He typed, a third time.
He only started panicking after he hit send.
Chapter Thirty-One
“WHAT DOES IT say?” Rhiannon shoved Jia aside, but Katrina held the phone against her chest protectively.
“It’s private.”
“You don’t want help answering?” Jia bounced. “This is so exciting.”
“What did it say?” Rhiannon repeated, this time asking Jia.
“I don’t know, she was too fast.”
“Katrina, we are invested.”
Katrina came to her feet and walked away from her friends, and then reread the message.
I love you. I always have.
Holy motherfucking shit balls.
She couldn’t stop the leap in her chest, every romantic part of her bursting into action. She placed the cursor in the reply box, then paused. She did need help. “He told me he loves me.”
“Oh my God.” Jia clutched her face. “Say you love him too!”
Katrina started typing, then deleted. “I don’t know.”
“Okay, now that he’s made himself vulnerable, you are free to make yourself vulnerable,” Rhiannon lectured. “But not in excess of his vulnerability. That’s the rule.”
Katrina waved the phone. “Tell me what to say.”
“Okay, right.” Rhiannon leapt to her feet. “Thank you very much. I return your affections.”
Katrina tried that, and immediately erased it. “Never mind. I’ll do this on my own.”
“WHAT DID SHE say now?” Andrés demanded.
Jas dropped his head in his hands and stared at the phone in his lap. The scotch had made his head fuzzy, but not fuzzy enough to dull the pain of this torture. “Dots. Three little dots.” Evil dots.
“What does that mean?”
Gurjit hushed Andrés. “She’s typing.”
Typing, typing, typing. Forever.
When the text did come, Jas almost passed out releasing the breath he was holding. “Well?” Gurjit clutched Andrés’s hand. “What’s the verdict?”
His smile could probably light up the hospital.
I love you, too. Hurry up and come home.
“Grandpa?”
“Yes?”
“Got any pilots who owe you a favor?”
Chapter Thirty-Two
SLEEP CAME SLOWLY to Katrina, but the alcohol helped. She would have slept straight through to morning but a noise woke her up.
Her eyes popped open. It was still dark in her bedroom, but someone was knocking on her door.
She breathed deep. Don’t freeze. Katrina reached under her pillow and groped for the little spray bottle she kept there, because she was paranoid as hell. She crept to the door. “Who is it?”
“Jas.”
What! Delight shot through her. She flung the door open.
The reciprocal excitement on his face flipped to alarm. “Don’t shoot. Not again.”
Katrina followed his gaze to the pepper spray in her hand. “Never again. I didn’t know who was at the door.” She backtracked and placed the bottle on her bureau.
Jas entered the room and shut the door behind him. “It’s a good thing I didn’t go with my first idea and sneak in through your window to try that fantasy of yours.”
His smile made her hot, and his gaze tracking over her body made her hotter. He made a startled sound when she launched herself at him, but he caught her close. “Hi.”
She looked up at him. There were shadows under his eyes and his shirt collar was no longer crisp. Jas looked about as close to bedraggled as he could ever get. He was so beautiful. “Hi. How’s your family?”
He pulled her tighter to him. “Good. My grandpa’s ridiculous, and I chewed him out. I also gave a firmer commitment to try to go to the parade, and he’s going to move heaven and earth to make it accessible for me.”
Now that Jas was here, she felt nervous, more nervous than she’d been when sending those texts. “That’s so nice.”
“How’s the internet treating you?”
“Jury’s still out, but there was this video with a man dressed like a panda—actually, it’s not important. Everything’s fine, so far. Can you hug me hard?”
He did, and they embraced for a long time in the middle of her bedroom. He finally brushed his lips over her hair. “I try to remember when I fell in love with you. But I can’t. It feels like it’s always been there.”
She swallowed, joy filling her from top to bottom. “I love you too. I don’t know when it started either. All I know is, I woke up one day, and it was like I’d been looking for you my whole life. And there you were.”
He shook his head, chagrined. “We could have had this conversation years ago.”
“Or we were meant to wait for right now. Like everything led to this, you know?”
“Always the optimist.” He pulled away and gazed down at her, lingering on her braless breasts under her shirt.
The zings. From his eyes alone.
“Tell me you stopped at the pharmacy.”
Jas’s grin could rival the sun for brilliance. “I got some goodies in my pocket.”
“Can we try it then?” she breathed. “The fantasy?”
He started to unbutton his shirt, and indicated the bed. “Get in and close your eyes.”
It was hard to keep a straight face as she waited for Jas under the duvet. The bed depressed next to her, and then his naked legs were tangled up in hers, the crinkly hair scraping her skin. She kept her eyes shut as his hand moved down her stomach, until he got to her sex. His fingers slid under her panties and combed through the hair there, and then he pushed them inside, moving slowly. “So wet,” he murmured.
She let out a sigh when his thumb found her clit and he rubbed it in tight circles. He kissed his way down her neck, and over the curve of her breast through her nightshirt. Her breath came faster, though his strokes remained steady and controlled.
He left her for a second, but only to tug off her nightshirt and panties. He lifted her breasts and licked each nipple, holding her steady for his mouth. He alternated licks and sucks, each caress tightening the knot in her belly, until she only wanted to do something.
So tell him. “Fuck me,” she whispered, and he stiffened.
For a second, she thought he might be scandalized by the words coming out of her mouth, but then he rose up on his knees, and the dark need in his gaze told her he was into it. He grabbed a foil square from where he must have stashed the supplies on the nightstand.
Putting the condom on took a second, and she wished there was more light in the room so she could see, but then he was back over her. The head of his erection pressed against her thigh. She only had a fleeting moment to worry he was too large, and then a tight, burning sensation came as he entered. He stopped immediately when she winced.
“It’s okay,” she said, and pressed her palms on his shoulders. “It’s been so long.”
He gave her an incredulous look. “It absolutely is not okay. Hang on.” He pulled away and reached over to the nightstand again, this time retrieving a small bottle.
Katrina gave a helpless laugh. “Wow, you really came prepared, huh?”