by Lindsey Hart
“And you are…”
No, I mean, I wanted to go to college. My parents didn’t have a lot of money and I didn’t have any saved up. I stayed and worked on the farm after I graduated. I took my journal and revised it into a work that I tried to publish as fiction. I felt like it was just that, because I felt like a fraud. My methods for coping didn’t always work. Sometimes nothing helped. Life isn’t black or white, pain or roses. It’s a mess, all over the place. It seemed like all the answers were there in the book, but that’s not the truth of who I really am. Eventually, after years of rejection, there was a publisher who wanted to publish it under the self-help category. I was twenty-four. I desperately wanted off the farm and away from that small town. I took his advice and the book took off. I did two more books in the following three years. I still didn’t move away. A year later the publishing company had the idea for this tour and I was for it. I wanted to see the country, and I thought this would be the best way. Six months later, here we are. So now you know, that I’m a fake. I’m a fraud.
“No,” Effie protested firmly. “That’s not true. You’re not a fraud. You shouldn’t have to bear your entire soul to the world. What you wrote was true.” She couldn’t bear to tell him she’d once accused the work of being fake. She’d told Cora she thought that, and she wished, more than anything, that she could take those words back.
It’s not because it’s not true. It’s because it isn’t the whole story. And all that shit about helping myself, having answers, methods to cope and deal with pain and grief and sorrow, the bullying, the memories, the hard shit… I can’t even help myself.
“Everyone gets down sometimes. You don’t have to be so hard on yourself. You really have helped people in your books. Your methods, even if they don’t always work, have helped others. You’ve seen the auditoriums, filled with people who have bought your books. It changed those people. It helped them. Even you having the courage to share your pain and your story makes people feel like they’re less alone.”
This from someone who hasn’t even read the books.
Jordan’s eyes were cold and steely, hard and angry. Effie saw defeat there. The last thing she wanted him to do was give up.
Sometimes I think what everyone said was true. That I am a freak. That I’ll never be anything at all. People knew I was adopted. They used to taunt me by saying that no one wanted me. My own mother didn’t want me because who would want someone so fucking damaged?
“Jordan!” Effie shut her eyes, not able to bear seeing what he was signing any longer. She didn’t doubt what he was telling her was true, but it cut her. Cut her deep, into the fleshy part of her heart. The blood welled up and spilled over. She felt the slow trickle leaching into her chest. Sorrow filled up her throat, so that speech was almost impossible. Even so, she pushed out her next words. She opened her eyes and looked Jordan right in the face when she said it. “I want you, Jordan. You are not a freak. You are not damaged. Your mom obviously had some issues before you were even born. She probably gave you up because she did love you and she knew she couldn’t take care of you. She wanted you to have a home where people would love you and be able to give you all the things you needed. You have no idea how incredible you truly are. You got yourself through an entire childhood of bullying. You got yourself through the roughest years of your life. You found a way, a way that has helped millions of people, whether you believe it or not. You had the courage to publish your experiences for the entire world to see. You get up on that stage every single time and you bear your soul and you do it with so much passion. Just because you’re going through a hard time right now, just because you feel things so deeply, real emotion, like a person should, doesn’t make you a fraud or a liar. Life isn’t just about developing one method of coping and hoping that it works forever. I know what you meant when you said it isn’t black and white that way. You’re not done. You’re not done feeling and you’re not done coping and you shouldn’t beat yourself up about that because it’s natural to feel that way.”
Is it natural to feel like I shouldn’t be here? That all of my fame and money is meaningless? I feel aimless. Completely without direction.
“Don’t all people feel that way? You’re still young…”
You’ve known me for what? A couple weeks? You don’t know the first thing about me. You can’t tell me that you want me.
“Why not?” Effie asked desperately, the raw edge of anger bleeding into her tone. “If that’s true, then you can’t tell me how to feel either since you don’t know me. I looked you up ahead of time, as soon as I even heard about the job opening. I just saw your headshot online, but ever since that day, I’ve just felt so weird. I’ve always said I don’t believe in fate or destiny or any of it, but I’ve just felt like I would get the job like I was meant to be near you. I tried not to be because it creeped me out, how drawn to you I was. I told Cora that I didn’t find you attractive. I didn’t read your books. I didn’t want to know you, because I was afraid of what would happen if I did. And now that it has… I do want you.”
That isn’t possible… not truly.
“Oh really? You tell me this isn’t possible. Tell me you didn’t feel anything when I kissed you. Tell me my tears weren’t real just now. Tell me that you don’t feel anything now.”
Effie leaned forward, her hands clutching Jordan’s face firmly, so he couldn’t turn away. She crushed her lips to his, covering his mouth, licking and nipping his lower lip until his hand tangled in her hair and his lips parted for her. Their teeth crashed together in their eagerness until she adjusted, pulling back just a little. She caressed him with her tongue, tasted his beautiful lips, the raw passion he tried so hard to deny and the salty tang of sorrow. She thrust her tongue into his mouth, encouraging his, stroking it, tasting it.
