Page 63 of Bound

I—

What?

But also…squee?

“The Jackson from the team?” Gran asks, tone still sharp, but softening now because I’ve talked about him—the good things. Not our taut relationship over the last months, but the things I knew of him before, the things I know of him now.

The charity. How hard he works. What a good friend and teammate he is.

“Hmm,” she says and her tone is like steel when she orders, “Give the phone to my granddaughter and step out of the room please.”

I gulp, audibly apparently, if the amused look that Jackson tosses my way is any indication, but I snag my cell when he passes it over. “Hi, Gran,” I say carefully.

“Is he gone?”

The bathroom door clicks closed.

I nod.

“You’re safe?”

I nod a second time.

“And happy?”

I bite my lip and nod again.

Her expression gentles, relief in her eyes, and then she smiles. “Tell me all about it.”

And…so I do.

“Are you sure about this?” I ask thirty minutes later after we’ve showered—Jackson doing it in his own room, much to my disappointment.

“We need to eat,” he replies with a shrug.

“But the team will be there.”

“And?”

“Well, they might say something?—”

“And?”

“I—” I nibble at my bottom lip. “Smitty?—”

He tucks me closer. “Smitty doesn’t have any room to talk,” he says. “Hell, half the guys on the team don’t considering they’re in the same boat and have all taken their sweet time to get their heads out of their asses about their women.”

“I guess.”

Slowing, he shifts me so I’m facing him, so our eyes have no choice but to meet. “We’re doing this?”

“Wh-what?” I ask, slowing to a halt.

“Us,” he says. “Last night, you made it clear you want this. Want more than sex. Want anus…along with the rest of it. Well—” A breath, his big chest expanding and compressing, before he adds quietly, “Well, I want it too.”

Damn.

He’s fucking wonderful.

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