Jake Understood
Page 56

I burst through the door.
Nina was standing in front of me holding a duffel bag. My chest tightened in agony at the vision of her walking out on me. She would leave tonight over my dead body. If either one of us was going to disappear, it was going to be me.
“Nina, please…talk to me. Please.”
She placed the large bag in front of her chest. “Stay away from me. I have nothing…nothing…to say to you.”
My heart fell to my stomach upon seeing her use the bag as a shield to protect against me. The best course of action was to keep my distance, but there was no fucking way I was going to let her run away. Trying to catch my breath, I stood right in front of the door to prevent her from leaving.
Her hair was disheveled, but she still looked so amazingly beautiful. The blue of her irises was even more striking in contrast to the raccoon eyes caused by her bleeding eye makeup.
“You have to let me explain.”
“Explain! You want me to stand here and listen to you explain how you fucked that whore so easily while you put my feelings through the wringer for months, confusing me and sending me mixed messages? You had no problem ‘making her come until she screamed’…did you? And believe me, it was a doozy. I heard it for myself.”
I blinked repeatedly trying to comprehend it. At first, the words hadn’t sunk in.
I heard it for myself.
“Fuck…what? What are you talking about?”
“That’s right. The day I moved in. You were fucking her in your room. Remember that day? Well, I was here unpacking. I thought I was alone and didn’t realize what was going on until it was too late. I heard everything, Jake…everything.” She started to cry.
Flashbacks from the day that Nina moved in played out in my head like a movie on fast forward. Earlier that afternoon marked the final time Desiree and I were together.
The pink scarf on the floor in the living room.
Fuck.
Nina was there.
It felt like I was going to throw up. All this time, she was hanging onto that, probably wondering how the fuck I could be with someone else intimately and not her after all these months. Desiree must have spitefully confronted her in the bathroom, and now, Nina had a face to go along with that memory. It boggled my mind to imagine what it would feel like if the situation were reversed, if I had to endure hearing Nina fucking someone else.
My heart was breaking.
“Oh my God.” Walking toward her with pleading eyes, I said, “I am so sorry.”
She wouldn’t relent. “If you’ll excuse me, please get out of my way. I need to find somewhere else to stay tonight.”
“You’re not going anywhere. Not until you hear me out.”
“I told you. I have nothing to say to you.”
I placed my hands on her arms that were covered in goosebumps. “I’ll leave tonight, but I’m not going anywhere until you let me explain. Do you hear me?” I took my hand to her chin and turned her face toward me. “Look at me.” She kept her eyes pointed downward. I repeated, “Look…at me.”
Never more determined to get a message across, my stare burned into hers until I was sure I owned her full attention.
I tried my best to explain the situation with Desiree, how it was just sex, nothing more. She didn’t really seem to be understanding me. When Nina called me a whore, I nearly lost it.
Her bag landed on the floor in a loud thud after I threw it violently on the ground. Taking her hand, I forced her down the hall.
Once in her room, I backed her against the wall and tried once again to get it through her head how big of a mistake Desiree was. I told Nina that my heart hadn’t beat the same since the day she moved into the apartment. The next minute or so was a blur as feelings held captive in my heart for months just poured out of me. Eventually, her expression began to soften. My nerves became more shot with each second because I knew I was about to tell her everything.
“You’re the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I think about at night. And then, you invade my thoughts and dreams in between. I have tried so hard to stop these feelings. I’ve put up as many barriers as I could stand to, but they are crumbling down. I can’t do it anymore.” Burying my face in her neck, I spoke onto her skin, “I can’t do it anymore…I can’t do it anymore.” I placed my hands on her hips and covered her mouth with mine. “I’ve come undone.”
Unleashing those three words had set me off. It was like a final button had been pushed. Grabbing her face, I moaned into her mouth as I kissed her deeply with everything in me. The first recognition of her taste made me immediately addicted, needing to not only taste her mouth but every inch of her. Wanting to kiss her deeper, I urged her mouth open as my tongue lashed at hers repeatedly. It wasn’t enough. As the kiss became more intense, it was impossible to keep my hands off her body. Her dress ripped as I frantically pulled at the material at her sides.
When Nina grabbed my hair, a groan so deep from the back of my throat vibrated into her mouth. My dick was so excruciatingly hard that when she started to rub up against me, it became necessary to push back before I came. It was that bad.
Panting, I placed my hands on her cheeks. “I need to tell you something, Nina. We need to have that talk now.”
A look of pure terror washed over her face as several seconds of tense silence passed.
“I don’t care about your past or what’s going on in Boston. Please…I’m begging you. Let’s not do this now. Don’t say anything tonight. We’ll have the talk tomorrow like we were supposed to. What I need right now more than I have ever needed anything is for you to make love to me, Jake.”