Shattered Edge (12 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Terri

Justin walked in the bedroom and the tight set of his mouth told me something was terribly wrong.

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” he lied. He was hiding something, but I didn’t know what it could be. His beautiful mouth was set in a thin hard line and his eyes looked like granite.

“Come here,” I whispered.

He sat on the edge of the bed and I coiled by arms around his neck. The tension was rolling off of him.

“Hmm. I think someone’s hiding something. Turn around honey.”

He did without any objection. I sunk my hands into the muscles of his neck and shoulders and massaged the rigidity out of them. When I felt them begin to loosen up, I began to make deep circles in them with my thumbs.

“Mmm, that feels really good,” he moaned as he dropped his head forward. I continued with the circles, traveling down to the muscles in his back.

“Are you going to share or keep this bottled up inside?”

“Terri, I don’t want to talk about it and honey, you don’t really need to hear it. How come I didn’t know about these magic hands of yours?”

“I’ll give you a pass today on the change of subject because you’ve spoiled me rotten. And to your question, I’m not exactly sure. Why don’t you lay across my lap?”

He did and it was much easier for me to massage him. I played with his hair, running my fingers through it and scratched his back while he made all sorts of soft moans. After a while, he rolled over and looked up at me. He didn’t say anything at first but his brow was creased and the place between his eyes had creases in it too.

“Hmm. Deep thoughts,” I remarked.

“Do you think I’m a piece of shit?”

What the hell?

“Jesus Justin! Where the hell did that come from? Wait!
Don't answer that. No, I do not think you’re a piece of shit, for God’s sake. Honey, please tell me what happened.” My hands were on his face as he lay in my lap. He put his on top of mine and all I wanted to do was kiss him, to cement my words. So I did just that.

I shimmied down in the bed until our heads were level and I pounced on his lips...hard and without any preamble.

“Justin,” I murmured against his mouth, “I don’t kiss pieces of shit.” And I went in for the kill.  I kissed him with everything I had. And everything in my body turned into liquid gold, coursing through my veins. Sprained ankle be damned. I wanted this man and he needed me. This wasn’t just about desire and sex. It went way beyond that. So I took things into my own hands. I unbuttoned his shirt, never taking my eyes off of his. Then my hands slipped beneath the waist of his jeans, where I let my fingers linger a bit. I loved to feel his abs around here. My hand was unbuttoning his jeans then and then unzipping them. He made to move and I stopped him with the palm of my hand on his stomach. I didn’t speak, I just shook my head. He was laying there, watching me, not really knowing where this was going. That was okay by me because I was all about surprises right now.

“Close your eyes Justin and no peeking.”

He blinked a couple of times and at first I thought he was going to say something, but then he ran his tongue along his lower lip and did as I asked. That slight action with his tongue had increased my body temp to the boiling point.

I bent my head down and followed the path on his lip that his tongue had just blazed. He groaned and opened his mouth to latch my tongue to his.

“Not yet,” I whispered.

He groaned again.

I separated his shirt and ran one finger from his throat to the waistband of his boxers, and then back up. I bent my head and began my torture of Justin. Nipping, then nibbling and sucking until he was begging. I would suck his nipples hard, then ease up and move to another place, only to return. A peck here, a tiny bite there, a light touch down below, but all teasing him. His erection was straining against his boxers and he was writhing on the bed. I had a bag of ice next to me and I grabbed a handful of the cubes and put them in my mouth. I scooted down the bed and put my hand around his length and when I wrapped my lips on it, and he felt the iciness inside, he groaned and in seconds was moaning and climaxing. He’d grabbed my hair and had twisted his hands in it, and his groans went on and on as his body bucked against me.

One minute I had my head on his lap and the next minute I was stripped naked and he was driving himself inside of me and now it was my turn to scream and moan. When the world righted itself, or maybe it was right the other way, he looked at me and shook his head.

“Christ, Terri. Remind me not to leave any bags of ice laying around you any time soon.”

“You didn’t like that?”

“Not one tiny bit.” Then he took my lip between his teeth and tugged on it a little. He kept looking at me, differently, almost like he was gaging my reaction, or getting ready to anyway.

“What?”

He smiled. “I was just...” he took a deep breath, “I was just thinking about how close I feel to you.”

“Is that what this is all about?”

