by Rachel Jonas
“Fuck, Joss.”
His fingers twist loosely into my hair with those words, prompting mine to grip the firmness of his thighs. I suck faster and take him in just a little deeper. Seeing how much this turns him on has me so, so wet for him. Phantom traces of pleasure from the last time we fucked makes my walls clench the emptiness where his dick should be. I’m torn between wanting him to come like this and wanting him to fuck me again.
But when it comes down to it, there’s really no competition.
I’m off my knees and slipping my panties down both hips after deciding. He quickly undoes my bra and tosses it across the room while I climb onto the bed. One perfectly toned arm stretches toward the nightstand drawer and I stare as he removes a condom from the wrapper. Once he rolls it into place, my knees part for him.
He enters with less caution than before—a little rough, impatient—and I feel the burn, the maddening friction I didn’t know I missed so badly until now. He cranes his neck down until his mouth meets mine and I suck his tongue, gripping the rolling hills of his back with both hands.
“You’re fucking mine.”
He growls those words against my lips, power-driving his hips between my legs, going so deep I swear he’s a part of me. When I whimper, letting my lips graze his shoulder, I couldn’t agree with him more.
“I mean that shit,” he rasps. “Not just now. You’ve always been mine. And you always will be.”
His promise moves over me like it has life coursing through each and every syllable.
“I need to hear you agree. Tell me you understand,” he demands. “Tell me you’ll never give this pussy to anyone but me.” His voice is strained, showing signs that he’s nearing his own release.
With the sweet tension of an orgasm building in my core, it takes a second to find words.
“I swear,” I finally answer, feeling my eyes roll back as my walls clench around his dick.
“You swear what?” The deep tone of his voice when asking sounds so menacing, making me even wetter.
“I swear you’ll be the only one. Always.”
My chest moves with rapid breaths, feeling the weight of what’s just been promised. Mostly, because Dane’s just made it clear that I’m all he wants.
“Good,” he says, staring down on me in the darkness, “because I’m in love with you.”
Heat moves through my limbs and warms my face as I let that sink in. I felt it before now, but never imagined he was ready to admit it.
I’m unable to get actual words out, but choose to show him instead, letting him feel that the emotion between us is one-hundred-percent mutual.
My fingers move to the back of his neck and I lift my head from the pillow to kiss him. Our tongues move together slowly and the tension I managed to stave off before now catches up with me and I moan into our kiss. When his hips pump harder, slamming into me as a throaty grunt rumbles inside his chest, I feel the sudden rush of heat as his cum fills the condom.
We both go still but cling to one another, his entire body shuddering from the powerful release. I’m still in a daze, hearing his words echo on repeat in my thoughts.
He’s in love with me.
We’re in love with each other.
Slowly, he pulls out and slips to my side, but the connection between us is still so strong, like nothing I’ve ever felt. He moves to the edge of the mattress and lets his feet touch the floor while I stare at the ceiling, trying to steady my breath and my heart. It’s so liberating to no longer be in denial about my feelings for him.
“I’ve been so afraid to love you,” I admit, placing my hand on his back as he draws in a deep surge of air. “It’s one of those things I’ve always known, always felt, but the idea of really letting myself own it… I guess I let myself believe it’d come with some sort of tragedy attached. Some disaster that would tear us apart.”
He’s quiet, letting me get my thoughts out.
“We’re not my parents. You said that and you were right. We’re not tragic or doomed. We’re just us—Dane and Joss,” I say with a smile.
My eyes flash toward him when he doesn’t respond, doesn’t even move.
“Um, you listening?” I ask, sitting up on my elbows to see him better. There’s still no answer, just silence. “Dane…”
He turns, but he moves slowly, finally meeting my gaze after several seconds. Immediately, I know something isn’t right. Before he even says a word.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I—” His voice trails off and he draws in a breath to start over. Then, with so few words, he sends me into a spiral. “…The condom broke.”
Wrecked.
That short, simple sentence completely wrecks me. In fact, I break into a full sweat and sit up straighter in his bed.
“What? How? I don’t—”
I’m panicking and can’t even wrap my head around what he’s just told me.
“It’s okay,” he says, trying to calm me down. “I can run to the drug store. They have a pill that—”
His words cut off when I stand and dash toward the bathroom. The second the door closes behind me, everything I’d just confessed comes rushing back, taunting me for being so fucking naïve, so careless.
We’re not tragic. We’re not my parents. We’re not doomed.
But right now, in this moment, with my heart pounding inside my chest and Dane pounding on the other side of the door… it feels like we might be all those things.
39
Dane
“She text you back?”
I snap out of a daze and glance toward West when he emerges from the fieldhouse, hiking his practice bag higher on his shoulder. To my surprise, both my brothers are taking the shitshow from last night seriously. There hasn’t been a single joke.
Not yet anyway.
I shake my head. “Nope. Nothing. I heard her moving around inside her room this morning, on my way here for practice, but I didn’t bother her. If she wanted to talk, she would’ve opened the door last night.”
