“I’ve been jealous of this finger for the past hour. Hell, I was jealous of whipped cream.”
She moaned. “And now?”
“Now, I want to lick all of you.”
He placed his hands on her hips. “Every last inch… Nothing goes untouched…”
“Nothing?” Her eyebrows arched.
“Nothing,” he repeated, taking her mouth captive. He pressed her into the bed and kissed her soundly, drinking her in, and in that moment realized her taste would be forever etched onto his person. Everything about her was the perfect match for him; he’d just been too blind to see it before. And now, he was never letting her go.
His lips met hers softly as he pressed his body against her warmth, but at her sigh he pulled back. “What’s wrong?”
“What changed?”
Words wouldn’t come. So not only had he officially lost his game, but he was unable to communicate one of the most necessary elements of his existence.
Char’s eyes fluttered closed. When they opened again, moisture had pooled in their depths.
Jake held her face in his hands and said very softly, “I did. I changed.”
Her brow furrowed.
“It was me, not you. You’ve always been constant. Whether you wanted to stab me or kiss me, you’ve never changed. It’s me; I’m different.”
“Just like that?” Char sounded skeptical.
Damn if he didn’t want to just lose himself in her first and then have the serious conversation, but he knew better than anyone that women weren’t wired that way. So, with self-control he knew he rarely possessed, he pulled back and sat on the bed, in nothing but his boxers, and waited for her to sit up too.
When she did, he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off the bed, carrying her to the window seat where they could look out at the lake, out at all his memories—his past.
Once she was tucked in his lap, he pulled a blanket from a basket on the floor and wrapped it around them. The feel of her skin caused his entire body to tingle as they sat tangled on the chair, legs entwined. He put his chi
n on her head and wrapped his arms around her ribs.
“It was over there, by the dock.”
Char exhaled. “What was?”
“My first time doing drugs.”
She stiffened.
Jake swallowed. “I was a kid—stupid, young, and way too cocky for my own good. I know what you’re thinking; some things never change, but I can’t even imagine what I would have been like had he not found me.”
“He?”
“Bill.” Jake gripped her hands together. “Kacey’s dad. I drank so much that night. I was lucky to be alive; I kept drinking because I kept snorting cocaine. I felt invincible, like I could fly. I mean, I wasn’t even tired. I just wanted to stay up all night and party. I felt like I was an adult, that I could handle it.”
“What happened?”
Jake laughed. “Well, my parents were gone for the weekend. I’d stayed home with Travis, but he had gone out with friends, leaving me all by myself. I threw a party. Just a few of us. Every single person was either a senior or older. I thought I was such a bad ass.”
“Anyway.” He cleared his throat. “My dad had asked Bill to check on us during the weekend. Obviously I didn’t know that. He found me just after I’d jumped off the end of the dock and somehow hit my head on the boat tied up at the end. All my so-called friends were too high or wasted to notice. But Bill had just pulled up, after seeing the entire thing. He ran out there and jumped in the water. He saved my life.”
Char’s grip on his hands tightened. “I guess—you’d think after that huge come-to-Jesus moment, you’d have changed your ways? I don’t get it.”
“I did.” Jake shrugged. “For a while. I got good grades, played every sport possible, apologized profusely to Bill. He only told his wife, never my parents or Kacey. It bonded us, I looked up to him, I respected him because it was the first time in my teenage years an adult had treated me as an adult, so I wanted him to be just as proud of me as he was of Travis and Kace.”