Eruption - Chapter 10 #2
"No one. I was upset and I made a wrong turn. This house is enormous, I just ran into..."
"Why are you lying to me?" He sounded hurt. I still hadn't made eye contact with him.
Why was I lying? We didn't lie to each other. Not anymore. And it didn't matter if he knew the truth. Making him hate Isabella even more was only for the best. I never wanted to see any of these people ever again.
"Penny, tell me."
"Isabella slapped me. It's not a big deal. Can we please just go?"
His hand fell from my face and he grabbed the door handle.
"Don't. Don't you dare walk away from me again."
He let go of the handle and turned back to me. "I didn't walk away from you earlier. I told you it was time to go and you refused to come with me."
"Exactly, James. You told me it was time to go. You didn't ask if I was ready to leave."
"Penny, I couldn't stand there and pretend that everything was alright."
"I know, I'm sorry. Please don't leave me alone in this house again, though. Can't we just leave? You were right about everything. Talking to your parents was pointless."
"You talked to them?"
"They think I just want your money. They offered me five million dollars to walk away from you. They wouldn't even entertain the idea that I actually loved you." I shook my head. They were so disgusting.
"They tried to pay you off?" He lowered his eyebrows slightly and then ran both his hands down his face. It looked like he was understanding something for the first time. Like how evil his parents truly were. "Did you take it?" It came out as a barely audible whisper.
"What?"
He stared at me. He looked defeated and tired. Normally I couldn't see the age difference between us. But as he looked at me now, I could see the small crinkles around the corners of his eyes. They probably weren't laugh lines. The thought made my chest feel tight.
"James..." my throat caught. "How could you think that?" The rollercoaster of emotions from the night suddenly seemed to catch up to me and tears started running down my cheeks. The salty water stung as it slid down my left cheek. One of Isabella's rings must have left a small cut on my face.
He just stood there looking stunned.
I quickly wrapped my arms around him. I winced when I pressed the side of my face into his chest. Hug me back. His body seemed to stiffen instead. "James?"
He wrapped his arms around me in response. "I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry." He put his chin on the top of my head. "I knew better than to bring you here. I don't know what's wrong with me. Nothing's changed. They'll never change. I'm so sorry, Penny."
"Don't apologize, this is what I wanted. You knew I wanted to meet them, so you made it happen. And now I have. It's done. We don't have to see them ever again."
He sighed. "Except for the wedding in two weeks."
"I uninvited them."
He laughed. "What?"
"Oh." I leaned back to look up at him. "Sorry, I mean, it was just in the heat of the moment. Obviously if you want them there..."
"No." He put his hand on the side of my face, gently rubbing his thumb over the bruise on my cheek. "No, I don't want them there. I'm done with them."
"I'm sorry that I forced all this. I just thought if they met me, maybe I could change their minds, you know? I was just trying to help."
"You can't change my parents' minds. Trust me, I've tried my whole life."
I wanted to ask him about the paper in his book, about his relationship with Rachel, about his whole childhood. I wanted him to fill in all the blanks. But right now all I wanted was for him to take me home. I needed to get out of this house, away from all the memories that seemed to upset him.
"But it was really sweet of you to try."
"Or foolish. What a disaster of an engagement party. Can we go home now?"
He smiled down at me. "Let me show you one thing first." He grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the window.
"It wasn't a good night, but I'm not going to fling myself out the window."
He laughed as he pushed the window up. He put his hands on the windowsill and looked back at me. "I used to sneak out of my room all the time. Let's leave this way."
I looked past him toward the lawn. We were really high up. "I'm wearing heels. And I've had too much to drink."
"I dare you."
I smiled. Neither one of us had ever backed down from a dare. "Well, I guess a few more bruises won't hurt me." I took off my shoes and peered out the window. "Did you really just jump?" I tossed my shoes out the window and watched them hit the lawn below. "It seems kind of high."
"Geez, no." He grabbed my arm and started laughing. "Were you seriously going to jump out the window?"
"You said you did it all the time. And you dared me."
