19. Melissa
19
MELISSA
J ason didn’t know it, but he was a big reason I came back to Beaufort after college. He was gone—off living life as a Naval aviator—but he had always been one of the reasons I felt connected to Beaufort.
I had memories here that I didn’t want to forget. It felt like I had roots somewhere. For most of my life, I was a cutting of a plant living in water. Alive and growing, but lacking something to latch on to. The poker club—even in the early days when it was Maddie, Steve, Heather, Chase, Bridget, and me—was the ground I needed to grow and thrive.
Jase pulled me into the space between his knees as we huddled beneath the paddleboards.
I had come to terms with him manhandling me on a whim. I really liked when he did it, but that was never something I was going to admit.
When Bridget had called earlier, it was to see if Jase and I had gone from just friends to more than friends. I didn’t know why she was pushing the topic so much. If it was going to happen, it would happen on its own.
I knew what Jason was doing. He was about as subtle as an armored tank cruising down Front Street.
I wasn’t trying to play hard to get. I was trying to keep Bridget safe. I was trying to keep her secrets from ruining the friendship I had with her brother.
But she kept pushing. Telling me that Jase would be good for me. Part of me—a rather large part—wanted to believe her. Wanted to believe that maybe the boy next door was my happily ever after.
Part of me also wanted to believe that Bridget really was ready to leave Kyle once and for all.
She had left Kyle before, though no one else knew that. But she decided to go back to him.
Part of me wanted to believe that Jase would never have to know about any of it. That he and I could explore the sparks flying between us without secrets crushing us.
A relationship built on secrets and lies was merely a sandcastle. Easily made and easily destroyed.
A crack of thunder rolled across the sky, and I shivered. It wasn’t anything close to chilly out here. Frankly, it felt like we were a little too close to hell today. Still, the goosebumps flooding my skin were a knee-jerk reaction. One that he noticed.
Jase tightened his arms around me, caging me in. “Do you still get scared during storms?” he murmured against my head. Drops of saltwater dripped from my hair onto my shoulders and ran in rivulets down my cleavage.
I looked down at where his hands were clasped around my knees. Instinctively, I had pulled them up to my chest when I heard the thunder.
“How did you?— ”
Jason pressed a feather-light kiss to my shoulder. “If I remember correctly, you were scared of your own shadow growing up.” He nuzzled the side of my neck with the tip of his nose, and I conceded, tipping my head to the side to grant him access. “Chase was over at my house to hang out. You and Bee were upstairs in her room. He and I were downstairs watching a movie. A storm popped up, and it thundered real loud. It shook the house so bad that you ran down and asked me to walk you home. Your eyes were puffy, and it looked like you had been crying.”
“That was a long time ago,” I mumbled. “And it was one time. ”
He hunched over and rested his forehead on my shoulder. For once, I let myself enjoy the comfort I found in his arms. “You grew up a lot,” he said. It was a simple observation on his part, but the tenderness in his words made it something else entirely.
“I had to.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “No one looks at someone like me and thinks I’m soft and gentle.”
“What do you mean someone like you?”
I stared at the purple polish on my toes. My feet were bracketed by Jason’s, my whole body cocooned by him. My ass was nestled between his thighs, and his bare chest was pressed against my back.
“A military brat turned gym rat. Nobody’s ever looked at me and thought I was delicate. That I needed protecting. So, I became who I needed to be. I was strong on my own, and that had to be good enough for life. No one sees me as someone who needs caring for. I’m the one who cares for everyone else.”
“I see you. And I care.”
The statement was simple and soothing, and I believed him completely. Still, the memory of us on the couch after too much tequila ate at me. I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“Why didn’t you kiss me?” The question burned worse than the tequila had. I hated sounding insecure or needy. No one liked a whiny pick me, choose me girl.
His hands slid up my legs to the back of my thighs. Electricity pulsed between my legs. “When? Back when we were kids?”
Well, maybe I wanted to know that, too. “Yeah, back then. But also?—”
“On the couch?”
I nodded.
