by Rylee Swann
“I am not as far gone as you might think, me being what I am, Jazmine. I still breathe like the human I once was. Still feel. Still need. Still…” She shifts again, her breathing ragged. I pause, afraid she’ll stop me now. Silence, so I continue. “Love. I can still love. And, I’ve come back for you. I—”
“Don’t.” She speaks the word in a pained whisper.
I can’t stop now and speak quickly before she destroys me with a harsh word. “I love you. Am in love with you. From the moment we met. Before you turned my life upside down. Because you did. I’d die for you. Kill for you. I love you with all—”
“You’re cheating,” she cries in a faltering voice.
She’s no longer in character, but neither am I.
“I love you with all my heart and soul, December. To cause you even one more second of pain would kill me.” I stand with an uncontainable burst of energy. “Tell me to go or tell me, please, that even a modicum of the love you once had for me still exists. That there is a chance, any chance at all for us.”
The couch creaks with more complaint and I sense more than see her come to me. She crashes into me, melding her body to mine with her arms wrapped tight around my back.
I press my hand to her face and it comes away wet with her tears. “Please don’t cry, Dee. Oh, god, please don’t.”
“Happy tears,” she says. “I love you too.” She moves her hands to the back of my neck, pulling my head down to hers until our lips connect in a kiss so gentle yet so filled with unquenchable longing it takes away my breath.
In the back of my mind, I never dreamed this moment could happen. I’d done too much to her, burned those bridges to dust, damned us to hell. Yet, I never stopped believing that we were soulmates. That we’d never be complete until we were together.
In one quick movement, I sweep her off her feet and carry her to the bedroom like a groom carrying his bride across the threshold. I never break the kiss, even when setting her down gently upon the bed and climbing atop her. Peeling off her clothing and worshipping every inch of her.
When she’s naked, laid bare before me, her body wet with the ministrations of my lips and my tongue, she gazes up at me with adoring, hungry eyes. “Hurry,” she says.
With this encouragement, I waste no time shedding my clothes, my cock springing forth with single-minded urgency. Settling down upon her, her warm flesh against my own, I remind myself of how goddamned lucky I am in this moment. How I’ll never take this for granted or any other moment she ever deigns to give me. As I push apart her legs with my knee. Suck upon her breast like a beggar seeking salvation to her cries of passion.
Moving down her body, not letting my lips lose contact with her flesh, I find her center hot, wet, and tight as I plunge my tongue deep within her folds. Flicking lightly at her clit and lengthening the pleasure, drawing out the ecstasy, groaning as I tease her and myself. I want to use my cock—fuck her hard with powerful piston-like strokes but I fight back the desire—
wishing instead to savor her.
To make love to her.
17
December
What have I done?
Oh, god, his tongue. I squirm in ecstasy at Jayson’s expert ministrations.
He’s back in my life like he never left. Fully, completely.
Irresistibly.
It’s just so damned easy to be with him. Comfortable. Effortless.
I buck my body upward, my fists twisted in the bedsheets as his tongue dives between my folds, wet with the need he’s created in me almost instantly.
Alive.
He brings me to life. His chaos. The aura of power that swirls around him in an intoxicating array of colors and sensations.
All too soon, he pulls away. Sends a stream of hot breath onto my throbbing clit. Looks up at me with that damnable Lucifer smile.
Have I learned nothing in ten years? Yes, I have. Truly. I’m wiser, stronger, more empowered than ever before. None of that matters, though, while he caresses my body. His hands roam across my needy flesh. His lips meet my eager lips. His tongue…
I collapse back onto the mattress, panting. He grabs my thighs and throws open my legs as far as they’ll go. Plunges his tongue back into me. Swirling, sucking, nipping until I’m moaning, writhing, toes curling. All reason gone. Nothing but a gasping puddle of need. Of sensation. A volcano, long dormant, being coaxed back to life. My ass clenches, my back arches, brain seizes.
“I can’t…can’t…” I heave out.
