Expect Me (Rivers Edge Book 3)

by Lacey Black

  “So, you work for your dad then?”

  “Yeah, my dad is the owner. Two years ago, he gave me a small stake in the company and made me construction foreman so I oversee all of the home projects. He has another guy who oversees the concrete and outbuildings projects.”

  “So, you like building things, huh?”

  “I love it. Can’t see myself doing anything else. In fact, I’m working on a project that I want to show you. Maybe tomorrow after we get back from your friend’s place, we can swing by and I’ll show you.”

  “I’d like that,” she says with a small smile that lights up her eyes.

  “So, your friend – Matty? What’s the story there?”

  Josselyn laughs. “Matty is tall and super skinny and very energetic. He’s great and has been my best friend since school.”

  “Have you two ever dated?” I ask, not really sure I want to know the answer to the burning question.

  Josselyn laughs hard. “Are you jealous, Travis Stevens?”

  “Not so much jealous as I am concerned about an old boyfriend trying to start shit or puff up his chest where you’re concerned.”

  “Well, you definitely don’t have anything to worry about that with Matty. We have never dated, though he still may puff up his chest a little, but he’s harmless.” She smiles that beautiful smile again. “Matty is gay.”

  Well, shit. I wasn’t expecting that. “Oh.”

  Josselyn laughs again before she stands up. “I’m getting a little sleepy so I think I’m going to head to bed. Are you sure you don’t want your bed?”

  “If you ask me one more time, I’m going to throw you over my lap and spank your cute ass.” The words fly from my lips before I can even stop them. I instantly want to pull them back in. Josselyn’s eyes go as round as saucers and the shock of my words is written all over her face. Shock and heat.

  “Shit, Joss, I’m sorry. Ignore me. That just flew out before I could stop it. I’m Sorry.”

  Josselyn drops her eyes down to the floor as a cute little blush creeps up her neck. “It’s okay. Relapses are bound to happen, right? Besides, next time I might just take you up on that offer,” she says before she turns and walks towards my bedroom, shutting the door tightly behind her.

  The view of her walking away from me – towards my bed none the less – wearing my damn t-shirt was torture. I’ve heard those guys say, “Hate to watch her go, but love to watch her leave”, and damn if Josselyn walking away isn’t the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen. My throbbing and tight groin is proof of her magical powers. She’s like a witch – a sexy, beautiful witch who has cast some sort of spell on me, leaving me yearning and panting for more. More that I can’t have. Yet.

  I step inside the bathroom and take a quick, very cold shower that doesn’t really seem to help relieve the pressure and tightness down below. Just knowing she’s on the other side of the bedroom door, sleeping in my bed, is enough to make everything hard and ready, and probably keep it that way for awhile. I see no end in sight except being with Josselyn again.

  Once the cold water is off and I dry off with the only clean towel, I slip on my boxer briefs and grab the dirty towels from the hamper. Josselyn’s probably going to need a shower in the morning, and I don’t want to leave her without a towel.

  I slip out of the bathroom as quietly as possible in case she’s already asleep and head into the kitchen. I throw open the small closet that holds the stacked washer and dryer unit and throw the towels inside. Once the washer is loaded and the soap is added, I open up the dryer to see what’s still in there because, as a creature of habit, I know there’s always something in the dryer waiting to be folded. Work jeans. I quickly turn that on to get all the wrinkles out of them and head back into the living room.

  Just as I’m stepping into the living room and round the corner of the hallway, I collide with soft female skin, sending her stumbling back a few feet. I reach out quickly and grab a hold of her before she can fall. I pull her forward in one quick, fluid motion which basically just pulls her tightly against my bare chest. Her hands slam into my chest. Her hazel eyes crash into my blue ones, and I feel her fingers flex against my pecs which in return makes them jump. So much for my cold shower. Her touch goes straight to my groin, short circuiting my brain all over again. If someone asked me my name right now, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t produce.

  Josselyn makes no move to step out of my embrace. My hands are holding her by the upper arms, and she’s flush against my body. I can feel her breath against my neck and her eyes on my chest.

  “This is going to be hard, isn’t it?” she whispers.

  “It already is hard, Joss,” I respond, looking down at her with a cocky smile.

  “I know that already, Travis. It’s pressed against my stomach,” she replies with a smile of her own. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

  Josselyn takes a step back and out of my hands leaving them itchy and twitchy to grab her back and kiss the hell out of her. Instead, I sigh because she’s right. This is going damn difficult.

  “Yeah, this is going to be hard. I promise I’ll try, but I can’t help the way I feel about you.”

  She looks up at me with brown eyes so full of hunger and question. “How do you feel about me?”

  “I crave you. Everything about you makes me want more. I want to hear your laugh, see your smile, and hold your hair while you throw up. But most of all, I want to jump into that bed with you right now and remember everything that was so right about us that night. I crave so much more of you that it hurts.”

  Josselyn stares up at me for what feels like forever before responding. “I crave you too,” she whispers her sweet confession. “I want to get to know everything about you, Travis. Maybe that means we’ll be more than friends someday, but right now, I don’t want to risk destroying us before there is an us to destroy. I hope you can understand that.”

