. This time she wrapped her arms around my neck and melted against my body. Emotions I’d long suppressed raced each other to the surface, rejoicing in their freedom as she pulled me in closer, our kiss slowing as it deepened.
With every swirl of her tongue and brush of her lips, I felt our connection crackling to life. The walls we’d built between us came crumbling down, and for the first time in our lives, nothing stood between us. Finally, it was just us.
As our kiss softened, her lips ghosted mine. I captured her soft sigh in my mouth, then pressed my forehead to hers.
“Jo,” I whispered. “I’ve wanted this my whole life.”
Her ragged breaths danced across my skin.
“Me, too,” she breathed.
I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her in tight. And now that I had her, I never intended to let her go.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
JO
Matt held me tight, and I was grateful for the sensation to help convince myself this was real, and our kiss hadn’t just been a figment of my imagination or a vivid dream. But as his arms pulled me in tighter, I knew this wasn’t just in my head.
The kiss was real.
We were real.
“Wow,” I breathed, still stunned from the unfamiliar emotions raging inside me.
“Wow,” he responded.
His grip loosened, and I slid back, lifting my chin so I could look up at him. I needed to see his face, one more confirmation that this was happening. That I was here with Matt. Kissing him. Holding him. Feeling every one of my dreams come true.
When our eyes locked and I saw the same shock and amazement in his stare, I couldn’t help but smile.
He smiled back. “We’ve been missing out on that all these years?”
“Apparently. Yeah.”
“Wow. What a couple of idiots we are.”
“Yep.”
As he smiled down at me, I felt my nerves crackling back to life. When I’d seen the intent in his eyes, felt his hand brush my cheek, I’d been lost in the moment and my body took control. But now as we sat staring at each other, uncertainty rushed in on a wave. It felt so new. So unsure.
Should I kiss him again? Give him a fist bump? Rip off his clothes?
This was Matt. My best friend. And this was territory as unfamiliar as it got. I felt awkward as I struggled for the next move. Nerves and anxiety twisted together in my gut, squeezing the life out of the certainty that had given me the confidence to lean in for that kiss. That incredible, amazing, earth-shattering kiss.
A kiss I wanted again, and again, and again...
“Jo.” He took my hand in his and exhaled a deep sigh. “I love you. You were the first girl I loved and you’re going to be the last girl I love. I do. I fucking love you, Jo. Always have, always will.”
It may have been the boat moving, but it felt like the entire world shifted below me. In a matter of seconds, my whole world changed. His words flipped my life upside down, and I struggled to steady myself... to digest his admission.
He loved me, too.
After decades of keeping the words I’d been desperate to say locked inside me, fighting to never spit them out, I swallowed hard, fighting my fears so I could push the truth out of my mouth.
“I love you, too,” I whispered.
His smile lit up so bright it dwarfed the glow of the moon.
As I looked into his eyes overflowing with emotion, I felt the uncertainty drift away with the waves. I remembered the feel of his lips on mine, the way his hands pulled me against him, and the excitement burst back to life and extinguished my anxiety. I wanted him. All of him. And as I stared at the boy I’d always loved... the boy I would always love, I knew which option I wanted.
Rip off his clothes.
I grabbed him by the shirt, pulling his lips back to mine. Pain seared across my mouth when our lips crashed together, but his tongue quickly erased the discomfort. It demanded entrance; I was happy to give it.
His hands slid down the sides of my face, holding it tight while I moaned into his mouth. The stars exploding across the sky didn’t hold a candle to the passion exploding between us. Years of repression, anticipation, and desire burst into a flame so hot I worried it would start our wooden boat on fire.
My hands drifted to his torso and slid underneath his shirt, traveling along the hard lines of his abs while I worked my way up his body, pushing his shirt off as I went. When I reached the swell of his pecs, I paused to enjoy them. Years of wondering what they felt like were answered as I explored him with my touch.
Matt’s lips pulled away, and I whimpered my displeasure. He sat back, grabbing the bottom of his shirt and yanking it over his head. The moonlight glistened across his skin and illuminated every impressive feature. And even though my desperate lips ached for his kiss again, I happily sat back and took it all in.
He didn
’t give me long to enjoy the view. His lips returned to mine and consumed them with his kisses as he pressed me onto my back.
Hot, deep, passionate kisses.
Kisses from the boy I’d loved my whole life.
Relishing the weight of his body on mine, I wrapped my arms around his broad shoulders. While he continued his kisses, he rose above me, and his hands drifted down my body, brushing over my breasts as they moved to the bottom of my sweatshirt. When they slipped underneath it and touched my heated skin, a shiver traveled down my spine. With the lightest touch, his fingers ghosted across my stomach as they moved toward my breasts. The anticipation from his slow ascent had my stomach twisting and turning, my body writhing beneath him while I deepened our kiss.
When his hands finally arrived at my breasts heaving with my excited breaths, I gasped as he cupped one. His firm touch sent my heart racing, and I dug my fingers into his back. The heat in my body merged and traveled between my legs, that place as desperate for his touch as my other breast. I wanted his hands everywhere. His kisses to never stop. Our bodies to connect in the way I’d never allowed myself to hope could ever be more than a fantasy.
But as he pushed off my sweatshirt and I felt the crisp lake air drift across my exposed skin, I knew my fantasy was finally coming true.
Desperate for more, I fumbled to open his pants as he pulled mine down. The boat rocked beneath our movement, and he paused, exchanging a smile before we slowed our movements to settle the boat back down. The need to move slow only heightened my anticipation and increased the excitement.
I pushed off his jeans, and with them his boxers, sliding his cock into my hands. A guttural groan escaped him while I worked my hand down his shaft.
“Oh my God, Jo,” he breathed as I gripped him tighter.
I watched him kneeling above me, his eyes closed tight while I stroked him and held the proof of his desire in my hand.
“I want you,” he said, his eyes snapping open to meet mine. “I’ve always wanted you.”
“Then I’m yours.” I released my grip on him and unclipped my bra. One at a time, I pushed the straps off my shoulders, nerves and excitement twirling together while I pulled off my bra. His eyes drifted to my exposed breasts, and I lay there while his gaze roved over my curves.
The Other Room (Door Peninsula Passions Book 2) Page 14