by Megyn Ward
My words draw his eyes back to mine, and they narrow on my face. “You can call me Lurch all you want. It doesn’t change the fact that you know exactly who I am and it doesn’t change what happened between us.”
My heart starts to race. My breath catches in my chest. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He moves closer. “Then I guess I’m going to have to remind you,” he murmurs softly, his lips brushing against mine, hand at my nape cradling my head as he tips it back to catch the press of his mouth.
I fight it for the space of a second before I’m sinking. Letting him pull me under. My lips part under his with a soft moan as his tongue sweeps in to wrap around mine, hands lifting and grabbing the lapels of his suit jacket, dragging him closer.
He groans against my mouth, his massive shoulders pressing me back into the seat, the hem of my skirt pushing up my thighs. He pulls back, his gaze, dark and intense, burrowing into mine. “Say it, Claire,” he says softly, his tongue skimming my bottom lip. “Say my name.”
“You’ll have to tell me what it is first.” I don’t know why I’m pretending. Why I can’t admit that I remember that night. Him. All I know is when I think about it, I hurt, and I want him hurt too.
“Careful,” he growls the word at me, nips my lower lip with his teeth, ripping a gasp from my throat. “You don’t want to play this game with me...” I feel his hand stroke the inside of my knee, fingers gliding upward to brush against the lace of my panties, stroking me softly. “Jesus...” he drops his head to my neck, his breath shuddering against my chest. “You always get this wet for complete strangers?”
The observation stains my cheeks, but I don’t push him away. If anything, I slide lower in my seat, giving him better access. “My sister is going to be back, any minute.”
He smirks at me. “Then you better hurry up and give me what I want,” he says, running the length of his long fingers along the seam of my pussy, rubbing me through my panties. “Because I’m not stopping until you say my name.”
Oh, my god. I’m already so close to coming it’s almost embarrassing. “Is your name Jimmy?” I say, barely able to push the words out. “Did you used to work at the pizza place on 5th?”
“Close.” He hooks his fingers around the crotch of my panties and jerks them to the side. “Try again.”
I open my mouth to say something, but the words spin away from me on a low moan as his fingers slide inside me, his thumb finding the top of my cleft, drawing tight circles against my clit. Another rush of heat, this one pushing lower. Deeper. I’m suddenly trembling on the edge, rocking myself against his hand, trying to push myself over. Sensing how close I am, he eases up on the pressure his thumb is putting on my clit, giving me nothing more than light, feathery strokes that hold me in place. Keep me dangling.
“I went easy on you the last time we did this, Claire,” he whispers in my ear. “I can keep you here all night. As long as it takes... all you have to do is say my name.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and lift my hips off the seat, seeking the pressure of his hand even as I set my jaw, refusing to give him what he wants. “Jason? Were we chem lab partners?”
“I forgot how stubborn you are.” The words come out on a growl, each punctuated by a curling stroke of his fingers. “You want to know what I remember?”
“Don’t...” I don’t want him to say it. I can’t hear it because the moment I do, I’ll be lost. I’ll give in.
“I remember what it feels like to make you come on my tongue. My cock.” He keeps stroking me, every thrust hitting just the right spot. Holds me steady without sending me over. “What you taste like. How warm and sweet you are. How hard your pussy squeezed around me when you—”
“Stop. Talking.” I shake my head, refusing, even as what he wants to hear threatens to push its way free.
“Say my name.”
“Jaxon.” His name comes out on a rush of breath, shaped around a moan.
He groans against my neck. “Again.”
I tilt my head back, giving him access to my throat. “Jaxon.”
He brushes his thumb, hard against my clit again, circling it slowly. “You remember me.”
My legs start to tremble, my hands fisting so hard in his shirt, I can feel the stitches give. “Yes.”
He picks up the pace, stroking his fingers inside me, the pad of his callused thumb quickening against the top of my mound. “Who I am? What we did?”
