Breakable (28 page)

She told me, softly, that she wouldn’t want to get out of it.

‘But if you did want to. How would you?’ I pressed. She closed her eyes and gave me real answers – groin strike, instep stomp.

‘And if I kissed you, and you didn’t want me to?’

I expected her to use something she’d learned in the class – a head butt, maybe. But no. She told me she’d
bite me
, and goddamn, I almost lost it.

I kissed her, carefully, halfway hoping she
would
bite
me. Instead, she ran her tongue across the inside of my lip and over the ring, and I put her on the counter so she was above me. Wrapping her arms and legs round me, she pushed her small tongue into my mouth. I sucked her tongue in deeper, caressing it with mine, nipping at it as she withdrew.

‘Holy crap,’ she breathed. I swept her off the counter and carried her to my bed, laying her down in the centre and kissing her until she was breathless. I stripped off her sweater and she unbuttoned my shirt while I went back to kissing her. When I touched a finger to the zipper of her jeans, she said, ‘Yes.’

I told her I hadn’t tried this with anyone significant in a long time, and she misunderstood and thought I was telling her I hadn’t had sex with anyone. I almost laughed, but there was nothing funny. ‘Not with anyone I cared about or … knew,’ I amended. ‘One-time things. That’s all.’ I was worried she’d be disgusted by that. Three years with Kennedy Moore – pretty sure she’d been there with him. But I figured there was a good chance that he was it.

‘That’s all – ever?’

‘It’s not like there’ve been tons of them.’ I felt like I should cross my fingers behind my back. ‘There were more before, in high school, than there have been the past three years.’ That much was true.

Braced above her, I stared as she told me she wanted this. Wanted me. ‘Please don’t ask me to say stop,’ she added.

She didn’t need to worry about
that
. My only concern
was taking this slow enough to please her. I wanted her to feel beautiful and desired and fully, intensely, thoroughly satisfied.

I tugged her jeans down her legs and off, allowing my eyes to graze over her lovely body while I stripped off my shirt and jeans. I swept my fingers over her, lightly – the swell of her breasts above a lacy pink bra, the tiny oval hollow of her navel above the matching pink lace – and not much more – below. She was so incredibly hot, reaching for me, tracing the lines of my biceps and shoulders, palms sliding across my abs – her tongue darting out to wet her lips.

I grabbed a condom from the night table drawer, but when I resettled over her, she was shaking. I knew it wasn’t from cold, even if that’s where she placed the blame when I asked. She was tense, almost panicked, and I wasn’t sure why. I prayed it had more to do with inexperience than it did with what happened to her
that night
. Inexperience I could remedy. Dread or fear that summoned echoes of something as distressing as what happened to her – I wasn’t sure how to combat that.

I could stop
.
I could hold her
. If her fear didn’t abate, that’s what I would do.

I sat back and pulled the covers down beneath her. The sheets were cool, increasing her shivering until I pulled the comforter back up and over both of us, laying on top of her, kissing her softly and warming her with my body. I felt her muscles loosen below my fingertips, her breaths coming faster, but deeper. I took her mouth slowly, gently, my
hands cradling her head, coaxing her back to the heated state we’d been in when we left the kitchen. She snuggled under me, trusting, warm, relaxed.

‘Better?’ I asked, and she answered
yes
. ‘You know you can say it. But I’m not asking you to, this time.’

I bent to kiss her again, and she opened for me, tangling her tongue with mine, licking my lip, sucking lightly on the ring and pushing her fingers into my hair – holding my head at the exact angle she wanted me. When she scraped her short little nails from my shoulder blades to my hips, fingers dipping below the elastic of my boxer briefs as we kissed, I knew she was ready, but I kept the pace slow, intent on appeasing every desire she had. I unfastened her bra and removed it, slid her panties down her legs, removed my boxers and fixed the condom in place, and we never stopped kissing.

One hand at her hip, I leaned into her, opening her mouth with a deep, penetrating kiss as I thrust into her and remained just long enough for us to both feel the connection fully. Warm and tight, she was a perfect fit.
Of course she was
. I kissed her chin, her jaw, the edge of her hairline right next to her ear. ‘Beautiful girl,’ I murmured, withdrawing and returning. Stroking the interior of her mouth, I told her without words how I loved her.

She gasped, fingers pushing into my hair and gripping, sucking my tongue, coiling one leg round mine and bracing her opposite foot flat on the mattress so she could arch up to meet my thrusts as I began rocking into her.

