Chapter 83

Tessa drew up the covers and rolled over, bumping into a very warm, very male body. Jon had moved in the night and ended up on his stomach, sprawled across her bed with his face pressed into a pillow facing the window.

She curled herself around him and rested her cheek against his shoulder blade. There was a calmness inside of her that she didn’t think she’d ever find. Funny how a few well placed words could ease her mind when it came to them. She’d never been the type to over analyze a relationship. In fact, all of her past relationships with men had failed because she’d been too busy to pay attention to them.

What made this man so different? She wasn’t sure she’d ever understand, but she wouldn’t question it again. Life was too short to keep worrying if he loved her enough. He’d never shown her anything different, so trusting him was the only thing she could do now.

She leaned back and fingered the pendant he’d given her. Lifting it to the sun, her heart hiccupped at the flash of sparkle and fire. For Jon spending a few thousand on a piece of jewelry was nothing. All he saw was that it was perfect for her.

And she couldn’t deny that it was. She’d never seen or owned anything that suited her more. And the fact that he saw the real her was as humbling as it was thrilling.

But it was still a really expensive gift, and would take her a long time to feel comfortable wearing it. She let it fall back on her chest, the weight of it as reassuring as the man next to her. She ran her fingernails lightly over the freckles dusted over his shoulders and back. Smooth muscles knitted over bone, supple yet firm even in sleep.

She’d never been the type to go for a guy’s body. Sure, she’d enjoy a hot model in a magazine here and there and drooled over a few pictures of Jon in her time, but this was different. This was discipline and pride and some of it was just plain conditioning for the ruthless paces a concert put him through. She pressed her palm along the wide shoulders and down his tapered back until she found the rounded curve of his butt.

“Do I get to look forward to these whole touchy feely morning explorations everyday?” he mumbled into his pillow.

She laughed and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “Can’t help it, you got a rockin’ body, darlin’.”

He rolled over and pulled her in, wrapping his arms loosely around her waist. “Yours is pretty spectacular too,” he said with a voice still thick with sleep.

She curled her arms around his neck and let herself fall into a kiss that lingered and explored without need. Enjoying the closeness of just his body against hers and a morning that didn’t need to be rushed was just what she needed.

He tucked his nose into her neck and she could feel him sliding back into sleep. His soft caresses at her back slowed and she smiled. She’d certainly tired him out with the long night of loving, emotional waterfall of crap that she’d heaped on him and then a chocolate covered exploration. It had been quite a Christmas night.

She eased away from him, tucking a pillow against him so he’d stay asleep. She’d make a bit of breakfast for them before she had to open the store at noon. The day after Christmas was just about as hectic as Christmas Eve for retail with the returns and exchanges that people just had to do right away.

But she’d decided long ago, that recovery was just as important for her. Noon was as early as she’d allow for the day after the holiday. She and her staff needed the time to recharge with family and friends. She tugged on jeans and a sweatshirt and headed downstairs.

Remembering she had absolutely zip in the fridge she grabbed her wallet, keys and a hat before heading to the small store in her neighborhood. She picked up eggs, English muffins and overpriced sausage links in the frozen section. Nothing spectacular, but it would do for fuel.

“Hey Miss Donovan,” said the clerk at the front.

“Hiya Betty, please call me Tessa.”

Betty winked, “So how’s that beautiful man of yours?”

“I’m sorry?” Tessa blinked and nearly dropped the eggs. She carefully set everything on the counter and cleared her throat. “Beautiful man? I don’t understand.”

“I saw you on the news last the other night. That Charlotte Burke did an on the spot report about you and that Jon Bon Jovi at your store. Quite the secret you kept there.” She started ringing up the food. “Not that I blame you.” She was a woman in her sixties but waggled her eyebrows suggestively. “That’s one way to warm up a cold night.”

“Just what did Charlotte Burke say about Mr. Bon Jovi and I?”

“Oh you know reporters, but she definitely inferred that you two were having a very good holiday.”

