CHAPTER 13
The room soon cleared out as everyone dissipated. But I was still shaking like a rattling window on a stormy night from a mix of anger, hurt, and agonizing pain.
Lily approached me, but I gave her a look that said not now. She blatantly implicated that I might have done this. And I didn’t have the energy to deal with her right now. Her eyes shined the tiniest bit for a second, but she nodded, walking away.
I squeezed my eyes shut and leaned back against the wall. I knew if I took one step, my legs were going to give out.
“What’s wrong?”
My eyes snapped open and locked on a pair of blue-blue eyes.
“Oh, so now you ask me what’s wrong?” I fumed, shifting my weight. A sharp jolt went up my leg, and I grimaced as I tried to keep my balance.
A strong hand gripped my waist, pulling me to him. “I asked you what’s wrong?”
“It’s my knee. It’s killing me,” I muttered.
In a flash, I was in the air, my feet dangling as he lifted me bridal style and carried me up the stairs toward his room.
Gently, he laid me down on his bed. The softness of the Egyptian cotton caressed my back as I sank into the mattress.
He hovered over the bed, his blues imploring me. “Is it this one? Did you hurt yourself?” He ran a finger along my stocking-covered right leg.
“I’ll take care of it; you don’t need to worry. Thank you for bringing me up here,” I said, shooting upright, but that only made me gasp as my knee locked up. I couldn’t help the tear that escaped the corner of my eye.
“Hey.” He placed a hand on my shoulder and slowly pushed me back into the pillows. “I’ll call the doctor.”
“No.” I gripped his hand. “I’ll be fine with some ice and painkillers.”
He hooked his finger under my chin. “Don’t be difficult. Whatever is bothering you seems serious. You need someone to look at it.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s just a flare-up. I get them all the time.”
“A flare-up?” He frowned.
My heartbeat picked up a notch as a nervous flush washed over me. Why was he acting like he didn’t know?
“I broke my knee six years ago.”
“How?” he asked, genuine concern laced his question.
My eyes narrowed. “I was pushed in an alley outside of the Bluebird Club.” I watched his face for any recognition of that name, but his face gave nothing away.
In fact, a glint glassed his eyes. “What do you mean you were pushed?”
I tilted my head as I peered at him. “Two men dragged me into an alley and pushed me. The impact of it shattered my knee.”
“Who were they?” His voice was so low that it almost made me tremble.
“They couldn’t find out. They assumed it to be a robbery.”
His hands clenched by his side. “Did they do anything else?”
“No,” I mumbled.
He nodded once again, almost satisfied with that answer.
I was confused. Did he not get the phone call after all? Or was he pretending he didn’t know anything?
A warm hand grasping my calf pulled me away from my thoughts. Jay’s fingers grazed the band of my stockings with a clear intention of getting them off me.
I panicked. “What are you doing?”
“Taking a look at your leg.”
“You can’t.” I screeched, sounding like a wounded bird, which perplexed him. Over the past weeks, I have cleverly avoided showing off my bare legs to Jay. And I certainly didn’t want to now.
“But didn’t you say it hurts?”
“It does, but I’ll take care of it.”
His lips thinned, cocking a brow. “Don’t be difficult, Evelyn.”
“No,” I whined, but he didn’t listen while he proceeded to slip them away. I looked at the ceiling, giving up. Sweat started gliding down my back as heat crept its way to my cheeks. His hands stilled when they reached halfway down my knee. And I knew exactly why.
The sight in front of him was the angry red scars marring my knee. Scars that I didn’t want anyone to see. Scars that I’d been desperately hiding for the past six years.
Shivers ran through my body as his thumb traced the longest scar, a jagged thick vertical line running through the center of my knee. The pain was an afterthought as he gently lowered his lips and placed an open-mouthed kiss on the ugliest scar.
His blues flashed to mine. “Wear them proudly, Evelyn. It only makes you more beautiful.”
My breath hitched, my mind hazy, as my heart stopped. This man had the power to take my breath away with just his words.
His exploration didn’t stop there. He continued, placing kisses on every inch of my nasty marks. The softness of his lips sent heat waves straight to my core. My toes curled as my body writhed for him. But in an instant, he pulled up. “Where is your medicine?”
“In my purse,” I spewed out through my labored breath.
Goose bumps swept over my skin from the loss of his radiant heat. But it wasn’t long before he returned.
“Open,” he commanded, gliding his pointer finger on my bottom lip.
I nodded, parting my mouth. He slowly placed the white pill on my tongue and made me wash it away with water. And as soon as my lips left the glass, his were on mine.
I moaned as the bitter taste of the pill was erased by the sweetness of his kiss. His mouth never left mine as he gently placed my knee on a fluffy pillow while his other hand gripped the back of my hair, pulling me closer to him.
