Breakaway (24 page)

“Stop, Jase.”

He muttered something against her neck and didn’t move. “You’re
so sweet, Remi,” he murmured. “God, I missed you. I had to see you. Even…”

Even what? She ached for more of him, longed to arch against
him and throw her arms around his neck. She almost did. Then she used some of
the moves she hadn’t used for a while and slid out of his grip with a fast bend
of her knees, then grabbed his arm and twisted it up behind his back sharply.

“Jesus Christ!”

She gave his arm a hard wrench, not to hurt him, just to
remind him that just because he was big didn’t mean she couldn’t protect
herself from him. Then she let him go and stepped away, putting space between
them.

“Do not think you can just show up and get me all hot and
bothered and I’ll just forget about whatever is going on,” she said, her jaw so
tight it hurt. “Don’t think you can use sex to distract me from everything
else.” Whoa. She was speaking up, standing up for herself. It was hard, but she
knew it was important, important to their relationship and important for her
own self-respect.

He stared at her, then rubbed his face. The lost look on his
face almost did her in, but she straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin.

“Sit down,” she said, pointing to the arm chair. “And talk.”

“Uh…”

“Oh, god, Jase. I saw the newspaper article. You were
arrested! You barely played half of the game Monday night and then you got in a
fight and took a stupid penalty and cost your team the game.”

He winced.

She was just getting started. “So you didn’t call me. Fine.
We don’t owe each other anything. Really. All I wanted to know was that you
were okay. Then you call and don’t say a word about what happened. Then I see
that in the paper and watch you blow the game—I was worried about you!”

She pushed her bangs off her forehead and blew out a long
breath. That had actually felt pretty good. Except she was still worried sick
about him.

Jason sat in the chair, not saying a word, hands on the
armrests.

“What’s this all about? Tell me. Did you freak out after you
asked me to move in with you?”

He stared at her.

“‘Cause if you did, that’s just crazy. We didn’t even talk
about it. I don’t know if I even want to move in with you. It was no reason to
go nuts.”

“That’s not it,” he said in a low voice.

His shoulders slumped and again she went all soft and warm
inside, wanting to throw herself into his lap and hug him and make him feel
better.

“Then what is it?”

“You were worried about me?”

“Of course I was!”

She stood there shaking her head.

His lips pressed together he nodded and sat forward, head
bowed. Then he lifted his head. “I never thought you’d be worried about me.”

She sank down onto the couch, legs feeling woolly soft. “I
love you, Jase. Of course I’d be worried about you.”

“Oh, god.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “Sorry,
Remi. I should’ve called you, but I didn’t. I’m sorry you read about that in
the paper. I was an idiot. But it’s done.”

She shook her head, not convinced this wasn’t some major
crisis.

“That’s it,” she said slowly. “Were you celebrating that
night? At Sage?”

“Celebrating?” His laugh cracked. “Hell. Yeah. Sure.
Celebrating.”

All she could do was sit there and look at him.

“C’mere, Remi. Please.” He held out a hand and despite her
practical, sane, sensible nature, she rose off the couch and went over to him.
He tugged her down onto his lap and she snuggled in against him, so big and
warm and strong. His hands tightened on her body and he buried his face against
her hair. She felt his chest rise and fall with his breathing, faster than
usual, felt his heart thudding beneath her palm.

“I need you,” he whispered. “So much.”

She nodded against him, then lifted her head. She didn’t
realize she was crying until his mouth touched hers and they both felt the
wetness. He groaned and used his fingertips to wipe away her tears as they
kissed.

“Don’t cry, Remi. Please don’t cry. I’m not worth it.”

How could he say that? More tears squeezed out of her eyes,
despite the kisses he laid on her mouth, his hands holding her face.

The kisses grew hotter, their need for each other
accelerated. Their hands roamed over each other’s bodies, sliding beneath
clothes to find skin, his finding her breasts, hers gliding over the satiny
muscles of his back.

