Jessy’s gaze shot to his again, the faint smile on her lips fading. “You wouldn’t have asked me.”
Michael frowned, scooting the basket out of the way as he moved closer to Jessy. “Why’s that?”
“Well—” Jessy cleared her throat, taking a steadying breath before she looked squarely at Michael again. “Let’s just say that not too many sixteen-year-old boys want to be seen with a girl who has the figure of a sumo wrestler.”
“You sound pretty sure about that,” Michael said after a moment. The flatness of his tone startled Jessy into looking at him again. He watched her intently, his gaze challenging her.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed my weight,” she said quietly. There it was, finally spoken aloud.
Michael kept his gaze steady on hers. “All right—I won’t.”
His answer rattled Jessy, but she refused to let it show. She’d had a lifetime of practice keeping her true emotions hidden. But since Michael seemed to be in the mood for speaking frankly—
“You know, that’s what really surprises me about you,” she said, forcing a casualness into her voice that she did not feel. She felt as if she were picking her way through a minefield. “You act like my weight doesn’t matter—“
“It
doesn’t
matter.” Michael took her hand in his, squeezing it gently. Jessy kept herself very still, unable to respond to his touch. This was the conversation she had dreaded from the beginning. “Honey, it really doesn’t matter to me.”
“Are you sure?” Jessy’s gaze was direct, unflinching. She had the unsettling sense that this was the point of no return, that whatever was said beyond this moment would affect their relationship drastically. For an instant, she wanted to turn back, to stop right now—but she knew in her heart that she couldn’t. This was an issue that she needed to resolve right here, right now, if she wanted to have any kind of peace of mind.
“It does matter,” she said, voice soft. She threaded her fingers through his, bracketing his hand with hers. “Michael—I weigh two hundred and twenty pounds, and that has mattered to every person, every man, who has ever looked at me. There has never been a day that it hasn’t.”
Michael said nothing, simply watching her, and she felt excruciatingly vulnerable. But she couldn’t stop now.
“When you’re this fat,” she said quietly, unable to hide the pain, the bitterness in her voice, “people don’t look at you. They look over you. Men seem to be afraid that if they make eye contact, I’ll suddenly develop a fixation on them or embarrass them in front of their friends. They don’t want to be seen with any woman who might be less than perfect, who’s not beautiful and slim and—”
“You’re being unfair.” Anger hummed beneath the soft tone of Michael’s voice. “Don’t make assumptions about me, Jessy, because you’re wrong. Maybe you’ve known some narrow-minded jerks, but I’m not like that.”
“How many fat girls have you dated in your life, Michael?”
Michael’s anger deflated almost instantly. He didn’t answer, sliding his gaze away from hers for a moment.
“That’s what I thought,” Jessy said grimly.
“You’re not being fair.”
“So I’m wrong?”
Michael looked back to her again. “No,” he said softly. “You’re not wrong.”
“I didn’t think so.” Jessy didn’t like the coldness of her tone, but couldn’t help it. She knew that Michael didn’t deserve this kind of attack, but couldn’t stop herself. This was something she’d had to live with her entire life. A few kind words from Michael, no matter how much she cared for him, couldn’t reverse so many years of pain.
“Charlie Wilks was obviously a saint among men, then,” Michael finally said after a few moments of silence.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about good old lover-boy Charlie.” Michael’s voice remained flat, expressionless, impossible for Jessy to read. “He must have been some swell guy to have put up with you all that time you dated. I just wonder how he could stand being with you.”
Pain flashed in Jessy’s eyes, but she said nothing. Michael wouldn’t let her look away from him, his gaze penetrating, angrier than she’d ever seen.
“I mean, never mind the fact that you have the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen,” Michael continued. “Or the fact that you have a wonderful sense of humor. And never mind the fact that any half-way intelligent man should get down on his knees and thank God if you decided to fall in love with him. Never mind any of that. Apparently Charlie, despite being a total idiot, could see beyond your weight to all those other things, so I guess that makes him pretty much a prince among the rest of us jerks, right?”
