“Surprised you weren’t strumming some sappy Christmas tune,” she said.
“Hate Christmas music. Hate it.”
Holy shit. Not only wasn’t he fleeing, he was willingly conversing. “Same. I actually never noticed how horribly sad Christmas music was until I came back to Utah. No matter how chipper or upbeat it is, I still can’t quite put my finger on why they all suddenly sound so sad to me.” I’m lying. I do know why. It’s because everything is sad when I need you so damn badly. My entire world grows blacker with every day that I can’t kiss you again. Love me! Please, love me! She managed to smile even as her mind suffered a mini internal collapse.
His eyes seemed a softer blue under the spotlight of the moon, so light she swore she could even see his pupils expanding to twice their size. “The songs are sad because they never let you know the ending.”
She frowned softly, confused.
“So many heartfelt wishes being made,” he said. “All that begging and pleading, with no confirmation of whether or not any of the wishes actually came true. Instead of being force-fed some bullshit happy ending, we’re left to wonder. To create the ending for ourselves. To visit our own memories to find the resolution. And for most people, their memories… their endings are…”
He didn’t finish, but Viola didn’t need him to. “Sad.”
“It’s the not knowing.” His eyes fell to her lips. “That’s what’ll drive you crazy. That’s what’ll rip your heart right out. That’s why the songs are so sad.”
“I thought maybe they were sad because most of the classic Christmas songs were written during World War II, so no one was in a good enough mood to write anything that didn’t make you want to kill yourself.”
“Nah, it’s definitely my thing.”
“Probably. Especially since it was a Britney tune written in the 90s that almost did me in this morning.” She toed the dirt and debris with a grin, peeking up at him. “Never took you for a guy who needed a happily ever after.”
“I don’t. Stopped believing in those a long time ago.” His voice lowered. “I like sad songs.”
“So you prefer a world where happily ever afters don’t exist? A world where Christmas music may as well be playing round the clock?”
“Sounds like hell on Earth. So… yeah, sounds about right.” He laughed. “Sounds like home.”
Her eyes fell to watch his teeth make their rare, much-appreciated appearance. He had perfect teeth. Was there a single inch of him that she didn’t want to run her tongue all over? Even his gleaming enamel was turning her on. Looking downright delectable.
“You’re saying your life is hell on Earth?” she whispered.
His smile ebbed away, and his eyes fell to her lips. “Sometimes.”
“Well if you like sad songs then you should love Christmas music.”
“Hate it. Passionately.” His chest swelled. “Like I said, it forces you to visit your own mind for the endings. To visit your own fucked up Christmas memories.”
“Are all your Christmas memories fucked up?”
“You were at the center yesterday, so you already know how all my Christmas stories ended.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “Milo said you put up a fight to pick me up this morning.”
“I told Gigi I’d be there, so I wanted to be there.”
“Right. So you were really fighting for my mom, not for me?”
He smiled again, but this time not with his teeth. More of an irritated smile than an amused one.
She took a step forward. “I still can’t believe you’re the donor that saved the center.”
He lifted his chin and stepped back. “It saved me first, so…”
“Do you know what that means? That means you, a white man, has done more for my education than the United Negro College Fund—who didn’t give me a single red cent, by the way. I guess my essay wasn’t up to par, I dunno…” She gave a soft shrug, her heart soaring at the sound of his soft laughter—the reappearance of those sexy ass teeth. Bringing the grand total to two—count ‘em two—real smiles from him in less than five minutes. It marked a new milestone. The most she’d ever seen his teeth in a single sitting. She was already addicted to the sight.
She nibbled her bottom lip and gazed out toward the water. “You come out here every night?”
“Since middle school.” He squinted over her shoulder and then pointed. “Lost my virginity right there—to my Mom’s best friend.”
“An older woman, huh?” Viola followed his eyes over her shoulder to a massive oak tree that sat alongside the stream. Its trunk was three times the size of Jon himself—who was linebacker-wide in his own right.
