by D. B. Webb
“Come here,” I urged. I laid down on the bed beside her and pulled her on top of me. She straddled me, looking down with her hair cascading down her shoulders and back. The glow of her orgasm was still evident, and she looked beautiful.
She took my lips with hers and we kissed slowly. She sat back up and positioned me back between her legs. Slowly she seated herself on me with a little moan, her pretty eyes hidden from me behind closed lids.
“Look at me, Ryan. I want to see you.”
When her lids fluttered open, I saw her. Really saw her. I saw the way she cared for me, the want for me, and even the worry that I had the ability to hurt her. But she was here, and she was giving herself to me.
I took a hold of her hips and began moving us. Lifting her and bringing her back down, watching where we connected. With each thrust, I could see her arousal on me, and it was too much. I had never felt so connected with anyone during sex before Ryan.
When she began riding me faster, I watched as her small breasts bounced and the way she bit her lip to keep from making the sounds I loved hearing.
“Baby,” I ground out, “Let go.”
And she did. And it was wonderful.
“Jackson,” she gasped, “Jackson, I’m close.”
“Wait for me, baby. Come with me.”
I flipped us so that I was on top. I needed to come with her. I needed the connection that we had stumbled upon so effortlessly and miraculously.
I looked into her blue eyes, the ones that reminded me of the ocean, the ones that I lost myself in as much as I found myself. They were heavy, indication that she wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer.
“Please,” she groaned.
Feeling her pussy tighten around my dick urged my own orgasm to surface. My balls tightened, and I knew I was close.
“Ryan, baby, I’m gonna come,” I spoke into her neck. My lips finding the place between her neck and collarbone. I kissed it, and she came for me. I followed shortly after with her name on my lips.
We settled next to each other, panting and covered in sweat. I felt her hair tickling my sensitive skin, but made no attempt to move it. I wanted to feel everything when it came to her—her chest rising and falling with each heavy breath she took, her fingertips tracing up and down my arm, the way she nuzzled her face into my neck.
“You can take your shirt off, you know. You have to be hot.”
“You make me hot,” was my smartass response. She sighed, but didn’t push the subject further.
The truth was, I wasn’t willing to give her every part of me yet. Because at the end of our three weeks we had left, I would be getting on a plane back to New York and she would be staying here. We were temporary regardless of how my heart screamed to beat for her.
I wished in that moment that I was just a boy and she was just a girl and life wouldn’t have been complicated like it was. I wanted her more than I had ever wanted anything.
But she wasn’t mine to keep.
And with each second that ticked past us as we laid together, limbs tangled, I knew I had to eventually let her go.
And it was then that I felt a small crack in my already shattered heart.
She was going to ruin me.
We spent one single peaceful night with each other before the reality of our situation surfaced again. For one day and night I was just Jackson, a man falling for a girl that I didn’t deserve, and she was Ryan, the angel that had chosen a sinner like me as the man she wanted to spend her time with. We were happy and carefree. That night, the night after the huge blowup at the pool party, was like a window into a future I didn’t know I even had the possibility of having. I didn’t fuck her. I made love to her, and something changed between us. Something neither of us had been expecting when we started this thing.
We had one perfect night before everything fell apart.
It didn’t fall apart all at once. It was small cracks that continued to screw with the foundation until the whole thing came tumbling down around us. There was nothing we could have done to prevent it from happening. We were young. We were crazy and passionate and naive. We weren’t prepared for the storm.
I had decided it was best if I stayed at my dad’s Los Angeles apartment, considering where Devlin and I had left things. I would give him time to cool down, and he would get over his little bitch fit he was throwing. I mean, how long could a grown man take to lick his wounds and man the fuck up? Apparently, the answer is: longer than I had thought.
It started with a phone call from Devlin. I knew he was still pissed about his best friend boning his ex, but I figured if I could explain she was so much more than that to me, maybe he would understand. Shit, he had been the one to cheat in the first place, so how much could he really care anyway?
If I had thought Devlin would be understanding about the circumstance we had found ourselves in, I was very wrong.
The conversation was short and to the point. I had to break things off with Ryan or he would go to my dad and tell him about the relationship. I proceeded to tell him to fuck himself if he thought he had any right to tell me who I could be with, who she could be with, considering his transgressions.
I didn’t think to take his threat seriously. He was pissed, and he would get over it. Besides, he had Madison and a kiddo to worry about. He would lose interest in Ryan and I and would eventually act as if this hadn’t ever happened.
What I hadn’t been planning on was Devlin being a huge dick who had decided to take matters into his own hands.
When my phone rang a day later, my dad’s name flashing across the screen, I knew Devlin had kept to his threats and had contacted Benjamin. I wanted to wring my best friend’s neck for being such a spoiled child about the whole thing. I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand why he was holding onto Ryan like he was. He had chosen the woman he wanted. It was evident by Madison’s belly that grew every day. He had chosen Madison. He needed to let Ryan go.