Jessy stared at him for a few long moments, afraid to speak, afraid to say the wrong thing, afraid to believe what he said could be true.
“If we hadn’t met on the bus,” she finally said, slipping her hands away from his, “if you had just seen me on the street, you wouldn’t have given me a second look.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.” Jessy smiled sadly. “I do.”
Michael fell silent for a few moments, studying the half-eaten orange in his hand. “When I was a kid in high school,” he said softly, “I weighed about ninety pounds, and twenty pounds of that was pimples. I wanted to play football more than anything, but the coach wouldn’t even let me on the field. Girls ignored me because I was too skinny, too weird. I wore head-gear braces until the day of graduation, and I didn’t have my first real date with a girl until my second year of college—Ann.”
He looked up to Jessy again, arching an eyebrow. “So you tell me. Would you have dated
me
in high school?”
Jessy didn’t answer. His point had been made.
Michael gazed at her for a few moments, his eyes remaining solemn. “The woman that you are now,” he said softly, “is the woman that I’m in love with. That’s all that matters.”
The enormity of his words stunned her into silence. She could not speak, could not react, could not even breathe.
Michael reached out to touch her cheek, skimming the line of her cheekbone with his thumb, cradling her face in his hand. The gentleness of his touch, his gaze, was suddenly too much for her to bear. All her life, she had hoped, dreamed, that one day someone would say something like that to her. How many years had she wished that someone would love her for who she was and not how she looked?
It all seemed unreal. For a moment, she actually thought she was asleep and dreaming.
“I love you, Jessy,” Michael whispered, leaning his forehead against hers for a moment as he slowly smiled. “I love you for all kinds of reasons, and I’d be lying if I said that the way you look isn’t one of them. But it’s not the
only
one—and I couldn’t even begin to tell you all of the others.”
Jessy could not speak, could not find the words that would tell Michael how much his acceptance meant to her. She couldn’t explain to him how she felt finally free, finally whole. She had always been so afraid that she might never be allowed to love anyone the way that she wanted, that she would grow old and bitter and lonely and alone. Until she met Michael, she had been well on her way to that future.
But not anymore. Miraculously enough—not anymore.
“I love you,” she managed to whisper, tears burning her eyes, blurring her vision. “I love you so much—”
Smiling faintly, Michael kissed away her tears, brushing his lips against hers, trailing a line of soft kisses over the curve of her cheekbone as he gathered her close in his arms. Jessy’s eyes closed as he held her tightly, her tenuous control slipping away as she felt that unfamiliar desire growing within her once again. But now it was different. Now she knew that he wanted her for
her,
for her heart and soul.
And knowing that made all the difference.
Pulling away from his embrace, she touched his cheek in wonder, flattening her palm against the faint scratchiness of his stubbled skin.
She saw her own desire mirrored in his expression and urged his mouth back to hers once more, kissing slowly, almost lazily. She felt his fingertips against her throat, lightly stroking the throb of her pulse before his hand shaped itself to the curve of her neck. He made a soft sound of need, a low growl that Jessy felt against her lips like a sigh, his breath hot and sweet and tasting faintly of oranges.
His mouth continued its slow, deliberate teasing. Knowing that he was aware of her pleasure, that he kept watching her as she kissed him, made her impatient for more. His hand slid up the curve of her throat, his touch so gentle, so careful, that she felt as though she were some fragile treasure in his hands. She could not look away from his eyes, could not look away from the desire she saw in his gaze. The intensity of her own desire frightened her. As his mouth and eyes teased her, she felt the desire, the pure animal need, overwhelming her.
Growing bolder with each stroke of his lips over hers, Jessy touched the buttons of his chambray shirt, her fingers trembling, and saw the instant change in his eyes. She realized at that moment that she had given him silent permission to go on, to end the teasing. Michael lifted his head, watching her for a few long moments, his hand cradling her cheek as his fingers tangled in her hair. The naked longing in his eyes made Jessy’s heart beat harder, made every inch of her body burn with the need to touch him. The knowledge that she
could
touch him, that she could give him as much pleasure as he was giving her, was a heady drug.
