by L. A. Witt
“He’d be fine for a while, and then he’d start backsliding. Using a little here and there, staying fairly functional but slowly falling off the wagon. And then something would set him off. Usually… usually it was me.” My own words made me cringe. All this time, and the guilt still burned to the core. “I’d tell him I’d had enough and couldn’t keep watching him do this to himself, or we’d get into a massive fight about something, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting in an emergency room praying he’d make it through the night.”
Jordan swallowed hard.
I took a deep breath. “I’m not being dismissive of Daniel’s addiction, or of the relationship you guys have. I just don’t…”
His arms got a little tighter across his chest, and I swore I could hear walls going up and doors slamming shut. “You don’t, what?” The words came out as a low growl.
“I don’t want to see you get hurt the way I did.” It had never been so fucking difficult to keep from reaching for him, and I had to slide my hands into my pockets just to stop myself from bridging the gap between us. “You’re paying me to protect you. That’s all I’m trying to do.”
A million emotions flickered through his eyes. One instant, I expected him to lash out at me. The next, I thought he’d break down in tears.
Eventually, he rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, his shoulders sagging under an invisible weight. God, even before we’d slept together, when he was still the larger than life, out of my league Jordan Kane, I’d never felt more like my touch would be unwelcome. I was sure if I reached for him right then, he’d recoil.
“I’m sorry, Jordan.” It was all I could think to say. It sounded weak, and stupid, and completely wrong, but I meant it, and what else could I say?
“I can’t deal with this right now.” He dropped his hand to his side and met my eyes. “I just… everything is fucked up. Everything.”
I swallowed. “What do you need me to do?”
Anything but go. Please, Jordan. Anything but go.
Jordan pulled in a deep breath and lowered his gaze. “I need some time. Just, take a couple of weeks. Go on vacation.”
Jordan, don’t. Don’t do this…
I chewed my lip “When do you want me to come back?”
He didn’t answer.
I forced back the lump trying to rise in my throat. “Why don’t you call me when you do?”
Jordan didn’t look at me. He still didn’t say anything.
And I wondered if that call would ever come in.
* * *
The call did come in.
A week and a half later, while I was balls deep in a petite blonde, Jordan’s ringtone startled the fuck out of both of us.
The woman—I couldn’t remember her name and I didn’t think I’d even told her mine—glanced in the general direction of my phone. It was on the motel room floor somewhere with my pants. Way out of reach.
She looked up at me, forehead creased in an unspoken “are you going to answer that?”
So I fucked her harder. Hard enough to answer her question. And to drown out that familiar riff from my favorite No Rules song.
But… was everything okay?
Was he calling to fire me? To talk things over? Beg me to come back or tell me to go fuck myself?
The ringtone finally cut off. I buried my face in the woman’s neck and concentrated on fucking her. On making her whimper again. On the way her nails dragged over my back and shoulders, stinging the skin she’d already scratched all to hell.
And God damn him, Jordan left a message.
“Persistent, aren’t they?” she purred in my ear.
“Fuck ‘im,” I muttered, and kissed her.
With my cock deep inside her and my tongue tangled up with hers, I shouldn’t have even known Jordan existed, but that fucking beep kept nudging me. Reminding me. Pouring a little salt in the wound. What the hell did he want, damn it? Was this important? Job-related? Or did he just need someone to shove a cock up his ass and wrap an arm around his throat?
I broke the kiss and slid my arms under her, hooking one over her shoulder for leverage. With the other, I grasped her short hair—what little there was I could get a grip on—and pulled. She whimpered softly, tightening around my cock. Her nails raked up my back. Christ, she must’ve drawn blood that time. Gritting my teeth, I fucked her as hard as I could, silently begging the bed to creak and groan and stifle that goddamned beep before it drove me insane. I didn’t want to think about him. Not now. I just needed a night—another night—of meaningless sex with someone who didn’t know or care who I was, and I didn’t want to think about—
Daniel. Fuck. Had things gotten worse?
My rhythm faltered.
She met my eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I kissed her briefly. “Get on top.” For a split second, I thought she’d object to the gruff order, but she just grinned, and she barely gave me a chance to pull out before she shoved me onto my raw, scratched-to-hell back.
I was inside her again. She was moving. We were fucking and panting and clawing at each other, and good God, that thing she did with her hips was—
Beep-beep.
Damn it, Jordan. Fuck you. Seriously. Fuck. You.
The woman on top of me threw her head back and moaned. Her pussy was so tight, I could barely move inside her. God, she was hot. Fucking gorgeous. I slid my hands up her flat stomach to her breasts, and started to go higher. Her slender neck was so inviting, so—
Holy fuck. What am I doing?
Oh my God.
I went past her neck and into that short hair and dragged her down to kiss me again. I didn’t particularly like making out with strangers, but kissing meant not talking, and holding her like this meant not grabbing her throat, and between her breathing and mine, I almost didn’t hear that motherfucking beep again.
She rode me fast and hard, driving me fucking insane, but my heart wasn’t in it. With every creak of the bed and beep of my phone, my mind focused more and more on him instead of her. The man who held too much of me in the palm of his hand right now—my job, more feelings than I cared to admit, my goddamned sanity.
This was pointless. Every time I was almost there, or at least had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting off, my phone would beep. It was quiet, and muffled by my pants, and still managed to screech along the length of my spine and break my concentration just enough to kill my chance at coming. And every time I started that uphill climb again, focusing on her and on the release I was expected to have, I cared a little less about this. About any of it. I didn’t want to disappoint her or make her think she’d done anything wrong—my God, she’d done everything right—but even the body wasn’t all that willing anymore. Much more of this, and I probably wouldn’t even be able to keep it up.
