CHAPTER 16
EVY
The sound of the jet swerving down the gravel switched me back to the present. The foreboding silence inside the aircraft was deafening. When I woke up earlier, I was met with a pair of concerned blues. It took me a moment before a blazing flush crept up my cheeks as I recalled my little episode at the apartment.
It had only happened two times before. One was when Auntie M died, and the other was one desolate night when I almost gave everything up.
I hardly had a wild reaction like that, but when I remembered that I had missed Auntie M’s anniversary along with Katy’s words drilling into my mind, I lost it.
Every year during this time, I always withdrew from the world. It was the period six years ago when a cascade of bad events fell like dominos, wrecking my life for the worst.
Jay. Auntie M. And the incident at Bluebird.
So I closed off blanketing myself in a cloud of melancholy and losing myself in self-despair. But I always got back up after I went to see her. It had kind of become a customary tradition for me each year to wallow in sadness until I went and talked to her and told her everything that had happened in the past year. Only then did I feel somewhat lifted.
I caught Jay’s eyes; a finger traced the corner of his lips as he regarded me with a pensive expression. From the moment I woke up, his eyes had been following me like a hawk.
A soft hand squeezed mine. I tried to give Lily a small smile, who also tagged along with the rest of the band. Even Katy was here, a devastated look marring her eyes. She tried to talk to me, but Jay flatly told her to stay away.
I assumed Jay had filled them in on Auntie M’s death. The sadness in all their faces told me it was news to them. So the millions called that I placed when she died had never reached any of them. I wonder how many strings that manipulative bitch pulled.
I wondered what actually happened.
My thoughts halted as we neared the quaint church where I buried her. Calming trees among the mountains of green. It was serene. I wanted her to rest peacefully.
Jay laced his strong fingers with mine. His warmth seeped into my cold, cold body as we walked to her stone.
Marie Eleanor May.
A loving aunt, friend, and lover.
A single pearl of salt trickled its way up the corner of my eyes at the sight of dozens of roses adorning her grave. I immediately knew who did it.
I ran my thumb over the hand that held mine, as my eyes met his blues. “Thank you,” I whispered, grateful.
His mouth curved into a small smile as he pressed his lips on my forehead. “Go on. I’ll wait for you.”
I nodded as I turned back to her.
I dropped down by her headstone and ran a finger along her name. Hey, Auntie M, sorry I’m late . I leaned my head on the stone, tracing her name as I spoke to her.
So much has happened this past year, Auntie M. Where do I even start? I got a dog and named her Strawberry. When I held her for the first time, gazing at her, her eyes were so warm and brown, like yours, and I knew she had to be mine.
Rapid tears slid down my cheek.
She is such a good girl, and I love her so much. I still haven’t made any new friends; I think Gabe counts as having ten friends .
My lips pulled in a smile, but a sharp inhale caught me .
And I met Jay, again. After six years. Of course, we’re not back together. You know there are many open wounds there for us to ever go back to what we once were. I actually met everyone too, and they are all here to see you.
I sniffled.
I might have found a way to get out of our debts finally, I think it’s finally time for me to start living again, Auntie M . A gentle breeze sliced through my skin. I miss you, I miss you so damn much. If you were here, everything would’ve been easier. I wouldn’t have become this mess of the girl I once was. But I’ll try for you. I love you, Auntie M.
The loud wind rustled the leaves, shaking the trees. A single petal of the red rose fell on my lap. Through my blurry eyes, I picked it up, rubbing my fingers through its softness. I brought it to my lips and pressed a kiss as I whispered, “I love you.”
The winds rustled louder, almost as if she heard me.
A genuine smile tugged my lips, the heaviness in my heart slowly dissipating.
Warm heat radiated behind my back. Jay sat down behind me, wrapped his arms around my waist, and dropped his chin on my shoulder.
I folded my arms over his and leaned into him.
“Hey, Marie. I’m sorry I couldn’t come see you sooner,” he whispered in his husky voice. “I wish I would’ve known. You must be worried about this one.” He nudged me. “But you don’t have to anymore.”
My heart stilled.
“Although she hasn’t grown up one bit. She still hits her head every five seconds.”
A laugh stitched out of me. I elbowed his ribs, but he only chuckled and tightened his arms as he pulled me closer.
I sighed as I basked in his warmth as we sat there in silence.
Though the hate between us was strong, the invisible love was still alive, pulsing even after all these years.
“You sure you’re okay?” Jay tucked the loose tendrils that had escaped to my cheeks.
“Yes,” I mumbled, my eyes never leaving his.
It was late at night when we returned to the hotel. Jay forced some mouthfuls of food in me and tucked me into a heavy-weighted soft blanket.
My heart almost soared at him caring for me like this, but I knew that none of this was real. The hurt from him brushing off my confession still lingered, but I was too exhausted to relive that feeling now.