I shuddered above her –
so good
,
so good
, moving with
her, sliding my hand over her soft body, kneading and stroking. When I took her breast in my hand and bent to suck her nipple into my mouth, she murmured my name, writhing and whimpering softly, needing this, needing me.

I rolled on to my back, taking her with me, hands at her waist, pressing her down as I surged up, guiding her until she took over and set the tempo she required, knees pressed to my hips, arms trembling. Her hair tumbled all around us as my hands slipped to her thighs, and beneath the curtain of her silky, honeysuckle hair, I mapped the curves of her breasts with my tongue, skimming the soft undersides, the full outer contours, the pectoral line down the centre. She hummed so deep in her throat that I felt it with my cheek pressed to her chest.

‘Come, Jacqueline,’ I whispered. ‘Come now, baby.’ She whimpered again, frustrated, like she wasn’t quite sure what to do, so I rolled her under me, flattened her hands to the mattress on either side of her head, and thrust back into her.

‘Oh, God,’ she gasped, her fingers curling over mine. ‘Lucas,’ she moaned, her eyes closed.

‘I’m right here.’ I said, leaning to kiss her as she tightened and convulsed.

I followed, never more satisfied in my life.

I couldn’t see anything of her below her bare shoulder, cuddled beneath the comforter – though I could certainly feel her. She was warm and soft, folded in my arms, our legs tangled. I attempted to focus on the parts I could
see – features I knew as well as the patterns embedded under my skin. I decided her eyes were my favourite. They were also the most difficult to capture on paper. Impossible, to illustrate the multihued facets and the way she looked at me. Or maybe her mouth … I touched her lips and she stared, waiting.

So unfair, how much I wanted her. I kissed her and peeled the covers to her waist. Men are visual, as are artists, so I doubled-down on the desire to see her bare skin. Goddamn, she was so very beautiful. ‘I want to sketch you like this,’ I said, struggling not to laugh when she asked, jokingly, if it would go on the wall. I would never get to sleep if I did that. I’d either have her in my bed, repeating what we’d just done, or I’d be using my very vivid imagination to imagine her there.

‘I’ve done several sketches of you that aren’t on the wall,’ I said.
Oops
.

She wanted to see them, of course. I ran the tips of my fingers over her breast before pressing her closer. ‘Now?’ I asked.
Please, not now
.

She relented, curious, I think, and I moved over her and disappeared under the covers.

I pressed kisses from her sternum straight down, progressing slowly. Her breath caught and her fingers sank into my hair and tightened when I passed her navel and kept going. I veered to the side, sucking kisses on her upper, inner thigh, inhaling her sweet scent, blowing gently as if showing her the path my tongue intended to take. In her small hands, my long, dark hair transformed into something it had never been – reins.

Lead me, Jacqueline
.
Show me where you want me to go
.

She did.

I pulled on my boxer briefs before letting Francis in and feeding him so he’d leave us alone. I poured a glass of milk and put a few brownie squares on a plate, handing them to Jacqueline when I came back into the dimly lit room.

She held the sheet over her breasts, which was both humorous and enticing, considering the last few hours. After switching on the desk lamp, I grabbed my sketchbook and got into bed behind her, urging her to lean back against my chest. Her bare hips were pressed against what would be, in the not-too-distant future, a solid, demanding erection. For the moment, I wanted to purr with contentment, or growl, or whatever guys did when every possible need has been met.

She nibbled at a brownie as I flipped through the sketches I’d done this semester – campus buildings with noteworthy architecture, mechanical sketches, landscapes and people I found interesting. By the time we turned to the sketch I’d done of her on the rainy day, she’d finished two brownies and was starting on a third.

I glanced towards my ceiling.
Score
,
Grandpa
.
Now avert your eyes
.

I asked if it bothered her that I was watching her before she knew me, but she seemed to think she was just another of the interesting strangers I’d drawn.

‘I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse,’ I said.

She leaned back against my arm. ‘I’m not mad any more that you didn’t tell me you were Landon. The only reason I was angry was because I thought you were playing me, but it was the opposite of that.’ She touched my face as the sheet drifted lower. ‘I could never be afraid of you,’ she whispered.

I transferred the brownie plate to the night table and turned her to face me, straddling my lap. As I touched, kissed and sucked her breasts, and she ran her magic fingers through my hair and over my skin, my body woke fully.

