Never Enough: A New Adult Romance (2 page)

***

When it was finally time to close up shop, my headache was pounding with renewed vigor behind my eyes. I think it had something to do with what I had heard Maggie utter outside on my break and also because Temperance’s hair now hung in dry waves across her shoulders, making her look like she’d just rolled out of bed.

Motherfucker. I was hanging by a thread of self-control and anything…anything would make it break.
Promises be damned.

I pinched the bridge of my nose once more as Temperance strolled up to me. “You okay?”

I dug my fingers into my skin and shook my head. “Headache.”

“You get those a lot?” she asked, slinging her purse over her shoulder. She was still wearing my sweatshirt and the zipper had slipped down a little lower, making me curse under my breath.

“Yeah,” I finally managed to say as I pulled the keys from my pant’s pocket. “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

I could see her watching me as we made our way outside. If I looked at her, I’d probably end up staring at her mouth and then I’d be kissing those lips and then the next thing you know, I’d be fucking her against my truck.

Instead I turned my gaze toward the night sky. There
were still dark grey clouds up there, which meant it was probably going to continue raining through the night. I never really minded the rain, but today I wished the skies were clear so Temperance could walk home.

When I glanced back to earth, I saw Temperance step off the curb and toward the sidewalk. Frustration poured through me and I called out her name, causing her to turn and look at me in question.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

She grasped onto her purse’s strap and shrugged. “Walking home.”

“I’ll give you a ride.”

“You don’t have to,” she said and I clenched my fists at my side. Did she really think I was going to let her walk home in this weather all by herself?

“Temperance, get in my truck or I will put you in it myself,” I growled. I wasn’t in any mood to negotiate.

Her eyes widened slightly before she made her way toward my F150 Ranger sitting in the parking lot. I
had bought this truck when my father cut me off financially. It had gotten me through some pretty rough patches. I hoped it would take the two of us safely home without any incidents. Like me trying to pull her clothes off at a stop sign.

I strode over to the passenger side door and slipped my key inside the lock, making sure not to touch her in any
way as I pulled it open for her.

She slid inside and when I heard the click of her seatbelt, I hopped behind the wheel. I could see her eyeing me warily from her side of the truck and I felt slightly bad. Ever since Maggie had left work, I had been on edge and snapped at Temperance several times. She had handled my bad mood pretty well, which only made me admire her more.

Not wanting to think about her anymore, I turned the key in the ignition and the truck roared to life. Metal music blared through the speakers and I reached to turn it off. Only so did she, and our hands touched, causing an electric current to hum through my body.

Quickly, I pulled my hand away, wrenching the truck in reverse and backing out of the spot as quickly as possible. We didn’t live very far away, but sitting in this truck with her any longer was going to make me lose my cool.

I decided to take a shortcut home on a less traveled road in the hopes of making it home faster. I was moments away from jumping her. She didn’t question my decision, which I appreciated. Instead she just pulled out her phone and glanced at the screen.

I peeked over and noticed she had missed calls, but I didn’t get a chance to see the name
on her screen because a stop sign that had recently been put up in the road jumped out at me and I skidded to a stop.

“Shit. Sorry about that,” I said after my heart stopped thumping heavily in my chest.

Temperance merely glanced at me, her hand holding the door tightly. The sweater I had loaned her had slipped down her shoulder, exposing her creamy white skin and it was all I could do not to lunge over and lick her neck.

I took a deep breath and let the clutch out only to hear my truck sputter before it lurched forward and died.

Holy fuck. My engine had died and I was stranded on a not so well traveled road with a girl I wanted to fuck badly. I clutched the steering wheel and placed my forehead against the cool rubber.

“You okay?” Temperance’s voice was closer to me and I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Fine. Just let me think,” I said much too gruffly.

She waited a minute and when I said nothing, she reached out and touched my arm. Her fingers were cool against my warm skin and I held onto the steering wheel tighter.

“Want me to call for help?”

“No,” I bit out. “Just give me a second. It’s probably an easy fix.”

I hopped out of the truck and into the rain, which had picked up since we had left work. I tugged open the hood of my truck and fiddled around with the engine before realizing there was nothing I could do at the moment without my tools. I slammed the hood down and felt the whole truck shake before I rubbed my greasy hands on my pants and slid back inside the truck.

Temperance was watching me with trepidation as I glanced over at her. “I need to call for a tow.”

“Right, okay,” she said quietly as I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed a local tow truck company before hanging up and leaning my wet head against the back window of my truck.

