Indisputable (19 page)

“Then let me,” I reply as I start to make work of the
button.  I get it undone, but before I can unzip the fly, Jacoby captures
my hands in his and brings them over my head.

“Hey, I was enjoying that,” I whine, seriously a
little miffed at being stopped but curious as to the delay.  I’m more than
ready to get this show on the road, if the steady pulse between my thighs is
anything to go by.

Jacoby leans down, pressing a deep, wet kiss to my
lips, and my thoughts fly out the window when his hands skate down the sides of
my torso, where he begins to remove my jeans. He pulls the fabric down my hips
before wrenching his mouth away from mine, and a soft whimper rides out my
exhale.

“Shh.  I know.  Hang tight,
Sweetheart.  I want to see you first.”

Lifting my hips, I help Jacoby shimmy my pants down my
legs where he stops to remove my socks before pulling them the rest of the way
off.  I can’t help staring at his position beside the bed, shirtless with
his jeans halfway undone, looming over me with that sexy sweet look in his
eyes.  He could be the Angel of Death here to take me away to the burning
lakes of hell, and I’d willingly accept my fate and scramble after him as fast
as I possibly could.

His eyes feel like a soft touch as he makes his
perusal of my near naked flesh.  The bed dips as he climbs back on,
straddling my hips.  He buries his head in my neck just beneath my ear as
his hands slowly stroke my skin upward from hip, ribs, shoulders.  Closing
my eyes, I sigh.

“Fucking beautiful,” he says softly into my ear before
delivering short, sweet kisses to my neck.

I’m lost to sensation, the feel of his hands, of his
skin on my skin.  The world has evaporated away.  We are nothing, and
we are everything.  This bed and the two of us are all that remain to
exist in my world.  Nothing has every felt more right or perfect than the
feel of his body cocooning mine.

Which would explain why I didn’t realize what he was
doing until it was much too late.

“I want you completely naked for me,” he whispers in
my ear, his hands gliding from my shoulders to my wrists.  I feel a
sensation of coolness near my pulse point, but before I register what it is,
Jacoby is running his lips and tongue up my arm, tracing my bicep, dipping into
the sensitive skin of my elbow, slowly nipping and sucking his way up my
forearm.

“I’m going to taste every in—,” his sentence ends in a
clip of harshly inhaled breathe before his body goes completely tense.  So
tense I feel like rock has settled on my body. 

“What the fuck is that?” he growls so quietly I almost
don’t hear him.  I’m trying to break through the lust induced fog, but
Jacoby grabs my hands, sits back on his heels and pulls me up sitting before
him.  I’m met with the view of his soft brown hair when he dips his head
to inspect my…

Oh, fuck.  Oh, God.  No, no, no.  He’s
not supposed to see my wrists.  He’s never supposed to see that.

Panic slithers through my body like the vilest of
drug.  It’s a head to toe sensation.  Tremors grab hold of my limbs
making my body shake.  My head suddenly feels stuffed with cotton; the
room spins.  I can feel the blood draining out of my face the same time my
eyes well with tears. 

“What is this?” he asks again.

“Jacoby, stop—“

“I asked, what is this?”  He maneuvers my wrists
so they’re facing me, but I shut my eyes tightly and shake my head side to
side.  I don’t need to see it.  I know what it is, what it looks
like, what it feels like.  I don’t need to explain this to anybody,
especially not him. 

How could I have let this happen?  How could I be
so damn stupid?

“Let me go,” I say in a soft, defeated whisper. 

“Tatum, answer me.”

“Let me go.  Please, Jacoby, let go,” I beg.

“I need you to look at me, Sweetheart.” 

God, his voice is so soft, so soothing, but it’s an
illusion.  He’ll never understand the desperate need I feel to release my
emotions with the help of the blade.  Why I’m not normal and can’t just
vent or cry or scream to make myself feel better when feeling becomes too much
to bear.  Why it feels so good to have control over one thing in my life,
even if that control is as twisted as mutilating my own flesh and spilling my
own blood.  

“Let me go.” I try to pull free, but he’s stronger
than I am.

“Talk to me.”

“No, let me go!” My voice rises as the panic crests
higher within my chest.  It’s consuming me.  I’m treading water,
barely keeping my head above the surface, and the more he fights me, the more
rapidly I’m beginning to drown from my own fear.

