Page 21 of The Wildcard
But I’m on the verge of coming so what do I know? My brain stopped working properly a while ago—when she pushed my naked body onto the couch.
Mac’s finger is soft but relentless on my clit. My breath comes out ragged. My body writhes underneath her touch. But again, she doesn’t take me there. Instead, she slips two fingers deep inside me, and I feel like I stop breathing altogether for a few seconds.
As I gasp for air, I open my eyes. I peer at her through narrowed eyelids. All I need is the sight of her face, a face that used to be so familiar to me I could locate every freckle blindfolded, for me to quickly be on my way to a climax again. It’s been building for a while now. I don’t remember Mac playing me so expertly, but there’s so much I don’t remember. So much falls through the cracks of memory over the course of twenty years.
Mac’s no longer holding back. She pushes high inside me and I’m about to lose it. I meet her strokes, bucking against her. If I could, I’d take more of her, but she’s already giving me so much. I close my eyes as I ride the first wave that crashes through me. I come at Mac’s masterful fingers, because seeing her again isn’t just right. I swear it’s also meant to be—although she may very much disagree.
Chapter 21
Mac
Jamie pulls me onto her naked body. She curls her arms tightly around me. Already, I don’t know what to do with myself. It feels so different to how it was in Maui. Because we’re back home now. We’re back to our normal, everyday lives, and Jamie fits into mine like a square peg in a round hole.
“Fuck,” she says on a sigh, her lips against my ear. “My god, Mac.” At least she’s not crying this time around. If she were, I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m about to do.
Jamie’s fully naked underneath me. Her body is warm and her embrace hard to get out of, but I can’t stay. I have to tear myself away from her, from this, as quickly as I can. I have to protect myself. To see her like I’ve just seen her opens doors inside me I would very much like to remain shut forever.
“I’m sorry, Jamie,” I mumble. “I have to go.”
“What?” She loosens her grip on me. “Now?” She chuckles as though I’ve just told her a lame joke. “You can’t go now.”
“I can and I will.” I extract myself from her arms. It’s not easy to get out of this couch elegantly.
“Why?” Jamie covers her chest with her arms. She’s so naked and vulnerable. Maybe this is how my subconscious does payback, I think, but only for a split second. I don’t want to get back at Jamie.
“I changed my mind,” I say. No one can argue with that.
“That seems to have become your new specialty.” Jamie sits up and reaches for her sweater. She puts it on then looks at me. “What is this, Mac?”
“I can’t do this with you. I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong idea.” Apparently, it’s not closure that I’m after. And my body keeps betraying me when I’m with Jamie. When I catch a glimpse of her too-delicious lips. When she looks at me in a certain way. I can’t allow her to be all over me like I was all over her just now. I can’t control the outcome, but I need to be in control of everything that I can. Jamie is not one of those things—she never was.
“You just made me come. That will put certain ideas into my head,” Jamie says matter-of-factly.
“I have to put a stop to this. I can’t take it. You’re turning my life upside down and I can’t have you do that again. I’m sorry.” Why am I apologizing? But I did come here. And I did turn into this person who says yes to a conversation one minute, then shuts it down the next. I’m the woman who instigated a kiss with her twice now, but we’re not in Maui anymore. I have to accept that seeing Jamie again has shaken me—it always would. And then I have to find a way to move on. I did it once before and it can only be a million times easier this time around.
I don’t like myself much right now. I don’t like this person she has turned me into. This is not me. This is not something that I do. I’m either with someone or I’m not.
“I want to see you again, Mac,” Jamie says.
“You can’t.” I look around for my top and quickly put it on. I’m not even sure if what I’m saying is the truth or a lie. I don’t know myself anymore. I just want some peace for my battered mind. “Bye.” I grab my coat and purse and hurry out of her apartment, before she can make me change my mind.
I walk home trying to make sense of what happened, my self-loathing growing with every step I take. I don’t want to be the kind of person she reduces me to. But I also already miss her. It’s infuriating and I don’t know how to deal with it. Leila can say that all I need is an adult, frank conversation with Jamie and then I’ll be able to move on, but she couldn’t be more wrong. Because I can’t bear to be alone with my thoughts—and that ache of longing in my gut—I call Leila.
“You were wrong,” I say after we’ve exchanged hellos.
“It happens,” Leila says in that relaxed way that she has. Leila might be one of my best friends, but there was a time when she was so much more to me. I fell in love with her—I allowed myself to fall for her because it was impossible not to. Until I fucked it up. Until I had to let her go because even though she was decidedly not that traitor Jamie Sullivan, I couldn’t stay with her. I couldn’t trust her and I drove her insane with my insecurity and baseless jealousy. “What about?” she asks.
I tell her about the past hour of my day.
“Oh, Mac,” Leila says, as though that sums it all up. Maybe it does.
“She drives me crazy,” I try to summarize. “I have to choose sanity.”
“You want her,” Leila says. “You can’t accept that, which is understandable. But she’s only human, Mac. I know she hurt you, but that was a long time ago, and you can’t treat another human like that. It’s not fair.”
“Life was so much easier when I pretended she didn’t exist.”
“But she does exist and she’s back in your life, no matter how hard you try to ignore that. You can’t go back to pretending, Mac. Maybe your instinct is to try, but it’s not going to work. The genie is out of the bottle. You have to deal with this properly. But you know what? You’re a grown-ass woman and you will deal with it. At your core, you are a reasonable and kind person. Things will be shaky for a while, because she has shaken you, but you will find yourself at the other side of this a better person. Or at least a person with less baggage in life, and that’s always a good thing, isn’t it?”
