Young Enough (The Age Between Us Book 2)

by Charmaine Pauls

  “I’ll find him something. I’ll find you something. Give me a couple of days.”

  “You’re a shit-ass friend.” He sneers. “We’re in, whether you can deal or not.” He continues toward the office, but halfway there he flings around again. “Anyone else would’ve been happy for his friends. You’re a selfish asshole.”

  Biting my tongue, I tilt my head back and let out a heavy breath. From what I’ve seen, Albert already has one foot in Monkey’s business. It was only a matter of time before Eugene followed, but I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that. Maybe I can still talk sense into Eugene.

  A whistle from the road pulls my attention. Lindy stands next to her car, curling her finger at me. I take my time, which pisses her off. She’s tapping her foot when I reach her.

  “Get in,” she says.

  Is this a damn joke? I need to get rid of the photos on my phone. “No time.”

  “It wasn’t a request, muffin.”

  I clench my jaw so hard I’m about to pop a joint. “Don’t call me that.”

  “I’ll call you whatever I please. Now get in. We’ve got an appointment at the tailor. You need to try on your suit.”

  I was going to give it a skip. I don’t give a damn about the suit for Saturday’s party. She must know how I feel, or she wouldn’t be here.

  She throws me the keys. “You drive.”

  Jane

  What the hell am I doing here? It’s to get closure. That’s so lame, not even I believe it. No, it’s to punish myself, to slice my heart open even wider and rub more salt in the wound. It’s not anything as noble as bleeding out the hurt to get rid of the pain once and for all. It’s a sick need to see for myself that Brian’s betrayal went deeper than I could’ve ever imagined. It’s flogging myself for my naïve trust. It’s facing the truth. It’s admitting that something I was so desperately clinging onto, the something that would’ve justified everything I lost for loving Brian, doesn’t exist. Until I’ve seen it with my own eyes, I can’t move on. Until I’ve seen Brian and Lindy together, the hope Benjamin rekindled when he told me Brian didn’t accept the money is alive in my chest. I’m here to lay down my hope.

  Moving deeper into the hall, I grab a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. With two hundred guests, it’s not difficult to blend in and go unnoticed. Like everyone else, I’m wearing a cocktail dress. On the outside, it’s pretty. Inside, I’m a bloody mess. I look around the huge room, but Brian is nowhere to be seen. I swallow down half of the champagne. It tastes like nothing, until I see her. Then bitter yeast burns in my stomach and acid pushes up in my throat. Lindy and an older woman, who I presume to be her mother, stand in the center of a group. The women are chatting animatedly, admiring her outfit. She’s wearing a coral-pink evening dress embroidered with crystal beads, and her hair is twisted in a French roll. There’s a glow on her cheeks, and her eyes are sparkly. As radiant as she looks, I feel as dirty and used.

  The music stops and a thick-set man in a tuxedo goes up behind a podium on a small stage.

  “May I have your attention?”

  The chatter dies down.

  “As you know, we have a special announcement to make. Tonight, my sweet darling girl–no longer such a girl–is getting engaged.”

  Loud clapping erupts.

  “I’m not a man for long speeches, so I’m just going to call Lindy and Brian up here.”

  My heart starts pounding so hard the beat reverberates in my temples. There’s a stir in the crowd and a black blur as one of the many suited men moves toward the stage, but there is only one man like him. Brian’s appearance catches me off guard. It’s not the torn jeans and T-shirts I got used to. His hair is combed back, and he’s wearing a tux like the man who can only be Lindy’s dad. Brian looks ravishing. He looks ten years older. Sophisticated. Dangerous.

  I press my clutch bag so hard between my arm and ribs that the clip painfully indents my skin. Brian hops onto the stage in one easy stride and takes his rightful place next to Lindy. She beams up at him. There’s familiarity in the look. It speaks of trust and time spent together.

  “With no further ado…” Lindy’s father says, nodding at Brian.

  Brian, the man who loved me with his hands, mind, kink, and words, the man who seduced me into giving up everything for a false fairy tale, takes a ring from his pocket and slips it onto her finger.

