Inside Out: Behind Closed Doors

by Lisa Renee Jones

He laughs, something he does easily despite dire circumstances, and it’s almost as sexy as his eyes. And hair. And body. “Then don’t stay,” he replies, “but don’t make a run for the door and make me chase you.” He turns away and steps to the elevator panel to key in a code.

  My instant reaction is to get the heck off the glass and slide to the solid wall to my left, but try as I might, I can’t see the floor Jason has chosen, and I’m glad. I don’t want to know, but what I do see is him. His hesitation, the way he doesn’t immediately turn to face me, his hand on the wall by the keypad, long pieces of his light brown hair falling from the tie at his nape, becoming a shield I cannot penetrate. There’s no question in me that he’s fighting some dark emotion he doesn’t wish me to see, but I do.

  The doors shut, and my chance for escape with them. Almost instantly, the car begins to rise. Jason steps away from the panel, as if he’d been waiting for us to be sealed inside in case he needed to block my path. This should bother me. Why doesn’t it? Instead, I study him as he leans against the wall across from me, not about to look out that damn glass wall, using that as my excuse for enjoying how perfectly hot Trouble really is. From the sounds of it, his hotness is at least a small part of what got him in this mess. But he’s also staring at me, at my mouth, and I’m thinking about what he might taste like. And it’s dangerous; allowing myself to be seduced by this man would be foolish. I cut my gaze left and the city flashes before my eyes through the glass. My stomach rolls, my hand pressing to my belly.

  Afraid of being sick and embarrassing the heck out of myself, I turn forward and my gaze lands on the panel to find the number 58 aglow. Seeming to understand my reaction, Jason steps behind me, his hand on my hip, breath warm on my cheek. “Easy, baby,” he murmurs. “Is it small spaces or heights?”

  “I don’t know anymore,” I surprise myself by confessing, welcoming the distraction of his spicy scent and the way his strong legs cradle my hips. “It’s kind of a control thing,” I add, not sure what else to call this need I’ve developed to know, see, touch, and hold on to everything around me that magnifies every quirk I possess by ten.

  “Something I understand,” he promises. “Probably more than you know.”

  And the something I hear in his voice isn’t about elevators. It’s about blackmail. I want to turn. I want to tell him what I found, but no matter how true his fear and explanations feel, my mind says I don’t know enough about him, or the poker chip, or this Stephanie person. So I don’t turn and he doesn’t move away. And we don’t speak. We just stand there together, too intimate for two strangers who’ve just met. Yet it’s not about sex, and it’s not wrong, but rather quite right. I think maybe, just maybe, for just a few moments, minutes, whatever time passes, the best place, the only place, to face a fear you want no one else to see is with a stranger doing the same.

  Seconds tick by, the elevator dings, and the doors open. “And the terror ends,” he says softly.

  Now I turn and he grabs the door. “Escape awaits you.”

  There is playfulness to his tone, but it does nothing to mask the understanding in eyes that has me feeling like he sees far more than I want him, or anyone, to see ever again. Darting forward and welcoming the solid footing of an unmoving shiny floor, I’m trying hard not to think about fires and earthquakes and other reasons being this high up could be dangerous. Jason steps to my side and we pause in a hallway that forks left or right, with only two penthouses, one in each direction.

  “Left,” Jason instructs, but I don’t take the direction. I face him and when he does the same of me, I am again struck by how tall he is, and how small I feel in his big, glamorous world.

  I realize right then that once I go into his apartment, I’m at the mercy of my attraction to him, and I halt. “Can you just bring it here?”

  He laughs without humor. “No.” His hand settles on my back and he turns me, and starts walking.

  “You are—”

  “A bull charging and taking you along with me. I know, but I’m not leaving you here to run away.”

  “I’m not running or I wouldn’t be here.”

  “People change their minds.”

  I have no idea why, but I don’t think he’s talking about me. “Do you?”

  “Of course,” he says, stopping at his fancy red door that I’m pretty sure is a luck thing, but then, why wouldn’t a gambler be all about luck? I don’t want him to be about luck. I’ve heard that before and it fails. Maybe looks and a plan that includes luck is the lethal combination about to undo his success.

