It jolted me out of my fantasy, and I flushed.
Realizing my clutch, still gripped in my hand, was resting against Lincoln’s shoulder blade and thus he’d felt my phone’s vibration, I released him.
He reluctantly let go of my hips, caressing my waist as his hands slowly dropped away.
Pulling out my cell and shielding the screen from Lincoln, I stiffened at Jamie’s text.
We’re done here. Meet me at the car.
I slid my cell back into my purse and gave Lincoln a regretful sigh. “It was my alarm,” I called over the music. “I set it to remind me when I needed to leave. I have an early appointment tomorrow.”
He nodded but stepped into my personal space, forcing my head back to meet his eyes. “Can I get your number? I’d like to take you out for dinner.”
Smiling through my guilt, I nodded. “Of course.”
He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and I gave him my real number. “I’ll call you,” he promised. “Let me walk you out.”
“Oh, that’s okay. My car’s just down the street.”
“Then I’m walking you to your car. It’s not safe to walk out there alone.” Lincoln wasn’t taking no for an answer.
As he walked ahead to make space for me through the crowd, I quickly texted Jamie the situation.
By the time we got to the Porsche, Jamie was nowhere to be seen, but I knew he was around because he’d left the car open for me.
I opened the driver’s side door. “Keyless entry,” I explained.
Lincoln raised an eyebrow as he took in the car. “You must sell a lot of paintings.”
I gave him a modest shrug.
He smiled down at me. “I had a great time tonight, Jane.”
“Me too.” And I did. In another life, I’d go out on a real date with Lincoln Gaines. “Call me?”
“Absolutely.” Lincoln pressed a soft, sweet kiss to my cheek. Remorse was a swift kick to the gut as he retreated onto the sidewalk. “I’m not leaving until I see you drive off.”
I couldn’t do this.
He was too nice.
And let’s not forget he’s a cop.
With a little wave of my fingers, I got into the car and took off seconds later. I didn’t go far though. I turned the corner out of sight and stopped. Getting out, I rounded the hood and let myself into the passenger side.
Minutes later, the driver’s side opened, and Jamie slid in, slamming the door shut behind him.
Just like that, it was as if all the air in the car had been sucked out.
My skin buzzed, and there was a hot tension in my belly, a slick heat between my legs.
For a moment, he just sat there, not saying a word.
But this energy blazed from him. I wanted to ask about Wright. What he’d seen. Instead, I told him, “Lincoln’s a nice guy. We shouldn’t do this to him.”
“You can back out any time.” Jamie’s tone was cold. Flat.
I shivered and pulled on my seat belt. “No.” As much as I hated involving Lincoln Gaines in this, I hated the idea of leaving Jamie to his own devices even more.
Thick, horrible silence filled the space between us as Jamie drove back to the apartment. I hurried out of the car and felt him moving quickly to keep up with me. My skin burned as I rushed up the steps in front of him, feeling his eyes all over me.
I was trembling.
“Good night,” I said as I pulled my keys out of my clutch, not looking at him.
His apartment door slammed behind me before I’d even put my keys in the lock. I glanced over my shoulder at the apartment. Tears burned my eyes.
Even after all he’d done to me, I still cared.
If it had been him flirting and dancing with another woman in front of me all night, I would have hated every minute.
When I’d been dancing with Lincoln, it only got good when I’d imagined Jamie in his place.
Did Jamie even care?
I hated him.
I hated that there would always be a part of me that wanted him. That when I needed to be a strong, independent woman who demanded respect and kindness, I let myself down because of him.
He was an unforgivable weakness.
“Bastard,” I muttered under my breath, forcing back tears. He didn’t deserve them.
I let myself into my apartment. I’d left a few table lamps blazing because I hated returning to darkness. Sitting down on the sofa and unbuckling my strappy heels, I tried not to think about what I’d done tonight. My feet ached as I got up and wandered into my bedroom to put my shoes away.
Just as I was setting them on a shelf in my closet, I thought I heard a knock on the door.
Pulse racing, I ambled into the hall and halted, ears pricked.
The knock was louder this time. More demanding.
My stomach flipped as I hurried through the living area to the front door.
Peeking through the peephole, I saw Jamie standing outside, glowering ferociously at my door.
What now?
I unlocked the chain and the dead bolt, yanking the door open. Before I could even ask what the hell he wanted, he reached out for me as he stepped inside.
And crushed my mouth beneath his.
24
JAMIE
I’d barely stormed into my apartment when I felt the walls closing in on me.
There were days in prison when a feeling of claustrophobia was so powerful, it was like I was losing my mind. Trapped. Airless. Stress crushing my lungs. Even two years later, I hated being stuck in traffic. Not being able to maneuver my car away to freedom, being stuck inside it … I’d feel this pressure on my chest and become light-headed.
The same thing happened when I flew out to Boston to see Lorna after my release. It was so bad that when I decided to return to LA six months ago, I rented a car and drove back to California. Deciding to make the most of it, I took my sweet time. I arrived in LA fourteen days after I’d left Boston.
Now I’d do anything to avoid that feeling—like something was happening beyond my control.
Like I was coming out of my skin.
