Present Day
Jace Bennett
THE WORD POOR wasn’t an adjective that ever should have been used to describe me. Yet, every decade it seemed to become a precursor to my name.
When I was ten it was Poor Jace, his parents were killed.
When I was twenty it was Poor Jace, he doesn’t know what to do with his life.
And when I was thirty it was Poor Jace, he’s a widower at such a young age.
Less than eight years until I turned forty, and I hoped like fuck that word didn’t make a comeback.
Yet as I lay in my bed tossing and turning before the sun even came up, I found myself feeling like Poor Jace. Only this time I was the one thinking it.
Sympathy wasn’t anything I ever wanted.
Pity was something I disliked.
But judgment was something I loathed.
And Hannah Michaels had judged me harshly.
So screw her.
Yeah, that was the problem, wasn’t it?
That tremendous sex drive I had always had took a hiatus when Tricia died, but lately it seemed to be emerging with a vengeance.
Proof was the raging erection I was looking down at. Sure, I had morning wood almost every day, and every day I dealt with it in the same manner that I brushed my teeth. Like it was something I had to do.
This morning though, it was different. I didn’t want to just deal with it. I wanted it relieved. I wanted to feel something more than a vague darkness. And that was why I had donned myself Poor Jace.
Frustrated, I rolled over and punched my pillow. Not the best idea. I rolled back over and glanced down. Yep, it was still there. Deal with it, asshole. You had a dream about her. You let her in your thoughts. Now fucking deal with the consequences.
Arguing with myself also wasn’t something I was keen on, but it was another method I had learned long ago to help temper my aggression.
It wasn’t working.
My dick was not only still throbbing, but it was begging for one hell of a release.
Fine, fuck it.
At exactly four fifty-nine in the morning, I threw my legs over the side of the bed and stomped toward the bathroom.
Turning the hot water on in the shower as high as I could, I waited for it to warm. Once the mirror started to fog, I stepped into the marble enclave with its six streaming jets, and already had my cock in my hand.
With my head bent and my eyes closed, I let the hot water stream over my neck and back, working on the tension.
As the water hit me from all directions, I opened my eyes and looked at my fist. It had been so long since I’d thought of pussy, but I wanted my fist to be someone’s wet, hot, slick cunt. And I couldn’t even pretend that someone’s wasn’t hers.
There it was—I wanted her hand to curl around me and feel how hard the thought of her made me, and then I wanted to plunge deep inside her.
My hand, hot and slick on my cock, gripped tighter and started to move. I closed my eyes again and gently rubbed first around my cockhead, then my balls. I imagined her being the one doing it—with me free to explore her body in any way I wanted.
Fuck, that felt good.
Then I really started to move. I grabbed the base of my cock and moved up toward the tip in one smooth, hard stroke, and I couldn’t deny I wanted her hands to be gripping me, not mine.
That felt even better.
Water pellets from the shower dripped down my body and acted as a lube making it easier to move quickly.
The harder I worked myself, the more I thought of her, her face, her body . . . how I wanted to touch her, where I wanted to touch her.
I imagined driving my cock into her sweet pussy and that thought alone made me want to come hard and fast. With my fist pumping at a quicker pace, I licked the water from my lips and felt the pressure well deep within me.
Each push and pull edged me closer until I finally felt a tingling radiate from my cock. As my descent into mindless pleasure began, so did the contractions—it felt like electricity shooting through me. That unbelievable good feeling mounted and I stopped trying to hold on.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d jerked myself like this, and I didn’t bother trying. All I knew was I was feeling a huge and overwhelming need for release.
My guts tightened, my balls tingled, and my cock throbbed in my fingers. With a hand on the shower wall, I bucked forward once, twice more, and then shot. Still feeling the aftershock, I slouched back against the tiled wall and spilled into breathless laughter at the ecstasy of it all.
Seriously, I’d been jerking off since I was fourteen, and at thirty-two, I was still jerking off. Odd, I couldn’t recall it ever being as big of a deal as it felt right in that moment.
Once I stopped the insanity of my laughter, and my breathing returned to normal, I lathered up with soap, rinsed it off, shaved, and got out.
Wrapping a towel around my waist, I dried myself with another, and then strode down the hallway to my closet. I didn’t look at the closed door across from my closet, I couldn’t.
After I punched my legs into my boxers and slid into a pair of suit pants, I decided to check on Scarlett.
On the way, I stopped in front of the dresser and looked at myself in the mirror. When I did, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking what an asshole I was—jerking off to her, it wasn’t right. Anyone else, fine, but her, I shouldn’t have.
