Cody
Jamison was different. Not in a bad way. She lost the edge that made her seem like a whirling dervish headed off a cliff. I liked it. I imagined that it was because of her son. It seemed like being a mother gave her a place to focus all the love she had to give, so she just wasn’t lost anymore. I liked listening to her telling me about Flynn. I liked the softness that came into her eyes when she said his name. I liked that she seemed to have read every parenting book ever written and still felt like she was winging it. I liked that she wasn’t alone anymore.
If anything, the difference in Jamison made her more attractive. She was still all the things that drew me to her on that night three years ago—sexy, funny, smart, and shamelessly brazen, but now she was also grounded, focused, and radiated a certain kind of self-sufficiency that was undeniable. From the minute she came to the door, a part of me was in full freak-out mode. Danger, Cody Morgan, danger: this woman has the password to override your safety protocols. But I just couldn’t look away.
I was sitting at a high-top table at Sadie’s, a local watering hole, watching her lean over the bar, her skirt just centimeters from giving the whole room a glimpse of her panties. She was self-serving us two beers, rather than wait her turn. It was Saturday night and the joint was busy. We’d already had a couple of drinks, and we were a smidge tipsy, the fun kind of drunk. I’d been coming to Sadie’s my whole life, first to watch Kat sing, then to see Sarah sing, and I’d never had as much fun as I was having tonight, dancing and laughing with Jamison.
Every minute with her was palpable, a mixture of titillation, stimulation, and sickeningly sweet nostalgia for the moment I was living. I felt it physically like a constriction in my chest. Breathing the same air as Jamison was a kind of bittersweet torture that I never wanted to end. We’d hugged hello, and I hadn’t been able to keep my hands off her since. I helped her out of my truck. I put my hand on the small of her back and we walked into Sadie’s, brushed her hair from her face, pressed my body against hers as we danced. Just like I remembered, she was all about laughter and flirty innuendos, but she pushed, asked questions about real things, and wanted more than just the surface. And much to my chagrin, the more she pushed to know me, the harder my dick got. It was like I missed her, like three years ago she marked me, turned on a Jamison magnet, and now my dick knew that her body was exactly where it wanted to be.
Gracefully, she slipped back down off the bar, her boots gently touching the floor and I instantly missed the hopefulness that came with almost getting a glimpse of her panties.
“Two more on Morgan,” Jamison hollered as she turned and headed back to me.
The bartender, whose name was Joyce, waved her off with a smile, which had something to do with Jamison’s charm because, usually, Joyce was a real stick in the mud.
When she reached me, she quirked her pretty blond head and said, “Why do you look like the cat who ate the canary?”
I think it was because I couldn’t get enough of her, but I said, “I could see your panties.”
“Oh yeah? What color are they, smart-ass?” She called my bluff. I had a feeling she always would.
“Black.” I was a betting man.
“Nope.”
“Red?” Clearly, a guess.
“Nope.”
She was still standing, just a foot or so from me. I reached out and pulled her in so one of my knees was between her legs. “Tell me.”
“Nope.”
“Show me,” I teased.
A pink rose colored the apples of her cheeks, and then something flashed in her eyes that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
Quietly, she said, “I’m not a sure thing anymore, Cody.”
I knew that, I did. Honestly, I hoped otherwise, but she was a single mom now, and a responsible one. She wasn’t just going to jump into bed with some guy, even if that guy was an old flame with a raging hard-on. Sigh. My problem, not hers. Clearly, she was afraid I was just out for the score because we’d lost all semblance of eye contact.
“Of course you're not,” I said with intention. “Not that I’d judge you if you were, but it’s not just you in the game anymore. I see that.”
She smiled at me, but not just like she smiled looking at me. She smiled at me… at my response. Her bounce was back when she said, “Yep, not just me in the game anymore.”
She was looking at the dance floor and as much as I wanted to get out there and get my mitts all over her again, I needed to cool it down. But that didn’t mean I didn’t want to spend more time with her. I put down my beer.
“Hey,” I took her hand in mine and sweetly said, “you wanna get out of here?”
She looked at me and rolled her eyes. “We just finished discussing my newfound chastity, and you're making a pass at me?”
Shit. “No! Jesus.” I ran my hand through my hair. “I meant like let’s go drink a milkshake or something equally PG.”
Laughing, she clasped our hands again and bumped me with her shoulder as she said, “I was teasing you. Don’t look so glum, chum.”
I dropped her hand and put my arm around her shoulders. “So, milkshakes?”
She nodded.
We left Sadie’s walking hip to hip. Outside in the parking lot, as I held the passenger door open for her, I said, “Let’s get something straight. I get that you don’t jump into bed with dudes anymore. But you and I.” I pointed from her to me. “We are not chums. Got it?”
She was in the seat, and I reached across her to buckle her seat belt the same way my brother, Bill, always did for Kat. I’d never been inclined to buckle a woman’s seat belt until now.
“I can buckle my own seat belt,” she smarted.
“Of course, you can, but by doing it for you, I get to feel your breath on my cheek, smell your shampoo...”
She interrupted me, still smart. “Press your crotch into my thigh.”
To be clear, I did not do that. But I was sure that she knew how I reacted to her. We’d been close on the dance floor and there was no hiding what was going on in my pants.
Still, I did not get humpy on her thigh. “Oh, come on now. I’m being romantic here and you’re making it dirty.”
“If I remember correctly, you were good at dirty and flirty.”
“And squirty,” I teased.
She bit her lip and peeped out, “Yes, and that.”
My eyes were drawn to those pink lips of hers. They looked so rosy and sweet like a Valentine’s Day special at Dunkin’ Donuts. I wasn’t going to sleep with her but that didn’t mean I couldn’t kiss her, right? Just a little kiss. I leaned in and captured her mouth and I meant to be more chaste than lustful, but like the first time my lips were on hers, something about her unbridled my control. I claimed her mouth, pushing my tongue inside, coaxing the fire I was trying to calm. I pushed my hands into her hair and tilted her face, deepening the caress of my tongue, wanting to fucking be inside her any way I could. She met my move with fervor, kissing me with an almost desperate hunger, like she was as hard up for me as I was for her.
We kissed obscenely, hanging out of the door of my truck, her in the seat, me on the step rail, like teenagers. Someone, some asshole who was certainly not my friend, whistled and hooted, “Get it, Cody.”
Ugh, small town. I gave the nameless voice the finger over my shoulder without breaking our lip-lock, but it didn’t matter, beneath my hands and my lips, Jamison tensed. She didn’t pull away, but she thought better of what we were doing. I slowed our mouths until we weren’t kissing anymore, and then I pressed my forehead to hers.
“My lips like your lips,” she said sweetly.
“God, my lips wanna set up shop on your lips, build a house, and move the fuck in,” I growled.
She laughed. I loved that I made her happy. I leaned back so I was propped on the open truck door. “Milkshake?”
“Milkshake,” she confirmed. “Chocolate, please.”
I smacked the roof on the truck and chanted, “Chocolate milkshake, on order,” before dropping down and closing the door.
I had to adjust myself as I crossed in front of the car and I saw her giggling through the glass. This woman was going to be the death of me. I could feel it.