I sagged into the plastic outside chair and stared with defeat at the proceedings.
Olivia didn’t say anything. She just sat there and held my hand, watching beside me in the cold.
After a handful of minutes, I finally glanced at her, unsure how I felt about her, about her and Braddox, and all the things I wanted to know. I wasn’t a virgin by any means, but I’d never slept with Olivia’s twin. Not that she had one. I didn’t expect to be the only one that she’d ever slept with. I wasn’t stupid. I just didn’t expect it to be Braddox.
What would she do when or if she and I had sex? Would she see him as she looked at me? I couldn’t stomach even the idea of that. How was that even avoidable? We were identical. There was no way she could guarantee she wouldn’t think of him while doing me.
The sound of more dirt falling from far off pulled me back to the moment. I blinked and in no time the dirt was replaced, forming a slightly rounded mound. The workers departed, never looking for me or anyone else. Just another day, another death.
When Olivia spoke, her words were filled with hesitancy and she didn’t pull her hand from mine. “Jaxon, I’m so sorry.”
What was she sorry for? Losing my mom? Screwing my brother? Being late? Not being there for me? The list was endless and yet, the only things that mattered were the first two.
My silence seemed to trigger something insider her. As if a dam broke, she continued speaking, her words coming faster and faster. “I’m sorry for your mom’s death. I’m sorry for… what happened with Braddox. I’m sorry… I didn’t know it was him. I swear, it was dark. I’d just gotten a text from your phone. I swear, I thought it was you. It should have been you.” She choked her words, and then carefully pulled her fingers from mine. “I miss you and I don’t have the right to expect you to forgive me, but I swear, I didn’t cheat on whatever we had between us – intentionally or even knowingly.”
I leaned forward, bracing my elbows on my knees as I took a deep breath. After a second I let it out on a whoosh and then shook my head. “The problem isn’t that.” I blinked back tears at the vulnerable situation I was in. I wasn’t a crier by nature. I’d been through too much for that.
The funeral had me emotionally weakened as well as the fact that I was being forced to confront the issues that felt like they could break me. I swallowed. “The problem is I don’t fit in anywhere. I honestly can’t see you and me succeeding together as long as Braddox is in the picture. As long as there’s a chance that he can try to fool you into believing he’s me and then doing whatever he wants to you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and then snapped them open, glancing over my shoulder to look at her. “Who will you be sleeping with when we have sex? Me? Or him? Will you be able to tell the two apart?” It was a fair question and one I didn’t want her to try answering. I wasn’t sure I could trust her answer, either way.
She sniffed as she thought over my questions. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Olivia’s voice broke and she folded her arms across her waist, bending forward as if her stomach hurt.
“I’m not really mad at you, Olivia. But how can I ignore the doubt now? I mean, how could you want me when you can have Braddox? He was right. He has more experience than me with women. He has more money, more power, more status. He even has a stronger position than I do in school.” I softly chuckled, albeit without humor. “Why, Olivia, would you choose me? I feel like this is some screwed up joke and you’re going to wake up and realize I’m not what you want.” There. All of me was bared for her to see. Braddox had hit the nail on the head when she’d said Olivia had no reason to choose me. None.
I couldn’t agree more. Except… for the way I felt about her. I couldn’t help how I felt.
Olivia scooted her chair closer to mine, moving it more in front of me than to the side. She swiveled to face me, grabbing the lapels of my coat and jerking me around toward her. Her eyes captured my gaze and didn’t let me go. “Listen to me. Seriously, hear what I’m about to say, Jaxon. You’re. Nothing. Like. Him.” She ducked into my line of sight when I tried to turn away. “That is a good thing, Jax. A very good thing. There are things you don’t know about Braddox… Things… I can’t even understand.”
She blinked and dropped her gaze, then slowly raised her eyes again to take me in. “I walked in on him screwing Stephanie. In the guest bedroom I’d set her up in. She was fully aware of it. That’s all I know.” She paused and licked her bottom lip. “Stephanie’s dead. I found her in my mom’s destroyed car on Monday. I haven’t been back to school since.”
