Jake grimaces as if it hurts him to hold back. “Relax, Jamie.”
“Oh my god!” I gasp. “That’s easy for you to say.”
“Should I stop?”
“Hell no. We’re doing this.”
“So damn stubborn.”
“Because I know what I want, Jake. And I want you. So no stopping.” My hips rear up, taking more of him in. I wince.
“Don’t do that!”
“Too late. I’m already doing it.”
Jake groans and thrusts deep, all the way in. I cry out and freeze. He freezes with me. We lie there, our breathing ragged, me not daring to move in case it hurts again and him not daring to move in case he hurts me again.
We’re at an impasse.
I can feel him pulse inside me. Throb, throb, throb. My insides give a flicker like a candle sputtering back to life. I shift my hips.
“Don’t,” he mutters, gritting his teeth.
So of course I shift my hips again. He grinds against me, an involuntary reaction. It doesn’t feel … bad. It feels like it’s not enough. “Do that again.”
Jake grinds again. Not quite a hard thrust but a gentle roll of his hips.
My eyes close.
Holy. Freaking. Shit.
What the hell was that?
“Again,” I moan.
This time he thrusts a little.
Fuck. Yes.
Lava floods my veins. I’m burning up like a shuttle on re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. I am on fire. Somehow he seems to know this because he rocks into me again. “Jamie. Open your eyes.”
He thrusts into me, harder this time.
My eyes open.
“That good?”
“Best … thing … ever.”
Jake laughs and I didn’t expect this. The intensity. The intimacy. The talking. The laughter. He’s right. This should be done with someone you care for. Someone special. But I can’t shake the feeling that he is. No matter that he’s mine for just tonight.
“More,” I whisper, my hips rising in jerky movements, my clit aching and my need for friction becoming this wild, desperate thing.
Jake pumps hard and deep, and my hands clutch at his back, fingers digging in, impatient. I expect him to laugh at the frustration he’s evoking in me, and my crude, inexperienced movements, but his brow is creased and his breathing erratic as if he’s barely holding on.
Am I doing this to him? My lungs flood with air.
“Jamie, fuck,” he rasps in my ear, drawing back out and punching back in. I gasp, the bed bouncing from the force.
“Yes.” My head falls back. “That. Keep doing that.”
Jake does and I’m so ever-loving grateful.
“Don’t stop,” I add. “Ever.”
“Don’t ever want to.” He ducks his head, nipping my earlobe with his teeth.
What kind of sexual fuckery was that? “Do that again.”
He does.
“Jake.” It leaves me delirious and shaky as the bed judders.
He pounds into me, again and again. Sweat sheens our skin. It’s intense and messy, the sheets damp beneath us, hair sticking to my neck. Then he’s sweeping his arms beneath my thighs, pushing them against me like he can’t get deep enough.
Leaning in, his lips find mine, kissing me as he goes rock solid, every muscle rigid. He groans into my mouth, his body straining. “Jamie,” he pants, his breath ragged as he ducks his head, his mouth brushing against my neck. Rather than draw away, his arms pull tighter, a steel band locking me close. “You okay?”
Am I okay?
How is that even a real question?
I just had sex. With Jake Tanner.
My body feels used. My mind a little fucked. My heart a little battered.
“I’ve never felt more okay in my life.”
9
JAMIE
I make my way down the front path of Sue’s house, all my worldly possessions in a single bag slung over my shoulder. It’s only a ten-minute walk to the bus shelter, which will take me to the airport. Then I’ll fly across the other side of the country to Sydney, where my new life will begin.
My heart gets heavy with each step I take, memories weighing me down, keeping me from letting go.
You need to leave our fence behind and join the world again, Jamie. It needs strong people like you.
Oh, Bear, how easy you make it sound! As if it’s just like going to the store for a loaf of bread.
My lips mash together as I walk, so very determined yet so utterly, achingly alone. No Dad to push on the handlebars of my bike as I learn to ride without training wheels, having him whoop and punch the air when I succeed. No Bear on the other side of the fence, reminding me how important it is to live again. No Jake, his green eyes solemn as we lie looking at each other in bed, him tucking a lock of my hair behind my ear as he reminds me how to feel again.
