Justifying Jamie (Reason to Ruin Book 1), page 15
“Nice pun.”
She shrugs. “I try.”
“And one more thing. You’re not a crybaby. I did and said some really shitty things to you, and you’re allowed to be upset about that. And you’re pregnant. Your emotions are all over the place, so I don’t want you to think you need to hide how you’re feeling from me, okay?”
“When did you become so rational?”
I laugh. “Baby, nothing I feel about you is rational.” I brush the pad of my thumb over the apple of her cheek. “Why don’t you go take a shower, and we’ll order some food. Now that you’ve got a nap in, we need to talk.”
Her lids flutter, and I bring both hands up to hold her scared face. “We’ll figure it out. Trust me.” The heat that was in her eyes vanishes and punches me in the gut. “I’ll make it up to you. I swear. I’ll make you trust me again.”
After a few long minutes of her deciding whether she believes me or thinks I’m a piece of shit, she whispers, “Okay.”
I breathe a sigh of relief that I don’t deserve, and kiss her forehead. Then her nose. And finally her soft, warm lips. God, I missed her, missed this. It doesn’t matter that we only shared one night because all it took was one glance to know she was my forever. I knew it then, and I know it now.
We just have some bumps to get over. Speaking of. I bring my hand to her belly. “You’re beautiful pregnant.” She opens her mouth to speak, but I shush her. “Just that. Just know that you always were and will always be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Just then, her stomach growls, and she giggles. God, I love that sound. “And apparently hungry, too.”
“I am. I haven’t eaten a lot today. My nerves were all messed up.”
“What sounds good? I’ll order it while you take a shower.” I see a flash of disappointment, and I wonder if it’s because she wanted me to join her. Of course I want to, but for lack of a better term and admittedly sounding like a bitch, I’m not ready. I don’t know that I can make love to her with another man’s baby in her stomach. I can forgive the mistake with the number—it’s already forgotten—and I know I’ll get to the point where the fact that she slept with Kolby isn’t a factor as long as I don’t have to look at him on a daily basis. But the baby… it’ll take some time.
“I normally don’t like it, but since I’ve been pregnant… I’ve craved Chinese.”
I help her out of bed and bend down to kiss the top of her head. “Whatever you want.”
Her face falls for a millisecond. “I have menus and stuff in the kitchen. Let’s go order, then I’ll take a shower.”
We head to the kitchen where she grabs a bottle of water out of the fridge. She takes a long drink, then hands it to me before retrieving the menu. After a few minutes, she decides on the sweet and sour chicken and beef and broccoli. And she wants egg rolls and cream cheese wantons. And egg drop soup. I place the order and have to raise my arm in the air while I read off my credit card info since she tried ripping it from my hand so she could pay. As soon as I hang up, she puts her hand on her hips. “Why do you have to be so tall?”
“Why do you have to be so short?”
“I’m not short, I’m petite.”
I smile, widening my stance and fitting her body between my legs. I place my hands on her hips and pull her as close as I can. “You’re both of those things, but you’re also insane if you think I’d ever let you pay for anything, let alone a meal while I’m around.” I pat her backside that’s only gotten juicier since I last saw her. “Go shower.”
She scrunches her nose at me but goes down the hall without protest. The water echoes in the quiet little apartment, and I dig through her fridge for a beer. Instead of sitting on the couch waiting, I check out her place, sipping a Miller Lite and looking at her DVD collection. She has the movies alphabetized, and I quirk my lips at how cute she is. I’m also surprised she has a huge flat screen, fucker’s almost bigger than mine.
There’s a wall with photos on it, and I start to head in that direction when there’s a knock on the door. I set the beer down on the kitchen table and open the door for the Chinese delivery. A man, but not one delivering food, stands in front of me, appearing confused and nearly frantic. “Can I help you?” I ask, crossing my arms.
“Where’s Mercy?”
“Who the fuck are you?” I find myself already in total protective mode defending my territory and guarding my mate. Refusing to let anything touch her.