I ignored my dad’s calls. There was no way he actually cared about who I was dating when he never had before.
The Friday after Ryan and I had been outed as a couple, or whatever the hell we were calling it, was the first time we actually went on a date without the worry that someone would see us. Kayla had suggested a double date to the movies with her and Brody, and though I was wary of her after the party, I had agreed to go when Ryan seemed on board with the idea.
The date had gone smoothly, and Kayla gushed about us being adorable together, and all in all it could have gone a lot worse. Things were seriously looking up, even if my best friend and future business partner was giving me the cold shoulder. Kayla rolled her eyes when I told her what he said to me and told me not to worry.
“Dev has been acting freaking weird, lately. But I guess he was bound to crack under pressure eventually, right?” She had laughed, waving her hand as if to dismiss his words. If Kayla thought it was no big deal, then maybe I was overreacting. Still, I kept Devlin’s phone call from Ryan. I didn’t want her to worry. In all honesty, I was afraid she would pull away from me if she found out there was major conflict surrounding our relationship.
Because this was supposed to be fun and light, and best friends going head to head against each other was far from that.
I should have known that just because one double date had gone well didn’t mean life was going to be rainbows and butterflies for us. For starters, we still hadn’t given what we were doing a label. I wanted her, and that’s about as far as my mind would allow myself to go. Sure, we were more like girlfriend and boyfriend at that point, but it was still new, and I was still going back to New York without Ryan. I could tell as each day passed, she wanted me to ask her to be my girlfriend. And each day I caused a tension to stretch between us like an old rubber band about to be snapped.
My dad’s incessant calling didn’t help the anxiety that was slowly building within me either. I ignored every phone call and muttered curses as I did it. The bastard was too interested in my life, and I
wasn’t willing to hear him out. Because something told me whatever he had to say was going to change everything.
Finally, after four days of my dad calling, and me conveniently having better things to do than answer, a new number popped up when my phone lit up. It was my mom.
I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer, whatever it was my dad had to say. Because if Mom was calling it meant she was getting shit from Dad. And I didn’t want that for her. I knew the kinds of things he said and did to her when he was angry.
“Hey, Mom,” I sighed into the receiver.
On the other end, my mom took a deep breath before saying what she needed to say. I knew it was bad. I shouldn’t have ignored Benjamin’s calls as long as I had.
“Jackson, darling, it’s about time you answered that phone of yours.”
I could hear a muffled voice that I could only assume was my dad. He was the puppeteer, telling his wife what to say to his disappointment of a son.
“Sweetie… We’ve heard about your new girlfriend… Ryan Patterson?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I told her honestly. If anything good came from me refusing to label Ryan and I, it was that I didn’t have to lie about what we were.
“Jackson, Devlin has contacted us. He seems to be worried you’re in over your head—”
She stopped and I waited for whatever else they had to say. But I heard rustling and I knew that I was about to hear from the Devil himself.
“Son,” came Benjamin’s cruel voice. “I don’t care if she’s a temporary hole you’re filling with your small dick. You will drop this thing with her before the media gets wind of this. We have a family name to uphold, and some no-name girl from California doesn’t benefit our family if you were to, God forbid, marry her. When you were fifteen and dating that high school girlfriend of yours, we discussed that she was an appropriate girlfriend for you to have. Do you remember this?”
I placed my cell phone on speaker and scrubbed my face with my hands. Unfortunately, I did remember what he was talking about.
“Yeah,” was my weak response. But it was all Benjamin needed before he continued.
“You aren’t just another rich boy, Jackson. You are the heir to the Bennett Family name. We can’t have nobodies marrying into our family. We are a business. You’re too old to be getting serious with someone who doesn’t come from a family that we can do business with. Do I make myself clear?”
I bit my cheek. I wanted to tell him to go to hell and leave me alone. I wanted to tell him he was being dramatic. But I had agreed to that arrangement when I was fifteen. But hell, what did fifteen-year-old Jackson know about marriage and love?
I didn’t know shit at fifteen. In case you were wondering.
“Dad, I don’t need your permission to date someone. Ryan might not come from money, but she won’t tarnish our family name either. She’s a good girl. Shit, the Lanes even let Devlin date her. They’re well above our rank when it comes to America’s wealthiest.”
“We aren’t the Lanes. We can’t afford to have you marry a drunk’s daughter. The media would dig into her past, and you know it. And what would they find? They would find the daughter of a woman who has had more nights in the drunk tank than you. They’d love to attach our pristine image with one of a dysfunctional white-trash family.”
The way he spoke about Ryan and her mom made my blood boil. He had no right to talk about them that way when he knew damn well what a dysfunctional family looked like. The Bennetts were about as dysfunctional as a family could get behind closed doors.
He must have sensed that I hadn’t changed my mind because Benjamin pulled out the big guns with his next words, “If you don’t do as I say, I will make sure you don’t see a dime of your trust fund.”
I laughed because he had no right to do that to me.
“Okay, Dad.”
