Page 82 of Screwed (Dad Bod Contracting 4)
Finally, finally—we’re standing in my kitchen, closing the door behind us, and James is gazing down at me.
I reach for him. “James?”
He rubs that thumb over my lips again. “Nova?”
“I have one quick, random question for you.”
“Okay.”
“We all call you James, exclusively, but I heard Jesse call you Jamie once, and you said, ‘I’m your uncle Jamie’ to little baby Renée.” I pause, and try to put this tactfully. “Is that a nickname you don’t go by anymore?”
He considers his response for a moment. “Growing up, I was Jim to my parents, which I hated, and Jimmy at school, which I hated even more.”
I frown, make a disgusted face. “God, no. You’re not a Jim or a Jimmy.”
He laughs. “That’s how I feel. In junior high, I tried to get people to just call me Bod, which kind of stuck, and I refused to answer my parents until they stopped calling me anything except James, which is how I sort of ended up as James to pretty much everyone, and that’s the name I generally prefer. I absolutely hate being called Jim or Jimmy. Makes me feel like I’m in third grade again, dressing out in pads for the first time, getting yelled at by my dad to quit bitching about my sprained ankle and play fucking football like a goddamn man.”
I wince in sympathy. “That happened?”
He nods. “Oh yeah. He was a real hard-ass.” He laughs. “Well, Renée is the one who started calling me Jamie.”
I scoff. “All roads lead back to her, huh?”
He nods seriously. “Yep, pretty much.” He rolls a shoulder. “She knew I hated short versions and nicknames, but she felt like calling me James was too formal, as she put it. She actually tried Jamesy for a while.”
I cackle. “Jamesy?”
He laughs, nodding. “That morphed into Jamie, and that’s all she called me after that. Jess used to use it sometimes.” He goes serious. “Haven’t been called that since she passed, though.”
“James it is, then.”
He scratches the back of his head. “I actually considered going by Jamie professionally, but she nixed that idea.”
“I think she was right. James is professional, Jamie is personal.”
He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’ve been thinking about that lately, as a matter of fact. This whole therapy thing, moving on—rebuilding myself, in some ways…I was thinking it may be time to change it up. Go by something other than James to those close to me. It’s why I used Jamie with baby Renée. I want to be Uncle Jamie to her.”
I pass my hand through his hair, thinking. “I don’t know. To me, you’re just…James.”
He leans down, kisses me. “I actually like that.” He frowns in thought. “It feels like…I’m not sure how to put it. The way you say it, it feels kind of like a mental or emotional version of an affectionate caress.”
I cup his cheek, rub his cheekbone, and scratch my fingers through his beard. “Like that?”
He breathes out softly, eyes shuddering closed at my touch, nuzzling his cheek into my hand. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “A lot like that.”
I whisper a laugh. “Like a little puppy,” I say, grinning as I caress his face and beard. “If you had a tail, it’d be wagging, I bet.”
His eyes flick open, suddenly on fire. “Oh, something’s wagging all right, it’s just not a tail.”
I lift up, touch my lips gently to his in a feather-soft, whisper-quick kiss. “Take me to bed and make love to me, Jamie.”
His only answer is to pull me by the hand down the hallway to my room. He leads me into the center of my bedroom and stares down at me, and I feel him weighing something.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I want to ask you for something, but I don’t want to seem…shallow, or…greedy. Not sure how to put it.”
I peel his shirt off, toss it aside, and roam his huge hard torso greedily. “Ask me for anything, James.”
“I wish we could pick up where we left off, last time.” His eyes are wild and raging with need. “You, in that sexy lingerie.”
The grin that slides across my face is pleased, eager, and amused. “Oh, but we can.”
“Yeah?”
I nod. “When I woke up this morning and got dressed for Jesse and Imogen’s wedding, I did so hoping you and I might find some time alone.”
He arches an eyebrow, and I see eager hope in his expression—it’s adorable and erotic at the same time, somehow. “I woke up hoping the same thing.”
I smile up at him, put all my desire, all my nascent and growing love, all my need, all my long-denied arousal into that smile. “So, I guess you might say I have a little present for you.”
I gesture at myself—I’m wearing a sleek green dress, one that’s tight enough to be sexy, but not so revealing as to be inappropriate for a wedding, especially one in a hospital maternity ward.
