Chapter Fifteen
Fifteen
Abby
I wake to the smell of bacon and the feel of my own panic.
I didn’t go back to Jack’s bed after I cleaned up; I found him asleep on top of the sheets with his dick still out when I came back from the bathroom.
And even though the sight of it made me chuckle a little, I couldn’t bring myself to climb under the covers with him like he asked after I cleaned him up and helped him shimmy out of his jeans while he snored.
I don’t know what possessed me to initiate last night.
I mulled it over and over again in my head before I finally passed out from exhaustion, and the best thing I can come up with is that I was lonely.
Lonely and horny, apparently. And sure, it was the best orgasm I’ve had since…
Well. Maybe ever. But that still doesn’t mean it was a good idea.
What does Jack think of me now? Does he think I’m the kind of girl who just jumps into bed with the first guy who smiles at her?
Does he think this means we’re going to do it again?
Because we can’t do it again; that would be stupid, considering we’re living together and our siblings are in love. It would be a totally bad idea.
Right?
I roll myself out of bed with a groan, my limbs feeling like jelly and my thighs pressing together as memories of last night come flooding back to me.
I can still hear the filthy things Jack murmured to me, can still see the expression on his face when he looked at me, and all of it is enough to make me sort of want to go out there and drag him back for another round.
But again, that would be a totally bad idea.
I kind of want to hide in my room for the rest of the day—I don’t have class or anything to distract me from the fact that my roommate who ate me out last night is apparently in the other room making breakfast—but I know that hiding would be stupid.
Eventually, I will have to face the fact that we did what we did, and that I fucking loved it.
Even if I’m pretty sure we can never do it again.
Surely, Jack will agree with me. He’s smart. He has to know it’s a bad idea.
Right?
I shuffle out of my room carefully, peeking down the hall and finding it empty, but the sounds of sizzling bacon and the toaster popping alert me that yes, he really is out there.
I take a deep breath as I try to appear as casual as I can, smoothing down my T-shirt and resisting the urge to duck into the bathroom to check my appearance before I finally make my way into the living room.
His back is to me; his broad shoulders fill out a threadbare gray T-shirt that makes him look wider and yummier—did I really just think the word yummier? I have to get a grip fast.
And when he turns and notices me, his smile is wide and bright, like he’s excited.
My stomach drops at the sight of it, because clearly he’s already thinking that this is going to become a thing.
Which it can’t. Despite the killer orgasm, Jack isn’t the type of guy to be satisfied with someone like me.
I’m too moody, too much of a buzzkill on my best day, and Jack…
Well. Jack is sunshine incarnate all wrapped up in a killer smile and a flirty attitude.
“Good morning,” he says brightly as he looks at me from over his shoulder. “How did you sleep?”
I swallow thickly, moving carefully into the kitchen like a bomb might go off under my feet at any moment. “I slept…good.”
“You didn’t come back to bed,” he says with a pout.
“Oh.” I take a seat at the kitchen counter, shifting a little with guilt. “You were kind of hogging the bed when I got back from the bathroom. I didn’t want to wake you up.”
“Sorry I fell asleep,” he says sheepishly. “It was a long day, and then, well…orgasms kind of take it out of me.”
I feel a flush creeping up my neck at his casual mention of our tryst. Do people still say tryst? Is that the right word for what we did?
I clear my throat. “What are you making?”
“Everything,” he tells me. “I have bacon and toast and eggs, and I’m working on pancakes.
” He laughs then. “Did you know I saw an article about some chef in California that can’t make pancakes?
There was this whole piece about his restaurant, and he admitted it’s the one thing he can’t make. Isn’t that stupid?”
“Yeah,” I say, chuckling awkwardly. “Stupid.”
His lips tilt into a grin. “Are you hungry?”
I’m starved, actually, but I don’t want to seem too eager.
“I could eat,” I say instead.
I’m trying to get a read on him, but it’s difficult. He seems…casual about the whole thing, and I don’t know how that makes me feel. Is it proof that this was just a onetime thing for him? That what we did is just a normal occurrence for him that he can’t even be bothered to really acknowledge?
Have I made a huge mistake?
He starts loading things up on a plate for me, and judging by how much he puts on the thing, he must think I eat like a pro wrestler. He’s got a short stack of pancakes with a mountain of bacon and eggs, and now he’s loading up toast as well.
