It Wasn't Me

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  Bringing it back up to my clit, I circled it, not quite touching.

  Over and over, I moved my finger in tiny increments, not quite going as far as to touch the tiny bundle of nerves, but making myself tense with anticipation.

  Then Jonah’s arm sliced around me, knocking both of my hands free.

  The next thrust was all him and none of me. All of his power and impatience was poured into his thrusts.

  My breasts slapped against his arm, and when I went to grab onto said arm, he brought my finger up to his lips and sucked it deep inside of his mouth.

  His tongue curled around the digit, and that’s about when I lost it.

  My eyes closed on their own volition. My mind went utterly still.

  Then, everything burst.

  A tidal wave of need, lust, and urgency rushed over me, pulling me under until I had no choice but to let it do to me what it would.

  No longer fighting anything, my orgasm burst through me.

  And before, when I’d been giving myself orgasms, I’d thought they were pretty good. I’d liked masturbating. It was a good stress relieving experience that I’d done almost every night.

  But this? With Jonah?

  Yeah, I couldn’t recreate this on my own.

  Everything, and I do mean everything, was different.

  My toes curled. My eyes crossed. My mouth went wide and a scream left my lips.

  My fingernails dug into the skin of his arm, drawing blood, and my pussy exploded.

  There was no other word for it.

  It was the honest to God best feeling I’d ever felt in my life. It was something that I’d never, not ever, experienced before.

  Nothing could compare.

  Then I opened my eyes as my orgasm still had hold, it was never-ending.

  And then Jonah touched my clit with his free hand.

  Just a small tap.

  But that one small tap was enough to detonate me all over again.

  When I clenched down all over again, he grunted and cursed.

  Then I felt the pulse of his cock as it jerked and jerked and jerked.

  All the while, though, his eyes stayed on me.

  And when he was finally through, when both of us were sweaty messes and my thighs were screaming in protest, he finally urged me to stand up.

  When my legs refused to cooperate, he stood himself, taking me with him.

  He didn’t stop moving until we were in the shower with the water running.

  The warm spray hit me in the face, and I laughed as he finally put me down and slipped from inside of me.

  I looked down just in time to see his hot release making a trail down the inside of my thigh.

  The tattoo on my finger caught my eye, and I felt things inside of me start to flutter all over again.

  I wished today would never end.

  Unfortunately, we were set to check out of our hotel at nine the next morning, and our flight left just an hour and a half after that.

  Reality would come calling tomorrow morning way too early.

  But for now…well, for now, I had him, and he had me.

  Running my hands down Jonah’s chest, I pressed a kiss to his breastbone.

  “One more time.”

  He laughed.

  “I’m not a young man anymore, Piper,” he teased. “But I’d be willing to give it a try for you. Anything for you.”

  And that was exactly what he did.

  But he didn’t have to try.

  No, not Jonah Crew.

  It was almost laughable for him to think he wouldn’t be able to singlehandedly give me everything and anything I ever needed.

  Chapter 9

  Jizz is really just boneless children.

  -Text from Phoebe to Piper

  Piper

  Jonah frowned hard at the woman that was sitting across from us.

  The same woman, unfortunately, that rode with us to Vegas.

  Yet again, the woman was still coughing up a lung. She also looked to be worse, and not better.

  Which was not surprising with how awful she’d sounded on the way over here.

  If I had to make a guess, whatever she’d had—the flu possibly—had morphed into pneumonia.

  The cough rattled the woman’s chest again, and I looked over at Jonah to find him pounding his forehead with his fist.

  “What’s the freakin’ hold up?” I heard snarled.

  That was from the shitty ass kid that was sitting next to the hacking woman.

  The shitty ass kid also, I assumed, happened to be the ‘daughter’ that was getting married while they were in Vegas.

  She was still wearing her wedding veil, and she had on the gaudiest looking ring that I’d ever seen in my life.

  Her husband, who looked like he’d rather be anywhere but where he was, which happened to be sandwiched between the two women, frowned.

  I wasn’t sure if it was because he agreed with the woman on his left (his wife), or because he was being exposed to the woman’s germs (on the right).

  Unfortunately, we hadn’t been able to get first-class tickets again this time, but that was okay with me.

  Sitting next to Jonah seemed to make everything all right.

  I hadn’t even intended to take the medication until our flight had been delayed twice due to the storms back home. When I’d heard from the flight attendants that it was going to be another bad one, I’d taken my medication.

  Then I’d had a drink, which was another big no-no, and the reason I found myself in the mess I currently found myself in.

  Not that it was a mess so much as a conundrum.

  Jonah and I were married.

  Married.

  I looked down at my ring tattoo with sleepy eyes and felt something in my chest tighten. Not in a bad way, either. In a good way. An ‘I want to stay married to the man’ way.

  “Seriously, this is getting ridiculous,” the hacker croaked.

  I leaned over and allowed my head to rest against the side of the plane. Unfortunately, it wasn’t anywhere near as comfortable as I thought it would be, making me squirm to find a better position.

