by Jane Anthony
I lean in, my mouth latching on to one peaked nipple as I suckle it, my teeth grazing the flesh. The moan I elicit from her is intoxicating, and I mimic the motion on her other breast, devouring her inch by inch. I move down her body and tug her panties free from those beautiful, creamy legs.
My ravenous gaze trails up toward her core, finding her wet and ready.
I grip both her thighs and push them wide. A soft, pained whimper escapes her plump lips, but she doesn’t stop me. Trailing my nose over her inner thigh, I inhale her sweet scent. I do the same thing on her left thigh, then when I’m finally satisfied, I close the distance between my mouth and her pretty pussy.
Her scent is a fucking aphrodisiac. My tongue darts out, lapping at her core, savoring her sweet, musky flavor like it’s my last goddamned meal. Because right now, if it were, I’d die a happy man.
My fingers find her entrance, and I feast on her beauty. Her arousal coats my tongue. I know I’ll never want anyone else again.
Her fingers tangle in my hair, tugging me closer, pulling me away, but the way her hips rise and fall, the way her moans are only my name, I’m certain I’m doing this right.
“Oh God, Jesse!”
The moment her body convulses, I drink every drop of her sweet essence.
When I rise, my mouth is wet with her pleasure. Shoving my boxer briefs down, I grip my shaft and glance at her. “Are you ready?” I quip, watching her trembling on my bed.
“Always,” she sasses me playfully, and I hover myself over her body, my cock nudging her slick opening.
“Wren,” I murmur her name. “I don’t—”
“Do it, please, Jesse. Before I lose my nerve.” That’s all I need. My hips thrust forward, my cock entering her quickly, causing me to groan and her to cry out as her body bows on the bed. “Fuck.”
“Fuck is right, Bird,” I tease, but I’m a man lost because my cock is in the tightest, most perfect pussy I’ve ever felt. Her heat is like a drug, and I’m dying to shoot up more than just once.
She lifts her hips, fucking herself onto me, and I oblige in kind, pulling out and slamming back in. We move slowly, our bodies locked, connected, and when I meet Wren’s beautiful gaze, I know I’m not only pussy whipped, I’m also in love.
I take her, make love to her. My lips whisper along her neck, collarbone, and shoulder until she’s crying out. Our bodies are more than just movements. They’re a fucking symphony of pleasure that echoes through my house.
I feel her pulse. Her nails dig into my skin as I fuck her into the mattress. My hips undulate wildly, my release tightening my balls as Wren milks me for all I have, and I empty myself inside her.
We stay like that for a long while. I don’t want to move. I never want to disconnect myself from her. I know, at some point, I’m going to have to let her go.
But I can’t.
I never want to let her go. I want to keep her forever, hoard her as if she’s mine and mine alone. Fantasies of having her, fucking her, making love to her are a frail comparison to the real thing. I can’t go back. I can’t hang out and pretend we’re friends when I want more. I want all of her, every day for the rest of my life, and I refuse to take no for an answer.
This time, I’ve gone too far to turn back.
CHAPTER 18
Wren
THE SUN PEEKS through the dank basement windows, casting geometric patterns of light on the dark concrete floor. I watch the shadows move as Jesse’s chest rises against my back, then recedes like the tide.
Between my thighs, I’m slick and warm, the phantom feeling of him still present.
What have I done?
I slept with my best friend. What the fuck was I thinking?
I gently detach his arm from my middle, hoping for a quick getaway before he awakens, but I’m not that lucky. He groans, flopping to his back. “What time is it?”
“Nine,” I warble at the end of a yawn.
The sexy, sleepy sound he makes as he pulls me against him heats my blood to boiling. “Come back to bed.”
“I should get home. I have work today.”
He rolls me to my back, securing his arm around me. “Call in sick,” he mumbles, nipping at my collarbone.
My traitorous pussy pounds with want, but my head is in a better place today. I break from his grasp and sit up. “I can’t.”