“Yes.” I’m moaning uncontrollably. It’s Jaxon pumping his fingers in and out of me. His mouth on my neck. His hard cock pressed against my thigh. Making me come. “Yes.”
I start to fall, the walls of my pussy squeezing around his fingers, shuttering and gripping the length of them as wave after wave washes over me. He covers my mouth with his, tongue thrusting in tandem with his fingers inside me, fucking and stroking me through my orgasm.
He brings me down slowly, his dark, heavy-lidded gaze searching my face as he eases his fingers from me. Then he puts them in his mouth and sucks them clean. Fixes my panties. Straightens my skirt. Looking at me with a mixture of tenderness and regret that feels like a knife to the chest.
“You remember me,” he says softly, and the reminder breaks my heart, all over again.
“I remember waking up alone,” I tell him, holding his gaze. “I remember wondering what I did to make you leave without saying goodbye.” His brow crumples at my words, and I have to look away because he doesn’t get to make me feel sorry. He doesn’t get to be hurt.
He left me.
He didn’t want me.
“Claire, I—”
“I remember Simon telling me you went away and that he was going away too.” Thinking about Simon, my heart trembles in my chest, a quick fluttering that forces me to turn away from him completely. Aiming my gaze out the window, I pretend to dismiss him the way he dismissed me five years ago.
Sixteen
Jaxon
That wasn’t supposed to happen. Not like that. I got into the back of the car because I wanted to talk to her. Apologize. Explain—or at least try to.
More important than all of that, I needed to ask her if she was getting married. I had to know—not that it matters. She can get married a thousand times to a thousand different guys who aren’t me—it won’t change a thing.
No matter what, Claire belongs to me.
Instead of asking or explaining, I go full-tilt caveman and fingerfuck her in the back of my limo because she called me Lurch and pretended not to know me.
Classy.
I knew she was fucking with me. She remembers me. She has to. Those ten hours with her were the best of my goddamned life. There’s no way she could’ve forgotten me so easily. I knew it.
So I proved it.
Her sister and bridesmaid #1 came out of the apartment building a few minutes later, and I open the door. Help them into the car. Smile when bridesmaid #1 asks Bri where she found such a hot chauffeur. Meanwhile, I’m so strung out from Claire’s taste in my mouth, the smell of her on my hand that I’m shaking and my cock is so fucking hard and swollen I have to move the seat back so I can fit it and me behind the steering wheel.
Not exactly how I saw this evening going.
We round up the rest of the bridesmaids, two of them, without incident and head for the restaurant listed on the itinerary. I know the place. I’ve taken clients there more than once. It’s a trendy spot with a good layout. Only one dining area that’s visible from the street. Two points of entry, easily covered. The maître de is willing to take bribes to sit my clients where I ask him to.
In the back, the party is already in full-swing. Loud music. Bottles poppin’. Loud female voices. Laughter. I imagine Claire in the thick of it, smiling and laughing along with the rest of them, pretending to have a good time, the way she did in high school. I wonder if she’s thinking about me. If she can still feel me. My fingers stroking her pussy. My tongue caressing her mouth.
Fuck.
Put
that shit away, Bennett. Put it away, right fucking now.
You’ve got a job to do.
Dialing my phone, I make the call.
“Hey, Adain, it’s Jaxon Bennett,” I say when he answers the phone. “Bringing in a party of five. Need a table visible from the street.”
“It’s Saturday night,” he wheedles, seeing dollar signs. “You know how busy we are.”
“You’re always busy, you money-grubbing shit,” I say. Instead of taking offense he laughs, just like I knew he would. Adain knows exactly what he is and makes no apologies for it. “I’ll tack on an extra benji—just put ‘em by the window.”
The promise of an extra hundred dollars, in addition to his usual extortion fee, perks him right up.
“You got it.”
That’s what I thought.
Thanking him, I hang up and re-dial, this time calling my mom.
