by Nicole Helm
Ack. Weird. For her. Apparently not him. Which figured.
“I have a few other words for it, too.” He stepped into his sweatpants and lifted them to his hips. Then he grinned. “Wanna hear them?”
She smiled back even as her brain admonished her not to. In the aftermath, they needed to set up some ground rules. Understand that that was a one-time thing, and now it was...over. It was their bad-feeling therapy or mistake or whatever, and now it was done.
End of story.
Jacob taking a seat on her bed, shirtless, self-satisfied smile on his face, did not say “end of story.” It said...well, things she couldn’t think about.
“Look.” She took a deep breath and crossed over to him. She’d made this bed, so to speak, so now it was time to lie in it. One-time deal. As awesome as it was, meaning nothing.
Nothing except now you know what it’s like and will forever picture him naked. Forever and ever. Amen.
Oh, crap, but yes, amen. Naked Jacob. Sex with Jacob. All very worthy of hallelujah status.
“Let’s be clear that—”
She should have known better. Should have known that getting close enough to touch meant he would touch, tug, pull, until he’d somehow maneuvered her on top of him, still clutching the stupid shirt to her chest.
She was on his lap. Oh, she shouldn’t be on his lap. He tugged the shirt from her grasp. She should have held on tighter, but it slid from her fingertips.
Still he didn’t look at her scar. Didn’t touch it. Didn’t ask questions about it. And it didn’t even seem purposeful. It was as though he seriously didn’t care, and that was so, so, so dangerous to believe.
Then she might believe other things.
But when his mouth met hers, gentle and coaxing, her defenses were already gone. Melted. She leaned into the kiss, sighing contentedly when his palms brushed down her bare back.
God, he was good at this stuff.
When his hands reached her hips, he pulled her closer to him, flexing his hips so sparks of heat centered low in her belly.
He wasn’t seriously hard again, because that could lead to...round two, which would lead to forgetting her whole one-time policy of screwing up.
He pulled her forward again. Ohhh. Surely twice couldn’t be any bigger mistake than once. Surely. Surely.
He kissed her neck, concentrating on the space right below her jaw that made it hard to do anything but arch against him.
“What was the expiration date on those condoms?” he murmured into her neck.
“What? Why?”
“And how many were left?”
Oh, God, she had to stop this. She did. In a minute. “Jacob.”
“I’m just wondering, should we hurry up and use them all before they go to waste? I’d hate to see you lose a few dollars when they could be well spent. Very, very well spent.”
“Should there...should there really be more times?” Which was a stupid question when she was tilting her head to give him better access to her neck. “I thought this was a bad-decision-to-make-crappy-feelings-go-away-type deal?”
“I’d like it to be more.”
Ah, crap. Bucket of ice water right there. She could ignore a lot of things for these pleasant downstairs feelings, but not that. Not...leading him on. “Jacob.”
“Oh, are you going to be sensible now? Because that sounds terrible.”
“I just don’t want you to think...” She wiggled off his lap because she could not think with his erection pressed all that close to where she would very much like it to go, even with layers of clothes between them. “You said you wanted some good, or whatever, because you were feeling bad. So, this isn’t starting anything.”
He reached out, twirled a strand of her hair around his finger. How she wanted to lean into that. To cuddle. Which was an alien enough feeling that she pulled away instead.
“So, what would be so terrible if it was the start of something? Because obviously we’re compatible.” He gestured to the space between them. “We have a lot in common, and before you bring up the fact that we argue all the time, consider that despite that we’ve been good friends for five years.”
“You’re right.”
“I’m sorry. Can you repeat that?”
She shook her head. “I’m not going to argue that we aren’t a certain amount of compatible...and, short term, it would probably be nice.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Nice? Nice?”
“But long term...we don’t want the same things.” And she didn’t like how hard that basic truth was to formulate in her brain, because all worked up, she had a hard time thinking beyond Sex. Good. More.
But there wasn’t more for them. There couldn’t be.
“Like?”
“Like...” Leah scrubbed a hand over her face. “Like, you want to find a wife and have 2.5 kids in a house with a dog and a white picket fence. For starters, I’m allergic to dogs.”
“So, we’ll get a cat.”
“Allergic.”
“Fish. Turtle. I’m pretty flexible in my pet plans.”
“Jacob.” She took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling. “I don’t want to get married. To anyone. Ever. And I don’t want kids—2.5 or otherwise. I don’t...want those things for my life. So, like, pretending this could ever be more is just stupid.”
He was silent. Completely still and silent. Her stomach jittered and she had to swallow past the nerves and fear in her throat. She didn’t go around telling people those things. It tended to bring up a whole slew of responses she didn’t feel comfortable dealing with.
Because it wasn’t about anything more complicated than a faulty heart, but she’d rather people think it was feminism or independence or selfishness over fear.
The silence stretched on and she couldn’t stand it any longer, so she looked at him. He had his poker face on, but he was staring at her. Intently. What he was thinking, she didn’t have a clue.
