Tell Me No Lies (13 page)

Chapter Twelve

When she pulled up to the cottage, Jake was sitting on her
minuscule porch in the folding chair, a blanket over his shoulders and a bottle
of beer in his hand. Waiting for her, like he did. He was the best thing she’d
ever seen in her life.

Getting out of the car, she felt her spirits lighten—then
sink as she recalled what she was about to do. Up until that moment she’d been
convinced she could muscle her way through this encounter, put Jake aside and
move on with her life with no damage to herself. Once she saw him, all that
conviction evaporated.

“Hi, honey,” he called with mock cheer, “how was
your
day?”

“My day was spent in bizarro town!” She matched his tone.
“How was
your
day, sweetheart?”

“My day was from hell.”

“Shitstorm?”

“Reaped the fucking whirlwind,” he confirmed.

“Yep. The gossip shit hit the rumor mill fan, for sure. Is
there another one of those for me?” She pointed at his beer hopefully.

From somewhere beneath the blanket he produced a wine bottle
and thrust it toward her as she mounted the steps. She swiped it from his hand
as she unlocked the door.

“This is perfect, and I love you.”

“Really?” His voice cracked and he shot up out of the chair
as the door swung open.

She bit her lip and tried not to curse out loud. How the
hell had that popped out of her mouth?

“Uh, sure, yeah?” Probably she did. It didn’t change
anything if she didn’t let it.

“Didn’t really mean to say it right then though, did you?”

“Fuck no.” So much for trying not to curse.

“Right. I’ll forget I heard anything. ‘Wow, you have
furniture,’ he said, awkwardly changing the subject. And look, boxes. Lots of
boxes. And I have this blanket. We could build a fort.”

This conversation was going to suck. Tess went to find a
wineglass in the box marked “barware”. She found a corkscrew first and figured
she’d searched long enough.

She toed her shoes off and took a big swig from the bottle
as she joined Jake on the floor, cross-legged under the blanket he’d draped
between the couch and a stack of boxes. He grinned and clinked his beer against
her wine.

“So how did the thing with your dad go?”

“This is awesome. We are so damn grownup and classy I can
hardly stand it. The thing with my dad was…
interesting
. Good too, I
guess. We didn’t really resolve anything, but we talked about stuff we
should’ve talked about a long time ago. I think it was therapeutic for both of
us. Speaking of therapeutic, he thinks I need a psychiatrist. People keep
telling me that lately. Does everybody think I need professional help? Is that,
like, the official position on me?”

Jake drank and looked thoughtful. “Maybe what matters is
whether
you
feel like you need it.”

“Of course I do. If I could take a pill to not be the way I
am, you think I wouldn’t jump at that chance?”

“I don’t think it’s quite that simple.”

“Anything’s better than this. Well, not
this
.” She
squeezed his thigh, leaning into him, trying to convey her lingering fondness.
“This was great. But you know what I mean.”

“I do, yes. What do you mean ‘was’?”

Tess looked down at the wine label, examining the colors as
though they held the secrets of the universe. She didn’t want to shrug him off,
but didn’t have words for what she wanted to say.

No, not
wanted
, because what she
wanted
was
Jake. What she
needed
was to see the back of him and figure out her
shit.

“You mean
is
great,” Jake said firmly after a few
seconds of taut silence. His voice grew louder as he went on. “Will continue to
be great. And you were
not
about to give me some hackneyed line about
how you’re not in a good place right now or you can’t let yourself have nice
things or we were just getting it out of our systems. Because that. Is.
Bullshit.”

So angry. She’d never heard him like that. Risking a peek,
she saw his eyes, stormy and dark in the gloom of the fort. His jaw looked hard
enough to cut glass. But she wasn’t frightened of him; she wanted to comfort
him. Soothe his troubled brow. Be in accord with him. Forever.

Doomed
.
I’m doomed.

“At this time, I can neither confirm nor deny that I was
planning to say some or all of those things.”

She sucked at comforting, obviously. Tiny muscles appeared
along the side of Jake’s jaw, below his ears.

