Ch 25 ~ Pampered

No.  You can’t do that,” Rachel informed her client and muted the sigh that wanted to expel itself from her weary body. 

With only three hours sleep and Jon lying naked in her bed, it had been a Herculean effort to drag herself into the shower this morning.  If it hadn’t been for a “can’t miss” meeting at the office, she would’ve delightedly lain in bed until noon, but the meeting hadn’t only been crucial, it had run twice as long as it should have. 

Her eyelids had fallen shut for longer than they should have on more than one occasion, to the point that James nudged her when her damnably empty coffee cup began to slide from her grasp.  She had pinched herself to stay alert after that, but, to further prolong an endless day, James had stopped her just as she was walking out the door.  He was concerned about her health, noting that she looked pale and seemed awfully tired. 

Rachel was entirely too sleep-deprived to tactfully explain why she wasn’t quite up to par today – especially to James.  Fortunately, her current incoming call eliminated the need to do so.  She shrugged apologetically as she had put the instrument to her ear. 

Unfortunately, it turned out to be yet one more urgent business call.  For every ounce of energy she found today, there was something to come along and drain it away.  Her only saving grace was that she could slide in the car and use hands-free mode to ease her client off of the ledge.  That meant she could simultaneously make the commute home so that she didn’t lose any more time with Jon today than she already had. 

If he’s even still there. 

“Josie, you can’t back out of the contract.”  Her eyes rolled upward as she turned the corner onto her street.  “The papers have been signed and the new owners take possession next week.”

She hadn’t had a minute to call or text Jon today, so she was clueless as to his plans for the day.  While she hoped to find him lounging in her living room or working out in her home gym, Rachel had no idea whether he would be.  It was entirely possible that work had ruled his life today like it had ruled hers.  He could’ve very easily had to fly out to the next locale, leaving her walking into a disappointingly empty house.

Her fatigue today had been a nuisance, but the memory of having him wrapped around her both emotionally and physically last night had kept her muddling through.  In fact, visualizing a quiet, relaxing evening at home with Jon was the only thing that got her through the phone call with her indecisive client and into the driveway. 

“Please be here,” she muttered to herself as she looped her purse over her arm and slid out of the BMW.  Anticipation was edging out the fatigue and washing away the remnants of her work day as she approached the back door. 

The moment of truth was at hand.  Rachel simultaneously braced herself for disappointment and hoped for the best as she turned the knob and stepped from the garage into the kitchen. 

“Holy…  Oh.  My.  Word.”

He’s definitely still here.  Disaster like this does not create itself.

She was torn between amusement and disdain as she pushed the door closed and surveyed her typically pristine kitchen.  It looked like Williams-Sonoma had developed a bad case of stomach flu and violently thrown up all of its cookware – dirty cookware.  Literally, at least half the cookware she owned was strewn all over the counters.  The trash compactor appeared to be staging a protest, standing wide open and piled high with plastic containers. 

If she weren’t looking at it with her very own eyes, Rachel wouldn’t have believed it possible for one human being to make this kind of mess in under twelve hours.  Had all of his children been here “helping”?  Or his bandmates?  Or some local inmates??

Maybe that was the explanation.  And then, after wreaking cutlery havoc, they had obviously abducted Jon.  That was the only plausible explanation since she saw at least forty pieces of her sixty-four piece flatware set, yet he was nowhere to be found.

She set her purse on the desk and tentatively approached the disaster area.

I wonder where you can get that yellow police tape?  This is clearly a crime scene. 

At that moment, a pair of familiar arms wrapped around her waist and a pair of very familiar lips nuzzled the side of her neck.  Her fatigue miraculously evaporated as though his arms were infused with pure energy.  Rachel leaned back against him and sighed as she folded her arms over his. 

I don’t care if the whole damn house is trashed.  I’ll call a cleaning service tomorrow as long as he’s here today. 

“Hello to you, too, Messy Marvin,” she greeted him dryly.  She might not be (too) bent out of shape about the chaos, but she was still going yank his chain. 

“Hi, baby.  You’re home earlier than I expected.”

“Mm.”  She tilted her head to the side to escape the heat of his mouth and regarded him through narrowed eyes.  “You’d need until tomorrow to have this mess cleaned up.  Want me to come back then?”

“I don’t know why I thought I missed your smart mouth.”

“Is that what you missed?” she teased, giggling as he nipped her shoulder.

“I missed all of it.  And I’ll have you know this looks a lot worse than it is.” 

Of course she comes home before I got a chance to clean up.  But I can make her forget this little bit of clutter. 

Jon turned her around in his arms and pulled her flush to his chest so he could kiss her the way he’d been thinking about all afternoon.  He sucked the plumpness of her lower lip in between his lips, lightly scoring it with his teeth.  Her breathy moan filled his mouth and she practically melted into him as her arms vined around his neck.  It was with a great deal of pleasure – and a little bit of arrogance – that he found her eyes glazed with lust when the kiss ended.

