I didn’t stand a chance at avoiding her now that she lived in the same damn house as me.
I’d made up my mind when I grabbed her from the fire that day. I chose to leave her parents behind. I chose to leave my friends and everyone else who didn’t understand behind. I chose her and no one else. Life and death situations like that make things crystal clear.
But other parts of that night were murky and opaque. Like the fact that Aubrey’s mom didn’t make it out of that fire, and we’d left her. Frank’s lawyers focused like hell on it and tried to pin the blame on me.
My parents and their team of lawyers aided the district attorney in arguing back that I was the only reason anyone made it out alive.
Clearly, I’d made my choice. Deep down, I knew I’d chosen to leave two people to die and only saved one. I didn’t feel guilty about it. I accepted it. I wanted to be able to live with that and move on.
It just hadn’t occurred to me that I wouldn’t have a say in moving on.
Instead, the girl who reminded me I was capable of risking my life to save another and leaving someone for dead now lived with me. I saw her every day and every night. We were two broken souls trying to piece each other together and make one. None of it was healthy. Yet, when she stood in front of me in that lake looking lost, like she needed me with her next breath, damn it, I wasn’t going to disappoint her.
I should have, because what Dr. Pope said about the enabling shit was true.
Aubrey and I sat in the house all day together. We escaped from the realities of everyone else, including the newspapers and tabloids, by focusing on each other.
Her focus centered around loving me and using me to get through the worst time in her life. She built me up to be the only person who could save her. I could see it when she looked at me, when she gave herself to me.
My focus was nimble. It darted from emotion to emotion. I couldn’t keep up with it. Sometimes, I thought I loved her, would risk everything for her, even murder for her. Other times, I hated her for the constant reminder that I’d already done all those things. That I was capable of doing anything.
For her. Just for her.
I hated that every time she looked at me with those green eyes, she saw her savior instead of her demise. So, I ignored all of it and focused on knowing that I possessed her. If she was mine, I could at least contain the emotions that swept through me with her. I’d graduated that year and I didn’t give a shit about this little town, except she was in it. I needed to own her and be with her to figure it all out.
Dr. Pope thought we were unhealthy. What she didn’t understand was that Aubrey and I were so much worse than unhealthy. We were protected from reality by the thin glass house where we hid. In it, Aubrey put me on a pedestal. And I wouldn’t step off because I wanted to watch her from above to make sure no one got too close to the one thing that made me tick.
Aubrey had to go back to school though. She had to face the town, and she would have to face it without me, the only person she thought was helping her stand.
I knew I had to jump off the pedestal for both of us. I also knew the jump would shatter the whole damn house and our relationship with it.
So, when she’d uttered that question, standing barefoot in the lake that I deemed ours, I wasn’t about to resist her. I needed one last time with her in that glass house, just us.
I grabbed her neck and brought her to me tasting her intoxicating lips. No doctor, newspaper, or city was going to keep me from her in that moment. She gave in, like she always did. I flicked my tongue over her lips. She opened them, letting me take control. I dove in because the truth was, I’d lost my control with her a long time ago.
She ran her hands over my biceps as my hands slid to the bottom of her shirt. As I slipped my fingers underneath, she moaned, and the sound went straight to my dick.
I wanted to slide my hand into her shorts and find out if she was wearing that scrap of lace she claimed was sensible underwear. There wasn’t any sense to them at all. They covered nothing. I definitely knew they wouldn’t cover how wet she’d be for me, how ready. She always was, and that moan was her signature tell.
It felt like my body sucker-punched me when I pulled back, but one of us had to keep it together. She’d always been the one to stay in control in the past, but ever since we’d been together, she’d snapped. Her lack of control should have been some sort of signal to me to back off. Maybe it was fate telling me this wasn’t meant to be.
But let’s be honest, I’d never been a superstitious person.
I focused on the facts. Laying them out, there was no evidence of fate or divine intervention. The only evidence of our destiny was her standing in front of me. The way I felt every time she looked my way, my heart pumped like it was ready to leap out of my chest to offer itself up to her.
I was fucking doomed when it came to her. She was the only thing I believed in. She was my heaven and hell.
“Let’s go inside, Peaches.”
