Chapter 43 – Jordan
FORTY-THREE
JORDAN
Cooper’s Jeep reverses from the driveway, followed by Dawson.
I’ve been parked down the street near a burnt-out streetlamp since leaving the carnival, my car hidden beneath the overhang of a maple tree. I couldn’t bring myself to go home, go anywhere.
I tried. Drove around downtown Bensen, around the parking lot of my dorm, back to the carnival before ending up here. Xanie checked our dorm after cleaning up the mess I made of the kissing booth, texting me he’s not here before my phone died.
A light flickers on in Jaxon’s bedroom.
I unbuckle—ouch. My elbow catches on the doorframe, shooting a tingling sensation down my forearm. I shake out my arm and hurry across the street.
Not bothering to knock on the front door—I don’t expect an answer—I flip up the doormat and peel off the duct tape spare key. The Christmas wiener dog mat and dilapidated plant have been replaced. A new self-water planter is sporting an orange and maroon mum.
Quietly, I close the door behind me and lock it. I drop the key onto a side table before tiptoeing up the stairs.
I knock on his bedroom door. Once, twice, three times.
There’s no response.
After how he left, I can’t imagine he wants to see me…wants to be with me. I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t. The brokenness in his green eyes, how they trailed over my body as if he couldn’t believe what I’d done.
This was bound to happen.
This is the Jordan Carmichael cycle. I can’t keep anyone close without messing it up somehow.
There’s something wrong with you, my inner critic chides.
It’s tuned out by Jaxon. There’s nothing wrong with you, his words echo in my head. I should go is replaced with I should stay.
I spin back around and press my ear to the door. A faint hum of music trickles through the wood. I skip knocking again, slipping inside.
Jaxon’s staring out the window, still in his clothes from earlier. There’s a splattering of dark red on the right shoulder of his raw hem, waffle-knit long sleeve and he’s holding a bag of peas to his jaw.
“Greene.” My voice cracks. “Jaxon,” I say his first name this time, louder to capture his attention as I pad into his room.
He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move. Jaxon’s a statue.
Standing behind him, I feel so small.
I step to his side and drop my arms from their protective hold. My hand falls to my side, brushing against his. It’s accidental but I don’t care, I’m desperate for anything, something to know he’s okay, right now.
“Jaxon.” Finally, green eyes fall to mine. I thought I’d become good at reading his expression, but I can’t right now. Nostrils flare and pupils blown wide. His hand flexes when I brush my fingers against his again.
“Did you know?” He’s still staring out the window.
“When we met—”
Before I can finish my sentence, Jaxon cuts me off. “Did. You. Know?”
“No.” I take a deep inhale. “I promise. Our relationship was surface level, physical at best.”
Jaxon drops my hand, runs it through his hair. “Did he ever talk about me?”
“No. He never mentioned—”
“But you knew I had a stepbrother.”
I step away and turn to face him, a defensive, protective alarm rings inside me. Jaxon mirrors me like we’re in a face off.
“Like you knew I had a hockey playing boyfriend, a toxic ex.” Jaxon drops the bag of peas and crowds me, forcing me to look up at him. His chest rises and falls, a desperate hue to his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? Running to him when you could’ve run to me? Craving his attention when I’ve been vying for yours for years?”
“Years?” The question comes out sharp, confusion sharpening it. “While you were flirting with other girls?”
He drops his head back, a sardonic laugh tunes out the music, before he returns his attention to me. “Because I couldn’t have you.”
My confusion expands, morphing into something wild and needy. His heated gaze, the frustration and desperation in it, licks down my spine.
Jaxon takes another step forward. I take one backward.
“Did you ever think about what I thought? How I felt watching you flirt with other girls? What it’s like to be there on the sidelines, wondering when you’d notice me?”
“Notice you? There was never a time that I didn’t notice you!”
“But—”
“You’re Cooper’s little sister. You were in love with someone else.”
I shake my head left and right, small, jerky movements.
“I never loved Luka.” Not in the way I’m falling for Jaxon, not even fucking close.
The “love” I managed to wrangle for Luka was a mirage of what I thought I was supposed to feel, a suppressant of this lingering attraction for someone I thought I couldn’t have and would never want me.
Truth slips out, “I dated him because of you.” Jaxon’s flinches as if what I said hurts more than Luka’s punch. “I was trying to get over you.”
“Did it work?”
“Obviously not. I’m standing here.” The space between us feels like a canyon. I want to close it, comb my hands through his hair. Trail them down his unmarred cheek and chest. Kiss away the bruise on his other.
“I’m—” The left side of his jaw ticks.
