19. Waverly
19
WAVERLY
“ H e’s here.” Celia peeked out the window, and wiggled her butt. She glanced over her shoulder at me with wide eyes. “He’s not covered in blood.”
My roomie picked me up from the hospital when my boyfriend didn’t materialize and I deemed him unworthy of the name at the time.
The singular caveat to that was if he came back crawling or covered in blood he’d might– might– be redeemable.
No such luck, apparently.
My stomach hung somewhere outside my body in permanent free fall as Celia maneuvered herself off the sofa and yanked on a pair of stonewashed, ripped jeans.
“Where are you going?” My mouth dried.
She sent me a pitying look. “You might have just come through some heavy shit, my wonderful, gorgeous, new found girl. But you’re about to have a showdown with your boy that will probably involve tears and other bodily fluids. I choose not to be present.”
“But–” I flapped at her.
Celia was already gone, grabbing a threadbare quilt from the sofa, the door swaying gently in her wake. “I’ll be on the floor above in the hallway. Don’t be too loud,” she hissed on her way out.
Too. Loud?
What in all the hells did she think we were going to do?
My naive little mind snickered at that, knowing exactly what she referred to, but my heart just wasn't in it.
My body still trembled from the last of the withdrawals from three days ago while Jax wasn’t there. At least, not after he left once I woke up. My heart hurt in all the ways I didn’t think was ever possible. That was after my first ever break up, back at the first time when I said I love you when I was fourteen to a boy who didn’t know the meaning of the word any more than I did, or the time when I was eighteen and I really did.
The waterworks that month broke me.
I came back harder, and more resilient.
Or so I thought.
Now…I couldn’t go through that again.
Yet, I just had.
On my own, without him present. Because Jax Palmer walked away without a by your leave and left me alone in a hospital bed with a twenty-four hour watch crew who were sure I was going to hurt myself at any given moment.
I wasn’t sure they weren’t right by the end of the second day.
Still, I managed to keep the facade going, and kept to the story he gave me in those few moments and scattered fragments I pulled from him. That his father fed me drugs and somehow convinced me to do his bidding.
And then he left .
I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to forgive him for that.
Or maybe just that he hadn’t come back in time to help me leave.
His gentle knock on my door rippled through me like a much harsher sound. My croaked, ‘come in ,’ tore the delicate skin inside my throat.
I gripped the edge of the kitchen bench and held myself upright on trembling legs that had nothing to do with the withdrawals, and I prayed I could stay strong.
Jax stared at me through haunted eyes, and I knew with utter certainty that strong wasn’t going to be enough for anything at all.
Okay, so he wasn't covered in blood which meant he had left and come back unscathed. Tick one. But…it also meant that he also had done what he promised, because he wasn’t bleeding or patched up or limping anywhere I could see.
I kept on praying.
And all that summed up to one thing. He’d given me my freedom. But how much had my freedom cost him?
“Waverly?” He stood in my doorway in all black from head to toe.
Just like the first time I’d seen him at our first tutoring session his hair was razed, and he wore that leather jacket I loved to hate with the ripped black tee and ink peeking out at all angles. Black leather black jeans were beneath that, and his customary leather boots completed the Jax I knew.
That I thought I knew.
The same bad boy who scared the hell out of me the first time I met him, just… different.
He still scared me, but now it was in a different way.
I watched him and didn't gesture for him to come in.
“It's done.” He didn’t step into my shitty little apartment.
“Good.”
My bandages itched. I pressed my fingers to their rough surfaces and wished I could get to my scars. But I knew they weren't healed yet, and I’d just break the deep slashes open that were glued together. Not enough to stitch, but deep enough.
He watched me a while longer. I didn’t move.
Couldn’t move, as long as he stared at me.
Seemed he wasn’t able to do anything else, either.
Finally, he swallowed, and broke the pervading silence. “I hope this frees up your time for something you’ve always wanted to do with yourself.” His voice cracked on the last word, his feet moving backwards, though he never broke our locked gazes as though he couldn't bear to let go of that last tether. “I checked on your bees before I left. They’re fine.”
He turned then, and disappeared from the doorway.
“You think you get off that easy?”
My words whiplashed around the room and brought him back to me, a twisted echo of what he said to me that day in the library so long ago.
I heard my whimpered one word reply, how I trembled for him then.
How I ran.
For just a second, as he stepped back through my door and shut it quietly behind himself, surveying me with fathomless eyes, my legs stopped shaking.
“Would you make me beg?”
“Yes.” I didn’t hiss it, the word falling from my lips with grace and dignity. “I want you right here.” I tapped the floor with my bare toes, never missing the way his gaze zeroed in on the movement, how his eyes hooded.
This was his turn to abase himself for his sins, and there were so many to make up for.
Putting me in danger, taunting me during our sessions.
Walking away without a word.