Her best-friend was dead after that kind of betrayal and she’d made it to my mother’s funeral. There had to be something in that. I had to believe that she cared more than I was giving her credit for.
Olivia’s shoulders slouched forward and she slackened her grip on my lapels, letting her hands slid down to fall into her lap. “I know he’s your brother. I know you don’t have any real reason to want the same things as me, but I’m getting revenge. I’m going after him and if you want to join me, that’d be great. If you don’t… I can do it on my own.”
She tucked her hands in her pockets, closing her eyes and then opening them, raising her gaze to meet mine again. After a minute, she raised her hand and pushed her fingers against her temple. “Shit, I feel like I’m tattling or something. Look, I have some… information on Braddox. I’ll bring it to you. But I think, once you get a chance to look over what I have… I think you’ll see why Braddox needs to be punished. Think about what you want and what he’s taken away from you… from us.” When she raised her eyes to mine, they were brimming with tears. “I can’t take anymore from him. I need to stop him, do you understand?”
I nodded slowly, reaching out to use my thumb to wipe away the solitary tear making its way down her cheek. At the simple skin contact, our eyes jerked to reconnect and I couldn’t help noticing the subtle flush creeping up her cheeks. I finished gently brushing an errant tear from her skin and whispered, “I want you. But I won’t push you.”
Her lips barely moved as she stared into my eyes. “I want you, too. But not at the house. There’s… It’s not safe.”
I nodded, suddenly filled with the irrefutable need to have her right there. I didn’t want to wait. If we could be together, just once, maybe the loneliness would dissipate.
As if agreeing to something unattainable, Olivia nodded slowly, standing and reaching out a hand. When I took it, she pulled me to a standing position. I let her lead me to my car.
“Let’s get out of here.” She slid into the unlocked passenger door, letting go of my hand.
As I rounded the front, I couldn’t help wondering if I was going to come to my senses. Or if maybe she was. It’d be the roughest bout of blue balls I’d ever had. But when I climbed into the driver’s side door and glanced at her questioningly, she looked at me and sighed. “Pick a spot we can park. I need you now and I don’t want to wait.”
That was all I needed. I knew just the spot.
Chapter 9
Olivia
I couldn’t keep my legs from shaking, or the heat from pooling in the center of my stomach. Was Jaxon really forgiving me or was he just in it for the tail? When it came right down to it, I wasn’t sure how much I cared either way. I needed him. There was something when he touched me that dispelled all of the negativity in and around me.
Tucking my hands under the backs of my thighs, I leaned forward. Every jiggle of my body as we bounced over the faults in the road increased my awareness. My breath hitched when my legs rubbed together. All of my senses were heightened and I wanted to yell at Jaxon to hurry up.
Jaxon’s fingers gripped the steering wheel and I found myself staring, just staring and dreaming. Would he be gentle with me or would he be demanding and rough?
Somehow, I just knew, deep down, he would be whatever I needed him to be. Right then, I needed him to replace the way Braddox had left me feeling. There was only so much time a person could take a bath. I’d
probably surpassed my limit. And it wasn’t working.
Jaxon drove through town, tearing past stop signs and turning through curves like a desperate man.
At the more southern edge of town a hill dropped over the edge of a road down to the public beach. On a day like that, with the clouds overhead, wind pushing the waves around, and a chilly bit to the air, no one was within sight.
Jaxon barreled down the steep incline, leaving a fluttery feeling in my stomach at the immediate drop. I grabbed my stomach, gasping and laughing as he didn’t slow.
He glanced at me, winking when I caught his gaze with mine. He wasn’t grinning. Instead, there was a definitive hunger in his eyes and the slant to his mouth. He hadn’t taken his hands off the wheel and I couldn’t help thinking it was because he might not be able to wait. Or maybe that was me being egotistical.
