by Melissa Blue
Could gruff be sweet because she was starting to think it was possible? “Okay.”
“That reminds me.”
He reached over to the nightstand. She didn’t see what he grabbed until he dropped his cell phone into her lap. Confused, she tapped the screen awake. He just shook his head while eating the ice cream. Bailey now understood why he had chickened out earlier from showing her the picture.
It was a professional family portrait. Who she could assume were his mom and dad looked like the average white-bread middle class parents. His brother Benjamin looked super preppy, but he wore a smirk like “my parents made me wear” this.
Then there was Jake. He’d dyed his hair and eyebrows pitch black. The back portion had enough hair spray to kill at least two rain forests a day. There were chains, buckles, boots and the obligatory leather pants.
She coughed to hold back the laugh. “So, there’s Playful Jake. Date-mode Jake. The factory setting of Grumpy Jake. I will now add Goth Jake to my mental list.”
“But are you surprised I was an emo teen?”
Bailey bit her lip, really hard before she could say, “You make so much sense now.”
He sighed. “Let the laugh out. You’re going to give yourself an aneurism if you don’t.”
Bailey tried. Really, really she did try not to laugh. “How old were you?”
“Thirteen.” He sighed again. “I think I still have some of the poetry I wrote.”
That did it. She lost it. Took her a minute to calm down to giggles. “It is and isn’t the goth part.”
“I know.” He took the phone back then tossed it on the nightstand. “The funny part is the family photo is like the Munsters in reverse.”
“And the hair.”
“And the fact that it’s me. For the record. I didn’t dye my eyebrows. That’s all eyeliner, baby.” He put the ice cream bowl on the nightstand next.
When he stood and took off his underwear, her laughter faded. Just that quick, an ache grew between her legs. Her heartbeat kicked up as longing and excitement fought for top billing.
He slid back into the bed, under the covers. She reached out for him, a thoughtless reaction, but how could she not touch him? His skin beckoned with its warmth. And then a thought skittered along her mind. She smiled.
“Oh, shit,” he said. “I now understand what you mean by a twisted smile.” His eyes were bright. “What torture do you have in mind?”
Bailey dropped her hand to his dick then caressed it with her fingertips. He went from half-mast to full within seconds.
“Oh,” he said.
She stroked him next, loving the way his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. When her fingers reached the base of his cock, Bailey kept going until she could cup his balls. She waited a breath then squeezed.
“Fuck,” he groaned.
She massaged the warm flesh. “I only have one question right now, Jake.”
“Anything. Ask me.”
Her smiled widened. “Fast or slow?”
Chapter Ten
“I have to go,” Jake said, but pulled Bailey in for another kiss as they stood inside the door.
She lifted her head away. “Okay. Bye.”
He bit her lip, and she giggled. He was really starting to love that sound. It was partially why he had trouble leaving. The other, more pressing reason is that she only wore a robe. Since last night he now knew how easy it was to get her off. And he wanted to in all the ways she’d let him.
Alas, she gave him a peck then backed away for their own good. “Jayden has one of his last baseball games today. You have to go. Or you’re going to be late.”
“I know.” He considered grabbing the edge of the robe then ripping it off. “You’re going to have to push me out and shut the door in my face.”
“I am not getting within reaching distance of you.”
“Smart. I find that so sexy.”
“You told me my nail polish color was sexy. Your bar is low right now.”
He glanced down. She’d picked some glittery blue shade. He wasn’t a feet guy but he kind of understood now. The color was cute. Sexy? Only because of her. “Okay. Okay. I’m out.”
“Bye.”
It killed him but he left. He felt immensely better about his choice when Jayden’s greeting at the babysitter’s almost knocked him on his ass. One day his son wouldn’t be able to tackle hug him without injury. They made their way home, and Jayden had yet to take a full breath about his sleepover with the babysitter. Apparently, it had been a date night for a lot of the regulars, which meant a handful of his friends had stayed over. Every now and again, Jake could get in a question or two, but it was Jayden’s show.
