Текст книги "Falling Away"

Автор книги: Penelope Douglas

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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

CHAPTER 26

JAXON

I hate how Gordon walks behind me down the stairs. I want to see him coming, and I always feel as if he’ll push me. I move faster than normal¸ the bulge in my pocket giving me courage.

“There’s my boy,” I hear as I reach the bottom of the stairs.

My stomach shakes at the sound of her voice. Sherilynn, my dad’s girlfriend, is always the first to touch me, but I don’t look up. Her frizzy red hair, blond at the roots, and her smeared red lipstick always look the same. Her clothes, too small for her body, remind me what she wants with me, and everything is dirty.

Everything.

If I don’t look I can imagine that she’s pretty. Her wrinkled skin will be soft, and I can pretend that her voice, hoarse from too many cigarettes, is sweet.

I know there are pretty things in the world. Girls at school. My teachers. Things could be clean and sweet and pretty. The moms who pick up my classmates look as though they smell good.

I’ve never been hugged by someone who smelled good.

I curl my toes inside my old, cracked, secondhand sneakers, and I close my eyes as her hands go into my hair. My body feels sick, as if it wants to breathe but can’t, and the world turns black.

The wet, cold smell of mold, cigarettes, and dirt fills my nostrils, and I want to puke.

“Do you want the other one?” Gordon asks behind me.

The other one?

Sherilynn strokes my face. “Yeah, I think it’s time. Go get him.”

I snap my head up, opening my eyes. “Who?”

“Your brother, dipshit.” Gordon pushes my shoulder. “Time for him to join our fun.”

I swing around, pushing Gordon’s chest. “No!” I roar, and he darts out, grabbing my hair at the scalp.

“Why, you little shit.” His hand flies across my face in a loud smack that echoes in the room. My cheek burns, but I don’t stop.

I kick him and swing my arms. “Don’t touch him!” I yell, my face hot with anger.

My father had just beat the crap out of him while I was in the freezer, and tonight I was getting us out of here. I had to get him home.

I swing furiously, not even thinking. No!

“Take him!” Gordon yells, and I tense as soon as I feel Sherilynn’s fist in my hair, stinging my scalp.

Gordon lets go and his fist slams right into my face. I fall to the floor instantly, my ears ringing and my brain fogging over.

I hear footsteps on the stairs, and I dig out the knife in my pocket. The one I’d grabbed off the counter before they brought me down.

I slash at Sherilynn’s leg, and she cries out, letting go of my hair immediately. Gordon stops on the stairs and lunges back down, charging me.

I stumble as I try to stand, my body heavy as I raise my fist and lunge at him. “Leave us alone!” I scream.

And sink the blade right into his neck.

He stops. He looks stunned.

Tears blur my vision, and I start gasping in breath as I watch him without blinking.

He stumbles and paws at the knife still lodged in the side of his neck.

And then he falls.

I back up to the wall, my eyes wide, and I watch him gasp and sputter for breath and the tears dry. I remember Sherilynn is in the room, but it’s quiet. She should’ve screamed. I look over.

She’s lying on the floor, a pool of blood next to her thigh.

I slide down the wall and watch them both eventually stop breathing. I don’t go for help, and I don’t cry.

The early-morning rain set in fast, and I just stared, sitting on the back porch with my arms resting on my knees.

The earbuds still sat in my ears, Hinder’s “Better Than Me” poetically fucking with my head as I squeezed the damp piece of paper in my fist.

Holding her words tight. Holding all I had left of her.

I love him, and I don’t want to. He’s not ready.

I carried the journal page everywhere with me.

It had been four days. Four days and nine hours since she’d talked to me or looked at me or been in the same room with me, and every day that passed my stomach got more and more hollow and my muscles got weaker. I reveled in it. I wanted to suffer. I wanted the pain.

I was miserable without her.

School was the only place where I saw her, but she never looked my way. She sat in her classroom, working with her students and smiling, and then she’d stick in her earbuds and quietly walk home—all the way to Madoc’s house. I hadn’t seen her once over the weekend, and I hadn’t checked on her.

