His hand pulled the blanket from her body, revealing her naked form.
She broke the kiss.
“Tell me I won’t wake up alone this time.” She had a smile on her lips, her eyelids only half-open.
He kissed her again. Long, deep, hungry.
“You won’t wake up alone.”
He fell over her on the bed, pulling the blanket away completely so there was nothing between them.
He couldn’t think it, wouldn’t think it, but a weird sense of certainty came over him as he pulled her closer.
Certainty that this was no longer attraction.
It was no longer two friends or colleagues or whatever the hell you wanted to call them.
It was no longer sex.
He was in way too deep.
She shoved at the waistband of his sweats, electricity running through his entire body. He kicked off the sweatpants. Grabbed a condom from the nightstand. Stared down at her as he pressed into her sex.
Her mouth fell open as she took him, inch by inch, holding his gaze the entire time as her body trembled beneath him.
Oh yeah, he was in way too deep. And he only wanted deeper.
Chapter Ten
Vanessa walked around her apartment one more time, checking the oven, making sure the coffee pot was unplugged, ensuring her electronics were all switched off. She may have checked already, but she had a long day ahead of her and didn’t want to spend it worrying about her place going up in flames.
Okay, everything was off and unplugged.
She walked over to her couch and grabbed her backpack, tossing it over her shoulder. She’d packed it with her usuals that she always carried with her, plus some goodies for her parents.
She picked up her purse and heard a knock at the door.
Vanessa furrowed her brows as she walked over and looked out the peephole.
Jared.
She’d barely seen him since their last weekend together, only fleeting glances at Thursday’s meeting.
She swallowed, then pulled open the door.
His lips spread into a wide smile the moment he saw her. The smile was too much, it just might knock her off her feet.
He looked so happy to see her.
Careful, Vanessa. She wouldn’t misinterpret something as simple as a smile to mean more than it did.
“Why hello there,” he said in that velvety smooth voice of his.
“What are you doing here?” That sounded rude. Darn it.
“Nice to see you, too,” he said. Then he pushed around her into the apartment. He looked around the room, likely noting that everything was tidied and shut down. He looked back to her, eyes lingering on the backpack she wore. “You going somewhere?”
“Uh, yeah, actually. I am.”
Jared strutted toward her, his hand falling on her cheek.
Isn’t this what lovers do? His hand on her face felt so warm, vanishing a chill in her bones she didn’t even know existed. “Where are we going?”
She cleared her throat and mentally scolded her thoughts. “I’m going to my parents’ house.”
Jared’s smile didn’t waiver. “Great, I’ll drive.”
He pulled away from her and walked out the door, pulling out his keys.
For a second, she was frozen in place.
“Uh, Jared? You’re not coming with me.”
He spun around. She caught the stunning black sports car behind him and couldn’t help but stare. The car was almost as sexy as he was. Almost.
“Why not? It’ll be fun.”
She took a few steps toward him, unable to suppress the thoughts anymore. “What exactly are we, Jared?”
Cooking for each other, sleeping together, lingering touches, and now he wanted to meet her parents? She wasn’t crazy. This wasn’t how friends behaved.
He walked back to her, once again bringing his hand to her face. He gently brushed his calloused fingers over her cheek, her jaw, down her neck. She wouldn’t let him see just how much his touch ignited her.
Or maybe she would. Depending on his answer.
“We’re something.” His voice was a low rumble.
Her heart slowly rose to her throat. “Something?” What is something? “That’s a really creative way to say absolutely nothing.”
Jared laughed. Was he seriously laughing at her? “You always have to plan ahead, don’t you? Know every detail, every possibility. Your backup plans need backup plans.”
Oh, right. Time to make fun of her planning again. “There’s a reason I’m good at what I do, and it’s because I know every possible pitfall and plan ahead for it. So yeah, my backup plans have backup plans. Sorry I like to know what I’m getting myself into.”
She tried to move away from him, sorry she ever asked, but his hold on her neck tightened and held her where she was.
She felt moisture welling in her eyes. She wasn’t sad. Wasn’t even all that mad.
She was embarrassed.
“Vanessa, look at me.”
She bit her lip and hesitated. Why should I do what he says? She gave in and stared up at him. “What?”
“Sex with you is mindblowing. It’s addictive and hot and I can’t fucking get enough of you. Every time I have you it only makes me want you more.”
She felt heat rush to her cheeks, and somewhere else…
“But it’s not just sex anymore. I actually find myself wanting to spend time with you, get to know you. I want to know why you feel the need to be ten steps ahead of life. I want to know why you prefer to wear your hair up when you seem so much more confident with it down. I want to know why you chose history out of all the other subjects.”
His gaze on her was so intense, she couldn’t remember how to breathe.
“I feel like I don’t have to be the Jared Walker with you. I’m just Jared.” He flexed his jaw. “That’s something I haven’t felt in years.
“I’m not a relationship guy. It’s not something I do. But I’m also not opposed to it. If we go there, we go there. I’m obviously not doing anything to stop it. But I just want to enjoy the moment with you. I want you to be here with me. Not worried about the past or the future or anything. Just be right here, right now. There are some things in life you don’t plan. Some things in life you can’t have backup plans for.”