Heat spooled low and raw in her belly and flooded her limbs. Her entire body felt so heavy and languid and achy she could hardly stand it. Her stomach clenched and fluttered wildly and lower, a heady heaviness pooled at the juncture of her thighs.
She didn’t know anything at the moment, but she knew this was right. Her hands fell from Jordan’s face as she kissed him, fell to his shirt collar, where she deftly undid the buttons. Her fingers skimmed lower after, tracing the hard outline of his chest, savoring the rigid muscle below the thin cotton.
He shivered violently, the shudder wracking his frame and echoing up her hands, up her arms, turning into a passionate shiver of her own. She embraced it, deepening the kiss while her hands skimmed lower, finding the hem of his shirt. She lifted it, traced a pattern with her palms on his warm, smooth skin. She’d wanted to touch him so badly the night before. She’d wanted, more than anything in the world, to know what his skin felt like, how smooth and warm he was, if that smattering of dark hair over his pecs and around his navel, trailing lower, was crisp or soft.
She ripped her mouth away from Jordan’s breathing like she’d just run a marathon, her burning lungs struggling for air. She ripped his shirt off hungrily, astonished at the force of her own need.
It was clear he wanted her as well. No matter what he said, no matter how hard he tried to deny it. Maybe he was even right that it didn’t fully make sense to feel the way they did after so short a time. It didn’t matter.
It was just them, just their aching hearts and the passion spiraling out of control. Their want and their need and their hearts, two hearts who had been alone for a very long time, waiting for each other, waiting for just that moment.
CHAPTER 15
Jordan
He’d always known that under all the layers, the fancy words in his books and talks, that he was weak. So very weak.
This isn’t right. He knew it, but he couldn’t make himself stop. They’d probably both regret it after, but the fire in his veins spread to his brain, drowning out common sense and better judgment.
His hands, the hands he used for expression and communication, his lifeline to the world of speech, reached out. His knuckles br
ushed Effie’s warm cheek. He couldn’t deny the fire in his heart any more than he could deny the flames of passion dancing in her eyes.
He loved the way her skin felt against his. Loved the electric shock that raced up his hand, his arm, his shoulder. It flooded his chest and created a heavy sensation in his groin. He felt the touch and that kiss… god, that kiss… all the way to his toes.
Nothing about this was easy or simple. Effie closed her eyes and leaned in, claiming his lips once again and his whole world exploded, shattered into black fragments that burst all around him. His hands fell to her clothes, stripping them away as she undressed him.
They never stopped kissing, sipping at each other’s mouths, tasting, devouring. He’d never been kissed like that and he’d never kissed anyone the way he was doing. He loved the feel of her under his mouth, under his hands and he craved more.
Their mouths broke away only to rip away the last shreds of their clothing. He took a step back, wanting to look at Effie, to take in every single detail of her glorious womanly body, but she shyly pulled him back to her, wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his face back to hers.
He ate at her mouth, thrust his tongue inside. She moaned and whimpered, arching against him, thrusting and grinding her pelvis shamelessly into his leg. His thigh grew wet with the sultry droplets of her arousal. He could smell her, her amazing scent. It went straight to his groin. His cock pounded violently. He longed to just reach into the drawer of his night table, rip out a condom, slip it on and slam home.
You idiot. That is not what this is about.
She’d just poured her heart out to him. Surely, he could show some restraint… or so he thought until she ground wickedly against his thigh again.
His world went black. He broke away from her mouth and dropped his head, trailing kisses down the fiery, fine bone china column of her throat. He nipped at her collarbones, lapped at the salty beauty of her delicate, so soft skin.
He cupped her breast in his hand. It was small, but that had always been a turn on for him.
No, not small. Just right. Her pink nipples were already erect and straining before he even claimed one with his mouth. Effie went wild, her gentle moans and needy pleas escalating.
He ran his tongue over the perfect little bud, creating a shower of sparks that burst inside both of them. He was so hard it fucking hard.
He wasn’t going to be able to hold out. He dropped his head further, tasting the skin of her flat belly, running his hands over the gentle swell of her hips to her ass. He kneaded his fingers gently into her perfect behind. She gasped, parting her legs on instinct. His mouth fell lower, to the juncture of her thighs. She was hairless there and utterly perfect.
Her hands threaded through his hair and a sound like a strangled sob was torn from her closed up throat. He swirled his tongue over her sex, lapping at the droplets of her arousal. He tasted every single part of her before he flicked his tongue over her clit. She mewled and bucked against him in remorseless, shameless pleasure.
“God, Jordan,” Effie panted. “I want this so badly.” Her hands moved his face away and he rose slowly, aware that she was on the brink. The sky-blue iris of her eye was nearly consumed by her pupil. She looked drunk, her face hazy with passion. She blinked once. Twice. A third time.
He finally realized she was waiting for him, that she was suddenly shy after what he’d just done.
