Untwisted (4 page)

“I’m not a damn dog.”

“No. But you’re incredibly beautiful and I want to towel down my wife. Is that okay?”

Watching her face soften eased the irritation flaring to life inside of him. He wanted to put her in a bubble and keep her and the baby safe from all threats, whether they were financial difficulties or cold bathwater. Was that so wrong? Wasn’t that his
job
?

“I’m not your wife yet,” she said quietly. “Not technically.”

He headed into the bathroom to grab a thick purple towel and returned to sit beside her on the bed. He lifted her arm and began to dry her, slowly and methodically. Not leaving a solitary spot on her arm untouched until she let out a laugh. “What is this? Death by terrycloth?”

He didn’t smile. Nor did he stop drying her off. He moved down to her hip, studying it intently to avoid gazing at the rosy pink slit between her legs. “I’m going to be overbearing with you, and you’re just going to have to deal with it, Edwards. I know you’re a strong woman. You’d have to be to put up with my stupid ass. But when it’s you and me and we’re alone, I need to take care of you. It’s this…
urge
inside me.”

“Is that so?”

The amusement in her tone made him turn his head. Her annoyance had disappeared as fast as it had come, leaving her smiling and gorgeous and
damp
. Suddenly, not discovering if she was wet all over seemed like a terrible waste. “It’s so,” he said, moving forward to catch her laughter with his mouth.

“I’m not supposed to complain about this.” Easing back, she tilted her head, one dark curl slipping into her eyes. “I’m supposed to just lie here and take it.”

Taking her statement for the invitation it was, he tossed aside the towel and shifted on top of her, careful to lift his torso off hers as they settled into the pillows. As usual, she realized what he was doing and grabbed his ass, pulling him down on top of her hard enough that his lips crushed onto hers. He gripped her hair in both hands, losing himself in the sensation of her tongue sliding sensuously over his. Tangling, teasing. His breathing hitched when she wrapped her leg around his hip and arched against him, rubbing her bare pussy over the rigid length trapped unforgivingly in his jeans. “Missed you today,” she whispered, biting his lower lip. “Don’t want to ever fight again.”

“I do.” He saw the hurt flash into her drowsy gaze before he grinned and licked a path down her throat. “Because I sure as hell have no problem with the makeup sex.”

“Jerk.” She laughed and smacked his shoulder before wiggling out from under his body. She sat up and grabbed the towel, briskly drying her hair.

“Jeez, shut me down, why don’t you?” Without bothering to hide it, he adjusted himself. Touching his cock through the denim added a new layer of torture. “I never realized you were into punishment, Mistress Jasmine.”

Her lips barely twitched. “I’m not. We just need to talk.”

“That sounds ominous. Are you leaving me for a Nordic ski instructor named Sven?”

“You know I can’t ski. Besides, I have this thing for emo rockers.” She gave him a flirty smile over one shoulder that didn’t quite reach her eyes and rose to her feet when he made a grab for her. “I need you to see something. Then you’ll understand why I was so out of sorts today.”

“I’ve already seen plenty, and now you’re walking away. Christ.” He flopped down on the mattress and indulged in an extended moment of masochism by watching her cross the room to the dresser.

Her body had started out as a damn work of art, and now that her curves were becoming fuller, she was even hotter. That tiny baby bump was going to do him in. He was probably developing a fetish.

Damn, he wanted to kiss and lick every square inch of her, then do it all over again.

“An envelope?” he asked as she turned back.

Saying nothing, she rejoined him on the bed and handed it to him. The name in the corner didn’t register at first. When it did, he glanced at her in surprise. “Your sister?”

She nodded, her eyes too bright.

He turned the envelope over, intending to pull out the contents, only to see it was still sealed. He flipped it over again. “Why haven’t you opened it?”

“Because I can’t.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them, and for a second, he was thrown back into the past.
Their
past, when she used to come into his bedroom at his parents’ house and they’d talk and laugh and play their guitars for hours. She looked just as young and innocent now as she had all those years ago, though she’d lived through more difficult shit than he would wish on his worst enemy. But it hadn’t hardened her. Somehow the beautiful streak of vulnerability he’d noticed the day they’d met still shone through her blue eyes and made his hands ball into fists against any unseen threat.

