Chapter 52

Bracing himself on his arms, biceps straining impressively, Jake stills over me. His naked skin has a soft sheen of moisture glistening at me from inches above my nakedness. I’m heated, tingling, and tired, yet outraged that he has stopped.

“What’s wrong, bambina?” His intense gaze dissecting my face, his breathing rapid. I wriggle impatiently, unimpressed by his sudden halt.

“Nothing. What are you doing?” I stay nestled in the pillows watching him in confusion, my heart rate still elevated, my breathing shallow.

“Baby, we have been having sex for the best part of a half hour, and I haven’t made you cum once…that’s unheard of for you. I’m starting to feel a little more than inadequate.” He pulls off me, indicating he’s not going to continue.

“Jake, don’t stop. It still feels better than good.” I pout, trying to pull him down against me, but he only resists.

“Not until you tell me what’s wrong,” he persists, his face serious.

“Nothing’s wrong.” It’s not exactly a lie, I have been more than enjoying what he was doing, but my head has been all over the place, making it impossible to succumb to the growing waves of orgasm every time they started.

“Are you still dizzy? From yesterday?” The concern etched on his face tugs at my heart, guilt rising inside me.

“No. I told you when we woke up. I’m fine today.” I bite my lip anxiously; I know he will not let this go. As sex-crazed as Jake seems, he’s always tuned in to how I respond and feel. He’s an attentive lover.

“Is this about Marissa?” He leans down so he’s closer to me, his eyes locking fully on mine for any hint of hesitation.

“No. Maybe,” I break. It’s true. All I’ve been thinking about is her and the baby since his mother brought her up, the DNA test foremost in my head. A mass of confused thoughts is eating away at my brain and driving me insane.

“In general? Or more specifically?” he questions, intuitive as always and straight to the point.

I turn to look at the bedside clock, uneasy with his intent gaze on my face. It’s after ten in the morning; most of the household will probably be up now, and I wonder if we should go downstairs instead of enduring this interrogation. He catches my chin and pulls me back to face him.

“I can stay here all day, baby, and drag this out of you one letter at a time,” he threatens, and I know he means it. No one has more stubbornness than he does.

“I think you should have the DNA test done,” I blurt out, then cringe, biting back my lip in remorse. His face tightens, but he doesn’t fully react. He narrows his eyes with a frown, and I watch as their pale hue of green changes to a darker shade with more brown flecks than normal. It has always mesmerized me how his eyes could change shades depending on his mood, a characteristic of green eyes.

“You don’t think the baby is mine?” he questions flatly, face devoid of any expression except a slight furrow. I can feel the ripple of tension, though, and my stomach lurches with the energy.

“I don’t know. What your mother said, Jake…and the fact you’ve said you don’t even remember sleeping with her. And I know you…no matter how drunk, you’ve never forgotten to use a condom.”

Didn’t I use to order your goddamn supply for you?

“You don’t think my lack of memory indicates how drunk I was? That not using a condom in that state is likely?” His voice has an edge, but he’s still not giving much away.

“If you were that drunk, how did you even…you know.” I look away awkwardly, hating this conversation, a big knot in my stomach building up. My nerves tighten, and nausea threatens to take hold. Something prickles all the way up my skin and makes me nervy.

“Get it up?” he replies sardonically, and all I can do is nod mutely with a flush of shame and warming cheeks.

“It’s never been an issue, even when drunk enough to forget what I’ve been up to,” he points out, and the hope I have been starting to cling to dies immediately. He rolls off me onto his back and stares blankly up at the ceiling. “You really want me to do this?” He sounds almost exasperated, maybe angry.

“Don’t do it if you don’t want to,” I reply numbly, this shift in his position and mood throwing me. Ten minutes ago, he was inside of me, breathing heavily in my ear as I groaned and writhed under his body, mounting again to another wave of pleasure. Maybe I wouldn’t have cum, but I was certainly enjoying it way more than this.

