my hips faster. Every movement causes my clit to rub against the hair springing out from around his cock. He grinds his heels into the bed and digs upward. My head falls forward onto his shoulder as I hear him grunt out his release as his hips pump in quick succession. Despite the condom between us, I can feel his heat as he spurts into me, which triggers my own shuddering pleasure.
I sag against him, unable to hold myself upright any longer. I barely notice when Jennings’s arms tighten and he pulls us backward, spreading the misshapen covers over us both. I can’t process anything through my brain. I don’t want to think or analyze anything right now.
I just want to forget about everything except the feel of Jennings’s arms around me.
Until I’m forced to leave this cocoon and remember everything that brought us here.
Jennings
The next morning, I wake up to Kara dressing. “Where are you going?” I murmur. Patting the bed next to me, I reach out a hand. “Come here.”
She stops what she’s doing and pads over on bare feet. I trace the seam of her jeans up the inside of her legs. “There’s nowhere to be. I doubt Kevin will be back for hours,” I remind her.
“I was going to call an Uber,” she admits. “I need to think, Jennings.”
Those words after the way her body entwined with mine throughout the night causes my heart to sink. Instead of reacting first and regretting later, I continue with my ministrations. “What about?”
“This, us. How it affects everything.”
“Then let me give you something else to think about,” I offer, not entirely unselfishly.
Her soft moan reaches my ears right about the same time her hand lands on top of mine to push it away. “Jennings, I have so much jumbling up my head,” she groans. “Stop distracting me. I have to go.”
“Like hell you do,” I growl. Hauling her over my body, I ignore her screech. “Haven’t we wasted too much time apart?”
“And I’ve had to learn to handle my issues on my own,” she retorts. But even as her words push me away, the look on her face pulls me in.
“Ouch,” I tell her softly.
She flinches in response. “God, you don’t deserve that. This is why I need to—”
“Talk to me, Owl,” I urge her.
Capitulating, she nods.
I feel like last night solidified things between us, but in the light of day, was yesterday enough to make her understand I want more than just a moment out of time? Once I’ve urged her beneath the covers, the feeling of her jean-clad legs against my bare ones distracts me in a way that terrifies me because she almost left without a word.
Pushing a strand of hair back from her face, I open my mouth, but she beats me to it. “Maris called me stubborn; maybe she’s right.”
I’m stunned. This isn’t where I expected our conversation to go at all. The leash I had over my emotions loosen as I tug her body so close, her face is pressed against my bare chest. “Why did she say that?”
“Because it took Jed to bring us here,” she whispers, the touch of her lips reminding me not only of last night but of those long lazy days of our youth. But instead of bringing pain, after last night the memory is sweet.
Kara continues. “She said if it weren’t for me, maybe my brother would still be alive.” Wet hits my chest as Kara’s voice breaks. “Maybe she’s right. How can you not resent me for so much, Jennings?”
“Kara,” I try to interrupt, but she keeps going, giving me a bird’s-eye view into the way her mind works through a problem. I can only pray she reaches the right solution when she’s done.
“It felt like a betrayal the first time I accepted a date after I had Kevin.” My muscles tighten. I want to hear about other men about as much as I want to see her walk out of my life. God knows, I wasn’t a damn monk, far from it, but I’m not the same man I was. And Kara? My feelings for her are already so much more intense than they were the first time around. My arms tighten as she continues. “Isn’t that stupid? By then I’m sure you’d forgotten about me.” Of course, now’s the moment she lifts red-rimmed eyes to seek out the truth.
I don’t lie, but I do break the truth gently. “I didn’t have a living day-to-day