by Anna Bloom
“Yep.”
I reached down between us, to where his body dripped water onto my already damp skin, my fingers searching for him. I smiled at the first warm touch, finally skin on skin with Blue.
His eyes fluttered closed and he sighed as I worked my hand around his length. “Am I doing it right?”
He cranked an eye open. “Yes.” He snapped his eye shut again, his head rolling back on his neck. Bolstered by his reaction, I slipped my hand quicker over him, running my fingers along the domed tip, exploring the shape, the surprising softness and warmth.
“Christ.” He snatched my hand away.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
He chuckled, pressing kisses into my neck. “Not you, rather me. I’m going to blow like a fire hydrant if you keep teasing me like that.”
My smile grew, an enormous glow filling my chest. “Like this?” I reached for him again.
“Oh no.” He caught my hand—I didn’t put up much of a fight to be fair—and pinned it above my head. Using his knees, he spread my legs apart, his gaze sweeping over me. I stared back at him, refusing to hide from his searching glance. “Are you okay?”
“Stop asking me that.” I wiggled my hips, pushing my core down toward the tip of his dick.
He met my stare for a long moment. “Okay.” He’d made his mind up. I could see it in the depths of the green. With a teasing smile, he kissed the edge of my lips. “Okay.” Pushing back, he sprang up from the bed, leaving me gawking at his awesome nakedness as he slipped out of the room.
Hmm.
He was back before I could even get cold. A small foil packet in his hand. God, I was naive.
I watched, fascinated as he ripped it open and took out the condom, rolling it down his length.
Then he turned, and just his look alone turned me to ash. The fire that swept through me left nothing in its wake.
“Settle back,” he whispered, and I obeyed, relaxing myself down. I had nothing to be nervous about; I’d been waiting for this for as long as I knew. I was ready, no doubts, no regrets.
He settled between my legs, bending and dotting kisses up my thighs, his hands smoothing in their wake, firmly rubbing my skin, making me tingle and point my toes. With one leg anointed with slow attention, he started on the other. By the time he reached the top, I wanted to explode.
“Blue, please.”
An aching pulse settled between my legs, and I knew there was only one way to put it out.
“All in good time.” He kissed my right hip, running his lips across my belly.
“No, now.” I grabbed his hair, tugging him up, rocking myself to get him back where I wanted him.
“So impatient.” His tongue dove into my mouth making me gasp. Our teeth chinked with a delicate chime.
With the kiss deep, my head spinning, my hands anchoring on his shoulders to stop me drowning, he edged inside, pushing gently, easing himself in.
I tensed, waiting for something to hurt, but it didn’t.
I sighed, groaning and rolling my head on the pillow as the sensation of being stretched and full took over every cell in my body.
“Lyra. Are you okay?”
I grinned, my arms flopping to the side. “God, yes.” I opened my eyes, meeting him with a defiant stare. “Don’t hold back from me.”
Ahhh. The next push sent blood running hot in my veins. And the next, and the next. His mouth slammed on mine, while my fingers gripped his shoulders letting his rhythm push me back and forth.
He groaned into my mouth and I swallowed his moan, sweeping it away with my tongue and searching for more.
Then he stopped, pulled back, leaving me empty and bereft.
“What’s wrong?” I rose up on my elbows to peer up at him.
“I’m going to fucking come like a school kid, Lyra.”
I pulled him back down, using my hand to guide him back in. He had other ideas and rolled us over. “Call me crazy, but I want us to come together. This way will be easier for you.” He settled my hips over his and I lowered myself down onto his length, whimpering and gasping as the new angle completely changed the sensations washing through me.
Hot and urgent, I rocked back and forward. “Oh, Blue.” I whipped my hips faster and faster. My curls bouncing, my tits rising and falling. Collapsing forward, I rested on his chest, my body moving now of its own accord, unable to think about him and what he was doing, but just chasing down that tingle; feeling it, sensing it recede and then chasing again.
