Jake Undone(40)

“I think I loosened up a lot tonight.”

“Yeah…I think so, too.” He smiled.

I pointed to the cookies. “Aren’t you gonna open your fortune? Take the one facing you. That’s the one meant for you. I’ll go first.”

I opened mine and read it out loud. “When one door closes, another opens.”

I thought about how true that really was. All of the painful moments in my life have led me right here to this amazing night with this amazing person. There was nowhere else in the world I wanted to be.

“Your turn,” I said.

Jake reached over, grabbed his cookie and opened it. “Big-butt girl make man smile.”

“No sir!”

“I’m kidding. I’m kidding.”

“What does it really say?”

He looked down and then up at me. “Now is the time to make a move.”

Oh, man.

Even the fortune cookie was wondering what was taking him so long. I had to laugh inside at the irony.

“Interesting,” I said.

He let out a deep breath that I could feel from across the table. “It is…very interesting.”

He continued looking at me in a way that was giving me a vibe that he wanted more with me. This man was going to drive me insane.

Then, he finally spoke. “Want to get going?”

“Sure,” I said.





***





We started to walk home, but it was pretty cold out, so when Jake noticed a cab approaching us, he hailed it.

Sitting next to him in the backseat was the closest I had physically been to him all night.

At one point, the cab driver took a sharp right turn, and I fell right into Jake. Instead of moving back to my spot, I stayed leaning against him and could feel his chest stiffen under me. He didn’t move as he looked out the window.

I had lingered too long to turn away, so I just stayed with my ear on his chest and listened to his heartbeat that was getting faster and faster, a rhythm I was pretty sure I had created. The heartbeat never lies. That told me this was a black and white situation. Either he didn’t want me there at all, or he wanted me there badly. I needed to find out which one it was soon before I completely lost my mind.

I closed my eyes and listened to him breathing. On the top of my head, I could feel his warm breath that smelled liked alcohol. The close contact and the scent of his skin mixed with cologne was making me wet. The booze in me and the pheromones in the air had made my usual want for him ten times stronger, almost unbearable. I took my hand and put it on his chest, watching it rise and fall against the thunder of his beating heart.

When the cab suddenly came to a screeching halt at our house, I reluctantly lifted myself off of him, and he paid the driver as we exited the car.

“After you,” he said turning to me, his eyes glassy, as he opened the front door to the building.

“You just want to check out my spectacular ass,” I joked, trying to lighten the mood after having thrown myself at him in the cab.

“You caught me,” he said as he walked up the stairs behind me.

When we entered the apartment, the living area was dark, but there was light coming from Tarah’s room, and I was pretty sure she and Ryan were both in there.

Drunk off him, I stopped in front of my bedroom door and desperately wished he would follow me in. “Thanks again for tonight, Jake. It was just what I needed.”

“I’m really glad you had a good time.” He stood there with his hands in his pockets for a few seconds before saying, “Good night.”

And with that, he walked past me back to his room, closing the door.

I wouldn’t get the answer to my black and white question until a chance encounter in the bathroom later that night.





CHAPTER 12





Needless to say, I wasn’t able to sleep at all. After changing into a pair of cotton boy shorts and a tank top, I just sat up in bed, shaking my foot nervously, trying to figure out what his deal was.

He flat out told me I was beautiful and made me feel like I was the only woman in that entire karaoke bar, but when given the opportunity to make a move, he wouldn’t budge. Even the damn fortune cookie was frustrated.

The alcohol was still making its way through me. I pushed off my covers and marched to the bathroom, noticing from under the closed door that the light was still on in his room.

When I entered the bathroom, Jake’s bare chest smacked me in the face.

“Whoa! Are you okay?” he asked as he rubbed his calloused thumb over my forehead. There was still a hint of alcohol on his breath. His scent and the quick contact of his chest against my breasts made me feeble.

“Yeah…I’m fine. Sorry, I didn’t think to check if you were in here. The light in your room was on, so I assumed you were in there.”