by Lux,Vivian
No, now I was hard.
"Liliana." I said her real name, not the nickname that I had given her, that everyone had immediately adopted because it just suited her so well. I wanted to touch her face, feel her soft skin warm under my fingertips again. Every girl I had been with since she left was just an exercise in trying to forget. But my body hadn't forgotten at all. I knew exactly how she would feel if I touched her now.
"Jaxson." She still sounded pissed, but this time more at herself. She shook her head, and then her whole body. "Would you please cover that thing up? And get out of the bathroom, I have to pee."
Chapter Nine
Liliana
I finished and yanked my underwear back up again, the damp fabric clinging unpleasantly to my legs. Goddamn Jax. Seeing him step out of the shower had done nothing to soothe the ache between my legs. I felt so empty down there it was like a crater had opened up.
I stuck my head out of the bathroom and triple-checked the hallway before sprinting back to my room and slamming the door closed. My heart was hammering in my throat and a pulse pounded between my legs.
Oh my God. Oh my God oh my God oh my God.
A year ago, I was certain that eighteen-year-old Jaxson Blue was the sexiest man on the planet.
I was wrong.
Nineteen-year-old Jaxson Blue was.
While I was gone, he had worked his already perfect body into rangy perfection. The taut belly I had kissed so ardently was now sculpted into the ridges and valleys of a perfect six pack. The shoulders I had clung to were broader, the back I had scratched my nails down was stronger. The jawline I had nibbled was more defined and the smooth skin I had worshipped was spider webbed in new ink.
His cock, though—that was exactly how I had remembered it. Heavy and long, with that wicked little curve at the end. And the little wink of metal from his Prince Albert. The way that had felt as it slipped inside of me…
The sight of it nearly brought me to my knees, making me fear that once I was down there, instinct would take over.
I groaned out loud and buried my head in my pillow. Suddenly my whole body seemed overly sensitive. The brush of my flannel pajamas against my breasts was enough to make my nipples tighten. The seam of my pants pressed achingly against my throbbing clit.
It doesn't mean anything, I told myself as my fingers wandered downward. It's just fantasy. It's not real.
But hot slickness my fingers found was all too real. With a moan, I squeezed my hand tightly in my thighs, imagining Jax’s mouth down there. He used to love eating me out, spreading me wide wherever he could pin me and making me shriek. I shivered as I remembered the way his shoulders would bulge as he pressed against the inside of my thighs, eyes closed, that little mmm-ing noise he made that made me feel utterly delicious.
I flopped over onto my back and arched upward. There was no warm chest above me, no lips against my ear, whispering filthy, wonderful promises, but I was a writer—I could imagine it. Perfect fucking recall, down to the last detail. I could indulge in a little reminiscing and it didn't need to mean a thing, right?
My orgasm came fast and breathless and aching. I gritted my teeth, panting as the tremors ricocheted through me.
And then it was gone.
And instead of sating me, it just left me frustrated and wanting the real, blue-haired thing.
I yanked my hand out of my pajama pants with disgust. Really, Liliana? Jilling off as soon as you see him? You're fucking pathetic.
I tugged on my jeans and threw on a halter top, intending to rush back to the bathroom and wash my hands, get the smell of my desperation off of me.
Instead I opened the door and nearly ran smack into the source of my desperation's now-clothed chest.
"Jax, what the hell are you doing here?" I shrieked, jumping away from him like he had electrocuted me. He may as well have.
He lowered the hand he clearly had raised to knock on my door. If I could die from blushing, I would have welcomed it. Kill me now. Just let the big California earthquake hit right at this moment so the earth swallows me up and I don't have to look him in the eye.
Jax raised an eyebrow. Fuck, he wanted to tease me. I braced myself, hiding my hands behind my back. Hiding the evidence.