Finally, I grasped it. Our bodies slipped against one another. My mind span, my muscles tightened as I climbed higher and higher, until finally, with one long snatched intake of breath there was nothing to do but dive into the color blue and sigh out, “Jack.”
“You okay?” Time stood still, and the low chuckle in my ear brought me back to my senses.
“Maybe.” I couldn’t move my legs, didn’t know if I still owned a pair.
Jack’s strong muscular arm tightened around my stomach, anchoring me back into his chest, his lips pressing small dots of kisses under my ear. My chest swelled, my heart doubling in size, becoming warm, pounding with a defined beat I hadn’t heard before.
“I think I need to sleep,” I mumbled.
“Sleep.” Another kiss, another swell in my heart.
“I’ve got to go to work.”
“I’ll give you the night off.” His chuckle rumbled through me, ripples of tingles flourished in my stomach and sleep seemed like a waste of time.
His fingers stroked my hair. “Sleep, Lyra, we are okay here. Let’s just be.”
What a thought, us just being. Not hiding, not longing, never acting, not angry or hurting, or running and hating. Just being.
A sweeping rush of calm flooded my mind and body, and I closed my eyes, welcoming a dreamless sleep where I could finally stop chasing.
Shadows filled the room when I opened my eyes. I sat up, unable to place the room, the decor, where the hell I was. It came back in flashing technicolor images. The whole day, the crushing disappointment this morning, my dressing down from Greene. Jack’s acidic rebuff in the lecture hall, to Evan’s house… to Jack.
A soft sweep of a caress ran across the curve of my shoulders. “I’m here.”
I turned, meeting Jack’s gaze in the light of his cell phone. “I know.” I snuggled back down and rested my head on his chest. “I can’t believe you are here, that this has finally happened.”
“I know.”
I loved him touching my hair, didn’t want him to ever stop.
I raised my head. “You don’t think you made a mistake?” Please don’t let him think that.
“Are you insane?”
I curved a smile on my lips. “Right now, it’s highly possible.”
“We’ve got ourselves in a right mess, haven’t we?”
I curled back against his chest. Talking was easier if we didn’t have to make eye contact. “Do you ever think this could have been easier if we’d just been honest from the start? What were we so scared of back then, Jack? Maybe if we’d been honest, Luca would have understood how we felt about one another? All the sneaking around, the stolen kisses, the illicit moments together. We made it worse.”
His fingers still ran through my hair. “Lyra, there’s a code.”
“I know, I know. Don’t screw your buddy’s sister.” I looked up again and quirked my eyebrow. “Think you just broke that in an impressive way.”
I waited for his smile, but it didn’t come.
“Luca and I aren’t friends anymore.”
I watched his face for a moment. “Do you think you could be, if there was a way of you going home?” I asked softly.
His fingers began combing through my curls again. “No, we couldn’t.”
We lapsed into silence, his skin so warm beneath my cheek.
“Lyra?”
“Hm-mm.” I’d started to fall asleep again, his soothing touch settling my frayed nerves of the last few weeks.
“Earlie
r, when you came, you called me Jack. Why not Blue?”
Dragging myself away from the delicious smell of his skin, I sat up, pulling the sheet with me and tucking it across my body. “Can I be honest?”
I winced and pulled a face while he sat up and leaned on his elbows. “Honesty in bed is an unbreakable rule.” His lips quirked, but a wariness flashed in his eyes.
A statement about honesty stank with irony coming from him, but I didn’t want it to stop what I needed to say.
“Since I got here and found you again, I guess I’ve been looking for the boy I used to know. The one with the bruises and the bust-up lip. The boy in scraps and fights, who could never let an argument go. The guy I supposed I never thought would leave, thought would always be there in the house next to mine.”
He nodded but didn’t move to touch me.