  Cheers and whistling sound around me, but I’m deaf to everything except for the silent words she mouths to Brian, the same words Brian said to me not so long ago. The words I returned.

  This is as much as I can take. I’ve seen what I wanted to. Fighting my way through the crowd, I swallow back tears. I drop the glass in my haste, but I don’t care. It’s then that Brian lifts his head and scans the crowd with a furrow between his blond brows, as if he senses the intruder that gatecrashed their party. His gaze moves left, right, and connects with mine.

  Shit.

  I push harder, trying to open a path to the main exit, but Brian jumps off the stage and rushes effortlessly on the outskirts of the hall toward my escape route. He’s going to cut me off. I change direction, going for a side-door. Around me, the people seem oblivious to my flight. I don’t stop to gauge Lindy’s reaction or to see if she’s spotted me. I almost trip over the threshold. Catching myself with flailing arms, I run over the patio. Nightlights illuminate the garden, so I choose the dark golf range, covering a good distance of short-trimmed grass before I hit a patch of trees.

  “Jane!”

  It’s him. His footsteps are soundless on the grass, but I can feel him as sure as I can’t see him behind me in the dark. He can’t witness my humiliation. I have to get away. What was I thinking?

  His breath is on my neck before his fingers clamp around my upper arms. The momentum of his body crashing into mine sends me face-down to the ground, but his arms are around me before the impact hits, cushioning my fall. My breath is nevertheless knocked out. His weight on top of me doesn’t help. The panic that seized me since my near drowning threatens to turn into a full-blown attack. I fight and wiggle, clawing with my nails in the dirt for leverage.

  His breath is hot on my ear. “Shh. Keep still.”

  For a moment, the command grounds me. It allows me enough control to master my breathing. The damp from the grass soaks through the fabric of my dress. My knees and elbows sting from grass burns.

  “That’s it,” he says. “Easy, princess.”

  Princess. It’s a name you call someone either with disdain or affection. She thinks she’s a princess. She’s my princess. How dare he call me that after slipping a ring on another woman’s finger?

  His hold loosens. He gets to his feet, pulling me with him. I’m compliant until he steadies me, and then I break free and make another run for it. I don’t get far. His body envelopes mine from behind, slamming my chest into the trunk of a tree. The air leaves my lungs with a humpf this time. He grabs my wrists and pins them next to my face.

  “For fuck’s sake,” he growls against my neck. “Will you keep still? You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  I laugh almost hysterically. As if I can hurt more than I’m already hurting.

  “You think that’s funny?” he grits out.

  His hips are flush against mine, letting me feel the steel length of his erection. He’s pressing too hard. My breasts are pushed flat against the tree. The rough bark grazes my nipples and bites into my palms. My hipbones are crushed against the wood, and the apex of my sex rubs against the trunk through my clothes. My heart starts speeding up. My breaths turn erratic. Shamefully, my folds turn wet and swollen. I can hide many things from him, but not this, not my raw, unfair, traitorous desire. I hate him for having this effect on me almost as much as I hate myself.

  His fingers tighten around my wrists. “Goddammit. Damn you, Jane.”

  “Let me go.”

  He rolls his hips, lodging his hard-on between my ass cheeks. “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, you mea
n I wasn’t invited?”

  He punches his hips up, driving me harder against the tree. “Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?”

  It’s the only thing I’m certain of. His closeness is toxic, but my body craves his poison. Yes, this–our bodies rubbing together–is the biggest danger of all.

  He drags his nose along my neck and groans. “Jane.”

  My body responds, shivers running over me and accumulating in the aching spot between my legs. We’re both panting, but not from our running stunt.

  I try to jerk my arms free. “Let go.”

  I yelp when he nips my shoulder before soothing the spot with his tongue.

  “Why did you come here, princess?”

  “To finish what you couldn’t. To look you in the eyes when I tell you goodbye.”

  He stills. Not even his chest rises or falls with a breath. “I’m never saying goodbye to you. I set you free, but you came back to me. This changes everything.”

  I huff another laugh. “God, Brian. Does your betrayal know no end?”

  “You trust me, remember?”

