by Liora Blake
“As a red-blooded guy, I’m sure you didn’t mind watching it play out.”
Despite having zero justification for jealousy at anything or anyone Jake might enjoy watching, it’s there. Mixing my liquors is a terrible idea, but I take another swig, just to see if that might smother out the irrationality of it all.
“She’s hilarious and totally hot, don’t get me wrong, but she’s a little much for my taste. Christ, the mouth on that woman. She’s like a sailor on leave . . . who moonlights as a truck driver . . . who also just happened to tunnel out of a maximum-security prison, like, yesterday.”
When I sputter a giggle, tequila spills onto my lips and I wipe it with the back of my hand. Jake shakes his head.
“I’m guessing Simon is about the only man alive who can handle her. Anyway, I’ve always had a thing for girls with a little modesty. The kind that don’t mind my foul mouth, but keep theirs a little cleaner. It’s the urge to debase them that I love.” One eyebrow rises up and Jake takes a long look at me, as if he’s enjoying an inventory of every memory that ever transpired between the two of us.
Before Jake, I had fumbled around with other guys, but Dusty was the only one who had gotten any further than dry humping and crappy kissing. But not much further. And, Dusty, not once, ever acted as if my body was some kind of spectacular nirvana that made him beyond crazy, the way Jake did. Dusty only pushed and shoved his hands around until I stopped him, then sighed dramatically and took me home in a silent reprimand.
When my eyes drift away from Jake’s, saving us both from what feels like an impending midnight confessional ending with us wrapped around each other, he crouches a little so the water covers his shoulders.
“So, what have you been up to, Lace? Give me the highlight reel on your life over the last ten years.”
Well, this should be easy. I can sum up my life in fewer words than it takes to order a pizza.
“Not much. Langston for a little while, then I came back, been here ever since.”
“Marriages? Divorces? Babies?”
“Nope.”
“Dusty never made the cut? You two looked pretty cozy at Lonigan’s.”
“No. And you weren’t seeing cozy. What you saw was Dusty invading my space when he shouldn’t.”
A sliver of a grin works across his features at my answer, but he does his best to stifle it and merely nods before laying out his next question. “No Vegas elopements, ill-fated sex tapes, or prison sentences since I saw you last?”
“Nope. You?”
Jake shakes his head and does a languid swim across the hot spring, speaking as he drifts away. “I ended up in Portland first. Seattle for a split second. Alaska for a few years working on a fishing boat, up to the Northwest Territories, where I started flying bush planes, then back to Alaska. Couple of years ago, I came back to the lower forty-eight, and I’ve been in Santa Monica since I started this private charter gig.”
Perfect. Just perfect. He’s practically traversed the continent while all I’ve done is twiddle my thumbs and rearrange nail polish displays.
When he turns back, the distance between us becomes too much. Probably because there are a hundred thousand gaps in the few sentences that he just uttered and I want to know all the millions of little experiences that would color in the narrative of how he became the grown-up Jake. I take a series of bobbing steps toward him across the heated water, probably a terrible idea to close the gap—because of the tequila and rum, and the freaking moonlight—but standing this far apart feels weird now. Jake watches my approach, curiosity in his eyes until his gaze drifts lower, then a sparkle and smirk follow. Looking down, I realize that my water aerobics jog just offered up my breasts to him in a lewd jiggle I hadn’t intended.
Shoving my palms against his chest, I dip my head so he can’t see any of the flush that is heating my face and neck. “Honestly.”
“Christ, I’m a man, honey. Those”—he waves his hand pointedly toward my breasts—“seem way bigger than I remember, and you just displayed them on a buoyant little platter for my amusement. I couldn’t help it.”
He offers another grin and a goofy wiggle of his brows. I take a turn and decide to head back toward a safe zone because even a playful commentary about my breasts sounds too enticing coming from him. For an instant, I can imagine him saying something equally as teasing when he’s deep, working valiantly to make a woman lose her mind while also getting a laugh. As odd as it sounds, I think the combination might garner a lucky woman the best night of her life.
