“You don’t...” I gasp as his mouth dips lower, then lower again. My fingers slide through his thick hair, guiding him, feeling the rough scrape of his three-day beard on my skin. “You don’t have to go?”
Jake lifts his head, and his brow creases. “Go where?”
“I don’t know.” Lust, thick and hot in my veins, is drowning out all rational thought. Don’t stop. I wriggle a little underneath him. Why did he stop? “Wherever.”
“You’re not trying to get rid of me, are you?”
There’s something dubious and unsure in his tone that brings me back. I run my hands down the hot skin of his bare back and arch up into him, making him groan a little. “No. No, not at all. Carry on.”
He does, and I throw back my head and sigh.
“In fact,” I say between gasps, “if you leave me now I’ll have to kill you.”
After that, neither of us asks any more questions.
* * *
By the time we come up for air a second time, it’s good and dark outside, and the thumping below us has escalated into a downright roar. Lexi wasn’t kidding when she said Roadkill was the place to be. Half the town must be down there, judging from the steady din of voices and laughter and music vibrating the walls and floorboards. It’s a good thing Jake lives above his own bar, because there’s not another renter on the planet who would put up with all that racket every night.
He checks the clock on the bedside table—8:23 p.m. “Dilemma time.” His voice and expression are suddenly serious.
“Oh.” I push up onto an elbow, trying to pick my clothes out of the shadows on the floor. “Okay.”
He stills me with a hand to my biceps. “Not you. Me. I’m starving.”
But I’ve already swung one leg out of the bed. There’s somewhere else I need to be, should have been hours ago. “That’s okay. I need to get home.”
“Come on. At least let me feed you first.”
I sit up, shaking my head. “I really should go. Dad and Fannie are probably waiting up, and Cal’s coming early tomorrow morning. This weekend is going to be a little crazy.”
He sits up, too, wrapping both arms around my waist and tugging me tight up against him. “Stay,” he whispers into my hair. “Just a little while longer.”
I think about Fannie and my father at the house, wondering where I went, if I’m ever coming back. I think about the protesters, wielding their vile signs and chanting their even viler slogans. I think about Cal and Lexi and Bo, all of whom are probably snuggled on their couches with a glass of wine and the remote, and who haven’t given me a second thought since the last time I talked to any of them, hours ago.
I’m homesick, I realize suddenly, only I mean that in the most literal sense of the word. I mean the thought of going home makes me physically ill—queasy and dizzy and like I can’t breathe. I don’t want to go there. Not yet. I don’t want to go back to how that place makes me feel.
Jake’s breath tickles my neck while he waits for me to decide.
But then, it’s really not a difficult decision, is it?
I twist around to face him. “Dinner better be good.”
He grins, and my belly gives a hot squeeze. Jake really does have a great smile, an amazing smile, one that’s big and open and makes his whole face shine. One that’s impossible not to return.
“So I was thinking we could go downstairs and grab a bite,” he says, “or I can bring us something up here. Up to you.”
Quite frankly, after my tequila-inspired performance at Roadkill last night, I’m not exactly anxious to show up there again, with or without a black eye. Plus, one look at Jake’s just-got-laid grin and the purple love bite below his right ear, and everybody in the place will know. People in this town are already talking enough. I’d rather not add fuel to their gossip fire.
“I vote for takeout.”
Jake squeezes my hand like it was the answer he’d hoped for, then hops out of bed and plucks his jeans off the floor. I watch as he slips them back on, admiring the way his muscles ripple and pulse as he buttons his fly and reaches for his shirt.
Who needs crack cocaine when there are men like Jake Foster walking this planet?
After he’s gone, I snatch my panties and bra from the floor and pull them on as I head into the bathroom, doing a double take at my reflection in the mirror. Good Lord. My curls are a wild tangle around my head, my lips look like they’ve been stung by a bee and there’s a streak of bright red beard burn on my neck. Oh, and the shiner. Let’s not forget the shiner. I don’t look like I’ve been well bedded. I look like I’ve been raped.
