Page 50 of Unspoken Confessions
18
Jameson
My lids fluttered open and I knew where I was immediately. I was still wrapped around Nick and I could tell by the light filtering in through the curtains that it was early morning. I stilled myself for a long moment, even holding my breath as I tried to make out if he was asleep or not. I smiled when I determined that he was still very much out.
As I closed my eyes once again, I pressed my lips against his skin.
I could have been listing off all the reasons why it was a bad idea. I could have made myself roll out of bed, so smoothly it wouldn’t have even woken him, and left. I probably should have. But I was pretty sure I was right where I needed to be and everything I would have come up with wouldn’t have convinced me differently. So, you know what? I saidfuck itand if shit rained down on me later, I’d deal with it then.
Yeah, fine, I got that there were many things going against whatever this was. And I understood that fooling around with someone that I was supposed to be protecting was a recipe for disaster. It wasn’t like I could change the fact that last night had happened. Even if I could, I was pretty sure I didn’t want to. Because last night something big had broken in both of us. It wasn’t just a much-needed release, it was proof that this pull between us was more than a temporary urge.
“You’re still here,” Nick said. His voice was thick with sleep and my dick responded to the sexy sound.
I grunted. It was a habit. With a deep breath, I closed my eyes for a second. Then I cleared my throat and tried again.
“Yeah. Is that okay?” I didn’t really care if it was or not. I was here. I’d stayed because I didn’t want to leave him after what happened.
I wasn’t like him. My experience with my sexuality had been very different from his. It was pretty fucking obvious that he’d hidden himself for a long time and I couldn’t even imagine how hard that must have been for him. Perhaps I’d judged him too harshly but I couldn’t take it back. The only thing I could do was apologize. But now wasn’t the time for that, so I held the words back a little longer.
“I don’t hate it,” he replied, and though his back was to me, I could hear the smile that crept across his face as he said those words.
I wrapped my arm around him tighter, pulling him into me so there wasn’t even a breath of space between his back and my chest. Then I buried my face in the crook of his neck.
It had been a long time since I’d shared a bed with someone. I hadn’t realized how much I missed the contact until now. Or it could have been that it was just him. Nick. I saw that I’d been disgusted by him for all the wrong reasons. Not that there were right ones. But I’d let him get under my skin and I seriously disliked him for too long.
“I’ve never woken up with someone before,” he whispered. That caught me by surprise. A million questions went through my head and before I could ask him, his low laugh filtered into my ears. “I’m guessing you’ve read enough about me to know that I dated Lila Minks for a while. It wasn’t real. But I’m sure with everything that’s happened you’ve figured that out.”
I hummed because what else was I supposed to say? I saw it the moment I laid eyes on the picture of the two of them. But I had to admit, hearing him tell me the truth of it all was much different than figuring it out. This wasn’t something he told many people, likely that Jen had been the only one that knew the truth outside the two of them.
We were quiet for a bit, and I wondered if he’d drifted back off to sleep. But then he cleared his throat and started up again.
“Is that why you don’t speak?” he asked and I felt his body tense against mine like he was waiting for a wave of my anger to wash over him.
I didn’t want to do this.
But I guess I kind of owed it to him.
Even if this didn’t go anywhere, and I didn’t think that it would be more than this moment right here and now, I owed him a reason. I needed him to understand why I’d went off like I had. And I suppose since he’d shared so much with me, I should at least give him a little of myself to show that meant something to me.
It wasn’t something I talked about. It cut deep and reminded me that inside, I was just a shitty person. I didn’t deserve anything good in life. Which now that I was thinking about it, included this moment with Nick.
“Because you said something that you couldn’t take back?” he asked when I hadn’t said anything for a long time.
“Yeah,” I said and it came out gruff and raw.
This would be the most I’d talked at one time in… I couldn’t say how long. There were a lot of words to come and it sucked that my throat already felt like sandpaper from what little I’d just said. This wasn’t an easy story and it couldn’t be boiled down to a few short sentences. This would open up more than my chest and the numerous questions it would lead to were things I’d have to answer. I would. I knew it, too. But there was a lot packed into me and what I was about to talk about.
“My wife,” I said and then my throat became too clogged to say anything else. I could tell by the way his body tightened that I’d shocked him. It wasn’t my intention but I could understand why. “Kelly.” It killed me to say her name and I tried so hard to fight the tears that were rising to the surface. “She died thinking I didn’t love her.”
He sucked in a small breath.
“We had been married for eight years,” I went on. “We met in high school, fell in love, and it was just right. So when we were eighteen we got married. I don’t regret that. I never will. But there are many things that happened and many ways that I handled situations that I do regret. I will forever carry that with me.”
His fingers laced with mine before he brought my hand up to his lips. It wasn’t so much of a kiss, more like he was pressing his lips onto my skin. It lasted so long that I wondered if he had plans of releasing me, and when he did, I wasn’t sure I liked it. But he kept his lips there, softly brushing over my skin as if he wanted me to know he was there and he understood how hard this was for me. The whole thing was very unexpected, especially since I was waiting him to jump away from me at any moment.
“We didn’t plan on having kids. But you know, sometimes life has other ideas. When we found out Kelly was pregnant, I was a mix of emotions. I was happy but also stressed because I wasn’t sure how we were going to make it work. I worked at a local lumber yard, made decent enough money, but the house we bought was falling apart left and right. Kelly waitressed at a small locally-owned restaurant.”
Times were tough but as long as we had time together then we were happy. We both worked hard, and at the end of the day, we went to bed wrapped in each other’s arms.
