“Please,” she whispered.
Oh Christ, if she was going to start begging, he’d never last. She made room for him between her legs, curled her arms over his neck. That touch seared through his skin, down to the marrow of his bones. No matter where he was, years from now, he’d remember the exact and specific sensation of her arms around his neck, her breath in his ear.
But still he hesitated.
“Are you …” sure, ready, okay? He shook his head, struggled to pull himself together to not be just a bag of dumb lust and blind sensation. She deserved far better than that.
She shifted under him, found his erection with her hands, and positioned him, there. Right there where he could feel through the latex, through his skin, the answer to his questions.
Yes. She was sure. Yes. She was ready. Yes. She was okay.
And then, still holding him, she arched and he slid inside of her.
She was the instrument of her own glory, her own pleasure.
Incendiary. He couldn’t breathe for the heat and squeeze of her.
“Here,” she sighed, pulling him tight against her, slipping her legs up over his knees. She arched her back and lifted herself, using him, dragging herself over him. “Just … just like that.”
Still no kissing.
“Monica,” he breathed.
“Yes.” It was a sigh. Acceptance. Invitation. “More.”
Fine. No kissing. She was pliant against him, a willing shore for him to break against. And he took her, with long, smooth, hard strokes. She braced her hand against the headboard, pushing against him, chasing him down. He sat back on his heels, pulled her legs higher up over his, used his hands at her waist, pulling her, pushing her, lifting her.
She dug her heels into the blankets beside him, shifting him off balance, and he caught himself against the headboard, driving high and hard into her.
“Yes!” she cried. “Oh God. Yes.” Her legs curled around his waist, her strong, muscular thighs holding him tight against her. “There,” she breathed as her hands came around his back, under his arms. “Right … right there.”
Her head kicked back, her hair an ebony splash across the pillow. He watched her as he pushed into her, all the way down, all the way in. He would touch her heart if he could. Captivated by her, by the twitch of her lips, the long sweep of her eyelashes, the way her body squeezed him. The coil of her muscles, the way he could feel … there … at the bottom of his stroke … her tremble.
It built, they built. The walls could have come down and he would have been unable to look away. Unable to stop.
“Jackson—”
He bent his head, bracing his forehead against hers. They were sweating, breathing hard. He licked her throat, sucked at the skin near her ear, and it was good. So good. And he couldn’t control it for much longer. He slipped a hand down her body, over her breasts. She gasped when he touched her nipple and he pulled it, squeezing it harder, to hear her moan. He wanted her in pieces in his arms. He wanted her screaming. Crying his name. Driven suddenly by the ticking clock of his own orgasm, he bent his head to pull a nipple into his mouth, and his fingers found where he was sliding into her. He touched her stretched skin that accepted him with such beautiful grace.
She bucked against him. “What …? Oh God, again. Do … do that again.”
He smiled against her breast and used his fingers against her, against himself. He shuddered, holding on by only a thread.
“Come on, come on,” he breathed, prayed really.
And then suddenly she was one long contraction. He felt every muscle in her body seize and he was caught in the grip of her thighs. He closed his eyes, braced his hands against the headboard, and rode it out.
The sigh of his name, the sudden languid nature of her body—it told a story. He looked into her eyes and saw it there too. Not a show. It was real.
“You’re magnificent,” he told her without hyperbole.
“Your turn,” she whispered.
Unleashed, he thrust into her, holding her, positioning her so he felt her from base to tip. A growl roared out of him, the orgasm rolled through him, and he exploded.
Chapter 16
He was a sweaty, heavy mess on top of her and she delighted in it. Curling her arms around his wide swimmer’s back, she let him shake and twitch against her, sighing her name.
She relished it—the tickle, the sweat, the squish between her legs—the messiness of it all. The messiness was real. Honest. And how beautiful it was. She blinked away the prick of tears behind her eyes, not because she was embarrassed by them, but because she didn’t want him to be wounded—to think the worst. And maybe she didn’t want to talk about it just yet. This feeling—this buoyant gratitude—she wanted to keep it to herself for a while.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, pushing himself up and away. “I must be crushing you.” A bead of sweat dripped from the damp edges of his hair onto her breast. He touched the drop with his thumb and she quaked, just quaked with ticklish pleasure. “I’m sweating on you.”
“You are,” she murmured, smiling up at him.
He rolled to the side, turning away from her to handle the even messier reality of the condom. He stood and tossed it in the trash.
“I … brought up the bottle,” Monica said, pushing herself up on the bed. She reached to the side and grabbed the decanter she’d snuck upstairs. “There’s a coffee cup in the bathroom you can use.”
“Great,” he sighed, as if still trying to catch his breath.
She could relate. Her heart had stopped pounding, but she still felt somehow behind herself, unable to catch up with all that had just happened.
Shamelessly naked, he came back into the room holding the coffee cup. He stopped to look at her, and she felt his gaze up her legs, across her belly, her breasts. She wanted to stretch under that gaze, invite him back to stroke her.
“That was—”
“Great,” she said. She wasn’t sure if he had misgivings, or doubts, but she wanted them gone. What had happened on that bed was spectacularly authentic.