My heart rate increased, as we sped toward the bottom of the hill. The road leveled out, and then suddenly there was the option to go either left toward the bird and fish sanctuary or right in the direction of the parking and the beach.
Turning right, Jaxon slowed down, but barely as he pulled into a parking spot facing the tumultuous grays and blues of the ocean and the sky. Rain splattered the windshield and it was suddenly quiet as Jaxon turned off the engine.
We sat there, frozen in time and nervousness as we waited for the other to make a move. Was he questioning the same things I was? Was this smart? Was this really where we should be after his mother’s funeral and my friend’s death? Were we making the right decisions?
But I could feel the dirtiness of Braddox’s actions scratch itself onto my skin as memories of what he’d done to me started to pervade my thoughts as I sat there staring out at the waves crashing into the sand. How was it possible that Braddox had gotten to me there? In Jaxon’s car, beside him.
Braddox couldn’t follow me everywhere. I wouldn’t let that happen.
I closed my eyes and took a shuddering breath. “You can back out. I won’t hold you to this. But I need you to know… The way it was with Braddox – in all of the time I’ve known him – it has never been a fraction of how it is with you.” I opened my eyes and turned my head to pin him with my stare. “You have no idea what you do to me. I can’t…” I reached forward, rubbing my hands up and down the soft material of my dress covering my thighs.
My breathing hitched and I curved my lips to the side. “I need you. I’ve needed you. Before Braddox…” I swallowed. “Before he betrayed us, I needed you to the point of pain. Now I need you even more, if you can imagine.” I fell silent, biting my bottom lip and dropping my gaze to the seat between us.
How was it possible that the short distance between my knee and his thigh could seem so vast?
Jaxon dropped his hands to his lap and sighed. “I just don’t want you to think about Braddox while I’m touching you. You’re already thinking about him and we’re just sitting here together. What’s going to stop you from comparing us?”
I swallowed, suddenly blinking back tears. I pressed my lips together and nodded, tightly. After a second, I was able to clear my throat enough I could explain. “The only reason I’m thinking of him right now is because he’s the only thing standing between us.” I threw my hand in the air and then leaned to the side, resting my elbow on the back of the bench seat and staring out the back window. “If you could forgive me for him doing what he did to me, I think I’d be able to just think about us, just focus on us. I don’t care about the girls in your past. They aren’t with you right now. I would hope you could see that Braddox took advantage of me and the situation. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised and I don’t put it past him that he’d set that entire thing up to do exactly what he did.” I licked my lip but couldn’t look at him as my volume dropped to a whisper. “He essentially raped me; you know? It’s not like I can’t not think about it.”
The silence stretched and morphed, making my insecurities that much worse, that much larger than they should have been.
“What are you saying?”? Jaxon turned toward me, his eyes narrowed as if he could see through me and figure out the very details of the mysteries in my heart. “You’re using me to eradicate Braddox’s rape from your mind? Is that right?”
My lips parted and I scooted closer to him, taking the hand nearest me and gripping it in both of mine. “No. That’s not what I’m saying at all.” I reached up, setting my hand on his chest and then running my fingers up behind his neck. I ducked my head to see his eyes more fully until he lifted his head.
I lifted my other hand, cradling my palm against his cheek. “Jaxon, you’re all I want. You. Not because you can get Braddox out of my head, but because you make me feel alive. I’m myself around you. We are… there’s something strong here. You know?” I leaned close and kissed his cheek, trailing small kisses up his face to his nose, his forehead, then back down, slowly, carefully, until I was a hairbreadth from his lips. I searched his face from up close, then leaned forward, the barest amount until our lips connected.
All of the heat we’d stirred in the cemetery swelled inside me, pooling in my lap. Everything felt swollen and throbbing but not in a painful way. More like I couldn’t breathe normally because pressure grew inside me and I needed it released.
Jaxon was the only way I could get the relief I needed. He didn’t respond at first, as if he wasn’t sure if he wanted to give into whatever I was offering him.
