by Naomi West
I wanted Rip's help. I wanted him to trace out designs with me and point out the mistakes that I was making. I certainly couldn't afford to receive another 'C' on a project because I had made some stupid mistakes in various easy calculations.
And I really needed a hug.
I slipped past the bouncer and into the bar, biting my lip as I looked around for any sign of Rip. I should have called him before coming here. I doubted that he even really wanted to see me after the way that I'd treated him. And I didn't know how I was going to apologize to him. I still didn't have Dad's blessing to be here, so it wasn't like I could somehow magically fix things between us.
I finally spotted him back in the corner, a blonde girl in his lap. He was kissing her as though she were his lifeline, their scorching passion evident even from across the room like this. I felt sick to my stomach, wondering how I'd been so easily tricked by him. Of course he'd already moved on. He’d probably slept with half a dozen women since I'd started freezing him out of my life. Of course I wasn't special enough that he would pine after me when I made it clear that I was going to have nothing to do with him anymore.
Someone jostled me from my left, and I stumbled a bit, but recovered, my eyes still glued to Rip and his fling, I analyzed their kiss as though if I looked hard enough, it would be me there in his lap, kissing him as though my life depended on it.
“Hey, Rip!” someone shouted from behind me, and Rip broke away from his liplock, turning to look toward whoever it was that had called his name.
Which, of course, brought his gaze right to me.
I could feel my face begin to heat up, and I could hardly stand to watch as his face went through a complicated set of emotions before it finally settled back on neutral. His hands tightened around the woman's waist, as though staking a claim on her and her place there in his lap.
I'd never felt so humiliated in my life, and I turned towards the door, heedless of the people that I was running into.
Rip caught my wrist just after I made it out onto the street. “Jessi, what the hell are you doing here?” he asked.
I shook my head, unable to even answer that question, feeling my lower lip begin to quiver.
“Jessi,” Rip said, cupping my cheek in his palm, forcing me to look up at him. “Did Ellsmith do something to you? Or did you get into a fight with your dad?”
“I'm fine,” I choked out. “Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt something.”
“You've been drinking,” Rip accused.
“A little,” I admitted. “I wouldn't have had the guts to come here otherwise.” I swallowed hard. “I've missed you, Rip.”
Again, that complicated set of emotions. “Jessi, what exactly are you doing here?” Rip asked. “Because I highly doubt that Mick is suddenly on board with the idea of you showing up around here.”
“He isn't,” I told him, sighing a little. “And I don't know how I'm going to make him okay with that, or with you, or with anything, but I just ...needed to see you.”
“That's not fair,” Rip said, pulling away a little.
“I know,” I said softly. “It doesn't matter anyway, though. I'm sorry that I interrupted you. Go on back to your ...” I swallowed hard.
“Come on,” Rip said, catching my wrist and dragging me over towards his bike. He roughly thrust a helmet at me.
“What are you-”
“Get on,” Rip snapped, leaving no room for argument. I clung to his waist, breathing in his comforting scent, and tried to let myself drift.
It wasn't too surprising that we ended up at his apartment, or that as soon as the door was closed behind us, he was pinning me back against the wall, giving me a bruising kiss. He tugged at my hair and bit at my lips, one hand playing roughly with my breasts through the fabric of my shirt.
“Rip,” I whimpered as he pulled away. “We need to-”
“Shut up,” Rip snapped, his voice angry. “If you can't tell me anything that I want to hear, then just shut up.”
I had never seen this gruff, angry side of him before, and even though I knew that this should be a bit of a warning sign, I also couldn't help being turned on by how dominating he was acting. I snapped my mouth shut, letting him do whatever he wanted to me.
What he did was take me into his bedroom and begin tearing my clothes off me. Then, he spun me around and bent me in half over the bed, bringing his hand down with a sharp crack against my backside.
I groaned and practically collapsed against the bed. I'd never tried anything like this before, but I couldn't deny the pleasure in the little sparkles of pain making their way through my senses. And I trusted Rip not to take things too far. He wouldn't really hurt me.
He spanked me a few more times, and then moved in behind me, dragging his still-clothed cock up the crack between my legs. He was rock hard and ready to penetrate me, and I couldn't help moaning, pushing back against him. But that only earned me a couple more spanks.
“You've been such a naughty girl,” Rip told me. “Refusing to talk to me, and skipping a bunch of your classe” Three more slaps rained down. It was getting to the point where it actually hurt, but I still didn't want him to stop. Paradoxically, I felt cared for. And the spanks were helping me forget all the loneliness and worry that I'd been feeling over the past few weeks. They helped to get me out of the mess of my thoughts and back into the present. It was a nice feeling.
