Page 124 of When We Were Reckless
He ripped the helmet out of my hand, and it rolled onto the ground as his hands cupped my ass cheeks, giving them a rough squeeze and pulling me closer. I was barely breathing. The air felt charged tonight like the atoms had shifted and rearranged themselves. I could practically feel the heat crackling between us.
His hand moved to the back of my head, and he fisted my hair, yanking on it to expose the column of my neck. His lips sucked and bruised, earning him a low moan. God, the ground beneath my feet felt shaky, and my core clenched as his hand skimmed up my thigh, and he slid his fingers inside my panties.
“What have you done to me?” he rasped.
I grabbed his shoulders to steady myself. In the dark, his voice low and rough and his lips leaving their mark on my skin, his fingers gliding through my folds, this felt dangerous.
More forbidden than it ever had.
“What do you mean?” I panted as he thumbed my clit, setting off tiny explosions.
“That deal we made….” He tugged my lip between his teeth and sucked on it before releasing it. “You promised me that it was all you wanted, right?”
Oh God. My stomach sank. I was hoping to avoid this. I was hoping he’d never question me. “Right,” I whispered, praying that he’d just let it go.
“Were you telling the truth?” He slid two thick fingers inside me, and my knees buckled. He grabbed my backside to keep me from falling, his merciless fingers coaxing an orgasm out of me. “Were you being honest with me, Quinn? Was that all you wanted from me?”
I didn’t know how to answer the question. I’d been lying, of course. Foolishly holding out hope that if he spent enough time with me, he’d fall in love with me the same way I’d fallen for him. But if I told him the truth, if I admitted that I’d lied to him, he would feel like I’d betrayed him.
“It was all I wanted at the time.” Which wasn’t really a lie. A little white lie, maybe, but not a total lie.
He considered my response for a moment and withdrew his fingers. I let out a little whimper.
“And now? What do you want now?”
“This.” I moved his hand between my thighs again. “I want you to finish what you started.”
“That’s all you want? An orgasm? You want me to make your pussy clench around my fingers… is that what you want?”
Wordlessly, I nodded, not trusting my voice. I gasped when his fingers thrust inside me, reaching and curling, his thumb pressing my clit, and I buried my face against his neck as I came, breathing him in. My legs shook and held me up, so I wouldn’t fall at his feet. Small mercy.
It felt like I was crashing and falling. It was so unfair that he’d questioned me about my motives while simultaneously giving me an orgasm. Cruel yet kind. And as I knew, Jesse could be both. I watched him suck on his fingers like the taste of me was his favorite food.
Now he placed his hands on either side of my face and tipped up my chin, so I was forced to meet his eye. “So when I leave here… when I leaveyou, it won’t break your heart?”
Why was he asking it that way? What was he hoping to achieve? Did he want me to admit that I’d be brokenhearted? Was he looking for an ego boost? I didn’t know what to think. But it was the way he’d posed the question and the fact that he hadn’t told me anything about San Diego that gave me the strength to lie to him.
Lying shouldn’t be something to be proud of, but there was no way I could tell him the truth.
“I’ll miss you. It’s been a good ride. But my heart won’t be broken.” I was relieved that it was too dark for him to read my expression because he was still studying my face so intently that if we’d been in the light of day, he would have seen what I was hiding.
I love you. I love you. I love you. And my heart's already breaking. You don’t even have to be gone for that to happen.
“What if I said it didn’t have to be goodbye?” He skimmed his hands down my arms and clasped my hands in his. “What if I said we could keep doing this when we got out to California?”
It was so tempting to jump at the chance, but he meant that we could keep hooking up. That was all he was offering, and suddenly it didn’t feel like enough.
I swallowed hard and lowered my eyes so he couldn’t see the tears that had gathered there. I wouldn’t let them fall. Not yet.
“I’d say no,” I said finally, surprised that my voice sounded normal despite my inner turmoil.
Because this hurt. It hurt so much to say no. But I didn’t want to settle for so little. Not anymore. I wanted his everything, and he wasn’t prepared to give me that. Maybe he never would be.
Sometimes you have to know when to cut your losses. You had to know when it was time to let go of a girlhood fantasy. And as much as it killed me to deny him, that time had come. He’d never promised me more than this, so I had nobody to blame except myself.
He released me abruptly and straddled his bike. “Let’s go for a ride.”
Why did he sound angry?
