Every Second With You (No Regrets Book 3) Page 3

  Her finger taps the handle of her mug. “How does that make you feel?”

  “Like she wanted to own me,” I say, narrowing my eyes, the words tasting sordid. “She wanted to box me in and make me hers, and not let anyone else near me.”

  Joanne nods. “I agree. But the thing is, you don’t want to slip in your recovery and start letting these new discoveries about her cause you to return to your drug. You’re at a very critical point. You’ve been doing great battling your addiction, all while moving forward in a new relationship, and moments like this can cause a relapse.”

  I look at her like she’s crazy, because that’s how she sounds. “You think I’d go back to being a call girl because of this? Give me a little credit, please.”

  She shakes her head, her pink hair swinging back and forth. “No. But I’m saying it’s tempting in times of uncertainty, when we are hit with information that rocks us, to want to use sex, or love, or romance as a drug. You’ve only just broken free from her, but clearly she still has a hold on you. With each new discovery, it can feel like another loss of control, and losing control can be a trigger. We crave control, and now, when your world feels unsteady, you could be tempted to get it back through old habits. But you want to be able to break your patterns. You want to end the cycle.”

  “Okay. I get that. So what do I do?”

  “You know you can call me anytime to talk. Pick up the phone, fly the white flag, I’ll try to help you. But you should also decide if these cards are important to you now. And does that entail dropping back into your mother’s life to learn about them?”

  I don’t have to think about her question, because I already know the answer deep in my gut—it feels terribly important to find my grandparents. “I don’t want a relationship with my mother, I can’t be like her. But I need to understand my family. I want to know what they’ve been trying to tell me,” I tell Joanne, then I decide now is as good a time as any. “Especially since I’m pregnant.”

  She blinks several times, like a machine processing new data. Her index finger twitches faster against the mug. “Oh my. Is that good or bad?”

  I shrug, and a tear threatens to escape, but I manage to keep it together. Each day, each time it’s getting easier to say. “It is what it is. I guess it’s bad and it’s good, and I have to take them both. Because it’s this life inside of me that’s scaring the shit out of me, but it also must have happened for a reason.”

  “Are you keeping the baby?”

  I nod.

  “What about college?”

  “I have to find a way to finish it.”

  “And how is Trey dealing with this?”

  I smile once, flashing back to the other day in his apartment. Our baby. He’ll be a great father. “Surprisingly well, I think.”

  “That’s good, then. Congratulations. And like I said, there’s a lot going on in your life, so be aware of triggers and temptations. And in the meantime, I’ll knit you some booties,” she says with a wink.

  “Good,” I say, glancing at her hands. “Because I can tell you’re jonesing to be knitting something right now.”

  “Like you can’t even believe.”

  When I leave, I look at one of the cards and the words written on the eggshell paper, wondering what mysteries lie behind this story that they promised to tell me…

  Once upon a time, there was a girl from the city who had sand and seashells in her hair, sun-kissed cheeks, and a smile as wide as the sun…

  5

  Trey

  I am a statue. Frozen on Sloan’s floor. Her door—15D—looms ominously at the end of the long hallway. I’ve been standing outside the elevator for five minutes, maybe ten. I don’t know anymore.

  All the while, memories have been flooding back. How she liked it, from behind. How she wanted it hard, rough. Her sounds erased all the feelings inside me, all the images in my head, all the cruel, cold memories of last breaths, of death staining my arms. Fucking Sloan was like that perfect buzz.

  I want to be buzzed again. I want to be drunk out of my mind. I want to shut off all the pathways to my heart.

  But I can’t seem to move my feet. I can’t walk this hallway. And I can’t knock on that door. Because the pathway to my heart is blocked, by the girl I love. By the one person I can’t shut off. I came here on autopilot, and it was wrong.

  I stare at my traitorous feet, and they shame me because they brought me here.

  I’m like the junkie who almost takes a hit, the alcoholic who walks into a bar and almost takes a drink. But the fog has cleared, and now I can’t get out of here fast enough. I turn around and stab the elevator button, hitting it over and over.