But instead he sighed and straightened his shoulders. "That wasn't how that was supposed to go." Goddamn him, he actually looked sheepish. In his white button-down and low-slung jeans, he couldn't have been more delicious than if he’d tried. His lips always had the sweetest curve, an exaggerated Cupid's bow that would've looked feminine on any other face, but on his, it only made the curve of his mouth more tantalizing.
"How what was supposed to go?" I was still out of breath. And knowing Jaxson and his preternatural ability for sniffing out my weaknesses, he could probably smell my orgasm still lingering about me.
"Our first meeting."
I leaned against the doorframe and crossed my arms. "No, I'd say that was about normal."
"Why do you always assume I'm being an ass?"
"Because you usually are?
He looked wounded a second. Then I immediately recognized the twisted curl of his lip that he did whenever he was trying to hide irritation. "So, how are you?"
I clenched my fists. "How am I?"
His eyes blazed. "Yes. How are you? It's a simple fucking question, really."
I hated him. "I'm jetlagged and irritable. I don't want to be here, and my soon-to-be stepbrother won't leave me the hell alone. How do you think I am?"
He grinned. "I'd say that was about normal.”
"Real nice."
"Oh, would you stop being so damned prickly all the time?"
"Me?" I wanted to shove him, but that would mean I had to touch him, and I couldn't trust myself with that. "You're the one who's giving me shit!"
"I'm trying not to!" he exploded and for a moment there I saw genuine frustration. Then the cocky sneer returned. "Time to go to dinner. Annie commands." He turned, his eyes already on his phone.
Chapter Ten
Jax
Two for two.
Actually, if you're counting my record in fucking things up with Liliana Nesbit, those two encounters were nothing in comparison with how badly I’d fucked things up in the past. But still, twice in the same day, the first day I saw her in a year… that was pretty incredible.
So I had gone and picked a fight with her. When all I wanted to do was sweep her into my arms and cover her in kisses and promises of never letting her go.
I am an idiot.
I pounded down the grand staircase of my mom's stupid trophy house, making as much noise as I could. I wanted to smash my feet right through the floor, so something else was as fucked up as I felt.
Yeah, I never finished high school. Yeah, I wasn't much of a reader. Maybe I was pretty dumb, but in all of the weird excitement about this sham wedding, it never really occurred to me what it meant to my life. I was just happy it had forced Lily to come back home so I could see her, mess with her, have her close by to torture me, whatever the fuck I was playing at here. Pick things up where we left off, before my idiot ego ruined everything. I just wanted things to be how they were supposed to be: me and my Bit against the world.
In all of that, I never considered that our relationship would change through no fault of my own for once.
Her dad was marrying my mom.
She was going to be my sister.
I suddenly hated my mother. More than before. And fucking Nails too, the tumor that he was. Glommed on to my mom for a decade and only bothered to put a ring on her finger now, after all this time, after Bit and I… fuck.
I wanted to destroy something.
I rounded the corner into the big dining room with the table with mismatched chairs. My mother had more money than God, but she still insisted on living like a college student. Like it gave her "cred" with all these yes men and hangers on that surrounded us at all times, leaving no room for privacy.
That disgusted me too.
I heard the squeak of a sneaker and waited. They were going to come running soon, all of them. Greg and Bash and Diggs and all of those guys that were always staying over here, surrounding my mother like a flock of pothead butlers. Bash would mostly likely get here first and get pissed at me, possibly even take a halfhearted swing. That was what I needed, a fucking fight.
"Fuck you!" I shouted into the house.
"Oh, what the fuck, Jaxson?" Bash was indeed the first person to see me standing there with a broken, jagged chair leg in my hand.
"What the hell did you do?" Greg drawled, stoned as ever.
Then my mother pushed her way between them.
"I broke the chair," I announced. "You need to buy some new ones anyway. This bullshit, boho poverty chic is pretty pathetic when you consider how much your net worth is."
My mother just looked at me, nostrils pinched. I wanted her to lay into me. I itched for a fight so I could tell her exactly how stupid this whole wedding idea was.
She shook her head once. "What?" I challenged her. I sounded like a petulant teenager, which only pissed me off more.