Immediately after I start to wade away, the sound of Jake following ends with his hands tugging at my hips to stop me. He presses his chin to rest against the side of my head and drops his voice into a near whisper.
“Come on, don’t run off. Stay close and I’ll be good. Promise.”
I freeze in place. He’s careful to keep the length of his body away from the back of mine, hips clearly tipped away, only his hands on me until even those fall away. Once he’s dropped his touch completely, I let my shoulders relax and take a deep breath to find a shred of sanity before giving him my face again. If I don’t, he will see every speck of desire and confusion in my expression right now. All I have to do is take inventory of the reasons this is a bad idea.
One: I’m not looking for anything or anyone right now. Not even a one-night stand.
Two: Exes spell trouble. Even those who live far away from Crowell and likely won’t pop up again for another ten years.
Three: Something about self-sufficiency. Or . . . I don’t know, because before I can remember the specifics, Jake’s hand returns, drawing my hair back over one shoulder, fingers dragging across my shoulder blade and lingering until I roll my neck over to one side. Whether I’ve done it to encourage him toward me or to send a silent message to back off, I don’t even know. Good luck to him on interpreting it.
His fingers drop away and the splash of his hand hitting the water softly tells me exactly what I wanted to have happen. Wild guess here, but his hand leaving my skin was not it. I sink my body into the water to stave off the sudden chill on my skin.
Then the entire mood changes, a shift in the energy between us that turns the surrounding air into something cloying and heavy. I’m sure it’s just all the obvious things colluding: liquor, no dinner, the intensity of being touched by him and wanting more, but instead of ending this night with more easygoing banter and a few innocent come-ons, it’s possible we’re about to get intense with each other. Or serious. Or somberly honest. And, frankly, I’d take decent sex with a regret-laden morning after over any of that.
Jake slips around until we come face-to-face again.
“Tell me something, sweetheart.”
I take a deep breath and consider telling him to stop calling me “sweetheart” or “honey” because he’s only trying to soften me up before the inevitable press of something too weighty comes out of his mouth and effectively ruins my buzz.
Jake pushes a strand of hair behind my ear and lets his eyes search across mine. “Did you stay here because you wanted to, or because you didn’t know how to leave?”
I close my eyes. He has always been too good at this: asking questions that are hard to answer and making quiet observations that reveal more than you ever wanted anyone to know.
I give him the only answer that makes sense.
“Both.”
An hour later, I show Jake my pruney fingers and we agree that staying any longer means risking complete liquefaction from the sulfur. Thankfully, his earlier overly serious inquiry was immediately followed by him staring at me earnestly for a moment after I answered, then nodding somberly.
“Lacey?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you know what one hat said to the other?”
I was still stuck on his previous question, so all I could do was scrunch my face up in confusion.
&nb
sp; “You stay here, I’ll go on . . . ahead.”
Then we were back to the brand of fun I remember having with Jake. Corny jokes to make me laugh, him giving me grief about my taste in music, the threat of tickling and dunking in the hot springs.
I make him leave the spring first, promising I won’t stare at his naked body as he does. Total lie. I stare and he takes an extraordinarily long time to put all his clothes on, which leads me to believe he knows I’m cataloging his grown-up body and doesn’t care. After enjoying an indecent inspection of his tight ass when he walks away, the shift of his back and shoulders as he pulls his T-shirt on, and the way his hands move across the flat of his stomach to zip and button up, it’s all I can do to stop from allowing an embarrassingly breathy moan to escape my mouth.
Once he laboriously slips the heavy wool sweater over his head, he stands there eyeing me while I remain in the water. I tip my head and wait until he turns away.
“No fair, Shoelace. I gave you an eyeful. You took it; I know you did.”
“Not my fault you like showing it off. Or that you fell for my don’t worry, I won’t look ruse. Amateur hour.”
