Joscelyn

Joscelyn stood cloaked in shadow, leaning against the porches towering white posts. The strong timber seemed to be part of her essence as she stood still and unflinching before the fury of the summer storm raging around her. Lightening crackled across the sky and gusts of wind blew bouts of rain onto the porch steadily drenching her but she felt none of it. Her eyes stared unseeing into the distance, these last days lived like a vice gripping her insides. She was content simply to feel the slow ebb and flow of blood within her veins and the breath soughing in and out of her chest, to invite anything else in would break her. Stretch her tattered heart any further and she would certainly break.

Jackson would be here in the morning, the time for debate and waffling was over. He was the nearest her child had to a father and he deserved to be in their life, in her life. Their petty squabbles seemed oceans away, and she'd seen him over and over the apologies falling from his lips like shining coins. His days of drinking and his many affairs were over, he'd assured her, hell she'd even been accompanying him to his shrink. Sitting in that office while Jackson poured out the massive list of apologies hadn't made her feel any better, a fierce hatred still burning like a small flame in her. Tremulous and small as that flame may be it had been all that had kept her moving so long she wasn't sure how she could possibly exist with out it now. A small voice echoed through her mind that he would never change and why should she even care if he did? She crushed the voice within the confines of her own mind, cowing it with sheer will.

It wasn't a sound that alerted her that he was standing behind her. From the moment she'd met him there had been the most base of connections of between them. He was like an answering echo of her heart beat, the dance of electrical current along her skin a second after the storm spent its fury. "You shouldn't be here," she turned and looked at him full in the face. He must have jogged here she observed disjointedly. Brandon stood before her water dripping to pool on the porch boards, his chest taking deep gulps of air as he stood matching her gaze. Hair dripped small rivulets of water down his neck he looked like an expansion of the elements come to life all harsh planes and intensity. "You shouldn't be here," she echoed again quietly and turned on her heel walking back through the door letting it bang loudly in finality behind her and she moved into the kitchen and leaned onto the island both arms braced. She should have known he wouldn't be dismissed that easily.

An echoing, if quieter bang from the screen door told her he had no intension of giving up so easily. She wrapped her arms around her middle protectively. Oh he'd never lay a finger on her she knew but her heart, Ah God...her heart was another matter entirely. She should hate him for it, she knew, but this weakness for him was all her own making she thought bitterly. She had to end it, had to make him understand that she'd made her decision. It wasn't him. Marshaling her will and throwing it about herself like a mantle she turned to face him. He forged ahead before she even had a chance to open her mouth. "I won't stay away. That lame ass set of excuses you fed me means nothing," he said savagely stalking toward her. She backed up slowly losing ground by inches. "If you wanna play Betty Crocker by day for him and the whore for me so be it, I'll take what I can get till I have it all. And I will have it all, damn you. That fucking idiot you married had his chance, and if you're too blind to see that leopards never gonna change his spots I'll wait. But I'm not waiting in the wings. I'll be everywhere. In your bed, at your car when you leave work, in your head...everywhere until you realize you can't live without me,' he finished in a rush, his next words were spoken so quietly they were almost lost in the hiss of wind outside the window, 'just like I can't live without you." He stopped his relentless stalking a mere hairsbreadth from her lips. It was just as well as there was no more ground she could give, she pressed her back against the refrigerator door a random magnet pressing into her back. Her eyes searched his, testing for a chink in his armor, something, anything that would allow her to stand resolute in her decision. His eyes gave away nothing, just matched her in challenge.

She'd met him shortly after she'd finally had enough of Jackson's skirting around behind her back. The very day she'd sent her son to her mothers so she could tell Jackson to pack his bags and get out, she'd seen him at the construction site she'd passed near the office building she worked in. Stopped at a red light it seemed almost surreal when she glanced over to see him staring at her without one ounce of shame. She stared back, even looking over her shoulder sure that he must be staring at some traffic accident or Hooter's girl that had somehow appeared over her shoulder. Instead he had stared at her like he trying to read her story, like how men had looked at the Mona Lisa for hundreds of years searching for the secret behind her smile. A horn blared behind her startling her out of her reverie, she saw traffic had moved on well ahead of her and her cheeks flamed as a short dumpy man behind her gestured rudely out his window. Sick at her mooning over a stranger she surged forward without a backwards glance, never catching the glare the man had given the rude driver behind her or the look of focused determination in his eyes had she been close enough to see.

