Page 88 of Hung Up
“Absolutely not.” I reach for his hands, shaking my head. Instead of telling him my assignment is safe, I tell him, “I’ve never let anyone make my decisions for me, and I’m not about to start now. No one, and I mean no one, will get in the way of what I want.”
“And what do you want?”
I let go of his hands and cup his face in my hands, making sure he’s looking at me and really hears what I’m saying, because after this, there’s no going back.
“You.” That one word seems to take him by surprise, his face falling slack as his eyes frantically scan my own to make sure he heard me correctly. “I want you, Jesse Hayes. And I’m sorry it took me so long to admit it.”
“You want—” He stops, shaking his head. “Say it again.”
I chuckle softly before repeating, “I want you, Jesse Hayes. If you’ll still have me.”
He crashes his lips to mine, capturing them in a passionate, relieved kiss that has my insides feeling like jello. I wrap my arms around his neck and allow him to lift me, tilting my head so he can deepen the kiss. He’s walking us toward the couch and lowers me onto my back before coming to hover over the top of me. My legs wrap around his waist, but before I can arch up and press myself against him, he’s breaking the kiss.
“You mean it?”
“I mean it.”
“This isn’t a dream?”
I smile, shaking my head. “No, Pretty Boy. This isn’t a dream.”
“I don’t know.” He narrows his eyes at me playfully. “That seems an awful lot like something dream Faith would say.”
“Do you talk to dream Faith a lot?”
He hesitates, his lips pursing. “Sometimes. Anyway.”
His lips are back on mine, his hips dipping against mine. His hard length presses against my core through my thin pajama shorts, causing a moan to tumble out of me. I fist the back of his shirt and drag it up his back, wanting to feel his skin beneath my hands, when his phone rings. He groans and pulls away, reaching into his back pocket. Ignoring the call, he sets it on the coffee table and is about to reconnect our lips when it rings again.
“You can answer it,” I tell him, tilting my head to try and see who is calling. “I don’t mind.”
“I do,” he says, his voice thick with need.
I laugh, lifting my head to capture his lips, when this time my phone is the one pulling us apart. Gently pushing his chest, he climbs off me, falling against the couch with a huff. Just as I’m reaching for my phone, his ringtone mimics mine. We both raise a brow at one another as I answer Rylie’s call and he reaches for his, finally answering it.
“Hey, Rylie,” I say at the same time Jesse is saying, “What do you want, Lee? I’m a little busy.”
“Turn on the TV right now.” I reach for the remote, a deep furrow in my brow as I turn on my flat screen, the PBR coverage still on from the last time I had been watching it. My eyes widen as I see the headline on the screen, and I turn up the volume. “Do you see it?”
“Yeah,” I mumble, unable to fully comprehend what I’m seeing. “I’ll call you back.”
I turn to Jesse just as he’s telling Lee, “Dude, I don’t care. I was in the middle of?—”
Snatching his phone from his hand, I point at the television before speaking to Lee. “Sorry about that, Lee. I have it on right now. He’ll call you back.”
Turning back to the screen, the same headline keeps rotating across the bottom.
PBR Bull Riders All Forfeit Their Rides—Competition To Resume Tomorrow.
“Turn it up,” he says, his voice practically a whisper. I increase the volume, turning on the subtitles as well, before I sink back against the couch.
“We’ve never seen anything like this before,”the PBR reporter who covers the pre-event and post-event coverage says.“Never in the history of bull-riding have we encountered something quite like this.”
“This is unprecedented, to say the least, Ryan,”his guest and retired bull rider replies.“I mean, this late in the season, everyone is usually at one another’s throats, fighting for that top spot. I would’ve been itching to take advantage of someone’s absence.”
“Jesse Hayes has definitely made some waves over the years, and not always for good reasons.”Jesse tenses beside me, so I reach for his hand and give it a comforting squeeze.“I mean, you’ve seen the headlines. But this year he’s stayed out of the papers until fairly recently.”
“I don’t think that video is what some people believe it to be. It looked to me like they’re fairly comfortable with one another. Could there be feelings there? Could playboy Jesse Hayes finally be settling down?”