His whole body lay on top of mine, prodding me toward the side.
“What?” I mumbled between our kisses.
But he never answered as he turned my whole body right.
“Show me how much you want me, Evelyn?”
I frowned. What was he doing?
He slid in behind me, spooning me from the back. His arm circled around my body, holding me captive as he lifted my gaze to the vanity in front of me.
I realized what he was doing as I stared at the mirror. At the both of us. Our eyes filled with longing, his perfect face giving nothing away while he sucked and laved my neck. And I was a trembling mess beside him, the tendrils of my chocolate-colored hair escaping everywhere, my lips red and swollen, my nipples poking from my thin summer dress pulled up to my hips, and my cheeks weren’t the only ones tinted pink.
Gazing at our reflection only heightened the need in me. Jay gripped my hand and brought me to my drenched lace panties. “Show me, Evelyn.” His teeth caught the flesh in my jaw, and he gave it a delicious bite.
I moaned.
“Show me how much of a slut you can be for me.”
“Jay,” I whispered as I locked my eyes with his.
“Go on.” He nudged, pressing his thumb on my clit. My feet almost lifted off the mattress from the tremendous pleasure he gave me.
I nodded; my mouth dry as I let my fingers drift down my slit.
“Look in the mirror, Evelyn.”
My breath caught in my throat as I nodded again. Jay gripped the band of my panties and pulled them off me in one go.
“Look how pink and wet your pussy is for me. She wants me, doesn’t she?” he whispered in my ear.
“Yes.” My pulse roared in my ears.
“Fuck her like I would fuck you.”
Blinding blackness edged my vision as I thrust two fingers inside me. “Jay.” I let out an unintelligible moan as I gyrated my hips, trying to chase that elated feeling.
“Yes, just like that. Harder.” He gripped my wrists, guiding me. Soon, my senses went into overdrive as I fucked myself in a frenzy, feeling my walls contract with his words.
The image in the mirror was one of a crumpling woman in search of bliss. It was wild, erratic, and intense.
“Good girl, now faster.” He kissed my cheek. My fingers almost blurred under his grip at the chaotic pace. My loud, unrestrained whines filled the quiet of the room.
“Come,” he ordered. And I did almost as if a dam broke inside me. I screamed his name as I let go to the pleasure.
He slipped my fingers out of my dripping pussy. I watched with hooded eyes as he sucked it into his mouth, licking it clean. My pussy only dripped further.
Before I could come down from the high, he quickly switched positions, demanding I keep an eye on the mirror.
He peeled my dress and bra off in one quick motion, leaving me bare under his gaze.
A flicker danced his eyes as he stilled, his eyes fixed on the center of my chest. It took me a moment to realize what he was staring at. The ‘J’ pendant and the peony ring that he gave me. I never took it off.
It took him a long moment to shake out of it, following through peeling off his clothes, and dove between my legs.
“Fuck, your pussy is such a mess.” He gave me a devilish grin. “I better clean it up.” He groaned. I watched as he lapped my pussy, sucking me clean. His tongue flicked over and over again on the tight bud. Pinpricks of pleasure awakened in me again as I screamed his name one more time, coming hard.
“Jay,” I panted as he kneeled over my right leg, snaking my left leg around him while he faced the headboard. I craned my head from the side to look him in the eye. “It’s too much.”
I was still on my side, facing the mirror.
In this position, I was almost like a pretzel wrapped around him.
“You can take it.” He hushed me, plunging his full hard throbbing cock into me.
“Fuck,” I cried out from the heat of his length.
“Look at us.” He hooked a finger under my chin, directing my gaze back to the mirror. I didn’t know how it was possible, but the glistening red flush over my skin only darkened as I watched him fuck me.
His powerful body was riddled with tattoos, strong lean muscles flexing hard as he pistoned into me. The contrast of his tan skin against my small pale frame only made my pussy squeeze tighter around his cock.
I yelped as my body rocked hard with his deep fucking; the angle of this position hit the sweet spot inside me over and over again.
“Look how much your pussy loves me.” He slammed his cock to the hilt. “So wet and tight.”
His cock was stretching me in the best possible way.
“Oh God,” I gasped as my eyes fought hard to remain fixed on the mirror. The familiar tingle started down my spine, sending quakes all over my body.
“Yes, take it, just like that.” He grunted, thrusting so hard that my brain fumbled to the succumbing pleasure.
“Come for me,” he commanded.
And for the third time today, I screamed his name. My throat burned, but I couldn’t stop as I felt him join me, spurting his cum deep inside me.
The world around me buzzed as he finally pulled away. My body immediately missed the feeling of his skin against mine. It was like every cell of my being called out to him. Even if we were closer or miles apart, the pulsating tug of my invisible fibers cried for him.
