Their little habits always made me smile but today they saddened me because I wanted Jen and me to develop our own little habits and customs. I wanted our relationship to progress into something… more, something with little routines and ways that were just ours.
Brenda our PA shouted me and threw me a bottle of Powerade as she smiled sympathetically at me.
Christ was every fucker aware of my turbulent relationship with Jen?
I leant against the wall as I awaited the reappearance of Jen and Bulk and I cringed as each of their raised voices filled the corridor, Jen’s a touch louder than Bulk’s but his angrier and more forceful.
“I won’t let you do this, Jen!” Bulk’s muffled voice filtered through the thin plywood walls as Jen’s now familiar manic laugh echoed around it.
I felt as well as heard the bang on the wall behind me and I screwed up my face as I pictured the scene in the room behind me.
I knew Bulk had slammed Jen up against the wall in his temper; the customary action was common knowledge to his friends and his late wife, Shona. His hands would be wrapped around the top of her arms as his thigh pushed against hers, holding her in an immobile position as he locked her down whilst he let rip.
And then he let rip.
The string of expletives that erupted from him would even make Jax blush and I smirked when I realised Jen hadn’t uttered a single word since Bulk brought forward his wrath.
Silence descended before the door opened and a sulking Jen stormed past me without even a little bit of acknowledgement.
I entered the room and sighed at the weariness that engulfed Bulk. “She needs fuckin’ help!”
I nodded as I rested my ass against the edge of a table and jumped back up when it shot backwards and I nearly ended up in heap on the floor.
Bulk smirked at me and I gave him a blasé look before I folded my arms over my chest. “What did she have to say?”
His eyes scanned me before he shook his head sadly, “That she needs to get high to forget.”
I frowned as I tipped my head. “Forget what?”
The sadness that displayed openly on his face had me fighting with the urge to erase that last question. “To forget the image of Kyle’s life fading from his eyes as he held her hand and took his last breath. To forget what she had done to him. To forget the blame she puts on herself and… to forget you.”
Sweet Jesus.
I nodded and sighed. “Ouch.”
Bulk shrugged but rubbed my shoulder before he exited the room, his face etched with worry and concern. For me? For Jen? Maybe for both of us.
Everything was fucked up; spiralling out of control and my heart bled even when it was frozen.
I didn’t know what to do. What to do to help her and to get us both back to where I wanted us. But I knew one thing, I wouldn’t stop trying, I would never stop trying to reach her.
She was mine, she had always been mine. I just had to make her accept it and attempt to make her see how damn beautiful and perfect she was.
***
I opened the arena doors and stepped into the car park. The rain was relentless in its pursuit to sodden and drown everything. It matched my mood and I raised my face to the sky, asking for its pureness to absolve my guilt, for its fury to cleanse me and wash away my pain.
As I stepped out from under the veranda a noise from the dark corner to my right caught my attention and I turned towards it.
A shape was huddled at the bottom of the wall; its outline told me it was Jen. I would recognise that frame from anywhere.
“Jen?” I approached her warily, cautious of the mood that dominated her.
Her cold heavy eyes lifted to mine as her arms clasped her trembling bent knees. “What do you want, Ethan?” She appeared to be drunk but it could just be the coke ditching her down and slurring her words.
Crouching in front of her I reached out slowly, letting her know of my intention to touch her before I swept the stray lock of hair from her eyes. “You okay?”
She scoffed. “Would you be okay if Bulk had blasted your eardrums and made you feel like shit?”
I smiled softly, “Yeah, he’s always been good at that. Making you feel…”
“Worthless, disgusting, immoral…” she finished for me.
“You’re none of those things, baby. You’re beautiful, compassionate, kind, sexy, bright, funny… I could go on forever, Jen.”
She swallowed heavily and cleared her throat before she stood up. “I better go.” Her hands brushed at her backside as she cleared the debris off her knickers, her skirt so short it hadn’t even touched the ground as she sat.
“Need any help with that?” I teased as I peered behind her for a quick glimpse at the perfect soft swells of her bum concealed by a tiny piece of black lace.
She laughed a little and I smiled when the laughter actually reached her eyes before it disappeared and she palmed my face.
She didn’t speak, she didn’t need to; her gaze held all her words and emotions; the pain, the devastation and anger was etched into the lines that now donned her stunning face.
I reciprocated her tender touch and leaned in to twirl her nose with my own. “It doesn’t have to be like this, Jen. Kyle wouldn’t want to see you self-destruct like this.”
Wrong words again, Boss!
Christ, they kept falling from me like the rain from the clouds at the moment; fluent and fast.
She stiffened and pushed her hands against my chest making me stumble backwards slightly. “How the fuck would you know what Kyle wanted?”
I heaved in a hefty dose of air as I narrowed my eyes on her.
She wanted to play with fire? Then I would feed her the bloody sparks to light the fucking dynamite.
“Because he was my brother, Jen. I could feel him, inside me,” I grabbed her hand and pressed it between my breastbone so she could feel the thump, thump, thump of the damn defective organ that refused to stop its relentless ache. “He was my kin, my blood, my fucking other half.”
