The bedroom looked exactly as it had five years ago with two exceptions. The first were the pictures of me crowded on top of the dresser, pictures Jackson had taken during our relationship years ago. I looked happy in some, somber in others, but there were dozens of them, filling the surface of the dresser.

The other exception was the filmy black skirt lying on the bed, the one I had worn when I had met Jackson for my first training session at the gym. When we had first slept together. Jackson had always joked that he was keeping it as a souvenir whenever I wondered aloud where it was, and I had eventually forgotten about it. It was now draped across the bed, an eerie reminder of what had happened long ago.

I heard a sound behind me and I turned around, finding Jackson standing at the doorway to the bedroom.

"We should talk in the living room," he said tightly, his voice thick with emotion. I wordlessly followed him and sat on the couch, not knowing what to say. He sat down on the couch too, but with enough distance between us to let me know that he was feeling discomfited as well.

"I should explain about the apartment," he started, staring down at his hands clasped before him. "I...I didn't know what to do with all your stuff when you didn't come to L.A. We had already shipped everything to California, but I couldn't stand the constant reminders of you. It was too painful. You never contacted me, wanting your stuff back. So I just had it shipped back here."

I hadn't dared contact Jackson again after the conversation with Claire. I hadn't cared about my belongings that I had sent over to L.A. since they were mostly impersonal things. I had taken the pictures of my father with me to Maryland when visiting Sean, and those were the only things I really cared about. That and the diamond pendant Jackson had given me.

"But," I said, finally finding my voice, "it's like we're still living here. It's not as if my things are in boxes. If I didn't know better, I would think we were in some time warp."

Jackson laughed humorlessly, finally looking up and making eye contact. He looked pained as he spoke. "I wasn't thinking when I dragged you here. I was too angry to think about what your reaction would be to this apartment. I was in a sick place when we broke up. I wasn't thinking straight. Negative Exposure was a godsend because it let me escape my mind while I was playing my character. But it wasn't enough of a distraction. I was going crazy and somehow replicating this apartment like it used to be helped me. And once I was finished...I just never changed it."

I breathed in deeply, Jackson's words impacting me acutely. Despite cheating on me with Claire, and her insistence that they were in love, Jackson seemed to have been in as much pain as I had been after our breakup. Maybe he had realized he had made a huge mistake by cheating on me, just like I had realized it had been a huge mistake to leave him.

"I didn't come here to talk about the apartment," Jackson said, his voice steely again. The man who had looked abashed while explaining the apartment had vanished. "I came here to find out if you're fucking that asshole you work with."

My pain at realizing that Jackson had suffered as much as I had dissipated into a haze of anger at his words. I was foolish being sucked into the regrets of the past. At present, I had a large angry man in front of me who had the audacity to believe he could demand answers from me.

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"What right do you have to ask me that?" I asked with a sneer. "I don't owe you any explanations."

Jackson grabbed my shoulders, shaking me so hard that my teeth almost rattled. "You owe me everything!" he snarled. He clutched me closer to him, his eyes as hard as glass. "You're mine and no one else is going to fucking touch you."

He slammed his mouth against mine, pressing down painfully until I finally opened my mouth. He forcefully sucked my tongue into his mouth and I moaned when he bit down, not sure if it was from pleasure or pain. I pushed against his shoulders, trying to stop this before it got out of hand, but it was like pushing against a mountain and expecting it to move.

Jackson held my head in place with his hands, making a sound of frustration when I was finally able to close my mouth against his, pressing my lips together tightly.

"Open your mouth," he muttered, slanting his lips over mine, his hands in my hair fisting in impatience when I refused. His voice was both taunting and thick with desire when he spoke. "Fine. If that's the way you want to play it."

I was shocked when he reached under my skirt abruptly, grabbing the edges of my panties and ripping them down. He shoved my skirt up to bare me completely and he curled his lip in triumph when he stroked one finger down my cleft.

"You're dripping wet. I know your body wants me, no matter what you say."

I stared at him, not recognizing the man before me. He seemed more animal than human, intent on marking his territory.

"Jackson, don't. Not like this," I whispered.

His nostrils flared, his expression darkening even more. "Don't ever deny me, Emma. You belong to me."

He slid off the couch, kneeling in front of me, and slid my panties all the way down, throwing them to the floor. He placed each of my legs over his shoulders so that I was forced to keep them open. I clenched my lower body as he nuzzled the top of my thigh, dangerously close to my quivering center, betraying my desire.

"I love how you smell. I love how you taste. The way you tremble when I love you with my mouth." Jackson's voice was low and barely audible. "No one else will ever taste you except me. No one will ever fuck you except me." Jackson's hands on my hips tightened painfully when I just stared down at him. "Say it!"

"No one will taste me except you. Fuck me except you," I whispered, my desire warring with the sickness of the situation. I could already feel how wet I was, so wet that I was dripping.

Jackson growled in approval as he buried his face between my thighs, lapping me up as if he was starving for the taste of me. The sensations were almost too exquisite to bear and I tried to shift my hips away, to escape that marauding tongue, but Jackson kept me firmly in place, working his mouth over my swollen clit to the point of pain. I cried out when I felt his tongue dart inside of me, licking me relentlessly, returning to my aching bud over and over again until I screamed, convulsing over and over again in a climax so violent it felt like an out-of-body experience.

Jackson continued suckling me through my release, and I pushed at his shoulders, trying to get him to release me.

"Jackson," I croaked, feeling spent. "I...I came."

Jackson looked at me, his eyes intent as he continued sucking on my clit. "Again," he muttered against me. "Again."




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