That’s the rub. The thing about real deception is, it doesn’t give the victim time to build up immunity. Had he been a douchebag from day one, I’d be able to drop him with no reservations. The attraction would dry up under the unrelenting beam of logic and rationality. Considering the time we had together gave me something better than I ever could’ve dreamt up, my feverish mind has trouble finding fault. Jayson Zephyr taught me passion. And he left me with it like an illness I can’t shake.
I reach beneath the covers to tug at the waistband of my pajamas, and the silk slides against my legs in a way that makes my sensitive body tingle. The wicked combination of arousal and sadness demands that I call him—that I take back what I have lost— but I promise myself I won’t do it. There has to be another way. My hands slip down to my most intimate anatomy to touch myself as Jayson would touch me. I close my eyes and hiss out an exhale, tightening my thighs around my slender wrist to hold my hand in place against the throbbing ache.
I slowly swirl my fingertips around…again—something innocent, an exploration that wasn’t intended—around in circles above the dewy pearl nestled between my labia. Clueless about the mechanics of masturbation, I traverse my body like an untried explorer. Some of it, I get right instinctively, and my body becomes moist with pent-up frustration as my hips shift forward to more fully accept my untutored caress.
But, with each zing of serendipitous pleasure, the longing grows and I get angrier. He should be here. He should never have left me to do this on my own, any of it. A broken sob trembles into a moan. I bite my lower lip, inhale.
I tentatively ease my middle finger to the hot, humid entrance to my sex. Inner muscles quiver like a skittish fawn. He has deprived me of him. I miss him all under my skin. My very veins cry his name as I slide the questing digit a little deeper. Rubbing and stroking, I find the erogenous zones he used to make hum. I am hollow without him.
“Jayson,” I moan.
Arching my spine, I push my bottom into the mattress as if trying to escape the alluring temptation to complete the wanton act. However, my body refuses to be stilled. My hips thrust forward to take my finger deeper. A needy sound escapes from my mouth. I picture him kissing me. I remember his taste. I lick my lips and pretend his lips are against mine, his tongue tracing the recesses of my mouth. I touch my mouth with my free hand. I reach my fingers, wet with my own nectar, to my breasts and find a nipple to squeeze and tantalize, tugging as if my hands were his.
It makes me squirm. It makes me throw my head back and sink into the fantasy. He surges between my legs like a mighty wave. The clothes become too much as the heat gets more intense. I find myself stripping out of my pajamas, and the shirt and top get lost beneath the covers. Once I am nude, my hands run along the perspiration-slick planes of my torso, down to the flare of my hips and curve of my thighs. I think to myself, This is what he feels when he makes love to me.
Satiny skin, soft curly pubic hair in a thin strip, this flat stomach, the hills of my breasts—does he miss me?
I miss his hardness. His muscles, the flat planes of his chest and stomach, his rigid cock. I remember him in so much detail I almost feel him in the room, his chiseled masculinity the perfect foil to all my softness, wetness, curviness, neediness.
I cream as I get more invested in the exploration that takes my hands back to the fountain between my legs to fondle and caress myself to the edge of satisfaction. In and out, my finger drags until it’s not enough and I add another. I feel my tightness stretch to accommodate, hips rising eagerly to accept. Sensually rising and falling, I throb into my palm as I stroke the inner ridge that sings loudest. By some magic, I discover my thumb can still access my clit, and I add this manipulation to the activity.
I begin to feel buoyant with pleasure, gasping with desire. I can feel the tension building to a snapping point. Irrationally, I begin to think somewhere, somehow, Jayson must hear my body calling out to him.
“Come back to me,” I pant. “Ah, yes!”
Even as another voice tells me he’s in bed with someone else—the stabbing agony of that—my hand moves more rapidly between my legs. Creamy, slick wetness coats my fingers and dribbles into my hand. I continue to thrust deeper and deeper. It’s no match for the way he makes me feel, but in my frenzy to find release, I don’t care.
“Jayson, I need you!” I sob.
