Steadfast (True North #2)

by Sarina Bowen

  “Bitch.” He moved so fast I didn’t see it coming. A loud slap rang out as the side of my face combusted in pain.

  Reflexively I grabbed my cheek and lurched backward, colliding with the very wall I’d asked him to clean. The carpet was cold and swampy under my bare feet and I almost slipped as I pivoted to change direction and exit the room. I pushed past him and raced up the stairs, then slammed the door to my bedroom.

  Jesus fuck. I hadn’t slammed my bedroom door since I was a teenager. The teenaged fights were all about Jude, of course. Now he was back in town, and I was back to fighting with my father.

  Rinse, repeat.

  That depressing realization sent me to my messy bed, where I curled up, pressing a hand to my stinging cheek.

  I have to get out of here. That was abundantly clear. I was three weeks away from graduation, at which time I would probably have no job. When the hospital chose Denny over me for the full-time slot, I’d need a backup plan and a new place to live. I’d stayed in this house too long.

  After a while there was a gentle tap on the door. “Sophie?”

  For a moment I didn’t answer. What would my mother do if I moved out? Would she even remember to feed herself? “What?”

  She opened the door and took two steps inside. Then she closed the door behind her. “Don’t do that,” she whispered.

  “What?” I sat up on the bed.

  She shook her head, the bags under her eyes standing out like purple moons on her face. “Don’t rile up your father. I can’t take the noise.”

  And here I’d thought I couldn’t get more upset. “Don’t even,” I sputtered. “I don’t have to take his bullshit.” Or yours.

  “He’s your father.”

  Oh, please. “He’s my jailer.” Hell. “Mom, do you know what an enabler is?”

  She just looked at me with dull eyes.

  “No? Well, look it up. Because I think I’m yours.” I got off the bed. “I’m going to shower. Kindly step aside.”

  She didn’t move, and my blood pressure spiked once more. I was just done. Putting two hands on her shoulders, I nudged her aside. Then I opened my bedroom door and slipped out.

  In the shower, my anger burned hotter than the water. Something had to give. But the something was always me.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jude

  Cravings Meter: 4

  During the night, all that rain turned to snow. And when it fell onto a surface that wasn’t quite frozen, the roadway would become slick as hell and all the car accidents would happen. Today the cops and tow trucks would be busy with fender benders and irate drivers who didn’t take the weather into consideration when they stepped on the accelerator.

  I should talk, though. I’d managed to drive my Porsche into a tree at fifty miles per hour on a clear May evening.

  The snow brought business into our garage in spite of the holiday weekend. It wasn’t even ten thirty when some poor woman wearing hair curlers pulled a late-model Volvo into the drive. There was a big dent in the fender and scratches, too.

  “I slid into the stone wall that rings our property,” she said. “Can you fix it?”

  I ran my hand over the dent. It wasn’t all that bad. “Sure. I can pop it out and fix the paint. But if you want like-new perfection, you’d need to replace the fender. That means ordering parts.”

  She wrung her hands. “My husband gets home from visiting his mother tomorrow,” she said. “Is there any way you could do it today?” Her blue eyes begged me to say yes. Either her husband was an evil troll, or she’d made a habit of running expensive cars into stationary objects.

  “I’ll do my best,” I hedged. At least the paint was black. I should be able to match it with what we had on hand.

  I called her a taxi and then went happily to work on her dent. Someone else’s misfortune was a boon for me. Busy hands were the only thing keeping me sane today. I turned the garage radio up loud and slipped a rod up under the wheel well of the Volvo. The hours rolled by as I tinkered with my repair job.

  My father didn’t come into the garage all day. Not once. I took one break for nuked food, but otherwise I worked on that dent until late afternoon. I did a kickass job. When the woman returned for her car, she didn’t even blink at the price for five hours of my labor.

  “It looks great,” she gushed. “Thank you so much.”

  I put her check in the till then drove through a fast-food place for dinner. Back in my room, the usual itch came back. It wasn’t too bad—maybe a three out of ten. But the holiday weekend stretched out before me, long and empty. And the memory of kissing Sophie last night in my car tortured me.

