What to Read After FSOG: The Gemstone Collection (WTRAFSOG Book 3)

by Lauren Hawkeye

  “Yeah. Fine. Okay.”

  “Jack!” His sister raced down the hall and flung herself into his arms. He held onto her for a second and wished for the millionth time that things were different for them. “Behave up there,” she said, her face buried in his shoulder.

  “I’m pretty sure I need to say the same thing to you.” He put her down, sat on the edge of his bed and took both of her hands. “Listen, Mo, don’t, um…” He ran a hand around the back of his neck. “No dating and…stuff…you know, for a while, anyway.”

  Maureen burst out laughing and hugged him again. Jack felt the distinct press of tears behind his eyes but blinked them away. Heart pounding in his chest, he kissed her forehead, then stood.

  His father still leaned in the doorway, something like a smirk on his face. At least that’s how it appeared to Jack. “She’ll be fine. Won’t you, Mo-ster?” Their father held out an arm.

  Mo hesitated then stepped close to him. “I’ve got your grandma and whatshername, the sitter, to keep her in line.” Mo rolled her eyes and gave their dad a quick squeeze around his thin waist. Then she ran out of the room.

  Jack knew she was not about to let them see her cry. Growing up around the two of them with their extreme testosterone bullshit punctuated by bouts of actual physical violence had hardened her. Jack hoped not too much.

  He grabbed the last box, turned to shoot his boyhood room one last look, then walked out to his truck. Moving on had never sounded, or felt, so right.

  Chapter Eight

  “Yo, Gordon, phone call.” A hand poked his shoulder.

  Jack rolled, groaning when the sunlight hit his hangover right between the eyes. “Some girl again. Big surprise.” His friend’s laughter echoed as he retreated back into the hall. Jack sat, rubbing his aching forehead. It was Sunday. The one day he allowed himself to sleep in, which was good, considering he usually woke up in a tangle of feminine arms and legs on those mornings.

  But today he had woken up alone. He dragged a shirt over his head and stumbled out to answer the phone.

  “Jack!” He leaned against the cinderblock wall of his shitty apartment painted a lurid yellow that week, as a fraternity pledge class prank. Assholes had broken in and done it, drunk all his beer, and left the place a huge mess. Trying to focus on the voice, to pretend he knew who it was so as not to hurt anyone’s delicate female feelings, he saw Rob, his roommate and self-appointed new partner in female defilement, exit his room.

  The tall blond guy gave him a mock salute and headed for the shower. Jack groaned, realizing that last sip of bourbon they had shared before pouring the rest over the naked torsos of the girls they were fucking on his bedroom floor had been one too many.

  “Jack!” the voice yelped again. He frowned and straightened up.

  “Mo?” He dropped onto the carpet, not seeing all the mess he needed to clean up. Guilt flooded his brain. He had not paid much attention to her in the last couple of years, other than to see her in the summers while he worked for his father and lived in a rented house near downtown Ann Arbor.

  “Dad’s getting married.”

  “Oh, um, okay.” He sat up straight, memories of Mindy so bright and clear they were like a knife slicing into his chest.

  “You gotta come home,” she went on, her voice breaking.

  “Mo, what’s wrong?” He tried to make his voice sound stronger than he felt.

  “It’s Maimeo. She had a stroke. Dad’s freaking out. It’s the only reason I knew he was getting married. Some lady showed up, some…younger lady, and… oh shit, Jack I need you to come home. Just for a while, like a few days, I guess.” He heard her suck in a breath, holding back tears, as usual. His brain clicked in as he mentally flipped through his list of schoolwork that week. Midterms were over. He still had the 4.0 GPA that he demanded of himself. He could take the time away and would even if he couldn’t. His sister needed him.

  “Okay, honey, I’ll, um…when is the, I mean. Never mind. I’ll leave this afternoon, home by dinner, okay?”

  “Okay.” The girl’s voice was quiet. “I told Brandis already so he’s expecting you.” His high school pal had stayed in Ann Arbor to attend the University of Michigan and was in the Air Force ROTC.