“I didn’t know if you were coming back. Strike three, Jax.” Where my courage came from, I couldn't say, only that it seemed to be an endless source.
The corners of his lips flickered, but he didn’t smile or break the moment. That might be a brownie point earned back. Part of one. Perhaps.
“What were the first two?” He stalked forward until he reached me, stretching his hands out to brace on the kitchen bench either side of my wait without touching me. Our breaths mingled as he leaned into my space, inhaling as his eyes closed gently, but never touched me. “List my misdemeanors. I’ll make them up to you.”
I promise.
I laughed shortly and raised an aching wrist. “Can you make up for this?”
His eyes flickered open, exposing the pain he felt inside. One shoulder shrugged, one arm rolling back, then the other. His leather jacket slipped to the cheap, threadbare carpet before he groaned, reaching over his head to yank his shirt forward.
I stared at the paths of ink overlaid with bruises that bloomed across his ribs in a colorful palette of yellows and purples and blues and reds. He’d have better names for them, but the splash of color against his black and pale canvas stood out. I traced over the neat stitching that ruined some of the art work, willing my hands not to tremble.
“Is this what it cost you? My freedom.” I swallowed the instant return of my breakfast that Celia and the nurse made me eat, watching like hawks until the last of my toast went down before they let me up from the bed.
He rolled that same shoulder, the corner of his mouth pulling up with the movement but it wasn’t a smile. Breath hissed from between his teeth. “Part of it. The other part…” His fingers fluttered at his thigh, tightening into a fist with first red, then white knuckles.
“What? Tell me,” I cooed, resting my fingertips on the waistband of his black jeans, noting the dark drops soaked into the material there. “Who hurt you, and who did you hurt in turn?”
I might not have understood his world a few weeks ago but I was a fast damn learner and my experiences threw me in naivety first. I wasn’t about to blame anyone for my deluge into a new phase in my life. More like a rebirthing. But now Jax would have to deal with the creature he spent the better part of half a year teasing and bullying and taunting.
Now he would reap the rewards of what he’d sown.
His fists rested against his thighs as he stared down at my hands on his jeans. “I didn’t kill anyone.” He licked his lips and looked up at me through his heavy lashes. “I might have had a hand in a little mutilation, though.” Carefully, he caught the hand with the bandages, tracing his fingers over the marks with a ghosting touch, and traced the dark stains with them. “I made the same cuts on his body as he made on yours, but in a different place. Something he valued far more than his fucked up life.”
I stared back at him impassively. “That was his penance. What would you have me do to you?”
His chin raised and he held my gaze, unflinching, though his fingers circled my wrists lightly. Not pulling away, just…there.
“Whatever you want, Waverly. I’m yours.”
“Are you?”
My question hung between us, stilled, and dissipated.
I waited a fraction too long, until his facade cracked and his fear showed, just like mine had that day in the library. Then I raised my hand carefully, until the light manacles his hands made of my arms dropped away, and scraped my nails along his chest, leaving my own marks over his bruises and stitches.
He let out a groan he tried to bite back and failed, but it wasn’t the only reaction his body gave away, betraying him. Some part of me had always known what kind of a creature Jax Palmer was, but I hid that pretty lie from myself, pretending to be normal, and keeping unseemly things hidden in the shadows.
Jax brought the shadows with him, and this time I stepped into them willingly.
“On your knees.” I smiled at him, leaning into his space as he zoned back into my eyes. I dropped one hand between us, grazing my nails over hard flesh encased behind tight denim. Too tight. “I know what you like, Jax,” I murmured. Pain . I’d seen it in his face when XXX“But…you’re not going to get it. Not from me.”
He swallowed hard. Just as I thought he might laugh at me, take a giant step back and walk out as per his usual trait, breaking the moment, his knees buckled and he slid along my body until he hit the floor with a not so muted thud.
“Tell me what you need,” he whispered.
But that wasn’t it.
Because he wasn’t begging yet.
I leaned my weight on the kitchen bench and nodded to my jeans. “Take them off.”
He blinked his surprise, but his hands rose to do my bidding before he agreed to my proposition. I held back a smirk, the same sort he used to give me, because this wasn’t bullying or fun, or even teasing any more, but something much, much darker.
“Yes, Waverly,” he murmured, submissive and all the things I needed.
Jax peeled my jeans off my bare feet, leaving me in the pale pink high cut bikinis beneath. Once I might have been shy beneath his gaze, wished I wore something else, but tonight was different between us.
He caught my ankle, cradling my foot in a worshiping grip, and dipped his head to kiss the top without breaking my gaze. When I didn't protest, he worked his way across the side of the arch, my toes and then lower, rolling his entire body a little to look up at me.
I nodded, catching my lip between my teeth. My breath grew heavy as the air around us charged, and I was suddenly glad Celia had the foresight to leave the apartment.