“Here, let me give you your sweater back,” she said, as she dug around in her purse and pulled out her
now dry long sleeved shirt. I nearly had a heart attack as she turned toward me and told me not to look as she attempted to put it on.

Like that would ever happen. There was no way I was going to hold it together if she stripped in my car.

“Don’t. I don’t need it,” I insisted as she began to unzip the sweater.

“But you’re cold. I can see you shivering from here,” she said as that damned metal zipper made it’s way down another inch.

I couldn’t take it anymore. Reaching across the seat, I jerked the metal clasp up, catching her hair in the zipper along the way. I felt no remorse. At least it was covering her chest now.

“Ouch!” She gave me hateful look as she began to pull her tangled hair from my sweater’s grasp. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Just don’t take your clothes off in my car,” I said angrily. “I don’t want to see that.”

She muttered something under her breath before folding her arms across her chest and glaring at me. “You know what? That’s it. You’ve been mean to me all evening. What gives?”

“Nothing,” I said, turning my gaze away from hers. “Just a headache.”

“Bullshit, Damien. Now you’re just insulting me. I may be younger than you but I’m not dumb.”

She was right. She may be naive, but she was by no means stupid, which just made me want her more. I tapped my fingers against my jeans and peeked over at her. Holy hell, she had one of my sweater ties between those sweet lips of hers and I trembled at the thought of what that mouth could do to me.

I instantly became hard and swore under my breath. I just couldn’t give in. It wasn’t right. It wouldn't be fair to her
because I could never give her what she would inevitably want in the end. But she was so tempting that all I could think of was kissing her.

“Hey,” she said
as her finger poked my side in an effort to get my attention. I scooted to my left and my hip hit the door. She retracted her hand and shoved it in the sweater pocket.

“Fine. Don’t talk to me. I’m done with your weirdness. I’m walking the rest of the way.”

My head snapped over to her. She was pulling the door handle and simultaneously pushing on the door with her shoulder. It was a stubborn piece of metal, but she seemed determined to get out and walk the rest of the way home. I heard it squeak and I knew she’d be out of the truck in a few seconds.

“The hell you are,” I said quickly, reaching over and grabbing her around the waist before she could bail. I yanked her across the bench seat and she slammed into my side.

Her hands fell onto my thighs as she worked to free herself from me. I felt her breasts against my side and her breath against my neck, but I totally lost it when her fingers brushed against the bulge in my pants. I was done for.

All
reason and good sense came tumbling down around me and that’s when my lips crashed down on hers.

Chapter Two

Temperance

Today couldn’t have gotten any worse. Not only had my car gotten a flat, which meant I had to walk to school and work, but also I had an unknown pop quiz in my music theory class that I was not prepared for. I didn’t think I was going to pass that class or any of my other music classes this semester for that matter.

To top it off my mom had been calling me incessantly all day about moving home, which I didn’t want to hear.
My parents didn’t seem to understand I had moved out to get way from them. They had dictated my life long enough and I was thoroughly enjoying my newfound freedom.

And then I had come to work and Damien was acting weird and meaner than normal
, which really yanked my chain. I mean, Damien was never really nice to me. When I had first met him, he treated me with cool indifference. It was almost as if he didn’t know I existed. But recently he seemed to have taken a great interest in me and was more vocal in his apparent dislike for me. It really made no sense, since I had been nothing but nice to him and had been secretly crushing on him since he walked into my life.

It was probably those haunted dark eyes that seemed to see everything around him and the way he acted twice his age that really at
tracted me to him. He was gorgeous too with that wavy dark hair and all those tattoos. I wasn’t the only one to notice him. Girls came in droves to the coffee shop to merely sit and stare at him. A few had literally clung to him and refused to let go. I even had to call the police once. But he never really seemed moved by their obvious adoration. He had treated them all with apathetic indifference until they finally let go and then he'd dismiss them with a fake smile and a nod toward the door.

So I had made i
t a point to stay away from him because I didn’t want to be one of those girls he dismissed. But it was hard since he was my neighbor and I could literally hear almost everything he did next door. The walls in the old house were incredibly thin so I always heard him scouring his room in the middle of the night like he didn’t need sleep. And we shared a bathroom so there were times when I’d seen him coming out of there with nothing but a towel on. And let me tell you…just seeing him like that had me touching myself for days. It just made it way too intimate despite my efforts to keep a safe distance. Because I knew if I ever got too close, I’d get burned. He wasn’t the kind of guy who did forever.

