Pulse - Part Two (5 page)

"Christ. You're so hot." He pumps harder. "Touch yourself."

I only can nod in response as I eagerly push myself closer to the edge.

"Fuck." He strokes his cock as I suck just on the tip. "This is too good."

I feel the edge of the orgasm race through me and I reach to pull more of him into my mouth as I moan around his core.

"Ah, Jessica," he screams through clenched teeth as he plunges his cock into my mouth, his hot desire rushing over my tongue and down my throat.

***

"I
should take you to the club more often." He pulls me into the crux of his arm. I settle my head next to his chest.

"You didn't." I laugh. "I went. You followed me there."

"I didn't follow you anywhere." He grazes his lips over my cheek. "You shouldn’t go to places like that without me."

"You should answer your phone when I call." I trace a path across his chest, my fingers playfully running through the hair.

"I was in court." It's the same response every time I ask him a question about his day.

"Was it interesting?" I push for more. I want to know more. I want to know everything there is to know about his life.

"No." He doesn't offer anything beyond that.

It was time for a new approach. "Do you like being a lawyer?" Maybe if I got him to talk about something he actually took pride in, he'd want to share more.

"It's alright." Mission failed. He doesn't say anything more on that subject.

"Do you have plans for the weekend?" I'm not giving up. I'm not leaving here without at least some new tidbit of information about him tonight.

"I'm going to Boston to visit my sister and her family."

"Does she have kids?" I'm finally making headway.

"We should get you home." He kisses the top of my head before he pulls away. "It's getting late."

"L
et's say you were having great sex with a guy..."

"I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you." Rebecca twirls a forkful of spaghetti in the center of her plate before she pulls it into her mouth. "This is so good, Jess."

I smile at the compliment. I'll never get tired of people telling me they like my cooking, even if one of those people is my best friend.

"Let's say after you finish your spaghetti, you were having ridiculously good sex with a guy and that's all he ever wanted to do."

"Where's the question?" She pulls more food into her mouth through a twisted smile.

"What would you do?" It's awkward. I'm not presenting it correctly but I just want her opinion.

"I'd thank my lucky stars and I'd take vitamins, lots of them."

I snicker and drop my fork onto my plate. "No. I'm not explaining this right."

"Fingers is just not that into you, is he? I mean other than the places he can stick his big dick?" She waves her fork in the air.

"Why does that bother me so much?" I cringe when the question leaves my lips. "Why do I give a fuck if all he wants to do is fuck?"

"Here's what I think." She gulps down a hearty swallow of red wine before she pulls a paper napkin across her lips. "It's like he wants you to see him exclusively but you don’t get to have all the dating and fun bits that usually come with that. All you get is the crazy hot sex."

"When you put it that way." I shrug my shoulders before I continue, "I guess it's not that bad."

"Jess. You feel used, don't you?" She winces at her own words.

"I think so." My mouth purses. "I guess I do."

"Tell him." She stands to clear both our plates from the small dining table. "Or go back to just being random fuck buddies until you do find someone who sees you as more than that."

***

"J
ess?" A vaguely familiar voice bolts out of the darkness as I leave the restaurant after my Saturday night shift. I'm exhausted and seeing anyone I know right now is not something I want. What I do want is a nice hot shower, some popcorn and a good movie I can get lost in. I've texted Nathan twice today to see how his train ride to Boston was and I've got nothing back in return.

"Jess?" The voice is louder now and I feel a pit in my stomach when I realize who it belongs to. It can't be. He can't be here.

"Josh?" I turn slowly. He's right behind me. The man I spent three years of my life loving is standing on a crowded New York City sidewalk staring right at me.

"It's you." He rushes to me and envelopes me in a hug. I melt into his arms. This is what home feels like. This is what it's like to be wanted.

"What are you doing here?" I sob into his shoulder. I'm so overcome with emotion. I can't think straight. All the pain that swallowed me up before and during our break up is now a distant tug at my heart. I can't pull it back to the surface. All I can feel is relief at the familiar feeling of his strong arms around me.

