by Tara Leigh
Disgust and desire tangled beneath my skin, neither giving an inch.
I didn’t want to want Jolie Chapman. But I did. I still wanted her.
Maybe I’d never stopped.
Idiot.
Silence descended, thick with tension. I took a last pull from my beer, tossing the empty bottle in the recycling bin and grabbing another from the fridge. Everything we were leaving unsaid floated on the air, pressing on my chest like a lead vest. Backing up against a cabinet, I rested one booted foot on top of the other, then cleared my throat.
Jolie lifted the glass to her lips, exposing the smooth expanse of her neck as she tipped her head back, taking a long sip, then set it back on the counter, running the tip of her finger over the rounded base. Back and forth, back and forth. “I should go.”
Our eyes met, clashed. “I’m not stopping you.”
Her mouth tightened, her front teeth sinking in to her full lower lip. The sexy-as-fuck gesture made more so because she wasn’t trying to be. “What did your father say, when you confronted him with what you learned?”
“I haven’t spoken to my father since the day he was arrested.”
Surprise flashed across Jolie’s face. “And your mother?”
“We’re not exactly on good terms either.”
She gave me a long, searching look. “What happened to you, after . . . ?”
I didn’t rush to complete Jolie’s sentence. She could have meant any number of things. After I received her text. After my father’s sentencing. After her father’s funeral.
The only sound in the kitchen was the low hum of the refrigerator, but inside my head my thoughts were being shuffled and reshuffled like a deck of cards.
Jolie had abandoned me. I should want her to leave.
But I didn’t.
Jolie had ghosted me. I should want to turn my back on her.
But I didn’t.
Jolie had destroyed me. I should hate her. I thought I did hate her.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
So what the fuck did I want?
Not what. Who.
I wanted Jolie Fucking Chapman.
Then. And now.
They say only fools don’t learn from their mistakes.
I took a seat beside Jolie, the barstool squealing as I pulled it toward me, caging her thighs between mine.
Right now, I’d resign myself to wearing a dunce cap for the rest of my life if it meant spending it with the woman who had ruined me. Maybe she was the only one who could rescue me.
“When I got back to school, everyone knew who my father was, and what he’d done. Hell, my roommate’s family had their life savings wiped out by MC Partners. “
The color in Jolie’s cheeks rose as I rested my hands on her legs, my thumbs sweeping across her knees. She glanced down, staring at the movement and swallowing, the fluttering bob of her throat hitting me somewhere deep. “So you dropped out?”
“Yeah. For a while, I just holed up in our apartment, playing video games and making my way through the contents of my father’s liquor cabinet. Apparently one of the bottles I opened was a ten thousand dollar scotch that was supposed to be auctioned.”
She grimaced. “Oops.”
“You can say that. The Feds kicked us out, sent a team of people to watch us pack only the things that had absolutely no value to anyone but us. They wouldn’t even let me take any of my old sports trophies in case they were worth something.”
Empathy radiated from her expression. “That must have been tough.”
The last thing I wanted was Jolie feeling sorry for me. “Not compared to a funeral.”
Jolie took another sip, her hand trembling slightly as she waved me off. “Go on.”
“We drove to California in this old car—I don’t even know where my mom got the thing, but I didn’t think it would make it over the bridge, let alone clear across the country.”
“I guess it did?” At my nod, she asked another question. “Why California?”
I shrugged. “When I asked where we were going, she just said she would know when we got there. Personally, I think she figured we’d stop when the car broke down.”
“And she’s still out west?”
“As far as I know.” I frowned, thinking of the call I’d missed earlier. There had been so many missed calls over the years. Voicemails I’d deleted before playing, cards I’d thrown out before opening.
Jolie’s eyebrows lifted. “Why have you cut ties with her? I mean, did she have anything to do with—”
“No. My mother was just as much a victim of my father as everyone else. And if she believed that, we’d probably still be in contact. But as far as I know, she still thinks this is all one big misunderstanding.”
Jolie’s eyelids flew back, her thick fringe of lashes nearly reaching her brows. “Even after your dad pleaded guilty?”
