Chapter 21 Jane
TWENTY-ONE
JANE
Getting your heart broken sucks. Even worse is when you break it your-damn-self.
Standing in the steamy bathroom after my shower, I stare at my wavy reflection in the condensation-coated mirror and gingerly rub the area that hides the tattered pieces just beneath the surface.
Absently, I marvel at how healthy someone can appear on the outside when everything that matters has been decimated on the inside.
It’s been weeks since Chance and I stopped seeing each other.
What I felt when Justin left me was a minor nuisance compared to this soul-numbing ache in my chest. The daily reminder that Chance is no longer mine hurts with an intensity I can’t describe.
So many times I picked up my phone to call him, to tell him that I’m sorry and that the stripping isn’t a big deal—that it doesn’t matter as long as I can have him back.
But in the end, I forced myself to put down the phone.
That night, I’d only wanted to have a conversation—to try and understand why dancing naked for strangers was so essential to him—and he’d blown it off like my feelings were of little consequence.
It doesn’t matter if I’ve since decided it’s something I could learn to live with as long as I know he’s faithful and comes home to me afterward.
That he was so quick to dismiss what we had as merely temporary tells me that I was invested, mentally and emotionally, way more than he ever was.
Which means eventually he’d end up choosing something else over me.
Even if that something else was as simple as freedom.
I’m tired of coming in second place. I deserve to be first, goddamn it, and if nothing else, I’m proud of myself for finally sticking to my guns on this all-important issue. Unfortunately, gaining a newfound confidence and sense of self-worth doesn’t mean this still doesn’t hurt like a bitch.
I miss him so damn much. I’ve actually found myself wishing he worked in a strip club where I could sit in the shadows and watch him dance.
I wouldn’t love seeing random skanks pawing at him like he’s the second coming of Christ for the sexual revolution, but I’d suck it up if it meant I got to see him even from a distance.
I’d tune out everyone else in the club and pretend he was dancing for me.
Only me.
After running a towel over my wet hair, I pull on a baby tee and pair of boy shorts for makeshift pajamas, then shrug on my robe and shuffle out to the couch for my nightly Mopey Bitch routine.
I curl up into the corner, hug my knees to my chest, and rest my cheek along the back cushion where he used to sit.
I don’t know if traces of his scent still linger in the upholstery or if I’m merely imagining it.
Honestly, I don’t care if it is my mind playing tricks on me as long as I get to smell him.
My apartment is silent with the exception of the steady ticking of the wall clock and the thunderous rumble of memories in my head.
Each click of the second hand sounds like another nail being hammered into the coffin of mental self-torture I’ve laid myself in.
God, this sucks. Like, really, really sucks.
But it’ll get better, right? They say time heals all wounds, so eventually this pain will have to lessen.
I don’t even want to think about the alternative. It has to get better…
My eyes shoot open to the sound of someone pounding on my door. I glance in confusion at the pitch-black world outside my window, then to the clock that reads two-thirty, made visible by the low light of the nearby table lamp. I must have fallen asleep—
More pounding startles me back to the present and turns my stomach inside out. There’s only one person who’s ever demanded entry at this hour. One person who’s ever used the side of his fist like a jackhammer trying to splinter the offensive barrier between us.
“Jane. Open this goddamn door before I break it the fuck down.”
“Holy shit,” I whisper into the darkness.
Before I comprehend my movement, I find myself at the door, sliding the chain lock out and twisting the deadbolt.
I don’t even get the chance to touch the doorknob before it turns.
I have to jump back as the door swings open to allow Chance inside, then he kicks it closed behind him.
My breath catches as I take him in—tall and muscular and so fucking sexy it almost hurts to look.
He’s dressed in his favorite pair of faded jeans and a plain white T-shirt that hugs his body and makes my mouth water.
Like the first time I saw him, he reminds me of Thor, the god of thunder, with his hair hanging loose around his shoulders and the powerful intensity vibrating just beneath the surface.
“What are you doing here, Chance?” I mentally cringe at the shaky sound of my voice.
He levels an intense gaze on me, his jaw hardening as he slowly advances. “What’s the matter, baby? You not happy to see me?”
