I didn’t realize I was crying until a tear rolled down my cheek, then dripped off my chin onto my dress.
I really, really didn’t want to call Jordan. I’d been hanging out with him enough to trust myself not to throw myself at him under normal circumstances, but this was different. He would see me vulnerable. Needing him. If he came to my rescue, I might not be able to help myself.
But at least I could trust him. That was one thing I knew for sure. So, without a second thought, I dialed his number and lifted the phone to my ear.
“Liz?” His voice was scratchy and distracted when he picked up. Shit, had I interrupted him? Or…was he with someone?
“Hey, um…are you busy?” Dammit, there went my voice, modulating and cracking again.
“What’s wrong?” I heard the rustle of sheets, or maybe the couch fabric, on the other end of the line. Please don’t let him be in bed with someone else. The thought pierced my mind, blocking out all others in a jarring flash. Luckily, I gathered my wits quickly.
“I’m…uh…I’m on the other side of town, and I don’t have a ride back. I called a taxi, but it’s cash only, and…”
I heard more fumbling on the other end. Then, “Okay, just send me your location through the maps app. It’ll take me straight to you.”
“My phone’s almost dead, and the reception sucks. I’m on the other side of Center City,” I rushed out, hoping to give him a location before my phone crapped out. “At, uh…7th and Chestnut,” I said, catching sight of the street signs at an intersection a short block away.
“Looks like I’ll see you in about…ten minutes,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said as my throat tightened even more. No questions, no fuss, no argument. He was coming to get me. Right now. “See you soon.”
“Soon,” He promised, then hung up.
Checking my surroundings one last time to make sure I was relatively safe, I backed up against one of the skinny trees stuck in the middle of the sidewalk and then slid down to sitting.
And then, without really knowing why, I started to cry again.
I knew my dress was showing most of my thighs and my hair was limp and my mascara was running. I knew I was in a state of serious emotional distress that I could only sort of start to explain. I didn’t really care about either of those things, though, because one thought kept running through my mind over and over - I couldn’t do this anymore.
Tomorrow, I’d ask Monica for another assignment, or I’d walk away from the position entirely. Nothing was worth exposing myself to the weird quasi-sexual intentions of the rando freaks who applied to date me. Now that I thought of it, it was a miracle I hadn’t been murdered or tied up by now. This was insane.
Chapter 19
Jordan
I was really damn glad I’d splurged for a parking spot when I first moved here. My car was only a couple blocks away, and I made it there as fast as my legs would carry me.
The bright lights of the city blurred together as a misty rain started to fall, and I found myself gunning on the gas as I drove over the river and speeding through yellow lights.
Liz hadn’t said she was in danger, but she hadn’t sounded okay on the other end of the phone. And she called me to pick her up. Me. Whatever weird tension there was between us didn’t matter. In this moment, I wanted to be whatever she needed, and I wanted to be amazing at it.
Finally, I pulled up to the location she sent me. I watched her scramble up from sitting on the ground against one of those pathetic sidewalk trees Philly had apparently planted to show they gave a shit about the environment. I would have jumped out to help her to the car if Liz hadn’t been so quick to grab the handle.
She tumbled inside, sighing against the cushiony seat. “You okay?” I reached out my hand to touch her, but when I saw her hands twisted up in her purse straps and how short her skirt was, leaving me no choice but to feel up her knee, I pulled my hand back to the wheel.
She turned to me and all I could see was her red-rimmed eyes, trembling lip, framed by the rain-frizzed dirty blond halo of her hair.
“Yeah…No...” She sighed. “I don’t know.”
I waited for long moments to see if she’d say anything else. When she didn’t, I put the car in drive. This time, I went slower than I needed to, and took a route that curved back and forth through the Philly streets and added a mile to our trip. I remembered my mom telling me that, when I was a kid, she loved driving me to weekend science competitions because, after enough time sitting in silence in the car, I would start to tell her things.