  There wasn’t one to be had.

  Needless to say, I’d been spoiled by the first-class seats on the way up here.

  Taking pity on me, Jonah curled his hand around my neck and gently pulled me his way, pressing my face gently against his shoulder.

  I sighed.

  “Thank you,” I murmured softly.

  “You okay?” he asked quietly.

  I thought about that for a long second.

  “Are you asking me physically am I okay? Or mentally?” I wondered aloud.

  “Both,” he admitted.

  “Okay in the physical sense. Scared in the mental,” I admitted.

  “Scared of the storms or scared of other things?” he pushed.

  I assumed by ‘other things’ he meant ‘our marriage.’

  “Storms,” I quickly answered. “The other stuff I’m not as much scared of as curious of. I’ve never been married before, so I don’t know the rules.”

  Which was honestly quite true. I had no idea what was expected of me.

  I knew that I had a job that was likely to be opposite of the majority of his shifts. And I knew that I wanted to be with him more than I wanted my next breath.

  He chuckled softly. “I’ve never been married before either,” he admitted. “But I reckon we can figure it out pretty quickly.”

  The way he said that made me think that he actually wanted to figure it out.

  I looked at my ring finger again, flexing my fingers as I did, and drawing his attention.

  “I’m going to have to take the ring off,” I admitted, fingering the ring that was currently residing on the wrong hand since my tattoo still wasn’t healed. “If I don’t, everybody’s going to notice it. Especially my mom and dad.”

  Something jolted the plane underneath o
f us and I looked out my side window to see quite a few military personnel gathered outside the plane’s wing.

  I was momentarily distracted, however, by Jonah saying, “What happened to your apartment that you were supposed to get. I remember you mentioning it on the plane ride from Germany.”

  I had said that.

  But I obviously hadn’t told him the rest of the story.

  “The apartment complex manager had already filled the vacancy by the time I got there,” I admitted. “I was supposed to fax in the paperwork, but then my dad got hurt, and I was so focused on flying home and getting everything ready to go that I hadn’t paid much attention to the other things I was supposed to do. Like filling out paperwork on the lease.”

  He was silent for a time, his eyes focusing out the window along with mine.

  “Good thing you married me. You now have a permanent place to live,” he murmured.

  My heart skipped a beat.

  “Umm,” I hesitated.

  “We already discussed giving it a try,” he reminded me.

  We had.

  Right before he’d taken me to bed, he’d definitely discussed giving us a try.

  He’d also discussed a lot of other things. Such as it being my first time, and him not thinking it was a good idea seeing as he wasn’t ‘first time material.’

  I rolled my eyes yet again at that.

  “And I won’t renege on that,” I promised him. “But you have to promise not to kick me out when you realize how awful living with me is. Working nights, pairing that with my anal retentiveness when it comes to cleanliness, as well as the pets? You’re so screwed.”

  It was as I finished the last sentence that I felt him laughing.

  I reluctantly picked my head up and twisted my neck so that I could stare up at him.

  “What?” I asked.

  His smile was soft as he caught my hand and started to turn my wedding ring around on my ring finger.

  “Lay your head back down, honey,” he ordered. “You look like you’re about to fall asleep sitting up.”

  He was right.

  I was.

  Which was why I laid my head back down so I didn’t do something stupid like fall forward and slam my head into the chair in front of me.

  When I did, he started talking again.

  “I’m a cop, so I already keep weird hours,” he said. “I like dogs and cats, so one more won’t hurt anything—we’ve already talked about this, though.”

  “One more?” I asked. “I didn’t see any dogs when I was over at your house the other day.”

  “That was because my mom still had them,” he answered. “I have to go pick them up when I get home. You can come with me.”

  I yawned so wide that my jaw cracked.

  My jaw cracking reminded me of another time that my mouth had been open really wide lately, and I felt a flush take over my face.

  Thank God that he couldn’t see me due to how I was practically tucked into his side.

  “I’ll go with you to pick them up if you go with me to go get a car from my dad’s place,” I said.

  “A car?” he asked.

  “My car,” I amended. “My dad and I built it from the ground up, actually. Not as nice as the Nova we just bought, but definitely a beautiful specimen.”

  “What is it?” he squeezed my thigh.

  I yawned again.

  “A Roadrunner,” I murmured, sleep pulling me under. “It’s purple.”

  He said something else, but at that point, the alcohol and the meds got the best of me, and I succumbed to sleep.

  I wasn’t sure how long it was later when I woke up to raised voices, but when I peeled my eyes open, it was to find us still on the ground.

  Only, our scenery had definitely changed.

  No longer were we in Las Vegas. Now we were in Ft. Worth.

  And Jonah was stiff as a board beside me as he quietly growled to the hacker.

  I lifted my head from his shoulder and felt my head start to spin.

  It took it a few seconds to calm down, and in those few seconds, I tried to get a read on what was going on beside me.

