Kissed (26 page)

My breath left me in a rush, and my hold on her hips loosened. The pressure against my body started building again as she moved once more, and with it, my need for release escalated too.

“Don’t you want to touch me?” Her eyes glistened.

“You know I do,” I said quietly.

“Don’t you want to put your fingers inside me?” When her hand clasped mine, which was still holding her hip, I let her pull it away. She pushed my hand between her legs, and I felt the warmth on my fingers as they brushed and touched her underwear. “Please.” Her hand held mine in place, tightening on my wrist as if desperate.

“Gabe—”

“Please,” she said again as a tear slipped from her eye and trickled down her cheek.

I slipped my hand over the top of her underwear. I was screaming inside my head—screaming at the top of my lungs at myself to stop. But my fingers moved, giving her what she wanted. Her cum covered my fingers, and I sank two all the way inside as her back arched and she groaned.

Her hips moved as she ground herself on my fingers, and I watched her, knowing I was doing something wrong, knowing this wasn’t right. I used my free hand to pull her cardigan and the thin strap of her sundress off her shoulder. I yanked them down until her breast was visible. Her back was still arched, and her tit was a small round mound of flesh, her nipple a tightened, aroused bud. I bit it, letting my teeth press into her flesh, and she cried out as her hips still moved.

I sucked hard, and I pulled my fingers from her pussy for a moment, forcing three inside with the next penetration. It was tight, damn near too tight, but she still ground herself against my hand, groaning as her hips moved. When she finally lowered her head to look at me, she released her grip on my wrist and clutched the chair back. I pulled back too, leaving her breast glistening from my mouth. Her hips moved faster, and she brought her face closer to mine.

I tried to kiss her, but she angled away from my mouth. When I tried again, she dodged it once more. Her hips moved faster still, her pussy tightening on my fingers as she rode my body hard. This was so fucking wrong, and the fact that she wouldn’t let me kiss her was all the proof I needed that this wasn’t okay. When I tried and failed yet again to get my lips on hers, I started to panic.

“Stop,” I hissed, but her hips didn’t slow. I pulled my hand from between her legs, and she cried out as my fingers left her. “Goddamn it, Gabe.”

I reached for her cheek, cupping it and letting my wet fingers brush her soft skin. I pulled her mouth to mine, and I kissed her gently. The recognizable fit of our lips calmed the panic that had been racing through me, and for a moment, I thought maybe this was okay. But then her shoulders started to shake, and she began to cry. She struggled, pushing against my chest until her lips were torn from mine. She pushed so hard she toppled to the floor, her legs splayed apart, her dress barely hiding her underwear. She sat there panting as she stared at my chest, and I leaned forward, planting my elbows on my knees and covering my mouth as I watched her.

“You fucking whore,” she hissed.

“Gabe—”

“No!” she snapped furiously. “Why are you here?” She sneered at me. “Don’t you know you’re willingly jeopardizing that
precious
reputation of yours?” she spat out.

“Wantonly,” I whispered.

She nodded, even as more tears glossed over her eyes. “Your fucking dominoes,” she murmured, her anger from moments before seemingly deflated and defeated.

I shrugged, biting the inside of my lip to keep them from trembling. She looked as though she was in hell, drowning her sorrow in a bottle of cheap red, bouncing from one emotional peak to another in mere seconds, and coming on to me in some desperate attempt to…to do what? Objectify me? Hurt me? Maybe just use me. But she was hurting. I knew what her pain looked like, and I could nearly feel it now.

“Yep.” I barely got the word out. “Such a beautiful run.”

Her lips pulled up slightly for a moment before falling into a grim, unreadable line. “Fell apart in the end.”

“I don’t think so—”

“I do,” she said flatly, and she stared up at me as if challenging me to disagree with her. She touched her lower lip, her attention shifting away from me. “You were right.” Her focus was distant, and her voice nearly whimsical as she spoke. “Our lips could make the world disappear.” A tear ran down her cheek again, and when she looked back at me, she brushed it away. “But it was just pretend. The world didn’t go anywhere,” she whispered.

She sat there in a stupor. I wanted to touch her. I wanted to hold her, talk to her, comfort her, kiss her. I wanted to do all the things she thought were so pretend, but she wasn’t in the right frame of mind to understand the realness of those things right now.