  “Come on. Come on.”

  I run my hands through my hair, ashamed, so ashamed of how close I came. I can’t have temptation writhing at my feet, trying to trip me. I need to escape. I need my getaway car. I push the button one more time, rewarded by the chug of the elevator shooting up to save me.

  The doors open, and I jump into it, bang hard on the lobby button, and pray the doors close quickly, like chains on my wrists to save me from me.

  The elevator begins moving, and I can’t even think about what I almost did. As soon as I make my way out of the lion’s den, I call Harley. I have to see her, to wrap myself up in her, to hold her close, breathe her in, feel safe the only way I can.

  With her.

  “Where are you? I want to see you,” I tell her, grateful that we can talk in this shorthand.

  “Leaving Joanne’s.”

  “Meet me at my place?”

  “Sure, I found more cards from my grandparents. I want to tell you about it.”

  “Great. I want to hear everything,” I say, but that’s a lie.

  I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to play detective. I need to numb these feelings, surround myself with her, her scent, her smell, her taste, so I can rid my brain of the onslaught of memories. Harley can do that for me, right?

  “Can you meet me at my apartment?”

  “Sure. I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” she says.

  “Me too.”

  On the subway, I crank up the music and push in my earbuds, blasting some tunes to drown out the thoughts that I don’t want to let infect me. I don’t want to think about what’s next, what’s ahead, how to deal, how to handle, how to be, how to love.

  When I reach my stop, I walk quickly to my building, and she’s there, waiting outside, looking sexy as hell in a tank top, skirt, and combat boots. Her legs are bare, and already I’m picturing turning her around and hiking up that skirt.

  “So, you’re never going to believe this,” she says when I’m a few feet away. Then she rolls her eyes. “Actually, you will believe it.”

  But I silence any more words with a hard, hot kiss, cupping the back of her neck in my hand, threading my fingers through her hair, needing contact, needing pleasure to mute the pain.

  She’s startled at first, but only for a second because she’s used to my kisses, completely accustomed to how much I want to touch her, everywhere, anywhere, in public, in private. I can’t keep my hands off her, and that’s why she’ll never know where my mind is right now. She’s into it, parting her lips, welcoming my tongue sliding over hers, letting me crush my mouth against hers. Her purse slips down her arm and dangles on her elbow as I kiss her so hard my head starts to turn cloudy.

  Ah, perfect.

  It’s like the first sip of a cold beer, and I want another drink. Besides, I can take endless drinks from the tap of Harley, and it’s not addiction, it’s not a problem, it’s not an issue whatsoever because she’s the only one, she’s not married, she’s not someone else’s. She’s mine, so I am allowed to let her wash over me.

  Make me forget.

  Make me feel no pain.

  “Let’s go inside,” I say, and a minute later, we’re in my apartment and the door is shutting.

  “So, how was your day? Did you see your parents?” she asks. She’s in a chatty mood
again.

  I shake my head. “I don’t want to talk. I just want you.” I fall into her again, the press of her body some kind of balm for my fearful heart. Because it’s working. The feel of her is an anesthetic. “I love you,” I murmur in her ear, as much to remind myself as to get her in the state I need her in. Because I want her blissed out, drunk from sex too. We can get wasted together. “I love you so much,” I say, and she moans softly at the words. I know her, I know this girl. She loves hearing it, she can’t get enough of it, and it turns her on to no end.

  “I love you too,” she says, roping her arms around my neck, and her voice is so honest, so pure, that it nearly jolts me from the haze that’s coating my brain. But my body is taking over, and I want her, I want to fuck her, I want her to take me away from me. I want to escape in sex.

  I pull away, grab her hand, and lead her to the tiny alcove of the kitchen. She raises an eyebrow. “Are we going to do it on the counter?”

  I love the idea. I want to someday. But not today, because I’d have to look at her.

  And I don’t want connection. I want contact.

