Page 40 of The Likelihood Of You

But my waffling mouth had different ideas.

“So, yeah. Opening up one back home was a write-off idea from the start. I barely had any savings, a little bit of inheritance, but I didn’t want to throw that away on a shit bakery that would go bankrupt within a year.” I felt the tears begin to border my lash line, waiting for a buzzword that would start their race down my cheeks. “Honestly, I don’t even know if opening one here is all that possible. I’m probably just stuck in a state of delusion about the whole thing. So this whole thing is probably just useless, and I’m wasting your time.”

Before I could even realise Jacob had moved, his hands were back on my shoulders, a mirror of how he held me last night. There was no sprinkler shower around us, but my face was still wet, only this time, it was the tears that had spilt out of me in the last ten seconds.

“Hey…shhh,” He whispered, pulling me into a hug so quickly I didn’t have time to question it. The heat from his hard chest was warming me like a hot water bottle on an autumn night, and the way he rested his head on top of mine made me feel protected, like an earthquake could rattle the city, and I wouldn’t feel a thing. I wanted to stay like this forever.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled against his chest, which was most definitely covered with tear stains now.

“Don’t be.I’msorry. I shouldn’t have asked.” His hands were on my waist now, rubbing them so soothingly I forgot what I was even upset about. Without thinking, I wrapped my arms around his waist, too, pulling us closer together. It felt familiar. Nice.

I felt him suck in a breath, my body falling deeper into his, before his voice coated my ears again. “It’s probably a good thing, the fact that you think your dreams are unrealistic.”

My head falls backwards, my eyes wide with anticipation, and that familiar ache invading my neck from looking up at him so often. “Why?”

“Because it means when they finally do come true, you’ll know how to handle them.”

I didn’t mean to gasp, but I couldn’t help it. You would, too, if words so utterly perfect slicked your ears and warmed your heart. They were so perfect, in fact, that I couldn’t hold in that one final tear that I was trying so hard not to let fall, but it did.

And before I could swat the thing away myself, Jacob lifted a hand from my waist and brushed the pesky thing away before it reached the curve of my cheek. His fingers were hot and weightless, igniting all those feelings I’d pushed away before.

“Is this going to be a thing now? Me wiping away your tears?” He asked softly, sporting a gentle smirk, his eyes holding me just as tight as his body was.

“Can it?” I whispered, not knowing why, but knowing I wanted to hear his answer anyway.

“If it means not seeing you sad, then I’d happily quit my job and trade it for this one.”

Oh my.

Do you know that feeling, where you feel so overwhelmed, but just as excited? So petrified but so equally happy? Like the feeling you get before you do something scary, how I imagine the seconds before you jump out of a plane would feel. You know it’s safe, otherwise people wouldn’t do it, or dedicate their lives to it, but there’s always something that seems to want to stop you.

That was how I felt in the seconds before I kissed Jacob Emerson.

Like a woman possessed, I lifted my hands from where they hung between our bodies and grabbed either side of his face, rising to my tiptoes to reach his face, and locking our lips with every ounce of strength I could find.

I blacked out a few seconds in, questioning whether I really was doing this. Really, I was waiting for him to pull away from me, let him be the sensible one out of us. But that pull never came. Instead, he squeezed my waist and tugged me towards him, which jolted me back into the moment.

Our mouths parted and closed around each other, with just as much ease as there was ferocity. His mouth was hot, and it didn’t take long for our tongues to dance with one another’s, awakening the swarms of butterflies that had laid low until now.

Soon, his hands began to slide up my body, glide over my shoulders and cup my jaw. His thumb brushed my skin so nonchalantly. My hands were pressed against his chest, now, stabilising my shaking legs.

I felt myself relax into the kiss the longer it went on. The shivers that had paraded around my skin had vanished, replaced by a full-body blush. The normality of it all, and when I realised how comfortable I was becoming, made me snap out of the trance our kiss was holding me in. And like an idiot, I pulled away.

“Oh my God, I’m sorry…” I rushed out, sucking some precious air back into my lungs. “I shouldn’t have…we shouldn’t… oh God.” I stepped back, Jacob’s hands falling from my face.

I tried to calm my heartbeat, but it was useless; I had so much adrenaline pumping around my body that I felt right enough to jog around Central Park eight times. I couldn’t tell what he was feeling, because I refused to meet his eyes, which I knew were on me from the burn I felt on my dipped forehead.

Luckily, I didn’t have to guess for long, because a beat later, his hands were back on my face, tilting my chin upwards to meet his eyes. His lips were pink and swollen, still with a part of me on them, but the rest of his face was so hard, so serious, I was certain he was angry about what I did—pouncing on him like that.

‘Don’t be sorry.” He breathed, dragging all my attention right back to his mouth. His thumb began to brush my skin again, while his other hand dropped to the back of my neck, angling my head back so sensually I was ready to combust. And what he said, and did, next, almost made that happen. “I’m not.”

His words sucked all the power, and air, out of me, my knees ever so slightly buckling, but the grip he had on my body caught me, as hepressed his lips to mine again. Every ounce of lust I’d basked in before flew right back to one hundred, and this time, I knew I wasn’t going to pull away.

Had he wanted this just as much as I did?I asked myself.

But the way Jacob gripped my waist, floated me up onto the countertop and perched himself between my open thighs was the only answer I was willing to accept.

A hushed moan left my mouth when he settled between my legs, which earned me a low grunt from him as I gently wrapped mine around his core.

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