Unscathed

by Tim O'Rourke

  I watched as she set her purse down on my couch, but grabbed her iPhone from it, holding it tightly in her fist.

  “Here,” I said, going to the cabinet and pulling out some tequila. “Just have a shot, make it fast.”

  She wrinkled her nose at me. “Tequila? Ew.”

  This time I did laugh. “Or not…”

  I pulled a Blue Moon beer from the fridge and popped the top off and took a swig. I could see she was watching me closely so I went over to her.

  “You sure you don’t want some?” I whispered, pressing the bottle to her lips, swiping the tip of the bottle against first her top lip, then her bottom lip. She offered no resistance, but instead, stared up at me unblinking, refusing to break eye contact. I watched as her tongue snaked out and licked the round top. As I began to tip the bottle into her mouth, I had my other hand on her upper arm, gently rubbing my thumb along her soft skin. Just as the bitter, foamy liquid was about to slide into her mouth, she pushed the bottle away and kissed me again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mina

  The bottle of beer that Jax had held to my lips fell from his hand and dropped onto the carpet. I could hear the glug-glug sound as the foamy contents poured from the neck of the bottle and onto the carpet. Jax either didn’t hear it or wasn’t bothered. He kissed me back. In fact, it was more than just a kiss – it was like he was devouring my mouth. He pressed his lips hard over mine and I gasped for breath as his goatee brushed against my chin and along the side of face. With his tongue exploring my mouth, I felt his strong hands work their way down the length of my spine and settle on my arse. His lips pulled away from mine as he kissed my neck and then took my right earlobe into his mouth. He nibbled the soft flesh with his teeth. I shuddered at the feeling of his hot breath against my neck. He worked his hands down over my arse. His fingers lifted the hem of my short blue dress and I felt his fingertips knead my buttocks. Snaking my arms around his neck, I pulled Jax close and caught the faint whiff of engine oil and grease mixed with the heady scent of aftershave leak from him. The odd mixture made my head spin as he forced me down onto the sofa. He leant over me, and I looked up into his dark eyes.

  There was a long pause as we looked at each other. My heart raced in my chest and I felt giddy.

  “Is this what you want?” he said, slipping one of his denim clad thighs between my mine and gently easing them apart. I offered no resistance.

  I thought of the stream of other girls I’d seen him lead into his house over the last few months. I felt a sudden pang of jealousy. Why should I be jealous? Jax hadn’t been mine then. Was he even mine now? Was I just another one of the many girls he had bought back here? Would I be creeping out before dawn, carrying my shoes in one hand and my panties in the other?

  “I want you,” he whispered, leaning close and tugging at his shirt.

  I’d heard that before. That’s what the other had said to me as he had lowered me onto my mother’s bed.

  I stared up at Jax as he reached up and pulled his shirt over his head. I gripped my phone tight in my fist as if it was some kind of a lifeline – something that would pull me to safety if it all went wrong like it had before. Jax leant over me, now stripped to the waist. His body was something close to one of those statues I’d seen in the art museums back home in London. The muscles covering his stomach looked as if they had been chiselled from stone. His left nipple was pierced, and the silver stud glinted in the dim light from the nearby table lamp. Jax’s sculptured chest and round shoulders were covered in a maze of crisscrossing tattoos. I could see what looked like black angel wings on his chest, snakes and serpents coiling around his muscular upper arms. The sight of his body turned me on and I did want him, but those lingering memories of what had happened to me before – the trouble it had caused – came flooding back in a wave. I closed my eyes, as I tried to push them back into the corners of my mind. Reaching out, I let my fingertips bump over the taut muscles covering Jax’s stomach. I felt him shudder at my touch. His hands were on my thighs as he ran his rough fingers up towards my panties. I ran my hands up the length of his back, pulling him over me. It was like I was using him as some kind of shield – protecting me. I felt his breath against my neck, and that musky smell of his seemed almost intoxicating. I felt one of his fingers hook aside my panties and slip between the soft silk of the fabric and my skin. His knuckle brushed gently against me, which sent my nerves tingling. I felt a sudden urge to give in to him – to let Jax take me and treat me as his own. But I wanted more than that. I wasn’t going to be another one of his quick fucks. I didn’t want him to tell me that he loved me or anything like that. My mother’s lover had once told me he’d loved me – but he hadn’t really. That had been a lie which I had been naive enough to believe. I just wanted Jax to respect me, but would he if I gave in so easily to him? I wanted something steady in my life for once. I didn’t want to make the same mistakes I had made before. That had cost me my relationship with my mother. But would Jax respect me if he knew my secrets? If he knew my past? If he knew my future? The secret I kept wasn’t just going to go away, and if Jax became a part of my life – my secret would become part of his, too.