He shoved up her skirt and cursed at the black tights she
wore beneath it, but he hooked his fingers into the waistband and dragged them
along with her panties off over her hips and legs, leaving her bare to him. He
unzipped and pulled out his erection, long and hard and then he groaned.
“Fuck,” he muttered. “Need a condom…”

“It’s okay,” she whispered. With crazy wild thinking, she
didn’t want him to use a condom. She wasn’t going to get pregnant, being on the
Pill, but if she did…it’d be okay. She trusted him. She wanted his baby.

But he lifted his hips off the couch and shoved a hand into
his pocket. He quickly sheathed up and then, still dressed, he pushed inside
her and she loved it.

He buried his face against her hair as his big body jerked
and heaved over her, filling her, stretching her. She tightened her thighs on
his hips, squeezing him inside her, every thrust pushing the air out of her
lungs and leaving her breathless. She gripped his shoulders and hung on tight,
he rode her so hard, just how she liked it, hard and fierce and fervent.

She cried out, holding on tighter, lifting into each push of
his body, her clit bumping against his pubic bone, each drive pushing her
higher and a long, low noise escaped her as she came, holding herself against
him. He groaned too and she felt him come inside her.

She wrapped her arms around his big body and they held each
other for long moments, their labored breathing the only sound in the room.

“Now are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

Chapter Sixteen

She loved being held by Jason in bed after sex, his arms
around her, sinking into his voluptuous body heat, her legs twined with his,
her cheek on his chest. But they weren’t in bed and their clothes separated
them in a way that was more than just fabric.

“Yeah,” he said in a gravelly voice. “I do have something to
tell you.”

“Okay.”

He paused and she waited, playing with his chest hair.

“You remember Brianne?”

Her stomach clenched and her fingers stilled. “Your old
girlfriend Brianne?”

“Yes.”

She waited again.

“She’s pregnant.”

Jason’s heart thudded steadily beneath her cheek. Her heart,
on the other hand, had stopped. Her body felt hot and tight. She couldn’t move.
She couldn’t breathe. Her thoughts blurred and the room shifted around her,
closed in on her, then faded out.

She wanted to say, so what? Who cares about her anymore?
What’s the big deal?

But she knew what the big deal was. Jason wouldn’t be
telling her this if it didn’t matter hugely to him. And it could only matter to
him for two reasons—either he was still in love with Brianne and this fact
devastated him or…he was the father.

And she knew which one of those it was.

She knew.

Her heart probably started beating again, she didn’t know,
but it hurt. It hurt so bad she almost cried out with the agony of it.

She rolled away from Jason and sat up on the edge of the
couch, her back to him. Her eyes burned, but no tears came. Her stomach
tightened so much she felt nausea rolling over her. She still fought for
oxygen, the room shifting around her as if she was on a slow moving merry-go-round.

“It happened just before we broke up,” Jason continued in
that low, barely audible voice. “Before I met you. I haven’t been with her since,
Remi. It’s not like that.”

She gave a jerky nod, but although that did take care of the
foremost question in her head, that assurance did not make her anguish any
better. Not at all.

She stood, but her knees were like butter and her vision
went dark and she had to sit back down quickly. She sucked a breath into
constricted lungs.

Then questions flooded her brain, clogging up and confusing
her. She couldn’t get words out. “What…” She swallowed, tried again. “How did
you…”

“Remi, come here. Please.” He tugged on her arm, trying to
pull her back to him, but she twisted out of his grasp. Fury blazed inside her
suddenly, fury at him for doing this to her.

“Get out,” she snapped at him. “Get out of my house.”

“Remi, we have to talk.”

“I can’t. Not right now.” She couldn’t look at him. She
pressed a hand to her eyes. “I just can’t.”

He was still and silent. Then he stood. She still couldn’t
look at him. She heard him putting himself back into his pants, the rasp of the
zipper. The crushing pressure in her chest had her gasping.

“Remi, I don’t want to leave you like this.”

“Just go! Leave me alone! I can’t talk about this right now.”

“Should I come over tomorrow?”

“No.”