Like I needed air.
Seething, I turned around and stared at my door.
It was her fault.
No matter what she’d done to me, I couldn’t stop caring. I hated putting her in this position. I hated her flirting with Gaines. Breathing the same air as Ethan Wright.
Yet, it wasn’t until I returned from following Wright that my fury consumed everything. I no longer cared about Wright or Steadman, or anything else but the fact that Jane was rolling her hips against Gaines. That his hands were on her body.
She didn’t look at him. Her eyes were closed as they moved against each other, but I knew her expression. Jane was enjoying herself a little too much.
Seeing the sweaty dew on her skin made my mouth dry.
Or was that my jealousy?
I couldn’t watch any longer, so I’d sent her a text to end it.
The urge to pull over the entire way home and remind her that no one could satisfy her like I could was great. But I’d held it in check.
Until she was gone.
Until she was on the other side of the apartment door, a million miles away despite the short distance. And I couldn’t stand it.
I wanted Jane to feel what I felt.
I wanted to consume her like she consumed me.
Needing a release worse than the nights I’d laid in my cell missing her, I stopped thinking straight. All my blood traveled south, cutting off the supply to my brain. One second I was in my apartment; the next I was knocking impatiently on her door.
It swung open.
There she was. In that fucking dress.
So beautiful and unreachable … and so … Jane.
I buried my hand in her hair and jerked her toward me as I stepped into the apartment, relief and euphoria like oxygen as I kissed her. Her lips were soft and familiar beneath mine and I groaned, needing a deeper taste.
Hooking my foo
t around her door, I slammed it shut and then hauled Jane up into my arms. With a whimper that vibrated down my throat, Jane wrapped her legs around my waist and clung to me as we devoured each other’s mouths on the way to the bedroom.
There was no thought of foreplay in my head. I needed inside her. End of story.
Following her down to the bed, I broke the kiss, but only to shove her dress up to her waist and pull her nude silk underwear down her legs. She panted beneath my body, staring up at me, dazed, face flushed.
She wasn’t stopping this.
Relief made me frantic.
I wanted to sink into her bare, but at the back of my mind, I remembered Dakota, and the handful of women in Boston I’d screwed when I got out of prison. Cursing under my breath, I dug my wallet out of my jeans and found a condom. The first chance I get, I thought, looking down at Jane, legs spread for me, tits heaving against that flimsy dress, I’m getting a clean bill of health so I can have her without anything between us.
Fuck, no one made me harder. No one did it for me like she did.
That made me almost as pissed as it did hard.
My jeans shucked down just low enough to free me, condom on, I pinned Jane’s wrists at either side of her head, enjoying her familiar gasps of excitement.
Without taking a moment, my only focus on being inside her, I pushed against her wet heat and thrust.
Hard.
I was so euphoric, her tight, hot clasp around my dick the best thing I’d ever felt in my life, that her gasp of pain didn’t immediately register with me.
Opening my eyes, I stared down at her face, her expression finally cutting through my pleasure. She pulsed and throbbed around me, as tight as I remembered her when we were teenagers.
And her face was pinched with discomfort, like it was the first time too.
There were even tears in her eyes.
“What the fuck?” I huffed out, desperate to move but too concerned to continue.
She was tight.
Too tight, I supposed, for a woman who’d been having regular sex.
Jane gazed up at me, and there was something unbearably sad behind the heat in her eyes. Emotion burned in my throat as I looked into her eyes. “Jane?”
“Don’t stop,” she whispered. She undulated, so I slid deeper inside.
Shivery heat sparked down my spine and swirled in my groin, making me groan.
I didn’t know if Jane had been with anyone since me, but I knew she hadn’t been with anyone in a long while. Which meant she wasn’t sleeping with Asher Steadman.
There were a lot of questions that came with that realization, but the guy in me didn’t care about asking them right then. The man that used to adore this woman to distraction felt relief and possessiveness flood him in a rush of primal need.
I drove into her again, baring my teeth against the kind of pleasure that made my eyes want to roll back in my head. Jane gasped, lifting her hips into my mine as I moved in and out of her.
My grip tightened on her wrists as my drives increased in speed and strength. The whole bed shook as I growled her name over and over.
“You need this too,” I panted hard. “You need this like I need this.”
“Yes,” Jane panted, her eyes closing.
“Open your eyes,” I demanded.
She did.
“This is me,” I breathed against her lips, before kissing her hungrily. I broke away to fuck her harder. “You can’t hide from it, Jane. Don’t hide from it.”
“Jamie!” she screamed as she came, clenching around my driving cock in heartrending throbs.
That’s all it took.
“Fuck!” I tensed between her legs seconds before I came, my dick pulsing and pulsing inside her. Bliss shuddered through me as I held myself over her, pouring myself into the condom when I wanted to pour it all into her.
Jesus, it was never ending.
My muscles turned to liquid as I slumped over her, pressing my face into her throat as I ground my dick into her, trying to prolong every second.
Jane.
Peace settled over me. Contentment I hadn’t felt in who knew how long settled in as I laid on top of her soft body and breathed her in. Shit, I could have fallen asleep like that.
