But then, there was the night with Deacon in the hotel, a night that had stripped her of caution and shame. She’d relived it so many times the memories had become not just vivid but cruelly, torturously specific, the sensations of his mouth, his hands, his dick mapped onto her nervous system as permanently as a tattoo. For weeks, she’d found herself rubbing her clit raw, outpacing her body’s ability to regenerate, and still the need kept returning, doubled and redoubled every time she thought about him.
In the past few days alone, she’d been unable to fall asleep without touching herself, unable to greet the morning without first pressing her fingers to her swollen flesh, as if she could stave off the ache by force of will. Even showering had become a battleground. One text instructing her to use the showerhead, and now it called to her, the pulse between her legs, a staccato rhythm she’d never cared for before, had become a daily ritual.
All it took was her closing her eyes, andhewas there, his voice in her ear, his hands on her body, his weightabove her. He’d become a ghost of pleasure, haunting her not with memories but with the promise of more. She told herself she was in control, that she could stop whenever she needed to, but the truth was, she was owned. Every molecule, every cell was tuned to his wavelength.
Now, on her one day off—her sacred Monday—she’d laid down to take a nap, hoping for rest, for sleep, only to be dragooned into a dream. In it, he was already in her bed, kneeling between her legs, his hands strong and certain on her thighs, his mouth doing unspeakable, miraculous things to her. She’d woken panting, heart pounding, hips arching desperately for something absent, and before she’d even had a conscious thought, her hand was between her legs, fingers slippery and eager, chasing the ghost of his touch.
She tried to refuse herself. To stop and get up, but she closed her eyes once more and she was right back in the cab of his truck, his hand sliding inexorably up her thigh. His breath was hot on the shell of her ear, his lips soft and wicked, as he whispered, “Where am I going to fuck you?” The words alone were enough to make her core tingle, even in memory.
Without running it past her brain, her hand slid down her belly and her fingers pressed against her clit. The tips began to flick as her mind was filled with the time he’d taken her from behind, her cheek pressed to the mattress, his fingers clamped hard on her hips, the head of his cock rubbing along the seam of her sex before he drove into her with one deliberate, debilitating thrust.
She remembered the weight of his body pinning her down, the sweat slick on the skin between them, and the deep, guttural noises he made when he was close. She remembered the way he kissed her shoulder blade, slow and reverent, as if he were marking her as his own. “Sofucking tight,” he whispered. “Such a good girl.” The words wound through her as tightly as any limb, squeezing her from the inside.
She came then, the force of it blinding—a white-hot tsunami that rolled up her spine. She bit down on her bottom lip as her entire body tensed in a long, drawn-out spasm of pleasure. For a moment, she must have blacked out, because when her vision snapped back into place, the ceiling was swimming and her breaths were coming in short pants.
The aftershocks came in smaller, more manageable waves, like distant thunder rumbling in the background. Every inch of her body felt electric, hypersensitive, as if the fabric of her shirt were made of sandpaper.
As she lay staring at the ceiling, she flexed her toes, curled and uncurled her fists, and waited for her heart rate to drop below “impending coronary.” She knew she needed to get her shit together. This man was taking over her life. This was exactly the addiction she was scared of.
She swung her legs off the side of the bed and padded to the bathroom, feeling both weightless and unsteady, as if she were recovering from a fever. She washed her face and hands and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her pupils were dilated, her cheeks ruddy, her lips parted and swollen. She looked like someone else, a stranger who’d been caught in the act—wanton and wild, unrecognizable.
The worst part of all this was, since she’d deleted his naughty texts, he hadn’t sent any more. Well, he had, but since Friday morning, his messages had been aggressivelyfriendly. No more sexts, no more late-night innuendo, no more filthy, inventive instructions that made her mind shut off and her body see stars.
They had all been variations of: good morning. Goodnight. How was your day? Pictures of the girls. Funny things Tabitha said about Blake.
And it wasn’t too much, either. He texted every morning and night and a check-in once or twice during the day. Just enough that every time she would start to think about him, miss him, or wonder if he was thinking about her, a message would appear at random. It was like he could read her mind.
She’d checked for a pattern, and there was none. It was different times of the day every day, sometimes once, sometimes twice a day.
Jenna dried her hands and stepped back into the bedroom, half-hoping for another message from Deacon, half-dreading she’d get one because it would feed her addiction. What she needed to do was return to her Monday to-do list, to the hundred little tasks that kept her afloat. She wanted to believe she still had the willpower to focus on anything other than him.
Her phone rang on her nightstand, and she considered ignoring it but knew she couldn’t. Blake wasn’t home, she was babysitting. She walked over and when she looked down, she was surprised to see that it was her peanut.
“Hey, Peanu?—”
“Mom! Mom!” The shriek on the other end was so high-pitched it could have cracked the phone glass. In the background, a smaller, more piercing wail gathered force, the kind of sound that meant blood or something close enough. “Tabitha fell! She’s hurt!” The words tumbled out, each more panicked than the last, and Jenna’s heart went cold. “Mom! What do I do?!”
“Is there blood? Is it her head? Do you need to dial nine one one?” She forced her voice to remain calm, the way she’d learned to do when Blake was a toddler and every tumble seemed like an existential threat.
“No, no, no, it’s her arm. There’s no blood. It’s her arm, her arm, it’s I’m, it’s I’m, it’s not, it’s, she fell and it’s, it’s not right.”
“Broken, okay, it’s probably broken.” Jenna was already moving, she’d grabbed yesterday’s bra and yanked it over her head with one hand, the phone cradled between shoulder and jaw. She wriggled into the closest pair of jeans and rushed down the stairs, snatched her purse and keys from the foyer table, and jammed her feet into sneakers, grabbed a jacket and she was out the front door. “I’m gonna call you right back, okay?”
“Mom! No! No, don’t hang up!” Blake’s voice was shrill enough now that Jenna worried her daughter was one step away from passing out.
She locked the front door from muscle memory, adrenaline already setting her hands to trembling. “Blake, I’m driving over now, but you need to calm down for Tabitha. You are in charge. You are me for that little girl right now. Tell her it’s okay.”
Into the phone, Blake inhaled and exhaled so hard Jenna could hear the air scraping her windpipe. “It’s okay, Tabby,” she said, and her voice trembled but didn’t break this time. “Everything’s gonna be okay. I’m so sorry I got upset, but we’re okay. You’re okay, see, King Rocco is licking your tears.”
Tabitha’s animalistic cries gave way to whimpers. Jenna could picture the Rottweiler licking and nudging Tabby’s face. The scene was so vivid she nearly wept.
“Keep talking to her,” Jenna said, “you’re helping. And listen to me, Liam’s practice isn’t open today, it’s Monday, and he and Frankie are in San Francisco. I’m calling the fire department to see if they can send the truck over to help you, if not, I’ll be there in two minutes and take her tothe hospital myself. But either way, I’ll call you back when I get off the phone with the fire department. Okay?”
“Okay, okay. Yeah, okay, we’re good, Mom.” Blake’s voice, suddenly steadier, made Jenna want to collapse on the spot. She’d raised a leader, a caretaker, the kind of kid who would always try to put a Band-Aid on the world’s gaping wounds.
Jenna started the car and dialed HFFD as she backed out of the driveway. Rhonda answered, and Jenna let her know what was going on.
“How bad is the break?” Rhonda asked.
