Chapter 26 - Jensen #2
No. There's no fucking way that she'd do that to me so soon. I was just inside her. I was just touching her this morning. I was licking her pussy and fucking it rough the way she likes. My come is probably still dripping out of her. Her taste is still on my tongue.
I get that we never had the talk. We never sat and labeled whatever the hell was happening between us. But I thought we were friends, at least. I thought there was mutual respect. I thought what we shared meant something beyond the physical.
She lets me finish inside her. Lets me mark her in ways a person doesn’t do casually. She spent time with my grandma and saw the places that mean the most to me. She painted my fucking fingernails to match hers. She fixed my damn heart.
She wouldn’t do this to me.
But all I can see is little Louisa—me tugging her braids while she laughs and tells me I can’t even read a sentence straight without mixing up letters and numbers. That when we're older, and we get cellphones, she won't give me her phone number because I'll type it in wrong and text someone else.
That familiar, humiliating burn of being replaceable and never chosen first fills my throat. I shove my chair back and gesture at my drink.
“Gonna grab something from inside.”
Then I’m gone—stomping away while the conversation continues to roll on behind me.
Warm laughter. Easy joy. The California sunset painting everything in sepia and gold.
It’s a moment I should be part of. Sitting at the table.
Laughing. Letting myself believe I belong with her family.
Instead, all I see is red. The same color of my fucking blood.
I slide open the glass door and step into the house, kicking off my boots by the door before heading straight for the kitchen. There’s a pitcher of margaritas and one of sweet tea sitting out on the counter. I choose the margaritas. My first taste of alcohol in over a year.
Fuck the surgery. Fuck my heart. What’s the point in keeping it healthy when Catalina’s going to destroy it anyway?
I pour a glass, sniff it, wince at the burn, then down it anyway. It scorches the whole way. I immediately regret it.
I’m just setting the glass down when the door slides open again.
“Oh,” Catalina says, startled when she sees me. “I didn’t realize you were in here.”
I press my palms flat into the cool counter and hang my head.
“Yeah, well, I’m surprised too.”
It’s quiet. I can’t even look at her, but I can feel her eyes on the side of my face.
“Okay… I’m going to use the restroom.”
She tries to dart past me, but I don’t let her. I shift, using my size to block the hallway. She must smell the tequila because her eyes widen then sharpen immediately.
“Move out of the way, Jensen,” she says calmly.
“No.” My voice comes out rough. “Are you really going on a double date with June?”
She doesn’t answer. Her eyes aren’t the soft, honey brown I’ve memorized. They’re colder now. Harder. Professional.
‘From now on I’ll be nothing but Doctor Alba to you.’
When she doesn’t answer me, I keep going. “You’re really going to do that to me?” To us. I don’t say the second part.
“Why does it matter?”
“Because I thought I mattered.”
She lifts her chin. “You were a friend. That’s all.” She swallows. “Friends don’t do what you did, so now, you’re not even that.”
She tries to step around me again, but I catch her wrist.
“Hey.” My voice is tight and frayed. “I don’t get why you’re so mad at me. Maybe I’m mad at you too. Did you consider that?”
She yanks her hand free like my touch burns. “I don’t care. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Didn’t do anything wrong?!” I roar. “You fucking threw this all away over a misunderstanding. I didn’t ask Dawson for that consult!”
She glares at me. “There was nothing to throw away in the first place. It was just hooking up.”
She storms down the hallway, throws the bathroom door open, and slams it shut so hard the walls rattle. All I can do is follow because I’m not done chasing Catalina and I’m not sure I’ll ever be willing to quit.
I stop short of breaking the door down, pressing my forehead against the cool wood instead, breathing like I just got thrown from a bull.
I’m telling myself not to wreck her parents’ house just to get to her but my frustration’s starting to win.
I listen, but there’s no sound behind the door.
There’s nothing to tell me she’s as upset over this as I am.
I groan, feeling like my heart’s leaving my chest. “Catalina. Please open the door. Talk to me, Kitty.”
“Go away.”
“No.” My palm flattens against the wood. “Let me in.”
