by Luis, Maria
“If you leave me hanging like this, I’ll seriously—”
“Who said anything about leaving you hanging?” He plucks the condom from my hand, tearing open the foil with his teeth. Rolling the latex over his length down to the base, he hooks his hands under my ass and lifts me farther up the car. His cock lines up with my opening, the thick crown taunting me with all the possibilities of what’s to come—of what I’ve missed with this man over the last year. “No, sweetheart,” he whispers against my ear, voice rough, breath warm, “you’re goin’ to come all over my cock. Any objections?”
I swallow. Lick my dry lips. “Not a one.”
“There’s my girl.”
He grins, wickedly, and then delivers on his promise: he thrusts home.
And, God, that’s exactly how it feels in this moment. Like he’s come home. Like we were always meant to be despite the divorce and the heartache and the coexisting like strangers. My heart wrenches with each drive of his hips, my breath shaky on each exhalation.
Don’t hurt me, my heart whispers when he cradles the back of my head to protect it from bouncing against the car.
Hold me tighter, my heart yearns when he slicks his free hand over the crease of my hip bone to keep me in position.
I’ve missed you so much.
That last thought takes hold of my brain as I cling to his arms while he powers into me. I hold onto this man as he changes his angle, hitting me just right, the ambient moon casting his face in shadows and light, illuminating his narrowed eyes and parted mouth and the thin, white scar on his cheekbone where he had reconstructive surgery.
I’ve missed you.
He snakes a hand between our slick bodies to find my clit.
I’ve missed you.
He applies pressure, circling in quick, rapid circles that wind me tight, tight, tight until my back bows and my hold on his arms turns into nails scraping down his broad back.
I’ve missed you.
“You’re beautiful to me,” he growls, “so damn beautiful.”
The pleasure coils tighter, and with a gasp, I come just like that.
On my back, sprawled across the hood of a car.
Exposed to the dark, to my ex-husband.
Limbs shuddering and shaking.
Jackson follows a heartbeat later, elbows on either side of my face, hips churning fast and uneven as he erupts with his own orgasm, and—
“Shit, sweetheart,” he breathes roughly into my hairline, “holy shit.”
My head falls back, lax. Lungs heaving, I manage to work out, “Good news.”
“Yeah?”
“You didn’t need me to put the condom on you this time. A-plus work, Captain.”
He laughs low at that, lifting his head far enough to press a soft kiss to my cheek. Another to the corner of my mouth. One last one over my lips, tugging gently on my lower lip before he mutters, “I’m gonna be honest with you. I’m tryin’ real hard to think of something witty to say back to that, but all I’ve got is . . . how do you feel about pancakes?”
20
Holly
Jackson takes me to a hole-in-the-wall diner across from Boston’s South Station, and when he said pancakes . . . he really meant pancakes.
I blanch when the waitress sets down a stack in front of me.
They’ve got to be the size of my face, at least.
And that’s saying nothing about the size of Jackson’s late-night dinner: a stack of blueberry pancakes, three eggs done over easy, wheat toast slathered with butter, a bowl of fruit, and a side of bacon.
Eyes bulging at the amount of food that’s covering the small table, I delicately unwrap the silverware from its paper napkin binding and clutch my fork and knife in opposite hands, caveman-style.
“You should be glad you got me naked before this feast. You’re going to have to roll me out of here.”
Jackson takes a pull of his milk, then winks at me. “I have complete faith in you.”
“Sure, maybe you do but my jeans are already crying out for help.”
“So pop the button,” he tells me with a nonchalant shrug before tossing a grape into his mouth like some sort of Greek god reclining on a chaise lounge.
Except, instead of a chaise lounge, we’re currently seated on red plastic cushions that look like they haven’t been updated since the seventies.
“I’m so not popping the button.” I cut my first sliver of the pancake, reach for the syrup bottle, and completely drown my plate with it. If my pancakes aren’t begging for air, then the syrup hasn’t done its job—morbid, sure, but totally necessary in my book. I kick my chin in the direction of his plates. “Are you sure you won’t be regretting all that food tomorrow when you play against Buffalo? Or, you know . . .” I swallow the bite of pancake and subsequently swallow a moan. God, that is delicious. Dingy-looking diners never fail to do my taste buds right. Wiping my chin with my napkin, I continue, “. . . regret staying up so late tonight?”
Jackson’s dark eyes rove over my face, seeking, probing, and I feel my cheeks heat under his acute scrutiny. Finally, he murmurs, “There wasn’t a shot in hell that I was about to go to bed without talking about what happened tonight.” He pauses, full lips turning up. “You defiled my virgin car.”
My jaw drops open unceremoniously. “Defiled your virgin—” Breaking off, I cough into my fist so as not to give him the satisfaction of combusting with laughter. But the coughing does nothing to hide my growing grin. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No kidding here.” He holds up his big hands, a slice of crispy bacon thrusting upward with his right hand. “You didn’t hear it protesting when I stripped you naked? Oh no! it screamed. My eyes—they burn!”
Oh, God. Trust Jackson to turn on the charm-o-meter when we’re in public.
For that comment, I steal his bacon.
