With Rosalyn.
Rosalyn
I waited until Troy and Lydia were safely away before going to Jax’s house late that afternoon. I stormed in, pushing past him, and he followed me into the living room. I brandished the sticky note in his face. “What exactly is the meaning of this?”
His adorable grin was almost enough to break my heart. “Like I told you, you and me, we’re together now. Roz, it’s time we stop hiding. Get used to me writing you love notes.”
“Are you crazy?” My body shook, and I crumpled the note, throwing it on the floor at his feet. “Your mother came over this morning and found this in the bathroom.”
He moved toward me and held my elbows. “It was meant to be a surprise for you when you woke up this morning.”
I shrugged out of his grasp. “Yeah, well the surprise was on me all right. Your mom thinks I’ve got a boyfriend.”
“You do have a boyfriend.”
“I don’t!” I turned around and peeked down the hallway. “Where’s your brother?”
Jax dropped onto the sofa, putting his feet up on the coffee table, a half-grin on his face. “At practice.”
“You really thought it was a good idea to tell me you love me? And write this … this … note?” I kicked the note with my foot. “I thought we had a deal. I thought you and I decided it was just fun and games. If I’d have known you were going to go all soft and googly eyed on me, I would’ve never started this whole thing.” My body shook, my hair standing on end. I paced too close to Jax, and he reached out for me. “Don’t touch me! This thing has gone far enough. You want to know how I felt when your mom found this note? Well, I’ll tell you how I felt. I felt like screaming at myself and asking why I couldn’t find another man. Somebody more my age. I asked myself why I’ve wasted all this time screwing you, when there’s plenty of other guys who I could’ve had much more with. A real relationship. A relationship where my fuck-buddy’s mother wasn’t my friend. Jesus, what have I done?”
“Are you done?” he said, his voice relaxed.
I stood in the living room, my face in my hands, and Jax very calmly stood up, put his arms around me and said, “I love you. I don’t care who knows it.”
I jerked away, pushing him with all my might, but Jax was much stronger. “Stop saying that! You can’t know that. You’re too young.”
“I do love you, and Rosalyn, whether you want to admit it or not, you love me.” He pulled me close, holding my arms tightly. “Look at me.” I turned my head away from him until he grasped my face between his hands. I stared into his blue eyes. “Rosalyn … I love you. We’re right together. We’re perfect together.”
I turned my head so hard, my neck almost snapped. “We’re not right for each other. I’ve made a huge mistake leading you on.”
He forced me to turn toward him again, his hands cradling my face. “You didn’t lead me on. I wanted this. You wanted this. It’s a real relationship.”
“All we do is fuck! It’s not real. What do you know about real?”
“I know that when I’m with you, it’s the only place I want to be.”
“Of course it is. You get to have your dick inside me. What teenager wouldn’t want that?” Saying those words aloud made me realize just what I’d done.
“It’s not like that. We’re both adults. We can stop hiding. We can do other things besides sex. We can start surfing together again. We can tell my parents—”
“No! We’re not telling anyone what’s been going on.”
“‘We will,” he said. He let go of my face, and his hands fell to his side. We gazed at each other. I didn’t want to hurt Jax, and the thing of it was, I did care about him. He’d been amenable to anything I wanted, from learning how to please me in bed to following my rules about when we’d be together. He ran errands for me, like bringing me a tube of white oil paint because it was the color I used up the fastest. He combed Leo for fleas, a task I despised because I didn’t want to kill the poor little fleas. He even went down to the 24-hour corner store, a place I thought was creepy because it had been robbed a couple of times, to get me lighter fluid when my lighters ran out of fluid and I needed to toke up and relax. All the little things Jax did made my life so much easier.
I took a deep breath. “Sweetie, it’s not going to work. Please don’t make this hard on me.”
“I’m not letting you go, Roz. I’m an adult now, I’m old enough to know better, and I know you and I …” His eyes were an especially deep color blue as the sun streamed through the open window. “Rosalyn, I love you.”
