36 – Seriously, Who Says ‘Item’ These Days
Casey
“Okay, just breathe, and relax, and everything will be fine. There is nothing to worry about at all. Because this is normal. It’s totally normal to start dating your best friend’s older brother. My dad met you when I was fourteen and you were twenty, so I’m sure he isn’t going to care about that at all . I am—”
“Baby, just breathe.” He wraps his arms around my shoulders from where he stands behind me on the outside of my apartment door. Because I am a huge chicken, who is now a rambling bunch of nerves. I am never scared of my parents. But for some reason, I just really, really want them to love Jessie, and I really don’t want them to judge or hate. It’s not like anything ever happened when we were kids. I was just a hormonal teen and Jessie was– is– so fucking gorgeous. It was impossible not to crush on him. And now that I know his soul, it would be literally impossible not to fall in love with him. Like I already have.
This nickname, though? I could love that, too. Ace? Panty melter. Sunshine? Swoons and internally sighs. But, baby? Dies as heart explodes.
“You forget, they already love me, anyway. I know Bev packed extra pastries in there for me every time.” He gives me a delicate kiss on the neck, then reaches ahead of me and opens the front door, not giving me the time to spiral further.
We enter the apartment, and I speed walk into the kitchen.
“Hi, Mom,” I call to her from where she sits on the couch with the girls, and she leaps up and jogs over to me, wrapping me into a tight hug. “My baby girl! Oh, I missed you,” she says as she squeezes the life out of me. I pat her back, chuckling.
“I missed you, too, Mom.”
“There’s my angel.” Dad’s deep baritone hits me from the hall and wastes no time in circling us in a group hug, his height being where I got mine from, and he towers over us in a tight, loving hug, the familiar smell of them both giving me a pang of nostalgia in the chest.
“Oh, hey, Jessie. I didn’t know you were joining us, too?” Mom asks from over my shoulder, and my palms are instantly sweaty.
“Hey, Bev, lovely to see you again.” He leans in from behind me, leaving a polite kiss on her cheek. “I knew there’d be delicious treats if you were in town.” His smile is devastating, and Mom is no more immune to his charm than I am, and she hits his shoulder. Pulling on his trademark smile, Jessie turns his attention to dad.
“Tony, long time.” He shakes my dad’s hand, who pulls him in for one of those bro-hug pat on the backs that young people do, and I think this is his attempt at being ‘ up with the kids’ , but Jessie lets him, the same comfortable smile they give each other, still there.
“Good to see you, Jessie.” Dad nods at him. “How’s the café?” Hands are now on the hip and he is ready to settle into a deep discussion about business. Ugh.
“The café is great,” I finish, ready to just rip the band-aid off this so I can stop freaking out like a child. “Anyway, we have to tell you something.” Addison and Rosie are standing from the couch so fast. Addison has wide eyes, and Rosie looks like she does on Christmas morning: mouth agape, heart eyes, and brimming with energy as she physically restrains herself from jumping on the spot.
“Jessie and I are together.” I don’t know why that sounded like a business announcement. And why my arms are crossed this way?
I move my arms to hang by my side, but then that feels too weird. I move them to rest on my hips. But now I look like mom when she is lecturing me. I cross my arms again. What the hell? Why am I so weird right now?
Jessie’s snort chuckle from behind me has me spinning and pinning him with a stern look, and I make a mental note to punish him later. Something creative. Like reading about Baseball Daddy while I’m naked, with a no-touching rule in place. I’m sure he won’t be laughing then. Jessie has his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans, his lips pulled into a smug smile, as he quickly squeezes his eyes shut. Laughter sputters from where Addison and Rosie are now hiding behind the couch, and Jessie finally breaks the awkward silence.
“Uhh… not how I thought that was going to come out.” He steps up next to me, and returning my attention back to my parents, I see Mom with a pout, trying to suppress a smile, but Dad’s face is unreadable.
“You guys are an item?” Dad questions, looking only at Jessie. Who the hell says ‘item’ these days?
To Jessie’s credit, he doesn’t falter. He stands up straight, matching Dad’s energy, and nods. “We are.”
“Since when?” Dad pushes, and I nervously bite my lip. Before I can intervene, Jessie continues.
“A month or so.” Liar.
