Sound of Regret

by Chelsea Roy

  “Are we really ready for that? I mean, seriously.” Ellie couldn’t explain her fears to him in any way that she knew he would understand. From her perspective, there wasn’t any league that Jack was outside of and he rarely got negative press. All the times had Ellie imagined herself making a life with Jack, she never factored how she might feel about his notoriety.

  “Why is it so hard for you to believe you’re enough for me no matter what anyone else says?” Jack growled. “Why can’t you see you like I see you?”

  “Because I wasn’t enough for you in the past!” Ellie cried. She stood, too, her chest heaving with the force of her emotions. Tears ran silently down her face. “Sometimes I feel like all this –“ she waved her hand in front of her at the dinner table – “it’s your pity for me. You care about me and you’re worried I’m headed straight for crazy town!” Jack stared at her with his mouth wide open. He snapped it shut and spun away, clearly trying to gain control over his emotions. “I know you care for me. I don’t doubt that at all. But I’m human and I question your motivation sometimes.”

  Ellie watched as Jack’s muscles bunched up in his back. She was surprised at his lack of temper because Jack wasn’t the type to exert any control over telling someone how he felt. Most of the time he had verbal diarrhea and his words could be cruel and hurtful. The fact that he was trying so hard here, right now, spoke a lot about how much Jack had changed.

  “Ellie, it was me that was never enough before. It was always my lack. Not yours. Never you. Don’t you understand that I was never good enough for you? Not from day one. You, though? You’ve always been perfect.” Jack’s words revealed how little he thought of himself and were painful for Ellie to hear. She’d never thought badly of him. “I don’t care what anyone says about you because I know I’m the luckiest bastard alive to have you.” His voice was gruff, but full of emotion. Ellie felt herself melt.

  “I’ve been so afraid to really let you in. Because I know that if I do and you walk away, it will ruin me. Don’t get me wrong, I’d survive. I wouldn’t do anything stupid. But it would ruin me for always.” Ellie whispered. “You mean everything to me. You always have.” She watched as Jack spun around and stalked over to her. He seemed to try to find the words needed to pacify her before dropping to his knees in front of her. His head pressed into the soft contours of her stomach.

  “Let me in all the way, Ellie. I’ll take care of you, I promise. I want to know everything about you. I want to give you every dream you’ve ever had.” Jack lifted his eyes to hers and the emotion she saw burning in them had her dropping to her knees beside Jack. “You’ve got to trust me Els.” He said gruffly, his lips millimeters from hers. “You mean everything to me, too.” Ellie’s heart beat erratically. She loved this man with her entire being and wished she was brave enough to tell him.

  “What if letting you in was the end of everything?” Ellie whispered. “What if you don’t really like me once you get to know me?” She was terrified that giving Jack that final piece of her soul would be the nail in her proverbial coffin.

  “Ellie, baby, it would be the beginning of everything. Don’t you know that?” Jack asked her softly. “I already know who you are. You don’t have any secrets that would make me leave.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Her eyes slid shut as she breathed out heavily. She felt a kiss press against one eyelid and then the other. Jack’s hands wrapped around her waist.

  “I want so badly to believe the things you tell me.” She admitted. Jack stood suddenly, taking Ellie with him. The feeling of being lifted into his strong arms was heady and the emotions that were swirling through Ellie made her want to curl into Jack like a kitten.

  “Ellie, you can believe me. I’ll never lie to you. Ever.” Jack’s words were solemn as he went into the living room and deposited Ellie on her comfortable chaise. She stretched out and watched Jack undress her. He gently took off her flip flops and tossed them toward the front door. He reached up and unbuttoned her shorts, drawing them off her body along with her panties. Ellie lay there in her tank top and watched Jack, unsure of what he planned to do. Clearly it was something sexual otherwise he wouldn’t be getting her naked. But as the moments stretched out and Jack just stood there looking her over, she began to worry. Her hands moved to cover herself as the silence continued. Her belly was still a little rounded from the miscarriage. She hadn’t just snapped back to her usual size six. Or maybe she had and the weight was distributed differently now. Whatever the reason, she was a little self-conscious of her body when she never had been before.

