Aidan
One thing is painfully clear: there’s no fucking way I can let Jessie go.
It’d have to be a blue damn moon before I could even comprehend thinking about the possibility. I have no idea when she became this to me, someone that I could imagine being with all the time, but all I know is that she did, and it’s just about fucking blindsided me.
She has just about blindsided me.
Did I ever expect to tear through the layers of her tough outer shell and see the soft, fun, playful girl beneath them? Did I ever expect to play the drums with her curled against me? No. Fuck no. I didn’t. When I told her ex that she was my girlfriend, I never for a single second expected that I would ever want her to actually be my girlfriend.
I never expected that I’d want her to want to be mine.
And I do. I want her to want to be mine. I want her, red hair and tattoos and all, to smile at me the way she does and mean it. I want her to want this bullshit falseness to be torn out from between us and to want something real.
I want that. I want the realness I feel every time she says my name or laughs at me. ’Cause, shit. That’s the best part of her. That laugh. And she laughs so easily. Unless she’s mad at me, there’s a smile on her face and a laugh on her lips.
I want to be the reason for that. I know I am, right now, but I want to be the reason for that in the future, too.
I’ll be fucked if I’m gonna let her go without a fight, and fight I will. I swear to God I’ll fight my ass off for this gorgeous girl who’s barreled into my life like a whirlwind and obliterated anything I thought was real and replaced it with her.
The relationship is fake, but my feelings sure are starting to feel real. Really fucking real.
I step off the bottom stair and make a turn into the kitchen. Kye is standing in front of the toaster, and it’s the first time we’ve been alone together since our fight. If he were Tate or Conner, I’d turn and leave, but I know it’ll make me look like a dick, because he knows I’m here.
It really sucks being a twin sometimes.
I grab a coffee pod from the jar next to the machine and throw the old one out. Switching it over and grabbing a mug at the same time, I cut my eyes to Kye. Shit, this is fucking awkward. Mostly ’cause I know he’s thinking the same thing.
“Good grief,” Mom says, walking into the kitchen. She stops just behind us, and I glance at her as she lifts her hand and slices down the middle of us.
“What are you doin’?” Kye asks, looking over his shoulder at her and pausing in buttering his toast.
“Cuttin’ the tension.” She gives us the look that warns us not to laugh, although she knows it was stupid. “Y’all are gonna send me to an early grave if you keep fightin’ like you’re six.”
“We’re not fightin’,” I argue.
“But you ain’t talkin’ either, are ya?”
“No, but we still ain’t fightin’,” Kye replies, turning and tearing a bite off his slice of toast.
“That’s because you aren’t talkin’,” Mom sighs. She eyes the coffee machine as I pour cream into my cup, but ultimately holds her hands up. “Dang, I spent just about half your lives sortin’ out your fights. Y’all are on your own, my boys.”
She turns away with a heavy sigh and a longing look at the coffee machine, and I roll my eyes. “Here,” I say, holding the mug out. “Have this one.”
“Well aren’t you sweet?” she muses, lips pulled into a smugly sweet smile. “Thanks, darlin’.”
Kye and I both snort. I turn back to the coffee machine and repeat the process. The tension grows steadily, although it doesn’t reach the breaking point it did before Mom came in and “cut” it.
“Still seein’ Jessie?” The cold emphasis he puts on the word seein’ pisses me off.
“What’s it to you?”
“More than it is to you, clearly.”
“I’m not gonna fight with you, Kye.” I grab the cream and pour it into my new mug of coffee. “So if you have somethin’ to say, get on with it so I can go back upstairs.”
“Said it all already.” He shrugs.
I shake my head and grab the mug. “I know you don’t agree with what we’re doing, all right. But it ain’t what you think it is. I like her, you know? She’s not the bitch I thought she was.”
Kye smirks. “Nah, she is. She just hides a bunch of awesome under that and fully embraces her bitchy side.”
Can’t argue with that. “True.” I smirk, too. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter how this started, because I’m determined not to let it end the way it was going to.”