“How?” At Dad’s question, Jessie smiles easily and looks at me for a moment before he looks back to my dad, that smile stuck in place.
“How could I not?” he responds, and Mom covers her mouth, her eyes failing to hide the size of her smile.
Dad nods, and his smile grows slowly. “Good answer, son.” He shakes Jessie’s hand again and then heads for the fridge. “Beer?”
“Love one,” Jessie responds, leaning in to give me a kiss on the forehead, then follows my dad to the kitchen.
Mouth agape, brain traveling one hundred miles an hour, I return my attention to mom, the girls now coming our way from the couch.
“I knew you two would find a way,” Mom coos.
“They’re adorable, aren’t they?” Rosie says as she slings an arm around Mom’s shoulders.
“Disgusting, sure. But I’m happy for them.” Addison winks at me with a sad smile. We still haven’t smoothed over everything that went down in the bathroom of Pucks, and I can feel the tension and irritation radiating from where she stands, arms crossed and leaning against the wall of the entryway.
“Yeah, it’s only new, though. And I don’t really know how it all happened, but I—”
I stop, freezing, realizing this will be the first time saying it to someone that isn’t Jessie. The realization that we aren’t in our bubble anymore, that it isn’t just us. It makes it real.
“I really love him,” I whisper quietly, and Mom leaps in to hug me while Rosie screws up her nose while smiling and Addison fights away tears.
“Okay, so tomorrow night, I say we meet at Lucas’s, because he is closer to the bar. We start out at Bozzelli’s, and then see where the night takes us,” Rosie plots from her spot on the couch. We ended up ordering pizza, having a few drinks, and are now all snuggled on the couch with the heater blasting. Jessie kept a respectful distance most of the night until we moved to the couch. Like he was done with the ‘above the waist’ only touching. The moment we moved to the couch, he had me tucked into his side, my legs swung over his lap as he massaged my calves.
“What is this for?” I question.
“Your birthday, obviously,” Addison clarifies.
“Oh, that’s lovely! We were hoping we could take you and Grace out for dinner on Sunday? I know everyone will be busy on the 24 th , so I don’t want to make any plans on that day,” Mom suggests. No, of course, no one would risk ruining their Christmas Eve to celebrate me on my actual birthday.
I give Mom a tight smile and nod. “Sure, sounds good.”
“You’re welcome to come, too, Jessie.”
“Thanks, Bev, I’d love to come,” he replies. “I’m also stealing Casey on Christmas Eve, too,” he says to everyone except me.
“What for?” I look up at him, and he returns the look below hooded eyes, his bluey-greens shimmering with desire as his hands continue their delicious torture on my legs.
“Birthday surprise.” He punctuates with a wink, and I fold my lips into my mouth to stop myself from pouncing on him in front of everyone.
“Anyway!” Rosie almost shouts, getting the attention back on her, Addison and I chuckling at her look of indignation. “Tomorrow night?”
“Sure, sounds fun.” I shrug, and my head falls to Jessie’s chest. Rosie sees the gesture, so she makes sure to clarify. “This is a girls’ night, though. We don’t need men out here ruining our fun.”
“Noah is going to rock up, anyway,” Addison says with a sigh as her head hits the couch. “Wouldn’t matter that I said no guys, he’d pretend to be there for Caleb.” Her smile tells me she secretly loves that, and I have a feeling there will be another caveman there, doing exactly the same thing.
“You good with not being invited?” I ask up at Jessie with a knowing smirk, reveling in the dirty look he is giving Rosie. As expected, he avoids actual words and grunts instead.
“Probably hang out with Noah.” There it is. We all end up in a fit of giggles and Rosie just rolls her eyes.
“Bunch of insecure pussies,” she mutters.
“Don’t judge yet Rosie. Wait until you have your very own drooling idiot worshiping the ground you walk on. You’ll understand one day,” I clarify, and it earns me a pinch that has me smacking Jessie’s chest.
“In my defense, you’re also completely unaware of your surroundings,” he accuses, but a smirk hides under that look.
“I am not! I know exactly what is going on.”
“Oh, Casey.” My dad sighs, shaking his head and chuckling.
“Excuse me!” I pull my legs from Jessie’s lap to cross them and nudge his shoulder while he laughs. “I am very aware. Thank you.”
