Chapter 15
“I made you tea,” Jack says stiffly, setting a mug on my coffee table.
I silently curse the fates who thought it’d be hilarious to have the guy who was kissing my cleavage twelve hours ago—the guy I sprained my ankle fleeing—also be the guy who insists on taking care of me as I convalesce.
“There’s a cookie, too. Don’t eat lying down. And use the ice pack I gave you.”
For a moment, I ignore him, continuing to lie there on my sofa with my foot propped on a pillow, my head resting on several others Jack fluffed for me, and the ice pack in question on the coffee table.
Then, like a recalcitrant teen, I pick up the cookie and purposefully take a bite while lying down.
I regret it instantly when the crumbs fall down my throat and spark a coughing fit.
I sit up. A sip of scalding hot tea to sort out my choking proves an equally bad idea.
The taste of the cookie barely registers as I take another, safer bite, and it’s not because I’ve burned my tongue. I can’t get the taste of Jack out of my mouth or comprehend the colossal lapse in judgment that led to us pawing each other in the storage closet at Avery’s party.
Still, there is a stirring of something as I relive bits of last night. I curse Jack again. I don’t like you much, either. Ugh. I can’t even dissect the situation properly without getting hot and bothered. Where is my self-respect?
Wait a second.
“Are these… Are these my hi-hat cookies?” I shout around a mouthful. “Where did you get them?” I glare over my sofa back into Jack’s apartment. He’s in the kitchen, drying a glass.
“Gence gave them to me.”
Oh. My. God.
My phone rings, saving Jack’s life. I answer via my earbuds, reluctantly tugging the ice pack onto my ankle.
“How are you feeling?” Margie asks.
“Better than before. Rest, ice, compress, elevate for the weekend. ER doc said it should be good after two to three days.” I gingerly rotate my ankle and wince. “I hope I don’t need to take Monday off.”
“You need to stay off it or it could get worse. Work can wait.”
I grunt.
“I’m serious. Pen, I know your dad’s shit left you and your mom in a rough place financially, but you’re not in that place anymore. You’ve got savings, you’ve got us, your job isn’t going to fire you if you take a beat to just recup—”
“Yeah, can we just change the subject?”
“Fine. Here’s a subject change. I can’t believe you chose to go to the ER with him over me.”
“I did no such thing.” I scowl. Jack isn’t visible in his apartment, which means he’s in his bathroom or bedroom. “He’s the last person I wanted to go with. But the party wasn’t over, Avery couldn’t leave, and I couldn’t have you abandon Avery just because I don’t know how to walk.”
“How is Florence Nightingale?” she asks. “No more sucking face?”
“How’s La doing?” I ask in return. She chuckles. In a whisper, I add, “We barely said a word to each other the entire time we were at the ER. And this morning it’s been the same, but he won’t leave me alone. He keeps trying to take care of me.”
“What a monster. Avery is driving his parents back to Massachusetts, and I have this photo shoot right now, but after—”
“Don’t stress it. I’ll survive.” I glare at the remains of my cookie. “Florence may need you to take care of him when I’m done with him, though.”
Yesterday was awkward, but at least I had ankle pain to distract me from Jack’s cool and reserved, albeit aggressive, caretaking. Today, though I still can’t flee properly, my ankle is feeling loads better. I’ve been robbed of my shield.
This morning he showed up with an obscenely large first aid kit, one no single male should own, and insisted on rewrapping my ankle with an elastic compression bandage. The memory of his hand gently cradling my foot has me scowling.
“Are you hungry?” Jack asks from his side of The Hole, his face an aloof mask. I want to pinch him, just to see something other than that blank stare when I’m still so unsettled.
“No.” I am a ravenous liar. “But I do want you to tell me why you’re being nice to me,” I snap.
“Masochist, clearly.” At my look, he runs a hand across the back of his neck. “I feel responsible. If we hadn’t been—”
My face overheats.
“If we hadn’t made that mistake,” he says, and there’s a bite to that word, “then you never would’ve gotten hurt. So it’s the least I can do. And taking care of people has always been my thing, so— What are you doing? Why are you standing?” He hurries over.