  While I did, I stared out the window and felt my heart drop.

  Because there was a baggage claim cart thingmabob connected to the side of the plane, and on that cart was a coffin. A coffin covered in an American flag that clearly meant that it was covering a soldier’s remains.

  I swallowed hard and turned to Jonah, pressing my hand against his thigh to get his attention.

  He turned to me, a scowl on his face. A scowl that quickly slid away when he got a look at my sleepy face.

  “What’s going on?” I asked softly.

  “The hold up in Las Vegas was that they were trying to load the soldier onto the plane,” he murmured. “The pilot came on and told us what was going on. The group next to us started bitching. I ignored it. We landed, and then they started getting pissy again when we stopped short of the gate so that they could unload the soldier that we were transporting home. In fact, they’re still bitching about it.”

  “Bitching why?” I asked, outraged that anybody would bitch about it.

  “Because apparently the new bride doesn’t believe in war.” He rolled his eyes. “And ol’ mommy dearest taught her how to act, because it wasn’t long before she started in on it, too. They ‘want off the plane now.’”

  I ground my teeth at their rudeness.

  “Shitheads,” I muttered, once again looking out the window to get a good look at what was going on.

  What I saw made my heart hurt even more.

  The coffin was now resting on a cart of some sort, which was next to a hearse that was parked at an angle next to the plane. The baggage handlers were backed away, giving the coffin a wide berth. And the attendant with the hearse was also standing a ways back.

  That was because a woman with three young children was making her way to the coffin.

  The woman was having a hard time keeping up with the two youngest kids that looked to be twins. They were up and down, touching this and that, laughing and skipping and ultimately having a grand ol’ time.

  The two baggage handlers were watching on from their positions next to the plane, looking sad.

  I felt my heart skip a beat at the innocence.

  Those two little babies had no clue that their life had changed. That everything they thought they knew was no more.

  But the oldest child, who looked to be about six or so, was more than aware of what was going on.

  He was dressed in his Sunday best. He had on a shirt that said ‘Welcome Home, Daddy’ that looked like he’d made it for his father’s impending arrival.

  Only, nobody had ever thought that he’d be wearing it for this reason.

  I heard someone’s breath catch, and only then realized that it was mine.

  Tears were leaking down my cheek, and my breath caught every few seconds or so, causing Jonah to wrap his hand around the back of my neck and squeeze.

  They slowly made their way to where the flag-covered coffin lay, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was holding it together by sheer force of will. Force of will in the form of two small babies that were looking at her for strength.

  They made it to the coffin and I saw her waver. Saw her eyes fill with tears. Saw her shoulders droop, her body sag, and her arms shake.

  The baby in her arms bobbed, and I saw the moment that she wasn’t going to make it.

  I tensed.

  The hand at the back of my neck left, and all of a sudden, I heard the seat belt clink as Jonah stood in a rush.

  “Let me off the plane.” Jonah rushed to the flight attendant.

  “Sir, there are no steps to get off…” the flight attendant said. “And it’s against…”

  “That woman is about to lose it,” he said. “That baby is teetering in her arms.”

  The woman had been watching right along with us. She
knew just as well as I did that the woman wouldn’t hold out for much longer.

  “Let him off,” I heard a deep voice say.

  The pilot.

  I’d seen him welcoming us on board earlier.

  He was an older man with graying black hair. His eyes were hard, though.

  “But Captain Alto…” the head flight attendant said. “There could be repercussions.”

  “I’ll deal with those,” Captain Alto said firmly. “Let him off.”

  Then the plane doors were opening.

  Something made me look back, and what I saw had my heart dropping down somewhere between my feet.

  There was another man standing at the back of the plane. One that had looked like he was about to demand the same thing of the flight attendant.

  Only, he looked rough and battered and didn’t look like he could help much.

  The man was tall, built…and broken.

  His eyes, though. Those would haunt me for the rest of my life.

  One look into them and I knew that something terrible had happened to him.

  But my eyes once again left the poor man and went to the window.

  The limo driver was watching helplessly as the woman’s silent tears had turned into bone-wracking sobs. As she’d gone from holding it together to broken and battered.

  Jonah’s tall, strong form made it to the woman in time for the woman to sway on her feet.

  Jonah scooped up the baby in her arms, hooked his arm around the woman’s waist, and held her steady as she began to cry.

  That was when the rain started to fall.

  It was the perfect ending to a rather shitty day.

  But my husband didn’t flinch.

  And when the small boy in his welcome home outfit curled into Jonah’s side, too, he took his weight as well.

  It was beautiful and tragically sad and only proved to me that Jonah wasn’t the man that he portrayed to the world.

  If he was…would he have stood there while three strangers cried on him in the pouring rain? No, no he wouldn’t have.

  Chapter 10

  Why do women wear underwear? Because it’s the law. All manholes must be covered while not in use. Look it up in the city’s by-laws. Number 4 (b)(2).