26 – My Darling
Casey
I’m achy.
Like, the good kind of achy where every time I stretch out my muscles during each pose in my classes today, I feel good and a small smile forms on my lips.
Then I get flashes of yesterday. The man and the beast. The gentleman and the lover. That shower led to three more orgasms. Jessie hadn’t let me leave his embrace until I snuck out this morning for my first class at 5am, and I hadn’t a moment to check my phone or have a break since, to really piece it all together.
Now I am in the cooldown of my last class, it is 7pm, and I am too exhausted to even try to think about what happened and what it all meant.
I’ve been taking Grace’s classes for a couple of weeks now, and if I don’t hand ball some of them soon, I am going to fall on my face. We have two studios and five instructors. Four with Grace out, and I can’t keep this up. It isn’t good for me.
I’m barely registering the goodbyes as the staff file out, and I pull my phone from my bag as I lock up the studio. It’s ringing the moment I turn to walk up the street toward the apartment, and because I’m about to start sleep walking, I answer it before I see who it is.
“Hi, sweetie!” My mom’s melodic voice travels through the speaker phone and a kernel of warmth hits me as I blink back the tears of relief. Hearing Mom’s voice when I feel this crap wins over any control I try to have over my emotions.
“Hi, Mom! I’m sorry I haven’t called you back in a bit. It’s been a bit crazy over here.”
“I know, darling. But it’s all going to be okay,” she assures me, and even though she can’t make those kinds of promises, hearing them from her helps, even if it’s just a bunch of empty words.
“Thanks. How’s Dad? Where are you guys at the moment?”
“Good. My turn on the driving, so he is napping. We’re stopping in Kansas City, making our way back, but might stop in Memphis and see Grandad before we head on back to Virginia,” she explains, and I can hear the smile on her face at the excitement in seeing her dad. We don’t get out that way very much.
“Send him my love.”
“I will. Casey—”
“I don’t want to talk about Grace, Mom,” I almost whisper into the phone because I can’t muster the strength or energy to hash it all out. I am sure she has some story or another from Grace, but thankfully, Mom has a habit of taking Grace’s stories with a grain of salt, and coming to me for the accurate details.
“Okay, that’s fine, sweetie. But you’re going to have to talk about it soon. I know you’re going to store all this in your head until you’re too tired and implode. I don’t want you to implode on your own. I hate to think I can’t be there for you or Grace.” Mom might be aware of my tendency to bottle up and cry alone once a month. With the way my emotions have been running, I think, at this rate, I’m at once a week, but even if I did return to my ways, something tells me I wouldn’t be alone this time.
“I’m not alone, Mom. I have the girls and—”
I stop myself before I say too much. My need for sleep is affecting the seal of my words and my mom gasps at my silence because she is a genius and can read me like a damn book.
“Casey Moira Baker… is there another boy on the scene?” Her joy at that sentence makes my eyes roll.
“No, Mom, I haven’t even been single a year.”
“Don’t you lie to me; I can practically see your shifty eyes. You get that from your father.”
That makes me chuckle, and I hear a grumble in the background as Mom also chuckles to herself.
“You can keep your secrets for now, miss. But we’ll be in New York in maybe two or three weeks. You and Grace will start talking and your secrets are coming out. I want to meet Mystery Man.” She is jovial, but I have to catch my words again before they flood out. She is going to have a heart attack when she realizes the man who currently lives in my head rent free is the same boy that she used to hand the container of sweets to at the front door when she’d drop me off at Addison’s house for sleepovers in elementary school.
My stomach is suddenly twisting with nerves.
“I better let you go. Focus on the road. I’ll call you next week.”
“Love you, sweetie. Smile big!” Her typical motto that she’s given Grace and me forever has me rolling my eyes again and chuckling.
“Love you, too, Mom.”
23A Sluts
I giggle to myself at the texts with the girls, and I assure Rosie that we’ll have a girls’ dinner tomorrow night when she is home. It’ll be a Friday, and I finally have a day off on Saturday and can indulge in some wine and sleep in.
But it means tonight, I’m home alone. And I really don’t want to be.
Like he can read my mind, as I pull up Jessie’s chat, a text comes in.
