New Revelations: Second Sight Book Two (2 page)

Jared’s
tall frame lifted out of the chair and he momentarily turned away from her. Taking a deep breath, he faced her.
“You’re testing my self-control here, Kate. Each time you give me that look, it gets harder
for me
to keep my hands off of you.
”

“Then why are we waiting? It will be special this time because i
t will be with you, Jared,
”
she said softly and walked over to him.
She had worn her flats over to his apartment which made him a good head taller than her. One of the things she liked about Jared is that his tall and muscular build pretty much guaranteed he would always outweigh her. Even on the days after she went on a fast food bender and had to break out the fat jeans.

He reached out his hand and cupped her cheek gently.
“When the time is right, it’
ll happen,” he promised.
“
It’s not only about logistics.
I
did just ge
t out of a three year relationship with Nikki.”

The mere mention of his ex-girlfriend’s name enraged her. Nikki had made Kate’s life hell after she suspected something could be going on between her and Jared.
“You have the nerve to mentio
n that she-devil in my presence,” she breathed. Nikki’s name was like a cool balm to the heat she had
been feelings towards Jared. Kate
wanted to be
mature when he spoke about his ex
and show that
she didn’t feel threatened. However, she didn’t only dislike the girl, but had a deep-
seated fear that Jared would one day
return to her manicured clutches
.

Kate
removed his hand from her cheek.
“
You kno
w what? I just lost my appetite. If you don’t mind—
I’d like you to take me home.” The fact that he had driven her over didn’t allow her the privilege to storm out on him.

Jared reached for her, but she jerked away.
He flinched at her reaction.
“Don’t get angry with me. Let’s just talk about this…”

She cut him off
,
“Are you going to drive me or am I walking home?”

After a long sigh, he grabbed his keys and followed her out of his apartment. Entering his
black
BMW, she restrained herself from slamming his car door. She understood some of the points Jared was making, but she didn’t like how his rejection made her feel.
Now she was embarrassed for throwing herself at him when he clearly didn’t want to take things to that level.

Their disagreement made Kate
further question whether he really wanted to be with her or not. They
had been
thrown into an extreme situation together last month and maybe the intensity of the kidnapping case
was what
drew them together. Now that the adr
enaline rush was over, maybe a relationship between them was destined to fail.

Jared
remained silent as she stewed on the ride home.
Franklin
was small enough that it only took five minutes to travel between their homes.
Living in the
New Jersey
suburbs also promised little traffic which Kate was thankful for at the moment. The sooner she could get some time to herself and sort out h
er mixed emotions, the better.

As he parked in front of her house,
Kate
reached for the door handle. He put a firm grip on her wrist to prevent her from leaving. She turned to face him and looked at him with irritation. She was about to protest, but the words became lodged in her throat at his
contrite expression
.

“Listen, I wanted it to be a surprise,” he emphasized before continuing, “but I actually have something planned.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been a
rranging a special night for us,” he explained. “
You mean a lot to me and I want our first time together to be amazing.”

As Jared
spoke, he used his fingers to trace small circles on her hand.
It was strangely sensual and she felt hypnotized by his touch
.

Kate
loved Jared’s sweet side and
instantly
felt bad for overreacting. If he wanted to show her an amazing time, who was she to protest? “What kind of night? Is it soon?” she questioned eagerly.

He laughed and exited the car. Opening the passenger door, he lifted her up into a warm embrace. He had the ability to make her feel very feminine when he showered her with affection.
Relaxing against his muscular chest, she tilted her head up to gaze at him
.
Moving her light brown locks away from her face
with a sweep of his callused fingers
, he peered
down
at her.

“I’d like to keep
it a
surprise if you don’t mind,” Jared
said with a slight smirk playing at the edges of his lips.
“
And yes, it’s very soon. I’m not a saint, Kate.”

Kate
gave a solemn nod
and summoned up her most somber expression. “Ok
, I accept your terms. But I’m warning you, all this build-up may end up blowing up in our face. I don’t have a tendency to do well under pressure.
”

“Good thing we’ll have the whole night to try again and again until we get it right,” he whispered and then nibbled on her ear. She tried not to swoon as he moved his mouth to hers. He didn’t hold back on th
e intensity of the kiss as she
concentrated on
not let
ting
her knees buckle out from under her. If he was able to do everythin
g else as good as he kissed, Kate
had no worries about their first time together.

It was
agonizing
to break away f
rom the kiss.
From his labored breathing, Kate
presumed
he was feeling the same way. Waiting until this romantic evening was going to be torture.
She’
d have to s
tay distracted in the meantime. Luckily, she had made it a priority to
work on honing her psychic skills.

