by W Winters
“No fucking way are you staying in this car, drunk and with a guy you don’t know.” She glances at Seth who puts the car in reverse to leave as she adds, “No offense.”
“He works for Jase,” I answer her, finally looking her in the eyes.
“Who the hell is Jase?”
“Jase Cross,” I tell her, gauging her expression when I mention “Cross.” Everyone knows about the brothers and I can see the exact moment when it sinks in.
“You’re with Jase?” she questions me softly and then swallows so loud, looking between me and Seth, that I’m sure even he can hear it. I only nod.
“With him? Like what does that even mean?”
My hands turn clammy and I have to wring my fingers around one another in my lap. “I can’t even look you in the eyes,” I tell her and then cover my face with my hands as my head sinks back into the seat.
“No, Bethy, no. Don’t cry.”
“I’m not going to cry,” I protest, forcing my hands down and staring straight ahead at the back of the black leather seat in front of me. “I’m just…” I can’t finish. “I don’t even know what I feel. Ashamed, I think.”
“Ashamed because you’re with him? Or ashamed at what you’ve done?” she asks cautiously. She whispers, “Did he make you do anything? I will fuck him up. I don’t care who he is.”
“No, stop. No, he didn’t make me do anything.” Although I tell her that, the first time we met flashes in my memory. I think I’ll leave that out of this conversation.
I have to shake out my hands, feeling them turn numb and having a wave of anxiousness hit me. “I’m ashamed because of both… neither. I don’t know. I’m confused.”
“Okay.” Laura’s patient with me although she keeps looking at Seth like he’s not to be trusted.
The way she looks at Seth, questioning him and his intentions gives me an uncomfortable feeling. More than that, I feel like I should be defending them. Which is outrageous, yet it’s exactly how I feel in this moment.
“He’s a good guy,” I tell her to ease her worries. “Jase treats me really, really good.” Emotions tickle up my throat and I have to swallow them before I tell her, “Seth watches out for me for him.”
She asks the obvious question. “Watches out for what?”
With Seth as my witness, I tell her everything.
I don’t even leave out the part where I almost shot Jase. I tell her literally everything that I can remember. Including the part where I think I love him. Fuck my life.
Jase
It’s not every day that I feel like a prick.
Taking advantage of someone’s weakness is how I survived, how my brothers and I rose to the top.
There’s not a single doubt that I’m taking advantage of Bethany. It’s easy when you’re hurting to fall for someone, to trust them, to want there to be a way out of the pain.
Listening in on her conversation in the car, listening to her recount the events with Laura Devin, makes me feel like the worst fucking prick alive.
I made her love me. I made sure she had no other option. And worse than that, I don’t know that I will ever say the words back to her.
“Boss.” Seth nods when I see him and I nod back although my gaze travels to Bethany. Watching her climb the steps as I open the door for her.
Her cheeks are tearstained but there’s a sense of lightness around her. Even more than that, her small body brushes against my chest as she walks in. She did it on purpose. She wanted to touch me and I fucking love it. Prick or not.
“Have a good night,” I tell him and he smirks at me as he replies, “You too.”
Bethany rocks from one foot to the other, watching me as I close to the door to the cold and then turn to her fully.
“Let me help you,” I tell her and then act like a gentleman, helping her out of her coat.
With my fingertips lingering on her bare skin, I lower my lips to the shell of her ear and whisper, “Seth put you on speaker from the moment you knocked on his window.”
She shudders from my touch and lets her head fall back into my chest. “Are you angry?” she asks with her eyes still open, staring past me at the now closed door.
“No, I’m not.”
“I had to tell her.” Her words slur slightly and I can smell the hint of alcohol on her.
“Of course you did.”
“And you heard everything?” she asks and that’s when her expression falls. No doubt she’s questioning where my opinions lie. When I nod in response, she doesn’t voice her question.
She takes a different approach, changing the subject altogether.
“What were you talking to Seth about before I went to him?” she asks me, her own curiosity showing.
“Maybe about you?” I give her a flirtatious response that’s only a half lie, rather than telling her about Marcus.
“Oh… and what about me?” she asks although the flirtation isn’t quite there.
“I wouldn’t tell you, you like to gossip too much,” I tease her, giving her a kiss on the crook of her neck. She rewards me by wrapping her arms around my shoulders, and planting one of her own on my neck.
The knowledge of what I’m going to do tonight keeps me from pushing for more. It keeps me from wanting more, it keeps me from lifting her ass up and pinning her against the wall.
“Are you okay?” I ask her, holding her close and not letting her go just yet.
“Me?” she questions and I nod against her, feeling her hair tickling along my stubble as I reply, “Yes, you.”
“I feel better in a way,” she confides in me and stands upright so I let her go. “It feels good to say it all out loud and still be able to stand afterward.”
Staring into her gaze I admit to her, “You don’t strike me as a girl who would ever not land on her feet, cailín tine.”
“You know, I forgot to tell Laura that,” she murmurs and sways slightly. Enough that she feels the need to take a step back and steady herself.