Without warning, Rip plunged his fingers roughly inside of me, and I cried out at the intrusion, not having expected it. “Look how wet you are,” he growled. “I never realized you were such a dirty little slut.”
He maneuvered his fingers around with practiced ease, finding all the spots that had me crying out and mewling with pleasure. “Please, Rip,” I begged, writhing a little against the sheets.
“I thought I told you to shut up,” Rip snapped. “One more word out of you and I'll leave you desperate and wanting for the whole night.”
I shivered all over with the thought of that and bit my lower lip, trying my best to silence my cries of pleasure. It was difficult, though, when Rip was moving his fingers so expertly, keeping me just on the border of what I needed. If he would only give me a little more.
His hand crashed down against my backside again, and I gasped breathily, collapsing against the bed despite the grip that he had in my hair, a grip that I hadn't noticed until he was pulling at it.
He finally, after what seemed like an eternity, pulled his fingers all the way out of my hole and snapped his hips forwards, seating himself within me in one fluid motion. “Rip,” I whimpered, unable to help it.
Rip froze, and I practically keened with the need for him to keep moving. I tried desperately to move my hips against his, but he held me firmly in place with a rough grip at my hips. “Like I said-” he started to say.
“Please, Rip,” I said, the words tumbling out of my mouth. “Please, you don't know how badly I need this—how badly I need you. I've been so lonely and I just … please.”
Rip continued to pause there, making me truly desperate. “Do you think you deserve this?” he asked.
“Not really,” I admitted honestly, before my brain had really caught up to what my mouth was saying. But it was the truth. With the way that I'd been acting lately, I didn't really deserve for him to take me home like this, and yet here we were. “But I think you think I deserve it,” I continued, my voice barely a whisper. “And that means a lot to me.”
Rip pulled out, and I whined, twisting to catch his wrist to keep him from pulling away. I hadn't expected him to actually leave me wanting, to leave me so desperate and needy.
But that wasn't his intention, I realized, as I turned to find him slowly stripping off the remainder of his clothing. “Lie back,” he said quietly, gesturing towards the bed.
I moved gingerly into the center of the bed, watching as he approached in his now-naked form.
He crawled up my body and kissed me gently, his movements in sharp contrast to the domineering movements
before. “Jessi,” he sighed, leaning his forehead against mine. “We shouldn't be doing this.”
“I know,” I whispered. “But Rip, I want this.”
“You deserve to be happy,” Rip told me. “And if that means you're designing motorbikes and sleeping with me, then ...”
“It's just going to take some time for Dad to come around to the idea,” I told him. “But I don't like seeing you with other women. That hurt.”
“I'm not particularly interested in being with other women,” Rip admitted. “To be honest, all I could think of the whole time I was kissing her was how much I would rather that it was you there in my lap.”
“I think I love you,” I admitted. Then I pulled back, feeling embarrassed and clapping a hand over my mouth. “I mean-” Jesus, I didn't even know what I meant. It was true that no one had ever made me feel quite like Rip did. He made me feel confident and sexy and all sorts of strange feelings that I'd never had before. But surely I hadn't really known him for long enough that I could love him already.
“I'm not great at the whole love and relationships thing,” Rip warned me. “But that said ...” He bent down to kiss me again, his lips slipping warmly across mine, his tongue exploring the soft skin of my mouth. He lay his hand directly over my heart, no doubt able to feel my fluttering heartbeat, and I could sense all the words that he wasn't saying. “Jessi, I want to try to figure this out,” he told me seriously as he broke away from me. “But you're going to need to talk to your dad about things.”
“He said he would kick me out,” I told him.
“Do you really think he'd do that?” Rip asked, and when he said that, I suddenly realized how silly I had been. Of course Dad wasn't actually going to kick me out or disown me.
I shivered a little, and Rip kissed me lightly on the forehead. Then he nudged my legs apart so that he was nestled between them again, cocking his head to the side.
And, suddenly, it was as though my arousal from before had come back full force. I practically melted against the sheets as Rip stroked the skin between my legs, making embarrassing noises of need. When he pressed back inside of me, it only took a few pumps of his hips before we were both coming hard.
Afterward, we lay there together, not saying anything, both thinking our separate thoughts. I was going to need to find some way to reason with Dad about all of this sooner, rather than later. I wasn't sure what exactly I was going to say, but he needed to know that I couldn't just cut Rip out of my life like he wanted.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jessi
I nervously smoothed my hands down the front of my jeans, staring at the door to the office that had once been sanctuary, but which I now hated with every fiber of my being.