Like a jungle cat, all sleek and coiling muscles, he crawled up the bed but then ruined the image by flopping down beside her, pushing his messy hair off his forehead.
She filled his coffee cup with more than the recommended serving size of scotch and settled up against the headboard, too happy, too relaxed, to be worried about her nudity or about these dangerous foreign feelings taking root in her chest.
“I was surprised to see you tonight,” he said after a long sip and a sigh, as if the scotch was just what he was missing. “I didn’t know you were interested in the parade stuff—I would have made sure you knew about it.”
“I wasn’t interested.” He laughed, and she realized how bad that sounded. How blunt. “No, it was fun. It really was. But I think … I think the truth is, I didn’t want to be alone.”
That seemed like a confession. A declaration. She was putting a flag in the ground and was deeply uncomfortable doing it. But it felt so necessary. She turned her own coffee cup in quarter-turns in her hands.
“I talked to Jerome Hennings today. He was the first officer on the scene the night my dad was shot.” She shook her head. Her memory of that night was so cloudy and while she might not remember the events so well, she’d had a stance on them. A point of view, a way of referencing them so that they made sense in her head. Dad was shot. Murdered. But now … all this new information. These details that knocked her down and pushed her around, shaking that stance. “I don’t even know what to call that night anymore. I used to say the night Dad was murdered. But that doesn’t seem right anymore. And maybe … maybe it’s the night my mom was almost killed. Or the night I was nearly kidnapped.” She was suddenly tense. Angry even, the sweetness from moments ago gone. It was as if she’d pushed them up against one of the electric fences that encircled the things she just didn’t want to talk about.
I don’t want my life to be like this. Full of relationships so shallow bec
ause she was scared to talk about the things that mattered, the things that kept her up nights. The things that made her Monica.
Who will know me if I don’t let them in?
“It can’t be easy talking about that night,” he whispered, giving her an out. It’s okay, his voice said. We don’t have to talk about it.
“You know,” she laughed, to cover the dark bruise forming on her psyche, “it’s not. It’s not at all. It’s awful. But it’s helped me see where some of this ‘I am an island’ bullshit I’ve been telling myself came from.”
“You are an island?”
“Or a lone wolf, depending on how I feel that day.” Joking about it was a defense, she knew that, but she was opening herself up in baby steps here.
“What about Jenna?” he asked. “Your friend.”
She ran a hand through her knotted hair, the small snags distracting her from the larger ache memories of Jenna brought up. “We were very close while I wrote the groupie book. We pulled each other out of the lowest points of our life and then, once we had our acts together … we drifted. I think the memories that each of us carried for the other were really painful, so it was easier to let each other go so we wouldn’t have to be reminded of that part of our life. But then she came to a signing in Nashville and we had dinner. And she told me she was sick and … everything kind of snapped into focus. I realized how alone I was and how alone she was, and I didn’t want that for her at the end.”
“You’re a good friend,” he said.
“I think … I think I just did what I would want someone to do for me.”
He ran a finger across the back of her hand. “I understand feeling alone.”
“Oh, please,” she said. “You’re surrounded by friends. By people. Everyone in this town loves you.”
He stared at her for a long moment, a kind of bewildered surprise on his face, but then it was gone, vanished behind that smile he wore so easily.
“You’re right,” he said and took a drink, waving her off. “I’m just addled by great sex.”
Immediately she realized what an asshole she sounded like. Who the hell was she to shrug off his loneliness just because it didn’t look like hers?
“I’m so sorry, that was unfair of me.”
“Well, trust me, I know how ridiculous it sounds but sometimes, like tonight, I can be in a crowd of people who are my friends, who have known me my whole life, and I feel … alone. Part of it is my own fault, I know that. When I first moved back, everyone wanted to help and I held them all at arm’s length, you know. I just circled the wagons and concentrated on my sister.”
“You isolated yourself.”
“Well … I don’t know how much of it was a choice, and how much of it was just the way things turned out.”
She wanted to ask if he really believed that, but she could tell by his face that he did. He was somehow distanced from all those choices he’d made and the long-term ramifications of them.
“How did you become mayor?” she asked.
At his sudden tension, she guessed she’d brushed up against one of his electric fences. And she wondered if he’d brave it out to answer her, or if he’d even consider that brave. But then he relaxed, his leg resting against hers. The hair above his knee tickled, so she pressed harder against him. Past the tickle, until it felt … right.
“I had a degree and a year of law school. When I moved back, there was nothing for me to do. Besides, obviously, take care of my sister. But I was living in a house that smelled like my mom. Pictures of my dad were everywhere but I had nothing of my own. What twenty-two-year-old does? After the initial shock wore off and Gwen got a little more settled, I did some odd jobs for the city. But I was just … passing time. I wasn’t doing anything. Dad was mayor when I was a kid and I remembered watching him walk through town …” The smile he gave his coffee cup was beautiful. Sad and sweet and young and a million years old, all at the same time. “Well, it seemed like it would be an all-right job. So, I ran for mayor and walked into that office to a disaster. I mean, a disaster. And I tried to contain it as much as I could.”