Thinking about it, everything, I feel sick to my stomach.
“Did she say anything when she left the bathroom and went to bed?”
I shake my head again. “I didn’t wait around to see. After a few hours of not getting any response, I walked to the drugstore, got that pill, then set the bag on her bed.”
West’s brow quirks. “And… you’re sure no one shared that shit with Pandora?”
“Honestly, I was so fucked up at the time, I didn’t even think about it. Guess the only thing to do at this point is pray she has mercy if someone did. Like before,” I add, remembering how not so long ago, Pandora withheld a few details to cover our crew while our father was still on the streets, raising hell.
“Yeah, maybe,” he concludes.
Sterling finally joins us, and we head toward the parking lot slowly. My damn head’s still in the clouds, trying to process everything.
“Any clue how it happened?”
I glance toward Sterling after he asks. “How what happened?”
“How the condom broke. It’s never happened to me.”
Taking a breath, I shrug. “Beats the hell out of me. Just one of those things, I guess.”
“What’d you do, run out of Magnums and tried to use a regular one?” There’s a laugh in West’s voice that has me shaking my head.
“No, dipshit. I’m not an idiot.”
“Well, at least you tried to prevent this. My dumb ass thought I was invincible and raw-dogged it, which landed me knee-deep in the Casey situation,” West adds.
The situation he speaks of happened years ago and isn’t one we talk about often. But with all the shit swirling around inside my head, I’d forgotten all about it.
“So, do you think Joss took the pill?” Sterling asks.
“Probably,” I answer, but then backpedal. “Fuck if I know.”
He thinks for a moment, then hits me with another question. “If she didn’t and… you know… what’s your n
ext move?”
I try to imagine it, going through that scenario with Joss.
“You mean aside from being scared shitless?” I ask with a short laugh. “I guess once the shock wore off, I’d man up and get shit done, step up for her. With her,” I add. “For some reason, because it’s Joss… it doesn’t feel like it’d be the end of the world. Because it’s her, I know we’d find a way to be okay.”
We all fall silent when a group passes by, knowing how info flows through this city like water if we’re not careful.
“Oh, Rose is gonna love this,” West says, the statement dripping with sarcasm, but she hadn’t even come to mind.
“Doesn’t matter what she thinks. I fired her ass last night. I swear she hexed me, though. Damn witch.”
My brothers run out of things to say, because there isn’t much to say. Not to them, anyway. The one I need to be having this conversation with won’t even talk to me, but that has to change tonight.
“You’re taking off?”
I nod, doubling back toward my car, instead of toward West’s truck like we planned. “Yeah, just need to figure shit out. I’ll catch up with you guys later.”
Hanging with them for a bit would help keep my mind off things, but that’s the opposite of what I need right now. I need to focus, figure out what to say to Joss once I do finally convince her to talk.
Because whether she likes it or not, I won’t let her shut me out again.
I drove around all day, making myself scarce. Hopefully, it gave her time to think and calm down.
I let out a breath as I unlock the door to the loft, a little surprised to find it’s completely dark inside. There isn’t even a light coming from Joss’ bedroom, which is unexpected. I thought she’d be hiding out in there, hunkering down until she’s ready to face me.
I drop my practice bag, lock up, then walk that way, to where I hoped to find her. But when I flip the light switch, it’s like hitting a brick wall. Her bed’s made and everything’s in place as usual, but… something feels off. For some reason, my first thought is to check the dresser and what I find there has my heart racing.
Or rather, what I don’t find there has it racing.
She’s gone. The plane ticket’s gone.
I’m in a full panic now, dropping down to the edge of her bed to scroll Pandora’s posts. If anyone knows where she’s gone, it’d be her. I sift through image after image and nothing.
“Fuck!”
The one time I need this bitch to have information, she fails.
I’m on my feet again and storming toward the door with absolutely no plan. If Joss did leave, there’s no telling how long she’s been gone, but if she got on that plane…
Don’t think like that. You can’t possibly know she left.
But… I also know what it looks like.
I feel myself coming undone, losing my shit. I have to find her, and the odds are better if I have help. The thought of us falling apart over this, over something that was completely out of my control, has my head spinning with disbelief.
As hard as I try not to think about it, all that’s cycling in my head is how she believed we were doomed from the start, destined for disaster. My biggest fear in this relationship is proving her right, and, despite what I keep telling myself, I’m not convinced this isn’t that.
One big fucking disaster.
40
Dane
“She’s gone,” I growl. “She left and took the fucking plane ticket with her.”
I’m aware of how insane I look, how unhinged I sound, but trust me—the hurricane raging on the inside definitely matches the outward chaos.
Blue steps aside and I storm into the foyer. “Slow down. Who’s gone? Joss? And what plane ticket?”
I can’t even answer, feeling like I’ll drown in the thoughts that fly at me if I open my mouth to speak.
“Did you two get into a fight?”
“She’d have to be speaking to me for that to happen,” I seethe. “You haven’t heard from her? She hasn’t tried to call or text?”
