by Dawn Edwards
‘Yeah,’ Breton said to me, popping some grapes into his mouth. ‘She’s just really tired, didn’t sleep well last night.’
‘But she’s alright?’ Abby asked, clearly worried about her also.
Breton nodded, eating more breakfast.
‘So, I take it we’re not working today?’ Breton asked me, trying to change the subject. I knew there was something up, the same thing he and Jessa had been keeping from me all summer.
I shook my head. ‘Nah, well, I’m going to do a walk around the grounds, fill in anything from yesterday that guest or caterers might have torn up, but that’s going to take less than an hour.’
‘Good,’ Breton acknowledged, looking up to the sky and down to the water. ‘Let everyone know, after lunch, we hit the beach.’
Breton had texted a few of his friends, and by lunchtime, there were a dozen or so of his friends, and a few more of Jessa’s, all down at the beach.
Jessa had been quiet all day, sticking to Breton and Amber mainly. She’d kept her distance from me but wasn’t ignoring me. She was sitting between Amber and Breton, watching some guys tossing a football around the beach when I walked over and knelt down behind them.
‘Want me to fire up the BBQ?’ I asked Breton. ‘I think there are some burgers and sausages in the freezer and a shit ton of leftovers from yesterday.’
Jessa turned around, adjusting her sarong to cover herself up; I hated that she felt it necessary. ‘Great idea, I’ll come to help you, Kathy is off today.’
‘Do you think your parents will mind if we use all the food?’ I asked her.
‘No, Mom will want it eaten,’ she told me.
‘I’ll let everyone know you guys are preparing a feast,’ Amber said, standing up and helping Jessa to her feet.
‘Give us about a half hour to heat everything up,’ Jessa told her friend, then turned to me, looking at me before starting to walk towards the house.
Once halfway up the yard, I was walking next to her. ‘You alright?’ I asked her, not having a chance to really chat with her yet today. I always preferred to be with her alone. I didn’t mind Amber, but I didn’t know the other people she was sitting with. I had spent the day mainly with Breton some of the friends he had introduced me to over the past few months.
‘Yes and no,’ she sighed.
‘I thought you’d be over the moon.’
‘You would think…’ she said, opening the backdoor, walking into the house.
I took her wrist in my hand. ‘Don’t push me away.’ I looked at her. ‘I’m here, I want to be here, and I want you,’ I reminded her.
She smiled at me, but her eyes were sad. ‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘You know how I feel too.’
‘Yes, but when you say you’re fine, and your smile doesn’t reach your eyes, I don’t really know what to think.’
She placed her hand on my bare chest, looking me over, as I had caught her doing a few times today. ‘It’s just that I don’t have any answers right now.’
I looked down at her, the words sinking in. ‘What does that mean?’ I heard the anger in my voice that had started radiating through my body. ‘And don’t you dare say it’s complicated.’
She looked at me, and I felt her hand tighten on my chest. I looked down and moved it off of me. ‘Drew,’ she whispered as I stepped away from her and walked into the kitchen.
I pulled a bunch of containers out of the fridge and placed them on the island. Looking at all the food, I didn’t think we really needed to BBQ anything. There was beef and chicken left over from yesterday, along with a bunch of salads and other sides.
Jessa walked into the kitchen, took one of the containers with the chicken in it and popped it in the microwave.
‘Where are the paper plates?’ I asked her.
‘In the pantry,’ she informed me but then walked into it herself. I walked in behind her to find her standing on her tiptoes, trying to reach a basket on the top shelf. I stood behind her and reached over her, above her head, bringing it down.
I placed it on the shelf as she turned to face me. ‘Drew, I’m sure there are a lot of people upset with me right now, I just can’t deal with you being one of them.’
‘Then end things with him,’ I spit out, it was that simple.
She reached out to touch me. I loved her hands on me usually, but right now I just couldn’t deal with it, with her. I wanted her, and she wasn't taking my feelings for her seriously. She was playing me, and I just hadn’t seen it until right now.