She was his, and he would protect her no matter the cost.

“Why?” He forced his voice to remain level. “Has she contacted you before?”

“No. This was the first time. But I needed to talk about it with you.” She lowered her head until the long hanks of her wet hair fell down over her cheek. “Maybe that makes me weak or foolish or sappy, but I needed you to tell me it would be okay no matter what. That if she wants to see me, it’s going to be fine. That if she never wants to see me, it’s not going to break me any more than I’ve already been broke.”

“And I blew you off,” he said, clenching his fist around the envelope for an all new reason. The thin paper wrinkled, and he smoothed it with his thumb.

“No, you didn’t. You were working and I was being a selfish brat. I’ve spent so many years without you that I guess part of me doesn’t believe this is real. That you’re really here and you really love me. That this baby is going to arrive and he or she is going to be whole and perfect and hopefully will pick the drums over the guitar, because he or she has true taste.” Her mouth quirked up on the last bit, but she still didn’t look at him. “This letter—it felt like the beginning of our end,” she whispered. “Here’s the other shoe. Now watch it drop.”

“Jazz, look at me.” When she didn’t, he cupped his hand under her jaw and lifted her head until they were eye-to-eye. “This isn’t our end. We don’t have one. We might have had the longest beginning in the history of life, but now we’re on the road to our future. No detours. No back alleys. No fucking shoes.”

“Why is she contacting me now? It’s been so long.”

“I have some ideas,” he said, wishing he could snatch back the words when she closed her eyes.

“You think she wants all the money I don’t have,” she said, sounding utterly exhausted. “Harper thought the same.”

“You talked about this with Harper first?”

“She was available,” she said, twisting the knife and leaving him to bleed.

He moved back and set the envelope on the mattress between them, hating its presence almost as much as he hated this endless loop they’d gotten caught on since this afternoon. Had they been overdue? Things had been going so well. In the weeks since he’d been back from rehab, they hadn’t fought once. All they’d done was talk, and laugh, and make love. And yes, there were times when he caught her looking at him too long and hard, as if she were waiting for minute cracks to form in his armor. Once an addict, always an addict some said, and he wasn’t naïve enough to think she never wondered if he’d fall off the wagon.

But that was one concern in the middle of a hell of a lot of happiness. They were finally building their lives together, and nothing else could intrude on their bubble of bliss.

Until this. And the work that had unintentionally taken him away from her when she needed him most.

“You should’ve told me,” he said, buttoning his jeans. “I can’t read your mind.”

He expected her to argue. Not to say softly, “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” He heaved out a breath and wrapped his arm around her, tugging her against his chest where she belonged. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there, baby.”

“It’s not your fault. You were just taking care. You know, because of that
urge
you have.” Her lips curved but it didn’t take a genius to see her heart wasn’t in it. She toyed with the button on his jeans, flipping it open again and nearly making him groan. “I have urges too.”

“Yeah, and yours aren’t helping mine when you’re sitting around naked and I have the hard-on from hell.”

Her giggle acted as a balm to his soul. He’d cheerfully kill to hear that sound every hour of every day for the rest of his life.

“You know, there’s one way we could stop debating what Molly wants,” he said, brushing a kiss over the top of her head. She smelled like soap and watermelon, as fresh and pure as a summer’s day.

Nodding, she picked up the envelope and pushed it at his chest. “You open it.”

“Is this a variation on how you open your Christmas gifts as if someone is giving you a poisonous snake rather than a good surprise?”

“Yes. Open it for me. Please.”

With one glance into those big, pleading eyes, he was sunk, and they both knew it. He slid his finger under the flap of the envelope and tugged out the single sheet of lined notebook paper, reading the words written in fat, loopy swirls as dispassionately as a trial judge presiding in court.

Jazz nudged his arm. “Well?”

He refolded the paper and slid it back in the envelope. Amazing how within a few moments, plans could begin to take shape in your mind, and then swiftly become so solidified that there seemed to be no other option. None you wanted to take anyway.

