- TWELVE -
The next morning, I woke up immersed in the scent of Jaxon. I was lying on my stomach with my arms stretched out underneath my pillow. He was laying his head on my bare back and had one hand cupping my breast. I felt like we had just gone to sleep when I began waking up. The two of us had been up late last night getting to know each other in this new way; it was the greatest night of my life.
I started flexing out my fingers underneath the pillow to get them to wake up. Pins and needles were running up and down my arms. Jaxon must have realized I was awake because he started kissing a line down my spine. I began thinking about last night, and it hit me that I had passed my three-times limit with him. I knew it was going to happen, but the thought shocked and frightened me at the same time. My body stiffened with my terror.
“Shh, baby, relax. Don’t freak out.” Somehow, he knew I would start to panic at this moment, and he was trying to tamp my fear down with his soothing kisses. “Just be here with me; don’t freak out,” he repeated.
My breathing evened out and my heart rate slowed to normal with each time his full lips touched my skin. When he was satisfied that I was calm, he grabbed my hips and flipped me over onto my back, and I couldn’t stop the yelp from flying out of my mouth. He had a sexy, guilty smirk on his face.
“I’ve always thought it was the sexiest damn thing in the world to see you naked in my bed.” Oh God, his voice only got better with the roughness of sleep added to it. I started to squirm underneath him, needing him in between my thighs. “But I was wrong.”
I started moving out from under him. “Well, you sure know how to ruin one of the best moments,” I grumbled.
His hands came down to hold me in place. “I was wrong, because you waking up naked in my bed is even more incredible and sexy. I want you to wake up here every morning.” He bent down to start kissing my neck. “And I’m glad you think this is one of the best moments, by the way.”
“I can’t move in here,” I said, in between heavy breaths.
“You don’t have to move in; just sleep here every night,” he replied with a huge grin on his face. “If it makes you feel better, we can sleep in your bed every once in a while, but I like seeing you here with your hair spread out across my pillow.” When he dipped his hips down to move against me, I closed my eyes at the wonderful feeling. With Jaxon, there was no effort required for my sex drive to flip on. All he had to do was look at me with those blue eyes and I was in full gear, ready to go.
I ran my hands over his chest and noticed a black mark that wasn’t normally there. At a closer glance, I realized it was the mirror image of the writing on my hand. I giggled at the backward Mine on his skin as I ran my fingers across it. I must have slept with my hand right here last night. He dipped his chin down to see what I was chuckling about and he smiled broadly when he realized what it was.
“I kind of like that.” I was mesmerized, tracing the backward letters. When he looked up into my eyes proudly, I whispered, “It’s like you’re mine as well.”
After a second, I realized that the sun was already up, so I turned to look at the clock on the bedside table. “Shit! We have to be in class in thirty minutes.” I started scrambling out from under him.
“So what, let’s skip.” He laughed at me. “Stay in bed with me today.”
“Jaxon, I can’t; I’ve already missed way too many classes. Patterson will drop me if I miss any more this semester, and then I’ll lose my internship.”
“Okay, it’s not that big of a deal. We’ll go. You’re extremely adorable when you get flustered like this, though.” He laughed.
When I got up, I noticed he stayed in bed, not attempting to get out. I gave him a questioning look.
“Yeah, you go ahead. I . . . kind of have a situation . . . I need to wait out.” He gestured at himself under the sheets. “I’ll be set by the time you’re ready to leave.”
I leaned forward with my hands on the bed and knew he was enjoying the view of my naked body. “Join me in the shower and I’ll relieve . . . your situation.” I winked at him.
I’d never seen him move so fast as he sprang from the bed. I bounded out his door laughing, completely naked, and ran straight into the bathroom. I knew no one had seen me, but at the same time, it didn’t even occur to me to care if they had. When I reached the shower and turned on the faucet, I felt large hands on my hips from behind.
“Emerson, I’ll be honest: Right now, I’m not going to handle guys seeing my girlfriend naked very well,” he growled in my ear.
I spun around to look up into his eyes. “Girlfriend?” I gasped nervously.
“I don’t care what label you put on it, but you’re mine, regardless. I won’t share.”