He pulls his head back. “I’m her fiancé.”
I have to lift my chin off the floor and have him repeat it because I know I didn’t hear him right. “Excuse me? Her motherfuckin’ what?”
“Where is she? Are you the asshole who got her pregnant?”
“No, I’m a different asshole.” He tries to step in, but I put my hands on his chest and shove him back. “Not happening, bud.” I don’t know the story, but I will after I get rid of this guy. I do know he’s not getting in here, not getting close to her, he’s not fucking up what I just got back with her. Nobody is.
“Let me through. Where is she? Mercy!” He bellows her name, and I’m about to slam the door in his face when she steps up behind me, wet hair and a pink towel around her curvy body.
“Chad.” Her voice is laced with surprise as she stands next to me, leaning her weight into me. Picking me. Choosing me over him. I wrap an arm around her waist, palming her hip and holding her close.
His angry eyes go from my hand to the bump in her stomach. “Who is this guy?” he asks her.
“Who I am isn’t any of your business.”
He steps up to me, and I gently push her away because if things keep going, we’re gonna have some blood shed, which is fine with me. I could use something to get all of the aggression out.
This guy leans closer to me. “It is when she’s going to be my wife.”
I hear her gasp without looking away from him, I ask her, “You gonna marry this guy?”
“I was,” she confesses, and I grind my teeth together so hard I feel my filling crack. Of course. What, did I think a woman like her wouldn’t get snatched up? I knew it was a possibility, but since I never moved on, I was hoping it’d have been the same for her, but nope. She had no fucking problem starting over without me while I was a loser who hung on to the broken promise of a one-night stand for years.
“Are. You. Still?” I grit.
Her head shakes, water droplets falling down to her clavicle. “No.” And as much as her word means shit to me, I hear the truth in her voice. She doesn’t want him, not anymore.
“I wanna know if that’s my baby,” he yells, and I go on alert as she freezes.
“How dare you?” she whispers.
“It’s not too farfetched to think it could be mine, Merc. How do you know it’s not?”
I straighten to my full height, fists clenching and nostrils flaring. “Shut your fuckin’ mouth.”
“It’s not yours, Chad. We hadn’t had sex for months. There’s no way it’s yours.”
I let the knowledge that he had her in his bed and didn’t take care of her flow through me. What an idiot. How can you have her… her with all her beauty and grace and humor and killer body next to you and not pleasure it?
He doesn’t like that answer, probably because he knows what an idiot he is, and starts to charge inside. “We need to talk,” he demands, and I’ve finally had enough and shove him back into the hallway, then slam the door instead of following him out and pounding his face in because what I really want to do would upset her right now, and she doesn’t need any more stress. Chest heaving, I lean against the door and ignore his pounding and screaming her name. She stares at me, lips parted, cheeks pink, pulse thrumming in her neck.
The steam from her shower followed her into the kitchen, because the air is thick and hot, and until he stops, and I hear his footsteps fading away, I can hardly catch my breath. “Explain.”
“I… he was there for me when everything happened with my mom, and it was… I never loved him, not in that way, and I agreed to marry him, but he called it off three weeks before the wedding about six months ago because he knew that I… he wasn’t the one for me.”
My nostrils flare. “If he wouldn’t have called it off, would you have married him?” When she doesn’t answer, I know the answer. I pace as the knowledge fucks with my head. “You’re good,” I whisper cynically. “Really good.”
“No!” she screams and reaches for me when I turn the doorknob. “No, I thought you didn’t want me. You didn’t call, I was… I wasn’t with him because I loved him the way I loved you, I-”
“But you loved him?”
Her hand trembles over mine. “Do you want the truth, or do you want me to sugarcoat it?” she asks, throwing my own words back at me.
“Truth,” I grunt.
“I didn’t love him. Not really… but in a way.”
“What way is that?”
“Like a friend.”