“Wouldn’t you know, but that’s not actually who I am.”
My heart stuttered, and I found myself leaning closer to the phone, staring at it like it had just done a magic trick or something.
“What?” My voice was low and full of anger.
“Johnna do you want to tell him or should I? No? You don’t want to own up to the slut you are?” Benjamin chuckled. He sounded evil, and for the first time in my life I realized he honestly was. “Well, Son,” he emphasized the word son like it left a bad taste in his mouth, “Turns out Mommy Dearest hasn’t exactly been what we like to call ‘faithful.’ You’re not mine, Jackson.”
Not his.
Not his.
Not his.
My heart beat to the sound of betrayal and rejection.
Not his.
I wasn’t his.
“You’re lying,” I finally said, hoarse and broken.
“No, it’s quite true. We did a paternity test when you were one. Your mother decided to have a conscious and come clean to me. But I needed a son to carry on our name, to help me make an empire. So I kept you. Kept her because without her there was no you. But I swear on your mother’s life, Jackson. I will divorce that cheating bitch and take everything… from the both of you.”
My head spun. I felt sick to my stomach. This wasn’t happening.
“And I wonder if Devlin Lane will still want to be business partners with a man that has no money, no connections, and who’s fucking his ex?”
He was right. I was cornered like an animal in a cage. A wild and tormented animal that was offered freedom only to have it taken away by the slamming of a metal door. Devlin had offered me freedom from Benjamin. He was my way out, and without our business, the one that I had created in the first place, I would lose everything I had worked for.
I wanted to be strong and say she was worth it. Worth losing everything. But if I was nothing, would Ryan even want me anyway?
“What do you want me to do?” I asked him in a strangled voice.
I could hear the victory in his voice when he told me, “End this thing and come home, Jackson.”
And the line went dead.
My mind raced and my heart numbed.
I didn’t have a choice.
I couldn’t have her without losing everything.
And I was nothing without this future I had worked for. Without the Bennett name.
I had to end things with Ryan.
But one questioned coursed through me, deafening and blinding all at once:
Would gaining the world be worth losing the person who made me feel alive?
It would have to be.
It had been three days since Jackson had called or texted me. As much as I didn’t want it to bother me, I couldn’t help but find myself worried. The last time we had spoken, he and I had tentatively planned another date—to get to know each other and nothing else. Although I knew what his motives were. It was clear, through heated looks and subtle verbal hints, that Jackson intended on winning me back. It pissed me off as much as it made me swoon. I didn’t understand why he would work so hard to get back with a girl he had left behind ten years ago.
Then again, I hadn’t heard from him in a while so maybe he wasn’t trying as hard as I thought he had been. Maybe he changed his mind, once again, finding me at his disposal.
On the third day of silence, I decided, against my better judgement, to call him. He wasn’t going to ghost me like this. If he wanted things to end, he would need to man up and tell me. We weren’t twenty year olds anymore. We were well into our adulthood, and I couldn’t spend my precious years of being single waiting on Jackson Bennett anymore. I didn’t necessarily want to settle down and have kids at that exact moment, but I wanted to have the option if I ever changed my mind, and time was ticking onward with or without me.
He let his phone ring four times before he decided to pick up.
“Hello?” came an uninterested voice on Jackson’s end.
I tried to ignore the ache I felt in my chest cavity and channeled everything I was feeling into one emotion: rage.
“Good to hear that you’re s
till alive,” was my flat return. I tried to harness in the anger I was feeling. Maybe he had a good excuse.
“Why wouldn’t I be alive?” Jackson still sounded bored and unaffected by me, which just fueled my fire.
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because I haven’t heard from you in a few days?” Even to my own ears, I realized how pathetic I sounded. We had only just agreed to be friends, and here I was acting like a jealous girlfriend. He was probably planning his escape plan from the disaster that was thirty-year-old Ryan Patterson.
“Sorry, Patterson,” he used my last name like he did so many years ago and something about it rubbed me the wrong way. It was what he had called me when we were casual and trying to convince ourselves that we didn’t have feelings for one another. It was too platonic for who we really were to one another. “I’ve been really busy at the office. Devlin gave everyone time off for the holiday, so I’ve had to work double time to get any of our shit done,” he continued with a cool tone.
“I… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called,” I replied stupidly. The plan to give Jackson a piece of my mind had backfired and instead of feeling like the strong woman I was trying to be, I felt little and idiotic for getting so worked up.
“No, now that I have you on the phone, I do have something to ask you.”
I waited for him to continue, not finding it in me to give him an actual response.
“Red or white?” he asked. I could almost imagine the smirk playing on his lips as he asked me. His question caught me entirely off guard.
“Wh-what?” I stammered.
“Well, considering tomorrow is Thanksgiving and you’re still in New York, I can only assume you don’t have any plans for dinner tomorrow?”
“How do you know I’m in New York?” I asked incredulously. The turn of our conversation had thrown me off balance, and I hated him for it.
