Jackson Stiles, Road to Redemption (28 page)

“Last chance,” I warn her, but she doesn’t squirm an inch.

“I’m good.”

I might smirk. I’m not sure, to be honest. Then a thought hits me that Nick’s been driving into my head since I hit puberty.

“We gonna need a condom?”

“No.” She bites the corner of her lip. “I’m good there, too.”

“Birth control?” I try to clarify.

“IUD,” she corrects me, and I lift an eyebrow.

“I had a boyfriend.”

Had
being the operative word there.

“Indeed.”

Goosebumps trail every kiss I place against her shoulder.

I’m becoming a huge fan of the fact that I have this effect on her, along with the blushing—not gonna lie. The blushing is fucking phenomenal.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Green,” I tell her in between kisses along her neckline.

“What?” She tilts her head to the side for me. I find her ear and put my lips there.

“I’m still pissed at you,” I whisper it into her ear while I find the snap to her jeans.

She takes in a deep breath.

“Why?” She seems unconcerned.

I unzip them, and I whisper into her ear, “You lied to me.”

I have to release her hands to work them around her hips.

She helps.

“Not lied,” she says. “So much as…” Her voice is shaky. Just the way I like it. “Left a few things out of our conversations.”

I manage to work the jeans and the silk fucking underwear down to her ankles. She kicks them off the rest of the way.

Thank God, she’s cooperating.

“Do me a fucking favor,” I tell her. My hand grazes her stomach before I reach behind her and unclip the bra.

Last to go.

She starts on my jeans again, and she’s fast about that shit.

“What’s that?”

She starts to work on getting them off me, but I take over, and once they’re gone, so’s the shirt.

“Don’t leave anything out any more.”

Green allows herself to look down in a moment of weakness. When her eyes meet mine again, she gives me a short nod with a slight grin.

“Promise.”

It’s all I need to fucking hear.

I nudge her legs apart, and she obliges.

I follow some deep-seated instincts—maybe dreams—by sliding a hand down between them.

I lean my head against hers. “Fuck.” She’s wet. She lets out this whimper that almost pushes me to come right here and now.

That’s not gonna fly. So I put a nix on what I was planning and glide my hands around her waist, lifting her up. Not a complaint is heard when she wraps her legs around my hips and her arms around my neck.

Let’s be fucking honest for just a second here. I don’t have to work at getting hard at this point. I’ve been hard since she walked in the door.

Our lips meet as I thrust into her, and everything, fucking everything between us comes crashing down on me.

“Jesus,” she moans.

I assure her, “He’s got nothing to do with this, Green.” When I push again, she buries her head into my neck and holds tight.

With every drive, she lets out a whimper, and I make every effort to drown it out with my own thoughts because that shit’s about to turn yours truly into a sixty-second man.

Not acceptable.

Baseball stats usually help, but thoughts of Green’s skin against my skin keep fucking that shit up.

All I see is her. All I think is her. All I am right now is
her
.

Shit just got real.

I don’t know if that’s a good thing, and I don’t really fucking care. I want to make this woman understand the torment she’s been putting me through since the day we first met.

When she tightens, her whimpers change, and she’s breathing in short, urgent breaths, I know she’s there.

“Emma.” I don’t know if it’s a demand or a plea bargain at this point, the way I say her name like that. I hadn’t expected it. It just fucking happened.

Like inhaling and exhaling.

Her nails dig into my shoulder. She pushes herself against the wall, and I follow her lead, thrusting, pushing, and driving until she spills onto me, and I’m fucking bursting at the seams.

“Jesus.” It comes out like I’m desperate.

Hell, maybe I am.

In the midst of this moment, she lets out a small laugh.

“He’s got nothing to do with this, Stiles.”

“A-fucking-men to that.”

She laughs out in a full-blown, I’ve never heard her so happy, kinda laugh. I can’t help but join her.

We stay there for a minute against that fucking wall, catching our breath. When I finally let her down, her knees buckle, and I catch her.

“You all right there, Green? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

Her eyes are closed. She licks her lips and shakes her head.

“So good.”

We both use the wall as a crutch and slide down to sit on the floor next to each other. I let my head fall back until I can breathe normally again.

Green leans into me, and I put an arm around her. Her fingers trace up and down my midsection, and she twists her head around to take a better look at the ink just above.

When she nuzzles back into me, I feel the rise and fall of her breathing. Contentedness oozes out of the two of us, and I’m not complaining one single fucking bit.

“You know, there are theories out there.” I assume she’s referring to the corruption that’s been invading Redemption since the dawn of time.

“Yeah?” I close my eyes and enjoy the bliss between us. “Do tell, Green.”

“Some people believe the Joker is the hero.”

My heart stops, momentarily, when she says it. I’ve never really discussed Mikey with her in depth. There’s no reason for her to go there, but Green’s a smart cookie. She knows how to put two and two together. Or rather the drawing on my wall and the tattoo on my chest.

“He was such a good kid.” The words fall out of me before I can stop them. The pain in my gut regrets it, but honestly, it’s easy giving Green a piece of me like this.

“What happened?”

She’s not interrogating me like my parents did that night. She isn’t demanding I flush my feelings for the sake of a certificate like Lana does. She genuinely gives a shit.

“I know this is gonna be hard to believe, Green, but I haven’t always had the healthy, healing relationship with my dad like I do today.”

She lets out a silent giggle and vibrates against me.