  The notion is hilarious. My laugh is hollow. Ugly. Like me. Like everything that’s withering and dying inside. “Give me one good reason why I should still trust you.”

  “Because I love you.”

  If he’d driven a pincushion full of needles through my heart, he would’ve hurt me less. Those words slash me open and fill me with bitter sadness. It’s a notion of what could’ve been, and it’s entirely cruel. It’s like showing a dog a bone and snatching it away before he can latch onto it. My pride is trampled. My dignity is crushed. All that is left is agony and the humiliating truth pulsing between my legs. I can’t even win this last battle in our raging war.

  “Yeah, right.” It’s my anger speaking. “You blew your reason, because I don’t believe you.”

  He sucks in a breath. It’s loud, trapped between us. “You don’t mean that.”

  “It wasn’t real.”

  It wasn’t real. I believed our love was it, once-in-a-lifetime, The One, soulmates, and it wasn’t real. That’s what hurts the most.

  The noise he makes is between a growl and a groan. He thrusts his hips, sliding his length along my crack. “Is this real enough for you?”

  “No,” I spit out. It’s lust, plain and simple, in its crudest form.

  “You want proof?” he hisses. “You want me to remind you what our reality feels like?”

  Gripping both wrists in one hand above my head, he bunches my dress up over my hips. The cold night air assaults my thighs and buttocks. I lock my legs tight, hiding the evidence of a different kind of betrayal, my body’s betrayal, from him, but he pushes his knee between my legs and rips the underwear from my hips. The rough sound of fabric tearing only makes me wetter. Oh, God. I don’t want to give in, but I’m already halfway there. My body both jerks away from and toward his touch when he drags four fingers over my slit.

  He smears my wetness on my inner thigh. “This is fucking real.”

  When he pushes a finger inside, not gentle and loving, but uncompromising and completely, I cry out, pushing my hips back to take more.

  “This is real,” he grits out, nuzzling his nose along my neck.

  I can’t stop a moan from slipping into the night, carrying a hint of the truth he’s so desperately seeking. How much more of myself can I lose? Nothing. There’s nothing left. He’s already taken it all. There’s no point in defending a fortress that’s long lost. I sag against him as his thumb finds my clit. I’m helpless to stop it. I’m so much weaker than I thought. A tear leaks from my eye as he flaunts my vulnerability, showing me how defenseless I am against his touch.

  “That’s it.” He gives it to me harder, just the way I like. “Come for me. Show me.”

  It doesn’t take long. I shatter to pieces, shaking with my orgasm and shame. Aftershocks run through my body, keeping me primed. Through the haze of pleasure that fogs my mind, the sound of his zipper registers. The slick head of his cock nudges my folds.

  “Tell me this isn’t real,” he whispers against the shell of my ear, “and I’ll stop.”

  I can’t do anything of the kind. Of all the weapons I’m willing to use to defend myself, I can’t use this untruth. Our love may not be, but our lust is real. It’s the last shard of light I have left, the last piece of driftwood to cling to as the storm rips me deeper into a dark and tremulous sea.

  “Thought so,” he says triumphantly.

  Pinning me in place, he rams into me, filling me with a scream and everything I can’t have, everything that’s no longer mine. He lets go of my wrists to clamp a hand over my mouth while he holds me to him with an arm tightly wound around my waist. My cries are muffled in his palm as he pivots his hips with a grueling rhythm, splitting me in two, breaking me into pieces. He’s so deep it hurts. Every thrust pushes me closer to ecstatic pain. He no longer has to hold me down. I’m clawing at his arms and ass, needing him harder. Deeper. All the way to my broken soul.

  Covered in mud and grass, we fuck like animals. There’s no place for pretty pink gowns and tenderly mouthed words in what we’re doing. We’re raw and basic, stripped to our barest truths. He fucks me while I scream into his hand, treating me like a dirty whore and precious princess, giving me the devastating illusion of being the center of his world. But right now, we are the center of each other’s worlds. Our pleasure is intertwined, wound tight as he batters my heart and loves my body.

  The air changes, becoming darker and more depraved as our lust spirals out of control.

  “More,” I pant into his palm. My release is close again, but I can’t slip over.

