Kiss Me Slow (Top Shelf Romance Book 1)

by Tijan

  “Only gossiping?”

  “Yeah,” she answers and then says again, “I can’t believe I forgot to tell her.”

  Walking her to the bedroom, I ask her what she forgot to tell Laura.

  “The nickname.” Her answer stops me just outside the door although she continues, “I think she’d understand better, if she knew.”

  Bethany

  It’s different here. Maybe because it’s his room. His house. His place.

  He’s different here. He’s more transparent. Less hidden with his emotions. Other than anger and dominance… and lust, he hasn’t shown me more than that beyond these walls.

  Or maybe it’s just tonight. Maybe it’s just the wine talking or the relief that I finally told Laura what’s going on.

  I don’t know, but when I look at Jase, he’s different.

  And he’s not okay. Pain riddles every move he makes. Not the physical kind, the kind that wears away at your mind.

  His head hangs lower as he asks me what we did. As if he doesn’t already know. His voice is duller, his grip less tight on my waist as he pulls me into the bedroom.

  With every step my heart beats slower, wanting to take the agony away from his. The answers I give him are spoken without thinking. I’m more concerned with watching him than I am with making small talk.

  With his back to me, he pulls the covers back and tells me to strip and get into bed, which I do.

  My mind starts toying with me. Insecurity whispers in my ear, “Maybe it’s you.”

  “Are you okay?” I ask him, letting a tinge of my insecurity show.

  “Fine,” he answers shortly, but he gets into bed with me.

  “You’re still dressed,” I comment, listening to my heart which is quiet. I think it’s waiting for him to say something too. For him to tell us what’s wrong.

  “I know,” is all he gives me as an answer and the high I was on, all that relief I felt, vanishes.

  I feel sick. Not hungover or drank too much sick, but the sickness that comes when you know something’s wrong. The awful kind where you can guess what it is, but you don’t want to just in case it’ll go away if you never voice it.

  I know what I need, but I don’t ask him for it. Instead I pull the covers up close around my chin and lie there. My pride is a horrid thing.

  I’m aware of that.

  If I could simply let it go, I could communicate better. I know that. I’ve known it all my life. But still, I don’t ask him to hold me.

  I don’t have to though. I don’t have to tell him what I need to feel better.

  The bed groans as he moves closer to me, wrapping a strong arm around my waist and pulling me closer to him. It’s a natural reaction for me to close my eyes and let out an easy breath when I take in his masculine scent. It engulfs me just as his warmth does, just as his touch does.

  “You promise we’re okay?” I ask him and then my eyes open wide, realizing the mistake I made. The Freudian slip.

  Kissing the crook of my neck, he murmurs a yes.

  He gives so much and I feel so undeserving. The ringing on my skin comes back, the bell of what happened earlier reminding me that it’s okay. That it’s better than okay.

  My hand lays over his and he twines his fingers with mine before planting a kiss on my cheek.

  Before he can pull away, I kiss him again. Putting everything I have into it, trying to give him what I can in what’s a very unbalanced relationship.

  That’s what this is. A relationship. Fuck me, when did it happen?

  The second I pause, pressing my forehead to his and pulling my lips away, he does what I just did to him, kissing me and giving me more.

  With a warmth flowing through my chest, I settle into his embrace.

  “I want to ask you something.” His whispered question tickles my neck and makes a trail of goosebumps travel down my shoulder.

  “Yeah?”

  “How are you feeling about your sister? Are you okay? You didn’t mention her to Laura. Or how you were handling it. And the last few days you seem…”

  “Seem what?”

  “A little more than sad today before you went out and yesterday,” he answers honestly, and I want to pull my hand from his, but he doesn’t let me. He holds me tighter and closer as my composure cracks.

  “Tell me, cailín tine,” he whispers at the back of my neck, running the tip of his nose along my skin. I love it when he does that. I love the soft, slow touches. I love how he takes his time with me.

