“And when I spent that time with you, you took great care of me. But I saw the look in your eyes. You were terrified of me, like I was some monster. Don’t deny it. I know you were.” She nodded. “And that’s when I figured I’d never have another chance.
“But I decided I couldn’t give up. I decided to change my life entirely. I gave up the hard liquor, gave up every single drug out there, even the ones that I never got hooked on--stupid shit like Ecstasy, mushrooms, and pot. I stopped sleeping with every fan who threw herself at me. And I poured myself into the music. Clean and sober, I realized I wasn’t happy with where I was musically anymore, and that’s when I decided to break away from Scathing Vengeance. Not only were they trying to get me back on H, they weren’t growing artistically. But you know that whole story. Anyway, I started working out and I got a dietary coach for a while, started writing new stuff. And then I came home. I wanted to look good when I saw you again. I knew I just had to get the guts to do what I’d never been able to do before. I had to tell you how I felt.
“But I still couldn’t, Katie. I couldn’t. I just loved being around you. It felt so natural to be relaxed around you, to be myself. I can’t be myself with anyone else. I have to wear this mask, be the rock star they expect. But you know me, Katie. You know me. I don’t have to pretend. But, God. I still couldn’t just tell you. I thought about it that whole night, but I just couldn’t. And then by the time I had to go that night, I couldn’t stop myself. Maybe I couldn’t say it, but I couldn’t stop myself from showing it anymore. Holding you close, feeling your warmth up against me, smelling your hair, I couldn’t resist. And if you’d pushed me away, I would have known for sure, and I guess I would’ve been okay with it. But you didn’t. So maybe in all fairness you didn’t even have a chance to be faithful to your fiancé. Maybe you didn’t have a chance to tell me you were engaged before we got together.” He looked down at his hands that were resting on his thighs.
Katie grabbed them. “No, Johnny, don’t blame yourself. I was afraid to tell you about Grant before that.”
He held her hands in his and looked up at her. “Why?”
“For the same reason you were afraid to tell me how you felt, I guess. I think I was afraid of rejection or...I don’t know anymore. I was afraid of betraying my feelings to you and getting hurt. I’d been hurt by you so many other times before--”
“What? What did I ever do to hurt you?”
“No, you never did anything, Johnny. It was me. I let myself get hurt because I wasn’t honest with you.”
He slowly nodded his head. “So what do we do now?” Katie searched his eyes. “Do we want to give this a legitimate go?”
Katie asked herself that question. “Yeah, I think we should.”
Johnny brought his right hand up to her cheek and stroked it. “Shit. You know my tour lasts another three months, right?”
“Yeah. I’m in school for another year and a half too. But it’s not like we’ve never been apart before.”
He grinned. “That’s true. Hell, we’ve maybe spent a total of two months together the last fifteen years.”
She nodded. “We can work it out. I can’t take the whole summer off, but I do have most of May and August off.”
He tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. “Do you even want to finish school?”
“Yeah, I do. I’m finally doing something I want to.”
“So what do you want to do when you finish school?”
“I’d planned on teaching.”
“I promise you, Katie, you won’t have to work if you don’t want to. Just be with me.” He paused. “Do you want to teach?”
Katie shrugged. “I want to write.”
“Then you can do that. You can do that with me, can’t you?”
She felt a small tear form in the corner of her eye. “Yeah, I think I could.” She reached over and hugged him. She sat back and grabbed her glass of water, sipping another drink and setting the glass back down.
“Well, I’m back on the road again tomorrow, but I’ll have some times here and there I can get away, and we can keep in touch over the phone.”
“Yeah.”
“So, what’s your roommate’s story?”
“What do you mean?”
“Holy shit. She’s got Kiefer wrapped around her finger. I had no idea he was a chubby chaser.”
Katie frowned. “I’ll have you know Heather is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. She’s genuine and caring. And she is pretty.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Kiefer seemed pretty captivated by her from top to bottom.”
Katie smiled. “I guess I’ve paid her back then.”
“What do you mean?”
She stretched her neck. “I felt like I owed her something after today. She talked me into calling in for the tickets. Then she made me buy this silly thing,” she said, indicating the corset still hugging her frame. “She was going to pay for it if I didn’t. And she wouldn’t let me leave the house without a face full of makeup.”
“Well, you gotta admit, you look awesome.”
She smirked. “Thanks.”
He moved his face closer to hers, so close she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. His finger traced the top of the corset just over her breast. “You know what?” Katie shook her head. “We’ve had sex twice now, right? And both times were great but afterward totally sucked. I think we need to erase that shit right now. We need to make love right now just so we can have a nice morning after. What do you say? And then maybe I can figure out how this goddamn thing works too,” he said, running his finger along the top of the corset.
Katie smiled. “But don’t you have to leave tonight?”
Johnny grinned back at her. “Our next concert is in Colorado Springs tomorrow night. You can drive me there, can’t you?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Then, if it’s okay with you, I want to sleep with you in my arms tonight. And I want to wake up next to you, knowing that everything between us is finally okay.”
