The Pain in Loving You

by Steiner, Kandi

  “Fuck,” I whispered, chest aching with want. He hooked his hand behind one knee and brought it to his shoulder, allowing him better access, and his tongue slid along my opening before circling my clit. He sucked hard, sliding two fingers inside me at the same time, and the leg holding me up shook. “Oh, God.”

  “Mmm,” Jamie hummed against me, fingers deep and working with the rhythm of his mouth. The front of me was still wet from his shirt, my back slick with sweat against the glass, and my leg trembled as I balanced. He was so skilled, such an expert with his tongue, with my body. He knew me well — too well — and maybe that had always been my downfall. No one knew me like Jamie. No one ever would.

  I was on the brink of coming when Jamie dropped my leg, crawling back up my body slowly, lips dragging against every inch of my skin as he did. My hands were still high on the glass and when Jamie saw, he smirked, eyes finding mine with a new heat. “Such a good girl.”

  He backed up, no longer touching me, and slowly, he peeled his wet t-shirt off and let it fall to the floor in a wet heap. His eyes were hooded, jaw jutted up and lip between his teeth as he unbuckled his belt. Jamie was practically fucking me with his eyes as his hands undressed himself, and I squirmed, aching and ready. He pulled a condom from his wallet before kicking off his jeans, and I swallowed, body remembering before my brain what it would feel like to have him inside me again. When he finally dropped his briefs, his erection sprang forward, and my mouth watered. He was so hard, all for me, and that fact obliterated any self-control I thought I had left.

  I pushed forward, hands leaving their hold on the glass and reaching for him, instead. But Jamie caught my wrists, backing me into the glass and spinning me until my breasts and cheek were pressed into the glass. One hand held my wrists in place and the other dragged the wrapped condom down my arm, my ribs, the small of my back before he hooked my hips and pulled me back against him. His cock lined my ass and I whimpered, knowing just a few inches of movement could land him where I wanted him.

  “Do you moan like that for him?” Jamie asked, the tip of his nose running the back of my neck. “Does he touch you like I do?” He sucked my skin between his teeth and his hand snaked around to find my clit. I should have been angry, I should have thrown him off and realized then what I was doing. But I was blinded by lust, high for the first time in years, and his words only pushed me further into the addict state of mind.

  Jamie pushed back, all contact lost, and I heard the rip of the condom wrapper. I breathed hard exactly five times before his hands pulled my hips into him, back arching, and he positioned himself at my opening. I turned my head, lips on the glass, breath fogging up against the rainy night — and then, he filled me, slowly, centimeter by centimeter, burning and stretching and murdering my attempt at rehab once again.

  “Goddamn,” he breathed, pulling out before gliding in again, this time a little harder, a little deeper. He repeated the motion, each time thrusting me into the glass, and I stared out at the rain-soaked city, wondering if it shielded us from the other high-rises or put us on a more prominent display. I didn’t care. Let everyone watch, let everyone see my weakest and most euphoric moment.

  Jamie’s hands snaked into my hair and he tugged, pulling my hair tie loose, my throat exposed to the city as he rammed into me from behind. He sucked the lobe of my ear between his teeth and chills raced across my skin. Every touch was too much, every kiss too hot. He was consuming me, taking me under, my fight completely lost.

  He was close, I could feel the tension in his muscles, the shortness in his breath, but he lifted me suddenly, breaking our contact and carrying me to the couch. I always loved how effortlessly he carried me, like I weighed nothing, like his strength was unstoppable. He touched me with such a gentle, yet firm demand. I felt safe with Jamie. Always.

  He threw boxes off the couch, sitting on the middle cushion and pulling my thighs forward until I straddled him. My knees hit the cushion and I leaned forward, bracing on either side, and lowered myself down slowly. We moaned in unison, and Jamie’s head fell back.

  Which left him staring up at me.

