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“I didn’t chase you away. I was protecting you. It wasn’t safe to be here.”
“No, Jameson. You were deciding what I could or couldn’t handle, you decided you weren’t good enough for me, and you decided that I needed better. Then I go out and I choose someone, and now, you’re saying he’s not good enough, either?”
Her lips form a pout, and her face is beet red. She huffs, the back of the vehicle silent for a moment. Then, her pretty green eyes stare right into mine. It rips my chest in half, seeing the heartache in them. Heartache I’ve caused, and I regret every decision I’ve made for her. Every time I thought I was protecting her, but really I was pushing her away.
I see now that it was causing her more pain than just letting us be. I resist the urge to kiss away her pain, to wrap her in my arms and squeeze her tight against me until she can’t breathe from the pressure.
“I’m done listening to you, Jameson,” she says, her voice cracking. “I’m choosing Corbin because it’s easy, and because you refuse to acknowledge what’s happening between us. I’m choosing him because I don’t fucking care if he sleeps with Yuliya, or the hostess at the booth, or shit, even a work colleague.”
She turns her head away from me. “I don’t care, Jameson, because it doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter, Saoirse. You deserve respect and a faithful partner.”
“I deserve to have what I want. But you seem to think that you have the final say on my love life. You don’t, so fuck off.”
“Fine. You want to look like a fool when he’s in the papers for getting his dick sucked in the oval office while you’re popping out his prickhead little demon children, or when you’re locked away and unable to build your skyscrapers, be my fucking guest.” I pull my head from the car and slam the door shut.
“Fuck,” I mumble, trying to shake out the anger before I climb into the driver’s seat.
My ears are buzzing, and it’s not from the gunshot I fired this morning. It’s from the lava temperature of anger surging through me. This is not what I meant when I told her to get out of Boston. She was supposed to find herself a construction worker on the site in Seattle, and fall for a nice kid her age. She was supposed to get out of this life, out of the one that claimed my father, that stole my sister’s life, the one that broke my mother’s heart.
I’ve got a limited shelf life, and I’m closing in on my expiration date with every passing second. I’d slit my own throat if it meant keeping her safe. And doing that would shatter her. This need to protect her runs so deep within me, that I can’t even distinguish where it ends, and where my own need to survive begins. I don’t think there even is one.
“Fuck,” I say again. This time with more desperation. I kick at the front tire of the car, then slide into the driver’s seat. The fury is still in my veins, but I’ve at least managed not to strangle her.
“I don’t love him, Jameson.”
Saoirse’s voice startles me. I turn to see she’s climbed out of the back seat and is now in the front passenger’s side. I reach over, stroking her cheek with my thumb, collecting the single teardrop on her sweet face. Her lip quivers as she reaches out and presses her hand against my chest.
Her left hand, the one that was just wearing another man’s ring. Except it’s bare now.
“All I wanted was the choice, Jaime. You never gave that to me.”
I place my hand over hers on my chest. My calloused fingers run along the smooth back of her knuckles. “You want a choice, baby?”
She sniffles, her head nodding as strands of her flaming locks fall in her face. I reach for her, gripping the back of her neck. I tug her with controlled force, and she hisses at the pain of my fingers digging into the nape of her neck.
She bucks, trying to break free of me until she realizes I’ve pulled her on to my lap. My hand is still resting over hers, over my heart that’s beating rapidly beneath her touch. She straddles me, the pencil dress barely giving her room to do so. The fabric is stretched taut, her knees over my thighs in the driver’s seat.
“What’s your choice?” I ask, my voice hoarse.
She drops her forehead, resting it against mine. “You.”
She moves her head lower, her lips coming toward mine in a claiming kiss that I don’t stop. Her tongue plunges into my parted mouth, and I suck the taste of vodka from her, pressing her chest against me. It’s everything I knew it would be, and everything I know it can’t be. Passion and desperation, and the outside world shutting off so I can be consumed by her. She tastes like vodka and minty chapstick, and … right. She tastes fucking right.
Soft, supple breasts meet my hard pecs. Her smoky scent mixed with vanilla, andfuck. It has me aching to be inside her, desperate to have that scent all over my skin, never showering it off me. I want the marks she’s left inside of me plastered on the outside for everyone to see.
But that can’t happen. Not here, not like this. Not at all.
I groan, cupping her face. Then I shove her away, despite the urge to pull my dick out of my pants and slam her down. The way her nails would feel digging into my shoulders while she cried out at the sudden piercing pain, the way I’d stroke her clit until she adjusted and could take me with ease. I want everything with her, for her.
I know that the second I bury myself inside of her, I’ll never get out. I’ll never leave, and it’s why I’ve always pushed her away.
“What are you doing?” she whines, feeling the devastation of loss from our lips being apart.
I reach between us, adjusting my aching cock while I glance through the window, looking around for any passerbys. “Not here.”
We can’t do it at all.But I don’t say that out loud.
