Why Now? (18 page)

My lips part, annoyance pools within me at his presumption and my own reaction to his words.

He should not have this power over me. It isn’t fair. His touch, his words, even his heated looks are all weapons I’m powerless against and it’s driving me insane.

I want him, and I hate him for making me want him. After all of the years I threw myself at him to be rejected over and over again, it’s humiliating that he can crook his finger and I am his to command.

“You did not just say that,” I whisper.

Done with talking, his mouth covers mine and again I’m lifted, my legs separated and hitched over his hips, his hands behind my knees.

We’re moving, but again, everything else seems unimportant now. My hands slide up, one wrapping around his shoulder, the other snaking up the back of his neck, my fingers threading in his soft hair.

The angle of our kiss is different with him holding me. My face is over his. All of the control over our kiss is mine. With a lift or a dip of my face, I can soften or deepen the intensity.

Like an addict with no self-preservation, I overdose on him. He nips and growls against my lips, only kicking up my high. A wave hits the backs of my legs and he swallows my gasp.

Even as the Pacific surrounds us up to our chests, we do not stop kissing. To stop is to drown, and each press of his lips to mine breathes life into me.

I’ve always been Jake’s, even when I tried to convince myself otherwise. Everything about admitting this terrifies me. My head craves security while my heart wants to ignite. Will trusting Jake with my love leave me burned?

There’d be no recovering from a heartbreak like that. Jake’s kiss by Reilly’s car taught me that. Like he said, now that I know what it could be like between us, nothing but Jake would ever suffice.

The water wasn’t cold but still did nothing to cool the fire within. Since Jake has been back, he has kissed me three times. His first kiss was a question. He wanted to know if I was his mystery girl, the one he had kissed all those years ago.

His second kiss was a hint. It was meant to give me a taste of him but leave me wanting more. It was also a reminder of what would be gone if I didn’t choose him.

This kiss, his third kiss was claiming. As scary as it is to risk my heart to Jake again, this kiss showed me that he knew I would. That, and the fact that I had not broken it but had taken what he gave and returned with all I had, was my acceptance of his claim.

This could end me. Loving Jake Whitmore could leave me like my dad after my mom died, a shell of a person. That’s because deep down every part of me knows that he was what was missing inside me.

I was accepting what the eight-year-old me knew but was not weary enough to fear yet, I loved him. That I still love him. That there won’t be a day for as long as I live that I won’t love him.

Marrying Heath would have been locking that love away. Putting it in a box and guarding it so no one would ever have the power to hurt me. It would have been playing dress up with a grown up life.

It would not be fair to either Heath or me to do that. Sure, our hearts would have been safe but they would have been caged and not free to love with all they could.

The most shocking thing about this third kiss was that the ground did not shake from the magnitude of it. Somehow, the earth continued to orbit the sun, the waves around us continued to lap at the shore, and the volleyball in play still fell with gravity’s pull. All of those things still happened even though everything had changed.

It was a kiss so beautiful that as wetness began to slide down my cheeks, I knew it was not spray from the surf that caused it. So I’m not surprised when our lips part to see Jake’s eyes are wet as well.

What this kiss meant for me meant the same for him as well. Tomorrow would be filled with a hundred questions, but today was exactly as it should be.

Moving my hand from his hair, I cup his jaw and stare down at him. This feels real but also like a dream I’m terrified to wake from. To have loved him for so long it seems impossible for me to be in his arms right now.

“Your lips should come with a warning,” he murmurs.

“It wasn’t me, I was only following your lead,” I whisper in response.

His lips curl up and little lines crease the outside corners of his eyes.

Brushing my thumb across some of them I say, “I’m touching you.”

His smile widens, flashing me his pearly white teeth. “You can touch me however and whenever you want.”

Those words make me shiver despite the heat coming off him. I like that, oh, boy, do I like that.

His smile remains firmly in place at my reaction.

This is insane,” I blurt.

He shakes his head, “No, it’s not.”

Moving us closer to the shore, he lowers me to my feet and asks, “Want to hang out back on the blanket or walk up a ways?”

“Let’s walk.”

With my hand in his, we do just that. As we walked, we talked about everything and nothing all at the same time. It was comfortable, it was second nature, and it was so easy I hadn’t even noticed my nerves were gone.

When we got back to the blanket, I asked for his help reapplying sunscreen. When I changed into my suit, I did the best I could but since we’ve been in the water it was time to reapply. With my fair skin and red toned hair, I also inherited the ability to burn instead of tan.

Jake readily accepts my bottle of sunscreen and I get comfortable, stretching out on my stomach with my eyes on the water.

His strong fingers are heaven against my skin as they massage the lotion in. Equal parts of me mentally curse and thank Reilly for packing this suit when he starts rubbing lotion on my lower back and the top backside of my legs.

His fingertips are feather light as they skim the seams of my bikini bottoms. His fingers so close to my core, my sex pulses in anticipation.

When his hands move further down my legs I ache from the distance. What do I expect him to do, pleasure me on a crowded beach?

Get yourself together I tell myself.

Though, even though there are people all around us, I wouldn’t have stopped him.

“When are you talking to Heath?” He asks, jolting me from my dirty thoughts.

“Talking to Heath?” I ask, confused since his question came out of nowhere.

“Yeah, so you can give him back that ring.”

Oh, that.

My nerves return as I imagine Heath telling his mom I called off the wedding and how much that will upset her. There has to be a way I can let him down gently without hurting him or upsetting Mrs. Mackey.

“I’m not sure,” I reply and his hands disappear.