I splash water on my face and run wet fingers through my curls until they’re semipresentable, and then I flick off the lights and make my way back into the dark bedroom.
Better.
I’m just getting settled back on the bed when Jake returns, a black cast-iron pan in his hands and a bottle of wine tucked under a biceps. “Coq au vin,” he tells me with such perfect pronunciation I think he must speak French. He deposits the pan in the middle of the bed, drops the bottle onto the mattress beside it, and fetches a few things from the kitchen. A bottle opener, cloth napkins, two glasses and a pair of forks.
“No plates?” I ask. “What kind of dump is this?”
Jake shucks his shoes and sinks onto the mattress beside me. “The best kind.”
He removes the cast-iron top with a flourish. The aroma hits me, and I close my eyes and breathe it all in. The garlic and onions and chicken and wine sauce and Jake, pulling his long legs around on the bed next to me. He picks up his fork, tears off a large bite of steaming meat and blows on it before offering it to me. “Now shut up and eat.”
I do, and it’s completely and totally delicious. I reach for the fork and rip off another chunk of meat, dragging it through the sauce, not bothering to blow before stuffing it into my mouth. Jake fights a smile, watching me do it another three times while he uncorks the wine.
“Why is your restaurant in Rogersville?” I ask him between bites. “You could make so much money somewhere else. New York or L.A. or Paris. Your food is that good.”
He pours, hands me a glass. “I’m not here for the money.”
“Why, then?”
He shrugs, reaching for his fork. “I don’t know. I like the scenery. I like to cook. I like the people I’m cooking for, especially when they’re as enthusiastic about my food as you are.”
“Yeah, well, we’ve already established I’ll eat just about anything, so I’m not sure you should use me as your litmus test.”
His hand scorches a trail up my bare thigh, and he drops his voice. “I prefer to use you for other things.”
I give him a playful swat on the biceps. “Be serious. No one just up and moves to Rogersville without having roots here.”
His teasing expression sobers. “I do have roots here, or at least close to here. My mom grew up in Church Hill. She met my father when he was stationed at the Holston Army Ammunition Plant. After that they lived all over the place, but we came here every Christmas and summer. This area was the closest thing I had to home.”
“Home never felt like home?”
He stabs another bite. “Dad was in the army. We never stayed long enough in one place for it to qualify.” He cocks his head, like he’s just thought of a new revelation. “Wow. This is the longest I’ve ever lived in one spot.”
“And you’re still not bored as hell?”
His eyes get big and round. “How could anyone be bored in Rogersville?”
“Because there’s nothing to do. No shopping. No museums. Back when I lived here, there wasn’t even a movie theater.”
“What about all the outdoor stuff? The hiking and biking and rafting.”
I make a face. “Too many bugs.”
“But what a
bout the nature? You can’t deny the beauty of this place.”
I laugh. “You sound like a commercial for the Tennessee Board of Tourism.”
Jake puts down his fork and swivels his torso toward mine, adjusting his legs until they’re alongside my right thigh. “It’s more than all those things. It’s this place, my restaurant and the people who come here to eat my food. I feel connected to them somehow. They’re like family, some of them, and Roadkill feels like a place I’ve always wanted to be. I can’t imagine ever living anywhere else. Which is why I bought the whole building last year.”
I bury my nose in the pan, something vaguely unpleasant swirling in my stomach. After traipsing all over the world as a child, Jake finally finds the one place he wants to settle, the one place he thinks of as home. That it happens to be the same home I fled when my world fell apart feels like a strange kind of irony. His home will never again be mine, not after what happened here. Not even after my father’s funeral, when I plan to be on the first plane out of here.
But then again, this isn’t a relationship. Jake Foster is temporary, a mighty fine distraction while I whittle away my days here in Rogersville.
Jake nudges me with an elbow. “Okay, now you.”
I look up. “Now me, what?”