  “I understand completely, and though I’ll probably kick myself later for admitting this, I actually agree with you.” I take a step forward and tuck a stray piece of brown hair that came loose from her ponytail behind her ear.

  “You do?” she asks, eyes locked firmly on mine.

  “Yeah. And this may actually be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, staying away from you when all I want to do is touch you. So, you better go on back to bed before I change my mind,” I add with a wink and another smile. I give her a trademarked Stevens’ smile. The one that my brothers and I all wear to makes the ladies swoon, and as Jake used to say, the panties drop.

  Josselyn takes a step backwards and heads towards my room. When she reaches the door, she turns, gives me her own award-winning smile, and walks inside the room shutting the door tightly behind her.

  I settle on the couch – me and my hard on – and flip on the television, debating on whether or not to take another cold shower. There’s not much on so I settle on a late night talk show that has Emma Stone as a guest, but I can’t concentrate on the screen. My mind won’t focus on anyone other than the brunette lying half naked in my bed.

  It’s going to be a very long night.

  *****

  The next morning, I’m up at five like normal only this time, I’m not getting ready to head out the door by six. That alone is probably a blessing since my back and neck are so damn achy, you’d think I slept on the floor last night. Oh, wait… I did.

  Sometime around one o’clock, I woke up with the worst kink in my neck from trying to cram my large body on the much-too-small couch. After tossing and turning for another hour, I finally tried to get comfortable on the floor, but there was nothing comfortable about it.

  After a lingering hot shower to try to relieve my sore muscles, I head into the kitchen for a cup of coffee. I still have to sneak into my room and grab some clothes, but since I’m not actually heading into work today, I’m not in a big hurry to do that. Plus, if I go in there and see Josselyn curled up in my rumbled sheets in nothing but a t-shirt, I can’t guara
ntee I’ll be able to control myself from climbing in bed with her.

  While I’m drinking a cup of black coffee, my phone on the table dings, signaling a text message. I head over and see a text from my brother Nate.

  Get some last night? ;-)

  Mature. You’d have no clue he was my older brother. I type out a quick reply, not wanting to draw attention to the fact that I did not get any last night.

  Why? Jealous?

  Okay, I can’t help it. We’re cut from the same cloth.

  Of you? Hardly. I figured you didn’t so I wanted to rub it in a little!

  Before I can type out a reply, he sends me back another.

  Dad says u r off today. What’s going on?

  Nothing. Taking a day off. That ok with u?

  Don’t get your panties in a bunch, sweetheart. Just makin sure everything is ok.

  Everything’s fine. Just taking a day off.

  Fine. Keep your secrets. I’ll get em out of you soon enough.

  Bye

  I drop my phone back onto the table before I wait for his reply and take another sip of my coffee. A few moments later, I hear the soft but determined footfalls down the hallway. The bathroom door closes quickly. Since it’s a very small apartment, I can hear the sound of her retching in the bathroom echoing throughout the place.

  I quickly get up and head into the bathroom. As I slide open the door slowly to make sure I don’t hit her with the door, the image of Josselyn crouched down on the floor heaving clenches my heart. I hate this.

  I grab a clean washcloth from the stack I replenished last night and wet it with cool water from the sink. Josselyn’s already sitting on the floor with her sweaty head back against the cabinet when the rag is finally wet. I lay it down on her forehead and drop down to sit next to her.

  “How can you be puking when you haven’t eaten anything in twelve hours?” I ask.

  “I don’t think this baby cares how long it’s been since I’ve eaten. He or she makes it very clear that I am going to be throwing up every morning whether I’ve eaten or not.”

  “You do this every morning?” I ask, catching her gaze for the first time since I entered the room.

  “Every morning and at the drop of a hat throughout the day. The worst is when I brush my teeth though. I have to give myself a pep talk just to put the toothpaste on the toothbrush.”

  Man, this part is gutting me. I wish I could take this away from her and carry it myself. I can tell how miserable she is, and I can only hope that it won’t last too much longer.

  “I think the worst has passed. I’m starving now,” she says as she starts to get up off the floor. I jump up quickly and extend my hand to her. She places her smaller, much softer one inside of mine, and I help her stand back up.

  “I can’t even believe you want to eat after that.”

  “I don’t really have a choice. The baby needs nutrients. And I need Mexican food,” she mumbles as she walks to the sink and grabs the extra tooth brush I gave her the day before.

  “Mexican food?”

  “Yep. The spicier, the better. It’s the weirdest thing, but it seems like the only thing I can keep down.”

  Seriously? I can’t believe she wants tacos right now. Pregnant women and their crazy ass cravings. “Well, I don’t know how much Mexican food I have here, but we’ll pick stuff up at the store when we get back to town from grabbing your stuff.”

  “Sounds good,” she mumbles in between spitting out the toothpaste and brushing her teeth. She’s right, though. I can see her gagging each time she brings the toothbrush back up to her mouth.

  After Josselyn brushes her teeth, we head into the kitchen to see what I have for breakfast. I have a full breakfast every morning, usually a plate piled with eggs, sausage or bacon, and toast, but I’m not sure what is going to be easy on Josselyn’s stomach.

