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  I’m not one to sleep without pajamas, but I opt for just a pair of panties because I love the way the soft sheets and warm blanket feels against my bare skin.

  It’s not even ten p.m., but I’m so tired from the lack of sleep at Eileen’s lately that I find my eyes are heavy as soon as I lay my head down. Sleep comes even faster as my thoughts and worries fade away.

  A chill covers me, and I tug at the blanket that’s fallen to my feet. When I can’t get warm, I open my eyes, my gaze landing first on the clock—3:30 a.m.—and then to the burning spec of orange by the window, and finally to the figure that’s so familiar I recognize him in the dark. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” he says after blowing smoke through a crack in the window.

  Everything about him takes me back to our night without strings attached, problems to solve, or duties to fulfill. It was just us and the moonlight back then. Sleep starts to evade as my mind clears. “I thought you wouldn’t be home until later.”

  “A story for the morning.”

  My voice is low, fitting for the dark of night. “What are you doing?”

  “Watching you.” His tone matches mine.

  “What do you think about when you watch me?”

  “Do you ever think about that night?”

  “All the time.” I lift on my elbow and rest my head on my hand.

  “Me too.”

  “I like to watch you smoke, though I want you to quit.”

  “What do you like about it?”

  “The way you hold the cigarette pinched between your fingers, and the way you look when you inhale.”

  He rests forward on his knees and looks at me. With his dark hair and matching eyes, he’s a nocturnal animal who sees me so clearly in the dark. “I almost climbed into that bed with you.” He stands, stubbing the butt into the ashtray. Moving with so much ease in who he is, he walks to the door. “I’ll take the couch.”

  “You don’t have to.” I almost take it back as soon as I offer, but when his eyes land back on mine, his brow forming questions he doesn’t ask, I leave it out there for him to decide.

  “Do you think that’s wise, Hannah?”

  “No, but the offer still stands.”

  “What are the conditions?”

  “I’ll move to the couch before Alfie wakes up. That’s the only condition.”

  And then he does that magical thing that men do—he grabs the shirt at the nape of his neck and pulls it off over his head.

  The door is locked, and he’s standing at the end of the bed. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “I mean are you sure you can handle being in the same bed with me?” he asks, chuckling as he heads for the bathroom.

  “Pfft. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “From the way you’re looking at me, I thought I should ask.”

  “Oh, my God.” I roll my eyes and turn to my side. Busted. So busted. Don’t let him see the truth.

  “Don’t worry, baby. I’m so tired that I’ll fall asleep as soon as I climb in. You’ll just have to find something else to ogle.”

  “Don’t even go there with me. I was not ogling.”

  “Sure, you weren’t.” He closes the bathroom door, and the faucet is turned on.

  While he brushes his teeth, I sit and fume in my irritation. I’m just not sure if I should be irritated with him for catching me or myself for staring in the first place.

  Grabbing my pillow, I nestle my head under it. Maybe he won’t notice the mortification heating my cheeks.

  The bed dips beside me, the weight of his muscular body causing me to roll toward him and crash into him. I remain steady in my hiding, pillow secured over me.

  Lifting the pillow up, he bends his neck to catch my wide eyes. “It’s okay. I don’t mind you checking me out. I like you looking at me.”

  I squeeze my eyes closed, hoping to wash away some of my embarrassment. It doesn’t work. “I was not checking you out. God, you’re so conceited, Jet. Just go to sleep.”

  As soon as I open my eyes, his are wide this time. “You’re naked. In my bed.”

  Gasping, my hands fly to cover my chest. “Shit.” I forgot. Is he mad? Did he see me? All of me? Sinking into the mattress, I try to slide farther down under the covers.

  “Just in case you’ve forgotten, I’ve seen your body before and tasted all of you.”

  My head whips to the side so my eyes can find his. “You can’t say things like that, Jet.”

