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She made up two plates of scrambled eggs, bacon and toast and placed them both in front of the stools.
She was sitting on one of those stools, sipping her second mug of coffee when he came out of his bedroom, once again shirtless and only wearing a pair of old jeans. She fucking knew he’d look good in holey jeans.
Damn it.
These weren’t as clean as the previous pair he had on, so she figured he only wore certain pairs to work since they probably got ruined by working on cars.
His damp hair was only toweled dry, so it was still a mess. She wondered if he owned a damn brush.
He paused at the coffeemaker, poured some coffee into an old, chipped mug and then, without a word, came around the long counter to settle gingerly on the stool next to her. She shifted when his denim-clad knee brushed her bare thigh. She should’ve put on some damn pants.
“Shit looks good, Jem.” He forked a small mountain of eggs into his mouth.
“Are you done being angry?”
He lifted his blue eyes to hers. “Are you?”
“I think you know where I’m coming from, Chris. We share a similar past of which I don’t want to repeat.”
“Not lookin’ to relive the past, Jem.”
“Good.”
“Ownin’ up to my fuck up. Now we need to move on.”
She would like to move on, but... “It’s hard to move on when I was asked to come home.”
“You’ve been home before.” His almost perfectly straight, white teeth sank into the buttered toast.
What the fuck? Why was she imagining those teeth sinking into her inner thigh?
Good lord, coming home was making her lose her sanity.
She cleared her throat. “Only to appease Lottie. That’s it.”
“And now for me.”
She picked up her fork and gripped it tightly in her hand like a switchblade. “For Judd,” she corrected him. She needed to eat before her meal got cold, but her stomach was fluttering strangely like it was full of butterflies.
Or murderous moths.
She needed to kill those fuckers with bug spray.
“Judge ain’t in this trailer right now, Jem. I am. Dyna is. Judge wouldn’t have blamed you if you had said no.”
“I have time on my hands until I find a new job.”
“Still could’ve said no.”
She should’ve. Her nightmare last night was the same that she had whenever she was back in town.
“If I said no, where would you be right now?”
“Here in this trailer, strugglin’ on my own. I’d be lucky to be eatin’ a leftover stale donut at work, not a breakfast like this. That’s even if I went to work. Mighta been stuck here without anyone to take care of Dyna.”
“I’m sure one of the women would’ve stepped in temporarily.”
“Yeah, Jemma, one of the women did. You.” He took another crunchy bite of his crispy toast, then turned on his stool until his knee pressed against her outer thigh again. “You don’t know how much I fuckin’ appreciate it, Jem. Know you hate comin’ home. Judge told me how much. But you did it... For me. Even though you keep sayin’ you did it for him. Ultimately it was for us, Dyna and me. Can’t fuckin’ thank you enough.”
“Chris...”
He dropped his head for a minute and Jemma put her fork down, since she hadn’t even touched a bite of her food yet, and stared at him. She swallowed, trying to loosen her closed throat.
She tentatively reached out and brushed her fingers over the top of his damp hair. “Chris,” she whispered.
Stella had warned her last night about what a cocky asshole Cage could be. But Jemma hadn’t seen much of that. Not yet.
For the most part, she’d seen him act nothing but humbled.
But then, she guessed getting kicked squarely in the balls might take a man down a peg or two. And having a surprise baby dropped off at your work one morning was equivalent to a direct knee to the nuts.
Her lungs locked up when he slid long, warm fingers around her bare knee. She was still only wearing panties and that long tee, which had worked its way up to her upper thighs when she sat on the stool.
She’d had plenty of time to put on pants. Why hadn’t she?
When he lifted his head, he locked eyes with her and her nipples instantly reacted. And when he leaned in, her breath hitched and her blood began to hum.
With the one hand on her knee, he curled his other hand around the back of her head and pulled her toward him as he leaned in even farther.
Holy shit.
Holy fucking shit.
She tried to get his name out, to stop him, to tell him this was not a good idea and she didn’t want this, but nothing came out.
Nothing.
She closed her eyes and waited for the press of his lips.
Her eyes popped open when she felt them, but not where she expected them. They brushed over her forehead instead. He pulled back just slightly and whispered, “Thanks.”
