Hurt Like HELL (new adult contemporary romance)

by Casey, London

  The one that kissed me.

  I licked my lips - partially to keep them and my mouth from running dry, but also to bring back that night he kissed me.

  “Jack…”

  “Here, remember this?”

  He leaned down and I jumped back on the couch.

  “My gosh, Tessa, I’m not going to hurt you. I’ve been saving you longer than you can imagine…”

  Slowly, Jack brought his right hand down to the table. His hands were big, strong. Time had treated Jack well… but how?

  How could time have treated him well? Time had been taken from him. By my father.

  Jack took his pointer finger and tapped the table three times, with his fingernail. He then tapped the table with his finger, twice. Finally, using four fingers, he raked them along the table like a quick drumbeat.

  The moment he did it, my heart fluttered and my eyes filled with tears.

  The signal.

  Our signal.

  When we were teenagers… the signal he’d use on the basement door to let me know he was there.

  I looked at him as a few of the tears let go, streaming down my cheek.

  “But how?” I asked.

  It all seemed cruel in that moment, because if I was still dreaming, I hated the dream. I didn’t want to dream about a life where Jack survived or a life with Jack… I wanted to live it. I had enough of dreams. I wanted to embrace reality.

  Jack took the same hand and reached towards me. I didn’t jump back. His finger touched my cheek and I felt it. I really felt it. His finger ran up my cheek, collecting my tears and then he pulled away.

  Jack was real, but not.

  My chin quivered, fighting to hold it together. I looked at him, waiting.

  Waiting for what, I didn’t know. Maybe for the dream to end. Maybe for my lust filled fantasies to come to life and have Jack attack me on the couch and have me. When I was thirteen, I didn’t fully understand all I felt and what my body wanted. But now, I was twenty-three and I knew what I wanted, even if I didn’t come with the experience.

  “Just tell me how.”

  “How what?” Jack asked with a cute smile.

  His dimples were perfect, definitely something he kept from his youth.

  “You’re a ghost…”

  “No, I’m not.” His face looked annoyed now, I obviously touched on a nerve.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean it like that. This just…”

  “I knew this was going to happen,” Jack said.

  He turned and took a few steps, working himself into pacing. He used to do the same thing in my basement when he was nervous or mad. He still turned the same way, sticking his toes in the air, spinning on the back of his foot.

  I couldn’t believe how much of this I remembered. As I watched it, it was like the memories were being resurrected from the depths of my mind.

  I loved every second of it.

  “Jack…” - I couldn’t believe I got to say his name again while looking at him.

  He spun and stopped. His brown hair bounced a little, looking thicker and fuller than ten years ago, but it still had that same curly mop look to it. He needed a comb and some gel, but the messy look suited him.

  I had to look away and collect my thoughts.

  What was wrong with me?

  “This is why I never showed you before,” he said. “But after the accident, I couldn’t risk losing you…”

  “Losing me?”

  The way Jack spoke, it was like he never left me. Like he had been in my life… my entire life.

  “If you… die… Tessa, I may not see you.”

  “You see me now.”

  Jack smiled. Before my heart could race at the sight of his dimples, he ran a hand through his hair. His t-shirt pulled up and I saw a sliver of skin and I felt like I could melt. Then I saw his bicep flex, and even for a brief second, I could see it tighten and ball up.

  Wow, he was strong.

  Really strong.

  I sighed as quietly as I could manage and hurried to look away, just as he started to look at me.

  “Mind if I sit?” he asked.

  I patted the couch and moved down.

  As he sat, the couch moved… if Jack was a ghost, I wouldn’t feel him, would I? He wouldn’t be able to move the couch, would he?

  “Tessa, it’s complicated, okay?”

  “Says the man who died ten years ago as a boy.”

  Jack half smiled. “I see that wit grew over the years.”

  “You would know, right?”

  “We’ll get to that part later. But for now… there’s a lot I still don’t know about death.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  I thought dead meant gone. Bye-bye.

  “If you died in that accident, I wouldn’t have been able to find you. You know, after…”

  “So there’s life after death?”

  Jack looked at me. His eyes were beautiful. Just beautiful. Ironically, they were full of life. And protection. Staring in his eyes made me forget about everything. Forget about my father being released from prison. Forget about the accident. Forget about Brett. Forget about…

  “There’s no life where I came from,” Jack said. He swallowed, hard, and then continued. “It is whatever you want it to be. For some, it’s different. But I do know that when it happens, you’re not necessarily greeted by friends and family. If I didn’t help you after the accident…”

  “I knew it was you,” I said. My voice squeaked a little but I didn’t care. “I knew it.”

  “I’m not supposed to do that kind of stuff, but I couldn’t let you die. I couldn’t imagine my life, or whatever I have, without you in it.”

  I was speechless, and stunned.

  Silence worked its way into the living room and we sat there. It was just like ten years ago. Like we aged but time had paused long enough for us. I looked to my right and down. I watched as Jack started to slowly move his hand. From his leg to the couch. On the couch he moved slowly, his hand like a fleshy spider. I did the same with my hand and in silence, our fingers touched. At first he felt cold, really cold. Shivering cold. But touching him made me feel warm and as our fingers closed together, everything became warm.