When I just stood there with a shell-shocked expression on my face and not responding, I saw the worry shoot across his. He lowered his voice and spoke slowly. “Babe, when I asked you if you wanted only me last night, I wasn’t talking about one night only. Were you?” he asked, nervously clinching my hips tighter, as if I might leave if he were to let go. The steam from the shower began engulfing the room. The mirror was already fogged up and all I could pay attention to was his blue eyes contrasting against the white steam.
I shook my head no and watched the relief wash the worry away in his eyes. “I can’t be a girlfriend, though. I’ll be terrible at it. I just can’t . . . I’ll hurt you . . . I just can’t . . .” I started shaking my head back and forth with my rising panic and rambling.
He gently pushed me backward into the shower and shut the glass door behind us. The water poured down over both of us and I slowly started calming down as his hands ran through my hair. He softly tilted my head back to soak my hair under the spray of hot water. Without saying a word, he was bringing me down from my panic; without saying a word, he was making me feel safe and cared for.
I turned my face to the side. “You deserve someone better than me,” I whispered into his arm.
“You deserve to know how great it can be for someone to care about you.”
“I don’t even know what a good relationship is.”
“I kind of gathered that, and one day, you’ll tell me why you’re so afraid of them.” He tilted my face up to his. “I’ll show you how great we’re going to be. Because you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met, and I’m not talking about your gorgeous face, your stunning hair, or your drop-dead sexy body. I never knew it was possible to be so attracted to your best friend.” My breath caught at his words. I’d never thought about it like that before, but slowly he had become my best friend in all of this.
I wish I had the words to give back to him, but I didn’t. So, I just leaned up on my toes and wrapped my hands around his neck and kissed him with everything I wished I could say.
We hurried through our shower and raced to school. Before we entered the classroom, my heels locked into the pavement. I wanted to be who he needed me to be, but being in front of everyone, I was starting to freeze.
He leaned down from behind me, over my shoulder, to talk into my ear. “Hey, if it makes it easier for you, I won’t call you my girlfriend. Deal?”
My shoulders released their tension and I exhaled in relief. “Thank you, Jaxon.”
Right before I could walk into the room, he grabbed hold of my shoulder and spun me around. “This doesn’t mean you get to be with anyone else, understand? Nobody else gets to touch you. There’s only you and me, no one else,” he spoke in a deadly serious tone. I loved when his voice got all rough and serious. Then he picked up my hand and tapped the inside of my palm where he had written last night. “Mine,” he whispered.
I slipped my fingers into the waistband of his pants and tugged him even closer to me. “I only want you.” I reached up and nipped his bottom lip with my teeth.
I heard a growl roll through his chest. “Do we really need to do this today?” He tilted his head toward the classroom door.
“Unfortunately,” I said as I pulled him into the classroom.
When I was finished with biology later, I walked out of my classroom and Jaxon wasn’t out there. I didn’t actually know which classroom in the science building he was in, so I decided to walk down to the cafeteria, where we always met up with everyone else anyway. This whole “dating” thing was strange territory for me. Was I supposed to call him or text him to tell him I would meet him? Or was I supposed to just act the way I always did? I decided to go with the latter, because I had no idea how to do anything else.
I didn’t know if Jaxon would want to hang around to eat lunch here or go back to the apartment. So I decided to just sit down with everyone instead of going through the lunch line for a tray. Quinn and Cole hadn’t made it here yet, either. When I got to our usual table, I waved to Garrett, Mason, and Micah. I sat down in an empty spot, and slowly more people started to join us. Right when I sat down, Micah slid in next to me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I tried, nonchalantly, to move away from his hold. I didn’t want to make this new change obvious, but I also knew how pissed Jaxon would be if he walked in here and saw Micah’s arm around me.
Surprisingly, Jace slid in on the opposite side of me, eyeing Micah. He never ate lunch with us; I usually saw him sitting with a couple of other premed students.
I took advantage of his appearance. “Hey, Jace, how was class?” I asked, sliding closer to him and dropping Micah’s arm. “Thanks for saving me,” I whispered into his ear.
“Just trying to avoid a fight.” He nodded toward the lunch line and then leaned forward to eat his food. Jaxon was pushing his tray through the line behind a couple of girls, looking directly at me. He looked angry.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I continued whispering under my breath. “I knew I would be terrible at this.” When I motioned to get up and leave, Jace clamped a hand down onto my leg to keep me seated.
“Don’t run away, Ems. He’ll be fine. Just relax.” Jace’s reassuring voice kept me in my seat.
