“No!” she shouted. “No, you don’t get to do that after you were just inside me not even five minutes ago! You do not get to be all weird and withdrawn and noncommunicative, do you hear me? Talk!”
She jabbed me in the chest with her finger. Glaring down at me with her dark hair wild all around her face and her eyes blazing black fury, she was a little bit terrifying.
But I was madly in love with her, so I had to tell her the truth. “I told you once wouldn’t be enough,” I said gruffly. It sounded like an accusation.
“So? And?”
It was a challenge, which pissed me off.
“So,” I snapped, “you fucking seduced me!” Her eyes flared in outrage, but I was only getting started. “And now you’re telling me this weekend is all I’m getting! And I already told you I didn’t want to fuck this up! So now it’s too late because it is fucked up because I won’t be able to have you just once and I’m going to go fucking insane trying to keep my hands off you now, because to you this was only sex but to me it was a lot more, and you told me I was beautiful!”
I roared it into her face with so much force her hair fluttered back from her cheeks. I stared at her, panting, enraged, all the tendons standing out in my neck.
Then her eyes softened and she smiled. “Oh, Jax,” she said tenderly. “We’re going to have to do something about that temper.”
She took my face in her hands and kissed me.
I was completely confused.
“Kiss me back!” she demanded when I remained frozen beneath her.
I sputtered, “Are you having some sort of psychotic break I should be aware of?”
She sighed and tucked her face into the space between my neck and shoulder, snuggling closer to my body. “You conveniently forgot about the ‘ten or twenty times’ part of our conversation, Beastie.”
When I remained stiff and unresponsive, she sighed again. “And the part where I asked if that would all be in one day and you said you’d need a lot more time than that?”
When I still didn’t say anything, she tapped me impatiently on my sternum. I turned my head and looked at her. She was smiling up at me indulgently, like I was a giant, fussing baby.
“I’ll be very clear, since you seem to be having trouble processing what I’m trying to say.” She cleared her throat, becoming businesslike. “Mr. Boudreaux. When I said we were having a sex weekend, I didn’t mean we were only having a sex weekend.”
All the breath left my body in an audible rush. I put my hand over my eyes to hide my relief.
More gently, she said, “I’m not putting any rules on this. When I said sex didn’t have to change anything, that was the truth. I hope it doesn’t make things awkward when we get home if—if—one of us decides it’s better to remain friends. Seeing as how this is a business deal and all.”
I couldn’t help myself. I growled.
“I know,” she whispered. “It’s an odd situation. For us both, obviously. But if it even has a chance to work out, we have to promise to be completely honest with each other.” There was a long pause. “And I was being honest when I said I thought you were beautiful. So. There’s that.”
After I corralled my stampeding emotions, I griped, “You’re not so bad yourself.”
She burst out laughing. “Such flowery, romantic words! Oh, I’m overcome!”
I rolled her onto her back, pinned her down, and kissed her all over her face as she laughed and laughed and my heart expanded like a balloon.
The problem with balloons is that at some point they have to either deflate or burst.
After I brushed my teeth and changed into clean clothes, I left Bianca dozing in my bed and went downstairs to find my parents.
They were eating breakfast in the solar off the kitchen, a large, sunny room with a glass ceiling to let in the light, the noisy chatter of my mother’s caged songbirds coloring in the air. I stood outside the doorway for a moment, watching them, a band of steel tightening around my chest.
What had Bianca told them? And would it change anything?
My father looked up and saw me standing there before my mother did. His face transformed. “Jackson,” he said, smiling. “Good morning.”
My mother looked up, slowly set her fork down onto her plate, and blinked, gazing at me like she’d never seen me before.
All in all, it was unsettling.
I walked stiffly to the table. My father stood. I cleared my throat, awkward words of greeting on my tongue, but he canceled that plan when he opened his arms and grabbed me in a bear hug, squeezing tighter than a man in his seventies should be capable of.