Had she been the one to call the ambulance?
“It looks like a massive heart attack, but we won’t know for sure until we get here to the hospital for tests. I know one thing, if it wasn’t for the girl back at your mom’s place, she would be long gone.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was doing CPR when we got there. She must have been doing it from the time she found her. It’s because of her that your mom is still with us, man. Trust me. It took us thirty minutes to get there. She would have been long gone.”
Jenny had saved my mom’s life.
That changed things.
The dynamic between us was shifting again.
They took Mom straight back for surgery, and I sat in the waiting room alone, biting my nails until Genie showed up crying.
Hours passed and we waited, until finally a doctor came out and told us Mom was in stable condition. They were keeping her in intensive care for a few days just to be cautious, and I was good with that. I wanted them to be overly cautious. Check everything. Monitor everything.
I couldn’t lose my mother.
When we could go in and see her, she was still sleeping. Instead of waking her, Genie and I sat quietly by her bed and hoped she would wake up. And that was where I stayed, only leaving her side to rinse my mouth with a bottle of mouthwash I got from the small hospital store and grabbing a bite to eat from the cafeteria.
It wasn’t until Genie forced me to go home and shower and sleep that I even considered it. Once I left the hospital, my first thought was to go to Jenny, but I didn’t think that was a great idea. I was too weak. With the loss of my father and with my mom hospitalized for the same thing that killed my dad, I wouldn’t be able to fight off my feelings for Jenny.
It wasn’t a good idea to be close to her. No matter how badly I longed to be close to her. To be a breath on her lips. A strand of hair touching her shoulder softly. I couldn’t give in. I would do anything for Jenny. Even keep my emotions locked away. It wasn’t like I hadn’t done that before with her. Things were good where they were. We needed to stay away from each other and keep feelings out of it. No matter how deep mine ran for her.
I showered, washing away the hospital, and the hot water eased my tense shoulder muscles. The past few weeks had been hell. First, I buried my father, and now, my mom was having heart issues. I wouldn’t lose her. She was sick with a broken heart, literally, but I would do all I could to make sure she stuck around for many years.
After my shower, I dressed and sat on the couch, thinking maybe a little bit of TV would calm my wrecked nerves, but nothing I did soothed me. I knew what I needed, but I wasn’t ready to fully admit it to myself.
Jenny.
I needed to thank her.
She might have crushed me three years before, but if it hadn’t been for her, my mother would no longer be with us. If only for that reason, I would forgive her long enough to thank her.
Stopping by the E-Z Mart, which I was surprised was still open, I grabbed a bag of gummy bears from the aisle, paid for them along with a Mountain Dew, which used to be Jenny’s favorite, and then I left and started toward her place. If I was going to thank her properly, gummy bears and Mountain Dew were needed. It didn’t make sense to anyone else, but it didn’t need to. It was our way, and she would understand I was sorry without me having to say it.
The drive to the Michaels’ house was one I was familiar with. Memories of the way Jenny and I used to be flashed through my mind, and I felt my stomach go hollow. Her laughter. Her smile. The way she used to punch my shoulder playfully when I said something funny.
Then another memory hit me like ton of concrete. The night in her dad’s truck. The way she had climbed on top of me and rode me like she couldn’t get enough. The way her mouth fell open when her orgasm took ahold of her. The sounds she made. The way her teeth dug into her bottom lip when she didn’t think she could take it anymore.
It was such a sweet memory.
One had hoped I could lose, but secretly held onto for dear life.
The porch lights were off and so were the rest of the lights. I would have thought no one was home if it weren’t for the single light on at the back of the house. Jenny’s room.
The porch light came on when I slammed my truck door, and I was almost up the steps when the front door opened.
“How is she?” she asked in a rush.
I felt like shit for not calling her sooner to let her know Mom was going to be okay, but I had been so busy trying to work up the nerve to go see her.
“She’s still with us. Thanks to you.”
Her eyes moved over my body, landing on the bag in my hand. We had done this a million times in our lives. She knew what was in the bag and understood instantly what was happening.
“You can keep that. No need to thank me. I was just doing what any other human being would do.”
I shook my head. “No. You saved her life, Jenny. The EMT said so. If it wasn’t for you, she would have been long gone before they got there. I can’t …”
“Just stop. I love your momma. She’s like the mom I never had, and you know that. Don’t thank me for this. I would do anything for that woman.”
I nodded.
I knew she was telling the truth.
Jenny was a lot of things, but I knew she loved my family.
I tossed the bag at her, and she caught it against her chest.
“Josh, just …”
“Keep the damn gummy bears, okay?”
I grinned despite myself.
It was then I noticed how she was standing. Her shoulders back, and if I wasn’t mistaken, she was sucking her stomach in.
Was she trying to hide herself from me?
Was she covering her weight gain like it was a bad thing?
Then I remembered the terrible things I said to her the first time I saw her again that night at Sprints.
Looks like those gummy bears finally caught up with you.
Shit.
No wonder she didn’t want the fucking gummy bears.
“Look, Jenny, about what I said at Sprints about …” I stopped, waving my hand at her body.