  “I just did and look, nothing bad happened.” Sometimes, I think he says stuff like that just to get a rise out of me. And it works every time. I’m about to give him an earful, but he presses a finger to my mouth. “Do you know how fucking sexy it is that you’re sleeping naked in my bed?”

  A girl can only do so much fantasizing before she needs the real thing. Call me weak because damn I am when it comes to him. I know I shouldn’t, but I do it anyway. I don’t shrivel like a wallflower under his admiring gaze. I embrace who I am when I’m with him, the woman he reminds me I used to be, and come back up in full view of him.

  I’m not drunk, but I feel tipsy around him. I’m tired of the outside world beating me down. I deserve to feel good. I deserve to forget my troubles for a little while.

  I deserve to feel good.

  I deserve this.

  I deserve him.

  “Kiss me, Jet.”

  17

  Hannah

  Without concerns for repercussions, I invite him into my world once more. I’m tired of the lonely nights when my thirst isn’t quite quenched. My hand has never felt as good as his does, and a vibrator has never made my body wet with anticipation or heat with desire.

  Jet has.

  Jet does.

  With the lightest of touches on my arm, he fixes his eyes on mine. I want him, want him until my insides uncoil in sheer bliss, the tightening relenting from his touch. I want him to make me feel everything again.

  Lost minutes to tongues dancing in the dark and bodies maneuvering, the holes left behind from the pain of the past start to feel whole again. He pulls back with his head over mine. He doesn’t speak at first, choosing to stare into my eyes a good long while and caress my cheek. Kissing the corner of my mouth feels intimate when I thought we’d keep it casual.

  Dropping my eyes closed, I try to feel instead of think. His breath rushes across my cheek, the words tickling in their wake. “Stay with me.”

  The sentiment echoed from the first time we were together. I open my eyes and my worries ease as I look into the sincerity of his. Reaching up, I take his face in my hands, the stubble spikes my skin, the sharpness giving me clarity. “Just tonight.”

  A smile from him is followed by his lips at my ear, whispering, “I’ll take tonight.”

  I release a breath as if I’d been holding it this whole time, my hips angling toward his. Large hands cover me—one in my hair and one on my hip—as we kiss. Pulling me over him, I find myself positioned on top, our underwear the only thing between us. I sit up, dragging my nails lightly through the hair on his chest as I find where he feels best between my legs.

  Magic.

  I start to move my hips, slow, oh so slow; the pressure of his hardness rubbing exactly where I want him feels so good. I didn’t even realize my eyes had closed or my head had fallen back until I feel his hands on my breasts, squeezing and bringing me back to him. He sits up and kisses my nipples—unhurried and appreciative—one and then the other. The sight of him is erotic, arousing me even more.

  Looking up at me, he says, “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

  I stop moving, my hold on his shoulders tightening. A lump forms in my throat, and my chest tightens. He sure knows how to make a girl feel good about herself. I just wish I was the person he sees in me.

  When I look down, he rests his head against my temple and adds, “I don’t need you to say anything. I know you want to snap with some comeback, but I want the truth to sink in first. I hope you hear my words
because I mean them.”

  Looking into his eyes, I whisper, “I know. That’s what scares me.”

  “Don’t be scared. This is right.” His expression softens, and he cups my face, his thumbs gently running across my cheeks. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  “You didn’t.” I laugh. It’s light, but there. “Well, you did, but these aren’t sad tears, Jet.” I slide my arms around a little more so he’s wrapped in them. I like him close. I like him . . .

  He kisses my collarbone and then the curve of my neck and a little higher. Just below my ear, he whispers, “Do you want this, Hannah? Do you want me?”

  “I do, so much.”

  His tongue flattens, and he covers my skin with coolness from his breath, igniting goose bumps in its trail. Pushing forward, I rest in his capable hands, bending to his will. “I want you, too, so much,” he says and then flips me onto my back.

