Chapter Six
Jackson
“It’s not like you ever cared before.”
Her whispered words cause my chest to ache and my stomach to turn as I tower over her, trapping her against the front door.
*Did I not care? Or did I just not see what she was going through? Was I that blind or was she that good at hiding?* The questions war within me as I take her in, searching her face, taking in the purple half-moons beneath her deep brown eyes, how those eyes, lit with a fire that had been missing before, stare back at me almost as if challenging me to deny her words but as much as I’d like to, I can’t because“I didn’t know”, isn’t enough of an excuse.
Even if the truth of the matter is that I was just a teenager too caught up in my own life, my brothers’ lives to realize what was going on in hers, and who knows who else's.
The fact remains that, I was around her, she was friends with Aspen and should have known, I should have seen past the façade
But I can't beat myself over something that's in the past, not when I can do something about it in the here and now..
I move down from those hauntingly beautiful eyes to her sunken cheekbones, giving away how she’s struggled since I last saw her and it makes me wonder just *how* much she’s struggled.
*What have you gone through since we left high school?*
*Hell, probably even before we left.* *What are you hiding?*
My eyes then fall to her full, perfectly pouty mouth and her tongue darts out, running along her bottom lip, moistening it, and without thought, I find myself doing the same, suddenly desperately wishing that it was my tongue that was tracing along the pillowy soft flesh instead of hers.
Her pupils dilate and I watch as her eyes flick back and forth between my eyes and my mouth, the look in her eyes transforming from stubborn and fiery, until a different kind of fire is within their depths.
Brooklyn reaches out, fisting the neckline of my shirt and pulling me closer to her as she leans forward, craning her neck as she crashes her mouth to my own.
I’m stunned motionless for a moment, but when her lips move beneath mine and her other hand reaches between us, slipping beneath the band of my pants, the trance is broken as I kiss her back, the hunger she’d awoken earlier flaring back to life.
Releasing a groan as she angles her body towards mine, she grinds her pelvis against me as she wraps her fingers around my cock, achingly hard in my pants as my balls tighten at the long missed contact, my own hand a poor substitute for the touch of a woman.
Breaking the kiss, she drops to her knees, releasing her hold on both my shirt and my cock as she grabs ahold of my waistband.
The action pulls me out of the moment and back to reality, and I back up, my voice gentle as I ask, “What are you doing?”
"What the fuck? I was trying to suck your cock!" She snaps back, sounding pissed, as if I rejected her.
"No," I say with a shake of my head, then ask again, "What are you doing?"
She must grasp my meaning this time because instead of coming back with some smartass retort, or saying anything at all, Brooklyn peers up at me from beneath her lashes, and I don’t miss the tears that are swimming within the depths of her eyes. Seeing this, tears at my heart, hating that doing something as simple as trying to show her respect is hurting her.
As soon as the first tear falls, she quickly looks away, swiping the tear away just as quickly but it’s soon replaced with three more.
“Brooklyn,” her name falls from my lips, her tears nearly my undoing.
Brooklyn stands and turns to the door once more, but I stop her before she’s able to open it.
“Don’t leave,” she sniffles but doesn’t move or say anything. “Please, not like this.”
Slowly, gently, I trail my hands down her sides, then placing them on her hips, I turn her around until we’re facing one another as I pull her into my arms.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she murmurs shakily against my neck.
“Do what?” I ask, pulling back just enough to be able to look her in the eyes.
“No one has ever cared about me before.” She says, not able to look me in the eye as she says this. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
I pull back, instantly angry but for her, not at her.
“Brooklyn, I’m not helping you because I want something in return. I’m helping you because I care, because I’d like to think I’m a relatively good person,” I quirk a brow at that, waiting to see if she will say differently but when she doesn’t, I continue. “And also because you deserve for someone to show you some kindness without any strings attached.”
“There are *always* strings,” she says with a shake of her head, putting emphasis the word *always*.
“Then you haven’t been around the right kind of people,” I say as I lift a hand to her cheek, grazing my knuckles along her soft skin before pushing a piece of fallen hair behind her ear.
“I’ll tell you what,” I say, deciding to put the ball in her court but also show her that there are no expectations. “I’m going to go take a shower and then go to bed. I have an early class tomorrow morning.” I explain when she gives me a weird look. “When I come out from showering, if you’re still here, then I’ll do everything in my power to help you. No strings attached. If you’re gone, at least I know I tried.”
I look into her eyes, just memorizing the look of surprise as she looks back at me. When I pull her into my arms, I murmur against her still slightly damp hair, “I really do hope you decide to stay.”
Then, just as I said I’d do, I leave her to make up her mind on her own.
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