Always Been You

Thrusting his hand into her hair, he tilted back her head and covered her mouth with his. He didn’t ease into the kiss, didn’t bother with preliminaries, but stamped his ownership in the most primitive way possible.

She instantly yielded, offering sweet surrender in the face of his determined assault. It was that unexpected capitulation that almost sent him over the edge.

With an incoherent murmur, her lips softened, parted, encouraging him to plunder within. He didn’t need a second invitation. He forged a union between them, mating his tongue with hers. She trembled in his arms, clinging to him as though he alone sustained her. And he, heaven help him, worshiped her with both hands and mouth.

Not now. He reminded himself. No matter how much he wanted to.

Ultimately, it was that thought that restored his sanity.

With a muttered curse, he dragged his mouth from hers. He had made a mistake touching her, he realized. He didn’t want her thinking he just wanted her for sex. He was falling in love with her… All over again.

Desire had given her beauty a wild edge and he couldn’t help but wonder what she would look like after a night of passion. Just the thought of her in his bed, her glorious hair spread across his pillows and her silken limbs entwined in his sheets almost destroyed his control.

Slowly, she opened her eyes and he saw then that she had become a flame to his moth, a bewitching siren capable of enticing him to his doom.

“Ermmm” he said, releasing her. “I should go now”

“Yeah” Katherine said. Stepping away from him. “Thanks for the ride”.

“You are welcome,” he replied. “Sleep well”.

After he left, Katherine shut the door behind her and leaned on it, trying to calm her leaping pulse.

That had been a mistake. She couldn’t seem to stop making those. For one thing, it looked as if she’d been waiting for him to kiss her, which, okay, maybe she had. And the worst part was she really found him seriously attractive. Was she never going to get over the man? It was crazy that after five years, it was like her body had stored all memories of him. And all he had to do was touch her and she responded instantly.

She covered her face with her hands. All she had to do was ignore it. Ignore him. Ignore the way he made her feel. Ignore the fact that she wanted him. Denial, denial, denial. It would go away. It wasn’t supposed to be so hard.Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g

She sighed. She could rationalize until she was purple, but the fact remained that every time she was near Jensen her nerves did this bizarre little dance. It scared the heck out of her.

She pushed herself off the door and made her way to her bedroom, turning off lights as she went. Nights weren’t her favorite. Her bed was so big. Lonely.

She pulled her shirt over her head and dropped it on the chair in the corner before walking into the bathroom to take a shower.

She crawled into bed minutes later and pulled the covers up to her chin. Loneliness. She’d come to accept the feeling as a friend, in a way. It was familiar now.

She was done taking risks. Not with her Tim, not with her life and not with her heart. She couldn’t take any more loss. She’d give up whatever she had to in order to keep both of them safe.

That meant keeping her distance from Jensen, because as long as he made her feel like this, he was most definitely not safe.

In her dreams that night, Katherine ran from smoldering black eyes, her legs trashing the sheets as Jensen Packard pursued her.

————————-

Tim’s birthday was close, and he was super excited about his party. He usually had a small one, with a few friends, but Katherine had promised him a bigger one this year now that they had a house. She had even printed out invitations for him to give to his friends and it was all Tim could talk about recently.

Katherine was excited for her little son too. But she wasn’t sure how to go about planning this big party thing. And when she looked at Tim’s list of things he wanted for the party, she got even more confused. So she begged Jon to come help her with it.

She was outside cleaning the windows when Jonathan showed up. He parked his car and walked towards her.

“Hi Sis” he drawled.

“Hi Jon” Katherine said as she dropped the brush she was holding in the bucket. “Thanks for agreeing to help me”.

Jon shrugged. “Oh it’s fine,” he said. “As long as I keep getting those free cookies and cupcakes any time I want, I won’t complain.”

Katherine laughed.

“Besides, you know I will do anything for my nephew,” Jonathan said. “So what’s up with this list?”

Katherine took the folded paper out of her pocket and she and Jon looked at it together. Jon smiled as he read.

“So it’s not just me,” Katherine said. “This is a bit crazy, right?”

Jon nodded. “Well, it’s his birthday,” he said.

“Alright. You are going to help me with all that. And I will just concentrate on food and cake” she said and Jonathan nodded.

Right then the front door burst open.

“Mom! I dropped the milk on the floor!”

Tim’s voice was half hysterical. “I tried to clean it up but some of it got under the fridge.

Katherine squeezed her eyes shut. “Hang on,” she called back. “I’ll be right there.”

“Oh, hi Uncle Jon” Tim greeted.

“Hi, buddy” Jon replied and Tim rushed back inside. Kathrine gave him a weak smile.

“Let me go handle this for you while you tackle the milk.” Jonathan said. There was a quiet humor in his voice and part of her wanted to respond to it. She bit her lip, then nodded.

“Thanks, Jon,” she said.

“No problem.” He turned back and headed for his car while Katherine hurried as best she could into the house.

“Tim,” she said when she entered the kitchen, noting the large puddle on the floor. “What happened here?”

He looked up at her out of his big blue eyes. “It kinda fell,” he said softly.

“I can see that.” Katherine replied. It had been nearly a full gallon. Usually she poured some into a smaller container to make it easier for Tim to use, but she’d forgotten about that in her hurry to go clean the windows.

“If your socks are wet, go ahead and change them while I clean this up.”

“Thanks mom” he yelled as he ran out of the kitchen, and Katherine laughed in spite of herself.

She cleaned up the milk and threw the sopping towels into the washer in the basement.