Separation Anxiety (19 page)

“Come here,” he commanded softly, and he sat up a little in bed and patted the bed beside him on my side. Yes, we had “sides” already, and I delighted in the fact that sharing a bed with Jesse had already become a habit.

He didn’t have to ask twice.

I climbed in beside him, and he pulled me close so my head rested on his chest.

He kissed the top of my head and then breathed me in. “I know I already said this, but I’m glad you’re here,” he murmured.

“I’m glad I’m here, too,” I said.

He turned off the light and shifted so he was lying on his back, his arms wrapped firmly around me. I was suddenly sleepy and felt myself drifting.

“
Good night, V,” he said after awhile.

“Good night
, sexy Jesse,” I said, halfway between awake and asleep.

CHAPTER 13

I awoke with a gasp in the dark.

“What’s wrong?” I heard Jesse mumble beside me.

My heart was pounding so hard I thought it was going to pound right out of my chest.

The dream was complete. Now that I’d had the extreme good fortune to see Jesse Drake sans clothes, the piece of my dream that had always been missing was now filled in.

And holy hell, it was a good dream.
It was one of those dreams that I knew was going to stay with me for the rest of the day, the rest of the week. Hell, maybe the rest of my life.

“Nothing,” I whispered back, and I snuggled into his side as I recalled the dream that I couldn’t wait to make a reality.

It had started much like we fell asleep. It was so vivid, though, as if it had really happened. Jesse woke me when his mouth covered mine, our tongues clashing together violently. It wasn’t soft and sensual; this was animal and carnal and primal.

He pushed into me and held still as he placed his arms on either side of me to support his weight, and then he pulled back and slammed forward, pushing me so hard in pleasure that my head hit against the headboard. I braced myself for the onslaught of passion, holding my head still against the headboard so that when he crashed into me again, my body met his and didn’t buckle under the force.

He leaned his head down and grabbed my breast in his mouth, rolling my nipple between his teeth as I cried out in some mixture of pleasure and pain. He sucked hard as he thrust back into me, and I screamed out, unable to control the animal instinct to yell out in satisfaction even though we were at his parents’ house.

He pushed me higher and higher, and my body clenched ti
ghtly in delicious anticipation with each hard drive. I screamed out his name as he yelled mine back at me, and when I felt that snap that happens right before my body was going to splinter into a million tiny pieces of fantastic gratification, I awoke with a start.

I was hot for Jesse; that much was obvious, but now my panties were soaked with need for him all from one ridiculously provocative dream.

The next morning I woke to lips pressed against my neck and scruff tickling my skin as Jesse spooned me. My body ached for release, and I knew that I would need to find some alone time to take care of that since I couldn’t exactly proposition Jesse, as much as I wanted to.

Sleeping next to him was becoming a little too much for me. It was obvious that I had needs that only he would be able to fulfill, and based on the erection that was currently pressed against my lower back, he
clearly had needs that he needed to take care of as well. And I’d be more than happy to take care of those needs for him.

So
obviously we were both hot for each other, but there was little we could do about it until June.

“Good morning,”
I whispered, thinking about what a good morning it was, indeed. I could tell through the shadows that the blinds on the windows provided that it was a sunny day outside, and I couldn’t wait to start our first full day at the beach together. I vaguely wondered what time it was, and then I realized that I was on spring break for the next two weeks with this dream of a man, and time suddenly became something so completely irrelevant.

“How is it,” he asked, “that you manage to look so g
oddamn beautiful in the morning?”

Those flutters that I was feeling back on that night at happy hour before I’d told him about Richard and me? They were back in full force.

“How is it,” I asked back, turning in his arms to face him, “that you know the exact right words to say in every situation?”

He grinned down at me. “It’s my specialty.”

“You are quite the expert,” I said, and he pressed his lips to mine.

“Did you have a bad dream last night?”
he asked, pulling away.

“No,” I said. “Why?”

