by Penny Reid
Even when he’d brought up Harrison on Thursday, pointing out that I deserved better than someone who cheated on me, he hadn’t pushed.
In my life, so many people pushed me. My mother pushed me to do my best. My father pushed me away. My trainer pushed me toward peak physical fitness. My chef pushed me to eat meticulously. My agent pushed, Harrison pushed, Sasha, Domino, they all pushed. And I pushed myself, to be more successful, to be better at my craft, to be a more giving and generous actor, to stay at the top of my game in all aspects of fame, publicity, marketing, and exposure.
But not Jackson. He seemed content to just let me be.
Comfortable conversations followed by comfortable silences must’ve led to me falling asleep and him pulling over.
With a regretful sigh, I pulled my admiring gaze from Jackson’s sleeping face and looked through the window. I concluded it was close to dawn due to the grayish color of the horizon, but I wasn’t sure where we were. We seemed to be surrounded by trees on all sides.
Jackson stirred, making me regret my movements. I thought about quickly resuming my position, placing my head back on his chest and pretending to still be asleep so we could snuggle a while longer, but his eyes opened. He blinked at me. And he smiled.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” I said, my fingers moving into the thick tuft of blond hair on top of his gorgeous head. “This truck has an impressively huge bench seat. I love it. Did you sleep well?”
“Definitely.” His gaze felt dreamy, and not just from sleep inertia. “But probably not enough. I love this truck too. And this seat.”
I grinned, instinct telling me to memorize this sight of him as my heart pinged with regret. If I’d stayed all those years ago, I would’ve seen him like this. Hazy and loose, just waking up.
Jackson’s hands lifted and slid from my hips to my waist. “Do you want some coffee?”
I placed my hands on his chest to keep him from getting up. “You have coffee? How is this possible?”
“I stopped by a drive-through and had them fill my thermos.” He turned his head to one side, talking around a yawn.
“When was this?”
“Hours ago.” He shook his head, facing me again, his eyes glassy. “But it stays hot in there.”
“It sounds magical.”
His mouth hitched on one side, his attention traveling over my face in a way that made the uncertainty butterflies erupt. “You’re magical,” he muttered.
Pleasure and warmth and happiness and sugar and spice tackled me, making my breath catch. I wanted to tell him that he was magical. I wanted to tell him I must’ve been crazy, because I was absolutely crazy about him.
But a vise of emotion closed around my vocal cords while the interior of the truck seemed to heat abruptly. My attention dropped to his lips, and I swallowed against a rising tide of urgency and want.
Oh no. We are going to kiss again.
On the other hand, AWWW YEEEEAH! WE ARE GOING TO KISS AGAIN!
But we didn’t, because Jackson’s hands moved from my waist to my shoulders and gently lifted me, his attention moving all around the truck but never settling in one spot.
“Let me see if I can find that coffee. . . “ His voice was roughened with sleep, but there was something more there too. A thickness, like he found speaking difficult.
I watched him dumbly, feeling like I’d been set away, feeling like the two and a half feet he’d placed between us represented a vast expanse, warning of additional prickly rejection should I attempt to cross it.
But . . . hadn’t he just called me magical?
This felt like mixed messages, and I was confused. So confused. He knew I’d be in town for a while. We’d just spent hours last night talking, getting to know each other better, laughing, sharing companionable silence. So why was I being pushed away now?
Ask.
Was it that simple?
Yes. How many times do I have to tell you this? JUST ASK FOR WHAT YOU WANT.
So I asked, “Did I do something wrong?”
His attention flickered to me and then away. “No. Not at all.”
“Then why am I over here and you’re over there?”
Jackson pulled a tall coffee carafe from behind his seat and unscrewed the lid. “Because.”
I threw my hands up, then crossed my arms over my chest. “Here we go again with the ‘because.’”
His smile was quick and struck me as a little sad. “Because, Rae. We’re friends.”
“Yes, and?”
