Page 67 of Goodbye Again
I shrug.
“I hate that she treats it like a fake job when, really, you’re helping kids sort through things at fourteen that our generation didn’t know how to deal with until they were twenty-eight.”
“Yeah...” my voice trails, then I look up at him. “Thank you. That makes me feel better.”
He tucks his fingers under my chin. “Being with you always makes me feel better.”
I shift on the bed so my head is on his chest, and he curls his arm around me. I hear the steady beat of his heart under my ear, making each of my breaths come out with calm trepidation. The fact that I’m no longer his niece’s therapist—technically—plays on a cycle, reminding me this is okay. But it’s the comfort of his arms and the expiration date of tomorrow that makes me turn my face up to his.
“Why is every day with you the best day I ever had?” I ask.
He waits, his eyes searching my face, and his jaw pulses. He doesn’t answer. Instead, his hand cups my neck and slides up my jaw, and he kisses me. Long and hard with the memory of a thousand kisses. Heat slides down my throat and simmers in my core.
I want him.I want him so bad. I pull at the waistband of his jeans. Need pulses against my panties. I flip open the button with ease and slide down the zipper. He wants me. I can tell as I ease my hand over his boxers.
“Babe,” he whispers against my lips as he pulls me on top of him.
The word gives me pause, and I slide a finger down his lips, resting it on his chin. “You don’t call me babe...”
The right side of his mouth quirks up before he bites his lip, then says, “Fine. Jules.”
I swallow my name coming off his mouth. “Better,” I breathe, pulling back and yanking him upright by the hem of his shirt so I can remove it. He takes mine off simultaneously, and I shiver as his hand encases my naked ribcage and travels down to my waist. The flick of his thumb against my hip bone makes me grind against him.
“Jules, are you sure?” he asks, like we haven’t done this before. Like he isn’t the best sex I have ever had. Like I haven’t wondered about him day in and day out since I first laid eyes on him.
“So fucking sure,” I say, then take his mouth, sucking and pulling on his bottom lip until he groans. Every piece of clothing is removed so quickly that it’s as if we never had anything on to begin with. Then he’s there. Just as I remember and yet so perfectly new.
A condom is rolled on in a rush, and the moment he enters me, my entire brain buzzes with how much I’ve missed this—how much I’ve missedhim.
“Oh!” I groan, letting the pulse between us wreck me.
“Why can’t I call you babe?” he asks, moving inside in slow, hard strokes. While the question throws me off, it doesn’t take me off the wave of ecstasy I’m reaching.
“You can call me whatever you want, JP. Just don’t stop,” I pant.
And he doesn’t. Not until I’m done. Sated. And passed out next to him. Love-drunk and happy, like he always makes me.
Afterward, my head sinks in my pillow and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. A combination of both escapes my lips as JP’s mouth falls down on mine.
“God, you make me feel things,” he whispers, trailing kisses down my jaw and neck.
“I know,” I admit. “This feels like...” I stop. Do I almost say love? Yes. But my brain stops me because it’s not that. I can’t tell if it’s something more or if it’s just something different.
“You know what I think about?” JP asks, cradling my body and staring down at me as I lay on my pillow. I shake my head. “I think of how we met on an airplane. I think of how you were doing absolutely nothing, and I was doing everything in my power to talk to you.”
I rake my hand through his hair and smile up at him.
“I was so intrinsically fascinated by you. I still am. But the more I get to know you, the more I know...” he inhales deeply, then kisses my chest—the warm skin above my heart, “My heart sees your heart.”
He turns his eyes to mine, and I smile against the emotions, putting my throat in a vice. “It does.”
seventeen
“ALL FLIGHTS ARE GROUNDED,” I state, leaning against the bathroom counter, wearing only his t-shirt. “Are you freaking kidding?”
JP peeks through the curtains in my bedroom window. “Have you looked outside?”
“It wasn’tthatcold last night. I can’t imagine the weather turned to the point of—” I freeze, mid-stomp, as I reach the window. The sky is white and the streets—even in the city—are covered in white. “Why can’t they just plow it and let flights leave?”
