Solace In The Silence ✓✓

chapter 19

This chapter also contains sexual content, so please read at your own discretion.

"IS EVERYTHING OKAY?" I asked, concern trickling in. "You seem kind of jumpy."
A dark look hardened Jake's features as he draped his arm across the back of the bench seat and reversed out of my driveway. Tension had crawled into his Chevy, nestling uncomfortably in the space between us.

We were headed to Pavilions, a fancy restaurant twenty miles out of Hall Hill, to meet up with his parents and Angie. Ironically, my appetite was rapidly abating.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he told me, but his lips slipped down at the corners.
A kernel of unease burst in the pit of my belly, and I narrowed my eyes at him. Watching Jake's profile in the darkness of his car, I noticed the muscle that was thrumming in his jaw.

I blinked slowly. "Are you sure?"
As we rounded the curve, his truck bounced roughly over the potholes in the uneven dirt road. My stomach lurched.
"Nothing's wrong, babe." There was a brief glimpse of his easy, laid-back grin, and then it disappeared. "We're good."

Despite Jake's efforts to reassure me, I wasn't entirely convinced. There was something off about his shuttered expression, the way his brows furrowed together.

Fiddling with the locket around my neck, I tried not to concentrate on the fact that he hadn't greeted me with a kiss earlier when he'd knocked on my door. The ringer on his cell phone had gone off—his mom letting him know that they were about to leave, too—and he'd suddenly become distracted. His shoulders were rigid as we'd walked to his car in silence, his hand lingering by the small of my back like he was making a concerted effort not to touch me.

A horrible thought occurred to me, and I tried not to let the panic eat at me. "You're not regretting what happened yesterday, are you?"
Jake's steely gaze swung to me, surprised. "No. Not for a second."
Relief hummed through my system, the newfound fear that I'd felt dissipating.

Averting his attention back to the road, he carved a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry, I'm just keyed up about this dinner," he murmured. "I don't know, my head's kind of all over the place, but not when it comes to us, you hear me?"
"I hear you," I echoed, warmth blooming in my chest.
"I know I've acted like an asshole in the past"—he cast me a sidelong look, his blue-gray eyes sharpening when they latched onto mine again—"but like I said, I want to be with you, Bess. More than I have ever wanted anything. That's not going to change."

His straightforwardness startled me, and then he was reaching for my hand in the darkness, threading our fingers together.
My eyebrows soared.
I still wasn't used to being around this
Jake—the guy who didn't feel like he had to constantly hide behind a mask, the guy who didn't attempt to disguise the emotion that fueled his words. For years, I'd been stonewalled and shut out, but now he was finally letting me in, showing me all the parts of him that were vulnerable.

"I want to be with you, too," I whispered, becoming Captain Obvious' trusty sidekick. Because let's face it, I'd been about as transparent as glass when it came to my feelings for him. Jake responded by sweeping his lips across my knuckles lightly, butterfly-soft. It was such a simple gesture, but it was sweet enough to make me feel like I was moments away from melting into a pile of gooey nothingness. The lump that had formed in the back of my throat was hard to speak around when I added,

"Which is why you better hold up your end of the deal tonight."
"Oh yeah?" He smirked, interest piqued. His eyes ensnared me, darkening as they roamed over me with unadulterated desire. The thick, gloomy cloud that had been hovering around him seemed to evaporate a little. Mission accomplished. "Remind me, what's that again?"

I bit my lip, heat creeping across my cheeks under the gravity of his stare. As shyness streaked through me, I told myself that just over twenty-four hours ago, Jake had given me an orgasm, and not only that, he'd made it pretty clear he planned on doing it again. So, bearing that in mind, I inhaled a shaky breath and summoned some crazy braveness. "Hmm. Well, if I'm remembering correctly, I believe it had something to do with me being naked in your bed, and you having me all to yourself."