Chapter 16 Jillian #2
“And did your brothers and sisters join in the Jones Beckett Nude Tradition?” I ask.
“Nope. That family tradition was mine and mine alone,” he says, then closes out of the folder.
“It’s sweet that you keep so many family pics on your phone,” I remark.
“Yeah, I like them,” he says, then he tells me he’s saving money in retirement accounts for all of them, and his greatest dream is to provide for every single Beckett. I learn, too, that he bought his parents a spacious new home, and he provides for them so they no longer have to work.
“That’s seriously amazing, Jones,” I say.
“They’re as cool as your dad. You should meet them someday.” The offer sounds so earnest that I nearly believe he means it.
“That sounds nice.” I can almost picture driving up to their home, bringing a huge bouquet of fall flowers, meeting his mom and dad, chatting with them, since I’d be so eager to get to know the parents of my—
I swerve the car in the other direction. The not-my-boyfriend-in-any-way-shape-or-form direction. “I bet they’re so proud of you for all you’ve done on and off the field.”
“They are, but I’m proud of them, too. Raising four kids on next to nothing wasn’t easy, and that’s why I work hard to take care of them now.
I guess that’s why some of the things that happened with my last agent were so frustrating.
I’m not suffering financially. But I want to be able to do everything I possibly can for them. ”
I nod, completely understanding the drive to help, to support. “I get it. I feel the same way about my dad. That’s why I try to see him as much as possible. Just to be there.”
“The least we can do is take care of the ones who took care of us. Hell, that’s part of why I’m so glad my brother moved back to San Francisco from New York.
He’s the sibling I’m closest to, and helping him with his beer show is my way of repaying that smart bastard for the way he helped me in high school. ”
“He did?”
Jones nods. “He’s the creative one in the family, and since eleventh-grade essays on Huck Finn are the foundation of hell, Trevor made sure I didn’t burn in the fiery depths.” He pauses, then winks. “I bet you loved high school essays.”
I narrow my eyes. “Confession: even though I was an English major, I think essays ought to be abolished. They are the devil’s work.”
His hand rises for another high-five. Once more I smack back, and foolishly I wait for him to link hands with mine.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he gathers the plates on the tray, carries it to the door, sets it outside, then dials room service for a pickup. He brushes one hand against the other, and my heart free-falls. This is when he leaves. This is when our evening ends.
He raises a hand. “Question.”
“Answer.”
“How do you feel about movies?”
“Love them. The good ones, that is.”
“Mission: Impossible? Is that a good one?”
I laugh. “Duh. More like a great one.”
He gestures to the big-screen TV facing the bed. “Want to watch? When we checked in, I saw it was on pay-per-view. Unless you want to stream something from our phones.”
The free-falling heart screeches to a stop. “Yes. Mission: Impossible.” My answer comes out more breathlessly than I intend.
I know this is a bad idea. I know this is flirting with danger. But if we managed to eat dinner and chat in this hotel room, we can certainly manage to watch a movie.
He eyes my bed then hops on it, stretching out his long legs and parking his hands behind his head. He looks over at me, and I’m officially frozen. He’ll need to pluck me from the ground like an ice sculpture because I can’t move.
Where am I supposed to watch? The floor? The table?
The answer comes when he pats the spot next to him on the mattress.
My insides go up in flames, and a million dangerous thoughts speed through my head. Do I actually lie down next to him? Do I put my body near his? Horizontal and inches apart?
I’m fully clothed. He is, too. But still . . . that’s a bed.
“Do you . . .?” I start to ask, but talking is so hard in this overheated state that I can’t finish the sentence—think this is a good idea?
He must sense my question because he rolls his eyes. “It’s a lot more comfortable than sitting in those awkward chairs for a two-hour flick,” he says, reaching for the TV remote on the nightstand and clicking to the menu. “C’mon.”
Here goes nothing.
I lie next to him, and he turns on the movie.
I don’t know what to do with my arms. I let them hang at my sides, but I bet that looks dumb. I cross them at my chest. I bet I look mad. I lace my hands together across my belly. I bet I look prim.
