Page 24 of Finding Carly
She stared at him with wide eyes. “Jag,” she whispered.
He lifted a hand and palmed her cheek once more. God, he loved when she tilted her head and gave him some of her weight. “I don’t know what you think is going on between us but…as far as I’m concerned, we’re dating. We’ve had an unconventional relationship up till now, but I’m going with it. And you should know…I decided at Aleck’s wedding that I was done giving you space. If you hadn’t texted me when I got back from that mission, I wasn’t going to let you hide away anymore.”
“I thought you had a stubborn look in your eyes when I told you I wanted to go home after the ceremony,” Carly said.
Jag smiled. “Yeah. I was happy to see a flash of anger from you, actually,” he admitted.
“Iamangry,” Carly told him. “Furious that Shawn has put me in this position. I know I’m young, but I truly thought he cared about me. In the end, all he wanted was to control me. And when he couldn’t, his crazy came out.”
“That’s exactly what happened,” Jag agreed. “But none of it was your fault, you know that, right?”
“I’m trying to believe that,” Carly said softly.
“You’re amazing,” Jag told her for what felt like the hundredth time. Maybe if he said it enough, she’d eventually believe him. “You’re a great friend, funny, a hard worker, and selfless. Any problem that asshat had with you was on him, not you. And you aren’tthatyoung.”
Carly smiled and shook her head a little.
“You have a problem dating an old man like me?” Jag asked.
“You aren’t old,” Carly protested.
“I’ve got ten years on you…although some days I feel much older.”
“The truth is that I’ve always preferred older guys. I don’t know why. Maybe because they just seem more mature, more settled than men my age. I don’t know. But to answer your question, no, I don’t care that you’re thirty-five. Do you care that I’m only twenty-five?”
“Fuck no,” Jag said with feeling. “So…we’re dating?”
She gave him a small smile and lifted a hand, covering the one still resting on her cheek. “I guess we are. Jag?”
“Yeah?”
“Since we’re dating and all now…maybe you can kiss me?”
Jag felt his heart rate speed up. He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t find the words to tell her how much this moment meant to him. Couldn’t figure out how to tell her how worried he was about her. That he might be encouraging her to get back to her normal routine, but he wasn’t going to leave her vulnerable to an attack. That she was quickly becoming the most important person in his life.
Instead of speaking at all, he shifted his hand so he was holding her nape, and leaned forward. The angle was awkward with the console between them, but there was no way Jag was letting this moment go by without getting his lips on hers.
The moment they connected, Jag closed his eyes, almost overcome with emotion. The hair on the back of his neck stood up as if electrified when she shyly opened her mouth under his. Jag felt as if he was a virgin. And in many ways, he was.
His hand around her neck tightened and Carly moaned, tilting her head so she could get closer. Her tongue licked his, and it was Jag’s turn to make a tortured sound in the back of his throat. What might’ve started out as a sweet, shy meeting of their lips instantly turned into more. Much more.
Jag couldn’t get close enough. He held Carly still as he devoured her.
How long they made out, Jag had no clue. When he finally pulled back, he was panting as if he’d just finished a ten-mile run on the beach with his thirty-pound pack on his back. He stared at Carly in reverence. He felt as if he’d smashed through a brick wall he hadn’t even known he’d built in his mind.
Never in his thirty-five years had he ever wanted a woman so much. His cock was throbbing in his pants and for the first time in his life, he understood why men got crazy over a woman.
“Um…wow,” Carly said, licking her lips.
He hadn’t taken his hand from her nape and his fingers tightened involuntarily at her breathless comment.
“Yeah,” he agreed, finding it hard to take his eyes from her lips. He had a vision of her on her knees, those lips around his cock as she looked up at him with her smoky blue eyes. It was so carnal. Jag couldn’t stop thinking about it.
“There are a lot of things that scare me,” Carly said as she tightened her hold around his wrist. “But you aren’t one of them.”
Fuck. She was killing him.
Jag forced his hand to loosen. He didn’t even realize that he’d latched onto her so tightly. “Good. The last thing I ever want to do is scare you,” he said.