  For a moment, we moved slow, his eyes locked on mine, his hands wrapped around my waist. We breathed together, bodies slick with water and sweat, and I felt it. I felt every ounce of pain, of abandonment — all the emotions I’d fought into a closet over the last two years broke down the door and flooded out. Jamie’s brows bent as one tear fell down my cheek and he caught it with his thumb, wiping it against my bottom lip before pulling my mouth to his. He kissed me with a promise I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear, because in that moment, I wasn’t thinking. I only wanted to feel. I wanted to burn.

  You know, they say that Bill Wilson asked for whiskey as his dying wish. The man was dying, at the end of the line, and he wanted the one vice he’d been fighting all his life. Even the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous wanted whiskey on his deathbed.

  And so I laid in mine, hand around the bottle, lips pressed to the rim, and I didn’t regret a single minute of the night I sealed my fate.

  Not one.

  • • •

  I regretted everything.

  “Oh God.”

  Those were the first two words out of my mouth when I woke the next morning, lying in bed with Jamie, his arm across my stomach. My eyes adjusted to the light streaming in through the window, the sky a bright gray, and I counted the half-packed boxes. Boxes I would be moving. Moving into my fiancé’s house.

  My fiancé.

  “Oh God.”

  I threw Jamie’s arm off, scrambling to my feet with the sheet still wrapped around me. It twisted at my ankles and I fell, squeaking. Jamie popped up then, hair mussed, eyes still half-closed.

  “Wha— you okay?”

  Popping back up, I wrapped the sheet tighter, lifting the fabric from around my ankle and storming over to my closet. “No,” I said firmly, closing the door to the closet behind me and dropping the sheet. I pulled on the first pair of jeans and shirt I found, still hopping into them as I spoke through the slits in the door. “No, Jamie, I am not fucking okay.”

  “What’s going on?”

  His voice was gravelly, thick with sleep, and it made me want to curl up with him. I kicked myself internally, huffing as I threw the door open, now fully dressed.

  “Oh, I don’t know. There’s a naked man in my bed and it’s not the one I’m engaged to.”

  Jamie scrubbed a hand down his face, watching me as I paced. “You’re not getting married.”

  “What? Of course I am,” I scoffed.

  Jamie’s eyes widened then, like my words were a shot of scalding espresso. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Listen, last night was a—” I paused, waving my hands, still pacing.

  “A what?” Jamie asked, standing. He was still naked, abs hard and rippling down to a V that pointed straight to the promise land. I tried not to stare, failed, and made a face when he didn’t even attempt to cover himself. “A mistake?”

  My brows bent together and I crossed my arms, meeting Jamie’s eyes and regretting it immediately. Too many thoughts were flowing through me, each one combatting the one that preceded.

  “Don’t you fucking say it, B. Don’t you say it was a mistake.”

  I cleared my throat, eyes on the window behind him. “I’m engaged,” I croaked, and Jamie let out a loud growl, cursing and running both hands through his hair before storming into the living room. I followed, guilt swallowing me. All I could see was Brad’s face, his smile, his trusting eyes. He would be so hurt if he found out what happened. The man who saved me from myself, and I repaid him by falling back into bed with the man who broke me in the first place.

  So fucking stupid.

  “I can’t believe you did this to me!” I screamed as Jamie tugged on his briefs. He swiped his jeans off the floor next, angrily shoving one leg in before the other. “I was happy, I was okay, I let you go. And then you just show up here, after two years without a single word,
and you—”

  “You’re not happy. You’re numb. There’s a difference.”

  My mouth popped open. “Don’t tell me what I am, Jamie Shaw! If you’re so desperate to tell me something, how about telling me why you never called? Huh?”

  “Does it really matter?” He threw back, pulling his shirt over his head. It was wrinkled from the rain, but he still looked mouthwatering in it. “You said you’d wait, and I said I’d come. Why did you give up? Why are you trying to push me away right now?”

  “Because this isn’t right! This,” I said, motioning to my empty living room between us. “Isn’t okay. We’re toxic, Jamie. All we do is hurt each other, hurt the ones who love us, hurt ourselves.” I was trembling, and Jamie noticed. He exhaled, moving toward me like he wanted to comfort me, but I held up a hand to stop him. “Don’t.”