A sob climbs my throat, fighting to break free. I swallow it down, blinking back tears. You’re a born fighter, Jamie, Dad says in my head—the way he always did before a karate tournament, or when I snapped a finger in training, or on my first day at a new school. Prove it, he would say, and I would hold in all the fear, the pain, the anxiety—hold it all in so hard my eyes would burn with effort and muscles shake—because the thought of disappointing him was terrifying. You have to train your mind to be stronger than your emotions, Jamie. Or else you’ll lose every time.
I reach the bus shelter with fifteen minutes to spare, a little sweaty and a whole lot tired. I barely have a moment to set down my bag when a “beeeeeeeeeppppp! beep! beep!” rips through the air. I jolt, turning towards the source of the noisy blast.
A beat-up little Mazda 323 in faded bronze roars to the kerb, loose gravel flying and dust kicking up, coating the air. It clouds me and I inhale a lungful, prompting a coughing fit. I wave a hand in front of my face, dispersing the haze.
The car belongs to Matt, but Erin alights from the driver’s side, indicating she probably stole it from her older brother. She rips off her sunglasses and jogs over, her eyes red and swollen. I’m swept into a hug that squeezes the last of the dust from my lungs, her face burying itself in my neck.
“Jamie!” A tear plops on my shoulder. “You can’t go.”
“Erin.” I squeeze back, her warmth and familiarity making me wonder what the hell I’m doing. “I don’t want to leave you.” But I know I have to do this. Erin has her family, a sense of belonging. So does Jake. He has everyone he needs right here. But Bear and I … we’re the same. We have nothing left. No family to leave behind. No roots tugging us back home. We need to get out there and find our own.
“So don’t!” She steps back and wipes at her face, sniffing. Her blond hair is a little wild and mascara is smudged beneath her eyes.
“You’re a mess.”
Erin snorts. “You’re no better.” She brushes a hand over my tangled hair and lightly touches a finger to my cheek. “Look at you. You’ve got sex face.” I’m grabbed into another quick hug. “I’m so proud of you.” Erin releases me equally as fast, and I stumble. “How was it? Wait, don’t tell me.” She collects the bag I dumped on the bench seat of the bus shelter and starts for the car. “Tell me on the way. I’m driving you.”
I baulk. “What? Erin, that’s like a four-day drive.”
“Ha!” Erin dumps my bag on the backseat and slams Matt’s car door so hard I wince. The thing looks held together with a wing and a prayer. A swift wind could possibly blow the door clean off. “I love you, but not that much. Screw the bus. I’ll take you to the airport.” She gives her shoulders a sexy little shimmy. “You can tell me all about Jake.”
God, Jake. Where do I even start? Maybe with the fact I’m a walking zombie. I barely slept last night, but who could after a night like that? It was eye-opening. My world has been turned on its head. It’s no wonder I couldn’t switch off. I know I did eventually, because I woke with the harsh light of the morning blaring into the room, warming the air around me.
My brows drew into puzzled lines as I shifted in bed, fuzzy, disoriented, and tangled in white sheets. I turned my head, feeling it thud with the slight movement, and encountered Jake. Every moment from the night before flooded me like a burst dam.
He was asleep, facing me, his expression relaxed and sheets pooled around his hips. What he did to me last night … They say you never forget your first. Is that true? I hope so, because I don’t want to forget a single minute. Thank god it was Jake at the bar. I couldn’t imagine it being someone else.
His eyes blinked open as if he could feel my stare. I watched awareness come over him, of our night together. A slow smile curved his lips. “Mornin’, army girl.”
There was something between us. Something that even I—young, naïve about men, and never having been in love before—knew was special. A seed that if watered and placed in filtered sunlight had the potential to bloom into something incredibly bright and beautiful.
And I had to let it go.
Let the seed die.
My pounding heart began to ache.