Jealousy, that irrational green doesn’t tint my vision, it blinds me, and I step into the little space she left between us, my pelvis rubbing against her belly. “A friend who makes you drip? A friend who can touch your pretty little pussy and have you screaming in a matter of minutes? That kind of friend?”
A pained sound comes out of her mouth as she shakes her head and backs up, walking until her thighs hit her couch and she falls back onto the cushions. I let her have her space. “He wasn’t you. That’s why he left me; he knew I wasn’t in love with him.”
“But you would have married him.”
“Yes.”
“Would you have divorced him if you saw me again?”
Her brows draw together. “Why are you doing this? You’re the one who asked me to finish off a blowjob some skank was giving you. And since we’re on the subject, how many more of them were there, Jamie? Huh? How long did it take before you replaced me with one of your groupies?”
“You left me the wrong fucking number.”
“On accident, it was an accident. You insulting me like that was degrading and embarrassing and intentional. I might have pretended with someone else, but it was just one guy. Just one.”
I shake my head and then point at her belly. “You forgot someone.”
Mercy
“But I never forgot you.” I beg him with my eyes, pleading for him to see the truth. To see me. “Even when I should have, I didn’t. I don’t get why… I didn’t understand it, and he was simply there, Jamie. He wasn’t the person I thought about when I closed my eyes at night. He wasn’t the one I thought about when I climaxed,” I admit embarrassingly. “All this time, I thought I was hung up on the what-ifs with you, and that’s why I could never forget, but God… when you touch me, when you look at me, I feel it in my bones.”
The sharp lines of his face soften, and he steps closer. “I do too.”
“I don’t want to fight with you anymore.”
He nods and continues toward me. “What do you want?”
“To focus on this baby. To get to know you. To try to come through this season of my life with some type of dignity and not hate what I see when I look into the mirror.”
His hands seize my face, calloused fingers grazing the apple of my cheek. “How can you hate all of this beauty?”
I reach up, the towel cascading off my body, but his eyes don’t leave mine.
“I hurt a good man and have to live with that for the rest of my life.”
“No.” He grunts. “You’ll be with me the rest of your life; he will not factor.”
I want to believe him… so badly I want to. But it’s too much. Too soon. “Don’t,” I plead. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
His grip tightens, and he tilts my head back. The angle elongates my neck, and I watch his eyes turn to fire as they trail down to my collarbone and back up. “I’d have kept the promises I made three years ago, gorgeous.”
He would have. I believe that down in the bottom of my soul. “I know.”
“Good.”
“I would have, too.”
“I know.”
I’m naked, in front of him, and he’s doing nothing but talking. Listening. And I want to show him how much it means to me. I reach for his belt buckle.
“Mercy, baby.” He grabs my hair and yanks my head back. “You don’t have to do that.”
I pant, desperate to taste him again, hot desire courses through me. “I want to.”
My fingers fumble with his zipper, and once it’s open, I tug on his jeans. They fall to his thighs, and I reach inside his black boxer briefs and attack his hard cock. “Fuck.” He hisses when my lips pull, suction drawing pre-cum out of the tip. “Jesus.” I grip the base and stroke, my desire to start gentle vanishes, and I squeeze. He groans, and when I tilt my eyes up to see his face, all that’s in my view is the underside of his scruffy jaw.
I moan at the flavor of him when it hits my tongue. Salty and sweet at the same time. I cup his balls, and his hands in my hair tighten. “Mercy,” he warns already. “You’ve gotta slow the fuck down unless you want me comin’ down your throat.”
I want that. I so want that. I want to make him lose control, but not yet. So I pull back. His grip just barely loosens, and I lick the mushroom tip like a popsicle. My tongue swirls and flicks at the notch, and he pushes his hips up, forcing his shaft into my mouth. If he wanted to, he could fuck my mouth and take what he wanted, but he’s letting me give him what I need to. His thighs are straining and the muscles in his neck are corded.
My fist tightens, and I look up this time to find his eyes blazing on me. “I thought you wanted me to slow down.”
