Page 14 of Moving to Love
“When did Keith leave you and Gunnar?”
Joci looked at Jeremiah for a while. “Are you sure you want to hear all of this? It isn’t exactly a fun subject.”
“Yes, Joci, I want to know about you. More than I already know. I want to know what you like and don’t like. I want to know about your life.”
Joci took a deep breath.
“Okay, well, after Gunnar was born, I could tell Keith just wasn’t interested at all in him. Keith didn’t even come to the hospital when I had him—Jackie was with me. And my best friend, Tori.”
Joci winced when she mentioned Tori. She leaned forward and picked up her wine, took a drink, and took another deep breath.
“Anyway, when Gunnar was two months old, I caught Keith in bed with Tori. I had gone over to his apartment to talk with him. I walked in, and they were in bed together. It wasn’t like he was the love of my life or anything, but with my best friend? Needless to say, it was over.”
Jeremiah slid his hand over on top of Joci’s hand. “I’m sorry. That must have sucked.”
Joci looked at Jeremiah for a long while, his green eyes never wavering from her gaze—strong, steady, loving. Yes, he was a different kind of man than those she had been around. He genuinely seemed interested in her life. He was a great listener, and he never took his gaze away from her. She was beginning to relax. She took another drink of her wine.
“What about you? Where is JT and Ryder’s mother?”
Jeremiah’s lip turned up in a scowl, but he never looked away from Joci.
“Not sure. Barbara rides through once a year or so. She didn’t want to be a mother. It was an accident when she got pregnant. I was always careful, so when she called me and told me she was pregnant, I thought she was trying to scam me or something. I was in the Marines, had come home on leave, and met her in a bar. I spent time with her while I was home. Then I went back to California, where I was stationed when leave was over. I got a phone call a month or two later that she was pregnant. I asked for a paternity test. She was bitchy about it, but got one. My brothers Dayton and Thomas made sure she did it right. It turned out the boys were mine.”
Joci nodded. “It must have been hard. Good thing you didn’t have little girls.”
“God, I don’t know if I would have been able to raise girls. They would have been tomboys if I had. I don’t do girly things.”
Joci burst out laughing at the look on his face.
“You would’ve learned. I learned boy things. As kids, Jackie and I were girly girls. Our dad liked us in dresses and to have pretty things in our hair. Of course, we loved it. But I had a boy, and Jackie and I learned boy things out of necessity. Then Jackie and David had two boys.”
Jeremiah sucked in a breath watching Joci laugh. She was so beautiful it took his breath away. He was in over his head with this one. Feelings like this were new. He felt primal and feral and, at the same time, protective and possessive. He wanted to lock her up in this house and never let her leave. He wanted her naked and in his bed every fucking day. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, sitting like this in the evening, talking to her, working like they had been working this past year on the ride or other ventures at the shop. He wanted to wake up every morning with her in his arms, sliding into her, smelling her, tasting her, touching her.
Jeremiah leaned forward and kissed her, gently at first, but Joci whimpered, which revved him up. He broke the kiss and set her wine glass on the coffee table. He turned back to Joci and reached over to touch her hair. He dug his fingers into her hair and ran his hand through it, cupping the back of her head. Jeremiah leaned forward and kissed Joci again, licking her lips and nipping her bottom lip.
“Open up, Joci.”
Joci sighed and gave in to the feelings she had, opening her mouth and letting Jeremiah in. He slid his tongue into her mouth and floated around, tasting every part. He turned his head so his lips fit perfectly over Joci’s, wrapping his free arm around her waist and pulling her onto his lap so she straddled him.
Joci raked both her hands into Jeremiah’s hair and fisted it in her hands. Feeling her hand grip his hair so tightly, knowing she must be feeling what he was feeling, made Jeremiah throb. Joci leaned forward a little more, so her breasts were touching his chest. She rubbed back and forth, adding friction. Her nipples were so firm she could feel her heartbeat throb in them.
She was wet between her legs. She ground her hips against Jeremiah and felt his hardness against her, causing them both to groan loudly. Jeremiah grabbed her hips in both of his hands, pulled her tightly against him, and rotated her, so she was grinding against him in just that perfect way. Joci’s breathing became ragged. It had been so long since she had been with a man, she wouldn’t need much.
“Joci…I want to be in you so damn bad,” he groaned out.
Jeremiah wrapped his arms around her, leaned forward, and stood up, taking her with him. He skirted the coffee table and started walking to his bedroom. She hung on to him, nuzzling his ear as they moved down the hall. She breathed his scent in deeply. God, he smelled great. She didn’t have words for his scent. She just knew she wanted it on her. She touched his ear with her tongue. He groaned at the feeling.
“Hang on, Joci. It’s hard enough walking with a raging hard-on, but with your tongue in my ear, it’s damn near impossible.”
Joci tightened her hold around Jeremiah’s neck and wrapped her legs around him a little tighter.
As they reached the bedroom, Jeremiah walked in the door and kicked it closed with his boot. He walked over to the bed and gently laid Joci on top. He stood up and looked down at her. She was finally here. For ten fucking months, he had lain in this very bed with his cock hard as a rock, wanting and needing her. Only her.
Jeremiah reached over and unzipped Joci’s boots and pulled them off one at a time. He pulled her socks off as well. He looked at her left ankle, where she had a beautiful tattoo. It was an intricate little vine with pretty, delicate flowers on it. The vine trailed around her ankle, down the top of her foot, and stopped halfway to her toes. He traced the vine with his fingers and then kissed the little flowers. His voice was husky with arousal.
“What’s this, Joci?”
Chapter 9