Tension fills the space between us. This is exactly what I knew would happen. We crossed the line, and now everything’s changed. The easiness I used to feel with him is gone, and I need to get out of here as fast as I can before I destroy whatever’s left of this friendship.
Reaching down, I swipe my shirt off the floor and throw it over my head.
“You don’t have to run away so fast,” he says. The hurt marring his husky tone doesn’t go unnoticed.
“I do.” Turning to face him, I rest my hand on his cheek. “Last night was . . .” I blow out a heavy exhale, remembering the sordid details of the night before.
“Yeah, it was,” he agrees with a toe-curling grin.
“We crossed a line, Jess. I put you in a position I shouldn’t have.”
A lazy, lopsided grin quirks his lips. “The way I remember it, we both had some choice positions.”
I swallow the laugh sitting on my tongue. This isn’t funny. “I mean Kim. You have a girlfriend.”
“It’s not ideal. But I’ll take care of it.”
A sinking feeling of dread sits in my gut. “Don’t do that.”
When he reaches for me, I recoil away. When I close my eyes, all I see is the hurt expression on Asher’s face, and the betrayal etched across Kim’s. I only came here seeking out a friend. I never meant for this to happen.
Anger flashes in his bright blue eyes. “So last night meant nothing to you?”
“What do you want me to say, Jesse?”
“This is about him, isn’t it? So, you’re just going to run away without saying anything. Is that it?”
I flinch, feeling every word like a smack in the face. “Fuck you! You don’t even know how badly you destroyed me when you left. You just up and made all these plans without me, then walked away as if I were nothing to you. My heart was broken watching you walk away, so excuse me for being a little freaked out.”
“It’s not fair for you to keep holding that against me.”
Anger replaces the lust filling the empty space inside me. “No, you know what’s not fair? Sitting by the phone for a year waiting, hoping to hear from you. Wondering if you’re okay.”
“Bird, you don’t understand . . . I couldn’t stay here. I had to go.”
When he reaches for me, I wrench away, snatching my pants off the floor and pulling them up over my hips. “You didn’t just leave town. You left me. Now I’m leaving you. Deal with it.”
The tears I’d been holding plummet from my eyes the second I’m inside my car. Jesse stands in the open doorway. The morning wind rustles his hair as he crosses his arms over his shirtless chest. I have to physically restrain myself from running back into those arms and into his bed. The pain I feel as I drive away is too real. It sits in my back, condensing my spine until it’s hard to stand. Losing him once was impossible. The idea of living through it a second time feels like a knife jammed in my chest.
I drive home on autopilot and pull into the spot outside my door. Making my way inside, I catch my reflection in the entryway mirror. I hate the girl staring back at me. The one who played with Jesse’s feelings. She doesn’t deserve a sweet man like that. Jesse is better off with Kim. She is good for him. He has her whole heart, not one that’s been bruised and battered and left for dead.
Another wave of tears breaches my lash line. I force myself into the shower, but no matter how hard I scrub, I can’t seem to get his fingerprints off my skin. Like his art tattooed on my hip, they leached under the flesh and made their home. I’ll have to live with them forever.
Steam rises around me, my skin red from the heat. I step from the scorching spray and wrap a
towel around my body, thankful for the condensation fogging the mirror. A knock on the door steals my attention. I tiptoe over and peek through the spyhole, but no one’s there. When I crack open the door, a bound parcel falls inside.
The moisture evaporates from my tongue. I lift the paper-covered package and carry it to the kitchen before breaking the twine with a knife to remove the wrapping.
Thick brushstrokes cover the canvas in bold colors of orange, peach, and black. A sheet cascades over a naked breast and twists under a slender leg. I touch the swaths of paint. Tears spill from my eyes like the red tendrils falling across painted pillowcases. Every detail, every line an intricate replica of my face bathed in peace as I slept in his bed after confessing my need for him.
Another bout of emotion bubbles up inside. My heart jerks toward the door, but my head keeps my feet in place. I can’t undo it, and I don’t want to.
Being with Jesse wasn’t a mistake.
It was wonderful and beautiful.
