I thought about going in and asking Harry to borrow his SUV but decided against it. Freddy’s wasn’t far away, and the walk would give me some time to work out what I was going to say to Gwen. Fastening the very top of my coat, I set off as fast as I could walk.
I didn’t regret telling her I loved her. It had been a last minute decision, one made when Susan herself stood up and started talking about how grateful she was. I’d been told that to win Gwen over I had to do something big and unquestionable. Something that proved my affections for her in an indisputable way. At the time, making a public announcement had seemed like not only a great idea, but the only thing to do. After all, I didn’t really have much to lose.
I still felt that way… kind of.
Unless Gwen crashes and dies. Then I’ll be sorry to have ever opened my mouth.
I gritted my teeth. That wasn’t going to happen. I was being paranoid. I picked up the pace, though, going as fast as I could while sweeping the road with my gaze.
Most of Freddy’s was dark. The white Christmas lights Gwen had turned on when we’d left earlier still glowed, illuminating the shop just enough for me to see that no one was in there. I cursed and stepped back.
At least there was only one other place she could be found… unless, of course, she had some secret spot she liked to go to that I didn’t know about.
Deciding to keep my hopes up, I trudged onward towards her cottage.
I meant it, I practiced in my mind. I do love you. It can really happen that fast. Let me prove it to you.
Halfway between Freddy’s and her house I spotted her car. It was on the side of the road, the nose in the ditch. I didn’t see her anywhere, though. Pushing my heels off from the packed down snow, I sped up.
When I was a few yards away, a car door slammed, and she came around the back of the vehicle. She froze at the side of me, and I halted as well, panting slightly.
“Gwen,” I gasped.
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
She turned and started walking in the direction of her house. I caught up with her, matching my pace to hers. “Please hear me out.”
“You just embarrassed me in front of my whole family.”
I scoffed, and she spared me a glance — a glare, really, but it was something. “What’s so funny?”
“Your family loved what I just did. They see what you refuse to, Gwen. They want us to be together.”
“They only see the good in you, Jason,” she said, staring straight ahead while she walked. “In case you haven’t noticed, they’re all at least a little bit like Claire. They see the sunny side of people, even when they shouldn’t.”
“Maybe that’s true,” I agreed. “But you know what? Them seeing the best in me helped me to see the best in me. It helped me believe that I was ready to change, that I was willing to open up to other people again.”
She didn’t say anything. We were passing along some tall bushes, so there was no light on her face to show me how she was reacting.
We walked in silence for a couple more minutes while I tried to formulate my next plan of attack.
“Are you going to follow me all the way to my house?” she asked.
“Is that where you were going?” I joked.
She didn’t laugh, of course.
“It’s dark out,” I said. “I’m not going to let you walk all the way home alone.”
She scoffed. “Yeah, the streets of Crystal Brook are pretty hard core. Better watch out. We might get shanked up here by the old women’s college. Word is this is where all the old ladies gather to make blankets on Friday nights. We wouldn’t want to get stabbed by a knitting needle.”
I smiled and did the best to study what little of her face I could make out. If she had enough humor in her to produce such a long winded joke, then certainly not all was lost.
We came to her little house, the only one on the street without a tree in the window or Christmas lights strung around the front porch. Gwen walked up the front steps, not even bothering to look at me.
She took out her keys and unlocked the front door while I waited on the stoop. Her caustic attitude was starting to grate me slightly. Part of the reason I’d chased after her was to make sure she was okay. Even if she was pissed about me publicly confessing my love for her, she could at least be a tiny bit grateful I’d come to make sure she hadn’t crashed her car and died.
She opened the door and stepped across the threshold. Feeling desperate to hold onto whatever power I still had left, I crossed my arms and waited for her to invite me in. Instead, she just stared at me, her eyebrows raised. I gazed solemnly back.
She closed the door in my face.
It was impressive, really. With the temperature certainly close to the teens, she still found the heart in her to play the game right. I crossed my arms and waited. Either she was playing the hard to get game exceptionally well, or she truly hated my guts.
Either way, I wasn’t going to turn back. It didn’t matter how cold the night got. I’d chased after Gwen with a purpose, and I wasn’t leaving until things were finally resolved between us.
Not even two minutes went by before the door opened again. She’d taken her coat off, and her hair was slightly frizzy from her hat. “Come in,” she sighed. “If you must.”
“Do you want me to?”
She looked at me like I was an idiot. “Yes, but only because I’m not going to sit up all night worrying about you.”
I walked into the living room, unbuttoning my coat as she shut the door behind me. Across the floor, the fireplace sat dark and solemn.
“Can I make you a fire?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. She was still behind me, and I couldn’t see her.
“It’s Christmas Eve,” I continued. “You should at least have a fire.”
“All right,” she conceded. “I’ll get some wood.”
“I will,” I quickly said, buttoning my coat back up. “Where is it?”
“Out back,” she sheepishly said, twisting her lips around. “Thank you.”
I finished the last button and gazed down at her. “You’re welcome… ah, your parents are probably worried about us.”
