That velvet feeling was back and it wasn’t only enshrouding me, it had Vance wrapped up in it too.
“Crowe, stop talking,” I whispered.
“You want to know more about me?” he offered and at that moment I didn’t. I couldn’t take anymore.
I didn’t have the choice.
“My life has been shit. I’d never been touched with gentleness, never understood it until I saw you handle Roam in Fortnum’s. Then that night watchin’ football with Nick, you showed it to me by runnin’ your fingers along my jaw after I told you the worst in me. I was once Roam, Jules. You might not think it but it isn’t the kids who have two parents and a stable home who are the luckiest ones. It’s the kids who know the taste of shit because they’ve been eatin’ it all their lives and then someone finds them and offers them a taste of somethin’ sweeter and they learn that life can be good. They learn to trust. They learn that if you care about someone you put your ass on the line to keep them safe. They learn that love doesn’t come with conditions. Roam and Sniff are the luckiest kids alive. I never had that. No one gave a shit enough to see it through. No one ever offered me that, until you.”
It was my turn to hold his face. I put both hands up and kept them there.
“Vance –” I started but he interrupted me again.
“I’ve been playin’ this cool so I wouldn’t scare the shit out of you because you’re jumpy as a f**kin’ jackrabbit but I’m done with that now. I won’t listen to you call yourself a freak and I’ll let you know something else and I don’t give a f**k if it flips you out. If you ever think of takin’ off, if you ever get scared enough at what I do for a living that you decide you can’t hack it, then you best think again because unless what we have turns shit like everything else in my life, I’m not ever letting you go.”
“Listen to me –”
“Do you understand what I just said to you?”
“Vance, please listen –”
“Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said softly.
He stared at me or more to the point glared at me.
I decided it was time to come clean too. “Well then, maybe you should also be aware of the fact that I know you have a reputation as a player and I know a lot of other people know that. If any woman tries to cut into my action, I’m taking her down.”
I thought I sounded relatively badass and super-cool, for a girl.
Vance just kept staring at me a beat, still tense then his body relaxed and his lips turned up at the ends in an amused mini-smile.
Um.
No.
“This isn’t funny. I’m serious. I’m a head crackin’ mamma jamma. You’re too handsome for your own good. I’ll have to deck most of the single female population of Denver.”
Even though I was, indeed, being perfectly serious, his body started moving and it felt a lot like laughter. He twisted and we went down, me on my back, him on top of me. By the time he came over me, I knew it was laughter mainly because it had become audible.
I was offended.
“Excuse me! This is not funny. How come you can make intense, macho man statements and I can’t?”
His lips touched mine. He was still laughing.
“Shut up, Jules,” he said there.
“Do not tell me to shut up,” I snapped.
So he didn’t. Using hands, mouth, tongue and other parts of his anatomy, he shut me up a different way.
* * * * *
Vance made love to me, he did it slow, took his time and it was beyond beautiful.
We took a quick shower, got dressed and went back into town.