Tessa sighed. That was just great. “Thanks, Betty.” She paid and headed for the door.

“Wait! You didn’t say-“

Tessa cut off the question with the door shutting behind her. No way she was going to say anything yet. She turned the car on and flicked the radio on. Just what the hell was she going to tell Jon? Oh Jon, that shrew of a reporter outed us on national TV. Yeah that was going to go over big.

“Don’t you just hate when a holiday falls on a Monday and your boss doesn’t give you the next day off?”

“No kidding, Dave. But if we must work how about a little Christmas gossip to make the morning move along. I heard that a certain local celebrity has finally hooked up with a little unknown shopkeeper in Red Bank.”

“Oh are we talking about Bon Buns Jovi snuggling up to the bookworm? I heard that too.”

“She’s gotta be a cute little thing to snag that hunk of hotness.”

“She better be smokin’ hot to deal with Jon and the press following him everywhere.”

“Or she’s super smart to get her business off the ground.”

The chattering and magpie laughter had her ready to pull over and throw up. Dave and Emily from the Wake Up Red Bank show were usually annoying, so that didn’t surprise her but the fact that they’d made the gossip news was a little unnerving.

She was a fan, so she knew how things could hurtle out of control when it came to the media. A google alert turned into a wildfire media frenzy. She pulled into the driveway and sat staring for a minute. Why couldn’t she have fallen in love with a banker? Because a banker couldn’t make your toes curl into cement, that’s why.

She opened the door, surprised to find Jon sitting at her kitchen table with a mug of coffee and the paper. “Hey, I left you sleeping.” She dumped her purchases on the kitchen counter and grabbed a mug of her own. She leaned into him for a quick kiss and uncurled her toes a good five minutes later when he let her go. “Well then.” Point taken.

“Morning,” he grinned up at her, letting his arm loop around her hip as his hand wandered down her butt. “I thought I lost you to the retail world.”

She pressed her lips together and cleared her throat. “I-“ she cleared her throat again and sneered. “Shut up, I see that smug grin on your face.”

“What? So I like that I can kiss you stupid. It’s good for the ego.”

“Like you need help.”

He just continued to sip his coffee returned his gaze to the paper and flipped the page. “Where’d you go so early?”

She pointed to the kitchen with her mug, “I didn’t think Cheerios would do it for dinner and breakfast.”

He peered up at her from the fall of bangs that curled into his eyes. “Aww is the little woman going to make her hungry man some breakfast?”

“Watch it buddy.” She eased away from him and unpacked the groceries. How was she going to tell him? She unearthed a frying pan and set the sausage to start cooking. “Jon we have a little bit of a situation.”

“Oh shit,” Jon said and snapped the paper open wider.

Oh God, had it made the paper too? She peeked over his shoulder. Hmm…somehow she didn’t think they had made the sports section. “Giants lose again?” she said lightly.

“Don’t you swear at me.”

She snorted and sat back down across from him. “Umm…seriously though, I need to tell you something.”

“Sure,” he said and continued to check the scores.

“I think that-“ Bitch reporter. She cleared her throat, “Charlotte Burke decided we were the hot story for the day on Christmas Eve.”

“Uh-huh, she was doing a piece for Chapters,” Jon said absently.

“More like us as it turns out.”

Jon let the corner of the paper flop down. “What?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, “Yeah, thought that might catch your attention.”

His eyebrows beetled, “As in on the local news?”

“Yeah, the corner store lady asked me how my man was doing this morning.”

He dropped the paper. “Well shit.”

“Yeah, Charlotte was a little too…”

Jon arched his eyebrow. “Too…”

“She was more than interested in us as a couple and her questions veered off into that area. I kept it light and worked my way around back to the store as quickly as I could during the interview…” she trailed off.

“But they’re really good at editing to suit their own agenda,” Jon finished. He gulped down the rest of his coffee and stood to refill his mug.

He didn’t say anything for a long minute and Tessa was ready to scream by the time he turned around. “Well?”

