Chapter 22
Elizabeth managed to suck in a breath, her body pressed up against Jason's as he fumbled to slide his key into the lock of his penthouse. She braced her head briefly on his shoulder, trying to collect her thoughts and wondering if she was going to do this with him.
The kiss on the terrace gave her a glimpse of what it was like to really kiss Jason Morgan, sans ulterior motives, and she knew where they were going to end up long before they left the gallery. Had they been able to slip away at that very moment, they probably wouldn't have made it out of the parking lot. She didn't know whether to thank Lulu for appearing on the terrace, awkwardly interrupting them to let Elizabeth know they were asking for her inside. She'd pulled away from Jason breathless and weak-kneed, not knowing how she made it into the gallery where she gave a brief speech and thanked everyone for coming.
Minutes later, Jason had not-so-subtly asked her if she'd be ready to slip away soon, and her head spun at the possibilities. It had been a while since she'd been close enough to a man to breathe him in and press her body against hers, and she was desperate with need so much that it shocked her. He could have tried to undress her in the middle of the room with everyone watching, and she honestly didn't know if she could have stopped him.
She would have thought after being so honest with him, after telling him some of her deepest fears that she would have been shy, too afraid to be close to him, but now she needed to have him. Thankfully, they'd parked on the highest level of the parking garage and had a short ride up in the elevator, or they may have not managed to make it this far. He groaned in frustration, his hand digging into her hip as he fiddled with the lock, and she would have been annoyed too had his body not been pressed so firmly against hers.
"Dammit," he growled as she turned around, her back to his chest and shoved his hands away.
She twisted the key and shoved the door open, letting out a yelp as his arms wrapped around her and he practically lifted her into the penthouse. He kicked the door closed with his foot, spinning her around and slamming her up against the door, eliciting another cry. He paused long enough to look her over, making sure he hadn't really hurt her, before taking her mouth in his, his tongue seeking the warmth of her mouth.
His hands roamed over her, one groping her breast through the silk of her dress while the other skimmed up her thigh. She shivered beneath his touch, trembling with anticipation, and she melted against him as he roughly squeezed her thigh. Hooking his hand beneath her knee, her lifted her leg to his hip, thrusting against her and causing her to moan into his mouth.
Jason left a blazing trail everywhere he touched, bringing her alive beneath his hands. He abandoned her breast to slide his arm around her to the small of her back, forcing her to arch towards him as he slid his hand up to the zipper of her dress. He fumbled, just like he had with the lock, but he distracted her by skimming his hand up her thigh, his finger tracing over the lace of her underwear.
"Oh, God," she groaned, tearing her mouth away as his hand moved her, not so subtly pressing between her legs.
He grinned against her neck, nuzzling his face into her hair as he lowered the zipper of her dress, his palm pressing against her bare back. She laughed huskily through her haze when he lifted his face to look at her, clearly surprised that she wasn't wearing a bra.
Jason growled something incoherent, taking her mouth in his again, and she gripped the lapels of his jacket as she rolled her hips against him. He pulled his hand from between her legs, sucking her cry of protest from her mouth and shifting against her to tug her dress from her shoulders. For a brief moment, she grew flushed, nervous at the thought of him seeing her so bare. He'd seen her thighs on down, but this was different, this was where so few people – despite what he and Johnny may have thought about her sexual escapades – had gone, and suddenly she was scared.
"Elizabeth," he murmured, pressing his forehead against hers, the silk of her dress covering just the top of her breasts. "Are you-"
"Yeah," she panted, releasing his jacket to bat away his hands from her arms.
He braced his hands on either side of her head, staring her in the eye, silently encouraging her to do whatever made her comfortable. She knew he wouldn't pressure her or ask her to do something, that she would have to do it on her own, and the vulnerability that came with such a choice made her tremble.
Swallowing hard, she gently tugged the material to shimmy it down and over her hips until it was a pool of silk at her feet. His eyes roamed over her, his breaths coming shorter with every passing second. When he dropped a hand to her shoulder, inching his palm towards her bare breast, she closed her eyes in anticipation, groaning loudly as he held the tender flesh in his hand. He squeezed gently and pressed himself against her, leaving a delicate kiss against her neck.
"You're so beautiful, Elizabeth," he whispered, gently tugging at her hardened nipple and rolling it between his thumb and forefinger. She hissed, gripping his lapels again and thrusting against him. "I don't know how I never noticed before…"
Her chest tightened at his words and she nuzzled his face, pressing a kiss against the shell of his earlobe. "You just didn't think I could be as good as those girls at Jake's," she whispered huskily, snaking her tongue across his earlobe. "But I can be."
