Should’ve known I could never have a good life. Not after what I did.
I leaned forward, wrapping an arm around my waist, as if feeling my skin on fire. It was almost funny, how certain sensations stuck with you, years after it was all said and done. If I closed my eyes, I could still remember that night like it was yesterday. Like it’d just happened.
No, I didn’t grow up in Midpark. That much was obvious. I grew up in one of the poor towns nearby, watching the rich with envy in my heart. I wanted to grow up and be like them, to be what my mother said I never could be. She kept us locked at home, taught us her stupid ideologies. She was a terrible, ugly woman, and I never wanted to grow up and be like her. My father was out of the picture from a young age, and I had no idea what happened to him. Didn’t really care anymore.
I was trying to be better than my upbringing, and to get here I had to do a lot, one thing especially I was not proud of, but it was what it was and now it was far too late to go back and change things. Hell, even with how shitty everything was right now, I didn’t know, if I had the chance to go back and right the wrong, if I would.
I probably wouldn’t, because what would that get me?
I sat there for a while, stewing in my anger, annoyed at myself for letting Dante rile me up like this. I really didn’t like him, and I hoped I wouldn’t have to see him again—let alone with Jaz. He thought he was going to start spending every waking moment with her? I doubted it. He had another thing coming.
A guy like that…there was no way Jaz would ever willingly spend time with him. He wasn’t her type…was he? I would’ve assumed she liked the big, beefy jocks, if the boy she went to the party with meant anything.
Then again, look at how that fucker had treated her at that party. Maybe she’d go for someone like Dante after all.
Or a Scott. Fucking Vaughn Scott. Don’t even get me started on that one.
Hah, you know, as jaded and cynical as I was, it sounded like I cared an awful lot who Jaz spent her time with and who she let dominate her thoughts. That was stupid of me. I shouldn’t give a single fuck who Jaz thought about, who she liked. It shouldn’t matter to me at all.
But it did. It did, even though it shouldn’t. God, what a shitty turn my life had taken. I’d tried to keep that girl at arm’s length—at ten arms’ lengths, actually—but somehow she still found a way, got too close to me. I hated it.
And, more than that, I hated how much I didn’t exactly hate it.
Yeah, I know. That hardly made sense. Welcome to my fucking life.
After sitting on the couch in silence for a while, I unlocked my phone and checked my email. I wasn’t expecting much, maybe something from Mr. Anonymous, but…
Hold on. There was something. Not from my anonymous client, but from the girl in question herself. The girl who was currently driving me as mad as I could go. When I saw her name pop up, when I saw that I had an unopened email from her, my stomach hardened, my body reacting to just seeing her goddamned name.
How fucking lame was that?
Don’t answer that, because I already knew.
It was late on a Friday night. I should put my phone down and pretend I didn’t see her message in my inbox until tomorrow. A new day, with hopefully a bright sun to lighten my mood…ah, who was I trying to kid? Doing what I did, I had to work at all hours of the day and night, and now was no different—especially now, after spending so much money getting Dante into Midpark. Had to do what you had to do.
I clicked on her message. There was no subject line, which I thought was a little odd, so I had no idea what it was about. When my eyes scanned the short message, I had to itch the side of my face. After that, I had to look over it again, to make sure I didn’t miss anything in my haste to read it the first time.
The message had no words. Only a ten-digit number—her number, if I had to assume.
Why the fuck would she send me her number? We spoke through email easily; I didn’t need her number to talk to her. Unless…was something wrong? Was something going on? Fuck. I wasn’t there watching her, making sure she didn’t dip her toes into something she shouldn’t.
Fuck it all to hell. I had to call her.
I clicked on her number as I brought my phone back to my ear, listening to the ringing. It rang only once before she picked up. “Hello?” Her voice sounded different on the phone than it did in real life; in real life, it was so much better. Smoother, like honey and velvet all rolled into one.