Even though she scorned herself, she couldn't seem to fight the urge to bury her troubles in a bottle of beer. Like every lousy country song she'd ever heard, she quickly found herself at a local pub around ten thirty that night. She sat morosely at the bar nursing a beer while men hollered loudly around her watching and pointing animatedly at the bar's single television showing the highlights from the Steelers first game since winning the Superbowl. She couldn't help the snort of derision and more than one of them gave her a foul look but she simply looked back and smiled sweetly. Unnerved at her cheek they went back to their highlights without a word.

He found her sitting at the bar as the bartender handed her a second beer, condensation from her previous beer leaving a ringed chain across the countertop. Her attention focused on her beer he sauntered over to her, "You look like you just walked out of a country song." The words weren't said unkindly but the idea still rankled her and she looked up to the speaker ready to fire off a acidic statement sure to put him in his place, which as far as she was concerned was as far from her as possible. Before the words could fall from her tongue she found herself staring into a pair of startling green eyes, and though she hadn't known their color before she definitely recognized their owner. Somehow providence had placed her in the path of the construction worker from earlier today. She had time enough to gape at his good looks before it hit her like a truck how she'd made a complete ass of herself earlier blocking traffic while she ogled him. Embarrassment colored her cheeks and she hastily looked away her heart skipping along merrily somewhere to the vicinity of her navel and took up residence.

Searching for something witty to say she blurted the first thing that came to her mind, "Well I feel like I just walked out of a Hank Williams Jr. song, so I guess I'm doin okay then." Looking up with a sardonic grin she met his gaze and barely kept herself from swooning like some bubble-headed heroine when her shining knight arrived on the scene. What in the hell was wrong with her, she eyed her beer suspiciously as if it had suddenly sprouted a head and began teaching her calculus. It should take a lot more than one beer before calculus should be coming into play, she sat the beer down with a deliberate motion.

"Are you okay?" He raised an eyebrow in mirth watching the by play between her and her beverage as if he was also in on the joke.

"Yeah I'm fine," she managed to get out with a grin, "just a rough day is all." He nodded in understanding his eyes never leaving her and she almost found herself wanting him to join the football nuts that had retired to a back table with a few pitchers. This intensity of his gaze unnerved her sending chills down her back like a small electrical current. He didn't seem dangerous, or at least dangerous to her. Men like him seemed to carry an innate cloak of it around them, and she always did have a yen for that kind of aura. There wasn't anything quite as appealing as a man with barely leashed testosterone but she'd given up that jones a long time ago. She'd been lucky if Jackson could find his balls, not that he hadn't had numerous secretaries at his office building helping him with that in the literal sense she thought sardonically.

"My name's Brandon," he said extending his hand after hastily wiping the condensation from his beer off one jean clad thigh.

Joscelyn took in the hard calluses on his hands and the myriad of nicks and scars across his fingers, the badges of battle against wood, metal and mortar. She shook his hand and was surprised at the warmth of it, "my names Joscelyn." He grinned and her with that Cheshire cat grin and she'd been caught in that web ever since. They'd ended up talking all night, and during some part of that long night he'd managed to drag from her how she'd kicked Jackson out and admitted his surprise at her lack of harpy like anger most women would have portrayed. Of course he'd phrased it much more politely than that, she remembered with amusement. What hadn't surprised him was her answer, "Jackson's been sticking it in anything that was willing to stand still long enough for what has to be almost five years now. Those first two years were hellish, I played the part of the wronged wife and turned into the shrew you always read about but it was the toll it was taking on my son more than anything that made me stop. Jackson had always been good to my son even if Eric wasn't his and how do you explain that kind of thing to a ten year old? I started to cover it all up, if I couldn't stop it I could at least make him be more discreet about his...indiscretions," she managed to spit the word out with a grimace.

