by Jordan Bell
Once the soft flesh began to spread open for him, he planted his palms on either side of my shoulders, gazed down into my eyes with those big baby blues and drove himself to the hilt inside of me in one rough thrust.
I bucked and struggled beneath his body, simultaneously pushing him away and pulling him deeper. There was no time to get used to his considerable size or my lack of experience. He took over, worked me hard and slow, then quick and shallow, alternating between controlling my hips and propping himself over me. There was something about him above me, caging me in between his arms, something possessive in the way he watched my face while he took me.
And I loved the look on his face, the hard, manly want. I loved the way he fisted my soft, plump hip with one hand so he could drive in deeper. Every touch, tug, pull, and caress screamed more. Screamed now.
It was too much, all of it too much, and I was shaking, squeezing my eyes, clawing at him desperately for something without knowing what that something even was. He released a long, low groan and lowered himself against me, wrapped his arms around me.
Jason slid a hand down my slick body and pushed it between us. He pressed his mouth against my neck and simultaneously touched my clit with his middle finger and I saw stars. I arched and writhed and fought for no reason, gyrated my hips up into his.
His breathing quickened, a sound of pleasure and triumph against my sweaty skin as he unwound the last of my sanity. He guided the hard little button in a rhythm with his thrusts and I didn’t last long before I came screaming, muffling my voice against his shoulder. I don’t know what I was afraid of more, that Jason might see me lose control or that I actually had lost it.
I shook and shuddered beneath him as he abandoned my throbbing clit to hold me still while he quickened his thrusts, hard and fast, his own control slipping, sweat slicking his hard body. He built towards release as mine simmered down, left me weak and tingly. I could feel his cock inside me throbbing, jerking as he drove in, pleasure still aching between my legs. His moans turned to grunts, to curses, sometimes my name, and when I could tell he was about to explode, he leaned down and crushed my mouth with his. I clasped the nape of his neck and kissed him back, messy and careless. He came like that, shuddering with each eruption, muscles straining against my soft body.
Jason stilled, relaxed his mouth, but kissed me anyway, like a thank you, which might have been ridiculous but for the sweetness of it and I obliged because he tasted too good to say no to.
The glow of our tryst lost its sheen quickly, though. I became too aware of the hard kitchen floor, our dirty bodies, and the wind whistling through a window upstairs I hadn’t shut. I was too aware of my body, glistening with sweat, big and bumpy and that in a moment he’d pull away and really see it for the first time. I’d have to see his reaction when he realized who he’d just screwed in the dark. His brother’s fat ex-fiancé.
And still a part of me didn’t want his heavy, warm body to pull away. I gave it to the count of ten. Even though he seemed in no hurry to let go, I pushed him off and struggled onto my hands and knees, grabbing up snatches of clothing I was only half sure were mine.
He propped on his elbow and watched me hop one legged into my panties and wiggle them up over my hips. I found his shirt, then mine and didn’t look at him until most of my body was covered.
“Cassidy,” he said quietly, my name so unfamiliar in his voice. Like someone else’s name. The storm had really rolled in while we weren’t looking and dropped a thick dark across the room. I blessedly couldn’t see his blue eyes.
“You should go.” I tossed him his shirt and left the room, got as far as the hallway and leaned against the closet door to catch my breath. I pressed my palm against my chest and I expected the voices, the panic, the freaking out, the anxiety to come crashing down on top of me, but there was only silence. There wasn’t enough room in my head for Jonathan and Bailey now that every corner of my thoughts was filled with the gorgeous body tying his shoes in the other room.
“You sure you want me to go?” His voice sounded quiet and close, just on the other side of the wall I hid behind. I could imagine him mirroring me. Could imagine his bright eyes and smooth jaw.
“Yes,” I whispered. I touched my fingers to my bruised lips and swallowed my panic. “Please go.”
