“You have cried in front of me several times now. Nothing you will ever do will scare me away.”
“You mean that?”
Jae pulls a tissue out of the box and uses it to wipe under my nose.
What a true gentleman.
“I mean it. Would I be wiping your nose if I didn’t?”
“Some people do fucked up things, Jae.” I laugh through whatever straggling tears I have left.
“This is not one of those fucked up things.” Jae scooches closer to me, carefully making sure his feet do not touch the bed, and that I remain balled up against the wall, and takes my face in his hands. This time I feel more like a delicate piece of stained glass than a soccer ball. “Don’t act like you’re a fucked up thing. You’ve been through a lot.”
He’s right. I have been treating myself like a fucked up thing. And I have been through a lot. “You are not the things you carry.” Jae wipes my eyes for me.
I am not what I have been.
“Can I kiss you?” I ask him.
He answers by pressing a tender, unguarded kiss to my lips. This kiss is all sweetness, all safety, no lust, no infatuation. I take his face in my hands, and they find their way to the back of his head, through his soft, luscious hair.
I find sanctuary and shelter in him as he kisses me, and I pull him closer to bring him next to me. He breaks our kiss and I miss the heat of his lips immediately, but am guarded by the heat of his body being so close to mine. He puts a hand through my hair, and while he gets caught in the tangles of my curls, it doesn’t stop him from grabbing handful after handful.
I suddenly feel too vulnerable, too naked, even though I’m decked out in the most ridiculous pajamas. Our lips aredangerously close to touching again, and I know if they do, I won’t be able to stop there. I want him to stay here with me.
“Wait,” I interject the moment he leans back towards me.
“Yeah?” Jae stops in his tracks, but his eyes remain closed.
“Will you spend the night with me?” I ask, my voice filled with genuine need. “Not like to sleep with me, I mean, to have sex.” I stumble and teeter over my words. “Just to sleep in my bed. Together.”
Jae breaks out into his winning grin. “Of course I’ll stay with you. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“The same goes for you.”
“What time do you normally go to sleep? You don’t happen to have some shorts I could borrow, do you? Or do you mind if I sleep with no pants?” Jae asks me a bunch of rapid-fire questions and I have no clear answers to any of them.
He crawls away from me and off the bed and begins unbuttoning his shirt to reveal a white muscle tank underneath. It clings to his smooth skin like plastic wrap, and it takes everything in me not to let my jaw drop. He is utterly delicious. This is all mine, now.
“I…” I don’t have a single answer. “You…” The more buttons he undoes, the fewer words I have to say. And when he slips the shirt off entirely and his forearms are bare, I just want to throw myself at him until he accepts.
He is so perfectly perfect. Jae has a hell of a body. Triceps, biceps, you name it, he’s got it. This isn’t even the first time I’m seeing him. I think back to the first time I saw him like this. In that stupidly tiny towel. I imagine it as my towel.
“Hello? Earth to Riley?” Jae laughs as he folds his shirt and places it on my wardrobe.
“I don’t have any shorts you can borrow,” I say quickly to make up for my silence.
“Should I leave and come back?”
“Don’t leave!” I say before my better judgment kicks in.
“Sure thing,” He walks down along the edge of my bed again and undoes his belt buckle. With each passing second, my heart beats faster and faster.
I try to mentally prepare myself for what I know I’m about to see, but still, I can’t manage to be anything but stunned when he unzips his pants to take them off. I force myself not to wince. Why am I the one embarrassed? He’s the one taking his pants off!
So, he’s a briefs guy.
“What’s the matter with you?” Jae asks while folding his pants to stack on top of his shirt. He turns around to set his phone on top of his neatly folded pile.
