by Mia Sheridan
The coworker in question looked like some young professor, a Clark Kent type, and obviously a genius—probably perfect for Jessie. From the jealousy I’d felt when I’d seen him touch her hand, you’d have thought I walked in on them twisted around each other naked. It was immediate and overwhelming, and it scared the living hell out of me.
Then I’d listened as Jessie and Nick had talked about their careers. They were both so full of excitement and passion for what they were building, and though I’d felt proud of both of them, I’d also felt a prick of shame. Because though they were both hungry to succeed, I knew down in my gut that neither one would sacrifice their integrity like I had. Their big break would come from raw talent and a strong work ethic—they’d deserve every ounce of success that came their way. Not like me. And sitting there, I’d felt like an outsider in so many ways, someone who wasn’t even worthy of their company.
And yet despite the roiling insecurity, dinner had been far too short and I wanted more time with Jessie and—
“What do they call that piece?”
My finger came to an immediate halt as I turned to see Jessie standing behind me. I hadn’t even heard her enter the room.
She moved toward me. “Because it sure is depressing.”
I breathed out a laugh, turning fully on the bench. “I thought you went to bed.” My words came out in a rush, and even I heard the faint ring of desperation in my tone.
She used her finger to indicate I should scoot over, so I did. She sat down next to me and hit my knee lightly with hers. “I decided I wasn’t as tired as I thought. And the work I was going to do can wait. Truthfully, it’s probably better if I rest my brain a little. Translating takes a lot of focus. I was hoping you were still available.”
“So what you’re saying is, something mindless sounds appealing. I can provide mindless. It’s what I do best.” I was attempting a joke, but it was too close to the truth for my own comfort and the words faded away, my mouth turning down into a frown before I’d even realized it.
Jessie’s head was turned toward me and she was watching me closely, so I forced a smile. She didn’t return it. She seemed to see something about me I hadn’t intended to show her. Hadn’t that always been the case? Then. Now. “I think you sell yourself short, Callen Hayes,” she said very softly, very seriously.
I sighed, running a hand through my hair. “Ah, you always thought far too much of me, Jessie.”
“I don’t think so.” She paused for a moment. “However, if by mindless, you’re referring to some bad reality TV? Well, I could go for that.”
I glanced at her. “You want to watch TV with me?”
“Sure.”
That was a first. I didn’t think I’d ever watched TV with a woman. Not that I watched much of it myself, but curled up somewhere private with Jessie? That held some promise. “My room or yours?”
“I’d love to see how the high rollers live.”
I chuckled. “What? Do they have you stuffed down in a corner of the basement along with your dusty work space?”
She grinned, and my heart flipped. God, she was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. Even after spending the day in said dusty workspace, she looked beautiful, if not just a little bit mussed—her hair coming loose from the twist she’d had it in and her eyeliner smudged under her eyes. The effect only added to her appeal though—it made her look as if she’d just been rolling around in bed. My blood heated at the thought, and I forced myself to take a deep breath. Jessie was suggesting we watch TV and nothing more. “No, they don’t have me sleeping in the basement, but pretty close. My room’s nice—just a bit small.”
“Ah. Then, allow me to escort you to my castle on the hill.” I stood, offering my hand, and she grasped it, standing as well and giving me a curtsy.
“My prince, returned for me at last.”
Her look of amusement and the twinkle in her eye made me smile, but something about her words also had me on guard. I was nobody’s prince. But Jessie wasn’t asking for that, not really, so I pushed my fears aside, took her arm, and escorted her to the elevator and then down the hallway to the double doors that led to my suite.
The doors opened into a luxurious sitting room with a fireplace, and Jessie whistled softly, causing me to laugh. “Now, this is living,” she said.
“Want a tour?”
“Of course.”