He lingered forever. I could feel the heat of his body through the wall, could sense the shape of him, and hear his breathing, even and deep. I could smell his earthy, sweaty body. It was a terrible mistake, a terrible, terrible mistake I could never undo. If anyone found out, at best they’d call me desperate and out of control. At worse, they’d think it was some kind of revenge ploy, something to make Jonathan jealous.
Finally I heard the door open. The sudden frenzy of rain across the back porch and gutters filled the quiet dark. Then the door closed, leaving me alone to erase the evidence of our misguided tryst.
5
____________
The sheet had wrapped itself so thoroughly around the princess tower at the front of the house I considered cutting it off, but the idea of my grandma haunting me for the rest of my life for cutting up her best sheets changed my mind. I dragged the big ladder out of the barn and got up there to unwrap it by hand.
Unfortunately it gave me time to dwell on Jason King and the things we’d done during the storm. Every once in a while I’d get a flash of a moment, a sound, a body part, and I’d near fall off the damn roof.
And because I was up there yanking on the stiff linen to uncatch it from the roof tiles, I had a bird’s eye view of the sheriff’s car barreling up the road towards me.
Sheriff Gibbs was at least good enough to catch my laundry for me so I could climb down to be arrested.
“Cassidy Blue,” he said. I hopped the last few rungs and beat my hands off on my hips to free the tile grit that clung to my skin.
“Sheriff.” I nodded into the reflective aviator glasses he wore. Like some kind of John Wayne meets Howard Hughes. “Now, before you say anything, I can explain.”
His hard mouth didn’t bend. “There’s a good explanation for taking a baseball bat to Jonathan King’s truck?”
“I never said it would be a good one.”
“You remember when you were fifteen and I caught you and Charlotte Harvey and those other kids breaking into the high school on Halloween?”
I smiled innocently. “Technically they were breaking in. I was the look out.”
“Get-away driver goes to jail like as any other criminal. And you said to me, you promised you’d never give me a reason to arrest you again so long as I didn’t tell your grandma what you done.”
I stabbed my finger at his chest. “And you lied like a dog. You told her the next morning.”
“Like I was going to have Ruthie after me for not telling her? Point is, you promised you wouldn’t give me a reason to arrest you and now I have the smoking gun in my trunk and several thousand dollars worth of damages on my hands.”
“No jury would convict me,” I warned.
“They’d convict you, sweetheart, but they’d feel real bad about it.” He pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “Lucky you that Jonathan King’s not pressing charges and his brother’s agreed to pay for the damages.”
My mouth fell open and stayed that way while I tried to process what he’d just said. I took a step back and haltingly covered my mouth with my fingertips. “He did what?”
“I like you Cassidy. You’re a good girl and what happened to you was god awful. A boy did that to my Grace and I’d have him strung up myself. But the Kings are only going to take so much before they bring the hammer down on you, girl. You stay away from the Kings and you give this wedding business a wide berth. I don’t want to arrest you because you can’t control your anger. Find a way to deal with this that doesn’t involve violent weapons. You do what you have to do to make peace with them.”
Make peace with them. Like it was my responsibility. Like I had something
to apologize for. When were they going to make peace with me? I rubbed my fingertips across my ears and closed my eyes as the screaming crept back in, started at my spine and traveled to every cell in my body. Screaming and screaming and screaming. For months it had felt like this and one stupid, violent, reckless night and I’d found silence. In the arms of a rake and my ex-fiancé’s brother, but I’d still found it.
But now it was back, louder this time, banging away like a marching band across my frontal lobes. Suddenly the sun was too bright, especially when the Sheriff put his glasses back on and the reflection struck me like a punch.
His hard mouth relaxed and he sighed. “Find a way to deal with this, Cassidy. You don’t want to go toe-to-toe with the Kings.”
“I’ll figure it out,” I murmured. “I won’t give Jonathan the satisfaction of having me arrested. I’ll stay away from them.”
6
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Less than thirty minutes later I sat in my car in the King’s driveway, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, chastising myself for being born weak-willed. The sheriff had barely hit the highway before I’d thrown my pile of sheets on the porch and floored it down the dirt road like some kind of junkie looking to score.
