by C. M. Marin
I’ve apparently gone too far with this remark, because footsteps are instantly thumping on the bathroom tiling before they become quieter when they reach the carpeted floor of Liam’s bedroom. Knowing he can’t see me, I roll my eyes and paste a bored look on my face right before I’m forced to stop my motions by a wall of muscles and angry look towering over me.
He has some nerve acting jealous.
I raise an eyebrow in challenge as I cross my arms―mostly because I don’t want to cave and touch any of his still very bare, rippled muscles.
When silence is all I’m being offered, I shrug casually. “You broke up with me. What did you think? That I’d retreat to a convent?”
“You mean you fucked that preppy blond mama’s boy in a restaurant or at the movies? Because you never went to his place, and he never went to yours either.” His expression loses its anger as he drawls with both casualness and a hint of pride.
Scorching fury arises in me in such a forceful wave that my heartbeat picks up in a very unhealthy way. It clogs my every pore with an indignation outplaying the surprise by far, and I snarl my next words. “You’re such a… You’re a bastard!”
Now that the rage surpasses the attraction that makes my hands crave to touch his hard body again, my palms hit Jayce’s solid pectorals to get him out of my way. If he doesn’t want to leave this room, I will. He stumbles back, though it’s obviously because he didn’t counter the faint strength I have compared to his. But when I storm away without another word and tear the door open, he’s back right next to me in a flash, his own palm pressing firmly on the door to shut it back.
“Did you really think I’d let you go without keeping an eye on you?” he growls against my ear as I feel both his warm breath on my skin and his front touching my back, trapping me between him and the door.
What does this even mean? Letting me go? He threw me away like some piece of dirt.
I whirl around, looking him dead in his eyes. “Did you really think you had the right to stalk me after throwing my ass away as if I were some club whore?” In his eyes plays both sympathy and anger, the latter probably directed at my words, but nothing could get my blood to cool down. He’s more than pissing me off at this point. “And then you have the nerve to make sure I’m not sleeping with anyone else? Because that’s what it was, right? The girl who wants to date is a whore, and the guy who’ll go find any skank willing to take his cock out is just a guy? You’re such a misogynist, hypocritical jerk,” I spit out.
“Stop fucking calling yourself a whore,” he growls.
“I am not!” I point out to him, my voice almost raising to an exasperated squeal. “I’m just explaining to your sorry ass how you’ve been making me feel. And now you’re here, thinking you can boss me around because you decided you wanted to? But you shouldn’t even be talking to me, Jayce! Do you realize that? Hell, you shouldn’t even be looking my way! You have no right to step back into my life and tell me what I should do! You lost that right a damn long time ago! So now I just want you to get the fuck out of this room and out of my life and do what you did with such skill for the past year and a half. Forget about me!”
I’m so beyond pissed. No adjectives exist to describe the fury that has taken over me. Even my body has fallen under its control. My breathing is wilder than if I had run a marathon, and my chest burns with every quickening beat my heart takes. I barely recognize myself, but at the same time I know that I needed this. To let all of this out of me. I needed to scream at him. It freed something inside of me. Hidden behind the sadness of losing him, there was the anger at him shutting me out of his life, of his heart, that kept growing over the months. I’m stunned at the way it all came out but discovering that he was watching me all this time must have triggered some switch in me. How dare he keep tabs on me? He had no right. And he expects me to understand? Jesus, in what world is he living?
I’m still breathing heavily when he says very calmly, “That’s not what you want. Keep telling yourself that you’re pissed because you don’t want to see me, but you know it’s a lie. The reason you’re pissed is because you still want me, but you don’t want to want me.”
“I’m pissed because you’re a selfish dick!” I counter.
My outburst keeps storming so vehemently everywhere inside of me that my brain is slow to understand what happens next. The lips I’ve craved to taste again collide with mine. The body I’ve craved to touch again presses against me. The hands I’ve craved to feel on me again dive into my hair. My breathing gets literally out of control, but no longer because of a barely manageable anger. What’s happening is something I’ve dreamed of every night for endless months.
Jayce is right. I don’t want to want him, but I do anyway. I want his hungry lips tasting my own. I want his strong body seeking the friction of mine. I want his calloused hand raking over every inch of my skin. I want it all. And ironically, it’s because I want it all that I tear my mouth away from his before my hand crashes on his cheek with a slapping sound.
How much I’m wanting this suddenly made my anger flare up.
His head barely budges under my assault, and he doesn’t move away from me. His eyes even stay on me, but there’s no anger in them. There’s not even a glimpse of surprise. There’s defeat bathing in their beautiful green. Maybe even a trace of guilt, if I don’t only imagine it. And there’s this particular emotion I recognize easily because it almost ripped my heart out of my chest to see it when his family died. Sorrow. A deep, embedded sorrow. I can’t explain to myself why it’s tainting his eyes now, but despite the lingering anger, it kills me just the way it killed me back then, and I can’t help but remember the day it all went to hell.
