by Ann, Jewel E
He shrugged as she gave him a blank look. “You wanted the truth.”
“I did.” Ryn nodded slowly.
“So … it’s your turn. What do you want?” He leaned back against his car, hands shoved into his front pockets.
“Wow,” she breathed. “I haven’t given it much thought. My mind is always in the past, reliving that whole nightmare. I guess I’m just so grateful to be alive and out of that situation that I’ve never allowed myself to think very far into the future.”
“Except for our wedding. You did agree to marry me.”
“Except for that.” She winked, giving him a big smile. Talking about their imaginary wedding shot to the top of her favorite pastime list.
“Today. If you could do absolutely anything right now, what would it be?”
Keeping her gaze locked to his, she stared and then stared some more. The smile on her face grew with each passing second.
“Truth?” she asked.
“Always.”
“I want to see your tattoos … all of them.”
*
Truth or dare turned into a bad idea, times ten. Sex. Would it have really been so hard to just ask Jackson for sex? Instead, they were engaged in the most awkward game of show and tell ever. Times ten.
“I was kidding.” She wasn’t.
Ryn chewed her lip like rawhide as she sat on her bed—nerves of a virgin or sacrificial lamb. The exact second after her wish tumbled from her lips, Jackson grabbed her hand, dragging her inside the house and straight to her bedroom.
He shrugged off his shirt. She gulped.
“Uh … the blinds are open.”
He unbuttoned his jeans. She gulped again.
“Maybe … um, maybe that’s enough. My God, you look like a human canvas. It’s uh … a lot to take in all at once. We should maybe do this in phases.”
He smirked. Confidence bled from every inch of him. Where to begin? The man was born to be inked. A few bold black words interspersed with intense colors: roses, hearts, branches, a dragon, numbers aligned in dates, musical notes.
“Are you hungry?” Ryn squeaked. “It’s getting late. You know what they say about eating after eight at night. It … it all goes to your ass.”
He turned his back to her and slowly slid down his pants and briefs at the same time. She no longer could swallow. Her mouth fell open. Drooling came next.
“Oh … okay, I see that’s not an issue for you.”
He stepped out of his jeans, completely naked before her. “Do I meet your expectations?”
The room felt smaller, too much light, not enough air.
“Exceeded,” she whispered with a breathy voice.
Jackson turned around. He deserved a medal or at least a high five or fist bump. Touching him, however, was not a good idea.
“Take your time. My eyes will wait for yours.”
Ryn nodded once. Yes, she stared at his junk which was far from junky looking. Everything was grand and perfectly structured. It all hung quite well. It was definitely more of a package. A very impressive package. UPS had nothing on him.
What seemed like a week later, she blinked and met his patiently waiting eyes. “Kudos to your parents. Really just…” she popped her lips “…yup.”
“Do you have any tattoos to show me?”
“No … nothing, nada, zip, zero, zilch.” Long after zilch she continued to shake her head. Of course her eyes had slipped a bit south again. “Stretch marks. I have a few ‘pregnancy tattoos.’ And I have a nice C-section scar.”
The giggles came out of nowhere. Ryn covered her face and laughed. “What are we doing? Put your clothes back on … this is too weird.”
A minute or so later, she felt his hands wrap around her wrists, uncovering her face. Taking a tiny peek with one eye first she opened her eyes. The details of his body could never be erased. Panning her gaze around the room, she looked at everything but him. The moss green walls adorned with pewter-framed photos of Maddie served as a nice distraction, so did the sheer white curtains dancing in the breeze of the open window. Shifting her eyes to the floor around her, she frowned at the dull, scratched wood that needed to be refinished. Finally, she elevated her eyes to meet Jackson’s, which were level with hers as he waited on his knees before her.
“Hi.” He smiled, fully clothed again.
“Hi.” It was impossible to not smile back.
“Were you laughing at me?”
“No.” She laughed again, but not at him. “It’s just … it felt like we were two young kids sneaking into the bedroom to show each other our private parts. When I was seven, I remember my mom walking in on me and my cousin. It wasn’t sexual or anything like that. It was just a show-me-yours-and-I’ll-show-you-mine moment of sheer curiosity.”
“What did your mom do?”
Ryn shrugged. “Well, you know, she’s a nurse so she asked us if we’d had enough time to check everything out. Then she asked us if we had any questions. We honestly didn’t know if what we’d done was wrong. Remember, we were seven. We both shook our heads. Then she whispered that once you’re seven, little girls are not allowed to see naked boys and little boys are not allowed to see naked girls. Then she said she’d let it slide since we’d both recently turned seven, as long as we promised to never do it again.”
Jackson chuckled. “Your mom was pretty cool.”
“Yes, she still is.”
“There’s only one minor flaw in your story.”
Ryn narrowed her eyes. “What’s that?”
“Today … I showed you mine, but you didn’t show me yours.” Strong hands gripped her legs as long fingers slid higher, stopping just under the frayed edge of her very short cutoffs.
A nervous chuckle rattled in her chest. “Yeah, about that …”
Jackson dropped his head in defeat.
