14. Chapter 14
fourteen
Diesel
Mistake number three? Answering the damn phone when she called.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
But I knew who it was.
At one in the damn morning, there was only one person it could be.
I should’ve let it go to voicemail.
Should’ve chucked it across the room.
Instead, I answered.
“Yeah?”
“Baby!”
Her voice scraped down my spine like nails on a chalkboard.
I closed my eyes and ran a hand down my face. “What the fuck do you want, Jessie?”
She pouted. I could hear it, even through the line. “I wanted to tell you I’m in town. I came to see you.”
“What?” My voice dropped. “It’s one in the goddamn morning, Jessie. What the hell do you mean you’re in town?”
Two years.
Two whole years I’d managed to avoid her, kept her voice out of my life, her claws out of my chest.
Now she was here?
“Yeah, Marco said he ran into you a while back and told me you were out here now. I figured, why not come find you?” She giggled, as if we were still seventeen and this were cute. “I don’t know why you never told me you moved. I’m your girlfriend.”
My blood turned cold.
“Ex,” I growled. “You’re my ex-girlfriend. Or don’t you remember the other man’s dick you were riding when I walked into our apartment? It’s been a while, maybe he wasn’t that memorable.”
Dead silence on the line.
Good.
The silence didn’t last long.
It never did with Jessie.
She was a master at saying just the right thing to leave bruises you couldn’t see.
“Well,” she finally said, her voice cold now, like glass about to shatter. “You always did hate when someone else gave me what you couldn’t.” I could picture her, looking at her pointy, perfectly manicured claws.
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t.
The words hit harder than I expected because she knew exactly where to aim.
“You really think you’re better now?” she went on, soft and vicious. “Hiding in some backwoods garage, pretending you’re fixed? I know you, Daniel. You’re still that same pathetic mess who begged me to stay.”
My jaw clenched hard enough that I thought my teeth might crack.
“You think some cupcake bimbo with pink hair is gonna make you a different man?” she sneered. “You’ll fuck it up. You always do.”
And there it was.
She knew.
She knew about Sadie.
“You don't know a damn thing about her.” My voice was gravelly.
She laughed. A soft, broken sound. “I know enough. And I know you. She’s just another thing you’ll ruin, same as everything else.”
I ended the call.
Didn’t scream.
Didn’t beg.
I just pressed the button and let the silence swallow me whole.
Then I sat there.
In the dark.
Alone.
Wondering if Jessie was right.
Fuck, I knew she was.
Sadie
Maybe taking a bath at one in the morning wasn’t the sanest idea, but my muscles ached—and I had business to take care of.
Even though I could still feel Parker’s lips on my neck, he wasn’t who I saw when I closed my eyes and let my fingers drift lower.
No.
It was dark gray eyes.
A furrowed brow.
That gruff, brooding scowl made my stomach flip, and my thighs press together.
I moaned softly, fingers moving with the kind of precision that only comes from knowing exactly what I need. I could’ve finished fast—hard and dirty, but I didn’t want fast. I wanted to live in the fantasy.
I shifted, teasing myself with slow circles, the kind that made my toes curl and my breath hitch. I changed the motion—more of a flick than a press—imagining a tongue instead of fingers. His tongue.
My back arched as the pleasure built, the image of his beard scraping my thighs, my legs locked around his head, holding him right where I wanted him.
“Fuck, Diesel,” I breathed, thighs trembling.
Fantasy Diesel was a man on a mission, and in my mind, he loved eating my pussy like it was his goddamn job.
I rode it out, chest heaving, water sloshing around me, and finally let my head fall back against the cool tile.
But even as the waves of release faded, the ache in my chest stayed right where it was.
Because no matter how hard I came—
No matter how vivid the fantasy—
I still wanted him.
And nothing kills a post-orgasm glow quite like knowing the man in your head probably went home with someone else.
Worse yet?
He didn’t want me.