  “I’m so fucking hard for you,” Jax whispered in my ear, pulling down my panties.

  I opened my eyes and could see the lust in his eyes as he watched my white panties slide slowly over my tanned knees. He was looking down between my open legs. I suddenly snapped them shut and grabbed hold of his wrists to stop him pulling down my panties any further.

  “Stop,” I breathed.

  Jax snapped his head up and looked at me.

  “I do want you, Jax, but not now, not here… not yet… it’s too soon,” I said, pulling my panties up and swinging my legs over the side of the sofa.

  “Did I do something wrong?” he asked, his voice more concerned than angry.

  “No, it’s not you,” I said, standing up and straightening my dress with the flats of my hands. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Then why stop? We were having fun, weren’t we?” he asked, standing before me.

  “I just… can’t,” I said, dropping my head so I didn’t have to look at him.

  “Why?” he said. “Is it because we’re here? Are you worried that my roommate might come back? Because if it is, we can always head for the bedroom…”

  “It’s not that,” I said. “I just don’t want to be used…”

  “I’m not gonna use you,” Jax said.

  “No?” I said, lifting my head to look at him. How did I tell him that I knew about all the other girls he had brought back here? How could I tell him I had seen those other girls leave in the early hours of the morning, their panties poking from their jacket pockets? I didn’t want to be one of them. But if I told him, then he would know I’d been watching him. I couldn’t let him know that I’d been spying on him all this time. “How do I know you won’t just screw me then forget all about me?”

  Picking up his shirt from off the floor and putting it back on, Jax looked at me and said, “Okay, so I’m not a monk and I’ve been known to fool around in the past, but that doesn’t mean that if I meet someone I really like, then I can’t have…”

  “Like?” I cut in. “You just like me?”

  “Look,” Jax sighed, reaching down and picking up the overturned bottle of beer. “I could say that I love you, but that would be just a bunch of bullshit. I like you enough not to feed you that crap. But I do know one thing for sure, and that’s if I didn’t like you, then I would have kicked your crazy arse down the street already.”

  “So you think I’m crazy?” I said, feeling suddenly hurt.

  “I think you’ve lost your freaking mind,” he smiled, then swigged down what was left in the beer bottle.

  “Just take me home,” I said, turning towards the door.

  Before I’d gone two steps, Jax had taken hold of my arm and pulled me around to face him. “I like crazy,” he said. “You’re like no girl I’ve ever
met before. I don’t know if all the girls in England are like you, but if they are, then it’s one fucked up place.”

  “I’m not fucked up,” I said, pulling my arm free.

  “No?” Jax asked.

  I stopped at the door, my back to him.

  “There is something crazy about you, Mina, and it drives me crazy, too,” he said. “I’m gonna find out what ever it is.”

  “Is that why you’re hanging around?” I said, glancing back over my shoulder. “As soon as you find out my secret you’ll be gone?”

  “I love secrets,” he smiled, the empty bottle of beer swinging from his fists.

  “You might not like this one,” I whispered, looking away.

  “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that, Mina?” he said.

  Turning back, I looked at him. “Will you take me home now?” I asked.

  “Will I ever see you again?” he asked, placing the bottle down and coming towards me.

