Chapter 15
Juniper
Nick’s heartbeat is a steady thump-thump against my ear. I lay still for another moment, chills rolling down my spine each time he strokes my hair or my thigh. Holy hell.
I shouldn’t love the way he fucks me as much as I do, but fuck, I do.
I should get up. I should go to the bathroom and clean myself up, at the very least get his dick from inside of me.
Except he’s really comfortable.
“You ruined my plans for this afternoon,” I eventually tell him.
“How so?”
“Because I was planning on laying on the couch in my underwear, watching Krampus Christmas movies, and binging on chocolate and popcorn.”
His chest moves beneath me as he chuckles. “Is this your way of telling me I should go?”
I consider it, but I really don’t want him to leave.
“Do you like popcorn?” I ask instead.
He sinks his arm behind his head, and I look up to find his soft eyes moving over me. “Yes.”
“Do you talk during movies?”
“Sometimes. Depends on my mood and what we’re watching. Thrillers? No, not unless I’m alone and I need to talk my theories out loud. Scary? Occasionally.”
“Why do you talk during scary movies?” I ask.
“Because sometimes you just need to voice out loud how stupid it is that they’re running upstairs and not toward their car,” he says, and I snort laugh.
“What if they can’t get to their car? What if the bad guy is at the front door?”
“Jump out of a window,” he says, like it’s obvious.
I laugh and push off of his lap, grabbing my sweatshirt as I do. “Wow,” I taunt him.
“Does this mean I can stay longer?” he asks.
I peer back at him over my shoulder, sighing at his naked body lying across my old couch. Oreo jumps on top of him from the floor and settles onto his chest as if she’s claiming him.
The sight makes me chuckle. “Yeah. Besides, I think Oreo would claw me in my sleep if I kicked you out. Be right back.”
I quickly go to the restroom to clean myself up, and when I return, he’s still in the same place I left him.
I pad across the small space into my kitchen and start opening the cabinets, looking for the bags of popcorn and chocolate morsels I usually have lying around for early nights like this.
I find a bag of peppermint bark instead, and with a glance at my Christmas tree in the corner, I decide it’s the perfect addition.
I pop the bag of popcorn into the microwave, tap the button, and turn to crumble up some of the bark. My phone lights up on the counter when I’m nearly done, though I don’t bother checking to see who’s texting me until I have the popcorn out of the microwave.
Because burnt popcorn might break my heart right now.
And when I do finally look at the text, I’m glad I got the popcorn out first.
Jax
Hello, darling.
I think I miss you.
Which is odd because I’ve never missed anyone.
I can’t help biting my lip as I pick the phone up to reply. I gave him my number before he left me earlier, with a promise that I’d text him once Nick left.
So many firsts for you today.
You must be overwhelmed.
Is my brother still there?
Yes
Did you tell him about us?
I might have mentioned you coming to the bar today.
Nothing else? You didn’t tell him how wet you were for me? How damp those little lace panties were?
I expected photos of you jerking off with them.
Wish granted.
Hands press to my waist as I begin to type a reply. I didn’t even see Nick move from the couch. Nevertheless, as he slides his arms around me and sinks his chin onto my shoulder, I lean into him as if we’ve done this before in another life.
“Tell my brother you’re busy,” he says in my ear.
“He seems distraught,” I say.
“Oh, he is. He’s texted me multiple times, too. I don’t know what exactly you did to him this afternoon.”
“Probably the first time he’s ever had to chase anything,” I say, cheeks heating.
Nick groans and hugs me tighter. “I love that,” he says, kissing my jaw. “Were you planning to invite him over tonight?”
“Should I?”
He takes the phone from my hands and sets it in the plastic fruit bowl nearby.
His lips land on the side of my neck, fingers grasping mine and pressing my palms onto the lip of the counter.
He leans forward and pins my hips between him and the cabinet.
A groan leaves me that I can’t stop. Fuck.
He’s kissing down my throat and sliding the sweatshirt off my shoulder, a hand cupping one of my tits.
“Nick…”
I’ve barely recovered from our first round. My knees are weak, but not as weak as my willpower.
He can fuck me until I’m nothing more than a rag doll.
“If you want to invite him, you can. It’s your choice,” he replies.
I consider it as my eyes close. I could. I could rush into having both of them here, their hands exploring and squeezing, mouths biting and sucking and worshipping me entirely.
However, Jax’s face when I told him to wait flashes behind my eyes, and I smile nervously.
