Chapter 30
Julian
“Idon’t want to talk. I don’t want to think.” Her dark lashes rest on her cheeks. She won’t look at me.
“Ever . . .” I sigh her name. Is she still doubting me? Who I am? If I lied? Why doesn’t she want to talk? What is she afraid to find out?
“Just make me forget about the last twenty-four hours. Okay?” She swipes a damp trail off her cheeks with the backs of her fingers, then raises her liquid-gray eyes to mine.
“Can we just pretend . . . just for now . . . that none of it happened? That we’re still us and none of it changed?
” When I don’t immediately answer she adds, “Please?” She presses her lips to the pulse in my neck.
My body responds instantly, and I lean into her kiss.
As soon as I do, she’s tugging the shirt up my body and whipping it over my head. Then she removes hers. She’s naked under it and presses her breasts to my chest.
Fuck, I missed her. I know we should talk before we do this, but I also know I won’t deny her. I pull her hips into mine where I’m already hard.
Her hands roam up and down my stomach and chest, pushing me back on the bed.
She shimmies out of her sweats, again naked underneath, then hooks her fingers into the waistband of my pajama pants and slides them over my hips.
She sees the boxer briefs and stops her motion to pull them down with the PJs.
Once we’re both naked, she climbs back on top as I inch my way farther onto the bed.
Sitting with her moist heat perfectly on top of my hard-on, she leans down and kisses me, swiping her tongue into my mouth expertly, fusing her lips to mine.
Without altering the tempo of our kiss, she reaches down and takes me in her hand, guiding me to her opening and plunging down on me with a sharp intake of breath and a cry.
I clamp my hands down on her hips and hold her to me for a few seconds, rocking her back and forth a couple times until I feel her expand to accommodate me.
Then I pick her up slowly, drop her back on me with a groan and pull her hips toward me.
I repeat it, setting a cadence that has us both panting and her dripping.
When I feel her begin to tighten around me, I stop and roll her onto her back and wait.
Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut the whole time she rode me.
I hold myself still inside her until she looks at me.
I want her to see me, feel me, acknowledge me.
I want her to remember us, what we have.
Once her thunderous gray eyes find mine, I nod.
“You see me, Everly?”
She stares at me, not answering.
I pull all the way out of her, watch her brow crease in a frown, then slam into her so deeply she arches off the bed, her chin aiming at the ceiling, her eyes rolling back and fluttering closed again.
I freeze and wait. When her back relaxes and her chin lowers, she finds my eyes again.
I nod. “Good girl. You like that, don’t you? Me inside you?”
She nods.
“Tell me, Everly. Tell me who’s inside you.”
“You.” It’s more a breathless moan than a word.
“And who am I?”
“Julian.”
I reward her answer by pulling all the way out and slamming into her again. “That’s right. And I love you. Do you hear me, Everly? I love you.”
She’s nodding, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
I lower my face to hers and trail kisses along her cheek to her ear. “Say it, Ever. Tell me.”
“You . . .”
I pull out.
“Love me.”
I slam into her again.
“Ugh.” A cry rips from her throat.
“I’ll always love you,” I growl into her ear and drive into her again.
Her legs are quivering with the buildup, her thighs pinned tight against me, wanting to clench together.
“You wanna come for me, Ever?”
She nods against my lips still pressed to her ear.
“I know. I can feel you shaking. For me.” I swirl my hips as I pulse into her a few times. “Tell me.”
“Make me come, Julie.” She moans it and when she adds my name, I groan into her ear.
“Ugh, yes, Ever. Gonna make you feel so good.” I reach my hand between us and roll the hard bead above her opening between my thumb and finger.
She jolts and cries out. Her head is swiveling from side to side.
I pull all the way out, and she whimpers.
I trail kisses down her neck, take one nipple in my mouth and tease it with my teeth before I pull it into my mouth and suck hard.
My other hand squeezes her other breast. Her lower half writhes, begging me to fill the hollowness there.
“I know, baby. I got you.” I drop my face down to her center and swipe my tongue along the hard bud and kiss it softly before I pull it into my mouth and suck. At the same time, I slide my fingers into her and swirl. So slippery. Curling my middle finger, I meet my bobbing lips from the inside.