I stepped back, but she grabbed the top of my shorts, ‘I will…’ she pulled on my shorts, bringing me closer to her. I could have stepped away, I was a lot stronger than she was. ‘I will, I just need the time and opportunity to do it. I just can’t even be around him right now, I’m so angry and embarrassed. Please understand my position.’
I was standing directly in front of her, she still held my shorts in her grip. I felt myself growing harder the closer I got to her. She ran her free hand up my arm and cupped the back of my neck, rising to her tiptoes again and pressing her lips into mine, but I didn’t kiss her back. She pulled back but kept her hand where it was. ‘Kiss me,’ she pleaded, pressing her lips into mine again.
I couldn’t resist, I opened my mouth and let her in, roaming my hands down her back, squeezing her ass and pulling her closer into me, grinding my near rock-hard cock against her stomach. There was little material between us; I was horny and desperate to blow from the minimal friction I was generating between us.
I pushed her back into the pantry, up against a shelf, taking a hand to cup her breast, pinching a nipple that was already hard for me. Not thinking anyone would come up to the house to help us warm the food, I drew my lips away from hers, allowing us to both catch our breaths as I pulled one of her breasts free from her bathing suit and sucked on it.
She let out a low moan, starved for more. ‘You like that?’ I asked her, to which she just let out another moan. Feeling brave, I dragged my hand down her stomach, and up the slit in the sarong she wore around her bathing suit. I looked at her for permission. Without stopping me or removing my hand, she leaned in to kiss me, rubbing her bare breast against my chest.
I took it as an invitation to continue exploring her nether regions, in the pantry of her parents’ kitchen. Not exactly what I had in mind, but I was too far gone now to stop. I rubbed her over her swimsuit bottom a few times before she spread her legs, propping one up on a shelf in the pantry. I hooked a finger under the material and ran the back of my finger along her folds, surprised to find it bare. Spreading them with a finger, I found her entrance with one, sliding it in easily. ‘Fuck, you’re so wet,’ I moaned into her mouth, wanting nothing more than to have my head between her legs, my tongue lapping it all up.
‘Yeah, I run out of clean panties with you around,’ she panted.
‘Oh baby, it’s been a hard summer for me too,’ I told her, kissing the sensitive spot behind her ear, grinding my cock into her stomach as I slid a second finger into her, her breath catching. Pulling the material aside, I was able to finger fuck her with two fingers while rubbing her clit with my thumb. She rolled her hips, accommodating the angle she wanted, working my fingers with her pussy just as much as I was.
‘That’s it, take what you want,’ I whispered into her ear, bending down to take her freed breast in my mouth.
It must have been what she needed to bring her home. She jerked forward, and I felt her tighten around my fingers, making it harder for me to move inside her. ‘Yeah,’ I breathed, so fucking turned on at the moment that I was able to bring her to climax with just a few fingers.
I couldn’t wait to get her on a bed, spread out and under me.
My fingers were still inside her when I heard a female voice call out, ‘Jessa?’ It was Amber.
‘Shit,’ she whispered, but I didn’t want it to end. ‘Drew,’ she implored, trying to free my fingers from her, but instead, I kissed her.
As I slowly removed my fingers
from her tight wet pussy. I made sure she was watching me, I put them into my mouth, licking all her juices from them. Her mouth fell open in shock. ‘Stay like that and I’ll put something in it.’
She giggled as I handed her the basket of paper plates. ‘Get her to put these on the back deck, I need to run up the back stairs,’ I whispered to her.
She left the pantry holding the basket I had just given her, with a wide smile on her face. ‘I was just getting some disposable plates,’ I heard her say. ‘Can you put them out on the back deck for me?’
‘Sure,’ I heard Amber say, as Jessa poked her head in the pantry. ‘All clear.’ She giggled.
I slipped out of the pantry and up the side stairs that came out in the small TV room near her room. I walked into her room and through to her bathroom and closed the door. There was no way I was going the rest of the afternoon with a serious hard-on and a case of blue balls.
