Chapter 22 - Jensen
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Jensen
The water is cool against my back, drenching the bottom of my shirt, as I sit down in the pool. Silt at the bottom stirs around as I stretch my legs out in front of me.
“Okay, Callie, go ahead and sit on his lap.”
Mabel gives the instruction and damn it if my heart doesn’t immediately begin to pound, as if to say, yes, yes, yes .
I want Callie close, want to feel her body pressed against mine again.
It’s like this every time I’m around her.
Every smile, every touch, even if it’s just the brush of her fingers, soothes something deep inside me.
It’s as if I’m nothing but raw edges and jagged pieces, but when I’m around her, when she’s near me, I don’t feel so much of the ache.
Callie moves toward me, the damp skirt of her dress, clinging to her legs in a way that makes my mouth water.
She’s so incredibly beautiful I almost can’t stand it.
I know it’s probably going to ruin me in the end, but I just want my hands on her.
Even if it can never go farther than this, even if it’s just the photoshoot that’s making this possible, I want every second of this. I want her .
“Face him, Callie,” Mabel directs, and Callie sucks in the corner of her lower lip, as if nervous.
I offer her a smile, one that I hope is reassuring and her cheeks lift.
She straddles me then, her legs wrapping around my waist. My arms automatically wind around her, pulling her even closer.
“Sorry,” she whispers. “I hope I’m not crushing you. ”
There’s uncertainty in her voice, worry that I know her stupid ex put there when he consistently told her she wasn’t enough. A flash of white-hot anger spikes in my chest.
“Callie,” I lean in, my lips right at her ear. “You’re perfect. Everything about you is so incredibly perfect. And I’ve never wanted anything like I want you right now.”
The words come out on their own, entirely uncensored and as real as the water around us. I think we’re both a little surprised by them, but I’m glad I said them.
I hear Callie’s sharp intake of breath, and just to make sure she knows I mean it, I lean down and press my lips to the soft skin of her neck.
There’s a pause, as if Callie is trying to decide if she believes me or not, but then I grin against her neck when she leans her head back, exposing more of her beautiful skin to me. I kiss her again, taking my time to move my lips across the smooth plane, my teeth giving her a playful nip.
As if I’ve unlocked something inside her, Callie tips forward, claiming my mouth as she slides her fingers into my hair.
Her fingernails graze my scalp and a warm shiver cascades down my back.
God, kissing her feels like it should be a crime, and I moan as she deepens the kiss, her mouth opening for me.
I swirl my tongue around hers and lift my hand to cradle the back of her head.
She feels so good underneath my hands, against my lips, in my mouth. Everything about her is beyond what I ever imagined or thought I was even capable of experiencing.
There’s a moment when I feel the claws of grief and pain dig into my chest, as if reminding me that I am damaged beyond repair, that all of this is fleeting. Just a temporary high that will only crack open the barely stitched-over wounds in my chest and leave me bleeding.
But it’s worth it. So damn worth it.
The shadows may swirl, but they can’t claim me, not now with this amazing woman in my arms, her kiss breathing life back into the depths of my soul. I don’t want to think too hard about this and what it means. I just want to keep kissing her.
So I do.
I’m not sure if it’s a few minutes that pass or an hour, but eventually we come up for air. Callie’s chest heaves slightly and her cheeks are tinged pink. “Wow,” she whispers, and it’s so damn cute I want to kiss her all over again.
I probably would have, but at that moment I think we both remember Mabel and turn to look at her. She’s sitting cross-legged on the bank with her camera in her hand and the biggest grin on her face.
“Oh, sorry,” Callie lets out a breathy laugh. “I think we um . . . got a little carried away there for a second. Where do you want us now, Mabs?”
Her awkwardness is adorable. I don’t care one bit that her cousin just witnessed that kiss. I poke her in the ribs which makes her laugh, squealing as she scrambles off my lap.
It’s tempting to reach for her, to pull her back down into my arms, but instead, I follow suit and stand up.
“Actually, I think you guys do better when I’m not giving so much direction.” Mabel waves a hand at the waterfall. “Go play,” she gives us both a wink. “And just pretend I’m not here."
“Come on,” I tell Callie. “Let’s take a closer look at the falls. ”
“Okay, how—” The rest of her sentence gets cut off when I scoop her up in my arms and start wading back into the water.
Callie is laughing, her head tipped back as she kicks her feet playfully. I walk till the water hits me just below the chest, still cradling Callie in my arms. “It’s so beautiful here,” she murmurs, her eyes on the falls.
My eyes are only on her. “You sure are,” I whisper, but I know she heard me because her eyes snap to mine.
“You can’t keep saying stuff like that.”
“Why not?”
She swallows, and I can see she’s wrestling with herself to say the words. But then she straightens her shoulders. “Because I’m falling for you, Jensen.”
The words slam into me, but it’s not pain that I’m feeling reverberating throughout my entire body. It’s possibility. And hope. And for the first time in a long time, I want what’s possible.
“Would it be bad if I said I’m falling for you, too?”
Callie’s eyes widen at my words. “What? Are you sure? I thought we agreed to just keep things casual between us.”
I surprise even myself when I reply, “I don’t think I can do casual with you, Callie.” And it’s the truth. Even though there is something inside me that’s roaring its head off, screaming at me that this is all a mistake, that I don’t deserve this, all I can focus on is that feeling of possibility .
