by B. Cranford
She cut him off with a stern but playful “Declan” and he alighted the Mustang with a smile on his face. Opening her door, he held out a hand to help her from the passenger seat and didn’t resist the urge to brush a light kiss on her freckled forehead. A barely audible sigh from her told him it was the right move to make and, as he shut the door and locked the car, he took a moment to think about how hard it had been to crack her outer shell, but how surprisingly soft she’d become once he had.
Sure, there’d been brief glimpses of fiery Jade, that spitfire personality that baffled him at the same time it turned him way on. But lately, she’d been . . . softer. Little sighs and small smiles and gentle kisses instead of over-the-top exhales and exaggerated grimaces and hard-pressing mouths.
Okay, so, the hard-pressing mouths would most likely make a comeback—and soon, if he was a good boy and got his wish from Santa—but they wouldn’t be angry or hateful. They wouldn’t be borne of a fight, but of a need to be closer, to kiss harder, to be consumed in and by one another.
He couldn’t wait for that.
“Come on, Freckles, let’s get a move on.” With her hand still in his, Declan led them into his building, up to his apartment and into the spacious, open place he called home. Jade, after closing the front door, rested one hand against the wall in the small entryway, and lifted first one foot, then the other, to remove her heels. Those yellow heels that he’d had in the back of his mind all night long.
“Better,” she sighed, aligning them neatly against the wall, where they wouldn’t be in the way. She looked up at him, a slight sheepish smile playing on her lush mouth. “Sorry, I love my shoes, but tonight, my feet need a break.”
“You don’t have to explain, you know.”
“I do know. I wanted to. It’s—it’s been a long week.” Her gesture said you know what I mean but the look on her face said something else.
What, Declan wasn’t 100% sure of yet, but he had some suspicions. And hopes. He definitely had a lot of hopes.
“I’ll be back. Make yourself at home. More at home,” he added, nodding in the direction of the yellow shoes which he now noticed she’d set next to a pair of his own shoes he’d left by the door.
Their shoes, side-by-side, looked oddly right. Though he knew it was, perhaps, an unmanly thing to think, he couldn’t help but appreciate the very simple, very domestic sight of her bright, happy heels next to his polished-to-a-shine Hugo Boss loafers.
She didn’t say anything else, but he felt her eyes track him as he made his way into his office to grab the box he’d set aside for the rest of their night. When he exited his office, he noted that while Jade was no longer in the entryway, her shoes remained behind. Not that he had expected her to leave, but it didn’t stop a wave of relief from coursing through him.
Setting the box down, he headed to his bedroom to grab a change of clothes. He’d be spending the night with her—whether in bed with her or on the couch, where he’d slept well enough when she’d been sick—so he needed something to wear in the morning. He approached his room, stopping in the doorway, the sight in front of him enough to make him to pause.
Jade. In his room. For the second time.
This time, he wasn’t naked and he wasn’t sick. More importantly, he wasn’t as unsure of her need, her desire for him as he’d been just a week earlier.
“Hey,” he said softly, not wanting to startle her. “What are you doing back here?” He made sure to keep the question, the tone light. The last thing he wanted to do was give her a reason to jump on him.
She can jump on me all she wants. Just not that kind of jump on me.
Declan knew he was essentially walking on eggshells around her, but given their miscommunication earlier, added to the year-long stand-off as a result of his idiocy, he felt like being intentional, deliberate, in his words and questions was warranted.
“I was trying to figure out your favorite team,” came her equally soft response. She turned away from where she was looking at a row of sports jerseys in different colors, with different numbers, from different sports. “But now I think I’m even more confused.”
“I have one from every player I’ve represented—in a sport that has them, of course—for every team they’ve played for.”
“You do?” The expression on her face was open, intrigued. “How come?”
“I don’t know, really. I got the first one because Wallace”—he strode over to his closet and pinched the material of a red jersey, sliding it out just far enough to show the “llace” of his client’s last name—“was my first signing. I was proud, excited. I wanted to . . .” He shrugged, not sure he wanted to continue. There was something strangely exposing about telling Jade about this collection.
“To memorialize it?” She finished for him, part question, part statement.
“Yeah . . .” He trailed off, not sure what was supposed to come next.
“A year ago,” Jade began, clearing her throat in a way that made Declan suspect she was nervous. Shaking her head, she started talking again. “A year ago, I’d have pictured you having these on display somewhere obvious. Unmissable. So everyone knew how good you were.”
Declan tilted his head, waiting to see if she would continue, but when it seemed like she wouldn’t, he spoke. “Fair. I’d have probably thought the same thing about me.” He tried to keep the moment light, but Jade’s brow was pressed down, a frown forming that made him want to run his fingers lightly over her face until the frown disappeared. “Hey—”
“No, just . . . I thought the worst of you. I mean, you deserved part of it.” The frown did disappear at that moment, only to be replaced with a pointed, you know what you did look that made Declan laugh. “Obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“But I’ve kind of been ignoring for a while that you’re not a total jackass.”
Declan pumped his fist. “Yes, progress,” he exclaimed, smiling brightly at the way his over-the-top gesture made Jade tip her head back and laugh.
