Reasons to Leave (Reasons #1)

by Lisa J. Hobman

  Stepping back, she pulled him with her and they lay together caressing each other and placing feather light kisses wherever they touched. Her fingers caressed him gently where the purple hue of bruising scarred him temporarily. He touched her cheek and kissed her forehead tenderly without speaking. Carefully, she pushed him onto his back and straddled his torso, staring down at his toned, muscular chest and thinking to herself that even bruised and battered she had never seen such an erotic, breath-taking sight as Jason’s body and his lust filled gaze staring back at her.

  She bent to kiss the bruises at his side, his chest, his neck, and then his mouth, where she lingered cautiously for fear of hurting the cuts that were only just beginning to heal, running her hands through his shaggy hair. Her tongue explored his mouth, teasing and tasting as it moved and eliciting a deep moan from within him. He didn’t seem to care about his cut lip as he kissed her back with increasing fervour.

  She broke the kiss, reached over to her nightstand, and opened the top drawer. She was sure she still had protection hidden in there but was beginning to think she was wrong when her fingers eventually touched the edges of a small box. Finding what she needed, she silently opened the packet, moving back slightly so that she could cover Jason’s arousal. He hissed air in through his teeth as she touched him, and he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he pulled her face down to his, once again ignoring the wounds he carried, and took her mouth in a hungry kiss that set her skin on fire, one hand in her hair and the other squeezing her bottom and hip as if he couldn’t get her close enough.

  Manoeuvring herself so she could take him in, she did so, slowly and without taking her eyes away from his. He smoothed his hands up her thighs to her hips and continued up until he cupped her breasts, kneading them and toying with the pink buds that were already peaked. As she moved on him, she relished the feeling of being connected so intimately to, and filled by, the man she had always adored. He closed his eyes as she placed her hands over his and slid her hands down toward his shoulders where she gripped him as she began her ascent to ecstasy. She tried to focus on locking her eyes on his, wanting him to see her and wanting to see him too as they made love, but the pleasure coursing through her body made it difficult.

  She leaned into him, and he pulled himself up so that he was sitting, to meet her in another needy, urgent kiss, their breathing a mirror of each other’s desire as they climbed and soared skyward together. Their bodies, now slick with sweat, slipped over each other, and she glanced down to where they were joined, watching in awe and thinking how amazing they looked connected in this way. Jason reached down between their bodies and massaged her tender spot making her cry out as she moved on him, taking him deeper.

  As she climaxed and clenched around him, Jason followed close behind. They clung to each other desperately, mumbling heartfelt words of love and adoration. She held him and he enveloped her in his arms. She could feel his heart pounding against her body as he held her close. She stayed in his arms with him still buried inside her until they calmed, floating back to earth and sharing tender kisses and touches.

  ****

  Jason lay there with Stevie curled into him as she traced his tattoos again. They seemed to fascinate her and it made him smile.

  He inhaled deeply and kissed her head. “Thank you.”

  She propped herself up on one elbow looking down at him. “For what?”

  “Taking my mind off all the crap in my life. It felt good to concentrate on you and me for a while.”

  She kissed his shoulder. “It was a purely selfish act.” She grinned and blushed.

  He pulled his brows into a frown. “How so?”

  “Because you’re really good in the sack, Mr. Reynolds. I mean really good.” Her mischievous smile was contagious, and he couldn’t help returning it with a wide one of his own.

  “Oh really? Well that’s good to know. Maybe you’d like to write me a reference.”

  She pretended to think, looking to the ceiling and tapping her chin. “Hmmm, we could build you a website and offer your services out. I could write a testimonial.”

  He chuckled. “Oh yeah? Thanks, but a career change into becoming a male escort is one I think I’ll pass on… I think I’ll stick to running my camp.” He turned slightly, cringing at the pain as he moved. “Seriously though…thank you.” He touched her cheek with deep tenderness. “When I’m with you…when we…make love…it’s…there’s this connection… I know I’ve said it before, but it’s the truth. It’s like the rest of the world ceases to exist whilst we’re joined to each other in that way.” Heat rose in his cheeks, and he rolled his eyes, covering his face for a second. “God that sounds so bloody corny and a bit too deep for me.” Embarrassment curled around his gut as he watched for her reaction hoping she didn’t laugh.