Whatever is happening here feels different. I can’t tell if I’m disappointed this isn’t some swoony love message about how he misses me, but then, also, I have no idea how to answer this glorified booty call because… well, I have no idea what we’re doing.
My heart feels heavy because despite how far I try to bury my feelings, I know I’m falling, and I’m falling hard and fast. Like a train derailed, I can’t seem to stop. He’s hung up on Jenny. He can’t let himself fall, and even if he were, he’d stop himself. He’d pull back. And pulling back when I’m falling? Who would catch me?
So I don’t second guess myself. I lock my phone and pocket it. I can’t let myself dwell on the what ifs. I don’t want to think about whether we made a mistake crossing that final line. I honestly can’t even think what I’m going to have for dinner, let alone mustering the energy to contemplate my… situation-ship.
The rest of the walk home is a blur, the trees and cars all merging to one as I let my brain empty and I try to focus simply on walking my tired sack of bones up the stairs, into the elevator, then through my apartment door. By the time I’m inside, the apartment is dark, cold, and lonely. I flick a switch… and for the first time since I moved in, I hate it.
I hate its emptiness. I hate the space and how clean it is. It smells like Rosie’s lemon cleaner and Addison’s indoor plants.
I want it to smell like home. I want it to feel like home.
Somehow finding the energy, I change into my pajamas, connect my phone to the speaker, hit play, and head for the kitchen.
Wildfire by Cautious Clay plays and my heart does a little skip.
“I love this song.” I pause a beat to turn it louder, singing along to the lyrics and getting lost in kneading the pastry for my apple cinnamon slices. It’s an easy recipe. After the pastry is made, you simply peel, slice, and coat the apples. A delicious buttery cinnamon spice mix, lay them on the pastry, cut into rectangles and bake. It’s nothing flashy, but these apple slices were my favorite post-school snack to bake with Mom. Back then, it was with store-bought pastry rather than homemade. But I need this today, need to get lost in the song and in the therapy of making some magic out of something plain.
The moment the tray of apple slices is in the oven, the song changes and Noah Reid’s rendition of Simply the Best comes on, making my heart pull tighter. I’m a tired silly idiot and I’ve put my love playlist on shuffle, and instead of powering through my tired bones, I feel the aching loneliness from before sink back in.
I need to stop doing this to myself, stop wallowing—
“Jesus, you scared the crap out of me.” I had turned to change the song, and instead my heart leaps out of my chest. I must have missed the front door opening and closing. With a hand to my chest, I lean back against the counter to catch my breath.
“No god here, sunshine, just me.” Jessie winks and smiles with the delivery of his line, his shoulders relaxing, and he takes in the room as he walks with purpose toward me. Not stopping to pause or taking a moment to feel any awkwardness, Jessie uses a firm hand to grip my jaw and pulls my lips to his. His kiss is quick, demanding, and breath stealing as I feel him surround me.
As quickly as he approached, he turns, stealing a glass from the cabinet above me and filling it with water and walking into the living room.
“Umm, what… I mean, not that I’m upset by the kiss and all… Jess, what are you doing here?”
“I like when you call me Jess,” he says in a low voice, his back to me as he leans over Addison’s plants and tips a bit of the water into them. “Addison gave me a key for while she is gone, to water her plants, so I’m watering her plants.”
“But, I live here?”
“You do live here.” The smug bastard is almost chuckling as he finishes watering the plants and saunters back over to me.
“Why would you need to water the plants?” I cross my arms and tilt my head, trying my best to understand what the hell is going on here.
“She didn’t want you to be stuck with that because she knows how busy you are. Plus, I wasn’t going to say no to the key.”
“And why’s that?” He closes the rest of the distance between us, placing the glass in the sink before he comes to stand in front of me, wrapping his arms firmly around my lower back and pulling me to him.
“Because then you can’t retreat into your head and avoid talking to me about all the things we need to talk about.” I swallow. Oh. “Why’d you blow me off, Ace?”
“I didn—”
“You did. Why?” His question isn’t aggressive, just sure. Because this broody lumberjack is suddenly full of confidence, and with the way his eyes trail a burning path across my face, he can see everything. I bring my hands to my face to cover the blush and hide the way I want to cry, scream, and fall asleep all at once.
