12. Pocketing and Flashpanning
Chapter 12
Pocketing and Flashpanning
J ason
I woke up on the edge of my bed. I shifted carefully to my other side to see why: the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known had snuggled up against me all night until she’d nearly pushed me out of bed. Warmth expanded my chest and spilled into a sappy smile.
Rose was still asleep, and the sunlight streaming through the stained-glass window cast blues and yellows across her face, shoulders, arms, and breasts. My fluttering heart felt full to bursting when I looked at her. I kissed her forehead and smoothed a lock of her hair from her brow. She smiled, eyelashes fluttering, and slept on with even breaths.
She giggled in her sleep. I tried to hold back a laugh, which was apparently my first reaction to unbearable cuteness, but my breath out through my nose roused her. She blinked once, laid eyes on me. I scooched closer to her, slipped my hands under the covers, and ran them along the velvet of her hip and back. She wrapped her arm around my neck and pulled my head against her chest.
“Morning,” she murmured, her voice laced with a sleepy smile.
I pressed a kiss against her breastbone, right over her beautiful heart. “Morning. You were giggling in your sleep. It was the cutest damn thing I’ve ever seen.”
She giggled again, rubbing my back and squeezing me tighter. “I was dreaming about you.”
This. This moment. This woman. She was everything I’ve ever wanted. “I love you so fucking much,” I murmured, burying my face against her skin, breathing in her scent.
She stiffened and my heart kicked into my throat.
She pulled back and peered sleepily down into my face. “What did you say?”
I paused, fear spreading from my heart to my toes. Rose wasn’t the marrying type, but was she up for commitment? I threaded my fingers through hers, twisting the rings still on her finger from last night. She was what I wanted. Why not tell her?
I gulped. “I said, ‘I love you so fucking much.’” I studied her wide eyes. “And I meant it.”
She parted her lips, a deer startled in the woods who was clearly not ready to hear those words from me. Seconds ticked by as she studied my face intently. I bit my lip to stop myself from taking them back. Because they were true. I felt them down to my core.
She tucked her hair behind one ear, fake wedding rings flashing in the morning sun. “Jason, I don’t know…”
“It’s okay.” I smoothed her hair from the other side of her face. “You don’t have to say it back. You don’t have to feel it back.” Even though each of her silent seconds was a little death.
“Kiss me,” she murmured.
So I did. She climbed up, pushing my back to the bed and straddling me. If we were only physical to her, surely she wouldn’t be licking the inside of my mouth like this right after my declaration, rolling her hips against my sex. If she wasn’t open to more, surely she would’ve just run from my bed in horror.
Right?
She wouldn’t be holding my face like this and kissing me like I meant the world to her unless she felt something too. Whimpering, she threw her head back and tipped her rosy nipple against my lips. I captured her breast in my mouth. If she didn’t want me to tell her how I felt about her, I’d show her.
Rose
Jason loved me, and all I wanted to do was cry. From the bliss and beauty of making love, the wildness of our release, the raw emotion surging in my chest. And afterwards, he kissed the top of my head and squeezed me, and I almost broke.
Jason loved me. And I didn’t know if I loved him back.
I murmured my thanks as he set a mug of coffee and a legal-sized pad beside his laptop where I was viewing the photos we took yesterday. I picked the mug up gratefully. Of course he’d fixed it exactly the way I liked it, and Lord knows I needed the caffeine.
He sat down beside me and smiled shyly, reaching past me to grab a pen with a ringless hand. He’d taken the fake band off before his shower, but it’d been there the whole time we made love. Mine too.
My heart thudded. Jason loved me.
Or…did he? He probably didn’t mean it, mean it. Of the few men who’d ever said it, most of them just wanted to get me into bed or keep me in bed. Of the infinitesimal number who may’ve meant it, zero of them meant it for long.
Maybe the problem wasn’t that Jason loved me and I didn’t love him. The problem was that he was a man, and I didn’t believe him capable of loving me. So how could I really love him?
Sipping from his own mug, he sat and leaned into my space with his arm around my chair. “What I like to do is make a list of my favorites, and then start writing down what the posts can be about. Wow, those are gorgeous.”
