by Lizzie Fox
“You wouldn’t.” She replied bluntly but didn’t elaborate.
I slid forward some across the sofa, closer to her. I almost reached out to touch her, as my hands so often itched to do. This was my dream girl, and she was so damned close, yet I couldn’t have her. I couldn’t touch her. And it was killing me. She frowned as I balked aside.
“Can I ask you something?” She asked finally after a few moments of uneasy silence.
“Sure. Ask me anything.”
“I noticed the medication in the bathroom,” she began with a nervous swallow, and I immediately frowned. Here it comes… the conversation I have dreaded. “Are you… do you have depression?”
I had the sense this answer had potential to change everything, for better or worse, and it wasn’t an easy answer for me. I sucked in a deep breath, ran my hands through my hair to push it out of my eyes—I really needed to cut the shit here soon—and answered bluntly. “Yes. I am bipolar. All those medications are for it, or my anxiety, or to help me sleep.”
She nodded slowly. “I… I thought so. Have you… ever tried to commit suicide? Have you ever tried to die?” She asked, her voice shaking and sounding absolutely terrified.
And here it is… the moment where this woman that I’ve been hard over for a year tells me to go fuck myself.
“Seth?”
I groaned quietly, leaning over at the waist and raking my hands through my hair, gripping the roots before I freaked out. “You have to understand that I never really wanted to die. You need to know that.” I glanced at her hesitantly, watching her gauge my words. She didn’t speak, but her eyes widened slightly. I slid my ass over on the sofa, getting closer but still keeping a safe distance, and I turned my forearm over and held it out between us. “I… cut myself. Usually it was to help like, ground my mind. I’d get so anxious, or so upset that everything inside would just… scream. And this was how I dealt with it. They’re a little hard to see, but why do you think I have all the ink? It covers a lot of the scars up, though quite a few of these are from after the ink.”
Jessalie lifted her hand and moved to brush her fingertips over the thin, white lines of angry raised skin, but she pulled away, embarrassed, like she did something wrong.
“It’s okay.” Even if she was touching my scars and acknowledging a very, very ugly part of myself, at least she was touching me, and currently I’d let her do just about anything, if that meant I could feel her touch me after so long of wishing for it.
She gingerly reached out again, and smoothed the very tips of her fingers over my forearm, tracing little patterns over the scars, linking them together, and discovering all the places that were hidden by the ink. A breath caught in my chest and I had to force my eyes open, because all I wanted to do was give into the electricity her touch sent pulsating through me. My damn cock and my heart alike were insanely aware of her presence…and all she was doing was touching my arm. She must have sensed me tense as I willed my dick to behave, and she pulled away.
“So you never tried to die?” She asked carefully, after a few moments of pensive silence.
“No. But… I did get close a couple of times when I went a little too deep or nicked an artery.” I frowned, not fond of the memories at all. “That was before the medication, though. And I have therapy once a week. You just haven’t seen me go recently because my therapist is on vacation for a couple of weeks.”
“I see.” Jessalie sank back into the cushions and tucked her shapely legs underneath her, and she wrung her hands in her lap as she looked at them.
“Is that what you’re afraid of? I’ll… die like your husband did?” I asked quietly. I slid closer to her—a daring, ballsy move—and carefully pushed a strand of her hair that had fallen out of her ponytail, and tucked it behind her ear.
“The thought had occurred to me,” she finally admitted quietly.
I sighed. “Look, Jessie, I can’t promise that I won’t do something stupid. But I work very, very hard to keep it in check. I never once wanted to die, but I just wanted my brain and body to stop freaking out. The music helps channel a lot of my nervous energy, and the guys have been really great to me. They’re like family. Because I don’t have any, really.”
Her gaze snapped upward, and the hand that was gently stroking the hair over her ear dropped to her shoulder.
“I don’t either,” she replied sullenly.
“Being alone is tough. That… doesn’t help things,” I added dryly.
