Nova 05 Ruin Me (9 page)

I open my mouth to ask him what he’s doing, when his head suddenly moves downward. I may be inexperienced, but I’m not an idiot.

“Jax, we can’t do that…” I trail off as he slides the bottom of my shirt up and places a delicate kiss on my tummy. His tongue quickly follows and he licks a path down to the waistband of my shorts. “Oh… my… God…” My muscles unwind as my hips arch upward and my eyes roll back in my head. “That feels… amazing…”

He lets out a soft, somewhat arrogant chuckle. Usually, I’d snap at him for being a cocky asshole, but he kisses me right below my belly button, and I can’t form a single coherent thought. Even when he draws my shorts and panties down, I barely mutter an incoherent protest. He’s never seen me this naked before. And I have a reason for being mostly dressed every time we fool around. But right now, I don’t give a shit.

“You want me to stop?” Jax breathes raggedly as he spreads my legs open.

Unable to speak, I shake my head from side to side.

Moments later, I feel the warm caress of his lips between the center of my legs. Heat instantly bursts through my body and coils deep inside me. My muscles ravel with the first swipe of his tongue. I grip onto the blanket, desperate to hold onto something. I feel like I’m leaning over a cliff, about to fall into a place I’ve never been before. I’m terrified yet excited. Eager yet reluctant.

“Clara,” Jax groans my name then drags his tongue down my center, “relax.”

A gasp falters from my lips and I free the blanket from my hold and pull at the strands of his hair. All reservations suddenly melt, and the slow, calculated movements turn to untamed desire.

He licks and tugs and kisses as I writhe my hips against him. My body pulsates with need and my lungs struggle for oxygen as I drift farther away. My skin dampens and my mind empties. One last lick from his tongue pushes me over the edge. I cry out Jax’s name as I desperately tug at his hair, coming undone completely.

When I return to reality, Jax is kneeling between my legs and staring down at me. Strands of his brown hair are sticking up, probably from me pulling so hard.

“You okay?” His voice carries hesitancy.

I bob my head up and down. “Yeah, I’m fine.” My voice sounds gravelly. “I’ve never done that before. It was… interesting.”

The corners of his lips quirk. “Just interesting?”

I’m too tired to shrug. “And good.”

“Interesting and good?” He presses his hand to his chest, appearing a little hurt. “Wow, I must have sucked.”

Laughter escapes me, and even though it takes a lot of energy, I prop up on my elbows. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“That it was really, really fantastic. The best I’ve ever had.”

“But you just said you’d never done that before.”

“So? It was still fantastic.”

“Good.” He grins then leans down to kiss me.

I want to slide out from underneath him and put the barrier up between us again, but I’m too exhausted to move. At least, that’s the reason I give myself. Deep down, I know there’s more to it than that. There’s a reason Jax is pretty much the only person who can make me smile anymore, who can make me laugh. Who can sneak past that wall I have around me. Because I care about him more than I want to admit.

I’ll put the rules back into play tomorrow
, I vow to myself as our lips connect.
I can’t let this get out of hand. Can’t let my heart get broken again.

But as our lips connect and my body nearly trembles for his touch, I wonder if maybe I’m too late. The moment I agreed to this trip, I was pretty much agreeing to get closer to Jax. Eventually, I’m going to have to tell him what he’s getting into.

Jax

Eighteen hours after we leave the motel, Clara and I pull up to my childhood home. It looks worse than it did when I left—the entire neighborhood does. The siding is peeling off the two-story home, the porch is caving in, and the lawn is yellow and patchy. Someone has ripped up chunks of the concrete around the yard, for who knows what reason.

“This is home sweet home.” I announce in a flat, unenthusiastic tone as I park the Jeep in the driveway.

“So, this is where you grew up?” Clara tentatively asks and I nod.  She bites on her thumbnail as she studies the broken windows and shingles peeling off the roof.

Ever since we left the motel room, she’s been acting torn over something. She hasn’t been cold toward me or anything like that, but she’s been stuck in some sort of internal battle over something ever since I spread her legs and kissed her until she came apart. I didn’t mean to take things that far with her. I was only messing around, figuring she’d stop me before I got too far, but she’d practically came undone just from me licking her stomach.

“Are you sure it’s safe to go in?” Clara asks, plucking at the loose threads of her cutoff shorts.

I stare at the house, remembering all the rough, slightly insane people that have been in there. “Maybe I should go in first and check things out.”

She glances around at the crumbling home next door.  “I think I might feel safer being with you.”

“Clara, I don’t want you to worry.” I unbuckle my seatbelt and reach over the console to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“I know you won’t.” Her fingers fold around the door handle. “But I want to go inside with you for support.” She offers me a smile.

An emotional lump forms in my throat. “Okay, just stay close.”

I get out of the car and meet her around the front. I lace my fingers through hers as we step up the rickety porch toward the front door. She doesn’t pull away this time, probably because she’s scared out of her damn mind.

Like the officer told me, the front door is busted in and hanging on one of the hinges.