  Josselyn heads to the cupboards and finds the one with glasses before heading over to the fridge to grab the carton of milk. She pulls the carton out of the fridge and opens the cap and I can tell instantly by the look on her face that the milk is sour.

  “This expired almost two weeks ago,” she says with an incredulous look on her face as she examines the date printed on the side of the carton.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t drink a lot of milk. Nor do I cook a lot with it.” I walk over and grab the carton from her hand before she catches another whiff of the soured milk and throws up again.

  Once the milk is dumped down the drain, and the lumps are washed down with the spray hose thingy, I grab the carton of eggs from the fridge. “How about some scrambled eggs?”

  “Sounds good,” she responds as she fills her glass up with water.

  “Coffee?” I offer as I fill back up my cup.

  “Just a very little bit. Caffeine is one of the luxuries I cut back on when I found out I was pregnant.”

  “You had to cut back caffeine because you’re pregnant?” I ask. I have so much to learn about all of this pregnancy shit.

  “Yeah. I was pretty much addicted to Mountain Dew, and I read that it’s not good for an unborn child. So, I gave that up. I do have a little bit of Pepsi every once in awhile if I start to get a headache and I try to stick with decaf coffee.”

  “Mountain Dew, huh? A woman after my own heart,” I say as I mix up the eggs and pour them into the preheated skillet.

  “Yeah, it kept me going between working two jobs. I slept on average of five to six hours a night so Mountain Dew was my other best friend.”

  I’m quiet as I fix up the scrambled eggs and throw a few slices of bread into the toaster. I can’t imagine a woman like Josselyn working two jobs all the time just to live. No wonder she looked so exhausted all those nights ago at the wedding reception.

  After breakfast is consumed - and I’m surprised Josselyn actually ate the entire plate of eggs and two pieces of buttered toast - we quickly get ready for the day and pile in my truck to head to St. Charles to retrieve some of her stuff. We engage in more general getting-to-know-you talk the entire trip. She tells me about growing up in the city and about the pressures her parents put on her to succeed. I fill her in on our small town and about some of the antics my brothers and I have gotten into over the years.

  As we cross the city limits of St. Charles, Josselyn gives me directions to Matty’s apartment which is in an older section of town. Not so much the historical side, but more of the let’s-see-how-many-small-apartment-buildings-we-can-cram-into-each-city-block part of town. The apartment building we pull up in front of is an older brick building with dingy white trim around the windows and door.

  “Matty’s roommate is Rico, and he’ll probably be home. He’s a bartender at a place downtown and generally works nights.”

  “Okay. What about Matty? Will he be here?”

  “Oh, Matty will definitely be here. I sent him a text earlier to let him know we were coming, and, if I know Matty at all, he rearranged his schedule to be here.”

  “What does he do?”

  “He’s a photographer,” Josselyn says as she removes her seatbelt and makes a grab for her door.

  “Wait,” I say as I slide out of the truck and head around to help her. I catch her gaze as I open her door and extend my hand. She places her soft hand inside of mine but makes no move to get out of the truck. She just sits there and stares at me. It’s like we’re both caught in the same trance, neither of us able to pull our gaze away from the other.

  Before I can think or speak, I step forward and turn her to fully face me, her legs dangling out the door of the truck. I step into the small space between her jean clad legs. I lean forward and press my forehead against hers. The small contact isn’t near enough to keep me content, but it’s a touch I crave.

  Josselyn closes her eyes and threads her fingers within mine. I feel her hot, sweet breath fan across my smooth face. Her scent is intoxicating and arousing, and I long to kiss her sweet, lush lips. I have enough wits about me to not push it at this moment, especially considering
we’re along the edge of a public street with her best friend a stone’s throw away.

  She opens her eyes, and I can instantly make out that their color is deep brown. She’s turned on. I know that I need to pull away from her now, give us both the space we need. The space I’m definitely going to need to get myself under control below the belt.

  I lay a gentle kiss on the corner of her mouth, just the faintest of touches to hopefully tide myself over until I’m able to fully touch her again. The corner of my mouth turns up as I pull away from her.

  Josselyn looks over my shoulder which causes me to turn. I quickly zero in on the person standing on the front steps. He’s a tall guy - not quite as tall as me - and has his arms crossed protectively over his skinny chest. I’m pretty sure I could take him in a fight with one arm tied behind my back, while drunk and short on sleep, but that’s not the mentality I need to go into this meeting. Matty’s going to be protective of her. Hell, I’d be disappointed in him as a best friend if he wasn’t. But by the glare on his face, I can tell I’m going to have my work cut out for me where this guy is concerned.

  “You ready for this?” she asks with a curious look on her beautiful face.

  “Ready to meet your gay best friend?” I ask as I look up again at the man standing on the steps of the apartment building. “You betcha.”

  Chapter Five

  Josselyn

  I can tell by the looks on Matty’s face that he is going to make this difficult. He has this whole protective thing going on as he glares down at Travis and me as we walk up the sidewalk. I love that he’s going all big brother on us right now, but it’s a little unnecessary, and honestly, he’s a little out of his league with it. Travis would tear him up.