The smell hit her first—the rank, dank odor of stale cigarette smoke and unemptied trash cans. The visual was even worse—the place was a mess. Crusty paper plates, overflowing ashtrays, and herds of longnecks littered every available surface, including the floor. She’d heard that Jase’s Aunt Maxie dropped by from time to time to keep things tidy, but circumstances, namely Growler Red, went against her. Laurel hadn’t realized how badly.
She swallowed hard and moved forward boldly, like Joan of Arc would have. “Jase, are you there?”
A muffled groan answered her.
Jase!
Following his voice, she turned to the left and walked straight into his bedroom. A little thrill chased through her stomach. She’d never been alone in a boy’s bedroom before. In fact, she’d never been in a boy’s bedroom at all. And not only were she and Jase the only ones in the house, but Jase was still in bed.
Her mouth went dry as she stared at the ropy muscles of his arms and the masculine darkness that shaded the center of his chest between the small, brown, male paps.
What had happened to his pajama top?
Jase propped himself up on an elbow and peered at her as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Laurel definitely couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Jase’s long, dark hair, almost the length of hers, was tousled and damp, and his eyes were slits of black. Stubble shadowed the lower half of his face. She wondered for an eerie second if she’d walked into the wrong house.
Apparently he did too. “Laurel! What are you doing here?”
It was Jase! “I came to tell you that I believe in you.”
“What?” Shaking his head as if to clear it, he hoisted himself up a little further.
Her cheeks went red. Daddy always wore pajamas to bed—pima cotton, usually pale blue with darker blue piping—but Jase had been sleeping in his underpants. Should she look away or pretend she didn’t notice?
It didn’t matter. The important thing was what she had come to say, which apparently he hadn’t quite comprehended. She moved forward to explain, cleared her throat, and began again. “I don’t believe all the stupid stuff everyone is saying. The stuff about you and Ms. Shelton.”
Her foot knocked into a beer can that clanked across the floor and banged into another can under a leg of the bed. Nude pinups and football posters papered the wall behind him. A tuna tin full of cigarette butts sat on the rickety metal table beside the bed.
“I—I just thought you’d want to know.” Her voice was breaking, and she was trembling on the verge of nervous tears.
Maybe visiting Jase wasn’t such a good idea after all. The whole scene had played out differently in her imagination. The house had been sparse but clean, and Jase had been wearing his football jersey. After she’d declared her faith in him, he’d clasped her knees in gratitude, like in the historical romance she’d been reading. Then she’d lifted him up and they’d embraced decorously, plighting their troth.
Instead, he was lying half-naked in a rumpled bed in a filthy house, looking at her like she was crazy. God help her—she’d made a complete fool of herself.
Suddenly the ignominy of it all crashed in on her, and she burst into tears.
Holding the sheet around himself, Jase reached for her arm and pulled her down beside him on the bed. “Don’t cry,” he crooned, patting her back awkwardly and putting an arm around her so she sobbed on his bare shoulder. He dropped a light kiss onto the top of her head and patted her as if she were a child. “I can’t stand to see you cry.”
But she was not a child, and delicious new feelings were creeping into her consciousness—a longing she’d never experienced before, impelling her to prolong her sobbing as a means of squirming closer to the wonderful warmth of Jase’s bare skin.
He gave her a quick peck on the side of her face, his morning beard rasping against her sensitive cheek.
“Oh Jase, I love you so much,” she whispered, turning her face up to him.
“I love you too, Laurel.”
That was all the encouragement she needed, Shivering, she turned and caught his lips with her own, and sucked at them shamelessly.
It was like he caught fire. “Laurel…Laurel…”
Half rising on the bed, he pulled her closer, kissed her tears, then moved his mouth across her lips and throat. A blazing heat raced through her as he nuzzled the shells of her ears and stroked her arms and shoulders.
She could hardly bear it—the touch of his hands, the sliding of skin against skin. She’d never felt like this before—so happy, so alive. Sensuality might have been new to her, but she was ripe for it.
“I love you, I love you,” she repeated, kissing him, moving against him.
He pulled away for a second and looked at her. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
His voice was rough and his words so thick and slurred that it was hard to understand him, but she didn’t care. The black glaze of his eyes and the flush on his cheeks were all that mattered. She moaned and swayed back into his arms, pushing against him so they sank down sideways, face-to-face, the upper half of his body covering hers.