Page 187 of Into These Eyes
“Get dressed,” I whisper, “before you make me do something really dirty.”
She straightens, her face red, mouth quirking at the corners. Pressing against me, she rises to her tiptoes, grabs my hard cock through my shorts and whispers in my ear, “Don’t you dare take care of this. It’s mine to take care of. Got it?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” I murmur, grinning like an idiot.
By the time I’ve changed, I find Jamie and Benny chatting in the shallow end of the pool under the shade-sail Benny and I installed. Two beers and a cocktail rest on the edge beside the large potted ficus. I take a seat beside the planter, grab a beer, and take a long swig. Then I slip completely beneath the water, revelling in the coolness as it steals the fire from my overheated body.
Pushing off the side of the pool, I zero in on Jamie, spear toward her and grab her around the waist. As I haul her over my shoulder and stand, her ear-splitting squeals have me laughing. I spin her around a few times, her fists pummelling my back, before I sink down in the water and position her sideways on my lap.
“You’re making Benny uncomfortable,” she protests, trying to wriggle out of my hold.
“Nah,” Benny says. “I’d only be uncomfortable if you two weren’t actin’ like idiots. It’s about time.”
Jamie looks from Benny to me, and back to Benny. “About time? It hasn’t even been a month.”
Benny picks up his beer, leans against the pool wall and takes a swig. When it drops away from his mouth, the bastard’s smirking. I shake my head, but he responds to my warning glare by pointing the neck of the bottle at me. “This guy here’s been pinin’ for ya half his life. Isn’t that right, Gav?”
Prick.
“I wasn’t pining over anyone,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Well,” Benny relents, “maybe pinin’ isn’t the right word. Which one is, Gav? Obsessed? Infatuated? Love-struck?”
With my spare hand, I splash him. “Fuck off.”
“No,” Jamie says, her fingers sinking into the hair at the back of my head. “I want to hear this. Which was it?”
“I’ve told you what you meant to me, how you helped me survive. But that was anideaof you. I didn’t know you. So how could I be infatuated, pine or obsess over you?”
Benny lets out a snort. “He’s pullin’ ya chain, girl. I spent twenty hours a day in a cell with this guy. I think I know him better than he knows himself.”
“Bullshit,” I say, widening my eyes in warning again when Jamie turns to look his way.
“Let me ask ya this, love. At that restorative justice meetin’ ya had with him, did he, or did he not, kinda, sorta, make ya think he was apologisin’ for what happened to ya dear Mum?”
She grins, her fingers tightening in my hair. “Oh, he definitely apologised. Grovelled, almost.”
Benny tips the neck of the beer at her and winks. “So, there ya have it. Told me he was gonna convince ya he didn’t do it, no matter what. Took one look at ya in the flesh and melted. I know, ‘cause he wouldn’t shut up about it. Only peace I got after that was when they let him out. Then I copped it all over again whenya went an’ asked him to move in with ya. Well, didn’t that send him into a tailspin.”
“Benny. Seriously,” I warn.
Jamie tugs on my hair. “Let him finish. Go on, tell me everything.”
I’d like to hightail it inside, but that hold she has on my hair tells me she’s not letting me run away.
Benny shoots me a wink, takes another sip of beer and smiles. “He barged in, actin’ like a big baby, tryin’ to use me as an excuse. I wasn’t havin’ none of that. So, then he says he couldn’t stand livin’ with ya because he’d fall for you. Said he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off ya. I knew it was way too late for that. Day ya took us to the beach … it was crystal fuckin’ clear he was a goner.”
The burn in my face has nothing to do with the heat. I’m going to kill him.
Except Jamie’s fingertips are lovingly tickling my nape, and her palm on my cheek is forcing me to look at her. Giving in, I meet her eyes, but all that stares back is a love so soft and sweet it melts my heart.
“And,” Benny adds, “it was obvious you felt the same way, love. Am I right, or am I right?”
“Clearly, Benny’s smarter than both of us,” she says, her eyes sparkling as she winks at me. We both know he’s a little off the mark, but not by much. Bringing her lips to mine, she gives me that affectionate kiss.
Okay, maybe I won’t kill him.
Around four in the afternoon, Benny announces it’s time to head home. The thought of him going back to that shitty caravan and the suffocating heat just about does me in. I appreciate it when Jamie offers him the guest room for the night, even if it means infringing on all the wonderful things I want to do to her, but he graciously declines.