I would have loved nothing more than for Jessa to take care of this for me, but, as it had been the case all summer, I was going to have to take things into my own hands, so to speak. As had been the theme these past few months, I would be thinking of Jessa as I took care of myself, wishing that one day soon, it would be Jessa doing the job for me.
Chapter 27
DREW
THIS PAST WEEK JESSA had accompanied a few of her co-workers to a trade show in Madrid. She hadn’t been scheduled to attend, however her father thought it would be a great idea to keep her mind occupied after everything that had happened with Matt two weeks ago. Personally, I thought it was a ploy to keep her away from him.
Breton had told me that Jessa had never before traveled without either of her parents, her brother or himself. The fact that she was able to go to the trade show, in a different country, spoke volumes of how much the Cahills wanted to keep her from seeing Matt.
I had been worried that he might try to wiggle his way back into her life. She refused to speak to me about it or even her parents. So I had no idea if she saw him when she was in Boston, or if she was talking or texting with him. I hoped she wasn’t, but it wasn’t my call.
What I did know was that she still wore her engagement ring.
Last week, we had gone to a movie and, as she had been doing recently, she had given me the keys to her Audi so that I would drive. I didn’t object, I enjoyed driving, loved driving the Audi more. The car was an automatic, so it allowed me to take her hand in mine. As I held her left hand, I felt the ring and wiggled it between my fingers, hating everything it represented and who had given it to her. At the next red light, I glanced over at her, seeking something, anything. I hadn’t been expecting her to say anything but was surprised when she said, ‘If I take it off, it will lead to speculation and questions I’m not ready to answer.’
The weekend following what everyone (and by everyone, the limited number of people who were actually in the know) assumed to be their relationship’s breaking point, I overheard Jessa yelling at her parents—something I didn’t think she had in her.
Breton and I were working on the second phase of the back deck, and the house windows had been open.
‘I don’t know,’ Jessa had yelled. Breton and I both looked up to the open screen door and then at one another.
‘I just want to know what we are doing, do I need to notify the wedding planner, the guests…’ her mother had asked her, trying again to get information out of her—but she still wasn’t having any of it.
Wanting to hear the rest of the conversation, I stopped cutting the next piece of wood. Breton, equally curious, ceased using the electric drill to put the planks into place.
‘When I know, I will tell you,’ she yelled again, frustration dripping from her voice as I saw her through the open windows walking towards the stairs.
‘Where are you going?’ her father asked. ‘We are not done…’
‘I’m going to pack for Spain, where hopefully no one will harass me about he who must not be named.’ I smirked at the reference to the dark lord of Harry Potter—it was fitting. She stormed off up the stairs and out of my sight. I returned to work, but a short time later, I saw Breton stop and walk towards the parked cars. I looked up to see her shoving a suitcase into her car.
Breton walked up to her, she was clearly upset. I didn’t hear their conversation, but I saw her look over her shoulder to me as she was getting into her car, confused as to what to do about me.
Inhaling deeply, I forced a smile and waved my hand to her. I was frustrated also, but I didn’t want to project it on to her. I had to be the rock she needed right now. But her actions were speaking louder than words to me, as they always did. Just when I thought I had a handle on the situation, she’d throw me for a loop and send me spinning again.
I thought we’d had a good week. She kept to her normal routine, leaving early Wednesday morning for class and returning Thursday after work. Friday the two of us went to a movie, Saturday I went out with Breton and some of his friends, while she went to Amber's house for a girls’ night in and a psychic reading.
Jessa said she didn’t believe in it, but a few of the girls did, and Amber wanted to host a fun evening. Apparently, the psychic was the entertainment for the night.
She was already in bed when I got home, or at least I assumed she was as she hadn’t answered my text message. Last night we had hung out in her TV room, watching some series she liked. I didn’t really care, I just wanted to be with her. She was quiet but spoke about how excited she was to be going to Madrid on Tuesday—especially that Zoe was going and they were going to make a getaway of sorts out of it.
