Chapter 28
Zoe
Without Caleb, I think I would have lost my mind last year, and I’m so sorry that you had to lose him.
—Zoe
My heart breaks. I stare at Jase, unable to speak.
Jase, who has been so cool and distant for the last few weeks, hiding behind a mask that now lies in shards on the floor between us.
His eyes are full of unshed tears, and it breaks my heart a little more because I can tell he’s fighting as hard as he can to keep from crying.
His whole body is shaking, and I can’t bear to see him like this.
I hate myself and Caleb for being responsible for this whole mess.
His parents threw him out, and we rejected him.
We . . . I hurt him. I hurt him so much. Even more than I thought I had. I was too occupied with my own problems to consider that he had problems too.
I open my mouth to say something, but an apology would mean nothing. I still can’t explain it to him or tell him the truth. Besides, this isn’t about me. I move closer to him before I can stop myself or even waste a thought on whether it’s a good idea or a terrible one.
“Jase.” His name comes out as a soft whisper. It’s an apology and an explanation and a plea, all in one. I reach out and touch his face, and he lets me.
His breath comes in gasps. He avoids my gaze, staring at the floor, biting his lower lip. My heart isn’t just broken now; it’s bleeding. I stroke his damp cheeks, and he turns his head away. He doesn’t want me to see him like this, but he can’t avoid it. I hold his face in my hands.
“Jase,” I whisper again, moving my hand to the back of his neck, caressing the sensitive skin there. He sighs. It’s a tortured, broken sound that brings tears to my own eyes.
I wrap both arms around him, pull him close, and just hold him tightly. There’s nothing else I can do now besides just being here.
His heart beats directly against my chest, fast and hectic.
Mine adapts to his rhythm. He’s warm, so warm, and totally tense.
I kiss the sensitive skin below his ear.
It happens naturally, without thinking. He sighs again, and then all at once he relaxes.
He wraps his arms around my waist and hugs me so tightly that, for a moment, I can hardly breathe.
I don’t know who makes the first move, but we come just close enough for our lips to touch, and suddenly we’re kissing. It’s our third kiss, but it feels different.
Like a first kiss. Our third first kiss.
I taste coffee and mint. My heart stumbles, beating unevenly.
Jase lets go of my waist, and his hands move up my body to my head, burying themselves in my hair, tipping my face upward to him, gentle and demanding at the same time.
The kiss deepens. My lips open of their own accord, our tongues touch, and Jase moans in a way that sends brilliant flashes of lightning through me.
My skin is tingling, my fingers, my whole body. I want more. More of his lips, more of his taste in my mouth, more of his skin beneath my hands.
Every coherent thought disappears as he lets go of me, only to lift me up the next moment. My legs instinctively wrap around his hips, pulling him closer. My pelvis presses against his. I can feel his hardness, and I feel a strong pulsing between my legs.
Desire rushes through me, and I bite his lower lip very gently. He gives a throaty laugh that goes under my skin, deeper and deeper until I can feel it all through me.
He stops kissing me and pulls away, just a fraction of an inch. “Pixie,” he whispers in my mouth. Just hearing him use my nickname again makes me absurdly happy.
I pull at his jacket, a silent request for him to take it off.
It’s not enough, I need more of the soft skin on the back of his neck.
I need so much more. He carefully lowers me to the floor and lets me go, and I immediately miss the feeling of his hands on my body.
And that’s crazy, because it wasn’t very long ago that I couldn’t tolerate any touch from him at all.
But right now, it feels like it’s been a lifetime since then. A different Zoe, a different Jase.
Yet somehow we’re still the same.
Zoe and Jase.
Jase and Zoe.
The jacket slips off his shoulders and lands on the floor behind him with a rustle.
He hesitates for a moment. His gaze is dark and stormy, and a warm flutter spreads through my stomach.
I reach out for him with both hands and pull him closer again.
My fingers wander over his T-shirt, doing whatever they want.
