Seaside Sunsets(28)

Oh God. What was she doing? She needed to wake him and let him decide, but he felt so good, so warm. So safe. She tried to hold back the last thought, but it pressed in close until it nearly suffocated her and she had to get it out.

So loving.

She shifted her hips a little and pulled the blanket up over her thighs. She’d never imagined herself being comfortable naked in front of anyone, much less a man she’d known for only a short while, but with Jamie, everything felt natural.

“Careful moving like that. You’ll wake certain parts of me you might rather leave sleeping.” Jamie’s voice was low and rough against her neck.

She turned in his arms so they were nose to nose and touched his stubbly cheek with her hand. “Don’t you have to go back home?”

He opened his eyes and pulled her against him. “Are you kicking me out?”

“I don’t know. Have you spent the night out before when you were here with Vera?” She lowered her voice to a seductive whisper. “Or will you staying over make me a bad girl?” She felt him get hard as he tightened his grip on her.

“I think you have the whole bad girl thing down pat, but we’ll keep that our little secret.” He kissed her softly and smiled. “I haven’t left Vera overnight while I was at the Cape before, but I’m fairly certain that she knows we’re sleeping together.”

“Well, yeah, but why throw it in her face?”

He pulled back. “You are kicking me out.”

“Not because I want to,” she protested. “Just because I don’t want her looking at me sideways tomorrow. Like I soiled her perfect grandson.” She stroked his cheek.

He rolled onto his back with a dramatic sigh and arced his arm over his eyes. “You don’t want people seeing me take the walk of shame—that’s what this is about.”

She draped an arm over his chest and pushed herself up so she was peering down at him. Her hair curtained their faces.

“Walk of shame? I don’t care who else sees you leaving. I just don’t want to disrespect Vera.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He said it with a serious tone, and although she couldn’t see his eyes beneath his forearm, she had a clear view of his sexy little smile.

She pressed her lips to his.

He pulled her on top of him, chest to chest, thigh to thigh, only his hard length between them. Her engine revved up again, and she wondered how she’d gone twenty-seven years without Jamie Reed’s arms around her.

“Okay, I’ll leave in a minute.” He gathered her hair and draped it over one shoulder, then traced her cheekbone down and around her jaw with his finger. “I’m falling hard for you, Jess.”

Ohgodohgodohgod. He felt it too. “So you aren’t this loving and sensual with every woman you date?”

“Not even close.” He searched her eyes and drew his brows together. “Uh-oh. I played my hand too soon, didn’t I?”

She smiled at that. How could he think that she wasn’t falling head over heels for him? She felt like everything she did screamed it. “Not even close to too soon.”

In the next breath, he rolled her beneath him and kissed her. His hazel eyes were filled with emotion mirroring her own intense feelings.

“I’m not falling for you.” She tried to keep a straight face, but when the smile in his eyes faded, she couldn’t play out the ruse. “You’ve swept me away, Jamie, like Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. You start out soft and magical, and then there’s this intensity that takes my breath away and makes my body ignite into flames, and then there’s the softness again. And just when I think we’re as close as we could get, you surprise me with something as simple as a kiss on my temple—which I love by the way. And…” She realized she was going on and on, and he was smiling down at her like she was all he ever needed.

“I don’t mean to ramble, but I’m so comfortable with you, like we’ve been together forever, and there’s still so much we don’t know about each other. And that should scare me silly, but it doesn’t.” She breathed deeply.

“Because you have nothing to fear when you’re with me, Jess.”

She sensed he was right, but suddenly it wasn’t enough to say she was comfortable with him, because what she felt was so much bigger than comfortable.

“Did you know that without rosin, the bow slides across the cello strings and makes a faint whispery sound, or no sound at all? It’s the rosin that provides the friction in order to produce sound when it’s pulled across the strings. Before you, Jamie, I was whispering through life. With you, I’m whole. I’m melodious and tuneful. Pure musicality.” She smiled up at him. “You’re my rosin, Jamie.”

