by C. R. Jane
He leaned forward and pressed the softest, most perfect kiss on my lips. No one would ever think that the heartbreak prince could ever give someone that kind of kiss.
But that was because the heartbreak prince had never tried to give someone his heart.
That kiss, that perfect kiss…it did what his words couldn’t.
My broken heart, the one that I thought could never be fixed?
It started to beat again.
And it beat just for him.
He saw it in my eyes, and a silence followed, the kind of silence that only two people who really understand each other can have. We went back and forth, watching each other and watching the flowers change color under the light of the shifting sun.
The silence stretched between us was broken when Jackson laid me down among the wildflowers. He took a deep breath, like he was breathing in bravery.
“Everly, I love you,” he whispered.
And I believed him.
Tears pooled in my eyes, and I bit my bottom lip, trying to hold back the bigger tears that I wanted to cry. He cradled my face, tipping my head back and brushing a kiss over my forehead and cheeks, my nose and chin. He hovered over my mouth and took a deep breath and then another. Without any protest from me, he slid off my red tank top and jeans. His touch was tender as he caressed my body with the tips of his fingers and his eyes. He stripped me bare emotionally and literally, until I lay there naked beneath him, the act of removing my clothes one piece at a time somehow more intimate than all the times before.
My stomach did a somersault, and then suddenly, I was pressing my face into his chest as I cried, really cried, like I hadn’t before.
At once, my hands that were limp on the ground raged against him, fisting in his shirt and wailing against the hard muscle beneath, all the while he whispered in my ear, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, baby. I love you. I love you. I love you, Everly.”
In time, the well finally ran dry and we just stayed pressed together, my sniffles the only thing interrupting the serenity between us. With fingers in my hair, he pulled until my head was tipped back and I was forced into eye contact. “I love you. I should have told you every day.”
A look of vulnerability appeared on his face just then. “Do you love me?” He laughed bitterly. “I guess all of this means nothing if you don’t.”
“The fact that I love you might be the only thing I’ve ever really believed in in my entire life,” I told him shyly.
“Say the words, little angel,” he ordered, hope blossoming across his face.
“I love you,” I told him with a quiet giggle.
“Again.”
“I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.”
He kissed me, breathless, and when my lips were free, I added, “Always.”
“Mine,” he said as the perfect pitch of his hips against mine started to send every nerve into a tingling sense of awareness. “No more running. For either of us.”
“No more running,” I agreed.
Careful and sure, his next kiss was at first a gentle caress. He savored me, slow and sinful. A tilt of his head, a brush of his mouth, a tug from his teeth, the slightest hint of his tongue, and repeat until I was breathless. This was the kind of kiss that could last for days, and just when I settled in, he became reckless. From careful to careless, he licked into my mouth. Asserting his power, his fingers tugged at my hair and dove in. I moaned when his teeth pierced my bottom lip. The color of my voice painted the sky, matching the vibrant colors of the flowers around us, giving life to the still air.
One of my hands landed in his hair, and I pulled myself up and into him. The other gripped the front of his shirt. Twisting a handful of the cotton in my fist, I held nothing back, molding my body into his. I circled my hips, until his groan mirrored my own. He hurriedly stripped off his shirt, giving me a sexy-ass smirk as he did so.
Bare chest heaving, he kneeled above me, drinking me in with those insatiable, blue eyes that matched the sky above his head.
He didn’t speak; he didn’t have to. I could see everything written in the tight clench of his jaw, the tension easing as his gaze lingered over my body. He wanted me, but it was more than that. More than need, more than lust. The shadow covering his face was not enough to hide his love.
An unexpected moan escaped my parted lips, and my body was on fire just from his gaze. He smiled a feral smirk that grew as he crawled over me until we were nose to nose. I licked my lips and accepted his mouth when he crushed his against mine. I’d hungered for him constantly since that day I’d seen him in the Rutherford hallway, and it ate away at me whenever we were apart. I was desperate for his touch like never before. I felt his answering moan in the pulse between my thighs. It wasn’t enough; it was never enough.
