Chapter 23 Rosie
Rosie
I turn off my phone once I secure the information we need, but that uncomfortable feeling still pools in my belly, waiting for its opportunity to strike and torture me.
It’s not jealousy, of course. It’s probably the idea that he and Jeanette had—and, from that interaction, might in the future, have—something going on, and I can’t stand Jeanette.
While I wait for Jack to be done, I get up and move a few benches down so he won’t be walking out right to me like we planned.
I try not to think too much about what’s happening in there and find myself failing miserably.
You’re being stupid, I remind myself.
This thing between us will be over soon, as anticipated.
We’re both going to go on our merry way, and I’m finally going to fall in love like in all of my books.
I’m just a little nervous, is all, and who wouldn’t be, really?
I’ve been waiting what feels like my entire life for this, and it’s so close I can taste it.
It would make anyone nervous—the idea of knowing that the next person you date will most likely be the one you fall in love with and spend the rest of your life with.
I’m excited for it. Really, I am.
I’m still lost in my thoughts when Jack comes into my line of vision, a small smile on his lips, like even he knows he did well with his mission.
I can’t help but return his grin as I stand, meeting him in the middle before we both start slowly walking toward our homes.
It’s a warmer day today, the perfect fall afternoon, and since the barber is barely half a mile from our store, I had suggested walking.
But with the strange and uncomfortable feeling swirling under my skin, I’m not sure how I feel about a twenty-minute walk with Jack.
“Did you get the time? I scanned it when I could, and I saw his name on there for tomorrow, but I didn’t catch the exact time.”
I nod. “Yeah, I saw it. Two o’clock tomorrow,” I say. We fall into another silence before he lets out a small laugh.
“That was easier than I expected,” he says.
“Me too.” I did think we’d need a backup plan, that I might have to send Poppy or Vi in later to try and get the info, or risk a spell at his house. “You… you were so smooth,” I say with a shocked laugh, and he smiles at me, wide and content like he knows he did a great job, but I’m still baffled.
How did he do that? He flipped the switch with expert precision. Like someone who… does that all the time. Which is completely unexpected from Jack.
“I’ve flirted with women before, Rosie. Believe it or not, some women are into the built nerd thing.” I blink a few times and shake my head, pushing at his firm arm playfully.
“I know that, of course.” I try not to add that I am one of those women, but when he smiles, I’m pretty sure he sees it written on my face.
We’re taking the back way to our places, and I stop walking between shops, standing with my hand on my hips, too flustered to keep going.
There goes playing it natural, I suppose.
“But you’re you. You are not the king of flirting and cocky smiles.
You’re… stuttering and getting mad and blushing as I push your buttons. ”
He stops, too, turning to look at me, three or so feet between us, his brow furrowed.
“No, I’m not,” he says, and the tiniest smirk tips up at the edge of his lips, like he’s fighting it back. If I weren’t watching him intently, I’d miss it, but I am, so I don’t.
“Love the confidence, Jack, really, it’s adorable, but you are. You might not realize it, but you absolutely are the shy nerd.” His head tips to the side, but a bit before shaking his head.
“I’m not, Rosie. I was voted the biggest flirt in high school.”
I blink once, twice, three times.
“No, you weren’t,” I say with a disbelieving laugh, but his face isn’t showing deceit or laughter.
He’s dead serious.
“Oh my god, you’re being serious?”
“Rosie,” he says with a small smile, stepping forward.
I take a step back, my back toward the brick wall of the alleyway, and he takes another step to close that gap until our bodies are just inches apart, his hand resting gently on my hip.
“I know how to flirt. I’m pretty good at it.
I realized pretty young that I wasn’t half bad looking, and if I just leaned into it, I could get a girl.
I’m awkward, but I know how to make it work for me if I want to.
As a kid, I read and watched shows and figured out that being a quiet nerd was something girls liked, so I made it work for me.
I have social anxiety when I’m talking to normal people, but if I lean into the facade, I can get a woman. ”
“You don’t use that around me.” That smirk turns into a full smile, his hand lifting, brushing over my cheekbone. I realize belatedly that a part of me is jealous. Am I so unattractive to him that he never wanted to win me over?
“Because you get under my skin in two point five seconds and I can’t maintain it around you.”
I roll my eyes. “Or you’ve just been so uninterested in me that you didn’t feel the need to bother,” I mutter in a childish pout.
He shakes his head and smiles at me, the kind of smile you give a kid who is trying to come to terms with the fact that fairies aren’t real or that there isn’t a man in the moon, though, for the record, both of these are actually true, but don’t tell anyone.
“You’re not getting it,” he says under his breath, almost to himself. My brow furrows and my mouth opens to argue and ask what he means, but then he’s taking another step closer to me, moving me so my back is pressed to the brick and his front is against mine.
“Jack,” I whisper, confusion mixing with something totally different and hot in my words.
“It’s just you, Rosie. You’re the only one who gets me frazzled.
You’re the only one who gets under my skin, who makes me blush and stutter.
You’re the only one who I couldn’t flirt with because, since the first day I met you, you got me tongue-tied.
I grunted at you and acted angry with you because I was.
You made me so annoyed, cracking through my perfectly curated cover.
I’m not an idiot: I’m conventionally attractive, I work out, I have common sense, and own a business that, while nerdy, more than pays the bills.
I can overcome whatever confidence hangup I have.
But you, you make me feel like I’m fourteen, still awkward and scrawny and nerdy, but with none of the other benefits to even the playing field.
It drives me crazy—it’s always driven me crazy. ”
Breath is suddenly hard to get into my lungs.
“Is that why you hated me?” I ask, my words faint and with the barest hint of something that sounds a bit too much like hope for my own sensibility.