“I told you something about me, now you have to tell me something about you.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I duck my head and smile at him through my curls. “My life has been really boring.”
He laughs. “Tell me about all the places you’ve been. I know about Kenya and Thailand, but where else?”
“A better question would be, where else not? The famine in the Horn of Africa and the tsunami in Japan and the earthquake in Haiti and the refugee crisis in Ivory Coast. The list of disasters goes on and on, unfortunately.”
“Impressive.”
“And you haven’t even seen my frequent-flyer statement.”
“I’m not talking about the travel. I’m talking about all the people you’re helping.”
“Come on, Jake.” I push a laugh up my throat, shove a flippant note into my tone. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out my intentions are not purely altruistic. It’s mostly just to get away from here.”
Jake doesn’t joke or laugh, doesn’t even smile. He puts down his fork and reaches forward, tucking a stray curl behind my ear, brushing a butterfly finger across the skin of my black eye, watching me with not pity, but tenderness.
And then, slowly, slowly, he leans in and touches the bruise with his lips, as if kissing it better. The gesture undoes me, more than a little, and my throat tightens at the same time something deep inside my chest whispers and stirs.
On impulse, my voice barely a whisper, I tell him what only a few hours earlier, I managed to evade. “I fainted. My father came home this morning, and he was so changed. So thin and frail and sick I barely recognized him, would’ve passed him on the street without a second thought. And the protesters...” I shudder, shake my head. “It was just awful. I fainted and hit my head on the coffee table.”
Jake slides a hand onto my knee. “I’m so sorry, Gia.”
I nod, pity for my father comingling with pity for myself, blending into a bitter brew that seeps into my voice. “And I could just kill Bo and Lexi. They weren’t there, and they haven’t been returning my calls and texts. This afternoon, Lexi snuck out of the bank so she wouldn’t have to talk to me. I don’t think I’m going to be able to talk either of them into coming by to see Dad before he dies.”
“That situation would be too much for anybody. Not everybody would’ve agreed to come back to that kind of hell.”
“Turns out coming back was the easy part. Actually staying is so much harder.”
His hand curls around my thigh and squeezes. “I’m glad you did both.”
“I’m a mess. My life is a mess.” I draw a deep breath, clear my throat. “If I were you, I’d run as fast as I could in the other direction.”
As if in answer, he scoots a little closer on the bed.
“I mean it, Jake. I’m the last thing you need right now. Ask anybody. They’ll all tell you not to get involved with one of Ray Andrews’s daughters. We’re bad news.”
“You’re not bad news. What happened sixteen years ago to your family was tragic, but that doesn’t make you bad news. It has nothing to do with you.”
I lift my head and meet his gaze. Jake Foster just said the best thing I could ever imagine, that I am not my circumstances, and I can think of only one thing to do. I pounce, kiss him hard, maybe too hard, sliding one hand through his hair and gripping his head and holding him close, my tongue reaching right into his mouth and kissing the stuffing out of him. It’s the kind of kiss that makes my entire body hum with energy, the kind of kiss that leaves no doubt of what happens next.
Jake pulls back, panting a little, and gives me a look of mock confusion. “Does that mean you don’t want dessert?”
“Oh, yes.” I yank his T-shirt up and over his head. “I want dessert right this instant.”
14
WHEN I AWAKE, the morning sun sits high in the sky and paints slanted patterns across the bed through the blinds. Blinking, I will my eyes to adjust to its golden light and turn to look at the man still asleep on the pillow next to me. Jake Foster is delicious. His cheeks are flushed, his thick hair rumpled, one arm thrown above his head. Delicious enough to be on a billboard somewhere. Delicious enough to scoop up and eat for breakfast.
Breakfast?
I shoot upright in bed, reality stinging my skin like a swarm of horseflies. Shit. I glance at the clock—11:07 a.m., double shit—and throw back the covers. “Shit.”
Jake presses a palm to my lower back. “What’s wrong?”