They trace his hard, defined muscles, and I feel goose bumps prickle on his skin as I gently stroke his chest with my fingernails.
“Jase.” His name is on my tongue again. I can’t say anything else, but no words are necessary because he understands. He understands because he knows me, and he knows me because I have told him almost all of my secrets.
He pulls his shirt off over his head, and I forget to breathe as my eyes roam over his chest, down his stomach to the V of his hips.
I look up at him, and my heart skips a beat.
His eyes are so infinitely green. His hair is messy from my fingers, and he’s so Jase that it hurts.
It not only takes my breath away—it actually hurts.
I want to take off my clothes. I must. But as I grab the hem of my sweater, he stops me, and all at once his hands are on mine.
I look up uncertainly. If he rejects me now, I’m going to die, because my body won’t be able to take it.
The racing heart, the tingling, the desire, and the longing.
God, I want to touch him so much. Really, really touch him.
But Jase has no intention of stopping me. He takes the soft fabric of my sweatshirt and rolls it upward as I lift my arms, so he can remove it. Now I’m just as naked as he is. I don’t have a shirt on underneath, and I’m not wearing a bra.
I blush as his eyes wander over my body, and with his gaze alone, he sets me ablaze.
“Fuck,” he murmurs. It’s a breathless, admiring word. The fluttering in my stomach grows stronger, the throbbing between my legs more urgent. I want him. Now. Now. Please.
Somewhere deep inside, I know there’s something I should be remembering.
But I don’t want to think; I just want to feel.
I reach for the waistband of his jeans and slide my fingers between the fabric and his skin.
I tug on the cloth, a silent invitation.
His breath comes out in a hiss, and I have to smile because I realize he was holding it. Because of me.
His eyes burn into mine, and we both know where this is going.
“If you want to stop, all you have to do is say the word.” His voice is husky and sends a pleasant shiver down my back.
“Don’t stop,” I say.
He pulls me close again, kisses me deep and hard, and I see stars.
My head tips back as his lips wander down my neck, over my collarbone, and down my breasts.
I can’t breathe anymore when he takes a nipple in his mouth and sucks.
His tongue is playing with it, and I almost can’t take it anymore.
I’ve never felt this way before. So complete and so vulnerable at the same time.
I moan, unable to repress the sound, and I feel Jase shiver under my hands. They’re tangled in his hair again.
He murmurs words into my skin that I don’t understand, but I don’t need to.
He guides me toward the bed. I bump into the mattress with the back of my knees and collapse backward, and then he’s above me.
He kisses me again before pulling away from me.
Then his hands are on the waistband of my jeans, and he hesitates again.
“Keep going,” I whisper hoarsely, because he obviously needs to hear it, and I don’t want him to stop.
He unzips my jeans and pulls them down my legs along with my underwear in one fluid motion. Then I’m lying naked in front of him. Naked and vulnerable, and a voice inside me whispers that I should feel exposed, but I don’t.
Jase takes a deep breath and swallows hard. My mouth goes dry. “Why are you so damn beautiful?” It’s a rhetorical question, and I have no answer for it.
I can’t see myself the way he sees me, but just like this, in his bed, right in front of him, I feel beautiful. Safe. Confident.
He swallows again. The desire in his eyes sends the heat flooding right to the center of my body.
I sit up and reach for the waistband of his jeans and push my fingers into his boxer shorts.
He groans as I squeeze his butt, then slide my hand to the front and grip his hardness.
The skin is silky soft, and he twitches in my hand as I begin to move it a little. I’m surprised by how courageous I am.
“Are you trying to kill me?” Jase moans, but he’s pushing toward me, not pulling away.
I have to smile at how good it feels to know I’m responsible for his excitement. “Not today.”
My lips touch his, and then I lean back and pull his jeans and boxers down all in one motion.
I stare at him in wonder, first gazing at every muscle and then tracing them with my fingers, and then my lips.
I’ve never done this before. Not the way we’re doing it now.
Maybe I should tell him that, but I don’t want to.