I opened the door to the bedroom, seeing that the maid service had turned down the bed and left two chocolate mints on the pillow. Jessie wandered inside, trailing a finger along the mahogany armoire and then touching the gold, patterned fabric gathered at the corner of the canopy bed, something heavy and silken that I was only now really noticing. She kicked off her shoes and wiggled her toes on the thick carpet, looking over her shoulder at me and smiling. My heart did that strange thing again that seemed to happen every time her eyes lit up with joy. And she had no clue. She had no clue how beautiful she actually was and how those smiles lifted my heart.
I followed behind her as she entered the en-suite bathroom, and I heard her intake of breath before I turned the corner. “Oh my God, how have you even made it out of your room with a tub like this?”
I glanced at the huge Whirlpool tub, surrounded by marble tile. It did look enticing now that Jessie was standing next to it and I was picturing her naked with bubbles barely covering her pink nipples. Or would they be brown? She was a brunette with hazel eyes, but that creamy skin and sprinkling of freckles threw me. Suddenly it was a question that seemed as important to answer as any of the world’s great mysteries. “Bathtubs are no fun alone.”
Jessie scoffed. “A bubble bath, a good book, and a glass of wine? Sounds like the perfect Friday night.”
“Oh, Jessie.” I sighed. “I have so much to teach you.”
She laughed, a genuine one that lit her face and caused an answering grin on my own. “I bet. Come on, show me where the TV is.”
The TV was in the bedroom, hidden in a vintage-looking trunk at the base of the bed, and I used the remote control to raise it to viewing level.
There was really nowhere else to sit except the bed, and I wondered if Jessie was going to decide this wasn’t a good idea. Surprising me, she turned and asked, “Which side is yours?”
“Uh, the right, I guess.”
She nodded and went around the bed, fluffing the pillows on the left, taking her blazer off and tossing it on the chair near the window. I definitely liked seeing her sitting back against the pillows on my bed. I took off my shoes and sat down on the other side, turning the TV on. I handed the remote to Jessie, not caring what we watched, and she flipped around, finally stopping on a show that looked like a French version of The Housewives of Beverly Hills. “It has English subtitles,” she said. “Is this okay?”
“Yeah, whatever you want to watch is fine with me.”
“This isn’t boring for you, is it?” she asked, biting at her lip.
“Not at all.”
She smiled, and we settled in, Jessie moving over toward me, our legs almost touching. I tried to tune in to what the characters were doing on the screen, but I was so aware of her. I was having trouble focusing on anything other than the heat of her body next to mine, her soft laughter, and the way she smelled—a delicate perfume that was sort of lemony, the same scent that had captivated me on the rooftop in Paris.
I didn’t know if I had unconsciously moved closer to her or if she’d moved closer to me—maybe both—but our arms were suddenly pressed together, and it seemed to me that all the heat in my body had traveled to the patch of skin that was now touching Jessie’s. It reminded me of the way we’d once lain together in that train car, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, as Jessie’s sweet voice took me with her to foreign lands, aboard sea vessels, and to deserted islands. Yes, this reminded me of then, but the now was also new and different. The electricity coursing between us was not a product of childhood, but of the man and woman we’d become.
I turned toward her, and sh
e moved until she was facing me as well, and for a moment we just stared at each other. She looked slightly nervous as she blinked and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. Purity. That’s what was in her expression. So unlike the looks of calculated lust I’d come to know. “This reminds me of when we were kids,” she said softly, and it surprised me that she had been thinking the same thing I had a moment before.
“I’m not feeling kid-like, Jessie,” I said, my voice raspy with the desire I felt for her, my brain cloudy as the blood drained south and seemed to gather and pump heavily between my legs. Her eyes widened slightly and then moved to my mouth and slowly back to my eyes.
“Oh,” she whispered. I wasn’t sure who moved first, but our lips were suddenly touching, her fingers had threaded into my hair, and I moaned as she took initiative, though slowly, tentatively, her tongue moving along the seam of my lips. I opened, and our tongues met, the soft sweetness of her causing my blood to pulsate hotly through my veins. I tilted my head and our kiss went deeper, Jessie sighing into my mouth as she wrapped her leg over my thigh. Oh God. The movement brought our pelvises together, my erection pressed firmly against her. For a moment I simply continued to kiss her, trying not to move, attempting to find the control that seemed to have abandoned me.
