Tess sighed as she set the alarm on her watch. “I’m not not talking to you, Nash. I’m just not talking. I’m tired. I’ve had something of an eventful day.”
“Don’t set it for any earlier than four a.m.,” Jimmy told her.
“I have to replace that sat-dish under cover of darkness,” she reminded him. “Four a.m. is cutting it a little close.”
“You can’t replace it until the wind stops,” he pointed out. “That’s not going to happen until about four.”
Still . . . “I’ll check the weather around midnight,” she told him.
“Dave says the storm’s not going to end until about four.”
She reset her watch to two a.m.
“So Dave’s information is good, while mine is suspect,” he said.
“Dave is happy to let everyone do their share, while it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if I woke up at four to find out that while we mere mortals were sleeping, you single-handedly replaced the damaged equipment, led Sophia—on foot—over the mountains and across the border to safety, and rebuilt Khalid’s house and barn.”
“Damn,” Jimmy said. “You really think I’m that good, huh?”
“That wasn’t a compliment,” she told him as she rummaged in her bag for the T-shirt she slept in. “You’re a lousy team player, Nash. The part I left out was where your brain explodes from lack of sleep—and then we’re left shorthanded.”
“I’ve slept more on this assignment than I ever have before,” Jimmy told her. “I think I’ve got at least, oh, four or five solid days before my brain explodes.”
God. “Is everything a joke to you?”
His response was immediate. “No, which is why I want you to sit back down so we can talk.”
“So you can apologize,” she clarified.
“I’m sorry is one of the things I’d like to say, yeah. Because I am. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have lied to you.”
What? She turned to look at him. Did he just say . . . ?
“Although, you know, it really wasn’t a complete lie when I said it,” he continued. “Even though I did really want to, I also didn’t. Because, well, Deck’s my friend, and I thought maybe if I was out of the picture he’d have a chance with you and—”
“What are you talking about?” Tess asked.
He stared at her. “What?”
“You lost me,” she said. “You’re sorry because you lied to me? Which lie, exactly, are you referring to, Nash? I want to make sure we’re talking about the same one.”
He made one of those wounded, offended sounds that liars could make so well.
“You lie so often, you don’t even recognize when you’re doing it anymore.” She held out her hand, pretending to be him, lowering her voice to say, “Hi, how’re you doing? I’m Nash. Diego Nash.” She switched back to her own voice. “Truth or lie?”
He laughed. “It’s not that simple.”
And again, she’d had enough. “You want to apologize to me?” she started, as he spoke over her.
“Okay. You’re right,” he said. “I lie. All the time because, yes, that’s not the name I was born with. But you’re wrong, too. It also happens to be the truth, because it’s who I am right now. Like most things, it’s more yin and yang than truth or lie.”
“Oh, just cut the crap and apologize, Confucius, so we can get this over with!”
He must’ve known she was seconds from losing it, because he obviously reined himself in. “I’m sorry for—,” he started.
“Apology accepted.” She turned away.
He was on his feet. “God damn it—”
“I think you should sleep in the barn,” she told him, praying he would leave the room before all her frustration and anger and upset from this awful, awful day took its toll and she started to cry.
“—you don’t even know what I’m apologizing for!”
“I don’t care,” she whispered. “I just want you to go.”
“Well, tough shit,” he said. “Because I do care, and I’m not going until you hear me out. Jesus Christ, Tess, what happened this afternoon in that basement was the most honest interchange we’ve had since I got back from Mexico.”
Mexico. That made her turn around to look at him. He’d actually dared to mention Mexico?
“I lied when I said I didn’t want to sleep with you again,” he told her, his voice softer now, barely more than a whisper. “Same way you lied when you said you didn’t want to sleep with me.”
Oh, God. “But I don’t want to sleep with you,” Tess whispered back. “What happened today was—”
But he was shaking his head. “I’m not talking about this kind of want.” Jimmy tapped his temple with his finger. He had such long, elegant, graceful fingers. “I’m talking about this want.” He covered his heart with his hand. “This want.” His hand went lower, cupping his crotch.
“There are all these reasons up here”—he tapped his head again—“for staying apart. The head goes, No no no, don’t do that because dot dot dot, but the body goes, Yeah, but I WANT to.” He laughed. “It’s kind of crazy, actually. I’m out in the barn, and there’s Sophia, and I look at her, and up here”—he tapped his head again—“I’m thinking— Okay, look, it’s a man thing. Men just think this way, and I apologize for it in advance. But I’m thinking, Wow, there’s a woman who’s extremely attractive—she’s got everything in the right place, nicely proportioned, pretty hair, pretty face—wouldn’t that be a truly enjoyable fuck— No, don’t turn away, Tess, because down here . . . Look at me,” he commanded, and she saw he had his hand on his heart. “Down here, there’s nothing. Down here I’m thinking, Hey Blondie, move out of the way so I can look at Tess. I’m thinking, Where’s Tess, because even though I can’t make her come ten different ways the way I want to, at least I can look at her and imagine it.”