Not with Jackson.
Snaking my hand between us, I fumbled with the zipper of his jeans and settled for palming his erection through his pants. His mouth became more urgent, as did his tongue and hands. But he broke away, pushing up to his knees and pressing mine apart with the spread of his. The harsh sound of our labored breathing fell around us like the tails of a fireworks display—explosive and ready to start a fire.
Trying to take back a little control, my fingers glided over his length, and I squeezed at the base. Jackson was hot as hell, and all mine. My own personal golden god.
A lock of hair had fallen on his forehead, no doubt released from its perfection by my grip. I wanted him everywhere. I want to become overwhelmed by Jackson Parker, my mouth filled with the taste of him on my tongue, blinded by his beauty and held captive by his touch. “Please…”
“Please what?”
“Touch me.”
Tipping his head back, he looked up at the fathomless blue sky while exhaling a deep breath. Sliding his knees further apart, he took mine with them, leaving me open and vulnerable. Being open with Jackson like this was like freedom. I didn’t have to think or second guess what this was anymore. I just had to feel and take in each sensation and revel in the pleasure that followed. I wasn’t embarrassed or self-conscious. I got to want, to need, to demand.
“Now,” I ordered.
Gripping him harder grabbed his interest, and then he was on me, biting and kissing into my neck until I could barely remember my name. His teeth clamped onto my nipple. I bowed from the ground with the unexpected voracity with which he fed on me. His mouth had a direct line to the apex of my thighs, and he sucked until the ache between my legs was deep and pulsing, and then he flicked me with the tip of his tongue. I gasped as his teeth sunk in.
Covering me with his branding bites, he left what I was sure was a long path of impressions, first on one breast and then the other. But he wasn’t done. Starting again, he sucked and lapped at my chest until my nipples were screaming, or maybe I was, from sensitivity.
More, I need more, and I needed him to touch me everywhere, but he followed his design, matching them and deepening the marks that would surely last a lifetime…if I was lucky.
It wasn’t just my groin that pulsed in a torturous ache, but my skin. My breasts were hot and heavy under his attention, yet the heat had traveled along every nerve, and they were begging for the wet glide of his tongue and piercing imprint of his teeth. I’d never loved and hated the cool air of the breeze blowing across us so much in my life. It was an aching blow. I longed for it, wanted to feel the echoes of the rush and the sting as it skimmed over my newly formed imprints that drove both pleasure and pain. They bound me, as surely as I was bound to him.
Whimpers fell from my lips, one after the other, mixing with Jackson’s hungry groan as he licked his way to my navel. He was greedy and impatient as he moved down my body, until he got on his knees and spread my thighs open wide.
Holding me down with a hand on each one, he stared at me through his lashes. “I’m obsessed with your taste, your cries, everything about you.”
A scream burst out of me when he dipped down. That tongue. I loved his fucking tongue.
He flicked my clitoris, and we both moaned. His teeth and lips, and…and… Holy shit… His mouth hollowed out when he took me in without mercy.
“Yes,” I gasped. I gripped his hair, holding him in place as an orgasm took over, and I lost a little bit of my sanity in the white-hot bliss that surrounded me.
Just when I thought he’d let up, when his tongue replaced his teeth and the long slide of it eased against the peak of my high, he started again. Ravenous and demanding, that beautiful mouth was still hungry against me. Involuntary jerks took hold of my muscles as I spasmed beneath him. His hand snaked out and grabbed my breast, pinching it so the ache wasn’t only centered under his lapping tongue, but all around the depraved branding he gave me moments ago.
“Again,” he mumbled into me, his eyes sharp as they pinned me down.
“No,” I cried and wrenched away, but he followed without missing a beat and a pinch of his teeth. “Oh…Jackson.”