“Contain it?”
“It’s not like it’s a secret, but the details and how bad it really was, I tried to keep under wraps.”
Of course he did, she thought.
“So who knows?” she asked. “Who really knows how hard you’re working to keep this town afloat?”
“You.” He kissed her shoulder.
“I’m serious, Jackson. Who else knows?”
“The city treasurer. City Hall staff. Shelby. I don’t know, why does it matter?”
“Your sister?”
He shot her an incredulous look. “Why in the world would I tell her?”
It said so much, that look on his face. About his relationship with his sister. The town. The distance between him and everyone else in his life.
“This is a bad heavy secret and you shouldn’t have to carry it on your own.” Secrets were isolating, she knew that. Had been locked behind her own for years.
He made a face, clearly uncomfortable, and she knew she should stop pushing him. But she had this strange knowledge on the other side of her own secret. This delicious weightlessness.
“Tell me what you’re going to do after you save this town. What does Superman do for an encore?”
“I’m leaving.”
“What?”
“I’m leaving town.”
“Forever?”
“If I can. Yes.”
Monica blinked at him, stunned. She couldn’t even pull her mouth closed.
“What?” He laughed—he actually laughed. “Gwen’s going to college, so there’s no reason for me to stay.”
“Where will you go?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll backpack through Europe. Go to Vegas. Hide out on some beach in Mexico.”
“When?”
“Election’s at the end of August. Seven weeks away.”
“And then … you’re gone?”
“Gone.”
Ah, she thought, bundling the sting in her chest in the comforting embrace of sarcasm. And here I was starting to feel something for the man.
“Don’t make that face at me, Monica.” She realized she was making a face, something between shock and horror. The current between them got colder and she pulled the sheet up her body, suddenly aware of her nudity. “It’s not selfish. It’s not juvenile. My life got cut short. You said it yourself. There were things I wanted to do. Places I wanted to see and now, with Gwen going to school, now I get the chance.”
“Does she know you’re leaving town?” He turned away, color on his cheeks. Monica gasped. “You haven’t told her.”
Jackson stood and began pulling on his clothes.
“She won’t care. She’s independent. That’s what every single counselor said. She’s older than her years.” So much of what Gwen had told her about the adults in her life made sense now. Even if Jackson hadn’t told her, she clearly knew he was keeping secrets.
“Don’t you think it’s weird you haven’t told her?”
“No. I’ve just … I’ve just been waiting for the right time. She’s been in this mood, and now with the show there just hasn’t been the right time.”
“A mood?” Oh, she was so offended on Gwen’s behalf. “Don’t trivialize her because you’re a coward!”
“She’s leaving!” he cried. “Why should she care what I do?”
“Because you are her home, Jackson.”
That made him pause, as if he didn’t quite understand what she was saying or didn’t want to, but then he shook his head.
“We don’t have that kind of relationship.” He pulled his shirt over his head.
And whose fault is that? she thought.
“Have you ever talked to your sister about your parents? The accident?”
“All we did was talk,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed to pull on his socks. “For like a year it was endless counselors. Endless talking. We proces
sed the fuck out of Mom and Dad dying. How long are we supposed to talk?”
“I think forever, Jackson.”
He glanced at her over his shoulder, pausing for a minute in his readiness to flee. And when he stood she saw a new edge to him, something defensive and angry, and she braced herself for the slice.
“You learn that on your island, Monica? Two bullshit writing classes and you think you know my sister? You think you know us?”
Being prepared for it didn’t make the pain any less intense. She breathed through the sting.
“I know what not talking does,” she said. “I know the wounds that fester. Look at your sister, Jackson, and tell me something’s not festering.”
His silence was all the answer either of them needed. Jackson might be a fool, but he wasn’t an asshole, not quite.
“I’m sorry,” he said, standing like razor wire at the foot of the bed.
“No. You’re not.”
“Monica—”
“Thank you for the sex, Jackson. Go talk to your sister.” The shame in this situation wasn’t hers, and she met his eyes for a long time.
“This … this isn’t how I wanted it to end,” he told her, his hand flung out toward the bed with its wrinkled sheets, the smell of their sweat drying in their folds.
“Me neither. But you can’t insult me and think you’re welcome back in my bed.”
If only she’d had this strength ten years ago. It was so damn astounding to stand here on her own terms, despite the pain, despite the part of her that wanted him back in her bed no matter the cost to her.
“Go, Jackson,” she said, lying back down. The sheet slipped, revealing her breast, a nipple puckered in the cool air, and she let him see it, a reminder of what he’d just thrown away. Never in her life had she played hard-to-get—never had she held herself out as a prize to be won. “You’re not the man I thought you were.”
* * *
The next morning, Jackson wanted to wake up relieved that Dean and the film crew were gone. He wanted to walk through town, proud of himself. Confident that he’d done all he could. But instead he’d barely slept, and his alarm clock rang while he was staring up at the ceiling—Monica’s words in his ears.
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