Read Online Wrapped Around My Finger by Kristen Strassel - Free Book Online Page A

didn’t usually get to be free in the wild; I thought they made me look big unless I covered them. But Jagger had seen me naked many times, and he had no complaints. Being around him gave me confidence I didn’t know I had. Jagger made me feel beautiful. Even more than that, desirable.
    “I’ve missed looking at you,” he said. “We see each other every day, but it’s different in person.”
    “I was thinking the same thing at the airport. When I saw you standing there it took my breath away like it was the first time.” The waiter came and of course I ordered sangria. It was five o’clock somewhere, and I was on vacation. “What do you have planned for the weekend?”
    Jagger ran his teeth over his bottom lip. It was still swollen from my welcome at the airport. We’d kissed for so long I was still breathing his oxygen. “You’ll see.”
    Tease. “I want to see all the places you’ve told me about,” I said. He made them sound magical. And the photos he showed me were even better, giving me a chance to see everything through his eye. I moaned when the first sip of sangria hit my lips. It blew the stuff I’d had at home out of the water. “This is perfection.”
    “Welcome to Miami. You sure you want to cook? Wait ‘til you take your first bite of your lunch.”
    I’d get some inspiration, and see what I could come up with. “Come clean. Were you only eating my cooking to be polite? There’s got to be a reason Kari brings takeout every time she comes over.”
    “You’re an amazing cook. But I want you to relax.” Jagger stared at the ocean. We were on an open deck, with the waves lapping the shore below us, salt water air tickling our skin. Something was off. Usually, when we were together, his eyes were on me. It made me uncomfortable at first, and then I’d come to crave that feeling, being the center of his universe. Shit. I hoped he didn’t regret inviting me.
    “What’s wrong?”
    He startled like he’d forgotten he had company. After a deep breath, his smile returned. “I’ve had a lot of free time on my hands this month.”
    “But you’ve been taking pictures.” Each of Jagger’s photos was like a song. I loved the way his face lit up when he talked about his photography.
    And it did. He leaned forward, back from wherever he’d just drifted off to. “Yeah. I got some great stuff yesterday. I’ll show you when we get to my house.”
    “Can’t wait to see it. But something’s bothering you.”
    He opened his mouth but didn’t speak right away, searching for the right words. “I’d been tired of escorting for a long time. Now that I’m not doing it, I’m having a hard time figuring out who I’m supposed to be. I know it was just a job, but it was a big part of who I am.”
    “It’s never just a job.” I picked up the garnish on the side of my glass and put it in my mouth. Jagger’s hungry gaze followed the motion. “I felt like a bull in a china shop when I worked in retail. I needed to express myself in a certain way and I couldn’t do it when I was there. Once I started actually doing interior design, so many parts of my life opened up.”
    “Exactly.” That was the most animated I’d seen him in a while. Possibly since he left my house at the beginning of the month. He took another deep breath. “Good. You understand. For the last eight years, I’ve done what everyone else wants. I never asked for what I needed, because it wasn’t about me.”
    “But now it is,” I said softly. Someone hurt Jagger somewhere along the line because he’d shut completely down. This wasn’t normal guy inability to speak a woman’s language, this was something so raw that it had broken him once, and I was pretty sure he thought it could break him again. Maybe the next time he wouldn’t recover. “Tell me what you want, Jagger. I want to make you feel the way you make me feel.”
    “I miss the sex.”
    Really? That was the big reveal? “I think we can take care of that