I spring out of bed, snatching pieces of my clothing from the floor. “We weren’t supposed to fall asleep. I wasn’t supposed to fall asleep. I was supposed to be home hours ago. No. I was supposed to be home last night.”
Jake yawns and sits up, reaching on the floor for his jeans. He takes his sweet time sticking one leg in, then the other, pulling them up over his bare ass.
I shove my legs through the holes of my panties. They’re all twisted and wrong and get caught halfway up my thigh, and I stomp back out. “Goddammit!”
“Calm down.” He comes around the bed to where I’m standing, picking up my bra along the way. “I’ll help you.”
“You don’t understand.” I yank my panties to my hip, inside out now but I don’t have time to care, and snatch my bra from his hand. “I’m over an hour late—scratch that, over a day late. What am I going to tell Cal? What am I going to tell my father?” Jake pushes my T-shirt over my head, holds it so I can ram my arms through the sleeves. “That I was too busy getting fucked every which way to remember I’m supposed to be taking care of him?”
He raises a brow at my choice of words but remains silent.
I find my jeans in the hallway, spot my sneakers and jacket on the floor by the front door. “This is bad. This is really, really bad.” I shove my feet into my shoes and yank my coat onto one arm, pivot to the door, then stop. “My bag. Where the hell is my bag? Oh, Jesus. I think I’m going to throw up.”
“Not exactly the sensation I was going for when I was fucking you every which way.”
The harshness of my words on Jake’s tongue hits me like an electric jolt, paralyzing my limbs and bolting my untied sneakers to the floor. “Oh. I didn’t mean it that way.”
Jake reaches an arm into the kitchen, plucks my bag from the table, drapes it over my shoulder. “How did you mean it, then?”
I can tell he’s trying to keep his voice neutral, and my thoughts skid into Reverse, my mouth backtracking. “I just meant...” My gaze drops to his chest, thinking it would be a safe place to park my eyes, but he’s still shirtless—deliciously shirtless—s
o I drag my gaze back up to his face. “My little temper tantrum back there had nothing to do with you. Honestly it didn’t. I’m just really angry I let myself get so distracted.”
His mouth dips like it wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear. “I’m a distraction.”
“Yes. Put a shirt on so I can think straight.”
He smiles then, and good Lord, it hits me like a narcotic. Without my permission, my palm slides against his bare rib cage, up to his chest. He captures my hand, his fingers threading through mine, and pulls me up against him.
“But I do have to go,” I remind him as well as myself.
But if I’m in such a hurry to go, why am I not more eager to leave?
Jake nods, brushes a kiss on my lips, yet doesn’t release me. “When will I see you again?”
“I don’t know. Cal’s here all weekend.”
“This Cal person you keep mentioning. Is he my competition?”
“What?” I laugh. “Ew, no. Cal’s my uncle, and my father’s attorney. I just meant it will be hard for me to get away while he’s here.”
“Ah.”
“So I’ll kind of need to stick close to home, especially after bailing on everyone last night.”
“Ah,” he says again, and the disappointment in his voice makes me want to stay until next week. Jake steps back, threads the zipper of my coat, drags the pull until it stops under my neck. “Just don’t forget about me, okay?”
I give my head a little shake. Like that’s possible.
After one more kiss he opens the door, waiting in the doorway while I make my way down the stairs. At the bottom step, I turn to wave one last time. “Go back to bed.”
“I will, and I’ll be thinking about you the entire time.”
* * *
Returning to the house is the mother of all walks of shame. Past the protesters, stunned for once into wide-eyed silence when they get a load of me, wild-haired and black-eyed, puttering past them in my rental. Across the lawn and up the stairs to the door, while reporters speculate story lines for my less-than-wholesome appearance and their cameras follow my every hurried step. Into the living room, where Cal and Fannie sit on either side of my father, their expressions a combination of displeasure and surprise. I might as well be wearing a sign: Three Orgasms in One Night, Y’all. A New Personal Record!
The Last Breath Page 11