I looked back out the windshield when we started moving forward.

It wasn’t until we were on our way, headed back to Magdalene when I noticed he had his mobile in his hand. And I noticed this only when I heard Jake talking into it and I looked to him to see he had it to his ear.

“Con?” A pause then, “Yeah, son.” Another pause then, “Yeah, I won. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. Listen, I’m not gonna be home tonight.”

I drew in a sharp breath and saw Jake’s eyes flash to me then back to the road and he kept speaking.

“Curfew’s still solid, bud. You’re on the honor system tonight. Don’t disappoint me.” He was silent a moment and then, “Okay, Con. See you tomorrow.”

I heard him disconnect and the instant he did, I stated, “Jake, we need to talk.”

“We’ll talk when we get you home, Josie.”

“I think we should talk now.”

His mobile hit the console; he grabbed my hand and pulled it so it was resting on his hard thigh.

He then repeated, but did it changing one word and doing it in a tender voice, “We’ll talk when we get you home, baby.”

I said nothing.

He held my hand tighter.

I blanked my mind.

We’d talk when I was home.

Home.

In silence, he drove us to Lavender House.

Jake collected his bag and then he collected me, even though I had my belt off, the door open and was nearly out of his truck by the time he made it to my side. He still lifted me down right before I was about to jump.

He walked us to the house, opened the door with his key and then he walked us in.

As in in.

After locking the door behind us, he walked us straight to my bedroom.

It was then a strange, wondrous, frightening, confusing night got more of all of that.

But mostly the wondrous part.

This was because after he turned on the bedside light, he dropped his bag, took my purse and let it fall to the floor and slid my coat off my arms to join them. He then hooked me about the waist and walked backwards to my bed, taking me with him. He fell and landed on his back, I landed on him and he immediately rolled so he was on top.

Only when he had us arranged did he declare, “Now you’re in a safe place, we’ll talk.”

I was in a safe place.

I was in the only safe place I had.

And Jake brought me here.

“We had sex,” I told him something he could not have forgotten.

“Yeah, we did,” he agreed, his eyes holding mine, his assessing, warm, but also guarded.

“In a locker room,” I went on.

“Yeah,” he again agreed.

All right, there wasn’t much more to explore with that except, well…everything and I didn’t have it in me to explore that everything just yet.

“You were angry with me before the fight,” I stated, though it was a question.

“No, babe, I was pissed,” he answered.

Oddly, I completely understood this distinction.

“Are you angry now?” I inquired.

He stared at me.

Then he inquired in return, “Do I look angry?”

“No,” I answered.

“Fuckin’ my woman who’s wearin’ the sexiest fuckin’ dress that’s ever been in that arena, doin’ that for the first time in the arena’s locker room, it bein’ hot as fuck, all that shit tends to make a man get over bein’ seriously fuckin’ pissed and it does it fast.”

I let most of that slide in order to get to the meat of the matter.

“What did I do?” I asked.

He blinked before he repeated, “What did you do?”

“Yes, Jake, what did I do?”

He stared at me a moment before he answered, “Slick, you’re mine and you made a date with another guy.”

“Yes, I’m yours, Jake, but not that way.”

He kept staring at me then he looked around the room, most specifically at the bed we were on, before he looked back at me.

“You’re not mine in that way?” he queried.

I saw his point.

Yet at the same time, I did not.

It was my turn to stare at him for a moment before the words came out of my mouth. And when they did, they came out soft, timid, hopeful and scared.

“Am I yours in that way?”

Understanding, sweet and beautiful, washed through his features. He dipped his face closer and lifted a hand to frame the side of mine.

“You are,” he whispered.

I closed my eyes to fully feel his words moving through me then opened them and pointed out (still timid, still hopeful), “I thought you liked big hair and big…other stuff.”

His head cocked slightly to the side. “What?”

“You said—”

He interrupted me.

“I know what I said, honey. I also know you didn’t like hearin’ it and I further know since you called me after you walked in Lydie’s bedroom, the way you were mine stopped bein’ the way and the way you are mine started.”

“I think I might have missed something,” I admitted.

He grinned a small, sweet grin, his finger beginning to stroke me at my temple as he said, “I was goin’ gentle, baby, but I also thought I was being obvious.”

“You weren’t,” I shared and his brows went up.

“You hold hands with many guys?”

I didn’t. Not with any.

“No.”

“Sit tight close to them at a football game?”

“Um…no.”

“Lounge on the couch with ‘em, your head on their chest?”

I was again seeing his point.

“Oh,” I whispered and his grin came back, bigger this time.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Oh.”

This was all lovely, marvelous, the fact that Jake was telling me that when I had been pretending, it had been real.

I was still uncertain.

“But I don’t have big hair or big—”

I stopped talking when his face got very close and his finger stopped stroking so all of them could press in.

“Baby, you got everything.”

I stared into his eyes, not needing to close mine to fully feel the beauty of that washing through me, and whispered again my, “Oh.”

He studied my face, spending particular time at my mouth and I began to hold my breath in hopeful anticipation before his eyes came back to mine.

“You burn hot like that all the time?” he asked softly.

I knew precisely what he was referring to.

“Never,” I answered softly.