To be honest, I was terrified to enter Gary's office, but I didn't have a choice in the matter. I had to do my mandatory portfolio review, and since he was my main advisor in the program, he was the one that I needed to talk to. I only wished that there were someone I could bring with me to this, but I didn't dare ask Rip to come along, even though he knew the whole backstory and I trusted him to keep me safe. And Dad and I had been on such shaky terms lately.
I swallowed hard and knocked on the door, waiting for it to swing open and admit me into this nightmare. I knew that Rip had talked to Gary, so I didn't think that there would be any sort of unprofessional behavior happening that afternoon. But, on the other hand, I didn't trust the man at all.
I shut the door behind me, even though doing so only made me more nervous.
“Have a seat,” Gary said, gesturing towards the couches that we had sat on the night that he had first groped me there in his office. I hesitated, and Gary frowned. “I said, have a seat.”
I didn't want to anger him, so finally I walked over to the couch and sat gingerly on the edge of it, unsurprised when he moved over to sit next to me, my portfolio in his lap. “I see a lot of potential in your work here,” Gary began. “In fact, next semester, I'm planning to recommend you to-”
“I'm not coming back next semester,” I interrupted, setting my jaw. It was a decision that I had finally made that morning, while I was climbing out of Rip's embrace.
Gary stared at me in shock for a moment, his mouth agape. “Excuse me?” he asked.
“I'm not coming back next semester,” I repeated. “I've been thinking a lot about it, and I just don't really feel like I've found my place here, or found whatever it was that I was searching for. I think I came here to prove to my dad that I can design bikes, but he already knows that. I designed the one that we're building right now, for the Hounds of Hades' boss.”
“And what, you think you know everything?” Gary asked with a sneer. “None of the big companies would want you to work for them given your lack of experience and education.”
“Of course I don't think I know everything,” I said. “But I don't want to work for one of the big corporate companies, and you know that. I keep saying that. I'm perfectly happy working in my dad's shop and designing bikes alongside him. He doesn't have any training except for the things that he's learned through his years at the shop and he gets by just fine.”
“What a waste,” Gary said, shaking his head. “Jessi, everyone in the department is talking about you. I showed your portfolio around to some of the other teachers here, and they're all excited that you're part of our team here. You could really go places, and you have the potential to work with some of the top bike designers in the world. You really want to trade that all so that you can help out a local motorcycle club with their stupid desires?”
“I don't think what they want is so stupid,” I told him, shrugging even though my hands were currently clenched into fists, tightly enough that I could feel my fingernails digging into my palms. “I guess you need the fame to feel like you've done something worthwhile, but I just want to design bikes that make people happy. If one person likes the bike that I've designed, that's all that I'm asking for. J.T. is excited about the bike that we're building for him.”
“No one with any real knowledge of beauty and design would settle for working in a little shop like Greyhound Custom Motorcycles,” Gary interrupted insistently. “Your designs deserve to be seen by more people than that. You owe it to the world to show them what a real bike should look like.”
I shook my head. “Gary, that's not what I want,” I said firmly. “And none of this is up for debate. I'm not coming back next semester.”
Gary stared at me for a long moment, his eyes searching my expression. I could see disbelief on his face, but it quickly changed over to something softer. “I suppose you're probably a little upset about my behavior the last time we met,” he said. “I never meant for it to go that far, Jessi, and I want you to feel like you can trust me still.”
I didn't say anything in response, because what could I say? I didn’t have to forgive him just because he was apologizing, and I definitely wasn't about to say something dumb like that what he had done was okay. His behavior wasn't excusable. But I also didn't want to make him angry, so I nodded curtly and turned my attention towards my portfolio. “So you saw a lot of potential in some of these designs,” I said. “Anything in particular that you wanted to talk about?”
“I know I've been pushing you a little too hard this semester,” Gary said. “And I'm sure that with all the hours that you're putting in around your dad's shop that things have been stressful. I'm sorry that I've made things feel that way. I'm just so excited to see how much ingenuity I can get out of you that I sometimes forget that you're only a very novice designer still. Maybe I've asked you for too much. Is that why you won't be coming back?”
I sighed and shut my eyes briefly, counting to ten in my head. I really didn't want to have this conversation. I should never have brought it up in the first place. I should have just let Gary continue to believe that I was coming back the next semester. Now he just wouldn't let it go, but I was done trying to justify my actions to him.
“Look, Gary, my reasons are none of
your business,” I told him. “I just don't want to come back. It's not going to happen. Now, please, I have things that I need to do tonight, so if we could finish this review ...”
Gary's face turned nasty at that. “I think they're every bit of my business since I'm your academic advisor—or did you forget that?” he asked.