24. Jedd
JEDD
“Why did we wait so long to do this?” Andy says once we catch our breath.
I slide my hand up her smooth thigh where it’s thrown over mine.
It’s been a busy day of phenomenal sex, packing up some boxes from my apartment, and dinner with Piper before we got her settled into bed.
Though we’ve now finished the nighttime session of phenomenal sex, I can still taste her on my lips, smell her in my beard, and my cock pulses at the memory of her grinding against my tongue while I pinched her nipples.
The way she turned around the second she was able to uncurl after her orgasm and took me straight to the back of her throat while tugging on my balls and tonguing my cock is imprinted on my mind.
“I thought that you didn’t want me—or anyone really,” I tell her. “Every time I brought up relationships you said—and I quote— pass . That they weren’t for you.” I keep my tone light, trying to hide the hurt I felt at what felt like a rejection of me each time.
Andy stretches in my arms, and even that innocent touch is enough to heat my blood to a boiling point. “I didn’t think they were. I mean, other than you and your family, I haven’t been … great at relationships with other people. Look at me and Alex. Or me and my mom,” she says with a shrug.
“You can’t really count you and Alex though, considering her addiction.
Your mom—the same. And my family loves you.
We should have been the first reason on why you could have relationships.
” I know that the topic is heavy, but if I’m going to make any headway into earning her forever, not just for now, I need to keep showing her that she’s lovable.
That she deserves whatever the fuck she wants in her life and that I’ll move heaven and earth to give it to her.
“Hmm. I mean, you’re not wrong, but every time I went on a date. . .”
She has her chin propped on my chest, so I pull my head back a little to keep her in focus. “Every time you went on a date, what?” I’ve heard little about her “dates,” but I normally changed the subject so the thought of her with another man didn’t drive me to the edges of sanity.
In return, I kept my dating details sparse because no matter who the woman was, they were never Andy.
“They didn’t measure up,” she says in a whisper, and I don’t understand.
“Measure up? To what?”
“To you.”
A warm glow lights in my chest.
“So you’ve pretty much wanted the best and weren’t gonna settle.” I grin at her. “I knew you had good taste.”
She shoves her fist against my ribs, and I laugh.
Rolling her eyes at me she continues. “No. I mean. Yes. But also, when something big in my life happened, I didn’t want to call any of the guys that I was seeing at the time.
I wanted to call you. I wanted to share my news with you.
Tell you all of my good things and my bad things.
I knew that the guys I was seeing wouldn’t understand why those things happening in my life were so big to me, but you got it.
You got me. Eventually, I decided that dating wasn’t for me and was just happy to have you in my life. ”
I lean down and kiss her, so goddamn thankful that she’s comfortable enough with me to be that honest.
“What about you?” she asks.
“Hmm …” Putting nearly two decades of wanting the woman into words is hard. “Do you remember in freshman year when you wore those cutoffs to the creek?”
She leans up to glare at me. “You mean the ones that you spilled soda all over and then only had a pair of your sweaty basketball shorts for me to change into?”
I nod. “That was the first time I realized that I wanted you as something more than a friend.”
Andy jerks back. “What?”
“I was so fucking mad at you for wearing those shorts and letting that fucker Thad hang all over you. I hated more that I realized how amazing your legs looked, the way your bathing suit hugged your curves, and how badly I wanted to touch them and you.” I still hate thinking about that asshole touching her when I got my first taste of jealousy for her.
The only thing that makes the memory bearable is that he’s long gone, and I’m here with her, in bed.
She’s quiet for a minute. “That long?” she asks, and I nod. Wanting her is so deeply ingrained in me, it’s hard to think of a time I didn’t want Andy, any way I could have her.
“There are a million other times I could tell you about, but that was the first time. I went from looking at you as my best pal to looking at you as the woman I wanted but I couldn’t have.” There’s still a part of me that doesn’t truly believe I have her. Not the way I want her.
Patience.
I hang onto mine with everything I have instead of trying to rush her to the same place I am.
“Why didn’t you say anything? You had to know …”
I shake my head. “I didn’t know, not for sure. There would be times when I questioned, but I was too chicken shit to rock the boat and possibly fuck up having you in my life, and I talked myself out of it.”
