by Amy Lamont
Jared. His name came to me unbidden as I pushed my way through a throng of pedestrians. Just last night I’d laughed and teased him about the overpriced, yet utilitarian apartment he rented. A penthouse in a building full of furnished, short-term corporate rentals, it lacked any interesting architectural style. Everything about it from the design to the décor was boring and boxy. Dark furniture and drapes, along with the stark black and white and stainless steel kitchen, turned the oversized apartment into a shoebox.
The apartment’s single redeeming quality was the startlingly spectacular view of Central Park and the cityscape around it.
But right now I didn’t care if it was a dungeon in the basement of the worst neighborhood Manhattan had to offer. I just wanted to find a place to lick my wounds as far away from the dickhead stalking me down the street as possible.
“Hey! Hey!”
A peek over my shoulder showed him gaining on me, moving with surprising agility considering his obviously inebriated state. The downright hostile look he wore, eyebrows drawn together and lips pulled up on one side into an almost sneer, put me in mind of a rabid dog. A chill ran down my spine at his tenacious determination to catch up with me. What the hell did he think he would do with me if he caught up?
I didn’t give him the chance to make that decision. I flat out ran down the street, weaving in and out of the drunken St. Patrick’s Day revelers and workers headed home for the day. Jared’s apartment was steps away.
Thank God. The doorman recognized me. With a small nod, he opened one of the large plate-glass doors leading to the lobby.
“Thanks.” I offered him a relieved smile, but didn’t slow down until I had moved out of view behind a large potted plant.
My stalker ran past and then slowed to a stop. He retraced his steps and reached to open the lobby door. The doorman quickly sidestepped him.
The frat boy all but bared his teeth, but after a few minutes stumbled away again. I watched to make sure he didn’t linger around the building, but he kept going forward, caught up in the stream of people moving down the street.
Holy shit. I leaned against the cool marble wall, eyes closed and shivering as I tried to calm my erratic breathing.
“Paige?”
My eyes popped open, fear pushing another spike of adrenaline through my body. I came off the wall and was poised to run before I realized frat boy didn’t know my name. I turned my head to see Jared walking toward me.
“Hi,” I said weakly, offering the barest of smiles. I could almost feel the adrenaline leaving my body, circling around and seeping out, leaving me a trembling mess. It took every ounce of strength I had not to fall at Jared’s feet as he strode over to me.
“Hey, are you okay? What are you doing here?” he asked.
He pulled me close to his body and I let him, grateful to have someone else helping to keep me on my feet. I tucked my face into his neck, absorbing his blessed, blessed body heat and breathing in his warm, musky scent. My heartbeat started to slow as my body got the message I was out of danger.
I tilted my head back to look up at him. His startling blue eyes stared down at me with obvious concern.
I shook my head. “I was being silly. Some St. Patrick’s Day partier had one too many and started following me. I’m sure it was nothing, but it freaked me out and when I realized I was in front of your high security building, the doorman let me duck inside.”
“Damn, and here I thought you were coming to see me, but turns out it’s just my heightened security you were after,” he teased.
I offered him a smile that felt tremulous at best.
“Hey.” He shook me gently and spoke softly near my ear. “You’re really freaked, aren’t you?”
His gentle handling was my undoing. Tears, hot and prickly, burned behind my eyes as I fought to keep them from falling. I quickly tucked my head back into his chest, but I was too late. He saw them.
Jared moved his hands up and down my back. “Come on, baby. Let’s get you upstairs.”
I nodded and let him herd me toward the elevator, but I kept my face hidden in his chest. So far we’d been careful not to get caught together by the paparazzi that were never too far from Jared and the other members of his band. It would be just my luck to have a photo snapped now while I trembled like a baby and these mortifying tears fell. I never cried.
But as the elevator doors closed, an image of Deanna rose up in my mind. I clutched Jared’s t-shirt and shuddering sobs shook my whole body. I didn’t come up for a breath, though. If I could have burrowed any closer to him, I would have.
His arms stayed clenched around me, as if he wanted to keep me as close as I wanted to be.
“It’s okay,” he whispered. “You’re all right.”
Before I knew it, we hit the penthouse and he whisked me past the living room and straight into the bedroom. The heavy curtains were shoved to the farthest edges of the windows, letting in the last rays of the late winter sunshine.
Jared steered me onto the bed. He sat with his back against the headboard, his legs out in front of him. He scooted me around until I laid between his legs, my head still pressed to his chest, his arms around me. He held me like that while I sobbed into his black t-shirt, soaking him to the skin.
It could have been minutes or hours that I clung to him while I let loose with my grief and fear and frustration. Deanna’s death hit me hard, sending an icy black chunk of lead sinking to the bottom of my belly.
But that chunk of lead wasn’t alone. It joined the churning mass that already lived there. The mass that had been eating away at me for months now. Maybe even years. That roiling mass had started out a tiny lump, but like a cancer, it grew bit by bit.
It grew as I applied to colleges known for having the highest number of graduates accepted to medical school.
It grew as I took internships in hospitals every summer break.
