Page 65 of Call It What You Want
“I know, baby.” The pad of his thumb brushes across my lips. “But everything is going to be okay. I promise you, I’m going to fix it.”
I want to believe him. But how do you fix a shattered heart? How do you undo three years of pain? I’m not sure it’s even possible. And yet, as I look into his eyes, I wish I were delusional enough to believe it was…
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Jackson
It’s wild, this instinct I have to protect Ava. I’d love to say it’s because somewhere deep down, I’m a good guy. But I’m not. I’ve never been empathetic or altruistic. Even in high school, I went through girls as fast as they threw themselves at me. I never saw them as people with feelings, and I still don’t. They’re all faceless pawns that exist solely for my entertainment. And when I’m done, I’m fuckingdone.On to the next cheerleader, or model, or whatever the fuck…
Except for Ava.
And this is the thing—on paper, she wasn’t all that different from the rest. At seventeen, she was popular, flirty, eager to please me, and I’ve often wondered, what set her apart from the rest? How did she manage to reach inside my chest, wrap her fingers around my dead heart, and force it to beat again?
I’ve never found the answer, except that she’s always been authentically herself. She doesn’t chase trends, and she’s not afraid to have an opinion or tell me I’m being an asshole. And, damn, it’s rare to find someone so damn sure of themselves thatthey don’t give a fuck what I think. She’s always been a whole, independent person, and that’s hot as fuck.
What kills me is seeing that confidence fade.
“You’re so damn beautiful,” I whisper.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” she whispers back, her voice catching, just slightly. Enough for me to notice. But then again, I notice everything about this girl.
Finger hooked under her chin, I pull her face up, and lower my head to touch my lips to hers, testing her reaction. My cock is so hard, it’s fucking painful, and the only cure is to bury it deep inside her. Normally, I’d push her onto the bed, tell her to spread her legs, and take what I need. But today, what I need is different. Today, I need her to crave me the same way I crave her.
But first, there’s a bridge we need to cross.
Pulling back, I stand in front of her. She looks so damn delicate, swallowed up by my oversized bed, my T-shirt hanging loose on her smaller frame. She’s naked beneath that thin piece of fabric, and that thought alone makes my cock throb.
I flick my chin at her. “Take the shirt off.”
She hesitates, her chest rising and falling rapidly as her mind tries to formulate a response. Finally, she says, “I’d rather leave it on.”
Yeah, I bet. She’s hiding from me. She’s been hiding since the moment I pulled her into that van.
“That’s not an option,” I say, itching to yank the T-shirt right off her body. But I manage to hold myself back. Just barely. “Take it off.”
She flinches at the steel in my voice, scrambling back, across the bed. Fear flickers in her eyes, and rightfully so. My restraint has limits, and she’s close to the edge. She’s smart enough to know that.
After several long seconds, she finally pulls her knees up to her chest and removes the T-shirt, dropping it beside her on the bed. She hugs her legs tight, denying me what I’m really after.
I lift a brow, my jaw tight. “You can’t hide from me forever, Ava.”
She shrugs, her gaze darting away like the words hit too close. It’s almost cute how she pretends she’s got a choice. Like she hasn’t already been caught in something neither of us can walk away from. She still thinks she can outrun this thing between us. The obsession, the pull, the inevitable collapse…
“You know, three years ago, when you left—” I kick my shoes off, then start pulling off the rest of my clothes, dropping them in a pile next to me. “It killed me. For months—years, maybe—I was trapped under a wave of grief that held me under, and stripped away every last ounce of happiness I had.”
She’s not moving, just watching me strip down to nothing, trying to act like it’s no big deal, but I can see the interest flicker in her eyes. I can see it in the way she subtly straightens her spine and hugs her legs just a fraction tighter.
My socks are the last to go. Now I’m naked, standing in front of her, my cock swollen, pulsing, stretching toward her.
Her throat flicks, “I’m supposed to believe that? You have no heart, Jackson. We both know it.”
With one knee on the mattress, I lean toward her. “It’s the truth.”
“If that’s true, and you were so torn up, then why didn’t you come after me?” Do I hear a thread of anger in her voice, or is that just my wishful thinking? Did she want me to chase her? “You knew where I was.”
I reach out and peel her arms off her legs. “Because I’d convinced myself it was better that way. You needed time. You needed a guy who could give you a quiet, uncomplicated life. Butas the years passed, and you’d moved on, I sank into a darkness I could never quite shake.”
I push her down until she’s lying on her back, knees still bent. “That darkness was there long before I came along.”
