She felt her face heat, but strangely enough the embarrassment didn’t hit too hard. He was highly amused and that was better than the way he’d been before. Anything—even assumptions about their manly fun time before she’d arrived—was better than the way he’d been before. She could practically see him relaxing and that was awesome.
“Don’t worry. You’re really not to blame. Not so long ago, I was having wild erotic dreams about both of you.”
His grin was genuine this time.
“You had sex dreams about us? About me too?”
“Noooo. By both, I meant me and Jamie and the dying fern from the living room. What do you think I meant?”
He laughed but she could see him still puzzling through something as he did so. At the very least, however, he uncrossed his arms from his chest and put his hands on the bench he’d sat himself on. Leaned toward her, as though it was safe to do so, now.
“How come you haven’t told Jamie this? He’d about die if you did.”
“How do you know I haven’t?” she asked, but he came back quick as a flash.
“He’d have told me.” The words bro talk flashed up behind her eyes before he continued. Though oddly, it didn’t make her feel uneasy. And especially not when Blake said things like—“You wanna know why I love him so much? Because he’d have said you’d dreamt about me, too, even if that wasn’t the case.”
She remembered him telling Blake about his handsome hair. The way he never scored a basket past Blake, on the court—not even when she felt pretty sure he could have done. And he’d been so casual and relaxed when Blake had turned up at the bedroom door! Yeah. Yeah. She could see that about Jamie, all right.
“He doesn’t know what kind of person he is. Not at all. He thinks he’s some nutjob loser who’s lucky to have someone that wants to talk to him, never mind a friend. Never mind a lover. He doesn’t get it—that he’s the kindest, funniest, most amazing guy that—”
This time, he cut himself off. Blew out an embarrassed breath.
“You can see why I don’t rattle on the way he does, right? When I do all this…sentimental nonsense seems to want to come out of me.”
She wanted to tell him to look up from the ground so he could see that her eyes were stupidly wet. But who knew, really? Maybe that would just make things more awkward.
“It doesn’t sound like nonsense to me.”
“No, no. I know I’m not great at the talking thing. Funny—I always thought I was. But I guess it was all just bullshit, back then. You know? When it’s real, it’s harder. It’s hard, here, to be smooth. Guys like me aren’t going to be able to coast on our looks anymore.”
He meant it to be funny, she knew he did. But somehow it wasn’t.
“I think you’re too tough on yourself,” she said, but he wasn’t done yet. Oh, not by a long shot. She could feel her heart pounding away in her chest, suddenly, and knew something was coming. Something bad.
“I’m really not. I did a job that now means absolutely nothing, and I lived a certain rich, superficial sort of life that means even less. And then one day it all disappeared. And sometimes I wonder if the person I was had any substance whatsoever—if it was even the real me. Because all I’m left with is this.”
Still, it hit more strongly than she’d expected it to. She’d expected some harsh comment about himself that made her feel a little queasy. Not the verbal equivalent of a sucker punch to the chest. She felt as though he’d tried to restart her heart, the violent way. She felt as though she’d collapsed and he’d gotten the paddles to zap her with.
Seriously. This was seriously what he thought? That he was this…vapid thing? With his sad Prada suit at the bottom of a drawer and the whittling of little wooden horses he did that he seemed to think no one knew about and his dying light eyes, always watching and waiting for his heart to come back to life?
She could hardly stand it. Never mind blowing someone’s head off for sneaking up. She wanted to blow his head off for this. When her voice made its way out, it was low and deadly and far graver than she’d expected.
“Blake, do you remember when you carried me up the stairs?”
He glanced up, but didn’t focus on her. Instead, she could see him focusing on some hazy point in the past, some distant memory that probably meant nothing to him.
“Yeah, I—”
“I was awake, you know. I heard you. I heard everything you did, and everything you said, and I felt it right down to my bones.”
“I can’t even remember what I said. You were just so…”
“Well remember now. Because that’s the kind of person you are. That’s what’s left behind. I’m sure there are many charming, smooth operator kinds of men who turned out real bad in this kind of environment. Real bad. But not you. And I don’t care what you think of who you are now or how much that person talks or doesn’t —I know how amazing you are inside. I know it. I won’t ever forget what you’ve done for me. And you should know that, always.”
The words all came out in a tumble, and afterwards she really felt as though they’d done just that. Tumbled. As though they’d fallen down the stairs inside her, crashing into things as they went. She felt limp at the bottom of said stairs.
But it was okay, because Blake gave her some time to recover. In fact, he gave her a lot of time to recover. So much time that she started wondering if he’d frozen in position or had forgotten how to move.
“You were just…tired,” he said, finally. As though it was the smallest, simplest, most ridiculous concept in the world, and why didn’t she get that?
It made her go to him and push into the cradle of his arms. Force her way in, even though he seemed startled and couldn’t quite get them around her, at first.
“I love you, Blake. Okay? I love this person you are, now. Don’t ever think I don’t.”
She could feel his hands sliding over her back—hesitantly, though. Like he couldn’t be sure if she really wanted him to.
“You don’t have—” he started, but she knew what was coming and interrupted before he could get there.
