“Left at the hall, first door to the right.”
The door closed behind me as I practically ran down the hall, turned left and went immediately through the first door on the right.
I saw lockers. A trash bin. A table that looked like a medical table in the middle. A big, workout bag on it, gaping open, Jake’s boxing gloves resting on top. The man that accompanied Jake to the ring.
And Jake, sitting on the table, the man before him, but his eyes cut immediately to me.
I opened my mouth but again was able to say nothing when Jake commanded, his one word like a whiplash, “Out.”
Somehow, I knew he wasn’t talking to me.
I was right. I vaguely noticed the man look to me and back to Jake before he dropped his head, grinned at his shoes and did as ordered.
Jake jumped off the table and moved with him instantly. With both of them coming in my direction, automatically I shifted out of their way, moving further into the room.
I turned back to Jake to see him lock the door.
I knew why I was there and I didn’t. I was scared and I wasn’t. I didn’t feel right and I did. I didn’t know what to do but I still knew what I had to do.
I wasn’t me.
Yet I was.
I opened my mouth to speak, not knowing what I was going to say but knowing I was going to say it.
I again didn’t get the chance.
“You goin’ out with Mick tomorrow night?” Jake growled, his eyes burning into me, his fury saturating the room.
“Not anymore,” I whispered immediately.
“Good fuckin’ answer, Slick,” he rapped out, each word hitting me like a blow at the same time they felt like a caress.
I stood unmoving, locked in place by his scowl, my heart beating hard, my breath coming funny, my sex drenched and pulsing.
Then he moved.
Right to me.
I didn’t. Not a muscle.
So when he hit me, taped hands to my hips, I staggered back on a thin heel and dropped my purse and coat.
But Jake was not going to let me fall. I knew this when he kept going, I kept staggering back, and his fingers clenched into my skirt.
My back hit wall and my skirt hit my waist a half a second before Jake’s body hit mine.
“Panties off, Josie,” he ordered, his voice rough and commanding, and it was good I was against the wall for the quiver his words sent through my legs was so powerful, if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to remain standing.
I licked my lips, my sex throbbing so deeply I felt it shudder down my inner thighs and straight up to my throat as I carried out his command. I avoided his hands still clenched in my skirt to hook my thumbs into my panties and I tugged them down.
They slid over my shoes when Jake’s hands came to my bottom and hefted me up.
I wrapped my legs around his hips, my arms around his shoulders and tipped my head back just as Jake’s came down, his mouth slamming into mine.
I opened my lips, which was good because Jake’s tongue was already thrusting in.
When I finally tasted him, that deep need I’d had for what seemed ages finally assuaged, his taste so beautiful, so Jake, I whimpered down his throat. My limbs clenching around him, he kissed me brutally and pressed his hips between my legs.
Feeling him hard, the satin of his trunks soft and me so sensitive, I lifted a hand and clutched it in his short hair as best I could and pressed into him as hard as I was able.
His hand left my behind and it was between us. I felt it move then it was back at my bottom, tipping my hips and suddenly he was in. Deep in. Slamming inside me, filling me repeatedly, violently, splendidly, magnificently as he grunted into my mouth and I held on tight for the ride, moaning into his.
Suddenly, I was pulled away from the wall and Jake stayed inside me as he moved us to the table and bent us over it. My back hit the table and Jake continued thrusting, drilling, taking me rough and hard in a locker room at an arena.
And I welcomed every stroke, gasping, whimpering, moaning, clutching with my arms and legs and fingers and sex, any way I could hold him to me, take him inside me, urge him to give me more.
He did. One hand going between us, his thumb moved hard over my aching, wet, sensitized clit and I cried out, at first in his mouth then I yanked my lips free, turned my head to the side and kept doing it while I came, fast, hard, long, the orgasm ripping through me and if I hadn’t already shed my skin, that would have shredded me and I would have been born anew.
Jake’s hand moved from between us and both of them slid up my inner thighs, the tape wrapping his hands coarse against my soft skin. He caught me behind the knees and yanked my legs high as he lifted his torso away and captured my gaze, his blazing, his eyes a remarkable midnight blue, his handsome face nearly savage with passion.
He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life.
And he kept taking me, pounding between my legs and it was arguable but this might have felt better than the time before and even during orgasm. Being in the moment, not lost to it, feeling every stroke, every inch, the power of his body, his fingers clamped tight around the delicate skin behind my knees, his grunts filling the room.
Then it happened. He drove in one last time, the entire table moved several inches and his head snapped back, the corded column of his throat exposed to me, veins standing out in his neck, his groan of release was loud and so unbelievably gratifying, it felt like I’d moved not a mountain but an entire range.
The Rockies.
The Himalayas.
The Andes.
All three.
His head dropped, his neck bent deep so I had a view to the back of it and his fingers clutched the backs of my knees as his hips powered out and in for one last glorious thrust that felt divine.
Finally, he stayed embedded.
He didn’t move.
I didn’t either.