  Jamie paused, and for a moment we were both silent, the seriousness of the moment settling in around us like dust after a demolition.

  “You want to know why I never called?” he asked, his voice low. “You think that will make you feel better? Because it won’t.”

  I didn’t answer, and Jamie sighed.

  “B, I signed the wedding certificate the morning of the wedding. That was always the plan, sign the certificate before the day began so we wouldn’t have to worry about it, and then we could put it away somewhere safe, and take it to the courthouse on Monday.”

  My stomach fell hearing about Angel. “Okay…”

  “I signed it. Before I found out what she did.” He sniffed, eyes connecting with mine. “After I left, she signed it, too. And that Monday, when I was trying to figure out my plan of attack to handle shit with her and get to you as fast as I could, she showed up at my house, claiming we were officially married. She went to the courthouse without me, B. We were legally married.”

  My heart stopped, for three long seconds, and started again with a kick. “Oh my God.”

  “Yeah,” Jamie said, stepping closer. “At first, she begged for me to take her back, to make it work, but obviously, I refused. Then, she got her lawyer involved, and they said they’d go after me for everything because I’d been cheating on her with you.” He laughed, shaking his head. “They had camera footage of us together in the hotel on what was supposed to be my wedding night with Angel.”

  My head was spinning, and I reached for the back of the couch, holding it to steady my shaking legs.

  “If it was just my Jeep, or just my shitty house she wanted, I wouldn’t have cared, B. But my father made me partner — officially. It was my wedding gift. And she wanted to take that, too. She wanted half of everything, if not more. She…” his voice trailed off, and I saw in his eyes that it was painful to even talk about any of this with me. “I got a lawyer. I had to block your number, my family, too. Until it was all resolved, any phone call or email or message on Facebook could have incriminated me. It didn’t matter that she’d admitted to cheating the night before our wedding, because in the court’s eyes, we’d still gotten married anyway. It was the biggest fucking mess, all of it, and I hated working with slimy lawyers and an even slimier ex. I hated waiting. But the only thing that kept me going was knowing that you were waiting, too. For me.”

  I tried to swallow, but came up dry. I had to sit. I fell to the arm of the couch, hand over my mouth.

  “The day Angel finally gave up,” he continued, his voice lower now, gruff and sad. “The day I received the finalization of our divorce? That was the same day I received your wedding invitation.” He choked on a laugh. “Talk about sick irony.”

  I shook my head, too many times, temples pounding as my thoughts raced to catch up. “You should have called me. Somehow.”

  “I did! I called you from what I’m pretty positive is the only payphone still in existence, several times, and you never answered,” Jamie shot back, chest heaving.

  All the unknown numbers…

  My temples throbbed again and I kneaded them with my forefingers, still shaking. “You thought I would wait, and I thought you changed your mind.”

  Jamie moved to me then, slowly, as if he was waiting for me to stop him. Then, he bent at the knee to meet me at eye-level. “I could never change my mind about you.”

  I pulled away from his nearness. It was too much. It burned, and not in the way I loved. “No. No, you should have found a way. You gave up too easily. You should have answered my call, or had your lawyer call me, or told Jenna, or fucking smoke signaled. This is too much. You abandoned me.”

  Words flew from my mouth, but none of it made sense. I felt everything crashing in at once, the universe laughing in the background. It had won again. Timing laughed with it.

  “Stop doing this! Stop self-destructing, stop making this harder than it has to be,” Jamie said, exhausted. “Maybe you’re right, okay? Maybe I should have figured out a way to reach you, but I didn’t, because you were supposed to wait. And none of that matters now, want to know why?” He touched my chin, lifting my eyes to his. “Because you still love me. And I love you.”

  I flew off the couch, running my hands through my hair before spinning to face him again. “No, it does matter. Because I’m getting married.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am!”

  Jamie stood, jaw tight. “You’re not marrying anyone but me.”

