Shattered (19 page)

“I never said that.  I needed you.”

“I know that… now.  I should have never thought that you did, but everything was just so crazy.  I wasn’t sure what way was up or down. When I came back, you were acting like a completely different person.  Everything with Collin.  I wasn’t sure what to do and part of me thought that maybe you’d moved on.”

“I really thought you blamed me,”  she blurted it out as if she didn‘t say it immediately she might combust.  She started to cry again as she continued, “If I hadn’t made you drive me separately, we would have left for the party together.  We probably would have avoided the tractor and everyone would be fine.”

“Never.” I pulled her into my chest and pressed my lips to the top of her head. “I never blamed you.  What happened that night was an accident.  I don’t blame you or regret being alone with you.  I wanted to be with you.”  I felt her relax into me.

“I wanted to be with you too.”  

“Garrett was on to us, you know?  He’d been after me for a long time to make a move.” I pulled back to look at her, never taking my hands from her back. “He saw what was going on between us.  I think he knew before we did that we liked each other.”  I smiled, thinking about all of the hidden stares,
accidental
grazes of our hands and the thoughtful gestures that were exchanged that summer and before. “When you suggested we ride over together, I jumped at the chance.  If I hadn’t, Garrett probably would’ve kicked my ass.”

She laughed, “You’re right.  He always was smarter than we were.”

“We should have talked about all this sooner.  I feel like we’ve wasted time.  Time that we could have spent together.”

“I know.  I’m so sorry.”  I saw the pain that was in her eyes.  I’m sure my regret matched hers.

“Me too.”  I stood and pulled her up with me.  I ran my hands up and down her arms, trying to create warmth on her cold flesh.  She was freezing in those wet clothes.  “Ok.  Now that everything is out and we are good?”  I felt my voice rise on the final word, making it sound like a question.

She let a little laugh escape between her lips, “Yeah, we’re good.”

“Let’s get you a shower and some dry clothes.  You can change in my room.  I’ll go grab your bag.”

I felt like my step was lighter as I bounded for the door to retrieve her bag.  There was so much more I wanted say to her.  I was scared to come on too strong; we were just now back on speaking terms.  I made my way to the bedroom with her bag in hand.

“Does the bag mean you’re are staying?” I walked in to find her with her wet t-shirt halfway over her head. “Oh, sorry!” As much as I wanted to look at her, I quickly turned my back.  Out of respect, of course.

“Jess, it’s fine,” she laughed, “you’ve seen me in a swimsuit.  A bra’s not that much different.”

Oh, it most definitely was different.  Seeing her in a swimsuit was one thing, but the way that satin and lace hugged her breasts letting the dark pink skin of her nipples peek through may have been the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.

“You sure?” I peeked over my shoulder, still shielding my eyes with my hand.

I felt her wet t-shirt slap against my back, followed by her laughter.

“I mean you don’t have to look if you don’t want to,” she jested.  That was all it took for me to turn and face her.  I admired her tight body.

“Are you serious right now?”  I felt my bottom lip creep up between my teeth as I roamed my eyes over her perky breasts and tiny waist.  The only thing that would have made this better was if she dropped the shorts she was wearing.

“You can take a picture,” she jested, breaking my stare, “it would last longer.”

“It’s hard not to stare,” I smiled.  I tried to ease the tension that was building between us and picked up her wet t-shirt from the floor and tossed it back toward her while tossing her bag on my queen sized bed.  I was a little embarrassed that Alyssa was in my room.  The bed was unmade, there was a laundry basket full of clothes, albeit clean, on the floor and I don’t think it had been dusted since I’d left nine months ago.

“Sorry the place is such a mess.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She walked over and unzipped her bag, pulling out her dry clothes.  “I can clean it up tomorrow, if you want?”

“So you
are
staying?”

“Only if you want me to?”  Her eyes looked up at me with a soft, sweet gaze.  The same gaze I’d seen many times before when she wanted something.  She grabbed a towel off the top of the laundry basket and wrapped it around her body.  Damn it.

I didn’t say anything.  All I could do was smile.  Of course I wanted her here.

“I don’t really have anywhere else to go.”  Her bottom lip puckered slightly.

