by Nikky Kaye
“Jake, I don’t think—”
He stepped in front of me to silence my protest with his mouth.
Damn, he was too good at that.
Then he fished my phone out of my pocket and placed it in the pot of one of the artificial ficus trees dotting the lobby, before flopping down on the couch beside Stella.
“Now, call.” He raised his arms to lace his fingers behind his head. Smug.
My mouth fell open. “What?”
“Come on, Annie. This should be easy. Your legs are free, you’re not shot up with sedatives or heroin, you know where you are, and you can identify your assailant. You have lots of information to give the dispatcher. This is really the best case scenario.”
I shook my head. “You’re crazy.”
Ring ring? Yes, operator, I’m being held hostage by my boyfriend while his daughter plays Angry Birds. What’s he doing, you ask? Teaching basic physics, it seems. And smirking.
There were times that Jacob Stone’s smirk was kryptonite for my panties. This was not one of those times. Fine. I could do this.
“Okay, fine.”
“I could have tied you to a chair,” he reminded me as I walked over to the potted plant. “Or hog-tied you.”
I stared at him. “Uh, thanks?”
His eyes twinkling with mischief, he mouthed “sexy” at me.
Okay, I just had to get the phone out of the pot. No problem. But my hands were behind me, so I turned my back on the ficus and tried to squat and lean backward at the same time. My fingertips brushed against the leaves. I lowered further, like I was doing a limbo game at a party.
And lost my balance.
I pulled against the belt handcuffs with the compulsion to windmill my arms out, my shoulders feeling the tension. In my effort not to plant my ass in the pot along with the ficus, I overcompensated and fell forward.
My knees slammed into the floor.
My face followed.
“Shit!” Jake swore as he launched himself off the couch and to the floor beside me. “Are you okay?”
Pain stabbed my legs, and my neck ached from the effort of avoiding full facial contact with the floor. I turned my head to the side and rested it on the cold tile.
“Yeah, I’m great. My boobs broke my fall.” Barely.
He bit back a chuckle. “Are they okay?”
“Don’t you dare feel me up for broken bones right now, Stone.” Wriggling like a fish out of water, I tried to get back on my knees. Bad idea. “Motherfu—!”
Jake’s hand slapped over my mouth and he jerked his head toward Stella. When he removed it, I glared at him.
“I don’t see you putting any money in the swear jar, mister.”
He shrugged. “I’m her father. She’s hard-wired to ignore me.”
I managed to roll onto my side, dust coating my black shirt and pants. “You gonna untie me, here?”
“Nope. You still haven’t called for help.”
“Help! Help!”
The security guard was useless, instead shepherding people around us between the street and the elevators. The rubberneckers probably thought we were doing some weird improv thing, or shooting a video.
“With your phone, ninja girl.” Jake sighed as I bent my knees and started spinning in a circle on the floor, trying to get a foot underneath myself. “Okay, hang on.”
I’d just managed to get myself to an almost sitting position, my legs bent to the left behind me, when he put my phone on the floor in front of me.
“Really?” I asked.
“Go ahead,” he said, settling back down on the couch six feet away. “Call nine-one-one.”
What followed was possibly the most awkward, humiliating, futile experience of my entire life—and I’m including losing my virginity to the Mathletes captain in my senior year.
It would have helped to see the buttons on the face of my smartphone when entering my passcode.
Bzzz.
Bzzz.
Bzzz.
I was at serious risk of disabling the damn thing. With a huff, I wriggled around on my ass to face the phone. It sat there on the floor, taunting me.
Jake sat on the couch, taunting me.
Stella snuggled under his arm, engrossed in pigs taunting birds. Birds… that gave me an idea.
With as much control as I could muster—and that wasn’t a whole lot—I bent at the waist like a lever. My face was so close to the phone that my breath fogged up the screen.
Yes!
No.
No, it turned out that one’s nose did not equal a thumbprint ID. Nor was it that great for the passcode. Damn you, Apple! Why did you have to go to six digits?
“Miss Annie?”
My chin jerked up at Stella’s little voice. My ponytail was falling out, my hair a wispy cloud around my face that I had to blow away in order to see the frown on her face.
“What are you doing?”
Good question. Leave it to a three year-old to point out the absurdity in my current situation. I was sitting on the floor in the lobby of a ritzy condo building, looking like a cat burglar that had just been caught in a citizen’s arrest.
My whole body caved in. “Okay, Jake. You win.”
Chapter Thirteen
Annie
Jake waited until Stella was tucked away in her princess bed and I was in the shower before he ambushed me.
“So, about that thing yesterday…”
His voice startled me as much as his presence—hot, hard and naked behind me. When I jerked my head back in surprise, I knocked his chin. He swore, his hands flying to my upper arms.
“Did you do that on purpose, ninja girl?”
“Why would I do that?”
He turned me around slowly, pulling me out of the water enough to face me directly without the spray between us. “To get me back for earlier?”
“You’re going to have to be more specific.” Did he mean in the lobby? Did he mean the aborted threesome the night before? The dinosaur chicken nuggets he overcooked for dinner?
