The Storm Inside (15 page)

I shook my head vehemently, “No, there is no ‘our’ anymore. We started over today. This is our first date. You don’t know I like this movie any more than I know
you
like this movie.”

He slumped back against the couch and propped his feet up on the ottoman, getting comfortable. When he spoke it was an affected, high-pitched voice. He was mocking me. “So Eve, I’m not sure what movies you like, but I picked
The Princess Bride
. It’s one of my favorites and I was hoping we could enjoy it together.” He rolled his eyes at me, “Is that better?”

Ass.
I threw the water bottle at him as I plopped down on the opposite end of the couch, as far away from Mr. Sarcastic as I could get.

He, of course, caught the bottle and set it deftly on the coffee table before lunging for my feet and hauling me long ways across the couch, “If you’re going to sit that far away from me, might I suggest a foot rub?”

I glared at him from my new position, “Suit yourself.” If he wanted to give me a foot rub, who was I to complain?

Unfortunately I’d forgotten what a Jake Spencer foot rub entailed.

He had magical hands. Hands that knew every point on my foot to make me gasp with pleasure. Points that had a direct line to my sex. Somehow, by the end of the second foot rub, I was both incredibly relaxed and incredibly turned on.

Jake was an evil genius.

“Did that feel good?” he asked.

“Mmmmm.” I mumbled in my half-asleep state.

“Good.” I heard him reply.

I dozed off after that, waking from time to time to Jake’s fits of laughter or the sections he was reciting. My feet were still in his lap and he kept rubbing them from time to time.

It was so comfortable, so easy.

And then I was in his arms, so warm and strong, my face pressed up against his firm chest. “What’s going on?” I mumbled.

He chuckled, the rumble vibrating against my body, “You fell asleep. I’m taking you to your bed.”

I nodded and burrowed deeper into his chest. I liked it there. I wanted to stay there.

He laid me gently on my side of the bed, the side I’d always slept on. Somewhere in the back of my head I thought it was strange—or sweet—that he still remembered that. But as he pulled the covers up around me, I grabbed his hand. “Don’t go.”

He kneeled down beside me and brushed my hair back from my face, “Are you sure?”

I nodded sleepily. I knew what I wanted.

“Ok.”

A moment later I felt the mattress dip behind me, and a moment after that I felt Jake’s warm body curled up behind mine with his hand on my hip. It was chaste and comforting. I fell asleep feeling happier than I could remember feeling in a very, very long time.

Chapter 10

When I woke up the next morning it felt late. I could hear chatter outside my window and the sun was most definitely up.

And I was alone.

“Morning, darlin’,” Jake’s voice was deep and rough like he’d just woken up too.

I sat up, pulling the sheet up with me as I looked around for him. I found him sitting in the armchair at the end of the bed, sipping on a steaming mug of coffee. He half-smiled, his eyes wary as he waited for my reaction.

“Coffee?” I asked, suddenly desperate for a cup. My head was doing that dull thud thing it did when I slept later than normal. I was probably in caffeine withdrawal.

He hopped right up and disappeared into the kitchenette, returning a moment later with an identical mug.

I took a tentative sip—he even remembered how I took my coffee: just cream. “Thanks.”

He sat carefully beside me on the bed, sipping from his own mug, “How are you feeling this morning?”

I knew he was really asking if I was still ok with the way the night had ended. “Good. You?”

“Good. Best night of sleep I’ve had in a decade.”

The reality of that statement hit me in the gut. All of this was a really big deal, for both of us. This thing we were trying, it wasn’t just my heart on the line, it was Jake’s, too. That was a lot of pressure on both of us. It wasn’t as if we couldn’t handle the ups and downs of life, but broken hearts—more than once from the person you loved most—those were damn near debilitating. “I slept really well, too.”

“It wasn’t too soon?”

I smiled at him. For as strong and sure as he could be most of the time, he was very tentative right now. And with good reason. I appreciated how much he cared about my wellbeing. “For sleeping in the same bed? No. You were right, we aren’t total strangers and we shouldn’t act like we are. I didn’t want you to leave, and I’m glad that you stayed.”

“Good, I liked it. I missed it.”

Things were going to be awkward between us while we figured out our safe zones. Sleeping was safe, jumping back into sex might not be. Dates were safe, but I wasn’t ready to live together. I didn’t even think I was ready to be his girlfriend. I just wanted to get through a few days and see how things felt.

“One step at a time,” I repeated and took a sip of my coffee.

He brushed my hair back from my face, his fingers lingering against my cheek and I saw him sigh. “I missed
you
. Last night, all of it…” his voice fell away.

But he didn’t need to say anymore. I knew what he meant. The movie, the banter, the cuddling—all of that was who we were as a couple. “It’s nice to have my best friend back.” I agreed.

Jake squeezed his eyes shut and cupped my face with his large hand. When he opened his eyes I saw ten years of loneliness and I knew he saw the exact same thing in mine.

We were going to fall hard and fast, just like we did the first time.

“The gang is setting up on the beach.”

I threw back the covers and downed the rest of my coffee. “Well then let’s get a move on. Sun, sand, and sea wait for no man.” My heart could only take so much of the emotions rolling between Jake and I. The beach and the sun, surrounded by our friends sounded like a very nice place to be right about now.

In a matter of fifteen minutes I was safely in a bikini and under the shade of a giant umbrella.

Jake and Andrew started up a game of beach beer pong with the guys, which gave the girls free rein to grill me. Somehow I managed to answer most of their questions to their satisfaction. I don’t know how, I felt like I was trying to share and hide at the same time. It was too soon for me to understand my own feelings, let alone tell someone else how I felt. So I stuck to the facts. Facts were good.