“Go take a shower.  I’ll make us something to eat.”  She really did know how to push all my buttons.

After we scarfed down a frozen pizza, we spent a couple hours catching up on what we’d missed in each other’s life.  Things were so easy with her now that there was no blame or assumptions between us.  We easily fell right back into our friendship. She was curled up in the bend of the sectional with a blanket draped over her, while I sat next to her with my feet up on the coffee table.  I rested my head on the pillow next to her and she trailed her fingers through my hair as I told her all about life in Florida.  My Uncle Dean, the beaches, the offer to come back and run the new boat.

“So, are you going back?”  she asked hesitantly.

“I’m undecided.”  I offered a coy grin.  “Depends on how things pan out back here.”

“Oh,” she crinkled her nose with smile, “that’s good to know.”

“Did you mean it when you said you wished I’d never come back?”

“No.  I was just being a bitch.” She smiled apologetically. “Everything was so messed up and I got defensive when you were giving me the third degree. Did you mean what you said?”

In my fit over Collin yesterday, I’d almost forgotten about telling her that I’d thought about her every day while I was away.  I was done hiding how I felt about her.  It was time to take Kelly’s advice and let her in.  After all we’d been through, I owed her that much.

“Every word.”  I saw a glint in her eyes as her cheeks reddened and just like that, our friendship slipped into the unfamiliar waters that where we’d dipped a toe last fall.

I watched as she stretched her arms above her head with a yawn.  I could tell by her heavy lids that she was getting tired.  After everything that happened tonight we were both drained.

“You ready for bed?”  I stood up and started to make my way to the bedroom, thinking she would follow.

“Yeah.  I’m beat.”  She started to push and pull at the lumpy throw pillow that she’d been leaning against, trying to make it acceptable for sleep.

“You don’t have to sleep on the couch, Lyss.”  I smiled as I reached down for her hands.  “I know you need your beauty sleep, princess.”  I pulled her up.  When she was standing there was only a few inches separating our bodies.  I could feel my pulse race as she turned her eyes up to mine.

“Okay,” she mumbled as if she was holding her breath.  My eyes were instantly on her mouth.  Her perfect pink lips, that’d I dreamed about, were now marred with an ugly gash that only reminded me how much I hated Collin Smolder.

“Does it hurt?” I asked, carefully touching the corner of her mouth.

“Not as much as my pride.” She smiled softly, cringing when the cut met my fingertips.

“Sorry.”

She pulled my hand to her mouth and pressed them firmly against my flesh as if she was showing me that the pain wasn’t affecting her.  “I’m sorry, Jess.”  

A deep sigh came from my chest.  I really wanted to replace my hand with my lips.  I didn’t know that it was possible to be jealous of your hand, but at the moment I loathed that appendage.  I could tell by the pained look on her face that those lips were off limits until they healed.

“You don’t have to keep apologizing.” I pulled her into my arms.  Somehow, my hand managed to get the best part of the deal as it was situated on the small of her back.  “If we are going to get past all of this, we have to stop saying ‘I’m sorry.’”

“Okay.”

“I do have one last thing to apologize for before we stop.” Leaning down I let my lips linger beside her ear, “I’m sorry that I didn’t kiss you before tonight.”  I felt her shiver under my breath.  The sweatpants I was wearing did a pathetic job of hiding my excitement when I saw the goosebumps splay across her skin, but I didn’t care.  I pulled her into me closing the sliver of space that had remained.  I shifted my face to the other side of hers, letting my lips barely graze hers on my transition to her other ear.  Her breath caught and she pressed her chest into mine.  I could feel her breasts firmly as she rose up on her tiptoes, sliding them up my body. Her head tilted to the side as she offered up a very tempting invitation to explore her neck.  I really wanted to nip and suck my way around her neck.  Hell, I wanted to nip and suck my way around her whole body, but I knew if I started, there was no way I was gonna stop, so I fought the urge.  The really fucking hard urge.  I wanted her… bad, but I wanted all of her.  Lips included.  I mentally cursed that bastard for hurting her.  I couldn’t risk furthering her injury. I knew once my lips were on hers I was going to have a hard time controlling them.

