Snared (Jaded Regret #1) (19 page)

“Beau, can we video chat?”

I froze, my heart pounding like I’d seen a ghost. It was one thing to say it out loud and a whole other to see her beautiful face while I did it. “April . . .”

“Is it too hard?” I loved that she somehow got me.

“I wish it wasn’t, but I can’t right now. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said. “Tell me whatever you want. I’m here. I’m listening.”

“My mom . . . she took it so hard. Then when I started having trouble dealing with it, she took me for help. But a few years later, it was like something snapped. She’d say horrible things to me. It was like suddenly, she hated me. I looked like him and acted like him, so I was poison. This is why it’s hard for me to talk about it. I mean, at some point in her life she loved my dad, right? She loved him enough to see past his issues. But then it became too much for her, and she snapped. I don’t want to be a burden like that to anyone. Not to my sister, to you, or anyone.”

“I can understand why you’d think of it that way, but if you love someone, it’s not conditional. How did you end up in foster care?”

“I started having . . . episodes when I was eight. She couldn’t handle them. When I was twelve, she committed me to a mental institution.”

“This was the time you were sedated.” My heart soared. She remembered.

“Yes. She left me there and never . . .” My throat closed up. I attempted to work around it but I couldn’t. I hadn’t cried in years, probably since the days after Natalie and I realized she wasn’t coming back.

“You haven’t seen her since?”

I shook my head, wishing for a moment we
were
video chatting. “No. She left Natalie with our neighbor and me in the hospital. It took a few days, but when they figured it out, they called social services.”

“So you don’t know where she is now?”

“I don’t care to know where she is,” I answered. “I live with her, every day inside my head. She never leaves me.”

A strangled cry came from April’s line. “I want you to do something the next time her voice resonates in your head. Can you do that, Beau? For me?”

“I’ll try. It isn’t quite that easy to get rid of her.”

“I want you to think about my lips against yours at the park. About the way we look at each other. Think of my fingers wrapped with yours. Know that all I see is a beautiful, handsome, talented man that I . . .” April broke off, clearing her throat. “I care about. Every time she tries to turn something ugly, I want you to think of something beautiful. Think of the two of us together, Beau. Can you do that?”

I thought back to the park, April straddling me as we kissed, caressed, and held on to each other. I thought about every single time I’d been with her, the way she made me feel and the words she said. Words could hurt. They could cut you like a knife, leaving you bleeding out on the floor. I’d been bleeding for too long.

But with April, words could heal. They could start sewing back together the holes that had been gaping for so long. Why I was so much more inclined to believe the hateful things said about me rather than the good?

“I’d like that. April . . .”

“I’m here, Beau.”

“I want you to help me be the man you see me as,” I said.

She sighed. “You already
are
the man I see you as. I need you to believe you’re that man.”

“I’ve missed you. I can’t wait to see you again.”

“Oh Beau. I can’t wait, either. I’m going to be there waiting for you the second you pull into your driveway.”

I rubbed my chest, wondering what the fullness in my heart meant.

We were seconds away from pulling in to our studio. I was only minutes away from seeing April again. This month had been the most exhausting one of my life. I had no idea how Bex and Johnny were still hanging in there with two small children. Our tour had been more successful than we could ever have imagined, but we were more than ready to be done traveling.

“Is she coming to our house?” Natalie asked me from across the table. There was no need for me to ask who she was talking about—I knew. In the last week, I’d spoken to April multiple times a day. My phone was physically attached to my body at this point. I nodded, and she smiled at me. “I’m going to work at the studio for a while.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I said.

“I know,” Natalie answered, but I knew she’d do it anyway.

What a difference a week made. Natalie and I had had a huge heart-to-heart after my first initial conversation with April. She’d convinced me to talk to Dr. Mia about my newfound relationship with April, and I had. To say Dr. Mia was shocked I’d been keeping April from her was an understatement. She’d had an inkling something was up with me but knew I wouldn’t tell her until I was ready. She’d had no idea it was a woman, however.

She’d encouraged me to continue to open up as much as I felt comfortable with April, and I had. I’d told April a lot of the things that reverberated around my head during my low times, and the things that my mother’s voice said that kept me from fully enjoying my life. We’d talked about what my medications did to help me and that I hoped to be able to function without them someday.

My drumming had been off the chain. I’d gotten up in front of the crowd in Atlanta and spoken before giving out my drumsticks. I think our fans were just as shocked as I had been, though I didn’t say much. But the fact I’d spoken had been trending on social media. April said she’d watched YouTube videos of me up there breaking out of my box.

The bus stopped and the doors opened. I grabbed my bag and jumped down the three steps, holding my arms out as I welcomed the hot Florida sunshine on my face. Natalie followed right behind me, then Trevor. Johnny and Bex were climbing out of the other bus. Johnny held Jaden, while Lennox jumped around in front of them.

“We’re home!” Lennox shouted. “I want to see my toys! My house! My room!”

I knew the feeling. I jumped in my car, and with a wave, sped off toward home, surprised to realize I wasn’t at all nervous.

I careened the car into the driveway and shoved it into park. The second I stepped out of my car, April stepped out of hers. She was in a pair of short jean shorts and a tank top. Her dark hair was in a low ponytail and a few pieces had escaped, framing her face as the wind blew. She was the most beautiful fucking thing I’d ever seen in my life.