“I remember you groaning and then waking up out of breath.”

I blushed. I didn’t want to because I knew it completely gave me away, but it was one of those damn things I couldn’t control.

“Wait just one hot second,” he said, a wide smile slowly forming on his very kissable lips. “Was it a sex dream?”

I averted my eyes as I felt the blush spread from my cheeks down my neck. Suddenly I was quite warm. “Maybe,” I admitted, throwing the blankets off of me as I tried to get some cool air.

“So, Miss Freemont,” he said. “You catch me indecent as I’m changing my clothes and then you have a dirty dream? Was it about me?”

The blush moved from red into purple territory, and I felt a buzz in my head. I didn’t say anything.

“No denial. I guess I’ll have to assume that it was, in fact, about me.”

“I plead the fifth,” I said, moving to get up and get away from this mortifying conversation.

He grabbed my arms and pulled me back. “I don’t think so, V. You’re not hiding from me.”

I rolled my eyes uncomfortably. “Fine. It was about you.”

He beamed in victory. “I kind of figured.”

“Oh? Why’s that, Mr. Arrogant?”

“Because you screamed out my name.”

Oh. My. God.

I buried my face in his chest so he couldn’t see the ridiculous shade of red I had certainly become, and he gently stroked my back and kissed the top of my head.

“V, I can’t think of anything more flattering. Don’t be embarrassed about it. I’ve had dreams about you, too.”

“You have?” I asked, shifting to peek up at him.

He nodded. “Fuck yes, I have. Really, really dirty ones.”

I grinned. “Tell me about them.”

“Oh no. If you’re pleading the fifth, so am I.”

“Then show me,” I said. I wasn’t sure where that sudden bold statement came from, but I was glad I said it.

“I plan on it,” he whispered,
his gaze smoldering down into me.

I gazed back for one hot moment.
“I’m sorry we have to wait,” I said.

“Why?”

“Why am I sorry?”

He nodded.

“Because I think we both know we want it.”

“
True. It’ll happen,” he said confidently.

“I just hate the waiting game.”

“Me, too. But we’ll get there, V.”

“I know. But it’s my fault that we have to wait.”

“It’s not your fault. We’ve both got our reasons.”

He was right. I had my ingrained reasons, and he’d told me he didn’t have sex with married women.

“We’re building anticipation, and when our time comes, it’ll make it that much better,” he said.

I felt a surge of love course through me for him. I kissed his chest just over his heart, and I felt him tighten his arms around me.

“I can’t wait,” I whispered.

“N
either can I,” he murmured back, and then his fingertips found my chin and I scooted up in his arms. His mouth covered mine and I knew that the wait would be well worth it.

He used the restroom first while I got up and started gathering clothes to take a shower (not forgetting my panties this time).
A quick check of the clock on my cell phone told me that we’d slept in; it was almost 10:30, and I felt rude as a guest to sleep so late. Jesse assured me that it was fine, though, and then I set to looking through my bag for my cell phone charger. My battery was already down to twenty-four percent, and in that haze of lust produced by naked Jesse, I completely forgot to charge it the night before. I went through my bag three times. I took everything out and put it all back in.

No cell phone charger.

Jesse had an iPhone, too, so I’d just borrow his. When the bathroom door opened for his exit, my mouth somehow failed me as the words to my question died on my lips.

Holy
fucking hell.

Jesse was wearing a pair of shorts and nothing else. No socks on those sexy feet. No pants covering those perfect calves. No shirt conceal
ing his broad chest or that washboard he called a stomach.

Beads of water clung to his chest. Who knew I could be jealous of water?

His hair was still damp from the shower, and he hadn’t put any product into it yet.

Jesse Drake fresh from the shower was surely a sight to behold. As I stood there staring, jaw dropped open, I felt like if I died right in that moment, I would have died the happiest girl in the world just for the eye candy staring me in the face.