  “Oh, uh, sure, thanks.” He got to his feet, his knees wobbly, his head starting to pound from emotion and last night’s excesses. He saw a slight female form emerge from the second bathroom, her bright auburn hair like a beacon in the early morning gloom.

  He groaned. Shit, had they? He honestly could barely remember past the mini orgy he’d hosted early in the night.

  The girl turned as if reading his mind, blew him a kiss that he knew was ironic, and started toward the door. “Wait,” he called out, needing nothing more than a solid reality session from his friend, the lovely, smart-assed, redhead Suzanne. He held up a hand.

  She stopped but pointed to her watch.

  “Mo, I’ll be there by dinner, promise. Gotta go sort out some stuff first. Loveyoubye.” He ran the words together and hung up.

  “I’ve got study group. What do you want?” Suzanne asked from the opposite end of the hall.

  He stayed put, hands on the wall, steadying himself. He had met Suzanne the first day of freshmen English, not his best subject but he was too busy scoping out his targets to care. When he’d spotted her, he did not have his usual automatic thought about what her face would look like when he made her come. He had smiled at her pixie-like good looks, at the natural, easy-going way she observed him observing her.

  She’d avoided him for a week or so, brushing off his invites to fraternity parties, for coffee, to even walk alongside him as if she knew he’d be bad news.

  He jumped when she touched his shoulder, closed his eyes at her scent. He was falling for her. He knew it. So perversely, he kept turning his personality dial to “asshole,” hoping she’d get the message and give up on him.

  He was not about to get attached to anyone. Considering how easy it had proven to channel his father when he wanted to, he figured it was for her own good.

  “So….” He turned, looking down at her petite self. “Was I good?” His pulse raced. He sincerely hoped he had not gotten so drunk he would not remember having sex with this girl he considered his good friend. He couldn’t remember when she’d shown up.

  She laughed and punched him hard in the stomach, catching him off guard. “You wish, lover boy.” She leaned back, crossing her arms and giving him a strange look. “You were in rare form across the hall for a while, with Freitag, but that’s nothing new. I just sat with Jeff and Mike, smoked a few and fell asleep on your couch. I think he likes me.” Her dark eyes brightened. Jack bit the inside of his cheek to resist telling her that Mike had a girlfriend.

  He held out an arm, and she settled herself comfortably against his chest. His heart calmed and for the millionth time since she had finally agreed to “hang out” – never “go out” – with him. At that moment he had to use every weapon in his personal arsenal not to toss her over his shoulder and take her to bed.

  Something in him wanted it so bad he ached, and he’d channeled the feeling into fucking a different girl every week, sometimes more than one. He couldn’t go there with Suzanne. He wasn’t ready. He was a shithead, and she deserved better. Jack had no intention of settling down. Not now, maybe not ever.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, making him sigh at her prescience.

  He led her back to his room. Rob emerged from the shower, damp, a towel around his waist. He shot the two of them a look. Jack flipped him off then slammed his door in the guy’s face.

  “It’s my grandma. She’s probably dying. Apparently I’m getting a stepmother. I don’t know. Shit.” He sat and to his surprise, Suzanne slid immediately into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. His body reacted in a healthy fashion, but his heart hurt so badly he didn’t push her away this time. She felt so right to him.

  He had told her about his dad, his mother’s death, his drive to be b
etter, to prove that he was everything John Gordon would never be. She’d chided him before, but now she just held onto him.

  “Um, yeah.” She shifted when his erection made itself well known beneath her. “I should go. You need to pack.”

  He tightened his grip and she didn’t resist. When he found her lips with his, their softness made him sigh. They’d been here before, on a winter break trip when they’d gotten drunk and high and ended up together more than once that long weekend. It had taken Jack weeks to work up the courage to call her after that and she’d avoided him too. Finally he’d seen her at a party, pulled her aside and they’d agreed that it had been a one-off, fun and all, but that their friendship was more important. He knew it then—he probably did love her, should love her. They would make a great couple. So he had to avoid her like the plague.