"Diggs, can you grab one of the contractor bags? I think they're on the porch," she said, as calm as I was angry. She turned back to me. "Don't worry, Jax. Mommy will clean up your mess. Again."
As soon as my mother spoke, that was the end of that. They all turned away, done with me.
All except for Lily.
She was so little, I hadn't seen her there, staring with her wide, brown eyes.
"Lily?" I didn't give a fuck what the others thought of me, but the thought of Liliana staring at me with contempt nearly sent me into another round of chair breaking.
"You okay?" she said. Softly, so softly I would have missed it if I weren't focused completely on her lips.
I had forgotten. The desire—fuck, the love—was still there, but I had forgotten this part. When the world narrowed down to a pinpoint and she was the only thing I could see.
When I was with her, everything quieted down, both on the outside and inside of my head. When I was with her, things got clearer.
The answer to her question was clearest. "Am I okay?" I shook my head. "No. No, Bit. I'm not."
Chapter Eleven
Liliana
Jax broke a chair, and everyone just went about their business like it was nothing. Just swooped in and took care of it for him. So he didn't even have to clean up his own mess.
That should have made me angry. I fully expected to be seething over it the whole ride to dinner.
But the look in his eyes, utterly hopeless and defeated when he told me that no, he wasn't okay, haunted me instead.
I sat in the back of the limo with my fingers knotted together, resisting the urge to take his hand in mine. Let him lean his head against my shoulder, just for a bit.
It didn't have to mean anything. Just a friend comforting a friend.
But just as I got up the nerve to touch him, the car stopped and the doors opened to reveal that the paparazzi had gotten wind of our location.
"Dammit," Nails seethed. "Why won't these vultures leave you alone?" He stepped protectively in front of Annie, shielding her with his bulk.
"They're not after me," Annie chuckled.
It was true. All of the lenses were pointed right at Jax. "Mr. Blue! Over here! Mr. Blue!" came the shouts.
He looked startled for a moment, a deer caught in the headlights. I bit my lip, watching as he recovered. It was like watching him put on a mask, slipping a bright, beguiling smile on over his despondent features. It gave me the chills.
I hung back by the car, watching him handle the crowd like a pro. The maître’d came flapping up to Annie, mouthing apologies, but I couldn't take my eyes off of Jax.
The tightness around his eyes was a tell that only I could discern. He was ready to blow at any second.
My heart gave an involuntary lurch, propelling me into the fray. "I'm sorry, guys, Mr. Blue is done for today," I called, doing my best impression of a bustling personal assistant. "Thank you, thank you, we really appreciate it." I wrapped my arm around Jax's shoulder and made to hustle him into the relative safety of the restaurant.
"What are you doing?" he hissed.
"Getting you out of there."
He made a noise, but allowed himself to be ferried. I gave one last wave to the paparazzi who, if anything, were snapping even more furiously, then I ducked us both into the restaurant.
"You okay?" I asked him.
He looked me up and down. "Remind me to hire you onto my team."
I squared my shoulders. "You couldn't afford me."
He laughed. "You're right about that, Bit. You're fucking priceless."
A slow heat spread from my blushing cheeks, warm and sliding down my spine. The part of me that hated him was dissolving like a lump of sugar on my tongue.
We moved to the corner table, away from the windows—the maître’d had made sure—and took our seats.
As I looked at the menu, my eyes bugged. This was definitely not my chosen New York lifestyle of poverty and ramen. For one brief second, I felt like I was fifteen again, tossed into the world of touring. My wide-eyed reaction to the wild scene I found myself thrown into left me vulnerable to the point of gullibility. Back then I was looking for any way to make sense of my new surroundings and looking for someone who could show me the ropes.
And the best person to do that was Jax.
Jax grew up in the madness of touring. His mother dragged him along on every single one, and he spent his childhood listening to the foul mouths of roadies and sneaking cigarettes behind the bus. He was a man before he ever had a chance of being a boy. It was a good thing the guy never had a true awkward phase, because his life in the limelight left him constantly under scrutiny. And his good looks made him a target.