“Get out,” she finally said, her voice dead and cold.

I shook my head.

“Go home,” she tried again. When I still didn’t move, she continued. “Don’t you get it? This little run of ours should never have started.” She shook her head as she watched me.

My throat was tight. “I don’t believe that.”

“
Go home
, Keegan.”

I shook my head.

“Please,” she begged. “Just let me get over you.” Tears fell down her cheeks, and her lips trembled as much as mine. “
Please,
” she said again, her face twisted in pain.

I just stared at her. I wanted to argue. I wanted to fight. I wanted to flat-out tell her no. The last thing in the world I wanted her to do was get over me because there was no chance I could get over her. But her light was as dead on this day as it had been on the day before. The world had run her through a meat grinder, and what was left couldn’t handle me anymore.

She sat slack on the floor, and after a while, I nodded. “I’m sorry,” I croaked out as my voice broke over the words. I watched her for an incredibly long time, saying nothing. “Your heart is a fragile thing.” I sniffed my nose, brushing a tear from my cheek. “I wasn’t gentle enough with it. I know that now.”

Her shoulders shook as she started to cry again, and she covered her eyes.

I took a deep breath and stood up. She wasn’t going to stop me from walking away this time. I knew that. She’d been through too much to try again. And I was linked to every last awful thing she’d endured in the past couple months. It didn’t really matter anymore that I was linked to the good things too. I’d entered her life too thoughtlessly, too callously, too selfishly, and try as I might to undo that, I’d just never succeeded.

I walked out, and when the door closed behind me, I heard her break down in sobs. I reached to the wall beside me, clutching at it as every muscle in my body tensed painfully. I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth and trying to breathe, even though my lungs wouldn’t move. She wanted to get over me because I was synonymous with pain in her eyes. At the end of the day I was no better and no worse than the Davids of the world. Talk about painful.

I found Jessa sitting in the passenger seat of my car, with the engine running and the radio on. I climbed in next to her, and she looked over at me. “Did you screw that up?”

I nodded. “Afraid so.”

“She doesn’t trust you. You know that, right?”

My brow flinched. Yes. I knew that. She likely never had.

“She doesn’t trust any of you.”

“Any of us? What does that—?”

“You know. You folk with dangly bits.”

I scowled at her. “Dangly bits?”

She nodded. “A penis,” she said as though I was an idiot. “I mean, penai…you know, the plural form of the…you probably don’t know that though ’cause you’re not really very smart.”

“That’s not…true. That’s not the plural…”

“It is,” she said plainly. “But it’s not the point.” She was silent for a moment. “You know, since Mom died, she’s had…no one.” She looked at me, her face serious as she studied me. “Maybe even before that,” she said distantly. “I mean, she has me, but I’m not enough. I’m just a kid. I can’t…fix things for her, help her, fight for her. I can’t
do
anything for her.” She took a deep breath as her focus shifted out the window. “I used to tell her she was old beyond her years.” The corner of Jessa’s lip pulled up. “She was too. Always so serious, so concerned, worried about…everything—me, Mom, the bills, grades. She was never a kid like me. She couldn’t be. And then Mom died, and her one source of support, the one person who was supposed to take care of her and tell her everything was going to be okay, was gone.” She shook her head when she looked back at me. “And things weren’t okay. Not for her at least. You know I never worried about life because I knew Gabe would take care of me.” Her lips pursed as her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t suppose she ever had anyone there to take care of her, to make her feel safe like that.” She tried to smile, but her lips trembled, and her tears fell. It was a strange thing seeing Jessa cry.

“I want to take care of her, Jessa.” I glanced at her beside me. “But I don’t think she’s going to let me do that.”

“So, that’s it, huh?” She brushed a tear away as she studied me. She wasn’t being sarcastic. She wasn’t even disagreeing. She just needed to hear me say it.

I didn’t want to say it.

I sighed and stared down at my lap. “At some point, I have to accept that I bring her more pain than comfort.” My throat constricted around the words. “I can’t continue to ignore her when she tells me to stay away from her.” I finally looked up, glancing at Jessa but looking away quickly.

