Chapter Seventeen Jasmine
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jasmine
As surprised as I was by Derek’s kiss, I was even more surprised that I was kissing him back.
The silly adolescent fantasies of a preteen girl with a crush on a family friend were a pale comparison to the embrace that was currently setting my body on fire.
His lips moved across my jawline, placing featherlight kisses and nibbles on my neck, collarbone, and shoulder. I let out an involuntary moan.
“Fuck, that was sexy,” Derek whispered before sliding his hands beneath the hem of my pajama top to caress the skin of my back and stomach.
I relaxed into my pillow, and Derek rolled his body on top of mine, careful not to crush me with his full weight.
He gently pressed a knee into the crease of my thighs, urging my legs apart.
I responded by wrapping my legs around his waist while his hands and lips continued to explore every inch of skin he could reach.
The thin fabric of our pajamas could barely dampen the contact of his erection caressing my clit, and he gently rocked his hips between the junction of my thighs.
I couldn’t stop myself from moaning again.
“Can I open this?” Derek propped himself up with one hand while gently tugging at the buttons on my pajama top with the other.
“You didn’t ask for permission before,” I said in a low voice, a smile tugging at my lips.
“That was different.” He smiled down at me. “Everything is different.” His words gave me pause.
“Derek,” I sighed, trying to focus on my next words, but this man was doing something with his tongue and my ear that was making focus a near impossibility.
“Yes, beautiful?” he murmured in response.
“Is this a good idea?” I asked, causing him to stop and almost making me regret my question because that tongue thing he’d been doing had felt so amazing, and it had been such a long time since I’d had sex.
It had been a really long time since I’d had good sex, and this was Derek Fucking Carter.
The boy I’d followed around like a lovesick puppy on family vacations and scribbled about in my diary was frozen on top of me with a very large erection pressing into my waist and a palm cupped around a pajama-clad breast.
“Are you feeling okay?” His face was full of concern. “Is this too much while you’re supposed to be—”
“No,” I cut him off. “I’m actually feeling a lot better. Definitely healthy enough for… this.” My eyes flicked downward, and he smiled down at me. “I meant is this a good idea because of our history, our jobs. If we cross this line and things go wrong…”
Derek sighed and climbed off me. I sat up and turned to face him.
“Yeah, we should probably talk about this, huh?”
“I think it would be the responsible thing to do,” I responded, even though my thoughts about Derek in that moment were nowhere near responsible.
“Listen, Jas. These past couple of weeks have been confusing as fuck, but spending these days with you has been…” He drifted off, deep in thought, before he continued.
“To be honest, these past few days with you have made me happier than I’ve felt in a long time, even when you’re driving me crazy.
” He raised an eyebrow at me, and I let out a small chuckle.
“For as long as I can remember, being around you has always made me a little happier.” He reached over and brushed his thumb across my cheek.
“Even when I was driving you crazy?”
His smile widened at my question. “Especially when you were driving me crazy.” He pressed our foreheads together.
“I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions about your involvement with the project.
It was wrong to judge you based on our families’ history.
” My chest tightened, and I opened my mouth to protest. “Jasmine, I don’t want to make whatever is growing between us about our parents.
I’m not even sure what’s going on between us, but I like it, and I want to protect it.
At least until we figure out what it is.
” He hooked his finger under my chin and tipped my head up until our eyes met. “You good with that?”
“Yeah, I’m good with that.” I smiled and lay down on my side, pulling Derek’s arm over my waist and inching backward on the mattress until I was nestled in the curve of his warm body. I wiggled my hips until his hardness pressed in the cleft of my behind.
“Go easy, Jasmine,” he mumbled with his lips pressed against my neck, making me shiver.
“What?” I asked. “I wanted to talk, and we talked. I was hoping we could pick up where we left off.”
“We definitely will, but not tonight.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re still recovering.”
“I told you, I was—”
He cut me off. “You’re still recovering. And when we do pick up where we left off”—he tightened his arm around my hips—“you are gonna need all of your strength.”