I didn’t waste one second being timid about her reaction to seeing me after a month. I strode to her with purpose and grabbed her, burying my face in her neck as she wrapped her arms around me. She smelled the same. God, I’d missed that scent.

“Beau.” Her fingers scratched through my hair, just like I loved. “I missed you so much.”

I lifted her and carried her into my house, kicking the door shut behind me and pushing her against it. I’d been thinking about this the whole time I’d been gone, and I couldn’t stop now. I was forcing the insecurity away and taking what I wanted. What I hoped she wanted as badly as I did.

I took her mouth with mine, my tongue meeting hers as my body pinned her to the door. She moaned into my mouth as I pressed my erection into her stomach. I wasn’t blowing in my pants this time. I was ready. My fingers traced the edge of her shorts and the edge of her shirt. I lifted it past her bra. We broke our kiss, our eyes connecting as I lifted her shirt and tossed it behind us.

April ran her hands under my shirt, sending my body into a frenzy at her touch. I was so hard it was painful. She threw my shirt with hers, and we both stood there, our emotions as naked as our bodies were about to be. I wasn’t sure what she was thinking or where she wanted to go from here until she reached behind her and unhooked her bra. When it hit the floor at our feet, I sucked in a breath. Her full breasts called to me, and I reached both hands out and cupped them, my thumbs caressing her taut nipples.

Her eyes fluttered closed as I continued to rub my fingers on her nipples. She reached for me, her soft fingers running along the ridges of my muscles and to the button of my shorts. Our eyes met again as she unbuttoned them, pushing them down until they puddled on the floor. Her eyes left mine to zero in on my obvious attraction to her.

I begrudgingly took my hands from her breasts, unbuttoned her shorts and helped them join mine on the floor. We both stood, her in her sexy black thong and me in my boxer briefs, open and bare to each other.

“Are you sure?” April was giving me an out. She was always giving me an out.

I lifted her in my arms and carried her to my room, locking the door behind us. I laid her out on my bed and stared at her, in awe that she was here, and my dreams were coming true. I slid her thong down her legs and dropped it to the floor. I lifted her leg and kissed her from her foot up to her inner thigh. The closer I got, the more she wriggled.

I’d never done this part before, but I knew enough to know how. The second I touched her slick lips with my finger, April groaned. “Beau . . .” My name falling from her lips while my fingers were inside her had my already rock hard shaft pulsing behind my boxer briefs. I dipped my head, running my nose along her sex. My fingers moved in and out of her as I took her clit into my mouth and sucked.

“Oh, my . . .” April moved her head back and forth, gripping the comforter with her hands as I continued to worship her with my mouth. By her reaction, I guessed I wasn’t half bad at this.

When her legs began to clench around my head, I backed off, kissing up her stomach to each of her breasts. Before I could continue, April sat up and pushed me over, her hands making quick work of my boxer briefs. As I sprung free, she hissed through her teeth. Her hand closed over me, pumping me hard first, then soft.

My eyes fluttered closed. I hadn’t been touched in so long . . .

Memories of the only other time I’d been in this situation came into my head without warning, but I opened my eyes and watched as April kneeled over me, watching her hand pump me. April was different. She wasn’t Robyn.
This
was different. I knew it was, and I wasn’t going to compare. April wasn’t going to leave me. She took my shaft into her mouth, and I cursed a line of expletives as her warmth overtook me. I concentrated hard on not blowing. I couldn’t do that. Not yet. I had to enjoy this for as long as possible.

After concentrating became not enough to hold me back, I moved her off me and settled her back onto my bed. I climbed over her. Sweat trickled down my chest and forehead, and her chest glistened.

“You are
so
beautiful.” I took her lips before she could respond. She hooked one of her legs around my backside and pushed me closer to her, using one hand to stroke my manhood and the other to grip the back of my neck as we kissed.

“I need you,” she whispered against my lips. “Now. Please. Skin on skin. I’m clean and on birth control.”

My eyes rolled as I settled myself at her entrance. “I’m good, too,” I grunted. Our lips met again as I slid into her heat. I stilled, waiting for a second to acclimate to her tight wetness. It was fucking heaven, right here and now. I could now die a happy man.

She moaned as I filled her, her hands finding my ass and pulling me closer to her. We moved in tandem, our tongues moving with our bodies as we made love. And that’s what this was. I knew what fucking was. I’d had that before. I’d seen it many times. But as April gripped me from the inside, I lifted her hands and entwined mine with them. I opened my eyes and saw her watching me, but I didn’t have the urge to look away. We moved together, our soft moans and kisses the only sound in the room. We never broke eye contact.

“Beau.” April sighed, loosening her hands from my grip and touching my face. “You feel so good . . .”

That was all it took and I let go, filling her as she cried out my name again, scratching her nails down my back as she came around me. I kissed her neck as we both came down. April ran her fingers through my hair as I licked and sucked her smooth skin. I’d never told her how much I loved that she did that, but I did.

“That was . . . amazing.” April sighed, moving her hands down my neck and scratching my back. “And quite a welcome home present. Unexpected . . . and the hottest thing I’ve ever experienced.”