Yet I can’t shake the sick feeling inside me. The one that tells me I fucked it up. Everything we had changed over the course of one magical evening, and we can’t go back to what we were. It doesn’t work that way.
“ORDER UP! Grilled cheese, bacon, side of fries!” The cook, Marcio, throws a plate under the heat lamps.
“How’s that burger lookin’?” I ask.
“Next up.”
I loiter near the kitchen, waiting for the order as Allison pushes through the double doors. “Place is a zoo today.”
“Yeah. It’s good, though. Better than being dead.”
It’s a welcomed distraction. People flooding the doorway means I have no time to pick apart every little detail of the last twenty-four hours until I go insane. My thoughts fall like Tetris pieces, each one morphing its shape to fit into different positions.
What if I stayed and told him how I felt?
What if I owned up to my shame and faced it instead of running?
What if I threw in the towel and let him drag me into the pit of ecstasy again?
The questions never cease. The minute one ends, another starts. Alternate realities rolling on loop.
Marcio slides the burger next to the plate of grilled cheese. I snatch them both and back out into the dining room. Chatter competes with the ting of utensils touching ceramic. A gaggle of people loiter in the foyer, some waiting to be seated, others waiting to pay. I slip through the swarm unprepared for the shit-show waiting for me.
It all happens so fast. Fingers close around my ponytail and tug. I’m on my back. Hot food burns my chest and splatters on the floor. Pain radiates up shoulder. I’ve no time to react. Hands grab at my uniform as I struggle to get away. Then . . . it’s over.
I scramble to my feet, finally getting a look at my assailant.
Kim.
Held tight in Stavros’s grip, she flails her arms and legs. Heat rolls up my face as a million eyes watch, but all I see is her. I deserve this. Stavros should have let her kill me for what I did.
“Fucking whore!” she spits. Her irate thrashing clips a bowl of cookies. It flies off the counter in my vague direction, making a hollow thud on the floor. Jesse pushes through the stunned onlookers. He grabs her arm to pull her out, but she wrenches from his grasp. “No! You don’t get to touch me ever again.”
Her wounded gaze snaps to mine. She lurches toward me, but my manager holds tight. “Nothing between you, huh? Lying bitch!”
“If I let you go. You stop?” When Stavros opens his arms, Kim charges.
Jesse steps between us. “Kim, stop!”
Smacking skin follows next. Jesse’s head whips to the right. “Fuck you, Jesse,” she snarls, turning her glare in my direction before storming out. “He’s all yours, bitch!”
Red rage seeps across my manager’s bald head. “Show’s over! Clock out and go home!” Stavros yells, the veins bulging in his neck.
Whispers wave through the diner. Jesse steps forward, then settles back on his heel. “I’m sorry, Bird. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Lifting my hand, I turn my face as the uncontrollable tears hit my cheeks. “Just go away.”
Nausea hits like a tidal wave. I cover my mouth, running to the ladies’ room like my ass is on fire, and it all comes out in one huge blast. The culmination of my fucked-up situation wrenching from my body. My fingers curl over the cold porcelain, and my knees dig into the tile. The stink of lavender air freshener does nothing to compete with the rancid odor of vomit as I sob against the stall door.
“Bird?” Jesse’s voice echoes in the small space.
“What are you doing in here?” I reach for a length of tissue to wipe my shame.
“Look. I had to tell Kim. I can’t just go back to being her boyfriend after we f-f— after last night. I didn’t think she’d come here and lose her shit like that.” His boots thud on the floor, but I don’t move. I stay rooted to the time-worn tile as if I’m attached to it. “Would you just come out of the stall and talk to me? Please?”
“Last night shouldn’t have happened the way it did, Jess. I’m sorry.” I jam the heels of my palms into my eyes, trying to erase the image from the night before, but it just won’t go away. Every time my eyes flutter closed, all I see is Jesse’s face pinched with pleasure as he moved on top of me. My body shudders in response, but another memory fights for control. A diamond, a promise, and a future I thought I wanted. “Asher proposed.”
