RECKLESS - Part 5 (The RECKLESS Series)

by Ward, Alice

  Andrea,

  Since you haven’t called me back or picked up the phone, I can only assume that you don’t believe me. This is a picture of me and my sister, back when we were little. Please, call me. I love you.

  I couldn’t read anymore. The tears were clouding my vision, streaming down my cheeks. This was the truth, the answer that I’d been looking for, what I’d missed.

  I opened another letter to find a photo of Jace and his sister at a family reunion back in 2004. Another photo of Jace, standing by his sister, holding his niece—the little girl I’d seen on campus that day. And then I came to one he’d taken of me. It was the day I’d told him I loved him. I looked so alive, so full of life. I hadn’t looked like that in months.

  But if all of this was true, if all along, he’d known that I’d suspected he was cheating, why did he wait until now to show up? Why hadn’t he come and busted my door down, demanded to talk to me? He obviously knew where I lived, had staged a concert downtown, just to see me. Why wait this long?

  There was only one person that could answer that question for me.

  “Mom!” I called, running down the stairs.

  She was sitting on the sofa, reading a book. “Yes, honey?” she asked, looking up expectantly, as if she’d known this moment was coming.

  “Did you know?”

  “Know what, sweetheart?”

  I lifted the handful of letters and photos in my hand. “About all this? The truth? Why he didn’t show up right away?”

  “I only knew there was a misunderstanding of sorts,” she said. “So I encouraged him to contact you. You’re a big girl, Andy. Quite capable of handling your own love life.”

  “But why did he wait until now?” I asked, praying she could give me some sort of wisdom. “Why didn’t he show up right away?”

  “Oh, sweetheart, I can’t answer that for you,” she said, brow creasing. “Although, my guess is, he can.”

  She was right. I needed to find him. And that meant calling my best friend, the friend that I’d apparently abandoned for no good reason.

  ***

  Becca was at my door in less than twenty minutes. “Took you long enough,” she huffed, stepping through the front door.

  “Why?” I asked, not even giving her a chance to sit down before hitting her with the one question I needed an answer to.

  “Why, what, Andy? Why does he love you? Why did he write you a letter a week? Why did he bother chasing you all the way out here when you’re stubborn, hard-headed, and a fucking coward?”

  Holy shit! I hadn’t been expecting that.

  “Becc…”

  “No, Andy. Don’t Becc me. You fucking left me. Over a guy,” she had her hands on her hips, and lips were pulled tight. “A guy that never did a goddamn thing wrong. But you ran away. You ran away because you were afraid. You ran away from your career. From him. And from me. As much as I love you, I’m fucking pissed at you.”

  I didn’t know what to say. She was right. On all accounts.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, the words clogging in my throat, thanks to the new stream of tears threatening to pull me under. I’d hurt everyone—Jace, Becca, even myself—why? I knew the answer, and so did she. I really was a fucking coward.

  “Don’t be sorry, Andy,” she said, her expression softening. “Fix it.”

  “But how?”

  She grabbed a hold of the door handle and pulled the front door open. “You can start by coming with me. Talk to him. Ask him the questions that you want answers to. Not me.”

  She was right. Again. It was time to put on my big girl panties and find out the rest of the story.

  ***

  As we pulled up to a hotel not far from my house, the panic started to take over. What if he was angry with me? What if he didn’t love me anymore? What if he only came to shove everything I’d thrown away into my face? What other reason would he have for waiting this damn long to come and see me, to chase after me, to win back my heart after I’d been the one to make the epic mistake?

  “Come on,” Becca said, standing outside the car door, holding it open for me.

  We walked into the hotel, into the elevator, and down the hallway and my anxiety only served to get worse. By the time we reached room 2102, the door that Becca stopped at, I feared I might pass out from hyperventilating.

  “Calm down, woman,” Becca said, giving my shoulder a quick squeeze.