"Holy shit, it's true!" Bash crowed. The rest of his words were drowned out in a chorus of hoots and hollers. Jax was being showered in high-fives and I couldn't see what it was they were cheering about.
"Shove over!" I shouted, elbowing Jax in the ribs. Too late he must have realized how this would look and tried to put his hand on my shoulder. But I already saw what it was.
"Jaxson Blue: Countdown." The website was just one huge stopwatch lined with shirtless pictures of Jax. I was about to ask what the heck it was when it hit me. "Your birthday?" I asked.
"Ladies are waitin' for our Jaxy boy!" Bash declared, clapping Jaxson on the back.
I felt nauseous. A whole website devoted to when he turned eighteen. Jaxson met my eyes for a second, looking pained, then turned around and shouted, "Hey, look, it's almost midnight!" "
I should have known then. I should have hardened my heart and realized he could never belong to me.
"Aren't you going to say anything at all, Liliana?" Annie leaned back in her chair. "It's been forever since we last saw you. How are you?"
I looked up from my menu, embarrassed at being caught in my reverie. "Jetlagged," I told her, truthfully. I looked down at the menu. "And hungry."
"Mmhm." Annie had already lost interest. "I'm glad you're here."
"Me too," I sighed. "I'm so happy for you and Dad."
Annie's right hand was weighed down with heavy silver rings embedded with chunks of uncut gemstones and hunks of turquoise, but her left hand was bare. The better to show off the sparkler on her ring finger. She flicked her long, layered hair over her shoulder and my eye went right to it. She smiled and extended her hand. "He did good, didn't he?"
I glanced at my bearded, long-haired father and then back to the delicate, modern design of the ring, a dazzling solitaire set into a pattern of etched leaves and vines around the band. "You picked this out?" I asked. I didn't mean to sound as surprised as I did.
My dad grunted a mixture of pride and disgust. "Yes, I did. Give me
at least some credit, here."
"It's why he waited so long," Jax piped up. He was slouched in his chair like a petulant teenager in spite of how well he had grown up this past year. I kind of understood. Being out like this, with our parents monopolizing everything, made me feel like an awkward teen myself. "He didn't trust himself to get the ring right until fifteen years had gone by."
Nails raised his bushy browns. He was trying to figure out if Jax was insulting him or not, I could tell. I honestly wasn't sure myself.
"Right," my dad finally said, deciding to be jovial. "I was already on thin ice. I couldn't afford to fuck the ring up too." He shot a sheepish look at me. "Whoops. Sorry, Lily."
I blinked at him. "Sorry? Wait, did you really just apologize for swearing in front of me?"
Dad nodded.
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Dad, do you have any idea how many billions of curse words I've heard you lay out while I was touring with you?"
I meant it to be funny, but my dad went silent and cast his eyes down on his plate. Annie quietly covered his hand with hers. A pop of flash from the front of the restaurant momentarily blinded me and I was suddenly pissed. "What?" I demanded. "Why are we all acting like someone died here? I'm just used to Dad swearing, that's all I'm saying."
"That… that doesn't make me feel good, Lil," my dad said gruffly. He cleared his throat.
"Why the hell should it make you feel bad?"
He slammed his meaty fist down. "Dammit, Lil, because fathers aren't supposed to fucking swear in front of their kids! Shit!"
I sat back, shocked. I had never heard my father say a single word about parenting or how fathers were supposed to act in front of their kids. I didn't think he cared about stuff like that.
A heavy silence weighed down the air. I looked from my dad to Annie to my dad again, trying to figure out what I could say. "It's okay," didn't seem strong enough for whatever it was my father was trying to say here. But it was all I could think to say. "It's fine, it's okay, don't worry about it." Those were things I had told Nails my entire life, excusing him from everything he missed, forgiving all of the things he forgot.