  “You saved me,” I whispered.

  “I could have done more,” Jack said. “I mean, I should have.”

  “Done more? Like…?”

  “Stopped the car. Scared the deer.”

  “You can do that?”

  “I can do a lot.” Jack smiled. “More than you can imagine, or handle.”

  I smiled back at him, my cheeks starting to blush.

  “How did you carry me up that hill?”

  “Magic.”

  And that’s where we left it. Magic. Jack, my best friend who was supposed to dead, sat next to me on my couch.

  None of it felt real, but that’s where I found myself.

  Jack took his hand from mine and stood up. He looked over his shoulder. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I don’t know what I’m sure of right now. How did you get in here?”

  Jack answered again with, “magic.”

  “Of course. Magic.”

  “Come on, Tessa, let’s not get lost in that stuff right now.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “I know. Let me be in control. Trust me, I have been for a long time. Anyone else tell you that you’re a klutz?”

  I swung my foot out and kicked Jack, laughing. I purposely watched my foot connect with the back of his leg because part of me still believed it would go through him. It didn’t. It connected and his leg bent.

  “Hey!” he cried out and laughed too.

  “How do you know I’m a klutz?” I asked.

  “Tessa…” Jack sighed. “Let’s put it this way, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen you, been near you, helped you… and it’s not even the first time you have seen me.”

  I quickly jumped from the couch, standing way too close to Jack
. My mind suddenly went back to the night of our first kiss. That was the same night everything else happened too. But I blocked that part out. I didn’t care about that right then. Jack was here, right now, with me.

  I tried to piece it together. When could Jack have been present? I started to stare off into space and at the last second, I saw Jack lean down towards my ear.

  When his lips touched my ear, I shuddered. My knees bent and I reached for him. I grabbed one of his pockets and my left hand felt the front of his belt. I realized I was just a few inches shy of touching somewhere else and it sent my body into a fury… parts of my body reacted in ways they hadn’t in a long time. I had the urge to spread my fingers and just go with the intense moment, but I enjoyed Jack breathing against my ear. His breath was warm (another surprise) and it cascaded down my ear to my neck.

  “Tessa,” he whispered. “Magic…”

  I felt him smile and I prayed for him to kiss me.

  Go ahead, right at the top of my ear. Then again, and again. Work down… towards my neck…

  Jack stood back up, shifting his body so we faced each other.

  I was still a little lost trying to figure out Jack’s presence in my life and trying to calm my boiling blood. My gosh, I wanted him. Right then. I actually wanted him. The urge to want a man had been something so foreign to me… maybe because Jack was the man. My man. And he was here.

  I looked up at him, remembering our height difference as teenagers. My nose used to come to his lips. I knew because I vividly remembered falling asleep at night imagining Jack kissing the tip of my nose.

  As adults, Jack had grown more than I did. The tip of my nose reached just below his chin. I noticed then too that in his aging, he formed a small butt-chin. I wasn’t really into that feature, but it worked for Jack. Anything worked for Jack. He was just simply amazing.

  I inhaled, doing so in an obvious way. I wanted to entice Jack, see how far my flirty and lusty glances could go.

  He just looked down at me. His face was deep, dark, and commanding. He had the look of a seasoned protector. I wanted to know everything he had done and how far back his memories of what happened went.

  And how he was standing with me.

  My mind played a horrible image of Jack’s grave. I’d never been there, but I could see a rectangular stone in the ground with his name and birth and death date on it. A patch of grass grown over, the grounds way of covering up its own wounds and scars from being dug into.

  “Jack… I have to ask you something…”

  Jack swallowed and took a breath. I suddenly was back in my basement. Smelling the moist, cold concrete, and the subtle hint of heating oil and dust. It was the greatest room in that house of hell I had been forced to live in, and those moments with Jack kept me off the edge.

  “Ask me anything,” he whispered.

  I could taste his breath.

  It was warm. It was Jack.

  I opened my mouth and he cut me off. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll answer it. I promise you, Tessa, in time, you’ll know all I can share. I still have… things to do…”

  When Jack said that, his eyes sort of flared like they were going to change color or something. His lip slightly came up in a snarl. There were dark things on his mind, things that made me shiver and I didn’t even know them.

  Even still, despite all he knew and I didn’t, there was something I needed to know.

  “Jack… are you really here?”

  The question came out wrong, but I wasn’t given a chance to ask it the way I intended.

  Jack laughed and put one of his strong, manly hands to my face. Again, there was a quick chill followed by warmth. Like touching something with a static charge. His thumb rubbed my cheek and the effect on my body was intense. I saw myself with him, in my bed, giving all that I could to him. The ultimate offering… my innocence and purity. He’d give his innocence, his life for me, it was the least I could do.

  “Tessa… you tell me… is this real?”

