“What’s the matter, Juicy? Afraid of seeing my boner?”
“Gawd, you're so infuriating! Why do you torture me?”
“I thought we settled that years ago. Because I can … and because you're so damn delicious when you get all pissed off.”
Stepping out of my wet pants, I wring the water out of them. The sound from the splash draws a peek-a-boo out from behind the towel, and she moans as she hides her face again. Her words are muffled in the towel when she says, “Dear God! Are you always so insolent?”
“Insolent? Because I’m not embarrassed?” I gently pull on the towel.
“Because ….” Her grip tightens as she drags it down until her eyes lock on mine.
“I think I’m supposed to dry off with this.” I snatch it away, and her eyes flare, getting an eyeful of my naked manhood. Laughing, I wrap it around my waist. “Or because I’m brazen and make you juicy?”
She scrunches her eyes so hard, her nose crinkles. “Gawd, Jocko! Why do you harass me?”
“Harass you? That's harsh, Juicy, I’m hurt. What have I ever done to harassed you?”
“Really? When have you not harassed me?”
“Juicy isn’t exactly a derogatory word. We both know it’s true, and if it's true, you can say it. Therefore, it’s not harassment.” I lean down to kiss her and whisper. “It’s a fact.”
“What do you think you are doing?” Her hand plants itself firmly on my chest.
“I’m going to kiss you.”
“You aren’t going to bully me anymore!”
“Bully you? I've never bullied you.”
“What exactly do you call humiliating me in front of the whole school then?” She crosses her arms, and her lips press into a hard straight line.
My head tilts, and my brows furrow as I study her. She's dead serious. Taking a step back, I ask. “I haven’t harassed you. Nor have I bullied you. And I, sure as hell, never humiliated you. What are you talking about?”
Her jaw sets in anger. “You are infuriating!”
I drop all pretense of play now. “Clear the air, Jones. Explain.”
“Your goodbye!”
“What about it?”
She grits her teeth. “You forced your kiss on me.”
“We shared a passionate kiss. Don’t try to deny it. You enjoyed the hell out of it.”
She bites her bottom lip.
Not wanting to push her further away, I soften my tone. “Okay. Maybe I did.”
She looks at the men playing with Lucifer, but she isn’t seeing them. She's processing. “Fine. I'll admit it. I enjoyed it. There. Happy? But it was humiliating!”
“I’m confused, Babe. Explain how a kiss that earth-shattering could be humiliating?”
She bites her bottom lip again. Then she takes a deep breath, and the look she gives me pins me to the ground.
“You're right. The kiss was earth-shattering. It rocked my world. But I didn’t want it rocked! Especially by you! You were arrogant, and you were an asshole.” She shakes her head, and her hair sways around her beautiful face. “But you forced it on me. And what I feared happened. Just like all the other girls in school, I couldn’t resist you either. I melted in your arms in front of everyone! Then … you left me standing there without saying a word. How was I supposed to feel?”
Oh…. Fuck! I rub my scruff. I fucked that up!
“It was humiliating! I was humiliated. You humiliated me.” She crosses her arms, hugging herself, but her face glares at me with a feisty bitch expression. “Now, after six years, seventeen days, and two hours, plus or minus a few minutes, since that kiss, with ZERO communication, you expect me to fall at your fucking feet? I don’t think so!”
Her tone and her posture piss me off. I grab a handful of her hair to hold her face still so I can look her in the eye, and she will hear every word of truth I say. I don’t do drama. I never have. Life is too fucking short to play games.
Her eyes spit daggers at me, and she tries to pull away.
“Jorja, I fucked up. I'll own that. I will even apologize for humiliating you though that was never my intention. The truth is … I came back to school just to say goodbye to you. Since I left, I haven’t spoken to a single person outside my family from Sunnyville. But I apologize for not communicating with you directly. I should have.”
I relax my grip, and she doesn’t pull away. “I didn't go that day to kiss you. I really didn't know the depth of my own feelings until I saw Joseph Pruitt make a move on you. That's when I knew I was fucked, and I wasn’t prepared for it. I realized that if I didn’t kiss you right then, I might not have the opportunity ever again, and I would regret it for the rest of my life. That if I didn’t kiss you right then, you would never know how I felt about you, and you, sure as hell, wouldn't wait for me to come home. You would go on with your life, and I would've missed my opportunity to be a part of it. So, I seized the opportunity before I thought it through. That's why I forced a kiss on you.”
Her eyes soften.
“Then, fuck. As soon as my lips touched yours, all the feelings for you I had been stifling, burst forth like a dam breaking. It was overwhelming. I had found you and would lose you within minutes, and I was too choked up to physically speak. I should've contacted you, but I didn’t know what to say, and once I walked onto the base, my life got hectic.” I smirk at her, and her eyes soften even more. “All I can do now is ask for your forgiveness for not getting in touch with you. If I had known you were suffering, I would've come home and told you face to face.”
I stroke her cheek with my thumb. “I apologize that you've spent the last six years confused. I've spent the last six years cherishing that kiss. It shook my foundation. I never stopped thinking of you. Never stopped hoping you would be waiting for me to return. And the memory of that earth-shattering kiss is the only thing that got me through the darkest, hardest times.”
I pinch her chin and hold her face steady as I lean in. “Jorja, I’m not an immature boy now.”
She smirks.
“I’m a man who's come home, hoping to pick up where I thought we left off.”
“Which is?” She whispers.
“Which is to my girl who's ready to explore the spark that that kiss ignited and see if we can build a solid relationship.”
Her eyes close.
“That being said, the first thing you need to understand about who the man Jocko Malone is … is that I would never expect you to fall at my fucking feet. I don’t want a doormat. I want a woman who stands beside me.”
The fight in her amber eyes vanishes. All I see there now is a willingness to try.
I run my thumb over her lips and smile. “Do you know what's about to happen?”
I nod for her. “That’s right. I’m going to kiss you again. Do you know why?”
I rake my eyes over her voluptuous body as my boner pushes against the towel. “Because I really, really, want to taste your sweetness. And we both know what's going to happen when I kiss the fuck out of your mouth. You're going to kiss the fuck out of mine. Because deep down inside,” I trace a finger down her neck to the fabric that covers her breast and little goosebumps rise to the surface, “you've been waiting for me to come home, wanting another earth-shattering kiss to rock your fucking world.”