"Things between us ended so badly, Jess." He runs his hand up and down my back. It's the same comforting gesture he always did when I had a bad day or when life got to be too much.

"I'm sorry for that." I pull back from his embrace and gaze up into his face. It's the same face I left just a few weeks ago. The same deep brown eyes and dirty blonde hair. His open grin sends a course of regret through me. He was so upset the day I left. His entire face pulled into a painful grimace as I told him it was over and I was moving away.

"You had every right to leave." His eyes stare at my chef's jacket. "Jess. You're a chef." He picks me up and twirls me around on the crowded Manhattan sidewalk.

"No." I sigh when he places me back down. "I'm a sous chef in training which just means I cut potatoes and peel vegetables all day but it's a start."

"Can we go somewhere to talk?" His expression seeps of expectation. I can't disappoint him. I need him right now just as much as he needs me.

"Come home with me." I reach into my purse to send Rebecca a quick text warning her that I'm bringing Josh by. I search the new messages and still nothing from Nathan. "I'll cook you something."

"I've missed you, Jess." He wraps his arm around my shoulder.

"I've missed you too."

"T
hat was great, chef." He pushes himself away from the small dining table and pulls himself to his feet. He's so tall. Somehow he seems taller than I remember.

"Come, sit with me." I pull him by his hand to the small couch in the corner of the living room. Rebecca must have ditched when she read my text about Josh coming over. The last time he was here visiting, we were still together and they didn't see eye-to-eye. Josh's idea of an ideal life for me was being a paramedic's wife with a few kids by the time I was thirty.

"I can't believe you live in this great apartment." He soaks in the wide space. "You live here with Rebecca?"

"We have another roommate," I offer, even though my interactions with Bryce are typically limited to a passing glance in the hallway or a quick hello over a morning cup of coffee. "Bryce is his name."

"Is he your boyfriend?" The question is swollen with indignation. Josh's hair trigger was one of the reasons we were constantly in conflict. I had to temper almost everything I told him when we were living together.

"No. He has a girlfriend back home." I don't want to argue with him. I just want to enjoy a small reminder of what I left behind.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" He must have read something between the lines in my reaction to his question about Bryce. Nathan isn't my boyfriend. Boyfriends encompass more than a few sex-fuelled hours a couple of times a week.

"I don't." I don't expand my answer. Nathan is away for the weekend and if Josh's EMT schedule is still the same, he's due back in Connecticut for a shift on Monday morning.

"How are you feeling about things?" My stomach drops at the broad scope of the question. He's going to bring up the one subject I can't bear to talk about. I don't want that. I don't want to hear him mention his name.

"I'm good." My reply is rushed and forced. "It's all good."

"It's not getting any easier, is it?" He's going to push this on me. I can't believe after the blow up we had right before our break up that he would drag this subject back into the light of day.

"I don't want to talk about it." I stand. I need distance. I need to get to the other side of the room.

"He died, Jess. Not talking about it isn't going to change a thing."

I feel the room spin at the mention of his death. I can't do this. I won't.  "I'm not talking about this. Is that why you came here?"

"No. I came to see you. I wanted to see how you are." He stands and walks towards the door. "We're going to talk about this one way or another. You can't keep running from it. You have to face it at some point."

I push my back against the wall as the apartment door closes behind him. My knees buckle and I slide to the floor.

I need you. I really need you, Nathan.
I type the words into my phone and press send.

"I
've been thinking about you all weekend." Nathan pulls me into his apartment and into a tight embrace.

I slap his hands away once I realize he's pulling on the hem of my sweater. Seriously? He thinks I'm going to fuck his brains out right now even though he ignored my text messages pleading with him to call me?

"What's wrong?" He nuzzles his face into my neck.

"Is your phone broken?" I push back and stare at him.

"It's fine. Why?"

"It's fine?" My stomach cramps with the simple and straightforward understanding that he simply chose to ignore all of my pleading texts and voicemails.