But then
all of a sudden he was kissing me and all my reservations about being close to him flew out the window. I ended up straddling his lap, my tongue down his throat and my fingers pulling wildly at his hair. I don’t know what came over me. Maybe it was years and years of being repressed, but it didn’t matter now. I was wild and aggressive. I was everything I wanted to be when I was with him.

He was groaning as his hands cupped my butt, bringing that sensitive spot between my legs down on the hard ridge in his pants and I nearly came undone. I could feel the steering wheel poking my back, which only pushed me farther into him, and when I ground myself up against his erection, he bit down on my bottom lip roughly before licking the pain away.

It was so erotic, so hot. My every fantasy was coming alive and I felt like I was going to combust from the inside out. This was a moment romance books try to capture, except this was real. It was happening to me.

The windows were slowly fogging up and I could no longer see the rain beating down on the pavement outside. My skin was hot and tingly and as he lifted his hips and thrust upward in wild, rhythmic motions, I felt a sensation I had never experienced well up within me. It was so intense, so overwhelming
that I trembled harshly as he licked and kissed his way down my neck.

His fingers fumbled with the zipper to the sweater I was wearing and I arched my back to give him better access. It came down in a whoosh and the cool air slid across my steaming skin.

“Fuck,” he muttered as he wrenched his lips away from mine and stared down at the red bra I had donned today in an effort to feel sexy. It had worked. I felt seductive, like a siren pulling him in. Watching his chest heave up and down in an attempt to breathe gave me an overwhelming sense of power. It washed through me and suddenly I became someone else entirely.

“I want you inside me,” I breathed without thinking. Normally words like that would have never left my mouth, but I felt like a porn star at the moment.

He seemed to like my honesty because his eyes darkened and he nearly growled, “You have a dirty mouth, Temperance.”

I don’t know what came over me, but I needed to respond. “You should see what this mouth can do.”

“Fuck,” he groaned. “You’re going to make me come.”

God, those words. They had me arching back as his thumbs rubbed over my hard nipples. The sensation had me moaning loudly and when I couldn’t take the teasing any more,
I leaned forward and bit down on the tendon that was popping out on his neck. He hissed between clenched teeth as I began to slowly suck at his skin. I felt like I could do anything and he’d let me. I was that heady and for some weird reason I wanted to mark him, to make him mine. To let all those other girls know that he was taken…even if it was just temporary.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the window and I froze, my lips jerking away from his salty skin. Damien was swearing audibly as he leaned his head back against the window and inhaled deeply. I wanted to cry. I was so wet, so ready and the damn tow truck ma
n had to show up. What a total waste.

“Mr. Swift?” A deep voice rumbled from the other side of the fogged up windows.

Damien didn’t even bother to move me from my lap as he nearly yelled, “Be right there.”

I scrambled off his lap and fumbled with the zipper to his sweater as he ran his hand over his face in obvious frustration.

“Shit. Shit. Shit,” he muttered, as he gulped down air. “Worst fucking timing.”

I had never seen him angry before and I liked it for some weird reason. It made me want to jump on top of him again and kiss him from head to toe.
Tow truck driver be damned. Instead I stayed on my side of the truck and watched as he wrenched open the driver’s side door and slide outside.

Ten minutes later, my door opened and he nodded toward the tow truck. “Come on. He’ll give us a ride to the house.”

He seemed cool and collected and I immediately resented him. I was still wound tight and I needed some kind of release before I imploded. How was he able to keep himself together when I felt like I was unraveling at the seams? Weren’t guys supposed to have less control than girls?

I didn’t know and didn’t have time to debate it because I was being pulled from his truck and roughly set on the pavement. Our eyes met quickly before he turned and walked toward the tow truck, leaving me to follow like a sad puppy.

He helped me into the heated cab and I sat beside the tow truck guy who kept shooting me looks. I glanced down at his nametag. Carl. He seemed like a Carl, I thought. Carl also seemed to know what we had been doing before he’d arrived and I felt him judging me. He probably thought I was a slut and that I did this on a regular basis. The truth was I'd had sex only a few times in high school with a guy who played the tuba in band. It had been unremarkable and not something I had wanted to repeat until now.

Now I wanted to do it again and again until I passed out.

Maggie was right. I was repressed in a not so healthy way.

Ten minutes later, the tow truck rumbled into the
long driveway and I walked inside the two-bedroom house solemnly, leaving Damien to sort things out with Carl. From the way Damien was looking at me in the tow truck, I knew what was coming. He was feeling trapped, like I was going to insist he take me to the chapel and marry me. I had an older brother and I knew all the tricks guys employed to get out of sticky, awkward situations with girls they’d made mistakes with. I hated that I’d become one of those girls. I didn’t want to hear any of it come out of Damien’s mouth. It was just too humiliating.