“Yes. Fuck yes.” She instantly bows off the bed and cries. Her walls pulse around my fingers, and I don’t stop even though I know it’s too intense.
I keep sucking and moving through her orgasm until she’s screaming and crying my name. And when she’s done, I don’t stop. I pull my fingers out and climb up her body and thrust into her again. Deep, hard, over and over.
Tears drench her cheeks. Her finger is clamped between her teeth.
With her other hand she yanks the longer tufts of hair above my forehead and pulls my face to her neck.
I nip the pulse there and suck, and she moans deep in her throat.
Her legs wrap around me like a vise as her hips rise to meet every thrust.
Within moments I’m ready to explode.
Bringing my lips back to her ear, I thrust once more, deep, and whisper, “I love you, Ever,” shuddering with the intensity of my orgasm.
I press her tightly to me, not moving except for my heaving chest, pounding heart and convulsing cock inside her.
I curl my arms around her and bring her with me when I settle on my side.
She’s facing me but not looking at me. I tilt her chin up with my index finger.
Still, she holds out, keeping her eyes downcast.
I trail my finger down her nose, along the outline of her lips. God, I missed her. I press my lips to her forehead and swipe my fingers across her damp cheeks. When I pull back, she looks up under her lashes and lifts one side of her mouth, flashing a dimple. But her half smile is sad.
“What’s going on in there, Ever?”
Her only response is a shrug.
“Talk to me.” Still nothing. I roll onto my back, letting my arm fall to my stomach. My other is trapped under her head, which is resting on my bicep, damp from her tears.
Her fingernail begins tracing the tattoo on my chest. “Where’s Taya?” she asks stoically, but there’s an underlying menace to her words.
“Seriously?” My anger spikes. “At her house,” I snap and hear her make a hmpf sound under her breath.
She stops tracing the tattoo.
I place my free arm under my head and prop myself up. She still won’t look at me.
“The tattoo was for her, wasn’t it?” Her voice is part sulk, part accusation.
“It was for me. A reminder.” I can’t help the clip of my words. How can she doubt me, us, after what we just did? I know she felt it just like I did.
“Of her,” she throws back.
“Of the pain. Surviving it actually.”
She flops over onto her back, dropping her arm over her forehead.
“C’mon, Ever? What is this? I thought we talked to each other.
” I’m sitting up now facing her and she’s pulling for the blanket to cover herself, sitting up too.
What the fuck happened to my girl? I feel panicky.
My fingers itch to rub my chest and the tattoo.
I curl my fingers into a fist instead, not wanting to draw attention to it since it’s currently an issue.
“Okay, let’s talk. What does it mean that she’s back?
That she’s not dead? You love me. But you love her, too, right?
I mean you loved her up until she ‘died,’ right?
” She uses quotes around the word died. “Well, she . . . undied. So, now what?” She throws the blanket off her and stalks to the foot of the bed where she grabs her clothes and yanks them on.
My girl is looking for a reason. Any reason.
How the fuck did she go from screaming my name to squaring up?
“Now nothing. I was lied to. By her dad. We both were.” I brush my fingers through my hair, swiping it off my forehead, only for it to tumble back down where it was.
I stand up and retrieve my sweats, not bothering with my shirt.
“We’ve moved on. We’re different people now.
It’s too late.” We’re standing in the middle of our bedroom like it’s a face-off.
I don’t know how to get her to take this down a notch. To talk to me. She’s ready to fight.
“But what if it’s not? She’s back. She’s here.”
“Not here. In South Point.”
“Technicality,” she half shouts.
“What are you doing, Ever? Trying to blow this up?”
“No,” she cries. “I don’t know. I . . . just need to think. I couldn’t do it at Lilly’s. I don’t want to go to Via’s and have to explain. I . . . I’m going to the apartment.”
“You’re what?”
She turns to take some things out of her dresser. Pajamas, underwear. She picks up her clothes she wore home and bundles them with her clean clothes—which is weird.
I blow a heated breath through puffed cheeks. I don’t know how to reach her. That she is here in front of me is only marginally better than her being gone and not being able to reach her. She might as well not be here for all I can get through to her. “Stop. Ever, please stop.”