She went tense, her eyes hard.
“Don’t.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It was cruel.”
“But I deserved it, right? For running off to Texas and fucking everything with a cock. Isn’t that what the people in town are saying?”
They were.
It was what I always thought, too, but now I wasn’t so sure things went down that way.
“Look at her,” she mocked the way she thought the town’s people might sound. “She went off to Texas, slept around, got pregnant, and gained all that weight. She’s really let herself go.”
“Stop it, okay? Fuck what everyone else says. You never cared before.”
“I don’t care now. I just don’t want you to think I’m stupid and don’t know what people say about me. I know what they think. And now I know what you think, too. It’s fine. I’m glad Mom’s doing okay. Please have someone let me know when she can have visitors. Caleb wants to see her.”
She turned to go back inside, but I reached out and stopped her with my hand on her arm.
“You don’t know what I think.”
And she didn’t.
She only knew what I let her think. What I let everyone think. But the fact was, what she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her, and she would never how I was still in love with her. It was the reason I lashed out. She would never know how badly I wanted a family—kids—with her. It was the reason it burned so badly to see her with Caleb.
“Then why don’t you tell me what you think.”
What was I doing?
I came to thank her, and I had done just that. Why was I pushing for more? Why was I feeling myself opening to her? She was dangerous. I couldn’t let myself get caught up in her again. Not when I had nothing to offer her or Caleb. I was broken. I was fucked up.
No.
I
shook my head.
“Well, you know what I think, Josh? I think you’re scared.”
Scared?
She had no idea what the fuck she was talking about.
29
Jenny
“Scared?” he scoffed. “I’m a fucking war hero.” He slammed his fist into his hard chest with a thump. “I’m not scared of anything. Especially not you.”
“You’re no hero. You’re a coward with a purple heart to pin over your black one. You’ve been an asshole to me since the moment you stepped back into town, and now suddenly everything’s okay? No.”
And just like that, the moment between us faded away. The bag of gummy bears forgotten. The fact that his mom was still alive because of me long gone from his mind.
He moved, pushing into me until I was pinned between him and the front door.
“Say it again,” he seethed. “I fucking dare you.”
I swallowed, knowing I was about to push him over the edge. I wasn’t scared of Josh. At least not the old Josh, anyway, but this person … the man he had become while he was hiding away in Texas for three years, I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure what kind of reaction I would get, but I didn’t care.
“You’re a coward,” I repeated.
His nostrils flared, and his lips went tight. His dark eyes moved over my face as if he were debating on where to attack, but he didn’t. Instead he shocked me.
I had thought we would fight. I had thought that maybe we would push each other and say things we had kept pent up for the past three years. I thought we would break each other down to nothing like we had been doing since the moment he stepped foot back in Walterboro, but that was not what happened. Instead, his mouth crashed down onto mine, stealing my breath and making me jerk as if he had hit me across my face instead of kissed me.
I stood there, unsure of what to do.
“Kiss me back, goddammit!” he growled against my lips, pushing into me until all I felt was the hard door at my back and his steel frame against my front.
I did as he said, forgetting I was angry. I kissed him back. Hard. Angry. Biting and gnawing at each other with a mix of steamy kisses and tongues. He moved his hand up, clasping his fingers around my neck and holding me in place as he pulled back, tugging my lip with him before going back in for more.
Then as quickly as it started, it stopped. He pulled away from me, his back slamming into the screened door.
“Shit,” he growled, swiping at his mouth as if I disgusted him.
I stood in the doorway, my breath drilling in and out of me. Things happened so fast it was almost as if it hadn’t happened. I touched my fingertips to my lips, and the memories of our first kiss rushed through my mind. We stared at each other until finally he moved toward me fast and angry.
“Fuck it,” he spat.
And then his lips were on mine again.
He pushed into me, clawing at my sides and pulling me into his hard body, and I didn’t stop him.
It was late. No one was home since Lilly and Devin had taken Caleb to a movie, and Dad was out of town with Janice. I was in my favorite nightgown, which was an old and thin gray T-shirt my mother had left behind. It was so thin it allowed me to feel every angle of Josh’s body and the heat it radiated. His free hand moved to my hip, tugging my bottom half and slamming it against his undeniable hard length threatening through his jeans.
He pulled away from the kiss with the contact of my hips, and hissed, “I don’t remember you feeling this good.”
“You either,” I said, pulling his mouth back to mine.
He tasted like the past. Like days on the lake and sunshine. Memories swirled in my mind, and I let them take over, reminding me of all the reasons I fell in love with Josh to start with.
He moved us, pushing me into the house and slamming the door behind us without even breaking the kiss.
“Is anyone here?” he asked, his mouth skimming my chin before he moved lower and nibbled the side of my neck.
“No. Don’t stop.”
We didn’t make it to my bedroom. Instead, he backed me to the kitchen table and lifted me before moving between my thighs. The roughness of his jeans against my thin panties was almost unbearable. The room was dark, which made me feel better about him not being able to see my body. He grabbed the bottom of my shirt to lift it, but I stopped him from removing mine and instead removed his.