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
“You’ve been good for me. You’ve been structure. I haven’t made an ass out of myself for weeks now in the press.” He chuckled. “But maybe I could be good for you, too. Maybe I could get you out of your head a little, make you have more fun. Make you a little crazy.”
Now that was an understatement.
“So… we’re something. Something I want a whole lot more of.”
Vanessa’s shoulders fell. Jared pulled her to him and she buried her face in his chest, wrapping her arms around his muscular back.
They stood there for awhile in each other’s arms, a soft breeze rolling through the air and cooling her heated skin. The sounds of traffic ruined the sounds of nature, but she could still hear the birds chirping away in their trees, and that was enough. The strength of Jared’s hold felt like safety.
Something. She could be something with him.
“So you’re cool with me driving, right?”
She burst into laughter. “Sure,” she said between laughs. “You can drive.”
She couldn’t believe she was taking Jared Walker, billionaire philanthropist, to meet her parents.
But, she wasn’t; she was taking Jared. Her something.
✽ ✽ ✽
Vanessa’s parents, Katie and Steve, were incredible. They’d welcomed Jared in with open arms and served him one of the most delicious meals he’d had in, well, ever.
Katie sat across from Jared with her husband, Steve, at her side. Beside Jared was Vanessa, picking away at her dinner and smiling at her parent’s stories.
“So then, little Nessa decides she’s going to help daddy redecorate her bedroom.” Steve’s cheeks were rosy fro
m laughter, his wispy hair flying in every direction. “She colors all over the freshly painted walls. Crayons, markers, you name it. Destroyed.”
Jared felt himself light up with laughter, and turned to see Vanessa, hiding her face in her hands. He reached over and squeezed her shoulder.
“So, I took another two days to repaint the whole thing. And we remembered to remove all the art supplies, that time.”
“Oh, but it doesn’t end there,” Katie popped in. She had the same heart-shaped face that Vanessa did, the same high cheekbones and full lips. Her highlighted brown hair framed her face nicely, falling over her shoulders as she turned her head to Steve. “Tell him the rest.”
Vanessa bit her lip to keep from smiling, looking up at the ceiling.
Steve sipped on his water, then cleared his throat. “So now we’ve been painting and cleaning a week, right? She’s finally back in her room. We should be in the clear, ya know?”
Jared felt the preemptive fit of laughter building up in his chest.
“She runs into our bedroom at five in the morning, yelling.” He turned to Vanessa. “What were you yelling, Ness?”
Jared turned to see her bright red cheeks and amused expression. The blushing and mannerisms he’d loved so much seem to have come from the man sitting across from him.
“Daddy, come quick, it’s snowing!” She looked to Jared and bit her lip.
He raised his brows, then turned back to Steve. “Snowing?”
“It was the middle of August!”
Jared looked to Vanessa. She just shook her head and snickered.
“We followed her into her room,” Katie said, filling Jared in as father and daughter fell into laughter over the ending he’d not yet heard. “And she’d emptied five jumbo containers of baby powder all over the place.”
All three of them burst into laughter. It was so infectious Jared couldn’t help but join in with them.
“Long story short, she didn’t get back into her room for another week,” Steve said through laughter. “I repainted, again, and from that day forward Nessa was not allowed to have diaper supplies in her room.”
Jared cracked up, then turned to Vanessa. “You were a little troublemaker, weren’t you?”
“I was three!” she argued.
“Oh, she was a troublemaker, alright!” Steve said.
Jared held Vanessa’s gaze for a moment, something new flying between them. He didn’t know what to call it… but he knew he liked it. He liked it a whole lot.
“You must have some pretty amazing stories,” Katie said, calling back his attention to the rest of the room. “What was it like as a SEAL? I hear it’s some of the toughest training there is.”
Jared grinned. “The toughest, ma’am.” He felt himself beaming with pride for his brothers, his sisters, his country. “We don’t mess around.”
“Where were you stationed?” Steve asked.
“I spent most of my time in the Middle East, though there were some other random missions thrown in there. South America. Pacific Islands.” He thought back to the places he’d been. As a kid, he wanted to travel the world. As an adult, he wanted a home to hunker down in. Oh how things had changed.
“What made you retire? You were pretty young for a SEAL.”
Jared nodded. “Yeah, yeah I was.” He considered diverting the question, making a joke like he normally would. But something about the people around him felt safe. Because they were connected to her. And because to her, to them, he wasn’t a walking bag of money or news material. He was just a man. “We had a mission go south during the end of my last tour.”
He thought for a moment on how much detail he could bring himself to give. “I lost one of my brothers that day.” He took in a heavy breath. “Myself and two others made that tour our last. We stayed close, kept in touch. Mostly moped around and did whatever we could to readjust.”
It was harder than it seemed, going from a world where bullets flew by you on the regular, where it was kill or be killed, to regular day-to-day life. They didn’t talk about that during the training. They should have.
