by P. Dangelico
Oh, the drama.
I sat in a corner pounding Diet Cokes by myself because there was no way I was coming back here to give him the satisfaction. I’m not putting up with that nonsense from someone I have no claim on.
“Yes, I did. Thanks for asking. And his name is Gray.” He cannot be seriously jealous of Gray. This cannot be why he’s acting a fool. “Did you enjoy making an ass out of yourself?”
He takes a pull of his beer and sits upright, his chair thumping on the hollow wood.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Gray works with me at the paper. He’s a friend, and you were rude to him. Look around you, Jake. I don’t exactly have a ton of those so I would like to keep him.”
“I’m your friend,” he says quietly.
“Are you? Because you sure don’t act like it sometimes. One minute you’re hot. The next you’re cold. I can’t keep up with you anymore. You have more moods than I did when I was thirteen!”
“Shut up!” someone in the Whitman cottage shouts.
I slap my hands over my mouth muffling a burst of laughter. “Inside,” I whisper, pointing to the Austen.
Without a backward glance, I walk into the cottage, unsure if he’ll follow, but a minute later he shuts the door behind him. His head hung low, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, every inch of him looking as remorseful as he should.
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” he says to the carpet. “I’m sorry.” His gaze lifts to mine and the heat I find there is unmistakable. “I wanted you to myself tonight and I didn’t handle it well.”
Somebody beat on my chest. I think I just flatlined. Remorseful Jake is my favorite Jake so far, so sexy I want to peel that black t-shirt off his body with my teeth. Or maybe I’ll just let him take mine off first.
He steps closer and a thought hits me. “Jake, I’m leaving.”
His brows lower. “You’re leaving?”
“Not now…not tomorrow. But someday soon. I’m going back to L.A. the first chance I get.”
He looks away, thoughtful. “If this is your way of telling me you don’t want this, just say so.”
Turning, he walks out before I’ve gotten a chance to sort out all the strange and wonderful ways his mind works. I mean, sensitive is an understatement.
Snapping out of it, I chase after him, rip the door open, and jump out onto the porch.
“Wait…wait…wait!” I say to the broad back at the bottom of my stairs.
He stops and turns slowly, looking thoroughly harassed, frustrated, and ready to walk away never to return again.
“What?” he huffs. And I beat back the urge to smile. My goodness, I’m crazy about this man and all of his million moods.
“Don’t go.”
His expression softens––marginally. No one else would notice the change, but I’ve gotten pretty good at reading all the subtle nuances of his beautiful face.
“Don’t go, Jake,” I say, stepping closer. I place one foot in front of the other down the front steps of the Austen, closing the distance between us while his dark blue eyes bore into mine, anticipation and doubt warring there.
“Give me a reason to stay,” he replies, his scratchy voice holding a challenge.
A smile threatens to break out across my face because I can see his want and need getting the better of him.
Gathering every ounce of hard-fought courage I possess, I push the words out of my mouth. “Come back inside and I’ll give you more than one.”
When I reach the second to last step, we’re eye to eye. It’s then I see it cross his face. The insecurity just beneath the surface of all that tough shell.
“Tell me you want me first,” he murmurs, searching for signs of doubt on my face that he will not find.
All in, I wrap my arms around his neck and he pulls me closer. His breathing deepens, his chest pushing against my breasts.
“I want you. I want you desperately,” I say against his lips. The scent of his soap and shampoo fill my lungs and it’s like coming home. The way he feels in my arms, the way he smells, the sound of his voice. We’ve known each other only four months, but it feels like the span of a lifetime.
“Get a goddamn room!” Another shout from the Whitman cottage.
Jake kisses me. I wrap my legs around his waist and he carries me inside. And we don’t stop kissing. We don’t stop when he pushes me up against the wall and pins his hips hard against mine. Almost painfully hard. But only makes me want him more. And we don’t stop when the pantings are knocked off the wall.
“I can’t…I can’t wait another minute,” he mutters into my mouth. His tongue sliding against mine.
Clutching at the back of his shirt, I start to yank it over his head. I need to feel him. I need to feel every inch of skin on his body. Last night was the biggest tease. If I hadn’t been completely wrecked by the circumstances, I would not have slept a single minute. It was certainly bad enough when I awoke at 4 a.m. with his erection pressed up against my butt. He went for a run and I spent the next hour fantasizing about him.
Pulling away he places me on my feet and reaches for my blouse. Then he stops and meets my eyes.
“I need you.”
The declaration is so heartfelt I feel the weight of it pressing down on me.
I push his hands down and grab the bottom of his shirt, pull it off of him.
“I need you too.”
I run my hands up and down his chest and watch him take sharp, shallow breaths. My shirt comes off next. Then his jeans. Then mine. He picks me up and carries me to the bed, laying me down gently.
“I meant it when I told you I haven’t been with anyone in three years.”
It takes me back to the scene at the supermarket. Seems like a lifetime ago.
“I didn’t mean any of the rest. You’re beautiful, Carrie. So fucking beautiful…” He swallows. His gaze moves away and comes right back to me. “The truth is I wanted you back then, but I didn’t think I deserved someone like you.”