His eyes, dark, deep and penetrating, touched my heart. Something was hurting him and I wanted to know what it was. I put my fingers up to his brows and whispered, “Such a pained expression.”

“I’m afraid I’m not good enough for you. That you deserve better than this. Than what I am...what I’ve been. I’m afraid that one day you’ll wake up and realize that I am just a miserable piece of shit, and that you’ve wasted your precious time with me.”

I broke for him. His pain and hurt penetrated every inch of my body and I wanted to cry out for him. “Oh Justin. Why would you ever think that? Have I done something to give you that idea?”

He nodded, “No. You’ve been perfect. You are perfect.”

“Then why? Well hell, the why doesn’t matter because I don’t feel that way at all. I know in my heart and soul that will never happen. Look Justin, there are never any guarantees in life. But if you trust someone, and have faith in that person, and respect them, then I believe the best will happen.” I ran my hands in his hair and held his head. I caught his gaze and said, “I think you know that I have faith in you and I respect you way more than mere words can say. You’ve been here for me and kept me safe. You’ve made me feel a part of you...a part of your life...made me feel special, like I mean something to you. I would never ever think I was wasting my time with you, or that I deserved better. I pretty much think you’re a special guy Justin, or I wouldn’t even be here right now.”

He’d started moving toward my lips as I was talking, and as the last words left my lips he kissed me...gently...teasingly...briefly.

“Justin, am I even getting through to you?” I was beginning to worry about him.

He smiled, but his eyes wore a pained expression.

“I can only hope Terri. You’ve turned my life upside down...made me examine things I’d never thought of before. I hope I’m enough for you.”

He moved to roll off of me, but I couldn’t bear the thought of him leaving.

“Please don’t go. Stay here and just hold me for a while.”

He gathered me in his arms and I twisted my body around his, clinging tightly to him, fearing that what we had was slipping away. I felt a fissure developing between us and I didn’t know why or what to do to bridge it.

“Don’t pull away from me Justin. Please don’t.”

He smiled sadly and I felt things were going to end. My eyes filled with tears and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to cry, but the sadness pouring off of him was so profound it penetrated my very soul.

What the hell had happened?

I just couldn’t figure it out. Something had gotten into his head.

He felt my silent sobs as they wracked my body. He held me tightly to him but never spoke. Sleep took over because I woke up later and found myself alone, in his cold and lonely bed.

Biological functions don’t stop, even when your heart doesn’t beat appropriately any more. Hell with the no walking thing. I hobbled to the bathroom and then dressed. I needed to get away from here or I would be one hell of a mess. Navigating the stairs wasn’t easy at first, so I sat on my ass and went down that way.

He was sitting at the kitchen counter, in a trance-like state, when I limped in the room.

“I think it
's best if I go home,” I mumbled, my voice cracking.

“No,” he said hoarsely. “You shouldn’t even be walking.”

“I can’t be here Justin when you won’t tell me what’s hurting you so. I know you don’t want me here. I can see it in your eyes. I can hear it in your voice. I can smell it in the air. Please take me home.” Tears stained my face as the words left my mouth.

“Terri I...”

“Please. If you can’t tell me why you feel this way. One minute things are perfect between us and the next, you’re withdrawn and uncommunicative. I don’t know what to do. I can’t lay up there all alone in your bed wondering what the hell happened. And...” I lost it then.

He was there picking me up but I protested and punched him. “No! You have to talk to me and not do this. I can take care of myself Justin. I have for years. I can’t be here with you like this. Can’t you understand?”

He set me down and shouted, “Yes, damn it. I can. And let me talk a minute. It was Ava. She made me question myself, my integrity and my value to you. Whether or not I was good enough for you. And the more I thought about it, damn it, the more I wondered if she didn’t have a valid point!”

My jaw crashed to the floor. “You’re letting someone else, someone who hasn’t even seen us together, who hasn’t even spent any time around us, dictate to you what you should be feeling about yourself? Justin! That doesn’t make any sense!”

I tore my hands through my hair and started chewing on my bottom lip.

“She made some valid points about my past!”

“I don’t give a flying fuck about your past and I’m the one who counts where that’s concerned. Am I right?”