Leaning over the laminate table, I pluck the crispy deliciousness out of his hand, secretly delighting in the way his brows shoot up at my boldness.
Take that, Captain.
“First,” I say, around a mouthful of bacon, “I was half-naked.”
“Minor, inconsequential detail. You were naked where it mattered.”
I roll my eyes at his smooth baritone. “And second, what happened tonight is . . . was . . .”
When words fail me, Jackson’s dark eyes soften. He ducks his head to dunk his toast through the egg yolk. “The stars aligned.”
Swoon.
Seriously, that shouldn’t sound as romantic as it does, but there you go. Jackson Carter is clearly determined to steal my breath away tonight, by orgasm or by other, no-less-panty-melting measures.
Focusing on my food, I soak the fluffy pancake in the maple syrup and do my best to maintain my composure. But boy, is that hard to do when you’re post-orgasmically blissful, the way I am right now.
“I didn’t realize you believed in stars aligning or any of that.”
His white teeth sink into a juicy, red strawberry. Chewing, swallowing, he then shrugs. “Truth is, I don’t.”
“Then why would you bring them up now?”
He meets my gaze head-on, his brown eyes unflinching. “It’s nearly impossible to believe in that sort of thing when your life is falling apart. Same goes with fate.” His thumb caresses the spine of the knife he’s holding. “We were breaking, Holls, and I was spending nights on our damn balcony making futile wishes on shooting stars.”
My heart splinters at the visual of him standing out there, loose sweatpants hanging from his hips and one of his hoodies pulled on but unzipped, revealing his strong chest and cut abdomen—his usual attire when we were home together. “I don’t remember any of this.”
“Nah, you wouldn’t.” His smile is blasé but frayed. “Most nights, you fell asleep at the office after a long day.”
At his words, guilt threads through my veins. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugs, another casual offer of acceptance or forgiveness or something. “It’s in the past. It h
appened.” Another shrug, this one followed by a mouthful of egg and a swallow once he finishes chewing. “I was no boy scout either. We both fucked up, Holls. I know that.”
“We both prioritized our professions over each other. We accepted the divorce the same way we lived our marriage at the end—quietly without digging deep and fighting for us. Counseling felt like a useless endeavor when we never made a change. What did we really change? Nothing. You shut down after that last night at Sal’s and I . . .” The truth clogs my throat, clawing its way up. And then it spills forward in all of its ugly glory: “I grew to despise everything about hockey.” His eyes go wide, but my confession isn’t over yet. Palms tightly wrapped around my utensils, I continue. “I hated that I felt like I had to choose between supporting your career or growing something for myself. I hated that hardly anyone knew me. I was ‘Jackson Carter’s wife’ or ‘the captain’s girl’ or ‘that chick who’s always at the games.’”
Something in his rugged features splinters. He shoots a covert gaze at the packed diner—one of the few twenty-four-seven restaurants in the city, and thus a hot spot—and combs his fingers through his hair, still messy from my hold on it just an hour ago.
“You meant more to me than all of that,” he vows, voice low.
Appetite dwindling, I set my fork down. “I know that I did. You meant . . . hell, there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you. Except, I guess, that the bigger you got in the NHL, the more my own identity was just”—I drop my gaze—“squashed.”
“By me?”
My hands turn clammy. When I reach for my short glass of orange juice, I can’t help but note the tremor in my hands. An hour ago, I gave myself to Jackson fully, holding nothing back. I opened my body, bared my soul—gave him every ounce of control and power to do with me as he wanted—and yet this conversation is so much harder than sex. Harder than sex in public, no less.
As though he’s read something in my expression, Jackson drops his fork and stretches his arm across the narrow table. He cups my cheek, eviscerating my heart with that one touch, and draws in a sharp breath before he speaks. “Don’t do that.” His thumb brushes over the crest of my cheekbone. “Don’t run from me. Tell me what you need to say—I can take it, I promise.”
A weak smile pulls at my lips.
He knows me so well.
Running is my M.O. and has been since childhood. I guess that’s sort of what happens when you’re constantly trying to box up your emotions and remove the perpetual hurt from your heart. You become way too good at putting on a happy-go-lucky front, even with those who matter most to you.
How many times did I lie to friends at school that my parents had been killed in some sort of horrific accident? Better that than the bitter truth, which was that my parents were cocaine addicts. By the time I was six and my brother four, they’d packed up their things and dropped us—their only children—off at my grandmother’s house with our meager belongings.
They never came back.
No postcards.
No letters.
No phone calls to let us know how much they loved us.
In the end, my childish lies came to fruition. In a letter that my grandmother wrote to accompany her will, she finally revealed what happened to my parents. Momma had died years earlier—drug overdose. Daddy was locked in prison on a life sentence—he’d murdered someone after a drug deal gone wrong. I know that my grandmother was only trying to shield us from any more hurt. In the end, it seems I’d only loved the vision I had of my parents a little too hard. The reality, as realities tend to be, wasn’t anything to write home about.
Against my better judgment, I cradle Jackson’s hand with my own. Soak up that slice of affection as though it’s the only batch I’ll be given for the rest of my life.
