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His voice is quiet and gentle, but it only makes me feel worse because it sounds like pity to me. It’s more than I can handle and the pressure cooker explodes. My eyes fill with water and empty, tears pouring down my face.
I purposely didn’t Google search any of his past girlfriends because it would’ve completely intimidated me. And now he expects me to expose the most painful aspects of my life, the ones I have tried so desperately to put behind me.
“You can tell me.”
That catapults me into rage and frustration. “What the hell do you want me to say, Jake? That he called me Pizza Face because I had really bad acne for most of my life? Do you really want to hear about that? Does it satisfy your curiosity to hear that I was unpopular and unattractive. That nobody could ever remember my name because they were so used to calling me Pizza Face? That all I did throughout high school is dream about getting out of this fucking dog year town only to come back broke and unemployed. There, I said it. You win! I’m a loser. Happy now?”
I am crying so hard at this point that I swallow a hiccup.
“Fucking hell,” he mutters, and suddenly reaches out, cupping his warm hands around my face.
Operating on instinct more than anything else, I automatically I reach up and take hold of his wrists. All my senses sharpen. I can feel his pulse under my thumb, the rhythm of his breath against my chest as he draws me closer. The scent of soap and shampoo and turpentine.
He wraps me up in his arms and holds on so tightly I can hardly breathe. And still, I can’t stop crying, my body shaking from all the emotion pouring out of me. It’s been pent up for so long, now that it’s been set loose it doesn’t want to abate.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers in my ear and plants a kiss on the side of my face. That’s all it takes. Just that one simple soft kiss is enough to make my legs weak. “I didn’t mean to push. I take it back. I’ll do anything for you to stop crying…”
In my heels, our bodies line up perfectly. Pelvises kissing, my curves buffering the hard planes of his muscles. I’m surrounded by heat and comfort the likes of which I’ve never felt before. But what sucks the most is that now that I know how wonderful it feels, I’m afraid of how I will ever do without it.
“I didn’t mean to make you feel worse. I…I didn’t know…I…”
“It’s okay,” I murmur into his chest. The tears have stopped, leaving me more drained than ever. “I’m just really mad at myself. I thought I was over this place and all baggage that comes with it.”
“I swore to myself that I would never make you cry again.”
It takes me a minute to press rewind and search our history. Then I recall the press badge.
“The farmhouse?”
“Yeah.”
A warm hand brushes up and down my back and every nerve ending on my body comes alive. “It feels like a million years ago…”
He makes a humming sound and the vibration travels from his chest to mine, my nipples hardening. If I was halfway to being turned on before, I’m all the way there now.
“I thought you saved me so you could make beef jerky out of me.”
One…two…three seconds of silence.
“What?” Then he starts chuckling. No actual sound comes out of him. It’s the soft shaking of his chest that tips me off. Squeezing me tighter, he says, “That explains a lot.”
He exhales sharply, his hands moving up my back and over my shoulders. They brush along my neck, and I shiver in pleasure. I could die from pleasure right now and he hasn’t even touched the good parts yet.
Holding my face, guided by nothing other than touch, he brushes by cheeks with his thumbs. His breath fans my face, and I hear him murmur, “Carebear…”
His lips brush over mine and pull back. It’s basically a tease. And nowhere near enough. This thing between us has been stoked to a fever pitch and one small chaste kiss is not going to cut it.
Standing on my toes, I abandon any doubts or sense of inadequacy and kiss him back. I dig my fingers in his henley and tug him closer, and he doesn’t need any more help after that. He slams me into the shelves, pins my hips down with his, and makes me feel how hard he is. Those sweatpants don’t leave anything to the imagination. I moan into his mouth and he takes it, kissing me with everything he’s been holding back.
Holy hell, Jake was right. If we ever do sleep together we will burn the house down. Better make sure it’s not on a holiday when the fire department is on a skeleton crew.
