Chapter Nineteen #2
Jake was watching me, a small smile playing on his lips.
He was amused by my nerves. Although, to be fair, he looked a little nervous too.
And the place had clearly been cleaned to within an inch of its life.
There was a candle burning on the coffee table—an expensive scented one.
I doubted it was usually there. Jake didn’t strike me as a candle guy.
He lowered himself to his velvety overstuffed sofa and took a sip of wine.
Lightning spiked in the east, illuminating the black sheet of the ocean.
“Wow.” To get away from my nerves, I moved to the window to watch the storm approach. The world outside was monochrome as the distant lightning flickered. Faint thunder grumbled.
“It’s still a ways off,” Jake said, not moving from the couch. He stretched an arm across the back of the couch and watched me.
A net of lightning split the sky, and I silently counted until the thunder rumbled.
“You were not at all what I was expecting when I heard someone was interested in the house,” Jake said, and even though he spoke quietly, I jumped.
“You made that clear when I met you.”
He pulled a face at the memory. “Sorry. I can be an ass. It’s too much time spent alone—I forget how to act with people.” He rubbed his cheek. “But also, you are a madwoman for buying that place.”
“No,” I said, screwing up my courage to go and join him on the couch. “I am a desperate woman. Do you have any idea how expensive housing is?” I lowered myself to sit next to him.
He rested his chin on his palm. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi.” I took a shaky sip of wine. “I haven’t done this in a while,” I confessed.
“What? Talk?”
“Funny.” I fiddled with the hem of my sweater. “You know what I mean.”
“Well, you’re doing fine so far.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “If it helps, I haven’t done this in a while either.”
I didn’t believe him.
“It’s a small pool around here,” he said wryly. “And I’m related to most of them.”
I suppressed a smile. “I guess that’s true. But, I’m not sure if you’re aware, there’s a whole range of new technologies now that allow you to date out of your pool. Have you heard of Bumble or Hinge?”
“I’m an old-fashioned guy,” he protested. “I like meeting people in real life.”
“I think I’m better not in real life,” I admitted. “You can banter better when you have time to think about it.”
“You are definitely better in real life,” he said firmly. And then he inched closer, his woody scent wrapping around me. “Scripted banter is overrated.” He met my gaze and my stomach dropped in slow motion.
“Aren’t you worried,” I breathed as he leaned toward me, “about what might happen if this goes wrong?”
“Don’t you think about,” he countered, sliding even closer, “what might happen if this goes right?”
“The thing is… I have a kid.”
“Yeah, I know her.”
“So I can’t… just…”
“What? Enjoy yourself?”
I bit my lip. He hadn’t even touched me and my skin was singing.
“Zoe,” he said, and his low voice made me shiver. “I don’t know what this is, or what it’s going to be. I’m not making any promises.”
I think my face fell because he smiled. And then he reached out a finger and traced the line of my jaw.
“Except,” he murmured, “I promise to be nice, and I promise to be honest with you.”
Every bit of me seemed to be focused on the patch of skin beneath his finger.
“I don’t know what I want,” I blurted.
“That’s okay.” He leaned closer. “What if I ask and you just tell me yes or no?”
His finger had migrated to my ear, tracing my lobe, which was stunningly sexy. Who knew.
“If I were to kiss you,” he murmured, “would you want that?”
I thought about it. For about half a second. “Yes.”
He took the wine from my hand and put it on the coffee table. The lightning was flickering, casting bright sheets of light as he turned back to me. “I like that answer.” He cupped my face with his hand and pulled me gently toward him.
When his lips touched mine, I just melted, like I had no bones.
Jake Abernathy tasted salty sweet. And God, he was a good kisser.
He took it slow, his lips firm but teasing, gentle and slow.
I pressed against him, and he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close, the feeling of him holding me tight felt simultaneously comforting and so incredibly hot.
My body felt like it was waking up from a long slumber, nerve endings I’d forgotten I even had zinging to life.
I could feel his hard chest pressing into me, sending tingles through every inch of my skin.
I deepened the kiss, wanting more. So much more.
I had a fistful of his hair in my hand, as I wrapped myself around him.
He moaned into my lips, turned on by my hunger.
I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anyone.
“I’ve wanted to do that since the day you walked into my store,” Jake whispered when he finally broke the kiss.
I was breathless, my heart clamoring. “Funny, I don’t remember getting that impression.” I pressed closer. “I think I want you to kiss me again.”