“I know. That’s why I got pissed at you,” he admits, throwing his crusts in the trash. “If any of us could pull off a fake relationship, it’s Tate. Not you. Saw right through it, man. Just don’t let Marc dictate the rest of it. The man is a good manager, but a total asshole.”
Can’t argue with that, either. “And then some,” I agree.
“Does she know your fake relationship isn’t all that fake anymore?”
“No. I figured I could, you know, surprise her.”
Kye raises his eyebrow. “In other words, no, and you have no fuckin’ idea how to tell her.”
“Nailed it, bro.”
“I’m no Romeo, so I can’t help you, but make sure you tell her before you get too caught up in your lie. ’Cause if that happens, I don’t know if she’ll let you fight your way out.” He pushes off. “Are you taking her to the party tonight or meeting her there?”
“The Halloween party? That’s tonight?”
“Er, yeah.”
“Shit. I guess I should call her and find out.”
“Oh man,” Kye mutters, leaving me alone in the kitchen. I hear him laugh as he goes upstairs and I yell “Asshole!” which just makes him laugh harder.
I follow him up and shut the door to my room. Grabbing my phone and setting my mug down, I dial Jessie’s number. When she doesn’t answer, I text her.
Party tonight?
Her response is quick. Specific . . .
Hush. Why didn’t you answer?
Working. Can’t take a private phone call behind the counter.
Make me a coffee. I’m on my way.
Oh goodie.
I laugh and pocket my phone, leaving my hot coffee on the dresser, and grab a T-shirt. I throw it over my head and run downstairs, spinning off the end of the banister in the hall and out to my truck. It’s blocked in by Tate’s, so I grab my bike instead, wheeling it between the cars to the end of the drive.
I start it up, and since it’s still early, I make it to the café in record time. I pull up in front of the building and look in the window. Jessie’s behind the counter, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. The café is empty, but her lips are moving, and the way she’s bobbing her head side to side tells me she’s singing. I smile, watching her.
God, she’s beautiful.
I swing my leg over the side of the park and put down the stand, tucking my helmet beneath my arm. I push the door open quietly, hoping to avoid the ring of the bell. It dings quietly as the middle thing hits the edge, but she doesn’t hear. Her back is to the door now, and her ponytail is swinging with her enthusiastic head movements.
It takes everything I have to fight my laugh, especially since the song she’s singing to is one of ours. Half of me wants to tell her she isn’t alone anymore, but the other half just wants to watch her when she thinks no one is looking. To see who Jessie really is when she’s all by herself.
And who she is, is carefree.
And really, really beautiful.
“You and me breathe the same lie,” I sing, gripping the edge of the counter. “It’s our time, I’m all yours . . .”
She freezes and stops singing as the music continues to play through the radio. It’s an old one, but one of my personal favorites, as it’s one of the more upbeat tracks we’ve recorded and released.
And, ironically, incredibly applicable to this situation right now.
Assuming, of course, that Jessie is lying about this relationship the way I am.
“Enjoy the show?” she sasses, but I can see that the color of her cheeks closely resembles her hair.
“You were shakin’ your ass. What do you think?”
She turns, the color disappearing, and purses her lips. She places a mug of coffee on the counter and slides it to me, and I can’t help but grin when she says, “Two fifty.”
I hand her a five, and when she gives me change, I drop it into the tip jar.
“You don’t need to tip me.”
“Way I see it, sunshine, I can give you my money as long as it’s not immediately before, during, or after sex.” I smirk when she rolls her eyes.
“Good to know I’m more than a whore to you.”
“So much more.”
“What did you need?” She raises an eyebrow when I don’t reply. “Aidan? Hello?”
“Sorry. I was trying to think of the least sexual thing I need, but never mind.” I sip my coffee. “The Halloween party tonight. I’ll pick you up.”
“You will, will you?” She stops wiping the counter and her eyebrow arches even higher.
“Well . . . yeah.”
“You’ll pick me up,” she echoes.
“At nine.”
“At nine.”
“Yeah.”
Jessie takes a deep breath and drops the cloth in the sink behind her. “Here’s an idea. How about I go, you go, and then if we see each other, great.” With that, she turns. “I’m on my break.”