“Jaz,” I spoke, feeling my heart do something weird in my chest. “Is everything okay?” As I spoke, I heard a weird sound on the other line. Water? It sounded like splashing water. What… “Where are you?” I was ready to leap up, grab a jacket, and hightail it out of here if I had to.
How the hell did this girl have me wrapped around her finger so easily? It was wrong.
“Cool your jets,” she said, speaking softly, almost murmuring into the phone. “I’m in the bath. I’m not in trouble or anything—”
In…the bath? She was in the bath and emailing me her number without any further explanation? What the hell…oh, if she was here, I’d yell at her. I’d…well, I’d do something.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? I thought you got yourself into something else,” I growled out, but my vehemence wavered when it fully hit me: she was in the bath. Jaz was in the bath, which meant she was naked.
That was definitely something I shouldn’t be thinking about right now. Or ever.
Fuck.
“No,” she said, and I could tell, just by how she said it, she was smiling.
“Why did you email me your number?” There was no use in dancing around the subject. This girl needed to tell me what this was about, now, or else…or else I’d be stuck on the phone with her longer, imagining her in the bath.
Jaz was quiet for a while, and I heard the water splash a bit. An image of her, naked and submerged in the water, rose in my head in spite of how badly I tried to push it down. “I wanted to talk to someone.”
That was her answer? That was why she sent me her number? I just…how the hell was I supposed to respond to that?
Was she sad, in search of comfort? I was not a comforting sort, and she knew it. She also knew how to bug me and get under my skin like no one else ever did, but surely that wasn’t what this was about. Surely she wasn’t using her superpowers against me for evil, knowing that if I knew she was in the bath, my mind would start to wander…
The hand that wasn’t holding onto the phone clenched into a fist, and I leaned back, resting my head on the cushion behind me, staring at the ceiling above me as I fought the heat rising in my body. Thinking of her in the bath—how was my body not supposed to react to that? She was a beautiful girl, far too gorgeous for her own good, her body without a flaw. The mere image of her, naked and in the bath, sent everything in my body haywire.
“Well,” I spoke with a bit of difficulty, “I’m sure you have friends you could talk to—” The more I thought about her in the bath, the more my body responded accordingly. Something in my pants twitched that most definitely should remain still.
I had to get off the phone now.
“I don’t,” Jaz whispered, the water sloshing. “I don’t have friends.” She sounded absolutely depressed about admitting it to me…until she added, “That’s why I thought of you. You don’t have friends, either.”
I was instantly insulted. “What the fuck are you talking about? I have…” I was going to declare that I had friends, but before I could, I stopped myself.
Did I? Did I do anything other than work, work out, and sleep?
My silence caused her to say, “You don’t. It’s okay. I guess not everyone is cut out to have friends. I used to have a few, back at my old school, but my mom basically forced me to cut off all contact with them. It sucks. I…I miss them.”
The sound of water splashing yet again entered my ear, and I closed my eyes, trying to will the image of Jaz in the bath out of my mind. I couldn’t, though
. It was too tempting an image; my dick refused to listen to reason, near rock-hard now, and if I could’ve told it to simmer the fuck down and relax, I would’ve.
Dicks did not listen to common sense, apparently.
“Maybe you should be having this conversation with your mother,” I said, hoping to snap some sense into her. She shouldn’t come to me when she was feeling down. She shouldn’t make me ten different kinds of confused. And, of course, she definitely shouldn’t be making my balls ache right now.
This was literally a recipe for disaster, and it was like…I knew I should hang up, look away from the train wreck, but I couldn’t. I wordlessly begged Jaz to hang up first, because I was too weak to.
How things had changed, huh? So quickly, too. It was almost pathetic.
“But I don’t want to talk to her,” Jaz whispered. “I want to talk to you.”
I could feel the blood pumping throughout my body, some of it going where it most certainly should not. I lifted my head off the cushion, my eyes flicking to my groin, seeing the boner pressing against my pants, thanks to Jaz and her damned bath. “Why?” It pained me to get the word out, to speak the lone word.