I hyperventilated, trying to catch my breath as I felt my cheek touch the soft cream sheets. His back landed next to me, eyes upward. The faint flush and the gliding bead of sweat on his forehead gave away his exhaustion.
We lay like this in silence, the smell of us lingering in the air.
His head twisted to the side, his blues flashing to mine. Our bodies were side by side, but our minds were worlds apart.
His torso lifted from the bed while his eyes traced mine.
A cloud of melancholy hit me like a wave on the beach because I wanted him to stay.
“I can’t,” he whispered like he read my eyes.
“Why not?” I croaked out, my voice thick with emotion.
He blew out an exhale and dropped his back to the bed.
A glint glassed over his blues, and the muscles in his face softened as he peered at me. “I was seventeen when I met you,” he said, his voice lower than normal, like it held a hint of vulnerability, “and I knew I had to have you. It wasn’t a craving, lust, or need. It was as plain as going to bed and waking up the next day. It was simple and easy. All my fears and doubts became a matter of fact when I looked into those brown eyes. It was that easy to fall in love with you, Evelyn. Which is why I can’t.” A flicker of hardness returned to his eyes. “Which is why I can’t do this with you again. I refuse to be that foolish boy who fell for you, the boy who worshipped the ground you walked on and trusted everything you said. I refuse to be that fool again.”
It was like heavy chains of ropes strangled my heart, so heavy that I felt it in my throat.
The lines around his mouth tightened before he continued. “I lost myself because of you. You left me a broken, desolate man, Evelyn, trying to pick up the pieces you shattered. After you left, I couldn’t tell day from night. I used every drug under the sky, but it still didn’t help. It took me two years to pull myself from that vicious cycle where I nearly destroyed myself.”
“Jay,” I whispered in a broken voice as wetness gathered in the corner of my eye.
“It took me two years to realize it was all a lie. That if you ever loved me at all, you would’ve come back. If you ever loved me at all, you never would’ve left. It took a long time, but I buried it all and vowed to never fall for anyone again.”
“Jay,” I choked out. “How can you say that it was a lie? You don’t know how much I loved you, everything I did for you, how much I still…”
“Don’t,” he thundered.
I swallowed as I took a deep breath. “It’s still us, Jay. You and me.” I traced the pad of my thumb over the rough stubble on his jawline. “Can’t we talk? You don’t know everything that happened six years ago.”
He shook his head, flicking my finger away. “It doesn’t matter anymore. There is no more us, Evelyn.”
I couldn’t help the sob that escaped through the tightness in my throat. “D-Don’t say that, Jay.” I scrambled, trying to sit up, but he was already out of bed.
Almost as if it never even happened, the softness in his face disappeared and was replaced by a cold, formidable mask. “I might share my body with you, but I won’t share my heart with you. Never again, Evelyn. I promised myself that.” His intimidating stance towered over me from the foot of the bed.
But I refused to give up. “You told me that I never came back, but I did,” I argued. “I came back. I also called you a thousand times, but you never picked up.” I pointed an accusing finger at him. “I have every right to be mad at you too. You abandoned me just as much as I abandoned you.”
He broke out in a laugh, a cruel, cruel laugh that sent spikes through my ribs. “I abandoned you?” He gestured to himself. “You fucking cheated on me, Evelyn. You ruined my life.”
“No,” I cried out as I fought the invisible hands trying to grip my throat, stealing my air. “I never cheated on you. It was all a lie, Wh…” I clutched my chest. A zap shot straight through the middle of my head, clouding my vision, but I fought against the feeling. I had to get it out. I choked on my breath as I rasped. “Wh..White made me do it.”
“White?” He frowned. “You mean Cece? Pray tell, why would she do that?”
The hand that clutched my chest tightened. It felt like all the air was being wheezed out of me. “For your al..album.” I gasped, leaning against the headboard.
Disbelief marred his face as he furiously shook his head. “I can’t believe you, Evelyn.” The vein in his forehead throbbed. “How far are you willing to go to save face? How long are you going to lie? I saw you fucking him,” he roared, his knuckles turning pale. “And now you’re blaming it on some innocent woman. I can’t believe you’re making up fake scenarios in your head to get away with it.”
My heart stopped at that moment. Trickles and trickles of tears spilled out, but I didn’t even care to wipe them away as a sick feeling rose up my throat. “You don’t believe me?” I asked through foggy eyes.
He sighed. “Save your tears, Evelyn. It’s not going to work this time. These eyes…” He waved toward me. “These eyes, the look in them is what made me a fool once. I don’t believe a word out of your mouth. I don’t trust you.”
My entire world crumbled just then. Pain, I felt so much of it. But burning fury filled my breathless lungs, and I didn’t think as I gathered the sheets around me and got up in his face in an instant.
