Chapter 13
Chapter 13
The days slipped past each other like grains of sand through the narrow waist of an hourglass. The words did too. Page by page, week by week, Jaime and Scarlett had toiled away, and they were close to finishing the scripts for Queen’s Kiss .
They had worked together well, at least once Jaime had adjusted himself to the reality of being madly attracted to his cowriter.
“How much longer do you think we have?” Scarlett asked as she gathered the dishes from the table after dinner one night.
Early on, she would’ve asked that question eagerly. Now, it was careful, as if she were worried about how he was going to answer.
In the moments when he’d thought he understood her the best, he’d wanted to believe it was because she wanted him just as much and she’d needed the cover of knowing she wasn’t alone in her neediness. But he’d never been certain if that was a delusion or not.
You just want her to be worried.
Jaime was loading the dishwasher and trying to come up with more work for them to do—and failing at the second thing. They were on the cusp of finishing, and unfortunately, he’d set up too many redundancies for Scarlett to believe they’d had a catastrophic file failure.
Damn cloud storage.
“Three days. Maybe four.”
“I ought to start looking at flights.” Scarlett’s tone was strained.
Or maybe Jaime hoped it was strained. He’d gone from admitting he wanted her back to trying to pretend he didn’t. After her declaration that the one who got away was a mirage and they needed to move on, he’d been reduced to looking for a crumb of possibility in everything she said, searching for some tiny sign that maybe she was finding it as hard to take her advice as he was.
“What are you going to do when you get back to New York?” he asked, trying to sound casual, without any hint of his inner panic.
“Start studying for Stavanger.”
Before Jaime consciously formed the words, an answer was in his head: You could study for the tournament in Musgrove . Jaime still had a lot of work to do to take their first-pass scripts and turn them into a plan for shooting the series. There would be loads of preproduction meetings, casting sessions, location scouting—she ought to weigh in on all that as a producer on the show.
But Jaime couldn’t think of how to word a pitch so it wouldn’t sound ridiculously needy. And realistically, it all boiled down to the fact that he didn’t want Scarlett to leave him. If he said anything other than Don’t go, I like having you here , even if only inside his head, it would be a self-serving lie, and they’d spent enough time lying to each other for a lifetime.
“You looking forward to competing again?” he asked instead.
“I guess. Right now, the prospect feels ... exhausting. But at the end of the day, I am really competitive. Once I get in the groove of preparing, the desire to win will carry me.”
That much he believed.
“Good luck.” But his words were as hollow as a drum. Jaime did wish her luck, but the house was going to feel damn empty without her. Everything was going to be so drab when she got into her rental car and left Musgrove in the dust again.
When the final dish was stowed in the dishwasher, Scarlett and Jaime navigated the now familiar mild awkwardness of saying good night to each other. The first few weeks, he’d talked her into watching movies with him, but when you turned off the television, you were left sitting there in the dark together. Sitting, in a moment when, in the past, they would’ve found a way to fill the time. A very sexy way.
Now, Jaime had to fill the space with his heated imaginings, which were a sucky substitute.
“I’m going to bed,” Scarlett said a little too sharply, right as he said, “I think I’ll sit outside for a bit.”
Well, that took care of that. With any luck, it would be freezing out, and Jaime would be able to put his libido into a state of semihibernation. But when Jaime settled himself on the porch, where it was brisk but not cold enough to settle himself down, with only the stars and a beer to keep him company, the loneliness didn’t last.
Approximately seven minutes after he’d sunk into one of the Adirondack chairs, Scarlett’s voice came from the door leading from the kitchen to the porch. “Jaime?”
She hadn’t turned on the overhead lights, but the LED displays for the stove and the microwave had her hair sparkling in spots.
“Out here.”
Her bare feet were soft on the deck as she crossed over to him.
“Where’s your sweater?” As she got closer, he could see that she hadn’t put on that soft-looking lumpy cardigan she’d worn almost every morning while they’d written.