"What's with you?" He walks across the room to pour himself a drink and motions toward an empty glass.

"I don't want anything." I can't drink. I can't even think straight right now. "Why didn't you call me back?"

"I knew I'd see you today, Jessica." The carefree lilt in his voice is grating on me. He doesn’t care that I called him and left sobbing voicemails. It doesn't faze him at all that I sent him a flurry of texts.

"Do I mean anything beyond a decent fuck to you?" I pull my hands across my chest. This is it. I'm not investing anything more in this ridiculous excuse for a relationship.

"What's got you so tied up in knots?" He scans his phone, only further pushing me over the edge.

"Did you get any interesting messages tonight?" I know I sound like a bitch. I am a bitch when I'm dealing with a man who can't seem to think beyond the scope of his cock.

"Work stuff." He tosses the phone on the couch. "I missed you."

"Shut up, Nathan." I spit out, the stress from the last few days boiling over. "Shut the hell up. Did you think I was coming over here so you could fuck me?"

"I hoped you'd want to fuck me too." The words pierce through my skin like a needle.

"You're serious, aren't you?" My voice trembles. I'm unable to hide my anger.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" He finishes the glass of bourbon before he takes a seat on the couch facing me. "Sit down."

"No." I won't submit to what he wants. "I'm leaving. This is such utter bullshit."

"You just got here. Sit the fuck down, Jessica." He doesn't move to stand or to stop me.

"Fuck off, Nathan." I turn to leave.

"What's your problem?" He's finally on his feet, racing to block me from the doorway.

"You." I push a finger against his chest and it barely moves. "You're the problem."

"What the fuck did I do?" He grabs my hand and clenches it within his fist. "I've been away for three days and I come back to this."

"You didn't think at some point this weekend that it might be a good idea to return one of my messages?"

"You're upset about that." He pulls a thin grin across his face. "I'd rather talk to you in person."

"You're such an asshole." I shout. "Just a narcissistic asshole."

"Watch your mouth," he says tightly. "Don’t say things you're going to regret."

I pull my palm across my face to smear the tears that are now streaming down my face. "I regret everything. All of it. I regret ever meeting you. All I am to you is a convenient fuck and for some reason you don't want me to fuck anyone else so you pretend that we're in a relationship." I pull the last word heavily across my lips.

"We are in a relationship, Jessica." I can hear the impatience in his tone and it only spurs my emotions more.

"People in relationships help each other." I pull my gaze to the floor. I can't look at him. I know that being vulnerable with him is a mistake. He doesn't care. All he cares about is coming inside of me.

"What do you need?" he asks it so calmly. How can he do that? How can he react so impassively knowing that I'm such an emotional wreck?

I push past him and grasp the door handle within my palm. "To leave," I whisper.

"Talk to me." He pulls my hand away from the handle and into his. "Tell me."

"I told you in my text messages. I cried about it in my voicemails."

Panic skirts around the edges of his eyes and everything suddenly makes sense. He hasn't read any of the messages. He hasn't heard one of the voicemails. He just didn't care enough to check.

"Since you obviously didn't bother to check the messages I left you, I'll recap them for you. My ex-boyfriend came to visit me to remind me that I killed a man when I lived in Connecticut." His hand drops mine and without looking at his face, I open the door and slip into the hallway.

'Y
ou didn't kill anyone." Rebecca runs her hand down the side of my cheek. "Josh can't keep telling you that, it's wrong."

"I let him die. It's the same thing. "I close my eyes tightly. The memory of that night in Connecticut washes over me again. It`s become an endless loop that I can't escape from. I thought running from my life there would block out the pain. The heavy reminders that Josh brought back with him, can't be chased away with a simple change of scenery.

"You did your best." She moves closer to pull me into a tight embrace. "No one can fault you for that."

"It's not like that. I was trained to know what to do." I can barely say the words. I studied to be a paramedic. I know what to do when someone stops breathing, yet I let Josh's grandfather die in my arms.