I hate that we missed all this time. That we could have been having this. But I’m grateful that we’re here now. That she’s letting me in, giving us a shot.
So damn grateful.
She’s quiet for a minute before her eyes narrow in suspicion. “What about all of your ‘I don’t want to be tied down’ when your brothers used to ask you about the girls you were seeing?”
I tug a lock of her hair and keep my eyes on her. “Smoke screen. Har asked me if I was gay.”
Andy laughs. “He did what?”
“Yeah, I hadn’t been dating anyone for a while between junior year and senior, and he pulled me into the barn in Dad’s backyard and asked me if I was gay, or bi, or pan. Said that no one in the family would care, and that I could tell them if I was. That I didn’t have to hide who I was.”
“What did you do?” She tries to stifle her grin but fails.
“I told him I loved him, and that I was straight. Most awkward conversation of my life. After that I started dating, but superficially. I would take girls out, but we never did anything more than kiss.”
“Wait. Are you saying that you were a virgin until senior year?”
He nods. “I started seeing Kelly, you remember her?”
Her eyes narrow. “That bitch hated me, of course I remember her.”
“You were seeing that asshole—god what was his name?”
“Declan.”
I snap my fingers. “Yes, that fucker. And you were so fucking moony over him. I was in a bad place, and I tried my best to move on from you.”
“I’m sorry.” She presses a kiss to my chest. I can feel the apology in the gesture, and I hug her tighter.
“It’s okay. Did it to myself.”
“God, we’re idiots, aren’t we?”
“When was it for you?” I ask, expecting an answer much more recent than my revelation. I don’t want to push her, but I need to know.
“You remember those cutoff jeans I wore to the creek freshman year?” She laughs.
“No fucking way,” I exclaim.
She grins and shrugs, the swish of her hair over my chest tickling.
“I was wearing them for you, and I was so fucking mad that you spilled your coke on them like two seconds after we got there.”
“You were wearing them for me?” I ask with a smirk. Fuck that feels good. So damn good.
“Yeah. I wanted you to fricken notice me, and I saw how your brothers looked at all the other girls in their shorts and bathing suit tops. I wanted you to look at me like you were thinking about what it would be like to get me out of them.”
I tap my chin. “You wouldn’t happen to still have those shorts would you?”
Andy barks out a laugh and buries her face in my chest. I wrap my arms around her in a hug and press a kiss to the crown of her head as her shoulders shake with laughter.
“No sir. You lost the cutoff privilege.”
I roll her under me. Her red curls spill out across the sheets, begging for me to run my fingers through them, for me to grip them while I move her where I want her so I can kiss her until we both lose our breath.
“Oh, did I?” I ask while tracing my hand up the inside of her thigh. “Guess it’s a good thing that I have other privileges now, huh?”
Andy slides her thighs apart, and I fall into the cradle of her legs as she threads her hands through my hair. “I guess it is.”
She leans up and I find her mouth with mine, tasting the future on her lips.
A week later I’m wondering why I ever thought marrying Andy was a good idea.
I gave her unfettered access to me, and she betrayed me.
The she devil.
“It’s not fucking funny.” I snarl at my brothers.
The five of them are all doubled over, losing their ever-loving shit at Andy’s most recent prank.
I run my hand over the scruff on my face. The much shorter scruff.
Andy made a comment about trimming up my beard, giving it a little bit of a trim so that it lays more neatly.
I may have told her that I’d sooner cut off my arm than ever let her near me with a pair of shears.
To get back at me, she reversed the dial on my beard trimmer.
Instead of the max setting being an eight, it’s now set at a one, which is the shortest it can go.
Imagine my surprise when I set my normal eight and ended up with ninety percent of my beard falling into the sink and my heart falling straight to my ass.
I’ve had facial hair since my senior year in high school, and yeah, sometimes it can get out of control, but I’m pretty good at keeping up on maintenance.
Which is why when I went to put my normal beard oil on what little length I had left, I was surprised when it started to itch. I assume my skin was more sensitive than normal with the hair being shorter.