“How much did you drink?”
She shrugs and then says, “The normal amount when we go drunk shopping.”
“No bags though?”
“Oh, well there’s this thing where I owe this guy some money so I’m on a tight budget at the moment,” she jokes with me and her smile is infectious. “Really, I just wasn’t interested tonight in shopping.”
“Only gossiping?”
“Yeah,” she answers and then says again, “I can’t believe I forgot to tell her.”
Walking her to the bedroom, I ask her what she forgot to tell Laura.
“The nickname.” Her answer stops me just outside the door although she continues, “I think she’d understand better, if she knew.”
Bethany
It’s different here. Maybe because it’s his room. His house. His place.
He’s different here. He’s more transparent. Less hidden with his emotions. Other than anger and dominance… and lust, he hasn’t shown me more than that beyond these walls.
Or maybe it’s just tonight. Maybe it’s just the wine talking or the relief that I finally told Laura what’s going on.
I don’t know, but when I look at Jase, he’s different.
And he’s not okay. Pain riddles every move he makes. Not the physical kind, the kind that wears away at your mind.
His head hangs lower as he asks me what we did. As if he doesn’t already know. His voice is duller, his grip less tight on my waist as he pulls me into the bedroom.
With every step my heart beats slower, wanting to take the agony away from his. The answers I give him are spoken without thinking. I’m more concerned with watching him than I am with making small talk.
With his back to me, he pulls the covers back and tells me to strip and get into bed, which I do.
My mind starts toying with me. Insecurity whispers in my ear, “Maybe it’s you.”
“Are you okay?” I ask him, letting a tinge of my insecurity show.
“Fine,” he answers shortl
y, but he gets into bed with me.
“You’re still dressed,” I comment, listening to my heart which is quiet. I think it’s waiting for him to say something too. For him to tell us what’s wrong.
“I know,” is all he gives me as an answer and the high I was on, all that relief I felt, vanishes.
I feel sick. Not hungover or drank too much sick, but the sickness that comes when you know something’s wrong. The awful kind where you can guess what it is, but you don’t want to just in case it’ll go away if you never voice it.
I know what I need, but I don’t ask him for it. Instead I pull the covers up close around my chin and lie there. My pride is a horrid thing.
I’m aware of that.
If I could simply let it go, I could communicate better. I know that. I’ve known it all my life. But still, I don’t ask him to hold me.
I don’t have to though. I don’t have to tell him what I need to feel better.
The bed groans as he moves closer to me, wrapping a strong arm around my waist and pulling me closer to him. It’s a natural reaction for me to close my eyes and let out an easy breath when I take in his masculine scent. It engulfs me just as his warmth does, just as his touch does.
“You promise we’re okay?” I ask him and then my eyes open wide, realizing the mistake I made. The Freudian slip.
Kissing the crook of my neck, he murmurs a yes.
He gives so much and I feel so undeserving. The ringing on my skin comes back, the bell of what happened earlier reminding me that it’s okay. That it’s better than okay.
My hand lays over his and he twines his fingers with mine before planting a kiss on my cheek.
Before he can pull away, I kiss him again. Putting everything I have into it, trying to give him what I can in what’s a very unbalanced relationship.
That’s what this is. A relationship. Fuck me, when did it happen?
The second I pause, pressing my forehead to his and pulling my lips away, he does what I just did to him, kissing me and giving me more.
With a warmth flowing through my chest, I settle into his embrace.
“I want to ask you something.” His whispered question tickles my neck and makes a trail of goosebumps travel down my shoulder.
“Yeah?”
“How are you feeling about your sister? Are you okay? You didn’t mention her to Laura. Or how you were handling it. And the last few days you seem…”
“Seem what?”
“A little more than sad today before you went out and yesterday,” he answers honestly, and I want to pull my hand from his, but he doesn’t let me. He holds me tighter and closer as my composure cracks.
“Tell me, cailín tine,” he whispers at the back of my neck, running the tip of his nose along my skin. I love it when he does that. I love the soft, slow touches. I love how he takes his time with me.
It takes me a long moment to answer him. “I feel like I’ve slowed down, which makes sense because I’m not working anymore. I am crying when I hate it and I can’t stop myself, but that damn book is sad too, so it could be the book’s fault right? I don’t know.”
“You can’t hide behind a sad book,” is all he says and then he looks at me like he wants more.
Staring at the still curtains and listening to the heater turn on with a click, I let it all out; I don’t think, I just speak. “Everything is moving so fast. That’s what it feels like. Like the world didn’t just refuse to slow down with me while I mourn but it sped up too.”
Kind eyes look down on me when I peek over my shoulder to see his response. He’s propped up on his elbow, his hard, warm chest still pressed against my back. I roll over to face him and look him in the eyes as I say, “It became chaotic and unpredictable and I’m a person who likes consistency and schedules and predictability and it’s all gone. In one second everything changed, and now I can’t be anything but slow and everything is going so fast.” He’s silent, so I continue.
“Except when I’m with you. Everything slows down then. It stops and waits for me when you show up.”