  She shook her head. Her face was completely serious. “No…it’s not corny, Jason. I feel it too.” Her voice was just above a whisper as if it pained her to admit it.

  “When you were with Miles…was it ever this good?” He cringed as soon as the words had left his mouth. “Shit, I’m sorry, that’s none of my business. Scrap that question. Forget I asked.” He closed his eyes, wishing he could take the question back.

  “Jason, look at me.” He opened his eyes again cautiously and hers were locked on his now with such clarity.

  “Nothing has ever been as good as this. No one has ever made me feel the way you do. I’ve never experienced pleasure like that with anyone else. Only you.”

  Deep sadness reflected in her eyes back at him. “You don’t sound too happy about it.”

  She turned her face away from him. “That’s because I’m not. If it was just sex I’d know that I’d be able to walk away with my heart intact…well, what’s left of it anyway, but now I somehow doubt that I will.”

  Feeling encouraged by her admission, he cupped her cheek. “Then don’t walk away, Stevie. I want you. And I get the feeling you want me too. We’d be so good together. We always were. Can’t we just see where this goes? There’s so much history between us, and I feel like we could do this together. I mean…it’d be difficult admittedly, but I think—” He was on the verge of begging but stopped in the nick of time, biting his tongue.

  She reached up and touched the bruising under his eye with her fingertips. “Please…can we not talk about this now? Can we just be together? We know where things will go if we set foot on that road again and…I can’t…not now.”

  Jason nodded reluctantly again. He sat awkwardly holding his side and wincing. “Okay. Look it’s late…I should get a cab—”

  “Just stay. It’s silly to leave now. And you were comfy. I’ll cook breakfast for you later, and you never know, Dillon might call. He only lives a short distance away from me. It seems silly to go all the way back to the hotel when you could walk to his flat from here.”

  In his mind, Jason fist bumped the air victoriously. He didn’t need to be convinced. “Okay, if you’re sure.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Jason lay back down, pulled her next to his body again, and closed his eyes. It wasn’t long before sleep took him.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jason awoke to the delicious aroma of bacon and eggs permeating the floorboards into the bedroom where he had slept wrapped around Stevie for the remainder of the night. His stomach growled in response, and his mouth watered in readiness. He began to stretch but stopped when pain stabbed his side—a stark reminder of the events that had transpired the day before. Grabbing his clothing, he quickly called into the bathroom to examine his purple tinged features and flinched at the battered face that peered back at him from the mirror. He shook his head and turned to make his way downstairs.

  He could hear music floating through the air from the kitchen, and as he made his way quietly there, she was leaning against the counter top with her back to him. Her head was hanging down as the lyrics of “Already Gone” by Kelly Clarkson tugged at his heart. He paused, taking in the words an
d watching as Stevie’s shoulders shuddered. This was her way of mentally preparing herself for his departure, he surmised, as he listened to the words that were affecting her so deeply. His heart sank as he ran his hands over his face and walked away. He couldn’t bear to see her this way. Especially when all he wanted was to be with her and she clearly wanted to be with him.

  What a crazy situation.

  Before she could turn to see him standing there, he silently made his way back upstairs and sat on the bed. As he waited for her to call him down, he tried to think of something to say to ease her pain. He knew that pretending he hadn’t seen her crying would be better, and that this way she would be ready to see him and wouldn’t feel awkward about being caught. But he still racked his brain to try and come up with something, anything that he could do to make the pain go away. He came up blank. Eventually, after another five minutes or so, she appeared in the doorway looking fresh faced. Her hair fell over her shoulders, and a strong urge compelled him to go over and run his fingers through it as he told her he had come up with a solution for them. But it would’ve been a lie.