“It really doesn’t.” She sighed quietly, straightening her legs some, and blushing when her feet accidentally brushed against the side of my leg. Her face flushed and she immediately jerked away. “Sorry.”
I just grinned. “Hey, if that’s all the touching I get from you, I’ll take it. No big deal.”
A ghost of a smile quirked her lips, and she tilted her head, eyeing me carefully. My breathing halted, again, when her gaze was fixated on my face… more specifically my mouth. Without realizing it, I had gently sucked in my piercing, and was licking it with the tip of my tongue. Something I always did without realizing it. I watched her pupils dilate some, and she leaned into me closer. Close enough where I could catch the scent of her sweet-smelling shampoo—I knew the scent already from the shower, and my heart slammed in my ribcage, anticipating just what she was going to do next.
Jessie lifted her hand, carefully slid it over my cheek, gently dipping lower until she cupped my jawline. This time, my eyes did flutter shut briefly, too electrified by her touch to be forced open. She closed the distance between us a bit more, and my gaze briefly dropped to her full breasts that peaked out from the V-neck of her t-shirt, and it was all I could do not to push my hand down over the rising problem in my pants that was aching for attention. I thought for the briefest of moments she was about to kiss me, when the pad of her thumb traced over the metal hoop in my lip. She smirked, and said, “I like this.”
Somewhat surprised, I flinched, but didn’t shy away. “Yeah? Then I’ll keep it.”
She chuckled gently, brushing that thumb over my bottom lip a couple times more before she let her hand fall into my lap—well, my leg. “You scare me, Seth Archer,” she said bluntly, completely out of the blue.
“I scare myself sometimes,” I replied, and she laughed gently. “But why do I scare you?”
“Because… you scare me for what I could feel,” she admitted as her jade-colored eyes searched my face intensely. Not sure what she was looking for, but I hoped like hell she would find it.
“And what could you feel?” I dared to ask.
A heartbeat or two passed before she answered. “Everything.” I couldn’t help the grin that spread over my mouth, that went all the way up to my eyes.
“That’s bad?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m not sure if I’m ready,” she confessed. “That’s the truth. I’m sorry if I’ve been… distant. Conflicted.”
I cocked a brow. “Is it… your husband?”
She frowned and nodded gently. “I… well, you don’t want to hear about that.”
“Did I say that?” I prompted.
“No…” She hesitated. Any hint of a smile she had faded, and patting my leg once, she stood and began walking away. “I’m going to take a shower.” I was tempted—so tempted—to reach out for her, grab her hand and pull her back into my lap but…that would be a risky move. She was skittish, and I’ll be damned if I was going to scare her off when we’d already made progress. Not much… but some.
She paused and turned to me. “Do you know any good pizza places? You’re not some like, Vegan person that can’t eat pizza are you?”
I laughed loudly. “Yeah, with how I eat if I went Vegan, I’d probably die.” She snorted along with me. “But… do you want me to get some? I don’t mind, it should be here by the time you get out of your shower.”
She pondered a moment before nodding. “Yeah. I’d like that. You don’t like all that pineapple and stuff on there do you?”
I gri
nned. “No, I like to keep it simple. Well… pizza anyway.”
“Good.”
“Okay then. That’s what I’ll do. Enjoy your shower,” I replied, hoping I kept the naughty smirk off my face as I actively tried to keep from thinking about her just feet away, totally naked and… unobtainable.
When she was gone, and I heard the bathroom door shut and she was out of earshot and sight, I flung myself backward onto the couch, whining quietly—and pathetically—to myself. Get yourself together, Archer, before you blow it with her before you even get started.
My forearm and cheek still tingled in the wake of her touch, even though she was long gone, and my pulse was still rapid. I’d never had this much of a reaction to so little from someone.
This was torture. But, I wasn’t giving up any time soon.
10
Jessalie
Get it together, Jess. Get it together.