“You did it in the fishing shack, didn’t you?” Sylvia asked.

“Yup.”

“He’s hotter than he used to be… is the sex?”

“Yup.”

“How?” Sylvia had leaned forward in her seat, and everyone else was straining closer, too.

I shook my head, “You all are worse than the Rays locker room.”

Jennie grinned, “And just how much time to do you spend in that locker room, Eve?”

I rolled my eyes, not that they could see it through my sunglasses and ball cap. “We haven’t seen each other in a long, long time… we had a lot of pent up sexual energy, ok?”

I really didn’t want to think about how skilled Jake was or how intuitively he seemed to know exactly what to do or when. That would involve me thinking about him having had sex with anyone other than me in the last ten years. And I was
so
not going there. Not yet.

Sylvia grinned, “He’s so damn adorable around you, Eve. It makes me wish Ricardo and I were just starting out again.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Ricardo worships the ground you walk on.”

“Not like Jake,” she stuck her thumb out at Jennie, “or Andrew, for that matter. You are both in that new love stage. I miss it.”

A weird ache developed in my chest. Yes, it was nice to have that intensity that comes in the beginning, but at this point I wanted what Sylvia and Ricardo had… history. There were so many blank years in ours. I knew him, and yet I didn’t. Underneath it all Jake was still the same man, the one I saw back then even when he couldn’t, but he was also completely different. He’d lived a decade in a part of the world I’d never seen. He’d probably been places, tasted foods, had adventures I knew nothing about. In many ways Jake was a stranger, and that feeling was bizarre.

“There’s a lot to be said for what you have with Ricardo.” My voice sounded as sad as I felt and that changed the mood of everyone around me. They backed off on the grilling, eventually wandering off.

Except for Jennie.

“How are you doing, for real?” she asked.

I shrugged my shoulders and grabbed an icy cold can of beer from the cooler. “I think the appropriate word would be ‘confused’.”

She bit her lip and gazed down the beach to where the boys were cheering themselves on to victory. “They seem to be getting along.”

I smiled, “Yes, they do. This is good.”

Jennie smiled and settled back into her chair, “It is good.”

I used Jennie’s momentary silence against her, taking the opportunity to turn the tables, “And how is Andrew in bed?”

She raised an eyebrow over her sunglasses but didn’t move a muscle, “I haven’t slept with him yet, jeeze. I’ve known him for, what? Three days?”

I chuckled, “You two are inseparable. I’m half expecting him to drop on a knee before we leave and whisk you away to Vegas.”

She smiled and I think she liked that idea. “I will say this, we’ve barely slept since we met. We haven’t stopped talking. I feel like I know him better than anyone else I’ve ever met.”

I knew how she felt. Jake and I were the same way, even all those years ago. “I like him. He’s a good guy.”

“Do you really think so? Because I’m afraid I can’t see straight.”

That was probably the scariest thing about falling in love. It happens so hard and so fast, it kind of feels like going crazy. And with your heart on the line, the stakes are incredibly high. “I do. I think he’s genuinely a good guy and he really, really likes you.”

Jennie smiled and sighed. She had it bad. “Please tell me if you get worried. I’m pretty sure I won’t be seeing straight where Andrew is concerned any time soon.”

A sense of unease hit me out of the blue, and I realized it was because as she said that, I was looking right at Max. Max who was gazing at Jennie.

I swallowed and debated what to say. “There is something…”

She shot up out of her seat so fast it scared me, “What?” she ripped her sunglasses off and grabbed my hands in a panic, “tell me.”

“Jennie, calm down.” I squeezed her hands to reassure her I wasn’t about to drop some huge bomb that would destroy her illusions of Andrew. “It’s about Max.”

She cocked her head and scrunched up her eyebrows in confusion, “Max?”

“He’s not happy about Andrew.” I thrust my chin in Max’s direction and Jennie turned to look with her mouth half hanging open.

“But he doesn’t want me,” she whispered.

“I don’t think he knows what he wants. I don’t think he’s ever known. And right now all he sees is Andrew.”

She turned back toward me, her eyes wide with confusion, “What does that mean?”

“It means nothing. He’s had every opportunity to date you and he never took that chance. He’s not the guy for you, he never has been and he never will be. But right now he’s confused. And I just wanted you to be aware.”

Jennie stared off at something past me for a long minute before looking back at me. “Ok. I’ll make sure I pay attention. He may be an idiot, but I don’t want to hurt him.”

We settled back into our seats and stared out at the water. Tomorrow morning we’d be headed home. I wondered what that was going to look like. How was it going to feel having Jake in my life again? How was it going to feel having
anyone
in my life again? I’d gotten pretty used to taking care of myself, not having to worry about how my plans affected anyone but me.

My happiness dependant on his happiness.

There was a certain amount of safety in loneliness.

Chapter 11

Jake and I were true to form. We fell into a comfortable pattern as soon we got home. He was careful not to push my boundaries. He took me out to dinners and movies, and most nights he wound up in my bed. We lasted an entire three days before we had sex again. After that it was like opening a can of worms. We were in the glorious honeymoon stage of dating.

I’m not gonna lie, we spent a lot of time in my bed for the next few weeks. We both went to work… and that was about it. Every other available moment of the day and night was spent together. We weren’t always having sex—we did a lot of catching up too—but there was a ton of sex.

It was that special, can’t-get-enough-of-each-other, need-to-learn-and-explore-every-inch, every sound, every need, sex. We were insatiable. We started off nearly every morning with sex, occasionally met for more at lunch, as soon as work was over, and again before sleep.