“Back to my original question, Jagg. I want to know why you’re doing all this for me. Tell me. Tell me why?—”
I stepped in closer, my voice low and ragged. “Fine. You want the truth? Here it is. It’s taking every ounce of my energy not to throw you on the dock right now, rip that T-shirt from your body, destroy those tiny-ass shorts—that I’d never let another man see you in again—and lick the sweat from your neck and fuck you until you can’t remember your own name. How’s that, Sunny? How’s that for cutting the bullshit?”
She swallowed, her lips parting slightly, eyes shimmering with something between defiance and desire.
“And here’s the deal: I don’t want tojustkiss you,” I said. “I want to know you. I want to protect you. I want to be the one you call when you’re scared or angry or lost. You’ve taken up every space in my damn head since the second I saw you, and I hate it—because I don’t fully trust it yet. I don’t fully trustyou.And that scares the hell out of me.”
I cupped her jaw, slowly tilting her face up to mine.
“But what scares me more?” I whispered, brushing my lips just shy of hers. “The thought of walking away.”
And then I kissed her—soft at first, reverent. When she leaned in, when she met me, opened to me, I deepened it—hungry, full of everything I’d been holding back.
Under the stars.
Under the pull of something bigger than either of us.
Under her spell.
38
JAGG
Streaks of dawn were just beginning to crest the mountains as I jogged up the station steps, ignoring the knot in my back, getting worse by the minute. I inwardly laughed at myself—not in a funny way, in ayou’re-so-damn-pathetic way.During my door kicking days, I considered it a good night to sleep anywhere that didn’t involve scorpions the size of your fist. It’s amazing how quickly you can go soft… in more ways than one.
Damn Sunny Harper.
I hadn’t slept a wink since sharing a beer with Sunny.
Most men wouldn’t after a kiss like that. It had taken every bit of restraint I had not to make a move. Sunny shared the darkest moments of her life with me. She’d opened up, which I knew was no easy feat. And while I knew there were many more layers to strip, it was a start. Something deep in me cared, felt proud. It meant something to me that she trusted me when I knew, in Sunny’s book, men were as valued as her kitchen.
It had been sexual restraint due to respect. Something, Ican say with complete confidence, I’d never experienced before.
Me, on the other hand?
Uneasy—that’s the best word I can think to describe the way I was feeling. While Sunny seemed to be making strides against her distrust in men, I was questioning my own sanity. Every decision I was making, every instinct, every damn flutter in my stomach. One month ago, I would have never kissed a woman involved in one of my cases, gorgeous or not. Hell, I never kissed a woman without the end goal being the condom rolling off. But I’d kissed Sunny—twice now—because something in me couldn’t hold back. My thoughts, my actions, just seemed to be cloudy since I’d met the woman, and I couldn’t fight the feeling I was missing something.
Colson was questioning me, the town was questioning me, and I’ll be damned if I hadn’t started questioning myself. Ineverdid that. Maybe the pain in my body was finally wearing me down, but I felt like I was slipping.
Something was justdifferent.
After the tears andthat kiss,Sunny and I stayed on the deck for another hour, sipping our drinks, watching the moon rise while listening to the waves crash against the lakeshore. It was a comfortable silence, one that I’d never experienced with another woman. Then, after demanding that I call Ryder and check on her dogs, Sunny made her way back to the bungalow. I’d followed, as was becoming suit and certainly nothing I was proud of. There’d been no argument about who got the bed. Sunny was exhausted.
I’d given her space to use the bathroom, and settled onto the deck and closed my eyes.
Through the open windows, I listened to the bed creak and groan as she climbed into it. I waited until I was sureshe’d fallen asleep before sneaking back inside where I grabbed another beer, perched myself on the windowsill and watched her sleep.
This was a first for me. I’d never watched a woman sleep in my life.
Sometime after the third or fourth beer, the restraint I’d been practicing all night tripled, with me having to dig my toes into the floor to keep from crawling into bed with her.
I listened to the sounds of the night, the nocturnal creatures skittering about, the heat bugs screaming, the waves crashing outside. The breeze rustling through the trees. No white noise of the local news running on loop in the background, no cell phone beeping at me, emails dinging, cars racing by, no buzz of an old window air conditioning unit. Nothing.
I realized how long it had been since I’d heard nothing.
My mind had drifted to thoughts of what it would be like to take a vacation with Sunny. The beach, a tropical jungle, maybe even a trek through the desert. I thought of all the places I wanted to take her, to watch her smile, relax, let that guard down. To take away an ounce of that weight she carried on her shoulders. I wondered what it would be like to date her, be her man.
And her to be mine.