“Well, just so you know, I’m imagining you naked right now. Drawing a very detailed picture in my mind.”
“Go ahead. How do I look?”
A frustrated manly grunt is the only response, followed by him resignedly clasping his hands atop his head and sighing.
But he does the right thing and stays turned around while I slither out and dress, leaving my wool tights off because trying to tug them on over dry skin is hard enough. The drag of cold damp skin would make it an exercise in futility.
Halfway down the path back to the truck, I realize that I have what feels like approximately ten pounds of sharp little pebbles and dirt inside my wellies, dragged in as a result of barefooting my way out of the spring and over to my clothes. In my zeal to get clothed, combined with the need to get back to the heater inside the truck, I shoved my feet in the boots without even stopping to brush off the bottoms of my feet. Every step hurts and once we make it to the truck, Jake holds open the door and I hop over to perch on the very edge of the bench seat, the skin on the backs of my thighs rubbing against the rough texture of the saddle-blanket seat cover.
As I slip one boot off, careful to keep my foot off the ground while I tip it over and shake it out, Jake stands there with one hand on the top of the still-open truck door and shakes his head.
“Did you walk all the way back down here with a bunch of rocks in your boots? All you had to do was ask me to stop. We could have saved your little toes from the beating just inflicted on them.”
“It wasn’t that bad.” With one foot handled, I lift my other leg up and stand flamingo-style, toes pointed unnaturally, and start in on the opposite side. Just as Jake starts to chuckle and offer another smart comment, a tight, squeezing sensation runs through my calf. A wicked muscle cramp seizes up the entire length of my lower leg, from the ankle up to the back of my knee. Likely triggered by the cold air wreaking havoc on my previously hot spring–limbered muscles, combined with pointing my toes so exaggeratedly. I groan and flex my foot, then try to make it stop by shaking out my leg as a dog might.
Jake immediately looks concerned. “Jesus. Are you OK?”
“Leg cramp,” I say, barely intelligible through my gritted teeth.
His hand drops from the top of the door and Jake comes to stand in front of me, then grabs around my waist, shoving me onto the seat. I flop over to rest the side of my body against the back of the seat, my legs still hanging out the open door space, the tension steadily lessening as I swing my leg around a bit more.
Before I flail enough to finish it off, Jake’s hands, the manly ones that haven’t seen a manicure, well, ever, land against my calf and begin a steady and, dear Lord, intensely deep massage. It ends the muscle spasm but also forces me to bite down on my lower lip, just to suppress the groaning that would come naturally if I allowed it. I stare at his hands, refusing to lift my gaze to his face or eyes, because if I do, that’s it. Those hands and any remotely zesty look on his face will obliterate what remains of the determination that I started the evening with.
His hands and fingers feel too warm against my cooling skin, that friction only exaggerating every trace of our skin coming together. Finally, perhaps because I’ve closed my eyes and let my mouth drop open slightly, Jake slows his hands to trace down my calf, over my ankle, and then uses one hand to dust any remaining dirt or pebbles off the underside of my foot. Propping his foot up on the truck floorboard, he lays my outstretched leg against the top of his thigh and reaches down to grab my boot, tipping it over and shaking to make sure nothing remains inside.
After he slips the boot back onto my foot, he shifts to stand right in front of me, my legs parted just enough that he can wedge his body into the space between my knees. I lift my head and right my body so I’m sitting upright. When I do, Jake leans forward, as close as he can, then puts his hands to my hips, jerking my body toward his with a tug. My ass, nearly bare save for the small panties under my skirt, drags roughly across the seat cover, and the combination of it all—that roughness on my skin, his hands insistently pulling me to him—makes my world cant off balance, dizzy and buzzed by the decision to be OK with wanting this right now.
Without giving voice to all those thoughts, I let my body tell him, by simply pushing my knees and thighs tighter to him, stopping shy of allowing my legs to curl completely around his waist. It’s enough, though. Jake’s head bows forward, resting in the crook of my neck, his lips brushing against my skin and the smell of sultry spring water coming off his hair.