  It takes me a long moment to answer him. “I feel like I’ve slowed down, which makes sense because I’m not working anymore. I am crying when I hate it and I can’t stop myself, but that damn book is sad too, so it could be the book’s fault right? I don’t know.”

  “You can’t hide behind a sad book,” is all he says and then he looks at me like he wants more.

  Staring at the still curtains and listening to the heater turn on with a click, I let it all out; I don’t think, I just speak. “Everything is moving so fast. That’s what it feels like. Like the world didn’t just refuse to slow down with me while I mourn but it sped up too.”

  Kind eyes look down on me when I peek over my shoulder to see his response. He’s propped up on his elbow, his hard, warm chest still pressed against my back. I roll over to face him and look him in the eyes as I say, “It became chaotic and unpredictable and I’m a person who likes consistency and schedules and predictability and it’s all gone. In one second everything changed, and now I can’t be anything but slow and everything is going so fast.” He’s silent, so I continue.

  “Except when I’m with you. Everything slows down then. It stops and waits for me when you show up.”

  I don’t expect to say the words I’ve been thinking out loud. I say them all to my folded hands in my lap rather than to Jase. I need to see what he thinks though. If he understands or if I’m just crazy.

  He leans down to give me a small kiss. It’s quick and gentle. I want more but I don’t take it. Even when the tip of his nose nudges mine, I don’t do anything but wait for him to say something.

  “That’s a good thing, right?”

  “Yeah… but I think the world is going so fast because of you too. Because of lots of things. And here I am stuck with a rope around my feet.”

  “I could see that,” he comments, brushing the stray hairs away from my face and his touch brings back that tingling full force.

  “You make it easy to talk,” I murmur.

  He doesn’t say anything at all, he merely touches his fingers to my lips and gives me a small smile.

  “I do that with my patients. I put on a smile all day long and they trust me, they open up to me. Jase, don’t treat me like a patient.”

  “Well, first off all, you’re not a patient. Second, you better not touch your patients like I touch you.”

  “You’re awful,” I tell him halfheartedly, but still feeling a hollowness in my chest that I can’t place.

  “I smile at you because sometimes you smile back, and that’s all I want. I want to see you smile.”

  Breathe in, I remind myself. Breathe out. I have to, or else I think I’d forget in this moment. It’s not often you can feel yourself falling, but I’d be damned if I didn’t feel like that right now. Even knowing who he is and what he does.

  “Why are you so sweet and charming… yet the very opposite too?”

  He shakes his head gently, not taking it like I thought he would. Then he answers with another question of his own. “Why are you so strong and confident, yet… feeling like this?”

  I don’t have an answer. The old me would though. The me from only two months ago before Jenny went missing, would know why. I work in a psych center, for fuck’s sake. I would have known. I could have answered. Being in it though… I’ve lost my voice. I have nothing to say, because I don’t want this reality to be justified.

  “Because that’s life, cailín tine. We aren’t just one thing. Life isn’t one story. It’s a mix
of many and they cross paths sometimes.”

  I swallow thickly, understanding what he’s saying and hating it. Some parts of life are simply awful. When I close my eyes and focus on one more deep breath, Jase’s strong hand cups my chin and my eyes lift to his.

  I nearly apologize for being the way I am. But it’s not some stranger I’ve lost it in front of. Or my boss. Or my fucking family from New York. It’s Jase.

  I expect him to say something, but he only pulls me closer to him, letting time pass and the wretched feelings that have welled up, slowly go away.

  Mourning is like the tide of the ocean. It comes and it goes. It’s gentle and it’s harsh.

  Slowly, the tide always subsides. But it always comes back too. It never goes away for long.

  “The world stops when you see me, huh?” he questions softly after a moment, teasing me and letting the sad bits wash away like they’re meant to. I love the teasing tone he takes. I love this side of him. I love many sides of him.

