20. Jedd
JEDD
If I didn’t think that it would seriously harm one of my favorite appendages, I would test the phrase “hard enough to drive a nail through wood.”
Lust pools in my groin, making my dick pulse against the bare curve of Andy’s ass that wiggles against me in her sleep.
Light is just barely starting to peek through around the curtains in her room when I crack open my eyes, so I know that it’s still early.
She shifts again, tucking her cold as fuck feet against my shins, and I have to stifle the curses that I want to let out at the feel of her subzero skin touching mine. We all but collapsed into bed last night, and she didn’t put socks on beforehand, so her toes are like icicles.
But I wouldn’t trade a single minute of this, of her sleeping peacefully in my arms, for anything.
Not a single fucking thing in the known universe could tempt me to leave this bed.
“Mmm.” She murmurs, wiggling against me again. “Jedd?”
“Yeah?” I breathe the word against her ear.
“You’re so warm.” She sighs and snuggles deeper into me. My arm tightens around the middle of her ribcage.
With a shift, she turns and faces me. I drape my arm back over her waist and tug her closer. Our legs twine around each other.
“Good morning,” I murmur, and press and kiss to her forehead.
“Morning,” she says around a yawn.
Andy’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life. Sleepy Andy, with her eyes all squinty and the furrow between her brows while she fights to wake up might be my favorite version of her.
“So,” she says after peeling her eyes open to look at me. “We should probably talk.”
“We should.” I have my argument, but I’m going to let her start us off.
Before I let her fire the first verbal volley though, I lean forward and capture her lips with mine. Then I pour every single feeling I have for this woman into the kiss. The love, the admiration, the sheer physical gut punch want.
There’s nothing I need more in this world than the woman in my arms. When I pull back, her eyes are slow to open, like she’s holding on to the moment for as long as she can. She expects it to end, like it’s fleeting, and I watch as her walls come up. The same walls she’s used to keep me at bay.
I’ve respected those walls for years. But no more. I refuse to let her hold us back from what we could be.
“Whoa,” she says. I open my mouth to respond when she presses a finger to my lips.
“Hold that thought.” She slides out of my arms and bounds to the bathroom. After a few minutes, I hear the toilet flush and the faucet turn on.
Lazily, I crawl out of bed and make my way to the bathroom.
“Knock, knock,” I call before cracking the door.
She’s in front of her sink, a bright pink toothbrush hanging from her mouth. I step into the small space and bump her over with my hip as I reach for my toothbrush.
She spits, rinses her toothbrush and then steps around me.
“I’ll give you a few minutes,” she says, and shuts the door behind her.
I finish brushing my teeth and empty my bladder before following her.
She’s gotten back into bed. When she sees me, she pats the mattress next to her.
Don’t mind if I do.
I crawl in next to her and get under the covers before I reach for her, tucking her back into my arms.
“So,” I say and wait.
“It’s not that … I don’t … want you.” She stutters through the statement, and her eyes cut to the side, looking away from me.
I have to suppress a grin. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Andy shy before. She’s brash, bold, and outspoken to a nearly outrageous degree. Which is just how I love her.
This reticence … this is new.
“It’s just that it’s irresponsible for me to think about myself when I have to think of Piper right now.
She needs to be my first priority, and with all the changes that she’s going through and then the meltdown last night …
I just can’t get tangled up with you and …
whatever this is right now. I can’t be distracted. ”
“ Ehhh ,” I make a game buzzer sound. “Try again.” I knew that she was going to come out with that lame ass excuse before the first syllable even left her mouth.
She blinks at me. “What?”
“Piper has been your priority from the day that little girl took her first breath. I’ll agree that she’s going through changes, but she won’t be the yardstick that you use to push me away.
That’s not fair to her, or you, for her to be used that way.
I’m done with us finding whatever excuse we can to deny what we feel. ”
“Jedd. That’s not fair.” Her green eyes find and hold mine.
“I’m not here to fight fair.” I punctuate the statement with a small kiss to her lips.
“I wasn’t aware that we’re fighting.”
“We’re not. I’m fighting against whatever fucked-up thoughts you have about us or ruining us or us getting involved and the doomsday scenario your overactive imagination has come up with.”