Kate
leaned against him and wrapped her arms around his waist. The fight was already forgotten in her mind. She didn’t need sex to solidify her relationship with
Jared. She had to just let go of her neuroses and take a more laidback approach to things. It seemed likely that Jared sympathized with her inexperience and was only making sure she didn’t have any regrets.

“Ok, you better go inside before I say to hell with it and throw you over my s
houlder
and bring you back to my place,
”
he grunted.

Kate chuckled
. “Fine
. But after that kiss I’m sure I’ll be having a vision about you this evening.” Preferably unclothed, she thought silently.

The next afternoon Kate was enjoying a turkey sandwich at one of the
outside
tables
at her college
.
The September weather had been gorgeous lately and sundresses and shorts were still
worn on a daily basis. The sunsh
ine soaked into
her
delicate skin.
Kate
h
oped being outdoors would help her maintain the tan she
had
held onto since Labor Day. Kate
had spent the weekend at the shore with her father
,
Robert
,
who had moved about an hour away last year after her parents’ divorce. On the final day of their trip, he arranged a dinner for her to meet his girlfriend
,
Carly.

Surprisingly, Carly was a lot nicer than she expected. She didn’t come across as a dumb floozy who was the catalyst for the demise of her parents’ marriage. Although it pained her to be friendly to the woman due to loyalty to her mother, she couldn’t find a major fault with her. At the very least, maybe she could mellow her father out a little bit.

Focusing back
on
the present, Kate
looked over the notes she had taken from her American Literature
class
.
After a couple minutes of studying, she felt her mind wander.
It was hard to concentrate while she was still in this new relationship stage with Jared. She couldn’t wait to head over to his apartment again tonight to see him. Maybe she would even attempt to cook for him
to make up for last night
.

Taking a highlighter to he
r notes, Kate
stiffened as she felt eyes bore into her back. Slowly, turning around in her chair, she locked
her
gaze with a pair of dark unfamiliar eyes. In the few seconds that she al
lowed herself to stare back, Kate
did a quick inventory
of the man
. He wore his brown hair very short and had it spiked in a sort of messy
style that required lots of hair product.
His hand grazed over the small amount of scruff he had growing
on his chin. The movement lifted his arm and made visible to Kate the corner of a tattoo on his bicep.

The guy was about her age, but
Kate
did not recognize him from any of her classes. He seemed amused at something as he looked at her
unabashedly
. His
stare did not waver when she turned to face him. Deciding to ignore him, she spun back around.
Gathering up her things, she dumped out her trash without another glance in his direction and headed towards the parking lot. The papers had done a lot of coverage on her during the Cori Preston case and he probably recognized her
from one of the photos that accompanied the articles
. Her cell phone rang as she made the
long
trek across campus. Her best friend Julie Mitchell’s name appeared on screen.

“Perfect timing, there was this scruffy looking guy staring me down as I ate lunch,” Kate said in greeting.

“Scruffy creepy or scruffy hot?” Julie inquired.

“There’s a difference?”

“Of course there is,” she retorted
with a derisive snort
.
“Scruffy creepy makes me think of the hobo
that stands outside
of
the
McDonald’s
on
Third Avenue
flashing high schoolers
. S
cruffy hot is more like
Ryan Gosling in
The Notebook
.”

“
I
guess scruffy hot,” she admitted. Kate clutched her books tighter to her chest and picked up the pace to her car. “
It made me very uncomfortable the way he was looking at me. It seemed like he knew me although I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

“Kate, I know you’ve been a shut-in for awhile, so I’ll bring you up to speed on a few things. Guys like to check out pretty girls. He was probably just trying to w
ork up the nerve to talk to you,
”
Julie impatiently explained.

She let out a long sigh. “I guess you’re right. So, what’s going on?”

“Nothing much, finished class for the day and now I’m waiting on Gage
so we can head to the movies. I h
aven’t talked to you in a couple of days and wanted to see how things were going with the hottie boyfriend.”

“Everything’s good.
I’m heading there for dinner again tonight and
maybe to watch a movie
.”

“So…are you going to make me ask? Did he seal the deal?”

Kate remained silent for an uncomfortable
moment. She wondered if it had been a
good idea to have confided in Julie about how slo
w things were moving with Jared
.
Julie had provided her with several suggestions on how to speed
things up.
“We
actually had an argument
about it last night. He wants us to wait for a special night before we take things to that level.”

“When? Like your wedding night?” Julie asked incredulously.

“Nothing that extreme. He wants it to be romantic, so he’s planning something,”
Kate
explained. Unlocking her
Toyota
, she did a quick check of the backseat before entering. She wanted to make sure
the
scruffy guy wasn’t back there
with a knife ready to slash her throat
.

“You’re certain that’s the only reason
? I me
an you
’
ve been dating a month…” Julie trailed off before questioning, “Y
ou don’t think he has a problem with his equipment, do you?”