I unbuckle his thick black leather belt, and then undo the button of his jeans, and then lower the zipper.
“Imogen, you don’t have to—” he breaks off as I tug his jeans down, and he grabs my wrists before I can go further. “Imogen, wait. You don’t have to prove anything, or whatever it is you’re doing. I should have communicated better, not let you think—”
“What if I want to prove something?” I ask. “Maybe this is my way of saying I’m sorry for hurting you.”
“I thought you’d gotten what you wanted,” he admits. “You acted like you didn’t give a shit, like you were just done and ready to go.”
“That was all bullshit. I was a mess.” I tug at my wrists, trying to free them. “I wanted…more.”
“So did I,” he breathes, still not quite letting go of me yet.
I gaze up at him. “This whole thing, everything about us, Jesse…it’s new. It’s different. And I like it. But it’s scary.” I wiggle my wrists, and he lets go. “I’m not proving anything to you, right now—I’m proving something to myself.”
He breathes shakily. “When you got in your car and drove off, and then didn’t answer me, I thought you were done with me, with this whole thing.”
I pull his jeans down so they’re around his ankles, and then push his plain white T-shirt up. It’s sweat-soaked and smells like him, and the scent drives me wild, for some reason. I lick my lips and feel a tremor of eagerness run through me. I want this. And more than anything, I want to show him how much I want him. He tears the shirt off and tosses it aside, and slides his underwear down. He’s hard, bobbing with his shallow breaths.
God, he’s even more beautiful now than he was that night.
I glance up at him as I reach for him. “Jesse?”
He grunts an affirmative, as if he’s forgotten how to speak. “Uh—yeah?” He blows out a harsh breath, and tries again. “What, Imogen?”
“Don’t—don’t stop me.”
“No promises.” He grins, and I return it.
I stroke him, slowly, savoring every exquisite inch of him sliding through my hands. This time, I take all the time in the world to just touch him, exploring his length and thickness with my hands. When he’s clenching his jaw and breathing hard, I lean forward. Lick my lips.
The windows are open, and a bird chirps. The music still grinds from the Bluetooth speaker sitting on the counter. I can hear voices filtering up from the lower level, both through the floor and the window. It’s broad daylight, and I’m in my boss’s unfinished house, and I’m about to…
I keep my eyes on him as I lower my mouth over him. He grunts as I take him into my mouth, and then he groans as I sink him as deep as I can take him. I stroke him with both hands as I slide my lips back up his length, fluttering my tongue against the slick, veiny side. Down, licking, stroking. He hisses, and then buries his hands in my hair, tangling tight but not attempting to guide what I’m doing.
“Jesus, Imogen.”
I gaze up at him, and he’s…well, he looks like he’s in heaven, in an agony of ecstasy. As if what I’m doing feels nearly too good to bear. So I keep doing it. Licking, suckling, tonguing him, stroking. Long, slow, deep, and then short and shallow, using my tongue as much as possible, swirling it around the head, tasting the pearls of essence leaking out of him.
“You have to stop,” he growls.
“Mmm-mmm.” I hum the negative.
He reaches for me, and I snag his wrists, guiding his hands back to my hair, not slowing the rhythm of my bobbing. When he knots his fingers into my hair with a curse through grated teeth, I smile around him, meeting his eyes with mine.
“Oh fuck, Imogen. What are you doing to me?”
I let him free of my mouth just long enough to murmur, “Exactly what I want to, Jesse.” I take another slow, deep mouthful of him, and then back away again. “Now shut up and enjoy it.”
“You want this?”
“Mmmm-hmmm,” I murmur the affirmative, breathily. Because god, do I want it. He was in such tight control last time, until the very last second. This time, I want him to be in my control. Not about manipulation, but about knowing he wants to give that over to me, so that I can do this for him. It’s exhilarating, and scary. I almost wish I hadn’t locked the door, just to make it a little scarier.
I like the way he’s responding, the helpless tilt of his hips, the breathless groans as I slide my mouth around him, the growls in his chest as I stroke him and tongue the tip.
