Roped In (Strings Book 2) Page 9

  The door to the restaurant flew open and a group of people in professional clothes walked in laughing and talking. Jack had been here for almost two hours and had me all to himself during that time, but he still looked like he was sad when he saw the group come in, knowing I’d have to wait on them.

  “I need to go anyway,” he said after Maria sat them, and I nodded at her that I’d be right there. I saw her filling up water glasses and turned back to Jack.

  “Thank you for coming in,” I said gently. “It’s been the best part of my day.” I couldn’t even stop myself from being honest about that.

  Maria brought the table waters as I printed Jack’s bill with my employee discount. When I dropped it on his table, he stood. He looked at me for a moment before he leaned in and wrapped his arms around my waist. I froze for a moment, and then reached up to wrap my arms tightly around his shoulders to return the hug. It went on for way longer than a hug between friends should have, but I wasn’t at all eager for it to end.

  When he pulled back finally, I walked toward my table to see if they were ready to order, and I looked over my shoulder at Jack to find him watching me with such a soft expression in his eyes that it made my chest ache.

  The group of seven ordered some appetizers, and when I turned back to pick up Jack’s check, I saw that he was gone. Disappointment lanced through me, but when I picked up the billfold and saw the obscene amount of money he left for me, I went to put in the appetizer order and send him a text.

  That’s ridiculous, Jack. I can’t take that.

  Superior service deserves recognition.

  I tried to argue with him more, but he just ignored all my protests and told me to text him when I got some free time later.

  I knew I was on shaky ground with him, but, god help me, I’d take whatever I could get.

  ◆◆◆

  I was riding the blissful wave of lunch with Jack for the rest of the day even if my job suffered because of it. I got two orders wrong during the dinner rush because while I was putting the orders in the computer I was thinking about the way Jack hugged me when he left, the way his strong arms felt around my much smaller body, the way he seemed to swallow me into him making me feel so safe and warm and protected.

  Around nine, the place had died down. I was scheduled to stay until after we closed at eleven, but Gia was so annoyed by how far in the clouds I was that she told me to get lost as soon as my last table left. I practically skipped home, and when I saw I had yet another text from Jack, I texted him back to tell him I was on my way home. A second later, I felt my phone vibrate, and I wanted to jump with glee when I saw Jack Harding on my phone screen.

  “Hey you,” I said, unable to hide the smile in my voice.

  “Hey yourself,” he said, and I knew he was smiling, too. “Don’t tell me you’re walking.”

  “It’s a twenty minute walk.” I tried to ignore how the concern in his voice sent a jolt of pleasure through me, knowing he was worried about me and cared for me. “Helps me clear my head.”

  “It’s after nine.”

  The firmness in his voice was starting to turn me on.

  “It’s a Tuesday night, Jack.”

  “Oh, you think rapists and muggers take Tuesdays off?”

  “Aww, you’re worried about me.”

  I could practically hear his eye roll.

  “Well. Yeah. The idea of my female friend walking home in the middle of the night by herself looking the way you do worries me.”

  I ignored the pang in my chest when he called me his friend and instead focused on his comment about how I looked.

  “And how do I look?”

  He scoffed. “You know how you look.” When I didn’t immediately respond, he sighed. “You know you’re hot Talia. And I saw that dress you were wearing at work.”

  I knew he saw it. I’d caught him checking out my body way more than once when he’d been there for lunch, and I’d enjoyed the heated pulse that his perusal sent through me.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I have mace, and I don’t think they’re concerned with how I look.” I was trying to play it off despite how much it felt like a conversation between a boyfriend and a girlfriend rather than just friends. I doubted any of my friends, especially the men, would be this worried about me walking home. Cat often mentioned it, which was why she’d gotten me a can of mace for my birthday in June.

  We talked for the rest of my walk home, and by the time I got home my face hurt from smiling so much. When I told him I was home I expected him to get off the phone, but he just kept up the conversation. I got inside, set my stuff inside the door, and kicked off my shoes as he told me how much he was dreading the dinner with his parents on Saturday. I sat on my couch with a bowl of cottage cheese and my phone between my ear and my shoulder and we just kept on talking. Eventually, I stripped off my clothes, brushed my teeth, and climbed into bed while we were still on the phone. We talked for hours, and it wasn’t until my eyes started to feel heavy that I checked the time on my phone.

  “Whoa,” I said. “It’s after two. We’ve been on the phone for over five hours.”

  Jack’s voice was sexy and raspy with sleep when he said, “I didn’t even notice. I like talking to you.”

  My heart sped up and I curled onto my side in bed, pulling the covers closer and imagining they were his arms around me.

  “Me, too,” I murmured.

  “Sometimes it feels like no time has passed at all, you know?”