That got me another grin, this one lighting his eyes in a way I felt acutely and pleasantly in one particular part of my body.

His grin died and his lips commanded, “You gotta call Mick.”

My eyes slid to the side as I replied, “It would appear I do.”

“Babe,” he called.

My eyes slid back.

“You gotta call Mick,” he repeated.

“Okay, Jake,” I agreed.

“First, we’re takin’ a shower,” he announced.

Oh my.

He wasn’t quite finished.

“No, first you’re cuttin’ this tape off my hands. I got you naked in a shower, I want more than my fingertips. Then, I’m eatin’ you. Been hungry for you since our dinner at The Eaves. Got my shot, not waitin’ any longer.”

At that, a pulse beat through my entire body.

He still wasn’t finished.

“Then we’re crashin’. Tomorrow you can call Mick.”

“Okay, Jake,” I agreed again, this time breathily.

“You sleep in one of your nighties. I pick the blue one unless you got something better.”

I said nothing.

However, the blue one was dirty.

But I had something better.

“No panties,” he finished.

I squirmed under him.

His eyes dropped to my mouth.

I held my breath again.

His eyes came to mine.

“Time to shower.”

I said nothing mostly because I didn’t have a chance.

I was off the bed and following Jake out the door because his hand was clamped around mine and he was dragging me there.

Though, dragging was perhaps an incorrect word since at that point I would have gladly followed him anywhere.

But especially the shower.

* * * * *

Jake closed his mouth over my clit and sucked deep. I felt the pressure release just as his tongue lashed hard.

It was then I came.

Still coming, I felt him cover me and surge inside.

Dazedly, my orgasm still burning through me, I wrapped both legs around his thighs and my arms around his back. He planted a hand in the bed, arm bent so he stayed close, his mouth working my neck, his cock thrusting deep.

I took him for a long time, glorying in the feel, the smell of his clean skin, the power in his movements, the bigness of his body, the noises he made that rumbled into my flesh.

Suddenly, I felt his teeth sink gently into the skin around my jaw, scrape softly down to my chin, the sensation odd yet captivating even as it was titillating and intimate.

I loved it.

Then he again buried his face in my neck, surged inside one last time and groaned into my skin.

I’d touched him throughout, my hands coasting across his hard muscles and sleek skin. But when he climaxed inside me, I wrapped him tight and held him close.

I gave him time, waited for his body to relax into mine, listened to his breathing even and only then did I turn my head and say to him words the likes of which I hadn’t said to any man for twenty-three years.

“I like you very much, Jake Spear.”

He lifted his head and looked down at me and I saw I was wrong earlier.

His face sated and relaxed, his eyes warm, his cock still inside me, that was the most beautiful thing I’d seen in my life.

He didn’t return my sentiment.

He did something better.

He dropped his lips to mine and kissed me, deep, sweet and long.

I held him close and kissed him back.

He broke the kiss in a gentle way, brushing his lips against mine before he murmured, “Gotta see to business. Be back.”

I nodded.

He gently pulled out, sliding his nose along my jaw as he did so in a way that made my belly drop and tingles slide over my skin and not just the skin at my jaw. Then he was out of bed. He tossed the covers over me and I watched him walk naked out of the room.

I curled to my side and kept my eyes glued to the door, my mind blank and languorous, my body just the latter and I kept staring at the door until he returned.

Then I stared at him.

He had an amazing body.

Unbelievable.

Exquisite.

That body joined mine in bed. He turned out the light then turned me into his arms.

“You good?” he asked into the top of my hair.

I stared at the shadowed wall of his chest.

“Josie?” he called when I didn’t answer

“I’m afraid,” I admitted softly.

His arms pulled me closer and I felt his lips on my hair when he answered, “Beat that back, honey. No reason to be scared. Not with me.”

I kept staring at his chest as I continued with my admissions.

“There are things to know about me.”

“And you got time to share them with me.”

I took in a halting breath and put pressure on to pull away but Jake’s arms went very tight, one hand sifting up into my still-wet-from-our-shower hair and he held my face pressed to his chest.

Not able to look at him, I didn’t give up.

“They’re difficult to take.”

There was a heavy pause I didn’t like very much before he remarked, “You get Lydie talked about you.”

I closed my eyes.

I knew.

Now I knew.

He gave me a squeeze and his voice lowered, when, still talking in my hair, he said, “She talked about you.”

Good God.

God.

Feeling the burning sensation in my chest, I decided I needed to let that go.

For now.

Now, I’d move on to something else.

“Something happened to me tonight, Jake,” I whispered.

“Tell me,” he whispered back.

“I can’t. I don’t know what it was.”

“When did it happen?”

“When you started to fight.”

His arms convulsed before he asked, “What did it feel like?”

“Like I was coming out of my skin.”

“Coming out of your skin?”

“Yes.”

“In a good way or a bad way?”

“Good,” I told him. “Very good,” I went on.

He said nothing for long moments before he inquired, “Why’d you come to the locker room?”

“I…” I started, about to tell him it was to find out why he was mad at me but that wasn’t it.

I just didn’t know why I did it.

“Was in there maybe two minutes before you showed,” he stated when I said no more.