He nodded, switching off the lamp beside my bed. “Get some sleep,” he said softly as he walked away.
A tug pulled on my heart. Even though I didn’t want to say it out loud, I wanted him, especially tonight.
And as if he read my mind, he stilled. Though the room was shrouded in darkness, the visible tension sizzled in the air.
I watched as he slowly made his way to the other side of the bed and eased under the sheets. Although not a part of him was touching me, his heat seeped into my skin.
“What are you doing?” I mumbled.
“I’ll wait till you fall asleep.”
I turned to my side, facing him.
His eyes were already fixed on me.
The chiseled lines of his jaw and the sharp slope of his nose stood stark in the darkness.
“What if I don’t want to sleep?” I whispered against the pillow.
“Evelyn.” He breathed, his calloused hand palming my cheek.
I nuzzled my face, pressing a kiss on the center, feeling my soft lips brushing against his rough hand.
His palm tightened as he brought his face closer, and before the gasp could escape my lips, he swooped in, stealing it.
The slow drag of his tongue as he explored my mouth was sensual and alluring.
No words were spoken as he slowly peeled all my clothes off, leaving me bare underneath him. It wasn’t long before he joined me.
The sound of our kiss filled the quiet of the room.
“Jay,” I whispered as his lips left mine.
“Shh,” he hushed me, dragging his lips along the side of my neck. Licking and sucking each tender spot so slowly, as if he had all the time in the world.
The soaking wetness between my legs drenched my inner thighs.
He pulled the heated sheets away from us and threw them away while he continued his descent. His lips dragged over my nipples. “So pink and perfect.” His hot breath spanned over the tips as he whispered against them.
A loud moan escaped my lips, and the sheets were wet from the tingles he sent straight to my pussy.
His eyes glided to the ‘J’ on my neck but didn’t say a thing as he gently took a nipple between his teeth, biting and sucking it and repeating it all over again.
“Jay.” My fingers threaded his long, velvety locks, pulling them almost out of their roots from the sheer pleasure he gave me.
“I know, sweetheart,” he said between his concentrated task of torturing my nipples.
I squeezed my thighs, trying to get some relief. But he wouldn’t stop lavishing my breasts. “These are so perfect.” He gripped them hard, twisting my nipples almost out of my body. “Like they were made for me.”
“Jay, please.” I writhed.
In an instant, he flipped me over. My teeth met the pillow as I lay flush on my stomach.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
A chill of a shiver ran through me as he dragged a single finger down my spine.
“Yes,” I whispered so low.
The darkness in the room mixed with the feeling of not actually being able to see him sent a surge of anticipation through me.
I quaked as he pulled my hair to the side and pressed a hot kiss right in the center of my neck.
My breath hitched, and I fisted the pillow as he continued his slow pace of hot kisses down my entire spine.
I squirmed as he reached the end of his descent. A flush of embarrassment raked through me as he clenched my ass, squeezing them as he spread me.
“Jay.” I shook, my toes curling.
“Everything about you is perfect, Evelyn.” He went lower, his mouth meeting the lips of my pussy. In one quick swoop, he draped both my legs over his shoulders.
I cried out, my back arching as my chest lifted off the mattress. I hugged the pillow as he dove his mouth between my wet lips.
“Fucking God,” I groaned as my elbows dug into the bed, my back arching further.
“Don’t call HIM, sweetheart.” He lapped my clit. “When it’s me who’s preaching your pussy.”
“Holy fuck, Jay.”
“Yes, babe. Pray for the man worshipping your pussy.” He continued his tantalizing pace of licking me. His thumb twisted inside my pussy while he plunged it in slow and steady while his attention turned to my clit.
“Jay, please,” I whispered.
But he never gave up as he continued his slow exploration. And when the rising wave was just about to hit me, he stopped and flipped me over.
I heaved out a frustrated sigh through my ragged breath.
Jay sprawled on the bed beside me, his thick long cock throbbing on his stomach. By now, my eyes were adjusted to the dark, his lean pecs inked, the fall of his long hair over his eyes, and the tiniest hint of tension around his mouth made my core clench.
His lustful blues met mine. “Ride me, sweetheart.”
A sharp inhale left my labored lips as I slowly climbed over him. I felt so small against him.
My tiny hands splayed over his chest as I ground my wet pussy against his incredible heat. I let my one hand trail between us and gripped his length. My fist barely closed around his thickness. I pumped him, dragging my finger over his tip.
“Go on, put it inside your pretty little pussy.”
I licked my lips as my eyes flashed to him. I adjusted my hips as I held the tip at my opening. My breath hitched as I felt his heat swallowing me. Inch by inch, I slowly lowered myself until he was fully seated inside me.
I held myself inside as I clutched my hands on his chest. His eyes glowed in the darkness as he slid his hands over my waist.
“Fucking sexy.”
