Avoiding Commitment (52 page)

When she finished, he shifted his hands to a
position where he could haul her up and slam her back down onto
him. She moaned into his ear as she felt all her weight pushed
against his dick as he invaded her deepest core. Her back was
chafing against the wall, but she couldn’t care less. She wasn’t
the one who had spent several hundred dollars on the dress. Lexi
couldn’t believe he was holding out so long, she was almost ready
to go again, and his determined, beautiful face looked as if he
could go all night.

Just when she thought she might explode
again, he abruptly stopped with just the head hovering over her
opening. She felt her body react with yearning, and she got even
wetter. He smirked at her and reclaimed her lips with his own. She
volleyed with his tongue whimpering as he paused over her. “Jack,”
she groaned, wiggling her body hoping and praying that he would
move.

He pushed in a fraction of an inch before
pulling back out. She whimpered again breaking contact with his
lips and glaring at him. His smirk turned into a full on smile as
he leaned into her, pushed the head in, and stopped. “Did you want
something?” he asked the words coming out breathy and desirous. It
was obvious that he wanted it too.

She nodded.

“I can’t hear you,” he responded pulling back
out of her and moving around in a circle over the sensitive
lips.

She moaned deeper trying to push her body
against him, but he had her hips firmly between his hands and
wasn’t letting her have any control. “I said I can’t hear you.”

“Jack,” she moaned as he dipped in and out of
her again. She didn’t want to beg, but she needed him to finish.
She was on the brink of a sky-rocketing explosion. He waited,
teasing her endlessly until she spoke again. “Get inside of
me…now,” she commanded.

Her words worked like magic, and he couldn’t
hold out any longer. He forced himself back into her and continued
his insistent pulsing. She felt like she was going to burst at any
second. Her lower half was throbbing with pleasure, and her chest
was heaving as her heart raced along ahead of the rest of her body.
She closed her eyes and arched her back against him allowing the
deepest angle he could reach.

“Cover my mouth,” she murmured feeling a
scream bubbling up in her chest.

He complied easily. As his hand came up to
cover her mouth, they both exploded. He shoved her body down onto
him one last time. His eyes rolled back into his head as they came
together. By the time she was spent, she found that she was gasping
for air and her body trembling.

After a minute of recovery, Jack pulled
himself out of her and quickly readjusted his pants. Lexi slumped
against the wall. Her shaky hands yanked her dress back down to its
rightful length. Her underwear were ruined beneath the
material.

“Jack that was…amazing,” she whispered into
the night air. She brushed her sweaty curls off her face. She
watched as he wiped his hand across his forehead taking the thin
layer of sweat with it.

“Yeah, it was,” he said walking towards the
door. “But I have to go.”

“That’s it?” she asked her voice wavering
uncertainly.

“What? That wasn’t good enough for you?” he
asked his voice echoing a hint of humor into every syllable.

“That’s not what I mean.”

“This doesn’t change anything, Lex,” he said
turning to face her but staying a good distance away from her as if
he couldn’t control himself not to take her again.

By the way he said it, it sounded as if it
changed everything. She was his again, his for the taking. “I think
it changes things. You can’t go back to her after that,” she
squeaked.

“I’m not sure what I’m going to do.”

Lexi gasped. “You mean…”

“Look, I don’t know what to do yet. I just
knew that’s what you wanted,” he saying eyeing her mussed
appearance.

“That’s not what I wanted.”

“If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t have let me do
it,” he told her simply.

“I wanted answers.”

“And I don’t have any.”

“So, what was this?” she asked tears welling
in her eyes. How had this gone south so fast?

“This was fucking, Lexi. You should know
that. You’re really good at it.”

His words were cold and calculated as if he
were trying to hurt her. It was working. “Fuck you, Jack.”

“Whenever you want.”

“So, this is over?” she croaked.