I managed to change out of my jeans and pull on my black yoga pants when a knock at my door had me freezing momentarily before I found my footing. I walked to the door and yanked it open, knowing what was about to leave
Damien’s mouth and not wanting to hear a word of it.

I held up my hand before his lips could part
and those dreaded words could come out.

“Don’t. Just don’t. I know what you’re going to say and I get it. So just don’t.”

His dark brown eyes narrowed and his lips turned down in a disapproving frown. When he didn’t say anything, I moved to close the door, but he stopped it from clicking shut with his hand.

The two of us just stared at each other and I nearly melted from the heat of his gaze.
I wanted to wrap my legs around him and push him against the wall, but Carl had made me feel slutty enough. I didn’t need to go and act on it.

“You can just give me my sweater back tomorrow,” he said, as he cleared his throat.
I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. I just wanted him to leave so I could think straight.

“How about now,” I said, yanking it over my head and tossing it at his chest. His eyes widened slightly and his nostrils flared as I stood there in my red bra. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen it before and I felt a little bit smug when his gaze dropped for a second before shooting back up to meet mine.

“Thanks,” he muttered, not making a move to leave.

I tilted my head in question before asking, “You want to stand here all night?”

As soon as the words left my mouth, his hand shot away from the door and landed at his side. “Right. Goodnight.”

I didn’t even bother with pleasantries.
I was too embarrassed. Instead I slammed the door on his retreating figure. 

***

“Holy shit! You didn’t!” Maggie was nearly squealing and I waved my hand to keep her voice down.

“Stop yelling. It isn’t that big of a deal,” I said lowly, glancing at the music students who were gathered in the halls outside the practice rooms. I was in the music building
at Gerard’s Music Academy with Maggie in a last minute attempt to grab a practice room before we made our way downtown to get my tattoo. I hadn’t practiced the cello in weeks and it was starting to show. Maggie had insisted I at least finish out the semester with passing grades. I had reluctantly agreed. Despite not liking the major anymore, she had a good point.

Unfortunately after I had let it slip that Damien had nearly screwed me in his car, there was no way Maggie was going to let me practice my cello anytime soon. Which was fine by me. I had been dreading it.

Maggie stopped bouncing around for a moment before glaring at me. “It is a big deal. He nearly ripped your clothes off in his truck and banged you senseless.”

My cheeks reddened almost immediately as the whole room became eerily quiet. Grabbing Maggie’s arm, I wrenched her toward the exit before talking again.

“Don’t yell my business like that. People are going to think I’m a slut.”

“Well, you kind of are. I mean, you nearly did it in a car for shit
’s sake. I haven’t even done that.”

I slapped my hand against my forehead. “I know. I know. And I would do it again in a heartbeat.”

“Yeah?” she nearly squealed. “I knew there was a naughty girl in there somewhere.”

“Don’t say naughty ever again, please,” I said with a small grin. Maggie was absolutely ridiculous and I loved her for it. Even though w
e played different instruments, I played the cello and she the piano, we had become fast friends when she managed to cheer me up after a music teacher had chewed me out for showing up late to class my freshman year.

She wasn’t your typical music major. Sporting blonde and pink hair, a sleeve of tattoos and a nose ring, she stood out among the musicians at school. In fact, she had intimidated me so much before I knew her that I had avoided her at all costs. It wasn’t until she had called Professor Goodwin a dic
kbag and said she’d kick his ass for me that I realized she actually was a very sweet person under all that rock and roll.

“And the things I said, Mags. I was like a different person…”

“What did you say?”

“Dirty things,” I replied, blushing. “Like I won’t repeat them to anyone…”

“You didn’t?” She began giggling. “Oh my God, you’re coming out of your shell in a big way. Holy hell. Did he like it when you said those things to him?”

My cheeks grew warmer. “Yes. A lot.”

“Good, at least I know he’s not playing for the other team.”

I frowned at her insinuation. “No, he was definitely into it.”

“So when are you going to actually do it with him?” Her hands were clasped in front of her and except for the tattoos that lined her arms she almost looked angelic.

“I don’t know. He told me it was a mistake.”

“He did not!” Her hands were now on her hips and she looked like she was going to rip something in two.

“I mean…I saw the look on his face and I knew what was coming. Come on. I have an older brother. I’ve seen how it works.”

“But he didn’t actually say that to you, right?”