  He shoves open his door. I face him again. “Red Bull … Jason …”

  “Trouble?”

  “Yes. Trouble. You are trouble.”

  “No,” he says, his tone, and his mood, suddenly somber. “I am not trouble. I’m just in trouble, and I need your help.”

  There is a rawness to his voice, to the distress in his eyes, that hits a familiar note I can’t dismiss. Needing help and not having it is something I understand. My resistance is officially undone and I walk into his penthouse, a spicy scent of autumn and cinnamon teasing my nostrils. It’s warm and inviting, like family and friends—not sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.

  The door shuts behind me and I bite my lip at the open, round foyer before me, with a glass statue in the center that looks distinctly familiar. “Is that a bull?” I ask, as Jason joins me.

  “Yes. That’s a bull. A little ode to the game that changed my life, and that of my family.”

  “Family,” I repeat, trying to remember the last time I used that word.

  “Yes. Family.” He motions to two large cedar doors. “My office.” He crosses in front of me and opens the doors.

  “Is your family still in New York?” I ask.

  “No. My mom and dad run a bed-and-breakfast in Rhode Island.”

  He waves me forward and my heels give on the soft floor. I glance down and then at him. “Is this a leather floor?”

  “Yeah. Pretty freaking awesome, right?”

  “Yes,” I agree, rather charmed at the pleased, almost excited lift to his voice that says this place, or maybe even his money, is new to him. “Pretty freaking awesome,” I say as I enter a spacious windowless office, a heavy wooden desk in the center.

  Jason moves ahead of me and walks behind the desk. I walk toward him, noting the many poker awards on the walls and photos of him with other people. Stopping beside a leather visitor’s chair, I slip my purse off my shoulder and set it on the floor before claiming the seat for myself. Jason opens a drawer and removes an envelope before walking back around to my side of the desk, leaning on it to face me, and offering the envelope to me. “Look inside.”

  Cutting right to the chase. No games. I’m both pleased and freaked out. If he’s being blackmailed, it’s a crime, and people who have everything to lose can operate like they have no limits. I swallow hard and open it. Inside I find a photo of two chips, both matching the one I have in my possession. Oh God. Did she want him to find one, to prove she had another? I glance through several pieces of paper, each sealed in a Ziploc bag—all promises that he will be framed for theft, many of them with nasty, horribly graphic messages.

  My stomach rolls, and I close the envelope and hand it back to him. “I’ve seen enough.”

  He takes it and sets it on the desk. “You’ll let me in the storage unit?”

  “What do you hope to find?”

  “My blackmailer. I need to find her.”

  “And then what?” I challenge. “Kill her?”

  He grabs me and pulls me to my feet, hard against his body. “You still think I’m a crazy person but you came here with me?” His words are taut, laced with anger.

  “You said there were cameras,” I say flippantly. My hand flattens on his chest, over his heart, and I can feel it racing. “What will you do when you find her?” I ask, totally serious now.

  “Set her up. Tape-record her and get her to admit that she’s blackmailing me. What other option
do I have?”

  “The police—”

  “Did you not see the note that said she’d implicate my father, too, if I did that?”

  “No. I didn’t see it.”

  He reaches for the folder but I grab his arm. “I believe you. I don’t want to see it.”

  “I need to get into that unit.”

  I repeat my thoughts. “Desperate people operate with no limits.”

  “Desperate? I guess you could say I am. If she does this, she’ll get me, and everyone I care about, killed. She thinks this is a fun game.”

  “She let her personal belongings be sold off. That isn’t a fun game. And why do that if she’s alive and well?”

  “Good question. One I have to get answered.”

  “Give me a reason I can accept that doesn’t include her in a body bag.”

  He looks at the ceiling, studying it like one might a person’s face, searching for the answers that I want from him. “My biggest fear,” he says, looking at me, “is that she sold her little plot to someone who’s far more dangerous, and after far more money. You say desperation makes people act without limits. I say greed makes people operate without limits.”