“Don’t say I don’t have to. I know I don’t have to. I just do, anyway. I love everything about you, truly and madly and deeply.”
She felt his hand clench in the material of her jersey, for that one. Felt him squeeze her tightly, suddenly, his face in her hair and his body trembling minutely against hers. But those weren’t the things she found herself focused on. She couldn’t even focus on him saying the words back, though he did, and they were lovely.
Instead, she had to glance up at just the wrong moment and see the shadows in the living room shift. Just a little, and barely seen through the half open door. And though her heart said monsters her brain knew otherwise.
Jamie, she thought. Jamie. Before whatever shadow it had been slid away.
Chapter Thirteen
There were two things that didn’t seem quite right when morning rolled around. One—Blake was already up and in the bathroom, singing. Actually singing. And two—Jamie was still in the bed next to her. He hadn’t gotten up at five am to vacuum the living room obsessively or play video games until he fell down a hole and cursed up a blue storm.
And even stranger, he wasn’t asleep. She could tell just by looking at him. When he slept, really slept, he seemed like a dead person. She knew because sometimes it frightened her and she had to put her face close to his to make sure he was still breathing.
But here, now, he was simply still in this strange hovering way and his breathing was too fine and quiet. Both things made her want to nudge him or otherwise indicate that she knew he wasn’t really sleeping, but if she did, what then?
Then he’d have to explain why he was pretending and the thought made her oddly nervous—in the same way thinking about the night before and why he might have remained in the living room made her nervous. People remained in living rooms when they didn’t want to intrude on something and that idea…well. It wasn’t pleasant.
; Only then he said I’m awake with his eyes closed, and it made her want to laugh at herself for being so silly. Why was she so nervous? It was Jamie. He understood. He got it. He wouldn’t let something like an I love you make him feel threatened.
“Is Blake singing?” he asked. His incredulity was funnier because of his still closed eyes, but she wanted to see them, even so. Wanted to see that everything was okay, in his ever-sparking gaze.
“Yeah. I think it’s…I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”
“He’s good. He should think about opening up some nightclub someplace.”
“Maybe call it Rotting Corpses? Or Everybody’s Dead, Let’s Dance?”
He opened his eyes on that note—and they were just as full of life and utterly mesmerizing as they’d been before. Could have been that he’d never even been there, hearing her declare undying love to Blake. Could have been that it was like Blake said—he just didn’t mind. That he wanted what was best for everybody and not just himself.
“That last one sounds like a hoot. You wanna party with me there, baby?”
“Absolutely. I think I already am partying with you there.”
His laugh was a faint sound, barely there at all. And as he made it, he turned onto his back, hair ruffling on the pillow as he went. Elbows pushing into the mattress, briefly, as though he had a crick he needed to work out.
“Think all that fucking has murdered my back. How about you? You holding up? No feeling like a train ran through your vagina yesterday?”
Her laugh was not so faint. And it had a hint of shocked, too, because man alive he could say some forthright things when he wanted to. Did he know that even the word vagina made her face heat? Probably.
“I’m entirely train journey free. Thanks, though.”
And it was true, too. She’d expected to feel sore and weird and fucked out, but all that remained was a pleasing hum between her legs at the memory. One that got louder when he looked at her with those sleepy eyes. Even when he turned his head as though listening to Blake belt out the chorus to Mack the Knife, she could still see those hooded lids and that smoky hint of dark blue.
“He was something like that before, you know? A nightclub owner, I mean. He won’t tell me what, exactly, but I know he was real cool, a real hepcat.”
She almost giggled over the use of the word hepcat, but the rest of his sentences wouldn’t let her. He sounded so wistful, somehow, and she couldn’t help thinking about Blake saying that Jamie just didn’t get it. He didn’t get how completely awesome he was in every conceivable way.
He even seemed surprised when he turned back to her to say something—probably about how cool Blake still was, and how handsome his hair looked all the time, and how he hoped to grow up and be just like him—and she pressed her mouth to his before he could get it out. She felt him flinch as though she’d slapped instead of kissed.
Everything they’d done, and he was flinching. And he didn’t seem to know what to do after the flinch was done with, either. He just laid very still and took it until she worked his mouth open with hers and gave him a little tongue.
Then he responded.
His hand went into her hair in that good forceful way he’d had the day before, and though she felt pretty sure that she tasted like sleep and old cat food, he pushed right back at her. Got into a mode that she could only describe as making out like teenagers—lots of hot, wet mouth sliding over hers. Lots of almost-sounds in there, and his tongue all slippery and good and teasing.
That hum between her legs became an ache before he’d even gotten to the good stuff. When he suddenly flipped her onto her back she couldn’t find a word of protest in her.
Who would protest over a thing like this? He kept himself off her, but she could still feel what she really hoped was his erection pressing against the outer edges of her right thigh. Plus—was that second base he was getting ready to round? Yeah, she felt pretty sure it was. He had a hand on her ribcage but it was moving steadily upward.
By the time she’d started trying to rock against that possible erection, he had a handful of her left breast. Though saying handful didn’t really do it justice, because it implied squeezing and clumsiness and he was neither. He immediately went for the best possible thing he could have done, which turned out to be a kind of slow bringing together of his thumb and forefinger.
