Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
JO
August
“Fuck it all to hell,” I mutter, grabbing the dresses out of my suitcase and throwing them on the floor, yanking four new ones off their hangers. As I toss them into my suitcase, my eye catches on the sandals already in there, and I realize they won’t match. I take those out, tossing them into the corner where they land with a thud, and dive into my closet on my knees, searching for my other pair. When I’m in the closet, I realize the bag I usually carry doesn’t match the shoes, but if I take the bag that matches the shoes, I’ll need to switch wallets because my regular wallet is too big for that bag. And if I switch wallets, I’ll definitely lose a credit card or something because switching wallets is a massive pain in the ass. Everyone knows that.
I rock back on my heels, blowing my hair out of my face and staring at the mess on the floor and the suitcase filled with clothes I suddenly hate. And when I realize I packed three sweaters even though it’s the middle of the summer but forgot to pack underwear, I let out a loud groan, collapsing backwards and starfishing on the floor.
“You okay, Hurricane?” Jordan’s voice filters into my bedroom seconds before he steps inside, looking like a freaking snack in low slung pajama pants and no shirt, a dish towel slung over his shoulder and a spatula in his hand.
“It’s so unfair,” I mutter as he stands over me, grinning.
“Whatcha doing down there, Jo Jo?”
“Nothing, just contemplating all my life choices that led me to this moment.”
He grins wider. I would take a minute to appreciate the fact that he’s giving me one of his rare sunshine smiles, but I’m too irritated about all the things. “And what life choices did you make that led to you laying on the floor on a pile of clothes?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “I’ll tell you what life choices led me here. The ones where I decided it was a good idea to get myself a boyfriend who does things like ask me to go with him to visit his family for the weekend, which means I have to pack. But I suck at packing because I hate it with the fire of a thousand suns, so I procrastinated with all the hot sex last night and woke up extra early to get it done before work, but I forgot that my brain doesn’t function in the morning. So now I’m basically If You Give a Mouse a Cookie: Packing Meltdown Edition while you stand there looking like a fucking magazine spread for hot men who make breakfast.”
Jordan’s lips twitch, and he’s trying so hard not to laugh that his face is practically turning purple.
I groan again and cover my face with my hands. “Ugh, just laugh already. You know you want to.”
Jordan drops to the floor and covers my body with his. I feel every inch of his warm skin through my thin cotton sleep tank. Jordan gently pries my hands away from my face and links my fingers with his as he supports his weight on his elbows. Leaning down, he presses a kiss to my forehead.
“Talk to me, Jo Jo. What’s going on here?”
I huff out a breath, Jordan’s comforting presence above me like a weighted blanket, ratcheting down my anxiety level. “They might hate me.”
“Who might hate you?”
“Your family. I’m impulsive and a little chaotic. I live in pink sneakers, and I’m terrible at making decisions. I stay up way too late and am never at my best until at least ten a.m. I eat Fireballs like they’re going out of style, and I can’t even pack a suitcase to go away for the weekend without having an existential crisis.”
Jordan studies me, eyes serious. “What’s this really about, sweetheart? If it’s really about you being nervous, my family might hate you, I’ll give you all the reasons why they won’t and tell you a hundred times why all of those things you just listed are my favorite things about you. But I don’t think it’s about that.”
I turn my head to the side, trying to hide the real reason for my crisis and the way my insides melted when he called me sweetheart . But Jordan doesn’t let me get away with that shit. He lets go of one of my hands and grasps my chin, turning my face back towards him and holding me there.
“Tell me, Jo Jo. I can’t help you if I don’t know what the problem is.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “It’s not fair,” I mutter. “What I’m thinking about.”
Jordan’s fingers tighten around mine. “Who cares about fair? If you’re thinking it, it’s important. Look at me, Hurricane, and give me all the thoughts in that gorgeous head.”
I open my eyes and take a deep breath, letting it out slowly before I tell him the truth. “I’m really different than Allie.”
He lets go of my chin and strokes a hand through my messy, tangled hair before he cups my cheek, his face soft. “You are. Does that bother you?”
I shake my head, leaning into his comforting touch. “It never did until now. Until I realized I’m going to your house tonight to meet your whole family, who loved Allie too. And maybe they’re expecting someone like her—a has her shit together badass surgeon who fixes tiny hearts and wears fabulous shoes and has really, really good boobs. Maybe they’ll be disappointed that I’m not like that.” I shrug, feeling my face heat. “It sounds stupid when I say it out loud.”