He’s just a guy. A very hot guy, with the velvet voice of an angel, whose damn eyes make you want to drop all your walls and give in. To anything.
This guy—this damn guy I regretted more than anything not running into again after that night at the Lagoona—was here. Just downstairs, looking delectable and he seemed so very genuinely sweet. All I had to do was let my walls fall and let him in. And I’d finally get to experience for real what my mind only imagined for months: what all those tattoos looked like underneath his t-shirts, or how hot his skin would be under my fingers, or how that insanely sexy mouth of his would look if I made him laugh, or if his eyes would sparkle just like I thought they would when he was happy. If I made him happy.
Or…if I was being honest…what his lips would feel like against mine, the sounds he’d make if I dug my fingers into his shoulders, or how he’d sound when he moaned. If he even moaned.
Before losing Blake I never would have hesitated for a split second to make Seth mine. My body—and heart—called for him, and if that’s what they wanted, that’s what they’d get. And, until learning of his depression I’d been ready to do just that.
But… losing someone else that way; I wasn’t sure I could do that. No matter how vigilant I was… I didn’t notice how Blake was suffering. Maybe if I loved him harder, or paid more attention, or argued harder for him to get into better therapy or hog-tied and tossed him into the car and brought him to the hospital, because he always refused. “I’m fine,” he said. “I’d never harm myself.”
Bull. No one else was around him as much as I was. I should have seen the signs. I should have seen something. But I didn’t.
It was my fault he was gone. I’d never, ever forgive myself for it.
That’s why I settled for Adam. That’s why I put up with his indifference, his cruelty; I deserved it. I deserved it, and then some. I thought I loved him once, and at the beginning things weren’t bad. I knew things would never be like they were with Blake; that was a once in a lifetime thing. So I was okay without the spark. Without the all-consuming, heart-warming love, because lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice. My love was long, long gone… cold, lifeless, and buried.
But after a week or so of living with Seth, and watching him from a distance, I knew I was in danger of falling for him. I know he thought I was ignoring him but in reality I was doing anything but.
Before I was going to allow myself to feel things for Seth—and I’d be a fibber to say I already didn’t—I was going to learn as much about him as I could. That meant sitting online, perusing all of his songs, the videos on YouTube, the social media posts—everything.
On Spotify I now had a secret playlist of all of his songs, and the guys’—Night Addiction—actually made their own list of songs that influenced their music. Everything from The Cure to Def Leppard to Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins and LIVE, to newer acts like Black Veil Brides, Five Finger Death Punch, One Republic, and Shinedown; many of them songs I already had in my own playlist of preferences. After days of listening to and memorizing Night Addiction’s music, and of course Seth’s extremely sexy, deep rock-n-roller voice was just as amazing as I remembered.
There was a huge contrast from the performance I remembered at the Lagoona, to the most recent videos of theirs posted. Nothing official, just fan uploaded videos. At the Lagoona he was talented and commanding, but as time went on he was magnetic and hypnotizing. He wasn’t a dancer—the music didn’t call for that—but his mannerisms, posture, a hand-gesture, or just a look at the appropriate time just floored everyone. Something made apparent by the fact that most of the videos uploaded were from women, gushing about how cute or hot he was.
Seth Archer was the real-fucking deal. What he was still doing in a small town like Independence Point, I’d never know. I knew he could be huge, could rival the biggest music acts out there. But, he was here now and even though I couldn’t show it yet, I was glad he was.
Sometimes I liked to just hang back and quietly observe; perhaps it was the writer in me. People did the most amazing things that others wouldn’t think they’d even be capable of when they thought no one was watching and I noticed certain things about him. The way he always scraped his teeth or gently licked that piercing when he was feeling something intense, or when he was bored. Or the way he was constantly humming to himself so quietly he could barely be heard. He was just so consumed with his art that it just was second nature to him. Or the way his brow—the one with the piercing in it—was always just slightly arched, even when he wasn’t trying to do it, and he always seemed to have a playful, permanent smirk. And it was sexy as hell.