His grip on my thighs tightened, and I could feel his fingers slipping between the seam of my legs. Every nerve in my body was on high alert.
Jase chuckled quietly. He could have let out a hearty laugh and trusted the downpour of rain to drown it out. But this moment was intimate. His soft tone kept it sacred.
“I was too old for you back then. I wasn’t deserving of you, and I was acutely aware of that. Constantly reminded of it. I was a punk-ass kid with a hell of a lot of issues. I had to leave. I needed to get out so I could become the kind of man who was worthy of someone like Melissa Jacobsen.”
I was about to ask what he meant by being aware and reminded of it, but he kept going.
“I’d like to think that I came back to Beaufort as that man. Someone disciplined and dependable. Trustworthy.”
He grabbed the back of my thighs with full force and turned me without any effort so that I was straddling his hips. The spandex of my bikini bottom that stretched tight across my pussy nuzzled up against his thick cock.
“I’m not that kid looking for an escape anymore.” Jase’s voice was low, rumbling like the thunder cracking overhead. His green eyes pierced me to the bone. “But it was never because I didn’t want to kiss you. Never that I didn’t want to tell you how I felt about you,” he admitted. “The other night, I didn’t kiss you when you asked me to because we were drunk.” He licked his lips, staring at mine. “Maybe it makes me a sentimental son of a bitch, but I wanted to make sure that when I got to kiss you for the first time, it would be a moment we’d both remember.”
My lips parted. I couldn’t breathe. My chest was moving up and down, but there was barely an intake of air between us. “And what about now?” I whispered.
Jason’s tongue darted out, wetting his lips. Green eyes tracked my every move. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I’m trying real hard to be respectful,” he rasped.
A slow smile pulled at the corner of my mouth. I lowered my gaze to his lips, reaching behind him and tangling my fingers in his honey-blond hair. “Respectfully,” I whispered, leaning in and brushing his lips with mine. “Please disrespect me.”
The last thing I remembered before my eyes closed was the immovable smile on his face as he closed the gap.
Jason’s lips were warm and tasted just a little bit like the salty spray of the ocean. The softness of the kiss was a contrast to all his hard edges.
He moved with ease and confidence as he slid his tongue against the seam of my lips, parting them. I conceded, letting out a little moan as he deepened the kiss. It was passionate, but leisurely—like two people catching up after a lengthy absence. Graceful, languid strokes of his tongue against mine had me bursting with desire.
With sandy hands, Jason cupped my jaw like he was holding fine china. Like I was something delicate and precious.
Warmth bloomed in my core, blossoming through every inch of my body. I slid my palms up and down his bare chest, reveling in the dips and ridges of his muscular abdomen. With every movement of his lips against mine, every feeling about him that I had ever stifled came bubbling to the surface .
Without warning, Jase pulled away and rested his forehead on mine. Still cradling my face with one hand, he used the other to wrap his fingers around my wrist, drawing my hand to his chest to press it against his beating heart.
“Do you feel that?” he asked with a wide smile plastered across his face as he flattened my palm against his chest. His breath was coming in heavy pants. Eyes dark with lust. He brushed the tip of his nose against mine as he let his lips ghost over mine and whispered, “Kissing you is what flying feels like.”
I tipped my head back and laughed before leaning up to kiss him again. Jason wrapped his arms around my waist and flipped me without warning. I squealed and giggled as my back hit the ground. Jason straddled me, knees digging into the sand.
Time stood still as he kissed me again.
And again and again.
He swallowed each one of the soft sounds I let out like they were the last drops of water in the middle of a drought.
Needing a hefty dose of oxygen, I reluctantly peeled my eyes open while Jason kissed a spot behind my ear that had me groaning and hooking a leg around his hips. If we weren’t in public, this little tryst would have been going a hell of a lot further. But it was better that we spared the other island explorers some X-rated action and kept our clothes on.
That, and Steve and Chase would never let me live down a public indecency charge.
Sunshine filtered down through the crack between the paddleboards. The roar of rain disappeared, replaced with the gentle breeze rustling through the scrub.