Jessie liked to kiss. She liked to explore slowly—it felt guileless rather than seductive, seemingly for the pleasure of kissing alone, without any thought about where this might be going. Something about that was so damned arousing. I was completely lost in her. Lost in this kiss, in her touch. I felt like a horny teenager experiencing sex for the first time, when the opposite was true. I was a man who had done everything there was to do ten times over. So why did this feel different?
As if Jessie had been waiting for me to move and refused to wait any longer, she let out a frustrated moan and rubbed her hips against mine. She tilted her body so my hardness fit into the V of her legs, moving her leg down and up slowly so I slid against that sensitive part of her. The friction was a blissful torture that directed my hips to move and thrust—to take—though I held back, trembling with the effort. Jessie broke from my mouth, letting out a gasping breath, and tilted her head back on a moan, rubbing herself against me and causing my own arousal to notch up about a hundred levels. “Callen,” she moaned, and I almost came in my pants.
I breathed against her neck, taking her scent into my body, holding back a laugh of utter surprise at my own response. Maybe this was what sober sex was like. Had it been so long? Although we really weren’t even close to having sex. We hadn’t even removed a single item of clothing.
Fuck, I want her. I wanted to strip her clothes off and crawl under these covers. I wanted to solve the mystery of the shades of color on the most intimate parts of her body. I wanted to fuck her in every position I knew and then invent a few more. I wanted to watch my cock as it plunged between her legs, coming out slick and wet with proof of her arousal. The vision swirled through my lust-fogged brain, and I wasn’t able to hold back the groan that seemed to pulse from my groin to my throat and out from between my lips, a tortured sound of desperate need.
Jessie’s hands slid farther up my scalp, and her eyes met mine. Her expression was a mixture of drugged and shell-shocked, and she seemed uncertain what to do next. A spear of pure tenderness shot through me. I’d thought before she was inexperienced, and I was even more sure now. I kissed the side of her mouth. “Are you a virgin, Jessie?” I asked in a strained whisper.
She stilled in my arms, blinking, the slide of her pelvis against mine coming to a slow halt. “I…Is that…? Can you tell?” She looked embarrassed, and though some illogical, primal part of me rejoiced, I mostly felt frustrated. Even if Jessie wanted me, she deserved better than having her virginity taken by a man who would walk out of her life in less than two weeks. She deserved the prince she’d always dreamed about.
I sighed, using every ounce of willpower to rein in my body. I kissed her softly and smoothed back a piece of hair. “It’s not a bad thing. I just don’t want to lose control.” Lie. I desperately want to lose control in her body. “And you make it far too easy.”
Her expressive eyes moved over my face, and whatever she saw there made her smile. I leaned forward and kissed the freckles I could barely see in the dim hotel lighting, and she laughed, gripping my cheeks and bringing her lips to mine, rolling on top of me. I smiled against her mouth and allowed the kiss to go deeper for a moment before pulling away. The soft weight of her over me, along with her taste on my tongue, was going to cause any semblance of self-discipline to spin away just when I’d gathered it back. I groaned, rolling her onto her back and looking down into her face. “Why haven’t you been with anyone?”
Her gaze slid away from mine momentarily. “I—I mean, I’ve dated. I’ve just never let things go that far. I guess I made my studies my priority in college and then the move to Paris and…” She shrugged, the tiniest movement of one shoulder. “I haven’t found anyone who…tempted me to get that involved.”
I stared down at her for a moment, a strange fluttering inside me. Some stupid part of me wanted to be that man, wished I could be, but I wasn’t, and it would be wrong to pretend I was. She was Jessie—Princess Jessie—pure and sweet and good. Even if the man I’d become didn’t have a valiant bone in his body, the boy she’d once known had, and I needed that small particle of me to take the lead. I nodded, rolling away and standing quickly. “Do you want some water?”