“You can’t just hit me with what’s bothering you and then say something like that,” he snaps. “Of course, I’ll take the fucking test.” He gets up quickly and stalks off toward the bathroom. “I would do anything you asked of me. That doesn’t mean I have to be fucking happy about it.” He slams the bathroom door, and I well up instantly, a tremor of emotion running through me painfully.

I didn’t want to fight. I roll to my side and wrap my arms around myself in an effort to push away the threatening tears. I’ve absolutely no clue what his issue with the test is.

Doesn’t he want to be sure? Why is he so against it? Why did he get so angry about it? I would want to know if it was me. It’s not like he has any reason to trust her; she proved that years ago.

He finally emerges wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt. I can smell toothpaste and see he’s trimmed his stubble and styled his hair. I guess he has no intention of coming back to bed.

He walks past the bed, hauling his running shoes from the bag on the floor that holds his gym clothes, and sits down on the edge of the bed to put them on. I say nothing, watching him silently, hating the atmosphere between us. He finally gets up, stretches out his arms over his head, and flexes his large shoulders, rotating them before throwing me a look.

“I’m going for a run. Stay here or go for breakfast. Don’t wait on me. I don’t know how long I’m going to be.” There’s nothing in his tone, no anger but no love, and he doesn’t stoop to kiss me before yanking up the zip of his hoodie and walking out. No backward glance or even a smile, he stalks out, emanating all kinds of anger, and then he’s gone.

All the tension bubbles inside of me to epic proportions, and I immediately burst into tears and bury my face in the pillows of the bed to drown them out. I drag the covers around me to blot out the world, pulling my knees up to my stomach and letting the full force of the pain run through me.

He has no idea how he can make me feel and how little effort it takes to hurt me, especially about this. He has no clue what depths of insecurity it has inflicted on me.

“Don’t cry, baby, please.” His sudden voice in my ear makes me jump as his arms come around me tightly from behind. “I’m sorry, Emma. Please, bambina.” His tone is soft and gentle as his fingers uncurl my grip on the pillows so he can pull me into his body, encircling me, his face in my hair by my cheek. “Shhhhhh, come on. Turn around,” he breathes, finally coaxing me to face him and pulling me against his chest. “I’m sorry, dolcezza. Stop. You’re making me feel even shittier than I already do.” His fingers stroke across my face, wiping away the dampness, his nose touching mine as he looks at me nestled in his arms under him. I take a breath, stilling the onslaught of tears and sniffling back any more threatening to come, confused as to why he’s back.

“I’ve stopped,” I sigh emotionally, sniffling again and suddenly embarrassed. “Why did you come back?” I look up at him with wide eyes.

“I didn’t get far. I had this overwhelming guilt that, after finally getting you to actually tell me how you’re feeling, I just acted like a prize asshole, and you would probably never open up again,” he admits. “You can’t help that you feel that way, bambina. And being pissed at you for that is a foolproof way to make sure you never trust me and talk about it again. I can’t let that happen.” He regards me remorsefully. His brows lowered in regret. “It’s a touchy subject; do you forgive me?” As I nod, he leans down and kisses me gently on the mouth, soft and reassuring, his hand curling in my hair.

Sighing heavily, he looks away across the room over the top of my head as though trying to find a focus.

“I’m not mad about taking the test, Emma, I admit. It’s just Marissa can be a prize bitch normally, and hitting her with this will set her off again. She’s going to flip out and cause me all sorts of agro, bambina. I can’t blame her, though; it’s doubting her honesty and probably going to look like I’m looking for a way out.” He sighs again. “From day one, she’s been accusing me of not being invested. This is just going to make it look like she’s right.”

“You’re putting up with so much crap from her and running to LA for all of this,” I retort. “How can she say that you’re not invested?”

“You really want to know?” He looks at me warily. “You never ask about any of this.” He watches me carefully.

I bite my lip, and twirl my hair nervously, everything in me wanting to push this topic away and clamp shut, but the way he’s looking at me stills me. He lifts his hand to mine, cupping it slowly, and pulls my fingers from my hair with a frown. He keeps my hand in his yet uses his thumb to stroke my cheek.