But she doesn’t. She shoves the items in her arms into a small backpack and drops it on the floor to pull on some socks. Snatching it up again, she’s moving into the hall and walking toward the stairs, then the front door.
“Why won’t you just stop and talk to me?
Help me understand.” I pull at my hair as I follow her.
I clench my fists and shove them into my pockets.
The urge to hit something, break something, sends adrenaline coursing through my veins.
I know without a conscious thought there’s a speed bag session in my future.
One of those things my therapist refers to as a healthy addiction.
“God damn it, Ever, just fucking stop. I can’t lose you. ” I press my fists to my eye sockets.
“Same, okay?” She spins and hurls at me. “This is why I don’t need people. So they don’t go away.” She’s clutching the backpack in a death grip.
I drop my hands as the dots start to connect. “I’m not going anywhere.” I close the gap between us and rub my palms up and down her biceps, but I don’t pull her into my embrace, as much as I want to.
“You can’t promise that. You can’t know that.” She drops her forehead to my chest, and the smell of her freshly washed hair floods my nose.
My sunshine girl. I wrap my arms around her now.
“Okay, fair. But we’re here right now.” I rest my chin on her head and smile, relieved that this is what she’s spiraling about.
It’s going to be okay. I inhale and exhale.
Then I kiss the top of her sunshine-scented head, my dimples pinching my cheeks with the first genuine smile I’ve felt since before she left. My delight is short-lived.
“I can’t need you like this.” Her arms move from behind my back to my hips and she’s pushing me away.
I keep my grip for as long as I can before stepping back, dropping my hands.
She’s staring at my chin.
Why won’t she look at me? Nodding slowly, resolved, I say the only thing I can. “What can I do? Tell me what to do.”
“Let me go.” She’s looking at her hands, fidgeting with the strap of her backpack. Her knuckles are white, shaking. Tear after tear slips unchecked down her cheeks. Her body language tells me she doesn’t want this.
Dropping my chin to my chest, defeated, I shake my head side to side as if in slow motion, contradicting my words. “Okay.” I raise my eyes to her face the same time she raises hers to mine. “Okay, Ever.” I hold my hands out to my sides at my waist, palms up. “You win.”
On that, she takes a small step backwards, toward the door. One heel bumps her shoes in the entryway. She looks down at them and her sock-clad feet and bends to pick up the shoes. Then she’s turning toward the door.
I can’t feel my legs. Or my arms. Just a stabbing pain in my chest. Like something is pressing down on it, stealing my oxygen.
“I’ll . . . I’ll just be at the apartment. Okay?” She doesn’t face me when she says it. Her hand is on the door handle.
“Okay? Like I have a choice in this? Do I? Because I choose no. I choose that you stay here and talk to me.”
“I just need a minute,” she pleads. Ever turns to look at me now, but she doesn’t take her hand off the door, like she needs to ensure she can bail.
The deer-in-headlights look is back. It’s breaking me.
I haven’t seen it since I met her. Now I’ve seen it twice in as many days.
I hold my hands up, palms out in surrender, nodding slowly again, hoping it calms her, assures her she has nothing to be afraid of.
Is she afraid of me? “Ever, I love you.” I drop my hands to my sides.
“I know.” She doesn’t say it back.
Did she say it back earlier, in bed? I don’t think she did. Maybe not in words, but her body did. Has she changed her mind? Her body can’t lie. She loves me. She presses the handle, opens the door. “How long?” I hate how desperate I sound.
“I don’t know. I just need to think.”
“About us?” I can’t help myself.
“About everything.”
“Okay.” I think I’ve said that more times in the last two minutes than I have in my whole life.
But nothing is okay. So why do I keep saying it?
What else is there to say? But I can’t not try.
“Remember when you told me that saying the truth seems the shortest route to getting to the point of a thing?” I don’t wait for her reply.
“We tell each other the truth. You can tell me the truth, Everly. I’m here. When you’re ready to talk.”
“I know.” She walks through the door and closes it softly behind her.
I stand there and listen to the car start. Listen to it leave the driveway. I stand there long after the sound of her leaving fades. And because I want to hit something, I change clothes quickly and drive to Fit—to take it out on the kickboxing equipment.