It grew as I sent in my medical school applications.
The growth was slow. So slow that other than a tiny twinge here and there, I could easily push its presence out of my mind.
But once I started medical school and working at the hospital every shift I could get, the mass took on a life of its own. At odd moments, I’d feel its icy tentacles slithering around in my belly.
And now, having left Jared’s warm bed to rush out into a day where winter had decided to keep the month of March firmly in its grip, only to face the death of a young girl way before her time, the churning mass and the leaden ball threatened to swallow me from the inside out.
Slowly my tears stopped.
I pulled in one last shuddering breath and tuned back into the world around me. Most especially Jared.
He had one arm locked around my shoulders, keeping me pinned to his chest while I cried. The other stroked soothingly over my hair.
Even in the middle of all the confusing emotions, a surge of warmth went through me. His fierce protectiveness combined with this gentleness added to my list of the many contradictions I’d discovered about Jared since we met in that hotel bar over Christmas.
I tilted my head up to look at him.
His hand stilled on the back of my head. “Better?”
I snuggled in closer. “A little. Sorry about your shirt.”
He looped both arms around me and hugged me. “Not one of my favorites. Now if it was my Led Zeppelin…”
I laughed and then bit my lip to stop it. I couldn’t help the twinge of guilt that went through me. How could I lay here in the arms of one of the hottest men in America and find something to laugh about while Deanna’s parents had to start calling relatives and making funeral arrangements?
“Hey.” He gave my shoulders another soft squeeze. “It can’t be that bad. Tell me what has you so upset.”
I shook my head and dropped my face into his chest again. How could I explain it? Yes, I was upset about Deanna. More than upset. Without a doubt, I’d hold the image of that little girl
in my heart, the way she smiled and laughed and begged for details about my friends, even on the day her body gave out on her, for the rest of my life.
Fresh tears welled up in my eyes. I blinked and let them slide unchecked down my cheeks. I might hate to cry, hate to show weakness, but that girl was worth every one of my tears and then some.
The more I thought of her, though, the more I realized how much she’d hate the tears. She’d love that Jared Sloane, lead singer of Sliding Violet, held me in his arms and made me laugh even in my grief.
And suddenly lots of things became clear. Deanna’s whole existence was a walking, talking testament to the fact we were supposed to treat our lives like gifts and live every moment to bursting.
I lifted my head again and caught his gaze with my own. “Is the offer to go on tour with you next week still on the table?”
His muscles tensed beneath me. “Seriously?”
I fought a smile at the note of excitement in his voice. Another contradiction—super cool, rock god Jared Sloane getting excited over what basically boiled down to a girl saying yes to a date.
I gave him a tiny grin. “Seriously. I’d love to spend my spring break with you.”
“What about the hospital?”
I shrugged. “I’ve been there for over eight months now. I’m entitled to a vacation.”
I didn’t share all my doubts with him. I could feel excitement building inside at the thought of an entire week away from school. Away from the hospital. Away from the constant demand for high performance, high ambitions, higher and higher achievements.
But I couldn’t really give it all up. The excitement dimmed a little knowing it would all be waiting for me the minute I got home again. I wasn’t ready to give up everything I’d worked for over the past years on a whim, but what did it say that I couldn’t stand the thought of coming back to real life when spring break ended?
“So you really want to come?”
I stared intently at him, searching for some sign he might regret extending the offer. “Jared, you invited me to tour with a rock band. What kind of girl would I be to say no? But if you’ve given it more thought and realized it isn’t a great idea, I won’t get my panties in a bunch.”
He leaned down and kissed me, long and hard and wet. His tongue swept across my lips, and I immediately opened to him. I moaned into his mouth as he shifted me up so our bodies were perfectly aligned and I could feel every rock solid inch of him.
He pulled back and stared into my eyes. “I haven’t changed my mind. But I do like your panties in a bunch. Bunched up on my floor after I strip them off you.”
I laughed and threw my arms around his neck.
“Well then, I guess I’m going on tour with Sliding Violet.”
Chapter Four
“I think that’s something worth celebrating.”
I shivered at the gravelly tone to his voice that I’d come to love over the last few months. I’d come to know it as his “let’s get naked now” voice. And I never got tired of hearing it.
But I couldn’t help but tease him just a little. “Celebrating sounds good. What do you recommend? A bottle of champagne? Maybe we can go out to dinner?”
I pressed my finger against my lips, pretending to be in deep thought over the matter.
Jared was having none of it. He sucked my earlobe into his mouth and gave me a little nip. “Later, baby. You can have anything you want. Now I just want you.”
All thoughts of teasing fled. His voice mingled with his warm breath and when it hit my ear, desire twisted through me, leaving me trembling slightly and unable to do anything but agree.
“Good plan,” I whispered.
He pulled back long enough to grin at me, and then claimed my lips once more. Before things got too heated, though, I remembered how I’d spent my day.
“Jared.”
He moved his mouth to my jaw, leaving damp kisses along the way. “What, baby?”
I pressed a hand against his chest. “Jared. We can’t do this.”