I watch her disappear through the door, focusing as it swings back and forth three times. When it closes with finality, my stomach falls, and I grab the edge of the counter. I lean forward, dropping my head so my eyes are focused on my sneakers. “Shit,” I mutter.
The café door opens again, and I glance up as Ashley comes through it. Her lips thin, and the look in her eye just screams asshole at me. “Not your best move,” she notes.
“Ya think?” I sigh and stand up. “She isn’t on her break, is she?”
Ashley shakes her head, grimaces, then glances over my shoulder as the café door opens.
So much for this fighting for Jessie thing. I can’t even remember to ask her instead of telling her to do something.
I turn my head to look. Oh shit.
“Thanks, Ashley.” I tap the counter and turn, darting past the giggling teenage girls frozen in the middle of the room, staring at me.
“What did I do?” she calls after me.
Nothing, I think, pulling the door closed behind me and jumping on my bike.
Exactly what I did.
I’m such a fucking idiot. Just like Jessie keeps saying. You’d think that at twenty-four I’d have this shit down. That I’d know how to treat a woman with respect—even a little—but no. No, I’m worse than a virgin who’s never even kissed a girl.
Shit, seven-year-olds probably have more respect than me.
And Jessie Law? She’s the girl worthy of respect. Respect I’ve never given her. Not once.
Yet I can’t even fucking ask her to a party without just turning up like an arrogant asshole.
I pull up outside my house. Anger is simmering in the pit of my stomach, but more than that is determination. Determination to respect her and show her that I do, because that’s the reality. I respect the hell out of that feisty little ray of sunshine.
Ella is sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast, and she pauses when I storm through the house and stop in front of her.
“I need your help.”
“I didn’t know Dracula carried roses,” Sofie says, putting her hands on her hips.
“They’re not even red. And why is there only eleven? Isn’t it supposed to be twelve?”
“I thought so,” I admit. “The florist didn’t agree with me when I told her what I wanted.”
“One red rose, five pink ones, and five yellow ones?” She tilts her head to the side, her witch’s hat falling. She readjusts it.
“Yep.” I grab the bouquet. “I’m going. See you there.”
“Jessie is gonna eat you alive,” she mutters, sweeping past me and pulling the wine bottle from the fridge.
I smile to myself as I walk outside. Hell, she’s so right. We’ve gone from a dozen red roses that meant nothing to some that actually matter. My conversation with Ella this morning is probably the best I’ve ever had with her, and it didn’t even last that long. Mostly, she told me what I already knew, but shit, it sure was good to get a confirmation on it from a chick.
She told me to show Jessie what I mean. So this is it—the flowers. Her tattoos all mean something unique that I never would have guessed on my own, so I’m hoping she’ll get the meaning of the roses, too.
If she doesn’t . . .
I refuse to think about that. I’m not sure I’d even ever heard of half the flowers carefully inked onto her skin, let alone knew what they mean. She has to know what these roses mean—I’m banking entirely on that.
I’ve never hoped for anything as much.
She speaks flowers, so I’m apologizing with flowers.
Pretty smart, if you ask me.
By the time I park outside her house, I’m more than aware that I’m not alone. Two cars have followed me almost since my house, and there’s no doubt that they’ll follow us to the bar in the center of town where the party is.
I ignore them when I get out holding the roses carefully and a flash goes off behind me. The front door opens before I’ve even made it through the gate, and Jessie steps out, her white dress strapless and clingy, stopping at mid-thigh. Her hair is curled and clipped to the side, and balancing atop her head is a halo.
“What are you doing here?”
“Isn’t your outfit incredibly ironic?”
“Question with a damn question,” she shoots back, although I think it’s mostly in exasperation and said to herself.
“You know me.”
“Unfortunately.” She leans against the doorframe and puts her hand on her hip. “Pretty sure I told you ‘no’ when you declared you would come and get me.”
“You’re right. You did.” I go up one step, noticing her eyes on the flowers. “But I’m not here for that. I’m here to apologize.”
“Apologize.”
“Yep.”
