Cedric and I didn’t have sex. He hung around long enough for me to give in to his groveling, then the actual deed from beginning to end lasted five minutes maximum. Cedric said foreplay was not his forte.
Needing to wash down the bile his endless lies instigate before I add to the mess in JR’s beard, I chug down another generous helping of the murky dark liquid.
Regretfully, it increases the nonsense spilling from my mouth instead of ending it. “I guess some people will say I’m to blame for him straying.” I swallow an extra generous mouthful of liquid courage to ease out my next confession. “If I had kept him satisfied, he wouldn’t have looked elsewhere. That’s what his mom will start her argument with.” I groan. “Hell, my mom may even start with that. She’s all about women keeping their men happy.” I lock my eyes with JR’s that are darting between my ankle and my face. “Do you know that I’m the only member on my mother’s side over the age of thirty who isn’t married?” I gasp like I just found out Cedric and I are related by blood. “The horror.”
My focus shifts from seeking the slightest glimpse of JR’s smile to the bottle in my hand when a weird clicking noise gains my attention.
The liquor I’m downing like water almost resurfaces when I learn the reason for the noise. My engagement ring is clinking against the neck of the half-empty bottle.
The memento that was meant to signify my importance in Cedric’s life pains me more than JR undertaking a minor surgical procedure on my foot without anesthetic, and my drunken head is adamant it must be immediately dealt with.
“Here, hold this.” Alcohol sloshes onto the floor when my attempt to thrust the bottle into JR’s chest is thwarted by my woozy head seeing him twice. One is a mirage compliments to my tipsy head, and the other is real, but I have no clue which is which.
Perhaps I died in the wreckage, and they’re both a figment of my imagination? It would make sense as to why the widening of his eyes when I yank off my engagement ring makes it seem as if I know him when I don’t. His eyes, when not sheltered by his hair, are oh so familiar, yet still very foreign.
Things become even murkier when not even unvented alcohol can hinder my smarts. “Alcohol is great for killing bacteria, but a good old rinse of soap and water is actually the preferred method of wound care. Alcohol burns, which increases the risk of scarring and slows the healing process.” When JR yanks back the bottle he was about to pour over my wound, then cocks a brow, I stammer out, “Rarely anything you watch in movies or read in books is factual.” I nudge my head to the bottle that should be emptier than it is with how heavy my head feels. “I’d get more benefit drinking what’s left in that bottle than dousing my wound with it.”
With a grunt like he instantly believes me, JR hands the bottle back to me, then twists around to face the sink. Over the rim of the homemade brew attached to my lips, I watch him fill a wooden bowl with water before he drops a cloth into the suds-free bowl.
After returning my foot to his thigh, he squeezes the square of flannel in his hand before guiding the flow of water dribbling out of it onto the wound he just stitched back together.
It’s the simplest of tasks, yet so fascinating to watch. I’m usually the caregiver. I am rarely on the receiving end of the treatment. Furthermore, for the man the size of a giant, I’m shocked he knows how to be so gentle.
Once he has the wound washed with warm water, JR lifts his eyes to mine. He grunts again, but instead of me having no clue what he’s trying to say, I read the words he can’t speak from his eyes.
“Yes,” I reply, faintly bobbing my head. “That’s good. You did great.”
My praise shifts the tension between us. Instead of it being crippled with unease, it is brimming with sexual friction. Butterflies come alive in my stomach when JR’s focus shifts from my foot to my knee. He uses the cotton swatch to clear away the smears of mud that flicked up during our trek through the woods.
Although his touch is as mellow as a snowflake falling on my nose, it’s catastrophic to my insides. I’m burning up everywhere, and it has nothing to do with how close to the fire we’re sitting.
JR’s fingers are so long, even with his hand cupping my knee to ensure he doesn’t miss a smear of mud, his fingertips skim the sensitive skin on the inside of my thigh. The callouses on his fingers have me wondering what a beard as thick as his would feel like while gracing the same area. Would it feel prickly like a five o-clock shadow or as soft as a cashmere scarf?
I bet with the right angle, you could experience both sensations at the same time, and the knowledge has my thighs pressing together with so much urgency, JR’s eyes lift to mine a mere secondafterI’ve removed the lust from my eyes.
He watches my throat work through two hard swallows before he creeps his hand under my shirt with a suppleness a man his size shouldn’t have.
More than alcohol hinders my senses when he brushes the back of his hand down my panties. I shouldn’t be wet, but I am. I can’t recall the last time someone looked at me the way JR is peering at me now. I feel wanted—very much so—and the desperateness it instigates is undeniable in my low tone when I let my libido speak first for a change.
“Please touch me.”
His growl almost sets me off. It’s low, deep, and dangerous. It exposes his restraint is wavering as much as mine. With him having far less to lose than me, he responds to the tension thickening the air in the most brilliant way.
He pulls my panties to the side, locks his eyes with mine, then slowly inserts a finger inside me. The bolt of electricity his simple touch darts through my body is embarrassing. I nearly come undone with only one thrust, and the realization has me reaching for the bottle of alcohol he dumped next to my thigh to chug down a generous gulp.
When JR mistakes my wish for our exchange not to be over before it begins as disgust, he yanks his finger out of my vagina, pushes back in his chair with so much force it smacks into the kitchen counter, transfers my sorry ass from the dining room table to the bed, then hightails it to the bathroom.
“I didn’t… I wasn’t…” Come on, brain, think!“It isn’t how it seems.”
When the brutal slam of the bathroom door gobbles up my words, I sink into the ‘mattress’ before throwing an arm over my blurry eyes. I’d follow him if I could trust my legs to keep me upright. Since I can’t, I swish my tongue around my mouth, curse my stupidity to hell, then surrender to the alcohol curdling my stomach as relentlessly as the pain in JR’s eyes before he bolted away from me.
ChapterEleven
When the shudders wreaking havoc with my body the past hour become too much to bear, I scoot back, hopeful the winds whistling through the cracks of the cabin’s floor aren’t as noticeable on JR’s half of the bed.
With how things ended, I didn’t think I’d sleep a wink last night, but the throat-burning concoction JR gave me while suturing my foot knocked me out in under a minute. The drool on my pillow exposes I slept like a baby, not to mention the fact I’m waking up before the sparrows without the thumping head I was anticipating.
My pause of appreciation is cut short when my scurry across the ‘mattress’ ends with me almost toppling onto the floor with a squeal. JR’s half of the bed is empty, and the knowledge has my neck cranking back so fast, I almost give myself whiplash. I didn’t hear him leave the bathroom last night, but I assumed he’d eventually succumb to the call of the night.