She brought her face up to his so that her nose was touching his. “Yeah, of course it’s okay.” She reached down and tugged at the strings tied in a bow at the top of her corset, loosening them. “Do you think you can take it from here?”
He grinned. “Shit, yeah. I’m good with playing strings.” He kissed her then, continuing to ease the strings out one eye at a time. Katie couldn’t wait until he discovered that the strings wouldn’t remove the corset. There was still a secret zipper on the side that had to be taken care of, but she knew that would make for some fun foreplay.
###
Also by Jade C. Jamison
Why can’t she draw the line between attorney and lover?
Stating His Case
Samantha T. Paulson, Attorney at Law, finds it hard to concentrate when new client Ryan Craig sits across her desk. She finds herself immediately drawn to him against her better judgment. Eventually the inevitable happens, and after an unforgettable night, Samantha realizes she has crossed the line of the attorney / client relationship and could lose her license to practice law. When she admits to Ryan that she shouldn’t have slept with him, he believes it’s Samantha’s clever way of dumping him. She is torn between her career and her feelings for him. She finally tries to reconcile with Ryan, but it might not happen, because her ex-lover tries to rekindle their romance, and a man who has long carried a torch for her threatens to have her disbarred for misconduct.
Enjoy the following excerpt from Stating His Case:
Samantha T. Paulson, Attorney at Law, was trying very hard to concentrate. And, unlike most times, she was even finding it hard to act like a professional.
She wrote a couple of words on the lined yellow legal pad in front of her, trying to keep her eyes fixed on the paper just a little longer. Longer than she had been, at any rate, because she’d been maintaining eye contact for far too long…she couldn’t keep her eyes--or her mind--off the gorgeous man sitting on the other side of her
desk.
Ryan Craig looked down at his hands without saying a word. Samantha looked back up from the pad to ask him another question, but the words were not flowing easily. She kept getting drawn to those green eyes that smiled when he did, little--almost unnoticeable--lines forming at the corners; light brown hair cut short and a clean-shaven face except for the tiny tuft right under his lip; three silver hoop earrings glimmered from his left ear, and colorful tattoos painted most of his right arm; his flamboyant appearance all but mitigated by his quiet, unassuming manner. If Samantha had been somewhere else, somewhere where he wouldn’t have been able to tell that she was checking him out, she would’ve spent more time looking at the tattoos. But, instead, she had to be content with bits and pieces…little glimpses stolen here and there. He wore a black t-shirt…it wasn’t tight, but she could tell he was well-defined underneath--his chiseled arms told her as much.
But her view ended there, along his torso, thanks to the desk. Ryan was quiet--even shy, perhaps--and only spoke when she asked him a question. Maybe he was uncomfortable, never having needed a lawyer’s assistance before, or maybe the subject matter made him uncomfortable. Or was he intimidated by her, was she coming on way too strong…or was he just a quiet guy?
Samantha cleared her throat, trying to force herself to behave. She was acting--in her mind, at least--like a giddy schoolgirl. “Would you prefer I call you Mr. Craig or Ryan?”
He looked up at her. “Ryan’s fine.” That slight smile again. Samantha could have melted right there. She only hoped that this man had no idea of the thoughts rushing through her mind.
The funniest thing was that in ten years of business, she’d never acted like this…had never even felt this way about a client, had never even dreamed of looking at any of her male clients in this light. Maybe it was because this man named Ryan had the aura of a “bad boy.” Sure, she’d always had a soft spot for those kinds of men--and, granted, she’d only had a couple of guys like him as clients before--but, damn, the electricity sparking off this guy was intense. Maybe he was just like that, throwing off so many pheromones that all women felt instantly drawn to him…or maybe there was something there just between the two of them--maybe he felt it too.
“Okay, Ryan, please call me Samantha.” She forced her eyes back to the legal pad. Pen at the ready, she asked, “So, where is she now?” While she listened to his answer, in the back of her head she chided herself--she didn’t look her best today. What chance did she have of charming him back? Sure, her makeup was fine as was her dark brown pixie-cut hair that always fell neatly into place…but she hadn’t worn her nicest, most flattering, show-off-her-curves suit, had forgotten even to put on jewelry today, had forgotten to wear her favorite sexy perfume. She’d overslept this morning and had done the best she could in what little time she had. If she’d known this man was going to be here today, she would’ve allowed herself to be ten minutes late to put on the finishing touches. But she couldn’t change anything now. She could only hope to be her usual enchanting self.
“I’m sure she’s still in Trinidad.” Samantha nodded her head and jotted it down. Trinidad was in the Southeastern part of Colorado--over one hundred miles from where they lived in the small city (or large town, depending on how one looked at it) of Winchester.
She couldn’t help herself. It might not be relevant to his case, but she had to know. “So why did you move here?” She lied to herself that this information was important, because any court documents or appearances would have to take place in the other county. She was now his lawyer and should be privy to the information, she told herself, justifying the question in her mind.
