Rough Edges (6 page)

“It was on a beach. Cool water rushing around us as we lay naked in the sand under the moonlight. It sounds corny now, but it wasn’t in the dream.”

“No, it doesn’t. I could just see you lying there, totally wet and open for me. Yeah.

That’s sweet.”

She swallowed hard. His face hadn’t been that clear in her dreams but the voice had been all his. It had to be because she really didn’t know what he looked like. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him for a different picture that showed his face better, but the weekend was only a couple of days away.

“Like you are now. I can tell by your voice when you’re hungry for release. You sound soft and you get quiet. Like you’re embarrassed to ask for it. No reason to be.

Not with me. Ask for it,” he said.

Heat filled her face. He was amazingly perceptive. How had he figured all that out?

Nick never even realized when she wanted it. His only concern was when he wanted it.

Her needs never entered his mind. Jake reached her where no one else had. How was 33

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that possible with someone you didn’t even know? And did she have enough nerve to ask for what she wanted?

“Becca. Ask for it,” he said in a firm but low voice.

“Please?” she murmured.

“Please, what? Tell me what you want.”

God, she was drenched. She squeezed her legs together tighter and her hand fisted in the blanket. How could he control her so well? Make her want so badly?

“Make me come. Please.” She practically begged for it. But at this point she didn’t care. She just wanted the release he could bring her.

“I would touch your neck. You are so sensitive behind your ears. Kiss down your throat and nip at your collarbone, while my hand slid inside your panties and one finger dipped into your heat. So hot. So wet. Moving slow, as your hips rock up to meet each touch. Teeth tugging at your bare nipple.”

Breathing was becoming a chore as he told her exactly what he would do to her.

How she wished it was his cock inside her and not her finger. How she wanted to feel his breath on her skin. How she longed to feel his skin against hers. It had been so long since she had been with a man.

“Becca. Do you have any idea how hot you are? How hot you make me?” His words grated out.

Feeling bold she asked, “Please tell me I’m not alone in this. Are you hard?”

“Fuck, yeah, I’m hard. Would you put your mouth on me? Would you make me come like that, Becca?”

“Yes,” she hissed. “Oh, I’m so close.”

“Not yet. I love hearing your heavy breathing in the phone. Knowing you are touching that wet pussy. Knowing I can make you let go.”

“Oh, please. Can I come?”

“Your clit throbs and aches, doesn’t it? I bet if I put my mouth on it you would come apart.”

“Yes. Oh, God, I’m coming, Jake,” she shouted.

“Fuck!” he said, his panting heavy in her ear.

She rolled on her side as spasms shook her body and her toes curled with pleasure.

Only he had been able to bring her to this level of orgasm. It was uncanny and downright scary. And every time he made her come, it only made her want the real him more. She opened her eyes and released a satisfied sigh. Would she really be able to deny him when she met him? Would she even want to?

Sweat poured off Jake as he sat there, his jaw tight, the phone nearly crushed in one hand, his twitching cock in the other. He’d barely got the towel in place before she made him come. Christ! The woman was a drug. He blew out a breath and stared into 34

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the darkness. The air conditioner hummed in the background but it was still damn hot tonight. And hearing the hunger in Becca’s voice had been his undoing.

“Are you still there?” she asked, sounding like a satisfied kitten.

“Yeah.” Trying to pull himself together instead of acting like a boy amazed by his first come shot was harder than it should have been. “Now you sound relaxed,” he said, forcing a calm to his voice that he didn’t really feel.

“How could I not be? You always relax me, Jake.”

“At your service, darlin’.” He didn’t think he could ever get tired of hearing her say his name. How many women had screamed his name? Too many to count. But it never hit him like a punch to the gut. Never made his heart thump a little harder. “I better let you go. It’s late and you work in the morning.”

“Yeah,” she said with a yawn. “So do you. Remember, you promised me you’d sleep more.”

“I tried it. It’s overrated.”

She yawned again. “Unless you’re really tired.”

“Hmm. Like you? Go to sleep. I’ll see you soon.”

“Yeah. I like that ‘see you soon’. I can’t wait.”

“Night, Bec.”