“I’ve seen you out and watched as you made your way around. You’re oblivious to the way people watch you. Noah’s birthday is a prime example, and you know I was right about the bartender.” He bops a finger on the top of my nose. Ugh, I hate when he’s right. Might have to up that punishment later.
“I don’t care what you men do, but if I see you trying to steal the women away, I will end you.” Rosie levels at Jessie, and Addison and I chuckle. “Tomorrow night is for the girls, and I don’t even want to smell your stupid cologne.” That makes mom snort, and Dad’s chuckle rumbles through the room.
Jessie raises his hands in surrender, smiling at Rosie, before looking back at me and pulling me back into his arms. “You just let me know when you’re done and I’ll come get you.”
“We’ll Uber, it’ll be late.” Rosie waves him off, sipping her wine, and it makes me smile because I know his response before he says it.
“I don’t care what time it is, I’ll be there.” She just rolls her eyes at him, but I can see Dad’s small nod of approval. I do love my independence, but I’d be lying if I said I don’t love how Jessie is slightly overprotective of me.
“Well, we’ll get out of your hair,” Mom states as she stands, Dad following.
“Where are you guys staying?” I ask. I had assumed they would stay in my bed and I’d crash with Addison or Rosie, like usual.
“We have a hotel a few blocks down, we’ll catch an Uber,” Dad clarifies. “We didn’t want to intrude,” he says, giving me a pointed look before his eyes dart from me to Jessie, then back again.
“How did you know there was anything to intrude on?” I ask, head tilted to the side.
He doesn’t respond, just turns and looks at Mom.
“Mom?”
“Well, you mentioned something about a boy back in November. I didn’t know who or how serious, so I thought we’d be safer if we got our own room.” She winks at me and grabs her coat, Dad following.
“You brag about me to your mom, then about my cock to the girls? I think you’re obsessed with me, sunshine,” Jessie whispers in my ear, and I feel my cheeks heat.
“Maybe I was bragging about my other boyfriend.” I raise my eyebrows at him as I turn and see his face drop into a dark look at the challenge. He just grunts in response, and I pat myself on the back. Punishment is underway.
Jessie, the gentleman he is, helps Mom into her coat, opens the door, and walks them down to the front of the building. I hang back with Rosie and Addison, no longer able to handle the tension that is practically flooding from Addison. I turn and try to communicate just how sorry I really am.
“I know you are mad at me right now, and I’m so sorry for how things went down at Pucks. I—”
“It’s exhausting being angry, and I have enough of that for things that deserve it,” she says with a gentle smile while rolling her eyes.
“Well… thank you for tonight and for… being so cool about all of this,” I say through a tight smile to Addison.
“I spoke to my therapist. I don’t know what your secret is, but you can have it. I know you’ll tell me when you’re ready, or maybe it’s even better. I don’t know. I know you wouldn’t keep something from me that would hurt me and I’m choosing to just love you, anyway.”
“Aw, Ads, that was cute.” Rosie wraps an arm around Addison, who just chuckles and wipes a tear from under her eye. “I’m still working on the anger thing, so just bear with me if I snap at you or just randomly start crying.” She laughs and I go in for another hug, grateful to be back on some semi-normal ground with her.
Jessie makes it back into the apartment and manages to pull me away from the girls, hiding us away in my room.
“Wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asks, circling his arms around my waist and backing me up to the bed. My arms find the back of his neck, and when my knees hit the mattress, we stop, not yet falling, content in peering at each other.
“I guess it wasn’t,” I whisper.
He just shakes his head, a ghost of a smile on his face as his eyes search my entire face.
“What?” I prompt, matching his smile and drawing my bottom lip through my teeth. My stomach does that thing with the butterflies when I see the way the lines of his eyes crease with his smile, the way his jaw clenches and eyes hood when his eyes latch on my lips.
“It’s just… I don’t know how to say it,” he says quietly, self-consciousness knots his words, so I pull him closer.
“Close your eyes,” I whisper and pull his head toward mine, so our foreheads touch. Standing on the tips of my toes, we stay there for a breath. “Tell me in the way that you can. Tell me through great poets or classic literature. Let them tell me.” I can feel his smile as we stay embraced with each other. I feel his heart race from where our chests touch. I feel his desire where his hands roam my lower back, and every so often, my ass. I scratch the back of his neck delicately and comb my fingers through the hair there, and after a few breaths, he speaks.