  A bottle of whiskey would take care of that, my asshole brain suggested.

  I stretched out on my bed with an old copy of Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness. It wasn’t exactly a light read, but I didn’t mind. I was just getting to the creepiest part when I heard the creak of someone’s footsteps climbing the stairs to my room.

  The hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I set the book down. I couldn’t think of a soul who would visit me here. If it happened to be an old friend from my past, chances were that I wouldn’t want to see him.

  When the knock came, it wasn’t gentle. “Jude?” The voice was female.

  Sophie.

  I jumped off the bed and pulled open the door. And there she stood in the dark, arms crossed, looking up at me with big, angry eyes.

  “Hi?” I said, confused.

  Before I knew what was happening, she stepped over the threshold. Sophie kicked the door shut and then leaned against it. “Are you staying in Colebury?” she demanded. “I have to know.”

  “Uh.” Shit. “I don’t have much choice. No other garage will hire me.”

  My brain was playing catch-up. But my body was clueing in to the fact that Sophie and I were barely two feet apart and standing within spitting distance of the bed where we’d had more sex than sleep. Her chest rose and fell with quick breaths, and her cheeks were flushed.

  Wait—one cheek was redder than the other. Was that a handprint? I pushed the hair away from her face for a closer look. “What the fuck?” I whispered. “Who did that?”

  “Who do you think?” Her words were like little chips of ice.

  Jesus. “Your father?” With a gentle thumb, I traced the outline of what must have been a horrible slap. “Did you tell him you were with…?”

  “No! I’m not an idiot.” She grabbed my wrist and flung my hand away from her face. Then she grabbed my flannel shirt in two hands and looked up into my eyes. Her gaze was fiery and fierce. “Can you be the one person who doesn’t make me feel stupid today?”

  Time paused like a held breath as Sophie’s hands pressed against my body, their warmth searing my pecs. We stared at each other while confusion rippled through me. And then everything got even more complicated. Sophie rose to her toes and yanked me into a kiss.

  I’d never been so stunned. The feel of her soft mouth on mine was so unexpected and yet so familiar it was too much to bear. As our lips did a slow slide together, my breath hitched. But I couldn’t pull back. One more taste, my asshole brain suggested. Bracing both of my palms against the door, I leaned into her sweet mouth.

  She opened for me immediately. When our tongues touched, I had the sensation of falling or running too fast downhill. She tasted like Sophie. She tasted like the best thing that had ever happened to me.

  Warm hands curled around my biceps. When I nipped her lip, she whimpered, and my dick perked up like a lonely stray who suddenly smelled a feast. I thrust my tongue against hers, and she moaned into my mouth. Her hands went to the buttons on my shirt.

  That’s when I remembered who I was, and just how bad an idea this was.

  Although it hurt me, I dragged my mouth off Sophie’s. Angling to the side, I leaned my forehead against the cool metal door. Our bodies were still pressed together, but as long as I didn’t kiss her, I could probably have a lucid thought or two.

&nb
sp; Her hands went still on my ribcage, their warmth burning through my shirt. “Jude,” she whispered. “What happened to saying you’d do anything for me?”

  To the surface of the door I said, “That’s still true.”

  Her fingers wandered up the centerline of my chest and then down again. She was trying to kill me, and surely I deserved it. “Then why did you stop?”

  Wasn’t it obvious? There was no way in hell that Sophie and I could be together. It didn’t matter that I was still in love with her. And it didn’t matter that we had always had the sort of combustible attraction for one another that was immortalized in rock songs. “Why are you here? Serious question.”

  She made an angry sound. “Why was I ever here? Because we want each other.”

  “Not all the things we want are good for us.”

  “No kidding. But who does it hurt?”

  Me, I thought immediately. Just having her here in my room hurt so bad. I was bleeding out memories. The taste of her cherry lip gloss on my tongue. The scent of her hair enveloping me. We’d spent so many hours in this room burning up the sheets.

  “Who does it hurt?” she repeated. “Not my brother. He’s gone. And not my family. They don’t give a fuck about me anymore.”

