Desperate

VERONICA

“She got my heart jumping

And my adrenaline pumpin’ and gunnin’

Like ain’t nobody ever seen…”

– David Guetta

***

I’ve known Oliver ever since his father married my mother when I was twelve. Five years my senior, he didn’t think I deserved any attention from him. Safe to say, we were never close.

He had his friends, his niche, and now, eight years into our parents’ marriage, a career, and an often changing girlfriend.

For me, Oliver wasn’t anything more than a distant stepbrother. One I inevitably got along with a new stepfather, and frankly, I didn’t mind keeping my distance from him.

He wasn’t of any interest to me just as I wasn’t of any to him.

But while Oliver and I don’t really share anything in common, I can’t say the same about his best friend, Jax.

It started with a party. Honestly, all good stories—especially romantic ones—always start with a party.

Laura, my friend, was helping by throwing it in her sorority house and of course I was automatically invited.

At first, like all responsible, good girls in the world, I was reluctant to go.

“I’m not sure it’s such a good idea,” I voiced my worry to my friend when we hung out at the beach a few days before.

“You don’t think any party is a good idea,” she said tartly in response.

She was right. Parties were trouble friendly, and I did everything to steer clear of those.

“I just don’t think I’ll have fun. It’s not my thing,” I said.

My thing was attending the book club I loved. ~My~ thing was working at the bookstore around the corner. ~My~ thing was not getting trashed and banging a stranger in a stinky toilet stall.

But Laura insisted. Maybe it was the bright, hot sun, or even the smooth sound of the waves, but eventually I agreed to go.

That’s how I found myself dressed in skin-tight jeans and a top, with my dark hair a mess of curls streaming down my back and my dark eyes with an edgy-smoky look.

Logically, I knew I looked modest, compared to today’s “It Girl’s” fashion choices. Personally, I felt like I’d been downgraded into a slut.

Laura thought I looked smashing when I came by earlier to help her with the final preparations of the upcoming frat party.

“Really, Ver,” she said, shaking her head at me, “you really need to stop being so self-conscious.”

“I never said I am,” I retorted, “I just didn’t want to go to the party.”

“Well, it’s too late for that.” Grinning wickedly and slinging her arm around my shoulders, she continued, “I’m looking forward to you getting drunk and finding you a random, hopefully hot, boy to make out with.”

***

A couple of hours later, the place was completely packed.

From seventeen-year-old high-schoolers to boring wife-seeking thirty-somethings, in no time at all, there was hardly any walking space.

People danced, people drank, people jumped fully clothed into the home’s private pool. Everyone was making out with everyone, and nearly everyone was having sex. It was one big happy orgy. Yay.

The scene wasn’t for me. I guess I was too much of a goody-two-shoes for that kind of action.

I wanted to have a boyfriend, to be in love before going through all the trouble of kissing, goofing around, making love, and so on.

Laura, unlike me, was dutifully drunk before midnight and had found a fling for the night: a cute guy named Brody who had the beauty of a Ken doll.

But I don’t judge. After all, if I’d judged Laura, I wouldn’t have been her friend.

By midnight, I decided I wanted to go home. People were starting to get sloppy over one another and I felt out of place and foolish with my cup of water instead of vodka.

Weaving my way through the crowded floor, I managed to reach the kitchen where almost all the liquor bottles were empty. I wanted to find some more water before I headed home.

Laura was already holed up in her room with her Ken doll, so I’d given up on telling her goodbye.

“Dammit,” I cursed when I didn’t find any water bottles.

Searching among the empty bottles, pushing away tipsy, gropey men who thought they had a chance, finally I found a half-empty water bottle.

I poured the heavenly liquid into my cup and, without thinking twice, swallowed it all at once.

I didn’t count on it actually being some sort of alcoholic drink. By the time my shocked mind realized what I’d just gulped, the liquor flowed down my throat, leaving a burn in its wake.

It was too late to spit it out.

Choking, I blurredly searched for real water but found none. Instead, I started to get buzzed and before I knew it, I was giggling. Fucking giggling. I don’t remember the last time I giggled.