“I think I need to tell him alone,” I decide.
Nick lets out an exhale and leans his forehead against my hair. “Honestly, thank fuck. I wasn’t ready to share you tonight.”
“Sounds like someone is being greedy.”
He chuckles into my neck before flipping me around to face him. My breath catches upon seeing his eyes. They’re dark. Hungry. Tortured. As if he’s holding back telling me about a part of his past that he’s tried to hide from.
He pushes a strand of hair off my face, and I lean into his touch.
“Why do you always look like you’re one wrong move away from losing everything?” I ask softly.
The tattoos around his neck move with his swallow, his gaze somehow becoming even more serious than before. For a second, I wonder if I’ve said something I shouldn’t have, if I brought up a fresh affliction that he isn’t ready to discuss.
However, when he sighs, I practically see him folding.
“Because I am,” he says.
“How so?”
His hair drifts into his eyes when he looks around us like the walls might hold the answer. There’s a pause, a silent consideration as to what to say and if he even wants to say it.
I reach up and squeeze his fingers, hoping it assures him he can say anything.
If it’s grief, I understand it more than I do most things.
Nick clears his throat. “A long time ago, I lost everything because of who I fell in love with. And she… She was lost, too.”
I gulp at the lump daring to rise in my throat. Fuck. I wasn’t expecting this.
“What happened?” I ask.
He shakes his head slowly. “I wasn’t enough. I didn’t protect her like I should have. I was naive enough to think things would blow over and it wouldn’t matter once it was found out. But I was so fucking wrong.”
His voice drifts as he closes his eyes. Shame spreads across his features.
I steady my palm on his cheek, my stomach sinking at the anguish in his eyes.
His sorrow makes my chest hurt. It reminds me of the sunrise and every time I’ve screamed when no one could hear me, hoping like hell a hand might reach out of the dark to tell me it’s okay.
I wonder if this is what I look like on the jetty—if this is the face I make when I think I’m alone.
“Are you scared?” I ask. “Of reliving that pain again, I mean.”
“I’m terrified of not being enough, of failing and someone else getting hurt.”
“That’s why you left me last night,” I realize.
He nods. “Last night, I thought it was the thing I’d run from, and it scared the hell out of me.”
I don’t know why it sounds like he’s talking about something I can’t see.
I shift in his grasp and try to smile in the hopes that it’ll cut through this thick air.
“I don’t think there’s anything on the island that’s going to hurt us,” I say nervously.
“I mean… there have been bear sightings. But they’re just black bears, and unless you really piss them off, they just run away.
Oh, and occasionally an alligator. That’s always weird. ”
His lips curve, eyes lightening, and I swipe my thumb across his dimple.
“Thank you,” he whispers.
“For what?”
“For not running when you see my pain. Sometimes I can’t help the haunt.”
My chest constricts looking at him. “Sometimes I can’t either.”
“What do you do when you feel it?” he asks.
A heavy sigh leaves me, chest suddenly feeling as if a brick is sitting on it. It took him all of three minutes to get me to this place, to the verge of letting go of the wall I’ve built this last year. The wall that crumbles some days and stays erected the next.
He has a chisel to it.
“I remind myself that grief and pain… it isn’t linear.
It isn’t a straight and narrow line that eventually disappears.
It bobs and weaves and hits you at the most random moments.
It punches you in the gut with a photo, a sunrise, or a song.
No matter if it’s for a person, a feeling, yourself, or the life you thought you’d have.
It beats you until you beg it to stop, and while it might for a while, it just comes back.
Over and over and over, and just when you think you’re past it, something triggers it again.
And then you wonder… You wonder how the hell you’re supposed to move on tomorrow with this empty place in your soul and nothing that can ever take its place. ”
A tear drops down my cheek, and Nick catches it. Memory hits me as the cool pad of his thumb swipes over my skin. The feeling weakens my knees and swerves through my veins.
I’ve felt that before.
This morning.
Nick’s eyes close as he rests his forehead against mine. I blow out a breath and try to steady my pounding heart.
“You don’t think the emptiness can be fixed?” he asks.
“Numbness never truly fixed anyone.”
Even if it felt like it did at the time.
Even if it felt so fucking good not to hear it, not to see it, not to relive it. Not to have it replaying again and again on an endless loop while someone told you everything would be okay.
It isn’t.
Nick kisses my forehead before hugging his arms around me. I nearly collapse into his embrace, hugging him as tightly as he’s holding me.