“It’s not stupid, Jo,” Jordan says, his voice gentle. He presses a kiss to my forehead, my cheeks, my temple, everywhere he can reach. When he leans back up, his eyes are blazing with emotion. “When Allie died, I didn’t just lose her. I lost myself too. I pushed away my friends and my family, and my world got so small. I forgot how to be happy and made a sort of uncomfortable peace with being that version of myself because I didn’t know how to be any other way. Then you decided you were going to be my friend, and there was no shaking you off, no matter how hard I tried.”
I smile a little at that. “You didn’t try very hard.”
Jordan leans down and kisses me softly, fingertips skimming my cheek. “I didn’t. I couldn’t. I never really wanted to; I had just forgotten how to have a friend. I remember thinking that first night in Hallie and Ben’s backyard that I felt settled. Like for the first time since Allie died, I could breathe again. Maybe even see a little bit of the person I was before. I didn’t understand it then, but I understand it now. It wasn’t time or space or a pretty night full of stars. It was you. You brought me back to life, Jo Jo. It’s like I’m happy to live in the world again because I get to live in it with you.”
I take a sharp breath in, my eyes filling with tears. One slips out, and Jordan swipes the pad of his thumb over my cheekbone, wiping it away. “I loved Allie with everything I had. If she hadn’t died, I would have kept loving her for the rest of my life. But that’s not the way my story went. My story changed, and it brought me here, to the floor of your bedroom, telling you that you are my most important person now. You’re not Allie, Jo, and I would never, ever want you to be. All I want is for you to be exactly who you are because who you are is incredible. And for the record, you have amazing boobs.”
I snort out a laugh, and Jordan leans down again, pressing his lips to mine and kissing the breath out of me. “Listen to me, Hurricane. My family isn’t expecting you to be Allie. All they’re expecting is to meet the person who makes me happy. Because that’s what I told them. That you make me happy.”
I reach up and cup Jordan’s face in my hands, running my thumbs over his cheeks, love for him shining so brightly in me it’s a wonder he can’t see it. “I want you to be so, so happy, J. Like, dance in the rain, sing at the top of your lungs, the parking space right in front is always free, and your favorite snack is never empty happy. There is no one who deserves it more than you.”
“You make me happy, Jo Jo. Happier than I ever thought I could be again. I don’t just want you to come to Boston to meet my family. I want you to come because everything in my life is better when you’re next to me.”
“Shit,” I breathe out. “I’m obsessed with you.”
Jordan grins at me. “That’s good because I’m obsessed with you right back. I’m obsessed with your lips.” He kisses me, slow and deep, teasing my lips open and thrusting his tongue into my mouth, swallowing my moan.
“I’m obsessed with this spot on your neck that makes you sigh when I lick it.” He flicks his tongue over my pulse point and, as predicted, I let out a sigh.
“I’m obsessed with your tits. With the way you moan so loudly when I play with your pretty nipples that I know one day I’ll be able to make you come from that alone.” Jordan kisses down my torso and pushes my shirt up and over my head, sucking a nipple right into his mouth, teasing the other one with his fingers until I’m writhing under him and moaning at the ceiling, my clit throbbing at the sweet torture of his mouth and fingers working in tandem.
“I’m obsessed with your perfect cunt that I already know is dripping wet for me.” With one hand, Jordan pushes down my sleep shorts and underwear, shoving them down my legs and swiping two fingers through my slit, groaning when he feels how wet I am.
“I knew it,” he mutters, pushing both fingers inside me, fucking me with them as his thumb rubs circles around my clit. I gasp, lifting my hips against his hand, chasing the pleasure that thrums in my veins.
“I’m obsessed with how you’re always ready for me. How I know the second I slide my cock inside of you, your pussy grips me tight, like she knows I was made to fit you.”
“Fuck,” I moan out, wrapping my legs around him and using my feet to push his pajama pants down his legs. “Please get inside me. Right now.”
Jordan’s eyes flash. “And I’m obsessed with how you beg so beautifully for my cock.” He reaches down and guides himself to my entrance, sliding inside in a single thrust that has me crying out, tilting my hips to take all of him.