“Jessie, you aren—”
“Say I’m not ready for you.” He pulls my hands from my face and forces me to stare up at his serious eyes. “Say I can’t handle you or take care of you. I dare you.” I hope he didn’t hear my attempt to gulp down air.
“Your message was a glorified booty call.” I slap at his chest, but his eyes just darken in challenge as a half-smile pulls at his lips.
“As much as I’d love to have a repeat of last night, it wasn’t a booty call. I knew you were busy and wouldn’t have eaten.” True. “I was sussing your plans because I wanted to take you out.” He kisses my cheek delicately, and without my permission, butterflies take flight in my stomach and my chest aches.
He can’t give himself to you.
“What about Jenny?” I ask, knowing it was delivered with a knife, but it gets me the space we need while we talk about this because he takes a step back. I hate the way he looks at me, like I just slapped him.
“What about her?” That sexy lumberjack frown is back, and I want to trace the lines between his strong brow until they disappear. Like he does for me. Instead, I settle for twisting the ring of his that rests on my thumb. He tracks the movement, and I watch his jaw clench before he shifts on his feet and looks back to me.
“You’ve been hung up on Jenny for years, but suddenly you’re not?” I smile gently and shrug, but continue. “It wasn’t that long ago, Jessie, when you were drunk and you asked me to call her and tell her how great you are so she’d take you back.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head, his eyes scrunched tight and his shoulders tense.
“Wait a damned minute. You thin—I am not in love with Jenny, Casey. That was years ago. I was hurt, but I’m not fucking hung up on her,.” he throws back at me, and finally his back is up. Good. If he’s angry at me, this will be easier. I can put some distance between us and get over this crush before it crushes me back.
“It’s okay, Jessie, really. Maybe we shou—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” he growls and then he is in my face again. “Don’t you dare say you regret last night in order to push me away. Not unless that’s how you feel. Do you regret being with me last night?” His angry eyes burn holes right through me. The hunger gone and in their place is the cold green fury of the Jenkins family. I don’t hesitate; I shake my head. I don’t regret our time. I couldn’t if I tried. I just regret crossing a line we now can’t take back.
“Good.” His face softens, and he places a hand on each of my cheeks, ensuring my eyes can never leave his. “Then let me make myself perfectly clear.” That bedroom voice from last night is back, and I have to physically restrain myself from gripping his shirt and settle instead for curling my toes.
“I. Want. You.” I swallow, but can’t seem to find words.
“I haven’t thought about Jenny in a long while. Not until you just said her name. You are all I can think about, Casey. And after last night, you’re all I taste. In my sheets, you are all I can smell. I see only your warm smile and soft freckles when I close my eyes, and when I dream, it’s of oceans as blue as your eyes.” Oh no.
I’m… oh god, this broody grump is going to make me fall in love with him.
“Was that clear enough for you?” I nod, but still can’t bring myself to speak. I just… I can’t… I don’t know how to…
“Good. I don’t know what this is, what any of it means, Casey. I just know that this is more than attraction. It simply is just… more.”
“Okay,” I whisper, biting back the greatest fear that has lodged itself firmly in my throat. That I’m falling too deep too quickly, and I don’t want to have my heart torn from my chest when he bails. He analyzes me through fierce eyes before he breathes a sigh and plants a soft kiss to my lips.
“Slow,” he says quietly.
“Slow,” I repeat. The weight of all that is left unsaid sits heavy on my chest, but I smile gratefully, which he returns.
“Was I right?” His lips tip at the corner, and I tilt my head in confusion.
“About?”
“You didn’t eat dinner, did you?” I roll my eyes and peel myself from his embrace as he chuckles.
“No, I didn’t. But I made Mom’s apple slices.”
“Well, anything that is a Momma Baker recipe is bound to be delicious.” I level him with narrowed eyes and pursed lips, which makes his smile beam as he laughs.
“Your recipes are just as exquisite, sunshine.” His deep voice covers my skin in warmth, and I want him to wrap me up again and never let me go. But… space, time, slow. I really, desperately need to slow my heart down.