I think about what Sutton said. Then breathe, Shep. And I realize in this moment that I want to. Even though I’m terrified, even if I can only take this so far, whatever it is that exists in this moment, I don’t want to let it go.
“I want to try,” I tell her. “I don’t know what this mangled heart of mine is capable of, Callie, I really don’t, but when I’m with you, all I know is that it doesn’t hurt as much. I can breathe again, and I can laugh again and whatever that means, I want to hold onto it. I want to hold on to you.”
The words are spilling out of me and that thing inside me roars even louder as if to warn me, to urge me to stop this before it's too late, but I can’t. I don’t want to ignore how Callie makes me feel.
Callie’s beautiful face transforms, all her worry and doubt vanishing into a smile that nearly knocks me over. “Okay,” she tells me, her eyes bright.
“Okay?”
“Yeah,” she giggles, pressing a quick peck to my mouth.
The heat of her kiss, there for an instant and then gone the next second, nearly has me groaning, but the sweetness of her words wraps around me like a warm blanket.
Laughter rumbles in my chest. “Okay, huh? Well, how angry do you think Mabel will be if we get a little more wet than we are right now?”
“What do you— ”
I grip Callie tighter and let myself fall backward into the deeper end of the pool, pulling us both underneath the crystal water.
I let go of Callie as soon as we’re under and we kick toward the surface. She comes up sputtering, shock lining her features, but then she’s laughing, which was the exact reaction I was going for. I’ve heard millions of sounds in my lifetime, but her laugh? Yeah, that’s one of my favorites.
“Hey!” she shouts, swiping her palm across the water to splash me. It hits me square in the face, which only makes her cackle more.
“Oh, it’s on,” I tell her, and then we’re dunking each other and splashing around like two teenagers.
“I surrender,” Callie says, wrapping her arms around my neck.
I reach down and grip her legs, pulling her to my waist, where she automatically winds her legs around me. “Do you now?”
“Yeah,” she tells me, and I kiss her.
I keep kissing her until a rumble overhead has us both pulling apart to look up at the sky. It’s then that I realize just how little light is coming in through the trees. It had been sunny when we arrived, but now the sky is an ominous gray.
“Um, guys?” Mabel calls from her position on the bank. “I think there’s a storm moving in. We better head back. ”
Disappointment washes over me, but the trees are already swaying in the breeze from the front moving in. We make our way to the shore.
“Hey, before we go, do you think we could do one more thing?” Mabel asks after she’s done packing up her camera equipment.
She pulls her cell phone from her back pocket.
“Can we make a quick video? Everyone is dying for more of you both, but it might take me a day or two until I can get a preview up.”
Callie looks to me for approval and I nod. “Gotta give the people what they want, right?”
Mabel grins, tapping on her phone to open her favorite video platform.
“Hey y’all,” she speaks into the camera.
“I just finished up a very special photoshoot with . . . ” She steps to the side and holds out the phone so that Callie and I are in view.
I throw my arm over Callie’s shoulders and we both wave.
“If you thought the first photoshoot was amazing, wait till you see the shots from this one!” Mabel pans the camera around, giving the audience a brief look at the waterfall, and then refocuses the camera back on her face.
“Stay tuned, more soon!” She blows the camera a kiss and ends the video.
“Oh my gosh, everyone is going to go nuts! I can’t wait to post this.
” Another peal of thunder rumbles overhead.
“Which better be sooner rather than later!”
We all hurry along the trail back to our cars, the first droplets of rain starting to fall.
The goodbyes are short, Mabel hugging each of us before scurrying to her car. “Be careful heading back,” she calls out to us, opening her passenger side door to dump her gear. “Callie, call me later, okay?”
The rain is really starting to come down now, and Callie lets out a little squeal as I grab her hand and pull her toward my truck.
We make it into the cab just as the heavens open up, rain pouring down in thick sheets. Loud peals of thunder clap overhead and off in the distance, lightning streaks across the sky.
“Gotta love this time of year,” I murmur.
“What is it they always say though?” Callie says, peering out the window and up at the sky. “April showers bring May flowers.” She smiles and then shivers, as if a chill just crept down her back.
“You’re cold.” I immediately reach for the temperature nob on the console, cutting the air and switching over to heat. “Sorry, I should’ve thought about that before I dunked us.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Callie swipes at the smudges of mascara underneath her eyes. “I don’t think either one of us expected we’d need a towel for this photoshoot, and I’m glad you did it. I’m sure the photos turned out amazing.”
“Here,” I pull a hoodie from the back seat and hand it to her. “At least take this, I can’t stand the thought of you sitting over there shivering because of me.”
“Thanks.” She smiles, and pulls it over her head. It’s way too big for her, but seeing her in my clothes does something to me, and the need to kiss her hits me square in the chest.
“Come here,” I tell her, reaching for her across the seat. It feels so easy, so natural to do this. To want to kiss someone and then do it. But not just someone. Callie. God, I could kiss her for hours and never get tired of the way her lips feel against mine, of the way she tastes.
Can I really have this? Can she really be mine? Questions flood my thoughts but I shove them away, pulling my lips from Callie’s only when a loud peal of thunder shakes the cab.
“Come on, let’s get you home.”