Love Left Behind (37 page)

"Jackson
Reynard," he said shortly, looking back down at me when their hands
dropped. "Emma and I are...old friends."

He said the last two
words suggestively and I felt my temper rise. We had said our goodbyes last
month and I didn't want him here now, making my emotions tilt out of control.
He had no right to invade my life and embarrass me in front of Drew.

"Yes, Jackson and
I knew each other a long time ago," I said in a sickly sweet voice.
"I was friends with his girlfriend, Claire."

Jackson drew in a sharp
breath, looking thunderous as he grabbed my wrist. "We need to talk."

Drew stepped forward,
but I shook my head, pleading with my eyes for him to not make the situation
worse. I shifted my gaze back to Jackson, glaring at him.

"You're making a
scene," I hissed, painfully aware of the growing stares. I even saw a
waiter stop in his tracks, blatantly watching us.

"It's up to
you," Jackson said grimly. "We can do this here or we can do this in
private."

Jackson's ruthless
expression made me believe him. He would make a scene in public regardless of
the repercussions. I stood resignedly, looking apologetically at Drew.

"I'm sorry, Drew.
I need to take a rain check on lunch." I glared at Jackson before
continuing. "I need to settle some things with Jackson."

"Are you sure,
Emma?" Drew asked, looking concerned and ignoring Jackson's darkening
face. "You don't have to go anywhere you don't want to."

I mustered up a smile
for Drew, wanting to get out of the restaurant as fast as possible. I could feel
the heavy stares on us. "It's fine, Drew. Jackson and I just had a
disagreement that we need to discuss. I'll see you at work later."

Drew nodded, not
looking convinced, as Jackson drew me away, his hand still manacled around my
wrist.

"Slow down!"
I hissed, having to run to keep up with Jackson's pace. "You're drawing
attention to us!"

I was aware of a man
appearing out of nowhere with a camera as Jackson hailed a cab, my wrist still
trapped in his grasp. I turned my face quickly as I heard the shutter of a
camera, relieved when Jackson opened the door of the cab, pushing me inside. He
climbed in after me, seemingly oblivious to the cameras beside the cab as he
muttered an address to the driver that I didn't hear. I was too busy burying my
face in my hands as cameras clicked on the other side of the window, the lone
paparazzi having been joined by others.

"Why are you doing
this to me?" I whispered, not looking up. "Haven't you already done
enough? Can't you leave me in peace?"

I raised my head when
Jackson didn't answer. He was looking straight ahead and his profile looked
like it was made out of granite, hard and unyielding. I didn't ask Jackson
where we were going because I wasn't sure if he would have even answered. I
tensed when I realized we were headed toward Jackson's old neighborhood. I
didn't think he was taking me to Andrews since that was public as well. I
didn't understand why we were going there.

I finally found my
voice when the cab stopped in front of Jackson's old building and the driver sped
away after Jackson paid him.

"What are we doing
here?"

"We need somewhere
private to talk where everyone's not fucking staring at us," he answered
harshly. I could feel his rage simmering beneath the surface but I didn't
understand its cause.

He had never released
my wrist and I let him pull me into the building. I didn't think Jackson had
kept his old apartment, but then it was probably nothing to someone like
Jackson to have empty apartments sitting around.

My lips parted in
surprise when I saw Sam at the front desk, looking exactly the same as he did
five years ago. He greeted Jackson as if seeing him was a usual occurrence, but
his eyebrows rose when he saw me.

"Emma!" he
exclaimed warmly. "What a nice surprise to see you!"

"It's good to see
you too, Sam," I responded with a genuine smile. I was surprised that he
remembered me. "It's been a long time."

I wasn't able to hear
his response as Jackson dragged me to the elevator, furiously punching the
button as if it had done him some personal harm. When we stepped inside the
elevator, I wrenched my hand away, rubbing my wrist where Jackson had squeezed
so tightly.

"What is
wrong
with you!" I yelled, looking
at Jackson as if he had lost his mind. "Are you possessed? You're acting
crazy!"