Keeping his fathomless eyes locked on mine, Jax's lips parted as he licked the entire sole of my foot from heel to pad, drawing a long moan from me. He didn’t stop there, sucking and licking until my legs shook. I gripped the bench top with aching hands, willing myself upright as he continued to torture us both.
My gaze broke from his to draw to the front of his jeans that nearly split from the bulge developing there. When one hand strayed to his zip I kicked his touch away, earning myself a heavy groan from his lips where they worked their way, wet and hot, along my ankle.
“You need to earn it,” I reminded him, husky and breathless.
He raised tortured eyes to mine as he rose onto his knees, parting my legs with his shoulders. His mouth worked a hot, slicked trail on my inner thighs, gently, but leaving tiny marks in his wake.
Nothing would be the same after tonight. My body screamed its need but I seemed hellbent on torturing us both. Finally his chin rested on the swell of my upper thighs, at least a day’s worth of stubble scratching my flesh sweetly as his breath caressed my heat through my panties.
“Tell me what you need,” he rasped, wrapping a hand around each of my calves. Devotion glittered in his eyes, each shuddering breath a testament to the penance he paid on my behalf.
I eased a hand through his hair, petting him as I drew him closer. His dark eyes hooded as another groan left his lips. Leaning closer,he inhaled my scent, and I couldn't disguise the tremble in my legs any longer.
“If I told you to get up and leave now, would you?” I pushed him, unsure if I was trying to find his limits, or draw this out as long as I could.
Either, maybe. Both.
Jax’s fingers flexed around my calves but he didn’t hurt me, despite having the strength to rip me apart, if that’s what he wanted. A sense of power and possession seared through me as I tangled my fingers into his hair and drew his head back.
A tiny wet spot formed on the front of my panties as I panted over him, high on power and lust and need.
“I’d go,” he gasped. “If that’s what you want. If it’s what you need, Queen,” he pushed.
Enough that I pulled him closer and hooked his fingers through the sides of my soaking panties. “Lick me,” I murmured. “I want to be ready for you.”
“Thank fuck,” he muttered reverently, bowing his head for a moment and kissing my hip bone.
Jax stayed on his knees, never breaking his pose as he drew my panties carefully down my thighs. When the soggy material reached my knees he looked up at me once more, then dipped his head and leaned in, licking at the crotch and lapping at the moisture collected there.
I tugged at his hair as my heart pounded, needing the tease to be over. It had gone on too long, and my body overheated as he shouldered his way deeper between my thighs, rough in his need, and suctioned his mouth over my pussy.
My cry echoed around the room as he latched on, nibbling and licking and eating like a man denied every basic need and finding a banquet of it all in one place. Jax’s rough thumbs traced my inner thighs, gripping the flesh there tight enough to mark as he thrust his tongue inside me.
A scream lodged in my throat. I couldn’t force it out as he moved to suck on my clit. My orgasm ran into the build up and the tease, and suddenly it was all too much. My knees buckled, unable to support me. He caught me as I fell, my knees pinning him to the ground either side of his head.
I tried to cradle him but my hands refused to work the way they should. Heat gushed between my thighs as I shook, but he held me upright and never freaking stopped licking and sucking. Moans–my moans–rippled around the room until I swayed over him, digging my fingers into my thighs and leaving long scores there I knew would ache come morning. His hands folded over mine, dark eyes begging me, but he liked the pain, fucking loved it, and we both knew it.
Gasping and unable to focus on anything, I pressed his hands to my flesh, pinching his fingers along my skin. He frowned, and shook his head but that worried at my clit like a dog with a bone and I screamed a little until he eased off the pressure but refused to let go completely.
Rocking my hips over his mouth, I sought my next release, but kept up with my hands and his until he got the hint. Taking over, he plucked gently at my skin. When I scowled down at him, his dark eyes blazed at me until suddenly I was on my back and he rose over me, pinning my hands over my head.
“You want fucking pain, Waverly?” Jax glared down at me, his body bruised and battered because of me . “You want to know what fucking gets me off? Let me tell you, soft little queen. The orgasm you just had won’t even come close. It’ll be nothing to what I can show you. But you’re not ready for the sort of overdose I’ll give that pretty body and all its stunning curves. Not tonight. Not like this.” He gripped my wrists tight above my head until I cried out from the pressure beneath my bandages. Jax released me fast, leaning back on his knees where he knelt between my thighs and ran shaking hands through his hair. A hollow laugh escaped him. “See? I can’t even fucking hurt you the right way.”
I scraped my nails lightly up his jeans, and reached for him but he batted me away with a glare. Not to be deterred, I shook my head, and held out a hand. “I’m not scared of you, Jax. You’re not your father.”
“I could be.” He sounded like a sulky schoolboy, not the bad boy I needed right now.
I slapped his knee. “You’re not. Stop that.” I fixed him with a hard stare. “I know what you like. I can deliver. But can you?”