Chapter 15.
15.
No-Fraternization Rule
a prohibition against jurors socializing or forming personal relationships with each other outside of the official jury deliberation process
Judge Gillespy mentioned possible jail time
T his time, the shock burns away quickly.
Damon kisses with intention—long, weighty stretches of deliberate movement against my mouth. His right hand cups my jaw, his thumb rubbing unconscious strokes against my earlobe. He speaks so little with his voice, as if he has a daily word count he must stay under. But with his mouth, he says so much. He says he knows what he’s doing. He says command. He says pleasure. Kissing him is what kissing a man should feel like, I think as his tongue laps against mine. The bristle of his stubble, shaved though constant. The rough but gentle skin of his hands. Even the girth of his thumb against my face. That polished saddle smell. They all combine into one utterly masculine encounter. And it instantly makes me want to succumb.
His body sways into mine, and we touch from our lips down to our thighs. He tilts his head, and I instinctively do the same, our mouths fitting more deeply together. His tongue brushes mine in a sturdy wave, and the flutter in my stomach quickly evolves into an aching pulse that spreads down my body.
Mustering every bit of strength I have, I pull away again.
I expect him to look a little dazed after that kiss, but he’s as fierce as when I first leaned in. And, yet again, he is a man of no words. He just stares at me, and the vulnerability I feel as a result pinches my gut.
I stumble backward, lightheaded. I can’t read him. Not one bit. He just stands there without words, without movement, looking at me as if... as if I have no idea because he is giving me nothing.
Staring back at him, I know—
That was a mistake.
“That was a mistake,” I say, aloud this time. There are many things that drove me to kiss him, the rational side of my brain says. The need to uncap and release the emotion biting inside me about Kara. The overwhelming emotion I have toward him generally. It’s as though kissing him was an exploration of the meaning of all those feelings. It’s nostalgia, I tell myself.
I can’t think of all the things that connect us or I’ll lean back in. So instead, I think of all the hurt of losing him once, how I can’t go through it again.
He flinches slightly, and I almost believe my words have stung him, though it’s hard to tell because he’s so damn silent. I can’t imagine what is happening in his head, despite my attempts to figure it out. To figure him out.
He steps around me and grabs his beer to take a long swig, and it feels like he’s washing away the remnants of our kiss. Of me. I can’t believe this happened. What did I expect when I followed him on a mystery escapade as sequestered jury members under strict rules.
“I’m sorry,” I say, but if I’m listening to myself, my body specifically, it’s less of an actual apology and more of a formality.
“Don’t be,” he says, so immediately I’m unsure if it’s genuine or perhaps meant to placate me. Desperate to dissipate the ick inside me, I’ll accept either. We stare at each other again, his face—eyes specifically—looking conflicted as they narrow in an intense glower.
“And thank you,” I say.
His eyebrows pinch. “For what?”
“For apologizing.”
He huffs out a breath, which I interpret as some kind of unspoken understanding.
One quick apology doesn’t solve all that exists between us, of course, but it does do some good. I recognize that something significant has changed in this suite. If I had to pin my feelings now, I’d say it’s mostly just sadness. In one fell swoop, my empathy for Kara, for him, has replaced the anger. Empathy and anger can’t seem to successfully coexist in me. For the moment, I am grateful for that.
Part of me—a part closely aligned with my center point—wants to pull him back into the closet. Because I know once we leave this room, this whole thing between us has to stay here—one small moment replaced by professionalism and jury member decorum.
He looks at me, conflicted, as if debating if my acknowledgement of his apology is an opening for more.
I clear my throat and look away. I can’t handle more right now. “I really am so sorry about Kara.” I cringe a little inside that I’ve just said the words he always avoided offering me in times of sympathy. “I wish I could have been there.”
“I don’t... I don’t talk about her.”
“I know,” I say, because his words feel prophetic of a him I didn’t see over the last ten years but know the movements of.
He clears his throat and straightens, as if someone has pulled taut a string from the ceiling attached through his body. Whatever stolen time we had in this suite, it’s clearly over, his shield positioned in front of him again.
I open my mouth to speak, but before I can, he adds, “We should head back to our rooms.”
I try not to deflate, knowing it’s the right thing to do. “Yeah, we probably should.”
After some deliberation, we place the beer cans into the bag from the trash bin, then throw it in the larger bin in the hallway.
He silently leads me back to the stairwell and holds the door open as I brush past him. My arm grazes his chest, and my body’s Pavlovian response kicks in with a flash of his eyes cut by the light in the closet moments ago, sending a wave of both heat and sadness through me. Apparently, sadness and attraction can coexist. As we descend the stairs, it feels like the end of something. He opens the door to the first floor, and I step through. His eyes linger on mine as I do, making me believe he feels it, too.
We cross the hallway unspotted.
Facing each other again in front of Cam’s door, the one tucked between ours, I’m about to turn and leave with no more between us when he whispers, “I’m sorry if...” He clears his throat, runs his hand down his face. “...if I made you uncomfortable.”
“What? No, I’m sorry for starting it.”
He nods. I’m intoxicated by the need to know what’s going on in his head. He’s a mystery greater than Margot Kitsch at this moment, and I want to solve it. Solve him. I want to know what else has happened in these last ten years—big, small, and everything in between. I want to know what beer he likes, because I’m confident it’s not Natural Ice. I want to know what love has looked like for him, who has broken his heart. If the way he approaches relationships was shaped by what we walked in on that day. I want to know what life was like right after his sister died. I want to know how my feelings could betray me so quickly, choosing him over my ten-year stronghold of resentment. I want to know if he still thinks I’m beautiful, even tonight in my sweatsuit and no makeup. I want to know if he felt those kisses in his toes.
As we stand in the hallway, a swirl of things unsaid hovering around us, the door between us swings open. In an instant Cam is standing in his doorway, looking back and forth between us. He smiles, mouth wide, a grin full of accusatory glee.
“What’re you guys doing?” Cam asks.
“Nothing,” I say quickly.
“C’mon. Whatever it is, I want in,” he pleads in a hefty whisper.
I look past them both to the corner where George is stationed. He’s not visible, though I hear the quiet rush of what sounds like a football game, likely being watched on his phone. “Right, good night,” I whisper in the general direction of them both. Reaching across Cam, I grab Damon’s hand and shake it vigorously to emphasize the platonic nature of our interaction. But even the handshake sends a pulse between my legs.
Damon looks down at our hands and then back at me, his face unreadable.
I release his hand and abruptly take the few steps to my door, fish the key from my sweatpants pocket, and bulldoze my way in.
Safely inside my room, back pressed against the door, I cringe. I cringe at the handshake, the closet, the entire evening. My stomach hollows at the thought of Kara.
But then, I feel the phantom touch of his lips against mine and can’t fight the twinge of heat that follows.