Page 82 of A Heart Worth Finding
“Jess,” he said, that single syllable a sigh as it left his lips.
“Jack,” she replied, voice shaking.
It was unfair, really, how good their names sounded together. And how badly Jessica wanted to always see and hear them side by side.
Jessica and Jack. Jack and Jessica.
Jack stepped forward, and the tips of her breasts brushed against his hard chest, causing her to suck in a sharp breath. They’d been close like this in the month since getting back together, but never with this same intention. Knowing whatcame next lit up every nerve ending in her body, set her blood on fire.
He laughed, reaching up to twirl a lock of her hair around his finger. “You feel it, too, don’t you? Everything is about to change, sunshine. I bet your skin tingles when I look at you. I bet you’ve spent these last few months wondering what new tricks I’ve learned.” He paused, brushing another finger along the line of her jaw. When he spoke again, his tone had gotten impossibly deeper, voice barely above a whisper. “And I bet when you’re in bed at night, feeling lonely, you think about me while you get yourself off. Picturing my fingers replacing your own. Imagining what it would be like if you finally got naked with me again.”
Jessica’s heart rate rose to dangerous levels, her skin prickling with a flood of adrenaline.
The thing was, he wasn’t wrong.
In the days and weeks—and okay, months—after Mexico, Jessica had done exactly that. Had touched herself at night thinking of him, wondering what he would do to her if he was there, what she’d do to him, and what they’d do together. Imagining all the things they would try if they’d been given the opportunity to explore their sexual appetites together.
And since Jack had reappeared in her life, she’d had more than one filthy dream about him, her unconscious mind conjuring up all sorts of pleasurable positions she and Jack could find themselves in.
It was finally time to unleash all of those fantasies.
Jack braced a hand on the wall by her head, leaning in, outwardly calm. But Jessica was close enough to see his pulse jumping erratically along the vein in his throat. All she’d have to do is raise onto her tiptoes, shift forward a bit, and her mouth would settle against his.
In her last relationship, the sex had been almost clinical, and rarely—if ever—had Silas scratched that desperate itch inside ofher. But Jack had been her first, and she hoped he’d be her last. He hadn’t spent their time apart like a monk, and she could admit the prospect of handing over control of her pleasure to him thrilled her. To let him help her figure out what she liked and didn’t like, in a way that none of her previous partners—all two of them—ever had.
“Jess,” he whispered, “if it makes a difference, I want you so bad I can’t think straight. You are on my mind every second of every day. I’m going crazy. This has always been inevitable. I always knew we’d end up here again. Please put me out of my misery.”
With his admission, that invisible string between them pulled taut and tugged. Almost against her will, Jessica crashed into him, fusing her mouth with his.
THEN: April 8, 2020
It smells like you.
The words rattled around Jessica’s head as she checked out, not one, but two, bottles of the lotion Jack had found for her tucked into an adorable, reusable canvas bag with the shop’s logo on the side. Jessica had been pleased to find the shop also had a website, and after a brief conversation with the owner, learned she could order online when she ran out. She had a feeling she’d be using this lotion until she died…or the store stopped making it.
They piled into a van to head back to the resort, each of the women armed with bags exactly like Jessica’s, plus others filled with the day’s spoils.
As they rode, the windows down and whipping Jessica’s hair into a cyclone around her head, Jack slid his arm across the seat back behind her, rubbing gentle circles on her neck.
Grounding her.
She knew he didn’t even realize he was doing it, but she was more thankful for his touch in that moment than she could say. The closer they got to the resort, the more her mind spun out of control. The clock on their time together ticked closer to zero, reverberating in Jessica’s thoughts.
“I’m not ready to say goodbye,” she blurted, looking up at him.
He gave her a sad smile in return and leaned forward to press a kiss to her temple. “Me neither.”
When they pulled up to the resort, before Jessica could head inside, Jack pulled her to a stop just outside the entrance.
“What’re we doing tonight?” he asked.
“I don’t know yet,” she said. “What do you want to do?”
“Whatever it is you want to do.”
“Gosh, you guys are cute,” someone said from behind them, and Jessica glanced over her shoulder at her mom. “And I really hate to steal her away from you, Jack, but we’re having a girls’ dinner tonight. I promise I’ll give her back after.”
Jessica groaned. She didn’t want to be apart from Jack too long when their time together was so limited, but she’d hardly spent any of this vacation with her mom, so she couldn’t talk her way out of this one.