He sipped his coffee. “I’m not going to hide the fact that I’m seeing you Tessa. It’s not fair to you or to me. The public can go hang. It’s none of their business, but I’m not going to ask you to lie for me. It always backfires in the end.”

She moved back to the stove to turn the links and opened the eggs. “How do you want your eggs?”

He came up behind her and turned her around. “Talk to me.”

“What’s there to say? We cover the same ground and there’s no answer. We’ll just take it a day at a time.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

She was okay. “You love me, right?”

His blue eyes darkened and a smile flirted with the corners of his lips. “Madly.”

She brushed her knuckles down his cheek. “Then we’ll worry about the rest as it comes. I mean really, who cares who you go out with? They’ll all hate me anyway for…I believe the term was ‘bagging’ you.”

“Why would they hate you?”

She tried very hard not to let her mouth drop open. “Women are jealous creatures, Jon. Believe me, I’ve learned the hard way.”

He sat back down. ”What does that mean?”

She just shook her head and turned back to the sausage and broke two eggs into the pan. “How do you want your eggs?”

“Over easy,” he said absently. “Has something happened?”

“It’s not a big deal,” she said and waved her spatula. Dropping two English muffins into the toaster, she shifted the eggs around the pan until they were done and slid them onto a plate. She turned and set it before him. “Your English muffin will be done in a second.”

Jon grabbed her wrist. “What happened, Tessa?”

She sighed, “Look it’s no big deal, okay?”

“Obviously it is, if you won’t tell me what it is,” he said impatiently.

She leaned down and pressed a kiss on his tight mouth. “Charlotte Burke just doesn’t really like me, that’s all.”

“Aww, hell.”

Finishing up her eggs she buttered the muffins and sat down. “If I had been thinking like a normal person at the time, it wouldn’t have mattered what she said.” Shit. She needed to learn to keep her mouth shut.

“Is she the one that had you all upset?”

“No,” she grumbled.

“What the hell did she say to you?”

Tessa looked up at his tone. His eyes were dark and glittering with anger. “Hey, it wasn’t that bad,” she cupped his fisted hand on the tabletop. “Seriously, Jon it wasn’t that bad.”

“Char and I have a bit of history.”

“Believe me, I know.” Shit! What the hell was wrong with her?

“Oh really?”

She decided right then and there, that she didn’t want to be on the end of Jon’s current stare. His eyes had gone pure ice, and his face was emotionless. She pried his fingers apart and laced them with hers. “It’s okay, I’m sure you’ve had other women in your life. Some work and some don’t.”

He sighed and she felt him relax. “Char wasn’t in my life for more than a passing moment. She’s a vindictive woman that wears her camera face all the time. I’ve known her for a long time because of the gossip column she used to write, then the fluff pieces for the news.”

“She left me with the impression that you two had a bit of a fling.”

“Hardly,” His voice was derisive. “We went to dinner a few times, but she was more interested in the parties and people she could meet because of who I am. I don’t go for that kind of woman, so I broke things off after a few dinners. We didn’t have any…well, chemistry for lack of a better term.”

She pictured the stunning brunette and raised an eyebrow. “None?”

A smile broke the ice that had had replaced the summer blue of his eyes. “At this point in my life, beauty has little to do with chemistry. It’s just a tool for most women anyway.”

She went around the table and pushed his plate back, stepping between his legs she rested against the table in front of him. “Part of me loves that you said that, and another part of me can only wonder how you could be so jaded about people.”

She pushed his hair back and he tipped his head back to look up at her. Going with instinct she kissed him, shivering when his thumbs found the band of her sweatshirt and dipped into the slight gap at the back of her jeans.

“So when do you have to go to work?” he asked as he nibbled his way to her neck and just below her ear where it drove her to distraction.

“Noon,” she managed to say on a groan.

He pushed his chair back. “Race you upstairs.” And shot out of the kitchen.

“Hey! No fair with the distractions!” she yelled and hit the stairs running.