CADE WAS HALF convinced he was having a very vivid dream. It wouldn’t be the first time since JJ had appeared in June that he’d end up waking to thoughts of JJ’s mouth on his.
But she was too warm, and he could smell the flowers she tended and the grass he’d helped mow the other day. He could hear crickets and frogs, and she smelled like an old house. He held on to her and she was real.
It wasn’t a dream. Thank God for that, but it was hardly...simple. Especially when her hands slid up his chest and across his shoulders—as if she was testing the breadth of them, and the muscle underneath.
It would take absolutely nothing at all to let this moment spin out. All those bad-idea reasons were a lot harder to access when he was drowning in her.
“We need to talk about this,” he said against her mouth, incapable of making any effort to pull away.
“Why?” she asked, her fingers running through his hair, her mouth not quite leaving his.
“I don’t...know.” Not with her touching him. Not when he finally knew what she tasted like, and the fact that their bodies matched up like someone had designed them to come together just like this.
What was there to talk about when there was so much to explore? The way rigid, contained JJ softened in his arms, opened herself up and poured into him and through him like a revelation. The way finally—finally that armor she held around herself seemed to not just unlock, but fall off.
Completely, in this moment, and all he wanted was to be part of it. Part of her.
The feeling was too big, too all-encompassing, and he knew the kind of disastrous roads that led to. He had to believe if he was a man with less responsibility this would be easily handled, but he wasn’t just him. “We have to think.” If he could just stop touching her.
“Do we?” she asked, her voice dreamy in a way he’d never heard it before. “I think I’d prefer not to.”
He laughed, had to, though it was a mix of actual humor and some kind of cosmic—and physical—pain. He nudged her away, then back, then took a good three steps away, so as to put distance between them.
Her hair was messed up from his fingers, her cheeks flushed from him. She was... Too much.
“I have to think,” he said, more to himself than her, as he ran his fingers through his hair and tried to focus. Because he had responsibilities and he’d made a promise to himself when he’d finally realized Melissa was never coming back that it was a responsibility he’d always take seriously. “I have two little girls at home who... I have to think, JJ. Of them. You’re leaving. That is why this was a bad idea all those weeks ago, and more now. The summer is more than half over. It’s bad enough the girls will miss you like crazy, they don’t need...” Me to do it along with them.
He was starting to wonder if he wouldn’t anyway. No matter what or how. Two months wasn’t a very long time, but she felt like an integral part of his life. Dropping off the girls, lunches here. How lonely life would go back to being when she left.
But she was leaving. He wouldn’t fool himself this time. He knew too much. He didn’t want anyone staying against their will. That only bred more problems—the kind he’d had enough of.
“They won’t miss me because I’ll visit,” she said, hands fisted on her hips. “And call. Email. I won’t abandon them.” Anger flashed in her eyes, and determination. “How could I do that?”
Their own mother did. Why should I trust you not to?
He knew too much about JJ to say that to her, even though he wasn’t sure he had any trust left in him. He believed she loved those girls, but he also believed that love faded. She wanted to keep in touch or whatever she told herself, but it didn’t mean she would. Not forever.
Her expression changed, something like hurt chased across it, as if she could read his thoughts just from the way he was looking at her. For a second he thought she was going to do what she always did—wrap herself in armor, turn off the emotions and retreat back into that protective shell.
She shook her head and stepped forward instead. She took his hands in hers and turned them over, as if studying his palms would hold some answer.
“I love those girls,” she said carefully, frowning down at his hands in hers.
“I know you do.”
“I would never do anything to purposefully hurt them, but I guess I’m beginning to realize we often hurt people without meaning to. Especially if we’re mired in our own hurt.” She looked up from his hands, though she kept her grip firm on them. “I know your life is about Ellie and Lora, but this moment isn’t.”
“J—”
“So I’m going to tell you something kind of embarrassing.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t have any experience with this.”
“Okay.” He stared at her as he was starting to get a clearer picture of what all this was. “What exactly do you mean by any?”
“I mean any.” She cleared her throat. Her cheeks were pink, he would have said with embarrassment, but her gaze was frank. “It’s not for any philosophical reason. It’s because I’ve always kept people at a distance. I don’t exactly put off a kiss-me vibe.”
“JJ—”
“Let me finish. I’ve never been all that compelled to try to have any kind of physical thing with a guy. It’s not like anyone’s offered to climb all those walls I put up. I like you, Cade. And I really liked kissing you. The walls aren’t as high where you’re concerned, for whatever reason. Yes, I’m leaving come September, but we’re friends. I don’t know why we couldn’t be...friends with benefits, regardless of how long I’m going to be in Jasper Creek. People do that...don’t they?”
People. He was sure people did that. He’d just never had much of a middle ground between try to get into a girl’s pants back in high school and then marriage not that far removed from high school.
But sure, people did that kind of thing, and he was people, wasn’t he? “I suppose they do.”
“So we could. It wouldn’t be about anyone but us. For as long as... Well, my point is...” She dropped his hands, a pained expression moving across her face before some of that armor clicked on. “I guess I don’t know what my point is and—”
“I know. I know what your point is.” He stepped forward and kissed her again, like he had when she’d been babbling about this being stupid. Hell, he wasn’t so sure it wasn’t irrevocably stupid, but he was sure it would be worth it.
JJ had never done this, and maybe it was wrong, but he wanted be the one to give it to her. He wanted to be someone she remembered, even if she ended up fading away, like people usually did.
That was potent enough to risk all the stupid. That and the promise of this being something about just him and just her. Even if he wasn’t sure he’d ever be a just him again.
“Well, we should go inside,” she said, her eyes half-closed, her mouth a whisper from his.
“Hold on. I—I have to get something out of my truck.”
“You know the thing I needed help with was fake, right? You don’t need your tools.”
“Condoms, JJ,” he replied, unable to help the grin that spread across his face as he backed away from her. “I’m going to get condoms.”
“Oh. Okay. I’ll...be inside.”
He nodded and strode for his truck. Feeling like half a fool and half the luckiest damn guy in the world, he grabbed a condom from the box Mac had jokingly thrown in his truck when he’d come over to watch the girls.
Cade shoved it in his pocket, but stopped halfway through the yard on his return.
He looked at the house, which seemed to glow there in the near-gone light. Maybe he should feel bad that he was about to take advantage of Grandma June’s granddaughter in Grandma June’s house, but it looked welcoming.
He had the funniest feeling that if this was frowned upon, there’d be some sign from that house, from the air. But the door was open for him, and JJ was waiting for him, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that whatever ways this messed him up, it’d be worth it.