“You think or you do?”
“I do.”
This time the kiss deepened much further, his hands sliding down my back as his tongue slipped along my lips.
I opened for him and then things got even hotter.
His tongue slid into me as his hands slipped under my sweater and onto my bare back.
His palms were warm, sending sparks billowing in their wake as they ran over my skin.
I tangled one hand in his hair and arched against him, wishing those big warm hands would keep moving.
As though reading my mind, his hands traced the line of my spine, down to my ass.
I moaned as he gave me a squeeze and hauled me across his lap.
I could feel him hard against me and I gave his lower lip a teasing bite.
If the oven timer hadn’t gone off, I’m not sure we would have stopped.
“Whoa,” he said breathlessly, disentangling himself. “I meant to go slow.”
“You sound like you knew what would happen tonight,” I teased him shakily.
“I knew what I hoped would happen,” he said as he got up to rescue the chicken.
I topped up the wine while he carved the chicken and set the table. The wind hissed down the chimney, sending the flames jumping, and the lightning marched toward us across the dark water. Then, as Jake set dinner on the table, a titanic crack sounded overhead, rattling the plates and the cutlery.
Hazel whined. She’d slept through the storm until now, but she was up like a shot, ears back and her tail between her legs.
“You’re okay,” Jake soothed her. But she came and cowered under his legs as we ate.
The storm was building, throwing itself at the cliffs and the store.
The thunder seemed to roll and crack from all directions as the rain whipped harder at the windows, pelting in sideways across the balcony.
In the buttery glow of the streetlights, I could see the rain squall, caught and tossed by the winds.
Then came a deafening smack of thunder, and all the lights went out. The room shivered orange and gold with firelight.
“The power’s out,” Jake soothed a crying Hazel. “That’s all, girl.” He checked on me. “You okay?”
I nodded. “It’s kind of romantic,” I told him as I fetched the lone candle and moved it to the dining table.
“It would be if I didn’t have a wuss of a dog.” He laughed. Hazel seemed to be trying to climb him. He pulled her into his lap, and she burrowed her head under his armpit.
With Hazel taking center stage, we eased into a more relaxed mood, batting questions back and forth as we ate and the storm raged. Jake had Hazel on his lap, one arm securely around her as she whined and shivered.
“And you’re sure you aren’t keeping her?” I teased. Hazel looked up at him with pleading eyes, as though begging him to stop the storm. She licked at his neck and wriggled in his arms.
“I’m not ready,” he said gruffly.
“You look like you are.”
He pulled a face and changed the topic. “How did you get into the medical business?” he asked me.
I shrugged and also pulled a face. “I needed a job. I had Flo, and Tim wanted to go to grad school. He needed to keep his grades up, so I was the one who had to go work.”
“Flo said her dad didn’t live with you…” Jake looked uncomfortable at his own curiosity. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’ve just been wondering.”
His discomfort was kind of adorable. “It’s fine,” I said, waving his apology away. “It’s all water under the bridge now. We lived together for the first ten months after Flo was born. But it didn’t work.”
“It didn’t work or he didn’t work?” Jake sounded bristly on my behalf.
“A bit of both,” I admitted. “But we were young, only twenty-one.” I watched him comfort his puppy and felt a pang, remembering the long, hard years when Flo was little.
“He moved out and threw himself into campus life and I dropped out of my statistics and data science degree and worked in a medical call center, chasing people to pay their bills.”
“You dropped out? That must have been hard.”
I shrugged. “It was what it was. To be honest, continuing to try and study and work and look after a baby would have been harder. Impossible. And I don’t regret it—I’d do anything for Flo.”
“To a mother’s love,” Jake said, lifting his glass in a toast.
I swallowed, as thoughts of Tina swam to mind.
“She’s a lucky kid,” he added as we clinked glasses.
“She’s a good kid.”
“And now Mr. Campus Life is getting married,” Jake prodded. “And he lives in Seattle, which is what? Three thousand miles away?”
I nodded.
“Does it ever make you angry? That he got to finish his degree and have a whole life like he never even had a child?”
“Anger isn’t useful.” I shifted in my chair. Anger was never useful. “It’s best to just move on.”
“Seriously?” He fixed me with his disconcertingly straightforward stare. The candlelight cast shadows on his face and made his eyes shine. “But didn’t you have dreams? You must still have dreams?”