AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It touches me. How much he loves his place. It’s his home as much as mine. I press a kiss against his shoulder and let that be my response.
We lie in contented silence for a few minutes. Then I ask without segue, “What did you think when I first started coming to your room? Were you surprised?”
“Yes,” he admits, squeezing the soft flesh at the back of my thighs. “I knew that first time wasn’t planned, and I thought you meant it when you said it couldn’t happen again. I was crazy about you even then, but I told myself that one time would have to be enough.”
I lift my head to see his face. “You were crazy about me back then?”
“Of course I was. Didn’t you know that?”
“No, I didn’t know it. You were always so gruff and mean. If you were interested, why weren’t you nicer?”
“I’m not sure I even know how to be nice. And what the hell was I supposed to do? Admit I was obsessively into the teenage daughter of the folks who took me in?”
“I was nineteen. It wouldn’t have been inappropriate. Unless... I mean you weren’t into me when...”
He huffs through a dry laugh. “No, I wasn’t lusting after you when you were sixteen years old. I cared about Monica. I did. It was never an all-consuming passion between us, but she meant something to me. I mean, I noticed you. Who wouldn’t? You’re gorgeous, and you were always so smart and generous and... and fierce. But it wasn’t until after she died that things got going with me.”
“Oh.” I think about this. Try to understand our entire history with this in mind.
“So it was just going to be something I brooded privately about and never acted on until you started coming to my room.” He takes a handful of my hair to pull it back from my face. “I would wait for you. Every night. Even knowing you wouldn’t come very often. There was always the chance. It was everything to me.”
He’s never been much for opening up, so the fact that he tells me this matters. A lot. I kiss his chest. Then scoot up so I can kiss his mouth. Slow and tender.
“I didn’t want it to mean so much,” I tell him after I pull away. “I wanted it to just be a physical release. But it wasn’t that. I needed it. I needed you.” I snuggle down more comfortably. “I always will.”
“Me too.”
I smile at this and close my eyes. He holds me for a long time, occasionally stroking my hair and body.
Neither one of us falls asleep, and eventually he says in a different tone, “I was thinking...” He sounds almost diffident again.
I raise my head to meet his eyes.
“It seems kind of silly for you to sneak into my room every night. So I was thinking maybe we could just... share a room. If you want. You could move in with me.”
My eyes widen.
“Only if you want,” he hurries on, evidently misreading my expression. “Or we could move into your room if you’d rather. I don’t really care. It just seems practical if you want to spend every night with me. And we could give Miguel and Kate the other room. They deserve it. And they’re going to catch pneumonia going outside every night to have sex in the winter.”
I laugh at this and cup his jaw with one of my hands. “We wouldn’t want that, would we?”
“Definitely not.” His eyes get hopeful. “So you’ll think about it? Moving in with me?”
“I don’t have to think about it. I want to do it. I’d love to move in with you.”
“We can take your room if—”
“No. This room is bigger. I’ll move in here with you, and Kate and Miguel can have my room.”
He tightens his arms, squeezing me almost bruisingly for a moment. But all he says is, “Good.”
“Maybe this fall, after all the harvesting is done, we can work on converting a couple of the outbuildings to make more bedrooms. Since it’s safer to travel, we can probably find more building supplies. That way more people can have private rooms and we’ll have space for more people.”
Jackson nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking about that. I think we’re probably in good enough shape to do that now.”
“It’s something to look forward to.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “It is.”