  I knew exactly what he meant. He and I had both changed a lot since college, but it still felt as easy as it did then, as simple as it always was—laughing, talking, and wild, wild attraction that made us addicted to each other even with all the bullshit hanging between us. Talking to him felt like I was talking to a new crush but also like talking to an old friend who knew all the intimate, gory details of my life from years ago. I’d known Jack since I was eighteen-years-old, since before I knew who I was or what I wanted to do with my life. I met him three weeks after I’d met Vincent, and there had been days—dark, lonely days when I was missing him and us—that I wondered how different my life would have been if I’d met Jack first. Even though I’d met him when I was with Vince, I had still been attracted to him, but I’d also had stars in my eyes over Vince. Everything could have been so different if only Jack had gotten inside my heart long before Vincent had been able to break it.

  “Yeah,” I whispered. “I know.”

  “I should go.” His voice was hushed, and I could hear the need in it. Would I ever stop wanting him? Would we ever stop wanting each other? “I have to be up for work in less than five hours.”

  “Okay.” I barely recognized the breathless sound of my voice. I didn’t want to hang up. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Between lunch, talking tonight, and texting throughout the day, I’d spent most of the day talking with Jack in some form or another, but it still wasn’t enough. I just wanted to hear his voice, feel him close even though he was across the river.

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Me neither,” I replied quietly.

  “But we have to.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ll talk to you later, babe.”

  “Bye, Jack.”

  Our last words to each other were so quiet it was almost as if we weren’t speaking. I could barely hear him, and I knew he could barely hear me. With overwhelming regret and already missing him, I hit the end button on my phone. I’d plugged it into the cord behind my bed hours ago when I’d first laid down, so I just set it on the table beside my bed. I didn’t fall asleep immediately because I was thinking about Jack, but eventually my eyes felt heavy and I couldn’t keep from falling under.

  I dreamt of him the entire night, and he was the first thing I thought about when I woke up. I wasn’t working at Gia’s that day, so instead I stayed in bed until my stomach and my bladder forced me up. I kept staring at my phone whenever I got a chance and even turned the volume up all the way when I got
in the shower because I didn’t want to miss a call or text from Jack.

  When he still hadn’t texted me by noon, I gathered up a bag full of clothes and a book and walked to the laundromat at the end of my block, determined to stop thinking about him.

  Maybe we had crossed some kind of line last night, and he was worried about pushing the boundaries between us. It had been him, after all, who’d wanted to just be friends, and I would have been fine continuing to casually sleep with him just like we’d done in college, even if it would’ve killed us both. But staying up all night talking might have been pushing it into a territory that felt like he was giving too much of himself when he knew I was still keeping so much of myself from him.

  You can’t have your cake and eat it, too, Talia. I tried to tell the voice in my head to fuck off, but it was insistent while I sat in the uncomfortable, hard, orange chair in the overly bright laundromat.

  You have no idea what you want. You’re fighting against something that you want to have without giving any bit of yourself to it. That’s not fair to Jack, and he knows it, which is why he just wants to be friends.

  As much as I hated it, that stupid voice was right, and so was Jack to decide that we would just be friends. Selfishly, I wanted to have Jack—my cake—but only on my terms. I wanted to guard my heart and protect myself even if that meant hurting Jack in the process for my own selfish desires. It wasn’t fair to him, and I had to make more of an effort to be his friend instead of trying to get him to give up on being only friends—with actions or words—every time I saw him or talked to him. Because if I wanted him in my life, and I did, I would finally have to do it the way he wanted.

  It wasn’t until I was popping a frozen pizza in the oven for dinner later that night that Jack finally texted me asking how my day was. He told me he’d been crazy busy at work, and I felt a little better about not hearing from him until now while still acknowledging that this was normal. Most friends didn’t text all day, every day.

  I sat down with my pizza, put on a reality cooking show on Netflix, and looked at my phone to see that Jack had texted me again. And his text made all my resolve about respecting Jack’s wish for us to be friends evaporate.

  Wanna come over to my place for dinner Friday? I want to watch that movie we talked about.

  I replied with Sure, sounds good, and a thumbs up emoji, but in reality, I was staring at my phone, grinning so hard I probably looked like a maniac.

  Chapter 11

  Movie night began with innocence and good intentions.

  Jack made an amazing meal—stuffed peppers and a simple salad with some kind of homemade lemon vinaigrette that knocked my socks off. My mom had always taught me to never show up to someone’s home for a meal empty handed, so I’d brought a tray of cookies that we’d each had with coffee after dinner.

  While we were having dessert, I played a demo of one of the new songs Flora and Fauna was working on. I didn’t know if he was doing it just to be nice or to try and really show how interested he was, but when the song ended, he reached for my phone so that he could start it over. We listened to it all the way through again, and I just watched his face as he closed his eyes so he could just focus on the music and lyrics and nothing else.

  It flattered and beguiled me how much he liked my music, how attentive he was, and it made me crave him in a way I knew I wasn’t allowed to. It felt like no one had ever cared this much about something so important to me, like no one had ever cared so much about me, and I tipped further over the edge.

  I didn’t want to be just Jack’s friend, and somehow I wanted to find a way to approach the topic of ending this farce of pretending we weren’t attracted to each other and didn’t each desire the other with a fierce desperation.

  Or maybe he didn’t want me like that anymore. Maybe he truly was only interested in being friends, and if that was the case, I would have to find it somewhere deep inside me to be okay with that.