“You’re what?”
Silence stretches between us, tension pulsing. I can tell talking hurts, or maybe, like me, the words to express how we feel have been sewn to the inside of our throats.
“It ate me alive having spent these years watching you. Trying to figure out how someone else captured your attention when I’ve been trying and failing for years.
” Jaxon sighs, my heart alongside him. “I think I accepted that you’d never be mine, never could be.
Accepted that all you would ever be is my friend, even though you never saw—”
“You…you wanted my attention?” All this time, I thought he was friendly, flirtatious to a fault, because that’s who he is. His anger earlier, and now, clicks.
Jaxon went from vying for his mom’s attention, losing it to Luka’s, to mine. Only to find out that Luka was in the middle once again.
“Like a fucking fool.” Eyes glassy, Jaxon stares through me. “It’s all I wanted. All I wanted was for you to see me.”
I try to say I do, but instead, “I’m sorry” comes out over and over with each retreating step I take.
I open the door, a hand coming to it, closing it.
“I understand if you don’t want to be my boyfriend,” I say into the door. Jaxon’s fingers play with the end of my messy braid. “Because of Luka or Cooper’s reaction.” Because you don’t want me, but I don’t add that.
“The opposite, actually. This has nothing to do with them. My feelings for you have never revolved around them, only around you.”
Hands skim my shoulders, pulling off my jacket. He moves my hair out of the way, pressing a light kiss to my neck, before another. Open mouth, teeth scraping at the skin.
“And this changes nothing. Does it for you?” Jaxon works my shirt up my torso. I reach my arms up, the top joining the sweater at my feet. He kisses down my spine, teeth working to undo the clasp of my bra. Straps loose on my shoulders, I let it slip to the ground. “Does it, baby?”
“No,” I gasp and my nipples instantly peak, grazing the door.
“Good,” he says into my ear, snapping the elastic of my track pants. “Because now that I have your attention.” Jaxon’s tone is lethal, laced with a possessiveness that’s terrifying while riveting. “I’m not letting it go. You’re mine, Blue.”
I turn my head in his direction. Ear and cheek pressed to the door. “I want to be yours.”
“You’re beautiful.” He kisses me, tongue slipping into my mouth before his lips connect with mine. He tastes like a mixture of fair fries and iron.
I fist his shirt, giving him a subtle shove. “Your jaw and lip.”
“Don’t care.” He kisses me again.
Jaxon pulls away this time, bruised hands dipping into my pants. He rubs over the front of my underwear, thumb on my clit.
“And if I haven’t made it clear.” There’s a roll of his hips against me. Holy shit, he’s hard. The hardest I’ve ever felt him. “I’m yours. Only yours, Blue. I always will be too. For however long you’ll have me and afterward. Every second of every life, I’ll always be yours.”
“Jaxon,” I plead.
“I know. I know, baby.” He drops to his knees, working my pants over my butt and thighs. Raising each foot, till I’m in nothing but a lace thong.
A sting radiates from the side where Jaxon snaps the elastic against my pelvic bone twice. He kisses the red spot, teeth grabbing onto the thin strap as leverage to remove them.
“Beautiful,” I mutter, adding this image—Jaxon on his knees, underwear between his teeth—to my mental scrapbook.
“The view?” he laughs out, pocketing my underwear. “Mine’s better.”
“Use me,” I return the offer. “I’m yours, Jaxon, and I want you to use me like I am.”
A feral, animalistic noise, almost growl-like, crawls across my skin.
Jaxon palms my back, pressing my chest deeper into the door. His free hand grips my waist to pull it in the opposite direction. Arched. Exposed. Wet.
The hand on my waist works its way to the front, fingers run along the seam before pushing inside. I arch further back, whimpering for more.
“So wet,” he snickers. “He never got you this way, did he?” I whimper again.
“Never. No one has.”
Jaxon removes his fingers, slapping my pussy. “That’s what I thought.”
A moan ingrains itself in his door. I still need more. I don’t have to ask, don’t have to tell him. Jaxon knows. Mouth working in tandem with his fingers till I’m grinding against his face and tumbling into pleasure.
I can feel his pleased smile against my skin. Want to brand it to me.
In a quick sweep, he stands and scoops me up before dropping me on his bed. I bounce back, crab crawling back against his headboard. Jaxon makes quick work to make sure my clothes aren’t lonely. His shirt and cargo pants haphazardly tossed behind him.
The foot of his mattress dips under his weight. Kneeling on the edge, Jaxon intentionally falls forward and crawls up over my body.
