by Naima Simone
Shifting the gear into drive, I pull out. Driving down the dark street, I glance over at her. Or the back of her head since she’s staring out the window.
“Your mom good?”
“As good as she’s going to be tonight…or ever.” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry for putting you in the position where you had to lie about who you are, but thanks for going along with me. She knows everything about your mother, including your and your brothers’ names. She obsessed over her and her family when Dan first left. Trying to figure out what Katherine had that she didn’t. Like giving him sons when she couldn’t.” She shakes her head again, a humorless breath of laughter breaking free of her. “If she’d known you were Katherine’s son, she would’ve either flipped, broken down, accused me of deliberately humiliating her in front of you…”
Her sigh is so world-weary, it hurts to hear it. Has every protective instinct in me yelling to take that weight, bear it, burn it to the ground. Anything so she doesn’t sound so goddamn defeated. She didn’t sound this tired or beaten down when she confessed what occurred with her job back in California.
But it seems her complicated relationship with her mother could achieve what sexual harassment and demeaning retaliation tactics couldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur, reaching across the console and finding her hand, enfolding it in mine. At first, her fingers are stiff in my grip, but in the next moment, they curl around mine, grasping them.
“I didn’t want you to see her like that,” she breathes, hurt threading through her voice, and my free hand squeezes the steering wheel tight so I don’t pull over and drag her onto my lap. “I feel like I betrayed her…”
She doesn’t need to finish the sentence. Me of all people—the son of the woman who Dan left them for—witnessing her mother’s brokenness seems like disloyalty.
Before I can reassure her, she untangles her fingers from mine and plows all ten through her hair, bowing her head into her hands.
“Fuck, Dan,” she damn near shouts. “Fuck you, Dan,” she repeats, softer, but no less fierce. Or pain filled. “What did he think would happen if he called her? Does he do this on purpose? Does he get off on toying with people’s emotions? Keeping her on the hook? Maybe he just enjoys knowing there’s someone out there so desperately in love with him, she puts her entire life on pause for thirteen fucking years waiting for him to come back so she can hit play again…”
Her sob rips through the car.
Screw this. I speed through the next light and intersection, yanking my car over to the curb. Slamming the gear into park, I get out, snatch open her door and, unsnapping her seat belt, pull her out. And into my arms.
Her harsh, racking cries tear at my heart with dagger-sharp talons, even as she clutches at me. That might break me faster than anything. Other than sex, Cypress doesn’t cling, doesn’t lean on anyone. That she is now…
I bow my head over hers, pressing my lips to the top of her head, murmuring nonsensical words of comfort. Promises that I’ll hold her, won’t let anyone else hurt her. Vows that she can trust me not to hurt her, depend on me to protect her.
Words that she can’t hear over the torrent of tears and muted, almost animal-like whimpers.
How long we stand there on that deserted, shadowed street, I don’t know. Don’t care. But when her weeping finally eases, and she stops shuddering against me, my arms ache. And yet I continue to hold her.
“All I’ve ever heard from both of my parents all my life is love, love, love,” she rasps against my chest. “It’s their reason for everything they’ve done, that they still do. Cheating. Rolling over and accepting it. Abandonment. Obsession. Even blackmailing your own daughter.” Her flat chuckle has me squeezing her harder. “If that’s love, I don’t want any part of it. It does nothing but turn you into a prisoner who willingly chains his own foot then complains about not being free. Screw love,” she whispers.
She drops her arms from around me and steps back.
Curling my fingers into my palms, I stuff both hands into my coat pockets.
Screw love.
Can I blame her for the raw bitterness coating those words? Not after what I just witnessed in her mother’s apartment. Not after studying that shrine on the mantel and seeing for myself where Cypress fell in the hierarchy when it came to the cluster that is her parents’ relationship. Not when Dan’s placing his love for my mother above Cypress is the reason she’s hiding out in my apartment, afraid he’ll discover the connection between us and cut off his financial help.
Not when love was the excuse her father offered her when he walked out on her as a little girl when she needed him most.
So no, I can’t blame her.