My bravado disappeared
as Jackson crowded me into the corner of the elevator. "Are you fucking
him?"

I stared up at Jackson,
shocked by his question and the ferocity of his tone. Jackson reached up,
grabbing my arm and shaking me roughly. There was no gentleness in his touch or
expression. "Answer me!"

I shook my head, my
momentary fear replaced with anger. "You
are
crazy. Or is this how you think you're allowed to behave
because you're rich and famous? Other people might put up with your sense of
entitlement, but not me. Get the hell away from me."

I pushed against his
chest but Jackson was an unmovable force. He sneered at my attempt to push him
away and opened his mouth to speak, but the chime of the elevator indicating we
had reached the sixteenth floor interrupted him. He grabbed my wrist again and
I let him lead me to his apartment. I was going to have to let this play out
for Jackson to leave me alone and it was better to do it in the privacy of his
apartment. Even though I could feel the violence of Jackson's anger, I knew
that he would never hurt my physically. The emotional pain was what I was
frightened about.

My mind blanked when I
stepped inside the apartment after Jackson had unlocked the door. Goosebumps
raised on my arms as I gazed around the apartment, feeling as if I had been
transported back in time. The apartment looked exactly the same as it had five
years ago. All the furniture we had picked out together was still arranged in
the same way, but it was more than that. It looked as if Jackson and I were still
living here, as if we had just left to run some errands and were returning any
minute. My blue sweater that I always draped over the back of the couch in case
I got cold was there, as well as my barrette that I routinely left on the
coffee table in case I wanted to clip my bangs out of my face while watching
TV. Next to the barrette was a copy of
The
Way We Were
, the case ajar as if it had just been watched. I remembered the
countless times I made Jackson watch the sappy movie, tearing up at the end and
then laughing as he kissed my tears away.

I picked up a framed
picture of us on a side table. We had asked a bystander to take a picture of us
by the John Lennon memorial in Central Park and I had lovingly placed it on the
table, feeling as if my father was in the picture with us.

I looked up to see
Jackson watching me, an unreadable expression on his face. I didn't want what
to feel as I continued to explore the apartment, noticing all the little
details that had been kept perfectly intact. It was eerie to see my belongings
scattered about as if I still lived there. I half-expected to bump into myself
when I rounded the corner and entered the bedroom. If the living room had
shocked me, the bedroom rendered me speechless.

The bedroom looked
exactly as it had five years ago with two exceptions. The first were the
pictures of me crowded on top of the dresser, pictures Jackson had taken during
our relationship years ago. I looked happy in some, somber in others, but there
were dozens of them, filling the surface of the dresser.

The other exception was
the filmy black skirt lying on the bed, the one I had worn when I had met
Jackson for my first training session at the gym. When we had first slept
together. Jackson had always joked that he was keeping it as a souvenir
whenever I wondered aloud where it was, and I had eventually forgotten about
it. It was now draped across the bed, an eerie reminder of what had happened
long ago.

I heard a sound behind
me and I turned around, finding Jackson standing at the doorway to the bedroom.

"We should talk in
the living room," he said tightly, his voice thick with emotion. I
wordlessly followed him and sat on the couch, not knowing what to say. He sat
down on the couch too, but with enough distance between us to let me know that
he was feeling discomfited as well.

"I should explain
about the apartment," he started, staring down at his hands clasped before
him. "I...I didn't know what to do with all your stuff when you didn't
come to L.A. We had already shipped everything to California, but I couldn't
stand the constant reminders of you. It was too painful. You never contacted
me, wanting your stuff back. So I just had it shipped back here."

I hadn't dared contact
Jackson again after the conversation with Claire. I hadn't cared about my
belongings that I had sent over to L.A. since they were mostly impersonal
things. I had taken the pictures of my father with me to Maryland when visiting
Sean, and those were the only things I really cared about. That and the diamond
pendant Jackson had given me.