I swallowed as I circled my hips, moaning as my pussy clenched him deep at this angle.
“Yes, sweetheart, just like that. Roll the pretty pussy all over my cock.”
“Ah,” I moaned as I lifted my hips in tiny circles, trying my best to match his thrusts from under me. At one point, my arms gave out, and I crashed into him.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, his mouth taking mine. Our tongues danced together, he groaned gripping my hair and pulling me deeper into him.
My breath gets knocked out of me as he suddenly flips us over. My head hangs off the side of the bed, my neck craning as I meet his eyes.
“Hold on,” he mutters, spreading my knees wide.
“Jay.” I cradle his face.
He drives his cock into me at an agonizing pace.
Slow and deep.
Not rough and harsh.
Almost as if he was making love to me.
The length of him stroking the depths of me drew the pleasure rising inside me.
Our eyes never strayed the entire time.
Not even when we crashed in waves and waves of the built-up tension. I groan his name, clenching tight around him when he spills his warm cum deep inside me.
Our ragged breaths and the smell of sex filled the room.
He pulled out and gathered me in his arms. I lay on his chest, warm and sated, while I listened to the erratic rhythm of his heart slow down.
The unspoken words were loud between us.
Moments passed, and we lay like this, just like we used to all those years ago. My favorite place in the world. My fingers glide over the smooth, taut skin, tracing over the edges of the scaled wyvern breathing fire on his chest.
His fingers threaded through the tangles of my locks, absentmindedly twisting and swirling them.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I slid my body up, my hair forming a veil around us as I gazed into his eyes. “You stayed.”
Not a flicker in his eyes, a move in his muscle, or a change in his tone as he answered impassively, “Yes.”
I sighed. “Why?”
He lifted a shoulder, wrapping his arms around my back. “Because I wanted to.”
“But you still don’t believe anything I said.”
And his eyes flickered then. “No.”
I clenched my molars, trying to push off him, but he wouldn’t let go.
“Can’t we just sleep?” he questioned.
“I refuse to sleep with the man who doesn’t trust me after everything I have done for him.” I wiggled harder, trying to get away, but his steel grip didn’t falter.
He cocked a brow. “It’s the same man who fucked your pussy raw a few minutes ago. Did you forget that?”
I flushed. “Let go of me.”
He let out a heavy breath as he loosened his grip. “Evelyn, come on. Can we not argue now?”
I slid away and turned to my side. “There’s nothing to argue about. It’s simply the fact that you don’t trust me. I know it’s not that simple. I know it’s wild and unbelievable. Even at the time, I couldn’t believe all the shit that was happening to me. I thought I was going mad, I thought that none of it was real but it was, it was all very real. Real enough to kill me.”
“Evelyn.” He switched on a lamp, basking the room in a golden glow. “It’s not that I don’t believe you. It’s just I don’t know if I can go down that road again.”
My eyes flashed to his. “Did you ever question it, Jay? We were fine one minute, then we were not. That how the minute you signed that fucking album, everything between us went downhill? Can you even connect the dots? All that manipulative bitch made me do just so she could have you.”
His eyes gleamed in beads of shimmering gold as a furrow marred his brows. “Cece and I were never together, Evelyn. So I don’t understand why she would make you do all this and why you would do it in the first place instead of telling me.”
“Don’t fucking say that name. Not when you are in bed with me.” Although I was mad, a tinge of joy lit up in my heart. So she was never with Jay. Hmm, what actually happened then?
He hissed a breath through his teeth and got off the bed, running a frustrated hand through his long hair. I thought he was going to walk out on me but he turned, surprising me. “How about a bath?”
I was taken aback. But I sighed and nodded.
Gilded amber flickered on the sharp edges of his face from the candles lighting up the bathroom. I straddled him, our eyes conveying the long-lost love we had for each other. But our minds were fighting the battles with the woven steel cages baring our hearts.
His palm glided over my cheek. “Why?” he whispered, his fingers catching the ring and the ‘J’ falling between my chest.
My eyes widened. “Because it was your dream.”
He shook his head, a lock falling over his eyes. “I still don’t understand, Evelyn.”
“Do you remember when the label refused to produce your album?”
He frowned. “Yes.”
“It was because of her. I went to her home that day and signed a contract that I would leave you. Only then would she allow you guys to make that album. It was the only choice I had; I didn’t know what else to do. I was stupid, naive, and young, and all I knew was that if I loved you enough, then I had to leave you so you could finally live your dream. After that day, my world changed, Jay. I was lost.” A single tear slid from my eyes as I fought the invisible hands strangling my chest. I realized that I was on the verge of a panic attack every single time I talked about those dark days.
His hands rubbing slow circles down my back made me fight harder. His concerned gaze met mine, but I shook out of it, willing deep breaths as I focused on the present. On what needed to be done.