“Goddamn.” Jordan groans as he pushes his arms under my back to grip my shoulders, starting to move. The floor is hard against my back, but I feel nothing, see nothing, except Jordan. Nothing exists but him and me.
This isn’t like all the times before. This is different. This is wet, dirty kisses and hard, ravaging thrusts, and the rolling of hips in sync. This is bodies slick with sweat, moans, and grunts and, I think, a scream. This is tongues and teeth and more and please and mine and you , you , only you .
This is a kind of claiming. Of bodies and hearts and souls that wind together, inextricably linked.
And when Jordan angles his hips, thrusting exactly where I need him, I go off like a rocket, my orgasm slamming into me with so much force my vision blurs around the edges, and I reach up and grab Jordan’s hair, pulling him down to seal my mouth over his. I kiss him wildly as my body trembles with the force of my pleasure, as Jordan’s hips jerk and his legs shake, and he empties everything he has inside me.
“You’re giving me one more,” Jordan mutters against my lips, breaking the kiss to slide down my body, licking a hot path down my torso, grazing his teeth along my hip bone and throwing my legs over his shoulders. He covers my pussy with his mouth, licking up and down my slit, fucking me with his tongue, not caring in the least that he literally just came inside me, and lashing at my clit until I’m writhing against his face, whimpering pleas at the ceiling.
My orgasm builds so quickly that my head fuzzes with the force of it. The noises I make are barely human, the sound of him eating me obscene. And when he pulls my clit into his mouth, shoving two fingers inside me and rubbing at a spot I didn’t know was there while his other hand presses on my lower belly, I cry out, thrashing under him as a new kind of pleasure builds to almost intolerable levels.
“Come for me, Hurricane,” Jordan mumbles, his fingers moving faster, the pressure so terrifyingly intense I try to move away from it. But Jordan growls against me, increasing the pressure of his hand on my belly, and I’m locked in place. “Make it messy, Jo. Fucking soak me.” He sucks hard at my clit and rubs me from the inside with so much force I come with a gush and a scream.
“Oh my fucking goddddd,” I moan out, grinding my hips against Jordan’s face as he grunts against me, working me through my orgasm and licking me clean. When the waves finally subside, I collapse back bonelessly, my heart thundering against my ribs, my chest heaving. Jordan places a kiss on my clit and crawls up my body, collapsing next to me. We’re sprawled on the floor like shipwreck survivors, the only sound in the room is our panting breaths.
“What the actual fucking fuck was that?” I gasp out.
Jordan rolls his head towards me, smiling slyly. “You’ve never squirted before?”
I stare at him. “No, I’ve never...” I trail off. “I thought that was a myth.”
He huffs out a laugh. “Tell that to the puddle on the floor.”
“The puddle on the—” I shoot up to look for myself, and yep, there’s a puddle, right on the floor between my legs.
Jordan pulls me back down, rolling on top of me and pressing his lips to mine, licking inside my mouth so I can taste us both together on his tongue and shit, that’s hot. “It was the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen,” he murmurs against my mouth. “The way you gushed for me, Jo Jo? It made me hard all over again.” He drops his hips so I can feel his already hardening cock.
“Whatever does it for you, I guess,” I say incredulously, still a little shaken by the intensity of it all.
“You do it for me,” Jordan says, peppering kisses all over my neck, nipping at my collarbone, and finally taking my mouth again in a long, slow kiss that makes me forget everything except for the way we feel together. “Now there is nothing I would love more than to be naked with you all day, but you have to finish packing, and I have to feed you before you go to work and dream up new ways to make kids love science, and I go to the hospital and probably do some surgeries that will make me perish from boredom.”
“I forgot about breakfast! What are we having?”
“I’m making omelets and pancakes. That way we can share, the way you like.”
I beam at him, warmth spreading from the top of my head right down to my toes. “You remembered I like to share breakfasts?”
He gives me a soft smile. “I remember everything about you. Now go. Pack. But don’t get dressed. I like the idea of a naked breakfast.”
I dramatically trail my gaze up and down his naked body. What an absolute perfect specimen of man he is. And he’s mine. “A naked breakfast sounds like exactly what the J’s Summer of Fun needs.”
“Fucking right it is.” Jordan lifts up a hand, and I slap him five before he goes back to the kitchen, and I finish packing, existential crisis almost entirely forgotten.