“She wants to meet with you. Us,” he clarified, because there would never be anything but an
us
in reference to either of them ever again. They were a team that had been benched for too long. “She’s heard good things about the band. Thinks we’re kickass.”

Jazz winced and cupped her hand over her belly. “Shh.”

He had to laugh. He swore all the time, from
fuck
to
damn
to
shit
and everything in between. But it was
kickass
that stirred her fledgling mothering instincts.

“God, I love you.” Her head came up and he could tell by her expression that he’d taken her by surprise. Good. He needed to do that more often. She needed to learn that not all boxes with pretty bows contained hissing, snapping creatures inside.

She deserved to be spoiled,
treasured
, and he intended to start now.

“Even though I’m occasionally witchy and try to give you a hard time for just being a decent guy?” She screwed up her mouth and toyed with the button on his jeans. “I get the money thing, I do, but I gotta say, it doesn’t matter to me.”

“Duly noted,” he said drily, stilling her hand before his cock did something unseemly like bust right through his zipper.

“I know we need money, especially if we’re going to buy a house—”

“There is no
if
. We’re having a baby. We can’t live here with these slobs forever.”

She lifted a brow at the piles of his clothes strewn around the room, along with sneakers, notebooks and assorted other crap. “Pot? Your kettle is calling.”

“Hey. You’re supposed to overlook my flaws.” He slipped his hand into her hair and turned her mouth toward his, brushing a soft kiss over her lips.

“I do. I try to.” She edged back and he smothered a groan as she gave him a serious look that proved any chances for sex were on a speed boat heading in the opposite direction. “There’s something else I have to tell you.”

“More revelations.” He took her hand and placed it on his chest, right over his heart. “Hit me.”

“When you didn’t call me back and the day wore on without hearing from you, a small part of me wondered if…” She trailed off, but he didn’t need to hear the rest.

“You wondered if I’d fallen into a baggie of blow.”

She lowered her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t really think it, deep down. I guess I still just worry too much.”

“You’re entitled. After what we went through, who can blame you? And yes, it was
we.
I was the one with the problem, but I dragged you down with me. And if you hadn’t been there, it’s entirely possible I’d still be in the same place.”

Her minty exhale puffed against his cheek. “You’re not mad?”

“No.” He tucked her hair behind her ears with gentle fingers. “I don’t blame you one bit for thinking that. It hasn’t been that long.”

“I know, but I’m supposed to believe in you. And I do, I swear, I just—” She shut her eyes, shaking her head. “I just keep wondering when I’m going to wake up and this is all going to go away.”

“Never. You’re awake, and it’s only going to get better from here.”

Her slow smile teased out her rarely seen dimples. “Not. Possible.”

We’ll see about that
.

“Don’t feel guilty for feeling what anyone would. Besides, all it does is provide me with more motivation to become the man you always believed I was.”

“That’s who you are already.”

“Getting there.” He nuzzled her neck, lapping at the beads of water still clinging to her skin. So many spots he hadn’t come close to drying yet. And others he hadn’t begun to get wet enough. “Even if you want me to hang out here all day, singing dirty songs to you while I lick your—”

“Gray!” Her screech ended on a laugh as she covered her belly. “The baby can hear you.”

“Hmm. The baby’s about to hear and feel something much more dirty than what I just said. A live re-enactment, let’s say.” She grinned, but he didn’t miss how her gaze shifted to the envelope he’d set next to his hip. Sighing, he pulled out the paper and held it out to her. “You know you won’t be able to relax until you read it. Which is kind of a hit to my skills of sexual persuasion, but whatever.”

She snatched the paper and read it quickly, tugging her lower lip between her teeth while he shifted restlessly and cursed his jeans. He was never wearing denim again. Better, he was never wearing denim again and she needed to start wearing something shapeless like muu muus. That was the only way he could concentrate on not wanting to jump her.
Especially
now that she was pregnant.

“She’s living in San Jose.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s near San Fran.”

“Since we’re doing geography lessons,” he leaned forward and kissed her bare shoulder, “can I map out some new territory?”