“You’re dressed…” He sits up, wincing, his arm automatically wrapping around his bruised ribs. “Like you’re expecting someone. Is that why you’ve gone medieval on the apartment’s ass?”
“Are you implying I don’t normally clean?” If I wasn’t so stressed about this, I’d pretend to be upset.
“I don’t give a fuck about that, kitten, and you know it.” He gets up with a grunt, takes the dust cloth from my hand and lets it drop on the table. His hand drifts up to my face. “You—”
I’ll never know what he was about to say, because the doorbell rings and I jump away from him, running my hands over my white top and batik skirt. Am I dressed okay? Is it too hippy? Is it too old-fashioned?
God, I feel like I’m about to meet his parents and need their approval—which is probably as close as I’ll ever get to that.
“Who can that be?” Jesse mutters, his gaze flicking from me to the door, going narrow and suspicious.
“I’ll get it.” I hurry to open and then stand back, staring at the tiny blond woman standing right outside.
“Hi. You must be Amber?”
I nod as I take her in. Dark eyes and brows, cheeks like peaches, a boyish body. Hard to imagine this is the girl who once took care of my Jesse.
He’s suddenly there, by my side, his eyes big like saucers in his pale face. “Who is this?” he whispers, his voice hushed. “What in the fucking fuck?”
Somehow I think he already knows, but can’t accept it yet.
“Jesse?” She takes a step toward him, a tremor going through her small frame. “I thought it couldn’t be true. Oh my God, it is you, look at you. You’ve grown so much. They told me you ran away and nobody knew if you were alive or dead or… It’s me. It’s Helen, Jesse.”
A small, anguished sound leaves his throat. His body jerks forward, his hands lift…
Then he grabs Helen and wraps his arms around her. “You’re alive,” he whispers over and over, his chin resting on top of her head. “You’re okay. I thought I’d never see you again.”
Seeing them clinging to each other like that, I back away, feeling like an intruder on something very personal.
At the last moment, though, he reaches for me and snags my wrist, pulling me to him. Before I know it, I’m included in the hug, and the three of us stand together, three links in a chain of love that makes us whole.
***
That evening, after turning off the lights in the apartment, long after Helen has left, I find Jesse curled up on his side on the bed.
I hesitate at the door of my bedroom, wondering what he’s thinking. The reunion was joyful. Helen explained she’d been to visit her parents, found them in the middle of a huge fight during which windows were broken and bullets fired. The police came. Then social services swooped in and placed her with a new foster family.
A good family, who moved away from Minneapolis, where Jesse was at the time, to one of the smaller towns in the area. And no matter how hard she looked for him, she never found him again,
Because meanwhile he’d been also whisked away to a boy camp in the countryside, from which he escaped a few months later and hitched a ride to Madison.
It’s a heartbreaking story, and I’m glad they both had their happy ending.
Although right now I’m not certain what I should do. So I take a step back. Maybe he needs some space. It’s a lot to process, for sure.
“Embers.” His deep voice stops me as I turn to go, draws me back to him like a magic spell.
He sits up, giving me a crooked grin, and I go straight to him. Kicking off my sandals, I climb onto the bed and curl next to him.
He tucks a stray curl behind my ear and strokes my neck. Electric shocks travel down my spine, and the tips of my breasts tighten painfully.
Crap. He’s too bruised, physically and psychologically for this… surely? The gleam in his eyes is wicked, and so is the trail his hand is following, from my neck down to my breasts, leaving behind fire.
“JJ…” I gasp when he cups one breast, his thumb sliding teasingly over my aching nipple. “I thought…”
“I love you,” he whispers, lifting himself up on one elbow, his thumb moving in circles over the sensitive peak until I throb madly between my legs. “So much.”
“Love you, too, JJ,” I say and knot a hand behind his head, pulling him down for a kiss. “I’m yours.”
“Does this mean you’re my girl?” he whispers against my lips, then pulls back an inch, frowning. “Shit. Does it mean I have to meet your parents?”
“What’s your deal with parents?” I laugh quietly.
“I’m not the kind of man your parents will approve.”
God, he’s serious about this. “Of course they will approve. You’re the nicest boy I know. The kindest. And in any case, it’s my life, and I want you in it.”
“Embers…” His eyes go overly bright and he crushes his mouth to mine.
This time there’s nothing gentle about it. The kiss turns heated in seconds, lips and teeth clashing. He climbs on top of me, between my legs, and I gasp when his hard-on presses where I need him the most.
“Holy shit.” He breaks the kiss, panting hard, head bowed, and reaches down, inside his pants, to adjust himself.
Boy is that hot. Love the way strong muscles shift and slide in his upper arms and shoulders, how his T-shirt stretches across his chest.
So sexy.
He reaches for the straps of my top, gently slips them down my arms, the roughness of his palms sending shivers skittering across my skin. “I want to undress you and take my time with you.”
I can’t speak, because he’s pulling my soft top down, baring my bra, his mouth following, branding the mounds of my breasts.
“You’re so gorgeous,” he whispers reverently. “The most beautiful girl in the world.”
I moan his name when he mouths the tip of my breast through the thin lace, my hands scrabbling at his shoulders. He moves to the other breast, his clever fingers tugging my bra down until he has full access.
Slow. So slow, the way he teases me, licking and suckling and lightly scraping his teeth over the sensitive tips until I squirm, the pleasure reaching the point of pain.
He gives them one final lick that makes me cry out, then he pulls everything down and off me—my top, my skirt, my panties—leaving only my bra bunched under my breasts. He lets the clothes fall to the floor and gazes up at me, his eyes raking over my body, hungry and dark.
“Look at you,” he breathes. “So damn hot.”
He crawls back up, tearing his T-shirt off, and I lick my lips, staring at his strong chest, and those dazzling tattoos, the hoops in his tiny brows nipples, the taut abs that ripple as he moves. I reach for his pants and he lets me unzip them and tug them down.
That’s when I discover he’s going commando again. His cock rises, rock-hard and flushed, against that flat stomach. I wrap my hand around it, and he groans between his teeth.
“Dammit. If you move your hand one inch, I’m gonna lose it.” He draws away, and I reluctantly let him go. I wonder what he’s up to when he grabs my legs under the knees.
He places them over his shoulders and buries his face between my legs.
“Oh God.” Through the maddening explosion of pleasure that ricochets inside me, I think fuzzily that he’s getting really good at this. Crap, really, really good, especially when he uses his tongue like that… “JJ!”
He does something with his lips that has me arching off the bed, but right as the pressure inside me is about to snap, he draws back, leaving me aching and panting.
“I want you,” he whispers, “to come all over my cock. To feel you come as I touch your breasts. I’ve never done it that way. I wanna do it with you.”
Moaning, I let him roll me onto my stomach. I’ve never done it this way, either, and his words light up a fire in my belly. I love his hands on me, and the thought of him touching me while he fills me up is pushing me so close to the edge I’m afraid I’ll come before he even enters me.
“Trust me,” he whispers, and I do, with all my being. I trust him like I’ve never trusted anyone before in my life.