Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
brOOKS
Maybe if I play the music loud enough, it’ll drown out all thoughts of my wildfire.
Because she consumes me, and it pisses me the fuck off.
All I’ve thought about is how damn perfect it felt to have her pressed against my back on the bike.
I hate that she lives in that attic, but I love that she stood up to me and told me that she wasn’t ashamed.
Even though I could see the embarrassment in her eyes, and I don’t want her to feel that way.
Christ, why do I have this need to help her? To protect her? She’s a stranger to me, yet I want her.
And the more I dig into her car, the more pissed I get. Barry sabotaged every component of this car, making sure it would break down over and over again. I’ve never seen such a fucking mess, and I’ve been at this job for a long time. I’m so pissed, I had to take my shirt off because I was sweating.
I want to get Barry in a room and beat the ever-loving fuck out of the piece of shit.
I need to ask Jules to check her card and make sure she got her money back, or else I’ll be paying him another visit, and I won’t stop at a punch to the jaw.
Nirvana is blaring through the speakers. Old Man Hanson used to play this and other old rock music on repeat, and I never stopped because I like it.
I turn it up a notch because I’m still thinking about Jules, and then every hair on my body stands on end.
She’s here.
Without standing up straight, I glance over my shoulder, and sure enough, there she is, staring at me with glassy eyes, wearing a black T-shirt and shorts, holding a bag of what I assume is food.
“Fuck,” I mutter before I cut the music off and reach for the rag to wipe my hands. When I turn around, she’s already set the bag down and is making a break for the door. “Wildfire.”
She stops, but she doesn’t turn around, and I slowly walk toward her.
I don’t like having her in my garage. She looks too beautiful. Too perfect. Too right, here in my space. It reminds me of having her here with me when we were teenagers. She’d keep me company while I worked.
It’s late, dark outside, and no one is around.
It’s just us.
Fuck.
“I’m sorry,” she blurts, and wrings her hands together at her waist as she turns to me. She won’t look me in the face. “I was taking my evening walk—”
She walks in the evening, too?
“—and I saw that your lights were on and heard the music. I had just closed the kitchen, so I ran back to make you dinner because if you’re still here, you might not have eaten, and I had some beef fajitas, and you used to like those.
I don’t know if you still do, but it’s all in the bag, along with some chips and stuff.
I feel bad that I’ve snapped at you. You don’t deserve that. Anyway, sorry that I interrupted—”
Unable to stop myself, I close the gap between us, frame her face in my hands, and press my lips to hers, kissing her for the first time in fifteen years, and my entire being stutters to a stop as I breathe her in.
She doesn’t move at first, as taken aback as I am, and then with a little moan, she melts into me. Her hands go to my sides, and her lips part, inviting my tongue in.
God, she tastes good.
Sinking into her, I back her up until her hips meet my countertop. Her fingertips brush up and down my bare back, up my sides, over my stomach, and I can’t stop myself from wanting her, here and now.
I hate myself for it, but I need her.
Every bit of her.
I tug her shirt up out of her shorts, and she immediately lifts her arms, giving me consent to remove her clothes. That’s all I need to know that she wants this as much as I do.
“Jesus, Wildfire,” I mutter against her lips as I unfasten her bra, and it falls down her arms. Cupping her breasts, I tip my forehead against hers, and when my thumbs brush over her already hard nipples, my cock strains against my jeans.
“Tell me to stop now. If you don’t want me inside you, you need to say so, Juliet. ”
“Don’t stop.” Her voice is breathy and full of need, full of lust, and it’s exactly what I need to hear.
And I’m suddenly as angry as I am turned on.
Because I’ve needed her for fifteen motherfucking years. And I hate her for it.
I hate her, and I can’t walk away from her.
I can’t look at her face, in her sweet blue eyes, so I twirl her around and plant her hands on the edge of the counter, making her bend over at the waist.
“Hold on,” I say, my voice hard and gruff. “Don’t you fucking let go.”
She nods, but I pinch her nipple, making her gasp.
“Words, Juliet.”
“I won’t let go.”
I bite her shoulder as I circle behind her, unfasten her shorts, and let them fall around her ankles. She’s left standing there in nothing but little yellow panties. She’s panting, her face is flushed, her hair is a mess from my fingers. I didn’t even realize I’d messed it up.
“Fuck,” I mutter as I squat behind her and hook my fingers in her panties, pulling them down her legs, exposing her gorgeous ass and pussy to me. “You’re more beautiful than I remember, and I didn’t think that was possible.”
She whimpers, and her head falls forward when I drag a finger through her already sopping slit.
“I’m not going to think about how many men have been here since me. Because if I think about it, I’ll fucking kill someone.”
“Brooks—”
I push two fingers inside her, making her gasp and rock forward.
She’s tight, so fucking tight. Her walls squeeze the hell out of my fingers, making my already hard cock strain.
Pulling them out, I lean in and swipe my tongue from her clit to her entrance and back again, and she cants her hips back, seeking more.
“You want my tongue inside this pretty pussy, Jules?”
“Yes. Please.”
“I like it when you ask for it.” I fuck her with my tongue and my fingers, driving her out of her mind. She’s falling apart, screaming, when I push my thumb against her hard clit and make her come so hard, I’m quite sure she can’t remember her own fucking name.
