Edging Obsession

14

F rom the washroom, I can see Jules reach for my phone. Sharing who I am has raised some uncertainty with her. She’s accepted it, and in time, will accept more. We’ve contaminated each other, diseased by lust and emotions, without a cure. And I don’t want one. I’d rather wither and die between Jules’ legs than have a life absent from her. It didn’t take us months to figure out we belong together. At first sight, our attraction surpassed the norm.

But it’s her skepticism, a mistrust brought on by omission that has Jules checking my phone, before turning and scowling then handing it to me. I take the phone and notice a video of a woman’s pussy, and a dildo shoved inside it. Just from today alone, there are several pictures of various body parts in sexual positions.

Jules rests against the headboard, folding her arms. “Is there something else you need to tell me?” I cock an eyebrow and let out a heavy sigh. “Well, do you? Who is she? I guess fucking me isn’t enough for you.”

I toss the phone on the bed, sit on the edge, and take her face in my hands. “Don’t get mouthy.”

She pulls her head away and my hand drops to the bed. Some psycho woman is filling my phone with pornographic shit I have no interest in. On the side of the bed, I prop my elbows on my knees, deleting the videos and pictures.

“Yes, please, delete them.”

Attempting to dart off the bed, I grab her calf and slide her toward me. Her body folds around my back to my front, and I place her head on my lap, running my fingers through her hair.

“Jules.” She gives me a sideways glance. “You’re enough for me.” My thumb rubs her cheek. “This crazy bitch has been stalking me. I receive several of these a day.” Jules is about to get up, but I press my hand to her shoulder. “My guys tracked her down, so I know where she lives.”

“Your guys?”

“I know people, Jules.”

She gets up, heaving a sigh, and leaves the room because I keep averting her questions. All in due time. Jules doesn’t run this show, I do. I find her in the kitchen, stomping around the island.

She asks Anna, “Would you mind if I make a sandwich?”

Anna pats her hand. “How about I make it for you? Tell me what you want on it, and I’ll—”

“No, thank you. I’d like to do it.”

Anna sees me and returns to cleaning the counters.

“Jules, this is Anna’s space. She’ll be more than happy—”

“I know, Miles!”

She’s at a breaking point as she slides open the doors and sits in a chair situated at the edge of the lake. It’s cold outside, and she isn’t wearing a coat. I grab a couple of blankets and join her. Dropping a blanket around her shoulders, I scoot her over and onto my lap, covering myself with the other blanket. I hug her while she refuses to look at me. My lips press against her head, and I inhale her lavender scent.

“There’s no one else but you, Jules.” She wiggles to free herself from me, except my hold is too tight. I kiss her temple. “There’s something else bothering you. Tell me what you’re upset about.”

Her eyes turn to me, jaw tensing, and she says, “You can’t figure that out?”

I kiss the tip of her nose and smile. “If I could, I wouldn’t be asking.”

She huffs and shakes her head. “I don’t care about that woman. You can fuck anyone you want.”

“Hmm…okay.”

Jules whips her head to me, hanging her mouth open. “What do you mean, okay? So, you—”

I kiss her to shut down her dark episode. Her bipolar is probably compounding whatever feelings she’s battling with. She breaks the kiss, biting her lip, and a tear glides down her cheek.

“Schatzi.” Her head leans against my shoulder as she wipes her tears. “What’s bothering you, Jules?”

This prompts a downpour. “I don’t know what’s wrong. It’s frustrating and…I can’t—”

I shush her and rub her arm through the blanket. “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain. We’ll sit here in the quiet.”

We’re outside for an hour, listening to the water splashing against the rocks. Birds squawk in the trees, flying, and joining others. Leaves and branches swish in the breeze. The peacefulness of sitting here has Jules snuggling into me. Her even breathing is an indicator she fell asleep. Most of her days are good, but she becomes agitated sometimes, not understanding why. It nags at her like an itch she can’t scratch, so I try to relieve her of it by making her comfortable. This tends to lessen the itch.

I t's the next day and since Jules is feeling better, I’m taking her into town. A small, quaint town about five miles from home is where we’ll explore. The deepening of fall brings colder weather and slowly relinquishes the colors. Aside from Hendrick, I gave the rest of the guys the day off.

