Page 33 of Breaking the Rules of Love

“Good. Because you just kind of brought out the animal in me, baby. I couldn’t control myself.”

I smile to myself and lazily let my fingers run across the delicious muscles of his body.

“Yeah…” I mutter as I feel myself starting to fall asleep. “I like that about you. You are a bit…ferocious.”

Safe. That’s how I feel in Jake’s arms. Safe and protected. Like things are just going to turn out all right. And that’s a way I haven’t felt in a long time.

22

Sadie

I’m warm.I’m safe.

Those are the first two thoughts that go through my mind when I wake up. I’m not in my own bed, but I don’t panic because I know I’m in Jake’s bed.

I actually smile when I realize this.

I fell asleep in his arms last night after our incredible time together, so he must have just carried me up here with such tenderness that he didn’t even wake me.

What a man. He can be rough one minute and so gentle the next.

But I really need to stop myself from thinking this way or I’m going to be at risk of breaking my own rule. Men are pigs—disgusting liars, and if I go letting Jake into my life beyond our little arrangement, I could end up with my heart broken and my life destroyed again.

So I toss the sheets aside and swing my legs out of bed. Jake’s nowhere to be seen, but I do hear voices from downstairs, and one of them is female.

You see? Here’s the start of it,I think to myself.One of Jake’s girls has come by to see him.

I was right all along about not getting attached to my new hunk of a neighbor, but this just solidified it.

I’m not hurt. Hurt would be the wrong word, but I am feeling a bit spiteful at the moment. Jakealmosthad me convinced when he was giving me that lovey-dovey talk back at my house about how he turned down Violet Keith for me.

Butthisis why I have my rule in place and why I should have known better than to even think about going back on it with him.

The door is closed. I gently twist the knob and crack it open so I can hear better who it is that Jake is talking to downstairs, but as the volume of their voices increases, I hear something far worse than I could have imagined.

It’s not the sound of some girl talking to Jake from downstairs, but the sound of mymother’svoice.

“Mint chocolate chip?” She laughs loudly. “Oh, she must havelovedthat, Jake! You really are a considerate man, aren’t you?”

“Hey, I just thought it would help cheer her up after that miserable day at work she said she had.”

My entire body freezes. My face goes hot like I’ve been burned by a thousand suns.

What is she doing here? How in the world did this happen? Code red! Code red!

Quickly, I race to find my actual work clothes. I can’t go racing down there in my sexy lingerie, which I’m still wearing from last night—minus my panties, of course, which Jake tore off.

I find my clothes neatly folded on Jake’s bedside table and slide into them as fast as I can. All of a sudden, that sexy feeling of having a lace bra and panties and garter on underneath my clothes isn’t as sexy anymore as I take the stairs two at a time and find my mom and Jake chatting it up in the kitchen, teacups in their hands.

“Mom!?” I exclaim. Both of them turn their heads.

“Good morning,” Jake says.

“Sadie-bear!” My mom smiles. “Jake and I were just talking–”

“Can I talk to you outside?” I ask through my teeth, doing my best not to completely freak out.

This is liketheworst possible scenario I could have imagined. No, I take that back. I never could have actually imagined waking up in Jake’s house and finding my mom downstairs in the kitchen.

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