“I fear you have these expectations, given your past and all, so …”
Two perfectly-arched brows looked up at her. “Expectations?”
“Yes, like um…” she rolled her eyes to the ceiling “…say you lived by the ocean and then someone showed you their pond. You wouldn’t be impressed.”
He shrugged a single shoulder. “I might be.”
Ryn shook her head in defiance. “No. There’s just no way you could be.”
“The ocean is big, but it’s also very dangerous—sharks, jellyfish, tsunamis, pirates. Maybe I don’t want the massive crashing waves and the fear of being pulled under by the tide, feeling lost at sea. Maybe I want the serenity of a pond and the way it reflects the beauty of everything around it.”
“Maybe you’re crazy.” Pressing her palms to his cheeks, she grinned.
His eyes homed in on her lips, sending her heart into a frenzy, waking all the butterflies in her tummy. She felt so alive.
“Ryn,” he whispered a second before his lips brushed hers. “Let me swim in your pond.”
She laughed. It didn’t matter that his thumbs were half an inch from her wet panties. It didn’t matter that his lips were sealed to hers. It didn’t even matter that his tongue teased the tip of hers. She laughed.
Jackson sighed while sitting back on his heels, head bowed again.
With a quick hand she covered her mouth, hiding her smile and stifling her giggles. “I’m so sorry.” The sound of her laughter abated though it still shook her whole body. “But you did not just ask to ‘swim in my pond.’ Did you?”
Scrubbing his hands over his face, he grumbled something indecipherable. Standing with one swift motion, he walked toward her door.
“Don’t leave! I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. Give me another chance.” Once again she chased after him.
His long legs made quick strides to his car.
“Where are you going?” she called, throwing open the screen door.
“I’m going to figure out a way to be with you and keep my testicles.”
Chapter Fifteen
A chilly burst of air breezed past Jackson when he opened the
back door to their townhouse. The smell of burnt popcorn hung like fog as he pulled his T-shirt up to cover his nose. Every window in the place was open to its max. It felt like an arctic gust whipping through their house.
Jillian sat perched on the counter, legs criss-crossed, with a heavy red hoodie shielding her from the temperature that read fifty-five degrees on the thermostat. She poked around her bowl of popcorn, tossing five black kernels in the sink for every one brown piece she deemed edible.
He needed some guy friends. Stat. The women in his life were hell-bent on testing his last bit of patience.
“Want some?” Jillian looked up from the bowl.
“What do you think?”
She shrugged. “Damn bag got away from me. I set it to five minutes, but I go by the time between pops and—”
“I don’t care.” He grabbed a beer from the refrigerator.
Sliding her fingernail between her teeth to free a hull, she watched him guzzle the contents all at once. After tossing it in the recycle bin, he fetched another one.
“Someone’s grumpy. I am too, but you go first.”
Catching his breath after the marathon beer chug, he glared at her. “New rule. If I leave my phone behind you don’t answer it. And if you ever discuss my testicles with someone again, I will make your life a living hell. Got it?”
Wrinkling her nose, she lifted her shoulders. “Sorry. I was just trying to help. I take it, it didn’t go so well?”
Finishing his second bottle, he tossed it then rested his hands on his hips. “Let’s see … after I called her bluff on the devious little ruse you plotted, things went good … really good. Then they went not so good, then really good again … then bad … really, really bad.”
Dumping the remaining charred pieces of popcorn into the trash, she brushed off her hands. “Lucky for you, I have the patience to deal with your code talk. The first good?”
“She asked to see my tattoos. All of them.”
“Sex?” Jillian perked up.
“Not even close.”
“You completely stripped for her and it didn’t end in sex?” Jillian’s jaw dropped. “Has that ever happened to you before?”
“Never.”
“ED?”
“Fuck you.”
She chuckled. “The not so good?”
“She laughed. Apparently it brought back some childhood memory for her.”
“That’s odd. So what was the really good again?”
He smirked. “She got all insecure on me, comparing other women I’ve been with to the ocean and herself to a pond. I told her I prefer ponds. There was some kissing that felt like it was going somewhere then …”
“Then?”
“Then she laughed again, really hard.”
“Why?”
“Because of something I said. God!” He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and shook his head. “I know better than to chat it up, but she’s different, so I thought I needed to say something. Something romantic. Something profound.”
“Aaand?”
With a grimace, he looked at Jillian. “I asked her to … let me swim in her pond.”
Sister dearest bit back her laughter and just nodded, but tears welled in her eyes. “Well … I’m not sure how romantic or profound it was.” She snorted a little laugh that had to escape. “But, you could have said worse things. You could have asked to dock your vessel in her canal. That is … if you wanted to stay with the nautical theme of the evening.”
Another snort of laughter.
“Downstairs. It’s cold as fuck in here and I need to warm up. Kicking your ass should light a nice fire in my belly.”
“Wait.” The laughter evaporated and what she had to say dissolved her smile. “I need to show you something.” Retrieving her phone from the pocket of her hoodie, she held it up.