  When the door opened, she stepped away and started walking back down the hallway. I looked after her, my voice useless in begging her to stay with me and Jace standing there, staring at me, waiting expectantly for me to walk through the door to his hotel room.

  He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. “We can—uh—we can do this somewhere else, if it makes you more comfortable,” he said. The look in his eyes saying he wanted to do anything but.

  Chewing at the inside of my cheek, I shook my head. “No. I’m okay.” I stepped through the door into the empty hotel room. I don’t know why I’d expected to find someone else there—the rest of the band, his sister—but it was just him and me.

  “Would you like some water?” he asked, closing the door behind him before opening the miniature refrigerator, producing a bottle and then holding it out to me.

  I took it, gratefully. My throat felt like the Sahara freaking desert. I opened the bottle and took a healthy swig, the kind that makes you breathless after it’s over. “Thanks,” I said, still unable to meet his eyes.

  “Want to sit at the table?” He gestured to the small dinette inside the room.

  I nodded and took a seat. This was so much more awkward than I’d anticipated. Maybe he really was done with me. Maybe he really had moved on. Maybe he really was just here to show me that he was okay without me. Where did that leave me? Because seeing him, hearing him, kissing him—angry as I might have been that he’d taken so long to come and find me—left me vulnerable and aching for more.

  “Why did you wait?” I asked, the words spilling out before I had a chance to think about how they sounded.

  “For what, Andrea?”

  “To come here. To show up here,” I slowly lifted my gaze, fought the urge to hide and forced myself to look at him. “If—if you loved me as much as you said in your letters, why didn’t you come after me?”

  He released a heavy sigh and then closed his eyes. “Robert.”

  I shook my head in both frustration and confusion. “What does Robert have to do with all of this?”

  “He left the band. Took off with everything we’d saved. We tried to track him down, and we did, eventually—but the money was all gone. He’d spent it, invested in some scam that had posed as a record label. He freaked, was ashamed to come and talk to us, afraid to tell us what had happened, so he ran instead. I lost my apartment, had to go and stay with my sister for a while. That’s why she was on campus that day, to let me know I had options, that if it came to that, I had a place to stay.”

  My heart went to my throat. “Oh, Jace . . . I’m so sorry.”

  He shrugged. “It’s done, Andrea. Over. But I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t come to you. Fuck, we lost everything. You have no idea how much that killed me, to know that you were refusing to talk to me, refusing to read my letters . . . I thought I’d lost you forever.” His voice broke and I could tell he was fighting hard to reel it in, to keep from losing it completely.

  I couldn’t let this go on, not when I’d already created so much unnecessary pain and suffering. It was time to put an end to all of that, to finally give him what he deserved, what he’d deserved from the very beginning—all of me, body, heart and soul.

  I stood up out of my chair, crossed the room. Each step I took was defined with purpose, and when I was just inches away from him, when I could feel the heat radiating between our bodies, I grabbed a hold of his shirt. Heart thundering away inside my chest, I pulled him to me, brought my lips to his and then melted as his arms encircled me.

  “Andrea,” he whispere
d against my lips, inhaling me. “God, I’ve missed you.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I cried, tangling my fingers in his hair, grasping his neck, pulling him back to my lips again. I needed him like I needed air, and I couldn’t get enough.

  “Jace,” I moaned, letting my head fall back as his lips traveled down my neck, licking and nipping a searing trail.

  “Say you’re mine,” he growled, nipping at my earlobe. “That you’ll never leave me again.”

  “Never.” I let out a startled cry as he lifted me up by my ass, situating my legs around his waist.

  He walked us over to the bed, set me down on the duvet with my body still hanging a little over the side, my legs still firmly wrapped around his waist. He leaned down and brought his lips back to mine. His teeth clamped down on my bottom lip and my breath hitched. The moment I opened my mouth, his tongue was against mine, swirling as it claimed me for all of eternity.