Moments passed.
Suddenly, the effect of the last twenty minutes started reversing. Something was coating my skin. Covering me. Smothering me.
“Jake,” I whispered as he stayed in position, neck bent, apparently studying our connection.
The instant I said his name, his head shot back, his hands released my legs but they did this curling them around his back and he dropped his torso to mine.
“Don’t,” he whispered.
I opened my mouth but didn’t say anything when his hand came up, cupped my cheek and his thumb pressed against my lips.
“Don’t,” he repeated. “Don’t say anything, baby. Don’t think anything. Don’t be anything but with me. Not until I get you safe. Not until we can talk this out where I know you’re good. Promise me that.”
“I don’t—” I started, my lips moving under his thumb, but I stopped when he pressed in with his entire body.
“Promise me that, honey.” He was again whispering.
He held my eyes with his now beautiful blue ones and I let him do this for long moments.
Then I nodded.
I barely got that movement in before he pulled out. I felt my lips part at the unwelcome but still lovely sensation but I didn’t get to process it.
Jake reached beyond me to his bag. He came back with a towel and his eyes held mine as he gently pressed it between my legs, cleaning him from me.
I knew my face got soft because that felt rather nice and I knew this because his face reciprocated the gesture.
I couldn’t see me but I still would argue his look was better.
He tossed the towel somewhere I couldn’t see. I felt his hands working at his shorts before his fingers were at my hips. He yanked me roughly off the table but he didn’t let me teeter. One arm slid around me tight and held me to him as his fingers worked my skirt, yanking it back down. Then both hands were to my waist and I was up and my bottom was planted on the table.
Once he got me there, I watched him move quickly. His back to me, he went through the room, first picking up my purse and
coat then moving to the wall to snatch up my panties.
I bit my lip when he did this and not in embarrassment. It was highly titillating watching Jake in boxing trunks seize my panties from the floor by the cinderblock wall where he’d first taken me.
It was not romantic in any sense.
But having been the one who experienced it, I knew it was the most romantic thing that had ever happened to me. In fact, I knew if any other woman had had it, she’d feel the same.
Yet, I was uncertain.
There was something wrong.
Something that needed to be made right.
This thought made my lips move and they moved to call a quiet, trembling, “Jake.”
He was on his way back to me and at his name, he did this swiftly. He dumped my purse and coat on the table beside me, wrapped a taped hand around my jaw and dipped his face close as he shoved my panties in his workout bag.
When my eyes went from his bag to his, he instantly started speaking.
“Stick with me,” he urged.
My voice was still trembling when I agreed, “All right.”
“All right, baby,” he said gently before he dipped his head and touched his mouth to mine.
And this time, having had him, having given him me, that touch was even sweeter.
After that, he wasted no time. He turned to his bag, dug out a workout jacket in navy blue and shrugged it on. Hands still taped, he tugged out a matching pair of pants and yanked them on over his trunks.
He zipped up the jacket before he pulled me from the table and grabbed my coat. He held it up for me and I turned in a circle, gliding my arms into the sleeves as he settled it on my shoulders.
Once my coat was on, he grabbed the strap on his bag, dropped it on his shoulder and dug into a side pouch, pulling out his keys. He then snatched up my purse and handed it to me.
I took it.
He took my hand and dragged me to the door. He unlocked it and dragged me out.
Immediately, he hauled me close, his hand dropping mine to clasp me around my shoulders and pull me so tight to his side I had to turn slightly, pressing my front to him to accommodate the demands of his arm.
Not only for comfort but for connection, I was sliding my arm around his waist when it happened.
I knew they were there but I was so affected by what just happened, in a fog, I didn’t really notice all the people milling about the hall until the clapping started, the hooting began and then someone close by shouted, “Fuck yeah! Class plowed by The Truck!”
We stopped so abruptly I swayed and I dazedly watched Jake’s hand slice up, long finger pointed at something.
I looked to where he was pointing and I saw a man in an unbecoming tracksuit (Jake’s was much better), his face paling as Jake clipped out supremely irately, “Shut your fuckin’ mouth.”
His mouth was partly open when Jake made this command but it clamped shut and his lips thinned, such was his intent to clamp it very shut.
Jake moved us again and it was when we were about to hit the door to the outside that it penetrated that the applause, hooting and that comment were not about congratulating Jake on winning his fight.
It was congratulating Jake on doing what it was clear many had heard us doing in the locker room.
Good God.
“Jake,” I whispered yet again and it was trembling even more this time.
He pushed out the door and ordered quietly, “Josie, stick with me.”
I said nothing but I stuck with him mostly because he was holding me so close and he was so determined to get us where we were going I had no choice.
We made it to his truck. He beeped the locks and had me in before I could blink.
With shaking hands, I buckled in as he tossed his bag in the back and pulled himself behind the wheel.
“My car is here,” I told him something he had to know.
He looked to me even as he turned the key in the ignition. “We’ll come get it tomorrow, honey.”
Tomorrow?