“Do you like butter or jelly?”
“Dry is fine.”
He wrinkles his nose. “You eat your toast dry?”
“I like it that way,” I say defensively.
He shrugs. “Weird, but to each their own.”
He sets the plate in front of me, smiling the entire time. He looks so damned happy this morning, but I guess orgasms will do that to a guy.
He leans over the counter across from me, taking a big bite of a piece of bacon as he studies me. “So…”
“So?”
“Last night was fun,” he says.
I freeze with my fork halfway to my mouth, feeling something heavy settle in my stomach.
Last night was fun.
It sounds like the sort of thing you say to a girl just before you tell her that you’re leaving the country for the next few months and won’t have any cell reception, so no, you can’t give her your number.
I can feel my face scrunching up, irritation seeping through me as I shove a full bite of eggs into my mouth. “Yeah,” I say blandly. “Fun.”
“Hey.” Jack looks confused, cocking his head. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say, keeping my eyes on my plate.
I can hear him moving around the counter, and then his hand is at my elbow. “I lost you there. What did I say?”
“I think last night was a bad idea,” I blurt out.
Jack looks almost like I’ve struck him. “What?”
“I mean, like you said, it was fun—but we don’t want to make things complicated between us, right?”
“Hold up,” he says, shaking his head. “Wait. Is this because of what I said? I didn’t mean it any sort of way.”
I roll my eyes. “I’ve been around long enough to know what ‘last night was fun’ means, Jack.”
“Well, you’re going to have to clue me in, because to me, it means just what I said. That last night was fun.”
I avert my eyes, my lips turning down in a frown.
“Listen, I’m sure you have a lot of girls over here, and it’s going to get weird really fast if I have to be across the hall whenever you bring the next one by, and I’m not the type of person who can just do casual.
I don’t even know what I was thinking last night.
I’m not that girl. I’m sorry if I made you think that I was, but I’m—”
“Abby,” he says firmly, reaching out to cup my chin.
I try to resist, but he manages to get me to turn my face to look at him.
“I didn’t mean it that way. And you’re wrong.
I don’t have a lot of girls over here. You’re the first person I’ve been with in…
Well. A very long time, actually. I didn’t mean to make you think that I was making light of it, because I wasn’t.
Last night…” His eyes soften, his thumb stroking absently against my jaw.
“Last night was amazing. It was amazing because it was you, okay?”
I feel my breath catch; I’m not at all prepared for this little speech of his. It goes against everything I thought I’d ever known about Jack. I feel a little shitty now, having made assumptions. Hadn’t I just come to the conclusion over the last week that Jack might not be who I thought he was?
“I’m sorry,” I murmur. “I’m just…I don’t know how to do this.”
“What?” he says with a chuckle. “Get off?”
I shove his hand away, rolling my eyes again. “I can do that just fine.”
“Oh, I know you can,” he says suggestively, leaning in to press a kiss to my cheek. “I’d show you again just how much if you’d let me.”
I’m happy to be sitting, because if I were standing, my knees might get a little weak. I’m not at all equipped to handle the full brunt of Jack Baker at his flirtiest. Especially not with the memory of his mouth between my legs and his come all over my belly.
“Aren’t you afraid of things getting weird since we’re currently living together?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Not really. We’re both adults. It doesn’t have to be weird if we don’t make it weird.”
“And you’re sure this isn’t some sort of twisted way of getting back at my brother about Lila?”
He looks offended then, rearing back like I’ve slapped him.
“What? No! Abby…” He scrubs a hand down his face.
“I know I joke a lot, and I rarely ever say the right thing—my brain doesn’t always spit out what I want it to say—but those were always just jokes.
Nothing more. I would never actually do that to Ian.
Or to you, for that matter. I would never use you like that. ”
I stare back at him, feeling a knot unwinding in my chest. There’s no way of knowing if he’s telling the truth, but his eyes are wide and earnest, and his lips are pressed into a tight line, like the mere thought of it upsets him.
“Okay,” I concede. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing,” he says. “You don’t have to apologize to me.”
I hang my head, feeling unsure all of a sudden.
I hear Jack sigh. “Stand up, please.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” he says. “Stand up.”
I do so slowly, not really sure where he’s going with this, so when his arms come around me as soon as my feet hit the ground, I’m taken completely by surprise.