Judging by the fact I was drunk as shit in about five minutes, clearly, I was a lightweight.

In my buzzed haze, I grabbed some more liquor and waveringly made my way through the crowd and joined in on the dancing, gulping the bitter liquid as if it was nectar.

If it was even possible, I grew drunker and drunker. I was nearly blackout by the time I heard a familiar voice say, “Veronica?”

Turning around—basically falling in the process—I saw none other than Jax Cole, Oliver’s best bud.

I’d met Jax a few times before when Oliver brought him home. Until the party, I hadn’t seen him for months.

Even though I wasn’t in my right mind, my subconscious still managed to appreciate his great looks.

Over six feet with broad shoulders and rippling muscles, he was a devastatingly handsome, sexy man.

His dark hair was a mop of wavy mess that gave him the legendary just-got-out-of-bed look. His eyes, a radiant shade of midnight-blue, were as piercing as ever.

He was gorgeous, the perfect specimen. Every girl in the house, sober or not, couldn’t deny this fact.

Now, the hot Jax Cole was standing in front of me, looking completely sober and gorgeous in jeans and a tee, and seemingly surprised to see me there.

I would’ve been surprised too, to see the likes of me at a party.

Because a nerdy bookworm like me shouldn’t have been partying like that, especially not in a damned sorority house.

But here I was, a bottle of alcohol in hand, and the promise of my first ever hangover waiting for me in the morning.

And here he was. My shock in seeing him, on the other hand, was totally misplaced.

I wouldn’t say Jax was the party animal type, but seeing him in such a scenario was way more understandable, considering his looks and the fact he made every girl swoon or fawn all over him.

I blame the alcohol for making my jaw drop and my eyes pop at the sight of him.

Then, I just had to say, “Oh my God, it’s you, Jesus!”

Yeah. I put both God and Jesus in the same sentence and completely misnamed the man in front of me by calling him Jesus, as though I hadn’t known him for a long time.

Later, when I recalled these details, I would remember him cracking a small smile. “I’ve been called a lot of names, but Jesus is a first.”

I was far too drunk to feel the mortification. Instead, I simply giggled and said, “Oopsie. God ya wrong, Jax.”

Nope, I did not make any sense.

He finally seemed to realize I wasn’t in my right mind.

“You’re drunk,” he said, amused.

Took you long enough, Captain Obvious, I giggled, closed my mouth shut when I realized I giggled yet again, and cocked my head, asking, “Why’re ya here?”

Apparently, drinking converted my speech level to that of a four-year-old.

“I could ask you the same question,” he said, grinning a little.

At that moment, because evidently, I wasn’t thinking straight, I dropped my bottle somewhere on the ground and grabbed his hands.

“Dance with me!” I ordered and started moving my body to the sound of some trance track. It sounded like a David Guetta song, but I couldn’t be sure.

“Veronica, I think you should sit down,” Jax said, not cooperating with me.

My stagger a moment later increased his belief in my inability to stand straight, and he slung his toned arm around my waist to keep me from face-diving into the ground.

Through the blurry threads of sobriety, I found that I could feel the heat of his arm through my top, and it made me a little tingly.

“I wanna dance,” I whined. Instead of complying, I wrapped my arms around his neck.

I’d worn heels, something Laura convinced me to do, and so I managed to somehow reach his chin, when usually the top of my head would barely graze his Adam’s apple.

Jax chuckled in that deep voice of his, and it made an unreasonable shiver ripple through my spine. “I really don’t think that's a good idea in your current state.”

My dizzy eyes captured his and, as if a stranger took over me, I batted my lashes like a flirtatious whore.

“Please?” I asked huskily. Meaningless to say I’d never made such a voice before.

I don’t know if I imagined it or not, but I think his eyes glazed over for a moment. Maybe I was actually affecting him, I wouldn’t know.

Sure, I looked amazing that night, but he had girls lining up for his attention and a lot of them were extremely gorgeous.

He couldn’t possibly be attracted to me, a girl he’d known since before she hit puberty, a girl who was his best friend’s stepsister, right?