“Jessie,” he whispered, and touched his forehead to hers.

He didn’t need to say anything more. She felt his feelings seep through his skin to her very soul, coming together with hers and filling all the lonely, empty spaces she’d always known were there.





Chapter Thirteen


JAMIE AND JESSICA spent the next few days enjoying each other, the sun, and their friends. Jamie took his normal morning runs with Caden, Evan, and Kurt, if he was around. Yesterday Pete joined them while Jessica had breakfast with the girls. After worrying about just how much of their relationship Jessica had shared with them, Jamie finally got up the courage to ask her if she was sharing the intimate details of their lovemaking. Jessica had pinked up when she’d said, I didn’t, but not because I’m embarrassed about it. I didn’t tell them because I don’t want them thinking about you in that way. He’d loved the little possessive comment, especially since she didn’t act possessive in any other way. He’d never dated a woman who didn’t watch him when other women were near, but Jessica had a quiet confidence about her. It was like his straying never crossed her mind—which was a good thing, because he was as loyal as a junkyard dog, and he would never hurt her in any way.

Vera joined them for afternoon outings to the bay and visits to nearby towns, like Chatham and Brewster. Jessica and Vera got along well, and both were excited about Jessica’s joining the quartet tonight. Come evening, Jessica and the girls from Seaside threw together salads and grilled, and they all ate dinners together in the quad. When the stars came out, they fell into Jessica’s bed or the dunes by the ocean, and made love until they were too exhausted to move. Jamie went back to his own cottage in the wee hours of the mornings and tried to catch up on his emails, but after one or two emails, he was just too wiped to focus, and caught a few hours’ sleep instead. All the while, he craved the day he could wake up with Jessica in his arms. For now, they chose not to take advantage of their close living situations to the fullest extent. Vera was kind enough not to make mention of Jamie’s early-morning returns, and although he doubted she’d care if he stayed with Jessica until morning, that didn’t lessen the guilt that he knew he’d feel for doing so. Self-inflicted guilt, of course, but it was what it was.

Thursday morning he was heading out for a run with Kurt and Caden when his phone rang. He blew out a breath, debated ignoring it, but gave in to responsibility when he saw Mark’s name on the screen. Shit. He’d blown off a few emails from Mark and a number of other employees the last two nights out of sheer exhaustion, and he hadn’t checked them yet this morning.

“Hey, Mark. How’s it going?” He twisted the mood ring on his finger. Every time he looked at it he thought of Jessica.

“How’s it going? Really? You knew we had shit going down over here and you’ve completely ignored my emails and my texts.”

“What? Hold on.” Jamie scrolled through his phone. He didn’t have a single text from Mark. “Mark. I don’t have any texts from you.” He paced the cottage, anxious to get on with his run and hoping Mark was overreacting.

“My ass, you don’t. I texted you about seven times between ten in the morning and two in the afternoon yesterday. I called, but it went straight to voicemail, and I sent you emails.”

Fuck. He and Jessica had gone to the beach yesterday. There was no cell phone reception on any of the lower Cape ocean beaches. It was like a time warp. Once someone descended the dune, they were off radar until they headed back up to the parking lot.

“What the hell’s going on?” Mark demanded. “Are you dodging me for a reason?”

“Mark, chill a minute. You must have texted while I was on the beach. Texts don’t come through at the ocean here. You know that.” Jamie went outside on the deck. Vera looked up from the book she was reading and smiled at him. He squeezed her shoulder as he passed.

“Don’t you check your messages?”

“They don’t come through. It’s all fu—” He glanced at Vera. “Messed up. They don’t even register. What’s going on that’s got you wound so tight?”

“What’s got me wound so tight? I’ll tell you what’s got me wound. Remember that issue you told me to handle?”

Jamie ran his hand through his hair, racking his brain. He vaguely remembered something he’d told Mark to handle while he was at the pool, but he’d been distracted by Tony and Jessica. “Remind me.”