He seemed utterly surprised by this
conclusion. “No, baby,” he said striding towards her and taking her
face between his hands. She didn’t even have the energy to push him
away. “I just need more time. This was…great, but it doesn’t change
the things I still have to deal with. Now, I really have to go.”
And with that he strode out of the walkway and back to his birthday
party.

Happy birthday to him.

Lexi stayed outside for a minute
contemplating how she had allowed things to get so out of control.
She had promised herself she wouldn’t let this happen, but when
push comes to shove, literally, she couldn’t say no to him. If she
were to do it all over again, she would make the same goddamn
mistake. That was the part that miffed her the most. She knew that
she should look at it as a mistake, but she couldn’t. He had said
that it didn’t change anything, but she knew deep down that it
changed everything. If he could have her like this, would he want
her any other way?

She bit her lip in her consternation and
cursed loudly forgetting that Jack had bit down hard on the
sensitive tissue. The one thing she did know is that she needed to
get away from this place. She didn’t care where she went as long as
it was far away from here.

Lexi darted back into the bathroom, shimmying
out of her sodden, destroyed underwear and chucking them into the
trashcan. She pulled her knot of curls out of the messy bun that
looked like a disaster after having been scrapped against a cement
wall. She applied a thin layer of clear lip gloss hoping that would
cover the bruise that was forming, but she doubted it. She assessed
her neck noticing a few red marks beginning to form where Jack had
been too violent, but she didn’t have any concealer and hoped no
one would notice as she snuck out.

There was no way she could atone for her
dress though. The back looked like, well…like it had been dragged
across cement. Some strings were hanging free from the material.
The silky fabric was dotted with scuffs that resembled a bathing
suit bottom after sitting on the edge of a pool for too long. Not
to mention the scratches that covered her upper back where her hair
had been held high. She would never be able to explain those.
Luckily, her back hadn’t bled, but some of the scrapes were so red
she was certain had he gone on any longer, they would have. She
hoped her long hair would hide as much as possible.

After deciding nothing more could be done,
she snuck back out of the bathroom and made a beeline for the exit.
When she got there, she ducked through the double doors and stopped
as she almost ran smack dab into Ramsey. She didn’t even know how
long she had been gone.

“Where have you been?” he asked concern
evident in his voice. “I’ve been searching for you everywhere. I
had just decided to see if any cabs had taken you home, but no one
knew anything. Are you alright?”

His green eyes were wide with worry. She knew
she should feel guilty, and maybe a small part of her did. Ramsey
was starting to grow on her and he seemed so genuinely concerned.
But this was the last thing she needed after what she had done.

“Uh, yeah…” she trailed off not meeting his
gaze. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I’m glad you’re alright,” he said
scooping her up into a hug. She bit back a cry as his hands brushed
against her red, swollen back.

“I have to get out of here,” she muttered
abrasively. “Can you call me a cab?”

“Where are you going?” he asked hesitantly
trying to meet her eyes.

“Back to the hotel.”

“Alright. You have a key right?” he asked. He
snapped his fingers at the concierge to begin to make
arrangements.

“Oh, shit!” she cried. “Chyna lost the other
one and I gave her mine. I have to go find her.” She turned to make
an embarrassing reappearance into the club.

“She already left,” he muttered stopping her
from leaving. “I think she is going to his place.”

“Fuck!” Lexi could not believe her awful
luck. She couldn’t stay here any longer, but there was no way she
could go back to the hotel. “I guess I can see if they’ll make me a
new one,” she muttered hopefully.

“Come with me,” Ramsey said stepping closer
to her. She did not want him to be in her personal space right now.
He would surely notice her bumps and bruises, and she didn’t want
him to ask questions.

“I can’t,” she muttered.

“You can stay in the guest bedroom…if you
want,” he added for his own benefit.

“Do I have any other choice?” she grumbled
wondering why the universe hated her so much.

He shook his head. “Tell them to pull the
limo around,” he commanded the woman as he escorted Lexi out of the
building.

