MUCH LATER, JESSICA lay on her side, spooned against Jamie’s chest, listening to the even cadence of his breathing. As promised, he’d made love to her slowly and sensuously, and after a brief reprieve, he’d made love to her hard, fast, and every way in between. She looked at the chair by the bedroom door, where Jamie’s jeans were hanging over the armrest, his shirt spread across the back. She could get used to falling asleep in his arms, but she knew that until she made a final decision about her career, that was a dangerous thought. He had a business to run and a grandmother to care for. She’d have to travel, and there was no way she’d ask him to give up his time with Vera. It was easy to play house on vacation. She wasn’t so sure it would be as easy back home when she was bunned, busy, and working crazy hours.
She thought about how good it had felt to play her cello with Vera and the accolades Vera had rained on her afterward. She’d even asked her to play with her quartet Thursday night. And I forgot to mention it to Jamie. She’d even forgotten about checking her cell phone for the call from the new owner of the baseball. She wrapped her hand over Jamie’s, and in his sleep he hugged her closer to him. Before she’d come to the Cape, her life was regimented, her schedule dictated by playing the cello, and now she knew exactly what she’d been missing. Now she knew Jamie.
I love playing the cello.
She eyed the case propped against the wall just outside the bedroom and felt her heart squeeze. Was she wrong? Could she maintain a relationship and find a healthy balance between the man she was falling for and the instrument she adored playing? Her eyes drifted upward to the clock on the wall. It was three fifteen in the morning. Should she wake Jamie? Didn’t he need to go home so his grandmother didn’t get upset? Would she? He was a grown man. Maybe she didn’t care. But that generation? Maybe she did.
What was she doing? She needed to wake him and let him decide, but he felt so good, so warm. So safe. She tried to hold back the last thought, but it pressed in close until it nearly suffocated her and she had to get it out.
So loving.
She shifted her hips a little and pulled the blanket up over her thighs. She’d never imagined herself being comfortable naked in front of anyone, much less a man she’d known for only a short while, but with Jamie, everything felt natural.
“Careful moving like that. You’ll wake certain parts of me you might rather leave sleeping.” Jamie’s voice was low and rough against her neck.
She turned in his arms so they were nose to nose and touched his stubbly cheek with her hand. “Don’t you have to go back home?”
He opened his eyes and pulled her against him. “Are you kicking me out?”
“I don’t know. Have you spent the night out before when you were here with Vera?” She lowered her voice to a seductive whisper. “Or will you staying over make me a bad girl?”
“I think you have the whole bad girl thing down pat, but we’ll keep that our little secret.” He kissed her softly and smiled. “I haven’t left Vera overnight while I was at the Cape before, but I’m fairly certain that she knows we’re sleeping together.”
“Well, yeah, but why throw it in her face?”
He pulled back. “You are kicking me out.”
“Not because I want to,” she protested. “Just because I don’t want her looking at me sideways tomorrow. Like I soiled her perfect grandson.” She stroked his cheek.
He rolled onto his back with a dramatic sigh and arced his arm over his eyes. “You don’t want people seeing me take the walk of shame—that’s what this is about.”
She draped an arm over his chest and pushed herself up so she was peering down at him. Her hair curtained their faces.
“Walk of shame? I don’t care who else sees you leaving. I just don’t want to disrespect Vera.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He said it with a serious tone, and although she couldn’t see his eyes beneath his forearm, she had a clear view of his sexy little smile.
She pressed her lips to his.
He pulled her on top of him, chest to chest, thigh to thigh. Her engine revved up again, and she wondered how she’d gone twenty-seven years without Jamie Reed’s arms around her.
“Okay, I’ll leave in a minute.” He gathered her hair and draped it over one shoulder, then traced her cheekbone down and around her jaw with his finger. “I’m falling hard for you, Jess.”
Ohmyohmyohmy. He felt it, too. “So you aren’t this loving and sensual with every woman you date?”
“Not even close.” He searched her eyes and drew his brows together. “Uh-oh. I played my hand too soon, didn’t I?”
She smiled at that. How could he think that she wasn’t falling head over heels for him? She felt like everything she did screamed it. “Not even close to too soon.”
In the next breath, he held her closer, and kissed her. His hazel eyes were filled with emotion mirroring her own intense feelings.
“I’m not falling for you.” She tried to keep a straight face, but when the smile in his eyes faded, she couldn’t play out the ruse. “You’ve swept me away, Jamie, like Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. You start out soft and magical, and then there’s this intensity that takes my breath away and makes my body ignite into flames, and then there’s the softness again. And just when I think we’re as close as we could get, you surprise me with something as simple as a kiss on my temple—which I love by the way. And…” She realized she was going on and on, and he was smiling at her like she was all he ever needed.
“I don’t mean to ramble, but I’m so comfortable with you, like we’ve been together forever, and there’s still so much we don’t know about each other. And that should scare me silly, but it doesn’t.” She breathed deeply.
“Because you have nothing to fear when you’re with me, Jess.”
She sensed he was right, but suddenly it wasn’t enough to say she was comfortable with him, because what she felt was so much bigger than comfortable.
“Did you know that without rosin, the bow slides across the cello strings and makes a faint whispery sound, or no sound at all? It’s the rosin that provides the friction in order to produce sound when it’s pulled across the strings. Before you, Jamie, I was whispering through life. With you, I’m whole. I’m melodious and tuneful. Pure musicality.” She smiled at him. “You’re my rosin, Jamie.”
“Jessie,” he whispered, and touched his forehead to hers.
He didn’t need to say anything more. She felt his feelings seep through his skin to her very soul, coming together with hers and filling all the lonely, empty spaces she’d always known were there.
Chapter Thirteen