"There's a trellis." He stuck his head out the window and pointed to the right. He started laughing again.
"Don't make fun of me for trusting you." I poked him in the middle of the chest.
"I'm lucky you said something before you jumped."
"Mhm." I rolled my eyes at him as I stood up on the ledge. "Who were you running off to see in the middle of the night growing up?"
He held my waist as I grabbed the edge of the trellis. It took every ounce of restraint not to look down. I slowly stepped onto it and was relieved to see it was as sturdy as he remembered it being.
"Not someone. Something," he said. "That's what I want to show you. Don't look at me, watch your footing."
I had slipped slightly when I started my descent, but I quickly regained my footing.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. I'm a jungle gym master, James."
"I don't doubt that at all."
I laughed. I wasn't even sure what he meant by that. A few moments later I heard the creak of the trellis. I didn't look up to see him coming down after me. The last thing I needed was to be distracted by him.
I tried to focus on my hands, but every now and then I looked down at my feet, reminding myself how high I was. When I was finally close enough to the bottom, I jumped. The grass was sleek and I slid as soon as my feet touched the ground, landing hard on my ass. "Shit."
James laughed as he jumped down gracefully beside me. He put his hand out for me, but instead of taking it, I grabbed my shoes, got up by myself, and started running.
"You don't know where we're going!" He called after me.
It was only a matter of seconds before I felt his arms around my waist, lifting me in the air. He twirled me around and then pulled me against his chest.
"You have a huge grass stain on that perfect little ass of yours," he whispered in my ear.
I laughed and put my hand on his chest so I could lean back and see his face. "Why is it that I can't picture you here at all? I mean, I can out here. But this is the first time you've seemed like yourself all night."
"None of this is me. I don't belong here anymore. I'm not sure I ever did."
"Did you spend a lot of time outside when you were younger?"
"I keep trying to show you." He let go of my waist, bent his knees slightly, and tapped his back. "Hop on."
I laughed and jumped onto his back. I never minded running around barefoot, but it was sweet that he didn't want me to have to.
He alternated kissing the crook of my elbow and pointing out things in his mother's garden as we walked farther away from the house. Soon all the lights from the house were barely visible and only the moonlight and stars were guiding us.
"Where are we going?" I whispered.
"You don't have to whisper, we're all alone. There it is," he said, pointing in front of us.
I squinted my eyes. It was hard seeing in the dark. "I don't..." I stopped when I saw it. "Is that a tree house?"
He kissed the crook of my elbow again. "Of all the things here, this was the only thing that was truly mine.
Jen and Rob never even came up unless I invited them to.
" He stopped at the base of the tree trunk and let me slide off his back.
"I was barely ever in my room in the house.
I used to come here all the time. You have no idea how many times I nagged my parents to let me get a zip line from my window to the tree house. "
I laughed. "So why was this your special place?"
"Hmm."
"What? Is this where you used to fantasize about kissing girls and plotting evil little boy pranks?"
He wrapped his arms around me and kissed the back of my neck. "For not having any brothers, you have it spot on."
I laughed. I thought he might say something else, but when he didn't, I looked back up at the tree house. "Am I allowed to come up? Or are no girls allowed?"
He laughed. "Let me see if it's still stable." I watched him climb up the steps that were nailed into the side of the tree. The boards creaked when he stepped up into the house, but nothing broke. He put his hand down. "Penny Taylor, I'm officially inviting you up into my tree house."
I laughed and climbed the little ladder.
I grabbed his hand and he helped pull me up inside.
This was more what I was expecting his room to be like.
I laughed as I looked around at all the toys and comic books on the floor.
There were actual windows in the little tree house, which had somehow preserved everything despite the hole in the floor.
There were even pictures that lined the wall.
Photos of James as a happy little boy. He had the same facial features, in an adorable little boy kind of way.
"You're so cute. Is this you and Mason?"
James laughed and unpinned the picture from the wall. "Yeah. That was taken at summer camp one year."
I laughed and snatched the picture from him.
They both had braces and looked so scrawny, nothing like either of them did now.
