Seasons of Change (19 page)

I wait for a moment, in shock at what I’ve just heard. After everything that I’ve said to him, everything that we’ve talked about tonight, this wasn’t how things seemed to be going. I feel like I’ve misheard him. I sit up, looking up into his handsome face, and I need to be sure. “You’re serious?” I ask. “You’re serious about us leaving together?” I try not to sound like my entire happiness depends on his answer, although that’s exactly how I feel.

“Yes, I’m serious,” he says slowly. “I hate the idea of running away, it seems like it’s letting them win… again. But you’re right,” he concedes. “I don’t have a plan. All I have is a gun, and unless I turn into Jason Bourne overnight, that’s not going to take down the entire Bleeding Angels MC. Not by a long shot."

“But if we do this, I need to know something. I think I deserve to. So you have to answer me truthfully,” he says and waits until I nod my assent. “Did you mean what you said?” he asks, looking so vulnerable I want to reach up and cover his face in kisses and tell him that there’s nothing for him to worry about, that whatever happens, we can face it together.

“Yes,” I tell him and our eyes lock, brown meeting green. “I meant every word that I said. I’m in love with you, Jake, and I think I have been for a very long time,” I admit, wondering why I ever thought saying those words to him out loud would be so scary. It’s actually the opposite—it feels amazing to tell him.
It won’t feel so amazing when he tells you that he just thinks you have a good personality
, the little voice in my head pipes up, but I cover her mouth with duct tape and that shuts her up for a while.

“You have no idea how good it is to hear that,” Jake breathes out deeply.

“That’s all I get?” I ask, when it becomes clear that he’s not going to say anything else.

“Do you need me to say it?” he asks, surprise written all over his face. “Don’t you already know?”

“How am I going to know when you’ve never said anything?” I ask hurriedly.

“Because I’ve shown you every way I know how,” Jake say gently, running his thumb along the line of my cheekbones and looking at me with eyes filled with an emotion that I’m too nervous to name.

“Why do you think I got so angry at the bar the other night when that guy started to come on to you? Why do you think I make any bullshit excuse that I can to see you? I don’t even like the food at the diner,” he confesses, laughing a little in embarrassment.

I laugh with him, still too nervous to hope that he’s saying what I think he’s saying.

“You have been the only girl I ever want to be with for a long time,” he continues. “You know I used to try to make you jealous, talking to you about other girls, but you never reacted, so I never thought I would have a chance with you—especially not when every other guy was looking at you like you were their lunch.”

“Come on, Jake, we went to the same high school, remember?” I remind him. “Suzie was the one that all the boys wanted to get with; I was the friend that they would try to get on their side before they made their move with her,” I tell him.

I don’t feel sorry for myself over the way things worked out for me in high school, and I’m not fishing for compliments. That’s just how it was. “You can’t re-write history, Summers,” I tell him, shaking my head, but I stop when I see the look of disbelief on his face.

“You really had no idea?” he asks doubtfully. I shake my head slowly. “You were the girl that everyone wanted to be with, the one that guys would moon over in the cafeteria. The whole package—you were the beautiful, impossibly smart girl who also just happened to be as cool as fuck!” Jake says in amazement. “But you were so friendly with all the boys they figured that they were in the Friend Zone and that was that. Just like me,” he says eventually.

“I thought that
you
were so busy looking at other girls that there was no way you would even have noticed that I was a girl, not just your best friend,” I confess, feeling embarrassed at being so open about all those years ago.

“No, I noticed, believe me,” Jake replies, rolling his eyes as if to say
I noticed plenty
.

“So… you like me… as more than a friend?” I ask, shutting out the little voice that’s telling me how unbelievably pathetic I sound.

“No,” Jake shakes his head seriously, and I feel like my stomach has just sunk down to the base of my feet. “No I don’t like you,” he says, and I feel, as George would have said, like someone has just run over my cat. “I
love
you,” he tells me, and my breathing stops. “I’m in love with you,” he repeats quietly, his face inches against mine as he moves in to plant a soft kiss on my lips and I pull him closer to me, wanting to luxuriate in the taste of him, the feel of his body against mine.

“You love me?” I squeak against him, not daring to believe that it’s real, that what’s playing out right here in my bedroom is actually happening.

“From the tips of your flat feet to the top of your beautiful head and everything in between,” he confirms, kissing me twice on the lips and once on the nose.

“I don’t have flat feet,” I protest before Jake closes my mouth in another heavenly kiss.

“You do so,” he replies. “Remember, I know you better than anyone else—you don’t have any secrets from me,” he says, waggling his eyebrows at me making me giggle.

I’m not usually a giggler, but around Jake, anything is possible. His words and their significance aren’t lost on me, and for a moment I look around us at the photo albums strewn across the floor, wondering if I should show him what I’ve found. But I don’t—it’s too early, too much is unknown. And besides, there’s no point showing him something when I’m not even sure of what it means,
if
it means anything at all.

“I hear you thinking, Winters,” Jake says as he feathers kisses along my jawline up to my ear and then kisses a line down my neck towards my collarbone.

“It’s nothing,” I say quietly, dragging my eyes up from the floor and back onto him—to wonderful, glorious Jake.

“What’s with the photos?” he asks, pausing the constant motion of his lips over my skin as he looks at the carnage of photo albums all around us.

