4. Stop Holding Back and Love Me #2
“No need, Millie Millz.” His voice dropped low enough to warm my skin. “You are still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Lord, have mercy.
I laughed softly to hide how hard my heart was beating. Age had touched him beautifully. Jared always had that kingpin kind of presence, even before prison. The type of man who walked into rooms and made people straighten up unconsciously.
But now there was something quieter in him, too. As good as he looked, he also looked tired. I’m sure he was sleep-deprived from not being able to sleep comfortably for years, but this exhaustion looked like a spiritual ache.
I noticed the way his eyes scanned behind me before entering the house. The way he stood was slightly angled instead of fully relaxed. The way his hands flexed at his sides was like he still didn’t know what freedom was supposed to feel like physically.
My poor baby.
Emotion clogged my throat so suddenly, that I almost reached for him right there. Instead, I smiled and stepped aside.
“You gon’ stand out there all day, or you coming in?”
The corner of Jared’s mouth lifted slowly.
God.
That smile still did ignorant things to me. I barely had time to close the door before his arms wrapped around me.
And just like that, twenty-four years apart felt like it disappeared. His hug ruined me immediately.
Not in the dramatic kind of way, either. His body felt familiar, as if my body recognized his before my mind could catch up. Jared held me tightly against his chest while I buried my face against his zip-up hoodie slowly. Jared smelled of Cedarwood and sage.
“Jare, it’s finally our time,” I whispered softly against his chest.
His laugh rumbled low beneath my cheek.
Jared exhaled sharply, taking in my words. Then his hands slid down my back slowly. His touch was respectful, a bit too respectful.
I pulled back enough to look up at him. “Why are you hugging me like I’m somebody’s church auntie?”
That finally made him smile for real. “There she goes.”
“I’m serious.”
“I’m trying to behave.”
“Why?”
His eyes darkened instantly.
“Camilla.”
The way that man said my name should’ve been illegal in at least forty-eight states. Heat crept up my chest immediately. I stepped away before I embarrassed myself.
“You changed the floors,” he said after a second.
I blinked in surprise. “You remember?”
“Milla.” He gave me a look. “I remember being on the phone with you while you listed the pros and cons of each color.”
I turned toward the kitchen quickly so he wouldn’t see how hard that hit me. It was the little things that brought me so much joy.
“You hungry?” I asked.
“Always.”
My hands suddenly forgot how to work cabinets. I opened the wrong drawer twice, trying to grab glasses.
“You okay, Milla?” he asked quietly.
“I am a grown woman, why wouldn’t I be okay, Jare?”
“Mhm.”
I spun around, pointing at him. “Don’t ‘mhm’ me.”
The smile spreading slowly across his face nearly took me out.
God. I missed him.
Yes, I got to experience the essence of him, but right here and now, I was getting to experience him and not the idea of him.
“You cleared your schedule for me?” he asked as he looked at my crossed-out appointments.
I looked down at the cutting board, pretending to focus on fruit I wasn’t actually cutting.
“Maybe.”
“Millie Millz.”
“Okay, yes.” I sighed dramatically. “But in my defense, Miss Gloria gets on my nerves anyway.”
Jared leaned against the counter, watching me carefully. He was looking at me tenderly again with a soft and possessive gaze, as if he still couldn’t believe he was allowed to stand in my kitchen.
“You always take care of everybody else first,” he murmured.
I shrugged lightly.
“Somebody gotta do it.”
“That somebody doesn’t always gotta be you.”
The gentleness in his voice almost made me emotional again.
I grabbed two glasses quickly before he could notice.
“You want lemonade or sweet tea?”
“You still make that dangerous sweet tea?”
“Excuse me? My tea is famous.”
“Your tea got enough sugar to put a diabetic in a casket.”
“And you still drank it every Sunday after church.”
“That’s because I loved you.”
The words landed between us so naturally, it wasn’t a declaration to him but a fact. My hands froze around the pitcher, and slowly, I looked up at him. Jared’s expression shifted the second he realized what came out of his mouth, but he didn’t look regretful.
Twenty-four years of tension sat between us.
“You used to stare at me during choir rehearsal,” I said softly.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Used to? If you don’t feel me staring at you now, I’m doing something wrong. But what else did you expect? Milla, I was a teenager, and you wore lip gloss and sundresses to Bible Study. What exactly was I supposed to do?”