  Bending down and gently brushing Ellie’s hands away, Jack knelt down and pulled Ellie to the edge of the chaise. He pushed her legs open and ran his hands up her inner thighs. His thumbs brushed up the narrow strip of pubic hair that Ellie kept neatly waxed. Although she had gone bare a couple of times, she didn’t necessarily enjoy the sensation of being completely without hair. Without a second thought, Ellie’s hips tilted towards Jack’s questing fingers.

  “I can see you like that,” He told her. Ellie nodded because she was sure he could see that her sex was slick with arousal. He bent his head toward Ellie and nipped at the inside of her thigh. Her hips pressed down to where his mouth waited and she heard a low, dark laugh. “I can see my baby likes that a lot.”

  Ellie had brief thoughts of how long ago her shower was and whether she should be worried about Jack going down on her, but the first swipe of his tongue against her clit obliterated any worries she had. His tongue was soft in the middle, firm at the tip and every bit as wonderful as heaven.

  “Jack!” She moaned. “Don’t play with me!” She heard him chuckle darkly. Two of his fingers rubbed against her and then slowly slid inside her, pressing upward. She bore down on them, desperate for relief.

  “I like to play with my baby,” He teased her. She gave a huff of laughter that ended on a strangled gasp as she felt Jack play with her ass. They’d never indulged in anal play before and although Ellie had always been wildly curious, she’d never had the nerve to ask Jack to experiment. What he was doing felt wickedly wrong and good all at the same time. She widened her legs for him and lifted herself toward his seeking finger. The move brought her in close contact with his mouth and gave him the permission he was after. Ellie moaned loudly as his finger, moist with her slick wetness, pressed gently inside her. His tongue continued to flick upward against her clit and the finger inside her provided delicious pressure. The feeling was like nothing she’d ever experienced before and she never wanted it to end.

  “Ahhh!” She cried. The sensations were too much. What Jack was doing to her body was downright sinful. She was astounded at how turned on she was by the act. Ellie shattered apart as soon as Jack’s teeth gently scraped her clit. She could feel her muscles rhythmically clamping down on his fingers as the orgasm rolled over her. His tongue gentled but kept steady pressure at her clit. His actions weren’t causing her clit to become oversensitive and he was keeping her right on the edge, riding the crest of an amazing orgasm.

  With rough movements, Jack removed his mouth and fingers from her sated body, dragging her off the couch and onto his erection. Ellie had no idea when Jack had ditched his pants but the pressure of him inside her after the tremendous orgasm she just experienced felt delicious. She could feel every stroke and ripple of his cock and the feelings were exponentially magnified by her love for him.

  Jack bent backward on his knees so that he was seated tightly against her. Ellie leaned in the opposite direction, her back against the couch. The position was foreign to Ellie but she was willing to try anything with Jack. Because her back rested mostly against the edge of the chaise, it let him thrust upward into her with ease. She marveled at the muscles rippling across his chest and watched as his cock slid in and out of her body. He gleamed with her wetness and it was an erotic sight to behold. She looked up at his face and saw he was watching the same movements she was with rapt concentration. He appeared enthralled by t
he sight of his glistening erection pumping in and out of her.

  As Jack chased his own orgasm, his movements became rough and his pelvic bone rubbed her clit over and over with the force of his thrusts. Incredibly, she felt herself tightening down again and with one hard push, Ellie was over the edge again, crying out hoarsely in pleasure. It took several moments for her to realize Jack had also found his release and had pressed himself up against her body. She could hear his heart thundering in his chest and could feel the hot warmth of his seed deep inside her.