Eventually he sighed in defeat. “You won’t go unless we dance, will you?”

Grinning, maybe too widely, I pressed myself to the lines of his strong, muscular body. “Nope.”

Fortunately, my mother had put me in dancing lessons for about ten years until I was fifteen—when I insisted on stopping because it wasn’t fun anymore—so I wasn’t a horrible dancer.

In fact, I thought as I moved my body to the music along with the sinuous movements of Jax’s, I was pretty good.

Jax was in a league of himself, so I guess it wasn’t hard to follow his lead anyway, but I was good too.

When his hands brushed my bottom once, I suddenly noticed just how close we were. I realized that I had a delicious twenty-five-year-old man in my arms, and that I was pretty horny.

Celibacy would do that to a woman. Not that I was preferably celibate; I’d just never found an opportunity to shed my virginity or scream at someone to “take me now!”

The air thickened around us, and my skin felt taut, my abdomen filled with knots. My breathing grew heavy, and all of a sudden, I wasn’t so much drunk as aroused.

I wanted him, and I wanted him now. It didn’t matter that he was Jax fucking Cole. All that mattered was that he was delectable, and I was starving.

I pressed myself even closer to him and saw his blue eyes narrowing a little. His arms tightened around me, and we stopped swaying to the music—or rather—he stopped.

I wanted to keep going, but his tense arms kept me in place.

“Veronica,” he said, my name like a smooth caress coming from his luscious mouth, “you don’t want this.”

Tell that to my body because it doesn’t believe you.

“Jax…” I all but purred—purred! And when one of his hands brushed my butt again and he pressed me even closer, I moaned slightly as well.

“You’re drunk,” he whispered harshly into my ear, his heated breath tickling my sensitive lobe. “I won’t take advantage of you.”

But I wanted him to take advantage of me. Dear God, I don’t think I wanted anything more, ever.

“Please, Jax,” I whispered desperately. He was so close, so strong, and male and I wanted to devour him.

I was sexually famished, and he was like a raw piece of steak. Or maybe well-done. He struck me as well-done.

He didn’t move for about a minute, and I grew itchy and frustrated with his damned self-restraint.

So, in order to induce some reaction out of him, I rocked my lower body as much as I could against his, and for my utter satisfaction, felt him hard and ready for me.

He jerked and tightened his hold on me while practically growling, “You’re Oliver’s baby-sister.”

“Stepsister,” I corrected, half-moaning when, to my relief, he rubbed his body against mine as well.

“Please Jax,” I begged again, “I need you.”

As I said, I’d met Jax Cole about ten times in the past eight years I’d known Oliver.

We’d never really spoken or even interacted on any level, not even after I finally went through puberty and became a full-fledged woman.

Sure, he was impossibly hot, I couldn’t deny that. And of course, like every healthy woman in her prime, I found him unbearably attractive.

But I never gave him the time of day because I simply thought he was out of my league, someone I could never have, from a galaxy far, far away.

And so, I’d never thought I would find myself grinding myself against him, desperate for him and his screwable body. Yet here I was, all but feeding myself on a golden spoon for him to devour.

And devour he did.

Something must’ve snapped in his mind because he didn’t seem to care about anything anymore as he crushed his mouth on mine.

I moaned, horny, and opened my mouth for his tongue to slide in and tangle with mine. I shuddered at the erotic touch, and in response, one of his hands grabbed a handful of my hair while the other cupped my butt.

Before I knew it, we were moving, and my back hit the wall. Caged by his much larger frame, I grabbed onto him, fisting my hand in his mop of curls, and clung to his toned shoulder.

He growled into my mouth, and suddenly the clothes between us were too much. I wanted nothing to hide his skin, nothing to cover him from me.

I wanted to touch and lick and taste every bit of him.

Apparently, I projected that last thought telepathically because the next thing I knew, Jax was leading us to an empty bedroom and practically threw me on the sheets.

In a swift move, he took his shirt off, and in the dim light of the room, I marveled at the view.

His chest was chiseled, as if sculpted by God Himself; toned, ripped muscles beneath smooth, golden skin with a trail of dark hair disappearing into his jeans.