  Jack came down and my eyes went wide. His lips touched mine and I couldn’t control myself as I moaned. It was a loud moan, with the implications of sexual desire. My cheeks flushed and my hands tugged at him, trying to pull him closer to me. I wanted to feel him… you know, feel him. I couldn’t believe the urges inside me and my instinct to just go with him, explore them, and act as if I knew what the hell I was doing.

  Our lips were together, but we weren’t kissing. There was a slight hesitation on both our parts. I watched Jack’s face the best I could, seeing his eyes slowly open. He was waiting for me to make a move and I had already done so. I let him kiss me and I pulled him close to me. But he was being a gentleman, so far, and at the same time, we both smiled. It of course ruined the kiss, but I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

  He pulled away and whispered, “Sorry. I’ve been waiting for that for…”

  “Ten years,” I said.

  “Yes. Ten years, Tessa.”

  I then kissed Jack, unable to stop myself. My lips pushed hard at him, forcing him to step back and catch his balance.

  I guess I didn’t know my own strength. Or lust.

  My hands were still tight on Jack’s shirt and I had no intentions of letting him go. I kissed him again, and again, and finally, he lost himself. With a soft groan, Jack opened his mouth and his tongue touched my lips. My body flooded with a warmth and heat I never thought possible. My heart, my emotions, and my needs were all suddenly connected.

  The kiss started to get hot, really hot, as our heads turned and our tongues battled for space. This time, unlike ten years ago, we had nothing to worry about. Nobody would be smashing through a door, wielding a knife, trying to…

  My thoughts erased and I stopped kissing Jack. He closed his lips just in time to make a wet smack sound before I pulled away. I stared at him, in silence, my eyes burning as I fought back tears.

  Someone could try and hurt us.

  The same someone.

  It was like living ten years in the past, just ten years older.

  “What’s wrong?” Jack asked.

  His hand moved from my cheek to my hair and his fingers ran through it. His touch was like electricity, sending tingling pulses up and down my body.

  “Nothing,” I lied. “This is just…”

  “I know,” he said. “I know. But I had to kiss you. So tell me, is it real?”

  I licked my lips and smiled, feeling confident and super flirty. “Yeah. It’s real.”

  The room felt like a hundred degrees and got hotter by the second. I wanted Jack like I never wanted someone before. I wanted him in that moment and for all the moments to come.

  He sensed my needs and my wild desire and he backed up. He put his hands to my wrists and squeezed, letting me know gently that I needed to let his shirt go. I refused at first, but I trusted his eyes. There was more to happen before I could give myself to Jack. If it was possible.

  Could I have sex with Jack… who was… a ghost? Could I give him my body, my virginity, and finally have everything I ever wanted?

  Maybe this was how time had been designed. My father getting out of prison allowed me to have Jack back. I had a new last name and protection, plus, what would my father want to do with me?

  “Why don’t you grab a shower? Relax a little.”

  “Are you saying I smell?” I asked.

  “I’ve seen you in worse shape, but the hospital couldn’t have been much fun.”

  Agreed. I felt like I hadn’t showered in weeks. I felt like a ratty mess and yet Jack still kissed me and still looked at me like I was the only woman alive. So tall. So strong. So commanding…

  “Will you still be here?”

  “Tessa, I never went anywhere.”

  The words shot straight to my heart. I tried to sigh but my bottom lip quivered, making it sound like I was quietly blowing raspberries.

  Jack laughed. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. I think I’ll go take that shower now.”
<
br />   We had one last look at each other and then I walked to the bathroom. As I moved, I could feel him staring at me. His eyes tore me apart. I paused at the bathroom door and looked at Jack, keeping a straight face.

  “See something you like?” I asked.

  I wanted to take some command. I wanted to tease him to see if I could bring him to the edge of sexual need.

  Jack smiled.

  Ugh, those dimples.

  “Tessa… please. Don’t say things you don’t understand.”

  With one hand on the bathroom door, I used my other hand to start to lift my shirt.

  What the hell had gotten into me?

  I couldn’t remember the last time a guy tried to touch me, let alone touch my skin or see my skin.

  I pulled my shirt up just enough to let Jack think I was going to let him see something and then stopped. I let the shirt go, winked at him, then opened the door.

  My body was on fire and I needed the protection of the bathroom to lean over the sink and take deep breaths to calm myself.

  Take that, Jack. I looked into the mirror at my smiling reflection.

  “You know,” a voice said, causing me to scream.

  I turned and saw Jack standing in the doorway. His hands were reaching up, holding the doorframe. His t-shirt came up again, showing a little more than my eyes and body could take.

  “I’m trying to…”

  I had nothing, the words just trailed off.

  “You know,” he repeated, “you shouldn’t try and tease like that.”

  “Oh yeah? Why not?”

  “You’re not going to show me something I haven’t already seen…”

  My mouth opened.

  “Sorry about bothering you during your bath the other night.”

  This time, Jack smiled, winked, and pulled the door shut.

  4

  I took a shower, barely, and came out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel. I peeked to my right, down the hall towards the dining area and living room but didn’t see Jack. I thought about yelling for him but knew that if he came within striking distance I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. I saw myself dropping my towel and waiting to see what those strong hands and commanding eyes would be able to do.