“I know he doesn’t exist anymore. The man you are now is the other side of Blue. Stronger.” He snorted and I reached out to touch his arm. “I don’t agree with what you did. These stupid deals with the Collins’ family. God, Jack, I don’t know. But I see now, you’re still a fighter, you did what you needed to do. And I believe that the Jack Cross I have found here will always protect me, always keep me safe. You did that the first night when you found me down that back street. You hadn’t seen me in years, even seemed to hate me, but you still found me. I dread to think what would have happened if you didn’t.”
He shivered, but then nodded, just once. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do, Lyra.”
My throat thickened and I clutched his hand. “I don’t know, maybe this is too fast… I mean we’ve practically hated each other for weeks,” I rolled my free hand in a circle trying to build up momentum. “Now we are, well, you know, we’ve just had sex for the first time.”
I stared into the green pools, finding solace in their depths, could still see Blue the boy who held my hand in the darkness, could see Jack who’d made so many ridiculous mistakes all to survive, but who just a short time ago had made me feel like the woman I knew I should be. “I want you to know that I love you.” I held my hand up. “It’s okay, I’m not expecting it back or anything but—” I screeched as he pulled me forward, crushing me down onto his chest.
Skin on skin, I burned alive with ungrounded electricity.
“And to think I haven’t even bought you flowers yet.” He lifted my chin, pressing his lips over mine, that intoxicating sweep of his warm tongue sending butterflies to flight.
“You did once.” I snatched my lips away before then kissing him again until I became breathless. “You left blue cornflowers on my desk at home.” More kisses.
“How did you know that was me?” His fingers trailed over my skin, circling my nipples, making me arch my back as I greedily pulled his mouth back to mine.
Suddenly, he stopped and his eyes met mine.
“What?”
He lowered his forehead to mine. “Can you love me as Jack? Really?”
“I’ll love you whoever you are.”
Ignoring the dark shadow on his face, I reached up to draw him in for a kiss, determined to lose myself in him one more time before reality kicked in.
We needed a plan, and I had one. I just knew that Jack wouldn’t like it.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jack
“It’s the dumbest plan I’ve ever heard.” I rammed a bottle of Bud into the fridge under the counter.
Evan sniggered next to me, his ankles crossed as he lolled against the bar watching me forcibly put away stock. “It’s a plan.”
“A plan that involves the Collins family is never a good one. Believe me, I should know.” I wedged another bottle in.
The plan as it stood was to get Alex Collins to admit that his family were a bunch of white supremacist racists and that they’d only picked Lyra because of her color. It would destroy them. With things the way they were now, there was no way they could continue with that cloud over them. Things had to be politically correct in the open, even if they weren’t behind closed doors. Public face was all that mattered, and Berklee would see to it that they no longer held any power.
“Well, Lyra seems sensible, and as she’s the only one to come up with anything that you guys can use to try and get out of here.” He shrugged. “Seems like it’s her way or no way. You could be stuck here for another three years until Lyra graduates, still living with Miriam, still suffering this shit otherwise.”
“What shit?” Lyra peered over the bar, her curls bouncing in their ponytail over the top of her head. “Hey.” Her cheeks flushed as she looked at me and fuck me if it wasn’t adorable.
“Hi.”
“Are we clear?” She motioned in a completely obvious way to hidden cameras. She’d never make it as a spy.
“Cleaned the fuckers out,” Evan confirmed. “Have to say, not sure I like being spied on.”
“Yeah, well.” Lyra’s cheeks darkened from pink to purple. “So long as you haven’t been doing things you shouldn’t in the stock area, I reckon you’re okay.”
He grinned a slow sly smile. “Sweetheart, you don’t even want to know what I do back there.” He winked and I jumped up from the floor, pressing my hand into his chest.
“Watch it.”
“Jack! He’s joking.” Lyra rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, well his jokes aren’t funny.” And he’s way too close to being overfamiliar with you. Evan and I might have been friends for the last four years, but if he came near Lyra I’d kill him—no hesitation.
Maybe I needed to calm down?
I grabbed a shot glass and reached for a bottle of Jack, splashing some in and throwing it back. “Jack!” Lyra’s voice pitched higher. She reached for me but then dropped her hand. Her face folded with frustration and I got it. Hell, I felt it right down to the fucking soles of my feet.
