Thank god I was barely clothed. We could get straight to the next phase where his hands and mouth and need fired my blood so fast he could drive into me without hesitation because my body was ready for his.
But something clicked in him and he eased off.
His big hands were actually shaking when he framed them around my face.
“What?”
“I love you.”
Why were his eyes so tormented when he told me that?
“I love you so fucking much. It’s been a goddamned dream to get a second chance with you. To be with you and work on being us again.”
“But?”
He shook his head. “No buts. There is something I need to tell you. Something that might change everything back to the way it used to be.” He dropped his hands from my face and stepped back. “It’s an ugly thing, Luce. Really ugly.”
“I’ve dealt with ugly before.”
“Not like this, you haven’t.” His hair nearly stood on end from where he’d been running his hands through it. “I don’t . . . You haven’t asked how I went from being a social drinker to being an alcoholic.”
“I wondered. But is that really something I can ask? Because what if you didn’t know? What if you couldn’t remember how it was not to give in to that urge to drink until you felt better or felt nothing? You didn’t drink more than I did whenever we were together, but I wasn’t around you all the time. You hid it from your family, your teammates; it would’ve been easy to hide it from me.” But I didn’t give him the real reason I hadn’t asked: I was afraid he’d tell me it happened after he’d checked out of our relationship.
“That’s fair. The truth is a mix of those things. I needed booze to help me have fun. Then I needed it to help me sleep. Then I needed it for everything else. Alcohol started making my decisions. And I made some bad ones obviously.”
“Jax, just tell me.”
“Over the years the secrecy surrounding my drinking problem was eating away at me. The last year before I got help, I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror because all I saw was a liar and a coward and a drunken loser. A lonely loser who used random sexual encounters to feel something for a few minutes other than despair. But the booze took that away from me too; I’d black out with no memory of where I was, how I’d gotten there or who I had been with.”
I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to know this about you. I don’t know that I can handle it.
I gave that whiny, scared, judgmental voice a hard mental slap. If he’d found the guts to tell me this, I’d find the courage to listen.
“But the kicker? What finally sent me to rehab? I had some health issues and I found out . . .”
The paused killed me. Killed me.
“I’d contracted a sexually transmitted disease.”
Do not react. Not yet.
Jax jammed his hand through his hair. “I didn’t know when it’d happened or who passed it to me or if I’d unknowingly passed it to someone else. Random encounters also meant I had no way of finding out.” He closed his eyes. “I couldn’t help but think it’s what I deserved. I knew everyone in my life I’d ever hurt emotionally or pissed off would be fucking gleeful that I’d got my comeuppance. My stupidity and arrogance and self-involvement and entitlement had brought me to the lowest point in my life. I checked into rehab two days later.
“I dealt with the booze addiction and my new reality as being a lifelong carrier of an STD all at one time, because they were so wound up together I couldn’t separate the cause from the effect. It’s been a helluva lot easier telling people that I’m an alcoholic than I have HSV-2 and I’ll be on medication for the rest of my life.”
“Who knows?”
“That I have an incurable STD? My team doctor, my personal physician, my counselor.” Jax lifted his gaze to mine. “And now you.”
That shocked me.
“Mimi can’t get it from me. But you can. There’s the ugly truth. In fact, if we have sex, there’s an eight percent chance that you’ll be infected. Even if we use condoms. Even when I take Valtrex every day to control outbreaks. Even when I haven’t had any outbreak for eighteen months. Not one sexy thing about that, is there? When I first found out I had this, I felt lucky that I hadn’t ended up with HPV, Hep C, or syphilis. Then after doing research, I discovered that herpes two, like AIDS, can’t be cured. I just have to learn to live with it. And tell any potential partner that I have it, so knowing that, I decided I wouldn’t subject anyone to the slightest chance of exposure and chose abstinence.”
My thoughts spun so fast I couldn’t grasp a single one.
“I knew I wouldn’t get involved in another intimate relationship that was temporary.” Jax looked away, took a deep breath and returned his gaze to me. “I want you, Luce. I want you like fucking crazy. I love you. I want to spend my life with you and be the loyal, loving man you deserve. I’m not telling you this because I want you to throw caution to the wind and get naked with me right now. I’m telling you this because I want you to think about what it would mean for you, and for your health, if we become lovers. If you can’t get past it . . . I understand that too. Maybe too well.”
I frowned at him. “What’s that mean that you understand too well?”
“I’d hoped after I started getting my life back together if I made the changes I needed to become a mentally healthy man, that maybe there would be a chance for us to try again. We loved each other fiercely once. We were good together until I screwed it up. I wanted to fix it. But there is no fix for the physical risk you’d take every time we’d be intimate. That night when you gave me a massage? I panicked. I wanted your touch, craved your attention, so much that for the briefest moment I forgot I couldn’t just say yes and lose myself in that sexual relationship that was as natural as breathing to us. We had to talk about it first.”
“And the night you went down on me?”