I let my head fall, my stomach groaning with hunger.

I’d cut my run short this morning because I had no fucking energy. No energy because I had no appetite. No appetite because I was scum.

I ran my hand over the top of my head, pushing back the drenched hair and licking the rain from my lips.

“What are you doing?”

I lifted my head at Jared’s voice, hooding my tired eyes. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Well, we need to talk about our father,” he pressed. “Have you been able to find him?”

Everything was tired, including my voice, as I stood up and walked toward him to the house.

“I really don’t give a fuck about him right now,” I said, exhausted.

“Jesus,” he breathed out, grabbing my jaw to look at me, but I jerked out of his grasp. “When was the last time you fucking slept?”

I pushed past him and stepped into the kitchen, going for the refrigerator.

“Answer me,” he pressed.

“Just leave me alone, Jared.” I spoke calmly, but it was a warning.

He tossed his keys on the table and folded his arms over his wide chest. “I’ve left you alone for four days, because Tate told me to stay out of your business, but look at you.” His eyes turned angry as he gestured at me. “You’re pale. Your cheeks are sunken in. What the hell?”

The ache sitting in the middle of my brain spread down my neck, and I couldn’t look at him.

“Why did you fucking cheat on her?” he asked me, sounding as if I’d made the dumbest mistake of my life.

I turned around and leaned against the sink. “I didn’t.” I shifted my eyes away from him. “I just wanted her gone.”

The girl at the party was someone I’d hooked up with before, but prior to Juliet, I hadn’t been with anyone in over a month. I didn’t sleep around, and I hadn’t been with anyone since her, either.

He stood there, silent, probably waiting for me to explain further, but gave up.

“I’m not K.C.’s—Juliet’s, I mean—biggest fan,” he said, taking a step forward, “but she was good to you, Jax. I don’t understand this.”

“You don’t need to,” I mumbled. “It’s not your business. She just deserves better, is all.”

“There is no better. There’s nothing wrong with you.” He sounded defensive. “She was lucky to have you.”

“No.” I shook my head. “She wasn’t. I’d never be good enough for her. She was falling in love, and I …” I swallowed. “I didn’t want her hurt worse. It was time to move on.”

I crossed my arms over my bare chest, feeling Jared’s eyes studying me. He was doing that more and more lately. Taking time to process and react. But when I looked up, I didn’t like what I saw in his eyes.

Confusion and disappointment.

“Don’t,” I warned. “Don’t look at me like that.”

The corner of his mouth turned up in a condescending smile. “You always act so smooth, Jax, like you’ve got life figured out and you’ve got everyone else’s number. You don’t even have yourself straight.” He shook his head at me. “It took me a long time to see it, but you really have no idea what the fuck you’re doing, do you, Jax?”

My fists clenched, tucked under my biceps. “Don’t,” I bit out, shaking my head back at him.

He was wrong. Everything was going to be in order again. Neat. Organized. Clean.

He stepped forward, inching closer and taunting me. “You make money working for Fallon’s father, you exchange favors with the cops, and you think you can sit up there in that office of yours playing God with everyone else under your thumb, because when it comes to you”—he darted his head out, getting in my face—“and your life, you need to avoid everything to control anything.”

He crowded me, his eyes bearing down. “You can boast your power over everyone else,” he continued, “but even you don’t buy it. You think about where you came from and everything that happened to you, and you think that you don’t deserve to have want you want. You think she’ll end up being ashamed of you. Down deep, you think you’re shit.”

I shot up and scowled down at him.

“At least I cut her loose before it was too late,” I growled, locking eyes with him. “Someday Tate will see through you. Ten years from now when you’re living in the suburbs in your two-story Colonial with hardwood floors and crown molding, and you’re trying to shuffle the kids into the SUV so you’re not late for another fucking birthday party …” I nodded. “She’ll see it.”

He narrowed his eyes, taken aback.