“I want to talk to you about this, but not if it’s going to upset you,” he finally admits, but I stay still, looking intently at him, my heart racing erratically.

“I need to stop pretending it’s not happening,” I finally let out quietly and watch the indecision flit across his face. He knows I won’t lead the conversation, so he volunteers the information instead.

“I asked her to have a termination,” he grimaces as though he’s not proud of the memory, “The night in the hotel, the first time you and I ever had sex. I didn’t know what was happening with us…all I could think about was you. She wanted me to marry her for the sake of her pride, and I told her no. I thought a baby would mean I would never have a chance with you, so I told her I didn’t want it.” He looks anywhere but at me, and despite his look of shame, I’m glowing inside, a tiny spark that calms my insecure heart.

Does that make me a complete bitch?

“I was a complete jerk,” he continues. “She showed up at the wrong time, with things between us messy. All I wanted to do was march to your room and talk about everything that had just happened, not pace around my room with an angry Marissa preaching to me about responsibilities.” I love you so much!

“You think I don’t agree? I would have done the same if I were you.” I reach my fingertips up and try to smooth away the furrow of his dark brows. “This baby has been a massive cloud over us from day one.”

He sighs and turns his attention back to me, his knuckles running down my cheek.

“I keep trying to feel some sort of peace with this. Trying to get things legal is an attempt at being okay with it, but I just can’t. No matter how often I tell myself I’m going to be a father, I can’t seem to accept it.” He exhales heavily. “The DNA testing just points out to me, more than ever, how much I’m desperate to find a way out, Emma, and I’m ashamed that I can even think that way. It’s why I don’t want it…because I don’t want to focus my hope on some miracle that it’s not mine.”

Hearing him verbalize all of this makes me cry, not with insecurity this time or anguish, but with relief, a part of me needing to hear all of this finally. He rests his forehead against mine, his fingers tracing my mouth.

“This isn’t how I planned any of this. It was supposed to be just you and me and our whole future ahead of us—get married, have kids… Marissa and this baby turned everything upside down. It kills me to know how much it hurts you and that hurts me too.”

“I wish it never happened,” I admit shyly, my cheeks heating at the admission, afraid to show him how selfish I am.

You’re an awful person, Emma!

“I wish it never happened either. I’m not just saying that because I got her pregnant; I wish I had realized the moment I fell in love with you that sex with anyone else would never fix me. I was stupid and only gave you more reasons to push me away.” He is gazing intensely into my eyes, every shade of green coming into play with every emotion, and right now, I’m mesmerized. I look away, swallowing down the surge of hurt at the memory of him leaving me on that boat to release his sexual tension with other women to get over me. “It never helped me. I just felt shitty,” he whispers against my cheek. “It just made me even more messed up in the head, feeling more and more distraught.”

“You don’t need to tell me this…,” I start, the panic rising that he will admit to everything I don’t want to hear. I don’t need to know about the women who kept him occupied while we were apart.

“I need to tell you this, Emma… You need to hear it, if only so that I stop feeling guilty about it every time I look at you. I regret it so much.”

“I don’t want to know about the other women when you left the boat,” I plead, wriggling to get free, but he holds me still.

“There was only one…once. I swear. Then I sent her away and took some alone time because I realized sex wouldn’t straighten my head out. It wouldn’t fill this emptiness inside of me without you.”

His words rip through my chest but nowhere near the destructive way I expected. I had been expecting to hear about a multitude of women and non-stop sex, yet his admission takes all that tension away.

“But you came back to New York with a date,” I point out, my brain scrambling at the memories in disbelief.

“I’m capable of sharing my bed with someone and not having sex, you know. I brought her with me to make sure I didn’t try anything with you.” He shrugs. “I didn’t care if it pissed her off. I just didn’t trust myself to be close to you.”

“And before the boat?” I blurt out, my mind chaos as I try to think back to the women he had around me back then, so sure he’d been keeping up with his dates throughout.

