Page 68 of Actually Yours

“I waited for you,” he says in a low voice, his head now resting on mine. “At the café and just in general. I waited for you to get over my brother and then you came to my door looking for him…”

I interrupt him, needing to make my intentions that night crystal clear. “That was to kick his butt.”

He chuckles. “I know. But then after that…the whole dating plan…what am I supposed to do with that?”

I lift my head away from his shoulder, turning his face to mine with my forefinger. “I didn’t know you wanted to do anything…with any of it. I didn’t know.”

He is solemn as he stares back at me. “Do you know now?”

My entire body tingles at this question, asked in that deep, deep voice of his.I do know now, but am I brave enough to do something about it?The trickle of anxiety turns into a river and I’m drowning in it. If I make a move towards Jake, I’d be risking heartbreak. Real heartbreak.

The weight of this decision forces me back onto the sand behind me, Jake’s jacket doing its best to act as a blanket. Jake follows me down, lying next to me, our faces only inches apart.

“Amelia?” He says my name as both a question and a plea, and, my fears subside.

I don’t think anymore. I just do.

Leaning over, I close the distance between us, pressing my lips against his. They fit perfectly against him and feel as firm and soft as I’d imagined they would.

How can lips be both firm and soft?

All thoughts leave my brain as Jake takes over, turning the kiss from a gentle exploration of each other to something more, something demanding. Something that feels like the best kiss I’d ever had. As he deepens the kiss, his hands sink into my hair, pulling me closer, closer and I comply, wanting to crawl under his skin and never leave.

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” he mumbles as we come up for air, our lips swollen from the intensity of that kiss. “For so long.”

I don’t answer him, instead pulling his face back to mine, determined to get lost in the wonder of his kisses again. Forever this time. He rolls me over so I’m lying on my back and hovers over me, raining gentle kisses all over my face, his lips velvety soft on my eyelids, my nose, my lips, before moving to my cheeks, brushing his lips over them, once, twice, three times.

“I’ve wanted to kiss your freckles from the minute I met you,” he says, his voice low and gravelly, stealing my breath away. “Every single one of them.”

I melt at this. At the thought of him delighting in the freckles I painstakingly cover up every morning.

This. Being with Jake like this. I could do this forever.

Panic hits and I struggle to breathe.

What am I doing? Should I be melting into Jake? The one man with the power to hurt me should he choose to?

My head spins as the implications of what we’ve just done sinks in, even though I wanted to do it with every fibre of my being, and I sit up, pushing him away both literally and metaphorically.

“Amelia?” Jake looks at me, with a patient, almost resigned expression.

“I need a minute.” My voice is breathless, like I’d just run a marathon. My heart certainly feels like I had, what with all the blood pumping that went along with that kiss.

“Take a minute. Take two, but please don’t shut me out.” He’s reading my mind and can see that I’m scrambling. Away from him, it would seem.

“I think we should go back.” His face falls. “Bella will be looking for me.” This is true, but it was also true ten minutes ago, twenty minutes ago, without me giving her one single thought.

“OK.” His voice is now devoid of any emotion. He stands up and wipes the sand off his pants. Leaning over, he offers me his hand, his big strong solid hand that seems to always be there to hold me steady. To help me up. To keep me up.

“Thanks.” I take his hand and with some trouble, stand up next to him, brushing the sand out of my hair, my face, my dress, his jacket. I just know I’ll be finding sand in places for days to come. “Let’s go?”

He’s no longer looking at me. His hand, which was holding mine, is now tucked into his pocket. With a muscle twitching in his cheek, he nods. Once. “Let’s go.”

The silence between us on the walk back to the Brighton Beach Club is no longer comfortable but instead is fraught with all the things I wish I could say. If my mind would just unjumble itself. I’m reeling from that kiss and all the emotion that came with it and I know I’m too emotionally stunted to put any coherent words together right now.

“I’m sorry,” I say again.For what, the hundredth time?

“It’s OK.” His voice is dull, so unlike the voice I’m used to, the one that feels like a caress.

---