Chapter 23 #2
“Stuff like that’s been happening since I turned thirteen and grew these,” she said, bobbing her chin in the general direction of her tits.
She had a stellar body—tall, but all curves. Though you wouldn’t know it with the goofy, baggy clothes she wore.
Ah…that was why the baggy clothes.
“Boys my age I could handle. I put them in their place.”
I smiled down at her. “I’ll just bet you did.”
“But there were a lot of Edgar Prescotts. Men who knew my story, knew my mother’s history. Men who assumed the apple didn’t fall far from the slut tree.”
I tensed again. I knew she would have handled Prescott if I hadn’t gotten to them. But had there been others, when she was younger, that she hadn’t been able to handle?
“It never went too far, and most stepped back with a few good verbal shots.” And I’d just bet she shot some good ones.
“But a rumor started at boarding school about a teacher and me. And I just kind of let it go. I was tired of it all by then. Tired of denying the lies. So I just let it hang out there.” She shrugged.
“I never said anything ever happened when it didn’t, but I never said it didn’t, either.
By the time I got to Bribury I was kind of used to the sexual swagger. ”
“It’s just part of the shield,” I said, not really intending to say it out loud.
I thought she’d bristle, and when she moved, I knew she was going to turn away from me, get out of bed. I didn’t even want to examine how much the thought of that killed me.
But she didn’t leave. She turned to her side, facing me.
She untangled our hands and put hers under her head, her palm resting along her cheek.
Her other hand moved to take mine, and she placed them both back on her hip.
And I swear to God, my breath hitched and caught just looking at her as she watched me.
“I don’t like how much you get me,” she said quietly.
“I know,” I whispered, my eyes on her lips, still a little puffy from the angry kisses against the wall.
“I get you, too,” she said, her mouth now inches from mine.
“I know,” I said, and bent my head the few inches to kiss her.
* * *
I drove back to Bribury that night, Jane wanting to sit in the passenger seat.
We’d gone two more times, and each time it just got better, though I would have sworn that was impossible. But I was learning her body, much like you learned a new car. And, better yet, she was learning mine.
Yeah, I taught her well how to handle a stick. And with more than just her hand.
It was midnight by the time I’d gone back into the house to get Jane’s and my stuff. The house was dark except for the under-counter lights in the kitchen, left on by Dotty so I could see.
I peeked in on Caroline and made sure she was okay. She was deep in sleep with the monitor on so Dotty would be able to hear her if she needed anything. I had one for the guesthouse, too, on nights I stayed. Which were now more and more frequent.
Jane met me around the front of the house—said she didn’t want to go in in case Caro was still up. “She’ll know what we’ve been doing,” she said, and a cute little blush crept up her cheeks.
Honestly, I didn’t think Jane was capable of blushing.
Jane sat beside me in the car, reclined a bit, her eyes closed. Presumably putting her shield back in place. I drove with my hand high on her thigh except when I had to shift. I expected her to brush it off, but she didn’t.
We drove in silence and I thought about the past twelve weeks since Betsy’s wedding. And even the events that brought me to the wedding.
Brought me to Jane.
I’d been summoned to go to the wedding by Spaulding.
About a week earlier he’d made me an offer I couldn’t refuse (and yeah, it had felt a little Godfatherish at the time), but it would be contingent on Caro’s approval.
I’d lain pretty low at the reception, blending in as only a thief knew how to do, until I saw Jane. More significantly, Jane in that dress.
She’d been a total ball buster the few times I’d been around her when she’d been with Lily. But there was just something about her that stayed with me.
I didn’t want to be drawn to her—especially after I found out who she was. And I knew she didn’t want to be drawn to me, either. I could tell she thought I was nothing but a douchebag criminal who was weighing down her best friend’s boyfriend.
She wasn’t wrong. But she didn’t really know me.
But now? Yeah, I kind of thought that she did. About as much as I was getting to know the real her.
The shield made it tough. And there were days when I didn’t even want to bother trying to get through it. She was a lot of work, Jane. And I wasn’t even sure it was worth it.