  “Or fear of losing your wealth?”

  “I could win more money. I’m good, baby. I’m damn good. And I have investments that are going to keep paying off. I don’t know how to convince you I’m honest, but it’s my father I care about here. I won’t let a man who’s my damn hero be taken down by this bitch.”

  “And Stephanie knows this?”

  “I had one night with this woman, but I’ve made it clear in every press piece I do who made me the man I am.”

  “I want to help, but—”

  “Don’t say but.” He turns me and leans me against the desk, his hands bracing the surface on either side of me, but he is no longer touching me. “What do you need to convince you to help me?”

  “I don’t know, but I wish you’d figure it out.”

  “Me fucking too.”

  “I’m not saying no.”

  “But you’re not saying yes, either.”

  “Not yet. This is … a lot to take in. You’re a lot to take in.”

  “You’re not so small yourself.”

  I lick my suddenly dry lips, his gaze following. “I’m not sure what that means.”

  “Me, either.” He stares down at me for a long moment, the air crackling with tension, thickening, shifting, and then spiking to a sizzle. Suddenly, his hand is back in my hair, and he’s molding me close. “Tell me to kiss you, Skye.”

  “No,” I whisper. “No. I won’t. You really are trouble and I’m smart enough to know that.”

  He lifts me and sets me on the desk and somehow my legs are spread, and he’s between them, his hands framing my face. “Ask me to kiss you, Skye.”

  That raw quality is in his voice again, a desperation, a need for escape that I understand and know. It resonates deep in my soul, and I know this is why I came with him. I sensed this connection. I sensed that we both know a monster calmed by one of only two things: escape or denial. I handle that beast by denial. He handles it with escape—which is probably what he was doing with Stephanie, and with who knows how many other women. I don’t want to be another one of them.

  But it’s been so long since I let anyone touch me, since I touched anyone else, and right now escape might be exactly what I need. And escaping with a stranger I never have to face again, who I won’t matter to past this day, is the ultimate escape. Maybe, just maybe, Trouble’s escape plan is better than my perpetual denial. Maybe it’s time I try it his way.

  But I do not ask him to kiss me. If I’m doing this, it’s on my terms. I am going to be in charge. I am going to be the one who claims my own actions and reactions.

  I lean in and press my lips to his.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WITH MY MOUTH pressed to Jason’s deliciously sensual mouth, I am so out of the realm of who I am that my heart is about to jump out of my chest. I need to do this, I silently remind myself. I need to hold true to my vow that no man will ever take my power again. Not this one or any one. Not for sex or any other reason. But as my lips linger on his and seconds tick by in which he does nothing, self-doubt sprouts within me and begins to grow at lightning speed. Jason has all but proclaimed himself a player outside the game of poker. If he intends to play me and insists I “ask” him to kiss me as he’s ordered, then Trouble will find trouble. Suddenly, insecurity morphs into panic and I try to withdraw from the kiss.

  At the same moment, Jason moves as well, his hand cradling the back of my head, and his mouth slants over mine. I moan as his tongue presses past my lips and strokes into my mouth in a velvety caress that I feel in every part of my body, liquid heat gathering between my thighs. The taste of him, of hot demand mixed with what I think might be the lingering spice of cinnamon and coffee, bleeds into my mouth and washes away my insecurity. There is only desire and a wild burn to feel Jason closer, and I reach for his T-shirt and tug it upward.

  Jason captures my wrist, his steely stare meeting mine. “Let’s be clear. This is only here and now. I don’t do commitments.”

  The last thing I need is someone to look at my past or find the real me. He won’t take the time to care and his words are the freedom—the escape—I crave almost as much as him. “Promise?”

  “What?” His brow furrows. “Promise what?”

  “Commitment is the last thing I want from you. And you can keep your money, too.” I tangle my fingers in his hair, tearing away the tie at his nape so that his long, light brown hair tumbles around his face and tickles my cheek. “No tomorrow. That’s what I want.”

  His eyes narrow, his fingers sliding under my neck. “I believe you—and that makes me curious.”

