Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Jude
J ess stood outside my door at a few minutes after eight.
Air rushed from her lips, the heat from her body freezing into a white cloud in the chilly autumn air. Temps had dropped and I wouldn’t have been surprised to see snow in the forecast again, though tonight was crystal clear with glittering stars winking behind her.
“What are you doing without a coat? Come in.” I pulled her into the house and Bones immediately dismounted his post on the couch and sped toward her, only stopping when he’d headbutted her calf and rubbed himself along the leg of her jeans.
“The temperature dropped like crazy since I went home. I didn’t realize.”
She shivered, and I pulled her into a hug.
All the wild, rampaging pieces of me settled as she wrapped her arms around me and rested her head on my chest. She breathed long and slow breaths, and I did the same, relieved to have her here in my space again.
The stolen moment yesterday had left me longing for her, but when I woke today, it hadn’t been with lust in mind. I’d had this aching hollow in my chest that begged me to find her, be close to her, love her.
Nothing in me was surprised, and yet I didn’t want to push her.
So this quiet moment brought necessary soothing to so much of my heart.
Bones’ desperate little meow broke the spell, and she pulled back with a soft smile, then dropped to a knee to pick up my boy.
“You are just a little beggar, aren’t you? But I love you so much.” She buried her face in his neck, and he closed his eyes as though just her nearness was bliss.
As usual, my cat and I were on the same level.
“Lucky guy,” I said, chuckling at the semi-truck level rumble coming from the little purr machine.
Jess carted him back to his bed on the back of the couch and he kneaded it into submission before circling up and tucking his face into his hind legs for another nap.
“All that hard work wore you out, huh? Sleep well, sweet boy.” Jess gently petted his head, then joined me in the kitchen.
“I love your cat.” She pumped soap onto her hands.
There was that word again. Love. I couldn’t be sure I’d heard her use it ever before, and so soon after I’d thought it in my head.
“He seems to return the sentiment.” I stirred the sauce on the stove.
“Whatever you’re making smells amazing,” she said, sliding one hand up my spine in a way that made me feel instantly ravenous.
“Roasted red pepper sauce. We’ll put it over tortellini if that’s okay, and I have some burrata?—”
Her hand firm on my neck, she guided my head toward her and took my mouth in a kiss that notched up the hunger levels to never before experienced. When she released me, I took in the kiss-ravaged lips and glittering eyes.
“You like pasta that much?” I asked, desperate to know which part of the meal had prompted the kiss and planning to provide it for her whenever possible.
She laughed softly. “I like you that much. And I am very excited for more of your cooking because everything I’ve had has been amazing.”
“Omi taught me. She insisted I learn more than the basics—for myself and for whoever I ended up with.” I didn’t glance at her meaningfully and betray just how much I wanted that to be her. Too soon.
I’d never forget when Omi sat me down around fourteen and leveled with me. “You’ve got the looks, honey, and you’re going to have the size. You’ve got the manners. Now we need to get you the skills.” She’d taught me the basics of cooking but from then on, she got serious about homemade sauces and from-scratch pie crust and biscuits… so many recipes I’d carved into my heart.
I continued to stir, the moment braided with grief and love and nostalgia.
“She was wise. I’m sorry to say I don’t have much in the way of cooking skills beyond grilled chicken and really basic stuff on the stove. I can keep myself fed decent food, but it was never an art or an act of love like it seems to be for you.”
Her gaze flicked up to meet mine and my gut clenched. There’s that word again .
“Why are you sorry?” I asked, instead of pushing on the words that came after, forcing her to confront how she’d let those four letters cross her lips so many times tonight.
Her eyes followed her fingers as they traced a pattern in the granite of my countertop.
“I guess I’ve always felt the need to apologize for what I don’t bring to a relationship, especially if it’s stuff that traditionally a woman does.” Then her head snapped up and her eyes were wide. “I mean, not that we’re in a relationship, or that we?—”
“Are we not?”
She swallowed and breathed through the panic shining in her eyes. “Um, I mean, are we? We have this history…”
Cheeks blazing, she wouldn’t look at me anymore.
“I think it’s obvious we are.”
She nearly singed my eyebrows off with the fiery glare she sent my way, but no words issued from her lips. Apparently, my statement had stunned her—or possibly infuriated her.
This required full attention and not splitting between avoiding burning dinner and her. I turned the burner off and grabbed her hand, guiding her to the living room and taking a seat, which she did, as well.
A hundred things shot through my mind—reasons she had to know we were dating and not just hanging out or some such nonsense, the way I felt about her, the things I wanted…. And all of it felt too soon and too little and not enough.
And then, taking her hand in mine and cradling it like the precious part of her it was, I stopped hedging and protecting myself. I stopped hiding behind my pride and the fear of rejection it masked. I stopped hiding behind bitterness at not being chosen over Kurt the first time or not being believed when her world crashed down around her.
I stopped everything but honesty.
“For me, this has never been small or temporary. I have wanted more from you since the moment I met you.”
She reared back and I rushed to continue. “Yes, we have a past, but we’ve apologized. And it doesn’t make it go away, but I believe we can change—that we already have.”
She swallowed hard.
After a moment, her mouth dropped open and she blanched, but no words emerged—not the response I wanted. Where had I lost her? She seemed stunned. I’d never witnessed a deer in headlights until now. But now that I’d started telling her how I felt, it was welling up in me, spilling over, and I couldn’t stop myself.
“I have loved you since the minute you said my name and I’ll die with your name on my lips. Jess, I can’t pretend you weren’t the person who means the most to me. If you want it, then yes, we’re in a relationship. If you say so, then yes—yes to anything you want.”
Her eyes glazed with tears. “How could you keep this from me if you really felt that way?”
Panic struck. No, this wasn’t how this would go. She wasn’t still questioning me, was she? “I didn’t keep it from you. I’ve told you from the beginning how I felt?—”
“How you felt. Past tense. Before we started fighting and hating each other.” She stood and paced away. “And it’s not about what I want, Jude. It’s?—”
I followed close behind, though stopped shy of hauling her into my arms. “I’m sorry for that. I felt like I couldn’t fight my way through the weeds between us, and even if I had?—”
She turned, jaw clenched, and waited, but when I didn’t speak, she prompted me. “Even if you had…”
My chest caved in, sand funneling to the lowest point of gravity and collapsing the structure of my heart. “You deserved more.”
Instead of appeasing, this only seemed to inflame her frustration with me.
She glanced at her phone, which had started ringing, then shoved it in her pocket and put a hand in the middle of my chest. “Don’t you dare act like you had self-esteem issues. I know you. I know your grandparents loved you, and your friends, all except my idiot ex, would die for you. Don’t you pretend you thought I was too good for you or that you’d put me on a pedestal.”
I was shaking my head, ignoring the phone in my pocket that’d started buzzing. “It wasn’t that. It was how I’d bungled everything else. How I’d treated you even though I felt the way I did?—”
A knock on the front door, then the doorbell itself, cut me off. Our gazes connected and we moved in tandem. I opened it and we found Cookie standing in full kit with black tactical gear, a radio in hand.
“Got ’em. They’re both here. Over.”
A garbled response came through, but Cookie jumped in.
“We’ve got a lead. It’s a strong one. Clock’s ticking. We need you.”
And that was all it took to interrupt the most important conversation of my life. In seconds, we were out the door and on the move.