Back To The Start Box Set: Five Full-Length Novels by Aly Martinez
“She knows all of that!” I motion to the bartender to keep the drinks coming. If ever there was a night to get rip-roaring drunk, this would be it.
“She’s not asking for an engagement ring, asshole. She wants a commitment. She wants reassurance that this isn’t temporary to you because it sure as hell isn’t to her.”
“I have to say that your knowledge about how my girl feels is highly disturbing.”
“Well, if you two would get your shit together and stop dragging me into the middle, maybe I wouldn’t know any of this.”
I rest my head in my hands and stare down at the bar. “You think she’ll take that? Just a commitment of some sort?”
“Nope.” He takes a sip of his scotch on the rocks. “But I do think she would accept a real commitment. None of that ‘some sort’ bullshit. Is that something you think you can give her?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly.
“Then take a few days and figure it out.”
“I can’t go a few days without her.”
“Jesus Christ! Open your fucking eyes, Brett! You’re so caught up on the semantics of what a commitment means that you’re missing the fact that you’ve already committed. You spend every waking minute with Jesse. You’re terrified to move on from Sarah, but you’ve already done it. It’s done! Man up and recognize it!” he says, growing more and more pissed.
“Fuck, Sharp! The hard part is done!” he repeats again, pulling out his wallet and throwing money on the bar. “I need to go. If I knew this was going to be a poor-pitiful-Brett party, I never would have left the blonde who was begging me to fuck her. Get your shit together and say you’re sorry. Just don’t fuck with Jesse’s head. She’s a good girl who deserves way more than this bullshit you’re spouting right now.”
He heads toward the door but only gets a few steps before turning back to ask, “You drive here?”
I shake my head but stay focused on my drink as I hear him walk away.
“You all right?” the bartender asks.
“Hell no, but I need the check.”
* * *
IT’S ONE in the morning when the cab pulls up in front of Jesse’s apartment. She lives on the first floor, and I can see the light still on through the small rectangular window next to her door. I walk up and gently tap, not wanting to wake Kara. The curtain slides, and I see her face peek around the side. Her eyes are puffy and she looks exhausted.
“Go away, Brett.”
“Never.”
“Fine. It’s supposed to be seventeen degrees tonight. Try not to freeze.” She flips off the light.
“I’m not going anywhere, so I hope you can deal with my frozen body blocking your doorway in the morning.” I try to joke, but I get no response.
I slide down the wall and sit next to her door. The sidewalk is freezing, but I’m not going home without her.
“I know you’re still there, gorgeous,” I say to the door. “I’m sorry. I know I say that a lot. I’m sorry for that too. Just talk to me.”
“I can’t do this anymore,” she responds.
“Then let me say goodbye to your face,” I lie. No way am I saying goodbye tonight.
I’m about to open my mouth again when I hear the click of the deadbolt. The door only swings open a few inches, and I see timid Jesse from months ago shyly standing in the darkness. I try to catch her eye, but she won’t look up at me. Shit, this is bad.
I can feel my own heart banging around in my chest. What if I’m not able to fix this? I know she doesn’t want me to come in, but I’m not having this conversation in the breezeway. Careful not to hurt her, I push open her door wide enough for me to squeeze inside.
“Brett!” she yells as I close the door behind me.
“Sorry, gorgeous. Add it to the list. I’ve got things to say, and I need you to listen.” I’m lying. I still have no idea what the hell I’m going to say. Why do I never plan this shit out? “Come here.” I pull her into my arms.
“Have you lost your freaking mind?” She moves out of my reach. “Say what you need to say then leave.”
It’s now or never. Time to dig deep and figure this out. I need to fix this with Jesse so I can escape this screwed-up existence I call a life. I’ve learned over the last four years that there is no escaping it, this really is my life. Suck as it might, you either live it or leave it. I glance over at the tiny brunette leaning against her kitchen counter with a glare that should be melting my face. Somehow, it just makes me smile instead. She looks like a tiny, pissed-off fairy—a description that would surely earn me even more of her pixie wrath. As my eyes slide over her, I realize that leaving Jesse isn’t an option. Caleb was right. I’ve committed.
I walk to the kitchen cabinet, grabbing Kara’s bottle of Vodka, and pour us both a shot. I’m going to need this if I am possibly going to get through this conversation. I’m about to rock her world, and I know because this revelation just rocked mine.
Tipping back the glass and pushing one towards her, I start. “Jess, I had a wife and I loved her with every fiber of my being. She was my life for seven years. She was my best friend, and I miss her…a lot. Yes, I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with Sarah, but it didn’t work out that way. She’s gone forever. You can’t hold that against me. I lost her four years ago, but it took meeting you to realize I lost myself on that same damn night.”
She starts nibbling on the edge of her thumbnail nervously like she so often does.
“What if one day she changes her mind? I mean…what if she isn’t really gone?”
