Page 125 of Just One More Thing
Leaving now
Want to come over?
Was hoping you’d ask
CHAPTER 31
EMORY
Iknock our special knock out of habit. Then I remember he told me I didn’t have to knock, so I let myself in.
Jake’s standing in the kitchen. No shirt. Low slung shorts riding just above the cut of his hips.
He’s leaning against the counter with a glass of water in one hand and phone in the other, having no idea what he does to a room just by existing shirtless inside it.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
Hank’s head pops up over the back of the couch. I walk over and kiss the top of his wrinkled forehead before rubbing along the back of his ears.
“No bandana tonight?” I ask him.
“It’s past his bedtime. He doesn’t wear one when he sleeps,” Jake says as he crosses the kitchen toward me. He moves through the world like he has somewhere to be but he’s going to enjoy the journey getting there.
He must’ve recently had a shower because his hair is damp and he smells like eucalyptus, pine and sea salt.
“How were the girls?” he asks.
“Educational.”
His mouth tilts. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“Lainey has strong opinions about the universe and foot pops.”
“That doesn’t clarify anything.”
“Good.”
He reaches up and brushes a strand of hair away from my face.
My breath catches.
His fingertips trail slowly along my jaw.
I feel the touch in places that a jaw touch has no business affecting.
I lean into it.
He studies me with those deep blue eyes, and I think, not for the first time, that it’s genuinely unfair to be looked at by Jake Wheeler. It’s direct and warm and attentive in a way that makes you feel chosen. Most people spend their whole lives hoping someone will look at them like that and never find it.
His thumb brushes once across my cheekbone.
Then he leans down and kisses me.
My hands slide to his sides. Warm skin beneath my palms. The hard plane of his stomach. The hello shifts, deepening into something slower and heavier.
His hands settle at my waist, pulling me closer, and I go willingly because there is nowhere else I want to be.