Colossians 3:5-6
Jackson read it then inspected the phone. “This is your new phone?”
A nod.
He Googled it because he wasn’t sure of the exact verses, but he knew it had something to do with sin.
“Mortify therefore your members which upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:”
Jillian snatched her phone back. “You and your King James Version.” She did her own Google search. “Put to death therefore what is earthly to you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said.” Jackson grabbed her phone away.
“Maybe … maybe we should go in.”
Jackson’s focus shifted from the phone to his sister. “Go in?”
“Back to G.A.I.L until this gets figured out. Or maybe we should request a new location, new identities. Omaha isn’t exactly some small town. Obviously our identities have been compromised. Now we’re just being taunted.”
“First, we are not being taunted. You are. Second, why were you not suggesting relocation and all this after the first two messages? Could it have had anything to do with you having a reason to stay? But now AJ’s gone so you want to just up and leave?”
“I’m just saying … it’s a new phone and I’m still getting these cryptic messages.”
“Who have you given your new number to?”
Jillian shrugged. “I don’t know … AJ, Dodge and Lilith, Cage, a few people with Lascivio, mowing man Bill.”
“AJ—”
“Oh for the love of Pete! Stop it. AJ. Loves. Me. He’s not stalking me. Why would he move back to Portland? Isn’t it a little hard to stalk someone from halfway across the country?”
“Then it’s Lilith. She lied to you about being deaf. I’m sure she’s lying to you about keeping your past a secret. I should have removed her. Listening to your womanly intuition about her was a big mistake. It’s clear after today that all women are fucking head cases.”
Jillian gave her customary eye roll. “You’re so delusional. I think your case of blue balls has affected your brain.”
He tossed her phone to her. “I’m not leaving. Now I have a reason to stay.”
“You’re staying for a woman who can’t stop laughing at you long enough to have sex with you?”
Someone begged for a beating. “If I wanted to have sex with her … we would have sex.” He held his scowl even though what he’d just said registered a second too late. Of course Jillian didn’t waste a single moment before jumping all over it.
“So … even today, when you were standing in front of her naked, you didn’t really want to have sex with her?”
“That’s not how I meant it. I don’t want just sex with her. I want more. The more is getting in the way. It’s turned sex into a delicate situation.”
“It’s turned you into a pussy.”
“Fu—”
“I know … fuck me. But seriously. She’s forty. I bet she’s dying to have a shit load of meaningless sex with a hot guy while her hips can still thrust without fracturing. You’re trying to court her. You know what happens in those old movies where the well-mannered, high-society guy tries to be a gentleman and court the lady?”
Jackson rolled his eyes to the ceiling and shook his head.
“The sweaty stable boy with bulging muscles, ripped pants, and old leather boots swoops in and fucks her like a wild animal in the tall grass near the river. And that’s who she ends up with at the end of the story, because no matter what women say about chivalry … they don’t really want a guy who’s going to spread a blanket out under a tree and feed them grapes and cheese cubes. They want a guy who’s going to spread their legs, bury his face, and feed himself without first asking permission to ‘swim in her pond.’”
“Damn…” he exhaled a heavy breath “…I’ve lost my sex mojo.”
*
Crickets chirping.
&nb
sp; The pitter patter of the pond fountain.
The occasional popping of a motorcycle on the main road.
The windows were closed, yet Jackson heard every little sound as red numbers on his digital night clock flicked to midnight.
Two beers and clumsy sparring with Jillian should have slam dunked his brain into a deep coma. It didn’t. All he could think about was Ryn. She didn’t wear an anorexic body or grin like a clown from Botox. Her breasts were real and they didn’t stand out. If he looked closely, a few fine lines around her eyes were visible. He hadn’t seen her stretch marks or her scar from childbirth, but she confessed it. They didn’t meet at a bar and fuck in the bathroom or alley … most of his conquests never even made it to his car, let alone his house.
Truth? What he’d done with women in the past could hardly be considered dating. It was more fucking about. Two people using bodies for pleasure. There were never emotions, at least not for him. Any girl pathetic enough to mistake a quick fuck for something more, especially when names were rarely exchanged, had bigger issues than Jackson.
What makes a man so callus, so immune to emotions, so obsessed with instant gratification? A secret. The kind of secret that one person alone has to keep to himself for eternity. The kind of secret that shatters lives, destroys families, and ends in blood.
Jude Day had a secret. A secret that annihilated everything he believed to be true and forever changed his perception of his parents. Jackson Knight needed to believe that secret would remain buried in San Francisco. His entire existence clung to the hope of new beginnings.
The night stretched on, dragging him in and out of restless sleep. He didn’t wait for the sunrise. It never waited for him. Rubbing his face like he could erase the previous day, he lumbered from his bed straight into his running attire. Five miles later, he returned for a shower, Red Bull, and protein drink. The day required an extra boost of … everything.
After a string of agonizing piano lessons with women who were not serious about playing the piano, he texted Ryn, saying he had something to show her. It was the truth, of sorts.
“Jackson?” Greta called before he could shut the car door.
He shut it anyway then rolled down the window.