“Imogen, I’m—” he huffs, hips flexing involuntarily. “I—god, I’m gonna come…”
“Mmmm-hmmm?”
“Fuck—right now.”
He isn’t lying, either. I’m not ready for it—he surprises me even as he warns me. The sudden rush of it, the snarl of his voice, the musky taste and the flood of salty tang in my mouth, and his thickness sliding through my lips, and the wild cry as he releases, a strangled, helpless, almost mewling sigh as he releases and releases.
When he’s finally finished, I take a few more moments to savor him, the taste of him, the feel of him in my mouth, softening now, and then he’s pulling away and sinking to his knees with me.
I wipe at my lips with my wrist, grinning at him. “Hi,” I murmur. “So, do you believe that I still want more with you, now?”
He laughs. “God, Imogen. You’re ridiculous. I hope you understand I didn’t need you to do that to know you want more.”
“It was partially just because I’ve never done anything like that and wanted to surprise you. And myself.”
“Well…I’m surprised,” he says, righting his jeans. He eyes the food on the counter. “So. Burgers and beer?”
I smirk at him, licking my lips. “I think just had lunch, actually.”
He laughs. “Gotta wash it down, then.”
We sit on the marble floor and—after we both wash our hands—we dig into the food I brought, washing it all down with beer. And, like with Audra, once we both eat, Jesse sits back and eyes me, clearly about to say something heavy.
“The story isn’t entirely mine to tell, so I’ll only tell my side of it.” He cracks another beer. “I was with a girl for five years. We were…pretty serious.” He’s clearly struggling with what and how much to say. “I told you James is my brother-in-law, right?”
I nod. “Yeah…” I frown. “But I’ve never heard anything about his wife, who would be your sister, right? He also doesn’t wear a ring.”
Jesse nods, head hanging. “Um. So I was super into this girl. Love and all that, right? And James was married to my sister, so my best friend was married to my older sister, which was weird at first, but if anyone could have been good enough for her, it was James. And things for them were great, you know? He was head over heels for her. Had been our whole lives, honestly. Just…gaga for her.”
I smile. “That sounds sweet.”
He nods, not smiling. “Well, um. Renée, my sister—she—ah…she passed away. She died.” He blinks hard, and my heart squeezes, because this is still very obviously painful to talk about. “And James, he—he lost it. It just…my best buddy since third grade, man, he just…” Jesse shakes his head. “It was bad.”
“God, Jesse, I’m so, so sorry.”
He just nods. “Yeah, well…um. I saw what it did to James when his wife died, you know? And I’d been thinking of proposing, you know? She’d been hinting, and I’d been planning. Had a ring picked. But then Renée died and James went haywire, and…I guess I panicked. I broke up with her instead. Like, why would I put myself at risk for that same kind of heartbreak? You never know what’ll happen in life, who’ll die and leave you broken. Why bother? It was fear, grief, all that. It was stupid—I was stupid. She was amazing, and I—” He glances at me apologetically. “Sorry, I guess this isn’t what you probably want to hear after…”
I take his hand. “Jesse, no, it’s fine. I mean, it’s not fine, but I understand. This is your story, and I want to hear it.”
He sighs. “By
the time I realized I’d fucked up, she was long gone. Left Chicago, met another guy, moved on. I talked to her a long while later, and she said she was still messed up over the way I broke it off, but that she’d made peace and forgiven me. And I just…after that, I couldn’t bring myself to even go near that kind of thing again. I’d hurt one girl already, and myself, and—it’s taken James so long to heal, and he’s still not totally okay, if he ever will be, and so…yeah, I keep things…shallow, I guess.”
I hang my head. “And I don’t know what I want, to be honest,” I say. “I mean, I just got out of a marriage that really messed me up, so I’m not really looking to jump back into that, but…” I exhale sharply, tasting him on my breath. “It wasn’t good, my relationship with Nicholas. It was never good. And this thing with you and me…it’s already—I want to say better, but that implies Nicholas was something even decent, and he really wasn’t. I put everything I could into him, into us, trying to make it work, trying to convince myself it was working, but I was never anything but lonely.” I look at him, locking eyes with him. “And with you…I’m not lonely. I’m feeling things I didn’t know were possible. And then you go and show me how sex can really be, and that just scares the shit out of me, because…god, I was missing out on that this whole time? Where were you, twelve years ago? But am I looking to jump into something huge, with rings and declarations of love and all that? I don’t—I don’t think so. But Jesse, I do want more than just no-strings sex.”