“Remi…”

She couldn’t look at him. She didn’t know if she’d want to
see him tomorrow or the next day or ever, for that matter. She felt the weight
of his gaze on her, even though she sat with her back turned to him, sticky and
wet between her legs. She listened for the clap of the door closing behind him.
And then she fell apart.

* * * * *

She had never called in sick when she wasn’t sick, but
Friday morning she did. Well, she
did
feel sick. She hadn’t slept more
than a couple of hours and that sleep had been restless and disturbed. She
could not function in the classroom and it was better that she’d found a
substitute teacher and just stayed home. She had three whole days to try to
deal with the mess her life had suddenly become.

It was almost too painful to even think about, but she made
herself do it, like picking at a scab or worrying a sore tooth.

Brianne was pregnant. With Jason’s baby. The baby Remi had
always wanted, with the man she loved, the man she now wanted to have babies
with. She stood and kicked a chair. Hard. Ow.

She sat on her bed and buried her face in her hands.

She was in love with Jason. She’d actually been considering
moving in with him. She thought she’d met the man she wanted to be with forever
and he loved her too. Their future had stretched ahead of them, bright and
shining and forever, maybe with…babies. Children. A family of their own.

And now this. She and Jason were done. How could she be with
a man who’d gotten another woman pregnant? She started to cry yet again. You’d
think the tears would have dried her right out, but somewhere, somehow her body
was able to produce more and she cried and cried again until she lay down,
exhausted.

She hated how she felt after a big crying jag. She hadn’t
had one for so long, not since her parents had died. She hated the stuffy nose,
the swollen, stinging eyes, the puffy lips, the feeling of being on the edge of
starting all over again.

She sat up slowly on her bed and dragged her hands over her
cheeks, shaking her head. The pregnancy had happened before she and Jason had
met. It wasn’t as if he’d cheated on her.

So he said.

No, Jason wouldn’t lie. She knew him better than that. He
hadn’t cheated on her, hadn’t planned this. When she thought about it
logically, she realized it was just an awful mistake that happened to people
sometimes.

Only she’d never thought someone else’s unplanned pregnancy
would affect her.

She was responsible, used birth control. Why hadn’t Brianne?
Why hadn’t Jason? It was both their responsibility. Anger at both of them
flared up in her so hot and furious she couldn’t breathe. How could they have
been so stupid and irresponsible? How many lives had been impacted by something
so careless?

With a small burn of shame, she recalled how she’d been
willing to forego a condom the last time they’d had sex, how she’d been willing
to take the risk. And the burn turned into a shaft of agony remembering how
she’d almost hoped she’d get pregnant.

When Jasmine called to see if she’d done anything about
selling the house, Remi wanted to yell at her. Didn’t she know she had other
bigger problems right now? But she bit her tongue and quietly told Jasmine she
would have to talk to Kyle about it. It was his home too and he needed to be
part of the decision. The school year was almost done for him. He’d want to
come home for the summer.

“I want to go to Australia for the summer,” Kyle told her
when she called him a while later. She sat down heavily on a chair. “A bunch of
buddies are going and I want to go with them.”

She stared across the living room, the phone to her ear. “How
will you pay for that?”

“Well, I thought you might help me out. But we’re going to
work when we’re there. Some odd jobs or something.”

“But Kyle, I don’t have a lot of extra money for that. What
about tuition for next year?”

“I’ll try to save enough when I’m working to help pay for
that. Come on, Remi, I really want to do this.”

She told him about Jasmine and her wanting to sell the
house.

“That would be perfect!” Kyle said, excitement coloring his
voice. “I could use my share of the money for the trip and there’d be enough to
pay for the rest of my college. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about it.”

True.

“But you’d have no home to come home to,” she managed to
say. For some reason that seemed so important to her—to have a place her
brother and sister could come home to if they needed. To be there for them if
they needed her. Thinking of them floundering, in need, made her heart hurt.

“I know. But I’m older now, Remi, I’ll find a place in the
summers. I’ll have enough money for that.”