  The kindness from his eyes is gone, the low light of the room highlighting his hunger for me. Sitting back, he takes hold of the lace on each side of my hips and starts pulling down. My breath catches when he stops and his eyes lower like my undies. Taking me in from the apex of my thighs, he flashes his gaze up to mine. “I want to eat you. I want to devour you. I want to get drunk on you, baby. Tell me I can take what I want.”

  “You can have me however you want.” Running my fingers through his thick, dark hair, I reply, “But kiss me first.” I think he’s going to move up and let me get caught up in careless kisses, but he lowers his mouth, his fingers parting me, and starts kissing me where he knows I’ll beg for more and more and . . . “Oh God.”

  Minutes feel like seconds as he holds my hips down and his tongue coaxes my body into submission, eliciting his name just for him by making me come. His hand covers my mouth. Rising above me, he moves it and kisses my lips. “Shh, baby.”

  I’d forgotten we were stealing time together, forgetting a world existed outside this bedroom. My breath comes out harsh, but I swallow, trying to even my racing heart. “I want to feel you inside me, Jet.”

  “Do you know what it does to me every time I hear you say my name?”

  I don’t have to lift much to kiss his neck. Wrapping my leg around his, we slowly roll over until I’m on top of him. “What does it do to you when I say your name, Jet?” I want him to ache for me the way he makes me ache for him.

  He reaches for his cigarettes and lighter on the nightstand, setting them on the bed. “Grab a condom, baby.”

  If he only knew all the bad things I’m willing to do just to hear him call me baby more often. When we’re tangled up in each other, the good far outweighs any bad the world wants to rain down on the happiness we find in times like tonight.

  As I stretch over him, he holds me by the waist so I don’t fall over. I get a condom from the drawer and get comfortable on top of him again. “Underwear.”

  He lifts his middle with me on top. I take them down, and he kicks them to the floor. “Good Lord, you’re built like a Greek god.” Too tempting, I have to run my hands over every dip and rise of his abdominal muscles.

  My ass is squeezed with gusto. “You have the sexiest body and the best fucking ass I’ve ever seen.”

  “And since you’ve seen a lot, I’ll take the compliment.”

  Laughing, he doesn’t bother with apologies. He has nothing to be sorry for anyway. He moves me down and rips the wrapper open. The condom covers him, and he moves me back with a little lift so I can slide down.

  I hold my breath as he stakes claims deep inside me. God, it feels so good. Having him inside me . . . The feel of his skin below me, the coarse hair of his legs . . . his hard stomach . . . I want this. I want him. I just hope he leaves my battered heart alone; it’s too weak to fight a battle.

  Putting his hands behind his head, he keeps eye contact but then starts claiming me in a new way—through a fixed gaze. “I want to watch you get off on me.”

  He’s never made me feel less than confident in doing whatever I want to do in bed with him, but I hesitate. “Watch?”

  “Start slow and then fuck me the way it feels best for you.”

  I pluck my bottom lip a few times in contemplation, but he feels too good not to want more—faster and deeper.

  Finding a rhythm that feels amazing, I use his stomach as leverage to keep it. I watch as he takes a Marlboro from the box and lights it. His eyes never leave mine while taking a deep inhale, slowly exhaling, and savoring every second.

  Smoke fills the air above us. He never smokes anywhere but next to the open window or outside, but damn if he’s not absolutely the sexiest man I’ve ever seen doing it in bed.

  I burn for him. The yearning builds as I get closer to the finish line. My lids close, but he says, “Open your eyes, baby.”

  Moving without regret or apologies of my own, I take everything he’s willing to give—his body, his lustful eyes, his soul . . . I rock. I ride. I take. I don’t give a damn thing until I give him my fall, my orgasm, a little piece of my heart, more of my soul, and his name. “Jet,” comes out with a whimper as I grind against him until my need is satisfied.

  He answers my earlier question. “When you say my name—in swear or prayer—I see your wounds and want to heal every one of them. I want more than one night every six months. I want you to stay when morning comes.”

  With his hand out, the lit cigarette held away from me, he sits up, holding me by the back of the neck with my cheek against his. “Fuck me, Hannah. Fuck sense right back into me so when you leave this room I can pretend this was nothing more than fun.”

