Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
Jax
I sat there, stunned by Preston’s revelation. I knew I should say something, but how do you respond to someone who just told you they saw so much in you?
But was I really surprised? These past few weeks, I could tell Preston’s feelings had changed, but he held them back. I didn’t want to call him on it, because that might force me to admit I liked the way we were. I liked Preston. I liked the person I was with him.
“Ha. So that’s how it feels to have a heartfelt declaration met with silence. It’s not great.” Preston started to pack up our food.
“Wait.” I put my hand on his arm. “Do you want to know what I work on late at night?”
He looked at me confused, as if his patience was wearing thin.
“I know, I know. But I promise, it’s related.”
He sat back down, resting his arms on his bent knees. “Okay, I’ll bite. What are you working on late at night?”
“Well, you know I moved in with my grandma after my parents died.”
“So you’re communicating with the great beyond?” He clenched his fists. “Sorry, that’s not fair. I know... well, you know I know at least a fraction of how it feels to lose someone. I’m just lashing out.”
“I’m a champion lasher-outer. I know. But thank you for apologizing.” I waited a beat, and then continued.
“Right after the accident, I had a lot of trouble sleeping. My grandma was a voracious Harlequin serials reader, and I had moved into her library. It was the only other room in the house. I started reading these books until the early morning.
“They probably weren’t all appropriate for a sixteen-year-old, but they helped some with the nightmares, so my grandma didn’t take them away. Soon the familiar pattern of the Happy Ever After, the rhythms these stories took, became a comfort to me. I decided I wanted to write romance novels.”
“That’s what you focused on for your MFA,” Preston said, the lightbulb clicking on in his head.
I nodded. “Yes. My grandma loved that we shared a passion for these stories. She would tell everyone her granddaughter was going to be the next Nora Roberts.” I laughed, unsurprised when it sounded a bit wet. “She died after a brief illness my senior year of college. I had already been accepted to my MFA program, so she knew I was on the path to our dream. She left me some money, enough to help cover tuition and get me started. I was going to do it for her.”
“So, what happened?” Preston’s face read open and caring now, so unlike the closed off, hurt man of a few moments ago. His ability to put aside his own emotions and pain, to focus on someone else, made me want to care for him. Who put him first?
“Well, some bill collectors came out of the woodwork and found me. I was all alone—I had no other family I could turn to. Looking back, there were probably resources to fight it, but I just wanted it to be over, to stop drudging up the pain that my grandma was gone . As if I wasn’t aware of that fact every day.”
“So you paid them,” he said, his voice full of sorrow.
“I did. And it took every dollar I had, and then some, making installments with jobs I worked during grad school. I missed out on making connections with my cohort, because I was always working or catching up on schoolwork. But my grandma’s memory pushed me to keep going.
“I needed some way to make money after graduation and the best man at my parent’s wedding had a connection in political reporting, so I took it. He tried to check in on me afterward, but I felt so ashamed of accepting his help I dodged his calls and eventually he stopped trying.”
We sat there in silence for a moment, before Preston broke it. “So the late-night work?”
“It took about three months of being a low-level reporter for me to realize I was going to lose my soul and my mind if I didn’t find another outlet. So, I set up a pen name and started publishing romance novels. I wanted to keep my identity a secret, so I would be taken seriously in my day job.
“I’ve published ten novels over the last five years. I feel just on the cusp of making it, being able to write full time, but I keep having these setbacks. A paper will close, or a temp job will end, or I’ll need to find somewhere new to live. The books get done, but the rest of it—the marketing, the outreach—falls away. Because it’s just me. I’m on my own.”
Preston scooted over so he was next to me, reaching out hesitantly to take my hand. “Do you want to be on your own?”
I looked down at our fingers, how they fit together. How we fit together. Two people who started essentially as strangers in four hundred square feet. “I haven’t tried it another way for a long, long time.”
We sat, gazing into the bright afternoon sunlight. I saw the families walking around the reflection pool—brothers chasing sisters, teenagers pretending they were too cool for a family trip. I watched people running, checking their watches as they rounded the bend to the next part of their route. Were they checking a message from someone they were hurrying to get home to? Even the eccentric man spouting philosophically about the end times from a folding chair gathered attention, if for just a fleeting moment.
“I write happy-ever-afters, but there are no guarantees in life. People change. People leave .”
“I know.” Preston wrapped his arm around me, tucking me into his side. I leaned my head on his shoulder. Even my skittish heart couldn’t deny the way this felt right. “I get scared too. But I think what I’ve realized over the past two months is that I’m even more scared not to try.”
We sat like that, watching as the shadows changed and the clouds moved by. Nothing ever stayed the same, but in new light, things remained beautiful.
N either of us had the energy to bike, so we caught a ride share back to Eastern Market, where Preston dropped the bag and reusable containers off in a box left for just that purpose. As we turned to continue on, I said, “I can’t decide if I want a cup of hot chocolate, a shower, or a nap when we get home.”
Preston stopped in his tracks, his fingers slipping from mine after his stalled momentum pulled on my arm.
“What? What’s wrong?”
He looked at me, eyes wide in trepidation. “You called it home.”
I played back the moment as my hand touched my lips, as if I could trace the words I uttered. It was a small thing, removing the word home from my vocabulary. Back to “my place,” or “my sublet,” or even “my pad” when things got really wacky. But never home.
With eyes wide, I dropped my hand from my mouth to reveal a smile, my gaze catching his. Preston took two giant steps forward and captured me in a fierce embrace. His mouth came down on mine as if only my lips could provide his oxygen, like a diver resurfacing for air. I wrapped my arms around his neck, squealing into the kiss as his grip pulled me off my feet.
The kiss slowed, and I grabbed either side of his face, keeping us nose to nose. “Let’s go home.”
