by Jami Wagner
“Then let’s make it easy,” he says, holding my hands in his. “I’ve tried to convince myself this isn’t the right time, but I can’t stop thinking about you. I want to be around you and I want to talk to you every single day and I want to hear you laugh, see you smile. Call me crazy, but I knew the moment I met you that you’d be important to me. Let me prove it.”
“This is crazy, Jett. I’ve known you for what, two weeks? And already it’s like the choice I make right this moment is one I don’t want to get wrong. I’ve never—”
His mouth is on mine before I can finish that thought. He kisses me as if he were trying to take away any fears, any doubts, and the simple movement makes me want to give in.
My hands land on his shoulders and my heart shudders. If I say no, I won’t get another chance. His tongue slips between our lips and he kisses me harder without hesitation. Sparks zing through me.
He snakes his hands all the way around me, both arms secure at my lower back as he lifts me and pulls me closer. My hand moves to his hair, my nails digging and scratching his scalp as I return the pressure of his kiss. Swiftly adjusting his arms, he slides his grip to my ass and lifts my legs to wrap around him. I don’t object. He moans, and I feel it from my tongue all the way down to my core.
“Say yes to a date, Charlie.”
He kisses me again before I can answer. He kisses me as if he knows I was going to resist again and wants to change my mind. It’s working.
“Yes,” I say. “But you get one chance, Jett. Just one.”
“That’s all I need,” he says and puts me back on my feet.
The sound of Sam and Max chatting and running up the steps snaps the sexual tension between us. “I’ll call you.”
I nod and try to catch my breath.
The boys run right past him, shouting a quick hello, goodbye before they settle in the living room.
I wave once more to Jett when he reaches the bottom of the staircase. Then I close the door with a solid click.
Chapter Nine
Charlie
The next week passes quickly and stress free. Mostly because Clint has been MIA and I’m hoping it’s because he got the point that I don’t have the money. Which, as far as I know, I don’t. I can’t bear to chop up Sam’s stuffed animal, and when I squeezed it, it didn’t feel like it was filled with money, so I’m assuming it’s not there. Every day that goes by without hearing from Clint is a good day. It also makes it a lot easier to look forward to my date with Jett. Which is tonight. In like five minutes.
My heart is beating louder than the darn music streaming through the speakers of the apartment.
I stare at my reflection of the floor mirror in the corner of my room. A pair of flats, a white sundress, and curls. I look like I’m freaking ten. I strip the dress over my head and slip off my shoes.
I can’t do this. I’m going to make a fool of myself and Sam isn’t going to want to spend a night without me. He’s going to worry and I’m not going to know if he’s all right.
Tugging on a pair of skinny jeans and shrugging on an off-the-shoulder thin, gray sweater, I yank on a pair of ankle boots and head down the hall, running my hand through my hair to loosen the curls. Getting ready for this date is officially over. I just need to call Jett and let him know I can’t make it.
I pick up the phone as the faint giggles of two eight-year-old boys comes from Sam’s room.
“How late do you think we can stay up?” I hear Sam ask.
“Mom always has a bedtime,” Max answers.
“Yeah, but what if we pretend to sleep and then stay up as late as we can and see who can tell the scariest story?” Sam rebuts.
I cover my mouth with my phone and lean on the wall outside his room as I hide my grin. Not that I really need to hide it. No one can see me.
I’m smiling yet the tears threaten.
He’s going to miss me. He just might not know it yet.
The knock on the door behind me causes me to jump. Sam and Max sprint out of his room. Sam does a double-take when he sees where I’m standing.
“Did you hear all that?” he asks, slipping each arm through a loop of his backpack. He must have used it to pack his overnight stuff. I swallow and look away. Anything to keep myself from allowing these tears to fall. Just seconds ago, his voice was full of life and happy, the way a eight-year-old should sound. Now it’s like he grew ten more years.
Whether or not I go a date, he needs more nights to just be a kid.
“I didn’t hear anything,” I say with a wink.
He grins.
“Thanks, Charlie,” he says and starts to head for the door at the second knock. I follow behind him and spot Max in the kitchen, sneaking out a pack of Oreos. I glance away before he knows I’ve caught him and shake my head as both boys disappear out the door.
My heart honestly feels like it has come to a complete stop when Jett walks in the room. He’s wearing a pair of dark wash jeans and a plain red shirt that is caught on the hip of his jeans under his belt.
“You cut your hair,” I say. He isn’t wearing a hat and the little curls of hair over his ears have disappeared. His jawline is fierce as his facial hair blends with the new haircut. He’s got a very Jesse Metcalf thing going on right now.
“Do you like it?” he asks, stepping closer. He’s got one arm behind him but still manages to pull me close for a kiss with the other.
His kiss distracts me from answering.
When he pulls back, his hidden arm come around front with a bouquet of flowers.
“Oh wow,” I say and stare at them. “These are beautiful.”
“I thought you might like them,”
“Like them? I love them.” I grab them from him and move to the kitchen. I don’t have a vase, so a tall cup will have to do.