“Better job opportunities.” He paused, and she could tell he had more to say, so she remained silent. “That and I had to get away.” He stopped again, looking down at his hands once more. “She wouldn’t leave me alone. If I hadn’t left, I might’ve done something I’d regret.” He looked up again, making contact with Samantha’s blue eyes, and, for what felt like the hundredth time during this conversation, she felt almost like a voyeur. She was drinking this guy in, and he was starting to tell her personal details. She’d heard and noted everything he’d been saying, but she was pulling it in on a more personal level than she had ever done in this kind of situation. She wouldn’t need to look at her notes to remember, unlike many clients’ details. So even though an important aspect of the attorney / client relationship had just begun--maintaining a client’s confidentiality in regard to intimate details--Samantha was recording it in her mind, just like a woman would with a new guy she’d just met and had set her cap for. In essence, wasn’t that what she’d been doing?
Samantha nodded. She decided she didn’t want the dirty details, at least not of this particular angle--not now, at any rate. She’d already asked more than she needed to know. “Okay, Mr. Craig. I mean, Ryan…” She paused to get her bearings. Rarely did she call clients by their first names--using titles and last names always carried an air of professionalism and forced the relationship to be strictly business--which is why she’d always done it before…she felt it instilled confidence in her clients that she would represent them well. So why had she broken that barrier here? She knew full well why. The feminine side of her wanted to pick this guy up, just like she would have picked up a good-looking stranger in a bar. She took a deep breath, hoping to contain herself, and continued. “Why, exactly, are you contesting paternity?”
“Because I’m sure the baby’s not mine.”
“Is there any possibility?”
Ryan looked up from his hands again and straight into Samantha’s eyes. “Well, yeah…”
“Okay.” She jotted on the pad, then looked up. “Why don’t you tell me a little bit about your relationship?”
He almost grimaced as though he felt uncomfortable talking about it. “I met Rachel a couple of years ago through a friend. I’d just gotten divorced six months earlier and really didn’t feel like dating. But she seemed nice, and…she was attractive. Two years later, we’re living together, and she’s talking marriage. But we’ve had a lot of problems--a lot of problems--and I have valid reasons to suspect the baby’s not mine.”
Samantha couldn’t help but notice that he’d said, “We’ve had a lot of problems,” indicating to her that it might not be totally over for them. She felt her heart drop into the pit of her stomach. If he were still involved with the woman named Rachel, what choice would she have but to cool her heels?
She needed to focus on the interview, not her out-of-control emotions. She was definitely losing it. The guy was fresh out of a relationship that followed a divorce and she still couldn’t contain herself? What was it about this guy? She sat up a little straighter. “Do you think Ms. Evans would voluntarily submit to genetic testing?”
Ryan frowned. “I really don’t know.”
Samantha set the pad and pen down and folded her hands in front of her on the desk, assuming her usual professional persona. “Well, fortunately, the law is on your side in this case. If you’d been married, you would be the presumed father no matter what the circumstances. That would make things a lot more complicated, time consuming, and costly. But in your case, we’ll want to do DNA testing to determine if you’re the child’s father. If you are, then we can also file motions for visitation, custody, that sort of thing…and she’ll probably also demand child support. If, on the other hand, you’re not the father, then you’ll know for certain, and you can break off ties completely…if that’s what you’re wanting to do.”
Ryan nodded his head. “I’ve seen this happen to other guys before--so I kept expecting her to do this herself and ask for child support; but she hasn’t, and now the baby’s already four months old. If the baby’s mine, I want to know. About how long will this all take?”
“That depends. If Ms. Evans doesn’t voluntarily agree to testing, we’ll have to present your case to the court, and they will order the tests to be done. That will drag it out, but it does happen. If she agrees, this co
uld be over in about a month.”
Ryan again looked down at his hands, absorbing the information Samantha had given him. In those moments of silence, Samantha again found her mind wandering back to the magnetic sexual attraction she felt for him. She was shocked at herself--she hadn’t felt this strongly attracted to anyone in years and definitely had never felt this way about a client. She’d been interested in plenty of men, but not like this. She almost felt like she could jump across the table and just start ripping his clothes off.
Of course, she didn’t. But she wondered why she felt that way. Was it--perhaps--that he was attracted to her too and, somewhere in the intuitive parts of her mind, she sensed it? Did he feel the same way? Was there some mutual feeling between them that intensified her emotions? Could that be why she could almost literally feel his masculinity across the table…why she could almost see him take her in his arms, could almost taste his kiss, feel his warm breath against her neck?
He looked up again into Samantha’s eyes, and she almost felt guilty, as though she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. “Okay.” Was she just imagining the look in his eyes? Was the feeling mutual? “How do we start?”
Samantha again had to collect her thoughts, but her job was second nature to her, so it didn’t take much effort. “I’ll send a letter to Ms. Evans, asking for her cooperation. She and her son will have to submit to the testing.” Ryan arched his eyebrows. “Don’t worry…it’s pretty painless in this day and age. No blood draws. They gently scrape the inside of the cheek to obtain some cells. That’s all they need.”
Tangled Web Page 13