Page 38 of After We Fall (After We Fall 2)
“No. It’s late. Pete goes to bed early, and Georgia is working tonight.”
I nodded. “OK, then.”
“I just have to get the keys. Come with me?”
“Sure.” We walked toward the cabin in silence, Jack’s hands still in his pockets and my arms crossed over my chest. I thought about asking to use his bathroom to clean up a little, but something about it didn’t feel right. Instead I waited for him on the porch, and then we retraced our steps back through the trees toward Pete and Georgia’s.
In the driveway, Jack opened the passenger door of his pickup for me and I climbed in. He got in the driver’s side just as I was pulling the bottom of my dress down as far as I could. I thought about asking Jack if he had a handkerchief, but he didn’t look like the type.
“What are you doing?” He gave me a funny look.
“Trying not to get the seat sticky,” I said, feeling heat in my cheeks. So much about sex was embarrassing.
He chuckled and started the truck. “Don’t worry about it. Really. Tell me where you’re staying?”
I gave him directions, and we were silent again on the two-minute ride. Thank God, I thought. Because the more he talked to me in that sweet, serious voice or smiled or laughed or showed me there was a gentleman inside that rough exterior, the more I liked him.
I didn’t want to like him.
When he pulled up next to the cottage, I opened the door. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Margot, wait.” He put a hand on my leg. “Don’t go yet.”
It’s better if you don’t touch me, Jack.
“
Yes?”
“It’s not personal, my objection to your ideas for the farm. I can tell you’re good at what you do.”
“Thanks.”
He took his hand off my leg and rubbed his jaw. “I just don’t want things to change.”
“Even if the changes make sense? If they’ll bring in more money eventually? If they’ll make people happy?”
He didn’t answer, but I saw the stubborn set of his jaw return.
Sighing, I pushed the door all the way open and got out. “Goodnight, Jack. Thanks for the ride.” I shut the door and walked to the door, and he waited until I was safely inside before pulling away.
Another display of courtesy.
Damn him.
Later, I lay in bed, listening to the waves through the screens and struggling to process tonight’s surprises. The way Jack had apologized. The way he’d agreed he’d been mean and unfair. The unexpected—and vehement—insistence that he drive me home. The shock of that first kiss, when he’d grabbed me by both arms, his frustration giving way to passion all at once.
You’re going to take it.
My stomach hollowed as I recalled the way he’d driven deep inside me, so deep it had hurt. Never in my life had I experienced anything like the way that sharp twinge had started to feel good. How could pain accompany pleasure like that? How had two opposite sensations merged inside my body, so seamlessly that I couldn’t tell where the pain stopped and where the pleasure began? Which was which?
And I’d screamed and panted and gasped and clawed at him like an animal. He’d drawn something out of me, a part of myself I didn’t even know was there, a part that existed only to want so ferociously, I could think of nothing else—not our crude surroundings, our nonexistent relationship status, not even our privacy. I never once worried about how loud I was or felt ashamed of my desire or stopped to fret that well-bred ladies should not appear to enjoy sex so unabashedly. (Bet I was the first Thurber woman to fuck a farmer in a forest.)
I’d loved every minute of it. Even his O face.
Was sex with Jack always like that? I wondered if the mad desperation of it was due to the fact that it had been so long for both of us or if he was always so rough and aggressive.
You’ll never know. Understand?
