Chapter Five
Georgie
Finally. He has me.
We’re together.
And I’m safe.
Am I confused about who Sonja is? Yes. Am I overwhelmed and full of questions? Also yes. But overall, no regrets.
I’m not the only one who has questions.
“Georgie, why didn’t you try to call me sooner?” Jefferson asks.
“The plan was to wait,” I explain. “Curly said something big was happening, so I tried to be patient. But then, nothing did. And I couldn’t take it anymore. So I took a stab at escaping again, and it worked.”
He doesn’t like my vague answer but lets it go for now.
“Why do you look so pale? And you’re thinner than I remember.”
I pout. “You think I look bad?”
Jefferson combs his fingers through my hair, keeping one hand firmly on my hip. “No, Georgie. You’re perfect. But I need to know, what did they do to you when you went back?”
I don’t answer; I just look away and twist my hair around my finger.
“Tell me. What has been going on for the last month?”
I’m afraid I’ll start to shake again if I talk about it.
Even more than that, I’m afraid of what he’ll do if I tell him the truth.
Jefferson has this energy about him. Not a temper, not that I’ve seen, anyway. But a lethal darkness. A person who easily blurs the line between right and wrong. The way he smoothly lied to my dad, I almost believed that Jefferson was store security. The thought of what he could do with that power makes me shiver. Honestly, I can’t tell if it’s a good shiver or a bad shiver, which is deeply unsettling.
I shouldn’t be having the good kind of shivers right now. I should be processing everything that’s happened to me.
“Nothing. It’s been very boring,” I say. This is not a lie.
If I tell him the whole truth, he could seek vengeance, but that’s not what I want. Not yet. It’s not the time.
I don’t want him to explode at finding out that I’ve been in the polygamist version of solitary confinement.
“More water?”
I shake my head, studying his penetrating amber eyes.
“Coffee? Tea? Milk? Soda?”
“No. I don’t need anything.”
“Thank god, because I don’t actually have the last two things I mentioned.”
The way he says it, totally deadpan, makes me laugh. His lip twitches, and I have the overwhelming urge to kiss it.
“I don’t need anything,” I tell him. “I just need you to stop asking questions and let me look at you.”
The eye contact is too penetrating to bear. His warm hand on my hip is too real. The lazy strokes of his fingers in my hair are too perfect. His leather and soap smell is in my lungs, and his lips are closer than any man’s have a right to be.
“It’s really you,” I say, gently squeezing his shoulder.
“It’s really me.”
“I’m in your house.”
He gives me a wry grin. “Take it in. It’s nothing fancy. But it’s safe. If you want to go to a hotel, I can arrange that. I’ll have to bum a ride since Joaquin is making Sonja disappear at the moment.”
“Who is Sonja?”
That wry grin widens. “That’s my car, baby.”
“Oh.” I bite my lip, feeling stupid at my momentary jealousy over a stupid car with a woman’s name.
“Do you want me to take you to a hotel?”
I shake my head and look around. It’s ugly, but that means nothing to me as long as I’m safe. The gold linoleum curls up with age in the kitchen’s dingy corners. The white refrigerator clanks and hums loudly, like it’s on its last legs. There’s a sink that’s too small to wash more than a few dishes at a time, and the stove has dials that look straight out of the 1960s. The lace curtains over the single kitchen window are discolored and, I’d guess, haven’t been washed in a century. We didn’t have the most up-to-date appliances while living in the church dormitories and later in my mother’s extremely overcrowded house. But it was nothing as shabby as everything I see here.
“Will that loud man be coming back?” I ask.
Jefferson sees me wince.
He nods. “He lives here. Don’t worry. His bark is worse than his bite. Just two rules with him. Don’t ask what he does for a living, and don’t touch the tequila in the freezer.”
“Not a problem,” I say, never having touched alcohol in my life.
“Sorry the place is such a shit hole.”
I laugh at the description. “It’s fine,” I say. Anything is better than solitary confinement, I think silently.
“It’s a dump,” he says, smiling. “And I live in a closet. For now.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” I repeat, positive he’s exaggerating.
He explains that the second bedroom is being kept empty for some mysterious renter who’s paying big bucks. And since Jefferson is not bringing in a lot of cash these days for some reason, he’s agreed to make room.
So, I suppose that means Jefferson is poor.
Well, I didn’t have any expectations. In fact, I never had any delusions that he would be made of money and that he’d spirit me away to a mansion somewhere. Poor is just fine. I don’t care about money. It’s not like I made a ton of money cleaning motel rooms during my stint of freedom.
