Night with Sole Regret

TAKE ME XV

“That’s because she lacks what you have.”

Amanda looked perplexed. Her brows drew together as if she were trying to solve a complex problem. Shade had married what most people considered the prettier, more fashionable, trophy sister. Tina looked good—he couldn’t deny that—but she had the personality of a cactus.

“A job?” Amanda said finally.

He chuckled. He felt Tina’s entitlement in his wallet every month. “Well, there is that. But I meant a sense of humor.”

“Oh.” She lifted a wary eyebrow. “Yeah, that has the guys beating down my door.”

He imagined it did. He wanted to beat her door down. Since he couldn’t tell her that, he’d have to show her with physical attention.

Shade took her slowly, lost in her pretty green eyes as she accepted him. And not only with her body. She accepted all of him. Even the parts he tried to conceal. The parts he didn’t share with anyone while he f****d them. He should probably be more careful—he didn’t want either of them to get the wrong idea—but for a few moments, he let himself feel more than her body. He let himself feel her on a much deeper level.

He knew Amanda was exhausted, so he tried to hurry. Watching her blissful expression as his pumping hips brought her closer and closer to o****m aided his own search for release. Her hands roamed his back, his chest, his shoulders and his arms as if she were committing his body to memory.

When she squeezed his ass in both hands, urging him to take her faster, he complied, allowing her to drive his rhythm. He couldn’t look away from her eyes as the urgency overwhelmed him and he sought release with rapid, shallow strokes. The angle of her hips worked his cockhead inside her so perfectly that he couldn’t concentrate on anything but coming. Coming inside her while locked in her gaze.

His o****m took him by surprise. He tried thrusting deep and holding still so he could regain his control, but it was too late. Hard spasms of pleasure pulsed through the base of his c**k, driving him beyond the brink of restraint. He ground his hips against her, hoping she’d join him in bliss. He’d been so wrapped up in her gaze that he’d ignored her body. He ground into her again, not certain he was even stimulating her c**t. Come on, baby. Let go now. As if she’d heard his instruction, her back arched, slapping her belly against his as she cried out. For a second he thought she was faking an o****m, which was about the biggest insult she could have given him, but he felt her p***y clench around him in hard spasms, drawing out his o****m as she took hers.

Spent and content, Shade collapsed against the back of the hot tub, still breathing hard. He slipped the condom from his c**k and tossed it over the side of the tub. After a moment, he spotted the wine in the Styrofoam cooler of melting ice and grabbed the bottle to take a swig. Amanda was slumped sideways against the side of the tub, barely keeping her head above the roiling water.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Hot.”

“It is pretty warm in here,” he agreed.

“You. You’re hot.”

He reached for her and tugged her around the slippery seat until she was beside him. They might only get to be intimate like this for one night, so he was going to take full advantage of their naked time together. “Have some wine.”

Her arm was shaking when she reached for the bottle.

“Sure you’re okay?” he asked “You’re shaking.”

“Just exhausted. I should have started training for this months ago.”

He chuckled and helped her lift the bottle of wine to her lips. She took one swallow before pulling the bottle away and collapsing against the back of the tub with her eyes closed.

He set the wine on the deck behind the tub and wrapped an arm around her. His lips brushed her forehead. “Do you want to take a little nap?”

“Mmm hmm,” she murmured, leaning into him.

“You’ll need to recover some strength. I last even longer the third time.”

Her eyes popped open. “Third time?”

And she’d acted as if three erections wouldn’t be enough for her.

He grinned. “The night is young. I might be able to pull off four if you’re lucky.”

“Dear lord. If I didn’t thoroughly enjoy every minute with you, I’d put my p***y on strike.”

He chuckled. Most women couldn’t keep up with his libido, but that didn’t mean he was going to take it easy on her. She was his for the night. The entire night.

Amanda was quiet for so long that he thought she’d fallen asleep. “How did your band come up with the name Sole Regret?” she asked. “Is there a meaning behind it?”

He wondered where that question had come from. “Yeah, but it’s a secret. We all promised to keep it to the grave.”

“Sounds extreme.”

He smiled at memories of how passionate they’d once been. “We were young. Everything was extreme.”

“Did you come up with the name?”

“Kellen did, actually. He was having one of his philosophical moments. Said there was only one thing in his life that he ever truly regretted, all the rest of the bullshit was secondary.”

“His sole regret.”

“Exactly. We’d all had a few too many beers that night. Each of us shared our biggest regret and then made a pact to never tell anyone about them. We named the band Sole Regret to remind ourselves of that promise.”

“So what was your sole regret, Jacob?”

“Not telling.”

“Why not? I can keep a secret.”

“Because it’s personal.”

“More personal than s*x?”

He nodded. “Way more personal than sex.”

“Does it have something to do with your divorce?”

“Nope, it happened before I even met your sister.”

“You were like twenty-two when you met her. So it must have been something that happened in high school then.”

He had the feeling she wasn’t going to relent until she figured it out. “I said I’m not telling.”

“Did you beat up someone? Steal something? Spend time in juvenile hall?”

“What?” he said. “No. Why do you think it was something bad?”

She shrugged. “Because you won’t tell me. It makes me assume the worse.”

He took a deep breath. “I regret not finishing high school,” he said. “That’s it. It’s not even a secret. Most people just don’t realize how much I regret dropping out.” He wasn’t sure why he’d told her. Probably because the truth was far less criminal than what she was imagining.

“So go finish.”

He’d expected disdain or pity, not a solution. “I’m too old to finish.”

“You’re kidding, right? You could get your GED. You’re smart enough. You probably just need a refresher course.”

“I’m not smart enough. I was flunking out of high school. That’s why I quit. I was going to have to retake my entire senior year, and at the time, quitting seemed better than failing.”

She shifted in the water so she could meet his eyes. “You are smart enough.”

Lost without his sunglasses, he stared over her head. “No.”

“Jacob, I’m a teacher; I know what I’m talking about. You are smart enough.”

He knew his personal limitations. Her insisting things that weren’t true only managed to tick him off. He was done talking about this. “No.”

“One of my best friends teaches an accelerated GED prep course,” she pressed. “You should take it. She’s a really great teacher.”

“I’m not taking it, Amanda, and I’m not going to bother taking a test I know I’ll flunk. Drop it.”

“You shouldn’t go through life with regrets, Jacob. Especially not ones you can fix.”

“Amanda.” He gave her a stern look, and she matched it with a death glare that undoubtedly made the most unruly of teenaged students take notice and obey.

“Just think about it,” she said. “If you decide you want to try, I’ll get you signed up for Leah’s class. She usually has a waiting list, but I’m sure she’d squeeze you in if I asked her for a favor.”

“Why does it matter to you so much? Are you ashamed to be f****d by a high school dropout?” Her sister certainly used it against him.

“It doesn’t matter to me at all. You’re obviously doing well for yourself. I’m being a nosy, pushy b***h because it matters to you.”

“You’re not a b***h,” he said. He’d encountered plenty of them in his travels.

“Just nosy and pushy.”

She looked at him expectantly and had he been wearing his sunglasses or if she’d been a less perceptive woman, he might have stood a chance of fooling her into thinking he didn’t give a damn about any of this. He hated being told what to do more than anything, but had to admit her idea was a good one. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it years ago. Getting his GED would give Tina less ammunition to use against him and maybe she’d stop reminding Julie that he was stupid.