I needed her in this... thing. I’d only wanted her to show me.
Her question was valid. What in the hell was I doing in nowhere Texas when I could be anywhere else in the world?
But the answer had asked the question.
I couldn’t tell her that. Even though I saw a new softness in her eyes when she looked at me and said my name, I knew better. She was holding out, holding back. As much as I embraced our new relationship, I knew it scared her. She’d been hurt, that much was evident, but by whom? Jealously raced through me as I thought of who could’ve possibly hurt this woman. I was sure it wasn’t that spineless dick in the bar. She hadn’t been affected by him in the least. She was better than him.
She was incredible... and still a mystery to me. Most women who graced my bed were, and yet I never asked the questions.
“If a two-year-old can chain smoke and run the streets of the Philippines, you can get out of bed, Rose.”
I turned over to see Rose’s eyes open and widen when she realized she was in bed with me. I burst out in incredulous laughter as I looked her over. She buried her head into her pillow in embarrassment. Still chuckling and more than curious, I pulled the pillow from her grip until she was forced to give it up and look my way.
“Explain, lady, or you aren’t leaving this bed.”
I could barely see her green eyes as she peered at me through a sea of auburn hair. She looked beautiful in the sun-kissed room.
She pushed her hair out of the way as she smiled at me fully. It stole my breath. “Okay, so I give myself a little encouragement to get out of bed in the morning.”
“By talking about chain smoking babies?”
“Before I open my eyes, I think of something to get me motivated. Most of them are human feats, some are spiritual. It’s just a thing I do,” Rose admitted as she began to slip out of bed. I pulled her to me with a negative headshake.
“I have surgery in three hours,” she protested, barely resisting my hold on her. She looked up at me with a curious smile, and I told her the truth. “Good morning, beautiful.” She sighed as she nestled further into my arms and I felt another switch flip. She was under my skin and beginning to filter everywhere else.
I chuckled as I thought of her telling me off as she threw that snake over the railing. I’d never in my lifetime get over that. One minute she was impossibly feminine, the next she was shoveling a side of rare beef in her mouth and wrestling reptiles.
“What?” she muffled into my chest.
“You’re the poster-child of a hot mess.” She stiffened in my arms as I continued. “You’re all over the place. Feisty one minute and full of love the next. I have no doubt in the operating room you are the picture of control, but out of it, well... I’ve never known anyone like you.”
Her arms tightened around my waist as she placed a small kiss on my chest. “Then you understand me.”
“I see what you want me to see, but you get no complaints here,” I said as I dragged my fingertips from her knee up to the top of her thigh.
She looked my way, a devastating smile on her face. “So what happens next?”
In a sudden move, I turned her on her back and moved between her legs. I slipped an inch inside of her as her breath hitched and kissed her neck as she moaned in welcome.
“I give you two more orgasms and we have coffee,” I said hoarsely as I began to push further inside her. She thrust her hips up in an effort to gain more of me, and I teased her as I circled them.
“And then,” she rasped out as she drug her nails down my back.
“And then we shower together,” I said as I pushed in fully and buried myself in heaven.
I remained still as she opened up to me. Every layer of space between us evaporated as I waited on her eyes to connect with mine. My arms locked next to her shoulders, I rolled my hips and watched her catch fire.
“This is so fucking perfect,” I whispered as I leaned in and kissed her before I rolled again and got impossibly deeper.
“Jack,” she gasped as her body began to tremble