Rush

by Gina Gordon

  “Everly, what are you doing?”

  “Giving you something I haven’t done nearly as often as I should have.”

  She fidgeted with the buckle of my belt, and I loved the feel of her tiny hands on my pelvis and her breasts pressed against my thighs.

  She looked into my eyes just as her tongue ran along her bottom lip, and my dick twitched. Fuck. I hesitated, only for a moment, because I knew exactly how good her lips felt around my cock, but I shook it off.

  “Stop.” I grabbed her hand, but she continued to battle with my belt. “Please stop.”

  She sank back and rested her bottom on her heels. “I don’t understand.” Her hands came up and she hid her face in them. Mumbling around her fingers, she said, “You don’t think I’m sexy.” She hiccupped. “You think I can’t please you.”

  “What are you talking about?” I pulled her hands away. Tears gathered around her eyes and I wiped them away. “I still want you. More than I’ve wanted any other woman.”

  “Then why won’t you let me give you what you want? This is what you want, isn’t it?”

  And with only a few words, my heart sank to my stomach. The one woman in the world I thought was different, the one woman who I’d thought had seen past the character, hadn’t seen anything at all.

  “Do you think if I was that guy I would have made love to you in missionary position? Do you think I would have used a condom?”

  Maybe it didn’t matter that I didn’t have Levin blood running through my veins. Nurture had obviously worked its magic on me. I had taken on the role so well.

  For the last four days I’d questioned my existence, my role as a man and a son. But Everly was proving that I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t walk away. I couldn’t start over. I would always be that guy. The guy who exploited women. The guy who sold human flesh like it was beef. The guy who saw women as nothing more than an outlet for my sexual desires.

  With my heart shattered, I checked out. If Everly Parker, the nice girl who actually took the time to get to know me thought I was that guy, then who was I kidding? No one would ever think differently.

  I might as well give her what she wanted.

  I got up and stood in front of the chest at the end of the bed. “Get on your knees.”

  She let out a quick gasp. Was she expecting me to stop her? Tell her I wasn’t that guy? After all this time, if she couldn’t figure that out on her own, then what was the point?

  “I’m ready. Give me what I want.” I had no idea how I was maintaining a hard-on, but it was there.

  Happiness had reached her eyes again. She stared at my crotch as she crawled over. Was she working out how she was going to do it? How she was going to please me. We might as well throw her plans out the window, because I was calling the shots. I’d control the suction of her mouth, the strength of her jerks, and the timing of her licks.

  Because that’s what porn guys did.

  When she was close enough, I reached down and pulled her breasts out from the cups of her bra. I pinched a nipple and she squeaked.

  “Take out my cock.”

  She was into this. For now. She finished what she’d started with my pants and let them fall to the floor, pooling around my ankles.

  My cock bobbed against my stomach when she licked her lips. I guess the mind had the ability to tune out the sadness, because my cock was good to go. My brain, on the other hand, was waging war with my heart and conscience.

  I grabbed her hair and she gasped.

  I did everything I could think of that would give her the porn experience she’d been expecting. I made her stick out her tongue and slapped my cock against it. I thrust it inside her mouth and pulled it out to the side, slapped it against her cheeks, her breasts. All of it. Then, what porn blow job wouldn’t be complete without some deep throating.

  “Open.”

  I let my shaft slide against her tongue as I made my way inside. I didn’t shove it all the way in. Not at first. I took my time, moving in and out slowly, taking more of her mouth each time. But with every thrust inside her mouth, my heart broke a little more.

  I pulled her hair, urging her to take more of my dick. “That’s it. Take it all.”

  She made that gagging noise. That noise that some guys blew their loads over.

  I eased my grip and let her pull away, gasping for air while spit rolled down her chin.

  “Is this what you wanted to give me?” I pulled her closer and bent down, using my other hand to grab her chin and keep her face in line with mine. A single tear fell from her eye. “Is this what you think I want?”

  With Everly, I had something real. Or so I’d thought. This scene that she’d wanted to play out was exactly the opposite. It was synonymous with fake sex. With the fantasies and that had nothing to do with reality.

  “I don’t want to do this anymore.” She wiped at her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs, hovering against the cedar chest at the end of her bed.

  “Not like it is in the movies, is it?” Despite some of our lines embracing the romantic, it still wasn’t real.

  “Why are you being like this?” She choked out her words.

  “Isn’t this who you expected to please tonight? Max Levin—porn aficionado.”

  She shook her head, tears streaming down her face. I hated myself. Hated everything I was doing right now.

  “I…” Her words came out like a tiny squeak. “I just wanted to please you.”

  “I was already pleased.” My voice was stern and louder than I would have liked. “Why would you think otherwise?”

  I didn’t get it. I just didn’t understand why she thought she had to go to these extremes just to please me.

  She scoffed. “How could someone like me ever satisfy someone like you?”

  “Someone like me.” I was curious. “Who exactly am I?”

  More tears streamed down her face. “Experienced. Confident. Not naive.”

