CHAPTER 24
Murphy
I had given up hope that I’d see much of Jesse again after I watched him board his flight home from the cruise. I wanted to change my ticket so badly to be on the same plane as him, but fought back the foolish notion.
What happens on the cruise stays on the cruise.
That’s what we agreed on. His agreement, however, came so swiftly that it stung as I lay on my cabin bed after what I thought had been our best day there yet. Laughing and dancing with him in that ridiculous, tight-ass costume he wore, surrounded by people—it was the cruelest kind of fantasy. It felt like what a life together could look like. Endless kisses, more orgasms, and then it ended with a shrug. A fucking shrug.
I don’t know why I expected anything different. It’s one thing to confess that you enjoy intimacy when you’re pressed against someone’s body in a tiny shower, but it’s another when you know the real world is a day away.
As soon as I saw him stroking himself to that porn flick, it was like a kick in the teeth. Was he bored with me already? Immune to all the passion we’d shared over the past week? Jesse’s always been like a wayward ember, burning bright on a breeze. It was only a matter of time until I couldn’t sustain his spark. How long until he discovers a different wind, though?
He did text to see if I’d made it home safely, so at least he cared enough to find out if my plane had crashed. I can’t imagine what being back in Wenatchee has been like for him, returning with the memories of what we’ve done. I knew he’d have things to figure out. His first night home included a trip to The Dew Drop, though. I gathered that said it all.
I haven’t seen him in three days. So, when he texted earlier, asking what I was up to, and I told him I was working in the tractor shed, I was surprised by how quickly he invited himself over. It’s been taking everything in me to keep a placid look on my face the past two hours while we fiddled in my shop, greasing equipment, and tractors.
Strangely, he’s his usual charming self. Not distant. Not awkward. Just the opposite, in fact. I was starting to think I was imagining the way his body brushed against mine each time he passed by me. The way his hand seemed to linger whenever he asked for a tool. It’s messing with my head.
I can feel his heat behind me. Granted, it’s chilly now that November has dawned, but my shed is insulated.
Peering over my shoulder as I sand the rust off an apple picker, he asks, “When’s Charlotte get home?”
“She’s on midnights again, so not till morning.”
“Hm,” he hums thoughtfully, resting his chin on my shoulder.
Has he always been this comfortable with personal space? My efforts to try keeping the cruise from my mind have only accomplished making them more vivid and everything prior seems like unreliable memories now. How long is it going to take for me to stop reacting to him?
Hope is a cruel thing. Combined with longing, it has me slowly shifting my hips backward, curious, desperate.
Something solid pokes my ass cheek. When Jesse doesn’t retreat, my hands still on my workbench.
He’s hard.
“Are you trying to tell me something?”
“No,” he says innocently. “I’m just cold, and you’re always so warm.”
Arms wrap around my waist. It feels like this is the first time I’ve exhaled in three days. Cold, my ass. I’ve never been more pleased to hear one of his white lies.
“Liar,” I whisper, closing my eyes.
“I am! I swear. Here. Feel my hands.”
His fingers make quick work, sliding under the hem of my sweatshirt. The next thing I know, they’re slipping inside the waist of my jeans, underneath the band of my underwear.
“Shit!” I hiss. He is cold.
“Told you,” he purrs smugly, nuzzling his nose against my neck.
As I adapt to the invasion of the chill, his fingertips massage my sensitive flesh. And I swear those were lips that just brushed my jugular.
“What about ‘what happens on the cruise stays on the cruise?’”
“I haven’t told anyone,” he says with a hint of defense.
“You know what I mean.”
“You’re the one who said that, not me. Why? Are you going to Seattle again or something?”
I said it? Okay, I guess I did, but he agreed. And is that jealousy I hear?
When his head draws back and his hand retreats, I think I have my answer. I capture it, locking mine over his on my belly.
“No. I haven’t even thought about Seattle.”
“Oh…” The optimism in that one syllable has butterflies dancing in my chest. They flutter in a whirlwind when he closes the distance again and starts tracing little circles on my stomach. “So, if your mom’s working… we’re all alone for a while, huh?”
I couldn’t say who moved first when I turned around, but it was a joint effort as soon as our lips met. We seemed to even be on the same page that we needed a bed, scrambling from the shed to the house and into my room in a flurry.
I barely have my underwear kicked off my ankles when he tackles me onto my mattress. Auggie’s distressed groan and the clip of his nails are insignificant background noises as I feel the heat of Jesse’s body cover me.
“Longest three days of my life,” he gasps between kisses, clutching my hips and grinding against me.
It’s a stark reminder that we’re no longer on the ship. We’re home. In my room. In my bed. His clothes, in a pile on my floor. This isn’t a sex ship—it’s our lives, and he chose this.
On the ship, it felt like I was holding my breath, as though each touch of his was just a dream. This? Here? Him still wanting us in the room I grew up in, a room he’s been in hundreds of times—this feels profound.
I don’t want to just scratch an itch. I want to celebrate what it means, give him all of me, so he knows he has it, even if I don’t dare say the words yet.
“Wait,” I blurt, stilling his hips.
“What?”
“I need more.”
Snickering, he nips at my lower lip. “Of course you do. We haven’t done anything yet.”
Even in bed and naked, he can make me laugh. I want him here like this for always, and I want to remember this as the start of it. He’s my beginning and my end. He’s all I’ve ever known and ever want to. I know why I went to Seattle, why I never tried to connect with another man past one night. I was waiting for Jesse.
Grabbing his face, I give him a hard but chaste kiss, and then sit up enough that I can reach my nightstand.
“No, I mean more of you,” I tell him, setting a condom and lube on the mattress.
Turning over, I get on my hands and knees, not even embarrassed by how eager I must look. Drinking in the sight of him, running his awestruck gaze over my body, squeezing the head of his cock, I know he’ll be the last man I do this with. I can already imagine his hands on my hips, the slap of our skin, and feeling that closeness that I’ve dreamt about.
“M-more of me how?” he asks.
“I want you inside me. I want all of you.”