Survivor (First to Fight #2)(41)

My vision clears and I take in the sight of him sprawled over my bed. If the knot on my head wasn’t already making the world spin on it’s axis, having him in my bed would have.

He traded his jeans and a T-shirt for basketball shorts and no shirt, looking like every teenage fantasy I’ve ever had of him. Of course, back then he hadn’t been quite so big and ripped. The combination of military training and constant working out at the gym had been very, very kind.

I grip the door jam for support and forget what I’m supposed to be upset about. His abs shift as he crunches to tuck his legs under the blankets and I count a twelve pack. The sheets come to rest around his hips and he looks very nearly naked. In my bed.

Sweet baby Jesus.

“I mean,” he says and I drag my eyes from his stomach to his well-defined chest, to his unsmiling mouth, “I want to stay here, with you.”

Swallowing thickly, I towel off my hair to give my hands something to do because otherwise they’d be trembling. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“I think it’s the best idea I’ve had in years.”

“What about Donnie and Rafe?”

“Pretty sure they got the idea when I had my mouth on you, babe,” he says.

“You don’t think that’s going to be confusing for them? They’ve been through enough as it is.” I grab lotion from my toiletry bag and start slathering it on. I keep my eyes on my hands as I sit on the side of the bed instead of looking at him.

“Think they got used to me being here when I stayed after your mom died. And when I helped you guys when you were sick.”

Lotion finished, I have no other excuses not to look at him, so I start to lift the blankets up to slide in and then slide back out again. “I’m going to go get some water,” I say.

“Sofie,” he says and I stop in my tracks. “C’mere.”

“I don’t know if I can do this.” I keep my eyes on the door as the words spill out of my mouth in a rush. “I’m not the same person I was when I left. I know you aren’t either. I can’t stand the thought of losing you again when things are just starting to go back to normal.” I take a shuddering breath. “You’re were my best friend, Jack.”

“You were mine,” he says. “Get back in bed.”

I obey, finally looking at him as I get under the covers and curl up on my side next to him. He’s got one arm under his head now, the other resting lightly on his abdomen. I inhale deeply, which only serves to fill my senses with his scent, citrus and bay and a little bit of male.

“I used to have a shirt of yours that I’d sleep in when I was away at college that first year,” I say. “I wore that damn thing nearly every night. I think my roommate thought I was a nut job or poor because I refused to wear anything else.”

His free hand comes up to push my hair back. He doesn’t say anything, but the touch is more than enough.

My breath catches, but I continue. “It smelled like you. After a while it went away, but for a few weeks it was like you were there with me.”

His fingers flex on my cheek and he withdraws his hand. The bed shifts beneath me as he moves, but I don’t look up from my study of the sheets. When his hands come to my waist, my eyes shoot to his face.

“Sit up,” he says. “You let me know if you’re okay.”

My brows furrow, then realization hits as his fingers slowly draw the tank-top I’m wearing up by the hem. He does it slowly, probably more so to gauge my reaction than to tantalize, but it has the same effect. By the time he has the shirt up over my shoulders and tosses it on the ground, I forget how to breathe.

He keeps his eyes on mine, only flashing down to my bare chest for the slightest of moments, then he tugs a T-shirt over my head. It’s still warm from his body and I automatically ball the hem in my hands and bring it to my nose.

Olfactory memories are incredibly intense. For years after Damian, I couldn’t walk into a gym or a sportsplex without becoming violently nauseous. Even now, I’m not sure how I’d handle Jack’s gym from the scent alone.

His shirt, on the other hand, brings to mind much more pleasant memories. Like the night of our first kiss. I’d been sixteen and were watching a movie at his and Livvie’s house. She’d passed out on the floor with us on the couch. As the movie played the space between us diminished until our shoulders and knees brushed. Our hands lay next to each other on the cushion, pinkies touching, until our fingers knotted. Loving him felt inevitable. As sure as gravity and as unrelenting.

I’d looked up from our hands, my heart racing, and found him watching me with those green eyes. Then we were kissing, Livvie and movie forgotten. I don’t even remember how it started, just that I never wanted it to end.

Whenever I wore his shirt to sleep that first year, the smell reminded me of that kiss—how beautiful and innocent, okay, well maybe not that innocent, but how real intimacy is shared, not taken.

“What were you just thinking about?” he asks, his eyes on my face.

My cheeks heat and I drop the hem of his shirt. “Our first kiss,” I say.

His gaze heats just like it did in my memories. “You’re killing me here,” he says.

“What’d I do?” I ask.

“I’m trying to be a gentleman,” he says, nudging my shoulder until I’m laying next to him.