Jacob: Of course.

  Me: I’ll meet you outside in two minutes.

  The idea of doing an Irish goodbye at my parent’s house isn’t exactly the best of plans. Not only did I not want them to worry, but they were going to inevitably text me later when they realized my car was still there but I was not. But I didn’t want to raise too many questions.

  What the hell am I doing? I am premeditatedly deciding to go to Jacob’s house. To have sex.

  Not necessarily! He said we could talk.

  Yeah okay, good one.

  I creep down the stairs, peeking my head over the banister and toward the foyer with each step. I can still hear the noise of the gathering and thankfully they can’t see me as I make my way toward the door. I open the door and I’m just about to take a step outside when a hand darts out and closes the door. “Where are you going?”

  I spin around and see Mason staring at me. He takes a step back and crosses his arms over his chest and I can feel the judgment radiating off of him.

  “Mase…” I start.

  He shakes his head. “Whitney, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Before you jump to any conclusions—” I start.

  “So, you’re not leaving with Uncle J? You’re telling me that he didn’t tell Mom and Dad that you’re not feeling well and he’s taking you home?”

  What!? Who told him to do that? And so much for Chloe keeping Mason distracted.

  “I…”

  “Whitney, come on. Don’t do this to yourself. It’s going to blow up in your face. You know it is,” he lectures and I wince at the harsh truth.

  “Can we talk outside at least?” I plead, not knowing how close my parents might be or who might overhear something.

  We walk out onto the porch and he closes the door behind us. “You’re not leaving with him.”

  “That is definitely not your call to make.” I hear from the other side of the porch and I am wondering how he got out here before us. Jacob has my laptop bag slung over his shoulder and a part of me melts at the idea of him carrying my things for me just like always did.

  “Are you kidding me with this? Whitney, tell me you’re not this reckless.” He looks from Jacob to me. His hazel eyes narrow. “I don’t want you to get hurt again.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that, Mason,” Jacob interjects. “I’m all in with this… with her.”

  Mason lets out a deep sigh before turning back to me. “You know what you’re doing?”

  “No,” I tell him honestly. “But, if I’m so uncertain…” I trail off and tears begin to build in my throat. “Please don’t judge me,” I whisper.

  “Never.” He pulls me into a hug and when he pulls back, he glares at Jacob. “I judge you.”

  “Mase…” I try to calm his anger but he’s already heading back into the house without another glance at either of us.

  Neither of us say anything on the way back to his house but his hand, his large strong warm hand is firmly resting on my thigh as he weaves us through traffic. The buzz has slowly started to wear off and the gravity of what I’m about to do takes over. I open my phone and open my messages with Parker, unanswered ones from last night and this morning that are starting to irritate me. Perhaps I’m being a bit of a hypocrite with what has transpired between me and Jacob but what the fuck?

  Definitely a hypocrite.

  “The boyfriend?” he asks.

  “Fiancé,” I correct, though I don’t really know why.

  “Does it make a difference?” he counters and I look out the window as we near Jacob’s house. He lives in a somewhat secluded community about fifteen minutes from my parents that he kept even while he was in Mexico. I think he had a housekeeper and a gardener come in monthly to maintain it and a few family members and friends may have stayed there while they were in town visiting but for the most part it had been vacant for three years while he was gone.

  “It isn’t fair.”

  “What isn’t, angel?”

  I try to ignore one of the many pet names Jacob had for me but my heart flutters in my chest. “Any of this. All of this. We would probably be married by now. Or at least engaged… the way you always were with me before you decided to end us on a fucking whim,” I bite out. “I believe you would have had a ring on my finger the second my parents knew about us. Instead, now we’re in this mess because you’re having a mid-life crisis or whatever the fuck and realized you don’t want to spend the rest of your years drowning in random pussy. That’s what this is right? You’re over being single and you realize no one can suck your dick like I can?”