The day Jayce lost his family is one of the worst days of my life. Lying on his bed, I held him in my arms for hours while he cried. It was the first and only time I saw his tears. I did my best to stay strong for him, but I cried, too. I cried for him, because seeing my strong man so lost and helpless broke my heart, but I also cried for the men who always loved me, as if I had been their own daughter.
I’m not sure whether it’s this memory or the sadness Jayce is looking at me with, but one of them brings me to barely think before doing what I do next.
In one single abrupt motion, my mouth goes to cover his and my hands plunge into his tousled, damp hair. My thoughts have stopped. They don’t even try to whisper to me just how screwed-up this mistake is. The moment I allowed us to touch again, my need for him became too powerful for reason to slip in and pull me away from him. I don’t think anything could pull me away from him right now. But it seems like everything can draw me closer. His smell after just getting out of the shower; his muscular torso attempting to mold into my softer body as he presses me back against the door; his mouth devouring mine; his tongue seeking mine to stroke it savagely. All of it eats at more and more of my self-control.
“Legs around my waist,” he lets out his breathless command after ripping his mouth off mine.
His demanding tone should have made me come back to my senses, but instead, I comply right away and let him lift me up into his arms. There’s still no thinking. Somewhere in my head lingers the knowledge of how wrong what I’m doing is, but it’s very distant and pushed even further away by Jayce’s lustful voice. His voice alone amplifies my own aroused state. I’ve always loved his voice. Deep and low. Calm yet authoritative. Just like everything else when it comes to him, I missed it.
His nakedness doesn’t keep him from opening the door and walking up the hallway with me wrapped around him. Hot, wet kisses and gentle bites assault my neck while he brings me to his room at the end of the hallway. His massive erection is trapped between his rippled stomach and my needy crotch, and the feel of it compels me to undulate my hips so I can rub myself on him. A year and a half of abstinence has left me greedy apparently. And so aroused that even though the contact is made through my clothes, it feels like an orgasm is very close to exploding through me. And I can’t help chasing it.
I need it. Pleas for Jayce to make me come hang on the tip of my tongue, but whimpered gibberish is all that leaves me when he sneaks a hand between us to cup my sex and starts to rub his thumb on my still covered clit.
Next thing I know, I’m back to standing on my feet inside Jayce’s bedroom, my back against the closed door. I watch him kneeling in front of me, tugging down my yoga pants and panties on his way to the floor. He leaves them abandoned around my ankles and doesn’t let me step out of them before his mouth is on me and his lips suck at my desperate clit.
Oh God!
God, this is too much for someone who hasn’t had anyone there for months on end. Too much to take. The sensations he sends me swirling into are just as I remembered them. Incredibly blissful and greatly overwhelming at the same time. Only now they are even more blissful, and so much more overwhelming. My nipples harden in a painful way inside my bra, but I don’t even think of taking it and my top off.
“Jayce, I can’t… Too much… This is…”
I can’t form proper words to convey my thoughts, but he must get it anyway because he rasps against my greedy flesh, “I know, baby. Just let go and come on my tongue. I want you to come on my tongue. Let go and come now.”
Once he’s done grunting what he wants, his skillful lips move their attention back to my clit, sucking hard on it, and his wish is granted. My first proper orgasm in eighteen damn months hits me full force, thundering everywhere inside of me. My moans turn into screams, my voice as unleashed as the trembling of my legs. If it weren’t for Jayce’s arm coiled around my waist, I’d be riding my orgasm on the floor.
“Yes, that’s it. Fuck,” he curses.
Watching me come was always one of his favorite things. It’s something that would get him hard instantly, if he wasn’t already rock-hard by the time he gave me my first orgasm. Just like right now. Even through my climax-induced gaze, I discern his hardness against my stomach now that he’s pushed back up to his feet. His cock is more than ready, and as soon as I come down from my longed-for orgasm, I reach down and swipe my thumb over the tip.
The hiss that gets caught in his breath and his every muscle tensing under my subtle touch fills me with pride and satisfaction. He still craves me, too.
“Fuck. Need to be inside you. Can’t wait any fucking longer.”
I can’t wait either. It’s been too long, and the need to feel him filling me up again is too strong.
The first time he made love to me, I knew I’d want him to do it all over again for as long as we’d both breathe. It’s like he had me under a spell. I needed him to own my body every time we were alone together. I needed him to do with it as he pleased, as long as the outcome was that euphoric pleasure enwrapping me. Gripping at my every sense. And when he cut ties with me, I lost it. All of it. I lost his body, just as I lost his soul. Now, I can get one of them back. Not the most important one, but I’ll take it. I’ll take everything he’s willing to give me. Just for tonight. Even for just a little while, I’ll take it.
I ignore the bit of pain shooting briefly through my belly when I clamp my hands on his shoulders and put my weight on them until I’m able to wind my legs around his waist in invitation.
He likes fucking me this way. His gaze is predatory as it settles on mine right before pushing inside me. I feel myself clenching around him, and once he’s entered me all the way to the hilt, he pauses to let my body adjust to his size and groans against my panting, whimpering breath. “This isn’t going to last long.”