“Don’t go getting a big head. I might not hate you anymore, but that doesn’t mean I like you.”
“If you don’t like me, then . . .” He looked at her in question, enjoying the way her hazel eyes shone with something close to happiness, the way her entire body looked relaxed as it never seemed to be around him.
“Then I’m starting to tolerate you.” Her tone of voice was regal. Like she was rewarding him with the gift of her tolerance, which, if he was completely honest, she pretty much was.
He’d take any progress he could get.
He didn’t respond. Once again, they were experiencing a moment he didn’t want to break. She stood barefoot, dressed up, looking more beautiful than ever before, in his bedroom. He was in the doorway, torn between wanting to step closer to her and wanting to give her space, wanting to make sure she had no reason to doubt him.
Their eyes locked. Despite the space between them, Declan felt the intimacy of it. He could have been closer physically, for sure. But he didn’t need to close that distance to know that right then, they were finally, finally getting somewhere.
I’m starting to tolerate you.
Talk about an understatement. Jade knew she was more than tolerating Declan these days. She was actually enjoying his company, though he still had his moments. But even those were fewer and farther between.
Damn him.
“Are you ready?” She looked down as she spoke, seeing what, if anything he was holding. Nothing. “I thought you were getting something?”
“It’s out here.” He gestured over his shoulder as he spoke, and Jade simply nodded. “I’m just going to . . .” He trailed off and kept looking at her.
He’d been staring more or less since they’d started talking and it wasn’t until that moment that Jade fully processed that they were still standing in his room. Not that she hadn’t been there before—like she would ever forget seeing him naked because, sick or not, it had been a moment that deserved to be trotted out
and appreciated from time to time. But, this time, the atmosphere was different.
Charged.
Electric.
Tense.
Jade took a step closer, and Declan mirrored her action. Once. Twice. Three times, until they stood before each other, that charged, electric tension giving off sparks almost visible in the minute space between them.
“I want to kiss you, Freckles.”
“I want you to stop calling me Freckles, Jackass.”
He smirked, but it didn’t stop him from leaning closer, she noted. Without seeing anything to indicate what he had planned, Jade felt herself pulled closer still, until her body could absorb the heat of his, until the mouthwatering smell of him invaded her nostrils and sent a message to the ache between her legs that this moment was mere seconds away from all-out explosion.
A rush of wetness, a sigh of need.
“Dec . . .” Her voice trailed off as Declan lifted a single finger to the hollow at the base of her neck and drew it slowly—so deliciously slowly—up and over her chin before resting it against her lips.
“Shhh, sweetheart. Think you can manage not to ruin this with that mouth of yours? Because I have something else it could be doing.”
She rolled her eyes at him, but where in the past she’d have raged and ranted and yeah, used her mouth to let him know, in no uncertain terms, that he was being a dick, instead Jade parted her lips and gave him just the tip of her tongue.
A small, barely noticeable flick of her tongue and her mouth verily exploded with flavor.
“I want to kiss you,” he repeated, leaving off, she noticed, the Freckles that she still pretended to hate but was coming around to.
Every time it fell from his lips, the taunts of her classmates became a little quieter, a little more distant. They were beginning to fade into the past where they belonged, and the word was beginning to lose its power over her.
Only . . . We both know that’s not true, her brain helpfully supplied. Because it gives him power over you.
You too, she retorted, before forcing her mind into silence and acting.
She didn’t nod in permission and she certainly didn’t passively wait for him to lean down and finish what he’d started with his words. No, not Jade Miller. She wanted him to kiss her, too, and she wasn’t going to be the woman that held off, demurred. Instead, with her yellow heels still at the front door, she rose as high as she could on her toes and began to press soft kiss after soft kiss along Declan’s jaw, knowing that at any moment he would do one of two things.
Lower his head, giving her access to his mouth.
Pick her up and bring them face-to-face, giving her access to his mouth.
It was a win-win as far as Jade was concerned because it ended with their lips doing what she was beginning to think they were made to do. Kiss. Sip. Lick. Press. Taste. Kiss.
But instead of picking option A or option B, Declan opted for option C.
The C, she discovered, stood for clit, and Declan found hers with an ease that made something in her brain fire. She didn’t even realize she’d given him a third choice, but before she lost all common sense, she found she’d unconsciously spread her feet wider, angled her body so that his hand was right there, right where she wanted it.
She’d asked him silently for something she hadn’t really known she’d needed. He’d answered easily, giving it to her because that’s what he did.
A memory. A glimpse of his desperation and her own. A dark, small room with reams of paper and boxes of pencils.
The smell of sex and the sounds of bodies meeting, hard and fast and driven by nothing more than carnal lust and base need.
“Need, need,” she chanted as his hand, which had moved under both her dress and her panties as she kept worshipping his killer jaw with her lips, toyed with the bundle of nerves at her core.
“I know,” was all he whispered in reply, a look on his face that told Jade that he was hurting in a way that she could identify with. He needed her.
Need. Need. Need.
It was a chant in her head, as she tried to walk him towards his bed, tried to use his big body against him to get him spread out on the red quilt that looked just right for bunching up in hands that were clenched in pleasure.