Kill me know. Take the poison and plunge it straight into my veins because the sweet look on his face is too painful to bear.
I’m reminded of everything I said about him and shame turns me red hot.
“Jake, I didn’t mean it either. Not a word. You know that, right?” He kisses me again, and this time I pull back. “And I haven’t been with anyone even longer than that.”
He gets up from the bed and pushes his boxer briefs down his well-muscled legs. His erection springs free more than ready to get the job done.
“I’m on the pill,” I tell him. “For my skin.”
Slowly climbing on the bed, he reaches for my bra and I help him remove it. My panties next. His hand slips between my legs and enters me while his mouth latches onto my breast.
He hits all my sweet spots, and for the first time in my life, I get a real glimpse at what Jackie meant when she said she just knew.
Pushing my knees apart, he gets on top and anchors me to the bed, grinding against me until I’m a hair’s breadth from coming.
“Jake…” I beg. He flexes his hips, entering me in one fluid motion. Big, hard, and ready. Stiffening, I hold my breath.
At first, it hurts. I haven’t had sex in so long I almost don’t remember it.
“I’ll make it good for you. I promise…just hold onto me,” he whispers and and starts gently rocking against me.
That’s all it takes for my body to accept his. For me to let go and let him take over. Jake makes love like he does everything else, with patience and skill and total devotion. Piece by piece he takes me apart and puts me back together, leaving not a single part of me uncharted.
It’s all I can do not to die of pleasure because the voice in the back of my head tells me this is special and unique. That it’s something to be valued.
I come hard and long, with him deep inside of me. He follows after a few more thrusts. It’s perfect. It’s everything I hoped it would be. And as I’m falling asleep I think to myself, “Do
n’t go away.”
He squeezes me tighter and I hear him whisper, “Not a chance.”
Chapter 16
Sex. Sex. And more sex. I have sex in the morning. I have it at night. I have it in the shower. Against the wall––not my favorite. On the kitchen table. On the floor. I still have the rug burns to prove it. It’s safe to say Jake and I are sexually compatible.
No bad sushi in sight.
So naturally, when my dirty pirate of a sister calls, I assume she wants to discuss sex.
Jackie’s face appears on my phone. I hit reject and think nothing of it. It’s late at night. Jake is sound asleep next to me and I’m in the middle of writing.
Fact: you never want to interrupt the muse when she’s whispering in your ear.
Except Jackie calls back. My sister can be a little demanding so I rinse and repeat, pushing her to voicemail.
The third time she calls, however, I answer without hesitation. Two calls means Jackie wants to rant. Three means there’s a legit issue and it’s not about the pair of Manolos she saw on sale.
“Hey, what’s up,” I answer, tiptoeing out of bed and into the bathroom.
The nervous fluttering in my belly kicks into overdrive when I hear a sniffle. “Jackie?? What is it? Are you okay?”
“Yes.” Voice broken, she takes a shaky breath. Whatever has gotten her this upset is nearly palpable. She’s clearly crying, but I try not to assume the worst just yet. I don’t want to speculate about my sister losing this baby because then I would have to speculate about how I’m going to glue her back together.
“What’s wrong?”
“I need to tell you something.”
Cryptic is not my sister’s thing. Despite being a high powered corporate attorney, Jackie is a total straight shooter. “You can talk to me, but are you alright? Do I need to call an ambulance? Where’s Charlie?”
“Charlie’s at Sam’s.” She sighs tiredly. “We had a fight.”
Sam is Charlie’s brother so that sounds kosher, but Charlie and Jackie never fight. Like ever. I cannot remember a single fight they have ever had. They have discussions. Not fights.
“You want to tell me about it?” I gently prod. She’s fragile right now. The last thing she needs is someone bearing down on her.
“I’m spotting again.”
My stomach sinks. “What did the doctor say? Did you call him?”
“He says it’s fine. Everything looks fine. The baby is fine. Charlie thinks everything’s fine…everybody keeps telling me it’s fine! I’m the only one that’s not fine.” Her soft cry filters through the phone and claws at my heart. Tears well in my eyes. “I’m not fine at all.”
“If the doctor––”
“I think I’m being punished,” she whispers, cutting me off.
She’s not making any sense now. “Why would you think that? You’re just under a lot of stress right now, but if the doctor thinks you’re not in any danger of losing the baby…”
“I had an abortion, Carrie.”
There’s an acute pain in my chest. Like my heart was sucker punched right out. “Jackie, you’re worrying me. Let me Call Charlie––”
“When I was in high school,” she rushes to explain. I breathe an enormous sigh of relief. She’s got a month left until her due date and that day can’t come soon enough. “I was seventeen, and, and I…I…I just couldn’t be pregnant. I couldn’t do it. I was heading to Stanford that fall and I had my entire life ahead of me…I couldn’t have a baby with James of all people. Do you remember him?”
My head is spinning with everything she’s throwing at me. It’s hard to keep up at this point. I was in junior high when Jackie was a senior so I vaguely recall the guy she was dating that year.
Regardless, it sounds like she’s been stewing about this for some time so I decide it’s best for her to vent, to let her get it all off her chest.
