Less than Perfect by S. J. Evans (love letters to the dead txt) 📕

,” she gasped when she felt his arms moving down, unable to stop herself, “what are you doing?”
He chuckled deeply in her ear. “I’m going to carry you home,” he said, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. “To this

home—the beach home. Our

home for the night.”
Suddenly his hands were under her legs, scooping her up so that he could carry her bridal style, and she let out a high pitched squeal from the quick movement. “Jules!” she exclaimed around an uncontrollable fit of laughter, hating herself for giving in to him so easily (like she so often did). After all, she’d been trying to run away

from him and his

soaking wet body, not into it. “What are you doing? You’re drenched! You can’t go inside yet.”
He laughed at this, a long, hearty laugh, and hurried up the beach house’s porch steps, ignoring her weak pleading that he’d set her down. “Hate to break it to you, baby, but you

are also drenched. And it really doesn’t matter. We’ve got plenty of clothes inside.”
Sighing, her own personal way up caving (yet again), Skye finally let herself relax in his secure arms, pressing her face into his chest. “Fine,” she mumbled, and ran her fingers along the smooth, fit contours of his chest, “you win. But you really didn’t have to push me into the water back there. I only did it to you because you were teasing me. And you deserved it.”
Swinging the screen door open and squeezing in the doorway before it closed again, he pulled out his own key from the pocket of his dripping jeans and unlocked the front door. “You’re right,” he said, chuckling, “I didn’t. But I wanted to. I mean—what kind of guy would I be if I’d just let you push me around like that?”
“A nice one,” she offered, turning her head to look at his face, or at least what she could see of it from her angle.
“Maybe,” he said, and nudged the door open with his foot, stepped over the threshold. “But even nice guys have their mischievous side, too. And besides—don’t act like you didn’t like it. You were having fun.”
“It’s the principle,” she argued. “Whether I liked it or not doesn’t matter.”
He stopped, looked down at her, brows raised. “Really.”
“Really,” she said, smiling.
“You’re ridiculous,” he muttered, shaking his head. “But I still love you all the same.” Then he kissed her, a small, quick peck of the lips on her forehead.
“Good.” Now it was her turn to grin. “Because if you didn’t, we’d have a serious issue here.”
Grinning playfully, he carefully set her down and tossed the dripping wet t-shirt he’d been carrying towards a towel rack beside the door. “Lucky us,” he said, and ran a hand through his wet, darkened golden ringlets. “Looks like we’ve got nothing to worry about.”
Despite the fact that Skye had no desire to cut their night together short, she could feel her exhausted body crumbling from the pressures of the long, thoroughly eventful day, and wrapped her arms around herself, yawning, while she tried her best to stand on her own two feet. And with the air-conditioning in the house now hitting her wet, partially exposed body at full blast, she couldn’t stop herself from shivering erratically under the waves of cold, teeth chattering and body quivering.
Her stomach did a little flip when realization dawned across Jules’s face, eyes softening, and he snatched a dry towel from the rack, wrapping it around her and crushing her in his arms. “Skye, you’re freezing,” he pointed out, voice deep and gentle. “You should take a hot bath. It’ll fix you right up.”
Even though she’d instantly felt better just by being in his arms again, with a warm towel wrapped around her, she nodded her head anyway. “Okay. Sounds great.”
Without saying another word, Jules pulled her free hand (the one that wasn’t clutching the towel to keep it in place) in his, entwining their fingers together, and lead her up a stairwell just around the corner, leading her down the hall and to the master bathroom, where, after showing her where everything was and filling the tub with warm, sudsy water, he kissed her forehead and left the room, shutting the door behind him.