"I have to show this to Bee." I looked up at him and he was smiling at me.
"I'm gaining the best family I could possibly ask for, you know.
Not your parents, obviously. But your siblings and your friends. I love all of them so much."
He scratched the scruff along his jaw line. "You have such a positive way of thinking about everything."
"That's what they are. Our family."
He turned away from me and gazed at the other pictures on the walls.
I would have perused the other pictures too, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from his face.
Even his favorite place growing up seemed to make him sad now.
I wanted to joke around with him about how he barely even fit in his old tree house.
But I didn't want to push him. It seemed like he had something to say.
So I just waited, staring at his perfect features in the moonlight.
He sighed and leaned his head against the wooden boards behind him. "When you asked me why I preferred here over my bedroom, I just..." His voice trailed off. "It was the only place where I felt like I could breathe."
He had said that to me before. That he felt like he could finally breathe again when he was with me. I moved onto his lap, straddling him. "So, now I'm your tree house?"
"I wouldn't put it that way." He placed a soft kiss against my lips, cradling the back of my head in his hand.
"How would you put it?"
He grabbed my lower back and rotated us so that my back was against the wooden floor and he was on top of me. "You're my life, my heart, my soul, my everything."
He was so sweet. But for some reason all I could seem to focus on was how handsome he looked with the moonlight streaming in through the branches of the trees, dancing across his face. I spread my legs even wider and pulled my dress up my thighs.
There was an intensity in his eyes that hadn't been there before. And any trace of sadness had suddenly disappeared.
"You must have had fantasies of bringing girls up here, James." I reached out for the button of his dress pants.
"I never thought I'd be this lucky."
I grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled his lips down to mine. This was always the best way to know if we were okay. We both had this internal need that was constantly clawing at the surface, ready to escape. And tonight had been a complete disaster. We both needed this.
He pressed down on my clit through my thong and I moaned into his mouth. I needed all of him.
"James," I panted. "I need you. All of you." I reached down and grabbed his erection through his dress pants. I had only managed to unbutton them and my fingers fumbled with the zipper.
I yelped as the elastic in my thong snapped against my hip as he tore it off of me. But the sensation was quickly replaced by pleasure as he thrust himself deep inside of me.
Fuck.
He groaned into my mouth and grabbed my thighs, pulling me even closer to him. He didn't wait for me to adjust to him. His fingers dug into my hips as he fucked me just like I needed him to. Intense. Raw. Perfect.
It felt like I couldn't get close enough to him. I hooked my ankles behind him, drawing him even closer, and wrapped my arms around the back of his neck. I couldn't get enough. "More," I said breathlessly.
He lightly bit my bottom lip and kissed me hard, completely consuming me. His mouth claimed me just like his cock, making me feel full in the most satisfying way.
I moaned again as he tilted his hips, hitting a spot that usually made me lose control. But I wasn't ready to let go. I never wanted to let go of him. I grabbed a fistful of his hair, deepening our kiss.
We should have been clumsy in the darkness, but I knew his body better than I knew my own. I had explored every rippling muscle and every inch of his skin. I felt the fire building in my stomach and I could feel myself clenching around him. Not yet. I wasn't done with him.
"God, Penny." He grabbed my hands, pulling them from his neck, and pinned them against the floor of the tree house. He thrust his hips faster and harder, driving himself deep inside of me.
I didn't want to come, but I could no longer think straight. I moaned again, trying to resist the building tension. I could stay in this elevated moment forever.
"Come for me, baby."
And just like that, I lost control. "James!
" I felt my back arch and my body shudder beneath his as I came down hard.
I immediately felt his warmth spread up into me and heard his satisfied groan.
His breath was warm on the side of my neck and the comforting feeling made a lingering chill run down my spine.
His chest rose and fell against mine, pressing against my taut nipples.
Everything he did was perfect. Everything.
I grabbed his face and held it a few inches above my own. "You're everything to me too. Everything, James. I'll never get enough of you."
He lightly kissed the bruise under my eye. "I hope not."