Page 26 of Fight for You
“Yep, I know,” Jamie replied.
“Okay, well, thank you for funding my fiction habit. Now, so what I’m saying is, I know what the world says about love.” I pushed down a little farther into the tub until the suds tickled my jaw. “Kissing. Sex. Fire. Extended Os that could burn a housedown. But I’m beginning to believe love can be quiet. Gentle. Love can be … safe.”
Jamie watched me like I was scripture, meant for him to read with reverence.
“I want to respect who you are,” I continued, while something inside of me ached for him to hold me. Tochooseme. “Even if we never …”please don’t let it be so“… feel that fire, I’m done walling you out.”
“Glad to hear we can be honest with each other, Jordyn. That we can be friends.” Jamie’s brow furrowed as if satisfied with this.
“Yes … friends.” I breathed out the dreaded word with a well-placed smile. Let the record show, I wasn’t satisfied with what I just agreed to. But Jamie rescued me, and he was a good guy.
“I thought I was less of a man for a long time.” Jamie shifted, leaning against the counter. “My brothers turned love into sex. And sex became locker room jokes.”
“Even though we haven’t said much to each other in over a month, even I can tell you’re more than that, Jamie.”
Although I smiled, inside, my chest pulsed with longing. I wanted him to fall. Not into lust. But intome.
I almost smirked. How could I be thinking about the tall, muscular craving in front of me when a bum nearly raped me this morning? Still, rape was an everyday occurrence in some women’s lives—my life included. And what the two of us needed was time.
Maybe I could change him. Make him love me the way no man ever had.
And maybe in time, he could change me, and I would knowmeby the time he fell for me too.
A light flashed in Jamie’s eyes, and he smiled. “When I met you, I knew I was too young to know what love was, but your courage in that cage. The warmth you extended to me. Your heart … I know you guard your heart more now, but deep in me, I still believe you have the same beautiful heart, JorJor. I only just now saw a hint of it when my identity didn’t get a negative reaction from you.”
I chewed my lip, squeezing the face towel in my hands so tightly that my fingers cramped. The towel dropped onto the opposite side of the tub. No, I couldn’t laugh at who the man was. He deserved my respect and understanding. But I could ache inside forme.
“That is what makes me so fascinated by you.” Jamie lifted the towel from the floor that I suddenly had no energy to grab. Instead of handing it to me, he knelt by the tub and gently dabbed the curve of my face. My eyes fluttered closed, and I melted beneath the touch.Bliss. This would be painful. Denying my feelings for him, whileIbecame acquainted withme.
That was fine in the meantime.
I could wait.
I just hoped one day he’d choose me and fall in love with me. And maybe love for us, though it wouldn’t look like what was produced by the world, could resemble something special. Two broken people becoming whole together.
11
SANTA BARBARA
Jamie
I’d just toldJordyn who I was. Why had I hesitated? I’d been comfortable with myself for the longest. But before that?
I remembered Little Brody called me a eunuch. It was as if my eldest brother and tormentor had uncovered a hidden secret I’d tried desperately to bury and destroy because I couldn’t stand on equal footing with him. Couldn’t measure up to his standard. I’d wondered the same thoughts throughout my teenage years—thoughts of whether I could be attracted to someone. There was that time with Willow. I tried. But protection was at the crux of that. Then I’d tossed the notion into a closet, boarded it up, doused it in gasoline, and lit a match. No exaggeration. Now I trusted the man I had become—and I wasn’t any lesser of a man because of my identification as ace.
As I knelt against the freestanding tub, the towel in my hand brushed across Jordyn’s cheek. A smidge of dirt lingered from when that vagrant had grabbed her earlier.
It was strange. The same hands that wanted to feel the man’spulse fade into nothingness wanted more than anything to discover her. Every part of her. And even though Jordyn hated me, she’d so kindly acceptedme.The very part of me it took years to accept.
Instead of using the towel, my thumb brushed the corner of her mouth. My finger paused longer than necessary. Not because she was trying to tempt me. She did such a good job at that. But she wasn’t this time. This time, her eyes closed, and she seemed to lose herself in the touch while I lost myself in the nearness of her. Being near Jordyn was like standing on the edge of something sacred—and dangerously human.
Per other people … I wasn’t human.
People had a lot of misconceptions about asexuality. That those who identify as ace didn’t have desires. Couldn’t fall in love. Were cold.
Numb.
I’d been that, though, cold. Numb. The last seven years away from my cl—ahem, Clan MacKenzie was spent in a cold, numb world across enemy lines.