And of course, they met around her already stiff nipple. Of course they did. He never did anything half-baked—it was always deliberate and sure with him, always aimed directly at some kind of pleasure center she hadn’t known she possessed.
Her whole body practically clenched when he got a firm grip on that aching little bud. And he didn’t pull or twist or any of the things she was used to, either. He just sort of…plucked. Until she forgot that the word plucked ever meant anything ridiculous, and started thinking of it as the best word in the entire world.
She didn’t even mind moaning over it. Instead, she just let it out, right into his mouth, and again when his hips snapped forward on hearing it—mainly because she could definitely feel something stiff and solid when he did so.
He wanted to rub up against her. She could tell. It was in the sudden drawn tight tension shivering through his body. It was in the way he shifted on the bed, as though he just needed to move even if said move wasn’t quite the one he wanted to make.
And it got worse when she stopped kissing his mouth and started kissing all the places she’d wanted to explore the day before. The sharp corner of his jaw, maybe. That smooth stripe of pale skin just below—God, he had such a pretty throat, he really did. Almost like a woman’s, and when she put her mouth on it he tasted like a woman, too. Like something sweet and spicy, as though he’d put on perfume before he went to bed.
Though she knew what it really was. She’d learned his secret not so long ago and it wasn’t anything to do with cooking curries or buns or whatever else he’d decided to lace with cinnamon. He liked to chew on the sticks of that sweet spice—that was all. And sometimes his hand would go into his hair or rub over his neck after he’d finished toying with it, and et voila.
A man who smelled and tasted like apple strudel.
“Baby, it’s so nice when you…that’s so…that’s really, uh…” he said, and she had to grin against that gorgeous skin. He sounded more overwhelmed by neck-kissing than she had felt about his hand on her breast.
Though really, when she thought about it—how much of him had she kissed or touched the day before? Not enough to know if one thing or the other riled him or not. Not enough to know that he could even get overwhelmed.
Though he sure felt it when she used a little teeth instead of lips and tongue. That hand on her breast—it went down to the hem of her jersey immediately, and started ruffling things up. Tearing things off was on its way. In fact, he’d almost gotten to the waistband of her pajama bottoms when Blake suddenly called from the bathroom—
“Hey June-o, you want to go for a run?”
Part of her left boob and most of her middle was exposed when he did so, but Jamie stopped, even so. In truth, she had to admit that he did more than that. He kind of froze mid-glance at the bathroom, as though he was just waiting to hear more.
And more came—nice and oblivious.
“I figured we’d hit the local hotspots. That old tree stump. The vegetable patch. Maybe take in a little tree-that-looks-like-a-penis.”
She wondered how she could tell him nicely that her pussy had taken over her body and running was the last form of exercise on her mind. Though she kind of figured that an explanation started with—
“Oh, um…”
Though it was actually Jamie who filled in the rest for her. With words she didn’t really want to hear.
“No no—it’s okay. You go.”
He stroked a casual hand through his hair—no big deal. Funny that it kind of looked as though it was, when she took in his flushed cheeks and his still hooded gaze and the way his chest seemed to be heaving up and down as thoug
h he’d already had his run this morning.
“Really? Because—”
She’d intended to end on because I’m incredibly horny and want to fuck your brains out, but he cut off that beautiful sentiment, too.
“Yeah, it’s cool. I gotta confess—I’m kinda tired anyhow.” He sprawled back on the bed as though to emphasize that fact, though somehow she didn’t think that was a third knee poking up through the bed sheets. And the way he shifted as though to cover it—yeah, that felt weird, too. “You threw me yesterday, I tell you what.”
She wondered what a lie would look like on his face. Like this smiling thing? It seemed sincere enough, and he put one casual hand behind his head, too, just to give it a little back up. It was easy enough to believe, even if it left her frustrated and unsure. He’d put something heavy down on the deck, and now the boat was rolling.
“Okay. Okay, I guess I will,” she said, then regretted it. It sounded resentful in some way, though she couldn’t understand why. Was that how she felt? Resentful? Rejected? It seemed stupid to feel anything like that when maybe he really was just tired. Maybe telling her to go had nothing to do with some kind of sudden distaste for her, and everything to do with embarrassment over a sore back or something similarly old-man-ish.
For all she knew she’d popped his trick knee out without being aware of it. And now he just wanted to lay there, half-dead, while two people who hadn’t broken every bone in their bodies went for a run.
Not that she knew for sure about the broken bones. And she didn’t particularly want to think about masked insurgents snapping his fingers while brushing her teeth and watching Blake moisturize his elbows.
Just go back in, she thought. Go back in and talk to him like yesterday, and ask him about his bones and about why he just cut you off like that. Then eventually it will lead to the hottest sex of your life, and hey presto. Two birds with one stone.
Only when she came out of the bathroom, his face was in the crook of his arm. He’d started looking like he was dead—she could tell even from across the room. Hell—maybe he really was tired. It wasn’t as though the day before had been calm and non-trying. He’d watched her almost get killed then fucked her until she begged for mercy.
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