He peers up at me from between my legs. Licks his lips, savoring my taste. “Come for me.”
Before I can put together another rational thought, he takes my clit between his lips and sucks hard.
And I lose my mind. A cry of profound pleasure escapes my lips, and I buck my hips upward to both press him closer to me and to escape the intensity he’s wringing from me.
Mac barks at the closed bedroom door and we shout as one, “No, Mac!”
Laughing, a wave of dizziness pins me to the mattress even as my body spasms in uncontrollable hitches and jerks. I gasp, my hands digging into the sheets. I can’t take another second of this unending orgasm.
As if he’s read my mind, he releases me, but only for a second. In a flash, his cock is where his lips had been. In one hard thrust, he’s deep inside me, and to my amazement I rise again upon a new wave of bliss. Above me, Jayson’s face is filled with love and lust, his features contorted in pained ecstasy much like my own. Our eyes meet. He attempts a smile but it’s more like a teeth-baring grimace as he thrusts to hit my G-spot again and again.
Our breathing ragged, my chest rises as his falls. Synchronicity.
I’ve loved this man for longer than I can remember, and I always will.
We rise as high as we can go and burst like a rain cloud, tumbling down to earth together. I gasp for air as he collapses on top of me, his cock growing limp but doing its damnedest to stay inside me.
Eventually, he rolls to my side, one arm draped over my stomach, a leg tossed over mine. As he drifts to sleep, he mumbles something, but the words are clear to me. “I love you.”
I smile into the afterglow. Shutting my eyes, I join him in slumber.
I wake to morning light streaming into the bedroom from my bay windows. I squint, momentarily blinded, and turn my head to read the digital numbers of my bedside clock. There’s nothing but darkness. What happened to my clock? Reaching out an arm, my hand bumps into something firm. With a little more exploration, I determine that it’s a muscled chest.
Jayson.
The night before comes back to me in startling clarity. The role-playing, the lovemaking, the genuine admissions of love. None of this makes me smile. Instead, worry gnaws at me.
I turn onto my side and prop myself up on one arm, gazing at the sleeping form beside me. The steady rise and fall of his chest, mouth half open—he’s almost smiling. Sculpted muscles, lean and hard. More so today than long ago. Then, alcohol made him puffy despite his best efforts at the gym.
Lean, strong legs. I always loved his legs. So masculine with a fine layer of black hair. Just like the sexy trail that goes from his flat stomach to his short, curly pubes.
I raise a hand to trace the path but stop short of touching him. I’d rather hold on to this private moment a little while longer. To think. To watch as he sleeps.
After all this time, is the universe really telling me that Jayson and I are meant to be together? It sure seems that way. And yet—
“’Morning.”
I look back up to his face and find his eyes open, shining.
My cheeks heat. “You caught me.”
“Mmhmm. What time is it?”
“I don’t know, morning sometime. You’re blocking the clock.” I point over his body, hoping he’ll turn his head to check the time. He doesn’t.
“That was fun. Last night and today.” He lifts a hand, a finger trailing down my breast and circling my nipple. My flesh pebbles instantly. “You want more?” H
e waggles his eyebrows. “I think I can oblige.” He pinches my nipple and I squeak out a gasp. His other hand strokes his already hard dick.
I bite my lip, wanting him again but needing to talk to him first. “Wait.”
“You’re turning me down?” He sighs, rolling onto his side to face me. “Oh, how you wound me, woman.”
“I’m not turning you down. I just…I mean…”
“If you say we need to talk…” He stops stroking himself and pierces me with a look.
“No, it’s not that. Really. I just…I need to say a few things.” He remains silent and I fumble for what I want to say. “You led me here.”
He nods. “Willingly. You didn’t have to come.”
“How could I not? It was a manipulation. From suggesting we role-play to choosing the characters, to that…speech that I’m sure now you rehearsed in your head.”