It helps. A little. But I can still hear my dad’s voice the night I told him I was quitting the academy. It’s angry and cold.

“You’re going back in there tomorrow, and you’re apologizing to Walker. Then you’re gonna suck it up and finish the academy.”

Dad didn’t give a shit what any of us wanted. He’d put up with me because I was giving it a go, because of Nick. But I refused to take his bullshit any more. Even if it meant being on the receiving end of his wrath for the rest of my life.

“Stiles?” Green looks up at me, worried.

I shake it off.

“Long story short, I was a dick to the one person in my family who didn’t deserve it, and he died because of it.”

I remember everything about that night like it happened yesterday.

“I’m not in the mood, Mikey.”

“I’m not letting you wander around by yourself so mad.”

I walked probably two miles that night. It was fucking cold as shit out, too. Mikey shivered like crazy because he’d forgotten his jacket like an idiot. We ended up at the high school, of all places. There was a game going on that night. It was coming to an end.

When I finally stopped walking, I just assumed Mikey had given up and gone home. Until I felt his hand on my shoulder. For some reason, it threw me into a rage. I’d had enough of everything. So I took all my frustrations with Dad, the academy, and life out on him.

“Just talk to me, Jackie.”

“Go home, Mikey.”

“But—”

“Go. The fuck. Home!”

I pushed him square in the chest and told him to go back and kiss Dad’s ass. He was good at that.

I swallow down the sickness I get in the pit of my stomach every time I think about the look gave me. The one of disappointment you can only get when someone you look up to makes you feel shitty.

When he turned to leave, I was relieved I wouldn’t have to put up with his age of innocence BS any more. My life changed the moment I heard the tires screeching. Then peoples horrified screams. The impact.

My eyesight gets blurry as the details come to life inside my mind.

My chest tightens. Green’s sniffles pull me out of the memory. I squeeze my eyes shut to make the sting go away.

“You were just kids, Jackson. Kids fight. It’s what they do.”

She’s good at pointing out the obvious, but this one’s on me.

Mikey died as a direct result of me.

“Yeah, well…” My eyes still burn. I push my thumbs into the corners of them to make it stop. “A lot of fucking good that does me now, huh?”

She pulls my hands away from my face. She puts her hands on either side of my jaw, then she kisses me. It’s soft and long. Somehow, it’s enough, for now anyway, to make things not quite so fucked up.

So, of course, I let the moment last as long as it wants.

X X X

Somewhere in between the Jackson Stiles caring and sharing show, and round three back in the bedroom, Green passes out. In my bed. But more than that—in my arms.

There was a time, not too long ago, when that shit wouldn’t have happened. Tonight, all that crosses my mind is she belongs here.

I
belong here.

With her.

It doesn’t make a lick of fucking sense, but there it is.

Go figure.

I lie awake for a while, thinking about shit.

Donnie, Stix. And as much as I hate to admit it,
Walker.

I wonder what he’s up to, wanting me to come back to the force. Maybe it’s my tired ass brain, but I can’t help but wonder if he wants to keep an eye on me for some reason.

Based on what Green said tonight, I’m thinking I’m right.

The yawns start coming quick and heavy about an hour into theory creating. Before I can talk myself into getting out of bed and to the laptop, Mikey enters my thoughts.

Maybe it’s the simple fact that I said his name out loud, or that it’s combined with the fact that I shared a little bit of my misery with Green. Regardless, I feel lighter.

Or less angry, I suppose.

Maybe she’s got a point. Maybe I can’t do anything about being the hero to my kid brother any more. Or even for Donnie. But maybe I can be for another kid in my life.

Maybe I need to get the fuck over myself and get this shit done.

My thoughts jumble together, after that. Every issue I have going on right now mixes in with each other.

When Green sighs a deep-sleep kind of sigh and snuggles up next to me, I take it as her unconscious way of telling me to let it all go for now. So I do. With that, I’m out like a light.

X X X

The next morning, I wake up to an empty bed. My arm knows it before I do. When I squint my eyes to see if Green is anywhere in sight, I get nothing.

Luckily, before I can start creating any theories about that fact, she appears at the door with a bag from the local donut shop and two coffees in her hand.

“Breakfast?” She smiles. The makeup from yesterday is gone. Her hair is up in a frizzy ponytail, and instead of putting on her own clothes this morning, she’s wearing my shirt.

Fucking beautiful.

“Naked, actually.” I inform her with a grin. She blushes. I could do this shit all day.

“Smells fucking awesome,” I tell her. She comes over and sits on the bed, and Frodo follows right behind her. This cat has a sense of smell like no other feline. “But we’re not eating this shit in here.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t like crumbs where I sleep, Green.” I wrap the blanket around my waist as I exit the bed, and we take the food into the living room. No floor this time, though. We’ve graduated to the couch.

I grab the breakfast sandwiches and lay them out on the coffee table. After I unwrap one of them, I shove it in my mouth like I haven’t eaten in days. Come to think of it, I probably haven’t.

Frodo rubs against Green, welcoming her to his humble abode. Satisfied his presence is known, he goes on his merry way to the other side of the room.

I’m about to kick him the fuck out when I notice something.

A small something. But still, a something.

“What the fuck if vat?”

Green laughs. “What?”

The cat’s fighting with Green’s jacket before pulling something out and pouncing onto it. He tosses it, then pounces, tosses and pounces. He’s found a new toy. I just hope it’s not expensive.