Jaxon walked up behind me and placed his tray down in front of me. He had gotten enough for both of us. “Move it, Woods, you’re in my spot,” he said to Micah.
“Dude, last time I checked, we didn’t have assigned seating,” he replied, scooting closer to me.
“Micah, just move . . . please,” I said, trying to move away from him and bumping into Jace.
Micah shoved his tray to the opposite side in front of me and got up to walk all the way around the table and benches. When he came back around and sat down, he eyed me curiously. Jaxon sat down in his vacated spot and, with his arm behind my back, gripped my hip and scooted me closer to him. Then he brought his arm back and started eating like nothing had happened. Quinn and Cole finally came to join us at the table as well, moving in next to Micah.
I leaned into Jaxon. “I didn’t know if you wanted to stick around here or eat at home, so I didn’t grab any food,” I told him.
“Do you want to leave?” he asked, motioning to get up.
“You just bought all this food. We should at least eat it.”
He situated himself back into his seat and shrugged noncommittally. I didn’t like that I felt as if I was in trouble for something, as if I needed to explain my actions. I hadn’t even done anything wrong. I placed my palms down on the table so I could push myself up taller. I gave Jaxon a quick peck on the lips and I watched as the tension left his face. He looked down at me and smiled, then gestured for me to eat as well.
With a mouth full of food, Micah pointed his fork at the both of us. “What’s going on with you, Emmsie? You never dole out the affection.” Apparently, the extent of my nicknames at this school was never-ending; I hadn’t heard that one yet. I wasn’t a fan.
“Not for you, Micah,” I responded vaguely.
“Don’t call her Emmsie.” Jaxon shot a hard look at Micah while speaking.
“What, you’re the only one that can call her something special?”
“Just drop it,” I said to both of them. I noticed Jace stiffening up beside me.
“I call her by her name, jackass. Not some cutesy nickname,” Jaxon replied anyway.
“Emerson sounds like a dude’s name,” Micah retorted, and then a cocky grin spread across his face as he got an idea. Uh-oh. I didn’t like that face. “When I’m pounding into her, I like to call out a chick’s name.” My mouth fell open at what he had just said.
First, I noticed Jace’s fist clenching, and then I felt the air rush past my head as Jaxon’s body flew across the table. He took Micah down with him during his flight. Both of them grunted from the impact of the hard ground, although Micah took the brunt of it with Jaxon on top of him. I sat up to look over the edge of the table at the two of them down there. Jaxon was pummeling him in the face with his fists repeatedly. Micah was trying to bring his forearms up to block the punches.
Jace swiftly scrambled over the table feet-first and grabbed Jaxon by the collar of his shirt. I realized Jace had been anticipating this, because he scooped him up way too fast to have been surprised. Cole jumped up and helped Jace move Jaxon away from Micah. Cole stepped on Micah’s hand and twisted his foot to grind it into the ground on his way out. Micah didn’t say anything, but I saw him wince from the pain. Quinn shook her head back and forth at all of them. As the three of them were walking out of the cafeteria, Jace and Cole had their arms wrapped around Jaxon.
“Fuck you, Riley!” Micah bellowed from his spot on the ground.
I watched as Jace’s and Cole’s arms flexed from the brief struggle Jaxon put up. Then they continued out the door toward the parking lot, without even a glance back. It all happened so fast that not many people even noticed in the loud cafeteria. I think the only people that saw were those at our table, and one of the other tables that Jaxon and Micah fell between. Micah’s food was half on the table and half on the floor. He pulled himself back up on the bench and sat down in front of me again. His face didn’t look that bad; it was mostly just red. I knew that if Jaxon wanted to, he could have done some real damage. He had his head bent forward looking down at his food.
His angry eyes looked up at me. “You should stay away from him, Em. He’s insane.”
“Only to assholes, Micah,” Quinn said from beside me, glaring at him.
“I didn’t say anything I wouldn’t say any other day!” He lifted his hands in frustration.
Garrett and a few of the other frat guys slid down the bench toward us. “You know what you said, fucker. Just drop it.” He eyed Micah.
I looked down at my food for the next couple of minutes and picked at the turkey and ham sandwich. Micah may have been a jerk for what he said, but at the end of the day, he was right. I had allowed all of the guys to openly joke about our times together; hell, I was usually the one making the jokes. They didn’t know any better. I wanted to believe that Micah wouldn’t have said something like that if he had known I was with Jaxon now.
