Page 65 of On the Line

“Why didn’t you take that risk?”

“That’s a bigger conversation. It’s one we need to have, but this isn’t the right place to have it.” He kisses my forehead as we move together on the dance floor. “Just know that the answer to your question about what I’m looking for iseverything.”

That doesn’t even make sense. Jameson Flynn doesn’t do relationships. He doesn’t want marriage and kids—he told me so himself, and his sisters have confirmed it unintentionally with things they’ve said about him. So what doeseverythingmean for a man like him?

“I’m”—I close my eyes for a minute as he spins us slowly around the dance floor—“still trying to wrap my brain around all of this. So you’re going to have to defineeverythingfor me.”

His arm tightens around my lower back, anchoring me to him. “Whatever you want, I want that with you. I want to be there to support you, and I want the same in return. I want you to experience what it means to be loved by someone who actually treats you well, and I want to be that person. Maybe I wasn’t ready five years ago, but I’m ready now. And ... I guess I’m hoping I’m not too late?”

This feels like such a monumental admission to be making when we’ve been together for a few hours. But then, the memories we’ve built together over the past few months flash through my head: the phone calls before I moved, the way he made sure his sisters were working on my house, the primary bedroom and bathroom he designed, our conversation at the Rebels game and how he brought me dessert afterward, the way he came over and took care of my kids during the snowstorm, how he suggested he be my date for this wedding so I didn’t have to face Justin alone.

All the big and small ways he’s shown up for me, supported me, helped me build myself back up ... they’re all there, coalescing themselves into a movie trailer in my mind. And the image I really can’t get out of my head is the one of him sitting on my couch, watchingTangledwith Iris and Ivy—how natural it felt picturing him as a fixture in the home he’s helped me build for my family.

“I feel like I’m still trying to make the shift from thinking we’re friends to understanding your true intentions. But no,” I say as I reach up and rest my palm against his cheek, using my thumb to smooth the worry lines at the corner of his eyes, “you’re not too late.”

“We’re still going to take this slow.”

My laugh has my shoulders shaking. “Slow?” I drop my voice to a whisper and add, “You made me come three times before we even got to the wedding. That’s not slow.”

He grins. “I meant the emotional aspect of this. I know what you’ve gone through, and I know you’re not done grieving. I’m not delusional enough to think you’re ready to jump into a full-blown relationship.”

I consider what he’s saying and realize he’s probably right. Even though I want what he’s offering, and I’m mostly ready, there are pieces of me that aren’t. “Maybe slow is best.”

He lowers his head and says, quietly, “That’s fine. But this body ismine, and taking this slow isn’t going to change that. Okay?”

“Is this your way of saying you want to be exclusive?”

“Yes. I don’t share.”

“Since you walked back into my life, you’re pretty much all I’ve thought about. First, because you kept giving me glimpses of who you were beneath this hard exterior you show the world. Then, because of the way you kept showing up for me and helping me get back on my feet. And then,” I give him a little smirk as I say, “because I was so attracted to you—still—that I couldn’t stop picturing myself with you.”

With his arm that’s behind my back, he pulls me flush up against him so I can feel how hard I make him. And all I want to do is find a private place where I can fuck him again. At thirty, I’d thought the best years of my sex life were behind me. I had no idea what I was missing, and now that I do, I feel like a horny teenager.

“You keep talking like that,” he says, “and we’re not going to make it back to that bed before I lift this dress and push inside you again.”

Images of him sliding this tight dress up my thighs, pulling my soaking wet lace thong aside, and then filling me, are taking over my brain. I need himnow. I’m about to suggest we go find an empty bathroom, utility closet, office—any place, really—when Dale walks up and punches Jameson in the shoulder.

“Hey,” Dale says, “we’re getting more drinks. You want to head to the bar?”

While I mentally curse my little brother for unintentionally being a cockblocker, I’m thrilled my siblings are welcoming him into the fold in a way that they never did with Josh. He was always a bit of an outsider with my family, as I was with his.

Jameson looks at Dale and Tim, then back at me, as if he’s weighing whether it’s more important to be in my brothers’ good graces or finish what we just started. “Sure,” he says to Dale, then asks me, “What can I get you?”

I give him my drink order and he drops another kiss on the top of my head before he turns to follow my brothers to the bar, and I return to the table where my sister and sisters-in-law have gathered.

“Holy shit, he’s got itbad,” Paige says.

“Yeah, he does!” Dale’s wife, Laura, laughs and looks over at me. “I think this is the first time he’s stopped touching you all night. I swear the man ate one-handed so he could have his other hand on you at all times. The way he was rubbing the back of your neck after they cleared the plates ...” She fake swoons.

“You said you were bringing afriend,” Tim’s wife, Melissa, emphasizes.

“Wearefriends,” I say cautiously.

“But also, clearly, much more,” Paige adds. “You’ve been a ‘thing’ for a while.” Then she proceeds to tell them about the hockey game where he threatened to rip any jersey off me unless it had his last name on it.

“You weren’t even there,” I complain.

“Yeah, but you told me about it in excruciating detail, so it felt like I was!”

---