“No vase?” he asks.
“No, I’ve never had flowers before.”
“You’ve never had flowers before?” The surprise is clear in his voice.
“No, I mean, I never really dated after Sam came along. I was … busy.” I say without getting into too much detail.
“Still, not even one guy brought you flowers?”
“Nope.”
“Idiots,” he says. “Are you ready to go?”
“Oh, yeah, about that …”
“You can’t back out now, I have a whole night planned,” he says, pulling me into him again. He doesn’t kiss me, but he does hold me close enough at the waist that I wrap my arms around his neck.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“But you thought about it.”
“Dang it, Jett, how can you read me so well?”
I swat at his chest and step out of his hold to grab my purse.
“It’s a gift,” he says.
“Well,” I pause. “Thank you for the flowers.”
Jett takes a hold of my hand as we walk out the apartment. Whit’s door is cracked, so I peek inside to see the boys already settled in the living room, watching TV.
“Thanks again for the watching him tonight,” I tell Whit at the kitchen table on her computer.
“Oh yeah, Max has been bugging me about another sleepover, so this works great. Plus, I don’t have to drive anywhere. Now you two have fun,” she says. “And be good.” She points specifically to Jett.
“I will,” he says, leading me out and down the stairs.
“Where is your Jeep?” I ask.
“I didn’t drive it tonight. Tonight it’s the truck. I had to prepare some things for our date, so I needed my truck to haul the stuff.”
Holy crap, what kind of date is he taking me on?
“What is the plan?”
“It’s a surprise,” he says.
He leads me to his truck and even opens my door for me. Then he climbs inside and starts the engine.
We take a right and then a left and drive through town. We pass all the restaurants I can think of that he would take me to.
“Where might we be going?” I ask.
“Please tell me that wasn’t a line.”
“No,” he chuckles. “That wasn’t a line. I’m pretty sure you haven’t been here before.”
As we take the turn to head up the mountain, I nod. Yeah, he’s right so far.
We don’t really talk on the drive up, which is fine. I’m too busy oohing and ahhing out my window at how beautiful everything is. There are multiple hiking trails, and even a few runners on the main road heading down the mountain. That would be me. I’d rather run down a mountain than up for sure.
“We’re here,” Jett says, pulling up to a camp spot with a built-in picnic table. A large tent is set up right next to it.
“We’re camping?” I ask.
“Sort of. I figured it would be completely inappropriate of me to assume we should spend the night together on a first date, but I didn’t think that should take away from being able to enjoy the benefits of camping.”
“So, we are mini camping?”
“Yep, the whole thing is set up inside the tent.”
My door is open and I’m making my way to the tent before he can even make it around the truck.
Inside there are layers and layers of blankets with a small picnic of food and even a small basket filled with items to make s’mores.
I crawl inside and sit with my legs crossed as I take it all in. Jett crawls in behind me.
“I left the extra layer off the top of the tent so we can star gaze or … something later.” He chuckles and when his eyes meet mine, I’m a goner.
I rise to my knees and kiss him. No one has ever done something so special for me, and already I’m wondering about date number two. How is the heck is he going to top this?
Jett
I was a little skeptical about choosing this for our first date. I don’t want her to get the wrong impression that we are spending the night here. I just want to give her a glimpse of something she’s never done before.
By her reaction, sticking to this idea was clearly the right choice.
My hands cup her cheeks as I deepen the kiss. She moans the moment my tongue sweeps past our lips and collides with hers. As if the moan didn’t tell me how much she wanted this, the way she grips my shirt and pulls me closer to her is a dead giveaway.
“This is so amazing,” she says, pulling away and sitting back on her heels. “No one has ever done something like this for me. I mean, we used to set up blankets and stuff around the apartment we lived in as kids and pretend to camp, but this is so much better.”
“I’m glad you like it.”
She crawls to the tent opening and pokes her head out.
“There is seriously no one but us here? Is that normal? I mean, now that I know this is here, you might have a problem keeping me away.” She laughs as she sits back in the tent.
Standing, she stretches her arms over her head. “How big is this thing anyway? I bet even you could stand up and do this.”
I know the grin on my face is a mile wide. I’m sure I’ve never done anything in my life that has a made a person this happy, aside from Captain, of course, but even then, he doesn’t show it the way Charlie is right now.
“Big enough that we can do anything you want to tonight.”
She looks over her shoulder at me. “Anything?”
Her eyes rake over my body and my pulse speeds up. I nod and swallow.
“Good, I’ll keep that in mind,” she says.
“You do that,” I say watching as she takes her seat next to me.
“What do you have here?” She points to the basket in the middle.
“Well, I thought I could grill us some burgers,” I answer, pulling out a mini cooler that sat in the middle. “Then we could take a walk and maybe after that, s’mores.” I open a bag of barbeque chips and pop one in my mouth.
“How did you decide this was what you would do for our first date?” she asks, taking a chip from the bag when I offer it.
Aside from the fact that I’m selfish and didn’t want to share her, and I didn’t want to chance running into anyone I’ve encountered during this assignment—I wanted to do something different.