He stared at me, his eyes grabbing onto mine like a lifeline. “When we decided to give us a try, I was leery of you, yeah. But not because of your past. It was because of that incident with the two girls and then because you didn’t tell me the truth about my leg. What you’ve done with other women before we met I really could give two shits about.”

He still just stared, locked onto to me, unmoving.

“Look. Do you think I’m naive or something? I know women throw themselves at you. Hell, that crazy bitch that pushed me down told me stuff about you. And I’m quite sure it was a bunch of crap. Listen to me Justin. I. Don’t. Care. What I do care about is how you treat me. And whether you respect me and are honest with me.” I finally shut up because I ran out of steam. This whole thing had fried my mind.

He didn’t move for quite a while. I rubbed my face in an attempt to stop the fire from burning in my eyes and to dry the tears that had fallen.  When I lifted my head, he took my hands in his and started kissing each of my fingers.

“I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

“Justin, you only hurt me because you wouldn’t talk to me. Don’t do that to me. You can’t put a wall up between us because that’s a sure fire way to destroy what we have going here. If you have an issue or concern, voice it.”

“I will. I’m so sorry honey. I just started feeling so inadequate and thinking that maybe you deserved someone better than me.”

I fisted my hands in his shirt and pulled him to me saying, “Don’t you think I should be the judge of that? I’m a big girl and I get to make my own decisions about stuff like that.”

He scooped me up and said, “I need to get you off that leg and ankle. And I’m not going to abandon you again. Up we go.” He carried me back up the stairs and put me down on the bed.  Then he leaned in for a kiss, a long, slow, soft and sexy one.

When he finally pulled away, I said, “If you ever think about taking that away from me again, you better check with me first buster.”

He laughed a little. Then he laughed harder.

“Terri, that thing you did earlier...you know, with the ice? I’m gonna do that to you sometime. Just giving you fair warning.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Oh yeah!”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Justin

Every time I think how I almost blew it I want to throw up. What the hell was I thinking? How could I let Ava and her blabbing mouth effect me like that? I groaned inwardly. I was getting to the point where I could barely stand to think about it. Seeing Terri standing there, crying like that. My guts felt like they’d been torn out and had acid poured on them. I don’t ever want to make her feel that way again...ever.

Thank God the second X-ray turned out okay too. That would’ve really put the nail in my coffin. She’d ended up with a relatively good sized bruise and a painful sprain, but other than that, all was good.

I was still dealing with that crazy bitch at work though. I’d filed a complaint with Human Resources claiming sexual harassment. The paperwork involved with that was ridiculous. I’d called our family attorney, John Remington, and he’d advised it. He said if she was that crazy, it was best to have a paper trail on her. No telling what would come of it. Terri was in the loop and agreed with John on everything.

Thanksgiving had passed and Terri spent it with her parents. I was on call so everything worked out perfectly. Pearce and Lexi were due home this coming weekend. He was going to have a killer call schedule to make up for his month long vacation. My parents were throwing a welcome back brunch for them on Sunday and I was taking Terri. Lexi was going to drop her drawers when she saw that we were together.

Since I wasn’t on call that weekend, I’d spent the night at Terri’s on Saturday.

“Let’s get there a few minutes early babe. I want to see the shock on their faces when they see us together.”

“Justin, do you think we should warn them?”

“Huh uh. This’ll be fun.”

We got there about ten minutes before everyone else. I knew Terri was psyched to see Lexi. She’d really missed her this last month.

We heard their voices and when they walked in the room, arm in arm, Lexi did a double take when she saw Terri. Especially since my arm was draped around her and she was tucked into my side, nice and tight, just the way I liked it.

“What? You two? Wait! The wedding?” she asked with a huge smile. Pearce was right next to her with that same grin on his face.

Terri and I both nodded and said, “Yeah!” in unison. Then we all laughed really hard. The girls hugged and giggled and acted like they were twelve for about ten minutes.

Pearce came up to me and elbowed me in the ribs. “So, you and Terri huh? And it’s going pretty well?”

I bobbed my head like some goofy assed kid. “Uh huh.”

He laughed. “Damn bro, you’ve got it bad.”

I just kept bobbing my head. There was no use in denying it. He was no idiot and he’d find out the truth anyway. “Uh huh.”

He slapped me on the back and said, “Buddy are you ever in for it.”

I looked at him like a deer in the headlights. I mean, I was living the dream. What in the hell was he talking about?