“Do you think I give a flying fuck if you’re in a good
place, Tess? I’ve seen you in a good place, I’ve seen you in bad places, I can
tell you’re at an all-time low right now and
I don’t care
. None of that
changes how I feel about you. None of that changes how you feel about me
either, and I’m done pretending I don’t know that. Let me help. Let me be there
for you.
Trust
me.”

His speech had sucked all the air from the cramped space
under the blanket, leaving none for Tess. No air, no words. He’d used up the
ones she’d intended to use, the ones that sounded so empty and ridiculous now.

She couldn’t possibly describe the feelings racing through
her, the collision of need and want, hope and despair. It was too hard. Tess
knew a lot of words, but not the right ones for
this
. She closed her
eyes and sucked in a single, painfully deep breath, then released it over a
count of ten.

When she opened them again, Jake was still watching her. Not
angry anymore, but tense, wary. Wanting. Needing. And words no longer seemed to
matter. She didn’t need them to tell him how she really felt.

Tess climbed over his extended legs and onto his lap,
draping herself over his chest and clinging like a vine. His arms wrapped
around her immediately, and he buried his face in her hair. For long moments
they sat, silently speaking volumes, until Jake finally pulled back and smiled,
sniffling discreetly.

“That’s better. Don’t do that to me again. Now tell me some
more about how great I am.”

“Don’t push your luck, Hogan, it’s been a really weird day.”

“Tell me about it. Your brother was in tears in my office
this afternoon. Up until just now, that was peak weirdness for me.”

“
What
?” She reared back to see if he was joking, but
his face was grim.

“Something about not knowing you’d changed his diapers. He
was pretty upset. He used up a whole box of tissue. Then he said he’d beat me
up if I ever hurt you. I opted not to explain about the nature of our sexual
relationship.”

“Wise decision.”

“I thought so. You did a terrible job teaching that guy how
to blow his nose, by the way.”

They both drank, and Tess was entranced by the movement of
Jake’s jaw, the long line of his throat as he tipped his head back to empty the
bottle. The look he gave when he finished and found her watching him was
devastating. Tess wanted to strip naked and spread her legs for him right then
and there, like some wanton sex-crazed floozy.

Jake would probably like that quite a lot, she realized
after a few seconds. That was kind of his thing. She was beginning to suspect
it was her thing too. But more testing was in order before she came to any
final conclusions.

Then the weirdness struck again, and she remembered this was
Jake Hogan
she was deviantly lusting after, and apparently assuming a
future with. She was glad she had a friend handy to discuss it with, at least.
And this safe space here in the blanket fort, where she felt like she and Jake
could talk about anything, and if she didn’t know how to say something he’d
understand her anyway.

“Jake, seriously. Have we screwed everything up?”

“By sleeping together? I thought we demonstrated quite a bit
of competence in that area, myself. I don’t think we screwed up any part of that,
except for waiting too long to do it in the first place. I’d have rather kept
you to myself a little longer,” he admitted, shifting her on his lap. “Now that
everyone knows, there’s no way I can get away with locking you up in my
basement lair as my permanent sex slave.”

“That might not be such a bad deal. Speaking hypothetically,
if you did, could I have my laptop down there?” She snuggled in again, setting
her wine bottle aside next to his empty beer.

“Oh sure. I’d be a kind and benevolent master. Besides,
you’d have to churn out books to support us in our decadent kinky habits.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead then tipped her chin up
with a finger. His eyes looked stern, and Tess knew he was trying to be
serious. Mostly she found it so hot as to be distracting.

“Hey. You came back to town looking for yourself. I know
that. Not for me. I want this, Tess, I won’t lie or pretend it’s not serious,
because like I said, that’s bullshit. But I don’t want this to be your easy out
or something you think you can do instead of figuring out your life. That won’t
work and we’d both end up regretting it down the line. You don’t have to do
this because people are talking about it, or because you kind of fell into it
and feel obligated now. Or even because I got pissed off a minute ago. You do
have a choice and I’ll support it, no matter what it is.”