  His hands traveled the length of my body, sending shudders of electricity through me. My lungs felt like they would implode as he slipped a hand under my top, between my tender flesh and my bra. I broke the kiss and met his gaze. “Please,” I begged, my body bucking against his as he gave my hardened nipple a gentle squeeze.

  That damn smirk took up half his face. “Please, what?” he asked, lowering his mouth to kiss along my collarbone. “Tell me what you want, Andrea.”

  “Fuck me, please.”

  “No,” he said, running his other hand down my thigh, all the way to my ass. “There will be no fucking tonight, Andrea.”

  I think I might have sobbed right then. But then he eased the ache by gently kissing my lips and then saying, “Tonight, I’m going to make love to you. And you’ll be mine. Forever.”

  My heart leaped out of my chest, right into the palm of his hands. Not a single doubt flitted through my head as I grasped his face in my hands and, with tear-filled eyes, said, “Forever.”

  As if he could somehow take it into himself and seal my promise—the promise I intended to keep—Jace swallowed my words up with his mouth and moved me so that I was sitting all the way on the bed. He climbed up with me and sat back on his heels.

  The room filled with our heavy breath as he slowly unbuttoned my jeans, rolling them down my legs and kissing along the inside of my thigh, my knee, my calves, my ankles. He did the same with my panties, and then my top and my bra. All the while, he kept his eyes trained on me, as if he feared I might disappear at any moment.

  Still holding my gaze with his heated and intense stare, he lowered himself over me, positioned himself between my legs. His erection brushed against my sensitive folds and my hips lifted to welcome him. I started to fear that I might come undone the moment he entered me, but almost as if he knew that, he entered me slow, inch by inch, sucking his breath in once he had fully submerged himself inside of me.

  “I love you,” he said, lifting a hand to smooth away the hair from my face, his hips moving almost methodically, delivering deep and slow thrusts as he kissed me, slow and deep.

  Sweat began to bead on my chest, my forehead, in the small of my back as I panted and pulled at him, desperate for more friction, more movement, but he maintained his pace and placed his forehead against mine.

  “Tell me what you’re feeling, Andrea,” he said, lowering a hand to my ass, lifting it just enough that he could drive himself deeper.

  “I—I love you—so much,” I panted, limbs shaking in anticipation. Then, in one more slow, deep thrust, I was crumbling, crashing, falling apart. My screams echoed off the walls as I called out his name. His own groans joined mine, and in unison, we found complete bliss.

  As he lay on my heaving chest, nuzzled between my breasts, my heart swelled and ached at the realization: he had been right; the moment he claimed me, I would be his. But the truth was, I had been for a very long time. The only real difference now was that I was done running from it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I awoke the next morning, wrapped in Jace; I couldn’t think of a better way to start the morning than seeing his face, hearing the soft snore coming from his sleeping body, our naked bodies still entwined. I needed to stretch, but I fought the urge. I wanted to spend a little more time watching him sleep, tracing the lines of his tattoos with my fingers.

  “What are you doing?” he groaned out, voice gravelly with sleep.

  “Watching you.”

  “Kinda creepy, don’t you think?” he asked, opening one eye to look at me, a small smile pulling at his sexy mouth.

  I laughed. “Not creepy at all.” Smiling, I placed a gentle kiss on his lips and then snuggled into him.

  “What do you want to do today?” he asked, pulling me tighter against him.

  “Mmmm . . . . I can think of a few things.”

  “Like?”

  Stretching so that my arms went around his head and then propping my elbow so I could lift my head and look at him, I smiled. “Staying in bed all day.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” he said, kissing the tip of my nose. “But first, we need food.”

  “Work up an appetite last night?”

  “Definitely.” He thrust his hips so that his morning erection pushed into my stomach as he nuzzled into my neck. “And I’d like to do it again. And again. And again.”

  “That’s a lot of sex,” I said with a giggle.