“Of course we can.” He breathed his words out against my neck and then he scraped his teeth along the tendon where my neck and shoulder met. He paused to look at me with another wicked grin. “If I remember correctly, we can do this really, really well.”
I rolled my eyes. “Since your memory only needs to travel back as far as this morning, I’d be super worried if you couldn’t remember. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
He pulled back further and sat back on his knees. “I’m sorry, Paige. Is this too much? Shit, you come here all upset and I attack you. It’s probably the last thing you need.”
A soft smile touched my lips and my heart might even have skipped a beat. If the rest of the world could see him like this, he’d never have a moment’s peace. The fans and paparazzi already stalked him wherever he went.
But lucky me, I was one of the few who got to see this sweetness that was such a big part of Jared Sloane. Not Jared Sloane the rock star. Just Jared, the caring and considerate man I’d come to know.
“It’s not that,” I said with a grin. “I was quite enjoying your attack.”
His lips twisted into a self-satisfied little smirk and he started to lean back into me.
“Not so fast.” I pressed my palm harder into his chest. “We can’t do this like this. I’m gross. I’m still wearing my scrubs from the hospital.”
The smirk turned into an all-out grin. “I kind of like the hospital scrubs. They make me all hot.”
“Yeah, well, you’d probably cool down pretty fast if you knew what I’d been up to in these scrubs all day.”
The smile fell from his face so fast I wanted to laugh. His eyes traveled down my length and I can only imagine what images he conjured up. Some of them were probably close to the truth.
“Okay, new plan,” he said. He grabbed my hand and tugged me from the bed.
“I thought that might cool you down.” My words came out on a giggle.
He gave me a look over his shoulder as he pulled me across the room, his eyes a dark, dark blue and intense. “Oh, I’m far from cooled down.”
I lost my smile and swallowed hard at the look in his eyes. He tugged me into the bathroom before I managed to get my scrambled thoughts together.
“Shower or bath?” he asked.
“Umm…what?”
“Simple question, baby. Shower or bath?” He raised his eyebrows and the smirk returned. “I figure if you’re feeling a little dirty, it’s my job to make sure you get clean.”
He leaned into me and his hands went to the hem of my green hospital scrubs. My lips parted and a rush of air escaped me, but I couldn’t seem to manage even a single word.
“Every inch of you,” he whispered as he slid my shirt up and over my head. He shifted closer and ran his nose down my cheek. “And then I’m going to get you dirty all over again.”
Slowly his words sank in as his hands skimmed down to the waist of my pants. The desire he’d ignited in the bedroom rekindled with a vengeance. A small smile played over my lips. “That sounds like the best idea you ever had.”
He grinned and tugged the drawstring at my waist before letting my pants drop to the floor. In seconds I was standing in front of him in nothing but the black panties I put on before I left this morning.
He ran his finger over the edge of lace. “I like these.”
I inhaled sharply as his fingers tickled me at the same time they sent waves of desire rolling over me. Contradictions.
“Bath.” I made a conscious effort not to sway on my feet.
“You sure?” He slid his fingers into the side of my panties and tugged them down until they hit the middle of my thighs. When he pulled his hand away they slid to my ankles and he held my hand to help me step out of them. “We have a little more room for maneuvering in the shower.”
I tipped my head forward until my forehead hit his shoulder. “After the day I’ve had, I can’t
think of anything I rather do than soak in a tub and let you have your way with me.”
His arms came around me and I reveled in the feel of my bare skin against his jean and t-shirt clad body.
“I think I can handle that,” he whispered into my ear. He cuddled me for a long moment before stepping back. “Allow me.”
He left me standing naked in the center of the bathroom to go turn on the taps in the oversized, sunken tub. He dug around on the counter and found some body wash, which he added to the water, pouring it in until big fizzy soap bubbles started to form on the top.
Jared came back to me and pulled me over to the tub, holding my hand as I stepped in and helping to ease me down into the steaming bubble bath.
“What about you?”
He stood over me with a small smile teasing the corner of his lips. He leaned down and planted a sweet, gentle kiss on my lips. “You enjoy the bath. I’ll join you in a few.”
“Hey, I think you got me here under false pretenses!” I pouted up at him.
He laughed. “I’ll be back to make good on my promises.”
“You better.”
I kept my eyes glued to his ass as he stepped out of the bathroom. I might have had a day from hell and an overload of grief to deal with, but I’d have to be dead not to take a moment to admire all the gifts God bestowed on Jared.
As the water level climbed higher, I reached over to twist the tap off. I sank back against the side of the tub until I was up to my neck in bubbles. I pulled in a deep breath and the scent of sandalwood filled my head, calming me for the first time in hours.
I hated to admit it, but a small part of me was happy to have this time alone to put myself back together. I raised a hand to work the elastic out of my hair, and a sigh of relief escaped me when my dark auburn hair tumbled down my shoulders, the ends floating on top of the water.
I tunneled my fingers through the hair at my temples, doing my best to work out the tension there. And then I leaned all the way back and closed my eyes and let my mind float.