“I worked with a lot of security systems while I was there, so I started tinkering on my own. Ended up creating a software that revolutionized the way our government approaches cyber-security. I signed some contracts, made some money, branched out into the private sector, and it’s all history from there.”
“Wow, that’s incredible how you turned it around,” Katie smiled. Vanessa truly did have Katie’s smile. Warm and soft and inviting. “How long after did you establish the foundation?”
Jared felt more uneasiness settle in his stomach. “You know how I said myself and two of my buddies retired together?” They nodded. “Their names were Andy and Gavin.” Two of the best men he’d ever known.
“Things were hard for us after that last tour. We struggled to readjust back at home. I fell into my tech business, which then led me to some other debauchery. Gavin fell into studies, he would just stay home and read all the time. He took classes or whatever.” Jared didn’t know much of what Gavin did at the time, to be honest. Only what he’d been told. “Andy drank a lot.”
He could see the sympathy across the faces of Vanessa and her family.
“Andy couldn’t deal and didn’t have the resources he needed to help him deal, and he took his own life.”
Jared remembered every detail of that day.
He remembered walking into the apartment, calling out to his friend but hearing no answer. Carefully looking around, the creek of the floor the only noise breaking through the deafening silence. The sink was stacked with dirty dishes, trash overflowing from the can that stood against the wall.
The bedroom was pristine. The bed had been made, the drawers were shut and tidied, there wasn’t a speck of dust in the entire room. But the closet door was cracked open, just enough for the stench of death to seep out of it.
A shiver rolled down Jared’s spine.
Finding Andy in that closet, skin gray and eyes wide open staring back at him… it wasn’t something he liked to think about. Only when the nightmares came.
“The day after his funeral, Gavin and I announced that we would be pooling our resources to create The Walker Foundation. And that’s what we did. We’ve been running it together ever since.”
Silence hung heavy in the room.
Jared felt a tender touch of warmth as Vanessa’s hand gripped his beneath the table. “You’re a good man, Jared.”
He sighed. Nodded. Couldn’t bring himself to do much else.
A good man would’ve seen the signs, would’ve done something to save his friend who was so obviously drowning. I was drowning, too, though. When you’re doing everything in your power to keep your head above the waves, it’s hard to notice who else around you is also fighting the current.
Missing the signs was something Jared would have to live with for the rest of his life. But he tried to make it up to Andy, every single day, to do good in the world. He’d spent the years since doing everything he could to become that good man.
“This dinner was delicious,” Jared said, wanting the heaviness around him to lift. “You must be where Vanessa learned her cooking skills from.”
Katie laughed and hid her smile behind her hand. Just like Vanessa does. “Just wait until you have dessert!” She gestured to Vanessa. “It’s Nessa’s favorite.”
“Banana pudding?” she asked with excitement.
“You know it is,” Katie winked.
In that moment, it seemed like Vanessa reverted back to a little girl, clapping her hands together and scrunching her nose with the force of her smile. She turned to Jared, eyes crinkled from her widely spread lips and still shining brighter than ever.
He suddenly knew the feeling from earlier, the connection that hung between them.
Love. The feeling was love.
✽ ✽ ✽
Vanessa wrapped her arms around her mom, giving her a squeeze. Then she pulled back and hugged her father, being
gentle as she leaned over his walker. He patted her back and kissed her cheek.
“You two drive safely, alright?” he said.
Vanessa smiled. Before she could answer, Jared’s arm fell over her shoulder. “We will.”
Her mother’s eyes lit up at the gesture, and Vanessa couldn’t deny the butterflies that were partying it up in her belly.
“I love you guys,” she smiled.
“We love you, too.”
“Jared,” her father said, holding out his hand. “Pleasure meeting you.” Jared took his hand and shook it. “You take care of my baby, alright?”
Jared grinned and nodded, and Vanessa thought she might have even seen a bit of color rush to his cheeks. “Yes, sir.”
They smiled and headed out the door, hearing the soft click of it behind them. The night was dark, the sky polluted by the city lights and blocking the view of the stars. Vanessa sighed. Her parents hated the city, and she wished with everything in her she could move them out of there.
She wished she could do a lot of things for her parents.
Jared opened the door for her and she slid into the passenger’s seat, relaxing into the soft cushions of his car. Somehow, the car seat was more comfortable than her furniture. Vanessa chuckled at that as Jared walked around the vehicle and got into the driver’s seat.
He started the car and they lurched forward into the night, trees flying past them as they drove.
“Your parents are great.”
Vanessa smiled. “They are.” The greatest.
“So, you were a little troublemaker, huh?” Vanessa turned to see the smirk on Jared’s face.
She laughed and shook her head. “Yeah, so what?”
He looked smug. “Little miss law-and-order wasn’t always so orderly? It’s good to know.”
She sighed, leaning her head against the glass and staring at the blur of trees. All the parkways were lined with trees, making it seem like for a second, maybe you weren’t just outside such a big city.
But you couldn’t see the stars.
“I made a lot of bad decisions when I was younger.” She didn’t mean to, but… intentions don’t matter when the actions don’t line up, a fact Vanessa would never forget. “I wasn’t a good kid.”
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