Jess
“Shit!” I curse as the contents carefully balanced on the top shelf of my closet tumble out and rain down on me, a shower of shoes and yoga equipment and long-forgotten hobbies.
Erin runs over from her room, makeup half-done and hair pinned back. “What was that? Are you okay?”
I grunt, looking at the mess on the floor. But spotting what I was looking for, I swipe it off the ground and plop onto my unmade bed. “Just peachy.”
Erin offers a soft smile at that, her shoulders deflating a little. She strolls over to me and sits on the edge of the bed. “Is this your favorite pair of shoes or something?” she asks, tapping the lid of the old shoebox in front of me.
“It’s my own personal form of torture that I like to succumb myself to from time to time.”
Erin cocks a brow.
I sigh. “It’s a memory box,” I explain, flipping the lid off to reveal the contents inside. “Mostly of Jarrett. And then…”
“Kade,” Erin finishes for me, fishing out a picture of us from that first formal we attended together.
“Yep.”
Erin smiles at the picture, setting it aside before holding up a greasy pizza napkin. She wrinkles her nose. “Pictures, I understand. But this?”
“They’re memories,” I defend, swiping the napkin from her.
I smile at the nasty thing. “This was from when Jarrett flew in to visit from New York. We had amazing sex when he first landed, and then knew we weren’t leaving the room.
So, I ordered pizza, and we stayed in.” I bite my lip. “All. Night. Long.”
“Okay,” Erin says, holding up her hands and standing. “I think this memory box is a personal experience.”
I chuckle. “You off to class?”
“Leaving in ten. Are you going to work?”
I shake my head. “We had three weddings this weekend — Friday, Saturday, and last night, so we all have today off to recover.”
Erin nods. “I’ll be back tonight. If you want to talk,” she adds, her eyes falling to the box before they land on me again.
“You sure you’re up for that crazy ride of me talking through my feelings right now?”
“Always.”
She blows me a kiss, and then she’s out the door, and I settle back into memory lane.
The last week has been a whirlwind.
After Jarrett left — which wasn’t until very, very late the morning after Halloween — I nearly had a breakdown. All the memories of us had come rushing back, completely washing over the foundation I’d just rebuilt and fortified with Kade.
I thought after the karaoke event that I knew. I thought I would just call Jarrett up and tell him that while I did care about him, I couldn’t see him.
But then stupid me had to see him.
And stupid me remembered why I’d loved him so fiercely, why he’d broken me so completely, why even when I tried — I could never forget him.
I pull a thin, lacy, hot pink bra out of the box, smirking when I remember Kade’s face the time I wore it for him, the time I punished him for being a jerk to me over the summer, for blowing off the plan he had made for us. That was the closest I’d ever been to a Dom, and I loved it.
And God, I love him.
I love that he rose to every challenge I gave him, love that he wanted to learn, that he wanted to please me, that he wanted to be my every sexual desire. I love that it quickly became so much more than that, that he snuck into my heart and made me fall for him without so much as trying.
I love how effortless we are, tried and true.
A team.
My eyes catch on a box of matches with Ralph’s in script on the front, and I pull them from the box, smiling again. I snatched them from the supply closet that night Jarrett railed me on Halloween, reminding me that playing the games of flaunting college boys in front of him wouldn’t work.
And I love him, too.
I love how just one look from him can strip me utterly naked, how he knows me better than I know myself sometimes. I love that he’s not afraid to push my buttons, that he calls me on my bullshit, and that he fucks me like a goddamn pro.
I love that toxic, completely addicted feeling of losing him and winning him back.
The most beautiful mess.
I close my eyes, sighing before I pull out more items, one by one, each little menu or picture or scrap of clothing or stolen tchotchke another memory pulling me this way or that.
It’s a vicious tug of war, one where no one wins.
My phone buzzes in the sheets next to me, and I hitch a breath at the sight of Kade’s name.
Can I see you?
I sigh, shaking my head and typing back a response before I can think on it more.
Not today.
Erin calls out a goodbye from down the hall, and then the condo door opens and shuts, and I’m alone.
Another ping of my phone.
Were you with him on Halloween?
Him. He doesn’t even have to say who for me to know.
I didn’t post anything on the holiday, not a single picture, which is unlike me — since everyone knows I love my costumes.
I’m sure he put two and two together that I wasn’t with Erin and Bear, nor was I with Ashlei — who posted a sad, albeit cute, picture of her dressed as a mummy on the couch with Brandon — and I certainly wasn’t with Skyler and Cassie at Ralph’s wooing Cassie’s soon-to-be Little.
And still, I can’t bring myself to answer him.
Suddenly, my phone rings, and I jolt, thinking it’s Kade. But it’s Herb at the front desk, and I answer surprised, “Herb?”
“Good morning, Miss Vonnegut. You have a visitor.”
I swallow. Maybe Kade isn’t taking my non-answer as an answer. “May I ask who?”
“The young man who picked you up for Halloween, Miss.”
My heart jolts again, but this time, in a traitorous, excited way.
“Send him up, please.”