Until today. Being inside her. All that energy—anger, fear, but also determination. She was just…fierce. I didn’t doubt for one minute that if she ever harnessed it all, she could rule the world.
And she wouldn’t be able to do that with an ex-car-thief by her side.
She knew it. Knew it from the beginning, even before I grasped it, before I’d even really thought about her and me. And it had royally pissed me off.
Not that I was looking for a life partner at twenty-one or anything. Shit no. I loved the freedom I had—needed it in my line of work.
My previous line of work.
I had a couple of very loose, very casual “friends with benefits” situations here and there, mostly with women in my “network” who were just as happy as I to keep it no strings attached.
But even that, casual as it was, I put an end to after that first day I’d kissed Jane. I’d known even then something was going to happen with Jane, something I didn’t want or deserve. Something I fought every time since that day I’d brought her Yvette.
Yvette. Christ, Jane was the most original girl I’d met, and she couldn’t have come up with something better for a Corvette than Yvette?
I must have grunted my amusement, because Jane turned out of her fog and softly said, “What?”
I liked the fierce Jane. The Jane that gave as good as she got. Hell, gave a ton better than she got. The Jane who took none of my shit and called me on it every time.
But this Jane? Highlighted by the glow of the dash, leaning back, her hair tousled and eyes still just a tiny bit dazed.
This Jane made me forget that it was a very bad idea for us to be anything more than fuck buddies.
Because…I wanted so much more.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just thinking.”
She smiled at me, and my memory raced to just a while ago when she’d smiled at me before taking me in that sweet (and yet tart) mouth.
“First time for everything,” she said, with no real bite. The smile stayed with her as she turned her head back to the road.
I would have to move very slowly with Jane. Not that eight weeks from first kiss (real kiss; I didn’t count that bullshit on the dance floor) to falling into bed wasn’t excruciatingly slow.
Not that I hadn’t gone home and jerked off thinking about what might have been every time I drove away from her in Lot H.
A parking lot I was now pulling into. Funny, most days with Jane I couldn’t wait to get to Lot H, knowing that even though I told myself I wasn’t going to reach for her, I would. And even though she’d probably told herself over and over not to do it, she’d reach for me, too.
I fucking loved driving into Lot H with Jane. Except tonight, there was no way it could get any better in Lot H than it had for the past five or six hours in Caro’s guesthouse.
And though I was willing to give Yvette’s console another workout, Jane looked beat. Well, yeah, having a major sexfest your first time out would do that to you.
“Wait here,” I said to her when I pulled the Vette alongside my car. “I’ll heat mine up and then drive you back to the dorm.”
I thought she’d probably balk at that, saying she could walk, not wanting to be seen being dropped off in front of her dorm at nearly one in the morning by a thug in an old Dodge Charger. A supremely restored, mint, cherry-red Charger, but still.
“Thanks,” she said, and I had a glimmer of hope that maybe if I kept Jane well satisfied that I had a chance of keeping her close.
It was time to come clean with myself at least, and admit that that was exactly what I wanted. Jane. Close. For a long time.
Even though the days were getting warmer, it was still cold as shit when I got out and went to my car. I turned the heater on full blast and looked out my window to Jane right next to me in the passenger side of Yvette.
She turned and just stared at me, her face stark, no emotion showing, as she studied me.
Shit, it was the exact look she had on her face that first day. One that I had correctly read as her realizing she was too good for me and there could never be anything between us.
It had pissed me off that day.
Today, it would kill me.
I waited, not looking away from her, dying inside, but determined not to show it. Any second now she’d get this pained look and then a tiny bit of pity, then look away.
But it didn’t come. Instead, a small smile crossed her cute face, then blossomed into a full-blown grin. Then she—yes, Jane!—blew me a kiss.
And I took the first full breath of relief since the first time I kissed her.
I waved her over, and as she made her way, I once again thought, and even said out loud to the empty car, “Who are you, Jane Winters?”