If that sounds like a complaint? It absolutely isn’t.
ChapterTwelve
Chuck
We weren’t even back on the main road when I noticed Jules wincing at each bounce over the rutted dirt road we’d pulled off on.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly, dropping my hand to squeeze his knee.
“You are?” Jules asked, surprised. “For what?”
I nodded my head in the general direction of the trees were we’d, ahem,liaisoned.“You know.”
Jules’s surprise turned to confusion. “You’re sorry we had sex?”
Yeah, no. I really wasn’t.
“Of course not,” I assured him, squeezing his knee again. “I’m sorry you’re uncomfortable; I shouldn’t have gone quite so…” I shrugged and waved my hand in the world-wide accepted gesture forfucked you like a wild animal in the middle of the forest.
“You mean for fucking me?” Jules’s confusion faded, his lips stretching into a grin. Dropping his hand over mine, he held it in place on his leg. “Are you really?” he asked, amused. “Because I’m really, really not sorry about that little interlude.”
Okay, well, no. Of course, I wasn’t sorry about it, exactly.
“Not about that,” I admitted a little sheepishly. “More about manhandling you to the point where every bump makes you hurt.”
“Oh.” Jules lifted the hand he was pinning to his leg, pressing a kiss to my palm. “Well, allow me to put your mind at ease,” he suggested with another smile. “I’m not sorry at all that you did, and, for future reference, I am probably always willing to be pounded into whatever surface is handy when you start to feelthings.” His arched eyebrow and teasing smirk set my mind at ease, making it more than clear exactly whatthingshe had in mind.
“I’ll bear that in mind.” I stopped at the intersection of dirt road and pavement and leaned over for a quick kiss before pulling onto the highway. “Given that you’re pretty damn irresistible, that’s probably a good thing.”
Jules snickered. “But I thought you were done with me and on our way to returning me to from whence I was kidnapped?”
Yeah, again, not happening.
“Not sure I’ll ever be done with you,” I admitted, trying to keep my tone light. “And we’re driving in the opposite direction of Philadelphia.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“We’ve got some associates coming in,” I explained. “Given the issues we have with the Hunters, I decided to drive out and escort them in instead of waiting for them at the campus.”
“You usually take a picnic when you escort people to the school?” Jules teased lightly.
“Never before, actually,” I admitted with a wink. “In fact, until a certain music teacher showed up, I rarely ever took time off.”
“You don’t say?” Jules might have looked a little smug. “What changed?”
“I guess I learned the value of stopping to hear the bells,” I teased back, ignoring how my heart stuttered at the truth in my words.
Jules pressed another kiss to my palm before intertwining our fingers and lowering our hands to his lap.
The rest of the drive passed mostly in comfortable silence, broken only by Jules occasionally humming along to the songs playing on the radio until we reached our destination. Pulling into the open meadow, I killed the SUV and grabbed the picnic basket before exiting the car.
“You may want your coat,” I suggested. It was a pretty nice day for being this early in the year, but Texas weather could change quickly. “Can you grab the blanket on the seat behind you?”
“Sure,” Jules agreed, stopping with it in his hands to stare out over the valley below us. “Wow, this is gorgeous.”
I followed his gaze, taking in the lightly rolling hills that were just starting to green up. “It is but wait until you see it with the wildflowers in bloom.” My chest tightened as I said it, reminding me that there was a very real chance that neither of us would be here when that happened. Jules would surely go back to his home when he was done healing and as for me, well, I still had the threat of the Hunters hanging over my head.
Oblivious to my inner concerns, Jules smiled and walked to my side, stretching up slightly to kiss my cheek. “I can’t wait. Where should I spread this out?”