It was kind of astounding how badly I wanted Liz to tell me things. Real things. Things that would make me more a part of her life than I was now. Cups of coffee and Netflix and leisurely homemade dinners were good. The sex had been really good. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more, a deeper level I could get to with her, and I wanted to. Desperately. I couldn’t explain it.
Liz didn’t speak the whole way home. I didn’t hear a thing from her except for the occasional sniffle or small sigh. When we got inside and she dropped her bag at the little table beside the door, she didn’t move toward her room or the couch like I would have thought. She just stood there, looking at me, grasping her upper arm with the opposite hand and watching me as I locked up the door.
“You okay?” I asked again, battling how badly I wanted to step up to her, hold her in my arms, and kiss the top of her head. Maybe tell her that, if she wasn’t okay, I wanted to be the one to help make it better.
I wanted that more than anything, I realized. My stomach flipped.
“I can’t do this anymore.” Her voice was raspy, weak. God, it just hurt to see her like this. “I just…I’m just done, you know? How hard can it be to find one freaking person I can get along with? One person I want to actually date? Am I that big of a freak, that not even the entire city can find someone I’m compatible with?” Her voice was heavy, wet. Exhausted.
Maybe Philly would have been able to find someone for her, if I hadn’t weighted the votes so heavily in favor of the most obvious losers.
Holy shit. I was the biggest asshole on the planet.
Her fists clenched and unclenched at her sides in a steady rhythm, and the furious white spots bleeding in and out over her knuckles were like flashing warning lights. She needed something, and she was confiding in me because she thought I could give it to her. I wanted to know so many things about her, wanted to spend hours and days and weeks getting to know her deepest thoughts. I wanted the obstacle of my guilt over trying to throw her dates to the guys she’d hate to melt away, somehow. I had no idea what she would do if she knew that.
But from the way she was approaching me, little by little narrowing the space between us, I knew that now wasn’t the time for guessing games.
“What…um…” I sighed, gathering my courage. “What can I do?”
“You’ve done plenty. Thank you for coming to get me, Jor - JJ. I should just…” she leaned her head toward her bedroom door and took a dragging step in that direction. She looked up at me, her eyes watery and tired. “Thanks. Really.”
She crouched down and fumbled with the small buckles on her heels, stepping out of them and leaving them in the middle of the floor. Once again, the straps had left crisscrossing red marks over the tops of her feet. Once again, I was hit with the overwhelming need to tend to her, to take care of her. Not because I thought she needed me to, no. Because I knew she deserved it.
Tonight, she might even be craving it.
But my feet remained rooted in place as I watched her duck into her room and heard the rustle of her body settling onto the comforter. I inflated my lungs, slowly, then blew out all the air over the same number of seconds. I’d never felt so torn.
One more time. I’d just check with her one more time, and then I’d leave her alone.
Before I could change my mind, I kicked off my shoes, tossed them to the mat beside the front door, and did the same with hers.
I stepped quietly to her door, which she’d left open. Not just a crack, either. Wide open. Like she really had wanted me to stop there. Her breathing was quiet, but not the heavy, steady rhythm it took on when she was sleeping. I knew that one by heart already.
“Liz, sweetheart? You need anything?” My heart lurched in my chest as I heard myself use the term of endearment for her, the one I’d stumbled into using months ago. Sweetheart. It felt so right.
She turned her head on the pillow so she faced me. Her words, muffled against the pillow, were quiet but decisive. “Help me with my hose?”
I stepped closer to her, until I was an arm’s length from the bed. “You want me to…?”
“Take them off, yes. Please.” The last word was twisted, choked.
Another step, and I was an arm’s length away. I reached down to brush my fingers along her shoulder blade, then touched them to the small of her back. She seemed so small right now, a quiet, defeated girl wrapped in a dress designed for a life she didn’t want.
I knew that I had to reach up her dress to roll the thin stockings down. I’d watched one of my ex-girlfriends do it, but never done it myself. A slow breath in through my nose, then a quiet exhale through my mouth, and I let my hands travel under the hem of her dress.