“With roses. Eleven roses.” She says the number thoughtfully, her brows drawing together as she glances up at me. “One red. Five pink. Five yellow.”
“Yep.”
“Go ahead,” she says slowly. “Apologize.”
“I’m sorry,” I say simply, then stop. Shit—I can’t even remember what I planned to say. Her eyes are so guarded and hard that every word I muttered to myself this afternoon while I drove to the florist’s has taken a goddamn hike straight out of my memory. Instead the only words that spring to mind are ones made of my desire to take that guardedness straight out of her.
“You’re sorry.”
I rub my hand down my face, dropping my other hand down so the flowers face the floor. “Would you believe me if I told you I had this whole damn speech prepared? That I’d planned this all afternoon like the biggest little bitch in the world? And I’ve forgotten every single fucking word. Shit!” I look up at the sky. “I’m sorry. That’s it. That’s literally all I fucking have to say. Just sorry. It seems so insignificant, because I wanted to justify my behavior this morning, but maybe there is no justifying it. Maybe I really am just a giant fuckin’ idiotic asshole. Or maybe it’s these.” I lift the bouquet back up and pass them to her. She takes them, holding them close to her chest. “Maybe these say all the goddamn words I don’t have. So, there. There’s your apology. A bunch of fucking flowers that are probably smarter than me.”
I shrug and turn away, defeat settling in my stomach.
Jesus Christ.
I’m really not good enough for her.
I can’t even apologize right.
“Aidan.”
I stop at the gate and turn.
“Wait there,” she instructs me, going back into the house and closing the door.
What the hell?
I’m standing here staring at her front door like an idiot, and I can feel eyes on me. Everywhere. The longest minute passes before she opens the door again and steps through, her purse hanging off her shoulder and a pair of silver strappy heels dangling from her fingers.
Jessie runs down the path barefoot, basically on her tiptoes. She stops right in front of me and sucks her bottom lip into her mouth. Her teeth graze across it as she releases it, and she reaches up to push her hair out of her eyes.
They’re not guarded anymore.
She pushes up onto her toes and reaches out. Her fingers brush the collar of my shirt before slipping down the buttons, stopping just below my chest. She leans forward and touches her lips to mine, the shoes held out to the side.
I rest my hand on her waist, dipping my head down to her.
“Thank you.” Her voice is gentle, and as her eyes meet mine, they’re smiling. “For apologizing. And you don’t need to justify your behavior. I already know you’re an asshole, rocker boy. But thank you for trying.”
“Does this mean you forgive me?”
“I was never mad at you, you idiot.” Her red lips curve. “I just wanted you to realize that demanding things ain’t how this works, since you seemed to have forgotten.”
“I think you also said no roses.”
“No thoughtless roses,” she amends. “Flowers are better when they mean something. The best flowers aren’t grabbed at the last minute. But you still seem to have an issue with asking questions.”
I laugh quietly as she drops her hand. I take one of her curls and twirl it around my finger. “Jessie Law, can I give you a ride to the party tonight?”
“Are you asking me on a date?”
“Nah, I just planned to drive you there, then not say a word to you all night.”
She laughs loudly. “Idiot,” she says, almost fondly. “Sure. You can give me a ride, as long as you promise not to talk to me, ’cause then there’s no chance of you screwing up.”
“It’s okay,” I reply, opening the gate and guiding her to my truck with my hand on her back. “I’ll just buy some more flowers.”
“I can change my mind, you know.”
“Don’t do that. There’s a chance I was followed here, and I’d look like a huge dick if my girlfriend bailed on me right before a party we’re both attending. So between you and me, I’m real glad the flowers worked.”
“Ads?” she says my name softly when I get into the truck. “I got the message.”
Red roses mean respect as well as love, pink roses signify appreciation, and yellow stand for the promise of a new beginning. Eleven roses show the recipient that they’re truly loved.
While I know I’m not in love with Jessie right now, I know that the prospect is very, very real.
I look at her from the corner of my eye, just meeting her gaze. “Good.”