She nodded as she sat there silently for a few moments, and then she reached for the door handle. “So you know she has a disciplinary hearing Tuesday morning at school?”

I shook my head. “When?”

“Eight-thirty. And she got shit-canned from her sorority, not that that’s the worst thing that could ever happen,” she muttered. “I mean, who gives a shit, right?”

“I’m guessing she does.” I ran my hand through my hair. “Fuck.”

“It’s a closed hearing, so no one can go with her, but one of her professors has asked to be her advisor, so she won’t be there alone.” Jessa started to climb out.

I nodded. “What professor?” I was curious if it was the one Gabe liked so much. She’d mentioned him a time or two a few days before when we’d reviewed her syllabi, and I couldn’t help but hope it was him.

“I don’t know… Carbunkle, Caramel, Carpet, Carport. His name has a car in it.”

“Carmichael. That’s good. She likes him.”

“Listen, I gotta go. My ice cream is melting.”

“Yeah. She’s not doing so well. She probably shouldn’t be alone. I should give you my number in case you need to reach—”

“Don’t bother. I already took it out of Gabe’s phone so I could send you text messages telling you how much I hate you.”

“Ah…I look forward to it.” I glanced around. “Will you please call me if you’re worried about her?”

“I’m
always
worried about her.”

“I mean it, Jessa.”

“Yes, I’ll call you if I need to.”

I nodded. Jessa ran toward the front door and disappeared inside. I sat there for a few minutes. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to be more than a few feet from Gabe right now. But something about being close to me was driving her insane.

I drove the three and a half hours back to Chicago, arriving well after midnight. I didn’t go to Trump Tower because, when I’d left earlier in the day, I’d left with all my belongings neatly packed in my suitcases or tucked away in a couple of boxes. The only remaining items in the condo were those things that had simply come with the lease and two sealed boxes of documents that were going to be couriered to David’s office on Monday.

I checked into the Peninsula, and as the desk clerk clacked away on her keyboard, I looked around the open lobby, getting swept away by my memories.

“Is room 511 vacant?” I asked on a whim.

The woman’s clacking paused, and I stared at her as she looked back. She was annoyed with me. I could tell by the flaring nostrils and overly firm smile stuck on her mouth.

Her fingers started clacking again. “Mmm-hmm,” she said through her tight lips.

When the elevator was ascending, my phone dinged out that I had an email. I contemplated not reading it. I wasn’t sure I cared at all who it was from and what it might be about, but I swiped my finger across the screen.

It was from Hale, who apparently kept just as poor hours as I did.

Spoke with your father earlier this evening. He mentioned you were going to be headed back to D.C. soon. He actually called me. Must be excited to get his son home.

I chuckled mirthlessly as I read. That was likely not at all the case. I wasn’t sure my parents would care to see me for a good long while after the night before. But my reputation was, without doubt, linked to theirs, or so they would see it, and damage control was probably high on their priority list at the moment.

I know you’re in Chicago, and I can’t help but assume that you’ve got the inside track on some of the excitement surrounding David Edgerton. Trust me, I’m not asking for details, and I know you wouldn’t give them to me anyway, but as your friend, Keegan, I think it might be time for you to distance yourself from that town.

We’re ready to hit the ground running with the new finance campaign, and there’s a lot of work to be done between now and the Q1 launch, so I think I can speak for everyone here at Consumer Alliance when I say we’re anxious to get you home.

I stepped out of the elevator, and I hit Reply even as I walked. My heart started racing as I typed.

I have a few loose ends…

And then it dawned on me. No I didn’t. I had no loose ends whatsoever. Gabe had made that perfectly clear to me. I didn’t
have
anything. I had a woman here who wanted nothing at all to do with me, I had no job, and I had no place to live. I was simply here, floundering around trying desperately to hold on to something, so much so that I’d been pathetic enough to request the very room I’d first made love to Gabe in out of some misguided notion that I could capture her for a moment longer before losing her altogether.

That’s
what I had; that’s
all
I had—a feeling, an emotion, a pain, a sadness, a need for more, a need for something I couldn’t have, the lingering taste of her kiss on my lips. A fucking memory. I hadn’t captured anything at all because I’d already lost her.