Treading in his deep green eyes are the emotions from earlier. It’s mesmerizing watching them. I run a hand along his neck and into the hair at his nape, drag his mouth to mine.
Jaxon props himself up on his forearms, somehow unweaving my hair. Blue strands are splayed out over his pillows. “Beautiful,” he says against my lips. My legs fall open, calves folding around his waist, urging his heavy body on top of mine.
We stay like this, kissing. Each one becomes more desperate, more frenzied, but every single one screams I’m yours.
His hips roll against mine. The friction on my already swollen clit has me about to—it stops as Jaxon rolls up. Positions flipped, I’m straddling his thighs as he reaches into his nightstand to grab a condom.
He takes my hand, guides it to his cock. Desperate, he pinches his eyes, reopening them as I work him up and down, asking, “Do I still have permission to use you?”
I nod.
“That’s it.” I switch at the base, leaning down to lick the pre-cum from his stomach, my tongue swirls in his navel. The sound of foil ripping open drags my gaze upwards. I lean back as he rolls the condom over him.
The idea of him finally being inside me is thrilling. We’ve always stopped when it’s gotten to this point, and I think I finally understand why.
Jaxon hoists me up, notching himself at my entrance. I squirm, ticklish on my sides. The movement causes the tip to slip in. Our inhales match, sharp and shallow.
His gaze is molten. “I’m trying hard to be patient right now.”
“Why?” I roll my hips, sinking a little bit further onto him.
“Because I’m pissed off that he got to have you and then hurt you. I hate him.”
“But you have me now. I’m yours now, Jaxon.”
“I know.” His grip on my waist tightens. “And I’m yours.”
“Then show me. Prove it.”
Those last two words do it. Something snaps, and he drops me on top of him without warning. All the air is knocked from my lungs, making room for him because I’m so full.
“You feel so good,” I tell him.
“Impossible.” A hand presses against my lower abdomen. Jaxon feeling himself inside me. My next sentence jumbles, words getting lost as he grips my hips again, moving my body how he wants, but it’s exactly what I need.
He sits up, forcing himself deeper as we kiss. Hands relinquish my hips and tangle into my hair. I take over, riding him. We fall back onto the mattress, and the new position has tears welling in my eyes as my clit rubs over his pelvis.
I moan, then bite my lip. “Sorry.”
“No one’s home, and those notes make up my favorite melody.”
I work myself over him before I collapse, Jaxon needing to take over. The pleasure building in my spine shoots through me. An unexpected wave crashes over me.
He doesn’t let up.
“Another one. Give me one more.” Jaxon bucks up into me, and I do my best to match the movement. It only takes a few more times of him hitting deep within me to have my insides clenching around him. He curses, my name a symphony on his lips, as he lets go alongside me.
The next morning, I’m impossibly sore. Legs tremble as I climb out of Jaxon’s bed, searching for a shirt that’ll cover my body. I about give up, the need to pee taking over my entire senses, when at the bottom of his drawer I find an uncut shirt.
I swim in it. The hem reaches my knees.
Jaxon rolls over, smiling in his sleep. Before leaving his room, I press a hasty kiss to his lips. Arms stretch out in an attempt to pull me to him.
I giggle, whispering, “Gotta pee.”
“Be naked when you get back.” I spin, his name on the back of the hockey shirt I’m wearing. “Never mind. You can stay in that.” Eyes closed, his smile grows.
Outside his bedroom, I tiptoe to the shared upstairs bathroom. After peeing, I fail at locating an extra toothbrush and end up using my pointer finger to brush my teeth.
Rinsing, I stand, admiring my reflection. Roll my eyes at the hickey poking out of my collar, not ashamed because I know I left several on his chest. There’s a small bruise on my hip, a marking from where he claimed me as his over and over again last night.
I never understood when people said there’s a post-orgasm glow till now. Maybe it was the ridiculous amount, but I think it’s more. Something settles inside me, a reworked wiring from the way Jaxon sees me and chooses me.
I’m not on the outside looking in or chained to the sidelines.
I’m no longer worried about being myself and if it’ll push him away.
I don’t feel dull or cold. A brightness, a warmth prickles my skin, forcing the person I’d settled on becoming to fall away.
Jaxon’s allowed me the space—and grace while holding my hand—to step out of myself, and now I want to do the same for him.
Eager to get back to him, to tell him this, I swing open the bathroom door and collide with another body.
The chest is less firm, more like breasts than pecks.
I blink and find Sutton standing in front of me.
She speaks first, facial expression neutral and observant. “So…it was more than a kiss.”
We trade places. “Don’t tell Cooper, please.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I came out here to pee and saw no one.”