Instinctively, I tighten my hold on him even before he unleashes on me. My nails dig into the flesh of his shoulder blades as thrust after thrust, he takes me hard and deep. His arms are around me, securing me close to his body as he fucks me as if his life depends on how roughly he takes me. My heels sink into his firm ass, and it takes only a few more times of him pounding into me for another orgasm to implode frenetically through me. My back arches―or rather tries, because there’s not much room for my body to move considering I’m still pressed tightly against the door―my legs shake, and my throat frees the most feral sound that has ever left me. And quickly after I started climbing toward my second round of pleasure, my unrestrained cries mingle with Jayce’s guttural grunts as his body goes taut against me and his cock jerks inside of me. He doesn’t let go of my shuddering body all the while walking through his own orgasm, even tightening his hold on me when our high slowly gives way. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he fears seeing me run way.
Maybe that’s what I should do. Run away and go back to my room. But there’s no will in me whatsoever. I make no move to untangle my body from his. His warm breath flows over the skin of my neck, and I close my eyes. Tears fill them for some reason. Simply being held by him in this gentle way turns me into an emotional wreck. I work hard to rein the tears in though, not opening my eyes when he pulls out of me and walks us to his bed. Cautiously, he lays me down on it and goes to the bathroom before coming back with a damp washcloth a few seconds later. Spreading my legs, he cleans me up carefully, just like he used to do. I finally open my eyes and look at him until he discards the washcloth on the floor, but his eyes never find mine in return. I don’t say anything when he comes to lie beside me and pulls me into his arms. He doesn’t say anything either as he covers us up with a comforter and I let my head rest in the crook of his shoulder. Then I can revel in his musky scent and the feel of his skin against mine.
Just for tonight.
Chapter 10
Jayce
She’s gone. Even before my hand flies to the other side of my bed to land on her abandoned pillow, and before I open my eyes to look in the same direction, I know it. She’s not in my bed anymore, let alone in my arms, and there’s no sound whatsoever coming from the bathroom, which door I left open last night―though because I’m in the middle of replacing the shower, there’s not much she could have done in there.
The disillusion is gutting. Expected, but gutting.
But when I look at the clock to see that’s it’s already eight, hope sneaks in. Alex has always been an early riser, even when she has gone to bed late the previous night. But a snort that echoes into the empty room is quick to leave me. There’s just no reason to have hope. She let me touch her, make love to her, and tuck her in my arms before she fell asleep in them last night, but I’d be a stupid fool to think it could make up for the fact that I failed her. But to me, last night meant everything. Last night changed everything. Hell, the past month and a half changed everything. But last night…
She was a beauty coming undone under my touch. My cock twitches at the thought of her face washed over by a pleasure she let herself drown in. I drank her two orgasms and marked her with my own. Fuck, it was spectacular. I just regret not taking the time to get rid of her top and bra to suck at those nipples that I could see peeking through both thin fabrics. I think we were both too desperate to take our sweet time. My other regret is not looking at her afterward. I couldn’t bring myself to meet her gaze, even though I could feel hers on me while I was cleaning her up. I was too afraid I’d see regret in her eyes. I’m not delusional enough to believe that she doesn’t have any regret after last night, but back when I had her right here, falling asleep in my arms, I’d rather pretend she didn’t. And that’s still what I’d rather think this morning. Because what I want is clear now. I want her. I want her back. There won’t be any more avoiding being alone with her at all cost. From now on, I’ll do whatever I can to get her alone with me as much as possible. The knot in my gut and lump in my throat are still there when I contemplate her being mixed up in club shit, but for the first time, I see things under a different light. Whether Alex is hundreds of miles away from Twican or right beside me, there are risks. Her being shot in the middle of the fucking town center proved just that. At least if I have her next to me, I can make sure she’s safe at all times. Nate was right. She’s part of our world. With or without me, nothing will change that. I was a fool not seeing that back then. I thought I wa
s seeing things clearly, but I wasn’t. It’s only now, that my eyes are free from the blurry veil. Alex’s place is nowhere else but right beside me.
But getting my girl back won’t be that simple. I have no idea when she left my room last night, but the fact that she snuck out tells me all I need to know. Getting her back is gonna be a tough challenge. But whatever effort needed is an effort I’m willing to make.
I think about trying to go back to sleep, but I already know the attempt would be useless without Alex next to me and all this shit running through my head. So, I leave my bed and settle on taking a shower. Since Karl left a couple of days ago for a delivery in Utah, I grab some sweatpants and a shirt and go to his room.
I take a while in the shower because very fresh memories of Alex’s half naked body wrapped around me has my cock demanding some attention, but once I’m dressed, I don’t waste any time and head downstairs.
I can’t help hoping to find Alex sitting on her favorite couch, the one closest to the bottom of the stairs, busy typing away words on her computer. Disappointment feels ridiculously heavy in my chest when my eyes land on the empty couch, but then some light clicking sounds hijack my attention to the other side of the room, near the TV.
But there’s no Alex there either.