He dips his head then, pressing his lips to mine, a hand on my jaw to tip my head where he wants it, the other gripping my hip like he’s afraid I’ll get away from him if he doesn’t keep me in place.
I give in to the kiss, parting my lips, suddenly desperate to taste him, to reassure myself that he’s mine.
If only temporarily.
The kiss gets more and more heated, his body pressing into mine, my hands moving to tangle in the back of his hair as he shifts, a leg moving between my legs, his arms and hands moving to my hips to situate me until my center is settled over his hard thigh.
A low groan leaves my lips, and he smiles into the kiss before breaking it.
“I never hated you, Rosie. I was so into you, it pissed me off that I kept fucking up my shot. Then things just kept getting worse and worse, and I kept making more and more of a fool of myself, that eventually, I decided it would be easier—safer—for you to think I was annoyed by you instead of a bumbling idiot whose tongue got too big for his mouth every time you were nearby.”
His words settle in my gut with a warmth I can’t be feeling, the reality of his words crashing down around me.
Jack never disliked me.
In fact, it was the exact opposite.
He was so into me, he couldn’t act normal.
Now what the fuck am I supposed to do with this new intel?
But common sense comes in on the trail of this revelation with another, oddly more logical explanation: the kiss bond.
It hasn’t been too long since it wore off, and I’m not sure of the long-term effects or how constant interaction after the strands faded would impact things.
My magic is just weakening his memories, making him see things where there were none.
It should ease my nerves, and in a way, it does, but it leaves the sticky feeling of disappointment I can’t wash away in its wake.
“Jack, I—” I have no time to finish my dismissal because his lips are on mine, kissing me hot and deep, lips and tongue and teeth nipping, and each shift fans the flames of need settled in my belly and sends heat through my veins.
I groan quietly into his mouth when the hand on my hip shifts me, guiding and grinding me against the denim of his pants.
I’m wearing a skirt with tights today, and I feel every single inch of that grind.
Finally, he breaks the kiss, lips moving to the spot right beneath my ear as he continues to guide my hips back and forth.
“But for right now, I’m enamored by you and I really want to see if I can make you come in this alleyway with just my thigh between your legs and my lips on yours.
” A breathy noise leaves my lips. “But only if you promise to keep quiet.” My pulse goes wild, and Jack’s lips tip higher, knowing his effect on me. I should say no.
I should tell him we need to get back to his place.
I should do just anything but nod.
But I do. I nod and whisper, “Okay.” He smiles wide before his lips are on mine again, and his hands are shifting my body.
The cocktail of emotions in my gut churns and churns, a mix of all-consuming jealousy and heat and anxiety that I won’t look at too closely, not in this lifetime, but I swat it away and focus on the most pressing things: the feeling of his leg against my pussy, the look in his eyes when I said okay, and the way I can feel his pulse pounding in time with mine as my pleasure builds.
I’m close just moments later, probably from the mix of adrenaline and the idea that anyone could see us here like this, when his hand stops on my hip, holding me in place, my swollen, needy pussy pressed against his leg.
With my thin panties and tights, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a mark on his jeans, but I can’t think of that, not as I force myself not to let out a loud noise of protest.
“Tell me you were jealous, Rosie.” His words, low and gravelly, roll through me with heat, making me tighten against him.
“I—” I try to protest, but his hand moves again, grinding, this time his leg shifting to increase the pressure on my clit, and I have to bite my lip.
“Tell me you were jealous that I was flirting with Jeanette.” I fight the sudden urge to tell him to stop saying her name.
I don’t want to even hear it on his lips.
“Admit that it made you fucking nuts and I’ll tell you about how I felt when you walked into that bar with your tits out and your sweet little dress, every man’s eyes on your ass, to go sweet-talk your ex.
” My words clog in my throat as I think about the look on his face when I walked in, the way his jaw was tight.
Was he jealous then?
Back then? But we weren’t… anything then. We were neighbors, enemies turned unwitting partners… we were…
I never hated you, Rosie. Suddenly, those words might not fit into the perfect little box I forced them into moments before.
“Tell me, Rosie,” he whispers, his head dropping to nip at my jaw.
Common sense and self-preservation leave my mind.
“I was jealous,” I say in a quiet confession. “I was jealous because she wants you and right now, for a short time,” I add that part for myself as much as to prove a point, “you’re mine.”
“Yeah, I am,” he growls, barely a breath, then his hands are moving again, pressing more, pinning me tightly to the wall so all other thoughts besides him and his body and the pleasure he’s bringing me leave my mind.
There is no full moon, no curse, no Jeanette.
Just Jack and me and this alleyway. “Now I’m going to make you come here, nice and quick on my thigh before I take you back to my place and fuck you until you scream my name, a reminder of just whose I am. ”
“Okay,” I concede in a breathy whisper, and he lets out a chuckle before moving quicker, faster, just the way I need and want, like he somehow knows my body better than I do.
Better than anyone ever has. “Yeah. That’s it.
” His fingers dig into my hips as he rocks me back and forth over his thigh, my breathing becoming heavy.
“So fucking pretty and so at my fucking mercy.”
“Yes, yes.” Unable to keep my head up, I drop it on his shoulder with the pleasure rushing through me. He bites at the back of my neck, then growls low.
“Fucking come, Rosie.”
And I do.
Right there in the back alley in broad daylight with no magical reason to explain my sudden lack of sensibility, I come on Jack’s thigh, biting into his shoulder to hold my moan back.
And after, I let him take me back to his place and fuck me hard and fast, pulling another three orgasms from me before he follows me over the edge.
As we lie there, panting and naked after, Jack tucking my body into him, all I can think is, suddenly, I’m not so sure I want to forget all of my relationships post–curse lifting.