“I’ll give up all the things I want to do to you… and trust me, it’s a long list, in exchange for a life youthinkI should want and should be chasing after.” I pressed kisses along her jaw as her breathing quickened. “We should do what’s right and ignore what we want. I mean, who wants a life they love and that they’re happy with because it might not sit well with other people?”
I brought my lips to hers, leaving a tiny gap between them. “We should stop this while we can.” I pressed a chaste kiss to the corner of her mouth.
“Or…” I took hold of her hip, feeling the softness of her curves. Her forehead fell to my shoulder and her warm breath on my neck made my skin tingle. “We can accept that we get on amazingly, that we have a connection, that we have fun together. I haven’t thought about your age or our age difference once since I moved in here. I don’t give a flying fuck what anyone else thinks about what we’re doing apart from your boys and we can deal with them together once we work out what’s going on here. So, I guess the question is, beautiful, are you going to decide what happens next with your head or your heart?”
I leaned back a little and lifted her chin, so she was looking at me again, letting my fingers dust down the column of her neck, coming to rest lightly around the base of her throat.
Her head fell back, extending her neck as if she was offering me her vulnerability. I stroked my thumb over her pulse point, hoping that she understood my response in this silent conversation.I won’t hurt you.
Emotion choked me at the tenderness of this moment. I’d never felt anything like it. I didn’t even know such moments existed outside of Hallmark movies and romance books.
Helen’s eyes blazed as she stared at me for a second, before lifting my hand from her throat and placing it on her chest. “Heart.”
“Good girl,” I whispered before I crashed my lips against hers, claiming her as mine.
Chapter 12
Jax
“Jax, you need to stop. I need to breathe.” Helen pulled back from my lips, her skin flushed and her pupils blown. “I’ve never been kissed like this.”
“Like what?” My voice cracked when I spoke, arousal making it hard to form my words.
“Like you can’t get enough of me. Like I’m giving you air.” She tutted, shaking her head as if she was annoyed with herself. “Sorry, I was probably reading too much into it, I—”
“Okay. No more.” I raked my fingers through her hair, leaving my palm on her cheek so she couldn’t look away. “If you feel something, chances are that’s the message I’m trying to give you. You tell me I can read you, but you’ve got a pretty good handle on me too, because that’s exactly how I felt.”
“Really?” She sounded surprised.
“Really.”
“I'm just struggling to get my head around this. Look at you. You could have anyone.” She ran her fingers down my chest, letting her hand fall to her side as she reached my abs.
“I want you,” I told her honestly.
Her eyes flared. “Why?”
I chuckled, lowering my hands to her hips and my mouth to her ear. “Because I think you’re pretty perfect, Helen Fischer. Now why don’t you go take a shower and let me take care of you?”
While Helen showered, I poured some wine, found snacks, and brought the duvet from my bed, and laid it out on the sofa. I found her coming out of the bathroom, clutching a towel around her, with another one wrapped around her hair.
“We really should stop meeting like this,” I murmured as I pushed past her, deliberately close, despite the space in the hallway. She replied with one of those fucking smiles that made me weak at the knees like some lovesick sap.
“I’m just going to get dressed.” She pointed to her bedroom.
“In clothes?”
“Yes.”
I frowned. “Why? It’s late. I was hoping for more ugly pyjamas. You must have some I haven’t seen yet.”
Laughing, she rolled her eyes. “I might have a couple of pairs left to surprise you with.”
“Good. I’ll be done in five minutes. I’ll meet you downstairs. First one there gets to decide what we watch.”
I was back down before Helen, which gave me a chance to light the candles, because the fireman in me refused to leave the room unattended if they were lit.
When Helen appeared, her hair was dry, her skin glowed, her lips were swollen and she was dressed in some black button up pyjamas covered in giant flowers, that looked hot as hell on her, despite them hiding the curves of her body that I wanted to trace with my hands and mouth.