Since Matt’s departure, whenever I came to chill and watch TV with Jessa, her parents seemed to be around more than before. Perhaps I was imagining it, but one of them always seemed to have a question or comment for either one of us when we were in the TV room alone. Given this, I sat on the chair next to her, while she laid out across the sofa. I excused myself at a respectable time, but not before I was able to sneak in a few kisses and cop a feel.
Seeing her upset, getting in her car, actually made me mad. Mad that she didn't care enough about me for a proper goodbye. Mad that she didn’t feel she could come to me to discuss things. And mad, that once again, Matt was coming between what I was trying so hard to build between us.
I thought I would have had the evening with her, but I could tell just by the look in her eyes that she was really upset. Breton walked back to where I stood as she backed out of the driveway and drove down the road.
‘She’s spending the night at Zoe’s place before the flight tomorrow, she just needs to cool off,’ he said shaking her head. ‘I have never seen her like this with her parents, she’s super stressed out, didn’t even want to talk to me.’
I didn’t have anything to say to that. I didn’t bring up Matt; I knew it was a sore spot, and it was met with the same answer every time from both of them, ‘It’s complicated.’
It wasn’t, but I guess for her it was. To me, there was nothing complicated about leaving a guy who was all wrong for her.
It was the longest week of my life. It wasn’t so much that she was ignoring me, it was more that she didn’t text me much. I should have been happy that she was enjoying time with Zoe, and I was—don’t get me wrong—but I hated the way things were left with us.
I wanted to make sure she was ok, and when I asked her via text, she said she was. Not that I expected her to say otherwise, even if she wasn’t.
I kept letting her know I was here for her—it was about all I could do. She was due home Sunday, and it couldn't have come quick enough. I stayed busy all week; Breton was working alongside me when he could, but he mentioned he was working on some computer things, so hadn’t been around as much as I could have used him. But that was okay, he’d probably have hated the hours I was keeping and resented me for all the work I was trying to get done.
Sunday came and went and there was no sign of her or her car. As I went to bed, I sent her a quick text.
DRE
W: Hey babe, how are you?
It was almost an hour later that she texted me back.
JESSA: Just cleared customs and heading to Zoe’s place.
JESSA: Delayed leaving Madrid, then the gate wasn’t ready for us, bags took forever and customs lines crazy long.
DREW: oh that’s shit luck. Happy you’re back though
JESSA: me too, I’m going into the office tomorrow. Mom and Dad going to LA tomorrow so I’m going to stay in the city with Zoe or Amber
DREW: Why not out here?
JESSA: they don’t like me staying alone…
DREW: oh you won’t be alone cupcake ;)
JESSA: you going to tell them or me?
I stared at my phone and re-read the message a few times. Was she serious or messing with me?
DREW: I think that’s a conversation we have with them together
JESSA: LOL right
DREW: I’m serious
JESSA: hold your horses there, cowboy
DREW: Save a horse, ride a cowboy
JESSA: Giddy-up
I smiled, my playful Jessa was back.
DREW: Do you have to work on Tuesday? I have to drive to Springfield to pick up some lighted bricks for the driveway if you want to keep me company?
JESSA: I think I can call in, the boss kind of likes me.
DREW: He’s not the only one
JESSA: Do you have to get right back? If not, we can make a day of it.
DREW: My boss won’t be around
DREW: when the cats away, the mice will play
JESSA: Yay! I’m excited :)
DREW: Me too.
JESSA: chat tomorrow, I’m spent and about to pull up to Zoe’s
DREW: Sweet dreams cupcake.
I didn’t want to assume anything, but I think that she was feeling better and that she may have made up her mind about Matt. I was a bit disappointed she didn’t want to tell her parents about our feelings, provided she felt the same as I did, but she was worth the wait, even if it meant we had to sneak around a bit longer.
