Jessa got back from her shoot late. Really late. I’d told her she didn’t even have to come back to my place that night if she didn’t want to, if she was too tired, but that was just bullshit to see what she’d say. At least she’d texted to tell me she was going for drinks with the client afterward; a good-looking dude, as it turned out.

Yeah. I’d done a Google search on him. Because I was jealous like that. According to the web he was also gay, but somehow that didn’t help.

I’d never felt so insecure with a woman as I did with Jessa. Like I had no fucking clue where I stood with her—unless we were fused together, my dick deep inside her as she purred my name.

When she got back to my place, smelling of booze, she showered and went straight to bed before me, even though I’d waited up for her. She barely paused long enough to give me a kiss. It wasn’t like she’d had time to fall in love with someone else in the hours she’d been away from me, but still.

It was pretty clear to me by now what she’d been up to, in terms of men, all those years we’d been apart. I’d done my best to keep tabs on her in any way I could; I wasn’t gonna put Jude up to spying on her—whether he’d even do it for me or not was debatable—so that meant piecing together scraps of info gleaned from other people talking about her, mainly her brother or Maggie, and no one had ever mentioned any kind of serious relationship in her life. You only had to look at Jessa once to know she must’ve had a hell of a lot of offers, though, and obviously, she’d had lovers. She’d told me herself, more or less, about the guys she’d slept with… and what it was like.

When she was with me, she came like a fucking rocket. Over and over… But she’d never come before, ever, with a man? Not once?

So maybe, just maybe this was a woman who’d become accustomed to using sex, and men, when it suited her—and not to get off. And when she was done with those men, with taking whatever it was she got from that kind of sex, no doubt she tossed them aside just as fast.

No fucking way I was gonna be one of those guys. If I had to keep making her come until she got that through her head, I’d do it.

When I slipped into bed with her she was still awake, but she didn’t say anything. I reached out to her. She wasn’t naked under the sheet; she had on my Zeppelin T, which she liked to sleep in, and her panties. I got close, spooning her, gently kissing her neck, and she stirred, breathing softly. I slid my hand down the curve of her waist. I slipped my fingers inside the edge of her panties, pulling them down over her hip.

Her hand found mine and stopped me.

“I’m so tired,” she said sleepily. Then she rolled slightly away, so we weren’t even touching.

So fucking much for spooning.

I let it go. But I wasn’t gonna kid myself this was just about being tired.

After the Dirty show, we’d fucked all night and pretty much all the next day. Since her little freak-out on our date? She’d barely touched me. Ever since that phone call. Ever since she’d found out Seth had gotten together with the band to jam… she’d barely looked me in the eye.

Obviously, something was bothering her.

Seth coming back on the scene, apparently.

I flopped back on my pillow and tried to relax, but what the fuck? Was she upset he was playing with the band?

She said she didn’t want the guitarist gig. Was pretty vehement about it, actually.

The other possibility swirled in my brain like it had all fucking day, as much as I tried to ignore it and just chill the fuck out, not jump to conclusions.

Maybe she still has feelings for him.

Yeah. Fucking maybe.

Who the fuck knew?

I never really knew for sure what was going on between her and Seth in the first place. Whatever it was, maybe she’d never gotten past it.

Maybe that’s what this was about? But how the hell would I know.

Not like she was saying shit all to me about it.

* * *

I woke up with my guts all tied in knots, feeling like I was a hundred years old, so bent out of shape and brittle, and ready to snap. Over breakfast Jessa was foggy and distant, which was maybe due to her late night, but I wasn’t gonna risk it.

“So what’s the problem?” I asked her. “Are we ever gonna talk about it?”

She looked up at me, all distracted, over her tea. “Talk about what?”

“You tell me. Seth’s back on the scene and you’re walking around like the sky’s about to fall.”

She blinked at me, slowly shaking her head. “No, I’m not.”

I tossed my fork down on my plate, the eggs she’d made for me only partly eaten, whatever appetite I’d had gone. I sat there fuming as she stared at me, resisting the urge to upend the entire table, which seemed like it’d be pretty fucking satisfying right about now.

So yeah, maybe I had some anger management issues to deal with. I’d file that away for later introspection. But it’s not like I went around all my life wanting to flip dining room tables.

It was just this. This bullshit. With her.

Never-fucking-ending.

“No?” I said.

She shook her head slowly, her big brown eyes watching me—kinda like a skittish deer about to bolt into the woods, never to be seen again.

