Just One Touch - Leo & Jasmine (Crossroads Book 16)

by Melanie Shawn

  Oh, yeah. Holy hot tamale didn’t even begin to cover it.

  She felt her body clench and tremble violently, as if it had a mind of its own. And it did, really. She wasn’t running the show anymore. It was all her body. She was at its mercy, and Leo’s. And, while the thought of that should have been terrifying, it wasn’t. In fact, she’d never felt more secure than she did when she was losing control with Leo. Even if she knew that this was the last night they’d have together.

  More so, actually. She wanted to enjoy every second of this time with him, get everything out of it, surrender completely to it, because in the light of day tomorrow, her coach was going to turn back into a pumpkin. It was back to reality. But right now, right now, she could indulge in her fantasy fairy tale.

  Climbing the crest, about to go up and over, she arched her torso and used her hands on the back of his head to push his mouth forward, pressing even deeper against her.

  With that, she exploded against his tongue, her mouth opening in a silent scream as she was consumed by a powerful orgasm.

  It crashed over her, wave after wave, causing her inner walls to clench and every muscle in her body to tremble and convulse. The tingling explosion infiltrated every muscle and cell of her body, and sent her brain spinning so intensely that she wasn’t aware of anything but her own sensations, and the sound of her own voice filling the room, calling out Leo’s name again and again.

  He kept rubbing his tongue gently up and down as she rode the crest of the last wave, drawing out the climax as long as possible. When she finally opened her eyes, she saw him standing over her, gazing down at her with a look that she could only describe as love.

  Tears stung the back of her eyes, knowing that she was just projecting her own feelings onto him. Not wanting to think about her feelings, or his, she reached out her arms in a silent invitation.

  Thankfully, Leo took her cue, lowered onto the bed and hovering over her as his mouth covered hers in a claiming kiss. He simultaneously aligned his body with hers and thrust into her. His tongue penetrated her mouth at the exact same moment that his dick penetrated her body.

  She cried out, the sound muffled by his passionate kisses, her inner walls bearing down on him, reeling from the satisfaction of finally being filled up and stretched, as they were meant to be.

  Her hips instinctively lifted meeting his thrust for thrust, the angle allowing him to go as deep as he possibly could into her with every stroke.

  Pleasure whipped through her, causing her to get lightheaded with sensation. Desperation gripped her as she wrapped her arms and legs around Leo’s powerful, muscular frame as he pounded her, doing everything she could to anchor herself to the moment, and to him.

  She felt herself on the edge of coming again, and she could sense by the way his muscles clenched under her legs and arms that he was going to join her. Just when she felt she was at the precipice, he lifted his head and looked into her eyes as they shared the experience, she squeezed her muscles as hard as she could on his next few strokes.

  It worked, and when his body tightened and a growl escaped his throat, she knew it was time to let herself go. Closing her eyes, she released the sensation in her that had been clawing to get out, and they crested the peak of the mountain together.

  As she laid on her back floating back down to reality, she felt Leo peppering light kisses over her forehead, her cheeks, her neck, covering her with tender attention. Her breaths were still coming in labored pants as he rolled over on his back bringing her with him.

  Her body instinctively melted into him, her head resting on his chest and her leg draped over him. One hand ran up and down her spine as the other raked through her hair.

  The exhaustion from the day overtook her. Every muscle in her body was completely relaxed thanks to the luxurious bath, and the multiple orgasms. As she drifted off to sleep she felt him press a soft kiss to the top of her head, she thought she heard him whisper, “I love you.”

  But then she realized that she must’ve already been dreaming. That was her last conscious thought before falling into a sound, deep sleep.

  Chapter 25

  Leo started to stir, waking up slowly. Before he even opened his eyes, he sensed something was wrong. When he did manage to pry his lids open, he saw Jasmine sitting up in bed beside him, wearing an oversized T-shirt, her knees pulled up to her chest.

  He reached his hand out and spread his palm on her thigh. “Good morning.”

  “Morning.” She shifted so she was out of his reach and licked her lips nervously. “We need to talk.”

  Leo’s stomach dropped like it was filled with a lead ball of dread. Those words were never good, especially when combined with the expression on Jasmine’s face.

  He sat up and joked, “If you’re going to tell me you’re pregnant, I already know.”

  A grin pulled up on Jasmine’s lips and then slipped back down in the same beat. Nervous energy radiated off of her. She gulped and then opened her mouth but no words came out. So she swallowed hard again then lips parted, but still, no sound came out.

  Fuck. This was bad. He’d sensed something was off last night when she’d come home and found him on her porch. There was a look in her eyes that he’d never seen before. But he’d convinced himself that she really had just been tired. Now he was thinking that his first instinct had been right.

  “Just tell me,” he prompted doing his very best not to expose his own anxiety. “It’s okay, just say it.”

  “I don’t think we should see each other, like this, anymore.”

  “Like this?” He wasn’t confused about her meaning, but he needed her to say it for his brain to have any chance at accepting it.

  “I mean…obviously we work together, and live across the street from each other, but I don’t think we should keep seeing each other. Socially.”