When I didn’t accept her invitation, she dropped her head to find my eyes.  I pulled my hands up, cradling her disappointed face.  I placed my lips on her forehead, then on the little crease that had formed between her eyes, followed by both cheeks and the tip of her nose.  “When I kiss you,” I rested my forehead on hers, “which is going to happen just as soon as that cut heals.” I pulled in a breath, “It will be completely worth the wait.”  I didn’t give her time to respond, instead I scooped her up in my arms.  “Now let’s get the princess to bed.”

Alyssa

He scooped me up as if I weighed nothing at all.  I had to catch my breath as he made his way down the hallway with me and settled me down on the edge of his bed.  I was still reeling from what just happened in the living room.  As I crawled up and under the charcoal colored sheets and black bedspread, I ran my tongue across the cut on my lip that was now another roadblock for Jesse and me.  I felt the sting of my tongue on the sensitive flesh.  As much as I wanted to kiss Jesse, he was probably right.  The ugly wound would not have made for a very romantic evening.  He tossed me a tube of antibiotic ointment and smiled.

“See if that helps speed this process along.”

I placed a dab of the ointment on my finger and brushed it over the cut, rubbing it in as if were lip gloss.  

“Thanks.”  I set the tube on the nightstand next to the bed.  His room was pretty plain.  The walls were painted white and the hardwood floors of the rest of the house continued into the bedroom.  The one saving grace was the exposed brick wall behind the bed.  It was amazing to think of all those walls had heard over the years.  The building was over a hundred and twenty years old.  A chest of drawers and a dresser with a mirror, that matched the simple oak headboard, completed the furnishings. The room was originally his parents’ but since they only came home once in a while Jesse had taken over the bigger room at a young age.   The Carrie Underwood poster that I bought him for his birthday a couple years ago was the only artwork that hung on the walls.  He was always talking about how hot she was, which only intimidated me.  With her blonde hair and blue eyes and me the opposite, we looked nothing alike.   It always made me second guess if Jesse was actually attracted to me, but after what just happened between us in the living room I was pretty sure he was.

“I can go sleep in Kelly’s old room if you want me to,” he said as he pulled his t-shirt over his head.

When my eyes wandered down from his questioning stare to his broad shoulders, chest, and down to his sculpted abs, I actually lost the breath I’d just gotten back.  It didn’t seem fair that there could be something that beautiful right in front of me that I couldn’t touch.  I flipped the covers back on the vacant side of the bed and patted my hand on his pillow.  If we weren’t going to do anything tonight, I was gonna make sure I at least got to sleep next him.  To feel his warm hard body pressed against me.

“
Don’t be silly.  This is your bed, after all.”
 

I watched the corner of his lips pull into an impish grin.  “You’re gonna make this impossible for me, aren’t you?”

I felt a wicked gleam cross my eyes. “Don’t think you can handle it?”

“I can handle it, alright,” he chuckled as he crawled into the bed next to me.

I snuggled down on the pillow, keeping my face to him, as he did the same.

“Maybe you should put some more of that stuff on your lip.” He brushed a piece of hair that had fallen away from my face as his teeth tugged at his bottom lip.  “I’m not sure how long I can wait for you to heal.”

I smiled before reaching over and pulling the cord on the lamp, leaving us in only the small amount of light that was shining through the windows from outside.

He didn’t let me roll back over.  He pressed his chest to my back and settled his knees in behind mine.  One arm slid under my neck, while the other rested on my hip as he tucked me in close to him.

“Try and keep your lips away from me,” he snickered in my ear, sending a rippling of tingles down my body.  I assumed I was in for a long, torturous night of unfulfilled desire, but as soon as my eyes closed I felt the need for sleep take over.  Just as I was drifting off, Jesse whispered something into my ear.  Something that sounded a lot like “I love you.”

I woke up the next morning to find myself complete tangled up in Jesse.  His arm on my hip had tightened when his hand splayed across my stomach and one of his legs had managed to wrap over the top of mine.  Literally and figuratively, I’d never felt more secure.  His face was buried in the hair at the back of my neck.  I could feel his arousal pressing into my behind.  Logically, it was probably involuntary, but I smiled thinking that maybe he was dreaming about me.  I wiggled down against his lap causing a stifled groan to come from his chest, which made me giggle.