Hendrick drives while Jules and I are in the back. She smiles at me, holds my hand, plants kisses on my face. Yesterday’s Jules has vanished. I love Jules for who she is, but it kills me to witness her troubled days, unable to help. Jules jumps from one subject to another. She rambles on about her outfit, then switches to the weather, her parents, and what kind of stores there are in town, while I smile at her animations. It’s amazing how fast her moods switch, and sometimes I can see the exhausting effects in her eyes. She’s delicately fierce. Her sickness creates a fragile undercurrent, yet she powers through with strength.

I wrap some of her highlighted curly tresses around my finger. Soft as a red fox’s. Her natural, fully glossed lips hold an everlasting pout that constantly draws my attention to them, and my dick.

Jules shakes me out of my dirty thoughts. “Miles?”

My lips kiss her fingers. “Yes?”

“You weren’t listening.”

“Blame yourself. You’re captivating.”

She holds my hand up. “Where did you get his ring?”

“It’s a family heirloom.”

“Does it mean anything?”

This isn’t the time to discuss my life. Jules is happy, and I want it to stay that way. My hand captures her neck, towing her to me until my mouth captures hers. Jules fists my leather jacket, bringing me closer while we lean into each other. As if I’m a canvas, her lips brush against mine back and forth. Our eyes meet and then wander back to our mouths. The potency she has over me through a look, a touch, sometimes has me catching my breath.

Out of nowhere, we’re jolted and flung toward the door. The car swerves and I realize we’ve been hit, but Hendrick tries to right the car. Jules screams and I hug her to my side. Approaching a small bridge, we’re rammed from the back, catapulting us forward and into the bridge railing. Jules has a firm grip on my jacket. Hendrick attempts to maneuver away from the railing, but the car is struck again, jamming the driver’s front end into it. I get out of the car and drag a frantic Jules from the backseat. She hangs onto my jacket as a woman walks toward us, gun pointed directly at Jules. I don’t have enough time to grab my gun, so I rotate, putting my back to the woman and jump over the bridge, holding onto Jules.

I yell in her ear, “Cross your ankles, take a deep breath, and don’t let go...”

We hit the water before I finish the sentence, and a sharp sting bites my exposed skin. I feel Jules release my jacket. Shit! My arms and legs pump hard, propelling me upward until I break through the water. I’m coughing, breathing heavily, water dripping into my eyes. Between breaths, I yell for Jules. There’s shooting above, but I don’t care. My heart beats faster, afraid that something has happened to her. I turn in circles, yelling her name. There’s no sign of her. I swim the area we fell into, and I finally see her hair. Her frenzied arms are splashing up and down and she calls out my name. I swim to her, hook an arm around her waist, and wade to the small embankment under the bridge.

The shooting has ceased. I lay Jules down on the mixture of grass and dirt. She’s crying, repeating my name, as I do the same. Our mouths are a stream of emotional words, sharing fear and elation, and holding onto each other for security. We touch, stroke, like we’re not sure the other is real, and we must retain a connection so neither disappears. I grip her hair, arms, cup her face, and smash my lips into hers. Adrenalin has us grasping onto one another. We’re using our kinks to process what happened.

My hands rip open the button on her jeans, tugging them down to half-thigh, and I flip her onto her stomach. I can’t wait. I need to be inside her. In one motion, I release my cock and plunge inside. A buzz of excitement releases and accelerates through me as I plunge in deeper. I tuck my arm under and across her breasts and I fuck her hard. My pelvis pumps hard as relentless thoughts of losing her spur me onward. Jules tears at the earth, chanting my name, repeating we’re all right. It only takes us minutes. Her inner walls fasten onto my dick like she’s locking us in forever. She screams my name, and that’s all it takes for me to find liberation in her pussy. In knowing I didn’t lose her.

I fall on top and she’s crying. My body rolls to the side, and I bring her chest flush with mine.

I’m patting her hair down, kissing it, and whispering, “We’re good, Jules. Everything is fine.”

Someone is running from behind me, and shouts, “You guys, okay?”

Hendrick comes up to us, and when he sees Jules’ bare ass, he turns away and says, “Oh shit. Sorry.”

“Wait! Don’t go yet.” We stand and I yank her jeans up. Her arms squeeze me tight, shaking from the cold. “We’re good, Hendrick. What happened up there?”

He twists back to us. “It was that crazy bitch sending you the pictures.”

