Chapter 19 #2
I’m not sure what he sees in my face when I say this, but he takes two steps backward, bringing me with him so we’re farther from our table. “But?”
“But he was cheating on me with my best friend. And when I found out about it and confronted him, he . . .” I pause to think about how to explain what happened, because at the time it didn’t make sense at all.
“It was dark, we were outside his house because he was walking me to my car. I told him I knew about him and Kenzie, and he vehemently denied it. When it was clear that I didn’t believe him, and wasn’t going to give him another chance .
. .” I look around to make sure no one might overhear us.
“. . . I turned to get in my car and wound up face-first on the ground.”
“What?” Jameson’s voice is like a knife slicing through the air, and I’m relieved we’re back against the wall and not still at the table where he could be overheard.
“I don’t know what happened. When I looked up from the ground, Justin was standing over me, asking if I was okay.
He said I must have tripped. I don’t know .
. . I think I was still pretty traumatized by that fall at Nationals, because this felt the same.
Like the ground had just evaporated beneath me.
I couldn’t help but think he’d tripped or pushed me on purpose. But I also couldn’t prove it.”
“If he lays another hand on you, Lauren—”
“It’s fine,” I say, looking up at him and giving his forearms a squeeze. “I don’t know for sure that he did lay a hand on me. And he’s certainly not going to here, with our families and friends and you around.”
“He’d better not.” I’ve never heard this tone from him before. He sounds intimidating as hell.
I turn in his arms so I’m facing him, and run my hands down the lapels of his suit jacket. “Hey,” I say, my voice soothing because I can tell I’ve riled him up with this story. It’s exactly why I’ve never told anyone from home—it’s not worth the discord it would cause. “Let’s go dance.”
Jameson glances past me, at the dance floor, like he’s just noticing that the music has changed and other couples are now dancing with the bride and groom.
“All right,” he says, taking my hand and leading me out to the center of the room.
Once there, he wraps one arm around my lower back, pulling me to him, and slides his other hand under my hair along the back of my neck.
His touch feels possessive. “I like you in heels,” he says. “It makes you a normal height.”
“Hey, my height is totally average,” I say with a laugh. “It’s not my fault you’re so big.”
His head dips closer to mine as he drops his voice low, then says, “You’ll get used to how big I am. Don’t worry.”
The get used to implies so much more than just sleeping together, and I know what he said earlier, but half of me is worried that he was just trying to get me naked.
“I know you said you weren’t looking for casual with me,” I say, choosing my words carefully, “but what are you looking for?”
“Are you sure you want to know? Because once I tell you, I can’t take it back.” His words are quiet, his question vulnerable.
“I don’t scare easily,” I say, studying his face and hoping he feels comfortable being honest because we can’t move forward if he isn’t.
“You,” he says and takes a deep breath, “are the biggest risk I never took, and I’ve regretted it for five years. I’m not making that mistake again.”
It feels like my heart skips a beat in that moment as I stare at him, feeling like he’s answered all my questions and none of them at the same time.
“Why didn’t you take that risk?”
“That’s a bigger conversation. It’s one we need to have, but this isn’t the right place to have it.” He kisses my forehead as we move together on the dance floor. “Just know that the answer to your question about what I’m looking for is everything.”
That doesn’t even make sense. Jameson Flynn doesn’t do relationships. He doesn’t want marriage and kids—he told me so himself, and his sisters have confirmed it unintentionally with things they’ve said about him. So what does everything mean for a man like him?
“I’m”—I close my eyes for a minute as he spins us slowly around the dance floor—“still trying to wrap my brain around all of this. So you’re going to have to define everything for me.”
His arm tightens around my lower back, anchoring me to him.
“Whatever you want, I want that with you. I want to be there to support you, and I want the same in return. I want you to experience what it means to be loved by someone who actually treats you well, and I want to be that person. Maybe I wasn’t ready five years ago, but I’m ready now.
And . . . I guess I’m hoping I’m not too late? ”
This feels like such a monumental admission to be making when we’ve been together for a few hours.