Brandon had been at her side ever since, that intensity that was wholly a part of him seeped into ever aspect of their relationship. It was not surprise that when Eric had met him, the boy decided Brandon was the moon, stars and Wonder bread all rolled into one. The fact the man was far too easy on the eyes, had the uncanny knack of reading her like his own private novel and the most astounding lover she's ever encountered didn't help. And here he was, now, here in her kitchen, in the middle of the night and she didn't have the will to hurt him. The will to break herself...she felt like she'd been dashing herself against jagged rocks trying to do what she thought was right versus what she felt was right. He watched her intently and the moment she capitulated seemed to echo in the very air around her and he let go of a ragged breath the tension ebbing from him in slow degrees only to be replaced by a different tension.

He gripped her hair in one hand tipping her head back slowly as he ran the other hand down her cheek, his thumb caressing across her lips and gently applied pressure to her chin opening her mouth to receive his kiss. He crowded her against the fridge partially supporting her as she sagged in surrender against him. Her eyes fluttered shut and a throaty moan escaped her as he skimmed his lips across hers, his breath hot against her lips. His hips shifted longingly against her and she could almost swear she could feel him throbbing against her, matching the rapid thud of his heart against her palm. She moved restlessly against him silently beckoning him to deepen the kiss, and she wasn't disappointed. His tongue thrust the same moment as his hips surged against her seeking that hidden fire and she cried out at the massive influx of sensation. Her hands flew up cupping either side of his face as the kiss deepened a sensual feast of tongue and teeth, and his breath hitched in his chest as a low moan broke from him. Trailing kisses down the column of her throat he kept one hand around her slender neck keeping her bared to the ministrations of his mouth and she reveled in the threat of power those hands held, immeasurably strong yet gentle against her skin. He tugged the robe down from her shoulders tugging her forward long enough for the cloth so fall in a pool of sodden twilight blue at her feet.

She gritted her teeth holding back a moan as his mouth moved lower, his rough hands dragging back and forth across her nipple tightening it to hardness while his mouth feasted on the other. She shuddered beneath his mouth and her chest heaved in panting gasps and he leaned lower yet hooking his arms behind her thighs and raised her upward. She squealed in fear clutching at his head, understanding what he wanted once he had her sex level with his face. She watched the muscles playing across his back admirably before she wove her fingers through his hair grasping rhythmically as he began devouring her with his mouth. She leaned back against the top of the refrigerator her head thrown back in abandon trusting in the strength of his muscles flexing beneath her thighs as he clutched her to him. She felt him shudder against her his breath coming in gasps against the slick heat of her core. He lapped at her clit, sucking at it, the edge of his teeth leaving the thrill of danger in its wake. Crying out as an orgasm rippled thru her sex he let his arms lower slowly letting her slid down his body as he used the fridge to guide her descent. He bent his knees to keep her from dropped to the floor and she wrapped her legs around his waist as he changed his grip to her backside gripping it hard and began to kneed the soft flesh in his hands.

He kissed her hard and she tasted herself on his tongue, a hint of spiced musk and she sucked his tongue wringing another moan from his chest. He slung her hips harder against him, the hardness between them a throbbing testament of his desires. She made a low keening sound her breathing still coming in gasps as she slowly drifted back into her own skin. He leaned his forehead against hers, his chest still heaving like he was running a marathon. Brandon managed by sheer willpower to still his body until his hips stilled against hers only giving brief twitches. She ran her fingers thru his damp hair hoping to soothe him while he battled to bring his body under his control. "I'm sorry, I don't know what I was thinking, Eric..." She placed one finger gently against his lips stopping him.

"Eric's spending the weekend at my mothers, I thought it best while I got things...arranged," she ended lamely looking at the floor, unwilling to meet his eyes.

