Awaken Me (The Jaded Series Book 4) (33 page)

When the rag touches her, she sucks in a breath. My eyes fly to hers to see her biting her lip.  I hold her gaze as I finish. By the time I’m done, we’re both a little breathless. I want her again, but I’ll wait. I’m not even sure if she’s ready to go again.

I drop the washcloth in the laundry basket and walk back to the bed. Chris is on her side watching me. Her gaze drops down to my dick as it sways between my legs.

“Lift up,” I grunt at her.

She does as she’s told, and I drag the covers back. Sliding underneath them and pulling them over us both, I turn on my side to face her. We stay like that for a while, both just looking at the other. It should be uncomfortable, but surprisingly it’s not.

Chris is the one to break the silence.

“I know you travel a lot. Tell me some of the places you’ve been.” Her voice is timid, like she’s unsure if I’ll be willing to answer. I hate that she’s distrustful of me. But again, I remind myself that it’s my fault. I’ve put this girl through the wringer and back. I’m still amazed she wants anything to do with me.

I adjust my pillow so it’s folded in half. “Most of the jobs I’ve contracted are north and southeast. Anywhere from Maine down to Florida and over to Iowa. But I had a few in the Western part of the US and a couple in Canada.”

“What was your favorite place to visit?”

One of her hands is underneath her cheek while the other rests on the bed between us. We’re about a foot apart. I want to reach out and trail my fingers over hers. I stop myself because that would be too intimate.

I think back to all the places I’ve been. Each is unique. It’s hard to choose just one.

“If I had to choose, I’d have to say Connecticut. The mountains there are gorgeous and it still has that old England feel. The architecture is stunning. It’s a very clean state. There’s not too many states you can go through that don’t have litter on the side of the road. You don’t find that in Connecticut. They keep the landscape very fresh looking. I’ve only been there a few times, but each time I do, I always spend an extra day or two.”

“It sounds beautiful,” she says quietly, turning her head and looking off into space. “You’re very lucky. I’ve only been to Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, and West Virginia. I want to travel.”

She turns quiet and pensive, a small frown line forming between her eyes. I fight the need to reach over and run my finger across it to make it disappear. Fuck. I just want to touch her any way I can. I don’t know why or how, but this woman is slowly taking over my thoughts. When I’m not with her, I’m thinking about her. When I
am
with her, my eyes always want to travel to where she is. My body craves hers. Even now my cock is straining toward her.

“Maybe one day you’ll get to,” I tell her.

She turns back to face me.

“Not with my current salary.” She chuckles. “I make decent tips at Jaxon’s, but even with that, it would take me many years. As it is, I’m already saving up for a house. And that’ll take a while in itself. I’ll be old and gray, not able to do much by the time I save enough money to travel like I want to.”

An irrational and ridiculous thought pops in my head. One that spooks the shit out of me, but at the same time sends a thrill racing down my spine. She could go on trips with me. I travel a lot, see many places. Besides working at Jaxon’s, her summers are free, and I’m sure Jaxon wouldn’t have a problem finding a replacement for her during those months.

Wait! What the fuck am I doing?

The last thing I need to be doing is making plans to see her more. I already know I’m going to need those trips away from her to strengthen my walls again. This girl gets to me on a nuclear level. I need all the strength I can get when it comes to her.

“Is there any place you want to go but haven’t yet?” she asks, pulling me away from dangerous thoughts.

“Colorado. To the mountains,” I say, without having to think about it first.

“I want to go to Ireland,” she sighs, a small smile tipping up her lips. “From all the stories I’ve heard from my grandparents and the pictures they’ve shown me, it’s the one place I’ve always wanted to visit. It seems so beautiful over there.” A frown pulls the smile away, and I want to cry for her to bring it back. “That’s something that’ll never happen. But a girl can dream, right?”

The smile is back in place when she looks at me and the tightness in my chest eases. She moves on the bed and the blanket shifts down a couple inches, exposing a glimpse of her breasts. She’s on her side, so they mush together. My already hard dick jerks with the thought of fucking between their lush softness.

