Jess chuckled. “More than likely. Love you. See you Sunday, if not before.”
“I love you, too, darling girl. Enjoy your evening.”
“I hope to,” Jess said. In fact, her hopes were higher than they’d been in quite a while.
Will wasn’t sure which was worse, the struggle to convince his patient to stay in the hospital for further evaluation and treatment or the drive back to Chesapeake Shores in the pouring rain. All he knew was how relieved he felt when he finally pulled into a parking space behind his building, opened the front door and stepped into the heat of the building’s small foyer, then got his mail and started up the stairs to his condo.
As he turned toward the top landing, he spotted Jess sitting on the steps with a tote bag beside her. She was leaning against the wall and looked to be half-asleep. No surprise, since it was after eleven.
“Well now, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” he said wearily.
She blinked, and a slow smile spread across her face. “It’s about time you came home. I was about to give up hope. I thought maybe you were going to spend the night at the hospital.”
“It was a very long and crappy day,” he said. “Come on in. What’s in the bag?”
“Gram’s potato soup and a loaf of Gail’s freshly baked bread.”
He smiled. “You are a goddess!” he declared.
“I think maybe Gram and Gail are the ones who deserve the credit, but thanks. The soup will need to be heated. I’ve been out here quite a while. I wanted to surprise you.”
“You succeeded. Come on inside. If you’ve been waiting for me to eat, you must be starved.”
“Are you sure you’re not too tired for company?”
“I will never be too tired to spend time with you,” he insisted, ushering her into his apartment.
He tossed his briefcase and jacket onto a chair, then took Jess’s coat. “Would you mind terribly if I took a quick shower?”
“Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll heat up the soup and the bread.”
He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Like I said, a goddess! See you in a couple of minutes.”
“Take your time.”
As he stood under the hard spray of his shower, he thought about finding Jess on his doorstep at the end of an exhausting day. He had no idea what had really brought her there, but just the unexpected sight of her had rejuvenated him. The shower finished the job.
When he walked into the kitchen wearing clean jeans and a sweater, the aroma of the soup and the bread had him stopping in his tracks to sniff the air appreciatively.
When he opened his eyes, Jess was smiling. “Careful, or I’m going to think you’re more interested in this food than you are in me.”
He slipped an arm around her waist as she stirred the soup. “Right this second, I have to say it’s a toss-up,” he admitted.
“Now that’s a fine thing to say when you’re trying to win my heart,” she accused, but there was a twinkle in her eyes. “So, you didn’t mind the surprise?”
“Of course not. It was the best part of my day so far.”
Her eyes widened. “So far?”
“Well, finding you on my doorstep late at night has raised some interesting possibilities, especially since there’s no way I’m letting you go back out on those slick roads tonight. The rain was turning to sleet just as I got back to town.”
She swallowed hard. “I see. How comfortable is that couch of yours?”
“I’d never let a guest sleep on the couch,” he protested, grinning at her.
“I was asking for you,” she said. “I’d hate for you to wake up with a kink in your neck.”
Will laughed. “I guess we still have some heavy-duty negotiating to do before the night is over. You’d better feed me first.”
He found a bottle of wine and poured two glasses, while Jess put big bowls of steaming soup on the kitchen table, along with slices of the crusty bread and plenty of butter. He pulled out a chair for her, then sat down across from her. He lifted his glass.
“To you. Thanks for being just what I needed tonight.”
Jess smiled, her cheeks turning pink. “And to you,” she said. “The lilies of the valley you sent couldn’t have been more perfect.”
“I guess we know each other pretty well, don’t we?” he said. “Of course, I can’t really take credit for the type of flowers. That was all Bree.”
“But you knew what I’d be thinking and that you needed to send something to remind me you hadn’t forgotten about me,” she said. “It was a sweet gesture, Will. You have no idea how much I appreciated that.”
Will looked into her eyes. “Tell me what you were thinking before they came.”
She made a wry grimace. “Exactly what you thought I’d be thinking, that you’d abandoned me.”
“How am I supposed to prove to you that will never happen?” he asked.
Jess’s expression turned thoughtful. “It’s going to take time, I suppose,” she said. “And practice. All my life, people have gone away. My mother did and, for all intents and purposes, so did my Dad. Even Abby, Bree, Kevin and Connor, they all left me behind.”
Will heard the unmistakable hurt in her voice and said gently, “Have you ever considered the fact that, at least in the cases of your brothers and sisters, it’s not so much that they left you, but that you were the one who chose to stay?”
She frowned at the question. “Doesn’t it add up to the same thing? They were gone, and I was here.”
“By choice, Jess. If you’d wanted to leave Chesapeake Shores, you could have. Instead, you chose a local college. You had your heart set on owning the inn long before you bought it. This town was always a part of you. I wonder if you weren’t determined to create the home here that you’d longed for as a child.” He gave her a knowing look. “I also think you stayed because of your father. You knew how much building this community meant to him. In a way, I think you thought staying would show him how much you loved him.”
