Page 32

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

JESSIE

“ T ara not home?” I ask, scoping the place out when we walk in. A single floor lamp is lit in the corner.

She shakes her head, pulling off her jacket and boots, and I do the same with my coat and sneakers.

“No, but she will be soon.” She turns to me, uncertainty in her eyes. “Wouldn’t matter anyway. She knows.”

I throw my coat over one of the barstools, it’s pointless hiding my stuff in Mia’s room. “You told her?”

Standing in the center of her living space, looking like everything I want, she twists her hands around in front of her. “I, um … I got a bit upset today in class, and with that and my mysterious disappearances, she kind of demanded to know. She had given me an alibi when my dad started questioning where I was the first night I stayed at your place, so I felt like she wouldn’t say anything. I should’ve checked with you before I told her, I know. Just with Saturday night and your dad and everything, it all got a bit too much, and I blurted it out.”

I make my way over and rub my palms up and down her arms. “If you trust her, then so do I. You have nothing to be sorry for. We both know your dad has to find out. It just needs to be at the right time.”

She presses her lips together and takes a seat on the couch. Holding one of my hands in hers, she pulls me down next to her. “We need to talk about the right time to approach my dad, but I’m not ready yet.”

Releasing her hand, I pick her up so she’s sitting across my knees, and she wraps her arms around my neck. “When you give the go-ahead, we’ll tell him together. Preferably in public so there are witnesses.” I chuckle before bringing my mouth to her lips.

I have no idea how long we make out for like that. Ten, maybe twenty minutes? Not long enough.

I break the kiss and rest my forehead against hers, our breathing heavy and mingling. “I came here tonight to tell you everything. To lay it all down for you, Mia. I want you to know everything about me, about my past. Zero secrets. Some of the things my dad did to me and my mom are pretty bad. But I want you to have it all before you decide whether you truly want this with me, with us.”

Bringing her hands to the sides of my face, she cups my head between her palms. “There’s nothing you can tell me that would ever make me want you less. There’s nothing in your past that will ever make me love you less, Jessie Callaghan. There never has been.”

By the time I squeeze my eyes shut, the tears have already started to fall down my cheeks, and my hands begin to tremble. “I’ve never told anyone before. Not all of it.”

“I know, Jessie. Take your time.”

Picking her up off the couch, I walk us through to her room and kick the door shut behind us.

After I lay Mia on the single bed, I peel off her jeans and then pull her black T-shirt overhead, leaving her in only her underwear.

When I reach behind my head and pull off my hoodie and shirt in one go, I watch as Mia’s eyes fall to my chest, slowly traveling to the deep V protruding above my sweatpants.

Crawling over her body, I pull the duvet up and around my shoulders, forming a cocoon around us.

I swallow back the nausea as I will my brain to do something it never truly has.

Remember.

“When you came over to Kate and Jensen’s, you asked me if I was an only child. I told you I was because I didn’t know what to say. Jensen and the group know I had a brother who died, but I knew if I told you, then I’d want to tell you about his death and how it affected my mom. The trouble is, I’ve never been ready to talk about Will. I’ve never been ready to say it all out loud. I didn’t want you to see me as the broken boy with so much sadness in his life. Because you make me anything but sad, Mia.”

“I don’t see you as a broken boy, Jessie. I see you as a phenomenal person who makes me happy.”

I close my eyes, letting her words wash over me as I prepare to share my past for the first time. “Mom went into spontaneous labor, and Will was born twenty minutes after she delivered me. We were twenty-six weeks.” I blow out a shaky breath and focus on Mia beneath me. “At that many weeks old, we both needed neonatal care. But Will was smaller and weaker than me. He needed more help with breathing.”

Reaching out, Mia runs a gentle hand through my hair, encouraging me to keep going.

“I haven’t had many chances to speak to my mom about what happened to Will, but on the few occasions I have, she told me that after a couple of days, I was strong enough to come home, so she and Dad brought me back to the house.”

I swallow hard, but the lump in my throat won’t shift; it feels like I’m choking, and I know it’s on painful memories. “He, um … he died that night. Mom said it was an infection that took him. But they never made it back to the hospital in time. I’d spent all night crying and wailing. Mom couldn’t settle me; she said it was like I knew something wasn’t right. They say that twins, you know, even as newborns, we instinctively feel what the other one is experiencing.”

