Page 39 of Jessie's Girl (The Trapper Keeper Diaries)

“You know why.”

Impatience crawls through me and I slash a hand through the air. “Why did you stay away? For two fucking years.”

But she shakes her head, her dark curls grazing her shoulders. “No, your turn, Asa. Make me understand.” She repeats the request she initially made when arrived.

An emotion spasms across her face, but it’s there and gone so quickly, it’s impossible to decipher. Doesn’t stop me from deliberately locking my muscles to prevent me from crossing the distance separating us and hauling her against me. And holding her to make sure that emotion doesn’t appear again.

“My father skipped out before I was old enough to remember what a piece of deadbeat shit he was. My mother died—and yes, logically I know she didn’t want to leave me, but death is still a form of abandonment. And sixteen-year-olds don’t really understand why they shouldn’t be angry with the dead. Hell, there are some days the twenty-six-year-old doesn’t either.”

“India,” I breathe, my palms itching to stroke her hair, her back, soothe and comfort her in any way I can. That she’ll allow.

“Jessie might as well as have abandoned me,” she continues. “His actions killed our relationship, leaving me adrift, confused and so alone. And now there’s you, Asa. As much as I want to believe differently, I know there will come a day when you’ll walk away, too. It’ll be the day when you’re forced to choose between me and a friendship with Jessie.” She pauses, and Christ—she’s killing me. Not just that accusation that strikes too close to home. Those penny-brown eyes so full of shadows, full of hurt, are shredding me. “So make me understand the bond that demands such loyalty and devotion, so at least when I’m staring at your back after this,” she waves a hand between us, “implodes, I get why.”

It's on the tip of my tongue to deny her claim, to refute that I’ll walk away from her. Be another person to abandon her. But she won’t believe me. I can see it in her eyes. So all I can give her is another truth she will accept—the one she came to my house to hear.

“Jessie and I have been friends for years. We met through being on the football team together in school, but our friendship surpassed that. You know about his home life. You may not know that he often escaped to my house for peace, to just be accepted for himself. I’ve seen the perfect, can’t-do-no-wrong, golden Jessie that he shows the world. But I’ve also been privy to the imperfect, insecure, vulnerable Jessie that he hides from most people. I’ve been there for him—my family’s been there for him—and he’s done the same for me. I wouldn’t have graduated if it hadn’t been for him. Sports have always come easy for me, but the books? No. And he understood that if I were to get into college, it wasn’t going to be by my grades. It was going to be how outstanding I was on that field. And I had to get into college because it was my only way into the NFL. Jessie dragged my ass across that graduation stage by the skin of my teeth. I couldn’t have done it without him. As a matter of fact, I’ve never asked, but I’m not completely convinced, he didn’t have his father pull some strings and make it happen.”

She jerks and surprise flares in her eyes. Yeah, I’ve never admitted that to anyone. Not even to Jessie. We’ve never talked about it. Maybe I didn’t bring it up with him because I don’t want to confirm that it’s true. Maybe I need to hold onto that sliver of doubt that it’s not. Still, I promised myself I would be honest. Even if it didn’t show me in the most flattering light.

“We went to college together, planned to enter the draft together. And when my football career ended during my second year in college, he was right there beside me. He didn’t give up on me even when I gave up on myself. When I had to rediscover who I was without football. And he gave me the loan to start up my business. I wouldn’t be where I am today without him. No bank worth a damn would’ve given me a loan—my credit was fucked, and I had the business experience but not the college degree. I owe Jessie. Not just for being my best friend. But for being my lifeline.”

“Who can compare with that?” she whispers.

I huff out a short, serrated laugh that scratches my throat. “You don’t get it, do you?” There’s no fucking way I can’t not touch her any longer. Striding forward, I’m pulling her into my arms, and thank fuck she doesn’t resist my embrace. My hands stroke up her back, and I curl one over her shoulder and the other around the nape of her neck. “That’s why I’ve fought so hard to keep my hands off you.”

I press my mouth to her ear and absorb the shiver that ripples through her body. Her hands lift between us and press at my chest. To push me away? To just touch me? I don’t know, but this grinding need within me decides which team it’s on, and I lean into her palms, her long, slim fingers. A groan rumbles out of me, and that shiver runs through her again. She’s killing me.

I tighten my hold on the back of her neck.

“You are the only woman who could make me risk that friendship, that loyalty. But that didn’t just start since you returned here to Pike’s End. I’ve known since we first met. Since you became my best friend’s woman. I’ve stood by, the worst kind of man, watching you two fall in love, knowing you were giving him this perfect little body, and I hated myself. Because I already betrayed my friend by wanting his girl. And I knew if you’d look at me once with those beautiful brown eyes the way you did at him…” I trail off, graze my teeth over the rim of her ear and follow the outer shell with my tongue. Her whimper squeezes my cock like the sweetest, dirtiest caress. “This has been my existence for years. You. I have been, and continue to be, wrapped up in you. For two years, I lived half a life because you were missing. Even when you were with my best friend, at least I was able to just be in your orbit. Get my fix, even as it tormented me. Even knowing I’d come crawling back for another one.”

I lean back, cradling her face between my palms and tilting it back. Fuck, she’s gorgeous.

“India, Jessie might’ve been my lifeline, but you could so easily be my life.”

She closes her eyes, and her hands shift from my chest to my wrists, encircling them and holding on.

“Asa,” she breathes.

“Look at me.”

I wait, outwardly patient, but inside… Shit, inside, my heart attempts to kick a hole through my rib cage. I’ve just admitted to her my years-long obsession, and she hasn’t run away screaming in disgust. Yet. I brace myself for what I’ll glimpse in her eyes. Shock? Horror? Wariness? Pity? God! I’d rather see the disgust in her gaze than pity. I can deal with her not returning even an iota of the same feelings for me, but not that.

Her lashes lift, and… relief and unfiltered joy pours through me, and my hold on her face tightens, but I can’t loosen it. I can’t let go.

There’s lust there, yeah. But there’s… more. I’m afraid to identify the more. Because if I’m wrong…

I bend my head and take her mouth in a raw, wild, probably bruising kiss.

Slow down. Easy, a voice whispers in my head. But I stifle that voice because I can’t afford slow or easy. Not when there’s a chance that something I spied in her eyes might disappear in the next instant.

Or when there’s a chance that my fevered, desperate mind might have imagined it.

Thrusting my tongue between her parted lips, I moan, both in relief and ravenous hunger, when she opens wider for me, surrendering to me. She gives me another of those little, hot sounds of need, and I lap it up, swallow it down in greedy bites. And go back for more. Always more with her, because I’m never satisfied.

I’m beginning to fear I’ll never be satisfied.

Releasing her face, I shove her jacket off her shoulders, then strip her sweater over her head, throwing it to the floor. Her bra joins the clothing seconds later. On a growl that tears out of me, I cup her breasts, squeezing them, shaping them. Fuck, she feels good. Like a goddamn miracle.

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