Almost immediately he stiffened, releasing her breast from his hand and gently removing her leg from his waist. He glanced at her briefly, his eyes hard and distant, any hint of desire and need having disappeared. Stepping back, he shook his head, running a hand over his face.
"But you're not," he muttered, suddenly looking disgusted. He turned away as if he couldn't bear to look at her.
"Jas-"
"Put your dress back on," he snapped, his tone so rough it brought her to tears.
"Did I do something wrong?" she asked, her back pressed against the door, too afraid to move.
"Just put your damn dress back on," he growled, keeping his back to her.
"Jason…" Her voice trailed off as he shook his head, and she slid downward, her back against the door to grab her dress. Blinking back tears, she shook out the material, stepping into it with legs so shaky she had to catch herself against the door to keep from falling over. "Jason, what did I do?"
With every second that passed, she felt further humiliated, hating herself for actually opening up to him and allowing things to get this far. Maybe she'd always known this was possible, that if she got close to Jason and really let herself feel, she'd be back in this same place, caught between pining for and briefly touching what she wanted. She was already too mixed up and now this.
"Say something to me dammit," she hissed, shaking her hands at him. "You don't get to bring me home, do that, and stop like it doesn't mean anything."
"It does," he muttered, turning around slowly, his head hung as if he couldn't look at her.
"Then what the hell just happened, Jason?" she cried, pursing her quivering lips together. She felt ready to burst into pieces at any moment and she wasn't going to allow that to happen in front of him. She'd run out of his penthouse first. "You can just go to hell, you asshole."
Spinning around, she grabbed the door handle and jerked it open, but his hand slammed against it and kept her from leaving. "I want to leave," she spat, tensing up when she realized how close he was to her.
Jason's hand touched her shoulder and slid down her arm to cup her elbow, pulling her so that she faced him. His eyes slowly rose to hers, full of apology and an ache that she didn't quite understand. "You're not like those girls, Elizabeth," he swallowed, letting out a shaky breath. "You never were, and I never wanted you to be."
He spoke with such sincerity that she shivered, feeling things too intense, and she just had to get out of there, but she couldn't find it in herself to move. Sighing, he held her gaze for a second longer and pushed himself away from the door, giving her the option to stay or go.
"You can go now," he muttered, slipping his hands into his pants pockets and frowning at her.
"So that's it?" she asked quietly, wishing she could sink into the floor and disappear.
"We're not doing this," he replied firmly. "I can't."
"Because of what I said?" she asked, not understanding where he was coming from.
"You said it yourself – you're mixed up, Elizabeth. How do you even know this is what you want?"
She shrugged, knowing he was right and she couldn't really answer him. "Do you know how hard it was for me to tell you everything I have tonight?"
He nodded, clenching his jaw.
"I don't think you do," she replied, shaking her head. "And I may not know what I want, but I felt safe, like I needed you, and that's one feeling that's never changed."
"You could be confused," he argued softly, letting out a heavy sigh as he walked away from her.
"This has nothing to do with him, Ja-"
"It has everything to do with him," he interrupted, pacing back and forth behind the couch. "There's no way it can't."
"I don't know what you want," she shrugged hopelessly.
She didn't know how to explain what she felt, that she didn't see them as the same person, and that her heart literally felt pulled in two.
"The truth," he murmured, flicking his eyes to hers. She raised her eyebrows not following what he was saying. "I want the truth about Jason Quartermaine."
"It doesn't matter," she said seriously, refusing to address it in any way. "He's gone, and so is the part of me that loved him."
"Till now?" Jason challenged, and she felt awkward seeing him so uncertain about something.
He was always so self-assured, never worrying about what people said or did, and it was like she'd manage to shake that foundation from top to bottom.
"You're making this so complicated," she groaned, rubbing her hands over her face.
"No, it just is," he argued, shaking his head at her. "You're doing what you do when things are complicated – you get scared. You shut down, and there's no way to get past this unless we talk about it."
"What am I supposed to say?" she cried, her voice booming through the penthouse. "You're not him, Jason. You've never been him." She sounded angry, cruel even, but she didn't care. "I let him go. I stuffed away the part of me that loved him, and I have no intentions of letting her out again."
"Then, what are we doing?" he asked restlessly, sounding just as upset as she was.
