Page 60 of Work with Me

He looked up from my hand. “Nah. Just my sister, Sam. She’s a coder, too. She gets sore wrists.” He turned over my hand and made the circles on the back of it.

So that’s where the patience had come from. Why he’d coached me instead of berating me for my subpar skills. I started to ask about his sister, but he spoke first.

“And my dad. When he was with us.”

“He left?” We had more in common than I’d thought.

“No.” He increased the pressure slightly as he moved down to my wrist. “He died.”

Way to put your foot in it, Alicia.“I’m so sorry.” I wished I’d searched him online the way I’d been tempted so often to do.

He shrugged. “It was a while ago. Summer after my freshman year in college. Heart attack. Anyway—”

“No, Jackson. I really am sorry. No matter how long ago, or how old you were, it hurt. I understand.”

He looked up, and our gazes held. Melissa’s death had been slow and painful, but at least we’d been able to say good-bye. Jackson might not have had that chance. “I know you do. Thank you.”

He made long, slow strokes between the tendons and pressed the skin between each finger. “Before he started his company, before he became a CEO, Dad was a programmer, too.”

“Like you.”

“Like me. And his hands would hurt. He used to rub them. So I watched a couple videos and learned how to do it for him. And we’d…talk.”

He was right about its being good for stress. I felt like he’d removed my spine, and I was a throw blanket spread over his sofa. “Talk. Like you and I are doing now.”

“Yeah, between his startup and my three siblings, it was usually the only one-on-one time we had.” He sandwiched my hand between both of his, letting his body warmth suffuse into it. “It’s nice to give a massage again. And remember.”

Shared experience. That’s what that phantom string that connected him to me was. It had to be the reason I felt alive near him and empty when we were apart. I levered up from the couch cushions and surged past our joined hands to kiss his cheek. His beard wasn’t prickly as I’d anticipated but soft and warm. He held very still with my lips against his cheek. “Thank you,” I whispered.

I should’ve sunk back down into the cushions, but I didn’t. I’d found the nexus of his intoxicating scent, and it held me there, curling around me like a third arm. I was so close to him, the stiff fabric of my shirt brushing up against his polo, that I could almost feel his racing pulse in my chest. It thrummed at his neck.

“Alicia, I can’t—”

“I know.” He’d said the same words that day we’d met. When he knew I worked at Synergy, and a relationship was off-limits. I knew all the reasons my lips shouldn’t have been within inches of his, my hand pinned between his, my own pulse throbbing between my legs.

“No. I mean I can’t stop.” His lips touched mine.

It was soft, tentative, at first, giving me time and space to pull away. But that was the last thing I wanted. Lifting a hand to the back of his neck, I tugged him closer and felt a corresponding hand on my back, pulling me tighter against his heaving chest. My heart sped up, pounding between us.

Finally. I was kissing Jackson Jones. And it was heaven.

I licked the corner of his mouth, and he opened, letting me delve inside. He tasted like candy corn and sin. The shorter hairs around his mouth prickled my lips while my tongue slid lightly across his, like a dance. Meanwhile, my pulse had become a battering rhythm through my body, urging me to go faster, go deeper, to straddle him and soothe the ache inside my Mom-jeans.

When I pulled back to catch my breath, he dragged his lips across my cheek and down my neck, leaving a blazing trail of heat. I threw my head back, clearing the way for him to kiss down to the hollow between my collarbones. Tingles shot from everywhere he touched right down to my core. My cheap polyester-blend shirt was going to melt right off me.

“Alicia,” he murmured between kisses, “I want more.” He traced his hand up my ribs to my breast and covered it, rubbing soft circles over my nipple through my shirt.

God, I wanted to give him more. I wanted to tell him exactly what to do to make my body sing. With both hands, I guided his face back to mine and kissed him, setting a rhythm with my tongue against his. A promise of how we’d be together, the joining of our bodies, the perfect push-pull that’d build to an explosive climax. I tangled my fingers in the hair at his nape and trailed my other hand down the nubby fabric of his polo.

“Jay?”

We turned our heads at the same time, our chests heaving against each other, and our cheeks stuck together with a sheen of sweat.

Tyler leaned against the wall in the hallway, his eyelids drooping. “Mind if I crash on your couch?”

With a last, regretful glance at me, Jackson said, “Sure, buddy.” He stood and crossed to Tyler, gripped him by the upper arm, and led him back down the hallway and into the second bedroom. I followed and paused in the doorway. Tyler flopped back on the bed and flung his arm across his eyes. “Night, Mom. Night, Dad.”

Jackson ruffled his hair, and I entered the room to slip off his sneakers and set them on the floor next to the bed. I led the way back out into the hall, and Jackson closed the door behind us.

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