Not that I was looking to score. Bad analogy. I needed something to dampen the anxiety and the very bad, deep down feeling in my chest I couldn’t shake. Jason King had done that even before I ripped his clothes off. He’d made things quieter.
And, I rationalized, I needed to thank him for helping me because surely I would never have been able to afford the repairs to Jonathan’s truck on my own. I didn’t necessarily want to see him, I told myself. I just didn’t want to be alone with my rage. That had gone poorly last time.
Garton’s truck was gone and there was only Jason’s black SUV parked in front of the converted barn where Jonathan used to live before moving in with my sister. Jason must have taken over the apartment for now. I didn’t know why but I hadn’t expected to feel such trepidation returning to the place I’d spent so many nights with my ex-fiancé, only a few hours since spending the night with his brother.
I didn’t even want to think about what kind of girl that made me.
I got out of the car and hurried across the yard for the outside stairs up to the second floor loft apartment. At the base of the stairs, I stopped cold.
There was no way this was a healthy and rational response. I could send him a thank you card. I didn’t need to see him. This playboy. This city boy. He’d sleep with any girl, I reminded myself. You were probably easier than most, all desperate and wounded and plus-sized.
And crazy. Clearly we could also add ‘crazy’ to that list.
I climbed the stairs one step at a time on my toes like a cat burglar. I didn’t want to alert him of my presence until I was absolutely sure I wasn’t going to run. I wanted options for escape.
At the top of the stairs, I paced. I wrung my hands and told myself to go home and stop being foolish but then all those voices would start in again, telling me to make peace with my sister, to forgive them so that it would be easier for everyone else. They told me, somehow, that him cheating was my fault and to take some responsibility for my role in it. I stood with my back to the door, overlooking the yard, fingers pressed to my ears when the door opened and made my decision for me.
“Cassidy?”
I turned sharply, took one look down his shirtless body, passed the abs and those hips all the way down to the low slung jeans and dropped my hands in exasperation.
“Oh come on, how is that even fair?”
He leaned his shoulder casually against the doorframe and stuck his thumbs in his belt loops. His grin spread slowly, like a Cheshire cat.
“Nice to see you too. Are you here for more revenge, or something else?” He teased, that half grin and telling eyes. I didn’t expect him to mention last night so casually and I hated that it made me blush.
I crossed my arms, averted my eyes, and scowled. “I’m reconsidering my position on further violence.”
Jason shook his head. “What can I do for you, Cass?”
“You had no right,” I said suddenly, surprising us both. His eyebrows lifted and I took a step back until I ran into the railing, reminding me I was two floors up and quick escape was impossible. “Getting involved, I mean. It wasn’t your place to do anything for me.”
This was not what I’d come here to say to him, but I couldn’t stop the accusations if I wanted to. My anger was not for him. It was Jonathan’s and Bailey’s and Sheriff Gibbs’s and my parents’, but it wasn’t for Jason. And yet I felt explosive when I looked at him.
I wanted to rip something good up with my bare hands.
“I could have taken care of the damages myself. I don’t need your help or your goddamn money.”
I balled my fists, felt blood flush my cheeks. He shrugged and relaxed his body into a deeper lean as if there was no way I had the power to upset him no matter how loud my tantrum got.
“I’m sure you could have taken care of it yourself, but I didn’t think you should have to. You deserved some revenge and it wouldn’t be right to make you apologize for getting it.”
Oh.
I faltered, dropped my hands to my sides, opened my mouth to say something horrible, but nothing came out. His lazy blue eyes broke their hold on me and looked down. He scuffed the toe of his work boot on the doorframe and I wondered if he was remembering what I was remembering and if his heart was hammering in his chest as hard as mine was.
I shoved off the railing and pressed the palms of my hands against his naked chest, slick with late summer sweat. He captured me into his body, arms caging me in as if he feared I might run away. I could have, would have, if I wasn’t so sick from withdrawal, if I didn’t want him to kiss away the pressure behind my eyes and make the rest of the world quiet. For just a few minutes.