  I scoffed, and even as the laugh left my lips, his words sent a harsh yet warming zinger straight to my core. I loved hearing him say that, and hated myself for loving it.

  “You can’t do this. You can’t walk in here, at the one time I finally have my life together, and make me rip it to shreds.” The tears didn’t slowly build and bubble over, they struck fast, glossing my eyes after one blink and sliding down my cheeks with the second one. “All we do is hurt. All we do is destroy, and one of us is always picking up the pieces, trying to move on or forget or not get our hopes up. It’s sick. We’re toxic.” I was crying harder now, and once again Jamie reached for me, but I backed away. “And now, I risked everything I have to be with you last night, because I literally can’t say no to you.” I shook violently then. “I cheated on a man who didn’t deserve it, on a man who wants to spend his life with me, on a man I love, all because of my inability to let you go.” I cried, tears streaming freely, hot and scarring down my cheeks. “Your love is poisoning me, Jamie!”

  He cracked, something between a sob and a groan rumbling in his throat as his face twisted. Jamie crossed the room in three steps, shaking his head and mumbling no before pulling me into him. He held me tight, and I fought against another sob until he bent, his lips pressing into mine. I shoved him back hard.

  “Stop it! Stop! You have to go, you have to leave, Jamie.” My breaths were wild, voice too high-pitched.

  Jamie stood there, staring at me, willing me with that damn stare of his to change my mind. When I didn’t, he growled, punching a box of pans as he passed it and I jumped with the noise. I didn’t watch him leave, didn’t watch his back move through the door, didn’t see his face when he whispered that he’d always love me, didn’t hear the slam of the door behind him. All I heard was my heart, beating in my ears. All I saw was my hands, hitting the ground, tears falling to land next to them. All I felt was everything — every aching, shitty thing that had ever existed. Guilt, regret, love, lust, desperation, want, need, pain, fear, loss — all of it, all at once, like being caught inside a huge wave that broke just in front of me, swallowing me down into the depths of a dark, cold ocean of feelings I’d avoided for so long.

  I don’t know how long I stayed crumpled there on the floor, or how long I cried before my tears dried up along with my voice and I just laid there. My phone rang in the other room, but I didn’t move. I soaked in my regret, in the horrific pain that only comes with a relapse, and I paid my penance.

  I’d never hated myself more than in that moment.

  • • •

  I was still sore from Whiskey the night Brad and I finalized our wedding song.


  And three months later, on the date that had been crumpled on an invitation between Jamie’s hands in my apartment, I married Bradley Neil. I wore the white dress, he wore the black tux, we danced and ate cake and I smiled through it all. But it was a dead smile, a smile that never reached the corners of my lips, and I wondered if I’d ever smile again.

  I wondered a lot of things.

  I wondered if it was Jamie I saw escaping the back of the church when the priest asked him to speak now or forever hold his peace. Was that him, or had I just imagined it?

  I wondered if the gaping hole where Jamie’s warm buzz used to exist would ever close, if I’d ever get that part of myself back, or if it’d always belong to him.

  I wondered if there would ever be a day, a single day in my entire life, where I would truly shake my addiction.

  When I closed my eyes on my wedding night as Brad slipped between my thighs and thought of Jamie instead, I knew I never would. No matter what I said, no matter what I did, my addiction to Whiskey would always live on.

  Whether I fed it or not.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  A Love Letter to Whiskey

  SO NOW, WE’RE ALL caught up.

  It’s crazy how fast the buzz comes back after you’ve been sober for so long.

  I opened my door and felt tipsy just at the sight of him, eyes blurring and legs shaking. It used to take me at least a shot to get to this point, but my tolerance level had been weakened by distance and time, and just seeing him warmed my blood. I gripped the knob tighter, as if that’d help, but it was like trying to chug water after passing the point of no return.

  Whiskey stood there, on my doorstep, just like he had one year before. Except this time, there was no rain, no anger, no wedding invitation – it was just us.

  It was just him – the old friend, the easy smile, the twisted solace wrapped in a glittering bottle.