by Casey Diam
Oh look, the sock he’d stripped off Jordan’s foot before burying his face in her pussy.
Adrianna looked up from the kitchen sink. “Those are Jordan’s. Where is she, by the way? It’s not like her to sleep in.”
Brandon shrugged when Andrew stared at him, then had to avert his eyes to keep a straight face.
A few hours of their last day in the mountains was spent snow tubing and snowmobiling, which allowed him zero alone time with Jordan. He had no idea what she was thinking, because she refused to make eye contact with him. He needed to know everything was still okay between them, sort out what had been troubling her last night—because last night was just the beginning. There was no going back.
“Man, this was just like old times,” Doug said as he reminisced with Brandon and Andrew in front of the small airport terminal. “Andrew being in love, and you basking in the afterglow of a fucking threesome, asshole.”
Brandon pursed his lips, feeling uncomfortable. But it was best to have his friends believe what they wanted until he figured out what Jordan was feeling.
“Hey, time to go.” His father yelled out to them from the double doors of the building.
Walking to the jet, Brandon provoked Jordan. “Are you ready to take a ride on my private plane, pun intended?”
Her cheeks reddened. “Do you talk to all your friends like that?”
Friends? He brushed off the sting of her comment. “I do. Andrew, how about you?” Brandon asked, pinching one of Andrew’s nipples.
Andrew let out an exasperated sigh. “Dude! You’re disgusting.” He then yelled to Brandon’s parents walking ahead. “Kim, your son is being X-rated.”
“Always a little snitch,” Brandon said, pushing Andrew, who ran off to the side and away from further harassment.
Brandon’s mother turned as she walked up the stairs to the aircraft. “It’s a good thing we’re all over seventeen, Andrew. It’s not completely forbidden.”
Everyone laughed, included the pilot standing at the bottom of the stairs.
For most of the flight, Brandon watched Jordan sitting in her cream-colored reclining chair staring out the window. She wore black booties, jeans, and a striped black and white blouse covered by a leather jacket. Looking deep in thought with her legs crossed, she traced the tip of her finger along her collarbone beneath a white scarf.
Oh yeah, she was horny, and it was even clearer as she looked at him for the first time. His dick twitched, and he smiled before intentionally looking at the phone in his lap so her eyes would follow. Now that their nonverbal communication told him they were okay, he resorted to texting.
Brandon: You can’t stare at me like that. It does things to me. Are you thinking about last night?
Jordan: Thinking about tonight.
Brandon: Whatever is going on tonight? Can I cum . . .
Jordan: OMG!! Don’t do that! That’s why I’ve ignored you all day. You’ll make it hard to keep it from them. It’ll be all over my face.
Brandon: Ok. I stayed the whole night with you, by the way, and then I ran into Andrew this morning. Now he’s watching us like a hawk. So, if you intend to keep this on the DL, you need to keep your shit together.
Jordan burst out laughing—like, really laughing. That whole-body, stomach-hurting laughter. A laugh that made other people want to join in, even though they had no idea what the joke was about. Brandon’s heart throbbed as he stared at her in awe, laughing without a care in the world. Everyone else on the jet was smiling, and when Jordan saw she had an audience, it threw her into another fit of laughter.
Brandon: That’s not keeping your shit together.
Covering her mouth with her scarf, she glanced at her phone while her body shook with more silent laughter. If he’d been unsure before, he was positive now. Jordan Artesian was his to lose, all of her. So he’d better prove himself worthy because this was final—no one else could have her.
The sun had just gone down in Los Angeles when Brandon turned off the 405 onto US 101. Jordan was driving Adrianna home, but he decided to call her anyway, as every second away from her was more tormenting than the last.
“Am I on speaker?” he asked as she answered.
“No.”
“After you drop Adrianna off, come to my house and bring an overnight bag.”
“What? No,” Jordan said.
He heard Adrianna in the background asking if it was Richie.
“Who’s Richie?” Brandon asked, his fist curling tight around the steering wheel.
“I’ve told you before. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Jordan, please. I want to hang out with you, and we need to talk. Plus, if you sleep at my place, you could get to work in ten minutes instead of thirty from your place. I’ll even pick up dinner for us.”
“Later,” Jordan said and hung up.
“Dammit.” And who the fuck was Richie? The name was familiar, but his scrambled, jealous brain couldn’t make a connection.
An hour into his homework assignments, his phone rang. “What kind of closure makes you want more closure?” Jordan asked, sounding frustrated.
He chuckled because he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about his cock being buried in her, so if she thought them having sex was some kind of closure, she had another thing coming.
“Why is that funny? It’s not funny.” She sighed. “I’m at your gate.”
A joy he hadn’t felt before emerged from his core. Finding the smart key app on his phone, he pressed open gate, then also clicked on the settings and shared a key with her for the gate and door. He waited for her at the doorway with open arms, and she stepped into his embrace.
Kissing her forehead, he smiled. “I knew you couldn’t stay away.”
“Me? You just shared a key with me,” she said.