“Even after that.” We both took a few heavy swallows, and I felt compelled to speak up again. “She loved being the wife of a Wall Street heavy hitter. I don’t think her mind can process that her entire life was just a big lie.”
For years, the only contact I’d had with her was by way of the monthly checks I sent her through my lawyer. “How about you? Are you still close with your stepmother? “
“We are.” Jolie drained the rest of her glass. “I should go.”
I reached for the wine bottle I’d left on the countertop to refill her glass. “You haven’t told me anything about you yet.”
Jolie looked at me warily. “Nothing to tell.”
“It’s been ten years, I’m pretty sure there’s something to tell.”
Her features tightened, preventing me from reading her expression. “Why have you come back to New York, Tripp? Why now?”
“The easy answer is that my accountant told me I needed to buy a place for tax purposes.”
She glanced around my apartment, one eyebrow lifting. “Nice place. What’s the hard answer?”
I took her glass and my beer and walked to the couch in the living room, sitting down on it for the first time. “Come here and I’ll tell you.”
Jolie swiveled slowly in her stool, narrowing her eyes at me as she rose. My mouth went dry as Jolie walked across the room as if she wasn’t certain whether she was walking into a lion’s den or a harmless reunion with an old friend.
I wasn’t sure either.
I put her glass down on the cocktail table and waited until she sat beside me. “This place is unfinished business, you know?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I do.”
Our eyes met and held. Understanding passed between us, born of a connection we shared only with each other. Families that were once friends. A union that had once been blessed. The next generation of Manhattan royalty. Prince and Princess of Park Avenue.
Until the entire tableau was ripped to shreds by the crimes of my father and the death of hers.
Blood that had turned bitter.
A future king and queen whose thrones had been toppled, their castles breached.
Slowly, I lifted a hand to push back a lock of hair that had curled beneath Jolie’s jaw. It slipped through my fingers like liquid sunshine.
My eyes traced the elegant angles of her face, a map I’d memorized long ago. If there had been an artistic bone in my body, I’d have had a museum’s worth of paintings and sculptures of her by now. Instead I had no release for the images that had plagued me for years. How many nights had I jerked awake, wondering if I’d forgotten the exact color of her eyes, the smooth span of her legs, the perfect slope of her pert nose? Now that Jolie was in front of me again, I couldn’t help but stare, my eyes devouring every inch of her like a starving man at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Jolie squirmed beneath my gaze, a flush breaking above the collar of her shirt and traveling up her neck, depositing patches on her cheeks and settling within the narrow rim of her ears. “You’re staring,” she whispered, pulling at an unadorned lobe.
I slid my palms up her legs, skimmed along her
ribs, my dick jerking as I grazed the swell of her breasts. “I know.”
“Tripp.” My name emerged as a strangled rasp from her swan-like throat, and I plunged my fingers through Jolie’s still wet hair and brought that gorgeous mouth of hers to mine. Our breaths merging as I kissed her like a man drowning to breathe.
Fuck. I wanted to gorge myself on her lips, her skin, her body. Her.
In the last decade, I’d had plenty of one-night-stands and short-term flings, but no one that ever made me want anything more. Not since I’d had everything with Jolie.
“This what you want, Jolie?” I asked, nibbling along her full lips, dropping shallow kisses between breaths. “Need to hear you say it.”
Even though I could barely believe I was saying it.
She trembled in my arms, making a sound in the back of her throat that wasn’t a word I recognized, except that it definitely wasn’t ‘no.’ But it wasn’t ‘yes’ either. “Tell me, Jolie,” I growled, wishing my damn conscience would shut the fuck up. “Tell me you’ve missed this. Tell me you want this as much as I do. Tell me you want me. Tell me you want us.”
19
Jolie
Listening to Tripp was like drinking orange juice with chapped lips. Every word was delicious. Every word stung. “Don’t,” I gasped, pushing at Tripp’s shoulders.
His expression was a mix of incredulous and frustrated. “Don’t what?”
“Act like the past ten years never happened. Like we’re still in my childhood bedroom, defiling another pillow.”
Tripp raked long fingers through his hair, tugging slightly on the ends as he shot me a bemused look. “I don’t know, I wouldn’t mind being back in that bed with you.”