She had to sit down. She felt behind her for the bed and sank down onto it.
He moved toward her. “Tell me you don’t think about it 24/7. You and me.”
Dear God. Tess wasn’t sure she could speak, so she nodded. Yes. Yes, she thought about it. About him. All the time.
And there they were, in the candlelight, gazing at each other. Thinking about that afternoon, in the basement. The sound Jimmy had made as he’d entered her, first with his fingers and then . . .
At least that was what Tess was thinking about. She swallowed, and it seemed to echo in the quiet of the room.
Jimmy cleared his throat. “Yeah,” he said. “So, I pretty much knew you felt that way from the start, and that was, um, scary, because if you weren’t going to be sending out slow-down signals, that left it up to me, which basically meant we were going to spend this entire mission fucking like bunnies.” He laughed as he said it, but he looked at her sitting there on the bed, then lifted one eyebrow very slightly. “I don’t suppose you want to . . . ?”
Tess laughed, and she knew he’d done that on purpose. He’d made an effort to lighten up this conversation, to break the mood. Still, she stood up. Moved away from the bed.
“No. Because we’re not . . . We’re people, Jimmy.” God, he was right—it had been much easier when she thought he didn’t want her. “So what’s your deal? You just decided this afternoon that, hey, this not having sex with Tess really isn’t working. Why don’t I try having sex with her for a while?”
He actually thought about that for a few moments, then nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. I guess maybe because we both seemed to reach our limit—”
“Temporarily,” she interjected.
He thought about that, too. “Is that really what you think? Because I don’t. I admit that this isn’t the most comfortable place to be, because it means I’m going to have to have a conversation with Decker and that’s going to blow. But I think we’ve crossed the line too many times, and I for one am not interested in going back.”
Oh, God. “Then I guess I’m the one who’s going to have to give the mistake speech,” Tess said. “Because thi
s afternoon was a mistake—”
“You want to have a relationship?” Jimmy interrupted her. “Because if you want, you could give me the hard relationship speech instead.”
Tess looked at him, hard. “Are you mocking me?”
“No,” he said, but then he smiled. “Well, maybe a little. Look, I’ll save you the trouble and get right to the bottom line. People aren’t bunnies, right? Right. People—particularly female people—have relationships. So . . . you want to have a relationship? Because I do. I want to have a relationship with you. I want it very much.”
It was so bizarre. It was as if Tess were living one of her wildest fantasies. Jimmy Nash standing in front of her, telling her that he wanted . . .
This was surreal. This man was a born liar. What did he really want? “What kind of relationship?” she asked.
He frowned slightly. “I don’t know. A regular one. What do you mean?”
“Exclusive?” she asked.
“Yeah, isn’t that what makes it a real relationship?” he asked. “Sure, I know some people have open ones, but that’s kind of like having a sky roof. Pointless. I mean, you can say it exists, but whenever you look up, nothing’s there.”
“Some people can make it work,” she argued. “A relationship can be anything you want it to be. It’s an individual thing—custom made. Everyone gets to set their own rules, define their own boundaries. What do you want this relationship to be? I mean, I have to know before I can even consider agreeing to it. And you have to know what I would want from you, too.”
“Okay,” he said slowly. “I guess I want this to be a relationship where I would always go along with you if you were going someplace dangerous, and, um, one where you could make me laugh and maybe, hopefully, I could make you laugh, too, and . . .” He shrugged. “The rest of the time we’d, you know.”
“Yeah.” She did know. And was this his true goal here? “We’d fuck like bunnies.”
Jimmy smiled. For some reason, he always smiled like that when she used adult language. “Yeah,” he agreed. And then he stood there and watched her, and waited.
He’d left out an awful lot. Like a need for honesty and openness, a need for communication, for sharing secrets, for trust.
But those were her rules.
God, she’d be crazy to trust this man.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” she admitted. “I don’t know if I want to do this.”
“You do.” He was completely serious. “I don’t really know why, but you definitely do. I’m not a nice person. I’ve done things that would shock and offend you, and . . . you still like me. And it has nothing to do with the fact that I’m good in bed, probably because I haven’t managed to convince you of that yet.”
“How do I know,” Tess said, “that as soon as we get back to the States, you won’t run away to Mexico again?”
“Okay,” he said, starting to pace, but stopping himself mid-stride. “Good. Yeah. I prepared for this one.”
