Page 17 of Kings Don't Break

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“Something bothering you, babe? How can I fix it?” Janessa coos, kissing her way down my chest. Her hand finds my dick and starts stroking me. “How about you relax and let me take over? I’ll have you forgetting your troubles in no time.”

We’re lying in her bed, minutes after midnight. We spent most of the evening messing around. First in her living room, then again after we ordered takeout from the Chinese spot that delivers. I fucked Janessa so hard, we knocked over the half-eaten containers on the coffee table. It’s been on and off for hours.

But as the heater in her bedroom kicks out lukewarm air and she tries to start up another round, I’m checked out. The sex was good enough. Janessa’s sexy and playful; she’d have any guy hard as hell in seconds.

This would be the case for me if I weren’t distracted.

If my mind weren’t on one thing and one thing only.

Earlier, on the side of the road, I’d seen Korine McKibbens for the first time in a decade.

It’s a shock to the system. She’s the last person I imagined I’d run into, even if she’s also the person I’ve missed the most.

Most people born in Pulsboro live and die here. They attend the local colleges and then become the adults and pillars of the community their parents and grandparents before them once were. It’s a long generational lineage through the decades.

The few that do leave, rarely, if ever, return. The ones that go cold turkey on Pulsboro—cut everybody from town out of their lives without a word—are almost always gone for good.

Korine barely said so much as goodbye before she left.

It’s been assumed she’d want nothing to do with Pulsboro for the rest of her life.

She’s married.

That piece of information spins inside my head. It’s one of the most distracting aspects of our run-in. Korine McKibbens—what the hell is her married name, anyway?—is forever off-the-market. She’s a taken woman. Even worse than a boyfriend and a fucking fiancé.

She’s got a husband.

Laying in Janessa’s bed among the wrinkled sheets that smell of sex, I begin to imagine what he’s like. Tension gathers in my jaw, and I glare up at the ceiling. Janessa’s busy stroking my dick and kissing me all over. I barely register her touch, too focused on Korine and the man who put a ring on her finger.

I bet he’s tall. Athletic. She always liked a guy that was physical and good with his hands. He’s probably got some lucrative career if they’ve bought a house. There was a brand-new men’s three-piece suit in the backseat of her car.

The image of some prick with a spotless suit and a neat part in his hair materializes in my mind.

Does he make her happy? Does he make her laugh? Does he have her trembling with pleasure the way I used to make her?—

I cut the bitter thought off midway through. It’s not appropriate. She’s a married woman, and that should be respected.

It doesn’t matter what I think or how I feel, because she chose him. He’s the man she wanted. End of story.

That’s what I tell myself anyway, despite my feelings to the contrary.

“Mmm, babe, touch me,” Janessa purrs. Her wild chocolate mane cascades over her shoulders as she moves. She’s climbed on top of me, rocking her hips. The heat of her pussy rubs against my dick and should turn me on.

I barely respond, my gaze above her on the ceiling and my mind miles away.

She grabs my hands and places them on her breasts. Her hips rock faster and faster in her attempt to turn me on and make me hard. As soon as she takes her hands off mine, expecting me to grope and knead her breasts, I’m dropping my arms to my side.

It doesn’t even register how rude and neglectful it must come across.

“Babe,” she pleads, bending forward to kiss my lips. “Babe, don’t you want me?”

“Korine—”

The name tumbles out of my mouth when I don’t mean for it to—the disconnect between my brain and the rest of me never more real than in this moment.

“Korine?!” Janessa screeches, freezing her efforts. She shoves her hands at my face. “Who the fuck’s Korine?!?”