Jacoby leans forward, knocking me back to the bed and
pinning my arms on either side of my head.  He puts just enough pressure
on my arms to hold me still but not enough to hurt.  Not that his
thoughtfulness matters.  I can’t feel anything besides the devouring panic
gnawing a hole through my insides.

“Sweetheart—“

“Let go!  Let go!  Please, LET ME GO!” I
scream, thrashing my head, twisting my torso, bucking my hips.  Anything
to throw him off.  I need to get out of here.  The room is
spinning.  His voice is coming at me as if he’s standing at the other end
of a tunnel, but I can’t make out the words from the blood roaring in my
ears.  My chest heaves as it searches for the oxygen my lungs desperately
need, but there isn’t any.  My body is malfunctioning.  Drowning in
the panic of my own pain and self-loathing.  A balloon is swelling in my
chest.  So tight, so big and heavy, and there’s no more room. 

I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe. 

“Tatum, breathe for me.  You can do it, baby,
just breathe.”

And with a hitched sob, the balloon bursts, and my
world comes to a crashing halt.

Jacoby

There hasn’t be a more heart wrenching sight than
watching Tatum struggle with her panic and fight for breath.  True, having
to deal with the knowledge of Harper’s death was the most tragic moment of my
life to date, but it’s like that moment and now are on different ends of the
spectrum.  Harper’s was so final.  I heard the news and it was
over.  There wasn’t anything I could do to change the outcome.  I
still struggle with the fact she’s gone and my own guilt for her death, but her
loss is more a constant, lingering ache in my soul.  But watching Tatum
scared out of her fucking mind, so much so she can’t even breathe, feels like a
knife plunging into my heart repeatedly.  It’s fresh and it’s violent, and
it’s breaking my damn heart.

  Tatum doesn’t even seem aware of me
anymore.  Her eyes are clenched tight, and her face is at least three
shades paler than her usual color.  She keeps whipping her head back and
forth, making a sound so similar to a slowly deflating balloon it’s making me
stomach roil.  I don’t know if I should call 9-1-1 or if she’ll snap out
of it, so I do the only thing that feels natural and right.

I brace her body with my own, burying my face in the
curve of her neck.  The smell of her hair, of apricots and rain, fills my
nose, and the effect is calming.  I begin speaking gently in her ear,
while inside I’m begging for the fear consuming her to give her back to me.

“Tatum, breathe for me.  You can do it, baby,
just breathe.”

She makes the most horrible, heartbreaking sob before
completely dissolving into a puddle of tears.  The relief is so complete,
I feel my own eyes begin to water.  Without a second thought, I tuck her
close, one hand cradling her head against my shoulder while the other one
begins soothingly stroking up and down her spine. 

“Shh.  Hush.  It’s alright.  I’ve got
you.”

Over and over I repeat the words I think will help her
shake off the lingering distress.  My heart feels like it’s been shoved
through a meat grinder, I can’t imagine what’s going through her head right
this moment. 

My head?  I feel like a fucking idiot.  This
was too fast.  I was too harsh, too direct.  Should have slowed
things down but instead, I reacted like a horny teenager who can’t keep it in
his pants for all of five minutes.  Which draws my attention to the fact
she’s still mostly naked.  Reaching over her trembling form, I grab the
comforter tucked in the end of the bed and give it a hard tug, pulling it up
and over the both of us.

She burrows into my neck as if she’s trying to crawl
inside my body to live there.  I wish she could.  I wish she could
crawl inside and build a house, and I could protect her from anything that
tries to hurt her.  Including herself. 

Tatum’s a cutter.  From the looks of it, a pretty
frequent one.  Why would she harm herself?  Is she suicidal? 
Fuck…I dismiss that thought as quickly as it comes.  No way can I lose
another one.  I can’t go through that again.    

She’s not the attention seeking type.  Her hair
to her clothes to her personality all say unique.  And not in an emo
angsty way.  Just…Tatum.  She’s just Tatum and I know there’s more to
her cutting than I can even try to guess.

“Jacoby?”

Tatum’s voice rouses me from a doze, and when I crack
my eyes open, everything is dark.  Her soft, naked body is tucked tightly
to my side.  Her head rests along the curve of my shoulder, and the sweet
smell of her hair is tickling my nose.  Even in the dark I don’t miss the
way she cradles her wrists against her chest as if to hide or protect them even
in sleep.  Lifting my head in the direction of my nightstand, I see the
clock reads 3:12 in obnoxiously bright red numbers.   