“Yes, she is still breathing, but the woman I loved is dead. Jess, I can’t change my past. I was lucky enough to meet a woman at twenty-one, fall in love with her, and spend seven of the best years of my life with her. Did you know we planned to have three kids? We had all these silly names picked out. There was supposed to be a little Danika and Hephzibah running around, tearing shit up right now. God, those names were ridiculous.” I smile and laugh to myself.
“She wanted unusual names, something about her name being so plain, and I could not have given two shits what she named them. They were going to be ours, and that was enough for me. We wanted to move to Georgia. Live on the coast. Buy a big house on the water and spend our weekends lounging on the dock, arguing about who won last night’s Jeopardy challenge. That is all I have ever known about my future. Those were our plans. Then one day, I woke up, and just like Sarah, everything was gone.” I pause to take a breath and Jesse pounces.
“Jesus, Brett, why are you telling me this? This is exactly our problem. You’re sitting here reminiscing with a Cheshire cat grin on your face. You have dreams and the perfect little storybook life of you and Sarah in your head. How am I supposed to compete with that? I struggle every single day knowing I have to share you with her. I can’t do this. I can’t be her replacement.” She wipes a tear away from her eyes while scanning the room for an escape. “You need to go.”
“Please shut up. It’s about to get better, I swear.” I take two steps closer, effectively blocking the doorway in case she decides to run.
“No, you need to leave.” She crosses her arms over her chest in an adorable display of attitude.
“Christ, Jess, stop running. You are always running from me. Just hear me out. I have a point. I’m not trying to rub anything in your face.”
“I don’t want to hear you out!” she shrieks in a tone unlike anything I have ever heard before. “Call me a quitter or whatever you want, but I can’t live like this. Everything I do, it always flashes through my mind: ‘What would Sarah do?’ She was your perfection. She was your happily ever after. It’s fucking exhausting living in her shadow. I can’t do it anymore. I love you. I really do. But damn. At some point, you have to say enough is enough. This”—she frantically waves her finger between us—”is not working.”
I run my fingers through my hair as I look around the room, hoping for some sort of divine intervention. “Clearly, we are having some
“No it’s not. This relationship is crap. I am the only reason it’s even a relationship at all. If it were up to you, we would be nothing more than friends who have sex. I’m sick of pushing you for more. It’s not going to happen and I have to accept that. I get that you’re scared. You had your life snatched out from under you. I can even see why you would be hesitant to get back into a relationship. If things had slowed down back in September, none of this would be happening right now. You can’t honestly think we have been taking this slow.
“I’m not some crazy woman who’s in a rush to get married and settle down. I’m definitely not trying to force you into some big serious relationship if you aren’t ready. Brett, it kills me that you are the only one who doesn’t recognize how you feel. I can see it in your eyes. I’m not stupid. I know you love me. I can feel it when you make love to me. Yep, I said it. It’s making love when we do it—not fucking!”
She pauses to take a deep breath, and just as she did earlier, I jump in before she can say anything else.
“Did you just say fuck?” I ask at what I will later learn to be ‘completely the wrong time.’
“Oh my God, did you not hear anything else I said?”
“I’m sorry. I’ve just never heard you say fuck before…and you just said it twice,” I reply, laughing, which only serves to piss her off more.
“Yep, that’s it! I’m done here. You can sit there laughing it up that you made good girl Jesse Addison say fuck. Congratulations, jackass. You will have plenty of alone time to bask in your triumphant glory, because I quit!”
Finally, her eyes land on her car keys across the room, and I know it’s time.
“I want a future with you,” I rush out before she can take off on me yet again.
“No, Brett, you want a future with some woman who will fit into Sarah’s shoes. But guess what? I don’t want to play Jeopardy with you every night or settle on the coast of Georgia. I want to live in the mountains. And I want two kids, not three. And I like plain names like John and Beth. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life waiting on a man to finally admit that he’s in love with me. Jesus, why am I even still standing here arguing with you? If you won’t leave, I will. You know what—”
“Jess, shut up!” I have no choice but to shout. She has worked herself up into such fit that she can’t stop talking.
We both stand here staring at each other for a second, her chest heaving as she tries to catch her breath.
“I don’t want to play Jeopardy with you either. Honestly, you really suck.” I give her my best smile and wink to let her know I’m kidding, but she just continues to glare at me. “However, I do want to eventually kick your ass at the bowling alley.” At that, she gives me an eye roll.
Even though nothing has been solved, with that small gesture, I know that, for once in my life, everything really is going to be okay.
“Jesse, you’re my perfection. I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel that way about her. You’re right. At one point, she was my everything, but then I met you. We could play the ‘what if she hadn’t been in the accident’ game all night, but it’s not going to get us anywhere.
“The truth is, for you, Jesse James Addison, I would move to Egypt. So if the mountains are what you want, I’ll break my lease tomorrow. You want two kids? I’m fine with that too. John Sharp has a nice ring to it. But you have to promise me that, if we have two girls, we can try for a boy. And if we end up with three girls, you’ll let me adopt a bulldog. I’m not sure I can handle that much estrogen in one house without some backup.” She finally gives me a small grin that fuels my fire. “Now, gorgeous. If you can just stop freaking out on me for just a minute, I promise this is about to get better.” I suck in a deep breath and prepare myself to say the three words I never thought I would say again.