  “I’d say you’ve gotten some experience under your belt.”

  “In what world would any of that ever happen again for me?”

  I had guided her into doing things she’d never experienced. While the most fun events were sexual in nature, it wasn’t all about that.

  “Did you like them?”

  “Yes.” She answered without hesitation. “Of course, but they were one-time things. The list is almost done.”

  “Who says you can’t have them again?”

  She slammed her fists on the ground on either side of her. “You think it’s so easy to take whatever you want. Not all of us have trust funds.”

  I rushed forward, dropping to my knees and enveloping her in my arms. There was so much more I wanted to say, but I knew this conversation could only lead to one place. The place where I walk out that door and never look back. There was no sense in making her believe my reasons. She had painted me with the porn brush, and who was I to try and change her mind?

  “So that’s it. We just go back to our old lives and pretend like this never happened?” I didn’t know if I could do that. “Is that what you want? To go back to a life where everything you do is because someone else wants you to do it?”

  Anger darkened her face. Her lips curved, and not into the sexy smile I had seen a hundred times. She sneered at me. “How dare you? You don’t know anything—”

  “I know everything.” I had promised I wouldn’t pry, but if learning the truth about my past taught me anything, it was be true to yourself. “I know you hate law school and you don’t want to be a lawyer. You don’t have to say it; I can see it in your eyes.”

  When I tried to turn her face to look at me, she fought me. “I think you should leave now.” She wasn’t going to listen, and I was done trying to make her.

  She was right. The conversation was going nowhere. There was nothing left to say, but I had made a promise to finish that damn list and I wasn’t leaving here without telling her one more item was complete.

  “You should know something befor
e I leave.”

  I pulled up my pants, grabbed my copy of the list from my wallet, and headed for her desk. With a thick, black marker, I scratched out the last item I was ever going to help her with.

  I let the paper fall to the floor beside her, and when her eyes focused on it, more tears streamed down her face.

  “Looks like I was able to help you out with one more item.”

  I had hoped some other schmuck would bear the brunt of it. I’d had no intention of letting her anywhere near it, but I had just been kidding myself, because Everly Parker had just broken my heart.

  Chapter 30

  Everly

  It’s been two weeks since Max left me sobbing in my room. As I stare at the bucket list—the copy that had “break someone’s heart” crossed off in thick black marker, I realize nothing has changed. I’m still sobbing. Still unable to concentrate. The fact that I have an exam in two hours isn’t helping my stress level.

  When I had agreed to let Max help me with the bucket list, I’d never anticipated this feeling of loss. It was like someone died and had taken a piece of me with them. For the second time in just a few months, I was battling grief.

  I thought Max would help me with the list, maybe eventually screw me, and then he’d be on his way. No harm, no foul. But he stuck—like he’d been superglued to my psyche, and I have no idea how I’m going to dissolve him. Maybe douse myself in rubbing alcohol?

  I had crossed off all but three items on the list. I owed so many people an apology that it shouldn’t be hard to cross that one off. As for failing at something, well, I was doing that right now. Completing this list, for one, and in a couple hours, I could add my exam. For the last item, I had no idea how my grandmother expected me to change someone’s life in such a short period of time.

  I’d had the time of my life. It wasn’t because I was close to graduating. It wasn’t because I was more interested in the law and starting my career. It was because Max swooped in, spun me around ten times, and turned my life upside down.

  But I didn’t have time to think about that today. I showered and grabbed my bag. I didn’t even bother bringing my textbooks. If I didn’t know it by now, it was too late.

  I walked across campus from the east parking lot, toward the building where my exam was being held.

  Campus was less busy now that final exams were under way, but the tension was higher. More people bumped into each other because they weren’t paying attention. More people sipped on Red Bull and coffee. I even saw a girl sucking on a protein tube runners used during marathons. People didn’t have time to eat. I used to be like that. I used to survive on bananas, Twizzlers, and Mountain Dew.

  But as I walked farther into campus, I realized my tension was gone. That constant tick in my head—the one that compartmentalized every aspect of my life—told me when to change activities, when to sleep, when to eat. Funny how it never told me to have fun. To relax. Not until Max had shown up.

  I wasn’t nervous for my exam. Nor was I prepared. It was just a thing I needed to do.

  Just before I walked up the steps to the front of the building, I heard my name. I turned and found my mother standing at the side of it, waving her hand in the air, trying to get my attention.

  I rushed over. My anxiety level that had recently flat-lined was suddenly resuscitated. “What are you doing here?” I pulled her off to the side, out of sight. I didn’t want to be the girl who needed her mommy for support in order to take her exams. I was already younger than everyone else, I didn’t need to highlight it.

  “I came to wish you well,” she said.

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “You mean you came to check up on me.”

  My mother sighed. “This is your last exam of your last year. This will make or break you.”

  Everything, according to Regina Parker, was going to make or break me.

  “I am fully aware of that, Mother.”

  “Are you sure? You look…” She reached out and pulled on a piece of my frizzed-out hair. I hadn’t bothered to dry it before I’d left the house. “…positively haggard.”