His eight-pack teased me, begging for my touch, and my mouth filled with hungry saliva, it took my entire will not to drool like a disgusting teenage girl.

Then this stunning body was on me, pressing me to the mattress, and I was covered in hot, warm flesh I wanted to prey on like a lioness.

His mouth was on mine, and for a moment of clarity, I found that he tasted of male in his prime, hot and tasty and, and of faint beer too.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one downing booze tonight, and it made his caving more understandable. Alcohol can snap the will of even the most stubborn man alive.

The moment of clarity was gone as fast as it came, though. I was aware of myself pushing my top up and off my body, and then unbuttoning my skinny jeans.

He helped me slide them off, as well as my boots, and then unbuckled his belt and unzipped his own jeans and pushed them away in one quick maneuver along with his boxers too.

The only thing that separated our bodies were my bra and panties, which he got rid of a second later, and then his hands were cupping my generous breasts and my mouth met his again in a fierce kiss.

His lips left mine and his blue eyes illuminated in the dimness as they locked on my own for a moment.

He started trailing kisses down my jaw, my chin, my neck, where I moaned since this place is quite sensitive.

There he suckled on my skin, leaving a hickey no doubt, and continued down the valley of my chest where he simply buried his face, taking a long deep breath in, as if savoring the scent of me.

Before I knew it, he was between my legs, pushing my thighs apart with his oh so strong arms, and he was giving me a languorous lick that made my eyes roll.

He lost patience and mercilessly sucked and nipped my clit, even pushed his tongue into my entrance, and I lost it.

My body violently thrashed at the tight knots that manifested in my abdomen and when he pushed a finger inside, I screamed, orgasm exploding from the inside out.

It was the first time I came by the hands of someone else—I’d come in the past when I’d touch myself—but this was the first time that it was so strong, so powerful.

I didn’t know if it was because I was finally having my eternal dry spell nullified or if it was a secret talent of Jax. Maybe it was both.

He tasted my fluids and when he finished, he slid back up my body like a python and kissed me with an open mouth.

The aftermath of the shocking orgasm still rocked my body and only intensified when I felt his rigid erection probing against my inner thigh.

An excited moan left my mouth and it seemed to return to his senses. He suddenly broke away from my lips and stared down at me with those piercing eyes of his.

“Okay?” he asked roughly, lowly, growly. He tensed, making his muscles much clearer and way more richly toned than before. It made my mouth water all over again.

Dazed and unable to speak, I simply nodded.

He decided that maybe I was a little sober after all and the next thing I knew, he was gripping my thighs and roughly, almost viciously thrusting inside of me, balls-deep.

Screaming with the sudden pain, tears welled in my eyes.

He growled something that sounded like “Fuck!” and was about to pull out when I grasped his shoulders and held him in place.

I let my body get used to the uncomfortable fullness I felt, and once the pain subsided a little, I looked up at him and whispered, “Don’t stop.”

I don’t know if he realized that he’d just taken my virginity.

In fact, I think he’d just thought that I needed time to adjust to his supremely huge cock.

Believe me, while I hadn’t been experienced, I saw enough penises on the internet to realize his size for what it was; thick and long.

Either way, he let the reins go and the next thing I knew, he was pumping in and out of me with strong, rough strokes that made me feel even more pain but also building pleasure.

Hanging on to his shoulders, grinding my torso to his, I held on for the wild ride.

Soon enough, the pain dissipated completely, leaving only sheer, erotic pleasure that made me moan so loud it was a wonder no one came to check in on us to see if everything’s alright.

One of Jax’s hands was grabbing my breast almost painfully while the other gripped the bed frame above my head as he drove in and out so fast, it was a wonder he didn’t get cramps.

With him obviously working out, and probably having sex on a regular basis, it wasn’t all that surprising. The man screamed stamina and endurance through and through.

Suddenly, he flipped us over. He was sitting and I was straddling him. He drove up into me, doing all the work, while I was wrapped around him like ivy.

He buried his face in my neck, his teeth closing on my skin as he penetrated into me faster and faster, making my tiny, unused inner muscles clench on his big, heavy shaft.

