Chapter 22 #2
“I like you too, Amy. So much I can hardly stand it.” His other hand skimmed up her back, lightly, not pulling or pawing, just touching, just holding, and slowly, so painfully slowly that her entire body tingled and melted in anticipation, he leaned in. “I’m going to kiss you now.”
“Um.”
“Say yes. Please say yes.”
She wasn’t going to let an old fear, one that couldn’t hurt her now, ruin this, and as she stared up into the face so close to hers, waiting patiently, with warmth and affection and hot, hot need in his eyes, she thought, Oh my God, he’s beautiful. “Okay,” she whispered.
His mouth touched hers. An electric shock seemed to bolt through her, but his hand, light and sure and easy skimming up and down her back, grounded her. She sighed, in relief, in pleasure, and shyly touched her tongue to his.
He groaned, low and rough, and danced his tongue to hers for one glorious moment before pulling back. Not breathing all that steadily anymore, he backed to the door, fumbled for the handle behind him.
“You’re leaving?”
He closed his eyes, then opened them. “This is new for you, this opening up thing.”
“Yes.”
His entire heart was in his eyes when he smiled.
“It’s new for me, too. So for the first time in my entire life, I’m not going to rush a good thing.
A great thing. Possibly the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
” He opened the door, swore, then came back, and cupping her face, kissed her one more time.
Then he let out a long breath. “Leaving now.”
She stared at him. He was really going to go. He wasn’t going to pressure her to sleep with him.
He opened the door, started to step out.
“Tucker?”
“Yeah?”
“I have both a couch and a cot.” Her heart started to pound again, because she couldn’t believe she was offering this to him. “You could, you know, use one. For tonight. Not the one I’m on, but—I mean—”
He came back to her and very lightly stroked a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Are you sure?”
Unable to trust her voice, she reached for the extra blanket on the foot of her cot and offered it to him. He took it and smiled. “It’ll be much nicer than the hay barn.”
She didn’t quite smile back, and his faded. “You know I can do this, right? I can sleep waaaay over here”—he stretched out on the couch, leaned back and closed his eyes—“without attacking you.”
“Logically, yes.” She stayed where she was and swallowed hard. “I’m working on everything else.”
“Go to sleep,” he whispered. “I’m going to check on you in a little while, don’t be scared. I’ll just say your name and you just answer. Okay?”
“Okay.” She climbed onto the cot and lay down. She immediately popped back up to look at him.
He hadn’t moved.
He wasn’t going to. He’d promised.
She lay back, but once again popped up. He was still there, still not moving. She repeated this two more times, with the same result.
He never even twitched, though surely he had to hear her every time she jumped up like a lunatic. Then, for the first time in her entire life, she curled up and fell asleep…
With a smile on her lips.
After all the craziness, all Callie wanted was a shower.
She used the one in Tucker and Jake’s cabin, and Jake waited for her, knowing she was concentrating on the feel of the water, the scent of the soap, the sting of it on her various cuts and bruises, so that she could keep her mind blank of the evening’s events—such as Michael’s overwhelming betrayal.
When she stepped out of the shower, he held out a towel for her, which she walked into. He held out another towel for her hair, which she silently took.
Then she tipped her head up and looked at him.
At the misery, pain, and lingering fear in her gaze, his heart broke. She let him dry her off, another sign of how bad off she was.
“I’m okay, you know,” she said quietly.
“Yeah.” But the image of her lying on the floor, locked in battle with a man she’d loved and trusted, while fire rained down all around her, would haunt him for a long time to come, so he could only imagine what it was doing to her.
“Look, I should have seen it coming, okay?”
He put his hands on her shoulders and waited until she looked at him. “Tell me you know this was not your fault.”
“Wasn’t it?” Her eyes were shiny and far too bright. “My God, Jake, I brought danger to everyone here by letting him come around, by letting him be near—” She broke off and shuddered, then covered her face.
He took her hands and forced her to look at him. “No one is responsible for what happened tonight except Michael.”
“He’s sick, Jake.”
“Don’t defend him.”
“I’m not. He’s gone to jail. He’s going to have to pay.”
“Yes,” Jake said grimly, thinking of what could have happened to her tonight. “He is.”
Her hands, still in his, spread wide. She looked so exhausted a small breeze could have knocked her over. “I just can’t believe it.”
“I know. Bed,” he decided when she wobbled on her feet. He led her to his cot. “Want one of my T-shirts?”
“Please.”
She dropped the towel as he settled a shirt over her head, smoothing it down her body.
Having his hands on her would have been a pleasure if tonight’s fire and the weight of the offer he’d received on the ranch hadn’t combined to make him as exhausted as she.
He pulled the blankets over her and stepped back, but she grabbed his wrist. “Where are you going?”
“You need sleep.”
“I need you.” She lifted the blankets. “Please,” she whispered, her eyes and voice so hollow it broke his heart.
He stripped down and slid in, carefully pulling her against him.
Her bare legs tangled with his. He tunneled his fingers through her hair, his other hand drifting up and down her back in a gesture he hoped was soothing her, but was having the opposite effect on him.
The T-shirt had bunched up around her waist. Panty-free, he palmed her extremely palmable ass and snuggled her in closer so that the heat of her cupped his groin.
“Mmm,” she mumbled when she realized he was hard, and cuddled in closer. “Nice.”
He rocked his hips to hers, then forced himself to stop. “Callie?”
She tucked her face into the hollow of his neck and sighed shakily. “Hmm-mmm…”
He kept running his fingers up and down her back, waiting for her to look at him. “With all that’s happened, maybe it’ll be easier for us to talk about the offer I got on the ranch.”
She said nothing, but she didn’t pull away, either, which he considered a good sign. “I’m sorry, Callie. So damned sorry, but I have to make a decision, and I really wanted to talk to you first.”
Nothing.
“Callie?”
A soft snore shuddered out of her, warming his neck. He pulled away and looked down into her face.
She was fast asleep.