"I'm not trying to recreate what I had with him," she said quietly, her voice breaking. "And for you to imply that – you don't know-"
"Exactly, Elizabeth. I don't know. I've spent years hearing bits and pieces of his life from you and Johnny, and nothing adds up for me. Johnny says you loved him, but he didn't love you, and I don't know if I can believe that anymore."
Elizabeth swallowed hard, suddenly feeling as if she were still naked. "Johnny doesn't know everything," she whispered, hurrying to wipe away her tears before they fell. "What I felt for him was young and pure. Nothing could have touched it, and it still can't because I was a different person, Jason. What I feel now, as distorted and mixed up as it is, is very different from what I felt then."
"You're avoiding the topic," he muttered, and she knew he was upset that she was talking in circles, but she didn't know how not to. "I have a right to know about him."
"You have a right to nothing," she hissed, folding her arms over her chest as if to hold herself together. "You didn't want to know about him before, and now-"
"Now, things are different," he cut in, practically trembling with frustration. "We started something, be it out of your desire to get to Johnny, but we can't go back-"
"Do you want to?" she interrupted curiously, needing to know.
"I want to know about Jason Quartermaine," he repeated, ignoring the question.
She started to buck again, telling him to go to hell, but she couldn't, suddenly feeling guilty. It had been hard for her to let go of him and pretend that he had never existed, but it must have been just as hard for Jason to live in his shadow.
"There isn't much to tell," she said quietly, slowly rocking back and forth on her feet. "One minute we were talking about him leaving for college, how he was leaving and I was staying, and if I could wait…" She sighed, walking over to the couch and sitting down, needing to have something beneath her. "The next he was chasing after his jealous and drunk brother, and before any of us knew what was happening…"
"So you were together, and Johnny didn't know?" he asked, leaning against the back of the couch.
She shook her head, fisting her hands in the silk of her dress. "We would have been, or at least I like to think so. Some days it seemed inevitable, that I was destined to be the girl he came back to."
"You would have been okay with that?"
"I would have gone with him had he asked, but he didn't…"
"So you were going to wait."
"I was going to wait," she repeated, "knowing that there would have been other girls and relationships in between – I was still willing to wait."
They both grew quiet, knowing she'd said her piece, and she wasn't going to give him any further details until she was ready. She could tell him about Jason Quartermaine, until he knew every last detail; every moment where he touched her or held her hand, and the few times that he'd actually pressed his lips to hers, but none of them mattered.
Not a single bit.
Their relationship as small or as big as it was, depending on how you looked at it, had been just theirs, and no retelling would ever do it justice.
"I never wanted you to be him," she said, turning around so that she was looking up at him. "I may have tried to find bits of him in your eyes, but I never wanted…not for a second."
"I never felt like you did," he replied, lifting his legs over the back of the couch and sliding down so that he was sitting behind her, his arm draped over the back of it. "Not for a second."
"Good," she murmured, a smile tugging at her lips as she leaned back, her shoulder touching his arm, just wanting to touch him in some way.
She knew his head was swirling with possibilities; of how far they could have gone, what they could have lost because of it, and how they were supposed to ever go back. Not to mention his known affections for the women at the bar and how she'd just had to go there. She tried not to think that things could have ended differently, that they could have been in bed, enjoying some kind of awkward afterglow.
In the moment it felt good; his hands, his mouth, and the security that came with being so close to him. She'd never wanted anything so badly in all her life, and the thought of it all still made her blush. She didn't know whether to be thankful or not that she'd stuck her foot in her mouth, but Jason seemed content, and that was enough. He cared, and that was more than the majority of men she'd hopped into the bed with, but none had been this confusing. It felt so right, but so wrong, and she still had no idea what she wanted, or if she was brave enough to change everything.
"About what I said before about the bar and being…" She felt uncomfortable and a little dirty, or maybe it was just embarrassing, even though he was clearly going out of his way to let her know it was okay – that he hadn't just stripped her down to her bare essentials twenty minutes ago and nearly done naughty things against his front door.
"It'd be easy to go further without thinking, but…" He shook his head and curled his arm around her shoulder, silently encouraging her to scoot close, his face softening as she did. "I don't want you to have any regrets."
She nodded, understanding where he was coming from.
"You're more than just one night, Elizabeth," he whispered, tipping her head back so that she looked at him. His thumb swiped gently over her cheek, her eyes fluttering at the tender touch. "I couldn't pretend you were anything less if I wanted to."