There was a pause as they stood in Jayden’s room. The Transformer theme ran throughout, except the closet. The place where all the things ended up when it came time for him to clean his room.
Jake peered inside and frowned. “Where are your cleats?”
Jayden sighed and pushed him aside, beginning to dig in the pile of toys and random clothes. “Can we invite Ms. Thorne to the game since she likes you now?”
His gut clenched with…fear? Hope? He couldn’t pinpoint the emotion. The question just seemed to swipe at a soft spot. He cleared his throat. “She might have things to do today.”
“Like what?”
“Run errands. See her family. You know she doesn’t stay at the school on the weekends?” Jake caught sight of the shoes first and grabbed them.
“I know. I’m not a two-year old.”
He could only smile for a moment. “I would like for her to come too, but we can’t have her all the time.” And then that hit him, really hit him.
He loved professional baseball, but five-year-olds attempting to play was not nearly as entertaining as the real thing. The few hours would fly by with her there. It was a first. He’d invited Shayne’s family more than once and when they could get time from the restaurant they would show up. And okay, he hadn’t had his fill of her yet.
“It won’t hurt to ask,” Jayden said with a pout that Jake related to a bit too much.
“I’m going to let you call and ask her. If she says no or that she had something else on her plate for today, you’ll thank her for considering and end it at that.”
Jayden squared his shoulders and put his hand out for the phone. Jake ruffled his curls. “Wait. Where’s your hat?”
His son sighed then turned back around into the closet. Jake really had to stop letting Jayden “fold” the laundry and put up clothes after game days. His son found the hat with minimal fuss.
“Are you ready?” Jake asked while pulling up her number.
Jayden nodded. His heart warmed when she answered on the second ring. “I’m on speaker phone right now and Jayden would like to talk to you,” he told her in a rush in case things went sideways.
“Oh.” Her voice softened. “Hi, Jayden.”
“Hi, Ms. Thorne.”
“Are you having trouble with the reading this weekend?”
“No. I finished it at the ‘sitters with Taylor.”
“Oh, good. What do you need?”
“I wanted to know if you wanted to come to my game. Dad says you might have errands, but errands are boring. Come watch me play.”
She laughed. “Errands are boring. I would love to come to your game, but I might have to leave early. I’m having dinner with my brothers and it’s a thing.”
“How many brothers do you have?”
“Three and they are insufferable.”
Jayden looked to him, amazement on his face. “Three? Well, they can come too.”
“They have errands before dinner tonight. Let me speak to your dad to get the details, and I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Thanks, Ms. Thorne.”
It dawned on Jake then, he may have just used his son to get another date with Bailey. Oh, no. Fuck. “Go wait in the living room.” After he’d run out, Jake yelled after him. “Put on your cleats.”
He t
ook her off speaker phone and braced himself. “I promise my subconscious got the better of me, and it won’t happen again.”
“Lies. You conned me with Jayden. You know he’s adorable and charming, and that I would have the hardest time saying no to him.”
He squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I can come up with an excuse if you want to back out.”
“I know how to say no to my students, even the adorable ones, so clearly I was willing to be conned.”
He had to bite his lip to rein in the smile. “Yeah?”
“Shut up, and give me the details.”
*
Jake carried a horde of concession food up to the top bleacher where no one else sat. Usually he didn’t care where he ended up. Bailey coming to the game changed things. Some modicum of privacy should keep the raised eyebrows down. It also helped the kids, parents and coaches had zero connection to Obama Elementary.
So today Bailey would simply be a teacher invited to one of her student’s games. No one needed to know Jake was more excited than Jayden.
And she was a woman he’d slept with.
His subconscious didn’t need to whisper what that might mean. If Jake closed his eyes and concentrated for only a moment, he could taste Bailey in his mouth again. Her laughter would then ring in his ears. A smile teased his mouth. He had it bad.