I drop my forehead to her shoulder, dampness coating her skin. “He was so damn small, Mia. One day when I was around ten years old, I found the ID band that the doctors had put around his ankle.”

I fight to inflate my lungs, but each time I try, it feels like the vise fastened around them tightens. “I don’t know all that happened after Will’s death since I was a baby too. Mom was always a heavy drinker, but as the years went on and I got older, she spiraled out of control. She blamed herself for Will’s death. Grief tore her apart, but alcohol never gave her a chance to heal.”

“And your dad, he blames you, right?”

Picking my head back up, I shift a piece of loose hair from her face. “Dad has always been an asshole. My mom’s parents hated him from the second they met them until the day they died. I was young when Papa took his last breath. Papa had been my rock and the only member of my family who believed in me and my hockey career. They never knew the horrors of what went on behind closed doors, but they never trusted Dad either.”

Mia kisses the tip of my nose, letting me know she’s here and listening.

“My dad told me I was the reason Will was so small, I was the reason he was too weak to survive, and I was the reason they never got to say goodbye. Funny thing is, I don’t think he really cares all that much about Will; he just uses his death as a reason to be cruel and hate on me.”

“I just can’t understand how someone can hate like that, especially their own flesh and blood,” Mia whispers.

I run my trembling lips over hers. “Those are answers I’ll never be able to give you, Sweetheart. Because I’m nothing like him. I’m nothing like the person your dad thinks I am. Turning into him has never been my fear. Becoming my mom has. Every time I have a drink, I know I’m sinking further into her mold. Watching her destroy herself broke me. My dad beat me every night; he beat her too. But the bruises you see from him are just surface-level wounds.”

Picking up her hand, I place both of ours over the dove that decorates my heart. “The true bleeding is in here. It bleeds for my mom; it bleeds for my brother. But it keeps beating for you.”

“I love you, Jessie.”

“Even when you thought I was shutting you out of my life and running away from you, you were saving me. You saved me, Mia. You did back then, and you do every day now.”

“I just believed in you, Jessie. You are the reason you’re standing here today. Never take that away from yourself. It takes incredible strength to keep going against all the odds, and it takes even more courage to know when to ask for help. Thank you for trusting me.”

The golden fleck in her eye shines in the soft lighting of her side lamp, and the urge to bury myself deep inside my girlfriend, along with my darkest memories, hits me square on.

I sit back on my heels, threading my fingers through hers, and she sits up with me, the duvet still wrapped around us.

When my hands find the clasp on her red bra, she looks up at me. “Can I ask you one more question?”

“Anything,” I reply, releasing the clasp and her stunning tits.

“When you joined the Scorpions, your number was ninety-eight. Then, the next season, it was forty-four. No one ever really knew why you’d changed it.”

She noticed.

I lay her back down and bring one of her nipples to my lips, swirling my tongue around it until it peaks in my mouth. She groans at the pleasure, and the sound pumps blood straight to my dick. With a single hand, I push down my pants to free myself.

“When things got really tough for me mentally, Coach Burrows and the GM asked me if there was anything they could do to help. And I asked if I could switch up my jersey number. Number ninety-eight had been allocated to me at the last minute, and I hated it from the start. Will was born at eight minutes past nine at night, and every time I look at that number, it triggered memories I couldn’t handle. It’s not normally something a team does, but I was granted special permission to change it.”

My hands fall to the waistband of her thong, and I pull her panties down and over her legs, tossing them on the floor alongside her bra.

Pushing myself down the bed, I dangle my feet over the end, spread her legs apart, and swipe my tongue through her soaking pussy. “Forty-four is an angel number. It also means tenacity, belief, and manifestation. You can have the life you truly want if you believe in it enough. I never stopped believing in us, Mia. I never stopped loving you. If I couldn’t put my name on your back, I’d wear our number.”

“Fuck me,” she pleads, and I feel the way her pussy contracts around my tongue as I push it into her. “Now. I need you inside me.”