  My heart broke at the sound of that. But I’d given up my right to weigh in on her family drama the day her brother died. I stood up tall and looked her square in the eye. “Soph, I’d give you anything. But I don’t have a lot to give.” That was the God’s honest truth.

  We were so close together—pancaked together—that she was able to state her purpose in the softest whisper ever heard. “I haven’t been properly fucked in three years, Jude. After all that’s happened, are you going to make me beg?”

  I swear I practically burst into flames at the sound of her sweet mouth whispering fuck. It took all my effort to keep my hands on that door. I wanted to yank the clothes off her body instead. “You haven’t been fucked in three years?” I repeated on a whisper. I pressed my forehead to hers and stared down into those eyes at close range.

  She blinked up at me. “I said properly.”

  Jesus Christ. She’d issued a fucking challenge. She’d always pushed my buttons effortlessly. I’d do anything for my girl.

  A small voice in my head corrected that notion. Anything except for the one thing she needed most from you. Sobriety.

  But it was easy to push that thought aside, because Sophie had just made me picture someone else’s hands on her skin. God, how I loathed that idea. My fingers itched to reclaim what was mine. I wanted to cover her with my body. Touch her everywhere.

  My self-control was perilously close to breaking. How utterly familiar.

  “Jude,” she whispered, and those naughty hands coasted down the center of my belly until her hand skimmed over the waistband of my jeans, then lower, finally covering my rock-hard cock. “It’s just sex.”

  My heart broke again when she said that. There was no such thing as “just sex” with her. Not for me.

  She popped the button on my jeans, and I squeezed my eyes shut. If she thought a good fuck was the best I had to offer her, it was hard to argue that point.

  And who said I didn’t know my place in the world?

  Sophie unzipped me, and I let her. But then I caught her questing hands in mine and kissed her again. She whimpered at the first slide of our lips together. As our tongues tangled, I put my hands on her hips and backed into my room, towing her with me. She tried to push me toward the bed, but I wasn’t having that. Too much like the old days. I caught her jaw in my hand and dove into her mouth for our deepest kiss. One more taste. That was all I allowed myself. If she wanted to do this, we were going to do it my way.

  I grabbed her jacket and shucked it to the floor. Seizing her hips, I turned her around to face my dresser. There were two clean shirts on top but I swept them to the floor. Sophie caught on right away. She dropped her elbows to the surface for me.

  “Good girl,” I murmured, tracing a hand down her ass. Her response was a moan. She was wearing a sweater dress that felt soft under my fingers. “Gonna fuck you just like this,” I growled, lifting the dress. There was a pair of tights underneath, so I grabbed the waistband and shoved them down. No panties. There was only soft, smooth skin and her perfect, round ass in my hands. I wrapped one hand around her hip and slid my palm down her belly, into the trimmed V of soft hair. She whimpered when my fingers met wet pussy. And I groaned like the horny beast I was.

  That was it. My conscious mind gave up the fight and let my desperate body take over. My mouth found the back of Sophie’s neck, my lips worshipping her soft skin. She dropped her head, moaning, as I teased her sweet body with my fingers. I circled through her slickness, desire pounding in my ears.

  Mine, mine, mine, chanted my asshole brain.

  With my free hand I yanked my jeans and briefs down just far enough to release my aching cock. Sophie pushed her ass into my crotch, trying to get closer. We were a tangle of half-shed clothes and raging need. But there was still one detail to manage.

  Until now I’d avoided looking into the tarnished, old mirror over the dresser, because I knew that staring into her eyes would only make this tougher on me. But now I met Sophie’s reflection. “Do you still have…” When we were together, she’d gotten an IUD.

  “Yeah, go on,” she panted. In the hazy mirror, her eyes begged, trapping mine in their tractor beam of desire. So I was staring right at her as I bent my knees, lined up and teased her clit with the head of my dick.

  Her eyes went half-mast with pleasure, and her lips slackened. It was the sexiest fucking thing I’d ever seen. My heart beat so hard that I could feel it in my ears. Sophie pushed back against me, so full of wanting that I couldn’t stop myself from doing it.

