I want to say something, but I'm not sure what. Sorry just doesn't seem sufficient enough. So I end up keeping quiet while he gets a bucket with some cleaning mixture in it to wash it off. I offer to help, but he declines.
Fortunately, it was spray-painted on there while it was wet, so it's easy enough to remove.
Unfortunately, it's not the only thing that the person did. There's a pocket knife sticking out of one of the tires. That's not something that can just be washed away.
“Fuck.” Jacob lets out an exasperated sigh, leaning against his truck.
I've seen a lot of things over the years that have upset me or affected me in some sort of way, but not one of them has left me feeling as awful as I do right now.
“Um, you can use my car if you want,” I offer. He looks over at me. His ocean-colored eyes try to hide the frustration along with the torment that he feels, but fail. “I mean if you need to drive somewhere tomorrow or something.”
This time he holds my gaze, almost like he's searching for something, but for what, I'm not sure. Then he's pushing away from the truck.
“Thanks. But it's okay.”
Jacob walks past me, goes toward the shed and unlocks it, then disappears into the darkness. A moment later, he walks back out with another tire and a few other items to change it. I stand off to the side and watch as he starts getting to work.
“Do you want me to do anything?”
He glances over his shoulder and then back to what he's doing. “No. It's okay.”
I don't know anything about changing a tire anyway, so I just stand watching him while burying myself deeper into his warm sweater that I'm still wearing. I stand watching him change a tire late at night by the ocean . . . because someone slashed it . . . because he's a convicted sex offender . . . and there is nowhere else I'd rather be.
CHAPTER 12
Remi
A large warm hand slides down from my neck to cup one of my breasts in a firm hold, squeezing and caressing it while rubbing a thumb over my very hard nipple. I moan at the sensation sparking through my body. My neck still tingles where his hand was holding me in the darkness.
How long has it been since someone touched me like this? Paid attention to me like this? Nathan sure as hell didn't care to bring me pleasure like this.
His grip on my breast tightens as the pressure on my core increases. Deft fingers move over my throbbing clit in a perfect rhythm, as if he already knows my body and knows precisely what it needs.
Images of his muscles moving and bunching while he changed his tire filter into my mind, and I imagine his biceps tensing and moving as he works me into a frenzy right now. I try to close the gap between us, needing to feel his solid form against me, but it feels just out of my reach. Like when you see a fire close by when you're out in the cold, but never get near enough that the flames actually warm your skin.
A sharp pang of desire shoots from my nipple straight to my center when he pinches it. I'm so close to the edge, and I want to touch him badly, but my arms won't move. They feel constrained somehow, but by what, I'm not sure.
“Jacob.”
His name flies from my lips as lust fills every point of my body. My vision blurs as the pleasure begins to consume me. I wish his lips were on mine at this moment.
I want to taste him, bite him. I want to be surrounded and filled by him all at once.
He continues to bring me up, and up, and up with his fingers, until I reach the crest and then go tumbling down on a loud moan as my orgasm washes over me.
Drowning me.
My legs tremble, my breath stutters in my chest. A number of feelings burst from within me in every direction.
And then, I really am drowning.
Dark water surrounds me.
Terror replaces the sheer bliss from seconds ago as I sink down deeper, my arms not making a move to push me to the surface.
I open my mouth to let out a scream, and that's when I shoot up to a sitting position in my bed, my chest still heaving and sucking in lungfuls of air as if I really were underwater again.
My body is covered in a layer of sweat, one of my hands inside my panties coated in my arousal, and the other still gripping my breast.