“Night, Jake.”

He hung up and wiped himself clean. Seemed he was doing that a lot after talking to her. He never really planned on having phone sex with her. But damn, he could practically hear the want in her voice. And who was he to deny her?

He couldn’t wait to see her and was actually surprised that she still wanted to meet him. Looking forward to it, she’d said. She hadn’t backed out, and he expected her to.

Even after all the shit she knew about him. He hoped she hadn’t glorified it. Women tended to do that, sometimes.

Hell, he had seen it firsthand. His mother thought she could fix his old man. She couldn’t see—once a bastard, always a bastard.

He walked to the bathroom, turned on the shower, shucked his clothes and stepped under the spray. Hands splayed on the shower walls, he let the water run over his head.

Becca seemed to think him better than that. Her words echoed in his head.
You’re not
your old man.

Hell if he wasn’t. He saw it every time he looked in a mirror. Every time he lost his temper. Every time he drank one too many. He was just like his old man. His hands fisted as he thought back to things he had done. Things he wasn’t proud of.

If Becca knew those things, she wouldn’t want a damn thing to do with him. She was too good for him, but she drew him in and he couldn’t stop it. It was like tasting heaven when one had been locked in hell and he couldn’t resist.

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He didn’t think he could get wound up in someone. But he had. Revulsion for himself built up inside like it always did. He knew better. Deeper involvement meant a rejection in the end. She was in Virginia. He was in Oklahoma. Things couldn’t get deeper. Could they? Distance would keep things on a level playing field. She didn’t have to know how fucked up he was and he could keep her at arm’s length.

* * * * *

“Jake, would you like some potato salad?” Maria asked.

He glanced up at Tony’s mom and nodded. “Thanks.” Scooping a heap onto his plate, he listened to Amber, Tony’s sister, talk.

“Mom, I’m so excited! But I will miss you all so much.”

“I don’t know why your fiancé can’t move here. Why do you have to move to Virginia?” Tony asked. “I don’t know why you have to give everything up.”

Amber’s lips pursed familiarly. It meant she was getting ready to go on a rant. It made him want to duck.

“You know why he can’t move here, Tony. He has a job. A good one and I can go to school there. You know, people move across country all the time. I don’t know why you have such a hang-up about it. It’s not like you can’t visit.”

“Yeah. But how am I supposed to keep an eye on you all the way in Virginia?

Trouble is your middle name, husband or not,” Tony replied.

“You don’t need to keep an eye on me. I’ll have a husband. And you and Jake are the troublemakers. Not me. I swear, the last time I went to Magoo’s with you, there was a girl fight. Over you two. Can you believe it?” She looked at her mom. “Why in the world would anyone want to fight over those two?”

When Maria turned and looked at them, Tony said innocently, “What? I didn’t tell them to fight. Did you, Jake?”

“Hey, don’t get me in on this. I just want to enjoy the food.” He took a bite out of his charcoaled cheeseburger so he wouldn’t have to say anything else.

“One of these days, you two will get caught in your own game. A girl will come along and there you will be. None of your dashing charm to save you. Just mark my words, one day it will happen,” Maria said and waggled a finger at them.

“Won’t happen to me.” Tony elbowed him. “But it might have already happened to my friend here.”

Jake glared at a grinning Tony. “Yeah, right. When hell has frozen over.”

“Is that why you’re meeting Becca in Virginia?”

He wanted to pummel Tony right at that moment. Why in hell had he brought Becca up with his family around? “Whatever,” he said trying to ignore it.

Amber placed both hands on the table and leaned forward, her pale blue eyes wide.

“You’re bringing a girl to my wedding? Oh my God! Hell did freeze.”

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“No. I’m not bringing a girl to your wedding.” He frowned and shook his head.

“She’s just a girl I’m meeting in Virgnia.”

“She’s not flying down with you?” Amber asked, being her nosy self.

“No. She lives in Virginia.”

“How did you meet a girl in Virginia? Did you go on a trip and not tell me?”

Jake fought the urge to roll his eyes and glanced at Maria for support. But she was sporting a smile that said she wanted to know as well. So he looked at Carl, Tony’s dad, and he just shrugged. No help there.

