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“I loved it,” I assured him. “But between working late and coming back here only to have you ravish me in the shower and again in the bed, it’s safe to say I’m a little tired. I probably could have stayed sleeping for a few more hours.”
“We have lunch with your mom today,” he reminded me.
I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. I loved that he remembered, and that I hadn’t needed to tell him about it more than the one time that I did. Jesse had proved, repeatedly, that I was an important part of his life. He made it impossible not to love him.
“Yeah. She’s so excited to see the both of us,” I told him.
“I assume you feel the same about seeing her, which is why we need to get up,” he reasoned.
“But we still have a couple of hours,” I noted.
Jesse’s hand on the arm that was draped over my body slid up toward my breast. Once he was cupping it protectively in his grasp, he explained, “And we’ve got a lot to do in those few hours.”
“Really? Like what?”
His thumb stroked over my nipple as his lips moved toward my shoulder. “For starters, I have to feed you breakfast,” he said before kissing my skin. “And I have to do other things to you.”
“Other things?” I questioned him.
“Other things,” he repeated. There was no missing how deep his voice had dropped and the innuendo in his tone.
“Mmm,” I hummed. “Other things sound like a lot of fun.”
“And they’re going to take some time,” Jesse explained.
I dropped my shoulder back into his chest, and Jesse shifted his body to give me the space I needed to turn, so I could face him. Once I’d managed that, I pressed myself close, slid my fingers into his hair, and suggested, “Then you better get started on breakfast.”
“Do you want to eat in bed, or are you going to come downstairs?” he asked.
“I’ll come down. I just want to take another minute or so to wake myself up,” I told him.
Jesse kissed my forehead and squeezed me a little tighter. I loved every ounce of affection he showed me, but it was the moments like this one, when we were together in his bed and he was being sweet with me, that I loved the most.
“Take your time,” he urged me.
A moment later, after giving me a few more kisses, he rolled out of the bed and made his way to the bathroom. When he walked out again and gave me a wink before he left the room to head downstairs to make breakfast, all I felt was happiness.
Happiness and joy.
Life was unbelievably good.
And if it hadn’t been for the one little thing I had looming over my head—the very thing that had forced me back to Steel Ridge—I wouldn’t have had a single complaint.
I hadn’t expected I’d get all that I did coming back here, and now that I had it, there wasn’t a chance I’d take it for granted. I’d never take him for granted.
Not wanting him to have to make breakfast all alone, despite how much my body wanted to relax in bed, I decided to get up and use the bathroom so I could join him downstairs.
But when I finished up in the bathroom a couple of minutes later, and had put on one of Jesse’s T-shirts, something caught my eyes in the corner of my room.
It was one of my bags. A smaller one that I hadn’t taken anything out of since I’d been living with Jesse. Seeing it at that moment, following all the good vibes that had moved through me that morning, I decided to open it now.
Lifting the bag in my hand, I sat back down on the edge of the bed. Inside the bag had been something I hadn’t used in years but also couldn’t bring myself to dispose of, either.
My journal.
For the longest time, I sat there clutching the journal in my hands without even opening it.
This book had held so much joy at the same time it held so much heartbreak. Unsure if I could handle this now, I considered putting it back in the bag.