  He took a bite out of the tender flesh between my shoulder and neck. “We have a lot of lost time to make up for,” he said, grabbing my ass and pulling me even harder against him.

  I hated that it was bothering me right then and there, but I couldn’t help the pang of guilt, the knowledge that I’d been the reason that we’d lost all that time, that I’d abandoned him when he’d probably needed me most. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, resting my head on his face, the ache in my chest growing by the second.

  “Hey,” he said, pulling back to look at me and cupping my face in his hand. “Not allowed. No guilt. You made an honest mistake. So did I.”

  Face scrunched, I blinked a couple of times, confused as I tried to fight the tears of regret. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I should have told you, called you, let you know what was going on before you ever stepped on your plane that day. That’s my fault. All that misunderstanding could have been eliminated if I’d just communicated with you,” he said, wiping the lone tear that had managed to break free. “I just felt like you had enough to deal with already and I didn’t want you to worry. So I’m sorry.”

  Unable to accept his apology—still feeling completely at fault—I shook my head. “No, I did this to us, Jace.”

  “Andrea, listen to me. We both did this, and we’ve both learned from it,” he said, wrapping his arms around my body. “From now on, we talk about everything, no matter what, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said, softly, nodding.

  When I finally managed to seek out a small smile, he pulled me on top of him so that I was straddling him. “Now, how about that makeup sex?” he asked, lifting his hips and rubbing his erection against me once again.

  “Mmmmm . . . “ I hummed and brought my mouth to his so that he could claim my lips once again.

  With one hand wrapped in my hair, cradling my face, and the other wrapped around my waist, holding me to him, he lifted his hips and continued to rub his erection against me. Eventually working his way between my sensitive folds, his shaft massaged my clit, had me aching to feel him inside of me. But every time I tried to position my hips so that he’d slip in, he’d maneuver my body so that he’d slip away from my entrance.

  “Patience, baby,” he said, taking a nip at my bottom lip. “I’ll give it to you when you’re ready.”

  I might have wondered when that would be if the heat and friction hadn’t feel so damn good, and with the intensity building and the speed of his rhythm increasing, I had less and less room in my brain to think about anything else other than moving my body with his, letting him push me closer and closer to ecstasy.

  But the
n, just as I reached the precipice, he slammed into me, hard—so hard that I let out a mixed cry of both pain and pleasure. Immediately after my body recovered from the shock, it went into what I could only explain as orgasmic convulsion. I was shaking from head to toe, crying out his name, back arched as I used his body as an anchor.

  “That’s it, baby,” he grunted. “Ride it all the way out.”

  Only then did I realize that my hips were, in fact, moving. I was still in the middle of my orgasm, still riding the wave all the way to an even bigger one that sat just on the other side. It crashed through me like a violent wave, had me clawing at the sheets as he drove harder, deeper, growling in my ear and calling my name.

  As we both came down from the high of our earth-shattering orgasm, I lay on his chest, my own chest heaving as the sweat trickled down my back. This was exactly where I should have been all along, the exact place that I wanted to be for the rest of my life. The thought didn’t come to me quite like that, though; it was more of just a feeling, an inherent sense of knowing.

  And for once, it didn’t scare me, not even a little.

  ***

  Rather than stay in bed all day, Jace decided to take me out for breakfast—actually, it ended up being more like an early lunch, but I wasn’t complaining because that meant I could introduce him to Amy.

  The second she noticed Jace and me walking toward her table, her eyes grew as big as the mushrooms she’d been eating before we arrived. Then, as we got closer, her jaw dropped. She might have been checking Jace out, but I didn’t care, not when he was finally mine and I’d finally, finally given myself to him.

  “Hey, Amy,” I said, sliding into the seat across from her at our usual table. “I’d like you to meet Jace, my boyfriend.”

  She tried to be inconspicuous about the introduction, about her shock, but her silverware clattered against her plate when she shot her hand out to shake his. Her jaw sat, unhinged, and incapable of making coherent conversation.