“I meant every word of it, Dee.” I open my mouth to speak but he holds up a hand. “Of course, it was manipulation. But nothing underhanded or devious. I wanted…needed you to remember the good times. And, like I said, you didn’t have to play along. I paused several times to give you a chance to say no. You never did. You were a willing party to us getting back together.” He says the last few words in a slow, cautious tone.
“Are we back together? You know you’re my Achilles heel.” I’m frustrated. He always twists me up in knots.
He frowns, sitting up like he’s about to get out of bed. “Should I leave?” Anger laces his words, startling me. He’s affronted. Hurt. Have I misjudged him yet again?
“No, but I do want to say something. It’s important. Please listen and don’t get your back up. I know how you are.”
This causes him to grin but he falls back down onto the mattress on his back and sighs up at the ceiling. “What?”
I take a deep breath, turn away from him so I’m not distracted. What I’m about to say is so important and could make or break whatever it is we have here between us. “Do you know the difference between need and want?”
“Yessss.” He draws out the word until it’s a cautious hiss.
“Okay, good. What I said last night, while we were playing. I meant it even though I was in character. I’m not the same.”
“You’re ten years older. So am I. I know with that comes change.”
I refuse to look at him. Meeting his eyes would be my undoing. “Yeah, right, but that’s not all. Back then I needed you. You filled and toyed with my emotional needs. Wrapped me into your web, made me need you.” He huffs out a pained sigh but doesn’t interrupt. “I was co-dependent on you and for much too long, so it was impossible to break free.”
“You are getting to a point, aren’t you?” he says in a flat tone.
“Yes, sorry. Please just let me say this.” One more deep breath. One more bold, necessary statement. “I don’t need you anymore, Jayson. I fulfill my own needs and I’m happy with myself. I love myself now like I didn’t back then.”
“Fuck! You don’t need me? Then what is this? Did you just use me for sex? Are you the one toying with me now? I’m vulnerable, laid open bare to you.” He leaps out of bed and pulls on his boxers. “What the hell, Dee?”
“Don’t. I’m not finished. Let me finish. I asked you not to get your back up.” He glares at me as I sit up and cross my arms over my bare breasts. “I don’t need you, damnit. Need in this case is negative, detrimental. To my health. It took so damned long to get over you. But I did! There’s a difference between need and want. Don’t you get it? I want you. I don’t need you. I’m not mentally unstable when it comes to you anymore. Because I’ve changed, grown, healed and worked damned hard at it. You’ve been showing me how you’ve changed and I’m risking the pain of it not all being true. But what I’m seeing, I like. A lot. I want you. I want this, what we’ve had since you showed up here.”
I fall silent, hoping I’m getting through to him, that he understands what I’m saying. He stares at me, anger still boiling below the surface but no longer bubbling over. “You’re saying you’re not that young, impressionable girl anymore.” I nod. “And, if I walked out that door right now and never come back? What then?”
“It would hurt.”
“But?” he demands.
“But my brain wouldn’t break over it.”
He nods, thoughtful. “Would you try to get me back?”
Hope surges in my chest. He’s thinking this through, making sure he grasps the intricacies of what I’m confiding, who I am. This is a conversation we could never have had back then. We were both too damaged. “Depending on why you left, yes, I’d try to talk to you.”
He moves to the dresser, hitches a hip on it. He’s so damned sexy.
Furtively, I look around for my shirt. I’m more aware of my nakedness now than a moment ago. I can’t find it and draw my knees up to my chest.
“But you wouldn’t beg, prostrate yourself.”
“No, if it’s over, begging won’t get you back. Nor does it earn any respect.”
A slow smile spreads across his face. “The new you is a pretty cool woman. I’m in love with the new you.”
I smile in return, relief draining me to the core. “Then you’re not going to walk out the door?”
He comes back to the bed and cups my cheek with his palm. He meets my gaze and the sincerity in his eyes is clear. “Never again.”
“Good. So, umm, we’re going to try this thing one more time?”
“For the last time. We’re going to make it stick this time.” His voice and expression are confident.
They imbue strength in me and my smile widens. “Thank you for listening. For understanding.”