“Is it, like, you don’t like the institution-of-marriage thing? Or something else? Give me something to go on here,” he finally said.
And the way he asked—no, demanded—put her back up. “Why? So you can try and change my mind?”
“No, so I can understand why something this good isn’t an option.”
“Don’t try to conquer me, Jacob. I don’t want to lose your friendship, and if you try to take me over, that is what will happen.” She had no doubts about that.
* * *
JACOB FROWNED OVER at Leah. Shirtless and gorgeous and irritating the hell out of him in just seconds. “I’m not trying to conquer you by wanting to understand.”
“Why do you need to understand?”
“Because...” He stopped himself before he could say what he really wanted to say. Which was “so, if you’re wrong, I can show you you’re wrong.” But that was not the way to win over Leah.
Not that he knew the way. She made it all sound so final. No marriage. No kids. And not that he was ready to make that kind of leap, but she was right to say that was what he wanted for his future, and if they weren’t ever going to agree on that...well, then this...
“Jacob. It’s just... It just is. It is the way it is. We want different things and no amount of great sex is going to change that.”
“It was pretty great.” He forced himself to smile, to not let that depth of frustration and, hell, maybe hurt show. “So what would be the harm in a few more greats?”
She got that pained look on her face again. Pity or something way too close for him to be able to look at it. “Hey, I’m going in eyes wide-open. This isn’t leading to till death do us part. Got it. But, the way I see it, I’m still your fake boyfriend for a few more days and as long as Grace is lecturing me about how I’m too selfish and careless to be with you, I might as well enjoy
being with you briefly.”
“She didn’t really say that.”
He gave her a doleful look. “Her words. Exactly. Selfish. Careless.”
Leah’s eyebrows drew together and she inched a little closer. “You know, I love Grace, but she doesn’t see past your mask.”
“My mask? I thought I was an open book.” He grinned, without any feeling whatsoever. Okay, so maybe occasionally he donned a bit of a mask, but what was the point of pouting or acting hurt? It didn’t change anything.
Leah rested her hand on his shoulder, gingerly. He didn’t like that tentative touch from someone he’d just had sex with. It grated, but he didn’t let his mouth curve downward, and if that was a mask, so fucking be it.
“All the jokes and the smiles and affability? That hides a man who cares, maybe a little too much.”
He shifted because that was...uncomfortable. Wrong. It was wrong. Then why are you squirming like a kid in the principal’s office?
But she just kept going, her hand sliding closer, giving him a little squeeze, her leg brushing his. “And that, along with wanting to control everything and believing right should be rewarded and wrong should be punished... Well, that’s why you flip out when bad things do happen. Like with Grace’s...situation this year. You can’t hide that or pretend to laugh it away, so you go all lunatic.”
“See, here I thought you were coming to my defense, and now you’re calling me a lunatic.”
“No.” Her hand slid up his neck to touch his cheek, resting her palm there, her thumb dragging across the edge of his chin. “I’m saying you’re not selfish, because you care about how other people feel. Like right now, you’re pretending you’re fine and smiling when I know you’re irritated with me.”
Well, it was hard to keep smiling through that truth. And extremely uncomfortable she could see through that.
“And you’re not careless. You pretend to be, lest someone see how much you care. How much you want everyone to be happy. And that only slips when really bad things happen. So Grace is wrong. You’re the opposite of those things, but you give her reason to think that, because that’s the version of yourself you show.”
He looked at her, wondered that...she could just crack him open like this. See through him in a way he wasn’t even sure he saw himself, but she was right. He could feel the rightness of her words like a physical punch.
“Look, you spend five years with an idiotic crush, you notice things about a guy.” She shrugged, obviously uncomfortable. “And I wouldn’t have a crush if you weren’t a good, decent guy. But crushes are crushes and bad decisions are bad decisions, and bottom line, what we want is what we want, and it’s not going to change.”
“Yeah, and what’s another week or two of sex going to change?”
She bit her lip, chewing on it as she stared at him. “It seems like a bad idea.”
Probably the worst idea, but he didn’t care. He wanted to be with her again. A lot of agains. Besides, he knew how things went. He got involved. It didn’t work. Female party said adios. That was how his relationships worked. So he’d go into this one knowing that was what would happen.
He tugged her back onto his lap. “Indulge in a few more bad ideas before you kick me to the curb, baby.”
She frowned at him, but she was in his lap, straddling him, her hands back on his face. Her breasts pressed to his chest.
“For what it’s worth...” She took a deep breath, looking him right in the eye. The blue and green meshing together in a kind of swirl he could lose himself in for hours. “If I wanted different things for my life, for my future, you would absolutely be my first choice.”
That did nothing to make him feel better. If anything, it twisted the knife deeper. “How the hell is that something I want to hear?”
She smiled ruefully. “Isn’t it better than me saying you’re forgettable at best?”