“What happened to the door?” Clara gapes at the splintered wood of the doorframe.

“Someone probably kicked it in when my mother didn’t answer. It happens sometimes.” I squeeze her hand before stepping into the house.

The living room is exactly how I remember. Stained orange and brown carpet, broken glass on the floor, empty syringes everywhere. Alcohol bottles line the crooked stairway, and the air reeks of cigarette smoke and mold.

“You can go outside whenever you need to,” I tell Clara when she draws the collar of her tank top over her nose.

“I’m fine,” she assures me. “It just smells in here… like a dead animal or something.”

I take a whiff of the air then wince. She’s right. It does smell like something died in here. Adrenaline soars through my body when I realize what that could mean—it might not be a dead animal, but my mother’s body rotting away.

“Wait here,” I say then hurry through the house to track where the smell is coming from. Memories haunt me around every corner. So much happened in this place, so much bad stuff. Fights. Yelling. Drug use. Abuse.

By the time I reach the top of the stairway, I’m on the verge of throwing up. Not just from the smell, but because I’m remembering all the reasons I left.

I hate that I’m here again.

I check my mother’s room, which has been cleared out; the bed and dresser are gone along with her clothes and all of her belongings. I peek into the room that used to be Avery’s. All that’s in there is a lumpy mattress on the floor and beer bottles. I stick my head into the bathroom and dry heave. The toilet has overflowed onto the floor, and the stench is enough to make my eyes water. I quickly shut the door. The dead animal smell has to be coming from inside there.

Still, I look inside the last room to be sure. My hands quiver as I grip the doorknob and enter my old bedroom. It looks exactly the same as I left it. Even the dresser is still tipped over from when my mother’s then husband tried to throw it at me.

I swallow hard as the memory of that day rushes over me. Lester swung his fist and I swung back. Blood painted our knuckles. He kept shouting for me to respect him, that I had to because he was my father. He wasn’t my real father, though. He was my fifth stepfather and acted like he was the man of the house, even though he was a blip on a long list of men my mother let into her home. In his words, he was the boss and made the rules, even if the rules he set were fucked up and warped. What really sucked is that I didn’t—and still don’t even know who my real father is. Even my mother doesn’t. Men like Lester are all I’ve ever known when it comes to fathers.

“Are you okay?” Clara unexpectedly moves up behind me and gently places a hand on my shoulder.

I’m so lost in the memory I jolt from her touch. “Yeah, I’m fine.”  She pulls away as I face her. “I’m just thinking about stuff.”

“About your mom?” she asks.

I shake my head. “About what happened the last time I was here.”

“Oh, the fight?”

I free a shaky breath. “It happened in here.”

When I nod my head at the room behind me, she scans the messy area, the holes in the walls, the cracks in the ceiling, the broken window. “Was this your bedroom?” she asks.

I run my thumb along the ring on my finger, thinking about the time my mother gave it to me, the one happy moment I ever had in this place. “It was.”

Sorrow fills her expression. “Jax, I’m so sorry.”

“For what?” I ask. She has nothing to be sorry about. She came with me on this trip, is making being in this house bearable.

“That you had to live here.” She threads our fingers together. “I didn’t realize… that it was this bad for you.”

“I tried to warn you. This is why I asked you not to judge me.”
Please, please, don’t let her judge me.

“I know you did, but this,” she glances around the room again, noting the holes in the walls, “is more than I’m capable of imagining.”

“That’s a good thing.” I sketch my fingers along her jawline and think about kissing her, knowing if I did, I’d probably feel a little better. She’s even holding my hand, so I’m betting I could get away with stealing a kiss. But it seems wrong to do something I love so much when we’re standing in the midst of a crackhouse. “We should go get checked into a motel, get something to eat, then start asking around to see if anyone’s seen her.” I start for the stairway, pulling her with me. “We need to move fast since we only have three days here before we have to head back.”

She nods in agreement. “Do you have an idea of where to start? I mean, who to ask. Or are you just going to wing it?”

“I have a few ideas of where to start,” I reply as we descend the stairs, the steps creaking under our weight. “But I’m going to warn you in advance that pretty much every place we go is going to be as bad as here. In fact, you might want to stay in the motel room or hang around town.”

She hesitates, as if she’s actually considering doing it. Part of me of is glad that she is. Somehow I’d forgotten how bad this place is.  But then she straightens her stance.

“No, I’m going with you. You shouldn’t go through this alone.”

“Are you sure?” I give a pressing glance at the drug paraphernalia on the floor. “I won’t be upset if you don’t want to. In fact, I’d kind of prefer if you didn’t.”

“Jax, you asked me to come so you wouldn’t have to be alone in this, right?” she asks, and I unwillingly nod. “Okay, then. I’m going with you.”

“All right, but only if you promise me one thing.”

“And what’s that?”

“If at any point things start to get dangerous, you bail. I don’t want anything happening to you.”

She nods, looking worried.

I want to tell her everything will be okay. That I’m just being overly careful. Nothing bad is going to happen. But I don’t want to lie to her.