  Like that mattered. Like my hair was going to pass this exam for me.

  “Did you remember to review the case law I mentioned? Those principles will come in handy when trying to…” Her words trailed off.

  Shit! I hadn’t bothered to look at that case study. I had completely forgotten. Probably because she had mentioned it while I was running around like an idiot with Max.

  She frowned. “You didn’t look at the case study.”

  I shook my head.

  “What is going on with you? You have no focus.” She tapped her foot on the ground. “This is about that damn list. Leave it to your grandmother to cause trouble even from the grave.”

  I hated when anyone talked shit about my grandmother, especially my mother. They were just completely different people. I had no idea how Gram had raised such a cold, anal-retentive overachiever. Oh, God. That’s exactly what I had become, or what I was on my way to becoming.

  “She wasn’t a troublemaker. She just didn’t agree with you—and you hate that, don’t you?” I crossed my arms over my chest. It wasn’t often I was combative with my mother. I was never combative.

  “I’m just glad you didn’t get her lack of direction.” For the second time, she gave me a once-over. “Although today it would seem otherwise.”

  “I’m burnt-out. I’ve been going hard with school since I was…eight years old.”

  I thought back on my life. On all of the birthday parties I’d missed. On all the holidays I’d spent with my nose in a book instead of on vacation. Of all the times I’d had to tell my best friend, No, I’m sorry, I can’t come with you to the movies because I have to study. It was pathetic. I was pathetic for letting it happen.

  “This is about that boy. He’s made you lose sight of what’s important.”

  She did not just bring Max into the situation.

  I took a minute and surveyed the woman in front of me. Time had weathered her features and improved her clothing choices, but it hadn’t softened her demeanor. It hadn’t opened her eyes to the possibility that there was more to life than work. And even though she had a family, she wasn’t a part of it.

  I snorted. “On the contrary, I think he’s opened my eyes to what’s important.”

  “He doesn’t belong in your world, and you don’t belong in his. Don’t tell me you didn’t realize it at the firm party.”

  “You don’t know anything about his world.” I hadn’t known anything about it either. Until I opened my eyes and let him in, let in the possibility of something different.

  “That may be…but you can’t tell me it doesn’t bother you he’s around women all day long. Women who wouldn’t have a problem doing whatever he asked, girlfriend or not.”

  With a sad sigh, I said, “I’m not his girlfriend.”

  I wasn’t going to tell her it was over or that the list had practically been completed. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of saying “I told you so.”

  “All the more reason to let this go. You don’t have to invest any more time on this list—or with that boy.”

  I fisted my hands at my side. “His name is Max.”

  “No matter.” She huddled me closer and we walked toward the entrance to the building. “You are going to go into that building and ace that exam. We are going to make you one of the brightest lawyers in the city. It’s only a matter of time before your cases are the ones students are using to pass their exams.”

  We. Which meant if I wanted to be a lawyer, I was going to have to put up with my mother being involved, just like this, for the rest of my life.

  I didn’t want this. Max was right. So was Grace, although she’d never come out and said it. I couldn’t stand to spend the rest of my life doing something I hated and never being good enough. Law school didn’t define me. It didn’t make or break my life. Ultimately, only I could do that.

  There was only one cho
ice. Only one decision that would ensure the smile I so rarely used flourished and the tense, anxiety ball was obliterated once and for all.

  “Goodbye, Mother.”

  I turned and walked toward the parking lot, away from my future. Away from the life I had envisioned for myself, but never truly wanted.

  Yet the more steps I took way from my future, the more terror seized my insides.

  What the hell are you doing? What are you going to do now? You have no job. You have no degree. You have…nothing.

  This one decision will change the course of my future. This one decision…

  Well, shit.

  I stopped, plunking my bag on the nearest bench. I rooted through my things, finally finding what I was looking for.

  I pulled out the bucket list and stared at the last item.

  Change someone’s life.

  I laughed. And laughed some more. That damn woman was always right. She was always showing me the way, and it wasn’t until she died that I finally found the courage to follow her instructions.

  The girl sitting on the opposite side of the bench looked at me like I was nuts. And maybe I was.

  My decision to skip my exam, essentially flunking out of law school, had changed my life.

  Spending time with Max had not only opened my eyes to a new way of living, but he’d also temporarily filled a hole in my life I didn’t even know was empty. But now, with him gone, it was apparent that something was missing. And even if Max wasn’t the permanent filler, I needed to move on, to find something or someone that would work that same magic, and ensure my happiness.

  I glanced at my watch. If I broke the speed limits, I might be able to make the running clinic. I needed to prove I could do something other than be smart.

  I looked up to the soft, blue sky. Wishing I could see my grandmother’s face one more time, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen.

  I took in a cleansing breath. It was all I needed to keep walking. Toward a new life. Toward my new future. Whatever that may be.

  Chapter 31

  Max

  For the last two weeks, I had tried. I put everything else out of my mind and went full steam ahead with White Lace business.