Blue shakes her head. “No, the last time we spoke was at the diner last night.”
Just fucking great.
“Hang on,” she says. “Just… wait here. I’ll go grab West.”
I pace across the marble tile while she races out to the patio, and all I can think about are the many ways I could’ve handled this differently. Should have handled this differently. All of which would result in Joss still being here, instead of on a plane flying halfway across the world tonight.
Shit. I can’t believe she left.
“What happened?”
I turn to the sound of West’s voice as he dries his hair with a towel. His damp swim trunks and the scent of chlorine make it clear why I didn’t get an answer when I tried calling on my way over.
“I drove around most of the day, trying to get my thoughts together. Then, when I went home to see if she was ready to talk, she’d taken off. Took the ticket her dad bought her, too.”
I feel that swell of rage on the inside again, but exhale to quench it.
“Ok, calm down. We’ll find her,” West says, but I’m not buying it. He didn’t see the flash of panic on Joss’s face last night.
She was already so afraid to give us a try, so afraid we’d turn out like her parents, then… that fucking condom broke. The Joss I know retreats when she’s scared, and that’s what this feels like—her retreating, running from me because it’s easier than facing me. Easier than facing what happened last night.
My phone rings and I scramble to pull it from my pocket. Seeing it’s only Sterling returning my call, my heart sinks a little.
“Everything cool? Looks like I missed about ten calls from—”
“Have you seen or heard from Joss?” I cut in, skipping a greeting altogether.
“No. Why? Should I have?”
“Shit.”
“What the fuck happened?”
“Just come to Bellvue,” I answer, hanging up right after.
“He hasn’t heard anything either?” Blue asks, unable to hide the traces of panic in her tone.
“No. I’m guessing she wanted to make a clean break, get out of here before any of us could talk her out of it.”
I go back to pacing because it’s the only thing I can do to keep from going off the deep end.
Of all the ways for this to have gone, this definitely wasn’t how I imagined it. Last night was a first for me. I’d never told any girl I love her, and the moment I let my guard down, shit blows up in my face.
“I’ll get dressed while we wait for Sterling, then we can hit up some of the places she could’ve gone,” is West’s suggestion.
I don’t respond, already thinking the worst.
“You don’t know that she left, man. We could still find her,” he adds.
I hear him but that doesn’t set my mind at ease. Problem is, we don’t know that she didn’t leave.
He heads upstairs and I force myself to lean against the wall, force myself to breathe.
“I’ll call around and see if I can find what hotel her dad’s staying in. Maybe she went to see him,” Blue says, turning to go toward the kitchen, already scrolling through her phone.
I hear Sterling’s engine outside and exhale, trying to think positively. Failing to think positively. My nerves are fried, so within a few seconds, I’m back to pacing, worrying. I envision us racing through the city’s streets half the night and still coming up empty. I know one thing, though, that won’t stop me from trying. I’d move heaven and Earth for that girl. And if she did get on a plane tonight, I’ve already made up my mind that tracking her down is my next move. Hence the reason I reach for my phone and get started looking up flights to Haiti.
No matter how far she goes, no matter how pissed or scared she is, I meant what I said—she’s mine.
That means through the good and the bad, whether she’s right or wrong, I’ll never let her go.
Sterling knocks and I
rush to the door, pulling it open, ready to repeat the same information I’d just given West and Blue, but…
The wind is knocked out of me when my eyes land on a face that isn’t my brother’s. Before I can even form words, I grab Joss tight, squeezing as the fear I felt over losing her begins to fade.
“I thought you fucking left.” I breathe into her hair as she clings to me, pressing her palms to my back.
“What? Why would I leave?” she asks with an emotion-laden laugh.
“You wouldn’t talk last night, then when I got back to the loft you were gone, the ticket was gone, I just… it doesn’t fucking matter.”
My arms tighten around her when I give up trying to explain.
“I’m sorry about last night,” she says against my ear. “I freaked out and just needed to process and… I’m sorry,” she repeats.
“You don’t have to apologize. I’m just glad you’re here.”
She nods and my eyes fall closed.
“Oh, thank God. You’re okay,” Blue says with a sigh of relief when she returns to the foyer.
I finally release Joss from my arms, but she clings to my hand. “I didn’t mean to scare anyone. There was just something I needed to take care of.”
“Listen, as long as you’re fine, you don’t need to explain,” Blue adds, rubbing Joss’ shoulder.
“Pandora said Dane was spotted racing to Bellvue, then that Sterling was seen doing the same, so I came straight over.”
Our gazes lock when she says that, because I know for a fact that Pandora hasn’t posted in over an hour. I know because I’ve been obsessively checking and refreshing, hoping to find some clue as to where Joss had gone.
“Mind if we talk?” she asks.
I nod and Blue points us toward the patio, so Joss and I head there. She drops down onto a lounger while I close the door behind us, and then join her near the pool.
Her dark stare pans the surface of the water while she thinks, and I feel her sadness without her having said a word yet.