“Nothing important,” I mumble, reaching up to kiss the corners of his mouth and flicking my tongue in between the seam of his lips, just like he did to me that first time. The low moan that comes from his throat tells me that I’m doing it right.

“When I wake up, will you still be here?” Jake asks after a moment, pulling his head back and looking at me deep in the eyes.

“Always,” I promise, and I try to transmit the way I feel with my eyes, showing him that there’s no way I would ever leave him again. Not after I’ve realized how I feel about him, how I’ve felt about him for the longest time. “Now shut up and kiss me,” I smile up at him, dizzy with desire for this gorgeous man in front of me.

“Always,” Jake declares gallantly as he closes his mouth over mine and starts to unbutton the shirt that I’m wearing with quick, dexterous fingers. I don’t hesitate before shrugging out of the top, desperate to feel his skin against mine.

I run my fingers along his chest, feeling the ridges and ripples of muscle as I do and I’m struck again by how much his body turns me on. Not just his body, in fact, but the way that he touches me, the way that his skin feels against me, the way that he smells. It’s him; it’s everything about him.

“You’re driving me crazy,” I whisper in his ear as he bites me gently at the nape of my neck, making my whole body shiver.

“Ditto,” he replies between kisses, and I shiver again as he runs his fingers lightly up my back, from where my jeans start and all the way up to the top of my neck. I can feel the heat starting to build between my legs, and all I know is that I want this man more than anything else.

I reach for his jeans and unbutton them hurriedly, aching for him to be inside me. Jake’s touch on my skin is forcing me to concentrate harder than ever before and it’s made even more complicated when he rests his hands over the zip of my pants. He pulls it down in one smooth movement and reaches inside to touch the hot folds between my legs shielded only by my panties. I gasp at the feel of his touch and the ache between my legs intensifies even more.

“Tell me what you want,” Jake says in my ear, his voice husky with desire, matching my own, and I’m so turned on I don’t even think about what it is that I’m saying.

“I want you to touch me,” I tell him, pushing my hips out, trying to get him to put his fingers where I need them, where I feel like I’m going to go crazy if I don’t feel him.

“Where?” Jake whispers, his mouth against mine. “Tell me where, Aimee. Beautiful, beautiful Aimee,” he says, ducking his head to feather kisses over the tops of my breasts.

“There,” I say, moaning the word as I reach down and show him what I need. I guide him underneath my panties, my fingers over his, and I lay his hand over the wetness between my thighs. “That’s where I want you to touch me,” I say, my breath starting to come in short, sharp breaths.

“In your pussy—say it, you want me to touch you in your pussy,” Jake commands, and the way he says the word makes me feel like I’m about to come right there and then.

I’m so crazed with need for him I don’t even register that it’s a word I’ve never used before, something that I’ve never said. With him it feels totally natural. “I want you to touch my pussy, touch me there, feel how wet I am,” I reply, whispering the words as I feel him stroking the wet lips of my entrance.

“You’re so fucking sexy, Aimee,” Jake says, his words coming out in hot breaths against my skin. “I want to taste you.” He says it as if it’s the only thing that makes any sense for him right now.

Before I can register his movements, Jake lifts me up and carries me over to the bed, positioning me on the end with my legs hanging over. He’s on the floor, on his knees, between my legs.

“What? What are you doing?” I ask, confused, writhing with need, wanting his hands on me again.

“I told you, I want to taste you. I can’t wait anymore,” Jake tells me, his eyes burning with the heat of his passion. “Just relax,” he says to me soothingly, as he pulls my pants down slowly until I’m lying on the bed in front of him in just my underwear.

I don’t feel embarrassed or nervous—not this time. All I feel is want. He peels my pink panties down and I lift my hips automatically to make it easier for him. “That’s my girl,” he says warmly as he slips two fingers inside of me, making me sit up with the force of the pleasure that runs through me. Then he spreads my legs further apart and looks at me, really looks at me, at my pussy.

For the first time that night, I feel like I’m not sure about what’s going to happen next. I know that Jake can feel the sudden rush of tension that moves through me and he looks up at me with that intense gaze of his. “Relax, Aimee,” he says calmly, and it takes away all of my unease. “Just let me love you.” His words and the way that he looks at me when he says them makes me feel as if we’re the only two people in the whole world now.

I lie back onto the bed and give myself up to the sensation as Jake bends down between my thighs and kisses me there. I can feel his breath on the wetness that he’s created between my legs and when I feel his tongue darting along the lips of my slit, it makes me cry out with a powerful thrill, the likes of which I’ve never felt before. His tongue moves over me, licking and sucking in the most sensitive place in my entire body, and I sense the little explosions that are going off within me as Jake dives into me again and again.

I thread my fingers into his thick hair as he goes down on me and it’s not long before I know that I’m going to lose myself in ecstasy as I come harder than I ever thought possible. Screaming out his name, my whole body is wracked with the tremors of need that pass through me. I lie back onto the bed, feeling the spasms in my body dissipate, and Jake looks up at me lazily from between my thighs. He appears so pleased with himself I know that I have to wipe that smile of his face.

“My turn,” I say when I regain the ability to speak, and before Jake can protest I swap positions with him, guiding him onto the bed in front of me and sitting between his legs.