  “My uncle and aunt are going to their lakeside cabin this weekend,” I said, looking at him. “I’ll cook you dinner if you like?”

  “I like,” he smiled, pulling open the front door.

  He led me down the front path, and smiling to myself, I suspected that I was the only girl he had ever driven home once they had been inside his house. I switched off the video camera on my phone and slipped it into my bag. I would watch Jax back at home, alone in my room.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jax

  This girl was making me crazy. I had to adjust myself several times and change the subject to get my pants back to a comfortable fit.

  Down, boy.

  I couldn’t believe she acted like she was game and then suddenly changed her mind like that. Doesn’t she know what that does to a dude?

  But like I’d told her – she was crazy. Crazy and insane, but in a good way. I was tired of boring girls who drank too much, giggled and flirted with me in bars, then ran their perfectly manicured fingernails over all my tattoos and piercings, then just spread their legs without so much as a challenge.

  This… thing I had with her… I couldn’t define it. She was stubborn and opinionated and held some seriously deep, dark secrets that I was damned and determined to get to the bottom of. Out of all the things I knew about her, I had concluded they had something to do with her mother. She never wanted to talk about her. She seemed to like her aunt and uncle okay, and she had no siblings to speak of, and her father was gone. She had barely been out of high school, or whatever they call it over there, when she came here to go to college, so this secret must have something to do with her mother.

  And the way she’d pressed me about my father. What was up with that? I think Mina had some deep-seated issues and I was gonna get her to tell me. I was also bothered by that damn phone she couldn’t seem to let go of. Sometimes I wondered if she had a boyfriend on the side – or three – and didn’t want to miss any texts. She was way too pretty to not have a few male admirers. I wanted to be the only one, though.

  I was determined to be the only one.

  It was a long, silent ride back to her aunt and uncle’s house. Before I realized it, I was pulling up out front. The warm, quiet night cloaked us as I looked around the quaint, silent neighborhood then back at her.

  “Well, thanks for a nice night,” she said, sliding some hair behind her ear, a nervous habit of hers I’d noticed she had.

  I smiled slightly at her and memorized her pretty face. She batted big blue eyes at me and waited for a response.

  Say something, stupid!

  “Let me walk you up.” I jumped out and went around to open her door.

  She smiled as I helped her out. “Thank you.”

  I walked her to the dark porch and a security light popped on as it detected us. I was hoping for darkness to kiss her, but I guessed now the neighbors would get a show.

  I wrapped her in my arms and inhaled her hair, which smelled like vanilla. When she looked up at me, there was something in her eyes I couldn’t quite decipher. Apologetic? Guilty?

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Do you really want to see me again?” she said after a moment’s hesitation.

  I nodded. “Yes. I’m not that much of a dick, Mina. I can wait… if that’s what you’re comfortable with. You’re just so sexy…” I ran my hand down to her ass again.

  She giggled. “Thank you, Jax.”

  I leaned down and kissed her soft lips once again and felt her arms snake around my neck. She then ran her hands through my too-long hair and I groaned into her mouth and kissed her harder. When I pushed my tongue into her mouth, she did the same and I slid my hands up from her ass up her back, and then back down.

  She pulled away from me, gasping. “See you next weekend, right? We’ll have the house to ourselves.”

  I looked at her flushed cheeks and bright, hopeful eyes and nodded. “Absolutely.”

  “Goodnight, Jaxon.”

  I smirked at her. “Goodnight, Mina…”

  And as I turned to leave, it dawned on me that I didn’t even know her last name… and I’d almost slept with her.

  Half the girls I’d been with I didn’t even remember their first names, so I’m not sure why that thought even popped into my mind.

