“I’m not worried about Jackson,” I muttered. I lifted my blank gaze at him. “I’m going to leave him tomorrow.”
Jake stared with surprise. “What?”
“I can’t do it anymore. I can’t take the lies. He has all these skeletons in the closet and I’m finding them one by one and I’m not even close to finished, I know it. So I’m done. I’m leaving him. I already took the ring off,” I said, nodding at the floor where I’d tossed the massive diamond. As Jake looked in disbelief, I unplugged the drain with my foot and watched the water in the tub sink away, gurgling and choking on its way down.
“Where are you going to go?” Jake asked softly.
“Anywhere but there.”
“You can always stay here.”
I looked up at him, hugging my legs to my chest, my hair only wet at the ends. Jake gazed at me with a kindness so pure I felt my lip trembling.
“Or we can keep you in Manhattan,” he offered lightly. “I have a warehouse apartment in the Lower East Side. It’s not furnished yet but if you want to stay in the city, we can decorate it for you. Customize it, make it your haven.”
“No.” I blinked back the tears I felt coming. “I don’t want that.”
Jake nodded. “I’ll give you what you want, Lara. Once you know what it is, I’ll make it happen.”
“I know what it is,” I said. Jake tilted his head at me. Rising to my feet, I stepped out of the tub and went to him. I felt his shallow breath as I slid my hands up his abs. “I want to be where you are,” I murmured, looking at my hands on his chest. “I know you’re not going to stay here for long. Not with how it’s been with Jackson. And I know you always go somewhere far away and make a life there, so when you do that, I want to go too,” I exhaled, my growing excitement snatching my breath. “And I don’t want you to feel like you’re obligated to me. I want us to do what we’re doing now for however long it lasts for. And I just want to do it there. Wherever you go. I want you to show me how to start over.”
Once I was done, I looked up at Jake, fearing his reaction. He wasn’t quite smiling but I saw was a joy in his eyes that I’d never seen before. I breathed easy as he took my hands and brought them to his lips, kissing my fingertips before leaning down to kiss me.
“We’ll make that happen,” he said softly.
I closed my eyes, feeling already new. “Thank you, Jacob,” I whispered, kissing him deeply as his strong hands formed around my naked waist. I could already feel it – his touch bringing me somewhere else. To a place where the chaos didn’t exist.
On his bed, he took his time trailing his lips over every inch of my body. Between kisses to my stomach, my breasts, he shed his shirt and his jeans. Every stroke of his tongue and fingertips along my skin was supernatural bliss. It was the drug, the remedy I needed, and so much more.
“I want you to feel nothing but good,” he murmured.
“Yes, please, I want you to,” I panted, delirious. I raised my hips for him when I felt his breath between my legs. Yes, please, I want to feel it. My fists pulsed around his sheets as his tongue drew hot, wet circles over my clit. The cries that spilled my lips were an emotional release. I needed Jake. I felt nothing but good when his body was pressed against mine, and I needed that feeling more than anything in the world.
“You’re so wet,” he groaned deep against me as he felt me tighten, ready to come. Sliding his hands under my ass, he lifted me higher for his mouth, spiraling me into ecstasy as he slid his tongue inside my pussy.
“Jake, oh God,” I cried desperately, my stomach taut and my body trembling as he brought every inch of me to orgasm.
That night, we lay in bed, awake and then asleep, over and over. I could feel the same energy running through both our bodies. Before finally drifting off, we did what I always hated – his flesh pulsing inside me, our eyes locked, we made love. It was the only way to describe it.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The next morning, I returned to Jackson’s apartment to find him sitting on the stairs next to the kitchen, hunched forward, already staring at me with a wolf-like expression. I froze, considering walking back out before I remembered that I was there for a reason. I was there to return my ring and to tell Jackson that it would be my last time stepping foot in his duplex.
But the contained rage in eyes and rigid torso told me he had something to say as well. And after my run-in with Dane yesterday, I sensed that I knew what it was. I felt a sneer form on my lips before he could even start to speak.
“I take it you’re coming from Sawyer’s?” Jackson said evenly, his calm voice contradicting everything about the way he looked.
I tossed my purse on the floor. “No,” I answered, walking in neat steps to the kitchen counter, dropping my ring on the metal surface with a hard clack.
The sound brought Jackson flying to his feet. His sheer speed made me stumble backward in shock.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he snarled, snatching the ring off the table. “You think you’re going to cheat on me with fucking Sawyer and then fucking leave me? After everything, you want to fucking humiliate me like that?”
“After everything?” I had to laugh in his face. “Oh, you mean how you hid the fact that you fucked your stepsister, cheated on me with Gabrielle and then fucking hired a criminal to attack me in our own home?” My eyes were blazing as I watched Jackson back down for a second. “Yes, I know about that,” the words seeped from the very bottom of my throat with revulsion. “I know that the son of a bitch who came in here and acted like he was going to fucking rape me was someone you fucking hired off of Dane fucking McNulty. I mean do you actually feel good about that, Jackson? You manipulated me into loving you again by having a strange man put his hands on me and toss me around and put me through the worst trauma of my fucking life!”
Jackson’s jaw was so tight I could hear his teeth gnashing against each other. “It wasn’t supposed to get that far. If you hadn’t seen his face, he wouldn’t have – ”
“I don’t care, Jackson! I don’t care. You hired a dangerous man to not only scare me but hurt me. I couldn’t sleep for a month after that incident. I still wake up with nightmares about that night and you know what, it’d probably happen every night if it weren’t for the fact that you’re constantly giving me new things to fucking wake up crying over.”