  I was angry. At him. At myself. Angry at the world for putting me back in this situation when I fought like hell to get out of it. For giving the man I’ve loved my whole life back to me when I wasn’t free to love him anymore.

  It took almost a full year but I’d mended my broken heart the best way I knew how and now he was here ripping out the stitches that I’d used to do it.

  Where was this energy before I met Parker? Where was he then?

  “You waited until I moved on to come blow up my life?”

  “You think that’s what this is about,” he snaps. “You think this is about sex? When did you get to be so cynical?”

  “Probably around the time the only man I ever loved broke my heart. The same man who had spent years kissing my tears away became the cause of them.”

  He pulls onto his street and he doesn’t say anything as he pulls into his driveway. It’s relatively long, maybe enough for six or seven cars to park leading up to a four-car garage. His house was large, sleek and modern and looked and felt like my dream home. Despite my annoyance, I am happy to be here. Once upon a time, Jacob’s house was the place I felt most comfortable and safe. For two years, this place felt more like home than anywhere else.

  The pool and outdoor fireplace he had didn’t hurt either.

  I’m about to get out of the car when he grabs my hands and brings them to his lips, kissing my fingertips before nibbling on my index finger. My mouth goes dry at the feeling of his teeth grazing my skin. “Whitney, I haven’t slept with anyone.”

  My head cocks to the side. “What do you mean?”

  “While we’ve been apart, I haven’t been with anyone else,” he says just before his lips form a straight line. “You’re the last woman I’ve slept with.”

  I watch her lips part and a gasp leaves her wet pink lips as she realizes what I said. “You… you haven’t?” She looks away from me, her eyes wide and unblinking before turning back to me. “HOW!? Have you seen you? You’re telling me no one in Mexico wanted to jump on the unbelievably gorgeous, successful, charming, DOCTOR?”

  Her voice is high pitched and I used to love when she got animated like this.

  “You are literally McDreamy and McSteamy personified and you haven’t had sex in THREE years!? I had sex with myself last night just thinking about you!”

  My eyebrows raise as that confession slips through her lips. My cock hardens at the thought of her slipping her fingers in her sexy little pussy. A vibrator running over her sensitive nub as she screamed my name through her climax. “You did, huh?” I cock my head to the side and give her a smug grin. “What were we doing?”

  She bites her bottom lip as she presses a hand to her forehead shielding her eyes from me. “I can’t believe I told you that.”

  “Why? You were always honest with me. You told me everything. You always have.” I shrug. “Even before all of this…” And that was true, Whitney always told me everything. Things she didn’t even tell her parents. Her first crush. The first time she failed a test. When she got drunk for the first time. When she smoked for the first time. I picked her up from more parties when she’d snuck out of her house and even covered for her once or twice when her parents suspected she was out somewhere she had no business being. I was the first person she told that she wanted to be a lawyer and the first person she called at three a.m. when she finally worked up the nerve to open what would come to be her acceptance letter from Stanford letting her know she got in for undergrad.

  She doesn’t respond to what I said, she just stares off into space before she finally turns back to me and meets my gaze. Her eyes are glassy and I can see the unshed tears dying to fall. “How… why?”

  I let out a sigh and slide my seat back to lean back a little. The car is still on but I don’t want to risk changing the direction that this night is headed by suggesting we go inside yet. I’m trying to let her navigate where things go and she seems to be comfortable sitting in my driveway as the faint sounds of The Weeknd play through my speakers.

  “When I got down there, it was mayhem. We were working for days on end. Forty-hour shifts. Ninety-hour weeks. I mean, you saw how those first few months of the pandemic were; there was so much uncertainty and chaos. I barely slept or ate and when I did it was at the hospital. I think it took me two months to call my mom. I felt like I was in a daze and one day I looked up and I’d been there nine months. It was still crazy, but I was at least starting to leave the hospital for more than a few hours at a time. I was just busy…”

  “Saving the world?” She smiles. “God, you can’t actually be this perfect.”