Pearce just laughed harder and said, “Just wait man, just wait.”

I shrugged and walked over to get some appetizers.

Everything was humming along perfectly fine until Ava waltzed into the room. She ran and hugged Lexi, said a brief hello to both Terri and me and then dragged Lexi out of the room. I didn’t think much about it because the two of them were really close.

A few minutes later I was on a trek to the bathroom. On my way back to the den, I was lured into a side room by Ava. I knew from the look on her face this was not going to be for a fun little chat. I already felt my shoulders and neck tightening up, not to mention my ass.

She shoved me into the corner where she and Lexi began an interrogation of sorts. They took turns badgering me about my sordid behavior of the past, the menage a trois from last spring, how they would destroy me if I hurt Terri and on and on. I finally shut them out and let them blather on about their notions over how I was a douche and an asshat.

Soon, I heard footsteps in the distance that kept getting louder. They weren’t ordinary footsteps. No, these had a purpose to them. In fact, they were so forceful, they drowned out everything the girls were yapping about. I was extremely curious about whom they belonged to. Suddenly the door was thrown back so hard it crashed into the wall behind it, bouncing off it a few times before it came to a rest. Lexi and Ava finally shut their mouths and turned to see what had made such a loud racket.

Well, let me tell you what. There Terri stood in the doorway, her long dark hair loose and untamed and her eyes flickering with unbridled anger. She reminded me of what I’d always imagined one of the Furies would look like. She marched straight up to Lexi and Ava and started lambasting them.

Turning to Lexi first she said, “I can’t believe you. You have no right, none what so ever, to come into this home and berate him like that. You’ve been gone this last month so you have no idea what’s taken place between us. You are unaware of how he’s treated me...that he’s protected me...helped me when Preston came to my home. Yes Lexi, that’s right. Justin was right by my side, handling things. He’s also done a hell a lot more that’s none of your fucking business. But how dare you? Did I ever do that to Pearce where your past was concerned? Did I?”

Terri was close to shouting by now.

Lexi shook her head and said, “No, but...”

“You’re damned right I didn’t. And do you know why? Because it wasn’t my place Lexi. It was yours. Just like it was Justin’s. And it’s been handled so you need to keep your nose out of this. Have I made myself clear?”

Lexi just stood there and nodded. Terri then turned to Ava and the tight rein she’d had on her anger flew right out the window.

“And you! For God’s sake, he’s your brother!” she spat out. “You’re supposed to stand up for him...you’re supposed to have his back, not knock him down every chance you get. What the hell kind of sister are you? It makes me wonder how you treat your friends.”

Then for the coup de grace, she said to both of them, “If either one of you ever makes a disparaging comment about Justin’s past to either him or me again, I will consider that a breach of our friendship. And Ava, I will consider it a serious breach of family relations. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone treated so horribly in my life. And this shit show coming from you Lexi, considering how your family ditched you, makes me ashamed of your behavior.”

And what she did next made me want to curl up around her and never let her go. She walked right up to me and slid her hands into my hair, raised herself to her tiptoes and laid the biggest kiss on me I’d ever had. My arms went around her waist and tightened so I could lift her off the ground in my arms as we continued to kiss...and kiss...and kiss.  What an avenging angel my girl turned out to be!

God I didn’t want to, but I knew I had to pull away. What I really wanted to do was take her upstairs, undress her and make love to this beautiful woman standing in front of me. My body screamed for her, my heart pounded for her and I was hard as stone for her.

“You amaze me. In every way.” I kissed her again and couldn’t stop my hand from traveling to that place where I always felt something pushing at my chest. I rubbed it for a second and then I grabbed her hand and placed it right over that spot and held it there. She looked at me in a curious way, but I didn’t say a word, I just looked at her gorgeous face and smiled.

“Come on. We better get back to the party before they send out a posse.”

“I couldn’t care less about a posse right now. I just want you in my arms Justin.”

How did she always know the right thing to say? There was a door that led to the back courtyard so I pulled her outside and into my arms. It was chilly out, but not too bad. We sat on an old bench and kissed for a bit. My hands were all over her. I tried not to touch her in places I shouldn’t be, but I swear I had to ball up my hands in fists and she was the one who opened them up and put them on her body.

“It’s okay. You can touch me.”