“Are you really going to lay here and tell me that us getting involved is going to end well? This whole marriage is fake.” The last word is whispered. Like she’s afraid if she says it too loud a cop is going to burst into the room and arrest us.
“We are not fake.” The words are a growl as I start to lose the hold I have on my emotions. “We are not pretend. Nothing about us is pretend or fake.” I damn near bark the words at her before remembering Piper in the other room
I have to get this through her head. “You coming apart against my mouth last night. Me holding you in my arms. You kissing me back. You’re going to try to tell me that it was fake?
That it’s a bad idea?” I trace my thumb over her hip, the gentle gesture at odds with my firm tone.
“Not going to happen.” I suck in a deep breath, gentling my voice. “I’m scared too, Mischief.”
She bites her lip. There’s naked fear on her face, along with the stubbornness that I’ve bashed my head against for years.
“I am. Scared that you’re going to decide that I’m not what you want. That we’re not worth risking our friendship for. Scared that no matter what I do, I’m going to lose you. But I can’t do this anymore.”
Fuck.
Giving voice to the fear that’s beat a drum in my heart since I realized I had true, gut-wrenching, never-going-back feelings for this woman is terrifying.
But I can’t keep them a secret from her anymore. We’ve kept our feelings secret for far too long.
Her brow furrows. “Do what?”
“Hide what I feel for you. Stop myself from reaching for you every time I want you in my arms. Biting back the words that want to spill out when I’m with you. I’m done denying what I feel, what I’ve always felt for you.”
“Jedd …” The hesitation in her voice slays me. I want her to want me back more than I want anything else in the world, but I don’t know how to combat her hesitation.
What if she’s really not ready? Not ready for this. For us.
No.
I can’t think like that. I know she wants me. I know she cares for me. I just have to help her get to the same place as me.
“Tell me you don’t want me. That you didn’t want me last night.
That you didn’t want me yesterday when we were standing in front of our friends promising each other forever.
That you haven’t wanted me just as long as I’ve wanted you.
Just say it. Say ‘Jedd, I don’t want you’ and I’ll drop it and we’ll go back to friends.
” My distaste for that word is impossible to hide.
Her lips thin, the stubborn tilt of her chin flexing.
Come on, Mischief. Take a chance on us.
I hold my breath, waiting for her to respond. Acutely aware that this could be where it all goes to shit. Where she stands firm and refuses to give us a chance. A chance to make this work. A chance at a future for us.
The longer I stare at her, memorizing how she looks and feels in my arms, the more confident I get.
“You can’t say it, can you?” I say, lobbing the unspoken truth between us. “You can’t say it because you do want me. Want us. You’re just scared.”
“It’s not about me.”
I wave away that argument again. Reaching forward, I cup her face in my palms. “You know I’d never do anything to hurt Piper. You know that. So what’s the real problem, Andy? You’re afraid of being with me, why?”
“I can’t lose you.” She practically hurls the words at me. The whispered shout echoes in the space between us.
I suspected it but having her say it loosens the tension that’s been gathering in my chest like storm clouds. I pull her into my arms and hug her close.
“In what universe would you ever think that you’ll be rid of me? Haven’t you noticed by now that you’re stuck with me? I’m just asking for a chance.”
“You promise? You promise that even if we don’t work, you’ll still be my friend?”
There’s an aching vulnerability in the question. It stings that after everything we’ve been through she still doesn’t trust me. That she’s been hurt too many times in her life to jump into us with both feet.
“Mischief,” I say on a sigh.
She burrows deeper into me, as if she can’t get close enough, and I feel the same way. She’s my safe harbor in the storm, and I can tell her anything within the cocoon of us.
“You’ve never broken a promise to me, Jedidiah Calhoun, so I need you to promise that if—if this doesn’t work, we’ll still be friends. We’ll still be us.”
“I promise,” I utter the words to reassure her knowing with my whole being that there won’t be an “if this doesn’t work.” There’s nothing I wouldn’t give this woman, nothing that I’d ever deny her.
“Okay.” She leans back to look at me. The underlying fear is still there, along with some apprehension. But those I can handle.