“I’ll be happy here.”
I don’t know why everything I say makes Jefferson laugh, but at least his laughter doesn’t feel like mockery. If I make him smile, I’m happy.
“Wait until you’ve shared a bathroom for a week with Joaquin and me before you say that.”
Jefferson stares so intently I grow self-conscious.
And there’s so much to think about that my mind reels from one subject to another.
“I’m going to pull my weight, you know.”
His heavy brows come together. “What?”
“I think I’d like to go to nursing school. I hear nursing pays well? Don’t worry, you don’t have to pay for my education. I’m very industrious. And I can cook. If money’s tight, I can whip up a cabbage stew that’ll blow your socks off.”
A smile plays on his lips. “Georgie, what are you doing? Giving me your resume?”
I stare at the ceiling, my tongue wagging as ideas fall from the sky. “I can work at a garden center and save money for nursing school. Or I could work at a garden center during the day while I take nursing classes at night…”
My voice trails off when his hand squeezes my hip, the sensation sending sexy sparks up and down my legs.
Jefferson reaches a hand up to my chin. “Georgie. Look at me.”
He holds me still, with his big, rough hand cupping my jaw, forcing me to look him in the eye.
I blink. “Sorry. I haven’t figured anything out yet, financially speaking.”
He gives my hip another delicious squeeze. “Stop. You don’t need to worry about any of that today. Or tomorrow. Or next week. You only have two jobs. To heal, and to be with me. And after that, if you hate it here, you can go somewhere else. If you want to go stay with Olivia and company, I’ll take you there. Hell, I won’t stop you if you tell me you want to go to another town, or to Brazil, for that matter. Nobody is pressuring you to contribute anything. And nobody is pressuring you to stay.”
I nod, swallowing down the emotion in my throat that builds as a result of his kindness. But the other thing he said—about me leaving if I want to leave—makes me sad. He’d leave me at a hotel if I asked? Dump me off with the rescue group? He would not try to stop me if I wanted to go far away?
Well, what did I expect? A marriage proposal? A long-term boyfriend? He never promised anything except to help me if I needed help.
“I don’t want you to take me to a hotel,” I say, my throat aching at the thought of being alone again. “And I don’t want to bring more trouble to my friends.”
He nods, still holding my face. His hand is warm and reassuring and steady.
“I just want to do things,” I add, my voice shaking. “I’ve missed … doing things.”
His brow comes together in concern and I almost spill everything. “You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to figure anything out. You just have to stay here. And not escape my sight ever again.”
I let his words settle over me. He has the same face I remember from 31 days ago, but he looks more drawn and weary. And his hair has been shorn. He looks so different.
But he’s the same person who made me feel wrapped in warmth and kindness. I’ve been dreaming of feeling like that again.
And now that I’m here, basking in those amber eyes, I don’t want to go without that feeling again.
“I promise not to run away,” I say.
Slowly, carefully, Jefferson’s hand moves up toward my ear, brushing my hair away from my face.
“I’m gonna get you a phone if you want to call Olivia and your other friends.”
I shake my head at the thought of leaving with them. As much as I appreciate everything they did for me the last time I got away, I don’t want to drain any more of their resources. They’re so busy making plans, I imagine.
“Soon.”
I would like to see them at some point. Just not today.
He nods, then runs his hand down my arm from my shoulder, eventually taking my hand in his. My body tingling, I watch him lift my hand to his mouth, lightly brushing his lips over the sharp edges of my dry, cracked knuckles. I suck in a breath at the sensation. The skin there is rough from a month spent in the cold with nothing but a thin wool blanket. From drawing on concrete. From gripping the steel security bars in my cell window, hoisting myself up to try to see the sun.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“My hands…they’re so dry. It’s the weather. My whole body is like sandpaper these days.” I rasp a phony laugh, knowing I sound like I’m lying. I feel ashamed at how I’m not soft and feminine. I’m thinner than I was, and paler. I’m skittish and scattered and I talk too much because I’m both scared of people, and yet starved for conversation. So many things have never occurred to me until this moment.
Jefferson doesn’t seem to hear me. With eyes closed, he kisses each knuckle, one by one, caressing me with his lips. It’s the sweetest yet wildest sensation of my life.
No one has ever touched me so tenderly.
Jefferson makes all the blood rush out to my farthest extremities, and back in, flooding my core with a delightful neediness. He makes my arms itch to hug him.
I want all of me pressed against all of him.
“I’ve thought about you every day, Georgie,” he says with a scratchy, emotion-filled voice that makes me swoon.