Her eyes moved to my still-tented pants and then quickly back to my face. “Uh, no, I’m good,” she said. I went into the bathroom and took a long couple of minutes at the sink, downing a glass of water and willing my body to cool down. I heard Jessie moving around in the room, maybe getting ready to leave. Thoughts of the long, lonely night in front of me, of knowing I was going to wake up and spend the day just waiting for her again, assaulted me. I was so tired but unable to sleep…I looked at myself in the mirror, my tousled hair, my lips reddened from kissing. I wasn’t going to have sex with Jessie, but I didn’t want her to go.
Returning to the room, I was relieved to see Jessie perched against the pillows. She’d taken her hair down and was running her fingers through it in an attempt to fix what our make-out session had done. She looked at me and stifled a yawn as I sat back down on the bed, turning toward her. “Will you stay with me tonight?” I shook my head. “Just to sleep. I know that sounds like a line, but I swear, it won’t be anything more than sleeping. I just get…” I took a deep breath. “It’s hard for me to sleep sometimes.” All the time. “If I’m alone I mean.” I sounded pathetic. Because I fucking am. “I understand if you can’t—”
Jessie had been watching me closely as I rambled, and she suddenly put her fingers on my lips, halting my word vomit. Thank God. “Do you have a T-shirt I can sleep in? And I’ll need to set an alarm.”
Relief flooded my body. “Yeah.” I smiled. “Thank you.”
She nodded, and I grabbed a T-shirt from my suitcase, tossing it to her as she smiled and closed the door to the bathroom. I turned off the TV and riffled through my clothes, wondering what I should sleep in. Thinking that what I normally slept in—nothing at all—wouldn’t work tonight. I finally decided on a pair of boxers and a T-shirt. Hopefully Jessie would be okay with that, too.
When she came out of the bathroom, she paused in the doorway, pulling the T-shirt down and looking uncertain. She opened her mouth to say something but then closed it, hesitating again before pointing at her cell phone sitting on the bedside table. “I’ll set my alarm now so I don’t forget.”
“Okay.”
She nodded as our eyes lingered, something flowing between us, but spoken in a language I didn’t know. It was like hearing a French song drifting from a shop as I walked by. The melody was elusive, the words foreign, and even as I was drawn to it, the music faded before I had time to turn around. She walked past me, and I paused, feeling confused, unsettled, yet still incredibly relieved she was staying. I ducked into the
bathroom, where I brushed my teeth and changed clothes.
She was already under the covers when I emerged, the TV and all the lights except one turned off. I got under the sheets and turned my body toward hers. She smiled sleepily. “Tell me about the music you’re working on right now.”
A lump settled in my stomach. “I’m having a little bit of a hard time with it actually.” I let out a breath. “Not a little, a lot.”
“Oh,” she whispered. She regarded me, her gaze sympathetic. “I guess composers get writer’s block just like any other writers. What do you usually do to overcome it?”
Fuck. Drink. Anything to shut out his words. I shook my head, feeling disgusted with myself. “Nothing that’s been helping recently.”
She reached out and moved a lock of hair away from my eyes. It felt intimate, unfamiliar. Something about being in bed with Jessie this way almost made me feel shy. Laughable. I’d done things far more intimate with women I didn’t even know and had never felt shy, not once. Yet lying here in the darkness with her, whispering to each other felt warm and…right, different, but good. Because it’s Jessie. Because she’s safe. “How does it work exactly? The process for writing a film score?”
“Usually I read the script or watch an unedited version of the movie, depending on where the filmmaker is in the process. Then I write the music to fit the feel of the film.”
“Ah. And what’s the feel of this film? What type of story is it?”
I paused for only a moment. “A story of redemption…love.” Not that I knew anything about either of those things. Yet I’d faked it before. Fake. You’re a fake.
“Hmm,” Jessie hummed, her eyes searching my face for a few moments. “Can I tell you the way I felt the first time I heard the theme song you wrote for Un Amour Pour Tous Les Temps?”