“A little. Does Dad know?”
“No…Nan does. She took me.”
That knocks the wind out of me. I’m too stunned to speak, and in the pause, Jackie continues, “I was so young and he was…” She sighs. “He was nothing to me.”
“And now you feel guilty…Is this what you’ve been carrying around?”
She’s crying again. I can hear her trying to pull the phone away from her face.
“Does Charlie know?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because…I don’t know. Half of me is ashamed and the other half knows I did the right thing…I think…” A fresh round of tears comes through. “I…I think I feel guilty because I know I did the right thing.”
“Then you did,” I tell her quickly, with no room to spare before she crumbles again. “Listen to me, you are not being punished, Jackie. No one is punishing you. Shit happens equally to good people and bad––”
Being in journalism you see a lot of that. Unimaginable horrors happening to people who have the least to lose.
I think of Jake and everything he’s endured. He’s lost everyone he’s ever been close to, everyone he’s ever loved. And still he tries, despite what he’s carrying around.
“This guilt is eating away at you, and it’s not good for you or my niece. You need to talk to a professional…But I know this for a fact, tragedy doesn’t discriminate. You didn’t do anything to deserve those miscarriages. They just happened…Jack?” I prompt when all I get is silence.
“I’m nodding,” she croaks.
“What about all the mistakes I’ve made? Don’t you think I deserve to be happy despite them.”
It makes me think of the day Ben fired me and what came before that. Dad was right, Halpern’s family didn’t deserve what I did to them.
In hindsight, had I not been in school and distracted by Halpern’s story, I could’ve even been one of the journalists that speculated about Jake’s guilt. Considering the circumstances, anyone would easily jump to the conclusion that Jake had been drinking that night. It would’ve been a fair assumption. “Assumptions make an ass out of you,” Nan always says. And she’s right, it would’ve been the wrong one.
“Of course, I do.”
“Then what makes you different?” The silence is heavy and rife with trap doors. This could go either way so I nudge her in the right direction. “You are not your history any more than I am mine.”
Or anymore than Jake is his, for that matter.
The next day I’m deep in the middle of researching on the annual Ironman competition hosted in July, which happens to be the second oldest Ironman in North America, when an email alert catches my attention.
It’s from Sports Illustrated.
I open it and with every word I read, my level of excitement soars. They want to do a feature story on Jake’s organization and the kids. I can’t keep a lid on it.
I jump into in the baby blue Mercedes and race to the farmhouse to spread the good news.
“Jake!” I shout, pushing through the front door. When he doesn’t answer, I barrel down the hall.
“Jake?” I shout entering the studio.
He’s staring at blank canvas. Just staring at it with an expression so pensive I almost forget why I came here.
In that moment I get another glimpse of what Jackie meant when she said she just knew. Because whether he likes it or not, Jake Turner is my once-in-a-lifetime love.
He turns to face me and a big smile stretches across his face. I get dimples and teeth and pure joy. “Come here.”
I don’t walk. I run. I run into his open arms. And he catches me.
Before he can kiss me I stop him. “I have to tell you something first.” He nods. “Sports Illustrated wants to do a story on you and the boys.”
His face falls. All of that good stuff I was getting from him a second ago is gone.
“No”
“Jake…I don’t––”
“I can’t do it, Carrie.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to. The only reason I agree
d to the Gazette is because it was local.”
“I don’t get it. You’re doing an amazing thing for those boys. Why don’t you want the world to know about it?”
“Because I just don’t. That’s why. Can’t that be enough for you?”
It’s the guilt. It’s always the guilt. It’s still there. Maybe it’ll always be lurking beneath the surface.
“Jake, it was an accident.” I can tell by his demeanor he’s getting angry with me, but I press on. He can’t live like this his entire life. “You can’t keep punishing yourself like this. It’s not healthy.”
“Do you remember how bad things got for you after you posted that article?”
“Yeah,” I answer, not certain where he’s going with it.
“Multiply that times ten. Imagine people going through your entire life and trashing it. Twisting every single thing you’ve ever done to suit their agenda. Imagine the press standing outside your window for a year. Following you everywhere you go. Harassing the people you know. Drawing the wrong conclusions about everyone you’re seen with…” He paces like a caged beast. “I do the S.I. article and it won’t be about the kids. It’ll be about me again. And Bresler and Karen and she doesn’t deserve that.”
I feel about two feet tall right now. He’s right. I have no idea how bad he had it.
I hug his waist tightly and press my face into his chest, sniff the turpentine and soap. “I’m sorry I pushed. You’re right… Sometimes I forget you’re famous. To me you’re just the hot guy that makes me come once a day.”
He pushes back my shoulder’s and looks down at me with nothing but trouble. “Once?”––his eyes narrow––“You better take that back.”
Backpedaling, I head for the door. “One and a half when you try real hard.”
He stalks after me. “I’m giving you one last chance to set the record straight.”
I make it to the door. “Two at the very most.”
“Start running now if you know what’s good for you.”
I take off and let him catch me on the couch. We rip each other’s clothes off. And when I say we rip, I mean he breaks the strap of my overalls and I split his shirt in half.