He grinned over at me, clearly catching me in the act of ogling him. “Your turn,” he said.

“Uh,” I muttered, and some other sounds incoherently fell from my lips. I forced my gaze from his body and back to my clothes, and then I
turned to head to the bathroom.

“Hey,” he said softly. I glanced up at him. “Can I watch?” he asked, and then he grinned sinfully.

“Soon,” I said, thinking that it wouldn’t be soon enough. I smiled as I walked by him, and he grabbed me into his arms and gave me one of those Jesse specialty double kisses.

“Have a good shower.”

“Oh, can I borrow your cell phone charger? I can’t find mine.”

He nodded. “I’ll find it while you shower.”

“Thanks, Jesse,” I said.

He sighed.

“What?”

“I just like hearing the way my name sounds passing through those gorgeous lips of yours,” he said.

“I like saying it,” I said. “What’s your middle name?”

“Ethan.”

“Jesse Ethan Drake.”

Jesse and Veronica Drake.

Veronica Drake.

Wait. No, it was Jesse Drake. I shook my head and headed to the shower, perplexed by the direction of my thoughts.

I was still married. Certainly I wasn’t ready to jump into a second marriage before my first marriage was dissolved.

Besides, for as much as Jesse made me feel like we had a future together,
his reputation as a ladies’ man preceded him. I was afraid to get my hopes up too high only to have them shattered later, when I fell even harder for him. Because I was falling harder every second we spent together, and deep down I was terrified that this was going to end badly, that it was going to end in heartbreak for me. All I could cling to was the hope that Jesse Drake would treat me right, that he would hold onto my heart and take care of me. Allowing myself to think any other way was only going to cause pain, so I wouldn’t even imagine that situation.

After I finished getting ready, I found Jesse waiting for me on the bed. He stood and pulled me into his arms.

“You look beautiful, V,” he said.

“I love it when you call me ‘V.’”

A smile curled the corners of his lips, and I ran my fingers through his hair, still soft from lack of product. It stuck up where I touched it, and it was even silkier and softer than I’d imagined it would be. He leaned into me and buried his face in my neck, and when he held me like this, when he displayed this emotion for me, I knew it was his way of telling me that he’d fallen as hard for me as I had fallen for him.

He groaned and tightened his arms around my waist, and a moan slipped out from my lips that I hadn’t even intended.

“Bad news,” he said, pulling back.

“What?”

“I forgot my charger, too.”

“Do your parents have iPhones?”

He shook his head. “Fucking Androids,” he said with mock irritation. I giggled.

“We could go buy new chargers,” I suggested.

“Or, we could shoot off a quick text to those who might need us and give them my parents’ number for emergencies and then just, I don’t know, go off the grid for the next two weeks.”

Going off the grid with Jesse Drake? Yes, please.

“I love that idea,” I said. “What’s your parents’ number?”

He pulled their contact open and rattled off some numbers, and I texted my parents and both of my brothers. Work could wait, and Quinn would understand.

Jesse’s parents had gone to church, a place that Jesse said he used to attend up until his sister’s death, so we had the house to ourselves. Jesse made us omelets and I made some fresh coffee, and then we sat outside on the patio and ate while we watched the waves roll in and out.

We spent the day at the beach. It was
too chilly for swimming in the ocean, but the air temperature was nice, and walking on the beach was absolute heaven. Jesse wore just a pair of khaki shorts, and since I was wearing sunglasses as we strolled in and out of the surf, I took the liberty of flat out staring at his perfect torso.

Some men with a six-pack stomach were
overly bulky while others were too skinny, but everything about Jesse was, as I liked to say, absolutely perf.

He was toned and solid and fell right in the zone of perfection.

And that tattoo… I sighed just thinking about it. I had never been a huge tattoo aficionado like Quinn was, but something about the reason behind his work of art and the beauty of it made it extraordinarily stunning.

Staring at Jesse Drake. This was my kind of spring break.