But no. She put itching powder in my beard oil. I damn near scratched my face off.
My options are to fully shave—I’d rather die first—or let it slowly grow out.
“You should have just let her trim it, bro,” Finch says when he can finally breathe again.
“No,” I growl. “She scalped me once. I’m not giving her a chance to do it again. You wouldn’t hand your keys to someone after they already totaled one of your cars, now would you?”
Har shakes his head at me. Dad’s expression is also exasperated.
The girls are having a facial night at Jem and Boone’s, so we decided to get together and have a fire in the backyard.
The weather is getting colder every day, and now that I’m missing a good portion of my winter coat, my face is fucking freezing. I’m going to have to get one of those face scarves or something until it grows back.
“Listen, if there’s anything I’ve learned about women …” Rhett starts, and I hold a hand up to stop him.
“I’ll take dating advice from you as soon as you get through one without losing a piece of clothing or your own hair, mkay?”
My brothers howl with laughter at that. Rhett gets himself into weird situations when he goes out on dates.
“Fuck you, Jedd. I was trying to help,” he fires back at me.
Not wanting to fight with my brother, I tip my bottle in his direction. “I appreciate it, but Andy and I aren’t dating. We’re married.”
“Yeah. You married a hairdresser. And you don’t let her touch the hair on your head. Makes a lot of sense,” Boone says with a sarcastic smirk. “That’d be like me not letting Jem make me coffee.”
I glare at my brothers. “Are any of you on my side?”
“Nope,” they chorus. Color me not surprised at all.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I yank it out to see a picture from Andy.
There’s some sort of unicorn contraption on her and Piper’s heads. Their faces have that dewy look that usually means they spent the last two hours slathering their skin with products from the salon.
I grin down at their smiling faces even as the pang in my chest is strong enough to fell an elephant.
“He’s so gone, boys,” Finch crows, waving his beer in my direction.
Duke snorts. “No shit, idiot.”
Absolutely gorgeous.
Mischief: Having fun?
Yeah. You?
I turn my phone over while I wait for a response. “Things are going well on that front?” Dad asks, taking a sip of his own beer.
I nod. “Yeah. We’re good. It seems like things are going to calm down now.”
The shop expansion is set to start in less than a week, Andy’s lawyer hasn’t called with any new news, and no news is good news in my book on that front.
Piper hasn’t had another meltdown. And we make sure to answer whatever questions she has about her mom.
Andy got her into a counselor earlier this week, and we worried another change in her routine would send her into a tailspin again, but it hasn’t.
And we’re not ones to look a gift horse in the mouth.
The best part of my life is that I wake up with Andy in my arms every single day and go to bed with her in the same place.
Har snorts from his chair. “Better knock on wood, bro.”
I turn my attention to him. “What do you know?” He wouldn’t make that comment unless he heard something down the grapevine.
“Judge Hamilton approved visitation. Andy should hear about it tomorrow, but the Everette county court lets us know when visitation is approved with a minor in a custody case after previously being denied as a precaution.”
Fuck.
My phone vibrates on my leg. I turn it over and press play on the short video from Andy.
In it, she shows herself tickling Piper mercilessly on the couch at Jem’s.
Piper’s shrieks of laughter are so high-pitched they could crack glass, but she sounds so happy.
Audra babbles in the background, Jem and Maisie joining in with the laughter.
Is that going to change? It’s only been a couple of weeks since everything happened with Alex. Is it too soon for Piper to be put back in her orbit?
Even as I question it, I know that we don’t have a choice if the judge granted it.
Still, I worry.
Maybe it makes me an asshole, but I don’t want Alex to have access to Piper.
I don’t want Andy to have to deal with her sister and all the bullshit that she brings.
Andy’s just starting to find her footing again after everything too.
Things are starting to settle, and I don’t want that to change. Not yet.
A sudden a fierce urge to shield the two of them rises like a rogue wave. I won’t let anything happen to either of them.
I’ve stayed out of Andy’s way when it comes to her sister, taking the back seat and following her lead, while being there to pick up the pieces if she needs me to, but I can’t do that anymore.
Not when that back seat approach has the ability to threaten everything I’ve ever wanted.