“I’ll only be a minute. I just wanted to ask you something. I was thinking—wait, what was that?” She twisted away from him, her arms crossing over her chest.
That made sense. His reflex was to protect her magnificent cleavage first too.
“An owl.”
Scarlett turned back to him, her eyes wide and incredulous. “Honestly?”
“Yeah, there are great horned owls around here. I see them flying sometimes.”
They were massive, with bodies nearly as long as a toddler’s. Jaime had almost pissed himself the first time one had swooped overhead when he’d been out here, but if he said that, it would be a steroid for her fears.
He changed the subject back. “What did you want to ask me?” That came out soft. Everything with Scarlett and Jaime was soft now. It was as if they’d stripped off their prickles along with their armor after she’d threatened to go back to New York. She’d said they ought to give up on the fantasy of the past, but maybe—and here was delusional Jaime again—that meant there was the reality of the present. The reality of two bruised, mature people finding their way back to each other.
They’d certainly figured out how to be themselves again. Their grown-up selves, sure, but they were no longer posturing the way they’d been when Scarlett had first arrived in Musgrove. And maybe they weren’t mad anymore. Or at least Jaime wasn’t mad.
Maybe, maybe, maybe : it was the refrain of a hundred pop songs, an idea that got repeated because there was nothing more tantalizing than the idea that something could be.
Or in Scarlett and Jaime’s case, that something could be again.
“I can’t remember.” Scarlett had turned around, away from him, and she was still scanning the trees for the source of the noise. As if she could protect herself if she just knew where the owl was.
Jaime set his beer on the arm of the chair and stood up. “Should I get you some night vision goggles?”
“Do you have some?”
Before he could answer, the owl hooted again, and Scarlett backed straight into Jaime’s chest. Her hair rubbed against his cheek, smelling like herbs and spices, with vanilla as the creamy background.
Christ, he’d missed the scent.
Jaime wrapped an arm over her neck, keeping her close. Comforting herself and himself at the same time. “There’s nothing to be scared of.”
“It’s a giant predatory bird . What’s not to be scared of?”
The pounding in Jaime’s ribs, maybe, which he’d spent weeks trying to stop. Trying to ignore. But his feelings weren’t going away, and it would be easier to disregard a tornado. Some things were so large, so real, that you couldn’t deny them. This was one of them.
“Come on, killer,” he said, towing Scarlett toward the house.
She matched her strides to his, and the brush of her ass against his pelvis was obnoxiously arousing.
Why did this woman have to be his match in every way?
And why, once he’d managed to get the door open and the two of them through it, did she have to turn and throw her arms around his neck and nestle into his chest? Why did that have to split him open, letting all the tenderness he had for her spill out as surely as his guts would if she sliced him from hip to hip?
“ Scarlett. ” It was a warning and a promise and a question. Two syllables that contained everything.
Since the day she’d challenged him to that match of strip chess, they’d been on a collision course with this moment. When the reasons why they shouldn’t fall into each other’s arms grew too loud to ignore. When the present and the past blurred into one stream of wanting.
When Scarlett raised her head and pressed her mouth to his, it was everything he’d been hoping she’d do, and everything he’d been terrified she never would.
Her lips were ... so soft. Too soft, really, for how smart and sharp her mouth could be. Too soft for the force with which she was pressing into him. How could something that supple be that strong?
Witchcraft. It was the only explanation.
The potency of their first kiss after so long told him she hadn’t kissed him by accident, instead matching his own surging certainty. This wasn’t a glancing brush, or a thank-God-we-survived-the-killer-owl buss. No, this kiss was a riptide, yanking Jaime out of his kitchen, a place of rules and rationality and good decisions, and tossing him into a churning sea.
He was so goddamn grateful that she’d done it, but oh Lord, this was going to hurt. He could still summon a lick of how it had felt when she’d left before. His heart ached at the memory—and the premonition of what would inevitably happen again.
Except before Jaime got his nose bloodied and his heart shattered a second time, it was going to be wonderful. After so long, after so much, he needed some wonderful. Whatever the cost, he was going to seize this while it was on offer.