I rise onto my knees above her, the only way I want to take her tonight is to be as deep as possible. “On your hands and knees for me, Mia.”

I watch as she does as I ask, her eyes never leaving mine as she turns around, her silky black hair falling over her shoulders.

“What do you want me to do now?” Her voice is full of need as I bring my palms to her ass and spread her wide, and she gasps at the sensation.

“Come all over my face,” I command, sucking her pussy into my mouth.

She drops her head into the pillows. “Oh my god.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re so damn ready for me,” I rasp against her, swiping my tongue over her entrance. The pressure building in my cock is virtually unbearable. “Let me drink you in, Mia. Come for me.”

Fisting the sheets beneath her, she struggles to stay in place as she unravels into my mouth for the first time, and I wrap an arm around her waist to hold her steady.

When I pierce her pussy with my tongue again and then rub my finger gently over her asshole, she jumps forward, turning over her shoulder. “That’s my?—”

“Ass?” I finish for her, swiping her release from my bottom lip with my tongue. “You like that?”

She nods, her cheeks flushing pink. “A lot.”

“Such a dirty girl. You want me to play with it some more?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Do you have any toys in here?” I ask, pointing at the single drawer in her nightstand.

A cheeky smile breaks over her face. “A vibrator.”

I pull the drawer open to see the pale pink wand sitting alone inside. Grabbing it, I click the button and start it on its lowest setting. “Do you use this and imagine it’s me buried inside you?”

“Yes, every time.”

My cock jolts at the image of my girlfriend getting herself off to thoughts of me fucking her. “But you never came with it?”

“Every time I got there, I’d get in my head and think you and I would never happen in real life. Then I’d lose it, and the pleasure would fade.”

Notching the toy at her entrance, I push it in only a centimeter, and I can tell by the way her cheeks flush that she’s already so close to coming again.

“Let me show you how to use this so when you’re in this bed on your own and I’m on some away series, fisting my cock to thoughts of you, we can both come together.”

Leaning over until my lips meet her neck, I push the vibrator inside until it’s fully seated. “The key is to take it nice and deep, Mia. Just like the way I fuck you. When you think you can’t take any more of my dick, your pussy always stretches.”

“It’s so deep,” she moans.

She turns her head so our lips meet, and we breathe into each other.

Pulling the vibrator out, I run it over her clit and then push back in quickly.

“Yes, right there, Jessie. Right there.”

When I hit the next setting on the vibrator, her head falls to the pillows.

“Come back up here,” I demand. “I’m not done with you yet, Sweetheart.”

I bring her mouth back to mine, running my tongue across her bottom lip, and she parts for me. Taking the kiss deeper, I push the vibrator in a little further until it hits a wall, and she moans into my throat.

I’d smile so fucking big right now if I didn’t want to kiss the shit out of her more.

“When you feel like you’re right there, I want you to tell me so I can give you what this pussy was meant for.”

I switch the vibrator to its highest setting, and Mia moans against me.

“I can feel how wet you are. You’re dripping down my hand, Sweetheart.”

“I’m right there. I’m gonna come. Shit, I’m gonna c?—”

Pulling the vibrator out quickly, I toss it to one side and line myself up to her pussy.

I close my eyes and will myself not to blow straight away when I push inside and feel how tight she is, how close she is to coming.

I look down at the connection between us and blow out a steadying breath. “You’ve got it all now, Mia. My heart, my head, my cock. Now let me give you my cum too.”

With my hands planted firmly on her hips, I rock into her, and she cries out. If Tara came home, there’s no way she can’t hear her roommate fucking right now.

Another pump, and her release coats my dick.

“Are you ready to come for me?”

Her head falls forward, and quickly, I reach out and wrap my hand around her hair, gently pulling her back up.

“Don’t collapse on me now, baby. Just give me one more on my dick, and then I’ll let you rest.”

For maybe an hour.

Mia squeezes around me so tight as a deep wail leaves her throat, and I have no doubt this is the hardest she’s ever come.

And that’s it. I’m gone, fucking done. I’m over the edge and never coming back as I spill everything I have inside her.

I fall to my hands on either side of her shoulders and kiss the back of her neck. “Un-fucking-real.”