CHAPTER 22

DECEMBER ONE AND A HALF YEARS EARLIER

The next morning was the gloomiest of any
Lexi had witnessed since moving to New York. Snow had fallen the
night before, and in typical city fashion, the streets had been
cleared of the white flurries by daybreak. Brown slush took its
place on the sidewalks and gutters creating a hazardous environment
for any who traversed the city. Dreary, charcoal clouds covered the
sky casting a depressing aura across the metropolitan area. A heavy
fog mixed with the ever increasing quantities of pollution hanging
thick in the morning air.

Under these conditions, most normal people
would have avoided leaving their apartment at all costs on a
Saturday morning. Lexi was not one of those people. She thought she
had switched off the alarm set for finals, but it still managed to
go off at eight in the morning. Her sleep had been restless and no
matter how hard she tried to go back to sleep, it would not come to
her. Instead, she made the mistake of pulling on a t-shirt, black
track suit, and running sneakers to take a brisk jog around the
park before the city livened up.

The wind viciously whipped her hair around
her face, cutting across her delicate skin and stinging her eyes.
Tears streamed from her eyes as she sprinted the last leg of her
run before exiting Washington Square Park. She doubled over
clutching her hands to her ribs as her breath came out in spurts.
The wintry air filled her lungs causing her to wheeze in pain at
the assault. Her heart was still working overdrive thumping away in
her chest from the physical exertion. She attempted to wiggle her
toes which felt near frozen in her soggy socks and snow-coated
tennis shoes. The movement was painful as life came back into her
lower extremities.

She straightened brushing her hair out of her
face. The gloves she wore hardly kept the cold from reaching her
fingers. Now that she had stopped jogging, the sweat she had built
up was settling onto her skin making her entire body shiver. The
wind picked up in velocity pushing and pulling her the rest of the
way to her apartment building. She stumbled into the high-arched
enclosure letting the wind break past her. A low whistle could be
heard as it rushed through the streets. Lexi was just happy that
she was out of that. She didn’t know what she had been thinking
going on a run with the weather in such precarious conditions.

Well, that wasn’t true. She knew the real
reason for her early morning jog. The message from Jack kept
replaying in her head, and despite herself, she couldn’t shake the
feeling that something was wrong. She knew that she should be
reasonable. He probably went through another rejection and wallowed
in his own pity. It had happened frequently enough, and she knew he
shouldn’t get worked up about it, but he
had
gotten worked
up about it. She could tell from the tone of his voice that he was
upset.

All she wanted to do was be there for
him.

She wrapped her arms around herself as she
strode past the security guard. He recognized her and waved, not
even checking for her identification card. She was lost in her
thoughts as she took the stairs back to her apartment.

Lexi knew that she wasn’t Jack’s girlfriend.
They weren’t officially together or anything. They had made that
perfectly clear in the beginning.

Yet, something was nagging in the back of her
mind. When he had been threatening Clark, he had claimed they were
together. She wasn’t naïve enough to believe that they were
automatically going to jump into something that they were
unaccustomed to. She knew how they worked, and thus far, it had
worked out surprisingly well. But it was a step in the right
direction. If he could speak about them being a couple, even if it
was out of blind jealously, then she saw that as a positive.

Her teeth were chattering as she slid into
her dorm room. She clenched and unclenched her fingers hoping to
accelerate the blood flow. Sliding her gloves off Lexi brought her
hands to her mouth and blew on them as she rubbed them
together.

“Where have you been?” Lexi heard someone
call anxiously from a bedroom.

Startled from warming herself up, she glanced
up and saw Rachelle silhouetted in the doorway. “I went for a
run.”

Rachelle peeked back through her window as if
to confirm that it was, in fact, miserable outside. “In this
weather?” she asked condescendingly.

“Uh…yeah. I needed to clear my head.”

“Did it work?”

“Not really. I’m kind of frozen,” she told
her a chill running down her back at the mention of the cold.

“You Southerners,” she scoffed, “this isn’t
cold.”