He reacted purely on instinct, on the drive he felt to be inside of her. He went to the night table, ripped open the drawer, grabbed a condom. The rip of the wrapper punctuated the stillness of the room. He slid it onto himself and stood waiting, waiting for her to say no. Giving her one last chance to back out.
When he finally found the courage to meet her gaze he saw only heat and passion, sparks and flames. She was as eaten up as he was. Blood sang through his veins, setting him on fire, making him come alive and awake for the first time in his life.
This is it. There will never be another like her.
It was so wrong to be there with her, naked, filled with the wild heat of his need, his heart pounding out of his chest, but it felt right. At that moment, it was so utterly right it canceled out Jordan’s reservations and the regret he knew they’d both feel come morning.
God, it would kill him to tell her that it could only happen once. He couldn’t risk his job, the tour, her job, both their reputations. That meant more to him than anything. What people thought of her. She’d been right to pull away that night he’d first tried to kiss her. She’d been absolutely one hundred percent right.
It had been a very long time since he’d trusted himself completely. At that moment, he did. He felt that strange thread that had always bound them together, sewing them into one another.
Regret is the wrong word. This is going to shatter me.
He needed it. Needed her. Needed the memory of her perfect body, her sweet sounds, the rasp of her breath and the honeyed taste of her arousal sweet on his tongue. He needed to know her, to lose himself in her, to surrender and let down his guard.
When she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, tugging his face down for another kiss, he didn’t deny her. It wasn’t, he realized, that he didn’t have the strength to say no. Rather, he didn’t want to, and it killed him.
It killed him because he knew come morning, she was going to hurt. She fancied that she felt something for him, but that man didn’t exist. That man was a product of words and imagination and fanciful thinking. The real Jordan Wall was just a shell and how could anyone love a shell?
CHAPTER 16
Effie
The silence of the room was punctuated only by their raspy breaths when she tore her mouth from Jordan’s. She sensed his strange hesitance, his reluctance and she thought she knew what it was. It wasn’t shyness or uncertainty about her. It was about him. Always, about him.
She would teach him. She would show him what it meant to mean something to another person. To give himself and take all of her. She would reach him, fill all the empty, aching spots of his lonely soul. She’d wrap herself around him like a healing balm. She was so sure she could make the holes inside of him better, she never even considered that some wounds took a lifetime to heal.
I need to stop thinking. We both need to stop thinking and just feel.
She pulled his face to hers. “Please stay with me. Stay with me here and now.”
She crushed her mouth over his lips, tasting him, reveling in everything that was Jordan. He was magnificent from the broad sweep of his shoulders to his chiseled chest, from his narrow waist right down to the muscular ridges of his arms and legs. He was all man, handsome and glorious and raw. It started a shiver inside of her that refused to be sated. A heady weight settled in her stomach and never left. Her thighs ached, and she trembled with need.
When Jordan steered her towards the bed, she went willingly. She expected him to start with something sweet, cover her body with his. Any position would have felt scorchingly sinful at that point, she was so filled with the raw ache for his body. She was surprised when he eased her down, his hands at her waist, guiding her onto the bed.
She sat then her back hit the covers. She was about to pull herself all the way onto the bed and turn, but Jordan stopped her. His hands locked on her hips and refused to release her.
Like this? Half off the bed?
She searched his face, suddenly shy again as his hands roved over her belly, downwards, to her thighs. He nudged her legs gently apart, baring her to him in the most intimate way. The frank appreciation in his eyes, the flow of his own feral masculine hunger, sent flames racing up and down her body. Effie became a mass of nerve endings and cells, of hard, hot want.
His hands moved, fitting themselves under her hips and bottom. He lifted her easily and as he stepped between her thighs, she lifted her legs and wrapped them around Jordan’s chiseled hips.
She felt the heat of his cock, sliding through her slick, swollen sex until he found her entrance
. He hesitated for only a second before he parted her, slipping easily inside. She gasped at the fullness of him. She knew he was big, knew that the pleasure would be almost instant when he finally did enter her.
She just never knew how good it would be. She couldn’t, because she’d never experienced anything like it in her life. She’d been with guys before, but sex was just sex. It was never anything more than the need to fill a physical void. This was so very different. Her heart overflowed, all that passion bleeding into the physical want of her body, combing for the sensual experience of a lifetime.
He moved, throbbing inside of her. She could have died. She was dimly aware that she’d begun to tremble. The shake started small, but soon ripped through her limbs. Her toes went numb and that icy chill crept up her legs. The scent of Jordan above her was rich, deep, masculine, as she breathed in, forcing air into her burning lungs.
He moved again, pulling out almost all the way before filling her again. He was so big that it hurt. She would be sore after. Deliciously sore, and she looked forward to it in a way she hadn’t looked forward to anything before.
His thrusts changed after a minute, growing hurried, deeper, hitting spots she didn’t even know she had. It was raw and elemental, the smells, the sounds of their bodies joining, their raspy breathing.