“That poor woman,” Viola said. “Bark looks sharp as hell. Her back must’ve been torn to shreds.”
“She kept her top on.”
“And we’ve officially entered too much information territory.”
“Yep, right up against that tree. First time. Just a few days before my father kicked me out of the house for good, too. I always wondered if maybe he saw us and never said anything. If that was the real reason he put me out on my ass. The real straw that broke the camel’s back. Jon, you’re shooting heroin and stealing your mother’s pearls? Okay, let’s get you to rehab. But sex out of wedlock?” He clicked his teeth and jammed his finger over his shoulder. “Fuck outta my house.”
She took a small step toward him. This time, he didn’t step away. “Your Dad kicked you out when you were fifteen?”
“Told me to leave and never come back.”
“But all your interviews said you were a runaway. That you hitchhiked to LA and met Adam in the underground rock scene shortly after. Not that your Dad kicked you out.”
“Sometimes I forget you already know everything about me.”
“Apparently not.”
“I didn’t run. He put me out. That’s nobody’s business though.”
“So you lied to protect him?”
“He thought I’d have no choice but to come back. Beaten and humbled by the cold, hard world, begging for forgiveness, lesson learned. Imagine his surprise when the next time Jonathan Matthew Moore came back home…”
“He’d be Jonathan fuckin’ Baca?”
“Mmm.” He bit his bottom lip in an attempt to hide a smile that seemed to take him by surprise. The smile vanished, however, just as quickly as it came. “He can’t stand that I never came back begging. Can’t stand that I did it without him.”
She searched his eyes. “But you’re back now.”
“Not for him.”
“No?”
“No.”
Her eyebrows shot up, but she didn’t push further. It was a miracle he was talking to her at all. Last thing she wanted to do was ruin the moment. Remind him for the millionth time that he didn’t actually like her. It seemed his hatred of her was a fact he often found all too easy to forget. If she played her cards right, maybe, one day, he’d forget it forever.
“He never came looking for you?” she asked.
“I took on the stage name pretty soon after I hit LA. If he did come looking, I’m sure that made it harder to find me. Plus I was on Adam’s ass like a puppy, following him all over the country until he finally gave me a real shot with the band. Even if my father wanted to find me, I wasn’t going to be found. Not until I decided.”
She went to respond, but a rustle in the distance stole her attention. When her eyes flew towards the sound and landed on a squirrel, standing on its hind legs just a few feet away from the surface of the stream, her mouth fell open.
“Aww,” she purred, tiptoeing toward the squirrel on a slow, soft foot, careful not to cause it to skedaddle off the same way she’d worried Jon might a moment earlier. She took on a soft tone of voice like she was speaking to an infant. “Look at the baby boy…”
“Hey, don’t get too close to that fuckin’ thing,” Jon warned.
Viola clenched the trail mix she’d forgotten was still in her hand as she continued toward the squ
irrel and bent down next to it. “I just wanna give him a little taste. He looks hungry.”
“What did the woman say on that god-awful show you had playing on our flight?” he asked. “ ‘A squirrel is just a rat in a cuter outfit’? Well, she was absolutely right, except squirrels are way worse. I’d take my chances with the rat any day.”
Viola smiled at him over her shoulder, unable to decide what she was more amazed by. That he’d just brought up a memory from their time on the airplane, or that he’d just quoted Carrie Bradshaw.
“Aw, he’s not a rat, he’s an angel,” she cooed, holding out a palm full of trail mix to the squirrel, offering it up for him to choose what he liked best. The squirrel froze in place on its hind legs, beady eyes locked to her hand. Even his fuzzy tail ground to a sudden halt, shooting straight up toward the starry sky. For a moment, Viola wondered if he wouldn’t be interested in the snack she had on offer after all.
Then, he charged forward, so quickly it caught her off guard. The sudden movement stole a surprised scream from her lips, making her jolt so furiously that her entire body went off balance and she lost her footing, falling onto her side on the ground.
