by Lana Sky
When I had that inexplicable crush on my weird neighbor, I’d let him grind on me a little harder than necessary at the building Christmas party, just to reinforce that he wasn’t quite all that I’d pictured.
It was my version of licking the icing off the cake—just a taste to reinforce that the flavor wasn’t for me and calm my “sweet tooth.”
But I felt anything but calm as I ground my pelvis against Jason Daniels. I just tried to remember how to breathe.
It was too much. He was too much. Solid, unyielding…
The bastard didn’t even seem to react. I arched my hips, bracing both hands against the wall above his head. He was thick—I could tell that instinctively without even having to feel him for myself. Thick and so very, very hard.
Focus…Abby.
Fighting to suck in air, I managed to lean down, just enough to whisper into his ear while my hand drifted down to the pocket of his jeans.
“Thanks for the dinner invite, but I’ll have to take a rain check—indefinitely. Lose my number—” I gasped involuntarily, as he shifted and the harsh edge of the zipper crept a little too close to the danger zone. The raw sensation shouldn’t have felt hot, but it did. Suddenly, it was incredibly hard just to focus.
This wasn’t a lick of icing. I’d fallen face first into the whole damn cake. Still, somehow I managed to find enough sense to slip my fingers into his pocket, seize a bit of flimsy material, and yank.
“Don’t contact me again,” I choked while scrambling from his lap with my trophy in tow.
Standing on two shaky legs, my entire body quivered with vicious little aftershocks that continued to jolt through my skin, even without physical contact.
Jason just watched me while his fly hung open.
He didn’t speak, not a word, as I scrambled back—all while twirling a certain lacy thong around my finger before shoving it into the confines of my purse—and struggled to make my bad-ass exit without falling.
“Is everything all right, miss?”
Once again, I ignored the poor waitress who accosted me on my way out and put everything I had left into keeping my head held high.
The moment I reached the door, a vibration shot through my purse, resonating down my spine. Only I wasn’t brave enough to even look at my phone this time.
Chapter 6
I was in hiding.
For the first time in my entire life, I’d taken a sick day—three in a row¸ to be exact—under the pretense of a mysterious flu that made it impossible for me to leave my apartment. Most of the week passed with me hiding in my bedroom, catching up on work while watching reruns of The Daily Show from my bed.
Or at least, I tried to catch up on work.
My cell phone was the mother of all distractions. It taunted me from my dresser—even fully powered off and unable to receive any more mysterious pings. That fact shouldn’t have made me feel so anxious, so…unsteady.
As far as business was concerned, the phone wasn’t even necessary, though the lack of it did force me to resort to corresponding with Bret via email, much to his annoyance if the insults he used to address each message were any indicator.
Apart from him, Perry was right down the hall, and it wasn’t like I had any normal friends who messaged me regularly. Yes, I thought, taking in a deep breath as my fingers grazed the keys of my laptop. I could survive a few days without a cell phone.
Or…basic human companionship.
You’re slipping girl, I told myself as I scanned my work-related emails, desperate for a new client inquiry or assignment. God, please send me a man with a rap sheet. Someone bad, preferably a rock star—anyone whose name wasn’t Jason Daniels.
But apart from a nasty reminder from Bret that my “flu” better clear up by tomorrow or I was fired, my inbox was devoid of any new requests for representation. Great.
With a sigh, I closed my laptop and flopped back against my headboard. Aimlessly, I fumbled for the remote and raised the volume on the television, hoping that the sounds of laughter from the studio audience might drown out the thoughts circling my head.
He’s got you running scared, Abby, a part of me whispered above the comedic satire. Call yourself Cat Woman, because you’ve got a tail, and it’s tucked right between your legs.
I frowned, dragging my hand through my hair as I wondered if anyone had ever affected me like this. To the point where I was a virtual prisoner in my own apartment, afraid to even power on my own cell phone. Afraid to sleep, in case my devious mind might decide to play out the rest of that little power play in Motilda.
It didn’t take long to come up with an answer: no.
Jason Daniels was the only man who’d ever had me running scared—because that was exactly what I was doing.
Suck it up, I told myself firmly. Put your big-girl panties on.
The thought had my eyes drifting over to my dresser, where said panties had been shoved to the very back of a drawer, never to see the light of day again. After that little incident in Motilda, I was prepared to go commando for the rest of my life, thereby eliminating the temptation to ever mail my panties to an asshole ever again.
Or text said asshole and his mysterious unblocked numbers.
I fidgeted, chewing on my lower lip as my attention focused less and less on the rerun playing on the television and more on the small, metallic square resting on my dresser.
Just a peek couldn’t hurt, I told myself. The message probably hadn’t even been from Jason. I bet Perry or Bret had sent it—though neither had mentioned as much. Rather than argue that logic, I shifted and drew my knees up to my chest, all while my toes toyed with the satiny surface of my duvet.
“Oh, to hell with it.”
In two seconds, I had rolled from the mattress and crossed the room. I snatched the phone from the dresser and struck the button to power it on before I could lose the nerve. Not long after, the home screen appeared, along with not one but two messages—both from the same number.