“Okay? Okay, what?” I need her to be specific. I need to hear the words. To hear that she’s willing to give this a shot.
“I’ll give us a chance.” This time, she leans forward and captures my lips. It’s the first time she’s initiated a kiss.
Fuck. She tastes good.
Physical intimacy is something I’ve craved from her for so long, and she’s finally giving it to me.
Emotions threaten to overtake me, to sweep me up and wash me away like loose sand in the tide even as a sense of triumph fires in my chest. There’s almost no physical distance between us now—just my gym shorts, and her shirt and panties.
I slide my hands under the tail of her shirt and run my hands over the smooth skin of her lower back.
“Thank you,” I say before I take her lips with mine again. The plush plumpness of them parting under the seeking touch of my tongue is perfection, and her flavor explodes in my senses.
She’s mine. Finally. Totally. Mine.
A tiny whimpering gasp emerges from her throat, and I swallow the sound. Those are mine too. All of the sighs, the moans, the whimpers. All mine.
Greed for her pushes me to deepen the kiss and the lust between us threatens to explode.
My hands run up her sides, over the curve of her hips, across the silky skin of her ribcage and up until I’m cupping the swells of her breasts.
The weight of her is like heaven in my hands as I trace my thumbs up and over her hard nipples.
Her breath catches in her throat, and I devour that sound before I break my mouth away and trail kisses down the column of her throat.
“Jedd.” My name is a plea on her lips, one I’m incapable of denying.
I press one last kiss to her collarbone before moving back. My fingers trace her nipples through the silk of her sleep tank.
“Can I have you?” I ask the same question from last night. The need to truly have her is wild and unrestrained within me.
“Yes.”
The whispered consent rips through my control, shredding it to tatters.
Rolling us, I push Andy to her back. Her legs come up and around my hips, letting me settle fully in between her spread thighs. The heat of her core sears me through my shorts and my cock grows impossibly harder.
Her hips shift, the movement jerky and unconscious as I grind into her center. Impatient for the feel of her skin under my fingers, I pull her top over her head. My lips find her nipple and I suck her into my mouth, flicking my tongue lightly against her.
“Oh.” Her breathy sigh ends on a moan as I pinch and suckle.
If lightning struck me dead right now, I’d die a happy man.
Andy—my Mischief—is in my arms. The sound of her pleasure rings in my ears, and it’s everything I’ve ever wanted in this life and the next.
Her hands dive into my hair, slightly tugging as she holds on while I taste her. I drop my free hand to her panties and push them down her thighs. The two of us shift until she can kick them off at her feet. After pulling back, I shove my boxers down and kick them away.
Skin presses to skin. The velvet feel of her under me is beyond anything I could have imagined.
“Jedd,” she whimpers. Her eyes are devouring my naked form and my cock kicks when I see her desire.
Reaching down, I squeeze my dick, trying to reduce some of the pressure, seeking enough relief that this won’t be over before it starts.
But it’s Andy—my Andy—spread out like a goddess for me, and I know that any hope of this lasting is in vain.
“If you don’t stop looking at me like that, I’m going to come all over you.” I bark the words, beyond the ability to soften my tone.
Her eyebrow kicks up. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.
” Her hips roll, softening the line of her stomach as she spreads her thighs wider.
The trim patch of curls at the apex of her thighs is an arrow pointing to the bundle of nerves I want to feel spasm on my tongue again as she comes down my throat.
“Fucking hell.”
“Do it. Come all over me.” She throws down the dare, reaching for my dick. Her fingers trace up and down my shaft, learning me.
I have to grit my teeth to hold back. To stop myself from guiding her hand and showing her exactly how I want her to touch me.
“Goddamn, Mischief.”
After two centuries of hanging onto my control with everything I’ve got, her fingers curl around me.
Fucking finally.
God, I want her so much.
So much that I’m about to embarrass myself and come all over those talented fingers.
She jerks her hand up and down my cock, and I have to bite back curses.
The soft press of her palm against me coupled with the unstoppable way I want her coalesces, and I lose the hold I have on myself.
I bat her hand away. “Not going to happen. I’m not going to come in your hand the first time we’re together.”