‘Should I get, um …’ she whispered, and I nodded. She leaned to the nightstand drawer and came back with a cellophane square. ‘Can I … or is that too –?’

‘God, yes – please.’ I’d never had a girl roll a condom on to me before. I assumed, as her cool little fingers pressed it on and down, expertly, that I was the inexperienced one in this moment. And
oh
,
my God
, I was okay with that.

Landing a part-time job was more problematic than I’d assumed it would be. In a small town, with a known probated assault in my none-too-distant past, managers weren’t jumping at the chance to have me on the payroll.

Plumbing the depths, I asked for an application at the very last fast-food place I would ever want to work, and still heard: ‘You can fill this out, but we’re not really hiring right now.’ It was almost summer – the busiest time of year for every business in this beach town. Not hiring my
ass
. I stared at the manager’s short-sleeved dress shirt and polyester tie as I took the sheet from his hand, which would take fifteen minutes to fill out. For nothing.

‘Ain’t you Ray’s boy? Edmond’s grandson?’

I turned to find one of the town’s crotchety-looking old guys peering up at me. They weren’t scarce around here. This one was shorter and wider than me, sporting a pair of red canvas coveralls that resembled prison threads too closely, with exception of
Hendrickson Electric & AC
monogrammed on the chest. He tipped his tray of wadded wrappers and cartons into the trash and turned back.

‘Yes, sir.’ I stuck a hand out. ‘Landon Maxfield.’

He shook my hand in a remarkably bone-crunching grip. ‘W. W. Hendrickson,’ he said, his local drawl shortening his initials to
dubyah dubyah
. ‘Needin’ a job, are ya? You don’t wanna work in this crap place.’ He shot a look at the manager, who reddened. ‘No offence, Billy.’

I got the feeling that Bill Zuckerman hadn’t gone by
Billy
in at least twenty years. He cleared his throat and struggled not to scowl, failing. ‘Uh, none taken, Mr Hendrickson.’

‘Hmph,’ Hendrickson said. ‘Come outside a minute, Landon. Talk to me.’ He motioned and I followed. ‘You work on the boat with your dad, I thought?’ We walked up to his truck and he leaned an elbow on the bed’s side.

I nodded. ‘Yes, sir. But I plan to go to college in a little over a year, and I’ll need work experience with a reference.’

‘Plan to scoot on outta town like yer dad did, do ya?’ he asked, but I couldn’t detect any malice in his tone.

‘Yes, sir. I plan to study engineering.’

His bushy brows elevated. ‘Ah, now that’s a levelheaded thing worth studyin’. I never could understand how your dad needed so much schoolin’ to study somethin’ done with smoke and mirrors.’

I pinned my lips together, knowing better than to try to explain my father’s multiple economics degrees to guys like Mr Hendrickson.

‘I’ll get to the point. I’m needin’ a new assistant. Before you jump at the opportunity, realize that you’ll probably
get zapped a time or two afore you learn which wires to avoid. And I’ll be sending you into dark, hundred-and-twenty-degree attics where you’ll sweat buckets, get fibreglass in yer knees and ass, and may have the occasional critter skittering across your feet.’ He laughed, a near-silent snuffling sound through his nose. ‘I had one assistant go clean through a client’s ceilin’ because of a hissin’ possum. Landed in the middle of the livin’ room, luckily.’

Luckily?
‘Um, okay.’ I didn’t know what to say or ask.

‘Pay’s a couple bucks above minimum wage. No drinkin’, smokin’, hanky-panky with clients’ daughters – feel like I gotta mention that, you bein’ a looker like yer dad and also, I been there before.’

My face heated.

‘I assume you know all about computers and such?’ At my nod, he said, ‘Good. I could use some help with gettin’ my books on there. Come up to the twenty-first century afore it’s over. So. Whaddaya think?’

I got a job
, I thought.

‘Well, Mr Maxfield. Here we are – the beginning of your senior year. I must admit, I never thought you’d make it this far.’

I stared at my principal and thought,
No shit
.
Especially when you did everything in your power to make that true
. Still, the brass balls of her to call me into her office just to say this to my face couldn’t mean anything good. She thought she was above everything and everyone, and within the confines of this school, she was right.

Nine months
, I told myself. Nine months and I was out of here. I wouldn’t even pause to shake the dust off my boots.