First, she planned, I’ll get him on the bed. Then, I’ll climb on him and take what I need. Take it, because it belongs to me.
In the recesses of her mind, she knew her thoughts were at the same caveman level she accused Declan of stooping to time and again, but she was past the point of caring. His finger was still playing with her, giving her enough to burn for him but not enough to scale to her peak and reach the climax that was so close.
“So close,” she spoke aloud, her mouth betraying her thoughts. She was too far gone, too lost in the moment, though, to care. She wanted Declan to know she was close. She wanted him to recognize that she only needed a little more pressure, a little more speed.
Suddenly, the sensation disappeared. Her body jolted from the shock of being abandoned, her lips taking a moment to realize they were kissing not his jaw but the air where Declan had stood, but was no longer.
“Declan?” Tears formed in her eyes, the idea of being left behind in such a vulnerable, open moment sending a stab of pain and a rush of annoyance to her heart. “What happened?”
He was seated on the bed, his eyes trained on hers, dark with desire and regret?
Does he regret this already?
“I didn’t bring you here for this,” he started, but before he could continue, Jade was shaking her head in denial and stepping backwards. Away from him and closer to the door. Away from the bed she’d been on a mission to get Declan into—with her. “Jay, I—”
Jade turned once the edge of the doorway appeared in her peripheral vision and tried to leave the room, the moment, the hurt behind. But an arm wrapped around her waist, holding her steady, denying her departure.
“Let me go, now.” She mustered as much anger, as much demand in her words as she could, but even to her own ears, it sounded weak.
Defeated.
“I will, I will,” he gentled her, “but not before you know that stopping just now had nothing to do with not wanting you, and everything to do with wanting you too much.”
Jade attempted to spin in Declan’s arms, his words a mess of meaning that she couldn’t make heads or tails of, but it wasn’t until his arm slackened and then released her that she was able to spin and face him. “And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Just that I didn’t ask you to come up here so I could make you . . . so I could make you . . .” He looked lost for words, and it was a sight Jade had never thought to see.
He was never lost for words. At least, never around her.
“So you could make me come? I know you didn’t, so why is this”—she gestured wildly back and forth between them—“a problem?”
“After earlier, I can’t have you thinking that this is all I want from you.” His words were firm. His face blazing with the stupid, misguided kind of honesty that left her clit swollen, her heart racing and her temper flaring.
“I cannot fucking figure you out,” she tried to yell at him. Instead, the words that came out were a mumble. “You want me, you don’t want me. You ask for sex, you’re not really asking for sex. What, what, what is going on here?”
Silence.
With only the sounds of her heavy-breathing and his joining together, silence descended.
Then, he snorted. “You can’t figure me out? I swear, I get whiplash from you sometimes.” He shook his head, and continued, “But we’re starting something tonight, you and I. And I’m not going to let you find an excuse later on to say you don’t or didn’t want it. I’m not going to mess it all up for a quickie in my bed, only to be left with the memory of you here and nothing else. I know you’re skittish, and I know you’re not ready to trust me yet. I know you think all I want from you is a good time, but you’re wrong. I want more.” He paused, ra
king his fingers through the dirty blond hair on his head, and Jade stilled, the anguish on his face as he bled honesty in front of her making her stop and think about every word he was saying.
I want more. How many times had he said or implied that over the course of a year? How many ways had he tried to show her? She didn’t know. It could be none or two hundred or more, one for every day between their first failed date and now. She wouldn’t know, because she hadn’t been listening.
But right here, right now? She was listening.
Finally listening.
“I want to take you back to Brighton and Sebastian’s and sit on their sofa and tell you stories about when Seb and I were kids. About helping Brighton move into her place and then out of it again. I have photos and memories and embarrassing childhood shit in a box to share with you so you know you can count on me, that I won’t leave. I want to laugh with you over the stupid things I’ve done in my life that led me here, to this moment, baring my soul to a woman who still thinks I’m nothing but some kind of asshole who doesn’t realize what a gift she is.”
“Jackass,” she murmured, surprising herself. She was supposed to be listening, instead, she found herself correcting him.
“Huh, what?”
“I called you Jackass, not asshole. And now, I d-don’t know how to stop. But I don’t think you are one. Not . . . usually. Like, some of the time, yeah. But most of the time, I’m just kind of struck dumb by you and what you make me feel. Especially when you’re being nice to me and I’m trying to think of ways to push you back, push you away.”
“Oh.” His face slackened slightly, like he was trying to figure out what she was saying, and what it meant for them.
“Yeah.”
“Well, anyway—”
“No anyway. I get it. I don’t get it get it, but I get it, you know?” She nodded in encouragement, hoping he was picking up what she was putting down but . . .
“No.”
“I didn’t want you to stop. I wasn’t thinking about you trying to get in my panties or using me for sex. I was wondering why you were taking so long to get me there and then you stopped. It was kind of cruel.” She moved a little closer again, reaching for Declan without realizing it. “But I get it now. I think you’re an idiot and I’m not too happy about being denied, but I get it.”