“I’ve been thinking about you, too. You literally kept me alive the last month.”
He goes tense. “What do you mean, kept you alive?”
Oh no.
“I can’t talk about that right now.”
“Georgie.”
“Jefferson.”
He sighs grumpily, and I smile.
Angling toward him, I say, “I don’t need you to get me anything to eat or drink. I don’t need you to worry about why I look different. I just don’t want you fussing over me. Okay?”
“Roger that,” he rumbles.
“And I don’t want you to look at me like I’m a basket case about to snap.”
“I’ve been worried. That’s all.”
“Well, I don’t want you to worry.”
I pivot some more, trying for a good angle without making it sexual. Although, all the sensations pinging through me would be okay with that, too.
“What do you want, Georgie?”
“I want to be close to you.”
“That’s easy. Come here, then. Come here right the hell now, sweetheart.”
His astonishingly strong arms angle me so that I’m fully straddling him. At the same time, he shoves the rickety table away, knocking it onto its side along with the empty plastic red cup.
I don’t care.
I can only bring myself to care that someone has called me sweetheart. I only notice the way my heart pounds at Jefferson’s commanding tone.
No one has ever called me that. Not even sarcastically. And no one has ever made me fall apart by demanding a hug.
Jefferson’s hands are on my hips, sure and steady. It’s still such a new feeling that I feel like a teenager getting away with murder. He touches me like he already knows my body.
He’s probably been with a list of women too long to count.
Maybe I don’t care.
Maybe he can teach me things.
I shiver as my arms circle his neck, and I melt against the solid wall of protection.
Jefferson exhales a low, satisfied hum, his breath wafting through my hair. He briefly lets go of my hips and lets one hand play in my locks, while the other caresses my spine. Slowly. Intimately. Making me sink deeper into him.
“I knew you’d be a good hugger, Jefferson,” I sigh.
Another low, luxuriating hum is followed by the words, “I’ve never been accused of that before.”
I giggle against his shoulder, which gets me a squeeze. Sparks shoot through me at every new touch, every possessive squeeze. “Then your previous girlfriends should have spoken up.”
He grunts. “No one asked for hugs. No one stuck around long enough for this sort of thing.”
This sort of thing? Hugs? Tenderness? It’s too painful to comprehend. I lean back. “No one? Not even one?”
Jefferson strokes one long lock of hair that falls next to my face, then tucks it behind my ear. It stubbornly falls away again, and he smiles. But there’s something hurt behind his grin. “My life has not been what you would call warm and fuzzy,” he says.
I nod thoughtfully, and his rugged expression softens. “Shit. I shouldn’t have said that,” he says.
“Said what?”
He looks down in embarrassment, shaking his head. “I can’t compare my life to yours. It wouldn’t be right.”
I see. Jefferson feels guilty for bringing up whatever hardships he’s experienced because he doesn’t think they can compare to my own.
“Listen. My life sucks. Your life sucks. But now we’re together, and it doesn’t suck quite as much,” I say.
It’s a bold thing to say. It assumes a lot.
Sure, he’s mentioned multiple times that he’s not letting me out of his sight. But that does not necessarily imply we’re an item. It definitely does not mean we’re a permanent item. It just communicates that he cares, which is more than enough.
He is enough for now. And this moment of rare physical tenderness offers enough momentary joy to last me a lifetime.
His touch travels slowly, deliberately back down to my hips, gently gripping the flesh there.
“It definitely does not suck having you here with me. I tried hugging Joaquin, but he’s not much of a hugger. He’s more of a headlock sort of guy.”
I can’t tell if he’s joking or not.
“Don’t worry. He won’t put you in a headlock. Unless you don’t clean up after you use the kitchen.”
I inhale deeply, inhaling Jefferson’s scent of leather and spicy soap. I exhale out the misery of the last month, letting go of the cold and the grit and the loneliness.
“If your roommate is concerned about having an extra person around, just know that I can cook and bake. I can clean. I am really good at organizing and I’m very thrifty. I can make a couple of two-dollar cabbages last for three meals and…”
Jefferson’s bracing hands pull me closer, eliciting a gasp from me as something rigid presses against my core. My cheeks heat when I realize what that is.
He is a man with a massive erection.
I grow warm and strangely wet.
Jefferson is so close that his nose touches the tip of mine when he shakes his head in exasperation. “You gotta stop talking about cabbage.”
It’s hard to laugh, and it’s harder to keep babbling when Jefferson’s lips are on mine, his steady hands holding me against him so tightly I could not pull away if I wanted to.