“Focus on the Lord?”
“That’s your fault, too,” he muttered. “You knew you were fine.”
I barked out a laugh.
“There goes that cockiness just about every girl in Crestwood fell victim to.”
“Nah.” His gaze moved over me slowly enough to make my stomach flip. “I always knew it would be you and me.”
I turned around quickly, trying to compose myself while pouring drinks.
Behind me, the kitchen got quiet.
“Milla, why are you so sure this time that it’s our time?”
The question caught me off guard. I looked back at him. Jared stood watching me with his hands tucked into his pockets, shoulders broad against the kitchen island, eyes too serious suddenly.
“You asking me generally or right now?”
“Both.”
I leaned against the counter slowly. The honest answer felt dangerous. “I built a good life,” I said carefully. “I love my boys. I love my salon. I love this house.” I paused. “But–”
Jared waited silently.
“There was always this ache I felt.”
What looked like pain crossed his face. “Camilla—”
“No, let me finish.”
Because if I stopped now, I might never say it. “I loved other people the best way I could,” I admitted quietly. “But nobody ever felt like home to me except you.”
Jared closed his eyes briefly, as if the words physically hit him. When he looked at me again, all that restraint he walked in here with was cracking apart slowly.
“You can’t say things like that to a man who spent twenty-four years trying not to lose his mind over you.”
My breath caught immediately. Neither of us moved. The tension in the room shifted into something heavier. I could hear the refrigerator humming. The soft R&B music was still playing on shuffle in the living room.
Jared’s gaze dropped to my mouth.
“Jare,” I whispered.
That was all it took. He crossed the kitchen in three steps.
Then his hands were on my face carefully, and tenderly, and his mouth found mine as if he’d been starving for it.
The kiss knocked the air clean out of me.
Jared kissed me like a man handling something precious after years of only touching things meant to hurt him.
His lips were soft, and the kiss was slow at first. He was careful with his hands, and he cradled my face like he still couldn’t believe this was real.
I was damn near melting against my own kitchen counter.
Twenty-four years of almost, of bad timing, and of prison calls and visitation room touches and words swallowed before they got too dangerous.
And now this man was finally kissing me in my own kitchen, as if he belonged there and like he belonged to me.
I made the softest sound against his mouth, and Jared exhaled sharply like that little noise nearly took him out.
“Camilla,” he whispered against my lips.
Lord. Nobody said my name like him. I slid my hands up his chest slowly, feeling his hard muscles beneath his sweat jacket.
Prison had put weight on him in different places.
Jared had always been solid, but now he felt carved from something heavier and stronger.
His hands moved down my waist carefully before pulling me against him fully.
The ache between my thighs felt all-consuming.
The thing that had lived between us since we were teenagers, sitting beside each other in church, pretending not to stare too long.
Only now it wasn’t fantasy anymore. It was real.
I pulled back just enough to look at him.
Jared’s eyes looked darker up close. Hungrier too.
But there was restraint in them that nearly broke my heart.
He still wasn’t letting himself fully touch me.
“You still trying to behave?” I whispered.
His jaw tightened immediately.
“Baby–”
I smiled softly before reaching for his hand and placing it fully against my hip.
“Let go for me, Jare.”
That was the last little bit of control he had left.
Jared kissed me again, harder this time, backing me gently against the kitchen counter while his hands finally moved like they’d wanted to for years.
My breath caught when he lifted me easily onto the edge of the counter without breaking the kiss.
I laughed softly against his mouth.
“Camilla,” he muttered against my lips. “Don’t write a check your ass can’t cash.”
I grinned immediately. “I swear I’m ready, Jare.”
The look he gave me after that made my entire body heat up. Jared’s forehead rested against mine while both of us tried to breathe normally.
“Do you have any idea,” he said roughly, “how many nights I thought about experiencing you like this?”
“You imagined fuckin’ me?” I cooed.
“I imagined having you spread wide for me all over this house.”
“Jared Davis,” I whispered, “I have been sure about you my whole damn life. Stop holding back and love me.”
His eyes closed immediately, then he kissed me again, and this time when he lifted me off the counter and carried me toward the hallway, I wrapped my arms and legs around him willingly.
Finally, after all these years.
It was finally our time.