A sensation like freefalling begins in my pelvis. A shriek of ecstasy erupts. My body begins to quake. Staccato beats of rapture pound through me as I climax almost as hard as I would when I was with him, and I feel my womanhood spill silver rain like a storm cloud finally letting go. When I come back down to earth from the high of the orgasm…
…I’m still alone in my bed…
* * *
“Well, at least I still have my dignity. I’ll take that as a consolation prize, but I refuse to play his fool.”
“Kit, you really, really need to give Jayson a chance to explain himself. Castiel and I talk about everything, and I know he would have mentioned if his brother had someone else on the side. None of this sounds right.” My best friend’s dark brown eyebrows come together in a frown of confusion, and her voice wavers uncertainly. I know she’s trying to convince me, but she doesn’t even sound convinced herself.
“Are you kidding me? Grace, when I confronted him, he looked me in the face and he couldn’t deny it. He was making plans to break up with me so he could be with someone else. And the crazy thing is, I get the impression he’s been with her for a while and she knows about me, but I’m just now finding out about her!” I lower my voice when I realize I’m getting louder and louder. Our shift is minutes away from starting, and the breakroom is full of people enjoying the fireworks.
I finish in a fierce hiss with a thumb jabbed at my chest, “Who am I to get between true love, right? Jayson can have his side piece. I am so over him!” I wipe my hands like I can dust him out of my life. I wish. I get a smattering of applause from a couple of the girls shamelessly playing audience. They have no idea how hard it is to say those words, much less follow through with them.
Grace just shakes her head at me and puts her hands on her hips. My chest heaves as I stare her down. I’m angry, so angry that it doesn’t even seem to register with me that I shouldn’t be taking it out on her, my best friend, but I can’t stand that she insists on defending the creep.
“Well, I think you’re being unnecessarily hard on him, but it’s none of my business. So, you don’t have to jump down my throat about it. Look, I know you’re upset. My only advice is to consider talking things out with him once you get out of your feelings.” Grace resolutely sighs, done with the issue, but her parting statement ticks me off even more.
“Get out of my feelings? Stop it, Grace!” I all but shout. I snatch my work name badge from the breakroom table where we were siting having a pleasant conversation before all this kicked off. Grace casts an incredulous look in my direction. I’m on a roll, I guess. A train barreling ahead, ready to derail. “I am not the bad guy here for being genuinely hurt! I am the wronged party. You’re my best friend! You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“This isn’t about sides!” she exclaims. “It’s about right and wrong! You’re wrong to throw away that beautiful relationship all because of a misunderstanding, and I’m telling you that you don’t have the whole story. If we’re such great friends, then why won’t you listen to me?”
The tense conversation screeches to a halt when the doors to the breakroom of Devil in the Details bang open and Hank, our manager, bursts in. He takes one look at us and squints his eyes at me. The lurking coworkers trying to get the scoop suddenly have better things to do and scurry out of the room altogether. That leaves just Hank, Grace and me.
Hank stares us down like he’d much rather see me leave than watch me walk over to that clock and clock in. If it were up to me, I’d leave, too. Only, I’ve got bills on top of bills to pay. I don’t have time for an off day. “Is there a problem, ladies?” he asks.
Under his intense scrutiny, I swallow thickly, overwhelmed. It’s been two weeks since I put Jayson out of my house, out of my life, and I feel more lost than ever. They do say home is where the heart is, which means I’m homeless. No wonder I feel out of sorts.
I look from Hank to Grace with tear-filled eyes, and all I see in my bestie’s face is sympathy and affection, making me feel like more of a bitch for spazzing out on her. I have got to get some control of myself before things get any more out of hand. Fighting with my best friend, on the job? This is completely unlike me. “Grace,” I murmur with an apologetic step in her direction.
“We’re cool,” Grace mutters to Hank. She reaches a conciliatory hand over to me and squeezes my shoulder supportively. I don’t mean to be argumentative. Just like I had no intention of going into the first semester in such a depressed daze that I can’t focus on any of my classes. Since Jayson exited my world, everything is falling apart.
