Page 26 of The Love Rematch
Emily jerks awake.
“It’s me.”
His voice sends a shiver down her spine, cooling and stoking her panic at the same time. The pounding of her heart intensifies as he steps closer, silhouette barely visible against the moonlit sky. His hand finds hers in the dark, warm and large and solid. She jerks away. Her fingers burn where they touched.
“What the hell, Jake?”
“Shh,” he urges and retakes her hand.
This time, she lets him drag her to her feet, her curiosity getting the best of her. As they enter the bathroom, her foot catches on the frame and she stumbles forward. His arm comes around her waist. Suddenly, she’s flush against his chest, a spot she’s been a thousand times before but never quite like this. It’s like hearing an old favorite song on the radio and only just realizing what every dirty lyric actually means. Familiar, yet alarmingly new. He smells the same, like an ocean breeze with the hint of cedar musk. Everything else is different—the ripples across his abdomen, the breadth of his chest, the muscles flexed beneath her hands. Sturdy fingers grip her hips, no longer awkward but assured. He takes a sharp inhale, pushing his hard body that much farther into hers. Warm breath washes over her forehead and she glances up. She can’t see his mouth, but she can sense it there, hovering out of reach. In the dark, he feels more like a dream than anything real.
They stay like that for a breath.
Two.
His arm shifts. She doesn’t know where his hand is going, if she should move away, if she should stop him, if she should—
Click.
The light blinks on and the spell should break, but it doesn’t. He’s got stubble where there never was before. His hair is perfectly coiffed, not in the shaggy disarray she remembers. But his eyes are exactly the same, deep blue and stormy, the ocean right before a hurricane, dangerous and powerful, a force strong enough to bowl her over, yet she doesn’t move.
She can’t.
“Jake.”
It comes out breathier than she meant, not at all reprimanding. He presses a finger to her lips. His gaze follows, as if involuntarily. A beat passes while he stares, transfixed. Then he bends his finger, tugging gently on her bottom lip until her mouth parts. A puff of warm air escapes as all the breath leaves her lungs. It brushes over his skin and a feral gleam lights his gaze. Before she can make sense of it, he tears himself away. She’s left by the door, struggling to breathe as he turns on the faucet, then the shower. The spray thunders, finally drowning out the frantic beating of her heart. By the time he spins back around, she’s recovered enough to cross her arms and scowl.
He, on the other hand, looks as if he got sucker punched. He rakes his gaze down her body with a strangled groan and stumbles back, half falling into the glass shower door as he shields his eyes. His voice is pained when he finally blurts, “Jesus Christ, Em.”
“What?” She shrugs and glances down. It takes the sight of her bare legs to remember she’s wearing nothing but an oldThe Breakfast ClubT-shirt and a thong.
Oh, right.
Offense is the best defense. She juts out her hip, trying not to care that it makes her left butt cheek all the more visible. “Yousnuck intomybedroom, remember? What did you think I’d be wearing?”
“Not…that,” he sputters, staring to one side, then the other, then up at the ceiling. Basically, anywhere and everywhere except her left butt cheek. “What happened to your flannels? Those—” He waves his hand through the air, as if trying to catch up with his own brain. “You know, those pink ones with the rainbows on them?”
Yes. She knows exactly what flannels he’s talking about. They’re in the other room, still packed in her suitcase, not that she’ll give him the satisfaction. “I’m not seventeen anymore, Jake.”
“Yeah,” he says gruffly, finally looking at her. “I know.”
“And you lost the right to come traipsing through my bedroom window a long time ago.”
“I know. I—” He pauses, frowns. “Wait. Is that my shirt?”
Shit.Her shoulders writhe. She wasreallyhoping he wouldn’t notice that.Shit. Shit. Shit.Sam’s voice filters through her brain.Revenge. Stay on the offensive. Revenge.
“What if it is?” she retorts, gripping the hem and lifting it a few inches higher. She’s not entirely sure who is in control of her body right now but not exactly mad either. “You want it back?”
“Jesus, Emily. No.” He covers his eyes and whacks his head on the wall in his haste to turn away. “Ow.” Then he slams his elbow into the glass door so hard it rings. “Fuck.” Finally, he snatches a towel off the wall and throws it in her general direction. “Would you cover yourself up? I can’t think with you standing there like that.”
She rolls her eyes and picks the towel up off the floor. A memory comes unbidden as she wraps the cloth around her waist. It was the night she found out she was accepted to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. Sam and Jake were the only two people who even knew she applied, and when she texted him, the response was immediate.
We’re celebrating. I’ll be over in 10.
She showed Sam her phone, and her sister immediately pulled a miniskirt from the closet and pushed Emily toward the window.
“I’ll handle Mom and Dad. Go!”