I chuckled softly before drifting off to sleep in his arms.
After a quick afternoon nap and a second lunch of reheated soup, I was desperate for some fresh air.
“Are you sure you trust me to hold the leash?” I strolled next to Derek along the tree-lined park where I lost Tora a few days ago.
“Yes, I trust you.” Derek’s eyes bore into mine, letting me know that he was talking about more than Tora’s leash.
Just a few weeks ago, he was shouting in my office about how untrustworthy I was, and not even a month later, everything has changed.
My head began to spin. I wondered how we’d gotten to this place.
Not just this moment of trust, but the nearly decade and a half of mistrust that preceded it.
This beautiful moment on this beautiful day felt too perfect to ruin, but if I wanted us to move forward, and I desperately did, we had to discuss the thirteen-year-old elephant in the room.
“Why didn’t you ever call me, after”—I paused—“everything?” Derek let out a sigh before he replied.
“I guess the same reason that you didn’t call me.
It’s not an accusation,” he quickly added in response to my expression.
“I’m just saying that it was a crazy time, a confusing time.
For me and Chris, it felt like it came out of nowhere.
I was finishing undergrad. We were all preparing for our annual family vacation to Martha’s Vineyard.
” I nodded, remembering how excited I had been for that trip.
I’d left my suitcase packed for almost four years before throwing it away without opening it, because it hurt too much.
“One second, everything was fine. Then the next, the company was dissolving, our parents hated each other, my father moved out, my mother cried herself to sleep every night, the rumors, the tabloids, the lawsuits… It was a lot.”
“It was a lot for me, too.”
“I thought about reaching out to you, but our lawyers advised against it. After the dust settled, too much time had passed, and to tell you the truth, I was still angry.”
“Do you believe the rumors about my parents? The people you called your aunt and uncle your entire life?”
“Honestly, Jasmine, I don’t know what to believe. My parents weren’t very forthcoming about what caused the rift. Chris and I pored over every legal document and deposition we could legally obtain and nothing, nothing, gave us any clue as to what really happened. What did your parents tell you?”
“They told me that partnerships sometimes end and that sometimes the people that you thought you knew weren’t always who you thought they were.”
“And that was good enough for you?” Derek pulled me over to a bench so we could sit.
“Of course not.” I shook my head. “I tried to get answers for years. My father was too angry, and my mother was stoic, but I could tell she was affected by it. I’d just started school.
It became easier to pretend the Carters didn’t exist, like they’d never existed…
around my parents anyway. Outside of the family, it wasn’t so easy. ”
“Our parents cast a long shadow.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“Did you ever want to reach out to me?”
“All the time,” I admitted, “for the first few years anyway. Then, when I realized that you were never going to reach out to me, it became easier.” I shrugged, momentarily averting my eyes from Derek’s pained expression. “Plus, I was too busy trying to separate myself from my parents’ reputation.”
“I did the same thing. I worked my ass off in school. Clawed my way to the top of my department at MasonCorp. I made sure that no one would even think about comparing me to my parents.” His face was stony and determined. “And it worked.”
“Yeah, it worked until MasonCorp decided to buy Westwood.”
“I guess we couldn’t run from our past forever.”
“No.” I shook my head. “We couldn’t.”
We sat in silence for a moment. I couldn’t speak for Derek, but I couldn’t help but remember that no matter how beautiful this moment with Derek was, the reason we were sitting here together on this bench with Tora lying at our feet was ugly and messy, and we didn’t have the luxury of avoiding it for thirteen years.
This thing with Derek would have to end.
I wondered if he was thinking the same thing.
“Jasmine.” Derek squeezed my hand. I didn’t realize until that moment that he was holding it. “I don’t want this time with you to end.”
“I don’t want it to end, either,” I confessed.
“But I don’t know how staying together could be possible.
I’m not going to give up my career, and I know you won’t, either.
Only one of us is going to get Miller’s Cove, and even without this project, our future would be messy, complicated. It just feels like too much.”