Chapter 36
36
Jake
I drag her outside, take a quick look around and head left to where there’s a little green area with benches and bushes. It’s relatively quiet here in the predawn light. Early morning traffic sounds in the distance, the highway not too far off.
I push through a stand of bushes to a dark, private hollow between the shrubs and the hospital’s wall.
There’s nothing left. No barriers. Nothing but the yawning truths we’ve shared.
I press her to the rough red brick and lean in and our mouths come together like swords clashing. No, not swords, shields. Walls.
Her lips move under mine. They’re hesitant, almost, stiff. I press harder and then her fists are in my hair and mine in hers and we grind together, striving, forcing.
I release a frustrated growl, she whimpers, and then her hold moves to pull my shirt from my pants and I stop her. “No.”
She blinks up at me. I see shock on her face, embarrassment. She tries to turn away, but I lean down and put my forehead to hers like when we were inside and say, “Kit. Katarina, sweetheart.” Her name’s a caress against her face. I don’t know how to say the things pouring out of my soul, but I sure don’t want to do it by kissing her fast and rushed. By taking her quick and hard against the hospital wall like her body’s all I care about.
I force myself to go slow, to not rush, to take my time with this thing that means so much.
A kiss on her cheek, so soft against the skin of my lips. On her ear, precious and delicate and beautifully complicated. The side of her neck, which smells like her—like us—down to her shoulder. Goosebumps scatter out and I realize she’s not wearing enough clothes for this.
She tries to hold on to my arms as I lean back and take off the jacket I barely remember throwing on in my place while racing to get back to Travis, knowing she was down there with him. Knowing she’d come back.
After a brief protest, she lets me put the jacket over her shoulders, lets me wrap my arms around her, and hums low when I kiss her head, her ear again, place pecks along the other side of her throat.
I bend to skate more kisses over her collar bone, one and the other. Each is a gift. Her hands drop from my arms when I tilt her head back and nibble that sweet, velvet place below her jaw, using lips and tongue to travel up to her chin. I’m out of breath by the time I stare at the tip of her nose and put a kiss there, another at the corner of my eye. Each tender touch is an offering. Her forehead, where I linger, is a solemn benediction. Until finally, I bend to press my forehead to hers again, look her straight in the eye, and give Katarina Esteban my whole heart.
Along with the mouth to mouth contact we’ve denied ourselves for too long.
At first, it’s just a press, a delicate slide, slow, tender, so tender.
My lips move, stroking, brushing and pressing, my tongue urging, and then the wet tip of hers to mine. Questions and gliding responses.
The taste of her. The smell. The way my insides have broken loose from their moorings and there’s nothing holding me to earth but this connection. It’s fucking crazy how good she feels.
I didn’t know. How could I have fucking known it could be like this?
Another slide of our tongues and we’re playing now, dancing, enjoying this moment with a purity I’ve never experienced once in my life.
Maybe as a child. Maybe this sweet, innocent exploration is like learning to use your hands or to draw a circle or as natural as, fuck, giving your mom her first baby smile.
“Fuck, Katarina, you’re…you’re so strong. So goddamn righteous, so good .” Each sound’s a dry rattle forced straight from my insides. “I’ve wanted you—loved you—since that first moment I walked in and saw those sad eyes. I know you can’t give yourself to a guy like me. I get that. I know I’m not the father you’d want for your kids, but let me hold you. Let me help you. Let me be the guy you don’t have to be strong with. Give me some of this weight from your shoulders so you don’t have to hold it up by yourself all the time.” Another kiss, quick, hungry, sipping from her, gathering up her taste in case this is the one and only chance. “Give me your pain, Katarina. Give me all the bad shit because you only deserve the good.”
Kit
“Stop,” I whisper against him. And then, when he keeps muttering that I’m too strong and a pillar and all kinds of other nonsense about how he’ll hold me up as long as I let him, I mutter, “Shut up,” and shove him far enough back so I can reach for his zipper. He’s hard, thick.
We both watch as I slowly pull him out, the sounds of the world waking up beyond this place too far to matter.
His face right now is lost, his eyes glazed at half-mast.
I stroke him once, twice. His head drops back, those bright eyes disappear behind heavy lids.
I want him lost like this forever, his body—his pleasure—in my hands.
His heart.
Shit. His heart .
A tear slides from my eye down my cheek. I don’t bother wiping it. It’s been nothing but emotion today and I can’t imagine that’s about to change.
Instead, I let it fill me. The pain and the tenderness. The affection and all the other stuff I’m feeling for this man who’s already taken on my burdens, who’s shown me with his body and his actions how much he cares.
I reach down and drag my skirt up, catching his light eyes on me. His big, rough hands go straight to my waist, my hips, his mouth returns to take mine like he’s been waiting for just this opportunity.
The kiss builds and builds again and his hand’s on my ass, the other stretching my poor panties to one side, and he effortlessly heaves me up against the rough wall and he’s there, filling me one slow inch at a time. As soon as he’s fully seated, our mouths return to exploring and teasing and tasting, learning to make love under fresh terms.
“I’m scared,” I tell him, my sighs mingling with his on the surface of our sensitive skin. “I’m so scared.”