  “Hey, I was wondering if you were going to surface at all, sleepy head.” She smiled.

  “Yeah, sorry, I haven’t been awake long, but the smell has got me all hungry, so I was just contemplating coming down. Are you…are you okay, Stevie?” He wondered if she would confess to being upset.

  She frowned and shrugged her shoulders. “I’m fine, why wouldn’t I be?” No confession then.

  “No reason…just checking…you know, after last night.”

  She grinned and blushed. “Like I said, purely selfish.” He smiled back. It made him happy that he had turned her on too.

  She turned and walked toward the stairs, giving him a fantastic view of her gorgeous arse in her tight jeans. God, Jason you’re such a bloke. He was about to follow her when a faint ringing came from under the bed. Carefully crouching to poke his head under the covers that hung down, he discovered that his phone had somehow ended up under there. Once he retrieved it, the ringing had stopped. He checked for a missed call and didn’t recognise the number.

  Shit. Dillon.

  He dashed down the stairs and into the kitchen. “I’ve had a missed call from a number I don’t recognise. I think it could be Dillon. I should ring him back.”

  “Oh gosh, yes. I’ll put your breakfast in the oven to keep warm. Go and call him.”

  He nodded and made his way into the lounge where he hit the return call button. It rang and rang but eventually a male voice answered. “Hello?”

  “Oh…hi. I’ve just had a missed call from this number…this is Jason.”

  “Oh…right…yeah Jason, it’s Dillon. I was ringing to see if you’d done your usual disappearing act yet.”

  Jason clenched his jaw. “No, Dillon, I said I’d stay until we’d talked and I meant it.”

  “Yeah, well forgive me for not believing you.”

  Jason exhaled heavily. “Look Dillon, I’d really like to talk to you. I need to tell you some stuff—”

  “More lies?”

  “No, what I have to tell you is going to be difficult to hear, mate, but it’s not lies.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not your mate so you can stop calling me that right now. As far as I’m concerned, we share some genes and that’s where our connection ends. The sooner we talk and you say whatever it is you want to say, the sooner you can fuck off back under whatever Scottish rock you crawled out from.”

  The harshness of his brother’s words cut him deeply, and he closed his eyes at the physical pain in his stomach. “Whatever, Dillon. Name your place and time and I’ll be there. I’m at Ste…I’m not far away from you at the moment.”

  A humourless dark laugh reached his ear. “Well recovered, dickhead. The only sad part is that I knew you’d have manipulated her to get in her knickers again. What other way would you have found out where I live? You couldn’t just leave her alone could you? You had to fucking have her, didn’t you? I just can’t believe she’d be so stupid as to let you in.”

  Anger began to bubble to the already fragile surface. “Stop it right now. I won’t stand for you talking about her like that. It’s disrespectful and she doesn’t deserve that. Not from you after all she did for Mum.”

  “Oh yes, sorry, I forgot she meant the world to you…that you loved her so fucking much. I’m guessing that will have been why you left her ten years ago.” Sarcasm oozed thickly down the line.

  Jason’s jaw ticked. “Time and place Dillon.”

  “Meet me at The Jolly Roger on McMillan Street in an hour. I’ll be the one who doesn’t give a shit.” The line went dead.

  Jason walked through to the kitchen again feeling a little shell shocked by the venomous way in which his brother spoke.

  Stevie looked up from the magazine she was pretending to read when he entered the room. “How did it go?”

  “Oh you know, Let’s just say that surgery without anaesthetic would’ve been less painful.”

  She cringed. “Oh, that bad, eh?”

  He nodded. “I’m meeting him in an hour at the pub on McMillan.”

  “Come and sit down to eat then. You’ll need the strength.”

  He sat at the small table, feeling his appetite retreat following the unpleasant few minutes he had experienced and dreading what the next few hours would bring.