Sex. He was only talking about sex. Of course. The buzzing in my veins filled my ears, but not loudly enough to drown out what Tripp was really saying. Nine years ago he’d thrown me away like yesterday’s news, but now that I was convenient with no pesky scandals exploding around us, he wanted to make use of his hard-on. Well, he could go to hell. My voice was firm as I glared. “That makes one of us,” I said, shooting to my feet—not a smart move. The effect of the wine had been amplified by the pheromones zig-zagging within my veins.
As I swayed on unsteady legs, Tripp’s hand reached for my wrist, his gentle pull enough to land me in his lap. My ribcage pressed against his broad chest, the hard plane of his abdomen nudging my hip. I opened my mouth to protest, but Tripp laid a finger on my lips, applying just enough pressure to keep me silent. “Shhh,” he hushed. There was a flash of pain in his eyes. Bright bursts of confusion and anger and lust. So much heat swirling inside that molten silver stare. Mirrors, reflecting the emotions trapped inside my heart.
It was my undoing.
He was my undoing.
Because, if I left now, would this be my last image of Tripp Montgomery?
Could I live with that? Did I want to?
If I only had tonight, how would I want it—us—to end?
I closed my eyes, knowing it was an invitation for him to kiss me. Thinking it would be less intimate than his stare.
I was wrong.
Our kiss an hour ago had been hard and fierce. A reclaiming.
Our kiss a minute ago had been tender and searching. An exploration.
This kiss was different. It was decimation.
Thrilling. Tender. Thorough. Intimate. Everything, all at once.
It had me melting against the body Tripp had grown into, goosebumps prickling my flesh as beads of arousal rose toward the surface of my skin like champagne bubbles, my blood a carbonated cocktail of lust and longing.
I hated how my body was responding to him—exactly as it did ten years ago. Like he held a key. The only key. And I was powerless to prevent his entry.
The delicious swirls of desire had also uncovered another emotion. A fierce anger that ran deep. Too deep to have dissipated with the passage of time. No, it had only been disguised. And now anger blended with lust, heating the blood in my veins to an uncomfortable temperature. I was a kettle of emotions that had bypassed the simmering stage and was in a full on boil.
The source of my anger was right in front of me.
He was also my release valve.
Tripp’s hands had slipped beneath my sweater, tracing the band of my jeans before rising up to cup my ribcage, his thumbs caressing the underside of my breasts with a feather-light touch. My nipples puckered, tenting the thin cashmere. Now it was me moaning, raspy little noises that sounded like a trapped kitten.
Because I was trapped. By everything inside my head, inside my heart. By want and lust and need.
I clawed at Tripp. My nails sinking into the skin at the base of his hairline and pulling downward, along his neck. He sucked in a quick breath, spine arching as he nibbled at my lower lip. I retaliated, biting his the second he let go. Harder.
Hoping I left a mark. A reminder, even a temporary one.
I shivered, and the friction unearthed a wave of hunger that threatened to consume me whole. With a sharp cry, I pulled away just far enough to grab the hem of my sweater and yank it over my head, tossing it in the direction of the front door. Then I reseated myself, straddling Tripp’s thighs and facing him.
I wasn’t leaving. Yet.
Our eyes locked for a moment before his gaze traveled south. I could feel the sharp sear of it along my cheekbones, lingering briefly on my lips, jumping off my collarbone to land on my breasts. “Fuck, Jolie,” he murmured roughly. “I didn’t think it was possible.”
I swallowed, desperate to feel his hands against my bare skin again. They rested on my thighs, burning through the denim. “What?”
He met my eyes again, his pupils round and dilated with desire, edged in silver. “That you’d ever be back in my arms.”
Tripp’s careless comment increased the intensity of the storm brewing inside me. How dare he bring up the past, when he was the one who’d thrown it away? I was here with the guy who had saved me from plunging to my death, not the guy who killed the naive, innocent girl I’d once been. “No more talking,” I whispered, reaching for Tripp’s hands and cupping them over my breasts.