“Yeah, Sweetheart?”

“Are you awake?”  Her voice is hoarse and soft,
and the sound makes the steady ache in my chest revive with a vengeance. 
She sounds like she screamed herself raw.

Tightening my arm around her shoulders to convey I’m
listening, I roll slightly toward her so we’re lying side by side.  Even
with the nonverbal gesture, I answer her with my own throaty, “Yeah.”

“I, uh, I’m sorry about, uh you know, and I think it’s
probably best if I leave.”

Her words come as a surprise.  But they
shouldn’t.  Tatum has proven over and over she has an unparalleled ability
to pull away and hide when the situation becomes too much.  Fuck if I’ll
let her get away with it this time.  If I get my way she won’t be leaving
my sight for the foreseeable future.  For the first time in two years I’ve
found someone I want.  Someone who makes my heart beat just a little bit
faster by just being near.  Someone who I’m ready to risk my reputation on
because she’s worth any possible consequence.  For the first time in two
years my heart feels a little less like a black hole in my chest.

To drive my point further, I roll my body until I’m
entirely covering her warm soft curves from chest to toes.  The darkness
is too thick to see her face, but her breath breezes against my lips in a soft,
surprised hitch.

“You’re not going anywhere.  Not in the middle of
the night, but especially not before we talk,” I growl against her lips before
capturing her sweet taste in a lingering kiss.  Her chest heaves beneath
my own, brushing her breasts against my chest and bringing my full awareness to
our state of nakedness.  A possessiveness surges inside of me.  I
want to protect this girl, no matter the cost. 

Her voices releases in a breathy whisper, “I just
don’t think this is good for me.”

“What’s not good for you?”

“Letting you in,” she replies, a touch of sadness in
her voice.

“What’s not good about someone listening to
you?”  I lean around her to kiss below her ear. 

“Caring for you.” I kiss her nose. 

“Keeping you safe.” I kiss her eyes. 

“Making love to you.” I kiss her jaw. 

“Making you smile.” I kiss her slightly upturned
lips.  “You let me in and you’ll get all that plus much, much more.”

Tatum trembles beneath me.  “But how can this
work?” she questions and I want to yell at the hopeful feeling pulsating in my
chest.  But I don’t.  Even if I can get her to relax and give this a
chance, I know we have a long road ahead of us.  I’m trying to give her a
reprieve, but the image of her slashed and scarred wrists has been burned into
my brain.  And it’s no small matter.

“We’ll take it slow,” I respond before trailing kisses
down her jaw.  I was talking about more than just the relationship. 
I’ve reached my limit of sitting still with her naked curves beneath me.

“You could get fired.”

“We’ll be discreet,” I whisper into the hollow of her
throat before tracing her collarbone with my tongue.  Tatum arches beneath
me, smashing her breasts more firmly against my chest.  The friction of
her skin is intoxicating.

“But what about—“

“Shh.  Close your mind.  Don’t think right
now.  Just feel.”  We have all the time in the world to talk about
what happened tonight, what’s going to happen in the future.  Right now,
the only thing I care about is erasing her pain and making her feel good. 

So that’s what we do.

Tatum’s breaths become gasps and moans in my ear as I
move my mouth across her naked body.  Licking, tasting, absorbing every
part of her my mouth can reach.  My movements are soft and
unhurried.  I want to convey how serious I am about her.  About us. 
I want her to experience every touch without the rush to the finish line. 
But most of all, I want to show her she can use me.  A distraction, a
release, an escape, whatever she needs, she can use me instead of the
self-harming methods she’s trained herself to use.  My body is the shuttle
to carry her away from the darkness that lives inside her.  And I’ll do
everything in my willpower to rocket her straight to the sun.

A brush, a caress, a whisper of skin and a tangle of
limbs.  We join together to create a new being.  A living, pulsing
creature of lust and love and feeling.  I move, she reciprocates with
perfection.  As if she were made for me.  As if she’s anticipated my
every move and responds with the practiced counterpart of a longtime
lover. 

My body hovers above her, naked chest to naked
breasts.  I shudder as her warmth seeps into my flesh, through my bones,
wrapping itself around my heart.  Cocooning the organ.  Soothing
it.  My mind screams at me to take and take and take, but I maintain a level
of self-control.  This isn’t about me, this is about Tatum.  So I
give.  I give with my body, with gentleness and pleasure. 

