Page 53 of Worth the Wait

I nod, but everything in me screams to ask him to stay. "Probably wise."

His kiss is gentle now, tinged with something deeper.

When he pulls away, reluctance evident in every line of his body, I find myself cataloging details with almost desperate intensity—the exact blue of his eyes in this light, the slight curl of hair at his nape, the defined muscles shifting beneath skin I'd been exploring minutes earlier.

He moves toward the connecting door, completely comfortable in his nakedness, offering me one final view of broad shoulders tapering to narrow hips and the perfect curve of his ass that has me second-guessing staying strong.

"Sweet dreams, Counselor," he says, throwing a devastating smile over his shoulder before disappearing into his own room.

I stand frozen, desire and frustration warring beneath my skin. The whiskey glasses remain on the nightstand, twin reminders of what almost happened. With a sigh, I reach for mine, draining it in one burning swallow.

We're playing an increasingly dangerous game, with stakes higher than either of us anticipated. Christine is watching, waiting for exactly this kind of slipup. Yet as I slide between cool sheets, alone but still carrying the ghost of Jackson's touch on my skin, I can't bring myself to regret it.

The stormthat’s been teasing the last few hours finally breaks as we pull onto the highway, rain pelting the windshield in angry sheets. We've been silent since leaving the resort, the space between us heavy with unspoken words and the echo of last night's interrupted passion. We had expected Miguel to join us on the drive back, but after getting pulled into a deeper discussion with one of the others, he told us to go on without him.

Traffic slows to a crawl, a sea of red brake lights stretching ahead of us. I watch rain trace patterns down my window, each drop racing another in zigzag paths that mirror the chaotic thoughts tumbling through my mind.

"We should talk about what happened," Jackson says finally, his voice low but clear above the rhythmic swish of the wipers.

Heat blooms across my skin at the mere mention of "what happened" as if our desperate joining could be reduced to such a clinical phrase. My body still bears the evidence of his touch—a slight tenderness between my thighs, a faint mark on my breast where his mouth had been particularly enthusiastic.

Traffic inches forward, then stops again. Rain drums against the roof, creating a cocoon of white noise that feels oddly intimate, as if we're suspended in a private bubble apart from the world.

"I don't regret it," I confess, the words escaping before I can catch them. "What happened between us. I should—God knows it complicates everything—but I don't."

Jackson's expression softens, the corner of his mouth lifting in a smile that makes my heart stutter against my ribs. "I don't either." His hand slides across the console to rest on my thigh. "But I understand your concerns."

"Christine is looking for any ammunition to use against us," I say, voice dropping lower.

"So what do we do?" he asks, the question surprisingly pragmatic. "Pretend nothing happened? Try to forget how perfectly we fit together? How your body responded to mine?"

His words send a flush of heat cascading through me, images from the other night flashing vividly behind my eyes—his mouth on my neck, my breasts, between my thighs, my back arching as he pushed inside me, the way his muscles tensed beneath my palms as he moved.

"We can't just?—"

"What if we had an arrangement?" Jackson interrupts, his eyes briefly meeting mine before returning to the road.

"An arrangement?" I repeat, the word feeling strange in my mouth, clinical and cold against the heat building between us.

"Clear boundaries," he continues, voice measured, reasonable. "Absolute professional distance during office hours. No personal conversations at work, no lingering glances, nothing that could give Christine leverage."

I blink, surprised by the pragmatic approach—so unlike the passionate, impulsive boy I'd known in high school. "And outside work?"

The smile that curves his lips sends heat spiraling through my core. "Outside work, you’re mine.”

"You'd be satisfied with that?" I ask, skepticism edging my voice. "Secret meetings and stolen moments?"

His laugh is low, rich with suggestion. "I didn't say I'd be satisfied, Counselor. I said I would agree to it."

"And if one of us wants more?" I challenge, though the thought of "more" with Jackson awakens a longing I've been denying since our paths crossed again.

"Then we renegotiate," he answers immediately, confidently. "Like any good contract."

The absurdity of it hits me—treating desire like a business transaction, passion like a clause to be revised. Yet there's something undeniably arousing about his methodical approach, the controlled restraint that hints at what might happen when that control finally breaks.

"This would be a terrible idea in court," I say, my legal mind fighting a losing battle against the liquid heat rushing through my veins. "Too many ambiguities, too much room for misinterpretation."

"Then we'll have to be exceptionally clear," he counters, his voice dropping to that register that turns my insides to moltenlava. "Explicit consent. Detailed parameters. Specific definitions of what constitutes professional versus personal interactions."

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