That doesn’t mean my fingers don’t tingle and itch to grab her, haul her close, and make her listen to me. To get it into her head that her parents’ shit-show of a relationship isn’t love. Love isn’t selfish. It doesn’t betray. It doesn’t harm, but protects. It doesn’t seek to trap or manipulate.
But then again, what do I know about love?
If I close my eyes, I can easily envision the evidence of what love can do to a person. Can feel its crimson stickiness on my hands, inhale the wet-penny scent of it. Can hear the shallow breath of it from labored lungs.
Even if I hold up Knox and Eden as a shining example, their love cost them both the bond and security of family.
Yeah, I know fuck all about it.
I move forward, careful not to brush against Cypress, and reach around her to open the car door. Once she’s inside, I return to my side and slide behind the wheel.
Silence is the third passenger in the vehicle, and neither one of us tries to put it out.
Everything between us has been said.
Chapter Twelve
Cypress
I walk into Jude’s apartment, my chest as empty as a hollowed-out log. Instead of moss, messy emotions—sadness, regret, exhaustion—cling to me, ready to fill that hole if I let my guard down.
Weariness sits on my shoulders, weighing me down. Each step, each drag of breath is a concentrated effort. Scrubbing my palms down my face, I wince at the dry, tight skin that is a result of the torrent of tears I cried against Jude’s chest. God, had I really broken down in front of him?
Flashes of me clinging to him, shuddering and rambling about my parents’ decades-long drama cascade through my head like shards of ice against glass. Humiliation zigzags through me, cracking the casing of pride I’d depended on to protect me for so many years.
No one. I’ve never told anyone about my childhood. Never allowed anyone in far enough to let them glimpse the wreckage it left behind. But I did with Jude. And right now, as I enter his living room, arms wrapped around myself, I’m trapped between escaping to my room and locking myself in, and turning around and burrowing my face against his chest. Hiding in his arms and seeking the comfort I want but am too proud—too scared—to ask for. Because asking him for it means I need him.
And I can’t afford that. My heart, my sanity, can’t afford that.
So heading to my room it is. Staying there until morning when we can pretend this slip in our roommate situation didn’t happen.
Then why my feet are disobeying my brain’s decision, I have no clue. Why I don’t order those motherfuckers to get with the marching orders, I have no idea. Why I’m striding across the floor when no, no, no! is screaming inside my head…
Because my heart is a traitorous bitch that is connected to my equally disloyal pussy, and those two are doing all the thinking.
A rising lust and desperation beat away the exhaustion with swinging fists, and adrenaline-fueled energy crackles through me, courses along my veins. I’m on auto-pilot, driven by the knowledge that this’ll be the last time I’ll allow myself to touch him. Even now, as I cross the living room and halt in front of Jude, I have enough sense left to acknowledge letting him in my body again is only granting him access to more of me. The emotional more that has nothing to do with how hi
s cock stretches me, how deep he buries himself inside me. The more he entrenches himself inside me is dangerous.
Dangerous because the higher the risk is of me becoming who I’ve always sworn I would never be, once he leaves for London and I stay behind. My mother. Dependent. A shell. Shattered.
Yet I place my palms against his shirt-covered chest, slide them down his abs until the heels of my palms bump the top of his low-riding jeans. Even with the fabric between my skin and his, the heat radiating from his body like an internal furnace warms my palms. Sends waves of it up my arms, across my chest, settles in my breasts. My nipples bead, my flesh seems to become heavier as desire flares likes a struck match, the flame flickering, dancing, growing brighter, hotter, bigger.
I close my eyes, inhale his rich scent of sandalwood and the darker, spicier musk of him.
“What are you doing?” His voice rumbles underneath my hands, and my fingers curl into his skin in involuntary reaction.
“Don’t turn me away. Please,” I whisper. “One more time.” I swallow, try to incarcerate the admission shoving at me, battling to get loose. I lose. “I need you.”