“After that, she would send me instructions and make threats. Every fight we had was because of her. She even planned the whole thing with Will. I had no choice but to go through with it.”
His gaze remained the same.
But I couldn’t blame him. Even as I admitted everything, I realized how stupid I sounded. The years have wedged a painful distance between us, a distance built on distrust, loss, and agony. Without the facts glaring in his face, he was never going to believe me, not after he’d seen White in a different light.
The perfect kind, loving person who she’d played in his eyes.
After a long moment, he said, “Evelyn, I don’t know what to say. A part of me wants to trust you, but a part of me is telling me that all of this is too good to be true. You have to understand where I’m coming from. If anything you say is true, that means everything that I believed was a lie. It would make me question the entire life that I’ve built. I don’t know how I feel about that.” The last sentence gets caught in his throat.
I snaked my arms around his neck, pulled closer to him, and pressed a kiss on the soft skin between his ears and neck. “I understand, Jay.” My eyes craned and locked on his alluring blues. “But it hurts that you won’t trust me. I killed myself just so that you could live, and now I live in this constant agony, wondering if it was all worth it.” A single tear trickled down my cheek.
“Don’t cry. I hate it when you cry,” he whispered, wiping it away.
My breath swayed in my chest as I peered into his eyes. The look in them was how Jay used to look at me when he loved me.
He leaned back, tugging me closer so I was resting my cheek on his chest.
“I turned to drugs when you left me, and they weren’t the fun kind. I took the hard ones, the rough ones, anything that would make me forget you, but that was impossible.”
“Jay,” I whispered, meeting his blues. The only form of emotion I’d seen crossed them these past months.
He shook his head. “It was hard. I thought my entire world was crumbling. I was falling apart every single day, Evelyn. I never knew pain like that. It felt like my entire body was being doused in flames over and over again. I don’t ever want to feel that kind of pain again.” The sadness disappeared as the glint in his eyes returned.
“I may not trust you, but that doesn’t mean I won’t deny that what you’re saying is true.” His blues flashed to mine as his voice firmed. “Because if any glimmer of the girl I used to love was still here, I know she would never lie to me. I trust her. I can’t do much now, but I’ll give you my word that I’ll find out the truth. But, Evelyn, if anything you said was a lie, then we are done. This time for good.”
I exhaled. “Fine. But, Jay, I have my receipts too and can’t wait to show them to you.” I still had my old phone back home with all the taunts and messages she sent me. I can’t wait for it all to see the light of the day and the look on her face when Jay finally kicks her out of his life. The simmering satisfaction that she never was with Jay filled my heart with elation.
I cupped his cheek, swallowing as I started. “I wrote about it, everything that happened between us,” I whispered, my voice lacing with so much vulnerability as I shared with him something that I was so proud of yet terrified all at the same time. “The book that I always wanted to write. I didn’t know where to start, so I wrote it all. About you, me, our love, the things I went through, the strings that pulled us apart, everything, Jay. I wrote everything. It’s not finished yet, but the story is there, and I want you to be the first person to read it.” My hopeful, glossed eyes met his blues, which had a soft look in them. “You’ll understand everything that happened between us. Will you read it?” I asked, my voice thick with emotion. My heart thudded with every passing moment while I waited for him to say something.
A small smile tugged his lips as he brought me so close that his hot breath fanned my lips. “I would be honored.”
My heart skipped a beat as I beamed, my cheeks burning with happiness.
I buried my face in his neck, kissing and rolling my teeth on taut flesh.
He groaned. “Stop wiggling your ass.”
A playful smile tugged my lips as I pulled back, looking him in the eye. “Can I say I fucked a tatted rock god now?”
My breath caught as full-blown laughter broke out of his lips. It’d been so long since I’d seen him laugh like this, it did something to my heart.
“You drive me so fucking crazy.” His lips met mine.
JAY
My fingers laced through her soft brown silkiness while my other hand caressed the smoothness of her back. Her pink, pillowy lips pursed on my chest as her soft snoring filled the room.
I tightened my arms around her, gently pulling her small, delicate body closer to me.
She whispered something unintelligible, dragging her soft hands down my chest.
I sighed as my mind reeled back everything, she told me. Deep down, the boy who loved her once knew that the pain in her eyes was real. That everything she told me was the truth.
But the man who I’d built myself to be today needed to be resilient, get my facts straight, and have the glaring truth stare at me before I nose-dived into the pits once again.
But the heavy itch down my throat swallowed me whole, nagging at my heart. If any of this was true, then what have I done?
All these years of pain that I’d put her through at the cost of my dream.
The loss and despair that she must’ve felt.
Even thinking of it burned me.
My days may have turned to storms, but a part of my being was always hers.
I could still feel our connection pulsating over the buried surface as she lay in my arms.
After all, she was once my everything.
My best friend.
My soulmate.
My heart.
My lover.
My Evy.