He chose the dignified response, which was, of course, pretending that his body was not currently demonstrating just how vivid his dreams of her had been. “Morning,” he rubbed his face, took a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose as his eyes came fully into focus.
“Sorry, I was trying to be as quiet as possible, but I was just in the flow and had to paint.”
“Don’t apologize,” he said, smiling. “This is your house.”
She sat down on the mattress, so close that he could see her small nipples straining against the lace of the bra that she wore underneath her tank top. He wondered if it was the same one that he’d taken off her the night before.
He’d fallen asleep thinking about her, thinking about the way that she had thrown her head back when the orgasm had torn through her. When he’d had to leave her, right after seeing her like that, it had felt like he was being pried away from a bottle of water after being lost in the desert for days. If the call hadn’t been directly related to the case—the case that was keeping them from actually being together—he would have told McConnell to shove it and taken her right then and there on the concrete floor of her apartment.
It didn’t matter though, not anymore. He was too far gone to pull back now and although he’d move at the pace that she wanted to set, he’d damned well burn the book and everything in it to have just a single night with her.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked. Reaching out a slender hand, she touched the spot between his eyes. “I can see the tension sitting right here.”
He tried hard to ignore the feeling of her impossibly soft hands on his face, decided to reach up and catch her hand in his own instead so that he could link them. He needed to touch her, needed them to be connected for when he said, “I was thinking about last night.”
She blushed, a pretty rose color flooding her cheeks, and looked down at their linked hands. “I’m sorry,” she started. “I was so…pent up and then you came home and the kiss…the kiss threw me off.” She took a small breath of air. “I just went with it, which is surprising really, because I’m not usually a courageous lover. I’m usually the girl who lets the guy instigate.” She rambled on, her words becoming more rushed and breathier as she spoke. “I know that you don’t want to…engage while the case is open, and I respect that. I think. Actually, maybe it’ll be good to add some distance, you know?”
He felt his heart sink. For a moment he’d hoped that she’d come to the same conclusion that he had: That they couldn’t live without each other, the case be damned.
“I thought about it a lot last night and, this,” she indicated between them, “happened insanely fast. I don’t even know what I did with myself before I met you. So anyway,” she met his eyes, “all this is to say that I agree with you. I think we should put the brakes on, take it easy until the case is officially closed and then go from there if we both still want to.”
Ouch.
He nodded. “I think that would be the appropriate course of action.” He didn’t say that he hated the idea and wanted to rip her clothes off without any further delay. Because that would have felt like emotional coercion.
She smiled in relief and Jacob saw that her monologue aside, she had been nervous to speak to him about it.
“So, do you have the day off today? I was thinking that I’d use it as a paint day. I usually take Sunday off, but I’ve been kind of…distracted of late and the extra hours would help me meet my deadlines.”
He subtly let go of her hand, trying desperately hard to ignore the searing emptiness of his palm without hers in it. “I, ah, was hoping that I could solicit your help today,” he began. As much as he understood her need to work, anything that he could do to solve this case faster had just become his first priority.
“What is it?” she asked, tilting her head slightly to the side. “You know that I’ll help in any way I can.”
“I need to show you the victims’ pictures, see if you recognize any of them. Now that we’ve ID’d all of them, it can’t wait any longer.”
She nodded.
“And then I need you to come with me to Child Services, to interview the orphaned son of one of the victims.”
“What?” she whispered, her eyes becoming big and round, her lips turning down in sorrow. “One of the girls had a son?”
He nodded and gently reached out a hand to run it down her arm. As much as he’d told himself that she wanted distance, he knew that they both needed the physical comfort. And so did he. “I texted my mom late last night, but she responded this morning saying that she had an appointment that she couldn’t reschedule on such short notice.”
He saw that she was nodding absent-mindedly. “Doesn’t he have any other family?” she asked, her mind drifting away from the girls.
He shook his head. “His grandparents are dead too, and his father wasn’t listed on the birth certificate, probably for good reason. He’s alone now.”
“What could I possibly do to make things better?” she asked, shrugging her shoulders forlornly.
He could tell by her tone that she was bewildered at the prospect of facing Jordan Holt, so he leaned forward and, cupping her chin, brought her gaze back to him. “I don’t know, but I’m out of my depth and I need your help.”
He told her the truth because he knew that the admission would help her face the day ahead of them. He had come to know that about her, that she’d put her own feelings aside to help someone else. He had seen it in the way that she interacted with her neighbor, Matt, and in the way that she had subtly encouraged Jacob himself to spill his entire life’s story to her just by…well, by being herself. And even though he’d never abuse that knowledge, he did need help with the kid. He didn’t know the first thing about children, or about the grief of losing a loved one. The closest thing he had to that was his divorce and that hardly compared to what Jordan Holt was going through now.
Her eyes seemed to focus on him, and she nodded firmly. “I can come. I don’t know what I can do, but I’ll try and help.”
His hand was burning where he’d touched her face and he breathed a sigh of relief when she pushed to her feet, leaving him still half-under the covers on his blowup mattress. “Thank you,” he said, knowing that agreeing to what he asked couldn’t have been easy for her.
“God, Jake. Any woman would do the same. I mean…that poor boy is all alone.” She tapped her foot on the concrete floor of her studio, the sad look in her eyes replaced by one of dogged determination. “Fuck! I feel like such an asshole,” she said suddenly.
He chuckled at the angry look in her eye, felt a small stab of something else when she crinkled her nose at him. Of course, she’s fucking adorable when she’s mad.
“I mean it! Here I was stressing about my irrational need to jump you at every moment of the day, and there’s a kid who has lost the only person he had in the entire world! God, I feel…ashamed.” She clasped her hands to her chest.
He chose to ignore the part about her wanting to jump him, or was it needing to? And, instead, he pushed off the bed, grabbing his bag that sat on the floor as he did so. He rummaged around inside until he found the pictures and pulled them out so that he could hand them to her. Better to show her now while she was riled up than later when she was devastated after meeting Jordan Holt—because she would be. They both would be.