I run my fingers through Jessie’s hair, right to the very tips. I watch, half-asleep, as the bright red ends fall away and flutter back down to the white hotel pillow. Then I do it again, and again, all the while with her still sleeping.
When I woke up ten minutes ago, I found her snuggled into my back with her legs bent into me, essentially spooning me. I rolled over and she immediately moved, sliding one of her legs between mine and looping an arm over my waist. I snuck my arm beneath her head and down her back to pull her into me as she tucked her face into my chest.
Thirty minutes into the party we bailed. Despite our security being there, it was fucking crazy, and not one single woman in the bar had any respect for Ella or Jessie. Sofie? Sure. She and Conner are bound by something nobody could destroy—Mila. But Ella and Jessie . . . they’re both new girlfriends, and new girlfriends are replaceable in the eyes of someone who sees dollar signs when they look at you.
I looked at them, too. I won’t lie. I’m human. But the fame and fortune in their eyes . . . It’s different from before. It’s the frustrating push and pull between money and acknowledgment—like I’m someone they know beyond the radio chart or the latest Twitter trend. And I’ve realized that addiction, that unrelenting obsession—it’s nothing.
A big, fat, fucking nothing.
Not a single one interested me. Not with their perfect hair and false eyelashes and dresses so short their asses were practically on show.
The only girl in that bar that interested me was the one standing next to me. With her lipstick smudged at the corner of her mouth from sucking on a straw poking from a fishbowl with Sofie. The one whose hair was falling out of its carefully placed clips and tumbling down her back. The one whose dress was a little rumpled at the side and had a beer splash mark on the hem because Tate tripped over a chair leg.
The imperfect girl that had a smile on her face that screamed of love for her friends and fuck you to anyone who didn’t like that.
The same imperfect girl who’s lying in my arms, breathing deeply as she sleeps, wearing nothing but a tiny G-string I declined to remove eight hours ago when I flipped her onto her knees and grabbed her hips so I could fuck her deeply.
The girl who looks at me and sees an idiot, an asshole . . . but one who brings her flowers that mean something. I’m an asshole, but I’m an asshole who cares.
And fuck. Looking at her right now, I want to be her asshole.
I’ve grown up my whole life belonging to someone. No matter what I did, I always belonged to my twin brother. Identical DNA decided that. It decided that we’d always be a part of each other, and that it would take some fucking catastrophic event to cut that tie. I always craved belonging to no one but me, and as we’ve grown up that’s something that’s eased. Our ties have loosened despite our freaky twin connections, and we’ve gradually belonged to ourselves and only ourselves.
But Jessie . . .
She makes me want to belong to someone again. To someone different. To someone who challenges me and makes me laugh and gives me that dumb warm fuzzy feeling they talk about in chick flicks.
My sleeping girl moves a little, tilting her head back so only her chin is grazing my chest. I look down at her, trailing my fingers over her back. There are tiny freckles dotted across her nose, spreading out onto the tops of her cheeks. Her makeup usually covers the small brown dots, and I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen her without it. At least, it’s the first time I’ve ever paid attention to her without it.
She’s cute. She’s cute and beautiful at the same time. The cuteness is in her rounded cheeks that flush so often, and the beauty is in the flash of her eyes or the curve of her lips. I didn’t know someone could be that. Beautiful and cute at the same time.
Jessie Law is, quite literally, a law unto herself.
Sassy and carefree, honest and gentle, strong and quick. She’s a mixture of so many qualities that complement the other, and it’s equal parts fascinating and terrifying to look at. I never know what kind of response I’m going to get when I talk to her, much less what she’s thinking.
She’s an open book, but her pages are written in invisible ink.
And fuck, I’d serenade her in the middle of the Walmart parking lot at noon on a Saturday just to be on one single page of her story.
And no one goes to Walmart at noon on a Saturday if they have an ounce of common sense.
Except I know that one page of her story wouldn’t be enough. I want the title, the chapters, and the whole fucking plotline. I want to be her story.
That song—the one she made me play for her, the one where I hit the drums before I could think, the one that’s exactly the same every single time I play it, that’s my story.
In my story, Jessie is every fucking word.