  “Against the counter. You against the counter,” I whisper roughly in her ear, then lick my way from her earlobe down to the hollow of her throat, kissing her there where it makes her gasp and arch her back, even while she’s standing.

  “Okay,” she says, and she sounds the tiniest bit nervous.

  We’ve had tons of sex, countless rounds, and we’ve tried many positions, but I’ve never fucked her from behind. That’s the only way I want her right now.

  “I like looking at you though,” she says, and she’s so damn sweet and so damn kind and so fucking perfect, I can’t take it. And hell, I like to look at her too. But I can’t right now. I bend my head to her neck and place a kiss in the spot that drives her wild.

  “I know, but it will feel so good this way. Do you trust me?”

  She nods. “You know I do.”

  “Then let’s do it this way, okay?”

  She nods, and I turn her around.

  “Put your hands on the counter,” I tell her, and she listens, pressing her palms down.

  “Like this?” she asks, all sweet and willing to try.

  “Yeah.”

  I slide a hand between her legs, and her underwear is wet, and the feel of her heat makes me even harder. I peel off her underwear, letting it fall to her ankles. She starts to step out of them, to shimmy them over her boots, but I stop her. “Leave them on. You look hot like that.”

  She wiggles her ass once, then turns to me, an eager look in her eyes, as if she’s asking me if she did it right. God, it kills me. Because she does everything right. “Beautiful,” I say, as I hike up her skirt. I unzip my jeans, push my briefs down, and guide my hard-on to the promised land, rubbing my dick against her wetness, and I start to push in.

  “Fuck,” I say, cursing myself. “I’ll grab a condom.”

  She laughs, dropping her head on her arm. She turns back to me. “Don’t know if you got the memo, Trey, but we don’t have to use those anymore.”

  I take a sharp breath, the reminder one I don’t need or want right now. “Right,” I say, managing a laugh as I press my thumbs against her ass, spreading her cheeks, lifting her up a bit for the perfect angle. I sink into her, and close my eyes.

  The feel of her heat is almost too much. This isn’t my first time riding bareback, but it’s one of my first few times like this with Harley, and she’s so tight and hot against me that I have to still myself so I don’t come too soon. I don’t want to come yet. I don’t want to come for hours. I want to fuck her for as long as I can, for as long as it takes to numb me again.

  So I do, taking slow, deep strokes. In. Out. Hot. Wet. Deep. I close my eyes and let my instincts take over, fucking her against the counter in a way that’s familiar from my old life. It used to turn my mind blank, firing my neurons with pleasure and ecstasy. And I’m going back there now.

  “You look so fucking hot in this position,” I tell her, because she does, and that’s what I used to say.

  She moans and pushes back, letting me fill her.

  “You like that?”

  “Yes,” she says, and I can hear the desire thick and hot in her voice. But she’s not just Harley anymore. She’s anyone.

  “Do I make you feel good?” I ask, falling into my old persona, the things I said and did.

  “You always do,” she says.

  “Rock back into me. You’ll come easily like this.”

  “It feels so good,” she says, all breathless and needy.

  “Because you love this position,” I say.

  She flinches, but I keep going, the words spilling out of me of their own accord. “It makes you come so hard.”

  She says nothing.

  “I want you to shout so loud it drowns out everything.” I hardly know what I’m saying, but the words are flying out of my mouth like I have no control over them.

  Then she stops moving.

  “Everything,” I repeat, losing myself in the rush, in the feelings, in the ecstasy of fucking her.

  Her shoulders tense, but I can feel the blood racing faster in my body, tearing through my veins, and I start to pump harder, faster. I can feel it building, and it’s going to wash away the pain, the fear, the worry, the five stages. It’s going to do the job, and if it doesn’t, we’ll do it again and again and again.

  “Fuck,” I shout as I drive deeper into her, coming inside her. Then I slump against her back, resting my cheek against her shoulder, savoring the way I’m buzzed and no longer worried about anything.

