CHAPTER 26
EDEN
Iwoke up in a bed that felt like a cloud had swallowed me whole.
The sheets were incredible and possibly possessed magical properties, judging by how well I’d slept. The fact that they were filled with Jagger’s scent also wasn’t the worst thing.
I should have been panicking. The fire had taken everything: my clothes, my furniture, the last few photos I had of Ryan, the stupid coffee mug he’d bought me on our first anniversary.
All of it was gone. I should have already been on the phone with insurance, scouring Craigslist for cheap rentals, applying to every job within a fifty-mile radius.
I should have been making lists, making calls, making plans.
Instead, I was lying here, tangled in Jagger’s sheets, staring at the ceiling like a woman who’d somehow been given everything she’d ever dreamed of.
The room was quiet except for the faint clink of dishes coming from somewhere down the hall.
Reluctantly, I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, and my bare feet hit the cool hardwood.
Jagger’s T-shirt brushed my thighs with every step, and I tugged the hem down as I padded down the hallway, trying to ignore how my body still felt marked by last night, how my skin remembered his mouth and his fingers.
I followed the delicious smells drifting through the apartment straight to the kitchen, my mouth already watering and ready to praise whatever Mrs. Nesbitt had left for us . . . until I turned the corner and promptly forgot my own name.
Jagger was shirtless.
He was leaning against the island with his back to me, one hand braced on the marble, the other wrapped around a glass of water.
Sweat still clung to his shoulders from whatever workout he’d just finished, catching the morning light and making every muscle shift and flex under tanned skin as he lifted the glass to his mouth.
I stared, wide-eyed, at the tattoos curled over his back, the dark ink tracing his ribs and spine.
His gym shorts rode low, and the waistband dipped just enough to show the cut of his hips and the delicious dimples at the base of his spine.
He looked like sin standing there. And I was literally drooling.
I stopped in the doorway, forgetting how to breathe for a moment.
Jagger turned his head slightly, and his dark eyes found mine over his shoulder. “Good morning,” he practically purred, and I was proud of myself that I only rubbed my thighs together a little.
I didn’t answer right away because he turned toward me, and I was hit with the sight of his sweat-slick chest . . . and his abs.
If I wasn’t seeing them in real time, I would swear to you they were airbrushed. “You must work out a lot,” I stuttered, immediately wanting to give myself a throat punch for saying that.
It was just that besides on a Chippendale, I hadn’t seen abs like that except in pictures. Ryan hadn’t exactly been a gym rat. Being drunk or high all the time wasn’t a lifestyle friendly to the eight-pack ab mythology.
Which wasn’t actually a myth, it turns out. The proof of it was standing right in front of me.
I finally managed to make it past the abs and the V and the enormous bulge in his shorts . . . lower, to the counter, where two plates were waiting.
“I love Mrs. Nesbitt,” I whispered, staring at the crepes as if they might vanish if I blinked.
They were folded perfectly, the thin edges crisp and golden and dusted with a snowfall of powdered sugar.
Strawberries had been sliced paper-thin and fanned out in delicate semicircles beside them, bright red against the pale plate.
A small bowl of whipped cream sat to one side, while another held Nutella, the spoon already dipped in and resting against the rim.
Steam curled lazily from the carafe of coffee beside two waiting mugs.
I blinked, wide-eyed, and glanced up at him. “I swear you’re Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny all rolled into one.”
He snorted. “I think many people would disagree with that characterization, but if you want to think that, I’m not going to stop you, baby.”
He nodded toward the plates again while crossing his arms, and I got stuck again on his muscles. “Mrs. Nesbitt came in early and made these for you.”
I looked around the empty kitchen, tugging harder at the hem of his shirt like it might suddenly cover more of me. “Mrs. Nesbitt . . . She was here? I didn’t even hear her.”
“You were out cold.” His eyes dragged down me, over the way his shirt clung to my breasts, the bare stretch of thigh, the messy hair I hadn’t bothered to tame. “Didn’t want to wake you.”
Heat crawled up my neck, and I stepped closer to the island, my fingers brushing the edge of one plate.
“Sit,” Jagger ordered. “Eat.”
