His thumb sweeping across my cheek and down to my jaw made me hold my breath.
fifty-eight
JERSEY
I needed to get off of her.
I needed to get out of her before my dick decided that we were going again. She couldn’t handle back-to-back bouts. Not tonight, anyway. I kissed her cheek before I freed myself and rolled off of her.
“How’s your leg?” I asked. Her eyes were already closed and she looked like she was about ten seconds from being asleep.
“Can’t feel any part of my body right now,” she said and giggled, still without opening her eyes. I went to the duffel bag to dig out the little medicine bag that lived in it. I carried a tiny pharmacy everywhere I went in case shit ever went south for me.
“How much do you weigh?” I asked, looking through the small pill bottles.
“Rude,” she scoffed. “So. Very. Rude.”
“Triss.”
“You really need to work on your pillow talk.”
I took the whole fucking bag with me back to the side of the bed with a bottle of water. I grabbed her by the jaw to make her look at me.
“Answer me.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “One-twenty. Maybe one-thirty.”
I let go of her face to pull a single pill out of the painkillers and placed it in her palm before I twisted the cap off the water for her. The side-eye that she gave me when she looked at the little pill made me laugh.
“I wouldn’t gain anything at all from hurting you now, Fancy Face. You’ll be able to feel that leg soon and it’ll hurt like a bitch.”
She was asleep within minutes of taking the painkiller and putting my shirt back on. I paced around the room uncomfortably for a while longer, looking out the window with every lap I made to make sure there weren’t any extra vehicles showing up. I knew I needed rest because the next few days were damn near guaranteed to be exhausting, but my brain was worried about Memphis. Every free second was spent concerned about her being alone tonight. But truthfully, I didn’t even know if she was alone. I could roll into her driveway tomorrow and find that she needed me to load up a husband and a whole crew of kids to keep everybody safe. Although, knowing what I did know about Memphis, I couldn’t help but think it was more likely that I’d show up and find her waiting with a sassy, southern grandma who was well into her nineties and wouldn’t want anything at all to do with the city slicker who’d appeared out of nowhere to rescue them. I texted Memphis that I’d sleep with my phone by my head all night in case she needed me. I laid the phone right on my pillow before I molded the whole front of my body into the back of Trista’s. And somehow with every piece of her body touching me, it still wasn’t enough. I forced my arm around the middle of her body to pull her back into me harder.
“Jersey?”
That ridiculous fucking sigh engulfed my name and sent another rush of blood right to my dick. Her hand closed around mine and she pulled it up to hold it between her breasts before she was right back to sleep.
I kissed her shoulder. “I’m here.”
* * *
Between the goddess of snoring and my own uncontrollable anxiety about Memphis, sleeping turned out to be a joke. It felt hilariously fitting that the sexiest creature alive would have to have at least one drawback to remind me that she was still human. Apparently, making noises while she slept that belonged in horror movies was hers. I got up before the sun and left her another pill for the pain next to the water on the nightstand with a note that said I’d be right back. I went down to Seph to go find breakfast for us, but really, I needed to be alone to call Memphis.
“Jersey? What’s wrong?”
“Sorry, doll. I know it’s early. Just needed to know that you were alright.”
“I’m okay.”
“You don’t sound okay, Memphis.”
“There’s not really any chance of going back now either way, Jersey Boy,” she said and paused. “I just — I don’t know.”
“What is it? Come on, out with it. We’re about to have an extremely shitty few days. We’re going to need to be on the same page.”
“Just…what was that? What’s happening in your head?” She asked.
“You still wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.”