  The morning had been derailed before he’d even had a chance to lay the tracks that would take them to the destination he wanted to go with her. He’d told her that he loved her last night, but she might’ve already been asleep. So his plan had been to tell her again this morning. He was going to make her breakfast and tell her what she meant to him, that he wanted to be with her, that he would do anything to make them work.

  Now, it seemed, she had other ideas.

  He ran his fingers through his hair and did his best to stay calm and hear her out. He needed to hear why she was saying what she was saying so he knew what to say to convince her that she was wrong. “Why?”

  “Because, I just have too much on my plate right now. And it’s not just me anymore.” She looked down as her hands covered her belly. “I have someone else to think about, and I need to focus all of my energy on that.”

  “You’re right, you do. But you don’t have to be alone to do that. I can help you, I want to focus all my energy on you.”

  “Leo, please don’t make this harder for me than it already is.”

  “I’m not making it hard. I want to make everything easier for you. I want to be there for you, to support you, you and the baby.”

  “No, you don’t,” she argued.

  “Yes, I do. I want to take care of both of you.”

  Her jaw tensed and her eyes hardened. She sat up taller and squared her shoulders defensively. “I don’t need anyone to take care of us. But, thanks.”

  Shit. He’d really stepped in a steaming pile there. She’d had walls up before, now it looked like Fort Knox around her.

  “I know. I didn’t mean to imply that you couldn’t. You are one of the strongest, most independent, capable people I’ve ever met. And I’ve met Oprah Winfrey.”

  His name drop worked, her eyes widened and for a moment her defenses dropped.

  “You did?”

  He nodded. “Gayle interviewed me for a segment on CBS This Morning highlighting Vets Across the Globe. We were at the Chateau Marmont and Oprah came to meet her for lunch after we finished taping. Gayle asked me to join them. I think she was just being polite bu
t I’m no idiot, I crashed it anyway.”

  “You had lunch with Oprah and Gayle?”

  “I did.”

  “What’s she like?”

  Leo didn’t need Jasmine to clarify which she she was referring to.

  “Magic.” He said without an ounce of sarcasm. He’d never forget how the atmosphere changed when she walked into a room. And it wasn’t just because of her status, it was her. “She’s charismatic, highly intelligent, and funny. Really funny.”

  And she doesn’t hold a candle to you. He kept that to himself, worried that the compliment would cause her to retreat back into her protective turtle shell.

  Jasmine stared at him slack jawed for a moment before she blinked several times and shook her head. He knew before she opened her mouth that his short reprieve of distraction was over.

  “But that’s another reason that this would never work.”

  How had he just helped her prove her point? “What do you mean, because I met Oprah? Was that one of your requirements for your future person? Never met Oprah? Seems pretty specific.”

  She sighed, and he could see that his teasing wasn’t having the intended effect of making it harder for her to dig her heels in. “No. Because of why you were being interviewed in the first place. Your work. Your life is not here. This is temporary. In a few months, you’re going back to your real life. There’s no point in continuing this because you’re leaving.”

  “No I’m not. I’m not leaving. I want to stay here, in Harper’s Crossing, and be with you.”

  “Since when?” Confusion swam in her hazel eyes.

  “I can’t pinpoint the exact moment, but I think it was at some point after you threw up on me and before I handed you a tissue when I made you cry.”

  “That’s not funny.” She shook her head.

  “I wasn’t kidding. From the first moment we met, I haven’t wanted to be more than a foot away from you. And even that’s too far.”

  She stared at him, her eyes searching his for answers. He thought, for a brief moment that what he was telling her was finally sinking in. But then she blinked and when she opened her eyes again, he knew before she even said a word that it wasn’t.

  “No. This wouldn’t work. We wouldn’t work.”

  “We are working. I mean, when you’re not trying to break up with me,” he teased, still hoping to break the tension.

  “I can’t break up with you. We were never together.”

  “Yes, we were. We are. We may not have said the words, but we were together.”

  Her eyes flickered with the recognition that what he was saying was true, but then she extinguished it. He could see that some of what he was saying was getting through to her, but it seemed every time he started to crack the door open to show her what he saw as their future she’d slam it shut.

  “You’d never be happy settling down here.”

  “Yes, I would. I would be happy here, with you. I’d be happy anywhere as long as I’m with you.”

  “You say that now, but that’s because this is new so it feels exciting. You said yourself that you always wanted to get out of here and that you were only staying a year.”

  “I changed my mind. You changed my mind. Being with you changed my mind.”

  “People don’t change who they really are. You would be miserable settling down. You’d start to resent me and I can’t be responsi—”

  “I love you,” he blurted out. It hadn’t been the way he’d wanted to tell her but she needed to hear it.

  “No you don’t,” she stated flatly, matter-of-factly.

  It was as if she had resigned herself to that being the truth.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “No, you don’t,” she maintained. “And that’s fine. That was never what this was about.”

  “Yes, it was. At least for me.”

  “Leo, don’t,” she said, voice clipped. “Just don’t.”