He tilted my chin up to look me in the eye. I didn’t even have the excuse of the water in my face to avoid him.
“Last night, with Ev—last night. I owe you an apology.” Shame clouded his eyes, along with the steam.
“For?”
His hands and gaze moved over my body, like he was looking for something. Or memorizing me? “For being so rough. For confusing you.”
My mouth went dry, despite the moisture around us. “What are you saying?” That he regretted it? My stomach flipped at the possibility. The dino-dinner didn’t help.
“I acted like a fucking caveman.”
“I didn’t mind,” I said. And I hadn’t.
It was unbearably hot, the way he just… took me. Maybe, if he’d been someone else, I would have felt powerless. The fact that I felt so safe with Jake, though, made his aggression less frightening. The only part that I’d struggled with was my jealousy, and the fear that he also wanted—
“Evie…” I mumbled.
Jake grunted, closing in on me until we were skin to skin. His half-hard cock nudged my hip, his hands heavy on my shoulders.
“Annie. Annie, honey, look at me.”
I took in the hard planes of his stomach and the muscles in his chest. A scar here and there. The change in skin tone on his upper arms, like a permanent farmer’s tan.
Focusing on Jake Stone’s body wasn’t a hard thing to do. It was a privilege, like admiring an ancient sculpture.
Meeting his gaze directly again was more difficult, but I did it—even if I blinked like the loser of a staring contest.
He sighed. “Good girl. Keep looking at me, okay? I need you to hear this, and I get the feeling that your heart is deaf or something when you’re not looking in my eyes.”
Oh. How was it possible to shiver while standing under hot water?
There was so much truth in the lines around his eyes and mouth, in the frown on his forehead… that I couldn’t move if I tried.
My chest was tight, but he held me tighter.
“Are you listening to me, ninja girl?”
I nodded.
“I don’t want Evie. Evie is a…” He broke off, rolling his eyes to the ceiling like there might be answers up there. “Great woman. She’s a great woman,” he repeated, pinning me again with his stare. “But she’s Dom’s woman. He’s going to marry her. End of story.”
“But—”
“She could take off her clothes and jump on my dick and I would look her in the eye and tell her to get the fuck off.”
Yeah, right. “But—”
His thumb pressed over my lips. “No buts. Maybe you heard what you wanted to hear, or I didn’t say it right. But last night I wanted—I want you. You’ve had my eyes crossed since you attacked me outside your building.”
“That might have been my fist in your windpipe. Maybe I gave you some brain damage.” It would explain a lot.
“You’re a riot. No, I let my dick do all the thinking last night.”
Reflexively, I glanced down at his big, fat… brain.
Jake wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me close—too close to look down between us. I could only feel him throbbing against me as my hands came up to rest against his chest.
“Annie.”
Right. Eye contact. My breath hitched in my throat at the fierce expression on his face. The shower spray beat down on my neck. Needles of heat tattooed my spine, until the water flowed over his hands at the curve of my back.
“The last woman I trusted gave me a daughter, and it didn’t work out.” He exhaled, pressing his forehead to mine. “Now, leaving aside the questionable intelligence of my dick… I want to trust you. Will you give me something in return?”
I gulped. “If you say you want a son…”
His head rose, a blinding grin cracking his serious expression. “No, honey. I want you to trust me. To give me a chance.”
“A chance,” I echoed.
“Stop holding the past against me. Stop running away from me. Stop fucking fighting me on everything.”
I searched his face. All I saw was honesty. If I didn’t give Jake Stone the chance he wanted, he might just take it anyhow. But after all this time—this intense, push-pull, instant family, in each other’s faces time—he’d earned that chance.
“I don’t—”
“Jesus, woman! You’re arguing with me now!”
I shook my head. “No, I’m—” I paused, realizing that my automatic response was to disagree with him, when I really didn’t. Why did I do that?
With a deep breath, I put my hand flat on his chest. The strong, steady beats of his heart pulsed against my palm. I turned my face up to his, meeting his gaze openly and honestly.
“I don’t want to fight anymore.”
I could almost see him thinking. Had I been fighting with him? Against him? Did it really matter? Whatever he saw in my face answered his questions, and I would no longer question his answers.
His mouth covered mine with a deep, possessive kiss. He stole my fear, and when he pulled back I was breathless.
“Wait.” Reaching behind me, he turned off the water.
The sound of our breathing seemed even louder when no longer muffled by the shower. His handprint smeared across the fogged glass as he felt for the door. He prodded me toward it so quickly I was surprised that I didn’t leave my ass print on the steamed-up glass.
Inch by inch, he shuffled me across the en suite bathroom and toward his bed. He held me close, like we were magnets drawn together.
My hair was still drenched, water dripping down my back and over my ass. Jake seemed to be able to shake it all off like a dog. We fell onto the bed, caring only that it was a soft place to land.
He branded me with his lips—on my mouth, cheeks, neck, collarbone, forehead. I tensed, expecting his passion to collide with mine—too hard, too fast. Instead, he slowed down and pulled back to look at me.
I didn’t think about the danger of loving him. All I knew was that with Jake, my hollow spots were all filled. I let out the breath trapped in my chest in a shaky hum. Then I leaned forward and kissed him.