“That’s more like it,” he murmured against my mouth, his baby blue eyes bright with pleasure. He lingered, teased me with an almost kiss, until I curled my fingers against his chest and begged with my eyes and mouth and body.
Jason’s full, hard mouth gave against mine, warm and a little wet, like a drowning man searching for air, and I plummeted into the sweet quiet he afforded me. He tilted my head back, parted my lips with his tongue, and I could do nothing but give in to his invasion and be crushed by it. I moaned when he caught my tongue and sucked it between his teeth.
When I didn’t try to flee he hooked my belt loops and pulled me across the threshold into his apartment, kicked the door shut behind us, and had me up against it before I’d had a chance to take a breath or consider the consequences of our actions.
He mmmed as he kissed away from my mouth to my chin, nosed my head back and laid trails down my neck. He had to stoop and curl himself against me, pinning me to his front door and whoosh, all thoughts went right out of my head. All I could focus on was the press of his mouth, the teasing dart of his tongue, the graze of his teeth as he explored all the exposed skin he could reach.
Jonathan had not been my only lover, but he was on a short list. My lovers tended to be short-lived and as inexperienced as I had been, neither category particularly good at making me go weak-kneed. This was a whole new brand of pleasure I hadn’t even known existed outside movies and novels. The way his big, spread hands traveled down my body to reach and cup my ass was both exhilarating and a little obscene. It was the way a guy touched a girl when he claimed her and I reveled in that feeling, no matter how temporary this was.
And that helped, knowing how temporary Jason King was. He lived half a country away in a very big city. For all I knew I was his distraction as much as he was mine. I knew he’d never chosen a girl like me before, couldn’t remember him ever dating a girl in high school long enough to call her his girlfriend. I didn’t have to worry about the usual crap that came along with dating someone. This…this was safe. This was someone who couldn’t break my heart.
So I could give in when
he tugged my hips into his. I could exhilarate in feeling like a sexual possession rather than a girlfriend with feelings and emotions to be looked after first, attraction second. Strangely I didn’t even freak out much when he caressed my body and felt the rumples and bumps and swells I hid from everyone else. He could take me or leave me and that wouldn’t ever hurt me.
And by the way he was sliding his hands up under my shirt to stroke my lower back and waist, he definitely seemed to be leaning towards the take me option.
Jason brought one hand to my face and touched my cheek before sliding his fingers along my jaw to my chin. He broke the kiss and leaned away without going far. He touched his forehead to mine and forced me to gaze into those bright blue eyes. I panted for breathe.
“Is this what you came here for, Cassidy?” His voice rumbled in his chest, husky and soft like there was a chance someone might overhear us.
I swallowed, struggled to form coherent thoughts. “No, I…y-yes. I don’t know.” I shook my head, doubt creeping in where his kisses had been. I faltered and he must have sensed that doubt because he tightened his grip on me.
“It’s ok to want this.”
“Oh,” I exhaled and averted my eyes from his probing gaze. I sank my shoulders back into the door. “I doubt that’s true. There are gossips in this town who would pay an obscene amount of money to know what I’m doing here with you right now.”
A flash of irritation clouded his eyes. His jaw tightened and he shifted his hand from my face to the back of my neck and pulled me back in close to him.
“That’s no one’s goddamn business but mine. When you’re here, they’re not.” Jason tilted his head a fraction and grazed his beautiful mouth against mine. It was a gentle brush, but adamant. Make a choice. “Do you want to be here with me, Cassidy?”
I still didn’t recognize my name in his voice. He looked like Jonathan in many ways, but their voices couldn’t be more different.
Instead of answering him, I slid out from under his arm and took several steps through the living room towards the back bedroom. I stopped halfway and with more bravery than I’d ever shown in my life, I hooked the hem of my t-shirt and drew it up over my head and off. As my hair fell across my shoulders I heard him groan softly. I glanced over my shoulder as I dropped my t-shirt on the floor and saw him fall boneless against the door where he’d just had me, fingers spread across his chest.