“‘ And it was only when I began to feel actual, physical pain every time you left the room that it finally dawned on me: I was in love, for the first time in my life.’” My eyes snap open, and I watch him whisper the words of his heart, his eyes gently closed, his smile bright and cheeks flushed with vulnerability. Unable to keep my eyes closed, unable to miss this, I watch him as he continues. “‘I knew it was hopeless, but that didn’t matter to me. And it’s not that I want to have you. All I want is to deserve you. Tell me what to do. Show me how to behave. I’ll do anything you say.’”
I take a steadying breath, basking in the silence for a few heartbeats, and watch as the man I love bares his entire soul to me.
“Choderlos de Laclos, Dangerous Liaisons ,” I whisper as a tear drops from my eye. Feeling the weight of his words, the insurmountable pressure of holding his delicate heart in my hands. This man, who has spent so much time closed off to everything in life, is finally opening up to everything he’d denied himself. And it’s all for me, all mine. I have to breathe deeply to settle my heart, to tell myself we can do this, that I can handle that, because that’s what love is.
Jessie catches my lone tear the moment his eyes open and lock with mine.
“Why are you crying, baby?” His eyebrows pull in tighter.
“Because it still doesn’t feel real. That you could love me like this.”
“You don’t believe you are deserving?” I shake my head at his question, and he tilts his in confusion.
“It’s not the deserving, it’s you. That you could see me and want me. To feel so deeply, for me. I used to dream about you just being interested in me. It just… feels like a fantasy,” I whisper back, my heart ricocheting in my chest at the emotions flooding this room, the way it feels like Jessie has completely intertwined himself in my heart. I couldn’t possibly get him out now, even if I tried my darndest. He is stuck with me.
“The way you have my heart and soul, sunshine, is the realest thing I’ve ever felt.” He leans down and kisses me gently, whispering his next words to my lips. “I was frozen, moving through time just existing. But with you beside me, burning, glowing, you melted right through all my ice and made me feel again. You brought me back to life. I never cared much about fighting for a future, but when that looks like you, I’ll fight as hard as I need to keep you.” My nails dig into his scalp as I pull him down to my lips, sealing his words the only other way I know to tell him how I feel. That my heart is his, he is in me, under my skin, surrounding me completely, and I never want to be without him ever again.
“Jessie—”
He reaches the back of my thighs and lifts me, my legs wrapping around his waist, and he gently lowers me to the bed.
He looks down at me, our bodies completely touching, burning, my breathing matching the pounding of his heart against my chest as he takes my lips in a demanding kiss. His hand trails up my outer thigh as the other finds a circle around my neck.
“I’d spent so long hiding from hope.” He kisses each of my cheeks, gently scraping his teeth across my jaw before he rises up to hover his lips above mine. “I hadn’t realized I had been hiding from you. I’m done hiding, Casey. I want this, all of it. I only want it with you, and I want it forever.” I can’t pinpoint the reason, but there is pain in his words, so much longing and pain, and my heart catches when I spot the moisture welling in his eyes. Unable to bear it any longer, I frame his sharp jaw with my hands and pull him closer so I can whisper the words against his lips. “It’s like I said. Our forever has already started.” And then I take him in a kiss. He kisses me with such skill, his tongue tangling with mine, his taste of the dessert mom had baked, the sweet cream and just him. A moan leaves my lips, and it undoes his composure just that little bit more as he pulls back and rips his shirt from his back. He sits on his knees and raises one of my feet.
“You have cute little toes.” He points out and I laugh self-consciously. But his eyes never leave mine as he pulls at the cuff of my tights, raising my other foot to do the same and when they are both loose, he lazily drags them down my legs, his gaze burning through mine, the blue of them glowing in the low light of my room.
“Your thighs are the sexiest I’ve ever seen,” he states as he leans forward, tights discarded on the floor and kisses a path slowly up the inside of my right thigh. I gasp the closer he gets to my center, reaching a hand under my shirt, massaging a breast as he continues his trail up my left thigh. Dodging the one place where I want him most, I can feel the smile of satisfaction on his face and the hard bulge nudging my leg. When he looks up at me through hooded eyes, his devastatingly handsome smile hits me as his teeth latch onto the strap of my panties. He starts to pull them down, slowly, warm breath leaving a trail of need in its wake, the scratch of his beard a painful tease making my back arch, searching for friction.