“Probably less than half you thought I was sleeping with. Slowly over the months, I couldn’t find anything in them that turned me on. I’d lost all interest in every woman I laid eyes on after kissing you the first time.” He smiles at me. “Up until that point, I didn’t understand how I felt. I knew I cared about you a lot. I knew that you drove me crazy with your tight skirts, hints of cleavage, and high heels, but I figured it was lust…the challenge of the unattainable. I was confused.”

“But we barely kissed, and I pushed you away?” I frown, my memories falling into one another haphazardly.

“I know. But in that brief second, I knew I was crazy about you, the feel of you.” He stops and runs a gentle fingertip across my lower lip longingly. “I’d never felt that way kissing anyone, the deep lurch in my stomach and goddamn butterflies.” He grins. “All that mushy girl crap you hear them talking about…it happened for me.” I grin back at him.

Who knew Carrero could turn into a teen girl?

“Pity, all I could think was how terrified I was. It drowned out everything else for me,” I admit apologetically, but he only smiles and plants a quick kiss on my mouth.

“I felt it, baby…that fear, that instant terror, and it only made me want to be the guy to rescue you even more. I knew I had to gain your trust slowly. I made up my mind that I would be the guy to bring you out of yourself, no matter what it took.”

“Not enough to abstain from sex, though?” I pout.

“Hey, no fair. I was still figuring it out. I tried to carry on as normal, but I didn’t get the same kick out of casual sex anymore, and I didn’t sleep with most of them.” His brow furrows, and his gaze lands on mine again, remorse overtaking his beautiful face.

“So, your break in women? Were you really celibate by then? That must have been hard when surrounded by oversexed bimbos,” I grimace, unable to conceal my jealousy.

“Why? Don’t you think I could cope without constant sex? I kept up the pretense for a while, baby, in case you caught on that something had changed, and then I just let the dates fizzle out until I didn’t bother with them anymore. Which, can I add, was a relief because, man, you women sure get prissy as shit when a guy refuses sex… I knew what I wanted, Emma. No one else held any interest for me. It was harder to be around you and not want sex with you every minute of the day.”

“Jake Carrero gave up sex for me. Hell must have frozen over.” This admission has completely blown me away. I’m grinning. I squeal and giggle as he goes for my stomach with tickling fingers.

“I told you…this relationship didn’t start after that dance, bambina. For me, this has been a very long time coming. I’m amazed I still had the stamina the first time we had sex. It had been a while, and the way you got to me, I was shocked I lasted more than thirty seconds.” He is on top of me, brushing back my hair and nuzzling his nose against mine.

“I guess that explains why you’re making up for it nowadays.” I giggle. He laughs too, flooring me with the beauty of his white grin.

“Trust me, the lack of sex is not the only reason. You, my love, drive me insane with lust.” He kisses me more thoroughly, pinning me down to the bed and moving against me suggestively. “See?” he points out as the hardness in his pants presses through the sheets against my pelvis.

“I didn’t stop things today,” I remind him. “You did.”

He frowns and takes a deep breath, his eyes on mine as he stills, that serious, all-business look across his face.

“I’ll have my lawyers draft in the request that a DNA test is done as soon as the baby is born. Knowing how Marissa can be may change things with our current arrangements. I’m not going to get my hopes up, Emma; I may not remember it happening, but I’m pretty sure she would never stoop that low.” He brushes his nose against mine before stealing a soft kiss. I smile in response despite my trepidation and sudden flutter of anxiety.

There’s nothing more to say on the subject. This whole conversation, knowing that he will get the test, helps put it all out of my head. Lifting my chin, I kiss him passionately, catching his bottom lip and sucking it sexily. The stirring in his sweatpants hardens, and I grin triumphantly.

“Want to get naked and finish what you started, Casanova?” I lie back and watch with satisfaction as heavy dark lust clouds his eyes.

“Bambina, I’m on a mission to make you cum at least once before we head down for breakfast.” He grins, pulling away to peel his clothes off.