His skin prickled. On instinct, his gaze searched the field. He spotted her walking from the parking lot onto the sea of green. She wore denim shorts, a black tank top and a Yankees cap. He had had those thick thighs wrapped around him. Her breasts in his mouth.
Jayden broke from the dugout, and she got another leg hug. He could practically hear her laughter as she tipped his hat back to say something to him. Jayden pointed to the stands but took her hand to lead her over. Jake stood and waved to make it easy. At the edge of the bleachers she bent to talk to Jayden. He nodded enthusiastically then waved her off before running back to the dugout. The bill of her hat tipped down as she watched her steps climbing up to him. He offered his hands to help her on the last step…and to touch her.
With his heart in his throat, he said, “Glad you could make it.”
She smiled at him. “I see you bought half the concession stand.”
“Figured I’d save us a few trips. The games usually run an hour and half, sometimes two, but believe me they feel like forever.”
She chose the nachos before plopping right next to him. Their arms and legs made contact. He relaxed with the platonic touch because at least they were touching.
She lowered her voice so only he could hear. “It’s killing me that I can’t kiss you right now.”
Fuck. Why did she have to say that? Now it would be all he could think about the entire game. Tonight, she’d be going off to a family dinner. He and Jayden would veg since game days always tuckered his little guy out. Maybe Jake and her could sneak around for an hour or three on Sunday before he went into work.
And then the rest of the week? Fucking hell. This, whatever they were, was going to kill them both just in the waiting periods.
He tried to swallow his thoughts, his aches that swelled into a painful need. They refused to die down, so he dropped his hand to his knee. He cleared his throat while inching his hand over, barely brushing the bared skin of her thigh. She made a soft sound. Good. She’d felt it too—the electricity—it wasn’t only him.
This small thing was all they could have for now until who knew when. He rubbed his thumb back on forth along her skin, wishing for a kiss, a grope, one of their private jokes or for them to hold their gaze with all their unspoken wants. They sat there, quietly, for two hours like that and it did feel like forever.
Chapter Eleven
“Why isn’t your mom cooking for Thanksgiving?” The nasal voice broke the quiet reading time.
Bailey barely suppressed her sigh. There was always one in every class. Hell, every reading time. For twenty minutes out of the day students were supposed to read silently. It was a bit of a reach for kindergarteners, they could barely sit still for that long, but the school had guidelines to follow for funding.
She glanced up from reports to find the voice. Maria stood from her desk, her arms crossed and face beet red. Her gaze searched for the intended recipient to squash the squabble and her breath caught—Jayden.
She stood from her desk, ready to mobilize if needed. “Maria, it’s quiet reading time.”
The little girl huffed. “Mi abuela, tías and mamá are cooking. He said it was stupid because dads could cook, too.”
Her heart thudded in her ears. “You’re both right and wrong. Matriarchs of the family—the women, can be in charge. So can the men. For me, my mom handles the turkey, stuffing and ham. Us kids, handle things like mash potatoes and macaroni and cheese. My dad cooks a brisket and pork ribs. Right now, is not the time to talk about family differences for Thanksgiving. We can do that once we get back from vacation and talk about what we all did.” She put steel in her voice. “It’s reading time.”
That seemed to settle the argument, but her gaze kept landing on Jayden, worried if the question had hit his sore spot or left a nuclear bomb-like crater. Two months had passed since she’d gone to her first baseball game. That sport had shifted into football, and she showed up after every invite. At those games, Bailey pretended like she and Jake didn’t steal moments to fuck each other’s brains out or eat at Shayne’s on Friday night. She ignored the gossip swirling around her like mist in the teacher’s lounge, on the playground, because her and Jake seemed so close, so friendly on school grounds. Almost inappropriately so.