He pulls me onto his lap. “Imogen—it was never no-strings with us.” He sighs. “That’s what I was trying to figure out how to say, but I couldn’t because I was dealing with leftovers from automatically avoiding anything real. But it can’t be anything except real with you. It already is more. So much more.”
“Really?” I hate how the sniffle escapes me, as I say that.
He taps my nose. “Really really.” He does this in a Shrek voice that’s so bad it’s good.
I laugh. “Don’t make fun of me. I can’t help being a little emotional.”
He just smiles at me. “I’m not making fun.” He quirks an eyebrow at me. “Remember what I said about you being adorably erotic? You’re also erotically adorable.”
I feel something growing under me, and I boggle at him. “Already?”
He grins, a hot, eager smirk. “Baby, you have no idea.” He stands up, lifting me to my feet. “How about you sit on that counter and talk to me while I work? I’ve only got a few more things left to do in here, and then what say you and me head to your place? You haven’t been by yet, have you?”
“No,” I admit. “I was avoiding you, so I went to Audra’s.”
He juts his chin at the counter. “Sit. Talk to me about ways I can get you to apologize like that again.”
I laugh as I hop up on the counter. “Hey, if you’re that…generous…every time we have sex, I’ll feel like I need to apologize just to make the number of orgasms between us equal. So you’d end up getting apologized to a lot.”
He smolders at me as he finishes caulking around the tub. “I was in a hurry that night. I was fucking desperate to have you, so I kind of rushed it a little. Usually I’d make sure you had at least four or five orgasms before we started having sex.”
“Oh,” I squeak, breathless, and then find my own heat bubbling up into my gaze. “If that’s the case, you’ll be getting a whole lot of me stopping by with lunch.”
He grins. “I could live with that arrangement.”
Two hours and a lot of innuendos later, we’re at my house. Audra and Franco disappeared, apparently, and she was my ride, but we’re in Jesse’s truck. Which is, honestly, becoming one of my favorite places.
We’re at my door, and he’s hesitating. “I, um. Got bored waiting for you,” he says, by way of explanation. “So…yeah.”
I unlock the door and push in; there’s nothing different in the foyer or living room, which means it’s in the kitchen.
I stop in the doorway, gaping. He replaced all my counters with butcher blocks stained a deep, rich, dark brown, and painted my cabinets white, took off the doors and replaced them with glass, and ripped up the shitty old laminate and replaced it with sleek gray slate.
I feel my eyes sting. “Jesse.”
He scuffs a toe against the floor. “The guys helped.”
“Why, when I was so rude to you?”
“Both of us messed that up, and I wanted to do this. I wanted to—I had to…” He sighs. “I like doing things for you. I like making you happy. It’s obvious no one has ever really taken care of you before, and I feel good doing things for you.”
“Thank you,” I whisper. “It’s perfect. It’s amazing, it’s…”
I look at it all again, over his shoulder. My kitchen is unrecognizable from what it looked like before I met him.
“You love it?” he asks, searching me with his eyes.
“So much.” I grin at him, jumping up and wrapping my legs around his waist. “Take me upstairs so I can say thank you.”
He growls eagerly. “You could thank me right here, up against this counter.”
I slide down off of him, grinning harder. “Okay,” I whisper.
I peel off my shirt, kick off my jeans, make quick work of bra and underwear, and before he can even blink three times, I’m naked. I turn away from him, sliding my hands across the smooth, cool surface of the counter. Lean over it, wiggling my butt at him.
He’s just staring at me.
I writhe, undulating my ass at him. “Jesse?”
He shakes his head, as if to clear it of hypnotism. “Sorry, I just—you’re so fucking sexy, sometimes I just…” he trails off. “I don’t know how to say it.”