“Yes,” he growled, forcing his demand into my flesh as he worked me over. I was lost in the graze of his mouth, and this time when he took me in, his fingers, first one and then another, sunk inside, finding the spot, the amazing I’m-never-going-to-recover-from-this spot, he rubbed in and out, over and over.
“Stop, please,” I begged as my knees drew up and locked around his head. But he didn’t let go. He just kept licking and sucking and…I let go.
I gave in to the pleasure at his insistence and welcomed the numbing paralysis that seized and drew me from the ground and into the arch of a dancer, graceful and poetic. My arms followed the pose, lifting above my head in the rigid form needed to hold the frame as I spiraled out of control.
My breathing was suspended, as was the scream immortalized with my statue-like position. Oh, so amazing. As I came down, he pulled me up and onto his waiting lap. Without thought, I straddled his knees, and just when my fingers found their place in his hair and my arms wrapped around his head, he glided inside of me.
The stretching fullness, the pulsing depth, the mind-altering moment when we were one stopped time, and he gave me that minute to just feel him.
“Little angel, you feel so good.”
I was complete and wanted for nothing.
Then it changed. My body took charge and demanded movement.
“Hold on, baby. I’m going to give you everything.”
He gripped my hips, lifting only to buck up as I sunk down in a slick, frantic stroke. Again, up and down. I whimpered as his mouth found mine, dipping in long, licking strokes, until we were both gulping for breath.
“Yes,” he whispered into my skin, “tell me what you want.”
“I want this forever,” I gasped and let my head fall back. Hands resting on his shoulders, I found the arch, the pose that stretched me thin and pulled out every ounce of pleasure my body could reap from his. Jackson’s growl spiked my lust.
I became wild, finding the feral side he brought to the surface not too long ago. Our bodies came together in violent slides of wet and heat and hunger. Leveling my eyes to his, I sunk my nails into his back and said, “I want you to come.”
“Fuck,” he choked out as I pushed him down, and we rolled so he was on top. His teeth found their place on my neck as he sunk in, a long, hard glide.
Oh, shit.
He’d driven me into a frenzy. I couldn’t get enough. Please. This wasn’t supposed to happen again. It couldn’t be this intense, but it was, and oh…Jackson.
“Make me come with you,” he groaned and lifted up on his hands above me, working his hips faster, pushing deeper as my legs rounded his ass. Sweat beaded on his brow and along the strong line of muscles that bunched and pulled with exertion throughout his entire body. I was coiled like a spring, and any minute, with the next thrust, oh…yes. I jerked beneath him and then around him as pleasure ripped through me.
“Fuck, oh fuck, baby, I can feel you.” He threw his head back and lost himself, taking over my wildness and bucking into me as everything else disappeared. I welcomed him in my arms when he fell into his own heaven.
“I love you,” I whispered and kissed into his shoulder. “I love you so much.”
Tears clouded my vision, derived from the beauty before me, and the experience we’d just shared.
Conscious thought was slow to return, and with it, the slick heat of his skin against mine was what I felt first. Then I was overwhelmed with all things Jackson—the weight of him pressing me into the ground, his head buried against my breasts, the soft feather-light touch of his hair tickling my chin, and our legs tangled together
His breath leveled into a whisper. It spoke to me, offering a lifetime of perfect moments like this one if I just reached out to accept it. An invitation to enter the fairy tale I’d dreamed for my happily ever after.
“That wasn’t what I had in mind when we started this.” He chuckled into my skin. “But fuck, that was the hottest experience of my life.
“Mmmm,” I answered, too blissed out to answer in actual words.
“I’ve craved you every second I’ve known of your existence. Craved the closeness, the contact, craved the only person who has ever made me feel alive. You saved me from a life of loneliness. You can ask me for anything, and I’ll do everything in my power to give it to you. You have my heart, but don’t ever ask me to give you up after this. I’ll tell you whatever truth you want…but I’ll never tell you goodbye.”