I want to just lounge and stretch and be cool as Tom Cruise rappels into a vault in the CIA’s headquarters, but I can’t focus.
I can’t think about a single thing that Ethan Hunt is doing on the screen when I’m literally six inches away from the man I’ve crushed on, lusted after, and now fear I’m starting to like.
Truly like.
Jones watches the screen intently, and I wish this was hard for him, too. All I can think about is the six inches between us and how much I wish they were zero. Half a foot feels insurmountable. But at the same time, if I moved my hand a little bit, then maybe a little more, I would touch his leg.
Subconsciously, or perhaps not so subconsciously at all, I let my hand fall from my waist to the mattress. A little closer now.
His gaze roams to my hand, dangerously near his hip.
He turns to me. His eyes lock with mine, and my breathing stops. I want to look away, but I want to stare into his deep blue eyes. With his voice a little gravelly, he asks, “Do you like the movie?”
My heart thumps hard against my chest. I lick my lips. “It’s great.”
“You’re not going to fall asleep, are you?”
I shake my head, my hair spilling against the pillow. He watches as my hair moves. I watch his face. He looks at my hand. I glance at his hand. I swear it slides a millimeter closer to mine, then another, then more.
I’m a shooting star.
I’m lit up.
My body is full of electrons and neurons, pulsing and glowing bright.
His eyes stay on mine, not on the screen, not on Ethan. “If you do, though, you can fall asleep on me.”
I swallow, but I can’t get past the dryness in my throat. I don’t think I can get past the desire to take him up on that, to snuggle up against him like the orange kitten, to let him pet me, stroke me, touch me.
Make me purr.
“Want to?” he asks. Is he saying what I think he’s saying?
“Sleep on you?” Each word has its own longitude and latitude.
He nods. “Rest your head on me.”
Oh God.
Oh, my.
He lifts his arm, making room for me to rest my head in the crook, right there. I want to, and I’m terrified of how much I want to.
“You already slept on me in the car,” he says, low and playful.
A soft laugh bursts from my throat, and I scoot a few more inches, resting my head on his chest. My body lines up with his. Our hips touch. My breasts are near his broad, strong chest. Our legs are so close I could drape one over his.
I glance down at my body to make sure I haven’t flung myself at him.
Whew.
Good. I’m still lying flat on my back.
I stay like this, not moving, because if I do, I’ll moan, I’ll groan, I’ll murmur. I’ll blurt out something dangerous like touch me, kiss me, take me.
Briefly, I try to focus on the screen, to zoom in on the secret agent. What would the king of impossible missions do in this risky situation?
He’d find a way out of danger. Clearly, the only path for me is to go full possum.
With Ethan Hunt somewhere in Prague, my mind drifts, my eyes flutter closed, and I fall asleep.
Later, I wake to a dark room. To a clock flashing 3:25 in bright green. To a TV screen showing the soft blue glow of the hotel’s pay-per-view menu.
And to a hand on my waist. To a big, strong body pressed to mine. To an arm slung across my stomach.
And something else.
Something hard against my butt.
Very hard. Very long.
Soft, steady breath flutters across my neck, the gentle whoosh of a sleeping man.
A man who is wrapped around me. Who’s snuggling me. Who’s erect.
I don’t even try to fight off a grin. Inside, I’m doing a dance. No, a striptease, because Jones is hard as he touches me.
But wait. I shouldn’t read anything into this. It’s not about me. It’s a three-thirty-in-the-morning erection. It’s a dream hard-on. It’s the body’s natural reaction to sleep.
Only, I want to read everything into it, especially as he murmurs something unintelligible and tugs me closer, lining my body up against his. Like that, he buries his face in my hair, and I melt into a puddle of woman as he spoons me, breathing in my hair, his lips close to my neck.
I should leave. But it’s my room.
And he’s sound asleep, so I can’t kick him out.
I have no choice but to stay like this, tangled up with him.
I close my eyes and pretend he’s mine for now. I pretend he belongs to me, and we’re together, all through the night. I drift off like that, and it feels as if I’m floating on a cloud.
When I wake at seven thirty, the bed is empty.
He’s gone.