“Mornin’, army boy,” I whispered back.
He reached over and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. The gesture was gentle. “How do you feel after last night?”
I stretched a little, feeling parts of me ache that never had before. It was a good ache. The kind I wanted to feel again. I returned his smile. “Like I want to do it all over again.”
Jake laughed and I loved how his eyes crinkled at the corners, as if he laughed often. “Is it weird that I don’t want you to leave?” His palm skimmed over my bare shoulder and down my arm, leaving a delicious shiver in its wake. “I just found you.”
The smile on my face died away. “I don’t think it’s weird. I feel the same way.”
Jake took my hand in his, twining our fingers together, and tugged. “C’mon.” I was pulled from the bed, both of us still naked. He waggled his eyebrows, giving me the once-over. My face burned, even after last night’s antics, yet I giggled and pushed against him, the brush of his naked skin against mine thrilling. “I’ll introduce you to shower sex before you go.”
“You did not!” Erin screams, interrupting my recount.
“Don’t interrupt me!”
“Who even are you right now? You were a virgin yesterday. A virgin,” she enunciates slowly as if I somehow wasn’t aware of my own sexual history—or lack thereof. “And now you’re like, getting pounded against the tiles in Jake’s shower?” She leans across and punches me in the arm.
I suck in a breath, the offending thump sending a sick lurch to my belly. I rub the pained area. “Ow, Erin! What was that for?”
“For not telling me this sooner.”
“How could I have told you sooner?”
Her chin juts out. “You could have called. All I got was a lame message telling me you were alive.”
“You were lucky to even get that.”
She glances across at me, a smirk on her face. “What? Because you were so busy playing computer games all night long? How did you two even manage shower sex between all those important missions?”
“Shut up.”
“You shut up.”
“No, you shut up.”
I fold my arms. “Okay. I will. Then you won’t hear what happened after the shower sex.”
“I’d prefer to hear what happened during the shower sex.”
“That part is private.”
Erin glances across at me again. “Okay, I’ll give you that,” she says, letting it go a lot easier than I thought she would. Maybe it’s the tone in my voice. Maybe the look on my face. Every mile she drives takes me farther from Jake, and it feels wrong, like I’m throwing a rare gift into the trash, something I’ll never receive again.
The shower sex wasn’t anything wild like she’s probably envisaging, or smooth like something you’d see in the movies. It was intimate, a little bit awkward, and a whole lot slippery. But it was one hundred percent perfect. Jake basically lowered himself into a squat, and I climbed onto his legs as he instructed, my thighs hugging his hips and ankles crossing together at his back. He slid inside, breathing heavy as hot water beat down, before straightening, bringing me with him as if I weighed a feather.
Then he pressed me against the tiles, biceps bulging in a ridiculous display of strength. I kissed him, my tongue rubbing with his as he rocked his hips gently, his body surrounding me until he was all I could feel.
Jake began to thrust and a small amount of pain mixed in with the pleasure—but it only heightened everything I was feeling.
“Is that good?”
All I managed was a useless gasp. I was too far gone. My body was tingling, and I was coming from the endless friction of him rubbing against my clit. He came soon after, burying his face in the crook of my neck as I held on.
Jake set me on my feet after, and we laughed and soaped each other, learning each other’s scars and ticklish spots.
“This is some kind of torture device,” he said after we were clean and dry, him standing behind me as he tried to hook me back into the bustier from the night before.
“You seemed to like it just fine last night.”
“It’s definitely sexy, but Christ it left red welts all over your back. I’m not sure I can bring myself to put it back on you.”
“You have to. I can’t leave here in just a pair of pants.”
He threw my bustier away. I watched it sail across the room in front of me, landing in the corner of his bedroom. “Jake!”
Laughing, he palmed my boobs from behind, his large hands covering them completely. The touch had my head tilting back against his chest, my lungs drawing in a shaky breath.
“How about if I just cover them like this?” Jake gave them a firm squeeze, his strong fingers digging in just a little bit. “Then no one will see.”