  For the first time in years I pushed inside a girl. My girl. The clutch of her wet, velvet pussy was everything I’d ever wanted. This moment was never supposed to happen again, and I didn’t have any idea why it was happening now. But I broke out in a sweat as a new wave of lust washed over me.

  I had to brace, tightening every muscle in my abdomen, barely staving off climax. And I had to break Sophie’s gaze, tipping my head back. I took a few seconds to inspect the old plaster ceiling overhead.

  With a couple of deep breaths I held myself together.

  Sophie went still. And when I dropped my chin, I found her staring at me. “Okay?” she mouthed.

  “Sure,” I lied, snapping my hips forward, taking myself deep.

  The sudden force meant that Sophie had to grab the dresser to brace herself. I liked that, so I did it again. This is what she wanted, after all. It’s just sex, she’d said.

  It’s just sex. It’s just sex.

  Repeating that would be the only way to keep my eyes dry. “This what you wanted?” I grunted.

  “Yes,” she gasped. Her knuckles were white where she held the dresser, and her eyes were shut. “More.”

  “I got more.” With every thrust I heard myself give a breathy grunt.

  “Jude,” she moaned, and I gritted my teeth.

  See? I could have raw, angry sex with the love of my life. Slowing things down, I held onto her hips, my wet cock gliding slowly in and out. It’s just sex. But it was so sweet I knew I couldn’t last much longer. “You want my hands on you?” I murmured.

  “Yessss,” she whispered, her heavy-lidded eyes finding me in the mirror again.

  “Yeah? Where.” Sophie whimpered, pushing her ass back to meet me. “I can’t hear you, pretty girl. Where do you want me to touch you?” I dug my fingers into the flesh of her hips. “Here?”

  She shook her head clumsily.

  I’d had enough of her sweater dress. I tugged and she lifted her arms off the dresser so I could yank that sucker over her head. There was only a little black bra underneath, and I had it off and flung away a few seconds later. There was something nice and dirty about getting her so naked while I was still dressed. In the mirror her tits bounced with ev
ery one of my thrusts, and I groaned at the sight of it.

  “Touch me.” Her voice was a throaty gasp, and I had to grit my teeth against the urge to come.

  “Where?” I grunted. My body was on fire. With one hand I yanked my shirt over my head just so I wouldn’t burn to the ground. But that was a mistake, because now so much of Sophie’s skin touched mine. In the mirror, I could see my body straining against hers.

  Fuck.

  Sophie grabbed one of my hands and yanked it down her body until my fingers grazed her wet clit. I began to touch her, swirling my fingertips over that swollen bud, dipping down to coat myself in her wetness before teasing her again.

  “Harder,” she begged.

  “Yes, ma’am.” This sex slave was glad to oblige. I was so hard it hurt. My balls ached for release. I braced one hand on the dresser beside hers and pumped hard into her. The other hand I curved around her sex, my fingers sliding against all that was left of our once golden connection. I could feel the force of my dick hammering home. She had once been all mine, and I’d squandered it.

  Bearing down, I reached for the end of my pain. I was approaching the point of no return, and I no longer cared about anything but release.

  “Oh,” Sophie sobbed. I felt her shudder beneath me. She sagged against the dresser, moaning.

  Someone bellowed, and it must have been me. Jesus fuck. Release roared through me and the room swam with the force of it.

  Then we were both bent over the dresser, half ruined and breathing hard. With the last bit of my energy I wrapped an arm around Sophie’s waist and dragged her backward three steps until we both toppled onto the bed. I kicked off my jeans because I was too hot and too sensitive to have anything touching my body.

  With a sigh, Sophie rolled onto what used to be her side of the bed, her body curled so that she faced the door. We’d ended up exactly where I hadn’t wanted us to land, slotting ourselves right into position in both my bed and my memory.

  But I was too spent to mind very much. I was still coming down from a powerful orgasm—the body’s best natural drug. Endorphins smoothed out my ragged edges, leaving me limp and peaceful. Sophie’s legs were tangled with mine, and without thinking I stroked the arch of her foot with my own. A silent minute passed and then another. Sleep was about to become a real possibility when I saw Sophie’s back contract sharply. I put my hand on it and felt her move again. A jerk. A sob.