Jax tried to kiss me.“Jax, don’t.” I pushed him away halfheartedly. His body pressed against mine, and damn, I couldn’t resist him. His heart beat so hard that it vibrated my being, like we were one person. He grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled me into him for a deep kiss, our warm tongues mingling. The kiss was urgent, and when we pulled away, Jax tilted my head back and kissed my neck, his breath hot. His mouth found its way to my earlobe where he nibbled, shivers enveloping my body. My scalp prickled with delicious intensity as his hands ran through my hair and his mouth kissed my cheek and forehead before he came back to greedily French kiss my mouth. I threw my arms around him, my crotch pressed into his hard-on. His hand reached down to lift my leg, and he pulled me even closer, his cock gyrating against my pelvis. I was dripping wet, my pussy throbbing. In between our kisses, Jax murmured, over and over, how much he loved me. I told him not to say that, but he said it again. After a while, I stopped correcting him because I was lost in the intensity of our connection. He let go of my leg and peeled the spaghetti straps of my tank top over my shoulders, yanked the shirt down, then bent his head to suck my nipples. I threw my head back. His mouth was deliciously warm, and when his hand slowly circled, then playfully squeezed my other nipple, a heat spread through my pelvis. God, I wanted him to fuck me.
And it was at that moment that the front door opened.
“Boys? What’s Rosalyn’s car doing …” When Lydia saw us, the shock on her face was something I’ll never forget, no matter how long I live. She stood stock still, one hand poised on the half-open door, her face a mask of confusion. “Jax?”
Jax snapped his head up, and I quickly yanked my top up, covering my breasts. Jax moved toward his mother, a nervous smile playing upon his face. “Mom …”
I straightened, putting my hands in front of me. “Lydia, this isn’t what you think.”
Jax touched his mother’s arm, but she snatched away. “What the hell is going on?”
My voice shook. Blood pounded through my ears. “It’s not what it looks like. Jax was just …” I looked to Jax for help.
Lydia’s eyes were cold, her body shaking. She jabbed a finger in my direction. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing with my son, but—”
“Mom!” Jax moved toward his mother, forming a barrier between Lydia and me. “It’s okay. I was going to tell you anyway.”
Lydia stared at Jax like he was a stranger. Her words were slow, measured, and filled with venom. “Tell … me … what, young man?”
“Mom, it’s okay. Rosalyn and I … we’re in love.”
She stared at him, her body like a statue. None of us said a word. And then Lydia slapped Jax’s face so hard that his hand immediately flew to his cheek where a red handprint bloomed. “Go to your room! Oh, my God, what has gotten into you?” She turned on me. “And you! I don’t know what kind of trash you’ve filled my son’s head with, but I want you out of my house this instant.”
Jax tried to calm his mother, but she would have none of it. “Mom,” he said in an urgent voice, “She didn’t do anything to me. I wanted this. I love her!” I wanted Jax to shut up because he was making things worse, but my lips wouldn’t form words.
Lydia stood in the living room, her body shaking with rage. “I want you two to listen to me real good. I am not ruining the weekend Troy and I have planned. I’m going to walk out this door and have the vacation we’ve been looking forw
ard to without telling him about this … this … disaster that’s going on in his son’s life. But when I get back, we’ll deal with this. And you!” She stabbed a finger in my direction. “Stay away from my son.” She stormed to her bedroom and retrieved her makeup case and slammed the door. The next thing we saw was the Volvo pulling out of the driveway.
Jax turned to me, his hand on my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll make them understand.”
I burst into tears, my body shaking with the emotion of the past year’s bottled up lies and secrets. Jax held me while I cried deep wrenching sobs into the crook of his neck. The room spun, and I thought I was going to throw up. I could barely speak through jagged breaths. My voice was a croak when I said, “Your mom is never going to forgive me.” Jax held me tighter, and I pushed him away. “I told you this was going to happen!” My shoulders shook; my nose ran. I wiped it with the back of my hand.
“Let me get you some tissues.” Jax ran into the bathroom, returning with the tissues. I blew my nose and thought my sinuses would explode.