The first was from Saturday afternoon. The second had been sent yesterday evening, around the same time I’d scarfed down leftover Chinese out of a carton while placating my wounded pride with a Golden Girls marathon.
I’d love to see you again, Ms. Newman, read the first.
Then, have dinner with me.
They were both so simple, so seemingly harmless—and so damn anticlimactic—that I had to fight down the urge to bash my head against the wall.
My first instinct was to just ignore the messages. As far as I was concerned, Jason Daniels had never existed. I had every intention of forgetting him.
But then Perry knocked on my door, pushing it open before I could respond.
“Are you mad at me?” He was wearing a fluorescent shirt so bright that I had to blink a few times just to focus. His dark hair was neatly tousled, and he displayed his trademark “woe is me” expression to its full pathetic effect. “You’ve been home for three days. I thought you were dead this morning until I heard you in the bathroom.”
I shrugged and surreptitiously reached for my laptop. “I’m…I’m just catching up on work—”
“Bullshit, Abby,” he snapped. “You haven’t missed a day of work since the days when we used to work that ice-cream stand in high school. Is this all because I gave your number to Hottie McCowboy?”
I could never lie to Perry—the bastard was so intuitive that I sometimes suspected that he might be psychic. Instead, I did the next best thing and raised my laptop screen, shielding my face behind it.
“I’m not mad at you, Per.”
It was the truth.
Regardless, I could sense Perry staring with one eyebrow skeptically raised. I fired up the internet rather than face him and tried to distract myself by scanning the news.
Bad idea. Right there, on the front page, was a colorful headshot of none other than Jason Daniels. It must have been taken at his concert. He appeared perfect and confident beneath the glow of the stage lights, and I couldn’t help but remember j
ust how much better he had looked in person.
Something in my body language must have changed, because Perry came forward, and I exited out of that page so quickly, I thought sparks of friction might shoot up from the keyboard.
Rather than berate me with more nosy questions, Perry merely sat something down on my bed—a small, clear plastic case with a CD inside and a piece of tape on the front reading “Demo” in sloppy script.
“This came for you.”
I stiffened. Words could not explain just how badly I wanted to bolt from my bed and race out of the room right then and there. My apartment. The entire damn building.
It was such a crazy, unrealistically Abby response that I snatched the case from the mattress rather than give into it.
You can do this.
The object felt surprisingly light in my hands and oh-so dangerous. There was only one person in the world who might shove a CD onto my doorstep, other than Bret, and this CD wasn’t labeled “security footage” or “evidence”—both handy in my line of work.
“I don’t take unsolicited mail,” was all I could manage to croak at Perry.
I saw him shrug from the corner of my eye. “Wasn’t unsolicited. A certain redhead dropped it off.”
I mulled over whether or not to toss it anyway. Just dump the disc in the trash. Ignore the texts. Go back to the office and carry on with my life, while Jason Daniels eventually moved on to the next stop in his tour.
There was no way in hell that I would listen to his music again.
No way would I ever humor him by playing our riveting little game of phone tag again.
I wouldn’t see him again.
My grip tightened over the disc. With the right amount of pressure, I could snap it in half.
I shouldn’t have pressed the button to trigger the disc drive in my laptop.
I shouldn’t have placed his stupid demo inside it and waited for it to play.
I shouldn’t have listened.
Call it a cry for help,
But it’s the only help I want
Straight to the vein,
Sink into a place where I don’t know pain
Where the needle is sharp and reality fades,
And I lose myself again
I laid breathless on my bed while the last refrain of Jason’s final song drifted through the speakers of my laptop.
I must have listened to the CD five times, but every time, the lyrics felt just as raw. Visceral.
Something about his music took hold of someone and held tight—whether they wanted it to or not. Damn, the man seemed to sing into my very soul. I hated that. Hated the way his voice scraped those deep inner parts of me no one had ever seen let alone touched. By my sixth listen, I figured that I had no choice but to snatch my cell phone from the bed and shakily dial.
He picked up on the first ring. Almost as if he had been sitting there, expecting my call.
“Abigail.”
No hello. No false greetings. Just my name spoken in a husky baritone that set my whole entire body on fire.
I had to force down a swallow just to find the strength to reply.
“I-I…we need to talk—about business,” I insisted. It was time to stop beating around the bush. “Blue” had been incredible, but this…
This was the type of talent that the businesswoman in me couldn’t ignore.
“Good,” Jason replied, as if my sudden about-face was the most natural thing in the world. “Just in time. I’m already outside.”
The dark paneled walls of the café created a confined, sophisticated atmosphere that I hoped reinforced the fact that this was only about business. I felt totally in control as I cradled a warm mug of coffee between my hands and took a steadying sip, while eyeing the man across from me with what I prayed was a stern expression.
Yeah, right.
Jason met my gaze—but for once the fire in those eyes was absent, leaving them a flat shade of navy. I wasn’t sure if the lack of spark was a good or bad thing.
Good for business, a part of me agreed. But bad for…
I shook my head rather than consider just what.