“Looks like the rain is gone,” I said quietly.
Jase chuckled and peppered my neck with light kisses. “Is it wrong to say I’m a little disappointed?”
I reached over and grabbed his dry bag, opening the waterproof seal. Jason rolled off me and plopped his fine ass down into the sand.
“Better fuel up,” I said, handing him a power bar. “You’ll need some energy after all that if you want to beat me on the way back.”
Jason snatched it out of my hand, tearing the wrapper open with his teeth. “No way in hell, Goose.” He took a chunk out of the bar and practically swallowed it whole. “You’re on.”
“Hey, you two,” Bridget called out from her spot behind the bar. “You just missed Maddie and HJ.”
Jason snickered under his breath. “Yeah, I’m not at all sorry about that,” he murmured just loud enough for me to hear.
I bit back a laugh. After we went for a swim off Shackleford, we hopped back on our paddleboards and made the trip back to the boat ramp—me beating him by a whole board length. After we loaded up, Jason and I made out in the truck for a solid fifteen minutes.
Worth it.
I didn’t know where I stood with Jason, but I had a feeling he’d tell me. I liked that he took charge so easily. Maybe it was the military in him, but it was nice not to have to think for once.
I wasn’t going to let myself be steamrolled in a relationship, but Jason was someone I could trust enough to let go of all the control.
He slipped his fingers under the hem of my tank top, grazing them along my lower back as he led me over to the barstools.
Bridget and her sixth sense picked up on it like Ol’ Red sniffing out Blake Shelton. Her smile was nearly maniacal. “What do we have here?”
“Well, I’m starving,” I said as I slapped my hands on the bar and looked at Jase. “What about you? ”
“Famished.” His eyes were deadlocked on mine.
Bridget snorted. “Yeah, he isn’t hungry for anything on the menu here,” she said, looking from Jase to me and back again.
I blushed. Jase paled, sputtering as he nearly choked on his own tongue. “I will never not hate hearing you talk about sex.”
Bridget snickered and scribbled down something onto a ticket before throwing it through the kitchen window. “Oh, don’t give me that look like you expected me to abstain from sex until my wedding day,” she said to Jason when she walked back over. “I’m a grown woman. I have needs.”
Jason grumbled something about bleaching his brain if he ever heard Bridget say the word sex again. I patted him on the back, only slightly jealous that I didn’t have an older brother to badger me about my life choices. Then again, I did have Steve and Chase.
“You think she knows?” he asked when Bridget stepped out of earshot to check on an old-timer sitting on the other side of the U-shaped bar.
“She knows!” Bridget called back with a grin on her face.
I would have been more embarrassed, but I liked seeing her smile. Her body may have been healing from being violated, but her spirit was still strong as ever.
Bridget tapped a spot on her neck and then pointed at Jase. “Nice try, though.”
Jase clapped his hand around the side of his neck and glared at me. I didn’t even have the decency to look slightly contrite. There was humor in his eyes and a flicker of amusement at the corner of his mouth. He prodded the inside of his cheek with his tongue. “I’m gonna get you back, Goose.”
I groaned. “Ugh—still with the Goose thing? I thought I would have graduated from that after you had your tongue down my throat.”
“Never,” he said as he leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to my temple. I closed my eyes and smiled as his lips lingered on my skin. “You’re my Goose.” He sat up and turned on his barstool, opening his knees to bracket me between them. “You’re adorable and scary as hell.”
Bridget swung by and plopped two dinner plates loaded with burgers and a mountain of french fries. “FYI—I’m totally on board with whatever this—” she circled her finger between the two of us “—is.”
“Really?” I asked, popping a fry into my mouth. “I mean, you say that now. But eventually, you’ll get sick of us making eyes at each other.”
Bridget grabbed a towel out of a bucket of sanitizer, wrung it out, and wiped down a section of the bar. I didn’t want to be the one to break it to her, but no amount of scrubbing would get the stickiness off. Maddie complained every time Bridget tried, too. She claimed the unidentifiable tacky residue made the bar better for dancing.