I slid onto the stool without arguing, my legs shaky as I tucked them under the island. He moved around the counter and poured coffee into one of the mugs before sliding it toward me.
My fork hovered in the air, mid-reach for the crepe, but my hand refused to move. I was too busy staring, completely lost in the slow flex of his abs as he shifted his weight against the counter. “Do you . . . have a shirt?” I squeaked. “Like . . . anywhere? You should put it on.”
He huffed out a laugh. “You want me to cover up?”
I swallowed. “It’s just . . . distracting me from the crepes. Which isn’t fair to Mrs. Nesbitt’s hard work.”
“‘Distracting,’” he repeated slowly, like he was tasting the word. He straightened a little but didn’t move away. If anything, he leaned in closer, his forearms flexing on the marble as he braced himself right in front of me. “Good.”
When my fork was still refusing to move, he reached across the island and grabbed my wrist. Jagger lifted my hand slowly and guided the fork toward my mouth. “Open,” he murmured.
My lips parted on instinct, and a soft whimper slipped out as he slid the fork between them.
The crepe hit my tongue, and I closed my eyes for half a second. His thumb brushed the inside of my wrist, right over my racing pulse, and I felt it everywhere: in my chest, between my thighs, in the tips of my fingers where they curled around the fork handle.
When I finally opened my eyes again, he was watching me intently. “Good girl,” he rasped.
Jagger released my wrist but didn’t step back.
I set the fork down, my fingers shaking. “Jagger . . .”
He tilted his head, waiting.
“I can’t think when you’re”—I gestured vaguely at his chest, his abs, the whole devastating picture of him—“like that.”
He grinned smugly. “Then don’t think.”
Jagger reached past me again, and this time his arm brushed the side of my breast as he picked up the fork, cut another bite, and held it to my lips. “Open.”
I whimpered again—quieter this time, but no less desperate—as he fed me.
Forkful after forkful of crepe and strawberry and Nutella, all while his eyes never left mine.
I chewed and swallowed, trying to focus on the food instead of the way his bare chest rose and fell inches from me, instead of the heat of his palm on my thigh, instead of the way his thumb kept circling, higher, inching beneath the hem of my shirt until it brushed the sensitive crease where my thigh met my hip.
When only a few bites remained, his thumb finally slipped under the edge of my panties. He didn’t pause, though; he just kept feeding me with one hand while the other pushed the lace aside and slid one thick finger inside me.
I gasped around the bite of crepe.
Jagger curled his finger immediately, stroking that spot deep inside me. His thumb found my clit at the same time, pressing slow, firm circles as he held the fork to my lips. “Keep eating,” he murmured. “Don’t stop.”
I moaned, but I obeyed.
I took the next bite he offered, chewing slowly while his finger pumped in and out of me, deep and insistent, stroking that perfect spot with every thrust. The wet sounds were loud in the quiet kitchen, mixing with my ragged breaths and the soft clink of the fork against the plate.
He added a second finger, and I moaned around the strawberry, my hips rocking forward to meet his hand. Pleasure knotted deep inside me, swelling with every thrust of his fingers, and every firm press of his thumb against my clit.
“Swallow,” he ordered softly.
I did.
He fed me the last bite, one that was covered in Nutella, and watched my throat work as I swallowed it down.
Then he curled both fingers hard, stroking that spot again and again while his thumb rubbed relentless circles over my clit.
I came apart.
My back bowed as pleasure detonated inside me, pulse after pulse surging through every nerve until I was shaking apart. My pussy clenched around his fingers, and slick gushed over his hand and dripped onto the chair beneath me.
Eventually he eased his fingers out and brought them to his mouth . . . licking them clean while staring straight into my eyes. “Mm,” he said in a voice rough with satisfaction. “You’re right. That was good.”
I gasped, and he caught me with an arm around my waist and pulled me flush against his bare chest.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
He leaned in closer. Close enough that I felt the words against my lips before I heard them. “Just thinking about how hungry I still am.”
I shoved back on the stool so fast that it scraped against the floor. “I—I should shower,” I stammered, already sliding off the seat. “Yeah. Shower. Right now.”