“Fuck you, Jayden.” My fists punched his chest, blood roaring in my ears. “You hear me, fuck you. How can you say those things to me? Do you know how much I sacrificed for you, just so you could go and live out your dream? How much it killed me? And even after all of that, you treat me like shit!?” I cried, wailing. “The hell I’ve been through because of you, and you disregard me like I’m nothing.” My hand swept the flowing wetness in my cheeks as I sniffled. “Didn’t these past few weeks mean nothing to you?”
His blues remained impassive as they stared at me. “I told you, Evelyn. All it’ll ever be is a fuck. So no, it means nothing to me.”
My hands shook by side as I crunched my molars hard. “Fine,” I hissed. “Whatever we have going on.” I waved between us both. “It’s done. I’m done with you. I’ll bite through the next couple of weeks because I actually need this job, but other than that, we are done. I want nothing more to do with you after this.”
His face didn’t flicker one bit as he nodded. “As you wish,” he stated, storming out the door.
The nausea that brewed in my stomach came back in full wave. I rushed to the bathroom and puked my guts out. I heaved the fire in my throat as blackness glimmered in my vision. Every muscle in my body felt tight. It felt like someone was strangling me.
Only then did I realize that my breath was caught up in my throat.
I forced deep lungfuls of air through my nose as I clawed my chest, fighting to breathe. My back hit the bathtub as I rolled my head upward, catching every bit of the precious air as I could.
After a few long minutes of struggle, my vision returned as the air started to fill my body.
I frowned. What was that?
The same thing happened at the apartment when I was talking to Lily. I’d thought it was some sort of asthma attack, but thinking back now, it might have been a panic attack.
Was I having a panic attack whenever I thought about that time six years ago? A time that I caged deep inside my head because even thinking of it made me puke. Was opening up all those suppressed wounds making me feel this way.
But it didn’t matter now, did it?
The truth was out in the light, and it didn’t even matter to him. All my pain and sacrifice didn’t matter to him. We were dead, beyond saving at this point.
The frustration and hope left my body. For all these years, I somehow held on to the hope that if my Jay knew everything, he would welcome me back with open arms. But no, he laughed in my face.
He called himself a fool, but the real fool was me.
Played and toyed with beyond control, and now I was a skeletal version of the person I once was. Grasping onto the smallest scraps of affection thrown my way from someone who would never love me back.
It dawned as clear as day, I was the stupid one.
An emotion that I’d never felt for Jay crept its way up my body—hate.
I hated him.
Was it possible to hate someone whom you loved with every cell of your being? Because I did.
As much as a part of my soul would love him forever, the present me hated him. Hated the fact that he dismissed me like I was nothing. Was all that self-destruction and suffering that I put myself through even worth it?
That night, I lay wide awake, making a little promise to myself. That everything I did after this would be for me. I refused for my life to be influenced by the love I had for him. I needed to move on and build a life for myself on my own.
It was something I should’ve done a long time ago.
JAY
I wouldn’t deny the slightest tug in my gut at the sight of pain in those watery eyes. But I had to remind myself it was those same eyes that put me through hell all those years ago.
I believed her—every time she gave me the silent treatment, every time she disappeared on me, and every time she promised that she still loved me. I believed her.
Only to find her in bed with another man. Even then, I didn’t want to let go. I fought for the remnants of her because even the thought of her not being in my life was like death.
But in the end, she left anyway.
I grimaced at the pressure forming between my brows as I powered through the hallway. The side of my face burned from the glaring sun escaping through the countless windows.
Something pried my thoughts to what she said. The agony that tormented her face was evident. I wonder why she said all those things. Was it a way of her trying to get us back together?
But I knew her. Even though I bought her lies time and time again six years ago, something about this didn’t make any sense to me.
Why would she blame it all on Cece? I knew she never liked Cece even back then, so did that stem this blame she put on her? What would Cece even gain from this?
Frowning, I recalled Evy’s words, for the album , she said. Why would Cece make Evy cheat on me for the album? If so, why would Evy cheat on me in the first place?
It sounded ridiculous. Cece would never do that.
Our deal was signed months before Evy left me, so the timeline didn’t add up. I just didn’t understand why Evy was digging up our past.
I ran a frustrated hand through my hair as I dashed into my bedroom.
But something in my stomach didn’t sit right. As much as I didn’t like it, I could read her like a book. The look in her eyes told me she wasn’t lying.
As much as it confused me, it didn’t matter now.
I didn’t want to reopen our past or deal with it.
What Evelyn didn’t know was that my heart always belonged to her and always would. But it was just that I didn’t have a heart anymore. It died the day she left me.
Trusting her again scared me. Deep down, I was terrified because if I fell for her lies once again, this time I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to get back up.
And fear was an emotion that I no longer associated with.
The man who I was today was not the boy who gave up everything for her.
And I wasn’t willing to go down that road again.
That road already crashed and burned me.