“I did.” He pushes my head down. “But I lied. Use that pretty little mouth and wring me dry.”
I bring my lips to the tip and begin to spread them around the crown, when I have a moment of doubt. When I feel like the words he’s saying to me aren’t anything special. He must sense the shift in my mood because he cups my jaw and lifts my head, his dick falling out of my mouth with a soft pop.
“You know it’s only you, and if you can’t feel it, if you don’t believe it deep down, then listen to me. Trust me. It was always you. You were who I thought about, you were the only one who I ever gave myself to in the ways that count, and you are the only one who has ever mattered. I promise you that, Mercy. Swear. Cross my heart and hope to die, I swear it’s only been you in any and every way that means anything.” I swallow, fighting the declaration from him and what my brain is telling me. “You don’t have to do this. We don’t have to go there yet. I’m happy just being with you. Knowing your name. Seeing your eyes. It’s all I need.”
“I need you, Jamie. All of you.”
He rubs his thumbs across my cheekbones and he bends down to lift me off the couch when the doorbell rings. I giggle when he drops me back down, pulls up his pants, and waddles to the door. After he gets our food, he drops it on the table. “We’ll eat later.” Then he rushes to me and lifts me up again, and then carries me to my bed. Then gives me what I need. I finish what I started. And then… then he gives me what I didn’t know I needed. His fingers and his mouth give me everything.
An hour later, he lies on his back and looks at my ceiling, his shoulders shake and he turns his head towards me. “Why do you have glow in the dark stars stuck to your ceiling?”
My breath expels, and I don’t want to tell him, but I don’t want to lie either. “Chad put them there.”
The humor that was in his voice disappears. “Why?”
I shrug.
“Why?”
“I was complaining one night that being in the city ruined the stars at night, so he wanted me to have stars to wish upon.”
I hear him swallow and he rolls all the way to his side. “Did you ever make any wishes?”
“Yes.” I roll to him, too.
“What do you wish for?”
“One of them already came true.”
He traces my jaw with his finger and wraps me up, pulling me to him as best we can fit in this position. My face is tucked into his throat and his chin rests on the top of my head. “What wishes haven’t come true yet, gorgeous?”
I smile against him. “If I tell you, they’ll never come true.”
“I’ll make ’em,” he vows, the certainty in the deep vibrations of his voice is almost my undoing.
God, he’s so damn sweet. “Some wishes are out of your hands, honey.”
“Nah.” He squeezes me gently, his calloused fingers digging into my skin, taking ownership of my body and claiming my heart. “All of mine are in my arms right now.”
I should melt at that. My heart should soar, but instead, I feel a tingling in my throat, and I sit up. He follows me with confused eyes. “You need to leave.”
He bends at the waist. “Excuse me?”
“Just for a couple days. I… I need to get my head sorted, Jamie. I can’t get caught up in you again. I need to think. I need to plan my future. I want you in it, but you’re not the only one.” He watches as I rub my stomach. “I can’t tell you how much I want you or how desperately I want things to just fall into place, but—”
“I get it.”
My lips snap closed. “You do?”
“Yeah. I don’t like it, but I get it.” He sifts his fingers through my hair and wraps them around the back of my head. “Kiss me then walk me out so you can lock up after me.”
I lean into him, but I don’t kiss him. I hold his eyes and rest my forehead on his. “I’m sorry I left you the wrong number.”
“I’m sorry I was such a dick I didn’t let you explain.”
“That’s also something I need to come to terms with, Jamie. That the reason for us not being together was my fault. After that night…” He tries to talk over me, but I don’t let him. “It was my fault. It wasn’t intentional, but nevertheless, it was a mistake I made, and I blamed you for far too long.”
“Blame me.”
I lick my lips and we’re so close, the tip of my tongue touches the corner of his mouth. “What?”
His eyes shift in hues from emerald to hunter. “Be pissed at me. Let me shoulder it.”