“I’m sorry, Micah. That was my fault. You didn’t know.”
His hard eyes shot to mine. “Didn’t know what, Em?” he angrily responded. He knew and he was trying to get me to say it out loud, but the coward inside of me couldn’t even do that.
“You just didn’t know.” I sighed.
The others in our group had finished their lunches and vacated the building about fifteen minutes later. Quinn sat faithfully next to me the whole time, offering her silent support.
“I don’t think I can do this, Quinny.”
“You can and you will.” She looked at me with a serious expression.
“Quinn, you can’t force me to be in a relationship,” I spoke through a laugh.
“I can and I will.”
“Cute . . .” I replied drily.
“Em, I’ve never seen any of those guys look at you the way he does. I’ve never seen you look at any of those guys at all, really. You look at Jaxon though, and you let him in. Don’t quit now.”
I sighed in defeat. She was right. The fact was that I didn’t want to let Jaxon go or even be away from him, period.
“Jaxon’s never going to be okay with the fact that I’ve slept with practically everyone.” I said.
“He’ll have to learn, won’t he? Besides, you haven’t slept with everyone. You haven’t slept with Jace or Cole,” she said with a wink. “Let’s keep it that way, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I leaned my head on her shoulder. Quinn was good for my spirits. She knew what I was thinking before I even had to say it, and she knew how to ground me when I was becoming a flight risk.
We walked out to the parking lot to get in our car when we noticed Jace and Cole standing by the truck talking. There was no Jaxon in sight.
“Where is he?” I asked them anxiously.
“He hopped on the bike and left as soon as we got out here,” Jace said with a shrug, but I could tell he was worried about his brother.
“Do you think that was the smartest thing to let him do when he’s pissed?”
“I think he’s just pissed at himself,” Cole said.
“At himself? Why? I figured he was mad at me.” I was shocked.
“He thinks he scared you,” Jace said looking a bit forlorn.
“The only thing I’m scared of is him out there riding that thing while he’s got so much running through his head.” I pulled my cell out of my pocket and brought up his name in my contacts.
Me: Come back, please?
Jace pulled down the tailgate and we sat on top of it next to each other. Cole pulled Quinn into the bed of the truck and tucked her into his lap. I heard him whispering into her ear, but I didn’t know what he was saying. I sat there swinging my legs back and forth, hoping that Jaxon was okay and that he would come back by here soon.
“Em, I have a class to get to.” Jace’s voice sounded unsure. I knew he was wondering if he should stick around to make sure Jaxon was okay.
“Go ahead, Jace. I’ll text you when he comes back.” I patted his leg.
“Thanks, Em.” He leaned and kissed me on my cheek right before he leaped down off the tailgate. “Go easy on him, okay?” I nodded my head at him.
After Jace said his good-byes, Quinn scooted out of the truck. “I have to be at my tutoring session in five minutes. I’ll see you at home?” she asked.
“Man, I never got to finish my lunch. My stomach’s going to be growling the whole time, Quinn,” Cole complained.
“You know you don’t have to sit through her sessions, right?” I teased.
“As long as Bryce is her student, I do.”
“You guys are overprotective cavemen,” I grumbled.
“Come on, babe, you can eat in the Tutor Hall Café,” Quinn said, while grabbing his hand. “Em, you can take the car; you should go home. Cole has his car.”
“He’ll come back here. I’m going to wait.” I watched as they shrugged their shoulders and walked off.
I was left alone on the bed of the truck. It’s ironic that I was just here yesterday hiding from Jaxon, and now I here I was hoping to find him. I scooted further into the bed and lay down flat on my back. The weather was unusually warm today and the sun felt good on my skin. I noticed a shirt balled up in the corner, so I reached over to grab it. It was Jaxon’s and I wondered when he had taken this off to toss it back here. I used it as a pillow under my head to help alleviate the discomfort of the ridges on the truck bed floor. The scent of his cologne helped me doze off in the comfort of the sun.
I woke up with a start when I heard the loud rumble of a motorcycle engine. Jaxon was parking the bike next to the truck and pulling his helmet off. His eyes were already on me before the helmet was all the way off his head. He snapped the helmet straps around the handlebars of the bike. His backpack swung around the side of his body and he reached in to grab his black ball cap. I sat up on my elbows to watch him. I adored when he wore that cap; he looked even more sexy than usual.