“Hey, honey,” she says, somehow knowing it’s me even though the house phone doesn’t have caller ID.
“Hey, Ma—”
“Simon’s fine.” She answers my question before I can ask it. “Playing Minecraft. How are you?”
She worries about me. Thinks my job is dangerous. I don’t know how to tell her this shit is a cakewalk through Candyland compared to what I’m used to.
“It’s good,” I say, dipping off the freeway, to maneuver my way through downtown traffic. “Bachelorette party… It’s Claire St. James.”
“Claire?” She says it softly like we’re trading secrets. “Simon’s Claire?”
Simon’s Claire. I forget that no one knows about us. What happened that night. That I took her virginity and then disappeared without a word.
“Uhhh, yeah. Got her in the back of the limo right now.” I’m trying to sound casual and failing miserably. “Small world, huh?”
”She’s getting married?” she says, her tone heavy with disappointment.
“Actually, I’m not entirely sure,” I say, checking to make sure the volume of the music in the back of the limo is high enough to drown out the sound of my voice. “Either her or her sister.”
Please let it be her sister.
“Jaxon…” My mom’s voice trails off in silence. Either she isn’t sure what to say or she knows that what she’s about to say isn’t something I want to hear. “You need to tell her.”
Yup. Something I don’t want to hear.
Mainly because I know she’s right.
She keeps talking. “You should’ve told her years ago. Maybe if you’d explained--”
I’d always thought I kept my infatuation with Claire under wraps. Her observation shames me. Especially after everything I put her through. “I couldn’t.” I cut her off, not wanting to hear about all the ways I fucked everything up. “You know I couldn’t.”
“Jaxon.” She says my name gently like she knows exactly what I’m feeling. Thinking. “You were just a kid. A normal kid with normal feelings. That didn’t change just because—”
“I gotta go, Ma.” I cut her off before she can say anything else. For some reason, listening to her excuse me—what I did—so easily makes me feel like shit. “I’ll call and check-in in a few hours.”
She sighs. “We’ll be here.”
I hang up the phone before she can say anything else.
Seventeen
Jaxon
2012
She has no idea what she’s doing to me. How goddamned edible she looks, sitting there, staring at me like she’s waiting for me to pounce on her while she gnaws a hole in her bottom lip, her hands worrying along the hem of her pajama top.
A pajama top that is worn so thin I can see her nipples, how hard they are, every time she takes a breath—which is sporadic enough to worry me that she’s going to pass the fuck out or have an anxiety attack.
Yeah, she has no idea what she’s doing to me. That’s the only thing keeping me here, on the other side of the room. Keeping me from lunging at her like a deranged lunatic.
I want.
That’s as far as she gets before she stalled out, leaving me hanging.
I want you to leave.
I want you to hop on one foot and sing the Star-spangled Banner.
I want you to get me naked and lick every inch of me.
Stifling a groan, I hold my hands out, palms up in what I hope is a non-threatening gesture. “Claire...” I take a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I know this sounds ridiculous, considering what I just did to you in—”
She jumps up, gaze aimed at her bare feet. “I want to take a shower.”
Holy fuck.
Calm your shit, Bennett. It’s not an invitation for fuck’s sake.
“—smell horrible.” She scrunches up her nose in disgust. “Tommy Henderson spilled his beer all over me while I was looking for Bri and...” She looks up at me. “I’ll be really quick.” She turns, rooting around in her bed. Coming up with a remote, she aims it at the television at the foot of her bed. “You can start the movie without me—I’ve seen it a thousand times.” She pushes a button and the screen flickers, the start menu giving way to opening credits. “Don’t leave.”
“Take your time. I’ll be here when you get out.” It would take a house fire to get me to leave at this point. And even then, my willingness to evacuate is questionable. “Can I take off my shoes?”
“You can take off whatever you want.” She blurts it out, going white and then red the second it leaves her mouth. She squeezes her eyes shut. “Jesus.” She mutters it, shaking her head. “No wonder I’m still a virgin.”