“You did such a great job. I think you’d give Lily a run for her money.”
“Nah, it’s not my photography skills. It’s the beautiful subject.” He pressed a kiss to my temple. “Finding a lot you want to use?”
I’d never known a man to be as affectionate as him, especially when he wasn’t actively trying to get my clothes off. A definite point in the he might actually love me column.
“Yeah! I think we got at least one to three good ones for each dress, which is amazing. I wish my other wedding dress had survived the storm, but I do still have that photo of Leslie’s gown to post.”
“And Becca’s, after the wedding. Ooh.” His index finger lightly poked the screen. “That one of you in front of the tattoo parlor is gorgeous.”
“That one’s great, but look at this hot one of us kissing here in the church.”
“Oh wow.” He reached across me and double-tapped the photo so that it filled the screen. “That’s my favorite.” He leaned his head against mine.
“It’s perfect. We both look amazing, and the gown—look at the fall of the lace, the way you can see the back of it.” I imagined the StudFinders contract unrolling between us like a royal proclamation.
He moved away and rubbed the back of his neck. “Can we not…post that one?”
My heart sank. “I guess Big Brother StudFinders wouldn’t like that.” I tried to say it flippantly, but even I heard the hurt in my voice.
“Not if I take the job.” He took a big breath. “And I wanted to talk to you about Becca and Brad’s honey-do shower tomorrow night.”
“What about it?” Weird thing to bring up at this moment. I didn’t get the connection, but I didn’t like where it was going.
He bit his lip and for a minute, wouldn’t meet my eye. “Do you think we can…not let everyone know we’re together when we go?”
What the fuck? “Why? Are you…embarrassed of me?”
“No! God, no.” He rubbed his hand down my arm. “I could never be embarrassed of you. It’s just…” He took and released a deep breath. “My cousin Ashley will be there, and she’s gonna be taking a ton of photos for Becca and Brad’s wedding Insta.” He rubbed his beard, shifting in his seat. “She’ll tag us all in it, and well…”
“So I guess hiding us from StudFinders is going to be more pervasive than I realized.”
He breathed out heavily. “It might be.”
Did this mean we couldn’t go on dates like a normal couple? Be seen out together in public at all? But he hadn’t acted weird when we were out and about town taking photos yesterday. The term pocketing came into my mind from a magazine I’d flipped through in the waxing salon, where one partner hides the other from family and friends because they’re embarrassed or not monogamous. Toxic as fuck.
I twisted my lips. “Are you sure you’re not embarrassed of me?”
His mouth dropped open, and he leaned in. “No,” he murmured, kissing my cheek. “I could never be embarrassed of you. Ever. I don’t want to keep you a secret.” He smiled. “I told Alex.”
Okay. That wasn’t nothing.
“Did you tell anyone about us?” he asked softly.
My eyes snapped up, a twinge in my chest. “I haven’t really talked to anyone.” Although, I’d been texting with Abby and Heather since we’d been back from Florida and hadn’t told them. I guess I hadn’t been eager to tell the world, either.
He nodded but didn’t ask me why. If he suspected I was a serial flashpanner who leaves when things get serious—another term from that article—he didn’t call me on it now. Maybe I was the toxic one.
“But we can post the ones of us together where we’re not kissing, where I’m just a prop—I mean, I’m just a prop through the whole thing. If you post those and tag me, my followers will hopefully follow you too and build your numbers. Remember how crazy they got with our video?”
“And StudFinders won’t hate that?”
He shrugged. “We can’t control speculation.”
“So tomorrow night at the honey-do shower, we’re just gonna…drive there together and then act like you don’t free willy into my vagina at least twice a day?”
“You have a way with words. But yeah. I guess.”
He was trying to follow his dreams, and I was making this about me. I wasn’t nuts about being kept a secret, but it would hold him at some emotional length, which made me less anxious. And honestly, being welcomed into his family as his live-in girlfriend was premature, especially as weird as I was already feeling about it.
“Okay. I’ll be on my best behavior.” I pecked his lips and returned my attention to the laptop, pushing all my unease down my throat. “Now lead me out of the land of the confused with these photos. How do I even start building these into posts?”