I swatted him away, turning to face him. “You can’t do that!”
“There’s no such thing as can’t.” He grinned. “You’ll learn that in the army.”
“Jake!” I hugged my arms across my chest, covering myself as if he hadn’t seen it all before.
“You don’t need to hide all that from me.” His eyes darkened a whole hell of a lot. “You’re beautiful.”
Jake shifted closer, wrapping me up in his arms, lifting me until we were eye level. He was clad only in boxer-briefs, and I could feel him pressing against me, hard and hot. “One more time?” I whispered, utterly addicted.
He smacked his lips to mine. “I want to, but you’re too tender. You’ll be even more sore tomorrow than you are now.”
“I don’t care about tomorrow.”
“Well I care about your tomorrow.” Jake set me down and reached around me, pulling open a drawer from a tallboy from behind me. He plucked a folded shirt free and gave it to me. “You can wear this.”
I took it even though I knew I couldn’t wear it, hugging it to my chest. It was soft and worn and smelled freshly laundered. “Thanks, but I can’t take your shirt. I won’t be able to get it back to you.”
“There you go with saying can’t again.” His voice was gruff, and he swiped a thumb across my cheek. “Keep it.”
We pulled to the kerb out the front of Sue’s house, Jake having drove me home. He cut the engine and twisted in his seat, ducking his head to look out my open passenger window. “This where you live?”
I looked at the house with fresh eyes. It was small for the amount of fosters Sue took in. The exterior needed work, the porch sagging and the paint peeling. It was on the to-do list, the crazy long one that I helped her with whenever I had the time. The little cement path leading to the front door was aged and cracked, and the lawn overgrown. She wouldn’t be happy about that. We each had our allotted chores, but it wasn’t mine to mow.
I sighed. I was grateful for Sue. She wasn’t loving or affectionate, but I’d heard worse stories. She gave me a roof over my head. “I used to.”
Jake took my hand, and I turned to look at him. “You nervous?
”
“About the army?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m more worried about finding my place there. What if I hate it?”
“You won’t.” He gave my hand a squeeze. “But can I give you a piece of advice?”
“Please.”
“Don’t hold back out of fear. Challenge yourself. Get skilled while you’re young. Get promoted. It means better pay and more privileges, more opportunities and the freedom to choose assignments. Listen to your training officer, and your sergeant, because when you screw up—and trust me, you will—it’ll be because you weren’t paying attention.”
It was good advice.
“When does your basic training start?”
“The day after tomorrow.”
Jake winced. “You’re not giving yourself much time.”
I lifted my chin. “I’m ready.”
“You’re not.” He shook his head as if I had no clue what was coming for me. But I’d be fine, wouldn’t I? I was healthy, young, fit. I felt like I’d been preparing for this moment my entire life. “Everything you thought you knew is going to change from the moment you step off the bus and fall into basic formation. You’re going to get yelled at. All the time. They’ll tell you you’re lower than a piece of garbage stuck to someone’s shoe. They’ll insult you where it hurts. Your family, your dad, hell, even your hair. You’ll never get enough sleep, or food, and you’ll be doing push-ups in your sleep.”
I swallowed, feeling the urge to poop. “Ugh, okay. Why am I doing this again?”
“Because it’s the best thing you’ll ever do. Go find your family, Jamie.”
Jake leaned over and fisted the shirt he gave me to wear, tugging me towards him. His scent surrounded me, and I breathed it in—clean, warm, delicious—knowing it would be the last time I could.
I tilted my head and he touched his lips to mine, the pressure light and sweet, and yet I felt it down to my toes. “Mmm, I’m gonna miss this mouth.” He brushed a finger over my bottom lip. Then he kissed me again, his tongue rubbing with mine, lazy, deep, as if we had all day. But we didn’t, and as if we both recognised it at the same time, the pace kicked up a notch. My lips pressed harder, growing more urgent. His hands gripped my waist, pulling me closer, anchoring me against him, the handbrake digging into my hip.
Fighting Absolution Page 8