Yeah, I still got it.

Jon grinned down into her beautiful face.  “I know you said you’d fix dinner, but I decided I was gonna cook for you tonight.  As you can see, it isn’t quite ready yet, so lemme get you a drink.  You want wine or a cocktail?”

“It’s only 3:30, Jon.”

He shrugged irreverently.  Semantics.  “Yeah, well, where I’m from happy hour is going strong.  So what’s it gonna be?  Wine?  Or something harder?”

The way her slowly eyes lifted up and met his would have been enough to tell him she was definitely interested in ‘harder’ and the lustful roll of her hips against his groin had him interested in it, too.  He completely lost track of everything he wanted to tell her as every bit of blood went rushing to the other head.  His thoughts were nothing beyond a detailed list of all the things he wanted to do to her slim, tight little body. 

Don’t rush me, you little vixen. 

“Wine it is.”  He slid his hands up to her shoulders and kissed her forehead before taking a step back.  Turning, he headed in the direction of the wine refrigerator under the bar in the family room where Jon had put his Pinot to chill.

“Thanks, but I’ll stick with iced tea,” she called after him and he could hear metal clinking as she began tidying his dinner-in-progress.  “Does all this mess mean you’re staying today?”

“Yeah,” he returned over his shoulder.  Whether she wanted wine or not, Jon was always up for it.  He liberated his vino from the fridge and did an immediate about-face to rejoin her.  

“Good.  I’m glad.”

“Me, too.”  Jon set the bottle of wine on the counter and patted her butt with a possessive hand before fishing out a corkscrew.  “In fact, I don’t have to leave until tomorrow afternoon.  Any chance I could convince you to come with me?  The LA show is tomorrow night, but we’re leaving for Vegas right after.  The show there isn’t until Saturday night and I don’t have to be in Denver until Monday.  It’s a fairly long stretch in one spot, so we’d have a good chunk of uninterrupted time.  Whaddaya say?”

He eased the cork out of the bottle as he watched Rachel.  Her hands went still in their clean-up tasks and her eyes darted up and around, a sure sign she was thinking about her own schedule. 

“Well… I have a dinner meeting tomorrow night, so I can’t do the LA show.  I can see if there’s an evening flight to Vegas and meet up with you whenever you get in.  Then stay with you until you leave for Denver, I suppose.”

He glanced casually from the open wine bottle to her face.  “Or you could come with me to Denver.” 

“You can lose the boyishly charming, imploring eyes.  It didn’t work for Tyler and it won’t work for you either.  I’m a rock when it comes to holding my own against adorable males.”

He grinned.  Jon knew those words would come back to haunt her when was sitting next to him on the Denver flight. 

If there was one thing he could count on with Rachel, she liked a normal, routine life.  She would quickly settle back into the normalcy they shared and, when she had, she wouldn’t be anxious to relinquish it for the sake of heading home alone.

“Alright, Ms. Rock.  I don’t want you hassling with a commercial flight, so I’ll handle the Vegas flight for you.  We’ll discuss Denver after I’ve had a chance to woo you a little more.”

Rachel opened the cabinet door containing the assortment of glasses and handed Jon a wineglass.  She then retrieved an iced tea glass for herself and filled it with ice from the door of the refrigerator.  “You think you can just woo me into bending to your will, huh?” 

Relegating his glass to the counter, Jon slid silently up behind her.  His hand slipped between her legs and coaxing fingers stroked her inner thigh.  “By the time Monday comes, you’ll be so used to being with me again that I’ll have no trouble bending you over anything I want to.” 

Rachel closed her eyes and sighed, her stance automatically going wider to give him more access. God, he loved the way she reacted to his touch.

“If I wasn’t so tired I might be offended at your arrogance and perversion, Bongiovi.”

“Bullshit.  You happen to love that so-called perversion, Braden.  In fact…  I believe I learned some of those tricks from you, so ya better watch who you’re callin’ perverted, baby.”

“What.  Ever.”  She swatted his hand away with a sly grin so that she could fill her tea glass.   “So tell me what prompted you to dust off your undernourished culinary skills and defile my kitchen?  You’re not exactly famous for your cooking, babe.”

Jon took her drink in one hand, his wine in the other and, with a snap of his head, motioned for her to follow him to the family room.  He placed both drinks on the coaster-scattered coffee table and settled into the corner of the sofa.  With his arm around her, she tucked her legs up and leaned into his side. 

“Well, Your Cooking Majesty, when I read your note this morning, I had a vicious attack of conscious and realized it was pretty selfish of me to keep you up half the night, talking.  I’m really sorry.  It didn’t even occur to me that you’d have to get up so early this morning.  So, to make up for my inconsiderate prick-ness, I figured the least I could do was take care of dinner.”  He dipped his chin and dusted a kiss over her temple.  “While I was out for my run, I stopped in at the store and picked up some ‘ready to serve’ stuff that the guy swore was idiot-proof.”