Jaime made a needy noise in the back of his throat, midway between a moan and a growl, and he grabbed Scarlett’s ass and pulled her into him, hip to hip, with no space or light between them. That was better.
Not enough , but it was better.
Jaime kissed her back with everything he had in him. All the longing, all the wanting. And Scarlett matched him. The woman kissed like she did everything: twice as enthusiastically as anyone else. A grappling tumble of a kiss that turned Jaime inside out.
After a minute, Scarlett’s chin popped up, unsealing their mouths. “Stop.”
He did. Instantly.
Breathing hard, she pushed her hair behind her right ear. “Did you decide to adapt my book knowing this was going to happen? Wanting this to happen?”
With the blood throbbing in his dick, in his stomach, Jaime had no idea how to answer, or even what an answer was. “I don’t know. Maybe. Yes.”
That felt right—yes. The answer was yes. Yes, when he’d gone to New York, some part of him had hoped this would happen.
“I’ve wanted you back for ... for seventeen years,” he admitted. “I wanted you back from the moment you walked away from me. I didn’t plan this.” He couldn’t’ve. “But I wanted it.”
What he didn’t say was that sometimes, Jaime would wake up in the middle of the night, aching for her. Even after this long, even after falling—legitimately falling—for other people, it had always been Scarlett.
She probably could sense that. But Jaime wasn’t going to give her that admission unless she pushed for it. He wanted to at least pretend that he had some dignity here, even if he very, very much did not.
“Okay.” Scarlett accepted this—and then, for what felt like an hour, they stood there watching each other. Finally, she set her hands on his shoulders. “Okay.” Then she was kissing him again.
There was so much they ought to say to each other first. So much they ought to figure out. But all Jaime could do was to trail his lips over her jawline and to pull her earlobe in between his teeth. Such a tiny scrap of skin, but from experience, he knew that it had a direct link to the nerves of all her sensitive places.
Sure enough, she gasped—and that sound had a direct link to the nerves on all his sensitive places.
“You always sound so surprised,” he muttered around her earlobe.
“Because it’s always a surprise.” It being how strong the wanting was between them, and always because even if they spent a lifetime doing this, neither of them would ever get used to it.
“Let me see if the other side works.”
Scarlett tried not to react. Jaime could feel her steeling herself, could sense her biting her bottom lip. But when his canine tooth grazed the shell of her ear, her resistance crumbled.
“ Jaime. ”
Her breathy shock was the ultimate turn-on. His mind was ... blown. The only thing that had stopped him from ripping their clothing off and burying himself in her was a desire to hear that sound more. The faster this went, the less of that he’d get.
Jaime dropped to his knees, which brought his face between her glorious, glorious breasts. Even through her thin tank top, he could smell her skin, which he swore smelled different from the skin anywhere else on her body. More ... delicate. More enticing.
Her hands tangled in his hair, and Scarlett had no shame about directing Jaime’s attentions exactly where she wanted them. Since it was exactly where he wanted them, this suited everyone.
He bit her through her shirt, and there was that gasp again. As if she’d never gotten used to pleasure. As if the fact of it shocked her every time.
Jaime pushed his hand under her shirt, over the soft skin of her belly and around to her back. Thank God her sports bra had a clasp. He fumbled with the hooks for a second, but he managed to free her and then to shove all of it, shirt and bra, out of the way.
When his mouth found her breasts, he was rewarded with a long, keening “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”
The first time they’d done this, she’d started to beg.
What do you need? he’d asked. He would’ve burned down the world to give it to her.
Not sure was all that she’d been able to make out. But please.
He’d figured out what she’d needed eventually, and it turned out that seventeen years later, she needed the same thing.
“Here?” He pressed her clit through her pajama pants.
“ Yes. ”
Making her come again was like riding a bike: hard-won knowledge that had never left him. Where she wanted to be touched, how much pressure she needed, where she wanted his mouth on her, none of it had changed.
The answering roar in his body was the same too.
