Raine

by J.C. Valentine

  “Lies,” Raine singsonged, teasing him for having gotten caught. “You must be one sick pup to want to watch a pregnant girl eat.”

  “What? You’re cute,” he defended himself, his voice raising a full octave. A sick pup? What the hell was that?

  “I’m stuffing my face over here,” Raine protested. Waving her hand over her clothes, she said, “There are hush puppy crumbs all over me. How is that cute?”

  “I meant cute in an aww-you-eat-like-a-toddler way. Definitely not cute in a you-belong-in-a-nursing-home kind of way.”

  “Thank you so much!” Raine giggled behind her hand, trying to chew and swallow her food without making an even bigger mess of herself.

  Cute was definitely a good description for her, Jarret thought to himself. How could Camron ever walk away from someone as delicate and charming as this girl?

  Finders keepers as they used to say as children. But did Raine feel the same way about him? The more time he spent with her, the more Jarret found himself asking that question. Sometimes, she would look at him or behave toward him in such a way that he thought she must, but then other times she would shove him like she had when he’d kissed her earlier that afternoon, and then he was all kinds of screwed up in the head wondering did she, or didn’t she?

  While Jarret polished off the last of his coleslaw, he recalled his seventh grade English teacher’s favorite saying that the only stupid question was the one that wasn’t asked. So he figured, what harm could it do?

  Clearing his side of the bed and brushing a few crumbs onto the floor, Jarret leaned back against the pillows and stared at the side of Raine’s face until she finally turned to look at him over her shoulder.

  “Again with the staring,” she said with a chuckle.

  “How can you accuse me of staring? What if I looked at you because I saw you turning to look at me? For all you know, I could have been watching the movie the whole time.”

  She rolled her eyes, knowing better. “The burning hole in the side of my head says otherwise.”

  Snagging a hank of her hair, Jarret gave it a playful tug. “I want to ask you a question.”

  “Another one?” Despite her whine of protest, Raine scooped up her empty cartons, rolled onto her side and set them on the table beside the bed, then rolled onto her back. Looking up at him through her purple glasses with her hands clasped over the top of her stomach, she said, “Shoot.”

  Unable to resist, Jarret traced the swell of her stomach, watching in fascination as the skin beneath her dress rolled and undulated, reminding him of the movie Aliens.

  “What do you think about me?” he blurted out, figuring he might as well shoot straight. He’d never been shy around girls, and he wasn’t about to start now.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Like, do you like me? Do you find me attractive?”

  “Fishing for compliments?” she teased. He gave her a hard look that said he wasn’t in the mood to kid around, and she pressed her lips together. “Yes, I like you, and yes, I find you attractive.”

  “How attractive, on a scale of one to ten?”

  Her eyes lifted to the ceiling as she processed her thoughts. “One being the ugliest?”

  Oh, dear Lord in heaven… Jarret nudged her foot with his.

  “Around a nine, nine and a half.”

  “That’s all?” Jarret asked incredulously, although he secretly thought it was a fantastic number to be labeled with, but where was the fun in letting her off the hook that easily? “I’m at least an eleven.”

  “What? It’s not like you’re some Jared Leto. Now that guy. Whew! Now there’s an eleven.”

  They fell silent while Jarret collected his thoughts and, he suspected, she played out some Leto fantasies in her mind. “If I said I wanted to kiss you again, would you want me to?”

  “Sure.”

  Okay, not the level of enthusiasm he was looking for, but he could work with it. “And if I said that I wanted to touch you, would you want me to do that, too?”

  “Like…sexually?” Her brows knitted together, as if the idea wasn’t very pleasing.

  “It doesn’t have to be,” he stressed, “but someday, yeah, I’d like it to be.” Sliding down onto his side, Jarret faced her, propping himself up on his elbow so he could look her in the eyes. “I really like you Raine, and when we’re together, I feel like we have this…connection going on. I won’t lie and say I haven’t felt something like it before, because I have, but never this intense. It’s as if I’m hooked up to a car battery, and every time I look at you, someone turns the engine over and I get the shock of my life.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Raine said, a look of horror flashing in her eyes. “That sounds horrible.”