  “Don’t what? Tell you how I feel? I love you Jasmine. I want to be with you.” Leo watched as she shook her head back and forth as he confessed his feelings to her. “I want to marry you. I don’t want you to ever feel alone again. I want to be your person, your family.”

  “Stop!” she pleaded.

  “Why? Why can’t I tell you how I feel?”

  “Because…”

  “Because why?” He could see that every word he said was causing her agitation to amplify. If it was any other subject, if the consequences had been different, he would have dropped it. Seeing her upset was heartbreaking enough. Being the one to cause her to be upset was unbearable.

  But this was too important. The stakes were too high. It felt like this was life and death, because he didn’t know how he was going to live without Jasmine. “Why can’t I tell you how I feel?”

  “Because you’re lying! I know your ex came to see you yesterday!” she exclaimed.

  “Clancy?” This conversation had been confusing before, but adding Clancy to the mix made it confusing on steroids.

  “Yes, Clancy Grant.” She said as if that name meant something to her. “I saw her. You opened the door in a towel, hugged her, and she went inside.”

  Oh, shit. Now it made sense. He was relieved, in a way, that her seeing Clancy was what this was about. At least now he could clear things up. “Nothing happened between us. I didn’t even know she was in Harper’s Crossing. When I opened the door, I thought it was going to be you.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Her eyes hardened and he could see that she didn’t believe him. “You don’t owe me any explanation. Like I said, we were never together.”

  “Do you actually think I could spend the night with you, hook up with my ex, and then come back over the same night and make love to you?” he implored, hoping that hearing it aloud would make her see how ridiculous that sounded.

  Jasmine’s shoulders slumped and he knew that yes, that’s exactly what she thought.

  “It doesn’t matter if you did,” she sighed.

  “Yes it fucking does matter.” He hadn’t meant to cuss but his frustration got the better of him. “Jasmine, I love you. I think I’ve been in love with you from the moment I saw your picture on the wall at the vet office. Did I ever tell you that? I saw your picture before you came into work your first shift and I couldn’t even speak.”

  Her head was shaking back and forth, clearly not accepting what he was telling her.

  “It’s the truth. Ask Meg if you want to. She caught me staring at your picture. And nothing happened between Clancy and me. Do you want to know why she came to see me?”

  Jasmine was still shaking her head but he continued anyway.

  “She was at the wedding reception to do a follow-up story on Leah and Lance and the dog they rescued, and she saw me there. You and me. She saw the way I looked at you. She saw that I was different with you.

  “She said that she had to come over to see for herself if you were the difference or if I’d just grown up and was finally ready to commit. She said as soon as I opened the door that she knew the answer. It was you. You were the difference.”

  Jasmine was staring down at her comforter silently. He had so much more to say, but he wanted to give her time to process what he’d already told her. He knew it was a lot of information and he didn’t want to overwhelm her with what he felt and what she meant to him.

  When she finally lifted her gaze to his, her eyes had softened and hope bloomed in his chest. He could see that he’d managed to knock down at least a few of the bricks she’d barricaded around her heart.

  “Nothing happened?” The vulnerability in her question made his heart feel like it was being squeezed in a vice.

  As much as he wanted to reassure her, he couldn’t lie to her. “She kissed me, but—”

  “No.” Jasmine stood up and crossed her arms in a protective stance. “No, but. I don’t want to hear anymore, you should leave.”

  Leo stood, and started to move toward her. When she retreated back, he stopped.

  “Jasm
ine, listen to me, it wasn’t like that. She was leaving and she kissed me. I didn’t kiss her back. And then she said, ‘It really is over isn’t it?’ And when I told her it was, she said that she felt like Martha Shaw. You know, from The Notebook. And that you were my Allie.” Leo didn’t have any idea if he was even making sense, but he needed her to understand what she meant to him. “You’re my Allie.”

  “Even if that’s true, it doesn’t matter. That’s not the point. None of this is the point.”

  “Then tell me what the point is. Please,” he begged.

  “The point is, I can’t do this. I was a wreck yesterday. I could barely function. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t even have a conversation, all because I saw a woman show up at your door and you hugged her.” She held out her hands in exasperation. “Do you understand how insane that is? I can’t behave like that and be a good mom. What happens when we get in a fight, or you realize that you don’t actually want to be tied down? I don’t think…no I know. I couldn’t handle that.”

  “That would never happen. I’m not going to change my mind about you, about us. I love you, Jasmine. I didn’t even know what love was before I met you.”

  “I can’t be with you, Leo. I just can’t. You make me feel weak, and vulnerable. I’m sorry. I just don’t have it in me. I don’t have any more fight left. If you really do love me, then you won’t ask me to try.”

  Leo could see decades of pain in her eyes. He saw the layers of hurt, abandonment, neglect, and abuse that she’d had to survive. She wasn’t being dramatic or saying things she didn’t mean in the heat of the moment. She meant what she said. She didn’t want to be with him. And he knew nothing he could say would convince her otherwise.

  Just like Clancy had known that things were really over between them, he knew that this was the end for him and Jasmine. Things were over before they’d even started.