I don’t expect to say the words I’ve been thinking out loud. I say them all to my folded hands in my lap rather than to Jase. I need to see what he thinks though. If he understands or if I’m just crazy.
He leans down to give me a small kiss. It’s quick and gentle. I want more but I don’t take it. Even when the tip of his nose nudges mine, I don’t do anything but wait for him to say something.
“That’s a good thing, right?”
“Yeah… but I think the world is going so fast because of you too. Because of lots of things. And here I am stuck with a rope around my feet.”
“I could see that,” he comments, brushing the stray hairs away from my face and his touch brings back that tingling full force.
“You make it easy to talk,” I murmur.
He doesn’t say anything at all, he merely touches his fingers to my lips and gives me a small smile.
“I do that with my patients. I put on a smile all day long and they trust me, they open up to me. Jase, don’t treat me like a patient.”
“Well, first off all, you’re not a patient. Second, you better not touch your patients like I touch you.”
“You’re awful,” I tell him halfheartedly, but still feeling a hollowness in my chest that I can’t place.
“I smile at you because sometimes you smile back, and that’s all I want. I want to see you smile.”
Breathe in, I remind myself. Breathe out. I have to, or else I think I’d forget in this moment. It’s not often you can feel yourself falling, but I’d be damned if I didn’t feel like that right now. Even knowing who he is and what he does.
“Why are you so sweet and charming… yet the very opposite too?”
He shakes his head gently, not taking it like I thought he would. Then he answers with another question of his own. “Why are you so strong and confident, yet… feeling like this?”
I don’t have an answer. The old me would though. The me from only two months ago before Jenny went missing, would know why. I work in a psych center, for fuck’s sake. I would have known. I could have answered. Being in it though… I’ve lost my voice. I have nothing to say, because I don’t want this reality to be justified.
“Because that’s life, cailín tine. We aren’t just one thing. Life isn’t one story. It’s a mix of many and they cross paths sometimes.”
I swallow thickly, understanding what he’s saying and hating it. Some parts of life are simply awful. When I close my eyes and focus on one more deep breath, Jase’s strong hand cups my chin and my eyes lift to his.
I nearly apologize for being the way I am. But it’s not some stranger I’ve lost it in front of. Or my boss. Or my fucking family from New York. It’s Jase.
I expect him to say something, but he only pulls me closer to him, letting time pass and the wretched feelings that have welled up, slowly go away.
Mourning is like the tide of the ocean. It comes and it goes. It’s gentle and it’s harsh.
Slowly, the tide always subsides. But it always comes back too. It never goes away for long.
“The world stops when you see me, huh?” he questions softly after a moment, teasing me and letting the sad bits wash away like they’re meant to. I love the teasing tone he takes. I love this side of him. I love many sides of him.
“I didn’t say that,” I’m quick to protest.
“You practically did,” he teases, although the smile on his handsome face tugs down slightly as his eyes search mine.
“I don’t love you,” I murmur the words, feeling the hot tension thicken between the two of us. He leans closer to me, nearly brushing his lips against mine. All the while, I keep my eyes open, waiting for what he has to say.
“I don’t love you too,” he says and I can practically feel the last bit of armor fall as I lean into his lips. His hand brushes my shoulder, my collarbone and then lower, barely touching me and feeling like fire as he caresses my skin.
&n
bsp; The covers swish around us as I lean back, giving him more room and urging him closer. I’ve never wanted a man like I want him. I’ve never memorized the rough groan a man gives as he kisses me like Jase does, with reverence and hunger.
I let him take me as he wants. What he wants is exactly what I want.
Time doesn’t pause for us though. It doesn’t go by slowly either.
It’s all over far too soon. Maybe because I never want this one moment to end.
“I have to go,” he tells me after glancing at the clock on his nightstand. He makes no effort to move though, other than to run his thumb along my bottom lip.
“Okay,” I whisper, not wanting to chance that he’ll stop touching me. All I want is for him to keep touching me and for my world to stay still and in pace with me, not wanting to take the next step forward.
“Don’t follow me, Bethany,” he warns, his voice sterner, but the lust still there.
“Okay,” I repeat and my eyes finally close as he leans down, pressing his lips against mine once again. He tries to move away before I’m ready for him to go, but I reach up, pulling him back to me with my hands on the back of his neck. I hold him there, deepening the kiss and listening to his groan of satisfaction as I do. Kissing this man changes everything. I can’t think about anything other than wanting him with me. I’m highly aware of it and I know it’s dangerous, but still… I want it.
It’s wild and dangerous, and I love it just as much as I love the fire.
When he finally leaves me, I hold on to the warmth he left in the covers, and I bury my head in the pillow he slept on, rather than the one he gave me. I stare at the clock, watching the hands move slowly. Trying to keep it moving slowly with me.
I don’t follow him. Not because of a debt or an agreement. But because he asked me not to. Because it means something to him.
I would have stayed like that longer than I’d care to admit, really I would have, but that’s when my phone chimed with a message from Laura.
Jase