“Don’t tell me, then,” I murmur, reaching between my legs. “Show me.”
He growls again, reaching for me. “God, I love the way you think.” He frowns. “I don’t have any protection with me. I don’t carry it in my wallet like I used to.”
I smirk at him. “Purse.” I point at my purse on the counter. “I bought some, just in case.”
“Did I mention that I love the way you think?” he says, digging them out of my purse.
In seconds, he’s behind me, reaching for me. I bend over the counter, and he fills me, his hands carving over me, showing me how beautiful he finds me with his touch, with his lips stuttering over me as he moves, as we move together. And with his words; he gasps, as we find completion together: “So perfect, Imogen—you’re—god, you’re so perfect.”
“You’re perfect too, Jess,” I say, clinging to him, afterward.
“Nah, we’re just perfect together.” He doesn’t try to move away, this time, as we lay on the new slate floor of my kitchen, bathing in the afterglow. He glances at me. “Is your shower big enough for two?”
I laugh. “Ha! You’re funny. No, it’s not even big enough for one.”
He rumbles in displeasure. “Have to fix that.” He stands up, picking me up with him, and carries me upstairs. “We’ll make it work.”
We make it work.
Later, my phone beeps, a notification from Audra. It’s a picture of her, from the cleavage up, hair a mess…with Franco beside her, eyes closed.
Jesse is beside me, and he sees the photo. “Audra better be careful. Franco is…a lot like me. Except worse, in some ways. He’s not real great with emotions or commitment.”
I laugh. “I’d say the same about Franco—he oughta be careful. The term man-eater was invented for Audra.”
Jesse rumbles a laugh. “This could get messy.”
Indeed it could. I pull Jesse close to me, so his head covers my breasts, and we take a selfie together—it’s obvious what we were just doing, but nothing is visible. I send it, with a caption—
Me: Jesse says you better know what you’re doing with Franco.
Audra: Dude, I’m scared.
Me: !! What? Tell me!
Audra: He makes me FEEL THINGS. It’s icky and I don’t like it.
Me: You’ve k
nown him what, a few hours?
Audra: I’m telling you, he scares the shit out of me. But he’s so good I can’t stop myself.
Me: Audra, seriously. Chill. It’s been a couple hours. It’s just insta-lust.
She sends another selfie, this one of her face—she’s biting her lower lip, eyes wide, glancing to the side at Franco laying next to her—and yeah, his body is truly stunning, if you’re into that sort of thing. Her expression in the photo is funny, but it also communicates, somehow that she’s not entirely kidding about being scared. Her caption comes a second later—
Audra: YOU DONT UNDERSTAND!!! HE’S GOT A MAGICAL DICK AND I’M FEELING THINGS!!!
Audra: Uh-oh. He’s waking up. Time for round…3? 4? I’ve lost count. Tell me I’m a cold-hearted man-eating bitch with no soul. Tell ME!
Me: You’re a cold-hearted man-eating bitch with no soul? Only, you’re not. So…you’re on own with this one. Except if you need me of course. I’ve got All Thai’d Up on speed dial, and three bottles of Josh in the rack.
Audra: if this goes south—or anywhere except nowhere, you’d better make it four bottles. Or maybe even six. Because we’re either going to be incredible together, or we’ll destroy each other. There will be no in between.
I sigh, putting the phone aside.
Oh, Audra, I hope you know what you’re doing.
I laugh at that, because does anyone know what they’re doing? I sure as hell don’t.
A while later, after a pizza delivery, Jesse glances at me. “So…we’re together?” he asks, oh so casually.
I nod. “No expectations, but…”
He shakes his head, finishing his bite. “I wouldn’t mind some expectations.”
I stare hard at him. “What kind of expectations?”
He shrugs. “I guess we figure that out as we go. This is new for both of us.”
Figure it out as we go. That’s not how I usually do things. I like to know where things lie, where we’re going. Nicholas and I set things out from the start. We knew what it was and where it was going from the outset.
But…Jesse isn’t Nicholas. And I don’t need to know. I can be okay taking things one step at a time.