Chapter 12 Sol
I can’t stop thinking about kissing you.
The stark text message landed a few hours ago. From Skylar’s phone. And I thought it was a dream then. A fatigue-induced hallucination typed with Jack’s careful thumbs.
Now, as I reel from the impact of Jack’s broader frame hitting me, and the head-spinning sensation of his lips claiming mine, I’m more convinced it’s the Devil’s cruellest trick.
That any minute now I’m going to wake up on the rain-soaked deck with an empty can in my hand and seaweed stuck to my face, drifting on the ocean with a hangover and broken heart. Because this?
This doesn’t happen to me.
Not in real life.
Jack’s kissing me.
No. No, he’s not.
And yet…the heat of his mouth consumes me.
The scratch of his beard on my jaw. The soft, dizzying moan he expels as my body responds with optimism my heart doesn’t share.
I breathe in, a sharp inhale that scrapes my lungs, startled energy thrumming in my veins, my knees loose, my pulse wild.
I kiss him back, and the world tilts on its axis.
I feel it.
Jack feels it—knows it—and relief seems to break through restraint I didn’t know existed. His restraint, as one hand grips my jaw with unmistakable certainty, thumb settling below my ear, and his other arm pulls me in, tugging me against him like he’s done being careful.
Like he’s done with anything that isn’t this bruising, clawing kiss.
His kiss.
Mine.
Ours.
I’m going to pass out. My hands flail and I find his chest, solid and warm, and the contact knocks more breath and coherence clean out of me. I dig my fingers into the unyielding muscle and Jack…
He kisses me harder. And that thumb on my face? He presses it into my jaw with firm, subtle intent and I feel it everywhere.
Oh.
Damn.
No. This cannot be real. And as gold star-amazing as this fantasy is, I need to wake up and deal with the echo of my best friend ringing through me like the worst joke on earth. I need to face it before I drift so far down this path I don’t know who we are anymore.
I need to pull back and this version of Jack, whoever he is, he feels the roadblock my soul throws up and it’s him who breaks away to stare at me in the murky light of the early morning.
He’s breathing hard.
So am I.
And he doesn’t release me, from anywhere except his mouth. He stares and stares and stares while I spin in his hold and I wonder if he knows. If he can see how unrooted I am by the very thing I’ve longed for—yearned for—my whole damn life.
“Tell me to stop.”
Jack’s voice is always deep, but the way he gravels those four words is somewhere near the earth’s core.
Rough. Earnest. Honest.
He doesn’t want to stop.
The realisation hits me with another wave of conflicting panic. I’m scared of how much it’ll hurt if we stop. Of how I’ll ever breathe again if we don’t. I’m scared of hurting him. “Jack…” Emotion shakes my voice. “What—”
He kisses me again. And it’s different to the heart-seizing collision I came home to. Softer, sweeter. Until the slow glide of his tongue fills my mouth and I’m spun sideways all over again.
It’s shorter too.
Over before it’s truly begun and I mourn the loss of it. I bring my hand to my lips and realise I’m trembling. “Jack.” I try again. “What are we doing, love?”
Jack’s lips part and close, moving as if he’s mouthing the words back to me. His green eyes flicker and terror swamps me. But his gaze steadies faster than I’m used to and he doesn’t let go of my face.
“Tell me to stop.”
The words land heavy between us.
I have to tell him to stop.
I have to.
But the resolve I need to do it isn’t there.
I reach and reach and reach for it and come up empty, even as my conscience screams at me to kick the doors wide open and tell him we’ve done this before.
That whatever he’s feeling right now, it isn’t new, and maybe, just maybe, his body remembers, even if his mind doesn’t, that he asked me that question years ago.
Asked me to teach him, and I did, and it changed everything.
Teach me, Sol. I want to learn.
Heat and sadness collide inside me. It hurts and I flinch away from it. On the inside, at least. Outside myself, I stop fighting for the will to shatter this moment, and I list towards Jack before I know what I’m doing. Because it hurts and I’m tired.
Because I love him and I’m weak.
“Jack.” His name is a prayer I’m not sure I even say aloud.
But he hears me, and his thumb shifts to stroke my cheek, slow and soothing, and that simple tenderness, it fractures something else—something so unseen and unspoken I can’t even name it.
Jack leans closer, and before I can scrabble to rebuild the wall around my stupid heart, he kisses me again.
And again, and again, and again.
I wind up pressed against the front door, Jack caging me with one arm braced on the old wood above my head, and that hand still gripping my face as if he’s made a vow to himself to never let go.
Sometimes I think I have blank spots in my brain too.
I thought I remembered how it felt to kiss Jack—that those hazy recollections were all I’d ever have.
But as he kisses and kisses and kisses me I realise the memories I’ve clung to all this time barely scratch the surface.
Like maybe how this feels, and how it felt back then, is too big and sprawling for one heart to carry.
And yet, I try. I kiss Jack back and wind my arms around his muscular waist. I breathe him in and fuse my mouth to his like a drowning man who doesn’t want or need the air, and it’s my turn to forget anything and everything until the jarring sensation of Jack biting my bottom lip brings me down to earth.
Kind of.
I like the pain.
I like the low rumble he lets fly as his green eyes glimmer in the dark.
“You need out of these wet clothes, Sol.”
An order he’s given me too many times to count. But it feels different tonight. Everything does. He feels different and I have no damn clue what’s happening.
“I need a shower,” I counter.
Jack nods and steps back, giving me room to get my boots off while he watches with an intensity that prickles my skin and heats my blood more than any shower will.
I tug my damp jumper over my head and take a step towards the bathroom. Jack doesn’t move and real fear that he won’t follow joins the latent panic I’ll have to deal with later.
But that fear…it’s short-lived.
He falls in behind me, close enough that I feel him without touching, that I hear his familiar tread on the old floorboards even though he makes no sound at all.
We reach the bathroom and slip inside. Jack cranks the shower, but leaves the light off before he turns to me and grips the hem of my damp t-shirt.
He peels it off, dragging it over my head with a tug that has me stumbling half a step closer to him. His warm fingers graze my ribs, lingering a hot second too long, and my pulse stutters, sharp and hard, before he moves on.
Stripping me down.
Frowning at my clothes like they’ve offended him.
This is the ritual.
Him taking care of me with blunt efficiency when I know this tic in him comes from a childhood of cold and neglect.
Jack unbuttons my old jeans. Shoves them off my hips.
I brace a hand on the sink as he stoops to slide them down, those rough fingers brushing my skin again, before he stands, and that’s where he slows.
At the end of the dance, me almost bare to him, waiting for him to turn away as if he’s reached the dead end of a tunnel.
Except tonight…he doesn’t turn away. He reels me in and his hands hover at my waist, not touching, as if he’s gauging something. Listening to a part of himself he doesn’t fully trust yet.
His gaze descends my torso. Pauses at my aching dick before he drags it back to my face.
He swallows, hesitation creeping into his features, though it doesn’t mar the desire my daft heart thinks I see in his eyes. “I don’t know what I’d do if you were naked.”
“Jackie, you don’t have to do anything—”
“I want to.” Jack doesn’t blink as he cuts me off. “I want you to feel like I did the other night—I want to see that, Sol. I want you to fly.” He leans in for a kiss so sweet I can hardly stand it. “Come to me when you’re done?”
He doesn’t wait for an answer.
He steps back. Gives me space.
And he leaves me with the choice in my shaking hands.