The lock clicks. The door flies open and she grabs me, hauling me inside the bathroom and slamming it shut behind us before locking it again. Her eyes are wilder, bright and furious.
“This is all you wanted from me, right?” she demands.
Her fingers go straight to her burgundy top. She yanks it over her head and tosses it aside, standing there unapologetic and mad. Her nipples are tight and flushed beneath the cream-colored lace bra she’s wearing. I can’t tell if it’s anger, desire, or both feeding each other now.
She snaps her bra open and flings it away, freeing her breasts.
“This is all you saw when you woke up from surgery, wasn’t it?” she says, voice sharp, shaking enough to tell me she’s pissed. “Not my brain. Not my work. Not my skill. This. My body. A pair of nice tits and a big ass who couldn’t possibly be skilled enough to perform your surgery.”
She unzips her white pants and steps out of them slowly, revealing a matching, cream colored thong.
“Well?” She tilts her head. “Come take what you wanted.”
She turns to the mirror, pushes the thong down her hips, and steps out of it, kicking it aside until she’s completely naked.
“Kitty—”
“I said don’t call me that anymore!” she snaps. She meets my gaze in the mirror and it’s harder now. There’s no softness left in her anymore.
“I’m sorry,” I grit out. “I fucked up. After surgery and with Dawson—you’re right. I should’ve shut it down when he dragged me to the training room. I should’ve told the doctor to fuck off. And I shouldn’t have asked you where my doctor was after you had your hands inside my chest.”
She squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head. “Just fuck me and get it over with, Jensen. That’s all we’ve really wanted from each other. We’re not compatible.”
“Don’t say that.”
“You know it’s true. We have nothing in common.”
“I’m not going to fuck you,” I growl out.
“What?” Her laugh is sharp. “Am I not pretty enough now? Not smart enough to be your doctor. Not qualified enough to diagnose your injury, and now I’m not pretty enough to be fucked by you?”
I step up behind her, my hands landing on her hips, gripping hard enough to leave fingerprints. I look at us in the mirror—my body towering over hers, her half-naked and furious beneath me, me wrecked and wanting and so pissed I can’t think straight.
I hate being misunderstood. I’ve learned that feeling is made worse by my dyslexia.
But it may be heightened tonight by the fact that I feel like I’m getting this one thing I’ve wanted more than anything in my life, her, all wrong.
She’s not listening to me. She’s so deep in her hurt and pain that no matter what I say, she’s not going to hear it.
“You know damn well that’s not how I feel about you.”
She rolls her ass back against my erection.
“Then do it,” she says. “Prove it and fucking do it.”
I growl, and my palm comes down hard on her ass in a spank. The sound cracks through the bathroom loudly.
She gasps, eyes widening like she can’t believe I just did that.
“Are you finished?” I demand.
“Do it again,” she whispers. “And do it with your cock inside me next time.”
“Stop asking me to hurt you like this!”
Her jaw tightens. “This is goodbye. We would have never lasted anyway.”
“No,” I say immediately. “It’s not.”
She turns her head just enough to look at me over her shoulder, eyes like steel now. “Yes, it is. Now fuck me, Jensen—” Her voice drops— “And make it hurt.”
That has me doing something I know that I shouldn’t do. Because the thought of Catalina with another man after I’ve had her is the only thing that could cause me to throw my morals, manners, and good judgment straight out the window. She wants it to hurt, well, she’s hurting me.
I kick her legs wider with my feet, giving myself some space, and grip her hips to pull her up to me.
“This is what you want?” I growl in her ear, brushing the soft, dark brown curls off her neck so I can sink my teeth there before sucking on the warm skin. “You want the physical pain to match your emotional pain?”
She nods. “Yes.”
“Fine.”
I unzip my denim jeans and pull out my cock. I’m already hard. I drag the tip through her pussy, wetting it with her arousal.
“But make no mistake. This isn’t over,” I say right before thrusting deep inside her.
There’s no barrier, no foreplay, and zero hesitation. I’m not thinking straight anymore, and I’m convinced neither is she.