I don’t want to talk. Plus, I know that Jase is definitely not a virgin, and I don’t want him to treat me like one either.
When I look up again, his gaze is both dark and promising at the same time, and my stomach tightens. He goes to the bedside table and opens the drawer, and I hear the soft crackle of plastic as he tears open the packet of a condom and slips it on.
I watch him, following every little movement. My heart is racing again, my breathing is shallow, and everything inside me feels hot and sensual. He must touch me now, because anything else would be pure agony.
Then he holds out a hand to me, waiting. He lets me make the decision again. He lets me be in control, and I take a shaky breath. He’s doing all this, even though he has no idea what I’ve been through.
I put my hand in his, making my decision.
I let him pull me back onto the bed and fall onto the mattress.
My mind switches off, and I feel so damn safe that it’s strange, but also completely right.
The mattress is soft, the sheets smell like him, and I breathe him in, moaning softly as he leaves a trail of hot kisses from my collarbone across my breasts and down my stomach.
I spread my legs eagerly, and then his tongue is at the center of my desire. I gasp as my muscles tense in a delicious way. I lift my pelvis, and he keeps licking me, increasing the pressure. I didn’t know anything could feel this good.
I moan loudly as he slides two fingers inside me and thrusts, gently at first, then faster as I start to squirm under him.
I feel like I’m about to die. It’s too much and not enough at the same time.
If he goes on like this, I’ll come in two seconds, and even if it’s a complete miracle, I don’t want it to be over so soon. Not yet.
“Wait,” I gasp, and he stops immediately. He looks up at me, an unspoken question in his eyes, his lips glistening. Because of me. That knowledge is doing something to me.
“Come here.”
I sit up, pulling him toward me, and he willingly does as I ask, allowing me to push him back on the mattress this time.
I lower myself onto him with my legs spread wide and feel his erection throbbing against my wet warmth, and if there’s any last remnant of sanity in me, now it disappears completely.
I bend down to kiss him and taste myself in his mouth. And him. Us. Together.
His eyes smolder as I back up enough so we can look at each other. We’re still staring into each other’s eyes as I reach between us and guide him inside me, agonizingly slowly. We groan at the same moment, and he curses softly. I have to smile. I don’t ever think I’ve felt so strong.
“Are you sure you’re not trying to kill me?” he says through gritted teeth. The tendons in his neck are showing. He’s struggling to control himself, and that makes me happy, because he’s doing it for me. He’s letting me take control.
“Pretty sure.” I tilt my hips, and he makes a sound I’ve never heard before. “After all, we’re not done yet.”
I don’t know what I’m doing when I start to move, but my body does, and I let myself go, moving my hips.
His hands slide over my legs, but he doesn’t hold on to me.
Beads of sweat cover his skin, and I lean forward, kissing them off his face, tasting the salt on my tongue.
A quick, teasing bite of his lower lip, and he loses control.
I love it when he starts to move now too, no longer hesitant and gentle, but hard and deep. I moan, and all I want is more.
We move in unison, our hips crashing together.
My muscles are burning, and every fiber of my body is electrified.
He kisses me. God, I didn’t know it was possible to be kissed this way!
My hips thrust forward, and he slides a hand between us, finding the exact point that’s throbbing with desire.
I gasp, pushing myself toward him. It feels like an altered state of consciousness. All of it. Both of us.
My whole body begins to pulse in the best possible way. How is it possible to feel like this? How could I feel like this?
Heat explodes inside me. I come with a stifled scream, and then I understand why an orgasm is called “the little death” in French. It really does feel a bit like that. My muscles contract around him, and he comes too. All I can feel is our bodies pulsing together.
I sink onto his chest and can feel his racing heartbeat under my hands. Then there’s nothing but deep satisfaction and peace.
Jase’s lips brush my temple, and I lift my head. His lips are puffy, his cheeks are red, and his hair is disheveled. Because of me. I always want it to be that way.
He looks at me and sees me, and at that moment, we really are everything to each other.