18. Chapter 18
Chapter 18
Jake
Hours of conversation, card playing, and eating and drinking later, I retreated to my bedroom alone.
It neared midnight and I stared into the soft darkness around me. My shoulders were mildly sore from rowing earlier in the day, but the good kind of sore. My room, like all others in the house, had a queen bed, bedside tables, and a closet, with wooden walls and a whitened ceiling. My window overlooked the forest and the warm, soft-light lamp that remained on until one in the morning; with it, tree branches cast shadows on my wall that danced with the wind. Their movements were hypnotic, and they typically helped me drift into sleep.
Not that night. Feelings and thoughts of all colors twisted inside, as I contemplated recent developments. Vi and I were involved, finally starting something… undefined. It felt so, since we were going to hide it. At least it didn't mean it was casual, or that it didn't matter. We were together. Even if we wouldn't let everyone else know yet.
Through it all, a warm thread stitched pieces of me together. The fact that after a decade of yearning for this chance, of hoping she could feel something like this for me, we laid bricks on the foundation of us as a couple— it repaired the cracks that had me doubting she could see something worthwhile with me.
The only question left was if we'd build something strong enough to withstand the storm, when everyone learned we were together, and we'd hidden it.
My stomach didn't get a chance to churn at the prospect, because the handle on my door let out a soft click. It opened slowly, the hall still dark. I sat on my bed, my heart in my throat, because the only person who would come in trying to make no sound was precisely the person I wanted the most.
"Jake?" Vi's voice was barely a whisper.
I smiled, even if I wasn't sure she could see it in the dim light of my room. "I'm awake."
She closed the door behind her just as quietly as she'd opened it, and came and sat at the edge of my bed.
"Hey." There was just enough light to see her soft smile. "Surprise."
"Hello, Violeta." I lifted a hand to her face. "Fancy seeing you here. Fulfilling one of a million fantasies I've had over the years."
"I couldn't resist. I had the same fantasy, you know? You coming into my room at night. But I got tired of waiting."
A smile pulled at the corner of my lips. "I wouldn't have come."
"Why?" She leaned into my hand. "Now you know you're welcome."
"Which is why it's dangerous."
I wore only a white shirt and boxers to sleep; she'd come into my room with an old college shirt she'd cut the neck and sleeves off of, and thin gray joggers-type pajama pants. I had seen her in sleeping clothes countless times, but to have her skin close seemed too risky.
Yet I couldn't help myself, and ran my fingers down her neck, the line of her shoulder, and down the round of it to her arm.
"Why?" she asked again, this time with a low, breathless voice.
I scooted closer to her. Moving my big body forward had the bed creaking; she smiled and sat closer to me on the edge, too.
I took her chin between two fingers. "For one, I don't want to have to worry about the noises beds make."
A curl appeared on her lips. "Right. Any other reasons?"
I dropped a kiss to her mouth, and stayed close enough to give her a thousand more. Because I could, and I wanted to, and being close did actually pluck fibers out of my resolve.
"Vi, when I get to know the sounds you make… when I finally get to know if you have the smart mouth I think you have… I don't want to worry about waking anyone up."
My fingers were still on her chin, and we were close enough to feel her exhale on my lips.
I pressed my mouth to hers again. Awe that I got to kiss her glowed in my chest non-stop, and I would follow that power into a million kisses. Until I lost count.
"I just want to be close to you," she said. "Feel you next to me."
Warmth swelled inside from her words.
I gave her another kiss and dropped my forehead to hers. "This is where you learn I don't think I can say no to you."
"Mmh. I like hearing that."
"I bet you do."
I moved back on the bed again and opened the covers to make room for her. She settled with her head on my shoulder and an arm around my stomach; I curled mine around her back and anchored a hand on her soft, pillowy hips.
"Fuck, this feels good," I confessed in a low voice.
I turned my head to take a deep breath and inhale the scent of her hair, a faint mix of conditioner and perfume.
"It's what I imagined," she said in the same tone. "What I wanted."
"So long holding back. Now I finally have you in my arms, and I'm still holding back."
"How do you think they're going to react to the news when we finally tell them?"
I bit the inside of my lips. "I don't know. What if they…"
The usual image of them looking at me in disappointment and betrayal didn't fully form; it remained hazy and unreachable. A part of me had to know what was there, because it cowered and yelled not to risk it. It blocked it from my view, for reasons I didn't understand.