“I’m not sure.” But he covered her mouth with his, because he was damn well done with talking, with feeling anything other than lust and orgasm.
She sank into him, and he knew he shouldn’t say it. Shouldn’t think it. Shouldn’t feel it. But he couldn’t help himself. “For the record,” he said against her lips, “you’d be my first choice, too.” In fact, quite honestly, all future choices seemed as though they’d pale in comparison.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LEAH COULDN’T REMEMBER the last time she’d woken up with someone. Maybe...Steve? And, jeez, that had been at least four years ago. The last time she’d dared hope something would...go somewhere.
A hope long gone. For good reason. She had to remind herself of that sometimes. Remind herself what she was doing by swearing off marriage and kids and all that...junk.
Saving those people who might be involved in those things from suffering the same fate as her parents. She thought she was older and wiser enough to make amends there, to keep herself separate enough from making them miserable, bankrupt, apart.
But lifelong relationships that required people live with her and depend on her... It would not be fair to those people. The worry, the cost, the just shit they’d eventually be subjected to.
The bad stuff that couldn’t be controlled, that wasn’t fair. Those things that flipped Jacob’s unreasonable switches.
Last night had been weird. Articulating all the things she’d observed about Jacob in the past five years had crystallized them, made it even clearer how bad this was. Because she’d known all those little pieces, but until he’d looked all sad and upset over Grace calling him selfish and careless, until she’d realized how little Grace understood...well, she hadn’t put all those little pieces she understood about him together.
And now she had, and her heart hurt. Because she understood him. She wanted him. They were...so weirdly good together, and yet, it couldn’t work.
All because her body was faulty to the extreme.
Which was a dangerous line of thinking. Because blaming her body had led to the whole almost-died-after-the-transplant thing in the first place. She wouldn’t go back there. Not for her parents or even for Jacob, but because she would be there all too soon without helping the transplant along its way to early doom.
This was her life. Good behavior or bad, so she’d just do what she wanted. That was how she’d operated since running away from home, and she wasn’t about to stop.
Jacob stirred, his hand brushing against her thigh before his eyes even opened, his fingers walking up her side as his mouth slowly spread into a smile.
“Are you sleep feeling me up?”
“Is that a problem?” he asked in a gravelly voice. Oh, that voice was yum. Of course, so was the rough fingertip tracing the outline of her underwear, back and forth.
“Nope.”
“Excellent.”
His mouth curved into a smile before he opened his eyes. Pretty brown eyes. Not a very manly description, but apt. The color reminded her of the polished wood at MC, all rich and complex. She reached out to touch his face, then wished she hadn’t when he rested his cheek against her palm. They really needed to focus on lusty sex heat not...warm, gooey affection.
“Now I am awake feeling you up,” he said, his hand venturing toward the apex of her thighs. “I assume that’s okay, too?”
“As long as turnabout is fair play.” She slipped her hand into his underwear, closing her fingers over the hard, hard length of him.
It took no time at all to have each other breathing heavily, and then Jacob withdrew his hand, rolled over her and reached for the box of condoms on the nightstand. He grabbed a condom and tore the packet open in what seemed like one fell swoop.
“You really don’t want those condoms to go to waste, do you?”
He rolled the condom on himself. “I care very, very deeply about your bottom line.” Then he slid inside until she sigh
ed. “Waste not, want not and all that.”
“Uh-huh.” He withdrew, slowly teasing her with tiny thrusts that did almost nothing in the sensation department. And the almost was kind of driving her crazy. So she pushed him over and climbed on top, guiding him inside and deep, just where she wanted him.
She took his wrists and pinned them to the bed up near his ears, but he only grinned. “You know I could flip you in a second flat, right?”
“Try me.”
“Mmm, let’s just keep doing this.”
“Or we could do that.” She moved against him, slow and deep, again and again until his eyes fluttered closed. It so did something for her that she could make him do that. Close his eyes, lose control. She was doing that. To Jacob.
So wrong. So damn right.
She increased her pace, chasing her own pleasure as fast as she could. He gripped her hips, meeting her thrusts, pushing deep.
“Leah, baby,” he whispered into her ear.
And she wanted to hate herself for orgasming over baby when she hated that endearment, but, well, her body wasn’t listening.
Then he did flip her, in about a second flat, and thrust deep, holding her tight.
She was a little afraid he was going to sex her into acquiescence, but there was too much at stake. So she’d take the sex and leave the rest. Yes, she would.
He grinned down at her, her wrists still pinned to the mattress by his hands, her body pressed hard against it by his. “Merry Christmas.”
She closed her eyes. “You have to stop saying that naked. I’m going to get dirty thoughts every time I hear it now.”
He chuckled against her neck. Oh, she liked his mouth there, the shivery feelings he managed to elicit with just the lightest of touches. A breath, a kiss, a nibble.
He rolled off her, then the bed, whistling “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” as he disappeared into the bathroom.
When he reappeared, she fixed him with her sternest glare. “Do not take this as a compliment.”