Her eyes widened, and she nodded. “I’ll call them.”
“Okay.”
I hurried outside and around towards the back yard. The flood light came on as I stepped around the corner, and I gathered as much wood as I could carry before heading back inside.
Gwen sat on the couch talking on the phone. “Okay, yes… hey, Mom? I’m sorry… I don’t know. I’ll ask. Bye.”
She hung up and looked over her shoulder at me kicking the door closed with my foot. “Mom said Dad will drive over here and pick you up if you want.”
“What about you?”
She shrugged.
I walked over to the fireplace and set the wood in the box there. “I could stay here,” I said, still crouched down by the hearth. “So you could go over there and be with your family… without me intruding.”
I expected a snarky response, but her face grew soft. “You’d do that?”
I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. “Yes.”
She looked away. “You can’t stay at my house.”
“I won’t read your diary. Scout’s honor.”
She smirked.
“Really,” I said more seriously. “I promise I won’t go through your stuff. You could go back and enjoy Christmas with your family in peace.”
“I’d be a real bitch to do that.” She winced. “That would be even worse than leaving you outside in the cold.”
“You’re mad at me. I understand.”
Her face softened. “Don’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“Act so nice.”
I tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t sound cheesy. There really wasn’t anything. “It’s hard not to with you,” I said instead.
She ran a hand through her hair and looked away. “The matches are on the mantle.”
I stood up to retrieve them and got to work making a fire. The logs took well and soon the fireplace was roaring, the flames throwing patterns against the wall. I pushed the grate in front of the mouth of the fireplace and stepped back.
“Good job,” Gwen said.
I looked over to where she still sat on the couch. “Why don’t you want me to be nice to you?”
“You know why.”
“It’s not what you think. I’m not going to take anything back.”
She laced her fingers together and studied them. “Okay. I’ll give you this. Maybe you don’t think you’ll take anything from here on back, but I know that you can’t make yourself that promise.”
“Okay.” I took a seat on the edge of the coffee table so I could face her at her level. “So, by that logic, I’m assuming you have the same thought about everyone. No one can know for sure that they won’t change their minds about anything.”
She furrowed her eyebrows. “Are you trying to get me to talk myself into a corner?”
“I’m just trying to make sense of things.”
“You said you wouldn’t change your mind.”
“And I won’t.”
“So you don’t believe what I just said.”
I gave that some thought. Finally, I had to concede. “All right. No one can know for sure. I have to tell you this, though. When I met Jess, my ex-wife, I knew for sure I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.”
“And then you changed your mind!” she nearly shrieked.
“No.”
Gwen’s face fell. Was there a bit of jealousy there?
“She changed her mind, although mine stayed the same. Even after the papers were all signed and done with.”
“So you’re still in love with her.”
I watched the firelight flicker across Gwen’s heart shaped face. I couldn’t lie to her.
“I think I was until very recently,” I said. “Or maybe I was still just in love with the idea of our marriage. It seemed like a fairy tale in the beginning. When she left so suddenly, it just didn’t make sense. It’s taken a lot to even begin getting over it all.”
Gwen blinked rapidly and turned her face to look into the fire.
“I’m telling you this…” God, I wanted to touch her so badly but kept my hands pressed into my thighs, “…to show you how serious commitment is for me. Now, I’m not asking you to marry me or anything.”
She looked back at me, a half smile on her face. “Good.”
“But I’d like to try and see what we could build together. I meant what I said at the table, Gwen. Damn, I love you. I’m not trying to be romantic here. I’m stating a fact, plain and simple.”
Her lashes fluttered, and her mouth opened slightly. “How can you love me so quickly?”
“I don’t know, it just happened. It can happen. Your mom knew after one date with your dad.”
Gwen groaned. “God, everyone’s heard that story, huh?”
“She told me it the other day in the kitchen, and Harry told me his side while we were picking out wreaths. Turns out their versions don’t differ much. He also knew that she was the woman he wanted to be with.”
Gwen gnawed gently at her lip, the action reminding me of just how velvety smooth her mouth was. God, if I never got to taste her again, I don’t know what I would do…
“You’re cracking through my shell, you know,” she gently said.
My heart did a flip. “That was the idea.”
She rubbed a palm along the length of her neck. “But not entirely.”
Of its own accord, my body leaned towards hers. I forced my torso backwards, keeping the space between the two of us good and clear. I didn’t want to make a move unless she really wanted me to. Doing so could jeopardize all of the ground I had already gained.
Her throat bobbed up and down, and her voice came out choked. “I don’t want to live the rest of my life this way. I don’t want to always be pushing people away. I hate being too scared to ever take a chance.”
“I understand that. Maybe more than I can get you to believe.”
She shook her head and looked at the ground. “It’s like you can’t count on anything in this world.”
I gave that some thought. “Maybe we were just taught to rely on the wrong things.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe instead of counting on stability, we should rely on the newness of life. There are always new experiences and people coming our way. We just have to be open to them. If life wasn’t always changing, we wouldn’t have met.”