  “Ellie,” he said gruffly, “I’ve never had this with anyone else. I want to do this with you. Only you. I want to find out what makes you hot. What you like. I want to explore everything there is with you, in bed and out of it.” Jack’s words were gritty and raw but Ellie had never heard anything sweeter. She wrapped her arms around Jack, feeling the dampness from his exertion.

  “You make me hot. Everything about you makes me hot.” And it was true. Ellie found Jack to be the sexiest man she’d ever seen. She didn’t want anyone else but him. Jack nuzzled his face into Ellie’s hair and inhaled deeply, his body relaxed against hers.

  “Then we’ll walk this road together, okay? It’s not familiar to either of us but you aren’t alone anymore. For however long you want me, you’ve got me and you can trust that I’ll be there for you.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  “Fuck, man, are you sure you’re ready for this?” Brent stood with Jack at the small jewelry store in the heart of San Diego’s shopping district. The store was filled with one-of-a-kind designs. They had a designer on staff and their shit was way better than any of the chain stores he’d ever been to, including the one that carried the little blue box that was beloved by women everywhere and that he had presented to Ellie just a few weeks earlier.

  “Hell yes I am. We close on the house in two days. I’ve been living with her for almost two months now. I get to go home to her every single day. It’s something I want to keep doing for the rest of my life. There’s no reason to put this off.” Jack’s voice was strong and sure as he faced down Brent. The truth of it was Jack was eager to get his ring on Ellie’s finger. It had taken him years to realize his feelings for her and now that he had, he was in with both feet. There was hesitation on his part.

  Jack was also worried over breaking the news to Ellie about her infertility. He knew he’d waited too long to tell her and the news, along with his knowledge of it, would not go over well at all. He was hoping the ring would prove his feelings for her and if Ellie realized the depth of his commitment, she would be more likely to forgive him.

  “Dude, have you had whatever conversation you need to have with Ellie?” Jack should have known Brent would find his Achilles heel and dig at it. He was perceptive that way. Jack shook his head before verbalizing the answer.

  “No. I can’t fuckin’ bring myself to do it.” Jack told him honestly. He was a coward and he knew it. The last few weeks had seemed like paradise to him and he didn’t want to ruin it. Ellie was finally starting to relax around him and her guard had slowly come down. The last thing he wanted to do was shatter the trust developing between them and he had a feeling breaking the news would do exactly that.

  “What’s weighing on you, man?” Brent asked. Jack could hear the concern in his voice and knew he’d understand. Hell, when Brent talked to him about it last week, he had given Jack some solid advice. He glanced around the store, looking for their bandmate Eric who had wandered off to look at diamond earrings. No doubt Eric was looking to find a few to add to the line on his ear. Jack sighed heavily and faced Brent.

  “After Ellie’s procedure her doctor talked to me. Apparently this miscarriage wasn’t a fluke thing. Ellie’s got some issues inside. The bottom line for her is the chance of successfully carrying any baby to term is, like, zilch.” Jack told Brent miserably. He was uncomfortable talking to anyone about Ellie’s body but of any of his friends, he knew Brent would get it. He felt his entire body sag with the relief of finally sharing the burden of his secret. Brent’s face was unsympathetic as he faced Jack.

  “So hire a damn surrogate. They carry the baby and it bakes in there like an oven. It’ll be your juice and Ellie’s egg. A hundred percent yours. Just cooked elsewhere.” Brent’s suggestion was delivered matter-of-factly. “This is the secret you’ve been carrying around like it was a deal-breaker?” His voice held more than a hint of disbelief and Jack suddenly felt very stupid. Brent’s suggestion of using a surrogate was one Jack hadn’t even thought of. He’d been so wrapped up in worrying about the fact that she wasn’t going to be able to experience a pregnancy he hadn’t given any thought to the fact she ultimately just wanted a baby out of it. And it wasn’t like he knew anything about pregnancy and babies. He had spent the last decade as a single man and had no reason to know anything about stuff like that.

