Jagged (Colorado Mountain #5)(40)

My stomach pitched.

“Ham,” I called and his eyes came to mine but his hand in my hair slid to my jaw.

“What, baby?”

He asked his question but I was lost in his eyes.

They were hooded and heated. Burning into mine.

Thus I knew his mind was not on what I was going to say.

It was elsewhere.

My mind joined it.

His thumb slid over my lower lip.

I lost my mind and pressed my lips to his.

He opened his lips over mine, slid his tongue inside and his hand back up into my hair, and my arms slid around him.

He slanted his head. I tipped mine the other way and Ham took the kiss deeper.

Then I was on my back in his bed and Ham was on top of me.

Not long after, I was na**d on my back in his bed and Ham was moving inside me, his lips to mine but not kissing.

Breathing.

Heavily.

“When we’re done, you’re comin’ with me to the bathroom,” he ordered, voice thick.

“I won’t leave your bed, babe,” I assured him through panting.

Ham’s h*ps powered faster and I gasped against his mouth.

“You’re comin’ with,” he stated, voice now gruff.

I was so very close but still managed to force out a breathily exasperated, “Ham, I won’t leave your bed.”

“Makin’ sure and killin’ two birds with one stone by f**kin’ you in the shower while we’re there.”

Now, that I could do. Gladly.

I didn’t say that.

I arched my neck, wound my limbs tight around him, tipped my h*ps into his thrusts, and came.

* * *

Dawn was just lighting the sky when we were done and lying together in Ham’s bed. I’d gone to my room to get my nightgown, but I was back plastered against Ham’s side, cheek to his shoulder, fingers lightly raking through the hair on his chest. Ham, on his back, his arm tucked under and wrapped around me, was drawing random patterns with his fingertips on my hip.

“There’s more to say,” I told his chest softly.

“We’ll say it,” he replied.

“I’m scared,” I admitted.

“I get that. We got a shift to get through, baby, moving us to somethin’ we’ve never had. You promise to hold on to me, I’ll promise to hold on to you and we’ll make it through.”

God, I wanted that. I so, so wanted that.

But I had to be sure before I lost myself in the beauty of it.

“I need to know your issues with women,” I told him.

“And I’ll tell you, tomorrow night, when I take my girl out to a nice dinner. We’ll lay our shit, bare, baby, and then we’ll move on.”

I lifted my head and looked at his face. “You’re going to give me that?”

His hand came up to cup my cheek and he whispered, “Cookie, pay attention. I’m gonna give you everything.”

That was when Ham gave it to me. What I wanted. What I needed.

Proof I could lose myself in the beauty of it.

In him.

Oh my God, I was going to cry.

Man, oh man, I was crying.

I planted my face in his chest and let loose.

Ham wrapped his arms around me, pressed into me so we were both on our sides as he pulled me up, and tucked my face in his throat. Then he held me while I cried.

And while I cried, it happened.

It came to me.

All of it.

Ham was in Gnaw Bone only a week before he made the ludicrous sound reasonable and talked me into moving into his second bedroom.

Ham gave me a job at his bar when, with the reduced rent I was paying him, I could get on my feet working at Deluxe Home Store. Ham took me to work nearly every night when I wasn’t pissed or freaking out.

Ham scheduled us both off on the same days so we had the opportunity to spend the maximum amount of time together that we could, definitely at work, but also at home.

And when I went to him that first night, Ham not hesitating but a half a second before I was on my back in his bed.

And, last, when I went to him again, he’d yanked me into his bed.

Something else hit me and, with all the rest, it didn’t make sense.

“You f**ked that blonde,” I accused his neck, my breath hitching through it because I was still crying.

“What?” he asked.

“That blonde you were flirting with, you f**ked her.”

“What blonde?”

I stopped crying because I was shocked at his question and the fact that he sounded baffled. I was also, but more so, pissed.

How could he forget the blonde? He’d had her only a couple of weeks ago.

I yanked my face out of his throat and tipped my head back, watching his chin dip down, and I caught his eyes in the semi-dark.

“That blonde, Ham, that blonde you were flirting with the other night who you took down the back hall of the bar.”

To this, he strangely replied, “She was hammered.”

“What?”

“Blitzed, babe, totally out of it. I took her home. She lived in f**kin’ Chantelle, so it took a while. I came back to the bar, you were gone. I finished the shit I needed to finish, and seein’ as you were flirtin’ with that f**kwit, I was pissed so I sat in on a poker game so I could get my mind off you and your shit.” He paused, then finished with, “I won fifteen hundred dollars.”