I could barely see through my tears, my body began to shake, and I let out a moan. “Your mom’s going to hate me. Forever.”
Jax circled his arms around me, and I leaned into him. “Shush. It’s going to be okay. I love you. We’ll make everyone understand.”
A sob escaped my lips, my face against Jax’s wet T-shirt. “I hurt your mom. I didn’t mean to.” I looked up at Jax with sad eyes. “What are we going to do?”
Jax, in his unflustered way, said, “It’ll work out.”
I was suddenly filled with a deep weariness. I didn’t want to argue with Jax. As we stood in his living room that day, he kept telling me that everything would be okay, but I knew he was wrong. Jax told me over and over how much he loved me and that only made me feel worse. There was no way I’d ever make things right with Lydia and Troy.
Finally, I wiped my puffy eyes and said, “Jax, I need to be alone for a while.” I hung my head then looked him in the eye. “I’m going home. Please don’t come over.”
He didn’t argue with me. I brushed past him. I closed the door, walked down the steps, and when I looked over my shoulder, Jax was in the window, watching my every move, a look of profound love and awe in his eyes.
Jax
Rosalyn needed time to cool off. After she left, I did what I always did when life got tough. I surfed.
“Don’t you ever get enough?” one of the more aggressive locals said as I paddled hard into a wave. I managed to catch twice as many waves as the rest of the surfers. When I needed to calm myself, the ocean always did the trick, but honestly, I wasn’t particularly upset about what’d happened. In fact, I was kind of glad the truth was coming out.
When I got home, Tyler was back from practice and fixing himself a quesadilla. I propped my surfboard against the wall and brushed past him to get a drink out of the fridge.
“Can’t you use a glass?” he said as I drank straight out of the carton of orange juice.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “What’s it to you?” We glared at each other. I settled myself at the kitchen table next to Tyler as he tore into his food, grease dripping onto the plate. “Hey.” I nudged his arm. “You got a minute to talk?”
“What’s up?”
I picked up a napkin, crumpled it into a tight ball and threw it in the trash can, where it landed with a satisfying three point shot. “I kind of messed up today.”
His green eyes twinkled with amusement. “Again?”
“This time was pretty screwed up.”
His hand stopped midway to his mouth. “What happened?”
I toyed with another paper napkin, folding it, refolding it, and then tearing it into bits. “Promise not to say I told you so?”
He took a bite of quesadilla and washed it down with a soda. “What happened?”
I collapsed against the chair. “Mom caught me kissing Rosalyn.”
Tyler popped up in his chair, his back straight. “What the fuck? How?”
“We were doing a little more than kissing, if you want to know the truth.”
His eyes became wild. “No way. Were you screwing her? Please tell me no.”
“No, we weren’t doing that.” I leaned forward and combed a hand through my hair. “After I surfed with dad, and after they’d left for their trip, Rosalyn came over.” Tyler watched me with wide eyes. “And we kind of got in a fight, and then we started kissing, and then I pulled her top down. I was …” I looked away. “I was sucking her nipples when mom walked in the door.”
“Oh my God.”
I folded my arms in front of me, sliding down the chair. “Mom kinda freaked.”
“No way dude, this is serious. What’d she do?”
“Oh, she was surprised all right.” I pictured the shock on mom’s face. “She yelled at us and then she slapped me.” Tyler’s eyes grew. “But she promised she wouldn’t tell dad because she doesn’t want to ruin their weekend.” I exhaled. “I guess I’ve got the weekend till all hell breaks loose.”
Tyler said, “Shit. I knew you guys were going to get caught. This totally blows.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “What was the fight with Rosalyn about?”
I smiled. “She was mad because I told her I loved her.”
He stood up and slammed his plate onto the kitchen counter. “You are so stupid! Why’d you go and do something dumb like telling her you love her? I thought maybe you’d get over it, maybe start getting bored with her. She’s too old for you.”
I jumped out of my seat and squared off with my brother. “She’s not too old. Don’t ever say that again.”
“Don’t you think you should find somebody your own age?”
