Cora Carmack - Finding It

I thought he’d given up because he pulled the covers over me. I shivered again, and closed my eyes. Then I felt the brush of his fingertips under the covers against my hip. I pried my eyes open to see his chagrined smile.

“Are you that scared of seeing me naked?”

He finished untangling that first knot with ease.

“I’m not scared, sweetheart.”

The ties pulled loose, and he must have thought I was the scared one because he said, “I promise I won’t look.”

He reached farther under the covers to slide the strip of fabric off my stomach, but the rest wrapped beneath me, around my back to my chest.

“Can you lift yourself up? That might be easier.”

I tried to press my hands against the mattress and arch my body, but I was too far gone. The alcohol or the drugs or whatever had hit me hard enough that I felt almost paralyzed by exhaustion.

“I can’t.” I hated the tremble in my voice and how weak it made me sound, but I felt like my body had turned on me, and I was no longer in control.

Panic unfurled slowly, like the opening of a flower. I made myself keep my eyes open and focused. I knew what I would see if I let them close.

Hunt sat on the edge of the bed beside me.

“Wrap your arms around my neck, and use me to pull yourself up.”

Slowly, I managed to snake my arms out of the covers. He made sure the blankets stayed in place before pulling me up and helping me to hook my hands around his neck.

“Just hold on.”

He snuck his hands beneath the oversized T-shirt, and I felt him pull the fabric of my swimsuit, but it didn’t come undone. It just shifted the rest of my suit.

“Damn it. The other piece is strapped over this one. Hang on.”

He slipped a hand under the other strip, and held it out so that he could slip the other underneath it. My arms ached, so I dug my fingers harder into the back of his neck. He sucked in a breath, and his hands at my back faltered.

“Hunt?”

I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.

“Yeah?”

His fingertips skated across my lower back, dragging the fabric along, too. I skimmed one hand from the back of his neck to his jaw and said, “Tell me your other name. The one most people don’t call you.”

His eyes searched my face, flicking briefly from my lips up to my eyes.

“You won’t remember it tomorrow, sweetheart.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t want to know, sweetheart .”

He quirked a smile, but it disappeared almost immediately. He finished working the strap through, and the hand that had been holding up the other strap pressed against my bare skin. His long fingers spread across the entire expanse of my back, and the room seemed to amp up several degrees.

“Jackson. My name is Jackson Hunt.”

I smiled, and he returned a small one of his own.

“Well, Jackson Hunt. Stop being a pansy, and just take my clothes off.”

He chuckled, low and raspy, and it built into a full, barking laugh.

“You’re something else, you know that?”

“Like you said, I won’t remember it tomorrow. Let’s just get it over with.”

He groaned and scraped his fingernails against the stubble along his jaw. He mumbled something under his breath that sounded like, “But I’ll remember.”

Exhausted and cold and tired of waiting, I eased myself back on the pillow, his hand dragging from my back to my side as I moved. I did my best to shove the covers down. The T-shirt was bunched up around my rib cage.

He jerked, turning his face away. “Jesus, Kelsey.”

The cool air embraced me from the waist up, my skin tightening.

“It’s not that big of a deal.”

“It is, though. I can’t take advantage of you like that. Not when you’re not sober enough to make decisions with a clear head.”

I groaned. “You’re not taking advantage of me. Been there. Done that. It felt nothing like this.”

His head snapped to mine.

“What did you say?”

I was so tired now that I could feel the tears gathering at the edge of my vision.

That’s all it was. Exhaustion.

“Nothing.”

“Kelsey—”

“It doesn’t matter. Just help me. Please? Please .”

I hated the desperation in my voice, but I needed this to be over, and I needed to stop thinking.

After a heavy sigh and a few seconds of staring at the ceiling, he pulled the covers the rest of the way down, and started working on the other knot. When he started unwrapping the swimsuit, his eyes locked on my face.

He leaned down until only a half a dozen inches separated us. His face hovered over mine, and a slow burn stole past the fog in my head. He snuck a hand beneath my back and lifted up my midsection. I swallowed, and he yanked the fabric out from underneath me. He pulled hard enough that the bathing suit slipped off my shoulders and down to my elbows.

I arched my back a little bit more, and my belly grazed his chest. He made a noise low in his throat and closed his eyes. That sound bled through my skin and muscles and lodged itself deep in my bones.

Quickly, he finished unwrapping the fabric, and then pulled the suit free. I heard the wet slap of the fabric as it hit the ground, and though he wasn’t touching me, one of his hands was still under the T-shirt, his hand pressing down into the mattress an inch away from my bare skin.

His eyes opened, and the space between us crackled with energy. His eyes dropped to my lips, and his breath fanned across my mouth.

I whimpered, and he growled a four-letter word.

“Jackson.”

I closed my eyes and tilted my chin up. My muscles tightened in anticipation. His wrist grazed my ribs, and his lips dipped toward mine.

This felt more like being drugged than anything else.

At the last second, he swerved and pressed a kiss to my cheek instead. He stayed there, his lips and stubble brushing against my skin, and said, “I can’t. Not like this. If I’m going to cross this line, I sure as hell want you to remember it.”

“It’s not crossing a line if I want it.”

I held on to him as tightly as I could manage in my current state.

“I want you, too. But you have no idea how many lines I’d be crossing, even if you were sober.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m getting you ready for bed, and then I’m saying good night.”

“Then get me ready for bed.” I took his hand and guided it down to the material at my hips. He hooked two fingers under the fabric, and then started to pull, down my legs and past my feet. When his gaze wasn’t on my face, it was directed up toward the ceiling.

He pulled the blankets all the way up to my chin, the smooth sheets sliding against my bare legs. I caught one of his hands at the top of the blankets, keeping it close.

“Don’t go.”

He ran a hand over the stubble across his jaw.

“I have to. This isn’t a good idea.”

“I don’t want to wake up alone. If I don’t remember … I’ll … it will kill me. You don’t know …”

He was doing it again … studying me, and whatever he found made his lips curve into a frown.

“Jackson, please.”

“Okay. Just … just give me a second.”

I relaxed, the panic in my gut loosening. I listened to him moving around the room and then the bathroom, too tired to lift my head to actually watch.

After a few minutes, he flipped off the lamp beside the bed, dousing the room in darkness. I waited for the bed to dip, to feel the electricity that I knew would come from having him close to me.

I waited and waited, but it never came.

“Jackson?”

I heard something creak in the direction of the chair I’d been in earlier, and then his voice came from the same side of the room.