“There’s no risk for you on the receiving end. That’s no excuse for not telling you. But it just seemed so right, and as always with us, it happened so goddamned fast.”
All of this was going fast. “So what now?”
“So now . . . you know.” He exhaled. “I love you, Lucy Q. I’ve always loved you. No matter the outcome of this between us, I’m here for Mimi for the long haul.”
“I don’t doubt that, Jax.” I paused and seized the chance to talk about something else. “What happened with her today?”
“She woke up like a character out of Evil Dead.” He locked his gaze to mine. “She’s a safer topic for both of us, but I don’t want to talk about her.”
“I don’t know if I can continue to talk about this. What good will it do?”
What will it change? hung in the air between us, followed by silence.
Jax watched me closely. When I didn’t say anything else because I didn’t know what to say, he said, “I understand. I’ll just go.”
“But . . .”
“There’s no reason for me to stay.”
“Jax.”
“It’s okay. We’ll touch base tomorrow.” He started backing away.
I swear by the time he reached my apartment door he was running.
And I didn’t try and stop him.
* * *
• • •
After Jax left, I cracked open a beer and my laptop.
I needed to know the health issues, realities, complications about HSV-2 for myself.
Holy crap was there a lot of information. Everything I could possibly want to know about the STD. I must’ve hopped from article to article for over an hour, because the next time I reached for my beer it had gotten warm.
I closed my eyes and let the emotions I’d kept in check wash over me.
The one I expected to be the most prevalent, the “I told you so” smug feeling of satisfaction that he’d gotten what he
deserved . . . was absent.
Neither did I feel manipulated by him telling me he loved me so he could finally get laid. Because if this secret was about pride, I’d be the last person he’d want to know. He’d cheated on me. It’d been a key factor in destroying our relationship. He had to fear that I’d laugh. Or I’d have no sympathy whatsoever. Or that I’d walk away because he wasn’t worth the risk.
Mostly I felt sad that he’d accepted he’d have to spend his life without intimacy.
Being around him the past few months hadn’t stirred up bad memories of our time together, but the good times, of which there’d been plenty. The bad times happened at the end. The worst times happened when we hadn’t been together for years, when he took out his frustration with his life on me in the one way he could hurt me—financially. There was a two-year period where it seemed like he dragged me to court every other month to argue over child support and custody rights.
It’d been a shitty time in my life, but I’d survived it without turning to booze. Or random sexual encounters. I had something more precious to worry about than my pride: my daughter.
When I looked at Jax now, there was no trace of that self-hating, self-destructive man. All I saw was a man who knew what he wanted and was patient enough to wait for it, even when there was no guarantee that he’d get it.
I knew I’d fallen in love with him again, but I hadn’t wanted to put myself out there first.
He’d taken the risk.
Now it was my turn.
Twenty
JAX
Tonight I regretted not putting in a home gym.
I could use a workout with a speed bag. And a punching bag. Beating the shit out of something held immense appeal.
In the scheme of things, Lucy could’ve reacted worse. A lot worse.
And I’d bailed before I saw something replace the shock on her face.
Like fear. Or regret. Or smugness.
I scrubbed my hands over my face and replayed everything that had happened earlier. Had I made a mistake not telling her sooner?
Yeah, I could imagine how that conversation might’ve gone.
Hey, Luce, while we’re getting to know each other again, after I’ve been out of your life for eight years, and you might consider trusting me . . . before I can prove to you that I’ve changed . . . you oughta know I have an incurable STD, so whatdya say we give an intimate relationship a shot?
If I would’ve confessed all at the very start, we wouldn’t have gotten to this point where I knew she felt something for me and our past hadn’t destroyed all chances of a future together.
I hadn’t fully prepared myself, however, for the stress I’d be under for however long it took for her to decide whether I—we—were worth the risk.
Maybe I’d watch a movie to take my mind off it, because there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d be able to sleep tonight.
But I didn’t move. I remained in the living room, brooding in the near dark as I stared out the windows, hating that my poor life choices had brought me here even as I understood without me making those bad choices, I wouldn’t have wised up, become a better man, cleaned up my act. I wouldn’t be here for my daughter or have this new relationship with Lucy. I’d be drunk, reliving my glory years, blaming everything and everyone but myself for my crappy, lonely life.
I’d decided to cook something when I heard the elevator ding.
Or maybe it was wishful thinking.
Then I saw a reflection in the window and movement behind me. My heart rate quadrupled before I slowly turned around and saw Lucy standing there. I honestly was so dumbfounded I couldn’t form a single word.
Her hands were jammed in the pockets of her robe. It took a while before she found her voice.
“I can’t imagine how hard that must’ve been for you, Jax. Telling me you love me and want a life with me and then having to tack on an ‘oh, by the way, I have HSV-2’ statement that might end everything between us.”
“Has it?”
She didn’t move. She didn’t speak.
The next minute was the most excruciating of my life.
When she shook her head, I finally understood the need to fall to your knees in gratitude.