“Jamie,” she whispered, pressing a hand to my side. “Jamie, I can’t breathe.”
Reluctantly, I lifted my head, pushing slowly onto my hands to raise my weight off her, and stared down at her flushed face.
She wouldn’t look at me.
“Jane.”
“I need to clean up,” she muttered, still not meeting my eyes.
“Jane, look at me.”
She raised those beautiful hazel-green eyes to mine. My heart thundered as hard as it had as I moved inside her just seconds before.
“You’re not sleeping with Asher.” It wasn’t a question.
Angry tears shimmered in her eyes. “There’s been no one since you.”
With that shocking announcement, I felt the room spin.
25
JANE
“Get off me,” I demanded, feeling vulnerable.
To my surprise, Jamie did as I asked. He rolled off and onto his back, his hands covering his face.
Trembling, I pushed down the dress that he’d practically ruined when I’d allowed him to screw me like the masochist I was.
I moved to get off the bed and his hand suddenly shot out, wrapping around my bicep.
“Stay. Talk,” he demanded.
Why the hell did he sound angry? I was the one who should be angry. I was the one who had pined like an idiot over him, unable to move on, only to hand myself over to him, even when he’d treated me like I was the enemy.
As soon as he’d started kissing me, however, I’d felt like I was home.
No matter what my rational brain told me, I wanted him inside me more desperately than I’d wanted anything. At that moment, as the orgasm shattered through me, it had felt worth it.
But as soon as the pleasure faded, I was left with the reality.
“I have a better idea. Pull up your pants and get out.” I wrenched out of his grasp, sliding off the bed and tugging my dress back into position. I throbbed between my legs, reminding me what I’d just done.
Marching out of the bedroom, not sure how I’d face that room again, I called over my shoulder, “That wasn’t a request, Jamie.”
Slamming into the bathroom, I leaned against the sink, afraid to look at my reflection in the mirror above it. I didn’t want to face myself. Beyond the bathroom door, I could hear movement, and then Jamie’s footsteps down the hall. My heart thudded as I waited for him to leave and then it skipped a beat as the bathroom door flew open.
The door banged back against the opposite wall as he stood in the hall, staring at me in disbelief. Although his jeans were pulled back up, he hadn’t bothered to zip them. He looked disheveled, freshly screwed and unbearably sexy.
“Do you have a hearing problem?” I asked, quietly seething.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Tell me the truth.”
“I hate strawberries.”
“Stop fucking around, Jane. You just said there’s been no one but me. What the hell is going on with you and Asher?”
“None of your business.” I turned to face him, crossing my arms over my chest. “Please leave.”
He didn’t leave. Instead, for the first time since he’d stormed back into my life, his expression gentled with concern. My breath caught. In that moment, he reminded me so much of my Jamie. “Jane, talk to me. Tell me what the hell I’m missing here.”
I didn’t want to.
What was the point?
We’d had a moment of weakness. So what? It was better to pretend it never happened because nothing changed the fact that he’d broken up with me and then proceeded to make me the target of all his anger.
It was time to push him back across the hall, and asking nicely wasn’t working. “You’ve had other women, right? The blond in the hall that day
…”
Something like discomfort flickered across his face.
“Well?” I demanded. “Are you going to tell me that you saved yourself for me, Jamie? Or have there been other women since you got out of prison?”
There went that muscle again, ticking away. He heaved a sigh. “There have been other women,” he admitted.
Even though I’d known that, it still hurt, and I didn’t do a very good job of hiding it.
“Jane …” He took a placating step toward me.
“Don’t.” I retreated out of his reach. “Why is it always the way? Huh?” A tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it, and I hated myself for the weakness. Jamie’s eyes followed the tear as if he were entranced. “Why is the woman always the one who’s faithful with her body, but the guy never is?”
Anger flashed over his face. “We weren’t together. That was your doing. And I didn’t cheat.”
My doing?
Ugh, typical man, twisting history to suit himself and his agenda! I scoffed. “Yeah, right. But you moved on. And I couldn’t. So, I guess that means you win.”
He shook his head, taking another step toward me, and I held my hand up against him. He stopped, frustration mottling his cheeks. “I don’t get it. I don’t get this.” He gestured between us.
I didn’t get it either.
What I did know was that I was seconds from falling apart, and he was the last person I wanted to witness it.
“I asked you to leave. If you don’t, I’m going to start screaming bloody murder.”
Seeing the resolve on my face, Jamie cut me a dark look. “This discussion isn’t over.”
Fury still boiled inside me as he walked out of the bathroom, heading toward the front of the apartment. It’s what propelled me out into the hall to call after him just as he reached the door.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah?”
“Was it good?”
Confusion, wariness, and desire mingled in his expression. Then longing and weariness and something I couldn’t quite decipher replaced it all. “It’s fucking paradise with you,” he said, his voice gruff. “Even though I wish it wasn’t. I wish it were that with anyone but you.”
My lips trembled as I tried to smile like I didn’t care. Like his words didn’t kill me. “Yeah, well, it’s never happening again so you needn’t flagellate yourself.”
Black Tangled Heart Page 23