Then, pain.
White hot, searing pain. Starting at her finger and quickly consuming her whole body until she felt like her every bone had caught fire.
“Fuck! Ouch! Son of a… bitch!” She hadn’t even realized she’d started thrashing, kicking and screaming as she rolled around in the dirt and leaves, shouting every profane word that came to her mind—of which there were many—clutching her hand and praying for the pain to stop. “Oh my God.”
It wasn’t until the hardness of Jon’s arms were around her waist, his firm stomach against her back, and the fierce squeeze of his strong fingers at her sides, that Viola realized how out of control she’d gotten. Seizing and spasming on the floor like a demon was being exorcized from her body. Only the feeling of his body against her was enough to make her forget the pain that was eating her alive. Enough to freeze her completely in mid-thrash, her wide eyes flying over her shoulder and finding his blue orbs mere inches from hers.
The smile on his face was the biggest she’d seen yet. “I told your ass. I told you. Now you’re bleeding. Nice job.”
Stunned, her eyes fell to her hand, immediately growing lightheaded when she found blood gushing from the tip of her index finger, where the feral creature had sunk its buckteeth in deep.
“Alright, calm down,” he whispered. “Calm down. I got you.”
Her face was apparently more panicked and horror-stricken than she’d realized because he began handling her with kid gloves from where he was now crouched next to her, wrapping his warm fingers around her wrist and guiding them toward the trickling stream, which had somehow come right up next to them during her dramatic kicking and thrashing.
The cool water running over the tip of her finger, washing away the blood, wasn’t enough to stop the burn, however. Because a new burn had taken over her body. One that had nothing to do with the evil ‘rat in a cuter outfit’ that had already scurried away, and everything to do with the angel from heaven kneeling down next to her.
She didn’t know when her chest began to heave, or when she’d begun to gasp—all she knew was his chest was rising and falling just as rapidly as hers. His muscles just as tense, looking moments from busting through the cotton of his t-shirt. Was his heart beating as hard as hers was now? Harder still every second until it was hammering to the point of pain? Was it the cold water causing her nipples to become erect under her pajama top, or his dilated eyes as they fell to her lips? She licked them in response, gasping softly as every inch of her body began to feel swollen—her mouth, her breasts, and the pulsing apex between her thighs. Pumping with blood the same way her finger had been a moment earlier. Desperate for the same attentions her finger had just gotten.
She held her breath because the tip of his nose was suddenly nuzzling hers. Had he leaned in, or had she? She looked up to meet his eyes but found them tightly closed. Fighting a silent war beyond the long lashes that tickled his cheeks. She leaned in before that war ended and drew his bottom lip between hers.
They gasped in time, and his soft moan rose into the air along with hers. The leafy taste of the weed he’d long thrown away tickled her tongue, more so when he spread his lips for more, sweeping his tongue against hers. She’d never known the flavor of weed until that moment, and as she plundered his mouth gently, his top lip, then his bottom, she was sure she loved it.
She didn’t have time to confirm that love, however, because just as soon as the flavor was there, it was gone. His hands were on her shoulders, digging into them like claws, and he was nudging her backward, forcing their swollen lips apart with a smack. Leaving them gasping in each breath as they searched each other’s eyes.
And then it was there. The consciousness. The realization that this kiss was a kiss he’d now carried out willingly and not unknowingly the way he had on the plane. A kiss that he could no longer dismiss as an innocent accident or an unfortunate coincidence.
Cursing under his breath, he slammed his eyes closed. Viola tried to lean in for more, but he cupped her jaw with one hand and stopped her, one precious breath before her lips touched his again, shaking his head softly. His thumb sank into one of her cheeks and the rest of his fingers into the other, making sinkholes, while his other hand plunged into her hair at the crown, drawing a clump of her curls into a tight fist. Fiercely enough to make the roots strain against her scalp. She waited for him to tug her hair with all his might. To yank her head backward. Anything to get her lips farther away from his.