I brush my lips against her forehead, and she responds by sticking her foot out of the covers.
“Hot,” she murmurs sleepily. “You’re a human hot-water bottle.”
“It’s almost winter,” I reply with a smile. “You should be thankful for that.”
“Where’s breakfast?” she yawns, opening her eyes. The lazy blue hue shows how tired she is. “I’m hungry.”
“You worked up an appetite last night.”
She snorts. “I had an appetite forced upon me.”
“Forced? As I recall, I heard the word yes several times, and the only time no was uttered from your mouth was when I wasn’t inside you.”
“Shhh.” She holds her finger against my lips. “I’m not accountable for anything I said while under the influence of fishbowl cocktails and Aidan Robert Burke.”
“Holy fuck. Who told you my middle name?”
She smiles lazily. “I’ll never tell.”
I flip over so she’s beneath me and she bats at me, attempting to roll over. I grasp her hands and hold them over her head, and she groans.
“Gerroff,” she mumbles, kicking her legs against the bed like a toddler having a tantrum.
Laughing, I dip my head. “Tell me.”
“Gerroooofffff me.”
“Promise you won’t use my middle name again?” I brush my lips against her jaw.
“Never.” She turns her face until our lips meet. She flicks her tongue against my bottom lip teasingly and arches her body into mine, her bare, hardened nipples dragging against my chest.
My cock swells as it hardens, the head nudging against the smooth mound of skin right above her pussy.
It would be so fucking easy to kiss her until she’s wet and begging and then slide inside her right now.
And obviously sensing—or feeling—my distraction, Jessie rolls us to the side, takes her hands away, and jumps out of the bed. The same hotel bed I hate having to take her to whenever I want to explore and devour her body.
“Jessie!” I growl.
She laughs, backing toward the bathroom. Sunlight filters in through a gap in the curtains on the other side of the room, glancing across her naked body. She wiggles her fingers, pausing at the door. “I have magic powers. Me, one. You, nothing.”
“I’m givin’ you one warnin’ here, sunshine. Run.”
She pouts her lips teasingly and brings her shoulder up to her chin.
“Three . . .”
Her pout moves to a grin.
“Two . . .”
She bites her thumbnail, still smiling around it.
“One!” I jump up from the bed and she screams, turning and running through the door. I’m quicker than her, but she still manages to get into the shower, turn the water on, and barricade the sliding door with her butt before I can get there.
“No!” she cries, laughing.
“Too late,” I reply, knocking on the door. “Open the door before I start countin’ spanks I owe you.”
She gasps. “Aidan!”
“What? You weren’t complainin’ last night.”
“Oh my God!” She stutters out a giggle, and I know her cheeks will be bright red.
“One spank.”
“Nope.”
“Two spanks.”
“Nuh-uh-ope.”
“Three spanks.”
“You sure are good at numbers,” she muses.
I didn’t want to do this, but . . . I push at the shower door once, hard, and she jumps forward. The gap is big enough for me to jam my shoulder in, so I do it, and she’s forced to step back and let me in.
She’s soaking wet, her hair no longer curled and messy, but straight and smooth against her shoulders. Her mascara has run beneath her eyes, and the dark shadows blemishing her skin only bring out the brightness of her eyes.
“Ads, please.” She laughs again, breathlessly, and holds her hands up.
I raise an eyebrow, sliding the door shut and trying not to sigh in relief as the hot water rolls over my aching body. “Please, what?”
“I won’t use it again. Your middle name,” she replies, water beads dripping down her stomach before disappearing between her legs.
I don’t believe her. And of course, she knows that. That’s why she’s still holding her hands up while her lie dances with the laughter in her eyes.
I curl my fingers around her wrists and pull her against me, directly under the spray of the water. She gasps, eyes closing as her mouth opens, as it beats against the top of her head and our bodies come together. “Liar,” I murmur, closing my eyes against the water, too. “You’re still laughing, and I have a huge erection from your little trick back there.”
“So?”
“So finish what you started.” I bite her bottom lip gently, and she shivers. “Right now.”
“You forgot how to ask again.”