“I need to use the restroom. I have a crutch over there, you don’t need to—” Before I can finish, I’m scooped up and carried to the bathroom. I am wearing shorts and a tank top, and the feel of his skin on mine is disorienting.
Because I know he’ll be waiting for me when I’m done, I have to run the faucet to overcome my stage fright. I set aside the novelty of knowing that someone, a male who isn’t Avery, will most definitely be there to lend his assistance.
I reemerge, hopping out like a wounded little flamingo, and Jack again hefts me up like nothing.
He carries me back to the sofa, and I rest my hand against his chest, resisting the urge to let it roam over his firm pecs.
He deposits me gently on the sofa in front of the lunch tray he evidently prepared while I was in the bathroom.
“Eat. It’s spaghetti Bolognese.”
“You made— Why aren’t you eating?”
“I already ate,” he answers simply.
These short, clipped exchanges are torture. “Listen, I don’t dislike you. Not entirely,” I say. I grab at his hand.
He stares down at me.
I release him.
“You should write for Hallmark.” Jack moves through The Hole to his apartment. I take a bite of his surprisingly good cooking and mentally note that his moving casually through both our places feels somehow intimate. He returns with a tablet and drops down into one of my chairs.
“What are you doing?”
He glances at me. “Reading.”
I shift and swallow my bite. “Here?”
“Would you rather I leave?”
“No, no. I just— What are you reading?” I ask. Something flickers in his eyes, and it’s a break from the impassive reactions I’ve gotten from him the past two days. He looks alert, amused, something else. I double down, eager to draw him out, though I’m not sure why. “Is it good?”
“It’s…very good,” he drawls, the words sliding against me and caressing places they shouldn’t. “Educational.”
I lick my lips, eyes wide. The energy in the room has shifted. What the hell is he reading?
“I can read you a little,” he offers.
“You want to read to me?” I repeat blankly.
“Mm-hmmm. Do you want me to read to you, Penelope?”
I find myself nodding.
“This part I liked a lot: The air between them crackled like an angry sky. Ronan’s hand slid up her leg to her damp core. His teeth captured one perfect pebbled nipple. Bethany arched with a cry.
‘I thought you didn’t want me anymore,’ she panted.
He lifted his head from her breast. ‘Shall I show you how much I don’t want you?’ He slid a finger into the heat of her—”
My mouth has gone dry, because all the moisture my body contains has pooled somewhere else. What. The. Fuck.
“That’s— Why are you reading The Pirate Duke’s Pleasure?”
He shrugs, his smoky eyes piercing. “I was curious after reading that bit the other day. Wanted to see what you…like.”
Oh my God.
His gaze drops back to his device and he continues, “She fisted her hand in his thick hair. ‘Charles!’ she whimpered. She pushed his head down, slowly, past her taut belly. ‘I need your mouth…here.’”
Am I pregnant? I’m pretty sure I’m pregnant. I’m pretty sure every person capable of childbearing in a three-block radius is pregnant.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I stand suddenly.
He stands with me, setting his tablet down. “What do you need?”
“I need…” To break a headboard with you. “I need to take a shower,” I gasp. A cold one.
He reaches for me, about to hoist me up to shepherd me to the bathroom.
I still his attempt and bring my mouth a whisper’s breadth away from his.
He freezes for a moment, and then his lips move over mine, and we kiss in earnest as his arms come around me. He eases me down to the sofa, his delicious weight settling against me.
I arch, rubbing against him, and he groans into my mouth. His tongue tangles with mine, and then he’s kissing my neck, sucking, biting.
“Wreck me. You fucking wreck me,” he says.
He pivots so that now he’s on his back and I’m on top.
I straddle him and lean forward. He pulls my tank top down, exposing me, and his tongue is on me, licking, flicking.
His mouth moves to my other breast, and his hands are on my ass.
I reach between us to run my hand over the hard ridge of him, leaning back.
“Ow!” I cry. “My ankle!”
Jack freezes. “Shit, let me—”
He sets me down gently next to him on the sofa. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t be doing this when you’re injured.”
Sanity washes back over me in a wave of cold clarity. He breathes heavily, then stands abruptly and walks away.