I wasn’t sure if a health inspector had ever been here. Hell—they probably didn’t even know the place existed. Word around town was that Miss Wanda—the owner—came from a long line of bootleggers. Maybe the health inspectors were just too scared of her to show their faces.
“Yeah,” Bridget said as she worked the rag against a particularly stubborn spot of decades-old petrified ketchup. “I always hated the idea of you living alone in Morehead while everyone else lives close to each other in Beaufort.”
“Bee—” It was as far as I got before Jason wrapped his hand around my thigh and squeezed.
“Don’t worry,” Jason said. His voice was firm and commanding. Something about his harsh, definitive tone was comforting.
He didn’t elaborate. Didn’t need to. The subtext was clear.
Stand down .
I’ve got her.
She’s mine.
I leaned into his shoulder. Jason braced his hand on the back of my barstool to give me back support as we ate in companionable silence.
“You know,” Jason said when he had reduced his plate to crumbs. “Maybe we should go on a double date.”
I raised an eyebrow. “We haven’t gone on a date yet, and you want our first to be a double date?”
Bridget looked between us, amused like she was watching a sitcom.
“Not our first,” he said, shaking his head. “I just meant maybe we should go out with Bee and Kyle.” He nodded toward Bridget. “I’ve been meaning to hang out with y’all. You know—get to know your future husband and all that shit. Your schedule’s a little nuts. You work a lot.”
Yeah, to avoid said future husband. I let the thought pass through my brain but didn’t open my mouth. I looked at Bridget, who seemed completely unfazed. Almost… Almost excited at the idea .
“Yeah, we should!” she practically squealed. Bridget cut me a side-eye glance. There was a glimmer of something mischievous behind the look. “I’ll talk to Kyle and see if we can have you both over to our house for dinner sometime soon.”
Jase was none the wiser, but Bridget just dropped a hell of a lot of information on me.
She wanted Jase and me to be inside Kyle’s house—something she had avoided with everyone else from the poker club. And she wanted it to happen soon.
Maybe this was it. Her plan. Getting away from that psychopath.
It made perfect sense to have people present to protect her when she left him once and for all .
Jase nodded. “Sounds good to me. Just let me know when and where.”
I sucked down a gulp of Coke and nodded. “I’m switching back to day shift soon, so I should be free most nights.”
Bee looked nearly giddy. “Good! I’ll talk to Kyle tonight and text y’all.”
“So,” Jase said, reaching over and stealing a fry off my plate. “Day shift?”
I nodded. “Yeah, my sleep cycle will be jacked up for a few days, but on the bright side, I’ll be home at night.” I cocked my head, my gaze dropping to his mouth. “Maybe you can graduate from the couch.”
A coy smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “I like the sound of that.”
Butterflies bloomed inside, fluttering about as they rammed into my fast-beating heart. I wiggled my phone out of the back pocket of my shorts. “I should probably cancel my date.”
Jason snatched my phone out of my hands. “Nope.”
I laughed. “Excuse me?” I made a grab for my phone, but Jase held it out of my reach. “Seriously, give me my phone. I don’t want to be an asshole and cancel at the last minute. I’d rather give him a few days’ notice.”
Jase just shook his head. “You’re going on the date.”
I let out a sarcastic laugh that was half-filled with venom. “I’m sorry—did I hallucinate this whole day? Because I thought we?—”
“We did, and we are,” Jason said as he slid my phone back into my pocket and gave my ass a squeeze for good measure. “But I’m not a consolation prize.”
“What the ever-loving fuck are you talking about, flyboy?”
Jase turned my stool so that we were sitting face-to-face. His big hands were splayed across my thighs, thumbs rubbing soothing circles against my skin. “Go on the date, Mel. Give whoever the prick is a fair shake. I’m not your safety option. After that date, if you want to give what we’ve got a shot, then I will take you on the best date of your life and knock your cute little socks off.”
A growl that was nearly feral ripped out of my chest. “I don’t want to go out with someone else! I want you.”
“Good,” he said, returning the ferocity. “It’s about damn time you admitted it.”