“Fuck, Lacey. How is it that you can still drive me so goddam crazy?”
His voice hitches against the last word and the sound is nearly too much. If I’m not tremendously careful with every decision now, this will domino faster than either of us can get our clothes off.
But I still want more. I quickly rationalize that there is no harm in taking a bit more from this foolish trip down memory lane. Two grown adults, a half-empty bottle of tequila, and one bench seat. Right now that’s sounding plenty good enough for me.
I’ve kept my hands at my sides in a tight grip, nails digging into the seat. Unclenching my hands, I raise them to slip gently against the back of his neck. I can feel a spattering of overgrown hair across his neckline and it somehow becomes unreasonably evocative to me. The way I can’t stop considering it as evidence of his single and available status, because a good woman would remind him to get a haircut. Jake is simply an unattached man who couldn’t care less about getting a haircut until it’s absolutely necessary. I, a similarly unattached woman, proceed to curl my fingertips upward and tug against all the hair I can grasp.
Jake’s hands drift from my hips, where he had been grasping since tugging me toward him, and move to press flat against my thighs. Tracing down until he can slip under the edge of my skirt, he stops, warm hands pressing against my legs, prompting me to give a small whimper and drop my head onto his shoulder. Immediately, his hands surge forward until the tips of his fingers nearly meet the edge of my panties. His thumbs, now resting toward the insides of my thighs, begin to rub tiny circles there, the smallest of patterns. The incessant trace of his rough skin on my sensitive inner thighs leaves a tender etching in its path, nearly inducing me to latch on to his wrist and force his hand deeper between my legs.
That touch, the raw feel of it, is another reminder this is the grown-up Jake touching me. As his hands continue to press and trace, Jake shifts so his lips come nearer to my ear.
“Did we fix your leg, baby? No more pain there?”
I nod into the space where my forehead rests against his collarbone and hum an affirmative sound.
“What else hurts? I’ll fix it—just tell me where.”
Holy hell. Jake’s gravelly tone forces me to consider that he might be
too much for me now, even when the words inspire an immediate answer in my head, the incredibly specific places I want to direct him to, all the parts of me he might fix with these capable hands. The young Jake often mumbled a thank-you when I let him touch a new part of my bare skin. Would this man do the same if I let him keep going? Not likely. And the fact that he wouldn’t, or the idea he might ask for permission but wreck me properly once he has it, does insane things to me.
“Tell me, Lacey. I’ll touch you how you want, where you want. All you have to do is tell me where.” Jake digs his fingers into the flesh at the top of my thighs. “Or tell me to stop.”
I can’t think or move. I can’t speak or follow a single thought. Between our bodies is a rigid desire, not the kind that prompts slow, tentative sensuality or even morphs into an impetuous round of meaningless sex. Instead, the way we’re strung so tightly against and around each other, waiting for one of us to trip the switch, nearly guarantees a wild ride that might leave us both unable to speak.
I spent too many nights chasing this exact high right after Dusty and I broke up. I turned myself out into the world, to bars and Montana’s best attempts at nightclubs, trying to find a different kind of man. Maybe a banker or a lawyer. Or, at the very least, just someone I didn’t grow up with. On the surface, I claimed I was looking for something real. But I was a twenty-five-year-old woman who couldn’t assert herself in the world, at least not beyond my breasts in a push-up bra. If I did meet a contender, I threw myself in his path, in the lowest-cut shirt possible, and hoped for the best. Because if he had a six-figure tax return and thought I was enough, then we’d surely live happily ever after in a big suburban house with a four-car garage on five groomed acres and I’d have a standing appointment at the best salon in town.
Most of what I ended up with was free watery drinks and a vague homesickness when I listened to yet another story about some guy’s latest “epic” trip to Tahoe with his frat buddies. But what I really needed was this. The hyperawareness two people share when there is more to be had between them.