She made the most delicious sound then - a cross between a sigh and a moan. My dick strained against the fly of my jeans and I ran through every stern lecture I could think of to get it to calm down. This was not the time. She was tired, and sad, and I was partly at fault.
Did she know what she was doing to me, asking me to help her get out of her pantyhose? Did she care?
I thought about baseball, math competitions, and my high school track coach in her underwear on a steady loop as I gently peeled the thin nylon down over her thighs, past her knees, and finally, off her feet.
She really did have beautiful feet. I’d never been that taken by any girl’s feet, ever, but it was like every part of Liz’s body had its own siren song. I could get lost in her, if I let myself. Too bad she didn’t really want to let me. She’d said as much. Hadn’t she?
I cleared my throat. “Feel better?”
Liz grunted, and wiggled in place. Jesus Christ and all the angels, her ass was perfect. I wanted to give an award to whatever genius had invented skintight satin dresses. The sheen of the fabric accentuated the flawless slope of each cheek into the valley of her thighs, and to make matters worse, I knew exactly how butter-soft it would feel beneath my fingers.
“This dress is so freaking tight,” she murmured. “Can you help me with the zipper?”
My fingers shook. Just listening to her say the word ‘tight’ while she laid on the bed like that… No. It didn’t matter. I’d never been anything less than a gentleman with any woman I’d been with, always double checking exactly what it was she wanted, whether every move was okay.
Liz couldn’t be any clearer with her request, and yet this still, somehow, felt wrong. I brushed her hair away from the neckline of her dress and gingerly gripped the slim metal zipper pull. “Just pull it down?”
“Mmmhm.” Her voice rasped into the pillow. I could practically feel the cloud of heat her breath created there just by listening to it.
Her skin was flawless. Even the scattering of moles across her creamy, smooth, lightly tanned back seemed to be placed there, just so, in some perfect design. I wanted to glide my finger from one to the next, drawing a picture, mapping her so that I could commit her to memory.
My throat suddenly felt like sandpaper. I stood up, pressing my hand firmly to my side, mentally reciting statistics from the 2011 World Series games.
Liz shifted, turning her head to the other side, making some long strands of hair hug her throat, with a few strays teasing along her shoulder. My breath caught. I would have sold my soul in that moment to be one of those strands.
She rolled one of her shoulders back, whimpering against the stretch. My thoughts immediately shot to what it would feel like if she let out that sweet, sexy little noise with her lips wrapped around my cock. I clenched my fists, then stepped backward. I had to get out of here.
Before I could take another step, though, she spoke again. “Could you just…get my bra, too? Freaking itchy clasp.”
I walked right back into the danger zone, a moth toward a flame that would most likely kill me. I couldn’t help it. Her pull was just too strong.
As my hands hovered an inch above the tempting red satin strap, I decided I wasn’t too proud, and it wasn’t too late, to beg. I let out a shuddering breath. “Liz, I’m trying to respect you, here. Respect what you want.”
“Obviously you’re not,” she shot back, all softness gone from her voice.
My heart stopped and threatened to jump into my throat. I counted five seconds, one deep breath in and out again. “Then I don’t know what you want, Liz.” It took everything in me to keep my voice from breaking. “You have to tell me.”
Her breathing had gone shallow, too, and the tension hanging between us seemed to stretch out the seconds into endless moments.
“You make me feel like a person. Not like an object or a goal or a toy. Or a freaking conquest.”
“Yeah, Liz. Because I respect you. I’m trying really hard to be a gentleman right now. Please, help me.”
“I would, Jordan. So I really want to know…do you want me? Even when I’m this much of a mess?”
“You know that I do. Jesus, Lizzie, you must be able to tell how badly I do.”
“Even though it’s been so long since…?”
“God, yes,” I answered, before she’d even finished the question, in a needy exhalation.
“Then, you know what I want you to do? What I need from you right now?”
“Tell me,” I practically begged.
“I want you to show me. I need you to. Touch me, Jordan. Please.”