  ****

  Jason stood outside the large oak doors of The Jolly Roger, plucking up the courage to enter. He inhaled a deep, calming breath and pushed on the doors. He walked straight to the bar and ordered a Jack Daniels, neat. After knocking it straight back, he ordered another. He felt eyes burning into him and turned around to see his brother with a rather menacing look in his narrowed, dark eyes. With a clenched jaw, he walked over to the corner table and sat opposite Dillon.

  “Hi, Dillon.”

  “Just get on with it. I’m not interested in small talk. I want you gone. And the sooner you talk, the sooner that happens.”

  Jason flared his nostrils, clamped his jaw down, and spoke through gritted teeth. “I get that you don’t like me very much, but just cut the fucking attitude. You have no clue why I left. And so you need to stop being so fucking judgemental and aggressive.”

  Dillon snarled. “Like I said dick-wad, just get on with it.”

  Jason’s fists clenched as he tried to calm the storm raging in his blood. His voice dropped to a low rumble. He spoke only loud enough for his brother to hear but not loud enough to be overheard by other patrons. “Right… I was hoping to do this with a little sensitivity, but I can see that will do no good, and so I’ll just come out and say it.”

  He inhaled deeply once again and wiped his sweating palms on his jeans. “He…Mick…used to hit me, Dillon. That man you called Dad. And I don’t mean a few petty slaps around the head when I didn’t tidy my room. I’m talking canes, belts, bits of wood…his hand…his fist. Whatever he could get his hands on. Whenever I did anything that he disapproved of or that fell below his high and fucking unrealistic standards, he would beat me. I spent so many days avoiding being alone with my own father…avoiding any type of competition or test that would involve me failing, I avoided things that would mean me having to take my shirt off—”

  Dillon’s eyes grew wide. He lurched across the table and grabbed a hold of Jason’s T-shirt, his fist held high in readiness. “What a load of utter shit. How fucking dare you come back down here and make up such lies?” His tone was incredulous, his expression pained.

  Jason held his hands up in a surrender pose. “Hit me again, Dillon, if it helps, but think about what you’re doing. You’re behaving just like him. Is that what you want?” Dillon let go and sat down heavily in his chair again.

  Jason sighed in relief. “I was stupidly hoping you’d believe me straight off, but I also knew there was a chance you wouldn’t, and I can’t make you believe me. He was good to you. I know that and so I do understand why you wouldn’t believe me…but it’s true.”


  Dillon shook his head. “You’re a liar. What the hell would make you spout off such crap? That man was your dad and he loved you. If we weren’t in a pub right now I’d kick your fucking head in.” He clenched his fists on the table. “He spent loads of money buying you books and shit. Taking you places for your fucking pathetic chess tournaments and such. How can you say things like that about him?”

  “Spending money on me doesn’t mean he loved me. He took me places, so that if I lost he could smack me around on the way home without you or Mum seeing him do it. I’m so sorry, Dillon. I hate telling you all this…I really do, but you have to try to understand my reasons for leaving. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done…until now…but it’s all true…” Jason’s emotion filled voice wavered, and Dillon just stared blankly at him for a few minutes.

  Dillon’s voice became a whisper, and he shook his head. “I would’ve known…and he would’ve hit me too. He wasn’t like that. I would’ve seen it.”

  Jason leaned toward his brother, desperate to comfort him but didn’t dare reach out. “I can’t explain why that didn’t happen, but I was so glad it didn’t. I would’ve…I wouldn’t have let him hit you.” He ran his hands through his shaggy, long hair. “I stood it for so long…for a hell of a long time… And the only reason I left is because I knew you weren’t getting the same treatment. You were his pride and joy, and I was jealous of that for so long, but I loved you, and I didn’t want you to go through it too.”

  “I…I don’t believe you.” Dillon stood to leave. “I’m not staying here to listen to you anymore. Just fuck off back to Scotland and take your lies with you.”

  “Okay, I understand why you think all that, but…please…think about it… Do you remember all the times you wanted me to go swimming with you and I refused?”