I jump off the bed as soon as we end the call, fussing with my hair a bit and changing out of my giant sweatpants into a small, cute pair of sleep shorts. I’m wearing a tank top without a bra, and decide I shouldn’t bother putting one on.
When I see the box and its contents on my bed, I curse, gathering everything and shoving it back inside before kicking the whole box under my bed. I close my closet door to hide that mess, too, and then scuttle down the hall.
My phone buzzes as I do.
Kade.
You’re killing me, Jess.
When I open the door and see Jarrett smirking, holding two coffees in a carrier and a bag of what I assume are donuts from one of the best places downtown, my heart cracks.
“I’m on my way to the office,” he explains, a beautiful smirk on that beautiful face of his. “But I had to see you first.”
I bite my lip against the smile I feel building, opening the door more for him to come inside.
My phone feels like a bomb in my hand.
I read Kade’s text again, and then I type back the most honest thing I can.
I’m killing me, too.
Before he can respond, I toss my phone on the kitchen counter face down, following Jarrett inside. I lead him back to my bedroom, snatching the bag of donuts from his hands.
“Mmmm,” I say, inhaling the intoxicating scent as I pull out the first one. “Blueberry cake. How did you remember my favorite?”
“Come on, like I could ever forget. You ate five in one sitting the first time we went.”
I laugh around the mouthful I’ve already started chewing on. “Hey, I never said I was a lady.”
“I never said I wanted you to be one.”
Jarrett takes a bite off the other end of the donut, and I swat away his victorious smile when he takes half the thing with him.
When we’re done chewing, Jarrett sits on my bed, patting the seat next to him until I do, too.
“I feel like we didn’t get to talk much,” he says with a wry smile. “On Halloween, that is.”
My cheeks heat. “I don’t think either one of us had an issue with that.”
“At the time, no,” he agrees. “But… I don’t want you to think that’s all I want. That that’s all you are to me.”
I frown. “I didn’t. But now…”
Jarrett laughs under his breath, opening his arm and pulling me under it. His lips press against my temple, and I melt at the touch, at how soft and sweet it is, at how good and lovely and right it feels when his hand rests on my waist.
“I want to take you on a date,” he says, but already I can feel it — that magnetic field between us firing to life. His hand tightens where it holds me, eyes falling to my lips. “An actual date where we talk and catch up and maybe get to know something new about each other, too.”
“Okay,” I say breathlessly, and my fingers trail up the buttons of his shirt, hooking over the collar. “When?”
“As soon as you’ll let me,” he purrs, his free hand finding my knee. It trails up, slow and steady, leaving chills in its wake.
I unfasten the first button of his shirt, then the second. “This week is kind of busy at work… can I let you know?”
Jarrett’s hand splays over my thigh, fingertips so long they brush the hem of my tiny shorts. “As long as you actually let me know, yes.”
“I will,” I promise, mouth parting, eyes flicking to his. “We could talk now, you know,” I offer, but even as I say the words, I’m undoing the last of his shirt buttons and shoving the fabric back, over his shoulders, down to his elbows where it catches.
“We could,” he muses with a smirk, helping me get his shirt the rest of the way off.
As soon as he’s topless, my eyes roaming the painted valleys and ridges of his abdomen, he grabs my hips and tosses me like a teddy bear back into my pillows.
“Or you could take your shorts off, pull those perfect tits out of that thin little thank top they’ve been teasing me through, and let me make you come a couple times before I have to go to work. ”
My pussy tightens at the words, and without me having to answer, he’s already slipping his fingers under the bands of my shorts and tugging. I lift my hips to allow him access to strip them off, and then he reaches for my tank top, roughly yanking until my tits pop up through the neckline.
He bites his lip on a moan, sucking my left nipple hard between his teeth before moving on to the right. When they’re both puckered and I’m writhing beneath him, he kisses his way down, and then flips us so that I’m on top.
Straddling that beautiful face of his.
“You’re always so hungry in the morning,” I tease, but the words lose their bark at the end when he flicks his tongue against me, his hands grabbing my ass and pulling me into him.
“Insatiable, really,” he growls.
My hands fly to the headboard to keep me steady when he licks me long and slow, seam to bud, and then sucks my clit with just enough pressure to make my legs quake around him.
And just like that, any attempt at talking is forgotten.
Jarrett’s hands are steadfast on my ass as he helps me ride his face, sucking and licking and biting and kissing like eating pussy for breakfast is his favorite pastime.
I lose myself completely with him, succumbing to not one, not two, but three orgasms. The first one comes from his tongue, the second from him taking me from behind, and the third time in the shower where we’re both trying to be good and get clean.
But we’re naked, and wet, and steamy… like we could keep our hands off each other.
By the time he forces me to let him go so he can get dressed and go to work, I’m sore and aching in all the best places, my eyes ready to close for a long nap when he kisses my forehead and lets himself out.
I surrender to sleep the second he’s gone.
And somewhere in that strange state of not quite sleeping but not quite awake, I swear I can hear my phone buzzing on the kitchen counter down the hall.