“Okay, you don’t need to.” She held his hand tight, unsure what the right thing to say or do was. No way would she push him on this. And she didn’t know how to tell him how much it meant to her that he’d shared.
The silence wrapped them both. The only sound was the trickle of hot water coming from the faucet.
“You like games, though. We can do board games,” he said finally.
Did she even have any board games? They could buy some. She’d do that tomorrow. First thing. “That wouldn’t really be fair. I mean, I’d win all the time.”
She turned off the faucet with her toe, and the silence was back. Not an awkward silence, just the quiet of two people together.
“Thank you,” he said softly against her ear.
“For what?”
“For not pushing.”
Well, given what she’d seen of his family, she’d bet he wasn’t used to someone choosing not to push him. “I like you, Jase. If something bothers you, we don’t have to do it.”
He squeezed her closer. “I like you, too, Heather Reese.”
She turned on his lap so they were face-to-face, readjusting herself so her knees were on either side of him, her core pressed against him. And, dammit all, if he wasn’t ready for round two.
“You like me?” she asked.
“Uh-huh.” He pushed her hair from her face.
“Like,like melike me?” She giggled.
“Uh-huh.” Damn, he was hard before, but now his erection full on pressed against her. “Do youlike melike me?”
“Will you go down on me in the bathtub again sometime?”
“Anytime you want.”
“Then, yeah. Ilike youlike you.”
He smiled big. “You want to go steady?”
She laughed and dropped her forehead to his. “Yes.”
“Ladies and gentleman, she said yes.” He kissed her hard, the heat between them intensifying. This was so much better thanThe Price is Right.
24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Senior “Senior” Prom Countdown: 1 Day
Jase was late to work. Well, late by his standards. But Heather had made his tardiness worth the effort. Usually, he got to work before dawn, unable to sleep. With Heather, sleep wasn’t an issue. They played hard. They slept hard. Then they played hard again. And after the night he’d had with her, there wasn’t much that could ruin his morning. When he walked into his shop, both brothers and his sister were lounging around his arranging table, a half-eaten box of doughnuts in the center and a to-go carafe of coffee next to it. His heart dropped.
Early-morning family wake-up calls were never a good thing.
“Glad to see you let yourselves in.” He snagged a chocolate-frosted doughnut and bit into it, but the glazed dough held no taste. Not when he was prepping himself for whatever shit his family was about to sling.
“We needed to escape Mom.” Anna flicked sprinkles off of her own doughnut. “We figured the one place she wouldn’t look for us is here.”
“It’s like the tree fort when we were kids, but with flowers,” Zach said.
“Remember when we all sardined in there because Jase accidentally lit the roof on fire?”