She scoffed loudly and removed her hand as she tried to make her escape but I grabbed her firmly and refused to give her the dodge that she wanted. “Your brother, your brother?” she spat maliciously. “You don’t deserve to call him that. You killed him, you fucking killed him. You bastard!”
Her fists came then, along with all her hatred and guilt as they smashed repeatedly into me, her fury fuelling her fight as she let it out and blamed me repeatedly for everything.
I agreed with her. Agreed with every single venomous word she spat at me in her undertaking to hurt me.
Okay, I’d had enough of being beaten now so I circled her with my arms, clamping her down as I lifted her and carried her to my car, her feet and heels digging into my shins painfully as she fought against me.
“Will you fucking quit?” I bit down on my lip harshly at the sting in my legs as her heels impaled themselves into my flesh.
“Get the fuck off me, Ethan. Let me go!”
I ignored her protests as I opened the car, somewhat awkwardly, and flung her into the passenger seat, flicking the lock so she couldn’t escape as I orbited the car to the driver’s side quickly to evade the rain.
As I settled in beside her she huffed loudly and folded her arms over her chest in a defensive stance. I knew she was attempting to shield her heart with the posture, her arms her armour against my presence and her anger her screen to cover the pain.
We drove in silence for a while, Jen simmering rapidly beside me as I frequently flicked her a few glances but she didn’t acknowledge me in any way until suddenly she declared, “Will you just let me out, I wanna go fuck some random.”
I knew it was just said to hurt me, I knew her words from the other week were just said to hurt me, but those words right at that very moment severed my tolerance and I screeched the car into the layby that appeared like a gift from god on the left.
She stared at me as I yanked off my seatbelt, shot out of the car and dragged her out by her hair.
I forcefully bent her over the bonnet, the heel of my hand pressing into her soft flesh at the dip of her lower back where her Basque had risen in the bend of her body, despite the fact that she struggled beneath me. The rain beat down on us, its persistent driving torrent drenching every inch of us as I ripped her knickers off and threw them into the mud puddle behind me.
“You wanna fuck, Jen? Then let’s fuck. Let’s fuck like animals. Let’s rip into each other and hurt each other. Let’s damage each other so much more than we’re already doing.” I snarled at her as I unbuckled my belt frantically.
She growled feral and loud as I thrust into her hard and deep. “Yeah, that’s what you want, is it? My hard cock ramming the fucking life out of you?”
I gripped her hair almost painfully as I pounded into her, giving her the carnal thrill she was desperate for. I pulled her head back as the rain spilled down her face and smudged the oceans of make-up she was wearing. “That what you want, baby?” I yelled at her as she bucked back on me, gripping my cock and pulling it deeper inside her.
I could feel the approach of a climax that would rip me in half, my balls painfully full to their limit, but I grit my teeth and held the fucker back as I gave this woman, my woman, what she wanted.
A hard, rough fuck.
“Fuck, Ethan. More, I need it harder.” She screamed at me as she slid a hand down to stroke her clit.
I grabbed her hand then took her other one and pinned them above her head as I slid us both up the bonnet until she was flush under me, her little body flattened between the wet metal of the bonnet and my hard frame as the rain pooled around us and beat us ruthlessly.
I drove deeper into her as she screamed with a mix of pleasure and pain and as I felt her tighten, her orgasm build, I stopped. Completely halted all my movements but remained deep inside her.
“What the fuck, Ethan?” she hissed as she squirmed beneath me trying to find some sort of friction to finish herself off but I released more of my weight on her until she was completely deadened under me.
I waited silently for her to stop fighting before I started moving again; slowly, tenderly and gently as I planted tiny little kisses along her bare shoulder. “You are so beautiful, Jen. You’re everything, baby. So god damned perfect.” I whispered along her hot wet skin.
I pulled out of her, flipped her over onto her back then slid back into her warmth.
Her eyelids fluttered as her lower lip trembled and I pulled it gently with my teeth as I locked her eyes with mine. “I love you, baby. I love you. Fuck, I love you!” I near shouted at her as we both erupted and disintegrated around each other.
Her hands fought to hold me tight, her fingernails digging into my back like she wanted to pull me inside her as her legs clamped my waist like a vice.
We both yelled each other’s names loudly and ferociously as our bodies shook and jerked with our synchronised gratification.
I rested my forehead on her shoulder as her hand lifted to my dripping hair, her fingers stroking gently through the clump of wetness as I sighed heavily.
“Get off me” she whispered bitterly and I stilled at her tone.
I frowned and reared back to look at her but she had already shut down her emotions; her face a blank canvas, devoid of any emotion or feeling. “What?” I asked quietly as I pushed a clump of her hair away from her face.
“Thanks for the fuck and all, but now I wanna go home” she uttered impassively as she tried to wriggle out from under me.
I shook my head sadly. “What do you want me to do, Jen? I don’t know what to do to make it better.”
Her eyes fixed on me as she released her own hefty sigh. “Get a refund and cancel the contract you took out on your brother. That should do it.”