When her orgasm hit her, Scarlett laughed. Actually laughed. The kind of gurgling giggle that comes up from your diaphragm and out of your throat. The kind that made Jaime feel like he’d done something heroic. The kind of accomplishment Homer would write an epic poem about. And the truth was, Jaime had made Scarlett Arbuthnot come, and that was epic. For whatever reason, she’d decided to kiss him again, and he’d proved he was worthy by making her come.
That was pretty damn impressive.
He rolled to his knees, kissing up her body in the process. Saying hello to the inside of her elbow. The sweep of her collarbone. The freckle on her temple.
But when he locked eyes with her, she threw out a dare. “Do you have condoms?”
She was going to hate him. “No.”
“You really didn’t plan this.” She was more amused than angry. “And you haven’t had anyone here?” She was asking if he’d slept with anyone since moving into the house. Well, that was the simplest thing she was asking, anyhow.
“Nope.” The last woman Jaime had dated had been when he’d been in LA working on Waverley . In Musgrove, there weren’t many single women Jaime’s age. If he hit a bar and tried to pick someone up, it would’ve gotten back to his mom—the ultimate form of birth control.
“We don’t, that is—we could get a hotel, pick up some condoms, and—”
“A hotel?” Jaime huffed out a laugh.
“Because you might not want the memories here.”
That was thoughtful. But the horses had already bolted from the barn. “Scarlett, our first time was in my childhood bedroom in the house my mom still owns. You weren’t worried about memories then.”
“Yeah, well, how did that work out for you?”
“Touché.” The truth was Jaime and Scarlett had already made an inconvenient number of memories in this house too. For all that they hadn’t been touching in the last two months, she was in every room. Whatever she was trying to spare him here, it was too late. “Maybe I want the memories.”
“Do you?” She made a sound as if he couldn’t, but that if somehow he did, it would make her world.
“I want you.” Jaime kissed her again, kissed her until they were gasping. Until she was moving against him in ways that were incendiary. “I want to have you in every room in the house. In my bed. In the guest bed. On the couch. Over the kitchen table. I want the memories to haunt every room in the house when you’re gone.”
“Because you know I’ll be gone?”
While it slayed him, he did. She’d been totally clear about that.
But he needed her to understand that he wasn’t the same man who’d stood in her lobby and begged for the rights to her book. He’d grown over these months together, and he’d let go of some of the pain of the past. She’d helped him do that.
If they were going to do this, she needed to understand he was different. “I’d never want to tie you down. If this is just for tonight—I still want it. I still want you.”
“I’m a bull in a china shop, Jaime. I don’t want to get rung up for breaking you again.”
“You won’t. Cross my heart.”
“Then let me see the owner’s suite.”
He took her hand, and their fingers rolling together, tight as a zipper, was every bit as intimate as anything else they’d done.
Jaime towed her through the dark house and into his bedroom. He skipped the overhead light and went for the lamp by the bed instead. It cast a golden circle of light over the bed and the floor.
Scarlett stood on the edge of it, with only her toes fully illuminated. Her nails were painted bubble-gum pink, and his chest squeezed at the sight.
“You getting cold feet?” He hoped that came out as the joke he’d intended it to be and not anything more desperate.
“Nah, just thinking about what a huge deal it was to see your bed that first time.”
Technically, Jaime hadn’t been allowed to have girls in his room back then. But he hadn’t cared much for technicalities where she was concerned. Whatever risk of discovery they’d taken, it had been worth it.
Jaime sprawled out onto his bed, hoping he looked enticing. “How does this one compare?”
“It’s even better.” She was staring at him, not at the bed.
This was so heavy. But the very weight of it made everything hit harder.
“Take your clothes off,” she said.
Jaime’s fingers were clumsy as he reached for the hem of his T-shirt. He dropped it onto the floor on the far side of the bed—though it was tempting to follow her lead from the other day and send it sailing toward her. Then he unbuttoned his jeans and shucked them and his boxers off.
When he flopped back down, totally naked, Scarlett edged into the light. She was so utterly, outrageously beautiful.