Hank lingers by the break room door eyeing us both. “Yeah, uh huh. You’re cool now, but it didn’t sound like that a second ago. Whatever problem you girls are having, have it on your own time. You both know I can’t allow bickering in here. I heard you all the way out on the floor, where we happen to have customers. If corporate hears about this…Grace, I’m surprised at you in particular. And, Kit, I hate to say it, but you’re kind of already in hot water as it is.”
“I’m sorry, Hank. It won’t happen again,” I murmur. I meekly carry my badge over to the clock and swipe in. Hank trudges out of the room.
Chapter 34
KITRINA
Grace halts me before I can leave the breakroom. “Girl, I don’t know what happened with you and Jayson, but you are definitely not yourself. Your aura is so dark right now. It hurts to see you like this. I just want my best friend to be okay, not simply say you’re okay, but truly be okay. If that means you sit your butt down and talk to the man, then that’s what I want you to do. My senses tell me something’s off-kilter,” she whispers with concern. I place my hands on her shoulders and look her straight in the eyes to be sure I get through to her.
“Grace, I love you to pieces, but this is something your psychic senses can’t help. It’s too late to fix things, and neither one of us saw this coming because we were both so caught up in the excitement, even you with Castiel. We were too close to the situation…I have to accept it, and you have to accept it, okay? Of course Jayson wouldn’t tell his brother about messing around with someone else on the side. He knew Cast would come straight to you.”
“But—.”
“Plus, if he truly had an explanation, he would’ve presented it by now, Grace. It’s been almost a month. I know you mean well, but I am honestly not in a place to hear anything positive about Jayson Zephyr. That man set me so far behind in life that I don’t know what to do with myself. Now, put it out of your head. I have, and we both have work to do.”
I walk out onto the floor and leave Grace pondering a counterargument. I don’t have time to hash and rehash what went wrong with the Zephyr boys. I have to focus on getting through my four-hour shift. Every five minutes, the tension in my neck and shoulders tightens a little bit more and I discover I’m thinking about him again, no matter how many times I banish Jayson from my thoughts. Across the design and décor store, Grace stands at the cash register casting forlorn glances in my direction, but I ignore the looks.
The easygoing courtship she has with Castiel is nothing like the searing flame between Jayson and me. Now that things have come to an end, I feel completely burnt out. That’s what passion does, I guess. You pay for everything in the end. The worst part is I don’t even get to skulk away and lick my wounds. Life calls. There’s work, school and damned bills, and none of it gets any easier just because I’m going through the biggest disappointment of my adult life.
“I hate you, Jayson. I swear I do,” I mutter angrily to myself.
I creep down an aisle that gets little traffic and make myself scarce, instead of lending a willing helping hand on the floor like I normally do. My head abuzz with a thousand questions I can’t answer gives me a headache. I watch Hank walk the floor, probably looking for me to screw things up, having just got off probation after one too many customers complained about my knack for providing unsolicited design advice. At this point, I wish the guy would just give me a break. I wish the world would give me a break.
Mom’s voice rings in my head. “You made your bed; now, lie in it.” I can’t help but think I should’ve listened to her when it came to Jayson. She warned me he was no good for me, albeit for entirely different reasons than what it turned out to be. Could it be true that mother knows best?
I glance at my watch about two and half hours later, pleased I managed to stay unbothered for nearly half a shift. I take a lunch break and avoid Grace because I’m not trying to take part in what she clearly still wants to discuss. Not to mention, I don’t want to treat my best friend poorly. I just want to be left alone. So, I sit in my car and munch on a dry sandwich before tipping back inside and finding another aisle to hide from customers.
After successfully doing not a damn thing all shift, I note with aggravation a woman walking toward me as if her very shopping experience depends on flagging me down. “Of all the people working this evening, she has to come to me,” I moan. I roll my eyes out of her line of sight and then turn to her with the biggest, brightest fake smile I can muster pasted on my lower face. I’m sure it doesn’t reach my eyes, no matter how hard I try.
“Can I help you?” I ask tightly.
