I was starting to be honest with myself. I’d give him the same.
I came to a stop a few feet in front of his bed, nothing more than a mattress laid out in the middle of his room and covered with a couple blankets. For some reason, my eyes locked on his pillow. The place his head rested every night as he dreamed.
“I push people away because I don’t want them to see who I really am,” I started. Jesse padded closer until his chest was against my back. His arms wound around my stomach, and he held me close. “Because if people know the real me and still choose to walk away, I’m not sure I could really take that.” I focused on his pillow and the strong arms holding me tight. “So if anyone starts getting too close to figuring out that my act is a bunch of bullshit, I push them away before they can search for what’s hiding behind the B.S.” I paused to breathe and collect my next thought, but really, I’d just summed it all up. When that settled in—that I’d just bared my soul, my real soul, to Jesse Walker—I waited for the panic attack.
When he was quiet for a few more moments, I actually felt it coming on.
“I see the real you, Rowen,” he said at last, tucking his chin over my shoulder, “and I like who you are.”
I closed my eyes to keep the tears from forming. “I know you do, Jesse. Although I can’t figure out why the hell you do like me. Sometimes I think if you watched a movie of my life . . . The drinking. The drugs. The guys.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. I wouldn’t let the honesty run dry. “You’d run away screaming like everyone else has. You’d give up on me, too.”
After a moment, Jesse sighed. “I don’t know what to be more sad about. That you feel this why about yourself, or that you have so little faith in me you think I’d leave if I knew every last detail about your past.” His head shook against my shoulder. “Would you leave me if you were able to know everything about my past?” He didn’t give me a chance to reply. “I know enough, Rowen. I know the woman you are now. I don’t need to know every dirty secret to make up my mind.”
The theory of keeping my eyes closed to keep tears from forming was nice. It just wasn’t a factual theory. Jesse hadn’t even flinched at what I’d just said. He hadn’t run away screaming. He’d said some of the kindest things I’d heard. Words were just words, but not those ones. Jesse had proven those words before he’d said them. I’d just been blinded.
“I don’t deserve you, Jesse,” I whispered, never knowing anything more true. “There’s nothing I ever could do to deserve you.”
He bent his face into the curve of my neck. “We don’t deserve anything, Rowen. We don’t deserve punishment, we don’t deserve happiness, life owes us nothing. Realize that.” His voice wasn’t gentle anymore; it was as strong as I’d ever heard it. “So we have to take what we want because life sure as shit isn’t going to freely hand it over.” He kissed the skin just above my collar bone. “And I want you.”
I wasn’t sure if his words or his touch affected me more, but everything inside of me, the ice, the walls, the fences, everything I’d built to protect myself crumbled. “I’m a huge failure. But I want to be better. You make me want to be better. I know you might disagree, but I know you deserve better.” Oh, God. I was a runaway train. After years of keeping it all shut inside, it was flooding out of me. “But I love you.” And there it was. Most vulnerable feeling ever. “I love you so much it scares me.”
Jesse didn’t move, and again, he didn’t flinch. He just held me, almost like he knew I needed someone to help keep me together. “Are you done?”
It seemed the flood had come to an end, for the moment, so I nodded.
“Good,” he said, his breath warm against my neck. “Because I love you, too.”
The first tear I’d cried in a long, long time leaked out and rolled down my cheek. I’d associated crying with sadness, so I’d avoided it. I didn’t need tears to remind me of pain. I hadn’t expected them to come with happiness.
Happiness wasn’t exactly the right word, though. No word in my vocabulary bank quite worked. Whatever that emotion was, it was the best damn feeling I’d ever had. I wanted his love more than anyone’s . . . I had it.
I didn’t know how to respond with words, so I used my actions. Twisting in his arms, I looked into the face of the guy I loved. I didn’t wipe away my tears because, right then, I didn’t mind being vulnerable.
“Do I need another invitation if I want to kiss you again?”
“No. You pretty much get to kiss me whenever you want now,” I said, forming my hands over the grooves of his shoulders.
“Good to know.”
Jesse might have been about to say something else, but he’d said everything he needed to. Everything.
He liked the real Rowen Sterling. He even liked the one I pretended to be. My past and all the dark parts of it didn’t matter to him. He loved me.
Oh, yeah. I felt the exact same way about him. In all regards.
Nothing more needed to be said.
My mouth crashed into his and took him by surprise. His shoulders tensed for the shortest moment. It took all of one heartbeat for my lips to melt his. Before long, I was struggling to match Jesse’s force and pace. He kissed me in long, hard pulls, literally leaving me breathless. His skin was hot and his shoulders rolled beneath my hands as his hands explored my body.
He kept to the “safe” areas: my arms, my back, my hips. After a minute of that, I wanted him touching me in the not-so-safe areas. I wanted it so bad, I grabbed his hand from the small of my back and slid it around to my stomach. Weaving my fingers through his, I guided his hand up. Past my navel, over my ribs, until it covered my breast.
Jesse’s shoulders tensed again and his mouth slowed its pace against mine. He didn’t seem uncomfortable, just unsure. His touch was hesitant at first as his hand moved over me. I left my hand over his, encouraging him as his exploration shifted away from hesitancy.
When he didn’t obviously need any more help, my hand left his and wandered around his waist until my fingers slid over the deep groove running up the center of his back. It felt even better than it looked.
My other hand curved around him, joining the first in its careful inspection of his back. When Jesse’s tongue journeyed into my mouth, twisting with mine, my touch instinctually deepened. My nails dug into his back, clawing their way down until they reached the hem of his sweats.
Jesse groaned and pulled back. His smile went right back into place as his chest rose and fell quickly. “Are you doing this because I told you I love you, or do you just think I’m smokin’ hot and can’t help yourself?” As he inspected my face, his smile stretched higher. Whatever expression I wore had made him downright cocky. From the way I felt, I didn’t need to see a mirror to guess what my face looked like.
He had a right to be cocky. He unraveled the parts of me I was familiar with and the parts I’d never even known were there.
“Both,” I answered, pulling back just enough to do what I wanted to do next. I reached for the thin straps of my dress and slid each one from my shoulders. The best part of undressing while wearing a shift dress? Two straps moved a few inches over the shoulders, and the entire dress was in a bunch at my feet.
Jesse swallowed.
That made me smile. My fingers trembled over the clasp of my bra, but a couple seconds later, my bra joined the pile of clothes at my feet.
My nipples were already hard from what we’d just been doing, but they hardened more still with the anticipation of what was to come.
Jesse gulped.
I smiled again. I was turning into a smiling fool around him. When my thumbs hitched beneath my lace panties, Jesse’s mouth opened, but no words came out. Since I’d never known a guy yet to call “Uncle” at that point in the strip tease, I slid my panties down my hips and past my knees. Once they’d dropped to my ankles, I stepped out of them and away from the rest of my clothing.