Page 84 of Cross the Line
“I know.”
“Like you asked. You know… to give you the chance to… to…”
Jayden’s hand crushes mine. No words. No fuss. He simply holds me in silence. That one touch becomes the buoy I desperately need. A reminder that I’m not that kid stuck in Havenview. I’m not the teenager scared to act on his feelings because the Lord might smite me—or worse, his grandmother might whip the skin off his bones.
“It was hard today,” I whisper, picking up the tea and swirling it while Jayden encapsulates my other hand in both of his. “Talking to Connie. It was fucking hard today. That one hour felt like forever. Like I was suffocating for an eternity.”
“You’re not suffocating, Sweetheart. Sometimes it hurts to breathe, too.”
I look at him, and yeah, he’s right. It does hurt to breathe right now. Like there’s a wound in my chest, and the air is slicing it open again.
“I… JJ… it felt too real today. It finally hit me that I’ve never been enough for them.”
I take a quick sip of the tea, trying to escape the sweet, nutty taste of the rooibos, only to go back for more when the fruitiness of the fig lingers on my tongue. It’s like proof that I don’t needthat—Jayden makes everything better.
“I don’t know why it hurt, because the truth is, I’ve never wanted to be enough. I never wanted to be someone they wanted to hold on to. Maybe that’s why they never loved me like parents should love their child. Maybe… maybe… I don’t know…”
“We are enough for the people who matter. The ones who deserve us.” I chance a glance at him. “You are so much more than enough to me, Eli… to Finley.”
“But you deserve better. Finley deserves more than…”
“More than?”
“Me… I guess.”
“That’s your opinion,” he says with a shrug, leaning closer, slowly, until his lips hover over my cheek and his breaths burn against my skin. “And although you are entitled to your opinion, I decide who deserves me. Who deserves my time—” he deposits a kiss on my cheekbone. “—and who deserves my energy—” another kiss. “—but most of all, who deserves my love.”
I lift my face to his. “Jayden…”
“It’s you, Eli,” JJ murmurs over my parted lips. One of his handsgrips my knee, spinning my stool to face him. “I decide you deserve me. I decide that you are so beyond enough for me.”
“Okay.”
“Oh-kay.”
Every inch of my body is trembling. Waiting for him to close the distance between us.
God, he’s so close. So close I can taste him—licorice and… home. Jayden tastes like everything warm, and comforting, and wholesome. He feels like that first moment you arrive home and take your first breath of safety.
Jayden is everything I never knew I could have. He and Finley are all I’ve ever needed, and Connie is right. All this time, I’ve allowed who my father is—what he represents, the expectations of the name I was born into—to dictate what I can and can’t have. I’ve allowed the guilt of not fitting their mold to diminish my worth, and I think that maybe I deserve more. I deserve better from myself.
“JJ…”
“Yes, Sweetheart?”
“I want you to kiss me now.”
His mouth is on mine in an instant with a garbled, “Thank fuck.”
Rough hands grasp either side of my face—hard and possessive—with the swirl of his tongue over mine. Each roll of his lips pulls me deeper into him. I brace my hands on his thighs and let him take everything he wants from me.
It feels good to be this wanted and needed—from the bite of his nails on my jaw to the rake of his teeth on my lips and the groans that vibrate down my throat, filling my chest, to bursting with his affection. With his love. And?—
“Fuck.” Jayden pulls away with a growl.
He’s heaving. I’m heaving. We’re equally breathless, and the burn of his stubble on my jaw is screaming for more. More kissing. More touching. More friction.
“Fuck, I’m coming… I’m coming,” he grumbles at the loud buzz of the doorbell and the constant trilling of his phone on the counter. He keeps grumbling all the way to the door. “This better be good. Swear to God if Courtney’s forgotten her fucking keys again, I’ll?—”