He had picked me up, conceding the choice of a meeting spot to me, and I had made sure to choose the least intimate venue possible. Unlike the secluded, sexy interior of Motilda, this downtown coffee shop was cluttered with a bunch of high-strung, laptop-perusing college students who glared at anyone who dared speak louder than a whisper.
It irritated the hell out of me that I felt so secure with several eyes around to witness any indecent interludes. I had never needed that kind of reassurance with any man.
Ever.
“You listened to the demo?” Jason spoke after we had both been served steaming mugs of coffee—mine blacker than coal. The words broke the silence that had lasted since the moment he had picked me up from the front of my apartment building.
I nodded slowly. “I did.”
“And?”
I heaved out a heavy sigh. Well, here goes nothing…
“I want to represent you,” I admitted. “Your album, I think it has…potential.”
I had to choke down a sip of coffee just to swallow those words, along with a bit of my cherished pride. Dear Lord. Five minutes and already the man had me uneasy.
My stomach was twisted into a million tiny knots. I couldn’t meet his gaze, so I stared down at the crisp collar of his blue shirt, which he had paired with another pair of worn jeans. The soft indigo set off his eyes and highlighted the slight tan to his skin. He looked casual and confident and comfortable.
I, on the other hand, felt completely out of my element.
Rather than be caught off guard again, I had worn a black sweater and a pair of red pants—sacrificing confidence for security. The sweater was skin tight but with a neckline well above the line of my cleavage. I was less likely to make a complete ass of myself, but, in the process, I felt like an assassin without her trusty arsenal of weapons.
How was I supposed to carry on a conversation with the opposite sex without a flash of boobs or upper thigh when I needed the upper hand?
“Glad to hear that,” Jason replied gruffly, snapping me back to the present. His gaze seemed to search mine for a long, tense second. “What made you change your mind?”
Your voice.
My own stupidity.
I heard pieces of myself in your music.
Are you part siren?
A million possible responses marched through my veins, but in the end, I could only settle on one. “I’m a woman. Aren’t I allowed to have a change of heart?”
His mouth didn’t even twitch into the semblance of a smile, and I don’t know why that made me so wary. My pulse fluttered erratically in my throat, as I mentally compared the man sitting across from me to the one I had straddled in the secluded booth of a high-end restaurant.
His face seemed drawn, expression stony.
Gone was the smug confidence, that unnerving spark. I couldn’t name the emotion that haunted those dark eyes in its place, but I sensed that his reaction to me might have had something to do with our last debacle of a meeting.
“Have you changed your mind?” I demanded, surprised by the hoarse note in my voice. That wasn’t hurt, was it?
He shook his head, cutting off the strange emotion before it could fully bloom. “No, I haven’t.”
He reached into his pocket and slapped something down onto the table: a familiar set of proposal documents.
“Sign them.”
I didn’t like the authoritative note in his voice, but I took the pen he offered. After casting the papers a customary glance, I scribbled my name on the dotted line.
“Fine. Now what?”
Impatience prickled from Jason like electricity as he folded up the documents and tucked them back within his pocket. Then, without a word, he pushed back from the table and stood.
“Then, we’re done with business, Ms. Newman.”
“W-What?” I could only stare after him as
he threw a twenty onto the table and then headed across the café.
I had no choice but to follow, seeing as how he had given me a ride.
“Wait! What the hell?”
Hipster techies turned to glare at me from over the lids of their Macbook laptops. I was violating their inner caffeine sanctum by shouting and making a scene.
Not that I really gave a damn.
“Hey!”
Jason exited the cafe without so much as a backwards glance, and real anger churned through my system, replacing the confusion.
I wielded my stilettos like a weapon, using them to navigate my way through a maze of wooden tables and march after him like a devil on points rather than hooves.
So he thought that after two months of pursuing me, he could just clam up the moment I finally accepted his offer? Well then he had another damn thing coming.
“Hey!”
I ran. A young mother, holding the hand of her daughter, looked bewildered as I brushed past them, but I was too busy choking down curse words to even mutter an apology.
Jason was halfway down the block, close to where he had parked his truck. My gaze narrowed, honing in on him like a shark on prey.
“Hey!” I sprinted, coming close enough to brush his broad back with the tips of my fingers. “What the hell is your problem?”
I reached out—internally gulping at the coiled muscle I could feel catch beneath my nail—and tugged on a handful of blue cotton.
All at once, Jason whirled around to face me.
His hands caught my shoulders, shoving me back into the wall of the nearest building. I couldn’t react, couldn’t blink, before he was pressed against me.
Sinful. Hot. Hard. A list of adjectives to describe him raced across my mind as he leaned into me, chest for chest, thigh for thigh.
Warm breath fanned my throat.
Calloused fingers clenched my waist, urging me into him, even as his upper body pinned me flat against the wall. I had no choice but to clutch at his forearms, grappling for stability.
I supposed it wasn’t that much of a shock when he kissed me. The intent was written clear in those molten navy eyes, burning so brightly it almost hurt to meet them straight on. The warmth of his mouth was a surprise; the softness of his lips was even more shocking.