“You know I can’t do that. I can’t turn back time. And to be blunt, I wouldn’t even if I could. He abused you and hurt you for years, Jen. He wasted so many years of what we could have been. He took you away from me; he ruined my life as well as yours. Yet, here you are suddenly acting like he was husband of the year, worthy of a fucking OBE. Well, let me tell you something, Jen. He was a manipulative, cruel, evil bastard and he didn’t deserve to die so quickly.”
Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have said it like that.
The rage that was bubbling away inside her erupted like a raging volcano and she screamed primitively as her knuckles connected with my face and smashed me sideways against the windscreen in her extreme rage. She pushed me down the bonnet as she jumped up and climbed into the car.
I fought to drag myself out of the mud I had sunk into when I had slid off the edge of the car.
I made an attempt to dive into the car, but I was too late as she reversed at speed, the tyres ripping up the wet ground as she floored the accelerator and left me stood in the rain wondering how the fuck I was going to get back.
Fucking ace!
Chapter 27
Three god damn hours of jogging before I reached home; three bloody hours of unyielding and persistent rain bearing down on me all the way and three hours of my brain reminding me of my fuck up.
“Okayyy, you fool.” I cursed myself when I reached my front door and realised I didn’t have my keys.
I slid down the door and slumped on my arse, resting on the step, knackered, tired and angry.
My life was full of joy.
E’s jeep pulled up to the security gates and I remained on the step, watching her impassively as she punched in the code and drove up to me slowly.
“Hey,” she said as she exited the car and walked over to me. “Need these?”
Her fingers waggled her own key to my front door and I frowned at her as I pulled myself upright. “How did you know?”
She smiled sadly at me as she let us into my house. “Zoe rang and said Jen had turned up in your car, saying something about leaving you in the middle of nowhere whilst she stole your wheels.”
“Yeah,” I snorted as I flicked on the lights.
“Go grab a shower whilst I make you something to eat.” She said as she pulled out things from my cupboards. Her own knowledge of where everything was wasn’t lost on me as I regarded the best friend someone could ever have.
“I love you, hot stuff.” I whispered as I side hugged her and kissed her forehead.
“I know, baby. Me too” she whispered back as she pulled me against her for a proper hug. “She’ll come round, Boss. Just give her time to reflect on everything. She loves you; any fool can see that but her hearts clashing with what her heads telling her at the moment.”
I sighed and nodded as I pulled away and dragged myself up the stairs, the promise of the pleasure of a warm shower and clean clothes the only reason I managed it up the stairs in my exhaustion.
***
“Ugh…” I groaned as I rolled over and realised it was light outside. “Shit.” I flung myself off the bed and peered at the clock for the time. “Christ!”
It was one in the afternoon and I had slept through the meal E had made me, my appointment with my health specialist and my meeting with Brent, our manager.
Hurrying through a quick shower and pulling on the first items of clothes I came to, I scampered down the stairs and into the kitchen, determined to down a swift coffee before I had to rush out.
My feet skidded to a halt as I found E and my grandparents laughing at something in the newspaper that was spread out on the kitchen table.
“Whoa. Good afternoon, boy.” My grandfather laughed when I nearly collided with him.
“Hey” I smiled widely as I planted a kiss on my grandma’s head when she grabbed my hand to slow me down, her warm leathery skin filling my system with her familiar love and adoration.
“How are you, Ethan?” she asked and from the tone of softness in her voice I could tell she knew just how fine I wasn’t. She knew of my heartache where Jen was concerned but not what had caused the latest conflict between us and I felt a pang of guilt for my necessary lie to them.
I smiled at her a
nd she nodded in understanding. “That’s why we’re here, really.” She offered and I frowned at her as I poured coffee from the glass carafe that E had made.
My granddad laughed wickedly as he held up the keys to the cottage in Cornwall they owned. “Fancy doing some kidnapping?”
My grandma winked mischievously at me as E grinned widely.
“I rather like your way of thinking, grandpa.”
He nodded smugly, “Thought you would, boy.”
***
I paced a hole in the lounge carpet of the Cornish cottage as I awaited Zoe. My heart beat rapidly and my stomach churned with what I was about to do.
She would loath me; she would kick, scream, bite and just plain hate me but I didn’t give a single god damned shit, I’d had enough of her pursuit to obliterate herself and everyone around her. It was time to drill some love and sense into her… hopefully literally.
My stomach actually groaned, but it could have been my bowels actually, as I heard Zoe’s car pull up in the small driveway, my own car hidden around the corner so Jen wouldn’t sense an ambush.
“Okay, Boss. Pull it in, hold it in and fucking pray.”
I moved into the kitchen as the front door opened and Jen’s laughter filled the air. “Wow, Zo. This is awesome.”
“Thought you’d like it, babe. Six weeks of sea air, peace and tranquillity and…”
“…me” I grinned as I stepped from behind the doorframe.
Her face paled as Zoe jumped back through the doorway and locked the door behind her whilst I picked Jen up and fought against her wild thrashing body as I bounded the stairs and took her straight into the bedroom, dropping her on the bed before I locked the door with the new deadbolt I’d had fitted.
Thrilling Heaven (Room 103) Page 17