That bothers me.
The fact that she doesn’t know how perfect she is. How much it’s costing me to keep myself off her. “Claire—”
“I’ll be right back.” Charging forward, she opens a door and disappears behind it. A few minutes later I hear the shower turn on.
Okay. Good. Maybe with her gone I can take a deep breath and wrangle my thoughts into some semblance of order.
I take off my shoes and socks before settling
onto the bed, back against the headboard, forcing myself to focus on the movie she turned on, instead of the fact that a very wet and very naked Claire St. James is within mere feet of me.
So much for order.
The title flashes across the screen, Barefoot in the Park, starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda. From what I can tell, it’s about a mismatched couple who fall in love and try to make it work, despite everything around them trying to pull them apart. Pretty soon, I’m so into it I don’t even hear her come out of the bathroom.
“It’s my favorite movie.”
Hearing her so close jerks my attention away from the screen. She’s standing near the edge of the bed, wearing nothing but a towel, her hair piled on top of her head. Skin still damp. Warm.
I should look away. Be a gentleman.
I can’t.
I want to but I can’t take my eyes off her.
“Nothing in their relationship goes right.” She keeps talking. Looking at the screen, watching Redford and Fonda argue. “They don’t belong together, and they know it... but they keep trying. They don’t give up.” She looks at me, her face cast in shadows by the soft glow of the lamp on her nightstand. “They stay.”
They stay.
That’s when I get it.
That’s when I understand the full magnitude of that I’m going to do to her. What my being here, in her bed, means.
I’m going to take something from her I can never give back and then I’m going to leave her.
Get the fuck up and leave.
Right now.
Don’t do this to her.
Don’t you fucking do it.
I’ll come clean. About everything. I’ll solve the great mystery of Jaxon Bennett, and then it’ll be over. It’ll be out of my hands because she won’t want me anymore. She’ll realize I’m not the type of guy that a girl like her should be with.
Give herself to.
She’ll tell me to get out and as impossible as it might
seem for me to get up and walk away, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll walk away before I do something I can’t take back.
“Claire...” I shake my head, trying to clear it. “I need to—”
She shakes her head at me. “You said whatever I wanted. Whatever I’m ready for.”
I close my eyes, try to work up the will to push myself up and off the bed.
Out of here.
I need to get out of here.
I can’t do this to her.
“I know what I said but—” The bed shifts under me, seconds before I feel her straddle my hips. The press of her knees against my ribcage. The weight of her settling in my lap. My dick goes rock hard so fast the sudden loss of blood flow to my brain makes me dizzy.
“Fuuuck...” The curse comes out on a groan, my hands coming up to settle on her hips, pulling her even closer, gripping the towel tight around her. “Claire…”
I feel the press of her breasts against my chest. Her breath on my face and I open my eyes to find her close, our mouths within an inch of each other.
“I’m not good at this,” she says. “I’m not my sister. I don’t know how to flirt. How to tease.” She rocks her hips against me, a soft, desperate whimper humming in her throat. “But I know how to ask for what I want.” She sits up and loosens the top of the towel, letting it fall so it can pool around her waist. “I’ve decided this is no different.”
She’s perfect.
Fucking perfect.
So perfect, I have to touch her to convince myself that she’s real. Reaching up, I cup a hand around one of her breasts, brushing my thumb against its nipple. It stiffens instantly, and my cock gives a hard jerk into the juncture of her thighs and her breath catches in her chest at the feel of me pressed against her. I block it all out. Decency. Reason. Common sense. I need this.
I need her.
Encouraged by my response, she smiles.
“I want you to kiss me,” she says softly, leaning in to brush her lips against mine. “I want you to touch me like you did earlier.”
“Are you sure?” Jesus, I sound like an animal. Like I’m seconds away from taking her, regardless of her answer. “You need to be sure.”