“Are you changing your mind?” There’s a note of panic in his tone.

Pushing up, I turn around to face him and set my hands on his knees. “No, not that. I just hate that I’m letting him down.”

His face softens and he covers my hands with his. “He isn’t going to like it but he’s a big boy, he’ll get over it.”

“Promise?” I ask.

“He doesn’t have much choice.”

Heath is a good guy, there’s a reason I’m still friends with him. I hope that after a while, once things have settled down with Kacey and me, he and I can still be friends.

I don’t want her taking forever to give him the ring back and tell him the wedding is off just because she feels guilty over changing her mind. Hell, they were both shit faced when they came up with this genius idea in the first place. If Heath still has his heart set on getting married before his mom passes away, I’ll even help him do it as long as it’s any girl besides Kacey.

If I weren’t a little afraid of her, I’d tell him to ask Reilly. Unfortunately, she’d probably chew him up and spit him out. He needs a nice girl like Kacey. Too bad she’s permanently off the market.

“Do we have to go back?” She sighs, looking over her shoulder at the crashing waves.

“I’ll bring you back here anytime you want,” I reply.

A dreamy smile spreads over her lips as she gives the beach one last lingering glance, then she looks up at me and says, “As long as we come back this day every year. It will be our anniversary.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I murmur dropping all of our crap on the ground behind the Jeep before leading her to her door.

After I load up, we hit the road back to Ferncliff. While we were at the beach, Kacey left her purse under her seat, her phone in it. As I drive, she checks her notifications.

The way she didn’t even worry about her phone the whole time we were together says a lot. She was present, not distracted by anything other than our time together.

“I want to be there when you tell him,” I say once we’re on the road.

She shakes her head. “No, he’s a good friend. I need to do this on my own. Besides, I don’t want you guys arguing over me.”

“I don’t want him trying to guilt you into changing your mind,” I argue.

She reaches out and rests her hand on my thigh. On our way here, I was happy that she angled her body toward me, now she’s already comfortable enough to touch me.

“Jake, you know even if he tries to, you can trust me.”

Covering her hand with mine, I reply, “I do trust you. It’s him I don’t.”

She laughs and covers her mouth as if it surprised her. “But he’s your friend too.”

“That’s why I don’t trust him. If I were in his shoes I’d fight dirty for you.”

“As if you didn’t already do that,” she teases.

“Who, me?”

She’s facing forward, her eyes on the road in front of us but she can’t hide her amused smile. “I still can’t believe you kissed me right in front of him.”

That was a dick move considering she was my best friend’s fiancée. All’s fair in love and war.

Love. It’s insane that even considering that about Kacey doesn’t freak me out. It’s not, though, ever since I said it to her, I knew without a doubt she’d be easy to fall in love with.

The attraction is there without a doubt, but it’s more than that. We have a shared history that makes caring about her second nature. Sure, she’s avoided me this past year but that doesn’t mean I haven’t had an opportunity to know the woman she’s become.

She’s sweet, so fucking sweet, and still as brave as she was when she stood up to those boys all those years ago.

The only reason she’s hesitant over breaking things off with Heath is because she doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. It’s hurting her to know that she may cause a friend pain. I hate that she’s hurting but sure as fuck like that she cares about her friends the way she does.

“Fine, but I want to see you after,” I concede.

Her hand squeezes my thigh. “Thank you.”

“Are you going to do it tonight?”

She shakes her head. “He’s having dinner at his parent’s house tonight. Seeing his mom like that always gets him down. I don’t want to pile more crap on him.”

Not wanting to argue, I hold my tongue. No matter when she tells him it will piss him off. Better to pull the Band-Aid off as soon as possible instead of putting it off.

That way everything will be settled, and I can make her completely mine. When she took off that scarf thing that covered her, I almost came out of my skin.

It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen her in a bikini. It was the first time I’ve seen her in one so revealing. It will be hard, in more ways than one, to look at her without imagining her in it.

It was an effort not to molest her entirely when she asked me to rub lotion on her. Her ass in particular. Soon I’ll see all of her with no scrap of fabric in the way.

For now, I’ll drop her back at her apartment and have Reilly drop me off at the house. There I’ll get to rub one out like a kid in high school, only I’ll be doing it from an air mattress. Once Jimmy and I get to work, I’ll have him replace the water heater first. After years of limited privacy, a long hot shower is the easiest place to jerk off.

“What will you and Jimmy tackle first?” Kacey asks and I bite back a laugh considering my train of thought.

She has to know how much she turns me on. Still, I’m not sure she’d like knowing how I intend to take care of it.

“Since I’m crashing there it’d be nice to have hot water, so that’s my first priority.”

“Why don’t you stay with Reilly and me?”

Lifting the hand she rests on my thigh, I rub the engagement ring that still sits there.

“Oh,” she mumbles, pulling her hand away.

Her reaction annoys me. “Look, I wasn’t saying that anything will happen, but if it does I want him to have his ring back beforehand.”

“If?” She asks and I groan, “Not if we’ll happen so retract your claws, Killer. I meant if I try to sleep next to you there’s a ninety-nine percent chance that I’ll end up making love to you.”

The annoyance in her voice is gone. “What about the other one percent?”

“You’re right, there’s a one hundred percent certainty that I’m making love to you if I try to sleep in your bed with you.”

“What if you sleep on the couch?”

I raise one brow and glance over at her, making her laugh. “If you’re there, there’s no fucking way I’m not sleeping next to you.”

“What if I want to wait until I’m married?”