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Jesse got there faster.
I knew this because he lifted his head, looked me square in the eye, and ordered, “You’re returning that fucking air mattress.”
I bit my lip and suppressed a laugh. Then, I agreed, “Okay.”
Relief swept into his features just a second before he dropped his head forward and kissed me again.
ELEVEN
Jesse
I fucked up.
I lost my cool.
And it was all because of Sawyer and the way I felt about her.
When I realized that the door at my house had been opened not long after I’d left her there alone and she wasn’t answering her phone, I lost it.
I completely panicked, believing I’d made such a rookie mistake. In the minutes that it took for me to drive back to my house, I realized just how terrified I was. Beyond that, I finally had to admit the truth to myself. Sawyer had become something more to me than she already was.
There was no way to describe the relief I felt when I walked in and saw her standing at the top of the stairs, whole and unharmed. But that relief quickly turned to horror when I saw what she’d done.
That air mattress.
For a fleeting moment, I convinced myself that I had to do something to pull myself together and get ahold of what I was feeling for her. It was becoming clear that I was setting myself up for disaster, or worse, heartbreak. Sawyer was very obviously not interested in me the way I was interested in her.
She couldn’t be.
Not when she was coming up with a way to sleep separately from me.
God, that was torture. To see her in the spare bedroom with that air mattress on the floor. She intended to sleep there.
Without me.
To some extent, I understood it. We weren’t a couple, and we weren’t dating.
But that didn’t matter to me at all.
Waking up the past two mornings with her warm, soft body wrapped up in my arms was like having every dream come true. If I could have had my way, I would have stayed there like that with her all day.
It was a tough pill to swallow to know that she didn’t find it to be as enjoyable as I did, that she didn’t want to experience that in other ways.
I’d been craving having her body pressed against mine like that, but without all of the ridiculous clothes she wore to bed. I wanted to feel her soft skin against mine. I wanted to touch and taste the gorgeous curves on her naked body. I wanted to feel her hands in my hair and her fingertips on my skin. I wanted to hear her delicate moans and desperate whimpers.
If ever there would be a chance for me to have anything like that with her, we were going to need to talk about it. I was going to have to understand why she bought that mattress. Better yet, the two of us were going to have to discuss why she left Steel Ridge all those years ago without a word.
I needed to take some time to focus on ways to break down the barriers between the two of us. But panic set in, and all I could do was focus on the fact that she didn’t intend to sleep in my bed that night.
One look at her face when I confronted her about not liking being there told me precisely what I needed to know.
So, I decided not to talk.
I chose to do what I’d wanted to do from the moment I saw her standing in the Harper Security Ops parking lot.
I kissed her.
And that kiss brought us to now.