She laughed in disbelief. “Prepared . . . ?”
“Oh, yeah. You think I didn’t know I was going to have to work to talk you into this?” he asked her. “To be honest, I don’t know why I ran like that. I just . . . I had to book it out of town. I don’t . . . Bottom line, I have no real excuse.”
Tess waited, but he didn’t say anything more. “That’s your prepared answer?” she finally asked. “That you have no real excuse?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“You couldn’t come up with something better than that?”
“Well, yeah,” Jimmy said. “I could, but . . . it wouldn’t be the truth.”
Ding. If this conversation had had a scoreboard, Jimmy would’ve just made another point. But he didn’t need a tally to know that. He just had to look at her. Which he was doing from across the room.
Although, little by little, he just kept getting closer.
“So what happens now?” Tess asked. “I say okay, and you give me your class ring, and that means we’re . . . what? Going steady?”
“I don’t have a class ring to give you. Probably because I never went to class. Although if you really want a token of my affection, you could tell me who you want killed, and I could take care of it for you.” He smiled.
“That’s not funny,” she said.
“Yes, it is,” he said, and he was finally close enough, so he kissed her.
And it happened again. Tess closed her eyes and kissed him, too, but she couldn’t just kiss him without touching him. And she couldn’t touch him without wanting him closer, and suddenly she opened her eyes, and they were on the bed, bodies pressed together, legs entwined, hearts pounding.
“God damn,” Jimmy breathed as he lifted his head to look down at her. “Don’t you maybe want to take it slowly for a change?”
She didn’t take the time to answer. She just pulled his head down for another kiss. Slowly meant there’d be time to think, and right now she didn’t want to do anything but feel.
The first kiss had gotten them over to the bed, and this second went a long way toward getting them naked. Which, with all that skin against skin, felt almost unbearably good.
Jimmy—who had probably never gone anywhere without a supply of prophylactics in his pocket from the time he turned sixteen—seemed to pluck a condom from thin air and somehow covered himself. And by their third kiss, he was inside of her.
Which was just what she wanted. She wanted no-frills, missionary-position sex—full penetration, no imagination, hard and fast and deep.
But Jimmy not only stopped kissing her, he held himself still and kept her from moving, too. Well, at least he kept her from moving the way she wanted to be moving.
“Hey . . .” She opened her eyes.
“How do you do?” he said from his vantage point directly above her. “I’m the guy you’re having sex with. I was feeling just a little anonymous, so I thought I’d call a time-out.”
Anonymous? Was he kidding? “Jimmy,” she said, and she pulled his head down so she could kiss him.
But he pulled back. Somehow he caught her wrists with only one of his hands, and held them above her head. Of course, that made it more difficult for him to hold her hips still. But despite that, he managed to keep himself just too far away from her, which was driving her crazy.
“This also gives me the opportunity to not come within twenty-five seconds of the time we start having sex,” he told her. His eyes were half-closed now and it was getting harder for him to talk—he clearly liked the way she was moving beneath him. “Which could go a long way in my attempt to convince you to have sex with me again.”
Smart man, he’d noticed that she hadn’t actually said yes to any kind of a relationship.
Stupid man, he didn’t realize that they already had a relationship.
“Despite evidence to the contrary,” he continued, “I don’t always lose control.”
Didn’t he realize . . . ?
“But I love it when you do,” she told him breathlessly. “It’s amazing. It’s . . . It’s like when you kiss me.” She could see from his eyes that he was trying to understand, but he just didn’t get it. This wasn’t a particularly good time to attempt a complicated explanation but she gave it a try. She wanted him to know. “When you kiss me, the world disappears. I lose track of everything but you, and . . .” She knew what to do. “Kiss me.”
He did—a little ridiculous smack on her lips.
She looked at him.
He smiled. And kissed her properly.
Total meltdown. And it wasn’t just on her end. Suddenly her hands were free—Jimmy must’ve let her go. And he even forgot whatever game it was he was playing, because he pushed himself deeply inside of her.
It was enough, in turn, to push her right over the edge. Which was all it took—didn’t he know how thrilling that was?—to make him follow.
Nevertheless, Jimmy didn’t stop kissing her for a good long time.
-------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
“Got a minute?” Nash asked, his voice lowered.
Decker glanced up from the papers and maps spread out on the bale of hay. “What’s up?”
Nash looked over to where Sophia was curled up, sleeping on a blanket, right on the barn floor.
After the storm, the walk back from the Hotel Français had been uneventful. Upon their return, Decker had told Sophia that she’d be perfectly safe—and far more comfortable—sleeping in the pantry, in the house. But she’d told him she felt more secure in the barn.
Troubleshooters 08 Flashpoint Page 36