W e somehow made it through the door of our apartment in one piece, knowing an indecent exposure charge wouldn’t help anyone.
“Too. Many. Buttons,” I said, working at his shirt, meeting his eyes with a smirk before— riiippp —I popped those buttons right loose.
“I thought you said that was harder than it looked,” Preston said as he wrestled with my jeans.
“I guess I just needed the right motivation.” I helped him push my jeans down my legs, stumbling as I tried to step out before my feet were free.
“Whoa there, steady. Concussions and sex don’t mix,” he joked. His voice sounded lighter than it had in days. I hated his feelings had been dragging him down. I wanted to help fix that.
“So,” he said, running his fingers up my sides, under my shirt. I shivered at the touch. “Do you still want hot chocolate? A shower? A nap?”
“I’m not ruling out the need for a nap. But later.” I bent down to bite his nipple, earning a hiss in response.
“Okay. Bed. Now.” He picked me up, hands cupping my ass, forcing my legs around his waist. The rough fabric of his jeans rubbed against my thigh. These would need to go. I tried to reach between us to undo his button and zipper.
“Whoa,” he said, taking three more steps with me firmly crushed against his body before dumping me on the bed. “The apartment’s small, but I still can’t magically transport from one spot to another. I don’t want to drop you.”
“So particular with not wanting to drop your fiancée,” I joked, trying to use my feet to push his jeans down his hips and off. He helped me, finishing the job and taking his boxer briefs with it. His cock slapped against his stomach as he stood back up, and he grabbed it in one hand, giving it a few quick strokes, catching a bead of wetness from the tip on his finger.
“Gimme,” I said, opening my mouth, clamping down on his finger as I sucked the drop of precum clean. My tongue swirled around the tip of his finger for good measure, earning a guttural moan from where he leaned over the edge of the bed. He pulled his finger free with a pop, running the damp finger down my collarbone and circling my nipple, tightening the already hard bud into a tall point.
“God, you’re beautiful.” Preston stood with one foot on the floor, the other kneeling on the bed next to my legs. I felt like I could float away without his weight to ground me.
“I need you inside me, please,” I said, scrambling with my fingers on his skin, trying to gain purchase to pull him onto me. He put one knee on each side of my hips, his cock pressed into my stomach as he leaned down to give me a slow, yet sinful kiss.
“Since you said please.” He pushed off to lean for his bedside drawer.
“Wait,” I stopped him. “I was tested at the beginning of the year and my results were negative. And I have an IUD. I haven’t been with anyone since then but you.”
“I get screened every year at my PCP. I think she thought I was lying when I said I wasn’t sexually active. But my results were negative as well. Do you want to?”
I bit my lip, nodding. “I just want you.”
Preston’s eyes shut tight, absorbing those words. When they opened again, I could see a pool of care and affection aimed right at me.
I tilted my hips up, opening for him. My hand reached for the base of his cock and his encircled mine. Together, we guided him inside. He slid right home, slowly but firmly, the stretch and burn turning to fullness in an instant.
Pressing a kiss to each cheek, Preston held himself aloft over me and started to move his hips. He moved in slow grinding strokes, the root of his cock grinding over my clit with each stroke. “Oh, fuck,” I murmured as I wrapped my legs tighter around his waist. I dreaded the emptiness I would feel if he left me, left my center, so I pulled tight to keep him close.
Gradually, the slow pace of his thrusts increased as he started to thrust harder and deeper. My legs started to shake, beginning to slip from their perch on his hips. One side at a time, he slid my legs down so my foot was planted flat on the bed.
Wrapping one arm under my back, he angled my hips up slightly. His thrusts grew near frantic in nature, bottoming out with each stroke. The new angle still stroked my clit while hitting deep inside me, and a wave began to crest inside me.
Preston picked his head up, meeting my eyes for a moment before his lips sealed to mine. “I’m close,” he said against my lips. “God, you feel so perfect. You’re perfect. We’re perfect.”
My orgasm blinded me, the wave breaking without warning and I felt myself cry out against his mouth, biting down on his lower lip. Preston’s thrusts stuttered as he fought to stroke through my pussy clenching around him, eventually burying himself deep with his head in my neck.
We lie like that, breathing heavily, his hand stroking my hair while mine rubbed in time on his back.
“Hey,” he said, looking up. “Are you okay? Shit, I didn’t hurt you, did I?” He wiped under my eye, alerting me that tears had spilled over. “Did I bite you? So, you bit me back? Ugh, I ruined it.” He looked so sated and devastated at the same time. It was adorable and yet needed to be fixed immediately.
I shook my head, trying to find my words. “You didn’t ruin anything. You’re so good. It’s you. You’re the reason why this is home.” I reached up to kiss him gently, mindful of his lip.
We kissed slowly for a while before Preston rolled off me. He walked to the bathroom and came back with a wet cloth. He cleaned me up gently, before wiping himself off and throwing the washcloth onto the floor.
“You’re going to regret that later,” I teased, as he pulled me into his side and we watched the sun set outside the window.
“Probably. Worth it.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“So,” he continued. “Turns out you have an emotional intimacy kink.”
I laughed. “I’m not quite sure that qualifies as a kink, but you’re right. Turns out emotional intimacy isn’t exactly a bad thing.”
“Look at that. I taught you something in the bedroom.”
I rolled my eyes as he squeezed me closer, arranging my limbs half on top of his.
“I could go for that hot chocolate now,” I said. The chilly evening April air cooled the apartment from the window we left open now that the sun had disappeared.
“Give me five minutes and I’ll see what I can do.” We lay there in silence as Preston’s breathing evened out, falling asleep. I shut my eyes as I pulled the comforter tight around us. We’d regret this nap in the morning, but we’d deal with whatever tomorrow brings. Together.