“And, like I said last night, we need everyone to believe that, not just for my benefit but also to save Charlotte from the tongue waggers and folks in town.”
Ignoring the obvious double entendre I wanted to make about tongue waggers, I turned my head left and then right, making a show of scanning the trees that surrounded us. “Are the townsfolk also the trees? Are you people Ents? Is that the secret of the Smoky Mountains?”
Jackson laughed again, and this time it was full of humor. “No.”
“Oh. Wait. Is Smokey Bear actually a bear-shifter? And these woods are full of bear-shifters?”
“Yes. I’m so glad you saved me from that awkward conversation.”
Now I laughed and he laughed and we laughed.
But then—grrrr—he said while grinning adorably and taking a sip of coffee, “Rae, I think we should try to be just friends.”
He offered me the carafe, holding the side his mouth hadn’t touched toward me. I shook my head. “No thank you. Is that what you want?”
“I think it’s best.”
“We’re going to be friends? Just friends?”
“Yes.” He screwed the lid back on and returned the carafe to its place behind his seat.
I nodded distractedly, even though the idea of putting the word just in front of any description related to Jackson James felt wrong on a visceral level and made me feel like organizing a protest. With signs.
As I stewed in my discontent, I randomly remembered a story Nico Moretti—you know, the comedian?—had once related to me in the greenroom at his talk show. We didn’t see each other often, but I’d always felt comfortable with Nico. Whenever we talked, the subjects were always real and deep and personal, never chitchat. Perhaps we’d connected because we both shared Italian ancestry. Or perhaps Nico was just one of those people who excelled at getting others to open up. I don’t know.
Anyway, we’d been discussing boundaries, and he told me about how he’d carried a torch for a woman. She’d said she wanted to be just friends with him. So he’d asked her, “Where do your friends kiss you?” Because he wanted to kiss her everywhere, but also wanted to ensure he didn’t cross any of her boundaries. They’re married now, and I think they have at least one kid.
That story gave me an idea. “Then let’s talk about how this works.”
“How what works?”
“Being friends. As you may recall, I told you I don’t have many.”
“I remember.” He looked me over, like he found this information unlikely.
“You and I, we’ll be friends . . . who are hot for each other?”
He shifted in his seat but continued to meet my eyes. “Something like that.”
“Then take me through friend touches.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Pardon?”
“As friends who are hot for each other, it may be difficult for me to read your physical cues, and I don’t want to cross any boundaries. Your boundaries might not be the same as my boundaries.”
He seemed to think about this for a few seconds, and then nodded slowly. “Okay. Go on.”
“I think we should review what is and isn’t appropriate friend touching.” Without thinking too much about it, I pulled my legs under me and knelt on the bench seat. Then I skootched closer to Jackson, placing my hand on his broad shoulder. “Is this a friend touch?”
His lips twitched and his eyes danced. “Yes. That is a friend touch, Rae.”
“Okay. What if I pu
t my hand on your chest?” I did. I placed my hand over his heart.
He nodded, his eyes still on mine, still amused.
“How about your stomach?” Trailing my hand lower, my fingertips brushed downward along the front of his T-shirt to his abdomen, and lower—
He caught my hand, repressed laughter in his voice. “Maybe stop there.”
But this was serious, so I treated it seriously. I withdrew, holding my palms up and out. “Okay. Good to know. Now what about your knee?” I settled my hand on his knee.
“That’s fine.”
“Upper thigh?”
He cleared his throat. “Fine.”
“What about—”
Jackson caught my hand again before I could move it higher, his lips pressed together, his eyes shining with humor.
Once more, I removed my hand, but I caught one of his as I withdrew. “I’m sensing a pattern.”
“Are you?”
“Yes. Now, let me show you my boundaries.”
I pushed my messy braids behind me, leaving the front of my dress free of my long hair. I then placed his hand on my bare shoulder, and his eyes cut to the spot, some of his amusement fading.
