She laughed softly. “Six years.”
Then he couldn’t help but laugh with her. “Give or take.”
With a small smile on her face, Mallory moved in close and rested her head on his shoulder. “That summer seems like a lifetime ago sometimes.”
“And others it feels like yesterday,” he admitted. Kissing the top of her head, he whispered, “I’ve missed you.”
Mallory sighed but didn’t respond right away and Jake suddenly felt foolish for his admission. Then she put him out of his misery. “I’ve missed you too.”
Relaxing, he wrapped one arm around her and held her close. “You know, if all you want to do is stay out here and talk all night, I’m fine with that.” He paused. “Or if all you want to do is go inside and go to sleep, that’s fine too.” He kissed her head again.
“What if I want to go inside and crawl into bed and talk to you there?” she asked, and there was a mixture of playfulness and insecurity to her voice that only Mallory could pull off.
“We could totally do that too.”
She slowly moved out of his embrace and stood, holding out a hand to him. “I think I like option number three, but with a possibility of a fourth.”
They walked down the short hallway to his room. When they were next to the bed, he kissed her–slowly, sweetly. There was no hurry. Jake simply enjoyed being able to kiss her again. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to undress each other again before sliding beneath the sheets. He wished he had known he was bringing her back here–he would have made more of an effort to make sure the place was cleaned up a bit more.
Mallory snuggled in close beside him and placed a kiss on his chest as she settled in.
“I want you to know,” he said, “I didn’t plan on this.”
“Me either,” she replied quietly, sleepily. “When I left Aunt Georgia’s earlier, I really just needed to get away. I had gotten your text and when I showed it to my mother, she knew I was going to go to the house.”
“I’m glad you did.”
They were silent for a moment before Mallory thanked him.
“For what?”
“For getting the engineers out to the house. I know you must have had to pull some strings to make that happen, so…thank you.”
“It’s exactly what Zeke would have wanted me to do.”
More silence.
“Jake?”
“Hmm?”
“This is nice.”
He nodded. “It is.”
“I’m only going to be here for two weeks,” she said after a long pause. “I figured that would be enough time to come here and help with the cleanup and for the funeral.”
Everything in him stilled. She was laying down the parameters for them and while he should have been thankful, right now he resented it. Six years ago they had been fine with a long-distance relationship. It hadn’t been ideal, but they could have made it work. And even though just earlier today he was looking at spending time with Mallory as a way to get her out of his system once and for all, right now that logic seemed wrong.
And when she put it out there so bluntly?
He was more confused than ever.
It was hard not to be when he had Mallory naked and warm beside him in his bed. And that’s when it hit him–if this was all they were going to have, two weeks, he was going to have to make the most of it so when she left this time, they wouldn’t have any regrets.
She whispered his name again and Jake realized he was done talking. The clock on their time together started ticking only minutes ago and he didn’t want to waste a second of the time they had.
Maneuvering them until he was stretched out on top of her, he leaned down and kissed her–this time deeply. And as she slowly wrapped herself around him–in a move he really loved–he gave himself over to whatever it was they were doing.
The sun was just coming up and the sound of an alarm beeping woke her up. Mallory went to sit up, but Jake had one arm banded over her, keeping her still.
“Power’s back,” he murmured against her shoulder. He released her momentarily to shut off his alarm clock. “Everything else will calm down in a couple of minutes. All the electronics tend to make some sort of noise when they’re starting up.” He moved back up behind her–her back to his front–and it felt so good that she felt herself starting to doze again.
But her brain was already awake now.
“What time do you think it is? The clock is flashing midnight.”
Behind her, he shrugged. “Five, maybe six.” He yawned. “Too early to be up yet.”
She knew what he meant. They hadn’t slept more than a handful of hours and more than anything she wanted to be able to close her eyes and go back to sleep. But there was a lot to do today considering the power was back on and her mother was going to move back into Pops’ place–and that meant she would too.
And there would be a lot to deal with.
When she went to move again, Jake’s hold tightened. “Not yet, Mal,” he said sleepily, kissing her shoulder again. “All night I dreamed about waking up and making love to you again as the sun came up.”
His words affected her more than they should, she thought. They spent the night making love. How could he have been dreaming about doing it again?
“Jake…”
Effortlessly, he rolled her over until she was on her back looking up at him. “It’s true. I dreamed of waking you up with sleepy kisses…like this.”
And then he kissed her and it was slow and wet and just a little lazy but oh so good.
Lifting his head, he continued. “Then I was going to touch you…like this.”
Mallory gasped and then sighed as his hand cupped her breast and played with her nipple. He lowered his head and just before he put his mouth where his hand was, he looked up at her and gave her the sexiest grin she had ever seen.
“And when we were done, I was going to make you breakfast.” Then his mouth covered her breast and Mallory thought for sure there couldn’t be a more perfect moment. She was lost in sensation and need. She raked her hands up into his hair and held on while he teased and tormented her. It seemed to just go on and on and on. They rolled around, giving and taking, until they were both weak and breathless.
It was hard to say how much time had passed because the alarm clock had been knocked to the floor at some point. But when Mallory forced herself to open her eyes, she caught Jake smiling at her.
“I hope you were thinking pancakes,” she said with a wink.
Laughing, he pulled her in close and kissed her soundly before moving away and climbing from the bed. She admired his amazing body–fighting the urge to reach out and grab his ass one last time. Relaxing back against the pillows, she watched him get dressed before he told her he’d meet her in the kitchen.
She was so comfortable and feeling so damn lazy and all she wanted to do was stay in bed. Unfortunately, Mallory was too responsible to linger for long. Even though it was still early, she knew her mother was an early riser as well and would more than likely be anxious to get packed up and moved back home. Plus, Sam was due in today and there was going to be a lot going on. Sitting and playing house with Jake wasn’t on the agenda.