  But she wriggles away from me. She turns around and stares sharply at me. A noise catches in her throat, but then she buries the tears, and her brown eyes are blazing mad. She grabs her underwear, yanks them up, adjusts her skirt, and pushes me away.

  Hard.

  “Don’t fuck me like that. Don’t ever fuck me like that again.”

  I stumble against the wall, my underwear and jeans at my feet. “What are you talking about?” I ask, playing dumb, or maybe I’m not playing, because I feel pretty stupid right now as I’m coming back to reality.

  She points a finger at me. “You know what I’m talking about, Trey Westin. I’m not one of them. I’m me. I’m the woman you’re supposed to love. Don’t ever fuck me like that again.”

  Then she grabs her purse and marches to the door.

  “Wait!” I call to her, grabbing for my briefs and tugging them up. “Don’t go.”

  She breathes in through her nostrils. Then breathes out hard. “I’m going, and it would be really great if you don’t come after me. If you don’t show up at midnight acting all sorry. And if you don’t call Kristen and convince her to let you in.”

  My heart plummets. Shit. “Harley, I’m sorry.”

  “I’m so impressed you remember my name,” she spits back.

  “You’ve gotta let me apologize.”

  “I am letting you. That doesn’t mean I want to see you again tonight. You can say you’re sorry six ways to Sunday, but that doesn’t change what you just did to me. You fucked me and pretended I was one of the women from your past. You love this position. We’ve never done it in that position. It makes you come so hard. What the fuck is wrong with you? You pretended I was someone else. You used me like a drug. Just because you have more experience with sex than me doesn’t mean you can pull the wool over my eyes.” She taps the side of her head, her eyes dark and filled with fire. “You might be the only guy I’ve ever slept with, but I’m not stupid. Don’t forget—I’m an addict too, so you can’t fool me.”

  Deny. That is all I know. It is all I can rely on. It is my only recourse. “Harley, please. Jesus, I just wanted to do it against the counter. You act like it’s such a big deal.”

  She parks her hands on her hips. “It is a big deal. Us. This. You and me. It’s the biggest deal. Sex between us is a big deal, and if you can’t handle that, then I’m sorry, Trey. But it’s a big deal for a mi
llion reasons, not the least of which is this,” she says, pressing her hands to her belly. “Everything matters.”

  “Is this preg—”

  She holds up her hand. Her palm could stop a truck right now. “No. Don’t, Trey. Just don’t.”

  She turns around, grabs the door handle, and pulls it open. She looks back at me one more time. “I need a break. I don’t want you to show up tonight saying you’re sorry. Or tomorrow. Or Sunday.”

  This is the real bullet, and it shoots straight through my chest. “Are you breaking up with me?” I ask, my voice wobbly.

  “I’m saying we need a break right now. Goodbye.”

  Then she leaves. She doesn’t slam the door. She closes it quietly and walks away, leaving me alone with all my terrible loneliness.

  And I don’t feel an ounce less pain. I feel everything, all the weight of my stupid decisions, and it hurts so much, because my trick didn’t work. I didn’t fool myself. I didn’t fool anyone. She is gone, and the memories and images play on a reel in my head. Each one. Each brother. Each death.

  It’s on a punishing loop that I deserve.

  6

  Trey

  Michelle would kill me if she knew what I’d done. Okay, maybe not kill me. More like wallop me verbally. So I don’t call her that weekend. I don’t crawl on my hands and knees begging for her to solve this problem. I made the mess. I fucked things up. I need to fix my shit.

  I give Harley the space she needs, though it takes all my resistance to do what she asked. I become a zombie, clunking to my history class, to No Regrets, to the gym, to hang with Jordan. But the whole time, there’s this persistent ache in my chest, a hollowness that longs to be filled with her. That can only be filled with her.

  At work one night, a punkish-looking girl comes in to plan out a tat she wants on her shoulder, and I’m shot back in time to the night I first inked Harley, to all the things we shared in the coffee shop, on the train, at my place. Then when I redid her ink and made it ours.