All of that didn’t matter in the moment. All of that was why she settled back behind her desk and kept watch like a mama bear on Jayden. She went through the last lesson of the day, which was walking them through learning the basic framework on a book report based on what they had read. The school day wrapped. Her students rushed to their backpacks then waited at their desk for someone to pick them up.
Jayden was unusually quiet. Since the sitter usually ran fifteen minutes behind to pick up a few older kids on the first floor and outer buildings, Bailey bided her time, worried but not wanting to seem like it until he was the last kid left. She would never forgive herself if she didn’t check in.
Bailey pushed from her desk. “Jayden, let me talk to you for a moment.”
His head and shoulders down, he trudged over to her. She led him over to the area in her classroom where they could hug funny animal pillows and sit cross-legged on the alphabet carpet. It wasn’t ideal but good enough to get him to meet her gaze.
And it broke her heart. “Do you want to talk about the argument you had earlier with Maria? It seemed to have upset you.”
He dropped his gaze to his shoes and started to stab his thumb in the soft soles. “I’m sorry I called her stupid. I know it wasn’t nice.”
She pressed a fist to her chest. Her heart ached and yet felt so full. She loved this kid. “What you said wasn’t very kind. People have different families and that’s okay.”
He looked at her then, his eyes wide and watery from unshed tears. “But I should have a mom. Dad likes girls.”
Bailey blew out a breath. She didn’t want to touch that with a ten-foot pole. “What do you usually do for Thanksgiving?”
“Dad gets up early and starts to make the only thing he’s really good at.”
She bit her lip for a moment to keep in the laugh. “What’s that?”
“Turkey and stuffing. He says his mom made it every year. She’s dead now, though.”
She swallowed, holding herself still to keep from pulling him in for a hug. “And then?”
“We go over to Uncle Shayne’s. He’s not really my uncle. Dad says calling him that is a sign of respect. The same with Aunt Abigail. She makes everything else. She goes to the store and leaves nothing behind. Dad says that, too. We eat a lot of weird stuff but most of it is good.”
Her heart. God. “So, maybe you don’t have a mom that cooks, but
you have Aunt Abigail, your dad, your Uncle Shayne and his kids.”
“Kevin’s funny.”
She started to agree but didn’t know if Jake had talked to Jayden about their date nights. Given it was Jake, and she had a need for the separation of Church and State…Jayden shouldn’t know. “That’s your Thanksgiving. Do you look forward to it?”
“I do. It’s just…” Jayden lifted one shoulder in a shrug.
She tried to speak past the lump in her throat. Bailey had to take a couple of deep breaths first because Jayden was hurting. He hadn’t told his dad about these thoughts and feelings. Despite her current mama bear emotions, she was only Jayden’s teacher. It wasn’t her place. She could, maybe, provide him some comfort.
Finally, she settled on, “One day when you’re older, you’re going to understand that Thanksgiving is a messed up holiday.”
“What?”
“Long story, and it’s why we learned a lot about Native Americans this week. But most important, you’re going to love that your dad makes turkey and stuffing. Aunt Abigail buys everything in the store. Your life may not look like someone else’s, but you wouldn’t trade it. You might also love to hear about someone else’s Thanksgiving. You won’t call it stupid.”
“You say that because you have all those brothers and a mom.”
“I will happily give you all my brothers, especially my oldest one. He’s a pain.”
Jayden laughed, and the ache in her heart lightened. “I want brothers. I’d be the oldest.”
“I bet you’d tickle them, wouldn’t you?” She wiggled her fingers in his direction as though she planned to do the same to him. He curled away but laughed. Eventually the giggle fit ended and when it did, he sprung up and hugged her. He smelled of dirt and grass and the sun—like outside. Something her mother had always accused Bailey and brothers of smelling like. Her mother. She had one growing up. She never felt more grateful and sad.
Bailey gave him an extra squeeze for good measure. Someone cleared their throat. She glanced up at the sound. Jake stood near the door with his hands deep in his pockets. His gaze was soft. She melted a little. He had never looked at her quite like that before.