I continued. “She’ll see it, because you’ve stopped talking to her, you’ve stopped touching her, and the Boss has been under a tarp for years, and she can’t figure out why you don’t smile anymore.” I held his eyes. “She didn’t see that you took on a career you hated because you wanted to feel worthy of her. Because you knew how much a doctor would make, and you didn’t want your wife to be ashamed of you. And she’ll notice that over the years, your heart grew colder, the house grew more silent, and she’ll cry at night because she sees how the new neighbor flirts with you and how you like it. It’s the first thing in a long time that makes you feel alive.”

Fear flashed in his eyes, and he watched me, not breathing.

I lowered my voice to a near whisper. “You’re dying inside, and you’re killing her along with you, and you don’t even know it.” I paused, seeing the pain in his eyes. “At least I cut Juliet loose,” I said.

There was nothing more to say. Nothing he could tell me that I hadn’t already called, and I saw the hurt all over his face, because he knew what I said was true.

We were both fucked.

“Jared?”

I shot my eyes up, and Jared jerked his head around, both of us seeing Tate take a slow, single step into the kitchen.

I closed my eyes, letting out a quiet sigh.

Shit.

Tears had welled up in her storm-blue eyes, and Jared and I both knew she’d heard everything.

“Is that true?” she asked, her voice cracking. “Are you unhappy?”

Jared dropped his head, looking away from her as the muscles in his jaw flexed. “Get the fuck out of here,” he said through gritted teeth, and I knew he was talking to me. “I’m going to put you through a fucking wall. Get out.”

He wasn’t lying. And I deserved it.

I grabbed my shirt off the kitchen chair and left the house.

I had no right to judge my brother. Maybe he hated going to school, maybe he hated the military, but maybe Tate was his dream, and for her, he’d put up with anything because she was his happiness.

I’d felt like shit, and I’d wanted him to feel it, too.

When did I start hating everyone?

I drove the quiet streets, still desolate at seven thirty in the morning, as I thought about how screwed up my life had gotten in the past few weeks. The routine that I loved had lost its luster, and I’d be happy if I never looked at a fucking computer again.

Pulling a sharp right, I barreled into the school parking lot with only one thought in mind. To run myself to exhaustion around the track.

But as I pulled into a space, I slammed on the brakes, seeing Liam’s Camaro parked next to the janitor’s truck.

The janitor opened the school every morning at six thirty. What the hell was Liam doing here?

I threw open the door and climbed out, slipping on my black T-shirt before slamming the door and jamming up the steps.

Heading straight for the stairs, I climbed up to the second floor and headed for the chem lab.

Juliet wouldn’t be here this early, but I still needed to make sure. My running shoes squeaked on the marble floor, but I heard his voice before I even reached the room.

“I loved you,” he said, sounding pained. “I still love you.”

I slowed, coming to a stop outside the door.

“I just never felt like you wanted me. Not really,” he continued. “I was an asshole. I know that, but”—he paused, and I could hear his heavy breathing—“baby, I just hate seeing you with him.”

I heard a chair scrape on the floor, and Juliet sounded stern. “You cheated on me. Twice,” she pointed out, sounding out of patience. “You’re cheating on what’s her name right now by coming here. I have no doubt that I’m partly to blame for our relationship failing, but you’re an incredible piece of work. Don’t call me and don’t try to see me again.”

A slight grin lifted my lips.

“Now, just go,” Juliet said, sounding exasperated.

“Baby,” he breathed out, and I heard shuffling.

“Liam!” she cried. “No!”

I charged in, but I immediately stopped.

Liam was hunched over, holding the side of his face, and Juliet looked down on him, spitting fire with her eyes. She’d hit him.

“Let’s pretend,” she growled at him, “that we’re in a parallel dimension where you have a brain. Nod if you know what’s going to happen to you if you ever touch me again.”

He scowled up at her, looking utterly humiliated, and then both of their eyes turned to me. Juliet blinked but looked back down at him, putting her hands on her hips, while Liam straightened and rubbed his cheek.

“Why am I even surprised?” he said, sneering, walking for the door. “You let me in your pants so quickly, I guess you didn’t make him wait long, either.”