There, under that cloudless sky, surrounded by the wildflowers, I become only his in a way that the Everly of two years ago never could have.
Everything would be different now.
Or at least, that was the lie I told myself once again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Unfortunately, it was time to return to my dorm after several days away. Jackson was at a special NFL prospect quarterback’s camp for the weekend, so I wouldn’t see him for the next few days. He’d tried to convince me to spend the weekend at his house, but I wasn’t quite ready for that. Plus, Lane and I needed some girl time to catch up about everything. She’d been on a few dates with a guy from the baseball team, having sworn off her hockey lover after the Landry debacle, and I was excited to hear how it was going.
My thoughts were lost in that field with Jackson, so I wasn’t paying attention to the noises coming out of my room as I grabbed on to the doorknob and swung open the door.
I wished I’d been paying attention, because opening the door and finding Caiden balls deep in Melanie was the shock of a lifetime.
I stood there aghast as I watched Caiden’s perfect, tanned, toned ass thrust in and out of Melanie. Her porn star cries filled the room. I’d stumbled in on her with someone once before, but never in a thousand lifetimes would I have ever thought I’d walk in on her with Caiden.
It wasn’t jealousy I was feeling, at least that confirmed once and for all that my feelings for Caiden were not like that at all.
What I was feeling was more akin to betrayal and disgust. Just a few days ago, this boy was saving me, swearing he’d look after me…and now here he was with a girl who’d done nothing but make my life hell since I’d started at this school.
Not that we’d had any deep conversations about what I suspected Melanie of doing and what I knew she’d done, but still. There had to be a code against fucking your ex-girlfriend’s roommate somewhere out there.
Just like I’m sure there was a code about fucking someone’s twin brother…
I continued to stand there, still as a statue, watching Caiden thrust in and out like some demented voyeur.
Suddenly Caiden’s head turned, and he looked right at me, a wicked smirk on his face.
And I knew right then and there that this had been planned. For whatever reason, most likely to hurt me, Caiden had targeted Melanie, had intentionally planned this moment…wanted me to see it happen.
He held my gaze as his thrusts got faster and deeper, like looking at me was turning him on.
“Oh, Caiden,” Melanie murmured throatily. Her ey
es were squeezed shut in ecstasy.
I tried to get my feet to move. I tried to drag myself away from Caiden’s gaze. But it was like he had me in some kind of spell. I couldn’t move from my spot a step in from the doorway.
I could tell when Caiden got close because he drove into Melanie powerfully, slamming against her until her screams of pleasure filled the air.
I had no doubt that Caiden was talented, though probably not as talented as his brother, due to his two-year hiatus and the fact that I hadn’t been giving him anything the summer leading into his extended sleep, but like Jackson, Caiden’s body just screamed hot sex.
I finally came to my senses and moved when Caiden’s smirk grew. “Everly,” he moaned as he thrust. “Everly.”
My eyes widened because the bastard was imagining he was fucking me as he drove in and out of Melanie. He came with a loud groan, his gaze never leaving mine as I stumbled back into the hallway, not even caring that the door slammed shut behind me, alerting Melanie of my presence.
It took a second, but soon Melanie’s angry screeching filtered out of the room. She ranted and cursed at him. I even heard a few hits. I didn’t blame her. I couldn’t imagine it felt great for a guy to call out another girl’s name while he was inside of you. I needed to move, run away, do anything but be here, but I was frozen again in the hallway, my entire body trembling over what I’d just experienced.
That feeling in my gut, the one that had told me something was still off about Caiden, it had been right. I felt sick, disgusted…terrified. That look in his eyes. That smirk on his lips.
It was the stuff of nightmares. And I didn’t need any more nightmares when it came to Caiden. I had plenty to keep me busy for the rest of my life.
But what did I do? Did I tell Jackson?
A small part of me wondered if he would believe me this time.