She laughed. “Now it sounds like you’re trying to talk me out of getting together with you.”
I frowned. “You’re right. It does sound like that. Really, though, I’m just trying to give you some hope. Or rather—”
“Something to count on,” she finished my sentence. “Got it. And I guess you’re right about that.”
“Some things last and some things don’t. Just because a relationship was short doesn’t mean it failed in some way.”
She gnawed at her thumbnail. “Hm. Okay.”
“But I think ours would be anything but short.”
She cocked her head and grinned devilishly. “You’re really confident.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
Her smile shrank, and she gazed at me, the firelight illuminating the deep chocolate of her eyes. “I want you to kiss me,” she whispered, her voice breathless, taking me by surprise. “I want you to kiss me in a way that makes me forget about tomorrow and every day after that.”
I swallowed hard, my pulse thrumming loud in my ears. “I could try my best,” I said, matching her soft whisper.
She licked her lips. “I think you could do it.”
Slowly, I leaned forward, and she did the same. Our lips met, and I closed my eyes, the light flickering against the darkness maybe from the fireplace, perhaps from the phosphenes… or maybe simply from the grandness of whatever was to come next.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Gwen
Warmth trickled across my shoulders and down my back as Jason kissed me, my fingers and toes heating up till they nearly burned. I reached forward and laid my hands on his broad shoulders, and he responded by grasping my neck. Our lips moved together in a perfect rhythm, matching the in and out of our breaths.
Time slowed down, the same minute swirling around us in endless repeat as we kissed and kissed. The fear that had been paralyzing me slowly seeped out of my body, replaced instead by the strong presence of the man with me.
He leaned forward slightly, pushing my weight down into the couch cushions. I thought of my bedroom, down the hall and dark and cold, and then decided I had no desire to even move an inch.
Grasping the collar of his shirt in my hands, I pulled him forward and against me. His weight pressed down against mine and, still kissing, he slipped his hands under my hips and moved me until I was lying on the couch.
The room was thoroughly warmed by then, and my skin hot and flushed. Jason’s hips pressed down against mine, mimicking the moments I’d caught myself fantasizing about far too many times.
The heat gathered in my chest, threatening to grow into a fireball to match the sun if it wasn’t released. I kissed Jason’s mouth harder and ran my hands down his broad back, finding the bottom of his shirt so I could slip my hands up under the fabric.
He gasped into my mouth and bit down on my bottom lip. Spurred on, I pulled the shirt up to his head. He broke free to help get it off and toss it over the back of the couch.
“Don’t need that,” he softly murmured, pressing his lips down onto my neck. His tongue raked down to my shoulder, then up again to swirl around my ear lobe. I closed my eyes and released myself to the intense pleasure, letting it satiate and tease me at the same time.
His hands found the curves of my hips and his thumbs pressed softly into the spot between my jeans and shirt. I cried out from anticipation. Jason growled and worked on taking off my shirt, throwin
g it somewhere to join his own. Our lips back together, his fingers worked deftly at my jeans, unbuttoning and unzipping them in no time at all. I raised my hips to allow him to yank the pants off, and our kiss broke.
The way he gazed down at me told me everything I needed to know. He did love me. What he said at the table was true.
I sucked in a breath, the realization hitting me like a spiritual epiphany. There was no time to give much thought to it, though. Jason pressed his palm across the wet place between my legs, and I cried out. Keeping his hand there, he leaned down to nip at my mouth. The kisses went lower and lower, over my bra and across my stomach. His palm ran little circles up and down my legs as he got to my hips. When he got to my waist, he slowed the kisses, running his tongue across one hip and then down my thigh.
I sighed long and low, savoring the tight grip of his hands on my legs as he kissed the insides of my thighs. My underwear was hot and stuck to my body, but Jason slipped them down and off. His mouth lowered to my mound, and he kissed me there tenderly, sending an explosion of pleasure shooting through my body.
My breath came quick and ragged as he kissed and sucked. I grabbed at the couch cushions and his hair, feeling like I might fly away if I didn’t find something to hold tight to. The pleasure doubled, then tripled, bursting through me with an intensity that made my legs shake.
I grabbed Jason’s shoulders and hauled him up, ferociously kissing him. I wanted him even more than before and could hardly stand to wait another minute. His hands swept behind me to unhook my bra. It fell off, leaving me completely naked.
I reached down to work on his jeans. Once I’d gotten them unzipped, he stood and pulled them off the rest of the way, his boxers going with them. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet, then a condom tucked somewhere inside.
I sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of his hard ridges gleaming in the firelight as he rolled it down his length. Without giving me any real time to enjoy the show, he crawled back down onto the couch and on top of me, his hard length grazing against my skin.
His hands came up to thread through my hair and our lips pressed together in the slowest kiss we’d yet shared. He inched closer to me, his length pushing against my folds. When he slipped inside, I moaned into his mouth, enjoying the sensation of my whole body stretching to welcome him.
Damaged (Crystal Brook Billionaires) Page 22