  “Another thing I don’t want. Your curiosity. I just gave you permission to fuck me, but be clear: I’m not another notch on your belt. You’re a notch on mine.”

  “Who says I have a notched belt?”

  “Are you denying you do?”

  “Fucking to just fuck isn’t about notches on belts, any more than poker is about gambling, to me.”

  “Why are we talking?” I demand. “Kiss me.”

  “Ask me.”

  “I just told you. That’s all you get from me.”

  “Demand?”

  “Yes. Kiss me, damn it.”

  There is a beat of hesitation. Then another, and then he does as I’ve commanded, his mouth slanting over mine, the velvet sweep of his tongue against mine like a lick of my sex, his hand sliding seductively up my back, melding my chest to his. Heat rushes through me and I’m instantly mindless, sinking into the kiss and letting my fingers explore the warmth of his body beneath his shirt. I’m tingling all over, empowered and bold in a way I have never been, and I don’t try to understand why now, and why with him.

  “Take it off,” I whisper, shoving the material up his waist.

  “Always willing to please a lady,” he murmurs, tugging his shirt over his head and tossing it aside.

  Even before it’s gone my hands are on his hard, leanly muscled upper body, lingering on the tat on his shoulder that reads Red Bull. It captivates me when I would not think it would, but the very fact that this man is a bit wild, a bit rough, that he’s everything I’ve never wanted, makes him exactly what I want and need right now.

  “You like it?”

  I glance up, instantly captured by the scorching look in his eyes, shocked at the odd sense of this gorgeous, confident man somehow hanging on the moment, wanting my approval. Or maybe I just want him to want it, but I don’t care. I give it to him. “Very much,” I whisper, splaying my fingers over the design. “I like it very much.”

  He tugs me closer, molding our hips together. “Maybe I should get one that says I promise.”

  “How about No tomorrow?”

  He leans in, pressing his cheek against mine, his palms caressing my breasts, thumbs stroking over my nipples and sending a wave of sensation
s through my body. “Or how about this?” His voice is a soft, sexy tease. “I promise you, Skye, that I’m going to fuck you until you scream my name even after I’m gone.”

  I feel those words like a stroke between my thighs that leaves me aching for more, and my fingers flex into his hard shoulders. “Words are like poker,” I taunt. “Talk is cheap, and only blackjack counts.”

  He laughs, a soft, sexy rumble that tightens every nerve ending I own with erotic promise. “There is no blackjack in poker, sweetheart. You really wouldn’t make a good groupie.” His fingers slide to the front of my blouse, working on my buttons. “I aspire to bring you over to the dark side, though.”

  “I won’t ever be your groupie.”

  He parts my blouse, shoving down my bra and tugging lightly on my nipples. “Sure about that?”

  Somehow, I grab his hands and still his actions, when I really want him to keep doing what he’s doing. “I’m responsible for nothing I agree to while naked or near naked. Let’s establish that right now.”

  His hands settle on my breasts. “I’m not sure that’s a deal I can make.”

  “You have—”

  He kisses me, a deep, dark, hard kiss that is all about demand, and more demand, for things I don’t know and I’m not sure I want to know. He palms my breasts, sensation sliding through me, and I decide I do want to know. Oh yes, I very much want to know.

  His hand slides to my thigh, fingers splaying wide, then stroking my sex. I pant and grab his shoulders. “Trouble isn’t so bad,” I pant.

  He laughs again. God, I love his laugh, his cheek sliding to mine, teeth scraping my earlobe. “I plan to be very, very bad.”

  Oh, please. Yes. Now. “Promise?”

  A knock sounds on the door and I jerk in surprise.

  “Easy, baby,” Jason purrs, tunneling his fingers into my hair and dragging my mouth a breath from his. “Only building staff can get up here. Ignore them and they’ll go away.” Then his mouth comes down on mine, his tongue stroking deeply into my mouth, driving away everything but how much I need this man inside me.

  “Jesus, Jason!” comes a shout from outside. “Whoever your current fuck is can wait. Open the door.”