His chest was hard, his muscles rippling in the tiny bit of light coming from the front porch. His dog tags shined, and I reached up and touched them, wishing I had been able to stop him from going into the military. That was when I saw it, the tiny silver feather from the necklace I had bought him in Cherokee, North Carolina, years before. He still had the charm, and it was behind his dog tags, hidden behind the war that had torn us apart.
“You still have it,” I whispered, my fingers moving over the silver.
He stared down at me, his expression clearing, and my Josh came through. The side of his mouth lifted into his signature grin, making his dimples wink back at me.
It made me feel better about keeping my locket that he had given me for my sixteenth birthday. It was tucked away in a safe place since it was one of my most prized possessions.
I tugged at his hips, pulling him into my center, and he hissed.
“I want you so bad,” he said, reaching down and unbuttoning his jeans. He pushed them down his hips, and the warmth of his hips pressed against the inside of my thighs. “Don’t stop me.”
And then he kissed me again, stepping forward until I could feel his hard, hot cock against the inside the crease of my thigh. I reached between us and grasped him, my fingers wrapping tightly as I tugged up.
He broke the kiss and laid his head back with a hiss. “Fuck, yes.”
Things moved fast from that point. One second, I was holding his dick in my hand, and the next, he was pushing my panties to the side and pressing into me.
It wasn’t sweet.
It wasn’t nice.
It was desperate.
It was right.
The first and only time I had sex was with Josh, and I had been on top. It wasn’t until he was nearing the end that he had flipped me over and took over. This wasn’t like that. He had total control, rocking into me so hard and fast I couldn’t seem to catch my breath.
The table shook beneath us, the legs scraping against the linoleum floor, and the salt and pepper shakers in the center rattling. He stared into my eyes, all confidence and man, and when I tried to look away, he wrapped a strong hand around my neck. Lightly squeezing the sides and holding my face straightforward while his thrusts grew even harder and faster.
“Oh my God,” I whined, unable to push a full-bodied sound from my voice box.
My eyes watered with pleasure as my body clutched onto his glides and thrusts until I felt myself growing tighter and the satisfaction growing sharper.
“I’m going to come,” I squeaked as a tear of ecstasy rolled down my cheek.
His hand grew tighter around my neck, and the fingers of his other hand dug into my hip, holding me still as he fucked me ruthlessly.
“Do it,” he demanded. “I want to feel your pussy get tighter around my cock when you explode on it.”
My body went stiff, and my mouth fell open as my orgasm crashed over me. I didn’t blink. I didn’t make a noise. I just held on to him as he fucked me through the best climax I had ever experienced in my life.
When I came back to myself and my body went lax, he pulled out and backed away. His cock stood on end, glistening with my release as he fell into the kitchen chair closest to him.
“Come here,” he said.
I pulled my nightgown down, covering my thick thighs as I slid from the kitchen table. Then I walked over to him. He reached up my gown, his fingers skimming the sides of my legs, and then he rolled my panties down until they were loose enough to drop to my ankles. I stepped out of them and kicked them to the side.
“Ride me,” he croaked. “Just like
last time.”
I wasn’t usually one to be told what to do, but when it came to sex, it was different. I straddled his lap before lowering myself onto him once again. He felt deeper with me on top, the tip of his dick seemed to skim the hard to reach nerves inside, and as soon as I began to move, the feeling was almost too unbearable.
The first time with Josh had felt great, but it was nothing like this.
No.
This was fucking amazing.
He grasped my hips, his large fingers digging into my flesh, and he stared up at me with wonder in his eyes as if he was feeling something he had never felt before. His breathing was loud and hard, mixing with sounds of pleasure and whispered growls.
“That’s it, baby. Ride me. Take my cock how you like it.”
I loved it when he talked to me that way.
Demanding and dirty.
I did as he asked.
I moved my hips in the ways that felt good for me. I worked in circles and back and forth. I moved up and down in long, fluid strokes to short, fast ones. It all felt amazing, and it wasn’t long until I was panting once again, feeling a tightening and a pulling in my lower stomach.
Throughout the entire time, he sat back and watched, giving me praise and telling me how good I felt. It was the sexiest thing I had ever seen in my life.
His abs bunched when he began to thrust his hips upward to meet me, and sweat slowly began to appear on his thick chest. I was getting tired myself, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop. Not when I knew I was close to coming again.
The first time with Josh hadn’t lasted this long, but I guess with age, Josh had gained stamina. I wasn’t complaining. Especially not when he took over completely and began fucking me from beneath. I held onto his shoulders and let him have his way, taking me in a forceful pounding thrust that sent an echo of lust through our kitchen.
“Fuck,” he gritted. “You feel amazing. I can’t get enough. I can’t …” his words stuck in his throat as he swallowed.
Leaning over, I kissed him softly on the lips, feeling like I was seconds away from falling apart above him.
“Are you close?” he asked.
It was then I noticed the strain in his voice. He was holding back for me. Waiting for me to have a second orgasm before he came.
Thick & Thin (Chubby Girl Chronicles Book 3) Page 20