Angered with myself, I pounded my fist down on the dresser. The small dish on it bounced up and down, causing my wedding band to bounce out of it and hit the floor.
I’d taken the ring off the first night I went to Ethan and Fiona’s. I hadn’t put it back on since.
Wrenching my head to the side, I watched the platinum band roll down the hallway and stop right in front of Tricia’s closet.
Everything in that moment seemed surreal. My entire body started to shake as I walked toward it. I was a living, breathing human being, and for the first time in three years, I truly felt like it.
But then guilt set in, and I couldn’t shake it.
Bending down, I picked up the band that had Tricia’s name engraved around the inside perimeter and ran my finger over the raised letters. Soon, I found myself sitting on the floor.
If the ring wasn’t a sign, jerking off to the thought of someone else, was, and I knew what I had to do. I knew it was time to let Tricia go.
Empty her closet.
Clean out her drawers.
Throw out her toothbrush.
She wasn’t coming back. I knew that, of course, and still it wasn’t that easy. But it was time.
Time to let her go.
I’d love her forever, but I had to let her go.
As I stared at the ring lying on top of the palm of my hand, I had no idea how much time had passed. Sometime in those minutes though, I’d decided I would call Fiona today. First to make things right between us, and second to tell her I was ready to donate Tricia’s clothes to Women Rejoining the Workforce. WRTW was a charity organization Fiona had started working with a couple of years ago. It was geared toward helping women who had stayed home, go back to work.
“Daddy, what are you doing?”
I looked up and blinked, and then blinked again. The sun was just rising and my daughter was standing in the space between my bedroom and bathroom in her pink nightgown. I squeezed my palm shut and jumped to my feet. “I was just thinking.”
“About what?” she asked with that voice of concern that made her sound ten years older than she was.
Honesty was always the best policy, when possible. “That we should donate Mommy’s things to that organization Aunt Fiona works with.”
She brought her hands together. “Oh, Daddy, I think that’s a wonderful idea. Aunt Fiona says there are a lot of mommies who need new clothes to go back to work.”
I grinned at her innate kindness. “And what are you doing up this early, princess?”
Her tiny shoulders shrugged. “I woke up, and was thinking maybe you could put my hair in braids today.”
Taking long strides toward her, I had her up in my arms and on my shoulders before she even finished talking. “You just happened to wake up early and have that thought, did you now?”
My daughter giggled as I galloped toward my bed and tossed her on it. Once her fit of laughter subsided, she sat up. “Well, I might have set my alarm the way you showed me, so that I’d wake up early.”
The clock read six twenty-five. Normally I didn’t wake her up until seven to get her ready, and we were both downstairs by seven thirty when Mrs. Sherman arrived. “Wow,” I said, offering her my hand, “you’re a quick learner.”
Her little bare toes wiggled, and she looked up at me with wide green eyes. “You are too, Daddy, and I’m certain after that YouTube video we watched over the summer that you’ll be able to braid my hair just like Polly showed you.”
Polly was the YouTuber who made a show of explaining to fathers how to do all kinds of things with their daughters’ hair, including braiding.
This was going to be one interesting morning.
I led her to her bathroom. “First you have to brush your teeth, and then get dressed. Once you finish that, I will try to braid you hair, but I make no promises,” I said with a wink.
In the doorway to her bathroom, where the print of tiaras covered the walls, she attempted to comb her fingers through her tangled locks. “You’re the best.”
I smiled at her and kissed the top of her head. I only hoped she still thought that after I was finished—with the hair brushing and the braiding.
Of course, I knew what the braids were about. But Scarlett and I had discussed what happened at school last night, and although there was no doubt I’d broken at least a dozen parenting rules yesterday between my visit to her aggressor’s house and my advice to her, which I won’t repeat, I figured today I’d let her handle things her way.
Besides, braids seemed reasonable. For a short-term solution, anyway.
As I walked back to my room to finish getting dressed, I couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t an easy, short-term solution to Hannah having suddenly appeared back in my life.
Perhaps we wouldn’t see each other again.
I doubted that with our kids in the same class.
I could forget I ever saw her.
Probably not.
I could invite her to lunch and let bygones be bygones.
When hell froze over.
Then I remembered the For Sale sign in her yard, and thought, maybe she’s moving away.
“Not a chance,” I said out loud. “She was probably moving in.”
There was no way I was going to be that God damn lucky, I thought.
Then I stopped dead in my tracks because I wasn’t certain which one of those two options I was hoping for—her moving in or moving out?
Even as I thought about the possibility of seeing her again, I felt my body shudder. All of a sudden the ring still in my palm felt like it burning, and my gut started to churn.
I was seriously fucked.