The possibility that he didn’t want me anymore was real and palpable. Almost desperately, I moved my lips on his, carefully touching his lips with my tongue.
As if I flipped some trigger, his mouth opened and he delved his tongue past my lips. He took over, thrusting his hands into my hair and angling my head to the side as he kissed me like he wanted me to only think of him. Ever. Even more than air.
He consumed me. The heat where his skin touched mine didn’t seem to dissipate the more he touched me. Instead, as his hands slid from the back of my head to the front of my chest, I could have sworn he was starting a fire under my skin.
Jaxon’s lips moved from mine, trailing a path of fire along my jawline to my earlobe where he nipped the soft skin. Hot breath against my ear made my toes curl and I bent my head to the side to give him more access as his lips moved town the lines of my neck.
My eyes had closed. I wanted him closer that he was and I wasn’t sure how to make that happen.
Then, as if he read my mind, Jaxon wrapped his fingers around my waist and pushed me back at the same time he shifted himself over to the center of the bench seat. He lifted me, moving me back over him until my legs straddled his lap and I was slightly above him.
We pulled apart long enough to stare into each other’s eyes. While holding my gaze with his, Jaxon ran his hands up my bare legs, his fingers disappearing under the dress material.
His eyes widened as he reached the cheeks of my ass and then moved his hands higher to the where the waistband should be. “You’re not wearing any underwear?”
I leaned down, sucking his lower lip between mine and then gently biting the flesh as I murmured, “Nope.”
Jaxon groaned, gripping my ass cheeks in his hands and squeezing gently. “I don’t think I have anything.” Was he saying protection-wise? Didn’t guys those days carry a case of those around with them?
His fingers slid forward, until his hands were on the front of my inner thighs and his thumbs played with the sensitive skin between my legs. I threw my head back, and almost screamed as he slowly took my nipple in his mouth through the soft material of my blouse.
“Yeah, you’re ready for me. Do you want me to wait?” Jaxon’s lips created a vibration against my breast at the same time his thumbs stroked my clit.
I gripped the back of his head, my fingers threaded through his hair as I came, calling out his name and clenching my thighs tight around his hips. I sagged against him, feeling for the first time just how hard I’d made him as I leaned against his front. I pulled back, staring drowsily at him, biting
my lip. “I’m sorry. You… You didn’t get to…” I cleared my throat and looked down at where he’d moved his hands to sit on the outside of my dress.
He chuckled, his voice husky as he leaned forward and kissed my neck. “I don’t want to put you in an uncomfortable position. I don’t have any condoms or anything.” He leaned back and winked at me as he continued. “Had I known you weren’t wearing underwear; I would have come prepared.”
I blushed, the heat almost comforting as if we’d gotten back to a more comfortable stage of our relationship. Doing quick math in my head, I scooted back from his lap, but not enough to climb off, just enough I could unsnap his dress slacks. “I should be fine. I’m clean. I want to, if you want to.” I left his pants alone after unsnapping them as I reached up and unbuttoned the front of my blouse.
I’d gone without a bra as well. My breasts perky and straining to be touched by him. Obviously, I’d hoped for more than I’d actually expected.
Jaxon watched my breasts break free from the shirt and his eyes grew dark. He reached down, tugging his pants down to his knees and then settling back into place.
He lifted his gaze to mine and held me in a trance as he lifted a breast and took the tip in his mouth, his tongue flicking the hardened nipple, all the while never letting me look away.
I groaned and before I could melt again, he lifted my hips with his hands and slid me down the length of him. The movement built friction and I jerked my head to the side at the sheer size of him. We moved faster and faster until we both tensed again. He wrapped his arms around me as we both accepted physical defeat.
I didn’t think I could move, if I wanted to.
We panted, our chests heaving against each other and I couldn’t help feeling like maybe we were on the same page now. Maybe he understood how I felt.
Forgiven: a bully romance (An Academy Twin Rivalry Series Book 3) Page 7