I smash Jules closer into me. “I heard gunshots.”

We walk up the ridge, me carrying Jules, as Hendricks says, “Yeah, she shot into the water. My door was jammed into the railing so I had to slide out the passenger door, and I shot her in the leg. She dropped the gun when she fell.”

Up the bridge, we wait for the ambulance, police cars, and most likely TV crews. Hendrick approaches the woman, standing over her, and when I’m about to sit Jules on the ground, the police and ambulance pull up. A paramedic runs to us, gesturing to the ambulance. I place Jules inside, and when I’m about to hop off, she grabs my arm.

Through a tear-soaked face, she says, “Please don’t leave me, Miles.”

I kiss her hand. “Schatzi, I’ll be right here. They have to check that you’re okay.”

Her distress fades. A paramedic takes her vitals, and I stand next to the ambulance with Hendrick. The police begin to cordon off the area, and as predicted, the TV crews start pulling up outside the taped area. A police officer approaches, the kind you find behind a desk for too long and in a donut shop too often.

The officer stops in front of me, tucking his thumbs underneath his protruding belly and into his waistband, and says, “I’m Officer Bigsby. How’s everyone doing over here?”

Hendrick and I exchange a check out this dumb ass glance, and I say, “We’re fine.”

His head and chins shake as he says, “Good. I’ll need to get a statement from you. The woman who hit you is going to the hospital and will be transferred to the jail afterwards.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “What do you want to know?”

Officer Bigsby tugs a small notepad out of his pocket. Its corners are folded, and the spiral wiring is bent. His shoulders straighten as he says, “For starters, let’s begin with your name.”

“Miles Nash.”

He stops mid-writing and looks up, pointing and shaking the pen in my direction. “You’re the guy from that popular band…uh, what’s—”

“The Coven.”

The pen smacks against the pad when he says, “That’s it.” He shakes his head. “WOW! My daughter is a huge fan of yours.”

As he writes, I give Hendrick a sideways squint and a smug smile, and say to Bigsby, “I’d be happy to give her an autograph.”

His head shoots up. “Oh man, that would be great.” I nod. “Okay, let’s get this over with then. Can you tell me what happened?”

I go over the events and Hendrick chimes in when necessary. Jules’ hands wrap around my waist from behind, her head resting on my back, and I place a hand on top of hers. Bigsby wants to talk to Jules, so I slide her in front of me, arms draped down her front, as she tells him what she remembers. Our statements satisfy Officer Bigsby, so I give him an autograph, and he disappears into the throng of media standing at a distance behind the police tape. Jules buries her face inside my jacket.

Hendrick taps my arm. “Andreas is parked over there.” He points to an area away from the chaos.

I hide Jules under my jacket as we go to the car. We’re faster than the media and pull away from the parking space right when the swarm of bees attack. At home, we get cleaned up and I tuck Jules into bed. She’s still freaked out about what happened, but exhaustion got the best of her. I meet the guys downstairs.

Andreas is eager to please, so he pushes off the wall and says, “We paid someone who is working the case to feed us information about the woman who ran you off the road.” I tick my head for him to proceed. “The police raided her home. In every room, she has an entire wall filled with thousands of pictures of you.” He hands over his phone to show me some of the rooms. “You’re the woman’s obsession.”

I return his phone. “Follow up and find out her release date.” My eyes meet Hendrick while I’m still talking to Andreas. “She could have killed Jules.” I turn back to Andreas. “When she’s out, take care of it, and make it look like an accident.” Andreas gives a stiff nod.

I address the rest of the guys. “On another note, Johann has contacted me. The Turkish clan is rising, and he needs me back home. The band is starting the European tour next week, so I’ll use that as a reason to return to Germany.” My head angles toward Tomas. “You can head back to Germany. Hendrick and Andreas will remain behind. I’ll let my brother know you’re coming.”

After more discussion about the clan, I dismiss them, and the house falls into a peaceful quiet. I collapse in a chair and run my hands through my hair, letting out a long breath. I’ve been in several life and death situations, one being five-years ago, but to see the terror on Jules’ face fractured my control. I’m bringing her into my world. A world wound in danger. The smart and decent thing to do is let her go, so she can remain safe. I can’t though. Loving her isn’t a choice, but a necessity. Jules is vital to my sanity. She’s the only goodness in my life—a path absent of violence.