“I… don’t care…?”
Jake looked me dead in the eyes. “You gonna be with someone else while I’m away?”
“I legitimately fail to see how that’s your business.”
He made a considering face. “Okay, I’ll put it like this: I find out there’s been someone else, they’re dead, and you’re handcuffed to my bed for a month.”
“That’s a literal threat!”
Jake didn’t even blink. “You love it.”
I did. But I avoided his eyes, sipping my coffee, unwilling to agree. I sensed he’d been gearing up forthis conversation for a while. That we’d hit a stage of repeated sexual contact where some statement of intent was required.
“Look at me,” he said, with a seriousness totally unlike his usual demands for me to climb onto his face.
I did what I was told and was shocked by his beauty in the morning sunshine. The shape of his face. The warmth in his dark grey eyes. It took everything I had not to say it all out loud. Instead, I sighed. “What do you want now?”
“You know what. Gimme a shot, Ada. A real one. That’s all I’m asking for.”
It probably wasn’t too much to ask, considering I’d basically been living with him for over a week, but committing meant officially laying down my revenge plans—at least in this current form. It also meant walking into another doomed relationship. Watching the light go out of another man’s eyes, as I fail to meet their expectations. Another disappointment. But my chest was tight as a fist, and I knew if I said ‘No, I don’t want to be with you,’ I’d be lying to both of us. Sometimes you don’t get to decide. You just realise the choice has already been made. Still, I couldn’t quite accept it.
“I don’t like you,” I told Jake. “You, or anyone else.”
He grinned because nothing I say ever seems to actually upset Jake. “You like taking my dick. That’s good enough for now. How ’bout we go from there?”
How do you argue with a man talking like that? More importantly, how do you resist?
“Okay,” I muttered. “One shot. Do not miss this opportunity to blow, etcetera.”
Jake smiled at me, and it was like the sun coming up over a wine-dark lake. “Then it’s settled. You’re my girl.”
“For now.”
He rolled his eyes, still grinning from ear to ear. “God, you're a hard woman.”
“You love it.”
“You drive me batshit.”
“That was the plan.”
“Wasthe plan?”
I stayed silent for as long as I could, but eventually the sheer, unstoppable handsomeness of his stern face won. “Yeah. Was, I guess.”
“And now?”
I shrugged.
Jake took my coffee cup, putting it on the side table, climbed onto the bed and kissed me in that soft, deep way that never feels forced or overwhelming. I opened my eyes as our mouths worked, and he was looking right into my eyes. The realisation I didn’t mind startled me, but I stared back with the sweeping sense that I’d known him forever. It didn’t make sense. I lived with Name Forever Redacted for two years, and sometimes I’d catch him looking at me and think,‘Whoareyou?’
But I don’t feel that way about Jake. It’s way too soon, and it fucking terrifies me.
“How are you sure about me?” I demanded when he’d finished melting my brain with his lips.
“Because I am.”
“Circular logic.”