I reached out and grabbed his collar, wanting his sleazy ass far away from her. I didn’t even want him in her memories.

“Jax!” Juliet commanded, and I held him up to my face.

I looked into Liam’s angry but scared blue eyes, and I whispered, “You touch her again, and you won’t have to worry about what she’ll do to you.” And I shoved him out the door, watching him stumble into the hallway.

“Why are you here?” Juliet demanded behind me. “You’re no better than him. You can get out, too.”

I shook my head, knowing she was right, but I was still cemented to the floor. “No,” I replied.

“Jax, what the hell do you want from me?” she yelled.

I turned around and rushed her. “This.” And I pulled her warm body against mine and sank my lips into hers, tasting her sweet tongue.

She pushed her fists into my chest and pulled away from my mouth. “Get off me,” she ordered. “Why don’t you go find that girl you liked so much? She lets you do anything, doesn’t she?”

Her angry lips and hot breath called me in, and I grabbed the back of her neck, holding her to me.

“I haven’t had any other girls since you,” I whispered. “And I don’t want anyone else,” I breathed against her mouth. “I just want you because it’s the only time I know I’m exactly where I want to be, Juliet.”

She tore her face away, tears running down her cheeks. “No.”

“You feel it, too,” I pressed, making her listen. “I don’t want you on my arm.” I jerked her into me. “And I don’t want you to love me. Just come when I call, and get in my bed when I say.”

Her lips trembled, and her breath shook as she tried to pry her body away from mine.

“And it’ll be only you,” I promised, my throat tight. “You’re the only one I want.”

I covered her mouth with mine, drowning out her whimpers and begging her with my body. My hands gripped her ass, pushing her into the edge of the desk, and I kissed her fast and hard. The salt of her sweat hit my tongue.

I pulled back, seeing her scared eyes looking up at me, but I didn’t hesitate. Reaching behind her, I swiped my arm over the desktop, sending all of Penley’s shit flying to the floor, and then I hoisted her up, claiming her mouth again.

“Say it,” I demanded. I needed to hear the words.

But she simply pulled back and lifted my shirt over my head, throwing it to the floor.

I breathed hard, seeing the heat in her eyes, and tore open the buttons on my shorts as she undid the buttons of her shirt.

My cock sprang free, the pressure of needing her fucking body making me ache. I was swelled and hard, and she was doing this to me.

I bit her bottom lip, ready to fucking eat her as I hooked her under her knees and yanked her down to the end of the desk. Grabbing hold of her thong under her skirt, I ripped it clean from her wet, hot skin.

“Whenever I call. Whenever I fucking say,” I ordered.

And I drove inside her.

“Ah,” she whimpered, holding my neck.

“Goddamn it,” I groaned. “So fucking good.”

Leaning over her and grasping the back of her neck, I pumped my hips, sinking into her up to the hilt.

Her pussy tightened around me, holding me strong as I slid back and forth, faster and faster.

The small, hot bursts of her breath quaked against my neck, and I threaded my fingers through her hair, holding her there.

Right there against me—I closed my eyes—where I could feel every shake, moan, and beat of her heart.

And when her nails dug into my arms and she started crying out, I squeezed her body tight, barely noticing that she’d sunk her teeth into the bottom of my neck.

“Harder,” I begged, still holding her by her hair and pressing her head into my skin.

She bit harder, her teeth trying to close around my skin, and I absorbed every moan and whimper coming out of her sweet mouth as she tried to keep herself quiet.

“Say it,” I demanded. “I need to hear it.”

She let her head fall back as she looked up at me and whispered, “Damn, baby, that feels good. I love you inside me.”

I narrowed my eyes, hardening my tone. “Say it,” I bit out.

“Mmm … ,” she moaned, closing her eyes. “I’ll be your good little slut. I promise.”

What the fuck?

What was she doing? Why was she making it dirty?

I pulled out of her, spun her around, and lifted her skirt.

“You know what I want to hear, Juliet,” I insisted, sliding back into her again. “Fucking say it!”