“I’m no longer eighteen,” she said, as if she were apologizing for something.
But Jaime had never seen—and never expected to see—anyone he found as beautiful as he did her. She was his perfection.
“What do you know, neither am I.”
“But one of us hikes every day, and the other one pays her bills by playing chess and endorsing stuff.”
“And posing naked in fashion magazines.”
“That’s haunted you, hasn’t it?”
“Come here and let me show you how much.”
She took another step closer.
“Are you ... nervous?” he asked. The idea of Scarlett being nervous about anything almost spooked him.
“I wish we’d already done it.”
“Here’s the thing: we have.”
“No, now . Then I could enjoy the second round. Not be so in my head.”
“I’m fond of your head.” He reached out and wrapped his fingers around her wrist. Her heartbeat was going like the percussion line during the crescendo for the 1812 Overture .
Jaime lifted her wrist to his mouth and drew a deep breath. Her scent—that was the stuff. It soothed something in him that had been aching for seventeen years. He ran his teeth along the sinews of her forearm, and she gasped.
Whatever else was true, that was how they were together. Fire and a match.
Against her skin, he whispered, “Honey, take off your pants.”
Before, she’d wanted him to beg. The way he’d wanted her, the way he would’ve done anything to have her, it got her going like nothing else.
An elegant pause. Then she pulled away from him, and in a great rush, she pulled off her clothing. Jaime swallowed. Dear Lord, he’d missed her.
For a second, her eyes were on the floor and her cheeks were flushed, but when she raised her gaze to his—well, it was good he was lying down.
“You have never been more beautiful,” he said, meaning it.
Then Scarlett was on the bed, straddling him. The world’s softest body hovering above his was almost too much, and he almost lost it right there. The ticklish brush of her hair against his cheek. The intoxicating taste of her mouth on his. The aching firmness of her hand on his cock. Any one of those sensations was enough to push him over the edge.
First, though, he had to take care of her.
Jaime palmed her ass and pressed a fingertip into her folds. She was the warm and wet center of the world.
Scarlett came up for air. “Oh God.”
“Yes?” he asked, slipping another millimeter into her heat.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Jaime slid two fingers into her, knuckle deep. He’d dreamed about this, precisely this, so many times. The way her breath went ragged. The way her lashes fluttered close. The way she collapsed into herself when he thrust into her, as if she were trying to hold on to the sensation. As if what he made her feel was the most precious phenomenon on earth.
“Fuck,” she gasped—and the pace she set with her hand on him, the one that he knew she wanted him to match, was just this side of punishing. Together, they were the hairline fracture between pleasure and pain, and so much more intense for that. A skosh too far or not far enough, and they’d break.
“There,” she said insistently, and what she meant was the way he gripped her and the way his heart exploded and the way the light made her jawline glow.
Jaime couldn’t have lasted a millisecond longer. Not with the heaving of her breasts over him, and the relentless cadence of her panting, and the way she was clenched onto his fingers.
Her orgasm felt endless, while his was a single spasm, but her long exhale afterward, as she collapsed on him, was entirely the same as his.
“I missed that,” she muttered.
I missed you. But he’d promised her he wouldn’t ask for too much, so he kept the words inside. This had been about sex—and nothing else. He had to remember that. As difficult as it was, he couldn’t lose sight of the limitations here.
“Come on,” he said, pushing up on his elbows. “Let me show you the tub.”
“Oh my God, you have jets in here?” she said, when he’d drawn a bath.
“It’s my house. I had to keep the good stuff for myself.” Like, say, having Scarlett back in his bed.
When he’d added several capfuls of bubbles, they slid into the tub together, her back pressed into his chest and her perfectly rounded backside nestled between his thighs.
“What are you thinking?” she whispered as he held her.
“I need to get some condoms.”
She laughed—which was what he’d been going for—but his joke didn’t begin to cover a fraction of what was in his head.
Mostly Jaime was hoping that the pain, when it came, wouldn’t bury him.