My gaze remains trained on his abs as I make my selfish request. From his utter stillness, he probably believes I’m using him. The truth—that I’m urgently, desperately grabbing on to this one last opportunity to touch him, be touched by him for when he’s no longer there, for when I’m no longer there—remains stuck in my throat. Because the truth, good or bad, always reveals too much. And I’ve given him too much tonight. In bed earlier. In Mom’s apartment. Out on that street. Any more, and I’ll only have pieces of myself.
Pieces I can’t afford. Not if I want to recognize myself when he leaves.
“Look at me,” he orders. It’s soft, low, but veined with a thread of steel. I lift my head, meet the green fire in his eyes. A fire that singes me, and he hasn’t even put those beautiful hands on me yet. “Now tell me what you need from me.”
“To hit rewind.” I run my palms up his sides. Slide them around his lower back and up his spine. Shiver at the memory of this big, hard body pressing into mine. In anticipation of having him once more in any way I could. “To go back to Jay and Ro. I need you to give me my one night again.”
“You’re running scared,” he murmurs, the accusation at odds with the soft tone and the tender rub of his thumb over my cheekbone. My lashes flutter, almost closing before I remember his command. And that I don’t want soft or tender. “You’re afraid and embarrassed because of what I saw tonight. And now you want to try and pretend it didn’t happen by drowning it, drowning me, in sex. Use sex to push me back behind that wall that you’re regretting letting me take a step through.”
“Yes.”
A corner of his mouth lifts in a slight half smile. Then he lowers his head until our lips are less than a breath apart. “Give it your best shot…Cypress.”
He stresses my real name, and I catch the meaning like a Cub scooping up a drive down centerfield. He refuses to pretend, to be Jay to my Ro.
He’s Jude. And he’s daring me to take him as the man who held me while I cried.
Damn him.
And damn me for not being able to spin around and walk away.
Rising on my toes, I open my mouth over the base of his throat and suck his skin between my teeth, swirling my tongue over the captured flesh. I moan as his taste—part cologne, part him—hits my tongue, my senses. He’s like a shot of pure whiskey, setting off a trail of fire that blooms in a mushroom cloud of warmth inside me. Strong. Heady. And I’m in immediate need of more.
His rumble vibrates against my chest and under my lips. A gentle but demanding hand slides up my back, up the nape of my neck, and burrows into my hair, tangling in the strands. He tips his head back and holds me to him, silently encouraging me to suck harder, to not stop. And I don’t. Because the primal creature inside me wants to mark him, no matter how temporary. With that thought, that need, reverberating through me, I bite down on the tendon stretching out in stark relief under his skin.
A growl rips from him, and he jerks my head back, crushing his mouth to mine. We clash, war, tongues dueling, twisting, not for dominance but for more. Always more with us.
Raw, wild, wet, hot. This kiss is…sex. Each thrust of his tongue against mine echoes deep inside me, has my body clenching and pulsing to be filled, stretched, branded. Has my nipples hardening into even tighter peaks, and each brush of his chest to mine is both a stinging pleasure and cruel torture. And that quick, this carnal mating of mouths isn’t enough. Not anymore.
Maybe he senses the slight shift in me. Or maybe he’s as impatient and hungry as I am. Bending a little, Jude cups the backs of my thighs and hikes me in the air. Instinctively, I lock my legs around his waist and my arms circle his neck, holding on. Mouths still going at each other, he carries me to the couch. He lowers, sitting, and I straddle him, his big hands cradling my ass, pressing me to his dick.
I don’t need encouragement to ride him. Not when I’m damn near soaking my panties. Not when I’m aching for just a little relief from this gnawing, insatiable lust that only he can stir in me. Widening my stance, I clutch the back of the couch and roll my hips, stroking my sex over that wide, thick length. I don’t even try to hold back the whimper that escapes me. Pleasure. Pure and dirty pleasure. Even through my jeans and his, and even though it’s sheer fantasy, I swear I can feel every ridge along his thick shaft, every vein that pumps blood to him. Another grind, another muted cry. Another shock of desire.