  “But it’s not, Peach.” Grasping one of her hands, Jarret brought it to his mouth and kissed the back of it. “At first, it’s kind of terrifying, because, holy shit, someone just shocked the hell out of you, but then it starts to become kind of addicting. Every day I get out of bed hoping to get even a fraction of that shock just so I can start my day off on the right foot.”

  “Because the left one was fried?”

  “You know what I’m trying to say,” Jarret said, lifting an impatient brow. “I spend more time with you than I have with anyone, ever, and you’ve seen more of me than anyone else ever has. Hell,” he said, throwing his arm out, “you’re the first person I’ve allowed up here since the day I moved in.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “No, I’m not kidding,” Jarret told her. Taking a risk, he looped his arm around her waist and drew her closer until the side of her body was flush against his. “You already know I like you. I like that we share the same taste in movies, and that you laugh at my jokes. I like that you feed me, and that you aren’t afraid to sass off to me, even though we’re going to work on that soon,” he promised, grinning. “I like your competitive edge, and how your nose scrunches up when you think real hard, and I especially love that when I kiss you, you kiss me back.

  “So, Raine, when I ask if you’re attracted to me, what I mean to say is that I can’t stop looking at or thinking about you. I want you in every way a man can want a woman, and I just need to know if I’m wasting my time chasing my tail, or if you feel the same about me, because I’m literally losing my mind trying to figure you out.”

  Biting down on her bottom lip, Raine considered his words. Finally, in the smallest voice possible, she said, “I am attracted to you, Jarret, but…” She hesitated, drawing her hand out of his and rubbing the side of her face in a nervous gesture. “But I don’t know if I can go there with you.”

  “You don’t know if you can, or you don’t know if you want to?”

  “I don’t know if I can,” she clarified. “Jarret, I just—this is difficult for me. I mean, even if I said that I wanted us to be together right now, in all the ways you want, do you think that would even be right?” Blowing out a weighted breath, she looked up at him. “I dated your brother, Jarret. I’m carrying his kid. And here I am, living with you. Your parents think I’m a whore. Hell, the whole town probably thinks of me that way. Is that really what you want to associate yourself with?”

  “First of all, the small-minded few don’t constitute the whole town, and you are far from being a whore, so I don’t ever want to hear those words come out of your mouth again. Second of all, I don’t give a damn what people think or have to say about it. If I did, I never would have brought you here. So, since you’re into me, and I’m clearly into you, how about you shut up and let me kiss you and we can see where the wind takes us?”

  “Jarret,” Raine complained, pushing her hand against his chest when he leaned down to kiss her. He groaned in frustration. Never had he had to try so hard to get a girl to like him, to accept what he wanted to give them. “I want to, I really do, but I just don’t know if I can. Can’t you just try to understand?”

  “How can I understand anything when you won’t tell me anything?” he snapped.
“You know what? Just forget I even asked. I’m going to bed. You can stay here tonight if you want.” Rolling onto his back, Jarret tossed an arm over his eyes and attempted to control his breathing. He was tired and this conversation wasn’t going anywhere but in circles. They had been over this line of questioning before, and Raine had dodged it even then. If she wanted to hold onto her secrets, fine, she could have them, but he was tired of running in circles. He wanted more from her that she obviously wasn’t willing to give, so he was done. From here on, if Raine wanted something, she would have to come to him.

  NINETEEN

  Raine sat in stunned silence listening to the minutes tick by on the old-fashioned alarm clock complete with bells sitting beside the bed. Jarret had a point. She kept pushing him away, but she wasn’t willing to tell him why. If he knew her reasons, would he be so accepting of them? Would he believe her? Would he comfort her? Or would he get mad and call her a liar? That was what she was really afraid of.