  His forehead falls to my shoulder, his body slightly curled toward me, bending to me, bowing to me. With my arms around him, I kiss the top of his head. I want to tell him it’s okay, that I feel the same, but I can’t. I can’t. I can’t pretend that this is just fun. It isn’t nothing. It’s him. It’s us.

  We didn’t expect things to get out of hand so quickly. But here we are—our hearts open and our bodies bared.

  What he doesn’t realize is that my body is open and my heart bared. It would be too much too soon to tell him.

  So I fuck him to spite my growing emotions. I fuck him to take away his pain. I fuck and fuck and fuck until we’re both coming together, and the lies bind us—the lie that this is only fun.

  As soon as we’re done, he’s gone. The ash leaves a trail on the wood floors as he rushes from the bed to tap out the burning butt into the ashtray on the sill. The cold I’m left with doesn’t comfort but leaves enough room for doubt to creep in.

  Before I have time to regret what we’ve done, the warmth of his body cradles mine from behind, and he whispers, “You’re amazing.”

  His soothing words melt the forming chill, and I cover his hands with mine.

  My hair is swept to the side, and kisses are placed the length of my neck. I start to shy away, but he holds me tighter. “Stay,” dusts across my skin, making me consider it for the first time.

  The beat of my heart pounds in my chest, reflecting my nerves. Nothing I’m about to do is right in the light of day, but right here in the dark of his bedroom it feels right. Shifting around so I can see him, I take a breath while admiring those eyes that give so much insight to the man. “Jet?”

  “Yes?”

  “We’ve got to keep us a secret.”

  “Tonight?”

  “I’ll stay,” I reply with a smile sneaking out. “But we have to keep this a secret.”

  He doesn’t even try to hide his relief. “Promise me more than tonight, Hannah.”

  Running the tips of my fingers over the stubble on his chin, I smile, the thought of waking up next to him too tempting to pass up. I kiss him, loving the feel of his lips pressed against mine and the way his hands span my back, holding me close. “I can’t promise you much, but I’ll give you tomorrow. I want to give you more, but I’ve been hurt before.”

  He tilts his head, his gaze traveling from my mouth to my eyes. “I’ll take whatever days you can give
and show you how good we can be together.”

  “You’re so optimistic.”

  “When I look into your clear blue eyes, hope is found in your endless oceans. Give me a chance, Hannah. Give me a chance to be the glue that can hold your broken parts together when you’re not strong enough. Let me be the one who gets to put you back together. Just one chance is all I’m asking for.”

  My heart softens. He did read my confession, my text that I regretted sending. I don’t have any regrets now as I look into the warmth of his eyes. He wins me over with his gentleness while wooing me with his words. “What will you do with only one chance?”

  “I’ll make sure that sadness never touches your heart again.”

  Leaning my head on his shoulder, I want to shout yes to this amazing man with every part of my being. I place one kiss on his lips, and reply, “How are you so sure?”

  “Gut instinct. Following my heart. Throwing caution to the wind. Chemistry. Attraction. Everything up here,” he says, tapping his temple, “tells me to proceed with caution because of the situation we’re in and because I can see you’re worried.” Taking my hand, he holds it against his chest. His heartbeat is strong, just like him. “If I can’t bring down your walls, I’ll climb them to prove you’re worth the effort. To me, you are worth everything.”

  Whispering, I ask, “Why?”

  “I know your heart. I see how you put everyone else before yourself. We may not have had an ideal start or taken a traditional path to get here, but we’re here, and I’m not asking for your heart. I’m asking for a chance to see what this is, to find out what could be. Will you give it to me?”

  After I left him so many months ago, Cassie consumed my mind. I spent days looking after her and Alfie’s needs, trying to fill the blanks that her illness had created in their lives. But even then, my nights belonged to Jet. Thoughts of him. Thoughts of the way he touched me, kissed me, owned me.