I closed my eyes.
Please don’t let this be awkward. If nothing else, please let him not regret?—
“C’mere.” I opened my eyes to see Jack’s outstretched hand and soft smile. “Let me wash you off in the shower, sweetheart.”
I took Jack’s hand and let him help me up, then lead me into his bathroom. He’d turned the water on, I realized belatedly. The room was warm and steamy, and?—
“Oh my god! Youdidget the rain showerhead. And the tile…” I stepped forward and ran my hand over the gleaming surface.
Jack wrapped his arms around me from behind. “And you thought I was just luring you up here to steal your virtue.”
I leaned back into him, letting the rumble of his laughter settle my nerves. “I was hoping you were.”
When we got under the jets, he pulled me in for another kiss. This time, it was lazy and sweet. His hands meandered down my bare back to my ass, where he interrupted himself halfway through a squeeze. “Shit, are you sore? I didn’t even think.”
“It’s not my cheeks that are sore,” I said, summoning a teasing smile. “I’m okay.”
“You’d tell me if you weren’t, right?”
I nodded. “That was… phenomenal, Jack. More than phenomenal.”
“Good. Good. You know, it wasn’t… I mean, I don’t usually…” He cleared his throat. “Sex isn’t always like that. That intense. That… meaningful. Christ, I sound like an idiot. What I’m trying to say is, I know what we did was special to you because it was your first time, but it was special to me, too.”
I buried my face in his neck and squeezed my arms around him as tightly as I could. “It wasn’t just special because it was my first time. It was special because it wasyou,” I said softly.
He picked me up and pressed my back into the cold tile. I wrapped my legs around him to hold tight while our kiss deepened, and the hot water jets continued to pummel us from every direction.
When we finally felt the hot water running out, Jack quickly washed both of us off with soap and dried us with thick cotton towels before urging me under the covers and following me there. We naturally came together again in a close snuggle with my head on his chest, where his heart thumped reassuringly.
His fingers toyed with my hair until I was on the verge of falling asleep.
“I love you,” he said softly. “More than anything.”
He’d said the words to me before, always in a familial or friendship way, but this was different. This wasin love. This was the shit Webb had been talking about up on that mountain. And for the first time, I felt like I had that, too.
So, I forced myself to be courageous. I leaned up and met Jack’s eyes. “I love you, too. I have for a while.”
“Is that right?” He bent his elbow up to prop his head on his hand and tweaked my nose ring. “How long?”
I grinned, propping my chin on his chest. “Well…It came on so gradually, I hardly know when it began, but I believe it mustdate from my seeing…that really sweet rainfall showerhead in your bathroom.”
He laughed out loud. “Did you just misquote Elizabeth Bennet at me?” he demanded, making a little noise of satisfaction as he pulled me more firmly against his chest. “We are a matched pair, Hawk Sunday.”
We are, I thought fiercely.We really are.
And if Jack and I lived in a movie or one of myPride and Prejudicevariations, this might have been the final scene, the fade to black before the credits rolled, the giant “The End” at the bottom of the page…
But real life wasn’t quite that convenient.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
JACK
“We are all fools in love.”
~ Charlotte Lucas
Makinglove to Hawk Sunday was the best decision I’d ever made.