“I don’t know if you can, but I hope you may,” she titters at the grammar joke. I look her over. Dressed in a seasonal sweater knitted with a snowflake design and wearing earrings shaped like cute little snowmen, I’d bet my paycheck she’s a middle school teacher. She just has that look about her. Right down to her sensible shoes.
“May I help you?” I amend my offer.
“I’m looking for…” She refers to a handwritten list in her hand. I notice elegant handwriting, items meticulously checked off. I also notice her nude nail polish looks immaculate, unlike the chipped frosted pink on my hands. “I’m looking for temporary wallpaper, preferably something with a very modern design. Does this establishment carry that?”
“Right this way,” I supply by way of answer.
“Oh, excellent!”
She follows me across the store to our wide selection of paints and wallpapers, a section clearly marked with a big red sign so it’s hard to miss. I have no idea why she couldn’t find it herself, but since it’s my job, que sera. The chatty schoolteacher takes the cross-country walk as an opportunity to regale me with her life story. I can’t help but ungraciously think, Lady, I will never see you again. Why, oh why, do you think I care about your recent divorce, your prenup or your house hunting woes?
“And, I finally found this charming turn of the century house, but it’s a rental property, you understand. Unfortunately, the property manager won’t allow me to make permanent changes, so this is my next best option to cover the hideous paneled walls. I was considering a design motif and thought about bringing in a little twenty-first century flair, but I’m terrible at decision-making when it comes to some things. I like to make sure I’m right. That’s why I’m here.”
“Of course, Ms…”
“Sampia. It used to be Mrs. Tannehill. Back in grade school I used to introduce myself as Tia Sampia, pleased to meet ya. Ha! I thought it was funny…But, wow, yes, you guys have a huge selection, don’t you? Oh, with this many choices, I’ll likely be in here all evening, deciding.” She plants a fist on her hip and the other hand on her chin, scanning the wall of sample wallpaper. I look away, pondering my escape.
“Um, is there anything else I can help you with?” Before I duck back into my hidey-hole.
“Which one would you suggest? I’m trying to complete my bedroom with something ultra-modern and eye-popping, but not too space age, I guess. No loud colors. Or maybe loud colors. It depends.
I do like bold colors. Heh! You see my dilemma?”
I hesitate, eyeing her up and down. Is she the sort of customer who’ll run back and complain to Hank that I stepped all on her toes and gave her undesired advice? Hmm…but she did ask. “Well, I don’t want to take away from your shopping experience,” I demur.
She blinks at me. Like a schoolteacher staring down the student who refuses to raise their hand to answer, she insists on calling me out. “Don’t be shy. You work here. You probably have an eye for this sort of thing.”
“Well, I do major in design,” I gloat slightly.
“There you have it! So, which one?”
I eye the racks of easy to install temporary wallpaper we have out. From soft pastels to bold art deco, anything the average customer might want is there, but I don’t know a thing about this woman or her style, other than she clearly needs help in the picking out sweaters department. I groan on the inside. What if I tell her something she doesn’t want to hear? Boggled by the possible pitfalls, I stammer, “Y-you really can’t go wrong, no matter which one you choose. Don’t you see anything that catches your eye?”
“Oh, everything, and that’s why it takes me forever to pick something. I’m a Libra,” she says, as if that explains it all. I’m sure Grace would know what that means, but Grace isn’t here right now. I glance around for someone else to foist this indecisive customer on so I don’t screw myself, giving her the wrong advice. When my phone jangles in my pocket—completely against store policy—I pull it out without thinking.
“Excuse me! I’m sure that can wait. I don’t have all day,” Ms. Sampia Pleased to Meet Ya says testily. My eyes bounce up to her. She’s staring pointedly at the phone in my hand.
“Uh, um…” I look back down at my cellphone and see a number I don’t recognize. I wonder with barely checked hope if it’s Jayson calling from a different phone number. If it is, it’s the first time he’s called me in over two weeks, and I can’t even answer. I guiltily shove the phone back in my pocket. “I’m sorry about that. Where were we? Wallpaper. Right. What about that one?” I point blindly.
Jayson: A New Adult / Coming of Age Romance Page 26