Giving in to the need raging inside me and pushing the never-ending guilt away, I reach over, snag her waist, and bring her beneath me. I loom over her. Her gorgeous green eyes flare with desire as her chest pumps with excitement. My chest flattens against hers, and I feel her stiff nipples poking me. She runs her hands up my back, and a growl breaks free from the back of my throat. I grip her hair, tilt her head to the side roughly, and bend to plunder her mouth.

I know over time I’ll regret getting involved with this woman. I also know that one day, I’ll hurt her. I just hope it’s not beyond repair. I don’t let either of these stop me though. The thought of ending what we’ve just started is too incapacitating. I just hope that when the day to end it comes, it doesn’t end me as well.

Chris

I sit and smile at the cute Asian woman sitting across from me. She smiles back, but then totally screws up the sweetness of her demeanor by jabbing my cuticle back. I wince and try to hold my smile.
That shit hurt!
For such small women, Asian chicks sure are strong. I glance over at Bailey and see she’s wincing as well. Karyn, who’s on the other side of Bailey, doesn’t look to be in any pain. She’s jabbering away at the woman across from her.

Karyn announced yesterday at the bar that she and Ethan decided to go ahead and get married. They were originally going to wait until after the twins were born, but Ethan all of a sudden decided he didn’t want to wait. He’s grown impatient. We’re out today looking for a dress for Karyn and getting pampered in the process. Our feet are done, so now it’s the nails. Karyn looks like she swallowed a watermelon at seven months pregnant. Luckily, we located a shop that has dresses for pregnant women. We’re headed there next.

I suck in a breath when my torturer clips my cuticle a little too close.

“Sorry,” she mutters in her Asian accent.

“Do you know what style dress you want, Karyn?” I ask, trying to take my mind off the crucifixion of my fingers.

Her smile becomes so big it takes up half her face. “Yes!” she says animatedly. “I want a white strapless with a sweetheart neckline. Preferably with a lace bodice and satin skirt. I know it may be hard to pull off with me being pregnant, but it’s what I’ve always wanted. Hopefully we’ll be able to find something like that, or maybe something close.”

“It sounds stunning,” Bailey says, and I agree by nodding and smiling.

She’s right though. She’s very specific with what she wants, and her options are limited with her being pregnant. But her eyes shone so brightly when she was describing her perfect dress, I really hope we’re able to find it. With her being so close to her due date, she and Ethan are getting married in three weeks. It doesn’t leave much time to prepare, but with the help of me, Bailey, and Mia (who couldn’t be here today because she was working) we’ll get it done.

“We won’t leave town until we find exactly what you want,” I tell her and watch her beam with happiness.

“How are things between you and Nick?” Bailey asks, watching me closely.

I shrug. There’s not much to tell. We’ve been having sex for three weeks now. It’s great, freaking fantastic even, but I can tell Nick is holding back. I shouldn’t let it hurt me. He told me from the beginning that that’s the only thing we’ll ever have, and I agreed to it, but I didn’t realize it would hurt so much. I couldn’t help but hope he would open himself up a bit more. We talk, we eat, and we hang out, but it’s very dispassionate, except when we have sex. That’s the only time he shows real emotion. He never delves into anything important when we talk. Never talks about the future. And he’s never brought Anna up again. Sometimes I’ll catch him staring at me, and I wonder what he’s thinking. I keep telling myself I’m biding my time, that eventually he’ll come around, but I’m starting to wonder. It’s only been three weeks, but nothing has changed since that first night at my apartment.