Unaware of the reasons I wanted him to shut up, Tripp offered a lewd grin instead. His thumb and forefingers came together in a pinch, just enough to send a gasp ricocheting through my mouth. As I threw my head back in pleasure, he replaced one of his hands with his mouth, his tongue teasing me, marking me. “Yes,” I wheezed, arching my spine and pressing my breast into his mouth. He moved from one to the other until I was squirming, purring, panting.
Wrapping his arms around my back, Tripp stood and laid me out on the couch in one smooth movement, my body his to take. With his fingers curved around the band of my jeans, he paused to glance up at me. “Still yes?”
I gave a quick nod. Yes. Yes. Jesus, God, yes.
There was a pull as my button sprang free, then the whine of my zipper. I lifted my hips as Tripp freed my legs from the denim, my black lace thong remaining in place. “Legs for days,” I heard him mutter.
That snippet from our past was a sharp thorn, a painful prick in the most sensitive of places. Tears welled in my eyes as I recalled the first time Tripp had said it. We’d been in his off campus apartment, lying end-to-end on his couch, my feet in his hands. Damn it. Stop reminding me of who you really are. Let me leave with a memory that doesn’t make me miserable.
I cried out as the bittersweet image was replaced with the heat of his tongue swirling along my inner thigh, sending a thunderbolt of longing straight to my core.
Tripp’s hands eased my legs outward, his fingertips grazing the sensitive skin just behind my knees. Tenderly nibbling his way to my hip, then across my pubic bone and down my other thigh, he had me jerking upward, chasing the heat of his mouth, the skill of his tongue.
He was teasing me, and there was nothing I could do but wait him out. I will not beg. I will not. I groaned, not wanting to give in to him, to this. But damn if Tripp wasn’t unraveling ev
ery thread of my resistance and replacing it with submission. A sudden desire to surrender myself to him. “Please. There, please . . .”
Tripp’s breath skimmed my skin. He ran a finger along the fabric that had absorbed the proof of my desire. “Jolie, you are just about soaked through.”
Trembling with want, I bit down on my lips but another groan escaped as he pushed the lace into my crease, the friction sending waves of pleasure crashing into me, each one a little higher, a little harder. I was drowning and Tripp was my life raft.
“Not yet, babe,” he growled, pausing just long enough to pull my panties down, fingertips running down the length of my legs and then back up again after he tossed the bit of lace to the floor. His hungry gaze raked over me. Inside, not a single trace of the teenager I’d known. No, Tripp was definitely all man now.
Tripp’s head dipped again, this time to sink his teeth into my flesh. It wasn’t a painful bite, just enough to make me cry out. His chuckle rippled along the bare skin between my legs, not even a landing strip allowed given the skimpy bikinis that were a staple of my modeling wardrobe.
The ache at the very center of my being threatened to consume me, swallow up my sanity. Maybe it already had. Because this was insane. Being here with Tripp again, after all these years. Pretending he wasn’t really Tripp.
His mouth hovered over me, breathing me in. I was so wet, I could imagine what he was looking at, how my pink inner lips were already glistening in welcome, my clit all puffed up and eager for a reintroduction. Time stretched out, becoming thin and meaningless. Nothing mattered but this man, and what he was about to do to me with a mouth that still ravaged me in my dreams.
This was no dream, though. This was all too real.
My knees shook as I inched them further apart, a low whine climbing up the back of my throat and emerging as a gasp once his mouth finally made contact, his tongue dipping and swirling and seemingly everywhere at once. My eyes rolled back in my head, my inner muscles contracting around his fingers.
Caught in a whirlwind of sensation, my hands grabbed at the couch cushions. Desperate to hold on to something, anything. A shrill cry I only vaguely recognized as my own echoed within the high-ceilinged space as pleasure rippled through my body. Ground zero was the spot that Tripp was lashing with his tongue, but the shimmery whispers raced along nerve endings, crawling up my spine and setting my brain on fire. My entire body trembled as an orgasm rushed through me, stealing my breath. I rocked my hips against Tripp’s face, coasting on a carpet of pure bliss as fireworks rained down on me. The frenzy subsided gradually, leaving me shuddering from the aftershocks.
