Sidelined (33 page)

“But you’re not bothered? At all?”

“I’m not having this conversation at your mom’s,” she argues weakly, pushing at me again. This time, I let her go, and she steps back. “We either go in there and be polite or be rude and leave.”

“Rude it is.” I get up and stroll past her into the front room. “Mom, we gotta go.”

“Okay.” Mom stands and embraces me. “Give me a second, son.”

I swallow as she walks into the kitchen and hugs Macey. The hug goes on a second too long, and my stomach clenches when Macey presses her eyes into my mom’s shoulder.

“Fuck,” Scott says, turning his eyes from the kitchen to me. “She’s somethin’, huh?”

“Man, you have no idea,” I reply, staring at Macey.

“She come close to Lucy?”

I take a deep breath. “She passed her a fuckin’ while ago.” I walk past him and take Macey’s hand. “You ready?”

Macey nods, keeping her eyes down, and I let her go to hug Mom. Mom squeezes me extra tight before she releases me.

I ignore her hopeful look as I touch my hand to Macey’s back and lead her to my car. She gets in without a word, and my brain whirrs. What the hell did Mom say to her?

She doesn’t say a word as I drive the coastal path up to my house. The whole fifteen minutes passes in silence and feels like fifteen hours instead. My stomach coils and twists with every mile we drive, because, fuck, I never wanted to talk about Lucy with her. I never wanted to talk about fuckin’ anything with her unless anything equated to how hard I planned to fuck her.

Real life interfered fucking good though.

I park in my driveway. The second I kill the engine, Macey unclips her belt and hops out. Her tight little ass sways as she strolls to my front door and waits for me to join her. I do—slowly.

I’ve no sooner pushed the door open than she’s darted inside the house and dumped her purse on the sofa in the front room. Following her, I see her staring out of the window, her arms wrapped around her stomach.

“It bothers me,” she admits. “And I hate it, because now, I know how you feel. I fucking hate the idea of you being in the same room as any other girl, let alone her.”

“I don’t love her, M. Haven’t for a long time.”

“But you were going to marry her!” she whispers harshly, turning, tears balancing in her eyes. “You had a ring, Jack. You were ready to commit the rest of your life to her. That’s a big difference to just loving someone.”

“How’d you think I feel, M, huh? When I found out you made out with your ex?”

“You told me to!” She covers her mouth. “You had to know, Jack. You had to know that he’d try it.”

“You’re right. I did. I knew it and I fucking accepted it because I know that you haven’t promised me a damn thing, and I’m so fucking hung up on you that I have this screwed up, thought that maybe I’ll be more to you than he is,” I growl angrily. “So, why don’t you give me the same courtesy, baby? Why don’t you allow me the things I allow you?”

“Because it hurts!” she shouts, backing up and looking down. “I don’t want you doing those things with her.”

I storm forward and yank her against me. With my mouth by her ear, I say, “And I don’t want you doing those things with Mitch because it fucking hurts me. How many times do I hafta tell you I want you, baby? For real? How many times do I hafta wake up with a rock-hard cock because I’ve dreamed of you? How many fucking time do I hafta toss and turn because I picture you beneath his body and whispering his fucking asshole name instead of mine, huh?”

“Jack.”

“No, baby. You need closure—I do, too. You gotta make out with your ex until your life makes sense, then maybe I have to, too. Maybe this bullshit triangle is more square than you imagined because you never thought of anything past your own issues.”

Macey covers her mouth with her hands. “She really did hurt you, didn’t she?”

I pull her hands away and clasp her jaw. “She ripped my heart out and she stomped on it. Then she tore it to pieces with a blunt knife. She fucking killed me, Macey. You aren’t the only one who knows pain, baby.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, falling into me. Her fingers curl into my shirt, and she shudders. “Go,” she breathes. “Jack, go to Denver. Do what you need to. Whether it’s talking to her, or kissing her, or”—she pauses—“sleeping with her, then go. Do whatever you have to. Then come back.”

My body tightens. “Sleep with her? You think I’d fuckin’ do that to you, M? You think for one fucking second I want anyone other than you?”

“Maybe,” she whispers again.

I push her against the wall and grasp the back of her head. She gasps, her hand finding mine.

“You think this is for anyone else?” I flex my hips and, by default, my hardening cock against her.

“No.”

“Damn fucking right.” I slide my hand beneath the hem of her pants and her underwear to cup her ass. “Your body might be fucking deluded over who it needs, but mine is right on point, gorgeous.”

Macey grabs the side of my head and slams her mouth against mine. I groan at the forcefulness of her kiss and lean into her some more.

Her kiss is my fucking kryptonite. It’s bad and it’s good all at the same time. She’s the thing I know I should give up, but I can’t, no matter how hard I try.

And when her body is soft and malleable beneath my heated touch, I remember why I haven’t bothered to try to give her up.