  She sighed as he parted her lips with his tongue gently, with no urgency, no rush, just a sweet moment, a perfect fit. He groaned as she turned to straddle him, lifting her skirt just enough so he could feel her heat against his. The kiss got serious then, as he ran his lips down her neck, cupped one of her pert breasts. The familiarity of it was a relief, and more of a turn-on than any challenge he could remember.

  “Jack,” she whispered, her breath getting ragged. “We…I’m…oh…” She sighed as he lifted her shirt so he could tug one of her peaked nipples into his mouth. She tasted like tart, red-headed perfection. His brain was flooded with a need so strong he couldn’t get his hands around it, couldn’t control it. That scared him, but he refused to slow down. Her hands were fisted in his hair, her petite body wrapped around him. He took her face in his hands and stared at her.

  “I can’t do this again, Suzanne. It will…mean too much. Not after…you know.”

  Without a word she reached to his drawer and pulled out a condom.

  “No,” he whispered.

  When she stood and shed her shirt and skirt it was like a dream, a bizarre half-sleeping moment. She pushed him onto his back, leaned down to lick his nipples, making him groan and shift his hips involuntarily. He pulled her up to meet his gaze. “You’re sure?”

  Suzanne nodded, but he stopped when saw the tears in her eyes. He would not make this girl cry, not for anything, not even if it meant cutting her off as a friend. They would never work. He was a shit. She was perfect.

  Her lips covered his and his resolve broke into a million pieces. He flipped them over, slid his hands down her small frame. Cupping each breast, he lapped at her flesh, then slid his fingers along her sex. It was exactly as he remembered and had spent months trying to forget.

  Stop. Gordon. This is a bad idea. Think with your upper brain for a change.

  “Please, Jack….” She exhaled as the climax left her shaking and still pulsing around his fingers. He climbed up between her legs, covered her lips even as she told him, “Fuck me.”

  That sometimes elusive upper brain closed down once more as he did as he was told, twice, before they emerged, her blushing and a little angry for missing her study group. Him packed and headed home to face the Gordon family crisis. He held her at his truck, kissed her hard, not caring who saw them. Just as he was about to ask her to accompany him home, to be with him, be his girlfriend, she spoke.

  “Last time,” she said against his chest. “Okay? Because I still think we should not be more than…friends…you know, who can, um, have sex and stuff. Without any awkwardness.”

  He laughed so hard she stepped away, frowning at him. He finally collected himself and yanked her close, taking in deep breaths of her, committing it to memory. Relief along with a strange sense of emptiness made him feel hollowed out. He put a hand to her face. “Good call, Peaches. Thanks for the mercy fuck.”

  “Oh that was no mercy fuck, Gordon. I wanted it. You wanted it. Now go home and don’t call me, because if you do I’ll think you might be falling for me. And we can’t have that, now can we? Oh, if you call me Peaches again I’m gonna pound you.” She shot him a look he figured out later was one of remorse and walked away without a backward glance.

  He watched her until her small frame was absorbed by a crowd of fellow students headed to the library. Gulping back the strong urge to yell out, to beg her to come with him, he climbed into his truck and turned the key. Something in him knew she could handle Gordon Senior and the whole fucking mess better than he could, knew she would be The One, if he let her be.

  By the time he got home, his grandmother was dead. He stuck around for the week. Attended her funeral, the hollow feeling never leaving him, especially as he gazed down at her still somehow stern and judgmental face.

  He was introduced to his father’s new wife, a brittle-looking chick who managed a bank or something. Jack didn’t really absorb it. They endured an awkward dinner together, Jack drinking glass after glass of wine until the room wobbled, and he felt like he could handle it all. The next morning he kissed Mo goodbye and drove back, eager to see Suzanne and sick over the fact that he wouldn’t.

  When he did lay eyes on her again, she was hanging off the arm of some tool he didn’t know from a different fraternity. She smiled at him briefly. Then turned to wrap herself around the other guy, bringing a sharp stab of fury to Jack’s brain. One that he suppressed by giving Freitag the high sign that he’d found a couple of girls willing to have a little private party with them. As he dove between the legs of yet another nameless, faceless female, he realized it was mainly so he could forget Suzanne and what she might have been for him.