Skimming down soft curves and heat, my hand slides
slowly between her parted thighs.  I’m met with the softest skin, like a
ripened peach, and heat envelopes my fingers as I slowly sink one finger deep
inside.  Tatum exhales a breathless moan as her back arches, and her hips
slowly rock with my hand.  Her sounds tear me to shreds.  Everything
I thought I knew about sex, about giving and taking pleasure is obliterated by
the pleading and moans skating past her lips. 

More

Please

Oh, God

Please

Licks of pleasure curl up my spine from the base to my
neck, and like a hand pressing me down, my back bows to capture one hard, rosy
nipple between my lips.  I suck hard, twirling the bud with my tongue, and
I can sense her impeding climax in the increase of her breaths and the way her
body clenches my relentless finger.  She’s teetering, but something is
holding her back.  Lowering myself to an elbow, my other hand begins
toying with her breast while I tear my mouth away from the other with a soft
pop.  I need to get her there.  To show her this is the best
way. 

“Don’t fight it.  Get out of your head.  Let
yourself feel how good this is, how good we are together,” I whisper into the
curve of her neck before biting and licking the delicate skin. 

“I c-can’t.  Oh, God,” she cries when I bite down
above her collarbone.  My intention was to derail her train of thought,
but I can feel her body’s reaction to the slight pinch of pain. 

I nip her again.  This time below her ear where I
whisper, “You can.  Feel me, Tatum.  Feel this.”  I twirl my
finger deep inside her, pressing against the inner wall of her sex.  She
gasps. 

“You’re incredible.  We’re incredible.  I’ve
never felt anything like this before.  I need you to come for me,
Tatum.  Trust me.  Let go.”

She’s fighting.  Tensing and shaking, yet rocking
her hips against me faster.  She wants to come.  Her body is greedy
with my finger, and half a minute later, I feel her whole body go rock solid
before jerking and shattering beneath me.  A light sheen of sweat coats
her skin, and she’s panting to catch her breath. 

I don’t let her get her wits about her.  Positing
myself between her legs, I roll on the condom I had left out earlier and place
the head of my erection at her slick entrance.  My muscles tense and shake
with the overwhelming need to slam inside her.  To fill her up and beg her
to never let me go. 

“Tell me if it’s too much and I’ll stop.  But
don’t think, Tatum.  Feel me.  Feel us.  Concentrate on how good
I make you feel.” 

Slowly, I begin to make little thrusts inside
her.  Giving her the chance to back away, but praying to God she
doesn’t.  My senses are on hyper alert, and my self-control is only so
strong.

Tatum whimpers, her hands wrapping around to clench
hard at my back.  “More.”

“Hang tight, sweetheart.  Focus on me.”  Her
eyes snap to mine, looking pure black in the darkness, and my control
shatters.  In one smooth thrust I surge all the way inside, filling her
deeply with me. 

She feels like heaven and hell all wrapped into
one.  I’m tortured with the desire to protect.  To save her from
herself and her past.  Yet, she feels like the sweetest gift life could
give.  The need to show her she’s worth love is almost too much.  I
feel undeserving.  My own dark past and choices tug at my consciousness,
trying to invade the perfection of this moment.  I need to take my own
advice.

I focus on Tatum.  The soft, hooded look in her
eyes.  The encouraging flex of her fingers along my spine as I increase my
pace, thrusting into her.

I feel Tatum.  The consuming warm heat where
we’re connected.  Her legs wrapped tightly around my hips. 

I hear Tatum.  The soft moans and murmurs urging
me on.  Her voice, high and needy, when she whispers into the shell of my
ear, “I need you, Jacoby.”

The thread of my world snaps.  Gravity is sucked
out beneath me, and I’m free falling into the wide open universe.  Up,
down, left, backward, direction no longer makes sense.  I could tumble for
days and no longer have a purpose but something is tugging me back.  An
invisible tether pulling from my chest.  Pulling…

Pulling…

Pulling…

To her.

“I need you so much.  Please make me feel good.”

I’ve found a new anchor.  My soul feels like it’s
exposed as her words crumble the old Jacoby around me.  Nothing
matters.  My life, my past, my job, the consequences.  Fuck.  I
think I might even love her.