“You can touch me here—” I slid his palm down my arm and then lifted it back up to slowly trace over my collarbone, my neck, my cheek, pushing his fingers gently into the hair at my temples, then—closing my eyes—taking his knuckles and brushing them against my lips.
“Rae—”
“I’m not finished.” Keeping my eyes closed, I used his hand like I might a soft cloth. Except, his hands weren’t soft. They were calloused, and the friction felt quite nice as I moved it along the other side of my collarbone, and down my other arm, and then straightened one of my legs and lifted my skirt.
His breathing now audible in the cab, I let my lashes flutter open and unhurriedly slid his big, rough palm from my ankle to my knee. He didn’t look at all amused now. His jaw tight, his attention transfixed to where he touched me. Those intense, deep-set eyes had turned from their usual rich brown to a much darker shade.
“This is still a friend touch,” I whispered, bringing his fingers up to my mid-thigh, pushing the skirt as we went. Then, I stopped. Because now I was feeling breathless too.
He glared at his hand on the skin I’d revealed, the muscle at his temple jumping. His eyes cut to mine, and a shock of oh-shit-I-think-I-pushed-too-far made the very center of my body twist and ache with anticipation.
“What about this?” he asked gruffly, an edge of something deliciously dangerous behind the question as he slowly, so very slowly, skimmed his fingertips higher, nudging my leg wider. “Does this feel friendly?”
“Very friendly,” I said, meaning it as a joke, but something got lost in translation between my brain and my mouth because his eyes flared, and then his fingers were pushing my skirt higher to reveal the waistband of my underwear.
And then his fingers were inside my underwear.
And then I shuddered, sucking in a shocked breath, my hands spasming as they searched for something to grip, and the blunt tip of his middle finger circled my clit.
“And this?” His voice a growl, he shifted closer, pulling the straps of my dress and bra down my arm. Lowering his mouth to my neck, he placed a hungry, wet kiss there, his tongue licking the skin beneath my ear before trailing down to my chest, all the while giving me the gentlest strokes between my legs. “Is this how friends touch you?”
Unable to form words, I gripped his shoulders for purchase because, even though I couldn’t really go anywhere, I felt like I might fall.
He tugged harder on the strap of my dress and bra, sliding his fingers into the cup and pulling it down, his hot kisses moving over the tops of my breasts, but then he paused at my nipple, withdrawing an inch or two. His glorious tongue slid out of his mouth and painted a tight circle around the stiff peak. Everything in me coiled hot and needy at the sight.
Why must he be so fucking sexy all the fucking time?
Laving a firm, wet lick over the straining center, he caught me in his teeth. At the exact same moment, he slipped two fingers inside me, and I cried out.
“I don’t think I like the thought of other friends touching you this way,” he grunted, withdrawing his fingers from my body and hooking them into my underwear.
“Maybe you and I could have a—a special friendship.” My retort pitched high with not a small amount of desperation.
Maneuvering me up, he firmly pulled the triangle of fabric down my legs, and then grabbed my hips, bringing me across his lap such that I lay between him and the steering wheel, my back to the driver’s side window, and the hard press of his erection under my bottom.
Bunching up the skirt of my dress to my stomach, he bared all of me from the waist down, his elbow against the interior of my knee, holding me open.
Grabbing my hand, he demanded, “Look at me, friend.”
So I did.
And then—oh God—and then, holding my eyes like he dared me to look away, he brought the index and middle finger of my hand to his mouth and slid them inside, tangling them with his tongue. A shock of arousal so intense speared through me, I had to bite my lip to keep from moaning. Finished torturing me, he took my hand and lowered it between my open legs, encouraging me to touch myself.
I whimpered. I was so slippery, and sensitive, and I ached. I didn’t want my touch. I wanted his. But his hand splayed unmoving on the inside of my thigh, the tips of his fingers less than an inch from where I played with my body, his eyes on my movements. The slick, wet noises the only sounds in the quiet dawn other than my frantic, gasping breaths.