The apple slices are promptly pulled from the oven when the timer dings, Jessie grabs water from the fridge, and I plate up the slices with a scoop of ice cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar before we are cuddled on the couch, once again. When I think about switching the TV on, he throws the remote and pulls my legs into his lap, his plate balanced on his knee as he uses one hand to massage my feet and the other to feed himself.
“How was the studio today?” he asks and the domesticity of this has me shaking my head to regain normal enough thoughts to answer him.
“Uh, good. Long day. I think I need another instructor. I’m wrecked.”
“Did you ever end up doing those self-defense classes?” he queries, and it suddenly hits me why my brain is foggy, and confusion has me feeling fuzzy. Jessie is asking about my day. Like, bare minimum, but he is looking at me like my answers are important and if I told him I had a problem or was upset, he’d jump to my rescue.
Connor never did that. Ever. It’s the sudden and depressing realization that, unless the girl’s schedules line up with mine, which is rare these days, I have no one to talk to about my day. About the simple and mundane things.
But JJ looks at me with every ounce of his attention, like my answer matters, and like nothing else does.
“Honestly, I haven’t had any time to really work out the details. I want to. But I might just wait until all of this stuff with Grace blows over.” He nods but looks me over, assessing, always searching my face.
“And how is she doing?” Another shrug, and this time I can’t bear to look him in the eyes. Biting into a bit of my slice, he does the same, settling further into the couch as he does. His attention is all mine, but he doesn’t rush me.
“I don’t know how to move forward. I don’t know how to talk to her. I don’t want to upset her, but I don’t want to let her hurt me again. I just want to talk, but every time I try, it’s like I say the wrong thing.” I just want to know what I’ve done, how to fix it. How to undo it.
He squeezes my foot in, I think, comfort, and I look up to find him looking at me with gentle eyes. By the deep set of his frown and tension in his shoulders, I know he just wants to fix it for me, but he hasn’t any idea how. This topic has me losing my appetite, as it has over the last few weeks. I discard my plate to the coffee table, then reach across and do the same with his. I push him so he lays flat on the couch and I climb over him, lying down and resting my head on his chest. He wraps his arms firmly around me as he places soft kisses to my hair and forehead.
The tension leaves my body, and I let him hold me. Let him warm me, protect me, and care for me. We stay huddled together like this for a few minutes, when I breathe deeply and feel myself sink into the comfort of his embrace when he whispers into my hair.
“You are sunlight through a window, which I stand in, warmed. My darling.”
I burrow myself further into him, trying desperately to hide my blush but hearing the race of his heart. When I don’t respond, but hum comfortably, he speaks, and I hear that gorgeous smile in his delectable voice, “Jessie Burton.”
“I hadn’t heard that one.” I giggle softly.
“Damn. Should have claimed it as my own.” He huffs a gentle laugh and his hands rub gentle circles on my back.
“You could make one up.”
“I could.” He nods, and I feel his lips press gently to my forehead in a few more soft kisses.
“Well, let’s hear it.” I tilt my head, shifting to rest my hands under my chin and look up into his eyes. His gentle gaze roams my entire face before landing on my lips for a moment.
“I’ll work on it.” He smiles shyly, and with a touch of vulnerability, he inches forward slightly, his lips hovering just above mine, and I close the final distance, reaching up and sealing his lips with mine. What I had planned to only be a gentle and soft kiss quickly gets away from me when he sweeps his tongue in and caresses mine. A small groan leaves his throat as he shifts my position, my legs straddling him and my hands wrapping around his neck.
“Your lips are my vice. I could kiss you for eternity,” he whispers before he takes them again.
“That was pretty good for off the cuff,” I pant and then kiss him back, growing desperate, and his hands travel my back and find their way into my yoga tights, gripping my ass, pushing me to his lap.
“That wasn’t what I was working on. I can do better.” I almost groan at the way he punctuates his words with an upthrust of his hips, and I feel just how much his desire matches mine.
“I’d say you’re doing pretty good already.” I pull away and bite my lip as I try to catch my breath. His eyes dance with mischief and he sits up so quickly I barely have a chance to hide my squeal before the positions are switched. My back to the couch, he hovers above me.
“Oh, but I love a challenge.”