Why did she want to talk to me? Why couldn’t she discuss this with her mother? Why, if that failed, couldn’t she have called me when she was fully clothed? Hearing that water splash around really sent my body on a trip.
Jaz took her good old time in answering, “I don’t know. I just…I wanted to hear your voice, I guess. Get yelled at a little.” She chuckled softly. “Pretty stupid, huh?”
Not as stupid as what I wanted right now. Not as irresponsible and wrong as the thoughts racing through my head as I listened to her. She wanted to talk to me? She wanted me to yell at her? I wanted more than that, so much more it hurt.
“Based on your silence, I’m going to guess you do think it’s stupid,” Jaz whispered.
A part of me wanted to tell her to put some clothes on, that I’d pick her up and bring her over here—I could yell at her all night, if she wanted—but I’d also do other things to her. Things which I could never say aloud, because they were so wrong.
“I think a lot of things,” I muttered, my free hand curling into a fist. My erection was getting to the point where I couldn’t ignore it. It was just too uncomfortable. It’d be a lot quicker to take care of it…but it would also help if I wasn’t on the phone with Jaz, listening to her talk and squirm in the bath.
“Like what?”
I couldn’t tell if she was baiting me or not, and I frankly did not know what to say. The last thing I wanted to do was cross any boundaries, any invisible lines that would make our relationship from here on out awkward or uneasy.
“Like, for example, why my eighteen-year-old client gave me her number while she’s in the bath,” I spoke in a bare whisper, resisting my urge to unbutton and unzip my pants, to pull out my dick and just relieve myself.
She chuckled softly to herself. “Well, when you put it like that, I guess I can see where you’re coming from. It is a little…wrong, especially since our relationship is strictly professional.” Her voice dripped sarcasm, but the facetiousness fell flat. I was going to say something, but she added, “Though, if our relationship is professional, me being in the bath shouldn’t bother you.” I could imagine her smiling to herself, grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary. “Does it bother you, Mr. Grumps, knowing I’m in the bath?”
I let out an uneven breath, which I supposed was my answer. Also, that new nickname of hers, Mr. Grumps? That wasn’t going to fly for much longer.
“It does,” Jaz murmured. “Why is that? Why does it bother you?”
“I think it would bother most men,” I said, not knowing whether or not my claim was even true. Then again, I didn’t so much care. It bothered me, because it made me think of things I should not.
It shouldn’t matter. Jaz wasn’t Celeste. They weren’t the same. Plus, Jaz was eighteen. There would be nothing illegal about anything that could happen between us…
No. That was my baser instincts trying to reason with my logical side. No, nothing could happen between Jazmine Smith and me. Nothing at all.
“Tell me,” she spoke, almost dramatically so, “is it because I’m too pretty for my own good?” Jaz laughed softly at that. “Am I too distracting? Should I not have told you where I was? Would texting be easier on that manly self of yours?”
She was taunting me now. Typical Jaz.
An incredulous smile grew on my face. Not a smile of happiness, but one of Oh, my God, I can’t believe the audacity of this girl. She literally drove me crazy, so crazy I didn’t know how to deal with it. With her. She pushed me off the deep end, and she did it so easily.
“I don’t think I like your tone,” I muttered, leaning forward. I set my elbows on my knees, my cock straining against my pants. The longer I talked to her, the harder it would be to ignore. Eventually, I’d get to the point where I had to take care of it.
“Well, then I guess it’s a good thing you’re not with me right now to teach me a lesson.”
Okay, surely she’d meant that in another way. What the hell was I supposed to do with her? Just ignore her comments and move on with my life? I think we all knew how far gone that point was; I could no longer ignore anything this girl said, even if I knew I should, for my own sanity.
I found I could hardly speak right then, “What am I going to do with you, Jaz?” Sounds of water moving around entered my ears, and I struggled not to imagine her body beneath the water, free of all clothing.
God, I bet she looked stunning.
“What do you want to do with me?” she asked, so quietly I could hardly hear her.
