Jenalyn: Crossing Lines (#4) [Complete]

Chapter 17: Tyler

Saturday, 10:29 P.M. EST

Hayden is just so beautiful sometimes it blows my mind. She steps out of the bathroom, steam billowing out from behind her, wearing nothing but a fluffy white robe and her panties. 

That alone is enough to draw my attention to her, but that isn’t all of it. 

She’s been glowing ever since her pregnancy started to show, and I love the luminescent aura she has. 

It’s captivating.

She pulls the white towel off the top of her head, allowing her wet hair to cascade down her shoulders and back. 

“You’re so beautiful,” I can’t help but say as I continue to gaze at her. 

She turns to me, flattening her brows as she attempts to hide a smile. “And you’re a sweet talker,” she says matter-of-factly. 

I smile, partially because she’s just so damn breathtaking, and partially because I can see right past her “I’m so over you” act. I flustered her, and she doesn’t know how to handle it; typical Hayden. 

“Is it working?” I ask, grabbing the remote from the nightstand next to where I lay on the bed. 

She rolls her eyes before narrowing them at me, still trying to hold back her smile. She fails miserably. “You’re not smooth, Ty,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. 

I must be though.

She wears a look familiar to me from our earliest days; before I fucked everything up, and she still wanted me. 

“Just come here,” I can’t help the words from escaping my lips as I watch her remove her robe to grab a t-shirt. 

She flattens her brows as she turns around to narrow her eyes at me.The ghost of a smile fades from her face. 

I had a feeling it would based on these past couple of weeks with her, but after our talk this morning? Things have been less tense with her. It’s almost as if she really wants to work on us.

“I’m not,” she says after a second. “I am going to my bed, taking this jumping bean and myself to sleep.”

She tries to sound firm, but I see right through it. 

To her, there’s a difference between “having sex,” and “fucking.”And I understand her! It’s the difference between making love to someone because you love them, and just having sex with someone because you want to get your rocks off.

She knows that I’m not asking to fuck her; I want to make love to her like we used to before we ruined everything.

The fact that she’s declining means I have my foot in the door. If she assumed I just wanted to fuck her, she’d have been all for it. Hayden has a hard time turning down a fuck. She’s only declining because she knows I want to make love. 

Despite what she’s saying with her mouth, the look on her face is saying that she might let me.

“C’mon,” I tell her, probably doing more to her with my eyes than she’d be comfortable with if she knew. 

She rolls her eyes, but a small smile still hides behind the straight face she tries to maintain. “Noooo,” she whines with a giggle. “I don’t want you getting the wrong idea because of what we spoke about earlier! I still need time to think about it!”

I’m glad that I am too worked up at this point to feel the ache in my chest her words caused. She’s trying to be hard because I hurt her, but… I’m trying to keep my hopes up!

“I’m not going to get any ideas,” I say in response. “No strings attached! I just want to be with you.”

I don’t realize what I say wrong until her brows flatten and she crosses her arms over her chest.

I do want to be with her, but I didn’t mean it like that in this situation. 

“I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant!” I exclaim. “I want to be inside of you. Is that better?”

Hayden laughs, rolling her eyes before uncrossing her arms. She places a hand on her hip, shifting her weight to one leg. “No strings attached?” she repeats in skepticism. “You promise?”

I nod my head. “Promise,” I confirm.

She’s frozen for a moment as she contemplated her next move. In an instant though, a huge smile spreads across her face and she runs over to my bed to jump on top of me.

“Okay!” she giggles, pressing herself into my chest. “I guess you’re a little smooth!”