Her eyebrows came together as she panted in front of me. She ran her hands down her wrinkled shirt and put them on her hips as if standing tall, ready for battle.
I took her in, flicking my eyes down her body. Her dark hair was wavy and a little messed up. Her eyes blazed a deep green, letting me know just how revved up that kiss had gotten her. And I knew all too well where every curve on her body was. I’d run my hands over every part of it more than once. Damn, she was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.
And the scariest.
Because as a small smile started on her face, she slid her shirt over her head, and my knees nearly buckled despite the control I tried to force. I wanted every part of her, and she didn’t want to deny me.
I couldn’t have given a fuck that we were enabling each other or that one of us needed to restrain ourselves. If we were the storm causing each other disaster, I wanted to be the most devastating one. If we could ruin one another, then I figured we’d leave a trail of our destruction neither of us would forget.
I crashed into her and grabbed a handful of her hair just above her neck. “This is your idea. Don’t get pissed later that I fucked you out here.”
She smiled wider. “Fuck me? Is that what we’ve been doing?”
I stepped back and pulled my shirt off while she unbuttoned her shorts. “You’re baiting me again.”
Standing in just a black bra and her scrap of next to nothing lace panties, she didn’t shy away. “Just asking. I never seem to feel fucked after.” She said the words bold and low. My dick jumped at her swearing, so ready to give her what she asked for. The girl in front of me rarely swore. When she did, I could barely contain myself.
Part of me held back though. I always held back with her because even when she stood tall, spoke boldly, and swore fluently in front of me, I remembered how conservative she’d been months earlier. I knew what she came from and didn’t want to cross that line.
“You need to watch your mouth around me, Peaches,” I warned, “You’re asking for something you’ve never had before.”
Her chin lifted. “I asked for sex too, Jax. At one time, I’d never had that before either. Remember?”
I growled at the reminder that I took her virginity from her and grabbed her wrist to pull her flush against me. “You feel that?”
I looked down, and already her hand was unbuttoning my shorts and shoving them down so she could grip my cock.
She moaned and I went on. “That’s evidence that I remember. I remember the first time with you, taking what was mine, is mine, and will always be mine. Fucking you is all I think about.”
I slid my hand in her panties. She whimpered, looking down at the picture we made, getting one another off. She whispered, “I want you to let go and fuck me harder.”
I let go of her wrist and threaded my fingers through the hair at her neck. Then I yanked it, pulling her gaze back up to mine. “You really are sweet as sin. Don’t tempt me, Whitfield. We’re already going too far by doing this at the lake.”
She squeezed my cock and then started sucking on my ear as she whispered, “You’ve done things in public before. Please.”
“Shit. You know I can’t resist you begging,” I groaned.
Her smile was victorious as she stepped back, undid her bra, and slid out of her panties. I glanced up at the house and back to her again as she walked away from me and over toward the rock we normally sat on. Instead of lying on it or giving me a chance to figure out how to take her gently, she bent forward over it and stretched her arms forward to place her hands down for stability.
Then, she whipped that dark hair around as she looked back at me. “Please, Jax.”
Any guilt, any remorse, any caution that had helped to coil up my control snapped away. Tunnel vision overtook me. Aubrey naked. Bent over that rock. In the sunlight. I lost my boxers as I walked toward her, ready to dominate every part of her.
No one knew her like I did. I ran my hands over the exact parts I knew would give her goosebumps. I grabbed her hair and wrapped it around my fist to pull her head back and make her arch, just for me.
I leaned over her to growl in her ear. “You asked for this, and fuck it, you’re mine. I’m starting to realize I don’t treat what’s mine gently. I push them over the edge.”
With that, I shoved into her, hard.
She gasped, but I didn’t wait for her to recover. While I kept her arched with one hand in her hair, my other hand went around her neck and squeezed. “So small. I could break you … Break you, and you’d still be mine. Fuck, sweet as sin. Sweet, sweet sin.”
When she moaned, I knew she had too much air, so with my next thrust, I squeezed harder and pulled her hair back even more. She whimpered, but I felt how wet she was, felt her pushing back into me with each thrust.
Beside that lake, I did the most selfish thing I could have ever done. I fucked her, branded her as mine, and took everything I could, knowing I would break her by leaving her behind that night.
I just didn’t know I’d be breaking myself too.