AFTER A LONG, soothing bath that left Skye feeling rejuvenated—warm all over and suddenly quite perky again—she padded her way down the hallway, once in awhile poking her head into the bedrooms, on the lookout for Jules. He hadn’t been in the master bedroom like she’d expected him to be, and there hadn’t been a sign of him since he’d left her in the bathroom to herself. Now she could only wonder where he’d disappeared to.
“Looking for something?” a warm, familiar voice said from behind her, stopping her in her tracks. She turned towards the voice, turned towards Jules, who, now dressed in sweatpants and a fitting white t-shirt, had his arms crossed over his chest, book in one hand, while his bright eyes roamed over Skye’s body innocently, and he snickered. “Like me, maybe?”
From her spot in the middle of the hallway, a few feet away from where he was, she couldn’t tell whether he looked sleepy or not, but she could only guess from the tousled locks of hair curling around his face to the casual sleepwear he now wore that he was ready for a little rest, and soon. And, having been caught off guard from his sudden appearance, she bit her lip and calmed her rapidly beating heart, ran a hand through her own damp, wavy hair.
“I wasn’t looking for anything,” she finally said, and when the words came out too small to pass as truth, she cleared her throat and tried again. “I mean—I wasn’t looking for you

. I was just looking around.”
He grinned. “Sure you were,” he said sarcastically, chuckling. “You were just looking around . . . for me

.”
“Fine,” she admitted, and took a couple steps forward to close the distance between them, “you caught me. I was looking for you. But really it’s your fault; you didn’t tell me where you’d be.”
A smug smile tugged at the corners of his lips, and he took two steps forward, also, filling the gap. “I was in the den reading.” He held out the book in his hand, so she could catch the title, and said, “See?”
“Well,” she huffed indignantly, “you still could’ve told me. It’s not like I wanted to wander around the house all alone, looking for you.”
“What did you want to do, then?” he asked her, brushing a strand of hair away from her face. “Were you planning on cuddling with me? Or talking to me? No wait—you didn’t want to sleep with me, did you?”
Before she could stop herself, she gaped at him, mouth hanging open, eyes wide, as she put together what he’d just said. Knots were suddenly forming in her stomach, and, because of the intensity of his taunting gaze, she found herself unable to form words. But after an agonizingly long moment of floundering, she finally said, “No. I—I just wanted to be with you. I—”
“Skye.” Jules pressed a finger against her lips, shushing her, as his body shook with slight laughter. “I was only kidding. I know where you stand, and I respect that about you—admire it, even. So there’s really no rush.” He pressed a soft, gentle kiss against her forehead. “I love you. And I want to spend every moment I can with you, cherishing the time spent. Without rush.”
She thought about this for a moment. They’d never really talked about where they stood in terms of the subject of sleeping together

sleeping together, especially after everything Johnny had done to her, but she’d always made it clear that she wanted to wait, wait until she was ready. But now, flustered and all “hot and bothered”, as Rachel would say, she couldn’t help but wonder if maybe she was ready now. If maybe, under the circumstances, it could be the perfect time to intimately share a night together, uninterrupted.
“But what if I really did

want to sleep with you, tonight?” she whispered, nearly out of breath from the meaning of her words. “What if I told you I didn’t want to wait anymore?” With her pulse racing, heart pounding, head spinning, she reached up and wrapped her trembling hands around his neck, pulling his face even closer to hers. “What if I did this?”
Hoping to convince him to trust her and follow her lead, she pressed up against him, pushing him into the wall behind them, and crushed her lips against his, seeking entrance. Her hands traveled down his chest then, all the way down to the bottom of his shirt where she slid her hand underneath it, teasing the skin beneath.
He groaned, and grabbed her wrists gently but firmly, forcing her hands away. “Wait,” he said around a kiss, voice husky, “are you sure? You really want to do that, Skye?” In a flash, before she could say anything else, he turned them around so that she was now pinned between him and the wall, and pressed their foreheads together, his hand reaching up to touch her cheek. “I don’t want you to do something you don’t want to.”
She made a face at him. “I want to, Jules,” she told him, struggling to keep her restless spirit under control. “I want to be with you like that. I need

to.”
“I don’t—”
“You think too much,” she murmured sweetly, and kissed him again. “Just give in for once, Jules. You don’t always have to be responsible for everything.” With her temperature rising and her breath catching, she pushed her small hands against him, pushed with all of the strength she had. “Please, baby, just trust me. Trust me

.”
He hesitated a moment before scooping her into his arms, carrying her down the hall, into the master bedroom, and dropping her onto the bed, following suit and climbing in. No words were exchanged as he laid her down beneath him, pressed his lips against her forehead, her nose, her mouth, all the way down