I would’ve liked to believe myself when I explained to myself that my interest in the answer to that question was purely for Jesse’s benefit. That as one of his best friends and groomsmen, not to mention his manager, it was my duty to help make sure this thing went off without a hitch, that Jesse was happy, that Katie got the wedding of her dreams; that as soon as they got back from their honeymoon, Jesse was going back into writing mode for the new album and it was important he not be distracted or dealing with the fallout of some bullshit family drama, courtesy of his disappearing-act of a sister… or somesuchshit.
But the truth was, I had to see heragain.
Hadto.
One glimpse of her, standing in the rain at the airport, her face tipped back as she grinned at the sky like she didn’t have a fucking care in the world, wearing my shirt—or at least, a shirt that looked a fuck of a lot like a shirt I’d once had, that she’d been wearing the last time I saw it—and Iwasdone.
Done.
Sitting all of two feet from her in my truck? I was well and truly fucked. Because I’d forgotten how many colors there were in those soulful dark eyes. Forgotten how fucking pretty she was; how painfully fucking pretty. And I could still see the little girl she once was in those eyes—the little girl who’d looked at me like I ruled the fuckingworld.
I could barely look at her, could barely fucking breathe—that smell of her,fuck me, the smell of her that hadn’t changed in all the years since I’d met her, sweet and pure, like apples and blossoms and rain and fucking stardust and moonbeams; I couldn’t say what it was, but yeah. All I could do was grip the wheel and concentrate on driving and just try to keep from foaming at the mouth when I lit into her—try to pretend that none of it mattered; all my pissed off, miles-deep frustrations; all the disappointment; all the repressed agony and the pent-up clusterfuck of rage… that none of it destroyed me at all… thatshedidn’t destroy me, when she so fucking did… all of it, just broiling beneath the surface, readytoblow.
And hervoice.
That fucking voice I hadn’t heard in six-and-a-half years, melodic and soft and sofuckingher.
I had never in my life had to jack off so badly that I pulled my vehicle off the road, onto the shoulder of a fucking highway, and took my cock out while cars blasted by and I did not give one fuck whosawme.
But I didjustthat.
Not five minutes after dropping her off with Jude, on my way to pick up Amanda… because no one needed to see me like that. So totallyfuckedup.
Christ, whodoesthat?
A maniac,that’swho.
And if I was a maniac, it was because Jessa Mayes, once upon a time, turned me into one. But shit happens, yeah? I was a kid then. Since then, I’d become a man. I wasn’t gonna unravel at Jesse’swedding.
And Ididn’t.
I was good. Ihadthis.
Until I heard her name, just somewhere in the ether, and I knew shewashere.
Jessa.
Someone said it, somewhere, and I turned to look across the room like a dog tossed a scrap. Pretty sure I salivated. My wine glass broke in my hand. It made an audible popping sound, and both Amanda and I looked down to find the delicate bowl of the glass, still in my hand, cracked, winedribblingout.
At least I wasn’tbleeding.
“Omigosh,” Amanda said, and grabbed a bunch of napkins from the bar to help me. “Um… I think you’re supposed to finish drinking the winebeforeyou break the glass.” She smiled at me, then got the bartender to whisk the broken glass away and hand me afreshone.
While I just stoodthere.
Staring acrosstheroom.
Because Jessa Mayes had just walked in wearing a dress that couldn’t possibly be legal onthatbody.
Not that there was anything scandalous about the dress on its own. It was fitted to her goddess-like curves, but it was longish, ending just below the knee, the neckline dipping no lower than her collarbone, with half-sleeves. It wasn’t exactly an upstaging-the-bride sort of dress. It wasn’t white, slutty, or showing miles of leg—and Jessa Mayes had miles and miles of leg under thatthing.
It was just what it did to my brain when I saw herinit.
It was made of what looked like thick, bunched-up silk. Not quite peach, not quite pink… salmon? Iced-rose-cantaloupe-sorbet? I had no idea what the fuck a chick would call it, but it wasmotherfuckinghot.
Along with her silky, slightly wavy hair that reached pretty much exactly to her nipples, worn smooth, the ends curled under and one side tucked behind a perfect ear, she looked like a screen siren out of some old black-and-white movie—but in vivid flesh tones, like some technicolor wetdream.
Hard to tell when I’d picked her up at the airport in that furry jacket, but now I could see how she’d changed since she went away—in all ways holy and good. As a little girl she was cute, a little dorky, scrappy, with her mane of wild brown hair and those big brown eyes. As a teenager, she got lithe and limber, swanned right out into an angel-facedbeauty.