She sighed, breath catching, as she trailed her fingertips over his chest. She could feel the heat of his skin through the fabric, feel the hardness of muscle beneath the taut material, the strong pounding of his heart. Michael half-lay beside her, propped up by a mound of pillows, watching her with hooded eyes as she touched him. Jessy hesitated only a moment before unbuttoning the first button of his shirt—then the second—and the third. She slipped her hand inside the wide V, tentatively touching the soft mat of springy dark hair on his chest. His breath caught for a moment, then came faster by degrees, chest rising and falling beneath her questing hand as he fought for control.
For a moment Jessy wasn’t sure what she should do next. Michael’s reaction had startled her, and as her gaze swept over his body, she saw clearly the proof of his arousal, proof that she had felt so intimately earlier on the swing. She dragged her gaze up to his eyes again. The heat of his stare was almost frightening, almost overwhelming, and with any other man but Michael, she would have been terrified.
But she knew that this moment, if nothing else in her life, was right. This moment. This experience. This man.
Michael swiftly rose up on his knees beside Jessy before she could react. His movements jerky with impatience, he tugged his shirt from his jeans, unbuttoning the remaining buttons with a swipe of his hand. For a moment, Jessy could only stare up at him, transfixed by the hard, sculpted muscle of his chest, by the lightly furred flatness of his stomach. He was so perfect in her eyes, so beautiful, that for a heartbeat she felt almost too self-conscious to touch him.
Then he extended his hand to her, urging her to her knees to join him. His chest rose and fell with deep, controlled breaths. His eyes held steady on hers, dark and filled with hunger.
Jessy slowly rose to her knees, so close to him that their thighs touched, their bellies brushed. So close to him that she could feel the pounding of his heartbeat against her breasts. She felt as though she had been drugged, every movement languorous, every touch a slow torture of pleasure. Michael’s arms surrounded her, pulling her closer, flattening her body against his as his head dipped down to her throat. Jessy gasped aloud at the feel of his mouth and tongue working wetly over her skin, her eyes opening wider as she pressed her palms against the heat of his chest, fingers digging into the firm muscle of his shoulders. She bracketed his face with her hands and silently urged his mouth back to hers once more.
The kiss was slow, deep, and as Michael’s lips slanted over hers, Jessy’s hands trailed over the hard curve of his shoulders to his chest, palms lightly brushing over the soft mat of hair, over the sides of his stomach to his back. His skin was the softest she had ever felt, like warm silk. Michael’s hands had drifted over her hips, sliding up beneath her breasts, cupping them gently through her blouse. The feel of his hands touching her so intimately, the knowledge that she was free to touch him as she liked, was a revelation.
“Jessy—” Michael’s voice was a hoarse growl against her lips. He pulled his head away only slightly, as if he couldn’t bear to break the contact between them, kissing her with each word as he whispered, “I want you—”
Jessy managed a weak nod, breaths coming in quick gasps. She gazed at him, seeing the love, the tenderness in his expression. She wasn’t sure what she was expected to do now, wasn’t sure what he wanted her to do, but she knew that there was nothing to be afraid of with Michael. She knew that with a certainty that she felt to her very core.
“Jessy—” He trailed his open mouth along the line of her jaw, nuzzling just beneath her ear for a moment. “I want to make love to you.”
His hands kneaded her breasts as he spoke, his words and touch sending shivers of pleasure through her body. His hips moved against hers, a faint rocking back and forth, hard against soft, that communicated his desire far more eloquently than mere words. She felt his tongue flick over her throat and knew that she would follow him anywhere, that she would do anything for him.
She felt his hands slipping up to the top button of her blouse, felt his fingers swiftly separating the material, grazing over her skin. He lifted his mouth to hers once again, kissing her so gently that she only barely felt his lips brushing hers. Sensation overwhelmed her, taking her breath away. She was only dimly aware of her blouse opening completely, of the rush of cool air against her exposed stomach and chest. Michael’s hands skimmed over her shoulders and down her arms, sweeping the blouse away. He trailed open-mouthed kisses over her chin, down her throat, his lips moving over the line of her collarbone and onto the upper swell of her breasts.