He shrugs, done with the serious talk. His smile turns devilish. “So, you said you want me, eh?”
I’m lighter, happier than ever before. Healthier. “Devil!”
“You love it.” His voice is low, deep, and laced with sexual tension. He plants a knee on the bed, crawling closer, stalking me like a tiger on the prowl. “Let’s see those tits.”
“Dork!” I laugh but put my arms to my sides and arch my back—
Someone knocks on the front door and Mac howls in response.
“You stay right there.” He leers at me. “Don’t you move.” He gets off the bed and strides to the living room. “I’ll get it.”
“Wait, no!” I call after him. “You’re not dressed. You don’t know who it is…”
Too late. There’s the click of the lock just before he opens the front door and then his self-conscious laughter.
Oh, no.
Scrambling up, I wrap a sheet around myself and head down the hallway until I can peer around the corner.
Sixteen-year-old Isaac is standing in the doorway while Jayson stumbles through telling him to hang on a minute. Jayson backtracks toward the bedroom.
As he passes me, I hiss-whisper, “This is why I said to wait.”
He chuckles and darts into the bedroom.
Glancing back to Isaac, we lock eyes. His widen almost comically, then he raises a hand to wag a finger at me. “I knew there was something going on between the two of you,” he says, a triumphant grin spreading across his face.
I tsk and wave a hand at him. “Just go get a drink or something. We’ll be right back.” I turn and follow Jayson into the bedroom to Isaac’s complaint of, “You never have anything but water here!”
I hurry to dress while Jayson dances around me, enticing me with his nakedness.
“This is not a no pants day. So, put ‘em on!” I reach down to pick up his jeans and toss them to him. He catches them while offering me a disarming smile. “This is not very professional of you. That’s one of your kids in there.”
“That’s true,” he says, balancing on one foot while putting his other foot through his pant leg. “But, since this is for keeps as we just discussed, I’ll become the pseudo-uncle with words of wisdom.”
“Yeah, but right now…”
“Right now, it’s unprofessional.�
�� He nods, gets his pants on, steps forward and gives me a chaste kiss on the lips. “D’you know where my shirt is?”
When we’re both finally dressed and presentable, we return to the living room. Isaac is sitting on the couch watching a music video channel. I vaguely recognize the tune but have no idea who is singing. I’m so behind the times, having left my musical taste in the eighties.
“Hey.” Isaac scrambles for the remote when we enter.
I wave him off. “Just lower it and tell us why you’re here?”
He presses the button to turn down the volume while Jayson wanders into the kitchen and pulls open the fridge door. “No pop?” he says, turning to me with an adorable pout.
“She only has bottled water. Mom thinks it’s weird.”
I sigh, having heard this more than twice. “It’s not weird. It’s healthy. And,” I address Jayson, “you’re in New York now. We say soda here.”
Jayson laughs and winks at me. “Anyway. What’s up, Isaac?”
“Oh, um, yeah. I wanted to come down here sooner but Mom said you needed your rest.” He glances from Jayson to me, a devious little twinkle in his eyes. Silently, I shake my head. “I wanted to say I’m sorry. I mean, I really am, Dee. I can’t believe what happened. I hope you’re okay and all.” He pauses for breath then says in an almost whisper, “Do you hate me?”
“No, of course I don’t hate you.” I sit down beside him on the couch and put a hand on his shoulder. “What I hate is that you’re being bullied. That your friends are being bullied. Hell, that anyone is bullied at all.” He looks down, uncomfortable. “You know, I was picked on when I was a kid too. That’s what it was called back then. No one used the term bullying.”
Jayson comes into the room, taking a seat in the recliner.
Isaac looks up at me, surprised. “You were? Why?”
“Well, I was painfully shy. I didn’t make friends easily and some of the kids mistook that for being stuck up, so they picked on me. I was too shy to defend myself. God, I hated grade school.”
Isaac blinks at me with newfound respect, and a glimmer of camaraderie greater than we had before. “So you understand.”