“I didn’t want anyone to see us. I don’t want them to get the wrong impression of you Terri.”

She gave me a cheeky grin and said, “Ah, worried about my reputation, are you?”

“Uh huh,” I said as I picked up her hand and kissed her fingers. “I’m always worried about your reputation.” I began to suck on her index finger. I slid the whole thing into my mouth and then pulled it out and bit the soft end of it. But I just left it there and let my tongue swirl around the tip.

She was very quiet as I did that and I watched the expression on her face go from playful to seriously seductive in zero point two seconds.

“I wanna go home. Can we go home and then come back?”

“No Terri,” I whispered, right before I repeated the same sucking action on her next finger. She sucked in her breath and then softly moaned. When I completed my finger torture I took her chin in my hand and lifted it so I could kiss her and I whispered against her mouth, “Now you’ll have lots to look forward to. When I get you home I’m going to suck on every one of your fingers like that and then I’m going to lick you all over Terri, right before I make love to you.”

I watched her throat working itself, trying to swallow. She was aroused, as was I. My pants were grabbing me so I needed to cool things off here before we went inside, although the thought of her all hot and bothered just made me want to get all jacked up again.

I took her hand in mine and stood, helping her to her feet. She had a dazed look on her face and her cheeks were all flushed.

“You look a little feverish babe. Are you all right?” I smiled.

She cleared her throat and nodded, not answering. Stopping, she turned to me and her eyes scanned the terrace. I wasn’t sure what was going through her mind but she pulled my arm and we were soon heading away from the house. I think I knew what she was thinking and everything south of the border jerked in reaction. The garage was dead ahead and my girl was on a mission.

Terri had the side door swinging open and was pulling me into her arms as fast as my mind could take it all in.

“Don’t you ever tease me like that unless we have a place to bring it to a close.” Her hands were unbuttoning my pants and mine were doing the same to hers. There was a workbench in the back of the garage and we headed straight for it. I lifted her up there and slipped inside of her in one motion. Her fingers were gripping my shoulders as we kissed and I had one of my hands beneath her sweet ass.

We both had been in such a state that it didn’t take either of us long before we hit that place we’d been seeking. For me I was afraid I couldn’t hold on long enough for her to join me. I put the pad of my thumb on her little nub and pressed down. I began rubbing her and within seconds, she was sinking her teeth into the shirt covering my shoulder.

We looked at each other and started kissing and damn if didn’t want to start all over again.

“Justin, we need to go back inside,” she said all breathy like.

I rotated my hips and heard her moan and, well, hell, there wasn’t a chance we were gonna do that right yet.

“Not yet honey.”

I picked her up and bent her over the car and we started our sweet little gig again. I couldn’t seem to get enough of her. Just when I
thought I was satisfied, she gave me that look, or kissed me and it was all I can do not to go batshit crazy in her arms. It hit me then...and I knew I had it bad for this girl.

My arm circled her waist and I took
my other hand and started massaging her again, knowing that’s what she likes. The sounds she made were enough to set me off again. My belly tightened with need and it shot straight through to the souls of my feet. She stole my breath every bit as much as I stole hers when I drove deep inside of her. Then I pulled out and just hovered at her opening, until I heard that sweet little sexy whine. That was my cue she was ready for a repeat. I could only do that a couple of times because it became way more than I could handle. It didn’t take long before I felt her orgasm squeezing me, pulling everything out of me as I spilled myself into her.

Now, both of us were
spent. When things finally calmed down a bit, I pulled out and turned her around. I just had to have a look at her eyes, her luscious wet mouth and how her hair always had that perfectly sexy look after we made love.

“Damn, you are one sexy girl honey.”

“Yeah? Well you’re not so bad yourself.”

I drop
ped my gaze down to her rumpled clothing and then my eyes roamed over her sexiness. I noticed the wetness across my thighs and smiled. “One day we’re going to make love in front of a mirror so you can see what you look like Terri.” She actually blushed and didn’t that make me feel all rosy on the inside?

Then I said, “I hate this but...”

“I know, we really need to get back.”

We laughed.

“They’re all gonna know,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Babe, if you could see how you look.”

“What do you mean?”

“Please, don’t take offense at this remark because I really mean it as a compliment, but you totally have that freshly fucked look and it’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”