His touch feels like home.
“I didn’t know who I was anymore,” I whisper after a drawn-out moment. “Not Holly Belliveaux anymore—not that girl who showed up at Cornell, ready to conquer the world and enter the world of sports medicine.” Pulling Jackson’s hand away from my face, I stare down at his calloused fingers, his roughened palm, the swollen knuckles that have been broken countless times after years of battling it out in the rink. “Hockey was your dream, and then you became mine. And, before you say anything to that, I’m fully aware that it was my decision to leave Cornell and follow you to Boston, to follow you everywhere you went.” I release his hand. Fold mine in my lap and squeeze them together to stop the tremors. “But you can’t make a life out of relying on someone else’s happiness to fuel your own and make you feel complete, even if that happiness is your husband’s.”
Jackson slouches in his seat, food abandoned. His arms stretch across the back of the booth, and though he looks totally casual and at ease, I know it’s for the sake of any onlookers.
His dark eyes reveal the depth of his emotional turmoil, and what I see there breaks my heart—and the damn thing has already been lifeless for so very long.
“You started Carter Photography,” he murmurs, his features tense, his voice tight. “That was all you.”
“Was it, really?” I swallow past the hard lump in my throat. “In the beginning, it existed only because of your connections.”
“Everyone needs a little help, Holls.” Shaking his head, his lips flatline. “I gave you the stepping stool—you did the rest.”
“And as soon as I did, you pretty much ceased to exist.”
His lips twist, and I watch as his loose hands clench—though he remains otherwise physically unmoved. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.” Reaching forward for the OJ, I down the rest like it’s something a lot stiffer than one-hundred percent juice. It does nothing to quiet the riotous nerves in my belly, not that I expected it to. I keep the glass clasped in my hand, just to have something to hold. “You were all too happy to have me chasing you around the country like some sort of obsessed puck bunny.”
“You were my wife.”
“It didn’t feel that way once my business became something more than a hobby. I had shows and yet you never came to one. Hockey was always number one. I get it, hockey is your job. But I invited you to photo shoots when you weren’t at practice or at a game, and you chose the guys over me. Every. Single. Time.” A bitter laugh falls from my mouth. “I spent years at your beck and call, Jackson. I was the perfect wife, boosting you up when your confidence was threatened; watching more hours of clips than I even knew what to do with because you needed to be on your A-game and I wanted nothing less for you; attending every game, away or at home, except for that one time I caught pneumonia and even then, I was glued to the TV on our couch.”
Wrapping my arms around my middle, I struggle to keep the tears from resurfacing. I haven’t cried in months and I won’t start again now. But they threaten to spill over anyway, and I bite my bottom lip and fight for strength.
“I was your wife.” I meet Jackson’s turbulent, dark gaze, struggling to find the right words that pinpoint my emotions but don’t tear at his soul. Because I still don’t, after all this time, want to see him hurt. It’s never been my intention—hurting him is like a knife to my own heart, and time and distance hasn’t changed that. Ultimately, I lift my chin and force the words out into the open, for better or worse: “But when I finally had something of my own to show, I may as well have been married to a ghost.”
21
Jackson
In the span of a breath, Holly cuts me at the knees.
With my arms spread over the back of the booth and my legs spread wide under the miniscule table, I feel every muscle string tight like I’ve been delivered a physical blow to every inch of my body—starting with my balls.
All words die on my tongue as I struggle to find something to say in return.
Nothing in my defense—because what sort of defense do I have if the most important person in my life felt for years as though she didn’t have my full support and all of my pride for wha
t she’s accomplished?
I knew Holly had been unhappy. It’d been all over her face for anyone to see. And maybe there’s something to be said about growing complacent in the years that we were together: she expected me to read her mind and I assumed she’d always be there, the way she’d been for years.
We’re both at fault.
If our marriage was a hockey game, then our stick play was sloppy. We failed to read each other’s signs or anticipate where we’d be on the ice; didn’t listen to our coach when he warned us that if we didn’t open communication lines, we’d walk away with an L flashing on the Jumbotron.
And the worst part of it all: we gave up while there was still another period to fight for the win.
The past can’t be reversed, not in hockey, not in life outside the rink.
But we can sure-as-hell learn from our mistakes and do better next time.
Because I need there to be a next time with Holly. The last month has shown me that my feelings for her are unchanged, no matter how much I’ve tried in the last year to stop loving her. And, to be straight-up honest, I don’t think I tried at all.
I meant what I said in that text that I sent her: I’m ready to start breathing again, and I only do that with her, my ex-wife.
Only, I’m damn well ready to get rid of the ex-part of the equation—if she’ll have me.
With stiff motions, I gesture at her half-eaten pancake. Gruffly I ask, “You want them to box that up for you?”
She blinks down at her plate, her cheeks blooming with color. “Ah . . . Um, no, thanks. I think I’m . . . yeah, I think I’m good.”
I slide out from the booth.
Blindly feel for my wallet in the pocket of my mesh shorts.
My heart beats in time with my footfalls as I find our waitress and pay for our meal.
“How was the food? Everything all right?” It was perfect.