  If she told Jarret what Camron had done, it would change everything. She wasn’t naïve enough to think that he would simply count to ten and put it behind him as she continued to try and do each day. But who would he direct his anger towards?

  She wasn’t concerned about herself. Was she past that night? Not at all. It haunted her every day, but she was learning to live with it. Camron had done wrong, but she had cared about him once—a small, stupid part of her still did. She couldn’t destroy every soft emotion she had for him and turn it all into hate, because that would mean she’d hate part of her child also, and she could never do that. Just like she could never see ruining Camron’s future by taking it to the authorities. What good would it even do? In the end, lives would be ruined, and Jarret’s would be among them.

  So she intended to stay quiet and press forward. The problem with her plan was that she wasn’t entirely sure how to do that. Being with Jarret, spending all this time with him, and connecting with him, had opened her eyes to the fact that she still had the ability to want a man.

  With Jarret, she felt good. She felt sexy, she felt sensual, and she felt attractive. Her body craved to be touched, teased, and tasted. She was familiar with those feelings from when she dated Camron, but even he hadn’t possessed the ability to turn her into a tingling mass of sensation with a single look, or made her nipples tighten with the sound of his voice. And each time Jarret used those powerful lips on her, all the blood in her body rushed south, causing her thighs to clench together against the painful pinch of need coursing through her.

  She’d never craved sex before, but when she thought of having it with Jarret she couldn’t deny that she wanted it. She wanted to feel his powerful body moving over her, inside her. She wanted to know if he’d be a gentle lover, if he’d be generous and attentive. She wanted to consume him, and to be consumed by him, but then she dreamed, and when she woke up, the doubts set in.

  Could she go through with it? Could she let him make love to her without panicking? Would the wires in her head cross, causing her to relive that nightmare and ruin everything? Up until now it was a risk she hadn’t been willing to take. But now that she was sitting in Jarret’s room, the only person—the only girl—to ever cross its threshold, she was reconsidering everything.

  Jarret wanted things from her she wasn’t certain she could give him. But she wanted to. She wanted to experience what it was like to have someone that truly cared about her, want her the way that she wanted them. She wanted to feel the culmination of their time together expressed in more than just words. She wanted to take a risk, to stop erring on the side of caution, and she wanted to do that with him.

  Looking over her shoulder, she studied Jarret’s still form. God, even resting he was beautiful. Gorgeous in a way she could never compare to, in a way that she knew she wasn’t worthy of. Could she really do this? Even as she asked herself the question, Raine knew the answer. Even if it turned out that she couldn’t, she had to at least try. Living in fear wasn’t how she wanted to live. That was no kind of life for anyone, and if she wanted to be the kind of mother and woman she was meant to be, she had to stop closing doors and start opening windows.

  Jarret was her window. Through him, she would know once and for all how deep her scars ran and if she would be able to overcome them. But if she was going to do this, it had to be done her way.

  With a little effort, Raine shifted onto her knees and twisted around to face him. Come on, Raine. You can do this. The pep talk helped about as much as imaging herself naked while reading a report in front of her classmates in grade school to overcome her nerves. It didn’t work. For the little sexual experience she did possess, Raine had no experience in the field of seduction.

  Getting on all fours, she edged closer, her heavy breasts and enormous stomach swaying, until the heat of Jarret’s thighs warmed hers, and tentatively began lifting his shirt, exposing inch by inch of tanned, hard flesh. Holy mother, but even lying down, she could count his abs, which simply couldn’t be human.

  “What are you doing?”

  With a cry of surprise, Raine dropped his shirt as if it had caught fire. Her heart thundered in her ears and her cheeks burned scarlet as Jarret rose onto his elbows and lifted a questioning brow. “I-I-thought you might be hot?”

  “You thought I might be hot,” he said slowly, lips twitching. “O-okay. And, just so we’re clear, this wasn’t you attempting to molest me while I was sleeping?”

  “What? I would never!”