Almost every night since that first night he took me out to dinner, he’s been at my place. And every night he’s there we have sex. Afterwards we talk about unimportant stuff. Sometimes he’ll stay overnight and sometimes he doesn’t. There’ve been a couple times I’ve woken up to find him sitting on the side of the bed with his head in his hands, drenched in sweat. The first time it happened I was scared to touch him, but I found the courage anyway. As soon as my fingers grazed his back, he stiffened. Then seconds later, he was above me, sliding inside my body and bucking his hips fiercely. His arms are always tight around me, like he can’t get close enough. I always welcome him, but my heart aches knowing he’s still hurting. And it aches even more knowing he’s taking that hurt out on me. I often wonder if he’s thinking about Anna in those moments he sits on the side of the bed.

After those times, I lie awake and hold my tears at bay until he falls asleep, then they silently slip free. Every night he stays with me, we fall asleep with me in his arms, but wake up with our backs to each other. It’s like during the night we both try to reserve ourselves by putting distance between us. I hate it. I want to wake up with his arms wrapped around me. I want to feel his breath on the back of my neck in the morning. I want to open my eyes and have his eyes be the first thing I see. I need to let Nick go, but I can’t. Not yet at least. I know eventually I’ll have to, or it’ll end up destroying me.

“It’s the same. He comes over, we have sex, sometimes he sleeps at my place and sometimes he goes home.” Bailey and Karyn look at me with sympathy. I’ve spoken with them before about what’s going on between us.

A headache starts to form in the back of my head, and I rub the tender spot. I feel Bailey’s hand touch my arm, and I look over at her.

“He’ll come around,” she says somberly. “He just needs more time. Once he gets to know you and realizes it’s okay to move on, he’ll do just that.”

“I don’t know, Bailey. He’s grieved for so long that it’s all he’s used to. I don’t know if he’ll ever be capable of moving on. For some reason he feels like he’s betraying Anna by being with me. How is he supposed to move past that?”

“I’m not sure, sweetie, but he will. I know he will. Just watch and see.”

“She’s right, Chris,” Karyn pipes in, leaning over, like getting closer to me will make the words more true. “The idea of moving forward with his life with someone else is terrifying to him. They were together for years, thought they would grow old together. He needs to get used to the idea and come to terms with it.”

I want to believe them with all my heart, but I fear they are wrong. The attachment he had with Anna is unbelievably strong and seemingly unbreakable. Not that I want him to break all ties with her, but maybe loosen them a bit so I can fit in the picture as well.

Thirty minutes later we’re walking out of the nail salon with our finger and toenails buffed, shined, and painted pretty colors. My head is really starting to pound, but I push the pain away as much as I can. I don’t want to ruin this day for Karyn.

We came into town in Karyn’s car, so we load up and head over to the bridal shop. It’s a cute place that looks like it used to be someone’s house. It’s two stories with an old feel to it. We walk in the door and are immediately greeted by a lady who looks to be in her fifties.

“Hello ladies, welcome to Belle’s Bridal!” she gushes, waving us through the door. “I’m Margie. Which of you beautiful ladies is the bride-to-be?”

“That would be me,” Karyn says, stepping forward and gently taking the woman’s hand with one of hers and rubbing the other along her stomach. “I called earlier about needing a dress fit for a pregnant woman.”

She drops her eyes to Karyn’s big baby bump, then looks back up at her and smiles kindly. “Yes, yes, I remember. I’ve set aside several dresses according to what you described to me over the phone. I’ll also need to take some measurements. Would you like some tea or water while you wait?”

“Yes, please. Tea for me. Thank you.” She turns to us and we both tell her tea as well.

Karyn turns and grins big when Margie walks off. “I love it here! It’s so cute and charming,” she says excitedly. Bailey and I laugh as she walks off to look at all the different wedding gowns and accessories.

I sift through a rack and come across a gorgeous floor-length strapless A-line. It’s white silk with no lace or beading. If I were to ever get married, this would be my perfect dress. It’s simple but elegant. I never wanted a big glitzy wedding. Just something intimate outside with all my family and friends. A pang of wistfulness hits my stomach when I realize that may never happen. I know I’m still young and have plenty of years left to find the perfect man, but no one has even come close, and I refuse to settle for anything less.