I raise my chin in defiance even as I retreat, moving backwards to keep the space between us that’s essential to my immediate survival. “I haven’t heard from you in weeks. Why now—like this—in the middle of the night?”
The backs of my calves hit the coffee table and I start to fall, but Chance reaches out, his reflexes lightning-fast, and pulls me in by the lapels of my robe until our faces are mere inches apart.
His drugging scent snakes around my head, and the heat from his body banishes the chill I’ve felt since the moment he left.
I barely manage to swallow my sigh of relief as the warmth fills my veins.
“We have unfinished business, Jane. I’m here to tie up the loose ends.”
I suddenly feel like a little worm wriggling on a big fucking hook. I wish I could say I didn’t like it, that the notion made me scared or at the very least uncomfortable. But the flush creeping up my cheeks and the warmth pooling between my legs say otherwise.
“And what if I say I don’t want my loose ends tied, huh? Then what?”
“I’d say I don’t give a shit. And call you a liar.”
My mouth drops open with a sound of protest, but that’s as far as I get before he yanks the robe off my shoulders and shoves it roughly to the ground.
Sparking with the electricity of a brewing storm, his eyes glare at my sleep clothes like he can burn them from my body with the sheer force of his will. “Take them off,” he growls.
My head is spinning. I can’t keep up with the maelstrom of thoughts whipping around in my brain: the ones ordering me to put a stop to this madness, the ones shouting at me to grab on, hook my legs around his waist and never let go.
In the end, my stupid logic wins out. I wrap my arms across my middle and sidestep away from him.
“No,” I say, happily surprised my voice sounds stronger than I feel.
“Take them off or get fucked with them on.”
Sweet baby Jesus. I almost give him my preference—fucked with them on, please—but come to my senses at the last second. “Just say whatever it is you’re here to say, Chance. Then you can leave.”
His head tilts slightly as though pondering my statement. “You expect me to talk? About what?”
“Stuff… Things…” I say helplessly, unable to articulate my thoughts when he starts to follow me, a stealthy predator stalking his prey. “You know,” I try again, gesturing between us, “this.”
Chance shakes his head and tsks like a disappointed parent.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Jane. That’s not how this works,” he says, throwing my poor word choice back in my face.
He crowds me against the wall, and I’m hit with a dose of déjà vu from that first night when I tried avoiding his advances.
I’d been unsuccessful then, too. “That’s not how we do things, you and I, is it? ”
I know what he means. Asking him to clarify would only be a catalyst for the inevitable, an acceptance—no, an invitation—for what he plans to do.
I know this as surely as I know my own name.
Which is why I shock the logical part of myself when I set my jaw, meet his steely gaze, and demand, “And how exactly do ‘we do things’?”
Pure wickedness. That’s what flashes in his eyes and in the wry twist of his lips the split second before he pounces.
His fingers plunge into my hair and fist against my scalp to yank my head back to his liking.
I hardly have time to register the pleasure-pain that zings through the center of my body and pulses against my aching clit when he attacks my mouth, his tongue and teeth laying siege, plundering and claiming and branding me as his.
Desperate for him, I wind my arms around his neck and jump up at the same time he uses one hand to palm my ass and lift me.
I lock my legs at the small of his back and pull him in as tight as I can.
He uses the delicious weight of his body to pin me to the wall as he rocks his hips forward, pressing his stiff cock along the drenched seam of my thin boy shorts.
Reaching beneath me, he makes quick work of undoing the fly of his jeans, pulling the crotch of my boy shorts aside, and poising his erection at my entrance.
I try to lower myself onto his thick shaft and feel him fill and stretch me as only he can, but he holds me in place with a strong arm banded around my waist, keeping my nirvana just out of reach.
“Please, Chance,” I beg shamelessly. “Please please please.”
“That’s right, baby. This is how we fucking do things.
You beg, and I do whatever the fuck I want.
” The husky sound of his deep voice next to my ear and his crude words threaten to unravel me, but I gather what little strength I have and trap my protests behind lips rolled between my teeth.
Chance chuckles. “I see my little slut’s stubborn streak has come out to play.
I like that. Makes breaking you that much more satisfying. ”