She regarded him with a thoughtful expression. “I never thought of that, but you could be right.” Her expression turned quizzical. “By the way, how did you know I’d wanted to own the inn for so long?”
“That didn’t even require guesswork on my part. I spent a lot of time with you, remember? You, Connor and I would walk along the beach, and you’d look up there almost every single time with this yearning expression on your face and declare that someday it was going to be yours.”
She seemed stunned that he’d remembered that. He grinned at her reaction.
“There’s not a lot that you did or said that I can’t remember,” he told her.
“How was I so oblivious to your feelings for all those years?” she asked, shaking her head. “I must have been so careless with you. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I wasn’t about to say anything about how I felt back then. I knew you had a lot of things to do, and even more things to figure out, before you’d be ready for me. I was just terrified all that thinking and doing would happen while I was off getting my own degrees.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing I took my time growing up,” she said, a smile playing on her lips. She looked up from her soup and captured his gaze. “I have it all together now, Will. At least I think I do.”
“Meaning what?”
She kept her gaze steady. “I want you to make love to me tonight,” she said softly. “It’s not just about the sex and getting it out of the way. I want to take this next step. I think we need to. I mean, it would be crazy if we fell in love and then found out we were totally incompatible in bed, right?”
Will laughed. “So this would be a purely practical test?”
“Something like that.” She kept her gaze on his. “Please.”
Will had about a thousand reservations, but he also had the same driving need to hold her in his arms that he’d lived with for years. He didn’t think he could deny it yet again, not with her looking at him the way she was.
“You�
�re sure, Jess? Really sure? I don’t want this to be nothing more than an experiment to you.”
“It won’t be,” she assured him, her expression solemn. “And I am a hundred percent sure.”
“You do know that after this, there is no way in hell I will ever let you go,” he warned.
“I kind of figured that,” she said, looking surprisingly content with that.
He reached across the table and touched a finger to her lips. “I’m not kidding, Jess. This is it for me. There won’t be any turning back. I’ll still give you all the time you need, but you will be mine.”
For just an instant, she looked a little shaken by the vehemence of his claim, but then she sighed. “Okay, then.” She held out her hand. “I’m ready. More than ready, in fact. Lately this is all I’ve been able to think about, you and me together. What it would be like.”
Will ignored her hand. He stood slowly and scooped her into his arms, then headed for his room, grateful that he’d had the foresight to straighten the bed and toss his dirty clothes into the closet earlier. He’d left a low light glowing on his dresser.
Jess curled against his chest as if they’d done this a thousand times. He felt her smile against the curve of his neck when she saw the king-size bed.
“I should have known,” she murmured.
“I was planning ahead,” he told her. “But just so you know, this bed is awfully big and lonely when there’s no one to share it.”
Tonight, though, he intended to make use of every square inch of it.
On some level Jess had known when she came over to Will’s tonight that there was a chance they would wind up here, in his bed. Of course, he’d been so adamantly opposed to it in the past she hadn’t been certain she could persuade him it was time. The man had an astonishing ability to resist temptation.
He stripped back the covers, settled her gently onto soft-as-silk cream-colored sheets, then lowered himself beside her, his face level with hers. His fingers skimmed her cheek as he moved a wayward curl off her face.
“Have I mentioned how beautiful you are?” he asked, a breathless quality to his voice.
She smiled. “Actually you haven’t.”
“Then let me rectify that at once,” he said with a grin. “You have the most amazingly expressive face, eyes as blue as the bay on a summer day, and hair that’s been lit by the sun.”
“Not bad for a guy who writes terrible poetry,” she murmured.
He blinked at that. “Poetry?”
“It came with the flowers.”
He laughed. “Ah, the sappy, romantic poem Bree insisted was necessary. She messed it up, huh? Some writer she is.”
“She tried, but believe me, this was proof positive she should concentrate on writing plays. She is no Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Still, it was sweet that you let her try.”
“Anything to put a smile on your face.”
A tremor washed through her, along with a hunger that was startling in its intensity. “Um, Will, are we going to get on with this anytime soon? I’m getting a little anxious here.”
He laughed. “I was taking my time, wooing you.”
“I don’t need wooing right now,” she assured him. “I need your lips on mine, your body.”
She sighed with pleasure as he covered her mouth with his, then slipped a hand under her shirt to find her breasts and tease the nipples into sensitive little buds.
“Better,” she murmured against his lips, then moaned as his hands went roving over hips and thighs before sliding down the zipper of her jeans and dipping inside. “Oh, sweet heaven!”
He took such care of her, amazingly attentive care, making her body hum like the strings of a well-loved guitar.
“I had no idea,” she whispered against his neck, bucking as he finally touched the most intimate core of her, his fingers wickedly talented. It might be true that she wasn’t a virgin, but she’d never been treated with such tenderness.
She started to reach for him, but he held her hands away from him. “This is all about you,” he told her, continuing to find ways to pleasure her until she gasped and lost control, clinging to his shoulders as she rode out the remarkable sensations.