Lucy said, “Once again you put yourself out there first, leading by example. So before we dissect how our being together will change our day-to-day lives with Mimi, I want tonight for us.”
“Us talking about the precautions we’ll need to take?”
“If you want.” Then she untied her robe and it hit the floor. “But I’d rather you just take me to bed.”
What spurred me out of my shocked state of seeing the sexy woman I loved standing before me naked was seeing the sexy woman I loved standing before me naked holding a strip of condoms.
I must’ve growled when I charged for her, because she took a step back.
Then my mouth crashed down on hers, and my hands were all over her—fisted in her hair, caressing her face, trailing down her neck, covering her breasts, squeezing her hips, palming her ass. Dizzying to realize this beautiful woman had chosen me.
“Bed. Now,” I gritted out.
“No,” she said, chasing my mouth to steal more kisses. “That’s too far away. Right here. In front of the fireplace.”
Somehow, even with her clinging to me, I backed us up ten steps and snagged the remote that turned on the fireplace. Orange, yellow and red flames burst to life. No slow build, just instant heat.
That summed us up perfectly.
“Jax,” she panted against my neck, “take off your clothes.”
“Luce. Have some patience.”
“We’ve passed that point, sport.” She wiggled away from me. “Let me help.”
Lucy slipped her hands underneath the front of my shirt, her palms stopping on my pecs. “Your heart is going a million miles an hour.”
“It tends to do that when you’re touching me,” I said gruffly.
“Do that sexy, he-man, one-handed shirt removal maneuver and I’ll touch you some more.”
Didn’t have to tell me twice. Whoosh, my shirt landed on the floor.
“God. You still have the most fucktacular body.”
Even when I wanted to watch her touching me, I closed my eyes and focused on the soft brush of her thumbs across my nipples. The delicate manner in which she dusted the tips of her fingers across my collarbones. Then she smoothed her hands lovingly down my arms, from the cup of my shoulders to the bones in my wrists.
As her sweet mouth followed the path her fingers had taken, I locked my legs to keep them from shaking. My breath came hard and fast. Each pull of air was saturated with her lemon and flowers scent, and I was drowning in need for her, for this to actually happen so I knew it wasn’t just another damn dream.
I stayed still when her hands squeezed my hips for a few seconds, and then my pulse—and my cock—jumped when she hooked her fingers inside the waistband of my sweatpants and slid them down until they fell to my ankles.
I was naked.
She was naked.
I felt like a virgin and suspected I’d last as long as one too once I got inside her. Three years was a long time to be abstinent; nine years was a lot longer to wait to recapture this intimacy with the only woman I’d loved. Christ. I didn’t want to disappoint her, but I didn’t—
“Jax.” Lucy’s hands curled around my face and her lips were a breath from mine. “Stop worrying. Stop holding back.” She took my mouth in the fierce kiss I needed, her tongue owning mine. When I groaned with frustration because I needed more than just kissing, she ripped her lips free. “Baby, you already know how to love me. So show me. Remind me.”
My fears faded. Her confidence in me bolstered my confidence. I growled, “Condom.”
She slapped a square package on my chest so fast I wondered where she’d been keeping it.
After I rolled the rubber on—ignoring her protest that she wanted to do it—I fell to my knees on the rug in front of her. I dragged my mouth between her hip bones until her entire body trembled. My tongue followed the rise of her mound down between her legs. The sweet, sticky wetness I discovered did me in completely.
I brought her down to the floor and levered myself over her.
My arms shook as I indulged in a few more kisses on her beautiful face, the corners of her eyes, her jawline and the tip of her chin. A sheen of sweat coated my body, and I hadn’t done anything strenuous.
Yet.
“Slow and sweet next time,” she said as her grabby hands latched on to my ass and her legs circled my waist.
“You said that the first time, at Borderlands.”
“I remember. And you nearly fucked me through the wall, Stonewall. Let’s see if you can fuck me through the floor.”
“God I love you.”
I drove into her without finesse. I couldn’t have gone slow and sweet if my life depended on it. The hot, wet, tight clasp of her sex nearly undid me right then.
Between Lucy yelling, “Yes, yes, yes,” and her nails gouging my ass as I pumped and thrust, I reached the detonation point far too fast. But Jesus, nothing in my life had ever felt this good.
When she started biting my neck, I didn’t have a fucking prayer of holding back. “Lucy, baby, I can’t—”
“Go over. I want to watch you.”
A kaleidoscope of colors exploded behind my lids as I started to come. My body kept the rhythm as my brain flitted away, letting me feel every hard throb, every suctioning pull of her muscles contracting around my shaft. Even as the orgasm ebbed, she clutched me tight, her soft words of love seared into my soul.
I collapsed on top of her with one last full-body shudder, burying my face in her neck.
Lucy let me stay that way for a little while as I tried to realign my worlds, but I wasn’t a small guy, and when she’d had enough, she lightly tapped my ass, indicating I needed to move.
Lifting my head, I gazed into her eyes, letting her see every bit of emotion I couldn’t put into words.
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