Lowering my eyes back down to Sasha, I smiled at how peaceful she looked.

Because her left side was the broken side, she slept facing me every night now, and it looked like I’d curled around her after I’d fallen asleep because she was pressed against me.

Her hair was wild, and there was a curl hanging down over her jaw that might interrupt her sleep if it tickled her face.

Just as I lifted my hand to move the hair, I realized where it was stuffed when there was resistance from what felt like an elasticated waistband around my wrist.

My hand was down the back of her sleep shorts.

Just the sleep shorts because that’s all she was wearing. No panties.

Given the size difference between us, my hand spanned a good portion of her whole ass. Like that wasn’t enough, I’d pushed it down until my fingers were spread on either side of her folds.

I felt like a lecher, like a creepy asshole who was taking advantage of her, until she rolled her hips slightly, moving my index finger right over her entrance.

Her wet entrance.

Fuck, I couldn’t do this while she was asleep.

I only got as far as tensing to move away from her when she tightened the arm she had around my waist and whispered, “More, Jackson. Please.”

Burying my nose into the hair on the top of her head, I willed myself to do the right thing.

“Sasha?”

When she didn’t say anything and wiggled closer to me, I almost groaned as she rubbed against the hard-on that was likely tenting my basketball shorts.

“Baby, wake up.”

Panting into my neck as my finger slipped almost to the point of entering her, she snapped weakly, “I am awake.”

Clenching my eyes shut, I weighed everything up.

I liked her. A lot. She got me and got what I was trying to achieve at college. She was funny, she was fucking beautiful, and she wasn’t dramatic or loud. Sasha’s calmness was contagious, like tonight when I’d come home, and she’d had me talk out what’d happened during class. Or when my family came, and I’d had to tell them what I’d done.

Whatever mood she was in was contagious, and lucky for me, it was always a mood I didn’t mind.

My ex-girlfriend was one of those women who took straight to social media to air her personal business. In fact, her current boyfriend had cheated on her three weeks ago, and since then, she’d been posting scathing crap about the girl he’d cheated with, not the guy. I’d caught five minutes of a live video she was doing, where she accused the girl of having herpes and spreading it around the area.

Why I’d seen it, to begin with, was amusing, and it all centered around the woman who was currently wiggling discreetly to get my fingers where she wanted them to be.

I’d been waiting for her outside the bathroom while she showered, and to distract myself from the thoughts of her naked, wet, and soapy, I’d opened up Facebook. The five minutes of the video I’d watched had been the cure I needed for the fact my dick had been making it clear where he wanted to be.

It wasn’t working now, though.

“Are you sure this is what you want?”

Tipping her head back, she scowled up at me. “Believe me when I say, if I didn’t want this, I’d be running out of the door even with my leg in a cast.” Then something occurred to her because she lowered her eyes and stiffened. “Unless this isn’t what you want? I mean, I remember what your girlfriends were like at school, and—”

I cut her off by twisting my head as far down as I could and kissing her. There was no skill to it, no finesse, and no romantic descriptions would ever apply to it, but it achieved what I wanted it to.

I got to taste her finally, and it stopped her doubting herself.

Doubting what we were about to do.

Doubting the possibility of us.

When I felt the tension leave her, I pulled back, just leaving enough space for me to say, “Boys are different from men. What we allow in our lives changes as we realize what’s truly important and worthwhile. The same goes for women,” I added meaningfully.

I mean, if she remembered my ex-girlfriends, she had to know I remembered her exes, too.

When she nodded understandingly, I pressed on. “I never expected you to come into my life and bring everything that’s important with you. Trust me, if I had, I’d have grabbed you and held on with everything I’ve got years ago.”

I wasn’t sure if she understood what I meant or even if I was getting the words right, but she needed to hear it all anyway.

She was right.

She was what I wanted.

“I get it,” she whispered. “But…”

When she trailed off and didn’t say anything else, I kissed her gently. “But?”


Tags: Mary B. Moore Providence Family Ties Romance