He was smiling when she finally caught her breath and opened her eyes.
“Now let’s see what happens when we take this ride together,” he teased, pulling his sweater over his head and leaving it to her to loosen his belt and slowly lower the zipper of his pants.
He kicked off his shoes and then his pants, then gently pulled her under him. His eyes held hers as he entered her, taking her someplace she’d never gone before with someone she’d never dreamed capable of magic.
It was yet one more thing about which Will had been right, one more instance in which he’d known her better than she knew herself. This night had made her his.
Morning came much too early for Will. If he’d had his way, he wouldn’t have left this bed for a week, maybe a month, though given the near-empty state of his bachelor refrigerator, he doubted either he or Jess would have lasted that long.
He rolled over and contented himself with studying the woman next to him. She slept on her back with her arms thrown wide, the covers down to her waist. Resisting the desire to touch her, to awaken her and take her yet again with sunlight just starting to spill into the bedroom, was tougher than anything he’d ever done.
Instead, though, he dropped a light kiss on her brow, then slipped out of bed and took a shower. He’d dressed and started a pot of decaf in the kitchen before he heard her stirring.
He poured them each a cup, then carried them into the bedroom.
“I wondered where you’d gone,” she said sleepily, then spotted the cups. “Is that coffee?” She wiggled her fingers. “Gimme, please.”
Will laughed. “Nice to know where your morning priorities are. I made decaf especially for you, but if you want breakfast, I’m afraid we’ll have to go to Sally’s.”
Jess studied him over the rim of her cup. “Why did that sound like some kind of challenge?”
Will shrugged. “It probably was. I guess I’m wondering how much you’re willing to let people figure out about us. Are you ready to stir up all that speculation?”
She frowned at him. “You say that as if it’s some kind of flaw to worry about it. Are you really prepared to face all the gossip?”
“It won’t bother me,” he insisted.
“But what do we tell people?”
“I don’t think we have to tell them anything,” he said. “They’ll draw their own conclusions from seeing us together. We don’t have to confirm or deny.”
“I guess it’s not really everyone else I’m worried about,” she confessed, looking thoughtful. “It’s my family, plus Jake and Mack. None of them know how to keep their opinions to themselves, and they’ve already been pretty vocal with their doubts about the two of us as a couple. At least some of them have been.”
“So, you don’t want to go to Sally’s,” he concluded, trying to keep his expression blank, even as his heart took a dive. “Fine. It’s up to you.”
Jess reached for his hand. “Please don’t look like that. I’m not ashamed of what happened here last night. I hope it’s the start of something, Will, I really do. But until we’re sure, maybe it would be best…”
“To keep it a secret,” he said. “I get it.”
And he did. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell, though.
17
Will didn’t know why he’d been so surprised by Jess’s reticence to go with him to Sally’s. Even though she’d initiated what had happened between them the night before, it was evident that she still had serious reservations about them as a couple. He probably should have slept on the stupid sofa, after all. He didn’t want just one incredible night with her in his bed. He wanted a whole future. He’d made that clear enough, and still she’d taken off.
“You look grim,” Connor said when he settled into a booth opposite Will at Sally’s. “Problems?”
<
br /> “Nothing I want to talk about,” Will said. Of all the people in town who might turn up here this morning, why did it have to be Jess’s brother? No way was he discussing this with Connor.
Connor leveled a knowing look at him. “What’s my sister done now?”
“Who said this has anything to do with Jess?” Will replied testily.
“According to Gram, Jess was headed to your place last night to surprise you with a meal. Since I tried to call her at home off and on all evening to see if she’d gotten home okay, and never got an answer, I’m guessing she stayed with you.”
Will groaned. “Is nothing a secret in this town?” No wonder Jess hadn’t wanted to show up here with him this morning and give the town more fodder to chew on.
Connor laughed at his apparent frustration. “Not in my family, that’s for sure.” His expression turned sympathetic. “You two have a fight?”
“No.”
“Don’t tell me last night was a disaster,” Connor said, looking shaken. “You know…”
“I know,” Will said, then added indignantly, “and it wasn’t a disaster. Far from it. And that is absolutely the last thing I will ever say about that.”
“Fair enough,” Connor agreed. “I’m not all that anxious to be privy to my sister’s sex life, to tell you the truth.”
“Then why the devil would you ask?”
Connor shrugged. “Felt I had to. So, if everything was okay in that department, why do you look as if you’ve lost your best friend?”
“I can’t control how I look or your interpretation of it,” Will said, losing patience with the whole uncomfortable conversation. “Can we please drop this?”
The plea obviously fell on deaf ears.
“Let me guess,” Connor began. “The two of you spent the night together, and Jess bailed on you first thing this morning.”
Will avoided his gaze. “I really do not want to discuss this with you, Connor. How many ways do I have to say that before you get it?”
“Who better to talk to?” Connor said, not the least bit put off. “Nobody understands Jess the way I do. That’s her pattern, pal. She dips a toe in the pool, then scampers away before she risks drowning.”
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