"God dammit Jos, what do you want from me? What more do you need?" He backed away from her arms outstretched in challenge. "I'm sure as hell not giving up on this, on us, so just tell me what it is you need! I refuse to accept that you're stupid enough to let that bastard back into your life," her face rose angrily at that taunt but he plowed on, "and have you even thought of Eric? He's a smart kid, how long do you think it'll take for him to catch on that his step dad is going behind his mom's back? Is that the kind of man you even want to raise your son? And don't try to tell me he's 'turned a new leaf', that bullshit just won't fly with me. The man's a snake and no matter how many time he sheds his skin he's still a damn snake!" His voice had risen and she was grateful now that Eric was safely tucked away at her mothers, he didn't need to hear this. The arguing with Jackson had been bad enough, and with the man he so clearly worshipped...

"Brandon, do you realize this is the first time you've so much as mentioned that you want me..." he looked at her bared skin with a look of incredulous disbelief, "and not like that and you know it!" Her forehead furrowed angrily, how dare he act like some martyr now that she cast her vote. "You knew from the start Jackson and I had both agreed to see other people while we were separated—"

"Don't you mean he would continue to cheat on you—," he sputtered angrily

"And you knew we were still trying to see if we could work it out!" She raised her voice to override his rebuttal. "I love you, God knows I do but what the hell is it that you expect." Her voice began to hitch with emotion and she stove to suppress before it led to her undoing. If he knew how much this was breaking her inside, if he could see past her façade...the house of cards would be round her ears before she could blink.

"I promised the man forever, and I meant it. So he doesn't deserve it," her voice caught and she stopped mid-sentence, her chin trembled as she fought back tears staring at the floor. She heard the floor creak as he stepped towards her in concern and she held one hand out in front of her stopping him in his tracks. She wrapped her other arm around her middle, trying to hold it together, trying to hold her together.

"Why," she started gruffly, tears clogging her throat making a mockery of her control, "why didn't you say you wanted me. Not my body...me. Why did you wait so long to tell me you can't live without me? Can you even imagine what it feels like to have someone treat me like you do? You ride into my life like some shining knight when I need someone most and all I can do is wait for the other shoe to drop. I sit there in therapy with that asshole I was stupid enough to marry and listen to him say how much he wants me and I have to answer that stupid shrink when she asks if you and I have any commitments together for the future and I have to say 'no'? Do you know how it feels to know all I'm good enough for is someone who will drop me in a New York minute the first time some short skirt starts working in his office. The next time some intern wants to get a leg up in his business and suddenly I'm so much damn garbage? Do you!" Tears streamed down her face but she faced him down.

He padded toward her softly and she raised her hands to ward him off until they rested against the dampness of his t-shirt. Her hands clenched the cloth, curled into fists she fought to battle to both pull him nearer and push him away. "I'm so sorry Jos," she raised her face to look at him surprised to see the shining emotion in his own eyes, "I've heard you say so many times that Jackson was all talk and no walk. I've tried, " he caught one small fist in his hand as she tried to pummel him. To ward off the words that would break her resolve. He grabbed her bodily and clutched her against his chest until her struggled quieted, he stroked her back soothingly muttering endearments into her hair, "Ah baby, I've tried so hard to show you in every way what you mean to me. And I'm sorry, I'm so damn sorry I didn't tell you. Its my mistake not yours, I know that man put you thru hell. I didn't realize how badly you felt, how badly I made you feel by not telling you that you're my world. I feel like I've been living in hell since you told me you couldn't see me anymore. I miss you...I miss you and Eric both. I've never known what it was like to be a father, you gave me that and I can't tell you how privileged I am that you shared him with me." His hand stilled against her back and he steeled himself, "I know I never really had much of a family to speak of so I know how precious you and Eric are to me. I should have told you," he muttered this roughly tucking her head under his chin and she felt his throat working convulsively, "I love you Jos, please, please, don't tell me it's too late for us. Please don't tell me I was too stupid to say the words and that we're over." He sank down to his knees in front of her burying his head into the soft flesh of her stomach.