Leaning forward, he caught my ear between his teeth and whispered, “Do you know why I’m making you do this?”
I shook my head, unable to speak.
* * *
His hips shifted restlessly, rolling beneath my backside. “Because, in the future, whenever you touch yourself in this friendly way—” he nipped at my ear, his tongue licking the lobe and sending a cascade of acute shivers racing over every inch of my skin “—I want you to think about this moment, and how much I enjoy watching you play with your pretty pussy, and our special friendship.”
That did it.
My head whipped back as I my body began to come apart. Mouth opening on a silent scream, Jackson finally, finally pushed his long fingers back inside, hooking them up, touching the sweetest of spots, pumping into me quickly, massaging mercilessly.
I remembered this about him, and the memory hadn’t been overexaggerated. He’d been exceptionally skilled at finding and stroking my G-spot precisely where and how I needed—then and now. I grabbed his wrist as I rolled my hips and clenched around his fingers. Bowing forward, instinct had me trying to squeeze my legs together. But I couldn’t. His elbow at my knee kept me open to his gaze.
It was too much. The way he watched me, like he was in a trance. The way he touched me, like I belonged to him. My chest heaved and, even as stars continued to burst behind my eyes and the pleasure explosion radiated from my center and tremors wracked me, I curled toward him, needing his warmth and closeness, needing to bury my face in his neck and feel the hard planes and strength of Jackson hold the soft contours of me. Needing his delicious scent in my lungs and the taste of him on my tongue.
Needing him.
We kissed, our mouths fusing as he wrung another orgasm out of my body. His lovely thumb—the very one he’d parted my lips with outside the bank on Thursday afternoon—rubbed my clitoris in time, his rough, unyielding fingers at my entrance.
My lungs ached for air, and eventually I was forced to turn my face so I could breathe. He kissed my cheeks, my neck, and my shoulders, biting my skin and soothing it with languid strokes of his tongue. Soft, deep sounds reverberated from his chest, like he found me tasty, and he was famished.
Little by little, I returned to reality. Eventually, he stopped attacking me with his hungry kisses and simply held me tight. Everything that had come before now had be
en mind-blowingly amazing. But this, feeling vulnerable and being held, being caught in his solid, certain grip, felt like heaven.
I loved it. I didn’t want the moment to end. I knew it would, but I hoped this would signal a beginning for us. I hoped he felt the same.
But you don’t know if you don’t ask, Rae.
Suddenly anxious, I shifted in his arms. He loosened them so I could see him. Features unsmiling, he gazed at me. I detected something hard behind his eyes. My stomach fluttered with nerves.
“Hi,” I said.
He said nothing.
I licked my lips, trying to read his mood while my dumb mouth spoke without taking the time to deliberate the wisdom of my words. “I just want you to know, I really value our special friendship.”
He laughed. But it was tight, and short, and now I recognized that the hardness behind his eyes was hunger. As he glared down at me, his palm slid into the bunched fabric of my dress, caressing and massaging one of my breasts with touches that felt both light and possessive. He couldn’t keep his hands off my body, apparently.
I felt my smile dwindle as I studied the tired lines etched into his forehead. In that moment, he looked a little wild, his hair askew, his usually well-kept beard longer than I’d ever seen it.
But it was his dark eyes tracking my movements, like a predator unwilling to look away from its prey, that gave me the courage to ask, “Would you consider coming back to the carriage house now?”
He stared at me, still saying nothing, and the wild light flared into something that felt feral.
“You didn’t get much rest.” I tried to sound calm, reasonable, even though the way he watched me set my heart galloping. “We could just sleep, if you want.”
“I’m not going to want to sleep,” he said, his voice a scrape, his erection nudging insistently against my bottom. “And I think you know that.”
A thrill raced down my spine and pulsed between my legs, and I hoped—oh I hope I hope I hope—I was reading him correctly. “I don’t want to sleep either,” I said.