She pushed up on her hands, taking what I gave her as I gripped her hip with one hand and wrapped the other around the front of her neck, breathing into her skin. “Yeah, fuck me harder,” she begged. “Is that it, baby? Am I good? Am I tight enough for you?”

My eyes burned, and I closed them, feeling my stomach roll. “Don’t,” I whispered into her neck. “Don’t talk like that. It’s not you,” I said. “You know what I want hear. Three words. Please,” I pleaded.

My chest shook, she felt so good, but this wasn’t what I wanted. Not like this.

I wanted my Juliet.

Her head fell back softly against my shoulder, and I felt her breath on my skin. “You want to hear it?” she whispered.

A drop of sweat glided down my back, and I kissed her neck, feeling relief. “Yes.”

She turned her head, her breath falling over my face, and she murmured, “I love you.”

I snapped my eyes open.

“No,” I said low, thrusting harder.

“I love you, Jax,” she said sadly. “I love you so much.”

“Stop it.”

“I love you.” She dropped her head forward, crying softly. “I love you.”

I slowed my hips, coming to a stop as the muscles in my back tensed. I squeezed my eyes shut, a tear hanging at the corner.

“Baby, don’t do this,” I mourned.

“I love you,” she repeated, shaking her head and crying. “Only. Ever. You.”

I dropped my head and slowly stepped back, too ashamed to look at her. Why would she love me? I would never hold her above myself. I would never put her first. She deserved a man, not a scared kid in disguise.

I stared at the floor, anguish boiling under the surface of my skin as I blindly fastened my shorts and backed far away from her.

She straightened her back and turned around, her arms hanging limp at her side, but her shoulders squared and her stance strong. She was looking at me, but my eyes shifted, unable to reach her face.

Her pleated white skirt fell to her knees, and her white flats were planted on the floor, everything as still as a statue. Her sleeveless blue blouse hung off her arms in a mess, but her white bra sat against beautiful tanned skin that glistened with sweat.

That was my girl. Mine. And she was waiting for me to do something or say something, to be a man, and I couldn’t fucking find the balls to take her back.

I heard her swallow, the room was so silent, and I just stood there as she quietly buttoned up her blouse, tucked it in, and walked out of the room.

I ran my hand through my hair and for the first time in my life, I actually wanted to get drunk. I’d never sought escape like that.

I headed for the door, bending over to swipe up my T-shirt and throw it on as I made my way out of the building.

Home. I’d go home, get obliterated, and check out, because I had no fucking clue what I was going to do without her or what my next move was.

Climbing into the car, I twisted my fist around the steering wheel and slammed the door, thankful that the parking lot was still empty. Very few people ever saw me mad, and I liked it that way. It’s hard to anticipate what you don’t understand, and I liked to keep myself in check. Most of the time.

I turned the ignition and blasted the stereo, the car vibrating under me. I shifted into reverse and checked the rearview mirror.

And stopped.

I narrowed my eyes, seeing her marks on my neck—her bite marks.

I reached up, running my fingers over the deep abrasions, feeling the dips where her teeth and mouth had been. She hadn’t broken the skin, but it was bruised red and purple.

And I wanted to smile.

She’d bitten me.

My gutless, helpless wallflower was wild, after all.

Someday when she’d moved on, and she’d found another guy, I would be able to look at her and remember that she was almost mine.

I would be able to remember that while he slept with her every night, I had had her soft body—sweating and needy—in my arms, looking at me as if I were her angel.

I would remember that she loved me once.

I drove to the Black Debs shop and walked in the door, pulling off my shirt immediately. Sitting down in Aura’s empty chair, I waited for her to come over from her desk with her hands on her hips as Jay Gordon’s “Slept So Long” played in the background.

“Do you know what an appointment is?” she snarled. “Jared makes appointments.”

I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees as I cocked my head, indicating the bite mark. “Tattoo it,” I said.

She pushed my head to the left and inspected the mark up close. Standing up, she looked at me as if I were crazy.

“You sure?” she asked, her lip arching up.

I nodded. “I want to remember.”