He drew her toward him instead, dove in, and spread his lips wide over hers again. She whimpered as they fell into a second kiss, the flavor of weed on his tongue suddenly replaced with the sharp pecan flavor of Jack Daniel’s. Was she tasting the whiskey on her own tongue, or his? Perhaps he’d been the one who’d left it open on the kitchen counter in the first place, and the flavor had lingered in his mouth long after he’d sampled it. Her stomach tightened as the kiss grew deep, both of her lips finding themselves trapped between his, over and over, with varying levels of intensity until he was nipping them with his teeth. Devouring her.
She moaned against his lips as he took the kiss, her hungry fingers running every rigid valley of his hard body as if it was the last time she’d ever get to touch it. It probably would be. The thought made a flash of regret tighten her skin like she’d already lost the kiss she was in the midst of. Already lost the strength of his hands as they caressed every inch of her body. Already lost him. It had been hard enough to lose him the first time. Now that he’d let her have his lips again, she wasn’t sure how she could go back. Especially when the weed and the whiskey both fell away, leaving nothing but his own natural, sweet flavor to light up her taste buds during the passionate kiss. His flavor was the most intoxicating of all.
“Goddamn it,” he hissed, breaking his lips away, using the hold he still had on her hair to pull her face away from his once more.
Viola stared up at him, gasping violently, nipples pressing so hard against her top she thought they might cut through like razor blades. Clit throbbing between her lips. Mouth swollen, throbbing for another taste of his.
Jon left her completely—untangling his fingers from her hair and releasing her jaw—and stood. He turned his back and stomped away. Even from a distance, she saw how badly his hands were shaking.
She was sure she’d never again know a pain like the one she felt right then. The pain of watching him walk away. Of not knowing if he was walking away for good, or just for now.
“It’s the not knowing. That’s what’ll drive you crazy. That’s what’ll rip your heart right out.”
The memory of his words made her shoot to her feet, standing on wobbling legs, her entire body shaking just as wildly as his. The fear soon took over, unsteady legs be damned, and she was running. Racing after him as quickly as her legs would move her.
&nbs
p; One touch on his broad shoulder from behind and he spun to face her, wrapped a big arm around her waist and pulled her body to his. His free hand found the front of her neck, and he wrapped his fingers around it. He didn’t squeeze, but she wouldn’t have stopped him even if he had.
She swallowed thickly, feeling her throat bobbing against his palm as the lump moved down between their skin.
He clenched his teeth. “Why?”
She swallowed heavily again, struggling to catch her breath, seeing the rapid rise and fall of her breasts from where they were smashed against his chest. She couldn’t answer. She couldn’t speak.
“Why did you pull me in? Why did you make me—Fuck…” He cringed into the distance. Unable to keep his frustrated eyes away for long, however, he looked back down at her, sucking in a sharp breath through his teeth, tightening his fingers around her neck and shaking her softly. “Why did you do this?”
Her trembling voice came softly. “Because I couldn’t… not do it.”
Their eyes danced, tangling together in the whisper of space between their faces. His eyebrows tightened as her answer sank in. An answer that, to most, would barely even qualify as comprehensible English. But Jon understood, drawing her in with a gasp, bringing her to her toes as their lips spread wide and met in another searing kiss. His lips fused to hers as he drew her in, sending one pang of pleasure after the other blazing through her body as he used his strength to squeeze her as close as he could, their flush bodies leaving no secret to that fact that his excitement was just as out of control as hers. She felt it pressing against her thigh through his pants. In each lash of his tongue deep inside her parted mouth. Against her neck, as he moved his kiss from her lips to her skin. She felt it in his moans as they warmed the crook of her neck, nipping and nuzzling the skin between her collarbone before hungrily returning to her mouth.
Refrain (Stereo Hearts Book 3) Page 18