So I said nothing. Merely returned her beady-eyed gaze with a flinty one of my own. She studied a slip of paper with my schedule printed on it. ‘I see you’ve signed up for calculus and physics.’ She glanced at me over the glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. ‘How …
ambitious
of you.’ Lips pressed closed, brows somewhat elevated, eyelids lowered – her entire expression displayed her scepticism that I was capable of the change I’d begun in the last few weeks of the previous year.

I wanted to flick those glasses and that condescension off her face.

Instead of responding, I repeated my mantra silently – the tenets I’d learned in my first month of martial arts, last spring:
courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, indomitable spirit
. Often, the functions of these blurred together – because each was interwoven through the others. If I failed one, I could fail them all. What good was integrity if I had no self-control?

So there I sat, waiting for Ingram to be done with me.

She wasn’t pleased with my muteness – that much was all too apparent. Her thin lips twisted. ‘I understand one of our star students assisted you in passing your classes last spring.’

Ah
.
Pearl
.

Aside from the day she checked me for a punctured lung, Pearl Frank and I hadn’t ever spoken outside of
Melody’s presence or
Can you pass this forward
classroom-type chatter. I almost didn’t respond when she touched my arm in the library last spring and asked, ‘Landon, are you okay?’

With six weeks of school remaining to learn the thirty weeks of stuff I’d failed to absorb plus the new material, I was going under. But I had no desire to confess that to Melody’s best friend, who also happened to be the smartest person in my graduating class.

I blinked and rolled my shoulders, popping my neck. ‘Yeah. Fine.’ I’d been stuck in a hair-clenching position for the entire hour of study hall, staring at a section in my chemistry textbook.

Her brows creasing, she gestured at the open text. ‘Why are you looking at that? We went over Dalton’s Law last six weeks.’

I shut the book, scowling and standing. ‘Yeah, well, I didn’t get it then, I don’t get it now.’ I loosened my grimace and shrugged. ‘No big deal.’

Pearl’s gaze missed very little. ‘But you’re studying it now because …’

I swallowed. I didn’t want to say it out loud – that I was making an eleventh-hour bid to alter my future. That I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to do it.

‘If you want, I can send you my notes from last six weeks, and you can ask me questions.’ Her dark eyes held a dare, not pity.

I nodded. ‘Okay.’

‘Don’t be afraid to ask for help from your teachers, too.
They’re just people, you know.’ I arched a brow and she smirked. ‘Well, most of them.’

Over the next several weeks, she saved me from failing my junior year – not just chemistry, but literature and pre-cal. Thanks to her help, my brain woke up from three years of hibernation.

‘Pearl Frank?’ Mrs Ingram prompted now, as if I wouldn’t remember the tutoring or who gave it. I wasn’t sure how she knew, but I damned sure wasn’t going to ask.

‘Yes,’ I answered.

She hated me right now. In my first few months of taekwondo, I’d become more aware of the clues that someone was progressing from irritation to rage. Recognizing the level of likelihood that someone might fucking lose it any second was necessary for defence, after all. Her physical indications were minor, but they were there.

‘I understand you were arrested last spring for assault. Plea bargained to probation, fortunately.’
Fortunately
was not what she wanted to call it.

I said nothing.

Pearl told me once that Ingram was the type of leader who believed in
addition by subtraction
. ‘It’s half genius, half cheating. They remove the lowest-scoring students, employees with bad service records, et cetera, which raises the overall score or ranking of the organization.’

Finally, Ingram broke rank and flat-out glared. ‘Why aren’t you answering me, Mr Maxfield?’

One brow angled. ‘You aren’t asking any questions.’

Her eyes blazed. ‘Let me be clear. I don’t know what game you’re playing here, or what your business is with Miss Frank, but I don’t want her valuable time wasted for your nonsense. I don’t believe for two seconds that you have the essential work ethics or the life and interpersonal skills necessary to represent this school and its exemplary educational standards.’

I bit my lip to keep from correcting her. According to the state, her school was far from
exemplary
.

I tuned her out as she blathered on about my lack of integrity and critical-thinking skills and respect for authority. Funny how people who railed about other people’s lack of respect usually weren’t willing to offer any in exchange.

When she stopped, my ears rang. ‘Do we understand each other, young man?’ She clearly expected an answer to more than that question – or a heated reaction. She was doomed to be disappointed.

‘I believe so. Are we finished here, Mrs Ingram?’ I stood, casting a broad shadow over her desk from the east-facing window behind me. ‘I have a class to get to. Unless you want to make me late the first day.’ On cue, the first bell rang.