Macey fucking Kelly is everything I need and more.

“Your body still confused?” I rasp into her ear.

“Yes,” she replies, catching her breath.

J
ack dives his hand down my shorts and beneath my panties. His fingertips ghost across my clit before he pushes his hand farther down. Sensations ripple through my body at the intimate touch, especially pressed against his living room wall, but he doesn’t stop.

He curls his fingers inside my wet pussy and sucks on my earlobe. “Still confused, babe?”

“Yes,” I reply, drawing in a sharp breath.

Unconfuse me, Jack. Fucking hell.

He pulls his hand from my pussy and unbuttons my shorts. It takes him two seconds to push them down my legs and over my feet, along with my shoes. His hands clasp my ankles and his fingers tease up my legs until he cups my ass firmly.

My own hands circle his neck as he descends his mouth onto mine. All I can feel is the frantic pounding of my heart as it pumps blood throughout my body. All I can feel is the intense beat of adrenaline and desire thumping through my veins, consuming me until I’m putty in Jack’s hands.

He discards of his shirt. His bare chest presses against mine, and he lowers his hands to his pants. His knuckles brush my stomach, something I try to ignore as he stares into my eyes. I breathe in sharply at the heated intensity in his eyes.

Fuck—he craves me.

With a rabid and raw intensity, Jack Carr craves me as badly as I crave him.

Jack presses the tip of his cock against my pussy and whispers, “
Still
confused?”

“A little.”

He pushes into me unapologetically, his thrust powerful and decisive.

“How about now?” he growls, his hands clasping my ass as he wraps my thighs around his waist.

“Perfectly clear,” I breathe, tilting my hips toward him.

Fuck—I need to feel him. Every inch of him. I need every fucking millimeter of him inside me. I need to hear his lips moan my name as I clench my pussy around his cock. I fucking need him in a way so fierce that it terrifies me.

He fills me so perfectly, and every inch of my skin is on fire from his closeness. Our mutual and desperate desire licks at me like a roaring flame, intensifying with every deep pound of his cock inside me.

My fingers, wound in his hair, grasp tight as sensation after sensation overcomes me. There’s nothing soft or gentle about this. This truly is a hard, cold fuck, borne of our desires to forget everything but us.

Our kisses are forceful, each one of us battling for dominance. Our touches are harsh, each brush of fingertips bruising in their intensity.

Raw and rough, we come together almost violently.

The emotion racks my body along with the pleasure, and I press my forehead against Jack’s forehead. I take a deep breath to fight the hitch as the tears threaten.

Jesus, no. I won’t cry. I can’t fucking cry. Men like Jack do not get cried on.

Jack pulls me from the wall and sits on the sofa. He takes me down with him, and I lean against his body, my legs still around his waist and him still buried inside me. His arms wrap around my body and he holds me against him, his fingers splaying across my skin. Painful sparks flit across my back as his fingertips dig into me, and the muscles in his arms tighten, too.

So close to him, I can feel every dip and curve of his muscles against my skin. His body is like perfection—each muscle is perfectly defined and solid. There isn’t an inch of fat on him, I’m sure, but he’s somehow still the greatest cuddler in the history of ever.

I blink my tears back and turn my face toward his neck. Neither of us speaks. We don’t even move. And in this moment, in the point where, after weeks, we’ve finally laid everything out, everything changes.

The dynamic of us shifts. We become real—almost. Like the prospect of being with Jack—really being with Jack—is something I can reach out for. I’m so close to touching it, but the block is a “what if I want it?”

Do I want it?

Do I want to give somebody my everything and chance ending up being nothing?

Do I want to do that again?

Maybe not now, but what if it’s in six months? A year? Two years? What if the allure fades off and so does the shininess of us? Then what? I’m back to square one?

Except, if Jack didn’t want me one day, it would be worse because I’d have to see him. I don’t have to be a love guru to see that Corey and Leah are it for each other. Quite frankly, I’m just waiting for him to get on one knee and make it official, because it’s a no-brainer. They’re electric.

But we are, too. Jack and I… we’re crazy. Nothing about us should make sense, but everything does.

And nothing makes sense more than when we’re connected in every possible way, like we are right now.

“I won’t fuck her,” he whispers. “I don’t even wanna touch her. I just wanna know why.”

I swallow. “I get that,” I whisper back. “Is this really how you feel when I see Mitch?”

“Like I want to claw my intestines out and serve them to a dog for dinner?”

“Yeah. That.”

Jack cups my face and pulls me back, forcing me to look him the eye. “Until I get rid of her, I can’t give you all of me. And fuck, baby. I want to. I want to give you all of me, even if you choose him. I want to try.”

My stomach twists into a thousand knots. “I want to give you all of me,” I breathe, pain slicing through me. “But maybe I can’t, Jack. Maybe I’m not ready enough.”

His grip tightens, but he doesn’t answer me.

I don’t blame him.