He didn’t move to stop me, just watched as I backed away. “Eden,” he called after me. “What are you so afraid of?”
I stopped mid-step. “What?” I asked without turning around.
“What are you so afraid of?” he repeated.
His question settled between my shoulders as I stood there staring at the wall.
Ryan had broken my heart.
But he’d done it in small ways. Predictable ways. Spending all our money. Carelessly lying. Making me shoulder our life while he got drunk and gambled with his friends.
That all had hurt.
But it had been . . . ordinary.
A man like Jagger wasn’t ordinary. A man like Jagger didn’t half-do anything. I was sure that when he loved, it wasn’t in a small, manageable way.
If he wanted something, he took it. And if he decided he didn’t?
I turned slowly to face him and found him watching me intensely.
“I’m afraid,” I said carefully, forcing the words out before I could swallow them back down, “because what Ryan did to my heart was just . . . child’s play. He did it slowly. Piece by piece. Until there was nothing left but apologies and empty promises and me wondering why I wasn’t enough.”
His expression didn’t change.
“My heart survived him,” I continued, my voice steadier now even though my hands weren’t. “It broke. But it survived.”
I held his gaze.
“You, however, could shatter me completely. You could make me love you so hard that when you left—or when you decided I wasn’t worth keeping—I wouldn’t just be broken. I’d be gone. Erased.”
I swallowed hard and took a deep breath.
“I don’t think I could survive you.”
“I’m not Ryan,” he responded quietly.
“I know,” I whispered, “and that’s what scares me the most.”
I turned and bolted down the hallway, very aware of his gaze following each step.
Jagger
I watched her go, and it was everything I could do to not follow after her.
Fucking hell.
I scrubbed a hand over my chest like I could physically work the feeling out of it. It didn’t help. If anything, it made it worse. That tightness was back.
Letting out a quiet, incredulous laugh, I dropped into one of the kitchen chairs, dragging a hand down my face.
I didn’t think it would hurt this bad.
Not the wanting her. I was used to wanting Eden.
This was something else.
I pulled my phone out and opened my chat with Jace before I could talk myself out of it.
Me: Hypothetically. How did you know you were in love?
There was a pause. Then—
Jace: When I realized I wanted to put a tracker in her neck.
I huffed out a quiet laugh. I mean, that made sense. But it wasn’t quite what I was looking for.
I’d already murdered her husband. If that was the bar, I’d pole-vaulted over it.
What I was looking for was . . . more.
Me: Be serious.
Jace: I am serious.
Me: …
Jace: Oh, you really are being serious.
Jace: I mean, I did put a tracker in her neck, so that part was true, but it was probably when…
I realized I was leaning toward my phone in anticipation as the bastard let me wait.
Me: When what?
Jace: Oh good, I’m glad you’re paying attention.
Me: Never fucking mind.
Jace: Okay, Jagger-meister. Be chill. I’ll tell you because I can tell you’re having an emotional crisis, and big girls don’t cry.
Jace: I realized I was in love with Riley when everything else seemed completely unimportant.
I pursed my lips.
Me: Define everything.
Jace: Games. Money. Ego. Winning. Being right. All of it.
Jace: When none of that hit the same unless she was okay.
I stared at the screen, thinking it through.
Me: What if she’s afraid of me?
There was a pause this time.
Jace: Of you? Or of losing herself?
I didn’t answer that.
Jace: Does it matter, Jagger? We’re Thatcher men. Of course they’re going to be afraid of us at first. We’re exceptional llamas without the drama.
I shook my head and scoffed.
Me: I don’t even know what you just said, but please never say it again.
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and the phone dangling loosely in my hand.
Jace: Also: . . .
Jace: So what you’re saying is that I have been right this whole time, and you do, in fact have a woman?
Me: Talk to you later, Jace-face.
Jace: I’m screenshotting your emotional crisis for blackmail later.
Me: Try it, and I’ll put a tracker in your neck.
Jace: Kinky. Maybe I’ll like that.
I put our chat on mute and then set my phone down on the table.
Eden thought I was the thing that could destroy her, but she didn’t understand yet . . .
I’d already decided I was the only thing allowed to.