  By the time he hit the final summer of college with an acceptance letter to Northwestern Law School in hand, he anticipated a few months of hard work and nothing more. Looking back, Jack realized it was a pivotal set of weeks for many reasons.

  Having worked his way up to job foreman for his father’s construction company, he was in the best physical shape of his life. Never more than a single phone call from getting laid—and two calls from a threesome if he wanted it. As he settled into his room in the house on Church Street in May he truly should have been on top of the world. But something remained just out of his grasp, an elusive…not-quite-there-thing that made him antsier and more prone to bouts of temper than ever before.

  His body thrummed with residual energy. No matter what he did—no matter how many hours of work he put in, how many miles he ran, or how strong he got, he still felt his own restlessness choking him. Even after the first weekend of parties that ended with the usual tangle of naked bodies, he got up and would swear he could fuck a thousand women, right then and there. He could by God bench press them after that and then run a marathon. It was maddening. Making him a pain in the ass to be around, he knew for a fact.

  “You are a pain in the ass, Gordon,” Brandis confirmed for him that Sunday afternoon. “Truly, what the fuck is your issue?” They were washing cars in the bright sunlight of a warm Michigan summer day and had nearly come to blows over who had left a few empty beer cans rolling around on the kitchen floor. Jack frowned and concentrated on the rainbow reflected in the spray against the bright red of Brandis’ car door.

  “I know. Sorry,” he muttered, tossing the thing down and flopping into a ratty lawn chair. His head pounded, while the rest of him seemed to shimmer with a sort of barely repressed anxiety. He felt as if his control was slipping. The more wild sex he had, the more he required. It was either exercise, push himself to exhaustion at work, fuck his goddamned brains out, or go bat-shit insane.

  After stumbling inside to grab a couple of beers for them, he waited for his eyes to adjust. He focused on a scrap of paper one of the girls had left last night—one who had been especially amenable to his preference for rougher play, he recalled with a grin.

  He wouldn’t deny that going hard, tugging hair and smacking asses was something that truly revved his engine. Any girl who encouraged it usually got the benefit of an actual phone call the morning after, if he thought he could get a little more from her. He ran his finger over the phone number and address she’d left. It was a downto
wn Detroit one, new to him, but suddenly he remembered what she’d said.

  “Baby, you need to come to this club. I could show you how real men play with girls like me.”

  He shivered, his entire body breaking into chills at the memory. Gulping down a few slugs of the beer first, he sat, held onto the phone a moment, then dialed her number.

  The moment was one Jack would never forget. The sights, sounds, smells of the place would forever be imprinted on him, drawing him back to that exact space and time.

  His body was on fire, heart pounding, pulse racing. A strange buzzing sound rose in his ears, deafening him, lending a yet more surreal cast to the scene. He stood and watched, ever more amazed that he’d discovered such a perfect outlet.

  The woman was bound to a sort of “X” or cross. She was naked but for a blindfold. Her perfect body was spread-eagled and she exuded a calm vibe that he misinterpreted at first to be resignation. He’d later come to realize it for what it was—the sensory rabbit hole of “sub space.”

  She was in it already, put there by the show he’d watched that had made him hornier than he’d ever been in his life. But there was more to it than just a visceral need to connect, to put his cock in something, to gain release. No, he had a role here, a purpose. And that fact hit him hard in his chest.

  He was needed. And that was more of a turn-on than anything he had ever experienced. This woman required something specific of him—more than a simple fuck. He got to his feet, beckoned by the leather-clad dude who’d been teasing the bound girl, bringing her to the brink of orgasm while demanding that she not allow herself to come. Then using a whip, some candle wax and a set of evil-looking nipple clamps to rev her up all over again.

  Jack ran a hand through his hair. His body was on super high alert, but his brain was quiet, free of the incessant clamoring he’d been experiencing for the past weeks and months. This…this must be what he required. He would rise to this occasion and be all he could for the woman who trusted him enough to allow him to take over from the older, more experienced guy.