I feel hot all over, like a live wire loaded with energy. When I feel my panties leave my legs, I manage to look down and see him staring hungrily between my legs.
“But this? Fuck, Casey. I fucking love your pussy.” He drags a lazy finger through the middle of me. The sound of how badly I want him is almost embarrassing, but I am so taken by my need for him I can’t find it in me to care.
“Please, Jessie,” I beg.
“Please, what?” he challenges, a dirty smile on his face as he sits smugly between my legs, his fingers playing with me like it’s nothing, like I’m not about to come apart after a few small touches and dirty words.
“Make love to me?” I ask on a gentle whisper, for some reason overcome with emotion. Not feeling the animalistic desire, but something completely new. It’s deep and raw. It hurts, but in a way where I never want it to stop hurting.
He sees everything running through my head. Peeling his pants and boxers from his body, he leans forward, pulling my top and bra from me and hovers over me.
“ Stella mea, ” he whispers the language I haven’t heard before, as he lines himself up and gives one gentle push, stealing the gasp from my lips with the seal of his. The moment he fills me completely, he moves his hips out slightly, rotating and circling to make room and picking up the pace.
“You somehow end me and breathe life into me all at once.” He kisses me gently, his tongue dancing at the seam of my lips until it finds mine. He kisses me fervently, and I feel every word he says right to my bones. It feels like he too has brought me back to life, like breaching the surface in the ocean, finally able to breathe again.
The delicate passion of his kiss turns into a desperate need, his gentle caressing hands gripping my hips and growling as he slams into me harder, faster.
“My.” Thrust. “Fucking.” Thrust. “Woman.” Thrust.
“Yours,” I all but moan. “I’m yours, Jess. Always.”
He thrusts harder again as I hook my legs around his waist tightly and pushing up with all my weight, throwing him to his back, never letting him leave me, and when I settle on top of him, impaled completely my head drops back on a moan as I guide myself up and down a few times.
“So fucking beautiful,” he whispers as I rotate my hips, looking down to see those magnificent blue-green eyes. I feel the rapid beat of his heart, my own personal love song.
“You feel so fucking good,” I whisper back.
His fingers dig into my hips as he encourages my movements, his eyes tracing my entire body, from my lips to my breasts that bounce slightly, to where we are joined, and then he places a finger to my clit, massaging me gently. Edging me even closer to the precipice.
A strangled moan leaves my lips as he sits up, taking a breast into his mouth and pulling it gently with his teeth. His hands firmly on my ass and bouncing me on his cock. “ Fuck Case.”
His hands fist my hair and pull my lips to him, and before I know it, I’m on my back again. Jessie’s arms wrapped firmly around my hips as he sits on his knees and pistons into me at speed.
“I fucking love you. If you ever leave, I hope you’re ready for a stalker, because I’ll chase you to the ends of the earth.” He thrusts hard again, my mind losing all sensibility, and I claw at his back.
“ Oh, shit! Jess!”
“Yes, that’s it. Fuck, you feel so good.” He trails his teeth down my neck, leaving light kisses in their wake.
“Come with me, Jess.” I pant in his ear as I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling the tingles travel my spine and my toes going numb. I trail my hand down his back and find his ass, pushing him deeper. “Harder. Fuck, harder, please!” I beg.
He delivers on a growl, lifting my hips from the mattress and fucking into me. I love him. I feel it like an ache in my chest, but fuck, I love his cock.
He adjusts his hips to hit upward, and the orgasm hits me like a bomb detonating. Cursing on a scream he slams a hand over my lips to smother it, and when I manage to peel open an eyelid, I see his head tipped back, his bottom lip pulled in to smother his own roar and I feel him come apart inside me.
Jessie’s firm torso collapses forward, his weight caught on the arm above my head, and he gently kisses my shoulders.
“ Stella mea,” he whispers again.
“What is that?” I ask quietly, still trying to catch my breath. Without withdrawing, he rolls on to his back, pulling me with him. A little moan at the friction while he’s still seated inside me. Not wanting to sever the connection, I leave him there and let myself fall onto his chest and nuzzle into the gap between his chin and collarbone. He wraps his arms around me firmly, and when he catches his breath, he answers.
“My star.”