  I lean over the console and brush my nose against hers. “Are you referring to me as God?”

  She chuckles and rolls her eyes and then she’s climbing out of her seat and into my lap. My eyes widen as she straddles me and I’m shocked that she’s being this aggressive. She’s sitting directly on my cock and when she squirms a little to get comfortable, my dick jerks in my jeans. She whimpers at the feeling because it’s resting right against only her panty clad covered pussy. She slides her hands up onto my shoulders. “Are you mad? At me? For… not abstaining while we’ve been apart?” The way she phrases this makes me feel like she doesn’t want to be apart moving forward and I feel my heart begin to accelerate at the idea of getting her back for good.

  I put those thoughts aside, remembering she asked me a question. It stung like hell, but I shake my head and truthfully, I wasn’t. To be fair, a part of my abstinence was that I had no time. “I went out with a few women. We flirted. We kissed. And maybe I would have done more with a woman that I felt attracted to but I just hadn’t met anyone that… made me feel that spark I had with you.”

  Her face falls. “Jacob, I knew I’d never find that spark again. Parker and I… we’re different.”

  I snort, interrupting her. “Yeah, no shit. He fucking sucks, Whitney.”

  She puts a hand up. “Not now, JP.” She furrows her brows and purses her lips before continuing. “I settled, because he was nice and treated me well—”

  “Treated you well? He cheated on you, baby.”

  She narrows her eyes into slits like she does when she’s irritated with me. “Okay, can I talk?”

  I glare at her for her sassy response and she rolls her eyes back at me but I can see the smirk pulling at her lips. “I knew I would never feel about anyone the way I felt about you. I convinced myself it was because you were JP so of course I couldn’t recreate that magic with anyone because… you’re you. So, I told myself that I could love Parker in a different way. A way that wasn’t so intense. I could love him in a way that didn’t consume me and make me crazy and feel alive and also like I’m dying. In a way that didn’t set my soul on fire. It didn’t strike me as odd that our intimacy was lacking because I only had one man to compare it to and of course nothing would ever be able to compare to what we had.”

  As much as it annoys the shit out of me that she fucked this joker, it does irritate me somewhat less that it hasn’t been as enjoyable as it was with me. And that she’s only had sex with Parker? “You’ve only been with him?”

  She nods. “I… dated some guys casually but the end of undergrad really kicked my ass. I was exhausted and then the pandemic and being on lockdown, there just wasn’t a lot of time for me to have a ho phase,” she jokes.

  I pinch her side playfully and she giggles before leaning in and brushing her lips over mine. I slide my hand up her dress to grip her ass and pull her against me. “Are you going to leave him?” I whisper. The way she’s behaving I assume but this situation is messy and complicated and I need to hear her explicitly say it.

  “Of course, I am.” She lets out a breath before she lets her forehead drop to my shoulder. “I’m such a terrible person.”

  “No baby, you’re not.”

  “I’m a cheater, Jacob. I’m actively cheating on the man I agreed to marry. But I know you will defend me to the death even though I am very much in the wrong.”

  She’s right. I always defended her, even when she was in the wrong. I don’t know how to respond so I’m thankful that she speaks again.

  “Can we go cuddle on your patio by the fireplace?”

  Ten minutes later, she’d changed out of her dress and into a pair of my sweatpants and one of my t-shirts and now she’s seated between my legs as we watch the fire in silence. The night is a little cooler than usual so I pulled a blanket over the two of us and I’d poured us some whiskey that we’re both nursing as we share kisses in between sips. I know we’re inching toward that line and my dick is getting harder with each passing second especially with how she’s rubbing up against me, letting little sexy sighs escape every few minutes. “You’re being a little tease, Whitney.” I press my lips to her temple.

  She presses a hand to her chest in feigned shock. “Me? Never.”