“This guy had never met you before, had he?” she snickered softly and Jon gave her a quick pinch for being sassy.  Twisting her body onto his lap with a giggle, Rachel nuzzled into his neck.  “Seriously, thank you.  It’s a very sweet gesture.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll see.”  He might very well be able to fuck up a salad, rice and skewered shrimp.  It definitely wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.  “And furthermore…  I promise to be more conscious of your schedule from now on.” 

“Oh yeah?”  She drew back and gave him a skeptical look. 

“Yeah.  You have a life that doesn’t totally revolve around me.  I get it and, to prove it, you get a full body massage after your bath tonight, Ms. Working Girl.”

“You realize alarm bells are going off in my head, right?  Is this you launching mission ‘Get Rachel to Denver’?”

“No!” he chuckled, his hand sneaking under the hem of her top so that he could stroke the silky skin at the bend of her waist.  “I just had too much quiet time on my hands today.  I ran this morning, but couldn’t find any weights to finish my workout, so I kept myself busy by figuring out all the ways I could pamper you.”

“I don’t think I know you.”  Rachel was only half-joking.  This was, while not entirely out in left field, definitely out of character for Jon.  He was good at calling and ordering things to pamper her, but to get down in the trenches and apply hands-on methods?  That was new and interesting.  “Oh, and there are weights on the treadmill in the bonus room,” she corrected.

“You know me better than practically anybody, and those are girl weights.  I need grown up gym equipment, honey.  No big deal, I’ll just put in some extra time tomorrow.”

It was a valid point that Rachel hadn’t had the opportunity to think about yet.  If he was going to be a regular part of her life and spend time at her house, then he should be able to work out the way he wanted to. 

“We’ll make some changes to the bonus room so you have what you need, so give some thought to what that might be.  I mean…I want you to be comfortable when you’re here.  You should feel like this is your home, too.”   

“Does that mean you’re going to marry me?  And that I can take your husband’s picture off the nightstand on my side of the bed?”

Rachel completely dismissed the first question as ludicrous, but the second one she deliberated far more seriously.  She had never that considered Nick’s presence in the house might be bothersome to Jon.  Looking at it objectively, she could see why it might.  The bedroom furniture was new since they’d been together, but everything else was pretty much the same as when Nick and their kids had been alive. 

“Some of the things in this house are here because they’ve always been here.  That picture was taken in the delivery room right after Lauren was born.  The first time Nick held her.  It was always on his nightstand and when I bought the new furniture, I just put it back there out of habit.  I never stopped to think how’d feel having to look at it and I’m sorry.  I’ll put it in her baby album.”

He squeezed her tighter at the waist and cupped her cheek with the other hand.  “Hey.  He was your husband and she was your baby girl.  I get it.  You don’t need to put it away in some photo album, but I’d rather it not be the first thing I see in the morning.  That’s all.”

“I have some pictures of you and me.  I’ll put one of those there, instead.  How’s that?”

“That’d be great,” he agreed.  “And since we’re makin’ changes… I need a clock on my nightstand.  I always have to lean up over you to see what time it is.”

“Geez.  Give you a little space on the nightstand and you’re taking over,” Rachel mockingly huffed, “Anything else you might need to make this place feel like home?”

“My ring on your finger.”

She snickered softly and shook her head.  He got major credit for trying to do what he thought would make her happy, but “trying” wouldn’t make her happy. 

“I’m not going to marry you.  Moving on...” 

“Not until you tell me why you aren’t going to marry me.”

They’d talked soooo much in the last twenty-four hours, and she’d had soooo little sleep.  Rachel was physically and mentally incapable of pointing out the finer intricacies of why his proposal was absurd.   At this hour of this day, it was easier to play it off with a smile and a reason that was as silly as the suggestion itself. 

“Because you can’t be serious,” she teased with a wide smile, gently tapping his nose.  “You don’t even have a ring.”

He didn’t smile back.  In fact, his mouth tightened at the corners and the infamous blue eyes grew somber as he dropped his feet to the floor and prepared to stand. 

“Then let’s go get a ring.”

Rachel put her full weight against his chest to block his movement and sighed.  She had expected that reaction about as much as she’d expected the proposal. 

“Let it go for now, Jon.  Please?” She squirmed her way up his chest, pressing soft kisses along his jaw and chin.  “I just want to be with you.  That’s all that matters.”

“Yeah?”

Her fingernails lightly scored his scalp as she cupped his head and swiped his bottom lip with her tongue.  “Yeah.”

He moaned as his hands encased her hips, pulling her closer.  “Rach, that’s all the home I need.”

Rachel rolled her pelvis into him, enjoying the immediate response that he gave her.  The hardness pressing against her tummy lit a spark of desire inside of her that she relished.

I missed this.  So, so much.