  “Never?” he asked with a suspicious lilt in his voice.

  “Never. You weren’t even sleeping, for crying out loud.” Raine leveled him with a stern frown. He was just trying to embarrass her, and even though she wanted to crawl under a rock, she refused to give him the satisfaction. “I thought it was a little hot in here, and I’ve always heard that men tend to get hotter than women, so I was just trying to be considerate.”

  “Ah, a concerned citizen.” Jarret nodded, as if he understood perfectly. Then he crossed his arms over his middle and tore the shirt over his head.

  Raine’s mouth went dry as a desert and her body experienced a heat wave as she eyeballed every honed muscle God saw fit to grace him with. Of course, she’d seen it all before, in motion and still wet from a shower, but this time, she aimed to feel it under her fingertips, and that inspired a fresh wave of heat to lick at her skin.

  “You were right. I’m much cooler now. You’re turn, Peach. Tit for tat.” He made a circling motion with his finger at her dress, and Raine hesitated.

  Doubts ran like water from a tap through her head. Would he like what he saw? She was too fat. She was too soft. Her nipples were darker than they used to be. She didn’t shave her legs that morning. Her breath might stink from all that fish. But then Jarret reached out and brushed her hair over her shoulder, allowing his fingers to slide down her neck as he looked into her eyes with the most tender expression she’d ever witnessed from anyone. Raine remembered all the good things Jarret had said and realized one thing: He saw beyond her flaws and thought she was beautiful.

  It was enough to give Raine the boost of confidence she needed to make the next move. Taking his hand, she placed it at his side on the bed and, although she teetered a bit, got back on her knees, grasped his shoulders for support, and hitched one leg over his. She eased down onto his lap slowly, measuring his reaction even as her heart raced wildly, feeling as if she’d just stepped up to the edge of a cliff. Jarret seemed surprised by her brazen move, but as his hands found her ass and pulled her in tight, she could tell by the heated look in his eyes and the feel of his rock hard shaft pressing against her soft center, that he was pleased she had.

  Rocking her hips against him, Jarret hissed in a pained breath then groaned. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  So far, so good. No warning signals were firing in her head, so Raine took that as a sign to press forward. “I’m sure, but Jarret,” she said, combing her fingers through his long hair, “let me take the lead on this one, oka
y?”

  Tilting his head back, those blue eyes of his reached somewhere deep inside her. He studied her for so long that she almost called the whole thing off, but finally, something in his eyes shifted. Whatever he saw in her, she sensed that he understood that she needed this from him. “Okay, Raine. You’ve got the floor. Just tell me what you want, and together we’ll make it happen.”

  With a deep breath, Raine begged her body and mind to behave, then took the first step off the ledge. Touching her mouth to his was like taking her first breath. As her mouth opened over his and his tongue swept inside, she felt as if her body was reawakening from a coma, coming alive as the world spun around her, at once familiar and foreign.

  Gripping his hair in her fists, Raine took control of the kiss, angling Jarret’s head back so she could taste him as he tasted her. Kissing had always been a favorite of hers, but there was nothing to compare to what kissing Jarret was like. There was a richness about him, decadent in the way that only a fine chocolate could be. She could spend forever lapping at his lips, but this man was a work of art, and it would be a shame not to explore every part of him.

  She left his mouth to kiss his neck, running her tongue over the thick, stubbled flesh, finding the wild pulse just under his jaw. She spent an inordinate amount of time there to just hear his low growl of approval over and over again, until Raine felt Jarret’s hot palms on her thighs as he pushed her dress back.

  For the briefest moment, she held her breath, afraid he would go for more and afraid of her own reaction, but he didn’t. Instead, Jarret played with her skin, caressing her legs with light strokes, his fingers inching higher and splaying wider, teasing the inside of her thighs, just outside the edge of her panties.

  Raine found her hips rocking the higher he crept, the heat in her core scorching, and she knew without having to check that her underwear were soaked.