Jersey Six(54)

“You made fun …” she fought for a full breath as he took it away with his lips beneath her ear “…of me in the pantry.”

His mouth paused for a moment and turned up into a smile. “I didn’t.” He lowered her to the bed and kissed his way down her throat as she arched into him.

“You tried to drown me.” She fisted the sheets beneath her and let her heavy eyelids close.

Again, he paused at the swell of her breasts, grinning again. “I didn’t.” Making his way back to her lips, he rested his forearms beside her head. “Jersey?”

She blinked her eyes open.

“When I realized you couldn’t swim … your heart didn’t stop beating.” He closed his eyes and released a slow breath through his nose. “But mine did.”

“Coop …”

“I’m a terrible person.”

“You are.” She grinned, and it brought a little light to him as well. “But so am I. So let’s do what terrible people do.”

Ian’s gaze swept along her face. Then he smiled and stretched his arm to the bedside table, pulling out a strip of condoms and tossing them on the bed before losing his underwear and taking. All. The. Kisses.



“It’s not terrible.” Jersey smiled as she and Ian rested on their sides facing each other—naked, sleepy, and satisfied. “I mean, we’re terrible, but it’s not terrible.”

“What is it?” A contented smile played along his lips as he reached over and cupped her cheek, ghosting the pad of his thumb across her lower lip.

No one had ever touched her the way he did. So gently, like his hand was made to rest against her cheek. She liked pretending that. And she liked pretending he didn’t kill the Russells. Everything with Ian felt like pretend.

Fairy tales.

Unicorns.

Pixie dust.

And rock stars who fell for homeless girls.

“It,” she whispered, kissing his thumb, “is me being for your eyes only.”

Those dark eyes shifted to look at her—all of her. “I’m going to miss you. Waiting for you to get your passport and join me again … it’s going to be terrible.” He smirked. “Not as terrible as us. But terrible.”

She pulled away from his hand and sat up with her back to him.

“What’s wrong?” He propped himself up with one arm.

Jersey inhaled a shaky breath.

One tear. She already gave her one tear away. No more were allowed.

Her eyes disagreed, so she hurried to the bathroom and shut and locked the door. Why was she so damn emotional?

“Jersey?” Ian knocked on the door. “What’s wrong? What did I say?”

“Nothing,” she managed to squeak out while fighting back the demanding emotions. Why? Why did they need to be felt? Life was easier when emotions belonged to other people. Not Jersey. “Everything,” she whispered to herself, leaning her head against the door as more tears broke free. Ian brought more tears out of her in one day than everyone else combined over the previous eight years.

She heard a tiny thunk against the door, his head pressing to the other side.

“Say it. You don’t have to say it to my face. And we won’t talk about it again after you open the door, but just … say it,” he pleaded with her.

More tears. She let them fall freely. “You’re going to miss me?”

“Yes,” he said, sounding so close.

“No one has ever missed me before.”

“Jersey …”

She felt so stupid, so young, and so weak. Raw—Jersey had never let herself feel so raw and exposed.

“Let me in.”

“No.”

“Shut off the lights and let me in. Please.”

After staring at the switch for a few moments, she flipped it off and unlocked the door, keeping her back to it. Ian slowly opened the door and shut it behind him, leaving them in the dark.

“I’m sorry if you’re not strong enough to be missed by me. But imagine being in my shoes. I’m going to leave in a week. I have a full-time job to do, but I’m going to suck at it. It’s the only thing I’ve been good at—and I’m going to suck at it. Because missing you will be my full-time job. And it doesn’t matter if anyone has ever missed you before, because I will miss you enough to last a lifetime.”

Sometimes … sometimes when you close your eyes, when darkness comforts you, the truth doesn’t matter because no one can see it.

Jersey turned, and before she could say anything to the dark silhouette before her, he had his hand against her cheek, his thumb erasing the tears, his lips pressed gently to her lips.

She hugged his naked body to hers and whispered in his ear. “I’m going to miss you too. But don’t tell anyone.”





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN





“Oh my god!” Jersey’s eyes looked like saucers as she surveyed her surroundings, wearing her new black-framed glasses.

Ian paid to have a rush put on them because he wanted to see Jersey’s reaction before he left for Lisbon, Portugal in three days. He also paid a hefty sum to get things rolling on her birth certificate and social security card so she could get a passport.

“So this is what you meant when you said you’d show me the world.”