  “I didn’t say that,” I’m quick to protest.

  “You practically did,” he teases, although the smile on his handsome face tugs down slightly as his eyes search mine.

  “I don’t love you,” I murmur the words, feeling the hot tension thicken between the two of us. He leans closer to me, nearly brushing his lips against mine. All the while, I keep my eyes open, waiting for what he has to say.

  “I don’t love you too,” he says and I can practically feel the last bit of armor fall as I lean into his lips. His hand brushes my shoulder, my collarbone and then lower, barely touching me and feeling like fire as he caresses my skin.

  The covers swish around us as I lean back, giving him more room and urging him closer. I’ve never wanted a man like I want him. I’ve never memorized the rough groan a man gives as he kisses me like Jase does, with reverence and hunger.

  I let him take me as he wants. What he wants is exactly what I want.

  Time doesn’t pause for us though. It doesn’t go by slowly either.

  It’s all over far too soon. Maybe because I never want this one moment to end.

  “I have to go,” he tells me after glancing at the clock on his nightstand. He makes no effort to move though, other than to run his thumb along my bottom lip.

  “Okay,” I whisper, not wanting to chance that he’ll stop touching me. All I want is for him to keep touching me and for my world to stay still and in pace with me, not wanting to take the next step forward.

  “Don’t follow me, Bethany,” he warns, his voice sterner, but the lust still there.

  “Okay,” I repeat and my eyes finally close as he leans down, pressing his lips against mine once again. He tries to move away before I’m ready for him to go, but I reach up, pulling him back to me with my hands on the back of his neck. I hold him there, deepening the kiss and listening to his groan of satisfaction as I do. Kissing this man changes everything. I can’t think about anything other than wanting him with me. I’m highly aware of it and I know it’s dangerous, but still… I want it.

  It’s wild and dangerous, and I love it just as much as I love the fire.

  When he finally leaves me, I hold on to the warmth he left in the covers, and I bury my head in the pillow he slept on, rather than the one he gave me. I stare at the clock, watching the hands move slowly. Trying to keep it moving slowly with me.

  I don’t follow him. Not because of a debt or an agreement. But because he asked me not to. Because it means something to him.

  I would have stayed like that longer than I’d care to admit, really I would have, but that’s when my phone chimed with a message from Laura.

  Jase

  I know he’s here but he hasn’t shown himself yet. I say aloud to no one, “When I was a kid, I hated the dark.”

  The playground is quiet tonight. With its broken swing that creaks as a gust of wind blows, and the full moon’s faint blue light that shines down and covers every inch of the fallen snow, it’s the perfect setting for Marcus. The kind of setting that’s eerily familiar. The place where you don’t go and you walk as quick as you can to get far away.

  The backyard playground of the abandoned school is where no one goes unless they’re up to no good. Like I am tonight.

  “Most kids do,” a voice answers from somewhere to my right, under the old, ten-foot rusty slide. I can just barely make out the brown broken bits through the veil of snow.

  “I figured you’d be there. In the dark, just watching.” I make my way to where he is, but stop short. I stay by the swing set, close enough to hear, but not bothering to look at him.

  I’ll play by his rules. He has what I want, Jenny Parks. We both know that I know.

  I can hear the faint laugh carry in the night, but he makes no other comment and instead there’s nothing but the bitter cold between us.

  “What about now?” he asks me and I resist the urge to turn my head to face where he is. Instead I stare at the graffiti on the back of the brick building.

  “What about now?” I question.

  “Are you still afraid of the dark?”

  His question makes me smirk. “I never said afraid… I said I hated it.”

  “You didn’t have to say you were afraid, Jase. Every child is afraid of the dark.”

  A moment passes and I stalk forward to lean against the metal bar of the jungle gym.

  “You wanted something?” I ask him, knowing that my back is to him and knowing he could sneak up on me if he wanted. I’ll risk it.