“My close friends and parents have it. Plus, I know for a fact you won’t be able to stay away.” He traced her chin with his thumb and index finger as she peered into his eyes. “And so we’re on the same page, beautiful, last night was a beginning, not an end.”
“What if I’m here to tell you what happened between us can’t happen again?”
He narrowed his eyes. “With your overnight bag?”
“Fine. Just don’t get any ideas,” she said, walking away from him as he closed the door.
“What kind of ideas—and speaking of, why don’t you want our friends to know about us?” He followed her down the hallway to the bedrooms. “Jordan, where are you going?”
“To another one of your rooms, because I refuse to sleep in the ‘where all the magic happens’ guestroom.”
Brandon took her arm and grunted. “Oh my God, woman, give me this.” Taking her bag, he put an arm around her shoulder and guided her to the other side of the house. “My room.”
“Whatever is happening between us is getting too complicated,” Jordan said. “And I don’t want to lose you.”
“It’s only complicated because you’re overthinking it.” Brandon set her bag in the tan chair by the window in his room, took her hand in his, and kissed the smooth skin on the back of her hand. He knew he needed her, yet it was still hard for him to tell her that precisely. But he tried. “You’re not going to lose me. I like you; you like me. Given our obvious issues with dating, why don’t we wing it and see where life takes us?”
“What if last night was a mistake? What if when we’re just friends, I can talk to you and not worry about what you think of me. Now you’ll judge me,” Jordan said, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. She tried to tug her hand away, but he didn’t let her.
“Jordan, what’s the matter?”
“It’s nothing.” Her eyes darted around the room, seeking escape as she continued to pull away, but he wasn’t letting her.
“Tell me what’s going on. Does it have to do with last night? Why were you crying?”
“Brandon, please.”
He let go, not sure what to do. This was the shit he would normally avoid like a disease, but i
t killed him to know Jordan was keeping something so painful inside. He already knew about her dad and little brother. What more could have happened? As she stood frozen in place, her back to him, he walked to her and wrapped his arms around her.
“You can still talk to me. I’m here when you need me. That doesn’t and will never change, no matter what happens between us.” He didn’t know what else to say or do. She was so tense.
Her voice softened. “Can you turn the lights off and hold me like you did last night in my room?”
“Of course.” He took her hand and led her to the black platform bed where he slid her jacket off her shoulders and bent to remove her shoes. They climbed onto the multicolored comforter where he spooned her body, securing an arm around her as she rested her head on his other arm. It was unnerving how much he enjoyed comforting her.
After a few minutes, she began. “Last night . . .” She inhaled. “I was thinking about my ex. God, this is hard.”
Jealousy surfaced. She was thinking about someone else last night while they were in bed together?
“Jordan, you don’t have to tell me right now if you don’t want to.”
“No, I-I need to . . . About four-and-a-half years ago, I was pregnant. My ex-boyfriend, Todd . . .” Her voice started to break. “He drank a lot, and when he came home drunk, he was verbally abusive. I would pretend to be asleep most nights so he wouldn’t bother me. There were times he would be rough physically, but I liked it when we had sex. So I blamed myself when he took advantage of that, telling me he was only doing what I liked. There were times he would leave me with bruises, but I knew I’d led him to be like that because I allowed it. He also called me Artesian, because he said Jordan sounded like a boy’s name.”
She sobbed, but continued. “One night he came home, turned on the fireplace, and started telling me again how stupid I was for wanting my own store. He hated the dream I had, because to him, I was wasting my time while he was studying to become a lawyer. He made remarks about how ridiculous a store named Artesian would be. On this night he began throwing my sketches in the fireplace—ones I’d worked on for years in my college portfolio. I was ten weeks pregnant at the time, so I should have walked away. But I couldn’t. I tried stopping him, and he pushed me. I fell back onto the coffee table. It was an accident; he didn’t mean to . . .” She sighed. “But in a few hours, I woke up with really bad cramps, and realized I was bleeding. Todd was still asleep, so I called Adrianna. I was on the toilet, and I didn’t know what to do . . . Brandon, it—it came out. It didn’t look like anything, so I flushed it. But it was my baby.”
He swallowed a lump in his throat and blinked back a tear. “Jordan.” He pulled her closer, sliding his arms completely around her and kissing her cheek. If he could’ve taken her pain, he would have.
“How could I have done that?” she cried. “How could I . . .”
He held her trembling body until she calmed and her breathing evened out.
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I shouldn’t have tried to stop him.” She sobbed. “Now every time I think about him, I think about that night. I think about my baby.”
“Turn around,” Brandon instructed. “Jordan?”
She turned, pressing her cheek to his chest as he rubbed his hands up and down her back, soothing her for a few seconds before he said, “The thing is, Jordan, sometimes the scars heal, but the pain from the rupture lasts longer than we want it to. I’m sorry it still hurts, and I’m sorry you lost your baby. But if you must think about him, don’t blame yourself, and don’t cover for him. He’s an asshole. None of what that douchebag did was your fault by a long shot, or was it only an accident. That was not okay, and he was a complete dick, because you’re so talented. I’m not just saying that. I saw your pieces at the fashion show, and they were good. Honestly, I was in shock because I didn’t expect it. I’m so proud of you for not giving up.”