  I smiled as I watched her front door close and I drove off, rumbling loudly through her quiet neighborhood, wondering what exactly she had in mind for next weekend in a big, quiet house we’d have all to ourselves.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Mina

  I waited for Jax to drive away. When the sound of the engine faded into the distance like the rumble of thunder, I closed the front door. The hallway was in darkness. Not wanting to wake my uncle and aunt with the sound of me climbing the stairs, I kicked off my shoes. Picking them up, I made my way up to my room in darkness. I switched on the bedside lamp and pulled my phone from my bag. I slipped out of my dress, letting it flutter to the floor. In just my panties and bra, I sat crossed legged on my bed and retrieved the video footage of Jax.

  It was barely visible, as it had been recorded in the lamplight in Jax's front room. But still, I could just make him out as he leaned over me. The shot then seemed to tip over onto its side as Jax kissed me. I could hear our heavy breathing on the soundtrack. I watched the shot of the back of Jax's head where I'd been clutching the phone as we kissed, my arms laced around the back of his neck. Jax then suddenly came back into shot and I flinched, nearly dropping the phone from my hand. It appeared that just for a fleeting moment, Jax looked right out of the camera at me. The image on the screen then shook as if Jax's house had been caught in some kind of storm. Then the ceiling came into shot. I realised this was when Jax had pushed me back down onto the sofa. He came back into shot again as he lent over me. My knees appeared and I could just make out in the gloom the sight of Jax pulling my panties down over my knees. I saw my knees clamp shut and heard myself say stop. I could see the look of disappointment etched on Jax's face. I turned off the camera. I didn't need to see any more. Had I been mean to Jax by stopping short? I had wanted him, too, but just couldn't. I needed to know that I could trust him. Not only for my own self-respect, but because of the secrets I would inevitably have to confide in him if I were ever to have a meaningful relationship with Jax.

  When I had first set out to watch – spy – on Jax, I had no idea that I would develop any kind of feelings for him. That had never been my intention. At first I had been put off by the lifestyle he chose to lead. But as I continued to follow him – to watch him – I learnt that, like me, we all made mistakes in life. I got the feeling that Jax had gone looking for love but like me, I guess he had been looking in all the wrong places. Watching him, I had learnt that you find love when you least expected to. But whatever happened between me and Jax, I didn't want to get hurt again. Was that possible? From the moment you fell in love, weren’t you just opening yourself up to a world of pain at some point? That had been my experience. I could tell Jax was hurting, too. I could
see it in the pictures and the secret recordings I had made of him. His pain hung about him like a shadow. Would it be possible for Jax and me to have a relationship where neither of us got hurt and both of us came out otherwise unscathed?

  I guessed I would never know unless I found the courage to give myself to him. But first I would have to tell him my secrets. But to do that, I would have to know once and for all that I could really trust him.

  Sitting on my bed in the moonlight that crept in through my open curtains, I emailed myself the pictures and video footage I had of my date with Jax. I would print the pictures out tomorrow before class and add them to the many others of him hidden behind the picture of London. With the last of them emailed to myself, I switched off the bedside lamp. Clutching my phone in my hand, I closed my eyes and rested my head against the pillow. As sleep took me, I had an idea of how I could prove once and for all that I could trust Jax with my heart and my secrets.

  I was up early the next morning. After showering and sharing a brief breakfast with my uncle and aunt, I printed off the best pictures of Jax and tacked them to the wall with the others. The last of them I tucked into the pocket of my jeans and set off for college. It didn't take me long to find Heather Findley. She wasn't one of my closet friends, but we had hung out one or twice since my move to the States. Heather was one of those girls who was always up for anything and always in search of some fun. One reason why I had kept her at arm’s length – she was far too wild for me. I had left those days behind me back in the UK. When I caught up with Heather, she was staring into the restroom mirror, covering her pouting lips in bright red lipstick.

  "What do you think?" she asked, turning to face me with a smile.

  I couldn’t help but notice her bleached white teeth had some of the lipstick smeared on them. I didn't want to point this out.

  "Very nice, Heather," I smiled.

  She was a real pretty girl and I never understood why she felt the need to cover her natural good looks underneath a ton of makeup. Maybe I would take a photograph of her one day and find out.