  “You wanted something,” he answers me as if it’s a correction. His voice a bit louder this time, followed by the sound of footsteps. “Don’t turn around just yet.”

  “Understood,” I respond quickly, knowing in my gut I’m walking away from this. He wants me to know something. And I want to know what it is.

  I can hear him stop just a few feet behind me and I stay where I am although the need to turn rings in my blood. I’ve never crossed Marcus and from what I know, he’s never crossed me. But he isn’t on our side either, and that makes me question where his intentions lie.

  “You’re looking for information and I came with… a gift.”

  My pulse quickens as I hear more movement behind me. Gripping the bar tighter until my knuckles have turned white, I ignore every need to turn, making my muscles tense.

  “A gift?” I press him for more information.

  “Yes,” is all he gives me.

  “Is it Jenny Parks?” I dare to ask, giving up information, but in the hopes of cooperation.

  “Jenny is fine.”

  A beat passes and the muscles in my arms coil, my grip too tight, the adrenaline in my blood racing to get somewhere, or to do something. To simply react.

  It’s a puzzle with Marcus, attempting to ask the right questions, because he has all the answers.

  “What are you doing with her?”

  “I’m helping her.” His voice is faint this time, as if he’s farther away now. The crunch of the snow beneath his feet makes me realize he’s pacing. Maybe considering telling me something.

  “You know I want answers… I want her sister to have a life with her. She wants her back.” There’s only the soft call of a midnight wind that whistles in the lack of his answer. “What do you want me to know?” I ask him, acknowledging to both of us that’s all he’ll tell me anyway.

  “Did you have a nice conversation with Mr. Stevens?”

  An exhale of frustration slips through my lips at the change in subject. I answer him, “It went well.”

  “What did he tell you?” he asks.

  “He said you were building an army,” I say and raise my voice to make sure he can hear me. He does the same and takes steps to come closer, but still stops far enough behind me that I can’t see his shadow yet against the pure white snow.

  “Building one?” The tone of his voice lingers in the air, and his answer leaves a chill to run down my spine. “Did you think I did all of this on my own? There’s always someone looking for sal
vation, for redemption, for something to believe in.”

  “You’re their savior?”

  “I’m no savior and the things they do… it’s no redemption.”

  “So you’re using them?” I ask him and rein in the simmering anger as Jenny’s face from the pictures in Bethany’s house flickers in front of me. Back when things were different.

  “I’m giving them what they want,” he answers.

  “And then?” I ask him. “What are you going to do with Jenny when she’s done doing your bidding and you have no use for her?”

  Silence.

  My head falls forward, heavy as I struggle with the need to force an answer from the man I used to fear. I focus on staying still. On not facing him so I can gather more information. I need an answer. I need to know where Jenny is. I have to know if she’ll ever come home.

  “Did you know wolves used to live here? Back in the day, so to speak.”

  My eyes open slowly and I stare straight ahead as my shoulders tighten. “You love your stories. Don’t you?” My voice is menacing, not hiding my disappointment and outrage.

  “Oh I could tell you a story, but the truth will hurt the most.”

  My teeth grind together, my patience wearing thinner and thinner as all the pictures I’ve seen of Jenny from when she was a girl hugging her sister, to only a few years ago when she was in school, play in my mind.

  “They’d run in packs and terrorize the people.” He paces again, I can hear him doing it and a part of me wants to turn around; I want to look him in the eyes and see the man who plays with fire like he has. The only reason I don’t is because he has the upper hand. He has Jenny. He has the answers.

  “They attacked people, but farms mostly, leaving the families little food for themselves…” He pauses and lets out a soft sound, nearly a chuckle although I’m not certain it’s humorous; it sounds sickening.

  “They ruled and there was not much to be done. Much like you and your brothers,” he says and the S hisses in the air. “They don’t run wild here anymore though, because hunters found a way. Well, there were two ways.” I remain silent, biding my time, struggling to stay patient with him.