Page 80 of Carry Me Home
So what’s your next move, then?
Jack
No fucking clue.
Jeremiah
Jack Price doesn’t have a plan? Now you’re scaring me.
It tookMaya exactly three minutes to abandon us for her tadpoles. The second she disappeared from view my hands were on Janie like we had been separated for weeks instead of maybe an hour.
“My mom invited us to dinner. Not tonight, with Maya just getting home, but maybe next weekend?” I breathed the words in between little kisses, my hands shaping her waist.
“Us?” Janie reared back. She grabbed me by the face and stared at me with wide, panicked eyes. “Us?”
“As in you, Maya, and me.”
“Why?” Her voice edged toward shrill.
I would have laughed if it hadn’t felt like a direct hit to my solar plexus. “Relax, Ace.” I rubbed at the tension I found in her shoulders. “I haven’t told her anything. She likes you and Maya, and she thought it would be fun. That’s all. I suspect she wants me to get to know her new boyfriend, and she thinks I’ll be on my best behavior if you’re there as witnesses.”
She leaned into my touch, her head lolling to the side to give me more access. “I’ll agree to anything if you keep doing that. Oh, my god, Jack.” She moaned softly.
My dick twitched awake. “Don’t,” I warned. “Any second now Maya is going to get tired of staring at her tadpoles andshe’s going to come out here wondering what we’re doing. So don’t make sounds that will get my dick up.”
She laughed. “Don’t be silly. Maya never gets tired of tadpoles. Especially now that their little leg nubbins are coming in.”
Nubbins. My body shuddered involuntarily. “Don’t say that word.”
“What word? Nubbins?”
I shuddered again. “Ugh.”
She tipped her head back on an incredulous look. “Nubbins? Seriously?”
Full body cringe. I couldn’t help it. “Stop saying that word!”
“That’s your weakness? The word nubbins?” She snort-laughed. “Does the enemy know about this? Mr. Special Forces can hold up to waterboarding but taps out if you say—ackk!”
She shrieked as she found herself airborne and tossed over my shoulder. I brushed my palm over her ass teasingly. “Say it again, Janie. I dare you.”
“Nubbins!” she hollered because my girl could never resist letting her bad out.
I gave her cheek a quick, sharp smack, making her giggle.
A loud gasp—definitely not Janie—had me spinning around.
“What—what’s going on?” Maya’s eyes jumped from me to her mom’s butt and back again.
Janie twisted to look at her daughter over my shoulder. “It’s okay, ladybug. We’re just joking around.”
Maya looked at me uncertainly.
“Your mom said a bad word,” I explained.
Maya’s eyes widened. “Was it fuck?” she whispered.
Janie’s body shook with suppressed laughter. I squeezed her thigh. “No, scamp. Not fuck. I like that word, as long as you don’t say it in school. She said a word I don’t like.”