She stood, but still craned her neck to look up at me. I’d reached my dad’s imposing height over the summer, and she didn’t care for me looming a foot over her. I slid a hand into my front pocket and shifted my weight to one side – as close to a ceasefire as I’d give her. I wasn’t fourteen any more, and this woman was not going to trash my chances of getting out of this town and into college.

‘You’re dismissed. But I’m watching you.’

Uh-huh,
I thought, turning and leaving without response.

I wondered why in the hell someone like her would pursue a career in education in the first place, but I wouldn’t ask. Everyone isn’t logical. Everything doesn’t make sense in the end. Sometimes you have to forget about explanations or excuses and leave people and places behind, because otherwise they will drag you straight down.

Saturday morning, it had been thirty-something hours since I’d seen Jacqueline. Sergeant Ellsworth and I suited up for the final module in the locker room. The two of us weren’t supposed to arrive until halfway through the class, because we would serve only one purpose today: ‘attackers’, which necessitated emotional distance from the ‘victims’.

When we entered the room, fully padded, my eyes went to Jacqueline instantly. Along with the others, she was wearing all the protective gear. They resembled a tribe of mini sumo wrestlers. She looked up and saw me, quickly lowering her lashes and biting her lip, and I was struck with a graphic recollection of the hours we’d spent in my bed. By the looks of her shy grin, so was she.

Emotional distance.
Right
.

I wished, too late, that I’d outright asked Jacqueline to avoid going up against me. We could practise defences together, but this was different. As the attackers, Ellsworth
and I would make audible comments. We would look for openings to attack. We wouldn’t release a ‘victim’ unless a defence blow was adequately delivered – and we’d both been trained to judge that point.

This section of the class was unnerving for me. Pretending to be a sexual predator always made me crave a scalding hot shower after.

As soon as the women finished reviewing moves with Watts, they’d be ready to do what Jacqueline told me her friend Erin termed
serious junk kicking
.

‘She’s only excited because she can practise doing it and not hurt you guys, because of the padding,’ she said as we dressed so I could take her back to the dorm late Thursday night.

‘Uh-huh,’ I said deadpan, and she laughed.

As she pulled on her gloves, her eyes skittering away from mine, she said, ‘Erin was the first person I told.’ Her voice was so soft. ‘I wish I’d told her sooner.’

I tipped her chin and pulled her close. ‘There’s no right or wrong way to be a survivor, Jacqueline. There’s no script.’ She swallowed and nodded, not quite convinced, yet, because of Mindi. ‘You survived, and so will she.’

I was up first. As I went to the mat, I felt Jacqueline’s eyes on me, and I prayed we wouldn’t be paired for this. Vickie was the first volunteer, and she kicked my ass in the best kind of way. I’d expected Erin might step forward first or second, but she hung back with Jacqueline, who seemed in no hurry to go at all. During Ellsworth’s turns on the mat, I watched the two of them root for their classmates,
Erin screaming suggestions at the top of her lungs – ‘Head butt!
LAWNMOWER!
Kick him! Kick him
HARDER
!’ – while Jacqueline cheered and clapped.

Finally, Erin squeezed Jacqueline’s hand and stepped forward to fight Ellsworth, leaving only Jacqueline and one other, extremely timid woman who worked in the Health Centre. Ellsworth eyed Erin and mumbled, ‘If this one kicks my nuts up to my throat, you
owe
me, dude,’ before he stepped out. ‘I’m not so sure I trust the pads with her.’

If the ‘victim’ landed a good blow, we weren’t really going to feel it – hopefully. In my training class, they’d told us to find our inner thespians. Even so, when Erin nailed Ellsworth in the junk with a perfect sweep kick and he crumpled straight to the ground, I was a little worried. Eleven voices screamed, ‘
RUN!
’ but Erin had an inner thespian of her own. After launching herself off his
chest
, she turned round and kicked him twice before running to the safe zone, where she bounced around like she’d won the heavyweight championship.

Ellsworth rolled to his feet and gave me a thumbs up.
Phew
.

I went to the mat and waited. Gail from the Health Centre stepped out, so nervous she was shaking. At this point, some might have been tempted to tell her she didn’t have to do it. But she’d got this far. Time to prove to her that she’d learned something. Watts gave her quiet instructions, at first, encouraging her to hit harder. I went easy on her, but as she landed punches and kicks, and was cheered by her classmates, she kicked harder, hit harder,
yelled
no
and
get back
louder. She was crying and smiling by the time we were done, surrounded and congratulated by the others.