But then, the memories we’ve built together over the past few months flash through my head: the phone calls before I moved, the way he made sure his sisters were working on my house, the primary bedroom and bathroom he designed, our conversation at the Rebels game and how he brought me dessert afterward, the way he came over and took care of my kids during the snowstorm, how he suggested he be my date for this wedding so I didn’t have to face Justin alone.
All the big and small ways he’s shown up for me, supported me, helped me build myself back up .
. . they’re all there, coalescing themselves into a movie trailer in my mind.
And the image I really can’t get out of my head is the one of him sitting on my couch, watching Tangled with Iris and Ivy—how natural it felt picturing him as a fixture in the home he’s helped me build for my family.
“I feel like I’m still trying to make the shift from thinking we’re friends to understanding your true intentions. But no,” I say as I reach up and rest my palm against his cheek, using my thumb to smooth the worry lines at the corner of his eyes, “you’re not too late.”
“We’re still going to take this slow.”
My laugh has my shoulders shaking. “Slow?” I drop my voice to a whisper and add, “You made me come three times before we even got to the wedding. That’s not slow.”
He grins. “I meant the emotional aspect of this. I know what you’ve gone through, and I know you’re not done grieving. I’m not delusional enough to think you’re ready to jump into a full-blown relationship.”
I consider what he’s saying and realize he’s probably right. Even though I want what he’s offering, and I’m mostly ready, there are pieces of me that aren’t. “Maybe slow is best.”
He lowers his head and says, quietly, “That’s fine. But this body is mine, and taking this slow isn’t going to change that. Okay?”
“Is this your way of saying you want to be exclusive?”
“Yes. I don’t share.”
“Since you walked back into my life, you’re pretty much all I’ve thought about.
First, because you kept giving me glimpses of who you were beneath this hard exterior you show the world.
Then, because of the way you kept showing up for me and helping me get back on my feet.
And then,” I give him a little smirk as I say, “because I was so attracted to you—still—that I couldn’t stop picturing myself with you. ”
With his arm that’s behind my back, he pulls me flush up against him so I can feel how hard I make him.
And all I want to do is find a private place where I can fuck him again.
At thirty, I’d thought the best years of my sex life were behind me.
I had no idea what I was missing, and now that I do, I feel like a horny teenager.
“You keep talking like that,” he says, “and we’re not going to make it back to that bed before I lift this dress and push inside you again.”
Images of him sliding this tight dress up my thighs, pulling my soaking wet lace thong aside, and then filling me, are taking over my brain.
I need him now. I’m about to suggest we go find an empty bathroom, utility closet, office—any place, really—when Dale walks up and punches Jameson in the shoulder.
“Hey,” Dale says, “we’re getting more drinks. You want to head to the bar?”
While I mentally curse my little brother for unintentionally being a cockblocker, I’m thrilled my siblings are welcoming him into the fold in a way that they never did with Josh. He was always a bit of an outsider with my family, as I was with his.
Jameson looks at Dale and Tim, then back at me, as if he’s weighing whether it’s more important to be in my brothers’ good graces or finish what we just started. “Sure,” he says to Dale, then asks me, “What can I get you?”
I give him my drink order and he drops another kiss on the top of my head before he turns to follow my brothers to the bar, and I return to the table where my sister and sisters-in-law have gathered.
“Holy shit, he’s got it bad,” Paige says.
“Yeah, he does!” Dale’s wife, Laura, laughs and looks over at me.
“I think this is the first time he’s stopped touching you all night.
I swear the man ate one-handed so he could have his other hand on you at all times.
The way he was rubbing the back of your neck after they cleared the plates . . .” She fake swoons.
“You said you were bringing a friend,” Tim’s wife, Melissa, emphasizes.
“We are friends,” I say cautiously.
“But also, clearly, much more,” Paige adds. “You’ve been a ‘thing’ for a while.” Then she proceeds to tell them about the hockey game where he threatened to rip any jersey off me unless it had his last name on it.
“You weren’t even there,” I complain.
“Yeah, but you told me about it in excruciating detail, so it felt like I was!”
I roll my eyes at her because she’s acting as if she wasn’t begging me for all the details.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I tell them. I’m not ready to admit anything about what’s going on between Jameson and me, because I’m still trying to figure everything out myself. So instead, I head to the far corner of the room where I know I’ll find the restrooms.