I made the mistake of trying to adjust myself over my pants, but the sensation of touching my rock-hard length only furthered the aching feeling inside. Damn it. This girl…she was literally going to drive me mad. “Jaz…” I warned her.
“What? It was a serious question, for future reference.”
“I think,” I hissed out, “you can imagine.”
“I’m sure I could, but it’s so much more fun to hear you say it.”
“Then you’re going to be disappointed.”
Jaz whined, “Awe, you’re no fun, Mr. Grumps.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“No.”
“If you don’t, I’ll—” I stopped, because I wasn’t sure where I was going with that. Anything I could think of to do to this girl would only help us cross the line. At this point, it felt inevitable. Fight and deny all I wanted, in the end it would be pointless. This girl would get her way.
She did not wait a single moment before asking, “You’ll what?”
“I’m hanging up now.” A muscle in my forehead twitched, and I fought the urge to say anything else. There was a whole lot I could’ve included, trust me.
“Wait,” she said. “Before you go…I think we need to meet up this weekend.”
That caught me off-guard. We needed to meet up and discuss the job or meet up and carry on this blasted conversation? Either way…fuck, either way, I was down. “Just let me know when and where.”
“I’ll meet you down the road from the house,” she said. “Sunday at two?” She pointedly did not reveal where we’d be going, and I felt my heart beating a bit too fast in my chest.
“Fine.” I said nothing more, hanging up before she could say anything else to rile me up further. I nearly threw my phone onto the coffee table, groaning to myself when I was finally left alone, no longer hearing her velvety voice in my ear, nor the sounds of water moving around and igniting inappropriate thoughts in my head.
Still, that did leave the hardness between my legs.
I could ignore it, and eventually it would dissipate, but a low ache would be in its place. It was better to just do it now, get rid of it. Stop myself from further thinking of it.
It took every ounce of strength in me to get up and move to the bathroom. A while later I found what I was looking for, and whe
n I did, I was in the shower with the bottle of lotion soon after. With the water pelting my back, I then did something I was not proud of, but it was something I had to do.
I squirted some of the lotion onto my palm and brought my hand to my cock. My scars, my mistakes, everything in my past suddenly ceased to matter the moment I began to drag my hand along my length, gripping myself hard. Pleasure and relief immediately shot through me; I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done this, like some stupid pre-teen boy who’d just felt up his first boob.
I felt ridiculous, but I couldn’t change the way my body felt. I could scold myself until time itself ended, or I could just temporarily give in, take care of it, and then move on.
At least until Sunday, when I’d see her again.
Fuck.
My eyelids slammed shut, and as I fisted myself, I let my mind imagine something I probably shouldn’t have: Jaz, naked and alone in that bath. I imagined what she’d look like, her slender figure, her tanned skin, the curve of her hips. I let my mind roam, imagining being there with her, watching her in the bath, all suds and soft moans.
Oh, I bet the sounds she made were spectacular—not that I’d ever hear them outside of my imagination.
My hips began to move along with my fist, my balls tightening as I started to thrust against myself. Forgetting what was right and what was wrong, it was actually pretty easy. Not something I should pride myself about, I knew, but right now, I couldn’t help it. I was weak. I’d been annoyed and worried at myself with what I’d done for Dante Storm, and then, like a switch, Jaz had stormed into my Friday night and made everything about her in the worst of ways.
Or was it the best of ways? I couldn’t say.
I didn’t really give a shit.
The rhythm I had picked up, my hand dragging along my cock faster now, harder. If I had her before me, I’d be pounding away at her almost violently, rough and quick thrusts, filling her up in one smooth motion after another.
The thought of her, red-faced and gasping for breath under me was enough to send me tumbling over the edge that I teetered on. I came with a vengeance, my balls releasing as hot pleasure seared through me in a wave of bliss I could not fight, nor did I want to. My hand worked my length with erratic pumps as I emptied myself onto the wall above the shower spicket, hot, white cum dribbling down the tub surround.
Defiant: A High School Bully Romance (Midpark High Book 2) Page 12