“I thought you deserved a night that was more than the normal ‘I’ll take you to dinner and then take you home’ kind of night.”
“I wouldn’t have minded that.”
“So, I went overboard?”
She shakes her head. “This is perfect, but now that I’ve told you that twice, let’s eat. I’m starving.”
We make our way out to the grill. Charlie starts it and even tries to take charge, but after some convincing, she lets me cook the burgers. I’m not about to let her do everything. She deserves a night to just relax.
The burgers are cooked in no time, and like everything else so far, Charlie thinks they are perfect. Just as we finished putting a few things away so that we can go on small hike, thunder booms and Charlie flinches. Rain falls instantly, heavy and cold. I grab her hand and pull her to the tent. Still, in the time it takes to do that, our clothes are good and drenched.
“Looks like we will have to save that walk for another night,” I say, zipping up the front of the tent but leaving the screen layer open at the bottom to circulate some air.
Charlie brushes her damp hair out of her face. “For our next date?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say. God, I could kiss her. “I sure hope there will be a next date.”
Her smile is big while her cheeks turn red. Then she shivers.
“Here, I brought lots of blankets,” I say, yanking one from the pile to wrap her up. August in Wyoming can be tricky. I brought enough blankets to plan for anything.
“Thank you,” she says as I grab another blanket to cover us both. She lies back, and I move with her.
Even if we can’t see the stars beyond the rain, with Charlie tucked under my arm, this night is one of the best I’ve ever had.
Charlie cocks her head and I take advantage of the moment and kiss her.
Her hand rests on the side of my face as I kiss her deeper, tangling my tongue with hers. Her other hand snakes up my side, pulling me into her. I shift slowly, pulling my arms from underneath her head and settle one leg between hers.
She lets out moan that ignites my body. Just the one single sound makes me grind my hips into her like we’re a couple of high school kids.
I feel her body wiggle, like she’s trying to reposition, and I—
“Fuck,” I breathe, breaking our kiss and reaching for myself. Charlie gasps. She just kneed me in the junk.
“Oh my god, Jett.” Her hand covers her mouth. “I am so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I say. Maybe squeaked.
“I just wanted to move my legs so you could …”
The remainder of what she doesn’t say is enough to distract me from any remaining discomfort. I want her to finish that sentence.
“So I could what?”
She moves her leg to the other side of mine. “So you could get more comfortable,” she says and bites her lower lip. I want that lip. I want her. All of her.
I capture her lips in a hard kiss, forcing my hand behind her lower back to tug her into place, where I can settle perfectly between her legs. She gasps again, but this time, it’s seductive. With each swoop of my tongue with hers, her back bows to press her hips against me.
I’m sneaking my hand up the outside of her leg when I hear branches crunching and the sound of someone running their finger along the tent.
What the hell?
“What is it?” Charlie asks when I pull back.
“It’s probably nothing,” I tell her, scooting back to look outside. “I’m going to put the rest of the food up real quick to be safe though.”
Once I’m outside the tent, I make quick steps to the passenger side of my truck and pull my gun from the glove box. I’m about twenty paces away from our campsite when Clint peeks out from behind a tree, clearly unfazed by the rain.
“Having fun?” he asks, his view moving toward the tent.
“What the fuck, man?” I put the safety back on. “Are you following me?”
“Should I be?”
“It looks like you are.”
I glance back to the tent and hold back a curse. Everything on display, my truck included, are things that belong to Jett, not Jay.
“I was simply heading down the road to another camper to drop something off when I spotted this truck. It’s nice. Is it yours?” he asks.
“I stole it.” The words fly out before I’ve thought them through completely.
“Nice choice.” He nods. He takes a step back and points to the tent. “Enjoy the rest of your night.”
When he winks at me, I force a laugh. On the inside, my blood is boiling.
I wait for him to get out of sight before I return to the tent.
“Is everything okay?” Charlie asks.
“Yeah, the rains died down enough that we should probably pack up.”
“Oh, okay.” Her shoulders drop.
I’d give anything to pick up where we left off, but considering Clint may be only a few hundred feet from us, I have to get her out of here as quickly as I can.
The last thing either of us needs is me dragging another innocent civilian into Jimmy’s crosshairs.
Chapter Ten
Jett
I scan the area around Charlie’s apartment complex once more. I just spent the last two hours casing Clint’s apartment, but that doesn’t mean I’m in the clear.
It’s been only a few days since our first date, but not seeing her is driving me insane. Clint hasn’t brought up that night again, which is great, but I’m still not okay with him having known I was with her. I just … I had to come. If I go too long without asking her again, she might think I’m not interested and, boy, am I interested. That’s exactly why I’m here now, and she has no idea. I’m hoping a few other people don’t know I’m here either.
I get out of my Jeep and head for the stairs. I hate that I have to check over my shoulder more than once. I’m probably overthinking this, but truth is, I shouldn’t be here. Which is exactly why if I only end up getting her for five minutes, I’ll take it.