Her story reminded him again of the news he needed to share with her, but once again, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He needed to make her feel better, not worse.
After a moment, he threw her a distraction. “You know, you telling me this makes me feel like a douchebag because I sort of lost control of you in the hotel room in Miami. The night you were drunk. You, uh, said you could walk, and I let you, only you couldn’t and you fell. Hard.”
“What? Is that what that bruise was?”
“You had a bruise?”
“Yes, the side of my knee was black and blue.”
“Damn, beautiful, I’m so sorry.” He laughed.
“Unbelievable. What else happened that night?”
He could hear the cheer returning in her voice.
“Apart from the fact that I really wanted to kiss you, nothing. I swear. As soon as I set you down in the bed, you passed out, which could have been from the impact on the floor or the alcohol. I’m not really sure.” He bit his lip, laughing. “I like hanging out with you.”
“I like hanging out with you too.” She was laughing now. “But apparently, I shouldn’t get too drunk. God knows where I’ll end up.”
“Hey now, I took good care of you other than that,” he said, brushing her hair back.
“You did, thank you. You always do.” Lifting her head, she pressed her chin to his chest. “You can back out now.”
“What? Why would I do that?”
“For one, I’m a horrible person.”
He shook his head. “I’m not backing out.”
“I don’t want to be another one of your friends with benefits, Brandon.”
“You’re not.”
“Then what do we tell people?”
His thoughts scattered, still doubting his ability to be a boyfriend, to satisfy her the way she deserved. But he wanted to be the one, and there was no way he would allow himself to hurt her again. Would that be enough, or would she be forced to cheat on him too?
“I’m whatever you want me to be.”
“Will you be sleeping with anyone else while you’re with me?”
“No, I wouldn’t do that to you,” he said, sliding his hands down her back to cup and squeeze her ass, something he’d fantasized about doing since he’d met her. “From this point on, I’m exclusively yours, and you mine.”
“Can we keep this between us for now, until we figure out if we can make it work?”
“Under one condition,” Brandon said, remembering he still hadn’t submitted his homework. He commanded the lights back on so he could see her face.
“And that is?”
He brought his hands to her cheeks, quickly getting distracted. “You’re so beautiful—two conditions, now that I think about it. First, I get a kiss right here,” he said, pointing to his lips. “Second, you help me with my homework, or at least see that I’m doing it.”
She smiled, her face still a slight shade of red from her tears. “You have homework?”
“Yes, and I have a low C in that class and three term papers due next weekend in my other classes. Oh, and finals start in two days.”
“What? And you were vacationing?” she exclaimed.
“It was my birthday.”
Jordan laughed and slid her knees down on either side of his body, then she kissed him. “You know, I think you may have another condition available to you.”
“Oh, really?”
“Mmm-hmm. Remember when I said I was thinking about tonight on the flight?” She moved her mouth to his ear and licked his earlobe. His dick throbbed, and he smoothed his hands down her sides, gripping her jean-clad hips to his. “It involved you. In my mouth. I’m dying to taste you.”
“Jesus.” He sucked in a breath and pressed his now painfully hard cock against her sex. “Can we change that to the second condition? I’m going to have a problem focusing if we don’t.”
She rolled off him and stood up at the side of the bed. “Nope. I run a hard bargain, Mr. Kuvat. Let’s do some homework, maybe have dinner, and then we’ll see about condition th
ree.”
“What if I take my pants off right now so you can take a good look at how hard I am?” he asked, moving to the edge of the bed and standing. He’d needed her tongue on him for two months. So yeah, now would be good. Not after his homework. He unbuckled his pants while walking toward her, and her eyes drifted down.
She licked her lips. “No. You’re not playing fair.”
He wiggled his eyebrows, stepping forward, but she moved back.
“Where are your glasses, by the way?” he asked. “They are ridiculously sexy on you. Don’t forget them again, because next time you’ll be fake-helping me with homework as we play teacher-student. Actually, I shouldn’t say that—have you been watching the news lately with those teenagers and teachers getting busted? So gross.”
Jordan laughed and he continued. “Anyway, you could be my naughty tutor. Or would you rather be the student? But just so you know, either way I’m bending you over my desk.”
Her lips parted, but she continued to back away as he edged closer.
Cocking his head, he smiled. “What are you doing?”
Almost breathless, she said, “I don’t trust you in here right now.”
Amused, he dashed after her, causing her to shriek and run into the living room. But as it turned out, she was adamant. Even after he kissed her senseless on the couch, she wouldn’t give in. And though it made him pout somewhere deep, he was glad she was stronger than he was, because he really wanted to pass his class; otherwise, all those classes over the last few months would have been a complete waste of time.
Jordan’s ability to comprehend and go through chapters with him without any background in his architectural major was fascinating. The girl was smart. Correction, his girl was smart, and he accomplished a significant amount in the two hours they spent in his office.
“You are amazing. Where have you been all my life?” He sighed, leaning back in his chair and picking up his phone to see if he’d missed anything important.