“She’s a girl he met online,” Tony blurted out.

Jake choked on his burger and jabbed him hard in the side, which only made Tony laugh.

“You’re online dating? Why in the world would you do that?” Amber asked. “You have your pick of females…although I have no idea what they see in you. You never talk and—”

“That’s enough, Amber,” Maria said. “Do we get to meet this girl, Jake?”

“No.” He had no intention of revealing any more information.

“They’ve been talking for about a month. We’re meeting her at the beach.”

“A month?” Maria asked and he didn’t meet her gaze. “My, that’s a long time for you. And Tony is going with you?”

Did Tony have a death wish? What the hell was the matter with him? He shook his head and glanced at Maria when he heard the hope in her voice. The woman had tried everything to get him to settle down with a girl. He knew she just wanted him happy, but he had given up on that dream a long time ago. “Don’t even think it. I’ll probably never see her again.” Which was true. He had no idea what she would think of him and he planned on it being a one-time thing. “I told her to bring a friend, so I invited idiot here. She seemed to feel safer that way.”

Amber burst out laughing. “She won’t once she gets a look at you two. Did you tell her to bring her daddy? That’s the only way she would be safe.”

He wanted to thump her on the head. She was like a little sister to him and just as irritating. “Maybe I should have warned Kevin about you. Heaven help the poor man who has to put up with you 24/7.”

“You exaggerate, Amber. They are good boys.”

Amber choked on her drink and, strangely, so did Carl.

“Did you hear what he said about me?” Amber dramatized. “You stick up for him, but not for me?” When she stuck her tongue out at him, he winked at her and she smiled.

“Always a circus at this table,” Carl muttered.

Maria patted his arm. “You like it that way, dear.”

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Jake listened to them rattle on, mostly Amber, Tony and Maria. He didn’t contribute much just added a word or two when necessary. Carl just leaned back, drank his iced tea and watched them all. Carl never said much either, but when he did, you listened.

Fourteen years ago, he and Tony had gotten into a fist fight. Tony won, but not without Jake giving him a good run. Bloody and bruised, Tony had dragged them both into Maria’s kitchen. And he had been here ever since. Had even lived here for a time when things had been really bad at home.

But to him, this was home. Not the drug-infested trailer park his mom lived in.

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Becca got out of her Jeep and stared at the beach. The dark blue ocean lapped against the sandy shores and the sun glared off the water. She always loved coming here. The air was crisp and tangy and all her stresses seemed to melt away…except today.

Today, she was meeting Jake.

She inhaled and looked over at Summer. The girl could make a paper bag look good. She wore an orange halter top and a flouncy skirt that stopped mid-thigh. It made her already long legs seem longer. Especially since she wore thick heeled sandals with straps that wrapped about her ankles several times.

Smoothing down her own light pink tank top and jean skirt, she almost wished she had worn heels. She was too short without them, but as Summer had pointed out, she got clumsy when she was nervous. As it was, she had already tripped twice in her flat brown and pink flip-flops.

“We‘re so late,” Becca said and glanced at her phone for the hundredth time. “You think he gave up on us?”

“Are you kidding?” Summer said and rolled her eyes. “Call him. Let him know we’re here. I can’t wait to meet the stud.”

“Would you quit calling him that!” Every time Summer called him a stud she felt the heat flood her face.

“Oh, you know I’m just teasing you. So call him already.”

She bit her lip. They were late, by an hour and a half due to a traffic jam that had her grinding her teeth. She had called earlier and let him know, but had only gotten his voicemail. She prayed he was still around.

“If you don’t, I will,” Summer said and put a hand on her hip.

“Okay, okay, I’m calling him.” The last thing she needed was for Summer to call him…again.

Scrolling through her contacts she found his name and hit call.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Jake. It’s Becca.”

“Oh, hey darlin’. Just a sec,” he said sounding slightly out of breath. “Time out guys, phone. Okay, back. Sorry about that. What’s up?”

Loving how he always called her “darlin’”, she smiled. “I know I’m late, but I wanted to let you know that we’re finally here.”

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