That was all I needed to hear. In a split second, my knees were planted on either side of her body. There was only one word to describe how I felt in that moment - hungry. My hands plunged into her dress, palming at her hips and framing her navel with fingers digging deep into skin.
Chapter 20
Liz
Jordan’s hands on my body were heaven. The way they dragged against my skin felt like magical life-giving warmth pushed through every pore, invigorating me. I couldn’t help the way I moaned as his powerful hands tilted my hips back so that my ass pushed up toward his cock, which strained against his jeans. It was one of the things I found most attractive about him - that big, beautiful dick of his couldn’t even be really hidden by boxers and a solid layer of denim.
If he was mine, every girl would be able to guess exactly what I had, exactly what they were missing out on.
If he was mine.
He couldn’t be mine. I knew that. He didn’t want that - he’d told me as much months ago and hadn’t tried to make a move since. It wouldn’t be wrong, exactly, but there were too many things making it weird.
I knew what this was about, my impulse to make him hot and bothered to touch me. I’d been on enough dates in the past four months to know that a guy being good looking, or having a good job, or being really nice or really interesting, wasn’t enough to create what I really wanted—a chemical reaction bordering on explosion that I just couldn’t stop myself from getting myself mixed up with.
It was wrong to get so close to JJ when I knew I was just chasing that feeling, circling a grenade that could explode at any second. But that was the problem with explosions - once they started, it was impossible to stop them. Seeing JJ rush to my rescue tonight, cataloging the concern and care etched into his expression, had lit a spark inside me.
It didn’t matter how hard I tried to avoid it. This spark between us was going to turn into a full-blown fire no matter what I did.
Within seconds, his mouth was on my neck, licking and sucking in exactly the right way to make me absolutely desperate for more. Well, I’d already gone this far. I’d already lured him h
ere and made it impossible for him to keep from touching me. I might as well go balls-out.
“Goddammit, Jordan,” I gasped as he stretched one hand out over my belly, fingers splayed far enough to brush my ribs, and dragged the other hand up to my chest, twisting a nipple and squeezing hard.
“Tell me what you want,” he rasped in my ear. “I’ll do anything. You know that, Lizzie. Anything for you.”
His words were sexy and tender all at once, and my mind exploded with dozens of visions of what he might have meant by his willingness to do anything—anything at all—for me.
Only one of those visions was going to win out now, though. I took a deep breath and thrust my ass up, loving the almost-painful press of his hard shaft between my cheeks. “Fuck me, Jordan,” I murmured, just loud enough so that I knew he heard me. Make me believe that at least one person can sweep me off my feet, forget every other shitty situation in this world.
“That’s not what you want, Liz,” he groaned against my neck.
“It is,” I insisted, bending my neck back to press my cheek to his, relishing the pressure it added to his delicious weight on top of me. “Those times we…did this? That’s the only time I’ve felt what I was supposed to feel. The first time. And the last.” I squeezed my eyes against the tears burning at the corners.
Jordan planted his hands on either side of my shoulders, and suddenly, I felt his weight shifting off of me, punctuated by a cool breeze swirling through the space he left behind. I pressed my forehead into the pillow and squeezed my eyes tighter, waiting for the sound of the door falling shut to gasp into the sob I already felt coming.
Instead, I felt the blessed sensation of Jordan’s knee making the mattress dip on one side of me. Then his breath ghosting hot at the back of my ear.
“If we do this now, it’s not gonna be me fucking you.”
I drew a shuddering breath. “What…what are we doing, then?”
“I will give you whatever you want. Fast and rough or slow and deep. I’ll suck your tits or lick your pussy until you scream my name, or I’ll swallow every one of your moans with a kiss. Anything you want, Liz.” I could have sworn I heard his voice break there, just a bit. He swallowed, hard, and brushed his nose up and down my neck. “But I won’t fuck you. Because that’s what you do when it’s desperate and thoughtless. When there’s nothing behind it except wanting to get off. I can’t just fuck you, Liz. You’re…you’re more than that. To me.”
Just Down the Hall Page 17
