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When I’d picked him up Thursday evening, I’d told him to pack enough clothes for a couple of nights. I wanted to get him away from all that was familiar. His place, his work, and yes, Brayden. I didn’t like that that little fucker had managed to plant a seed of doubt in Jesse’s head, and had decided a trip away with just the two of us was exactly what was needed to get him back in the mindset I wanted him in. The look on Jesse’s face told me that my plan to isolate him wasn’t unwanted. Not because he suspected I was taking him there to reestablish I was the most important person to him, but because he thought I was taking him away somewhere romantic for a few days to get closer to him. I supposed I was, in my own warped way—and for that reason, I’d let him believe his romanticized notions, because they worked in my favor.
“Come here,” Jesse said, waving to me, and I walked up to stand beside him. Jesse leaned in close, handed me the binoculars, and pointed ahead. “Do you see? Directly ahead, there’s four of them.”
I brought the binoculars up and looked out across the Puget Sound, not really caring about the whales cresting the waves. Having lived in the Pacific Northwest all my life, I’d seen dozens of whales. What I was interested in was the man beside me and what made him tick, and apparently whisking Jesse Clark across the sound to Hidden Cove Island for an “intimate” weekend had been spot-on—he was glowing.
“This is so awesome,” he said, bouncing up on his toes to kiss my cheek as he slid his hand through the crook of my elbow, hugging into my side. I lowered the binoculars and turned to look down at his dewy skin and rosy lips, and while I had specific reasons for bringing him out here with me, one of the perks was most certainly having that face staring up at me. A face that was so familiar and yet so very different all at once.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,” I said, and brushed my thumb across his lips.
“Are you kidding me? This place is”—he looked back out across the water—“I don’t know, magical. It’s so quiet out here and peaceful. So untouched.”
Quiet…
Untouched…
Isolated…
Yes…it’s all of those things.
“I’m so glad you brought me here,” Jesse said as he rested his head on my shoulder. “It’s exactly what I needed.”
“Tough first week?” I asked, shifting around to face him, and when our eyes caught, Jesse looked away from me. I’d been watching Jesse long enough now that I was intimately attuned to every subtle nuance of his facial and body language, and over the last couple of days I had noticed something had been eating away at him. That had been another reason I’d decided to bring him here. I needed Jesse to trust me. To come to me when he had an issue. To see me as the one who could fix it. I wanted him to put his problems in my hands so I could crush them.
“Tougher than I expected,” he said, but then he flashed a bright smile at me. “But I don’t want to talk about that right now. It’s beautiful here. I want to enjoy it.”
I reached out and ran my hand over his damp hair to the back of his neck, and dug my fingers into the supple skin there, directing him to face me, and when Jesse turned his head, I said, “If you have a problem, I want to know about it.”
He licked at the moisture on his lips and stepped in close to me, then he arched his head back into my grip as if he enjoyed the hold I had over him. An invitation to my dark side if ever there was one.
“I just want to enjoy being here with you,” Jesse said. “You’re never this relaxed. Jeans, sneakers, and a windbreaker. Let’s just be for now.”
Though he was right about my attire, he was dead wrong on my being relaxed. His immediate responsiveness to every touch I gave to him made me want to drag him into the thick wooded area surrounding us and strip him bare—among other more depraved things—and the thought wouldn’t leave me.
I knew it was dangerous for Jesse to be around me when I was like this. That the reason he was up on this lookout by himself with me was because I’d orchestrated the perfect situation to make Jesse want to be there. I’d known from the first moment I’d seen him at the den that he’d bring to the surface desires I’d buried long ago for good reasons. Yet I’d been unable to stay away, and now here we were a whisper away from something I was desperately trying not to give in to.