“I love you. I have loved you for months, and to repeat your very crass words”—I jokingly raise my eyebrows in shock—”it isn’t just fucking. I have made love to you every single time I have touched your body since the first day we met. Except that one time in the bathroom at Nell’s. Just so you know, I won’t classify it as anything but fucking if a man has urinated within a three-foot radius of where we are doing it.” I pause while she rewards me with a soft giggle and a slight smile that barely curves her lips.
I close my eyes for a second, taking in a deep breath and listening to the magical sound that is Jesse’s laughter. Any hesitance I had about my feelings before has all vanished. Yes, I love this woman. I’m not just saying it out of some misplaced obligation or a fear of losing her. I say it because it’s a truth that I have no doubt was coded into my DNA the day I was created. It has taken me too long to realize it. I’ve put her through hell on the journey, but I know I will spend a lifetime making that up to her.
With the absolute need to feel her in my arms, I rush across the room, crushing her to my chest. “Gorgeous, I know you’re still pissed at me. I get that. I’ve been an ass. But, Jesse, I love you. You won’t understand this, but I need to be inside you. You are just going to have to trust me that I’m going to make this work with us, no matter what. I’ll try to explain in a few minutes, but some serious stuff just happened and I have never needed to feel you more than I do right now. I love you, gorgeous. Can you do that for me? Just let me make love to you and I swear I’ll show you everything.”
Her eyes slide from surprise to aroused as she gives the tiniest of nods.
That is all it takes for me to pick her up, push her against the wall, and land my mouth roughly on her unprepared lips. I thrust my tongue forward as she tries—and fails—to match my frantic rhythm. I can’t slow down. I need to claim her. I continue my assault in her mouth, pausing only briefly to pull her shirt over her head. Finding her nipples already peaked, I rub my thumbs over them, watching as they harden. She takes a deep, gasping breath, leaning forward and latching on to my neck. This time, I’m the one shuddering.
I place her feet back on the ground and growl, “Fuck, Jess, take off your pants.” She still hasn’t said a word since my declaration of love, and it’s completely unnerving. I need to get inside her. I need to say it with more than words to make sure she believes me.
She shimmies out of her jeans and pink boy shorts as I continue to caress her breasts, alternating between gently tugging her nipples and kneading. Once she’s fully naked, I step back, taking a moment to appreciate the stunning woman standing before me. My woman. Mine. I reach forward with one finger, stroking the junction between her legs, finding her already dripping wet. If at all possible, my cock hardens even further, twitching as it desperately searches for a way out.
“You’re beautiful,” I say, continuing to stroke her clit. “I love you. I know you’ve waited entirely too long to hear those words, but I’m saying them now. I hope you realize the door you’ve opened, because I am never going to stop saying it.”
I rub my finger slightly faster, causing her to her throw her head back, banging it into the wall. I quickly reach around her curvy waist to help her balance while she loses herself in the movement of my hand.
“Brett, please,” she finally speaks.
I know she is lost in the hunt for her release, but I want to hear her say it. I want to finally be able to respond.
“Say it, baby.”
“Please, Brett,” she breathes as I pause my hand.
“Jess, say it.”
“Say what?”
I smile because she knows exactly what I want to hear. This torture is her small dose of payback for the last few months.
“Jess, I’m about to fu…make love to you against this wall until you are physically unable to walk the three feet to the couch and are forced to sleep on the ground, exhausted from the sheer number of times I have made you come.”
I push forward, rolling my hard cock into her stomach. “We have just established how I
“I love you,” she finally answers just seconds before I push two fingers deep into her dripping pussy, sending her into a full-body climax.
Holding her close, I feel her sway as she rides out her sexual high. I bury my face in the top of her hair, breathing in the sweet floral scent I have memorized to be Jesse. I reply on a long, content sigh. “I love you too, gorgeous. I love you too.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Jesse
“DON’T GO.” I grab Brett’s legs, trying to drag him back into bed.
“I have to, babe. It’s my Sunday to work.”
“Call in sick.” I rise to my knees and kiss his naked chest as he stands over the bed.
“God, I wish I could. I’d stay in bed with you all day.”
“Please,” I beg, knowing it’s worthless.
I knew yesterday he had to work, but that doesn’t make our long night any shorter. Last night was the most amazing day of my life. Brett Sharp is in love with me. I want to fly to Austria today just to find a field to spin around in like Julie Andrews singing “The Sound of Music.” It’s probably easier to do a happy dance in the shower. I’ll stick with that.
“What time do you get off today?”
“It should be a light day. As long as nothing crazy comes up, I’ll be done by six. How about I grab sushi and pick you up around six thirty? Maybe we can finish what we started last night.” He shoves a hand into my hair and rakes his teeth across my neck, sending a shiver over my body.
“I’m all for continuing it, but I’m relatively sure we finished.”
“My sweet Jesse, you have no idea what you are talking about. Last night was just the beginning.”