  “Dude, how do you even know this shit?” He asked Brent. It seemed like the guy knew just about everything and Jack knew he should have opened up to him earlier. For the first time in weeks he felt a glimmer of hope that Ellie’s life didn’t have to be devastated by this news. Hell, he could still give her babies as she wanted, just not in the traditional way. He was suddenly tremendously grateful for his financial success because he could hire ten surrogates if he needed to.

  “Don’t be an ass.” Brent told him. “You can’t hide from shit, especially when there’s such an easy solution.”

  “I didn’t even think of a surrogate,” Jack finally muttered. Brent laughed and slung his arm around Jack’s shoulders.

  “You’d better talk to her soon, man. This news won’t change Ellie’s feelings toward you. She’s loved you since the beginning. What will change her feelings about you is the fact that she can’t trust you to be straight up with her. You can’t ask her to marry you with secrets hiding between you two. That’s disaster and it will ruin things for you.”

  Brent’s words came from experience, Jack knew. He’d asked the girl he’d gotten pregnant to marry him. He’d only been nineteen but he’d been crazy for her. After he proposed, he found out she was barely seventeen even though she was a freshman in college. She had lied to him from the beginning of their relationship about her age. She correctly assumed Brent would have never touched an underage girl. Brent had been furious at her for lying to him throughout the entire six months they’d been together, but he still loved her and wanted to marry her. Unfortunately because she was underage, they had needed consent from her parents. When her parents found out about the baby, they threatened to have Brent thrown in jail for statutory rape. It was a mess of epic proportions and still caused Brent no amount of grief twelve years later. Brent had just wanted the girl and their baby and the fact that his girl had just vanished, sent off by her parents to put the baby up for adoption, killed him.

  “I’ll talk to her tonight,” Jack promised Brent, finally confident that he’d found an acceptable way out of this mess.

  TWENTY-THREE

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?” Ellie asked, completely confused. She held the phone away from her ear and looked at it as if it might offer some explanation for the bizarre conversation she was having. It didn’t, so she put it back up to her ear.

  “We wanted to follow up with you to make sure you’re okay after your hospitalization and procedure. We know a medical discovery like this can be very difficult to take.” Ellie was having a difficult time grasping where the woman on the other end of the phone was going with her conversation. As far as Ellie knew, a D&C wasn’t exactly a medical discovery.

  “A medical discovery like what?” She asked, feeling like she was missing out on something critically important. She wondered briefly if the woman had the right person on the line, but didn’t think so based on the fact she was calling about her recent hospitalization.

  “Discovering you have infertility issues. I’m sure you must have had some time to think about questions since you were here at Memorial,” the woman on the other side of the conversa
tion said gently. “I popped in to see you a few times while you were with us. I’m the grief counselor?” She said the last sentence in the form of a question, like maybe Ellie didn’t remember her visits. Truthfully, the time at Memorial was blurry because Ellie had been so out of it. She did remember meeting with a woman who was about her age and who had talked to her about the stages of grief. The woman had been very sweet and calming. Pretty, too, Ellie thought randomly. Ellie latched onto the words the woman had said and felt her stomach drop. Surely they had the wrong person because Ellie had been pregnant. Pregnant women didn’t have infertility issues.

  “Infertility issues?” Ellie repeated. “I don’t have infertility issues. I had a miscarriage.” The fact that the grief counselor had gotten this call wrong was completely ironic. Wasn’t she supposed to help cope with grief, not cause it? Ellie was a calm person but rehashing her miscarriage was upsetting and she felt herself unravel slightly. She had worked through the fact that this particular pregnancy and baby weren’t meant to be. To receive a call like this felt particularly cruel and it reopened the barely closed wounds.

  “Honey, it’s okay to talk about what’s going on. I’m sure your husband needs an outlet too. He seemed really devastated at the hospital when we told him.” The woman paused. “You have talked about it with him, right? We talked at the hospital about not keeping issues bottled inside. It’s not healthy for a relationship.” Ellie’s breath caught in her throat and her pulse raced as her anxiety mounted.