  His cock swells inside me at the plea. Grabbing the short ends of my hair, he tilts my head back, exposing my neck. His lips are all over mine before he clamps down on the tender skin where my neck meets my shoulder. He sucks on me like I’m a medicine for his madness, and then he yanks his cock brutally out of me. My pussy clenches in protest. He uses his fingers to smear my arousal around my asshole. Before I can tense up, the head of his cock is spearing my dark entrance. It hurts and burns with a fierceness that makes me scream louder and him snuffing out the sound harder. He catches my cries in his hand as he shoves in all the way, taking everything I’ve got. For a moment the burn is all I register, but then his fingers are inside me and his thumb is on my clit. Incredible sensations of pleasure and pain collide to form something more explosive and scary. I whimper as the darkness overtakes me, driving me to needs I fear, but he cradles my back against his chest and whispers, “I’ve got you.”

  That’s when I let go. The orgasm hits me from all sides. White spots explode in my vision. I don’t realize how badly I need air until he lets up his hand that covers my mouth and part of my nose. My nipples rub against the rough bark as he drives deeper and harder until his cock jerks and his hips cushions mine. Warm jets of cum erupt in my ass. His body falls over mine, his chest covering my back. His breath chases down my neck and spine. We’re both breathing too hard. We’re both doing the ultimate wrong while everything between us feels so right.

  The very reality he wanted me to feel slashes through me as he carefully frees his cock. What have we done? Cum dribbles from my ass and down my thighs, giving me the answer. I’m boneless. He has to hold me up while he searches the ground for my torn underwear. He uses the ruined thong to clean up as best as he can between my legs, but the scrap of fabric is not enough to wipe away all the evidence. Slowly, he turns me, letting my back rest against the trunk. My eyes are accustomed enough to the dark to see the turmoil in his as he searches my face.

  “Jane…”

  God, we’re a mess. We’re dirty and disheveled. My dress is still hitched up over my hips and his cock is hanging half-erect through his open fly. His cum is sticky on my legs, the ache between my thighs and in my ass still fresh.

  “Jane, I–”

  A voice interrupts from nearby. “What the fuck?”

  Brian goes rigid. I fr
eeze. He jerks down the fabric of my dress, hiding my body with his.

  “Oh, God,” Clive says, stepping into our line of vision. “You did not just fuck Jane. What the fuck is wrong with you? Monkey and Lindy are looking for you.”

  At the mention of her name, my body tenses. More shame fills me until I feel nothing but disgust for myself.

  Brian’s hands tighten on my hips as I go from legless to taunt.

  “Shut the hell up, Clive.”

  “You better get back there,” he says, shooting arrows, and daggers, and needles at me. “I covered for you, saying you had too much to drink and are vomiting your guts out in the bushes. It’s only a matter of time before Monkey himself comes out here looking for you.”

  “Jane…”

  It’s the third time he says my name, and this time it’s laced with regret. I didn’t expect anything else, so why does it hurt even worse than before?

  Gathering the last scraps of whatever dignity I have left, I straighten my dress. “Goodbye, Brian.”

  His jaw bunches. He clenches his fists, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t try to stop me when I hobble over the grass, feeling the sting of his passion in the most forbidden places of my body. All I can do as I feel their eyes on me, betraying and judging eyes, is walk away with my head held high until I get to my car.

  Unlocking the door with trembling fingers, I fall down in the seat. Wild sobs shake my shoulders. Messy tears soil my face, dripping into my lap. I’m such a sucker for punishment. The only thing I accomplished was proving to myself and Brian that I’m not over him, not even after what he did. I’m an idiot. A pathetic creature. I’m the woman Brian fucks like an animal, not the one he puts a ring on. At least that part sank in.

  The fairy lights of the party blurs in my vision as I start the engine and turn the car toward the gates. I can’t see well enough through the shower of tears to find the road even if I wanted, but I have to get away. I want to go home where I can curl into a ball and hide from my feelings and the world. I’ll have a good cry, and then I’ll get up and move on. I’m alive when I could’ve easily been dead. I’m not wasting this second-chance life that has been gifted me. Not even for Brian.