Page 85 of Jesse's Girl
The words knock the wind from her.
“To taste you. To make you moan… make you come.” My eyes travel along the curve of her neck and I mutter a curse. I want to trace the path with my tongue and hear her breath catch. Feel her turn to liquid in my arms.
She peers up at me again, her lower lip quivering.
I want to bite it. I grit my teeth together.
“Why are you telling me this?” She searches my face. “If you won’t even consider touching me… Why?”
“That’s the problem, though,” I say, my smile rueful. “I’ve considered it too fucking much. I can’t stop considering touching you, Ada. You asked for the truth. Pushed me for the fucking truth. You wanted me to say the quiet part out loud? This is it. Cards on the table. Happy now?”
She blinks and drops her gaze.
“And,” I continue, and her eyes snap back up, “I fucking had to.” My fingers tense, almost clawing the paint off the wall with the effort of keeping them there. “Because, if I didn’t say something… I knew in my bones I’d snap. That my hands would end up doing the talking. And that I’d do something we’d both regret.”
“Fuck,” she whispers.
“Yes, that,” I say in a low voice, staring at her mouth.
Those lush lips twist in a smirk, but it quickly fades when she registers the intensity on my face.
I’ve never been more serious. It’s taking everything in me not to crush my body against hers right now—not to tear off her clothes and taste every inch of her. Bury myself in her.
“I’m at my breaking point with you, Ada,” I continue. “I’m done pretending there’s nothing going on here. Done dancing around this. So you can be pissed at me. Fuck, blame me. Think of me as an asshole if it makes you feel better. But you have to understand: no matter how much we might want it… This. Can’t. Happen.”
Summoning all my remaining self-control, I push away from the wall with a groan and walk to my room. Unable to chance looking back at her, I shut the door—hard—and sag against it.
19
ADA
My heart thunders in my chest as I watch Jesse walk to his room and the vacuum left by his absence sucks up my ability to breathe. His last words ring in my ears: “This. Can’t. Happen.”
The fuck it can’t.
He may be hellbent on going down in history as some kind of virtuous sex martyr, but I’m sure as fuck not.
For a split second, I think I might book it to my bedroom—certainly the wiser fucking choice—but I’m knocking on his door before my body and wisdom can get on the same page. I need him like I need oxygen and I’ll take what I can get, bad idea or not.
When he opens the door, his hungry gaze pins me to the spot.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says in a rough voice. “I said?—”
“I know what you said.” My eyes lock on his mouth.
And, in that moment, his resolve wavers.
He doesn’t touch me or speak—just takes a slow step backward, the unspoken understanding crackling in the air around us.
I step inside and shut the door. The light from the lamp behind him casts him in silhouette—a black hole I have no hope of resisting. I step toward him, placing my hand on his chest.
“Ada…” His heart is already racing beneath my palm. “This is a bad idea.”
“Yeah.” I step closer. “I know.” I curl my fingers, fisting his T-shirt, and pull him into me as I lift my face to his. “But now it’s your turn to shut up and listen.”
The light trace of his fingers as they slip up my arms has my knees threatening to buckle.
“Jesse…” I say his name like I’m exhausted. And I am—exhausted from waiting for this. From wanting him and fighting it. From trying to ignore every accidental touch. From every time we look at each other and the eye contact aches to break—or to hold. “I don’t want you imagining it anymore. I want the real thing.”