And yeah, I realized that coming at her like this was probably the last way I should go about it if all I really wanted was to get her to open up and talk to me, but fuck it. I was pissed, and fuck, no—I didn’t want to hear about it. I didn’t want to hear about how uncomfortable she felt because her old boyfriend was back and how that’d brought up old feelings or whatever.

I thought we were done with this shit.

She’d said it was me—always me; not him. That I was the one she’d always wanted. So what was the fucking problem?

“Seth’s not after you anymore, is that it?” Her eyes got bigger and I could tell I’d struck a nerve. “You know, he used to follow you around like a fucking puppy. Maybe you miss that.”

“I miss a lot of things, Brody,” she said. “I don’t miss that.” Tears had started to gleam in her eyes, but fuck that. She wasn’t getting out of this by crying.

“If you want me to come crawling after you,” I told her, “that’s never gonna happen. I’m never gonna be your lapdog. So you can cry all you want. It’s not gonna change a thing.”

She didn’t even respond to that, just looked away. She sniffed like she was trying really hard not to cry, but I was getting really sick of her crying… crying and not letting me in so I could just help fix whatever the fuck was wrong.

“You know why I kept messaging you?” I asked her. “All those years… even when you never responded?” She looked at me through her tears, which had started to fall. “After a while… I pretty much did it to torture myself.”

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t say that.”

“I did it to remind myself why I should stop. Because every time I messaged you to tell you I was thinking about you, or I wanted to talk to you, or I was sorry for how things went down, and you didn’t answer, it was another stab to my fucking heart. But I’m done being a masochist, Jessa. You want to leave me hanging again, I’m not gonna be waiting around when you get back. You want to go out and party with your friends and fuck your way around the globe, never letting anyone in, including the guys you fuck, you do what you’ve gotta do but I am not chasing after you.”

Jessa got up and left the room. I didn’t follow, though everything in me kicked and screamed at my ass to go after her.

Because what if I didn’t and she walked out?

Fuck it. If all she was ever gonna do was run away, I was in for a world of hurt anyway. Might as well get it over with.

So I cleaned up our breakfast plates like everything was normal, when it totally fucking wasn’t. Then I just stood there in the kitchen staring at the wall.

Then I broke. It didn’t take long.

I went around the house, checking every room, panicking that I’d let her go—and what if I found her packing? What if she was getting the fuck out, for good?

I didn’t find her until I walked into my office. She was sitting back in the chair behind my desk, staring at the wall in front of it, where her portrait hung. The giant one Katie had painted… the one I’d had delivered to my house while she was at her shoot yesterday.

“You have my painting,” she said softly. She’d stopped crying, and looked from the painting to me in wet-eyed wonder.

“I thought you were leaving,” I said flatly.

“You have my painting,” she repeated.

“Yeah. Well… we’re kind of done with them now. They’ve been scanned for all the stuff we need to make. The album and shirts and whatever. I figured Katie didn’t need to store them all at her studio. You know, she probably needs the space…”

Yeah, right. That was the reason I took it. To help Katie with her storage issues.

Jessa stood and came around the desk, stopping a couple of feet from me.

“I’m not leaving,” she said, her voice soft but certain. “You can try to drive me away, if you need to. If you need to test me on it. I understand why you would. You can try. But I’m not going. Not without saying goodbye. I’d never leave again without saying goodbye. And I don’t want to say goodbye.” She took another step toward me, tentatively. “If that’s okay with you.”

Was she serious?

She seriously didn’t know if I wanted her to stay?

I closed the space between us, sliding my hand under her hair to cup her head, and pulled her to me. “Jessa,” I said, my lips brushing hers. “It’s more than okay.”

My other hand found her hip and I pulled her against me as I kissed her, slow and deep. Her arms went around my neck as she arched against me.

Within seconds, I had her on the desk. Her legs were around my waist, her hands in my hair, and she was shoving down my sweats. We were clawing at each other, grabbing and clutching and desperate to get closer. She grabbed my cock, squeezing, and pumped me a few times, tight and fast. I yanked the crotch of her panties aside. When she whimpered, biting down on my bottom lip, I filled her.

A few more deep, hard thrusts and I was all the way in… smothered in all her hot, tight, and wet. My heart was racing, my breathing ragged. I wanted to fuck her to pieces, just slam all my anger and frustration into her as she begged me for more.

Instead, I put my forehead against hers and breathed her in. I breathed with Jessa until everything slowed right down.

Then I fucked her, deep and slow, saying a whole lot of stupid, fucking risky things.

Don’t ever leave me…

I can’t fucking breathe without you…

And when she came, gasping and clawing at my back, she whispered in my ear, “I love you, Brody. I love you so much… sometimes… it scares me.”