  I throw my head back and laugh loudly. “You’ve always been an expert tease.” I run my fingers down her arm as I recall all the times, she used to drive me out of my fucking mind.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Her back is resting against my chest so I can’t see her straight on but she turns to the side and I see a smirk on those pouty lips of hers. I set the whiskey I’d had in my hand down to grip her chin holding her in place. I run my nose down the side of her face and press a kiss to the corner of her mouth.

  “Is that so?” I drop her face but keep my lips pressed to her cheek as I move my hand under the blanket and drag my fingertips gently down her torso, stopping just shy of her mound. I pull back and watch as her eyes flutter closed at just that bare touch before I move my hand under the loose sweatpants of mine, she’s wearing. I instantly feel the silk between her legs and I’m pleased to find that they’re damp. “You’re wet.”

  “Brilliant observation.”

  “It makes me proud as fuck that I’m the only man that’s fucked you the way you need to be fucked. Is it because your pussy knows it still belongs to me? Tell me, baby, how bad has your pussy missed me?” I brush my thumb down her slit before pushing in just a little immediately applying pressure to her clit.

  She arches her back slightly off of me. “Oh, my Godddd,” she moans. “More than I did.”

  I nip at her neck over her response and she giggles. “Don’t lie to me.”

  “Mmmm JP.” Her eyes are closed now while my fingers are still stroking her through her panties. She drops her head back against my shoulder and lets out a sigh. “Fuck.”

  “That feel good, angel?” God I’ve missed seeing her like this. So vulnerable and open and willing to do whatever I want.

  She nods. “My whole body is tingling. Being with you was always such a body high.”

  I smile before pushing my fingers under the waistband of her panties. I stroke her slit lightly, not entering her and her hands find my thighs under the blanket as if she’s anchoring herself to me and grinds her ass harder against me. She’s getting hornier by the second, I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up fucking right here. Which was not unheard of; we’ve fucked here before. My backyard was gated, the patio was heated and the fire in front of us was the sexiest aphrodisiac.

  I slip my fingers into her wet cunt and I watch as goose bumps erupt on her flesh. “God yes,” she whispers. I rub my index and middle finger over her clit, back and forth, inching my way closer to her opening. I drop my lips from her cheek and move to her neck, nibbling on the sweet skin before I bite down on her shoulder gently just as I push two fingers inside of her while stimulating her clit with my thumb.

  “Right there, JP.”

  So, tonight is going to be like that then. Whenever she calls me JP it’s usually only a few more minutes until she starts calling me Daddy.

  “Oh, is my princess feeling needier than usual?”

  She nods and then she does something that shocks me. She pulls my fingers out of her and spins around so that she’s kneeling between my legs. She’s still holding my hand that was just inside of her. She looks at my fingers that are wet with her juices before pushing them toward my mouth. I take a second to inhale her scent, my cock going to granite in the memory of her. I suck them eagerly and my senses are reminded of her tangy, sweet flavor that used to be my favorite thing to have on my tongue. She pulls her fingers from my mouth and a smile so sweet and sexy crosses her face that for a moment, I’m lost in her smile and those eyes.

  “You know what I think about… often?” she asks me and I shift, trying to relieve some tension in my dick because I already know it’s going to be something to make me even harder.

  “That first night…” She trails off. “Dry humping on my parents’ couch while they were asleep upstairs.”

  “You mean the night you seduced me?” I chuckle, because that’s exactly what happened. The night I became absolutely powerless against Whitney Monroe.

  Five Years Ago:

  It had been a month since I’d been back in the States and I was settling back into my old life. Which basically consisted of the hospital and then Kevin and Michelle’s and sporadic visits to see my mother. Then one night, I’d drank a little too much with Kevin after a Lakers playoff game went into double overtime so I planned to stay the night. I’ve stayed over so frequently that the “guest room” is basically just my room that “guests” use when I’m not there. I’d fallen asleep on the couch my guess when the post-game show was on because when I wake up, the television is on but most of the lights are out and there’s a bottle of water in front of me.