He was talking about it as though it were a done deal,
however. As though he assumed they were a couple now, they would have a
down
the line
unless she said otherwise. The fact that she felt the same way was
daunting, but exciting all the same. Somehow, together, she and Jake had come
into focus after years of trying to ignore the blurry outlines. The timing
might suck, but that didn’t mean Tess wanted to turn that knob back in the
opposite direction. Not if Jake was this determined, especially.

“You consider yourself the
easy
out, Hogan? May I
remind you of the past day and a half and the welts on my butt that suggest
otherwise? You do come with a few very odd, unexpected strings attached.”

His hand slipped from her waist down to the butt in
question, skimming over the denim-clad curve. A complementary thrill traveled
from her seat to her belly, nerves firing up in preparation for more.

“Welts? I don’t recall any welts. I’d better check it out
and refresh my memory.”

“Oh really?”

“Take everything off.”

“Is that how this whole thing works then? You get a boner
and it’s game on for BDSM?”

“Like you don’t have a huge ladyboner for me right now. Take
your clothes off.”

“I’m serious,” she insisted, pushing against his chest. “How
does this work? Tell me the rules.” Once she knew them, she could start bending
them.

Jake shrugged and reached for his beer, tipping it back
before remembering he’d already finished it. He’d left the rest of the pack
outside the fort. “It works however we want it to work. It’s not like we’re
going to be audited to see if we’re doing kink wrong.”

She giggled, picturing what that audit would look like.
“I’ll bet there’s a porno of that though.”

“Probably.”

“It seems like there should be rules, somehow.”

He shook his head and started tugging her shirt off over her
head. Tess raised her arms obligingly to facilitate. “There kind of are. Safety
first. But you also have to realize you’re doing things that can be inherently
risky. And everyone has to consent to everything. Those are the rules. I have
some personal guidelines, of course, but that’s different.”

“Let’s hear ’em.” She turned her back so he could unhook her
bra, then shivered as his fingers traced down her spine.

“We’ve been breaking a big one.”

“Mmm?” The cozy space was already filled with the
anticipation of sex. Tess could feel it in Jake’s touch, hear it in his voice,
and it was already driving her to distraction. When he nipped the top of her
shoulder, she yelped, not expecting the sudden pain.

“Pay attention. The safeword thing. That isn’t just for you,
you know, it’s for me too. When I gave you a safeword, I wasn’t daring you not
to use it. You’re putting all this trust in me, but I have to be able to trust
you
to know your limits and stop me if it’s too much.”

“It wasn’t—”

“It
was
. And if you really can’t stop yourself, Tess,
then we can’t do this anymore. It wouldn’t be safe or healthy for either of
us.”

Her mouth went dry, her shoulders locked. She’d been
planning to send him packing when she drove up, but now the idea of not doing
this anymore hit her with a sick thud. Over
that
? She could still lose
him over
that
? “I can though. I mean I will. I’ll try.”

“Shh.” His lips grazed the spot he’d bitten earlier, and he
stroked around her waist to start unbuttoning her jeans. “We’ll work on it.
Together. I’ll train you. Starting tonight.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Now finish taking your clothes off, and I’ll demonstrate
the penalty for not taking your clothes off in the first place. And for coming
in here thinking you were going to break up with me.”

She wriggled out of her jeans, shoving them out of the small
enclosure to make room, then knelt between Jake’s extended legs and waited.

“No arguments?” He seemed surprised, his eyebrows arching,
wrinkling his forehead. “Even when you’re not on a silence dare?”

“Don’t judge my perversions, man.”

“Far be it from me, kitten. Okay then.” He patted his
thighs. “Assume the position. Facedown, head this direction, ass right about
here.” He wiggled his fingers in the air, and Tess crawled into place eagerly.
She’d wanted this, craved it all day. Jake’s legs solid and warm under her, his
arm wrapped around her waist, pinning her in place. She rested her head on her
crossed arms and squirmed to feel him tighten his grip.

“Why do I like this so much?”

Jake skimmed his palm over her thigh, bringing it to rest
right below one buttock. Tess shifted her legs open, eager for more, but he
ignored the hint. “Which part do you mean?”