But she sure knows mine because she’s screaming it right now.
“Brooks! Holy fucking shit.”
“That’s right. It’s me, Wildfire.” Standing, I keep one hand on her cunt and unfasten my jeans with the other. “You’re so fucking gorgeous, it almost pisses me off.”
I notch my weeping cock at her entrance and push inside her, bottoming out, making us both groan.
“Mine,” I whisper as I pull back and then slam back in, hard and unyielding.
I’m not in any way making love to this woman.
I’m fucking her. I’m reminding her who belongs here.
And then a tiny patch of ink on her left side, over her rib cage, catches my eye and my hips stop moving as my thumb brushes over it.
She’s gone perfectly still.
I narrow my eyes and lean closer, and in perfect writing, it says, his wildfire. There’s the outline of a flame at the very end.
It’s simple.
It’s covered when she’s clothed.
And it’s for me.
“You marked yourself for me.”
She doesn’t reply, and I’ve never been harder in my goddamn life. I start to move again, more punishing than before. Because I’m so fucking angry.
I slap her ass, then grip onto her side. My hand covers the ink as if I can soak it into myself. When her pussy ripples around me as her climax works through her again, she pulls me with her, and I come inside her.
Fuck, I just came inside her.
But I can’t bring myself to be sorry.
When I pull out, I tug her panties up, keeping my cum exactly where it belongs. She’s panting, still leaning on the counter, and I know it’s because I haven’t given her permission to move.
Such a good wildfire.
One of the things that I loved about Juliet was how submissive she was to me. I’m dominant by nature, and she always followed my directions perfectly.
It seems that hasn’t changed.
“You can get dressed.”
She immediately moves into action, pulls up her shorts, then reaches for her bra and shirt as I tuck myself away, wondering what in the hell I’m supposed to do now.
I fucked up.
Yet I’m not sorry. Because for the first time in fifteen years, I feel alive.
Not one word comes from her beautiful mouth as she finishes dressing, and then without a word to me, she sets off for the door.
“Jules.”
She doesn’t look back. She doesn’t acknowledge me at all.
She simply leaves.
“Fuck!”
I stomp my feet, pacing back and forth, until I finally close up the garage, grab the food, and go home. The house is dark and silent as I walk through to the kitchen and set the bag down. I can still smell her on me. I can feel her soft skin, see that tattoo.
She made me dinner because she felt guilty and grateful, and she brought it to me.
And what did I do?
“I fucked her six ways to Sunday.” I shake my head and pull the contents out of the bag, and my stomach growls. I haven’t eaten since lunch, and it might be almost midnight, but I’m not about to waste my wildfire’s food.
I eat every delicious bite, toss the packaging, and then go to my bathroom and take a shower.
I should not have fucked her.
But I couldn’t help myself. And she didn’t say no.
I’m full of self-loathing when I step out of the shower and dry off. Because she might not have said no, but I didn’t handle it with any kind of finesse. And that makes me an asshole.
I want to know about the tattoo.
His wildfire.
How long has she had it?
Is she okay after what I just did to her?
I have her number, but I don’t want to just text her.
I don’t think she’d take a call from me.
So I pull on some clean workout shorts and a T-shirt, then grab my keys and drive over to her place.
She’s just approaching the stairs when I pull up, and she bites her lower lip, frowns, and then climbs the steps, ignoring me.
You can’t ignore me, baby.
Without a word, I follow her upstairs. She unlocks both deadbolts, opens the door, and doesn’t bother to try to shut it in my face. I walk in behind her, close the door, and then we’re standing in her stuffy attic. Her back is to me, her hands on her hips.
“Ten years,” she says, finally breaking the silence. “I got the tattoo ten years ago.”
Five years after we broke up.
My already shattered heart cracks again.
“I assume that’s what you want to know,” she says as she turns to look at me. Her arms wrap around her middle, like she’s protecting herself from me.
“I was curious, yeah.”
She nibbles that lower lip.
“The food was great.”
Her eyes fill with tears.
“Fuck.”
Without asking permission, I close the gap between us, tug her against my chest, and wrap my arms around her.
“I hate how much you hate me,” she mutters against me. “I hate it so much. I don’t know how to change it. I don’t know what to say to anyone. I feel so fucking alone.”
Just when I’m about to tell her that I don’t hate her, she shakes her head and backs out of my arms, wipes her face, and turns her back to me once more.
“I’m glad you liked the food.”
She’s back to that stiff politeness.
“Jules—”
“I needed those orgasms,” she admits with the shrug of one shoulder. “I know it’s nothing personal, but it was a good trade for the food. Won’t happen again, though, because I won’t fuck another man who hates me. Learned that lesson.”
I want to fucking roar.
What does she mean by that?
“I need you to go now.”
“I’d like to talk to you.”
Juliet shakes her head and sighs so deeply, it’s as though she’s exhausted down to her soul.
“I don’t want to talk. I need you to go, Brooks.”
I stay rooted where I am, watching her. If I really hated her, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t give a flying fuck about her feelings.
I do care.
“You being here hurts me.”
Those whispered words are all I need to make me leave.
The truth is, we won’t ever be together again. She’s not mine. I’m an idiot for not being able to control myself and keep my cock under control.
I’ll fix her car, and then I’ll wash my hands of Juliet forever.
This has to end.