I push her against the glass, pulling us out of the direct blasts of water. She opens her eyes when I release her hands and grasp her hips. “You wanted me to ask? I’m sorry. I assumed you naked in the shower was an invitation.”
“Asshole.”
Kissing her, I smile. “Absolutely. But I’m still gonna fuck you right here against the shower wall, so the sooner you be quiet, the sooner I can make you come again.”
“Presumptu— Oh!” she cries when I drop down and hike her legs up over my shoulders. She reaches out and slaps her hand against the wall, the other sliding through my hair.
“Unless you’re screaming my name or begging me for more, keep your pretty little mouth closed,” I murmur, my lips ghosting the top of her thigh.
I don’t know if she tries to reply, because I close my mouth over her clit and suck hard. She gasps, gripping my hair tightly as my tongue goes to work, tasting and teasing her wet pussy. She writhes against me, locking her ankles between my shoulder blades. She throws her head back as her body tightens and she comes, and I drop her legs only to stand and lift them once more.
She growls at me through her pleasure, but I reach under her and position the head of my hard cock against her. I swell at the contact, and in one quick thrust, I’m inside her, reminding her this isn’t over yet.
“Sweet God!” she breathes, grabbing at my back as I bury myself inside her completely. She angles her hips toward me, and I move, picking up speed and rhythm.
Fuck, fuck. She just feels so fucking right. I can feel her everywhere she isn’t even touching me, but when she scratches her fingers across my back, she leaves a blazing inferno of desire roaring across my skin.
She’s the ultimate fucking itch I’ve never been able to scratch. And never will.
She tightens around me, and I clench my teeth as I hold back, waiting for her to let go for a second time. For good measure, I slap my hand against her ass. She gasps as the sharp sound rings out, cutting through the steady pound of the shower, but she finishes on a moan.
And then, just like that, her body goes rigid, then she shudders out a cry so loud it forces me to join her in her ecstasy.
Then, fuck, I do, and it’s the best fucking feeling ever.
Jessie drops her head onto my shoulder and, still shaking, holds me tightly. I keep one hand on her ass to hold her up, but I wrap my other arm around the small of her back and hug her.
I have no idea how long I hold her up like this. I just know I feel every pound of her heart as if they were my own, and every deep breath she takes mirrors mine almost exactly.
I wonder if she feels the same way I do. . . . That our lie really is becoming a lie.
I pound my fists into the punching bag in front of me. One after the other, my attack is relentless, and Conner can barely hold it steady enough for me to continue.
I don’t care though. Don’t give a fuck that I’ve worked up such a sweat that my hair is glued to my forehead or that I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning. I can still taste Jessie on my lips, and it could be my imagination, but I’d bet it isn’t. I fucking wish it were though. I wish everything about her was an imaginative lie or that someone could pinch the underside of my balls and I’d wake up from this craziness.
Every second I’m with her she amazes me. Every second I’m without her I crave her.
Right now I should be thinking about how we can believably end this sham of a relationship.
Instead, I’m thinking about everything I can do to make this sham relationship a real one. Because she’s no longer my lie. She’s no longer the girl I can toss aside for nothing.
I said I’d never put a girl I cared about through the shit our fans give, but I have, and I’d do it again every day if it meant I’d get to see her at the end of every day. That makes me so fucking selfish, but God—shit. I can’t help it. I don’t want to let her go any more than I want to see her break down in tears because the people that love Dirty B. hate her.
The sickest thing is that they’re my only two options. Let her go, or see her cry. What a fucking bastard this decision is, especially when neither option is okay. It’s literally shredding me to pieces inside because I know I have to make the choice.
Letting her go just seems impossible, and I really must be a bastard, because I’d rather see her cry, because then I’d get to kiss the tears away. Now, not seeing her, not touching her, not hearing that goddamn laugh . . .
That thought hurts. Not just a sting either. It’s a huge, slicing cut that may as well have me bleeding out.
I yell out as I slam my fist into the bag once more before falling against it and holding it. I breathe heavily, closing my eyes, letting the silence wrap around me.
Fuck.
I’ve fallen in love with my lie.