“I don’t want someone my own age! I want Rosalyn. I love her.”
He turned on his heel to leave the kitchen. “Yeah, well, when she finds a real adult, then maybe this whole thing’ll be over.”
I grabbed Tyler’s shirt from the back. “Take it back!”
He laughed and shrugged out of my grasp. “Not taking it back. Rosalyn’ll find somebody else, and then your ass is getting dumped.”
Blood thrummed through my ears, and my fists clenched. “She won’t. We’re good together.”
“Yeah, right. Your dick’s talking pretty loud and clear,” he said. I moved so fast that Tyler didn’t see me coming. The look of surprise on his face was priceless when I tackled him to the living room floor and all the air whooshed out of his lungs. “Get off of me!” he managed to say in a hoarse voice as I pinned him down. And then he laughed. “When you get off of me, you can apologize.” I forced him into a headlock. “What’re you going to do? Beat me up?”
I wanted to hurt my brother. “I’ll kill you!” My nostrils flared, my breathing rushed. I squeezed hard.
He made a gagging sound. “Let … me.”
I eased up on my grip, slightly. Through gritted teeth, I said, “Rosalyn and I are in love. I am not thinking with my dick.” He muffled a protest, and I increased the pressure. “Don’t you ever … ever say anything bad about her again, or I’ll put your balls in a vise and squeeze so hard you’ll be singing high notes for the rest of your life.”
“Lemme up,” he managed to croak out. Tyler’s face turned a crazy color of red. If I didn’t ease up, I probably would kill him. Reluctantly, I let him go, and he kneeled on the floor, coughing.
Blood pulsed behind my eyeballs. I kicked the sofa, then seeing a stack of magazines on the coffee table, I swept all of them off the table with one violent sweep of my hand. “God damn it!” I towered over my brother, my hands clenching and unclenching. “You’d better take back what you said.”
He put his hands in front of him in surrender. “Okay, okay, I take it back. But only because I know you’re going to be in a world of hurt when dad finds out.”
Tyler stood up and brushed himself off. The two of us stared at each other, my breathing erratic.
Tyler said, “Listen, I know you’re piss
ed, but can we talk about this?” I rubbed my knuckles, forcing my hands to unclench. “Sit down,” he said. I collapsed on the sofa, my arms crossed, staring straight ahead. Tyler’s green eyes studied me. “You’re going to have to do some serious apologizing to mom and dad. Here’s what you’ll do. Maybe tell them that you only kissed her once and tried to get her to do more but she wouldn’t.”
My mouth was a firm line. “I know they’re not going to like it, but they’re going to have to get used to it.”
“They won’t.” His eyes narrowed. “Just do what I’m saying. Tell them you only kissed once. Then break up with Roz.”
“I’m not doing that.”
Tyler leaned in. “Mom and dad are never going to accept the two of you together.”
“They don’t have a choice.”
He threw his hands in the air. “What happens when they find out you’ve been with Rosalyn for a year? Behind everyone’s backs? They’ll never speak to her again. They might never speak to you again. You going to deny what’s been going on?”
I stared at my brother. “I will do anything to be with Rosalyn because I love her.”
He popped up off the sofa, towering over me. “You’re not in love. How would you know what love feels like anyway? Just chalk it up to some mind-blowing sex with a hot lady and move on.”
“Whose side are you on?” I felt hurt that my brother didn’t see what I saw. “I thought you and I were best friends.”
He softened. “‘Course we are. But dude, you’ve got to think this thing through. How’s it going to work?”
“It just will.”
“Okay. If you say so.” He nudged my leg. “Just think about what I said.”
My breathing was finally starting to slow. “I’ll think about it,” I said. “Maybe I can tell them we just started.”
“Maybe you and Roz need to break up.”
I flattened my lips. “Not happening.”
“So, what’re you going to do?”
“I’ll give Rosalyn the night. Then we’ll come up with a plan.”
“Okay bro.” He headed for the shower. “I’m going out with Tracy tonight. You got one day to figure this thing out.”
Peaks of Passion: Pleasure Point Series Book One Page 15