His next growl made me shiver as I felt it vibrate through his chest and I moaned when my abdomen went tight-knotted again. I was about to cum again, and I couldn’t wait.

“Jax!” I screamed sharply as finally I orgasmed, the ecstasy ripping me into two and making me see pretty stars.

Spasming, I felt him tensing, and then he drove one last time so deep until I swear, I felt the head of his cock kissing my womb. He shuddered as he emptied himself inside me.

We were both breathing heavily when he pulled away from my neck and looked at me with wonderment in his eyes.

Still buried deep inside me, he planted his lips on mine and kissed me slowly, seductively, and I melted into him.

Eventually he pulled out and we both lay on the bed, trying to catch our breaths. Before long, I felt dizziness settle in my mind, cutting off everything else, and soon enough, I fell asleep.

***

Imagine waking up in an unfamiliar room with Jax Cole sleeping next to you, a major headache cracking your skull, and annoying sunlight piercing your eyes.

Imagine having short-term amnesia while you try to recall what the hell had gone on the previous night.

Then imagine having all the memories shoving their way back into your mind, simultaneously.

In short: it’s not a good time.

Although my head was pounding, I pushed myself out of the bed and searched for clothes.

I found them crumpled on the ground and got dressed as quietly as I could and then looked at the body mirror in the room.

I looked like crap, with my black hair a mess of frizzy curls, my dark brown eyes bloodshot, my lips red and puffy, and my skin paler than usual.

Then I saw the love bites that decorated my neck and my body and I kind of froze.

I had sex with Jax Cole last night, I thought, my eyes broadening with dread. ~I had otherworldly monkey-sex with my stepbrother’s best friend last night~.

As that realization hit me, another one split my mind: I’m no longer a virgin. Surprisingly, I wasn’t that upset about losing my V-card. In fact, I’d been waiting for ages for the opportunity to arise.

But the fact that I did it drunk, with none other than Jax Cole, who’s Oliver’s bestie… Let’s just say I was slightly a mess.

Forcing myself to calm down, I walked away from the mirror and paused, watching Jax’s sleeping form.

The man was simply magnificent, lying on his stomach with his back all lean and ripped and lickable. He himself had a hickey on his neck, ~when the hell had I given him one~?

And now, in the bright morning light, I could see he had a tattoo in the middle of his back of a black-and-gold Hindu sun.

God, but he was beautiful. And he had sex with me.

Me, Veronica Tanner, the bookworm nobody wanted to date in high school because she was too stuck-up and obnoxious.

Sure, I didn’t want to date anyone in high school anyway, but you know what I mean.

Me, the girl the school’s “It Girl” believed to be a virgin for another ten years at least.

I’d actually gotten laid.

Suck it, Hailey Pritchard! And while you’re at it, take that stick out of your ass!

Feeling triumphant, I started to grin, but when I remembered my pounding headache, my grin quickly turned into a wince.

Then my gaze zeroed on the red spots that marred the mattress. My virginal blood looked darker against the maidenly white sheets, and it only enforced my sudden happiness.

I really did have sex with Jax Cole!

But then it hit me. I had sex with Jax Cole. Jax. ~Cole~. He knew me since I was twelve or so, and he’d fucked me.

Well, it didn’t matter anyway. I was twenty now, and he was twenty-five. The five years gap didn’t matter anymore.

We were both fully grown and in a matter of months I was going to be twenty-one, which officially meant an adult who could legally get drunk.

Besides, it was an act of pure consent, lust and passion, and there wasn’t anything wrong with it.

Many girls lose their virginity in a fling. I know Laura did; she told me about being fucked by some thirty-year-old dude in his apartment when she was seventeen.

Then, of course, she told me how much it sucked but eventually got over it. She told me it was the best way to get rid of your virginity. I didn’t take her advice.

Until that moment with Jax, that is.

Feeling way more gleeful and giddier than I thought I would be after having sex for the first time, I shot one last look at sleeping Jax and tiptoed out of the room, closing the door gently behind me.

I returned home, feeling like I was about to turn into a new leaf.