"I don't want to forget it!"
She seemed as surprised by the admittance as he was. She added in a sad voice, "I'm a mess. I'm sorry."
"Will you stop apologizing?"
Her eyes widened, a blush creeping into her cheeks.
Jack knew he was probably being too harsh, but he'd run out of patience today. "You’ve got your issues. I have mine. Whatever. I don't care. Either you want this or you don't. That's all that matters."
"It's not that simple. Come on, even you know that."
Now he gave in to the urge to haul her into his arms. She let out a gasp of surprise. "Kissing you, touching you, making you feel good? Yeah, baby, it's fucking as simple as that."
Gwen was breathing fast, her breasts pushing against her emerald-green sweater. The color made her eyes seem even greener. Jack also noticed for the first time that her lashes were tipped with blond. It was such an intimate detail that it made his own heart stutter.
"But if you've moved on," he said, his voice rough, "that's fine. Just tell me, for the love of God."
"Moved on? To who?"
His fingers were digging into the flesh of her upper arms, and he forced himself to loosen his hold. "That man down the hallway. I heard you flirting with him."
"Flirting? What?"
Jack growled. When he leaned down to kiss her, though, a door opened down the hallway. Before Jack could react, she'd squirmed from his embrace.
And then the guest who Gwen had been flirting with earlier appeared.
Instead of the rival Jack had imagined, a tiny old man tottered out of the room. He was completely bald, his glasses taking up half of his face. Despite his stooped posture and obvious age, he still managed to walk at a fair clip. After a quick hello and goodbye to Gwen, he just as quickly went down the stairs.
Gwen didn't say anything for a long moment. Neither did Jack. Her lower lip was trembling, and then her chin, and then her entire body was shaking with soundless laughter.
Jack glared at her. "It's not funny."
"You thought I was flirting with Jerry—" Gwen let out another peal of laughter.
Jack just crossed his arms and waited for her to stop. She giggled, snorted, and then when she looked into his face, started the routine all over again.
"You sounded flirtatious." Even Jack knew how stupid he sounded.
"I was being courteous, you weirdo. And anyway, you never know. Maybe Jerry is my type." She grinned. "He is very nice, after all. He's already invited me to play checkers with him later tonight. Who knows what we'll get up to after that. Maybe we'll watch reruns of Murder, She Wrote and go to bed by eight o'clock."
"Are you done?"
Gwen patted him on the chest. "Am I done teasing you? Never." Her expression turned more serious. "You don't have to be jealous. I'm not interested in playing checkers with anyone but you."
Cupping the back of her neck, Jack tilted her head up. "Are you being honest? Or just trying to spare my feelings?"
"I don't care that much about your feelings," was her wry response.
That made him kiss her. He knew he should've warned her, but the urge was too great to ignore. When she responded, though, he let himself kiss her for a few seconds longer before breaking their embrace.
"You want to try again?" Her words were a whisper.
"Yeah. I do."
She beamed at him. He almost looked away, because he knew he didn't deserve that kind of look from a woman like Gwen. But being the selfish asshole he was, he didn't tell her no, either.
"My place or yours?" he rasped.
"Mine. Your place is too far. How about Saturday night?"
"It's a deal." He brushed his thumb across her lip. "I'll be counting down the days."
Chapter Thirteen
Gwen usually didn't mind living on an island. Sure, you couldn't get some things as quickly as you could in a bigger city. It took sometimes up to two weeks to get packages from online retailers, depending on the weather.
But today, Gwen wished she lived in a bigger city. Even a decent-sized town would suffice. But here on Hazel Island, she had nowhere to go to buy new lingerie for her upcoming night with Jack.
At the general store, Gwen perused the pathetically bare racks of oversized nightgowns. Most of them either had fish on them or the Seattle Seahawks logo. Hardly the sexy type of stuff she wanted to buy. Just the thought of her opening the door to Jack, while she wore a huge nightgown with a gaping salmon on it, made her giggle.
The store had a few packs of underwear that Gwen couldn't tell if they were for men or women. Maybe they were unisex. Sighing, she gave up looking, only nearly to run into Helen.
"Watch where you're going! Oh, it's you." Helen pursed her mouth. "You nearly ran me over, you know."
"Sorry. I was just distracted."
"Hmm. That seems to be a theme with you lately. Yesterday I saw you stepping into your car, and you didn't even hear me call your name. Or maybe you were just ignoring an annoying old lady."
Gwen felt her face heat. "I wasn't ignoring you."
Helen didn't seem convinced. She glanced over at the packs of underwear, picking up one of them.
"I appreciate that this place just has the essentials. Small, to the point. But a shame they don't have more vegan things. When I asked an employee if they had vegan cheese, she looked like her head was about to explode."
Gwen had to restrain herself from tapping her foot. Normally, she didn't mind having these short chats with guests and island residents. It was simply the nature of where she lived.
But now, she needed to figure out what the hell she was going to wear tomorrow night when Jack came over. Did she have time to take the ferry down to one of the suburbs outside of Seattle? Or would she need to go into the city itself? She needed to figure out what she was looking for...
"Now I know you're ignoring me." Helen clucked her tongue. "Did you hear a word I just said?"
Gwen considered lying. Instead, she admitted sheepishly, "No, I didn't. I just have a lot going on."
Before Gwen could make her exit, who should appear but Jack Benson himself? He didn't see Gwen or Helen, as his attention was on something in the next aisle over. But Gwen would recognize that dark hair and broad shoulders anywhere.
Helen looked over to where Gwen was staring. She raised her eyebrows. "He is quite a snack. I don't blame you there."
Reaching over to the rack of nightgowns, Helen pulled out a white one with lace edging. It looked like it had come straight out of an episode of Little House on the Prairie. The cherry on top, though, was the huge fish plastered on the front with the slogan Gone Fishin' below it.
Helen held the nightgown up, assessing how Gwen would look wearing it.
"You need something to get that man's attention. Go over to his place wearing this, and he'll lose his mind," said Helen sagely.
Gwen struggled to contain her laughter. When Jack turned and spotted her, Helen still holding up the nightgown, he raised an eyebrow in question.
Gwen took the nightgown from Helen, stuffing it into her basket, blushing to the roots of her hair. The last thing she needed was Jack to think she was going to wear something as unsexy as this stupid nightgown!