I took a deep breath and frowned. "I don't know, Vi. But maybe we can let that be for now. Focus on us, like you said."
"Yeah, let's do that. It's already a big thing we even moved this much closer." She squeezed my stomach. "Literally and figuratively."
"It's this new, delicate thing I'm trying to wrap my head around… and this familiar thing that is finally what it was supposed to be."
She angled her head to gaze at me. "How long have you wanted me?"
I gazed down at her and smirked. "That's one way to ask. I had feelings for you first, then I wanted you."
Her smile stretched, glorious in the dim light of night. "Since when, then?"
"End of third year of college. You had just finished your first, and we all went to the old lake house. Gabe, you, and I. You dropped your bags on the floor by the door and took your bathing suit out, declaring that you needed the cold lake water on your skin stat."
"I don't remember any of this."
"Oh, I do, very clearly. You came out of the bathroom in your two-piece, grabbed a towel, and went out into the old dock. I gazed at you the whole time, until you disappeared into the water and came out again with a smile just like the one you have right now. And this pang in my chest, demanding that I joined you, that I got more of you, see if you would let me hold you… it never went away."
With the smile in place, she stretched up to kiss me. "I love that. Even if it means I had feelings for you first. I've been pining for longer, Jake."
I arched an eyebrow. "You have? Tell me."
"I told you it started in high school for me."
"Tell me more."
"You were a senior. I had just started and I knew no one. We crossed paths in a hallway and you smiled at me…" she sighed. "I was done."
I gave her a slow nod. "Yep. That feels good to hear."
"I bet it does." She lifted herself to an elbow. "You didn't even notice I had a crush on you."
"I didn't, not back then. And not after I wanted you to have a crush on me, either. For the longest time I thought it would be impossible."
"Maybe you didn't want to see the signs."
"What signs, Vi? You dated, you smiled that smile with everyone— you treated me like everyone else. Like you treated Gabe."
"I tried to make the feelings stop. It didn't work." She gave me a soft kiss.
When I could gaze into her eyes again, I dropped more of the walls I'd kept up for a decade. "Pushing the feelings away— it never worked. Even after we said we'd try to move on… there's a flame in my heart that has burnt for you for most of my adult life."
"Why did you kiss me that day, Jake? That first gala. It was the wrong time for us."
I shrugged and lifted my free hand to caress her face. "I broke."
"To see a man like you, who keeps himself under wraps, falling to his knees…" She bit her lip. "That's sexy."
My fingers twitched where they touched her. "How do you know I keep myself under wraps?"
"I've suspected it for a long time. Then that first gala kiss told me I was probably right. The last two months, though?" She brought her free hand to run two nails over my lips. "I saw you almost break."
"I could break now, Vi."
She kissed me, then talked softly into my ear. "I want you to break."
I got instantly hard. My heart didn't run, but it knocked hard against my chest. A deep, rumbling bell tower ringing in my ears, telling me it was finally time.
The soft hip under one of my hands fit perfectly, and I grabbed a handful. She kissed the tender skin between my ear and my beard, lower into my neck, my cheek. The fingers around her face twitched.
I swallowed, hard. "Not here, Vi. Not now."
Her sigh was deep, and she put her forehead down on my temple. My fingers dug into her hair.
"Of course I'll respect that." She lifted her head and gave me a placid smile. "But I hope the jury takes notice that you can, in fact, tell me no."
I snorted and quieted the noise fast. The point was to avoid being caught.
"Barely." My voice came gravelly out of my throat. "And only because I plan to make you scream."
"I won't push tonight but, just so you know— I can keep quiet."
"Good to know, but that's only another challenge I'll try to win."
"Promise?"
If I couldn't allow myself all I wanted to do to her, I could at least allow some transparency.
I let my smile show some of the hunger eating me inside. My smile stretched, wide and heated as I pulled her down for a kiss.
"You tell me what you think," I said, before I bit on her bottom lip and kissed her like we were alone in the house, and we could let our lips travel all over.
And we kissed and kissed, until it felt like we were the young people who might have snuck around the house, stealing a private moment outside of the parents' purview. Until she'd found a place on top of me, and she made me delirious with the undulation of her hips on my erection.
Until I had lost count, and I forgot there had been a time where kissing her had only been a dream.