  Despite how full we both were after dinner and dessert, Jack had popped some popcorn and poured me a glass of wine while he got himself a beer before we sat down on his couch and he opened up the movie on his TV.

  We sat close to each other, but not close enough to touch, and not closer than two friends would sit on the couch. He put the bowl of popcorn between us, and I tried to ignore the jolt of sensation that went through me every time his hand brushed mine in the bowl. I wasn’t even hungry and didn’t even particularly like popcorn, but I reached for more over and over just to chance having that moment where our hands might meet. I knew it was weird and pathetic and something a fourteen-year-old girl with a crush would do, not a twenty-eight-year-old grown woman who already knew what the guy was like in bed, but I couldn’t stop it. I just wanted to be near him and to touch him, and if a popcorn bowl was the only way to do it, then that would have to be fine with me.

  I finished my wine about halfway through the movie, which was an incredibly intense psychological thriller, and the wine was making me feel warm and cozy. I took the throw off the back of the couch and curled my legs under me while Jack moved the popcorn bowl to the coffee table. When he leaned back and I draped the blanket over me, I realized we were much closer than we’d been before, my knees just lightly brushing the side of his muscular thigh while he draped his arm over the sofa back behind me.

  I laid my head on the back of the couch, trying not to inhale too deeply because I knew if I caught his scent I’d be a goner.

  I was trying my damnedest to pay attention to the movie. It was objectively a very good movie, and under any other circumstances I would have been hooked, but after a few more minutes, I noticed a light tugging on my hair. There was no possible way for me to pay attention anymore after I realized the tugging was Jack, his arm resting on the back of the couch lightly and absently running his fingers through my hair that was splayed on the couch back.

  I reveled in the gentle touch even though I wasn’t even entirely sure he knew he was doing it. But when he angled toward me, bending his knee up on the couch so that our knees were completely touching, my self-control began to fade rapidly.

  My heart pound and my palms dampened as I tilted my head back slightly so I could glance over at him through my eyelashes. The glow of the TV in the dark room was illuminating all his features and causing shadows that made all the perfect angles of his face even more pronounced. Sometimes I forgot how beautiful he was. I got so wrapped up in how sexually attracted to him I was that I forgot about the simple beauty of all his features both inside and out. A nostalgic contentment came over me while I watched him, just ready and happy to enjoy this moment with a man who made me feel so many incredible things.

  Without thinking of what it might mean or how he might react, I looked back at the TV and put my hand on his leg. I just wanted to touch him, wanted my hands on him even if it would lead nowhere, and when he didn’t react or push me away, I actually started to focus on the movie again while carelessly rubbing my thumb back and forth at the spot where my hand rested dangerously close to his inner thigh. It felt so relaxed and comfortable here with him, where I could just be, that for a while my desire for him fell by the wayside. Just being here next to him was enough.

  It went on like that for a while, me rubbing his thigh, him playing with my hair, and neither of us made any move to stop. I wanted to know if he noticed, if he cared, if it bothered him, but I was so worried about breaking the spell that I didn’t do anything except what I’d already been doing.

  Being with Jack

  The movie was reaching its climax and I was on the edge of my seat, not because of the movie but because of how turned on and attuned I was to Jack. My head had slipped down from the couch onto his shoulder, I’d lifted one of my knees so it was sort of draped over his, and his arm was around me, holding me close while he kept on playing with my hair, his fingers going deeper and massaging more. My hand had slipped further in on his thigh and wickedly close to his groin. I wanted to look and see if he was as turned on
as I was, but for some reason that felt like it would break some precious spell, like it would burst the bubble of peace we were in right then.

  We were in full on cuddle mode, and all I wanted was for it to turn into naked cuddling on his bed rather than clothed cuddling on his couch. My mouth was dry for wanting it, my hands shaking, and all he had done was hold me to him and touch my hair. But that wasn’t registering with my libido—that raging hormone didn’t care that we were just innocently snuggling on the couch.

  The credits rolled, and I was strung so tight I thought I was going to combust.

  Fuck it.

  The thought went through my mind just a second before I slid my hand even closer and turned so my face was in his neck, brushing my lips gently along his skin. He smelled like heaven, and I could have easily feasted on his neck and would have had he not curled his hand into a fist in my hair and pulled me back slightly.

  If he was trying to stop me from wanting him, that action was not going to do it because all I could imagine was him holding me like that while he fucked me.

  We held each other’s eyes for a long time like that, unspoken words and wants and needs flowing in the space between us until finally he let out a shuddering breath and pressed his forehead to mine.

  “I need to take you home.”

  NO! I screamed in my head. Fuck what we said before, we both want this.

  I was going to protest but then he said, “But fuck I really don’t want to.”

  I wanted to tell him not to, wanted him to throw caution to the wind, and I knew if I pushed even a little he would give in. But more than how badly I wanted him in his bed right that second, seeing his torment, I wanted to honor his wishes and respect his boundaries and save us both from a lot of heartache that I knew would come if we crossed this line.

  “But you have to.”

  He sighed and pulled back, his eyes landing on my lips as he kept my hair clenched in his fist.