“I love when you wear that,” I decided to tell him.
“The cap?” he asked, looking surprised, and I nodded to him. Then, as he thought about something, he frowned at me. “You’re going to be sunburned if you’ve been lying out here the whole time.”
“I knew you would come back. I wanted to be here,” I said quietly. “Ready to go home?” I scooted out of the truck.
He gave me a confused look and then nodded his head. I got up and went around to the passenger side of the truck. I wasn’t even going to ask if we could ride on the motorcycle, since I knew the answer to that one. Jace and Jaxon carried both sets of keys with them at all times now. They were always switching out on each other without telling the other one. I think by now, Jace knew that if I was with Jax, the truck would be occupied. Jaxon followed behind and lifted me up into the seat. He stared into my eyes like he wanted to ask me something or he was waiting for me to say something. I leaned in and kissed him softly.
The ride home was quiet. I couldn’t read him. I still didn’t know if he was mad at himself or me. His emotions were all over the place on his face. I took hold of his hand as we were walking up the stairs to the apartment. He pulled out his keys and let us into his place. He pulled me into his bedroom and laid me down on the bed. I started breathing heavily as he climbed above me. I was instantly turned on by his proximity. His body was the best kind of aphrodisiac. The only problem was that his face still held a lot of worry as he looked into my eyes. I reached up to smooth the lines under his eyes.
“Beautiful, please just get it over with. Yell at me; tell me how mad you are, so I’ll feel a little better. Not that I deserve to,” he said in a rough, beaten tone.
“Huh? Why would I yell at you?” I questioned.
He bent his head down into the crook of my neck as he spoke. “Because I acted like an idiot.”
I shoved his cap off his head and ran my fingers through his soft hair. “Jaxon, all of that would have been prevented if I wasn’t such a coward.”
“No babe, I shouldn’t have let that get to me.”
“But it did and part of being your . . . just yours”—I had almost said the “G” word—“I need to find a way to get over my insecurities and make you feel more comfortable.”
I felt the side of his cheeks pull up into a grin when he caught me stuttering over that “just yours” part.
“No, I don’t want to make you move so fast that it scares you off again. I can handle it next time, promise. I just hate that they feel like they can touch you whenever they want and say whatever they want.”
“I wouldn’t hate it if you touched me whenever you wanted to, though.” I wiggled against him.
“Hmm . . . damn, I’ll never get tired of you telling me that,” he said while lifting my shirt up. His head bent down to take me into his mouth and I moaned, writhing against him to find relief. His sweet torment was going to be the death of me.
Before I knew it, we were both completely naked and he was thrusting into me feverishly. It was strange being able to do this with him whenever I wanted to. I didn’t have to worry about my stupid rules. I didn’t have to worry that he was with someone else, because he was with me. I didn’t care if anyone else liked him, because he was mine. Because of those things, I got to ignore my limit-of-three rule repeatedly.
He grabbed my wrists with one of his hands and held them tightly above my head. He was driving so hard and fast it was almost impossible to concentrate on anything besides the euphoria he was building inside of me. I pulled my legs up so they went up over his shoulders, and he turned his head to trail kisses up the inside of one of my legs. The contrast between his fast and hard movements, versus this sweet side of him, started pushing me over the edge. I clinched him hard inside of me and I heard him groan as his hand gripped me tighter.
“Fuck, baby, do that again,” he panted. When I did, he let out a long groan.
“Kiss me,” I gasped.
His lips slammed against mine passionately. I couldn’t hold on any longer and I screamed out his name so loud that if anyone else had been home, I would have been embarrassed. Jaxon was able to hold on for a couple more minutes, slowly building me back up. No one had ever revved me up this much.
By the time he let go, I made sure my eyes were open to watch the ecstasy on his face. The pure pleasure in his eyes sent me over the cliff one more time. He had let my hands go in his release so I grabbed onto his back, sinking my nails into his skin with my back arched into him while riding out the waves. He finally collapsed onto the spot right next to me. I rolled over to lay my head on his chest while we both panted from exertion.
His hand ran up and down my back softly. The soothing motion made my eyes heavy. I sat up to look at the clock because I had work tonight and Jaxon pulled me back down to his chest.
“Shh, Beautiful . . . just sleep. I’ll wake you in time.” He leaned down to kiss my forehead.