Page 44 of Baby, It's Cod Outside
“I should have you escorted off the premises,” Ben grouses, but there’s laughter in it now, pulled loose and low in his throat.
“Hey, you gave the speech, Fish Prince.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve decided to blame you if anything goes wrong. You’ve taught me to abuse my authority.”
That earns him a twirl. Jackson coaxes Ben into a spin, not for the choreography but for the view, for the softness of him, flushed and tousled, and for the ease with which his body falls back into Jackson’s arms like it never wanted to be anywhere else.
“You are?—”
“A shit disturber, a romantic, your problem now, et cetera, et cetera,” Jackson offers, mock-wounded. “But also: is the bottom line on the bar tab really all you took away from that speech?”
Ben tilts his head, looks up at him through his lashes. “You know it isn’t.” His hand curls in the fabric of Jackson’s lapel, voice rough with pleased embarrassment. “You wrote about Whitaker Seafood like it was a person. Like it was… someone you cared about.”
“I did.” He lets his hand drift up Ben’s spine, feels how relaxed he is now, how easily he lets himself be held.
“It was nice.”
“‘Nice’?” Jackson teases, husky and low. He kisses Ben’s temple. The shell of his ear. The hollow behind it just because it’s there. He’s not showing off. He’s just helpless in the gravity of this man. “I slip a heartfelt declaration right in the middle of your annual seafood address and all you can say is ‘nice’?”
“It was beautiful,” Ben admits, burying his face in Jackson’s collar, all mortified and rosy. “You’re a very good writer.”
That’s it. That’s what undoes him.
Jackson closes his eyes, lets his lips rest just barely in Ben’s hair, drunk on Ben nestled up against him. He’s smitten. Ruined. The ache in his chest is so tender it almost feels fictional.
“Well if you like that,” he says, recovering with effort, “just wait until you read the article that keeps you out of jail.”
Ben whips his head up, horrified. “Wait, what?”
Jackson keeps them moving. A soft dip, a turn. “Oh yeah. It was in the contract. Technically, Whitaker Seafood accepts full liability for MarineSelect’s waste disposal practices. And as the official company representative on the documentation…”
Ben misses a step, barely catches himself. “Are you serious? Why wouldn’t you tell me that?!”
“You had enough on your plate,” Jackson says, light as air.
“I can’t go to jail, Jackson.”
“You’re right,” Jackson agrees solemnly. “We haven’t even had sex yet. No prison until at least after sex. At this point my need to see what you look like when you come might be medical.”
Ben makes a strangled, high-pitched sound, cheeks going redder than the poinsettias. “You can’t just….why do you say things like that?”
“I say things like that,” Jackson says, running his knuckles lightly down the back of Ben’s neck, “because I want you to hear them. And because I really,reallylike watching your reaction.”
Ben groans quietly, hips pressing forward just enough to be felt, his blush blooming brighter down his throat.
“Besides, it’s irrelevant. Jail isn’t in the cards.” Jackson tips Ben’s head back with a thumb under his chin, teeth grazing lightly on that warm pink border of skin right over Ben’s pulse.
Ben lets out a sigh that sounds like surrender. “Promise?”
“We’re gonna fix it.”
“You better mean that.”
“There’s not a single thing I’ve said to you I didn’t mean,” Jackson breathes, low and hoarse, “and that includes a long list of things I haven’t said yet that are really going to make you blush.”
Ben laughs. His arms wrap tighter, his cheek finding its place against Jackson’s chest. Jackson holds him through it, thumbbrushing lazy arcs into the back of Ben’s neck, the two of them rocking in time to a song neither of them is really listening to anymore.
This, right here? This is what every word Jackson’s been trying to write this week has really been about. Not the story. Not the scandal. Not even the redemption. Just this.