And it only deepens, sharpens when he leans forward and captures my nipple between his lips, over my shirt. My back arches so hard, it twinges. Moving my hands from the couch to his head, I grasp him, hold him to me. That mouth—that gorgeous, sinful mouth—draws on me, curling around the peak, tugging, teasing. My head falls back on my shoulders, and I work my hips harder, my zipper pressing against my clit. His teeth graze over me, and I cry out, so close to that edge, it’s shimmering before me, crackling down my back, settling at the base of my spine.
But not yet. As much as I crave that plummeting dive into ecstasy, not yet.
Because I’m hungry.
Pushing his head away, I shimmy off his lap, ignoring his growl that smacks of what the hell? and kneel on the floor between his legs. With trembling fingers, I yank at his belt, undo the buckle, and pull down his zipper. Anticipation and desire race through me, press against my chest bone as I wrap my fingers around his long cock. He’s heavy against my palm, and my sex throbs as if recalling the weight and drag of it driving high and deep inside me. A whimper nearly escapes me. God, I just had him hours ago, and it means nothing. The desire is as hot—hotter maybe because of my desperation. Because this will be the end.
“You’re beautiful,” I whisper, fully freeing him. Flicking my glance up his torso, I meet his gaze, and it’s blazing with heat. “You’re so beautiful,” I repeat. And this time, I’m not referring only to his flesh, but the man. The soul of the man.
No. Not going there.
This is about sex. About feeling good. About losing myself in that good. Bowing my head again, I trail my lips up his length, brush them over the damp tip, lap at the small drop of cum already beading on the shallow slit. His taste, so earthy, musky, and him, explodes on my tongue, and I can’t help the hum of pleasure that rumbles out of me.
That small sample seems to set me off. Parting my lips, I dip my head lower and take more of him. Like a dead-woman-walking presented with her last meal, I fall on him. Sucking him, licking him, swallowing him as if I’ll never experience this—him—again. My hand fists the almost brutish base of him and pumps the bottom half I can’t manage to take.
“Slow, sweetheart,” Jude grinds out above me. His fingers tunnel through my hair, dragging the strands away from my face, granting him an unimpeded front-row view of him fucking my mouth. “Goddamn, Cypress.” He gently removes my hand from around his flesh, replacing it with his. “I’ll never get tired of this. Never,” he m
urmurs. I don’t know if he intended for me to hear that admission, but it sends a warm thrill through me. One that is totally misplaced when all I want to feel is this crazy, mind-numbing lust.
I suck him deep, bobbing up and down his length, maybe trying to push him toward release. Maybe trying to convince myself this is only about raw, wild sex and nothing else. But Jude’s hold tightens in my hair, and his other hand releases his flesh to cradle my cheek. He holds me still, pulling me off him until the head just brushes my lips.
“I said, slow,” he reminds me. His thumb sweeps a gentle caress over my cheekbone, then one corner of my mouth, before trailing the caress over my bottom lip to the other corner. “I know what you’re trying to do, sweetheart. But you’re not going to use me as a substitute for the shit going on in your head,” he murmurs, calling me out. “This is about us, nothing else. So you’re going to take me slow and feel every second of it. Love every second of it.”
I stare at him, digging my nails into his denim-covered thighs. In punishment, or holding on to him? At this point, I don’t know. But the next time my lips part for him, it’s deliberate, guided by his hand on my head. He fills me, and I don’t resist. Don’t want to.
Instead, I push myself higher on my knees so I can take more of him. Moaning as his taste floods my mouth, my tongue swirling around his tip before gliding down his length. Savoring him. Committing him, his scent, his very essence, to memory. I sink farther down until he bumps the entrance to my throat. And still I’m not satisfied. Relaxing my muscles, I breathe through my nose and swallow more of him.
“Sweetheart. Damn.” He groans, his fingertips pressing against my scalp, his hips pulsing so his cockhead massages my throat, slipping farther and farther in, bit by bit.
My throat muscles convulse around him, my eyes watering. But I don’t stop. Can’t stop. Withdrawing far enough to drag in air through my nose, I take him again, deep throating him. His thighs clench hard under my nails, and his abs sink in, becoming concave. My name is a litany, a prayer on his lips. And as his hands sweep over my hair, my cheek, trace my mouth stretched so wide around him, they worship me.
