Page 70 of Hammered (Dad Bod Contracting 1)
Finally, after a beautiful eternity, I collapse forward and he goes with me, all of his weight on me for a moment, leaving me unable to breathe and feeling exhilarated.
And then he rolls over, and I—out of some kind of instinct I didn’t know I possessed—roll with him, needing to be close, needing his strength and heat and hardness and comfort after what we just experienced together.
I hear his heart under my ear, a slamming, frenetic, racing beat. Even in the intimacy of cradling me in his arms, he finds a way to keep a hand on the outer curve of my ass, which makes me smile a secret, private smile of delight.
I drowse.
But I feel him, still—Jesse, his breathing ragged still, his heart hammering, his hands clutching me. He’s not relaxing—he’s tense.
I lift up on an elbow and look at him. His expression is usually open and readable, his emotions on his sleeve. For once, I can’t read him.
“Jesse?” I say.
He glances at me. “Hi,” he murmurs.
“Thank you,” I say, smiling at him.
He frowns, wrinkling his brow. “What? Why are you thanking me?”
I laugh. “Because that was—that was the most—” I shake my head, unable to encapsulate how I feel in words. “You made me feel—”
“How you should always feel,” he cuts in. “How it should always be.”
“But that’s not how it’s always been, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt how you made me feel, so…thank you.” I rest my hand on his chest, lean up on an elbow against him—his eyes roam my body, his hand still clutches the curve of my hip, but he’s tensed and restless, and his eyes won’t meet mine.
“You shouldn’t be thanking me—I should be thanking you,” he says.
“For what?”
“For the gift of yourself,” he says. “For…just for…you.”
I blink, unsure how to respond to that, and he won’t look at me.
He shifts under me, restless.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
He nods. “I just need to get this off and clean up,” he says.
I roll away, and he gets up. I watch him go, enjoying the sight of his beautiful nude body as he goes into the bathroom. I kick my feet under the blankets—the bed had been neatly made, and the vigor of our sex sent all the blankets and sheets askew. Now that the heat of the moment has faded, the air is drying my sweat and cooling me off.
When Jesse returns, he stands a few feet away from the bed, staring at me. As if trying to come to terms with the sight of me in his bed. I didn’t bother covering with the sheet, only tugging up enough to warm my legs. His eyes skate over me, as if he can’t help devouring me with his eyes, but his expression is not one of arousal now, but of…
Discomfort.
Tension.
There’s an awkwardness in the room that I don’t know how to identify, how to rectify, what to do with.
I want him to climb back into the bed with me, and I want him to touch me, and to kiss me. I want to feel his body against mine. I want to drowse with him in the silence and the afterglow. I want to cling to him.
I want to slide into arousal with him, and take him a dozen different ways before dawn.
He blinks at me. “I—” but he doesn’t finish.
And realization hits me. The usual clichés apply—like a freight train, like a ton of bricks, with all the force of a hurricane. They all apply.
He doesn’t want me in his bed, now that it’s over.
He’s never brought anyone here.
Which means he doesn’t do…this. The afterward scene. I bet when he’s done, he leaves. Maybe a drink or a smoke between, some chitchat, another go, and then he leaves. That’s why he’d never bring anyone here—he can’t make his escape. If we’d done this at my house, he’d have made an excuse for leaving. He has to work early. Maybe fake an emergency phone call from James—but no, it’s one thirty in the morning, and James is out of town, and Jesse guaranteed no emergencies.
So what now?
I realize my mistake—I assumed intimacy where there is none.
This was just sex.
For him, and for me.
Incredible, stunning, breathtaking, earth-shaking, life-changing, expectation-shattering sex.
But still just…sex.
And now it’s over.
The cuddles afterward, resting my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, his arm around me, cradling me…that’s not what this is, and not what he wants. He never promised that, or anything like it.
I choke back whatever stupid thoughts and emotions are boiling inside me—I deny them, shove them down, shut them down, and fake a breezy, unaffected casual confidence I in no way feel.
“So, I should go.”
Jesse doesn’t react. Fists clenched at his sides, jaw ticking, chest rising and falling—if I didn’t know better I’d think he was warring with his own thoughts and feelings.