He hums into my mouth, tightens his hold on me as he thrusts and I tighten my legs as we move together. We both gasp at the tight fit, the swollen pleasure, the quiet intensity of this new position, sharing things that are more than skin deep.
“I’m here,” he whispers as our hips circle tighter, harder, our bodies barely moving under the shelter of my skirt.
“What if…”
“I’m here.”
It’s not the words that eventually get to me, not the way he easily handles my body or his cock fills me to bursting. More than want and relief and the hunger I’d excised from my wishlist a hundred years ago, it’s his gaze on mine that does it, steady and serious and sure of this one thing. Of me. Us.
When he reaches down and rubs me between my legs and I clamp tighter to him, the thing that finally pushes me over is his mouth hot on mine and the words, “I love you,” on his tongue.
By the time the whole thing’s over, only a handful of minutes have passed. We were quick, by necessity, and once we get ourselves straightened up and sneak out from the shelter behind the shrubbery, past the park benches and out to where the hospital’s fully awake, I feel every inch as exhausted and battered as I must look.
I head to the restroom as soon as we get in and clean up as best I can. Jake’s waiting for me when I come out.
“Talked to the social worker.” He holds up a card. “Said she’d update me, if she can.”
We’re in my car, driving us home when, out of the blue, he says, “You done a test yet? Recently?”
“What?” My body jumps so hard it takes an effort not to jerk the wheel.
“Pregnancy test. You done one?”
Eyes glued to the road, I shake my head.
“You, uh… You want to stop off? Get one?”
“Now?”
He hums, a frustrated sound. I don’t know exactly what’s going through his mind, but I understand the sentiment.
“I want to know if I’m gonna be a dad.”
I turn and look at him, straight on for so long, he mutters, “Watch it.”
I turn back to the road, barely seeing it.
“What is this? Are you…are you offering? Do you want that?”
My breathing’s going haywire. My mind’s a mess.
“ Look . You heard my story. I’d be a terrible dad.” I make a pissed off sound in my throat, which he ignores. “I’d be the worst person for the job. I mean, who the hell wants an ex-felon in their life? I’ve spent more nights in prison cells and fuckin’ oil rigs than in a real home, a real bed.” I’m blinking hard, but say nothing. “Now, since I met you, I know this one thing. One.”
To the right is a strip mall. The drugstore’s lights are on. While he’s talking, I swing into the lot and park.
“If you were mine, Kit. And, who knows, maybe had a little human growing inside you? I’d take such fucking good care of you.”
I turn and look at him, my entire being soft and vulnerable as a fresh bruise.
“I’m a walking red flag, Kit.” He looks at me and I can see how he’s convincing himself, too, while he talks. “But with you, for you and…” His eyes go down, then back up. “For my family, if I had one, every one of my red flags would become a weapon, a shield between you and the rest of the world. I’d be an asset, never a problem.”
“You’re not a problem, Jake.”
“I’m single-minded. I can be an asshole. When I left prison, Ricky helped me get back on my feet, but mostly it was this hard head of mine that pushed me forward. I had a goal: to make money. To get rich. ’Cause money’s the only fucking thing in this world that seemed to matter. If I worked hard enough, if I did nothing but that, one day Tommy fucking Bentley and his old cash, old power wouldn’t scare me.”
“Then I met you.” He searches my face, looking blindsided for a handful of seconds, and leans in. “And suddenly, I got it. The thing I’ve been missing all these years. That safety that money buys? It’s got nothing on the way I feel when I’m in your presence. Beside you.” His hands take mine and press them together. “Inside you.”
“Jake, I?—”
“A red fucking flag, baby. That’s me. A whole fucking string of ’em. But I’m your red flag, Kit.” He bends, puts his lips to my knuckles and gives me a kiss that’ll be seared into my soul forever. When he meets my eyes again, I see a fire burning inside them. For me. For us. “I’m yours. With or without a baby. If you want me. I’ll be your fuckin’ red flag. Forever.”
I can’t get to him fast enough. By the time I get my seatbelt off and lean over to kiss him, I’m already wrapped in his arms, surrounded.
When our lips meet, it’s explosive—like everything with us. Probably a good thing some asshole honks, laughing as they pull into the spot next to us. Otherwise, I’m not entirely convinced I wouldn’t have done the man right here in the CVS parking lot.
We don’t go into the store for a test. The man’s ripped his chest open and shown me his insides and now all I want is to be alone with him again. In his arms.
I drive to my place because at this point, there’s no way I’m spending another second in this pair of panties.
We trip on the walkway and Jake catches me. “I’m buying supplies and I’m fixing this fuckin’ thing.”
I laugh, although already, some part of me wonders how this’ll work. He’s leaving in three days. Three. Days.
Oh, no, it’s down to two.
We make it up onto the porch and, after a long-drawn-out kiss while I attempt, unsuccessfully, to open the door, we’re finally in the living room and he’s backed me up against the door. His hand’s already dragging up my skirt and the kissing’s getting messier and I look up and there’s a man standing there, in the hall leading to my bedroom.
I freeze, a shocked, “What the hell?” tumbling from my lips as I blink for a few seconds, blindsided by the unexpected sight of my brother, much bigger than I remember him, tattooed, tough as nails, and clearly pissed all the way off.
“What the fuck is going on here?”