I didn’t ask. He was engaged in backing out of his parking spot and with that behemoth of a vehicle, I thought his attention should be focused on this endeavor.
I looked back out the windshield when we started moving forward.
It wasn’t until we were on our way, headed back to Magdalene when I noticed he had his mobile in his hand. And I noticed this only when I heard Jake talking into it and I looked to him to see he had it to his ear.
“Con?” A pause then, “Yeah, son.” Another pause then, “Yeah, I won. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. Listen, I’m not gonna be home tonight.”
I drew in a sharp breath and saw Jake’s eyes flash to me then back to the road and he kept speaking.
“Curfew’s still solid, bud. You’re on the honor system tonight. Don’t disappoint me.” He was silent a moment and then, “Okay, Con. See you tomorrow.”
I heard him disconnect and the instant he did, I stated, “Jake, we need to talk.”
“We’ll talk when we get you home, Josie.”
“I think we should talk now.”
His mobile hit the console; he grabbed my hand and pulled it so it was resting on his hard thigh.
He then repeated, but did it changing one word and doing it in a tender voice, “We’ll talk when we get you home, baby.”
I said nothing.
He held my hand tighter.
I blanked my mind.
We’d talk when I was home.
Home.
In silence, he drove us to Lavender House.
Jake collected his bag and then he collected me, even though I had my belt off, the door open and was nearly out of his truck by the time he made it to my side. He still lifted me down right before I was about to jump.
He walked us to the house, opened the door with his key and then he walked us in.
As in in.
After locking the door behind us, he walked us straight to my bedroom.
It was then a strange, wondrous, frightening, confusing night got more of all of that.
But mostly the wondrous part.
This was because after he turned on the bedside light, he dropped his bag, took my purse and let it fall to the floor and slid my coat off my arms to join them. He then hooked me about the waist and walked backwards to my bed, taking me with him. He fell and landed on his back, I landed on him and he immediately rolled so he was on top.
Only when he had us arranged did he declare, “Now you’re in a safe place, we’ll talk.”
I was in a safe place.
I was in the only safe place I had.
And Jake brought me here.
“We had sex,” I told him something he could not have forgotten.
“Yeah, we did,” he agreed, his eyes holding mine, his assessing, warm, but also guarded.
“In a locker room,” I went on.
“Yeah,” he again agreed.
All right, there wasn’t much more to explore with that except, well…everything and I didn’t have it in me to explore that everything just yet.
“You were angry with me before the fight,” I stated, though it was a question.
“No, babe, I was pissed,” he answered.
Oddly, I completely understood this distinction.
“Are you angry now?” I inquired.
He stared at me.
Then he inquired in return, “Do I look angry?”
“No,” I answered.
“Fuckin’ my woman who’s wearin’ the sexiest fuckin’ dress that’s ever been in that arena, doin’ that for the first time in the arena’s locker room, it bein’ hot as fuck, all that shit tends to make a man get over bein’ seriously fuckin’ pissed and it does it fast.”
I let most of that slide in order to get to the meat of the matter.
“What did I do?” I asked.
He blinked before he repeated, “What did you do?”
“Yes, Jake, what did I do?”
He stared at me a moment before he answere
d, “Slick, you’re mine and you made a date with another guy.”
“Yes, I’m yours, Jake, but not that way.”
He kept staring at me then he looked around the room, most specifically at the bed we were on, before he looked back at me.
“You’re not mine in that way?” he queried.
I saw his point.
Yet at the same time, I did not.
It was my turn to stare at him for a moment before the words came out of my mouth. And when they did, they came out soft, timid, hopeful and scared.
“Am I yours in that way?”
Understanding, sweet and beautiful, washed through his features. He dipped his face closer and lifted a hand to frame the side of mine.
“You are,” he whispered.
I closed my eyes to fully feel his words moving through me then opened them and pointed out (still timid, still hopeful), “I thought you liked big hair and big…other stuff.”
His head cocked slightly to the side. “What?”
“You said—”
He interrupted me.
“I know what I said, honey. I also know you didn’t like hearin’ it and I further know since you called me after you walked in Lydie’s bedroom, the way you were mine stopped bein’ the way and the way you are mine started.”
“I think I might have missed something,” I admitted.
He grinned a small, sweet grin, his finger beginning to stroke me at my temple as he said, “I was goin’ gentle, baby, but I also thought I was being obvious.”
“You weren’t,” I shared and his brows went up.
“You hold hands with many guys?”
I didn’t. Not with any.
“No.”
“Sit tight close to them at a football game?”
“Um…no.”
“Lounge on the couch with ‘em, your head on their chest?”
I was again seeing his point.
“Oh,” I whispered and his grin came back, bigger this time.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Oh.”
This was all lovely, marvelous, the fact that Jake was telling me that when I had been pretending, it had been real.
I was still uncertain.
“But I don’t have big hair or big—”
I stopped talking when his face got very close and his finger stopped stroking so all of them could press in.
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