I noticed his eyes on me every time I entered the room, and I felt their absence every time I left. He always appeared like he wanted to say or do something, but he bit his tongue. And, I had a feeling for Seth, who was probably as impetuous as I was, that was next to impossible for him to do. Yet, because I was clearly a scaredy-cat when it came to love… he was doing it anyway.
Why couldn’t I just allow myself to feel what I’m feeling? You’re attracted to Seth Archer. You want to get lost in those hazel eyes, run your hands through that thick, black hair, and trace your fingers over all those tattoos on his arms. You did a year ago at the Lagoona. You do right now.
Why did it scare me so much, though?
Because I could see it; the one who could finally make me move on from Blake. And I wasn’t sure I wanted that to happen because if that happened, that meant Blake was officially, truly, really gone. At least in my mind.
It didn’t make any sense to me either, it was just how I felt. It felt…dishonest. Like I was betraying him. But, how was it possible to betray a ghost?
I leaned against the sweaty tile of the shower, letting the spray fall down the front of my body, and I twisted the ring on my right hand, like I was silently communicating with Blake. For what? I didn’t know really. Permission? Forgiveness? A tear blurred my eyes and started to slide down my cheek. What the hell was this guy doing to me?
Shit. I slid down the slippery wall, and fell to my knees, a jumble of mixed emotions, but entirely overwhelmed.
Maybe, just maybe it was time to move on, or at least try.
For now though… all I could commit to was going downstairs and sharing a pizza. So, I stood up, took a deep breath, washed myself down from head to toe from my walk and emerged. I didn’t need to be afraid. It was just pizza… and he was just a man.
A gorgeous man who was literally every single one of my fantasies for the past year come true.
Yeah. I was screwed.
11
Seth
By the time Jessie emerged from the bathroom, some forty minutes later, the pizza had already arrived. Her hair was still slightly damp, and she’d changed out of her walking clothes into… well….
I tried not stare at her round ass in a pair of black leggings, or the rest of the curves of hers under a deep forest green long sleeved shirt that clung to everything. Seriously, were women aware of how hot that was? Those tight, clingy clothes that left plenty to the imagination, but
just enough hint of what you were missing? Or were they just comfortable? Little of both? Perhaps I was just a complete sucker for her.
Fuck, these jeans… I was going to have to invest in something new here, soon. All I had besides them were a couple pairs of cotton pajama pants—and that certainly wouldn’t help the situation that was growing larger by the moment.
“Wow, that was fast!” Jessie said, eyeing the spread of three pizzas and two orders of garlic breadsticks. “Are you planning on leftovers? Dang!”
“Ha, maybe. I’ll eat a lot of it, though,” I said, with a shrug. “Where should we sit?”
“Oh, on the couch or something. It’s stain proofed or whatever. I don’t care. Tables are too formal, don’t you think?” She retrieved some plates from a cabinet across the room. “How much was it?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I replied, as she handed me a blue plate. Raising a scowling brow, I waved her off. “Trust me, it’s fine. Least I could do.”
“Well… thanks then,” she said, smiling gently, and I carefully watched as she filled her plate, and I followed her to the sofa. Her overall demeanor seemed a bit lighter, and I wondered what changed.
“Are you seriously going to eat all that?” She asked skeptically.
“What?” I asked innocently, glancing at my plate. Yeah, I’d stacked five slices and three breadsticks on it. “This? This is nothing.”
“Wow… if I ate all that… well let’s just say it wouldn’t be pretty,” she said, with a dry chuckle. “I get fat too easily.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You are not fat.” I hoped I wasn’t too obvious as my eyes roved the length of her body while she sat opposite of me, folded onto the couch with her legs curled alongside her. My teeth scraped over the piercing in my lip as I sucked it in. Yeah, not fat. Curves. Lots of curves; a dangerous swoop of her waist, leading to voluptuous hips, shapely legs…