His body vibrated under my hands, as though it could barely contain his desire. My hands paved a path up and down his back.
The empty space between us slid sideways and wavered, like a rip in the space-time continuum. The room around us swallowed all sound, the world beyond the apartment shrinking. My entire universe had collapsed on itself, compressing into the white-hot points of contact between our bodies.
What on earth could possibly come next? I wondered.
The problem with comparing intimacy and desire to the universe is that the latter is inexpressibly infinite. It’s hard to compete with that—but we tried.
We took our time, learning each other through touch and taste and smell. For maybe the first time, I felt as though he’d been able to crawl inside my skin and feel what it was like to be me, and vice versa.
His fingers and tongue and cock inside me stroked, not plunged, and I embraced him fully.
“Give me more,” I begged him.
He took my face in his hands as he throbbed deep inside me. “Annie, I’m giving you everything I can. Don’t you know that?”
His words penetrated me deeply, filling me with pleasure so intense that it made my heart hurt.
“It’s not like before,” I gasped.
He nodded. His hips moved and he swelled within me. “Before… before, we were…” His chest pressed against mine as he took a deep breath. “That was before. This—this is after.”
When I closed my eyes, I was shocked to feel tears sliding down my overheated cheeks.
He stilled. “Am I hurting you?”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
His sigh enveloped me. “Feel me, Annie.” His hips moved lazily against me, but I felt him more inside my brain than my body.
“I’m full of you,” I groaned.
He sped up his pace, his jaw tight. With one hand, he reached down and wedged his hand between us. “You feel that?” he asked, his fingers moving between my clit and where he entered me.
“Oh my god.” I felt it all.
My head tilted back, my orgasm swelling within me. When it came, it was in waves that nearly choked me and pulled me under. He held onto me tightly, burying his face in my neck.
“Oh fuck, Annie.” His voice was hoarse as he jerked and twitched, grunting softly into my hair.
This was the scary part.
This was the blissful part.
This was the after.
Chapter Fourteen
Jake
Dom asked me once what it was like to be a parent. At the time, I wasn’t seeing Stella enough, and think I said something bitter, like “fuck if I know.”
But it was… relentless.
Relentless in the way that desert sand gets in every crack, crevice and pore of your clothes and body. Relentless, like how self-doubt, fear and guilt plague your subconscious.
And that was just during the waking hours.
Even relentlessness had a routine, however. Within a few weeks, the three of us had found a rhythm. Well, as much as possible with Stella going back and forth between her mom’s and my place.
That was the point of the conversation I had just started with Sheila.
“Is your schedule going to be regular soon?” I asked her. I dropped Stella’s little Frozen backpack inside the front door of her apartment.
“Jesus, I hope so. I think so.” Sheila looked tired, but also… happy? “I really like this job, so I’m praying the hours don’t kill me. I feel like I’m making a difference, and god knows it’s never boring.”
I understood what she meant, but I also understood the toll it could take on a person. I was a complete asshole to almost everyone for close to six months after I finished my last tour.
There was no point in reminding her that she didn’t need this job, given what I contributed to her and Stella’s bank
accounts. The truth was that I was proud of her initiative. My bitterness of the last couple of years was easing.
Maybe Annie was right, and she had given me brain damage.
“Who’s Annie?” Sheila asked. “Stella talks about her.” She’d opened Stella’s backpack and was looking inside, her tone carefully casual.
What to tell an old girlfriend about a new one? “She’s, uh, staying with me.”
“Houseguest?” Was that jealousy?
I rubbed my neck, not sure how to label it. Hostage, houseguest, hookup… heart? “Sort of. Sort of not.”
She tossed the backpack onto the couch, her voice hard. “I don’t want Stella around some casual—”
“Watch it…”
Sheila’s hands went to her hips. “Fine. Fling. Whatever. I won’t have her exposed to that.”
“Exposed to what, exactly? A nice woman who knows how to pour her a bowl of cereal?” And makes bacon, while knowing all the words to Stella’s favorite songs? The horror! “Go ahead. Tell me exactly what kind of woman you think I’m exposing our daughter to.”
I waited for the snide, passive aggressive insults; the paranoid fear that our little girl was going to be emotionally scarred by spending time with another woman who wasn’t her mother or her mother’s mother. Or Evie. Or a preschool teacher. Seriously, she was around other women all the time.
Sheila had always been a bit… what was the word? Helicopter-y? I immediately bristled when I saw her blades starting to spin, her mind whirling with assumptions and judgment. She sighed, and the voop voop slowed down to a dull whine.
“Okay. Sorry. I’ll give you—and her—the benefit of the doubt.”
My eyes widened. This was definitely progress. We exchanged a tired smile. “Look at us,” I said. “Being grown-ups.”
“It’s probably about time. In a couple of years Stella will be more emotionally mature than you.”
And there was the snide insult. It was almost a relief. There was only so much personal growth I could manage in a month.
* * *
Without Stella to plan around and Annie at work, I went to the office and worked through dinner. It wasn’t the first time, nor would it be the last.