"But," I
said, finally finding my voice, "it's like we're still living here. It's
not as if my things are in boxes. If I didn't know better, I would think we
were in some time warp."

Jackson laughed
humorlessly, finally looking up and making eye contact. He looked pained as he
spoke. "I wasn't thinking when I dragged you here. I was too angry to
think about what your reaction would be to this apartment. I was in a sick
place when we broke up. I wasn't thinking straight.
Negative Exposure
was a godsend because it let me escape my mind
while I was playing my character. But it wasn't enough of a distraction. I was
going crazy and somehow replicating this apartment like it used to be helped
me. And once I was finished...I just never changed it."

I breathed in deeply,
Jackson's words impacting me acutely. Despite cheating on me with Claire, and
her insistence that they were in love, Jackson seemed to have been in as much
pain as I had been after our breakup. Maybe he had realized he had made a huge
mistake by cheating on me, just like I had realized it had been a huge mistake
to leave him.

"I didn't come
here to talk about the apartment," Jackson said, his voice steely again.
The man who had looked abashed while explaining the apartment had vanished. "I
came here to find out if you're fucking that asshole you work with."

My pain at realizing
that Jackson had suffered as much as I had dissipated into a haze of anger at
his words. I was foolish being sucked into the regrets of the past. At present,
I had a large angry man in front of me who had the audacity to believe he could
demand answers from me.

"What right do you
have to ask me that?" I asked with a sneer. "I don't owe you any
explanations."

Jackson grabbed my
shoulders, shaking me so hard that my teeth almost rattled. "You owe me
everything!" he snarled. He clutched me closer to him, his eyes as hard as
glass. "You're mine and no one else is going to fucking touch you."

He slammed his mouth
against mine, pressing down painfully until I finally opened my mouth. He
forcefully sucked my tongue into his mouth and I moaned when he bit down, not
sure if it was from pleasure or pain. I pushed against his shoulders, trying to
stop this before it got out of hand, but it was like pushing against a mountain
and expecting it to move.

Jackson held my head in
place with his hands, making a sound of frustration when I was finally able to
close my mouth against his, pressing my lips together tightly.

"Open your
mouth," he muttered, slanting his lips over mine, his hands in my hair
fisting in impatience when I refused. His voice was both taunting and thick
with desire when he spoke. "Fine. If that's the way you want to play
it."

I was shocked when he
reached under my skirt abruptly, grabbing the edges of my panties and ripping
them down. He shoved my skirt up to bare me completely and he curled his lip in
triumph when he stroked one finger down my cleft.

"You're dripping
wet. I know your body wants me, no matter what you say."

I stared at him, not
recognizing the man before me. He seemed more animal than human, intent on
marking his territory.

"Jackson, don't.
Not like this," I whispered.

His nostrils flared,
his expression darkening even more. "Don't ever deny me, Emma. You belong
to me."

He slid off the couch,
kneeling in front of me, and slid my panties all the way down, throwing them to
the floor. He placed each of my legs over his shoulders so that I was forced to
keep them open. I clenched my lower body as he nuzzled the top of my thigh,
dangerously close to my quivering center, betraying my desire.

"I love how you
smell. I love how you taste. The way you tremble when I love you with my
mouth." Jackson's voice was low and barely audible. "No one else will
ever taste you except me. No one will ever fuck you except me." Jackson's
hands on my hips tightened painfully when I just stared down at him. "Say
it!"

"No one will taste
me except you. Fuck me except you," I whispered, my desire warring with
the sickness of the situation. I could already feel how wet I was, so wet that
I was dripping.

Jackson growled in
approval as he buried his face between my thighs, lapping me up as if he was
starving for the taste of me. The sensations were almost too exquisite to bear
and I tried to shift my hips away, to escape that marauding tongue, but Jackson
kept me firmly in place, working his mouth over my swollen clit to the point of
pain. I cried out when I felt his tongue dart inside of me, licking me
relentlessly, returning to my aching bud over and over again until I screamed,
convulsing over and over again in a climax so violent it felt like an
out-of-body experience.