A beat of silence follows. “So, what was it then? One last romp before you settle into your charmed life?”
Heated sarcasm seeps under the door and wraps around my heart. “He got down on his knee and pulled out this gigantic ring—I mean, it was comically big—and he said all this sweet stuff about giving him another chance and how he can make me happy this time.” Emotion lodges the words in my throat. I swallow hard, pressing my lips together as it all comes flooding back.
Pausing, I clutch my sickened stomach as I force my way past it, but Jesse cuts in before I get the chance to finish. “Great. Wonderful. I hope you two are really happy together, Wren.” Anger punctuates the single syllable of my name and slices me open like a razor.
“I said no, Jess. I looked down at this ring sparkling in the lights, and I saw my whole life ahead of me. A huge house, kids, and Asher by my side. He offered me the world on a silver platter, but my five-second fantasy disappeared in the blink of an eye. It was an illusion. The second I considering marrying Asher, all I saw was you.
“I came to you with a purpose, but it was more than sex. You touched my heart when you touched my body and sealed the truth I’ve always known. There was never room for Asher in there because it’s always belonged to you. You took it with you when you left, and I never got it back.”
His voice deepens to a husky whisper. “That the truth?”
“That’s my truth. Now you tell me yours.”
Jesse’s pain oozes through the rusted metal before he even says a word. “Leaving you is the biggest regret of my life.”
“Then why did you?”
“He hurt me, Bird.” Jesse’s gravelly baritone is a barely there hum. Something’s not right. His home-life was seriously screwed, this much I know, but the details of what went on in that house have always been a mystery kept locked up tight behind humorous digs and smoldering smiles.
Slowly, I inch from the floor and shuffle to my feet in the confined space. “What did you say?” I ask, stepping from the stall.
A pink hue outlines the watery blue of Jesse’s eyes. “Dave. Erika’s dad.” He crumples in on himself, crouching on the tile, holding his knees to his chest. “I was nothing more than a punching bag. An unwanted piece of luggage my mother brought into their fucked-up relationship. But when he started coming into my room at night . . .” He pinches his lids against the memory, his face contorted in agony I feel in the cockles of my chest. “I didn’t want to leave you. I had to. It was a matter of survival.”
I fall to the floor at his side, my l
egs curled in front of me, mirroring his position. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shrugs, turning his face away. “It’s shameful. I’d rather die than see that look of pity shadowing your bright green eyes.”
My fingers catch under his chin and turn his head slowly. “What do you see when you look at me now?”
He thumbs across my cheekbone, and I lean into his touch, covering his hand with mine. “The beautiful girl standing in the hallway, lost and afraid. The girl who brought me back to life again and again, whether I deserved it or not. I should have told you how I felt, Bird, instead of dropping that disastrous kiss and walking away. If I could do it all again, I’d grab you and never let go, but I can’t change the past.” His candid honesty slices me open. It strips me bare, my heart free for him to hold. “Leaving you broke me worse than Dave ever could. Without you, I drifted into darkness. I lost my way. I needed you, your strength and your light. Your love. I needed it to make me strong.”
Tears well in my eyes, but I blink them away. “But you never came back. I waited and waited.”
“I didn’t mean to stay away so long, but the longer I was gone, the harder it got. My sweet Bird. You were born to fly. I’d only be a brick that dragged you down.”
For all these years, he thought he was unworthy. It crumbles my heart to dust. “That wasn’t your decision to make. It was mine.”
Jesse’s fingers sink into the loose strands of hair falling from my messy ponytail, his bottomless stare seeping into my soul. “I screwed up, but I’m here now, and I’m never leaving you again. I don’t care if it takes me a lifetime; I’ll never give up until you’re mine.” He closes his eyes, resting his forehead against mine. “I was your first kiss. I plan on being your last.”
CHAPTER 19
Wren
COLORFUL STREAKS SLASH across the sky, the setting sun beaming bold shades of orange. It cuts across my hardwood floor in zebra lines of dark and light, emanating from the sliding glass doors at the end of my living room.