The week had dragged. Endless pretense. Stolen moments, glances, just one kiss on the top floor of the library, pressed into long forgotten history books.
I turned for her and forced my shoulders to relax. “And you’re sure about this?”
“About the plan?”
“About all of it, Lyra?”
She glanced over at Evan who pretended to study his shoes. “Yes.” Her voice softened. “You know I am.”
“And Grams, Luca?”
I should have just told her why I couldn’t go home. Should have gambled on the fact that she’d still choose me when it came down to the wire.
She nodded and tilted her chin. “But I’m not leaving and letting the Collins family still have a hold over you, over me.” Her gaze flashed with burning fire. “They shouldn’t get to do this to people.”
“And you’re going to stop them?” I loved my little firecracker. I should have always known she’d turn out the fighter out of the two of us.
“Okay, bars open.” Evan snapped our attention back to him, and he glanced at his watch. “Jack, try not to drink me dry.”
To spite him I sloshed another measure of Jack in my glass. “Cheers. Here’s to the end of all bad things.”
“This is so cool. I can’t believe you’ve worked in here for weeks and not told me.” Eva held her head in her hand as she talked to Lyra behind the bar.
We’d had a big crowd in from college and there was no denying they’d all come to see Lyra, who’d reached certain infamy with a phony news article.
“I just, well I guess you were just partying and stuff…” Lyra trailed off.
“But it’s cool here.” Her friend glanced around. “Now I know I’ll be able to come and sit with you every shift.”
Lyra dropped her gaze down to her hands, not meeting Eva’s face, and I couldn’t help but notice. Maybe because she knew she wouldn’t be here for much longer?
“Uh no.” Evan flicked Lyra with a dish cloth, disturbing me from watching her face. “I’m not Ubering you all home, it would cost me a fortune.”
Lyra didn’t laugh though. She stared over Eva’s shoulder at the newcomers as they st
rode through the bar.
“Lyra, can you go and clear the right side?” Evan steered her shoulders and pushed her toward the edge of the bar.
“Sure.”
Rhian, dressed in all leather, flicked her long ponytail over her shoulder and stood in front of me. Bless her.
“Jack! There you are.” Miriam stood on tiptoes and stretched over the bar, planting her hands around my face and drawing my mouth to hers. “I thought you might have run away; I’ve barely seen you all week.” Her voice grated like crushed diamonds over my nerves. She cast a quick gaze at where Lyra walked to the booths and tables with her head held high. “Ah, no, of course you haven’t.”
“Evening, Miriam. This is unexpected.”
“Alex is meeting Lyra for a date.” She shot me a wink. “So I thought I’d come along too.”
“What can I get you?” I spread a smile on my face.
“It’s not like you to work the bar.” Miriam’s smile slid across her face.
“Well, we’ve had a boost from a local rag, we’re expecting a busy night.” I put on my widest smile. “I guess you could work the bar if we get overwhelmed. You do have a vested interest in the place.”
Rhian almost growled and I shot her a grin. She scowled and turned away. Who knew she could be so loyal? I didn’t until right now.
“Jack, you know me, I don’t like to get my hands dirty.”
I almost snorted but held it in and turned to pour Miriam a glass of wine.
“Jack?” I turned to the younger Collins sibling, almost unable to control my rage. Him close to Lyra… it made me want to rip things apart.
“Bud please, Jack.” He waited expectantly.
“Yeah, not happening.” I held his eye. “I don’t want to lose my license.”
“Whatever, dude.” He waved his hand. “You guys serve underage in here every night of the week.”
Evan came up behind him and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Not tonight.”
I glared at Evan. Not that us serving the college kids was going to be a problem for much longer. Blue’s bar would soon cease to exist… I mused on this as I frothed some soda into a glass. I thought I’d have more regret, but how could I when in my line of sight, Lyra was collecting glasses and laughing with the customers as she worked the right side of the bar.