So, I finally did the only thing I could think of:
I faked it.
I’d come enough times in my life to be convincing, and she didn’t seem to notice. And hell, she’d gotten off three times since we’d left the club, so what did she care if I really blew my load or not?
She lifted herself off me and dropped onto her side on the bed, grinning. I returned the grin, hoping it wasn’t as halfhearted as it felt, and kissed her lightly. “Be right back.”
“Mmm-kay.”
I got up and casually scooped my pants up off the floor on my way to the bathroom. After I’d peeled off the condom and dropped it into the trash, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and silenced that fucking voicemail beep.
As I washed my hands, I let the message play back, keeping the speakerphone quiet enough that only I could hear it.
“Hey, Jase, it’s Jordan. Give me a call.”
And that was it.
Except his voice didn’t sound good. He sounded… on edge. Unsteady.
Fuck. I wanted to call him back right then, but I wasn’t the only one in this room. Pants and phone still in hand, I left the bathroom.
She’d already g
otten up and was sorting through the clothes on the floor, picking up the bits and pieces of lingerie and a dress that had fit her just right. As she pulled her bra out from under my shirt, she glanced at me and smiled. “I hope you don’t mind me ducking out so soon. I, um…” She grinned sheepishly as she put on her bra. “Wasn’t expecting to be here so long.”
I laughed and started collecting my clothes. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Oh, it is.” She winked.
We dressed in silence. There was nothing awkward about it. We’d been matter-of-fact from the start—“I’m not looking for anything that goes beyond sunrise.” “There’s a cheap place down the street.”—and we’d both gotten what we’d come here to get. There would be no walk of shame from this room tonight.
She swore softly as she pulled up the zipper on the back of her dress. I gently nudged her hands away and drew it up the rest of the way.
“Thank you,” she said with a smile as she turned around. “I have a long drive tonight. I should go.”
I nodded. “Me too.”
“Thanks for a great evening.” Her smile said she meant it, and so did her long kiss.
And then she was gone. No phone numbers exchanged. No e-mails. No names. Exactly what I’d needed, and by every indication, exactly what she’d wanted. Perfect.
Alone in the room, I debated turning in the key versus just crashing here for the rest of the night. I was exhausted. Not from the sex, though. I hadn’t had a solid night of sleep in days. Ten of them, to be exact.
I looked at the phone I’d dropped on the rumpled bed. I needed to call him back. What had driven him to call me at—I glanced at the alarm clock we’d almost knocked off the nightstand—almost midnight?
In a minute. I needed to…I didn’t even know. Collect my thoughts. Think. Something.
So I left the phone on the bed and went into the bathroom to splash some water on my face. The shock of the cold woke me up a bit, and the coarse motel hand towel chewed at my skin as I dried off.
Then I put my hands on the sink and met my own eyes in the mirror. Staring at my reflection in this unfamiliar bathroom in this shithole motel, I let the guilt and shame sink in. Not because I’d had an anonymous one night stand, but because of what I’d allowed to drive me to this. Four nights in a row with women I didn’t even know? What the hell?
I wasn’t even that bisexual. Sure, I was into women, but men were definitely my thing. Ever since Jordan had dismissed me, I’d thrown myself into bed with anyone who’d give me the time of day. It had only been ten days, but… a man could do a lot in ten days. When I wasn’t wearing my no-longer-callused fingers to the bone on my guitar, I was out on the prowl because that was better than sitting at home and accidentally playing “Forth Into Light” or drinking until I couldn’t remember how to play it.
And in the beginning, after I’d left that hospital for an indefinite vacation, it had been just men, men who all had short hair that was as different as possible from Jordan’s. But after three nights in a row of “fuck, I’m sorry, this has never happened to me before” and “it’s been a long week, so I guess I’m just tired, but I’ll be happy to get you off,” I’d turned from short-haired men to even shorter-haired women, because at least with a woman, I could stop thinking about Jordan for a little while.
“Gotta find a high because being sober is too painful, eh?”
I shook my head and banished my ex’s mocking voice from my mind. Except he was right. Being in bed with a stranger was easier than being alone because being alone meant lying awake and thinking about Jordan. Jordan. Nothing but Jordan.
Cringing, I took my hands off the sink and rubbed them over my face, my skin cool from the porcelain. I was losing my mind. I missed Jordan, but it wasn’t even that I was devastated over him ending our relationship. I was, of course. I’d felt—I still felt—way more for him than I’d even realized until the moment he turned me away.
What killed me was the fact that when he’d needed me the most, I’d let him down. In the name of trying to save him from future pain, I’d kicked him hard while he was down with present pain.
“Hey, Jase, it’s Jordan. Give me a call.”
Was he hurting when he called? Or was I just reading more into it than I should have? Was he really indifferent? Maybe angry at me? Maybe still hurting because of me?
Only one way to find out.
Except if I called him, I ran the risk of just pouring out every thought and emotion that had kept me awake and sent me to strangers’ beds for the last ten days. I’m sorry and I miss you and I think I might love you and God, Jordan, I am so sorry and why were you calling me?
A text seemed like a safer, if infinitely more cowardly, approach.
Sorry I missed your call. What’s up?
The reply came quickly, and was simple and to the point:
Can you come back to work?
I wanted to come back to more than that, but it was a start. When?
A full minute passed. Then two.
Finally, 9am tomorrow.
Business as usual, apparently.
I’ll be there.
* * *
I pulled up the gate at the end of the driveway and keyed in the code. I’d only been here a few times—he’d been on the road almost constantly since he’d hired me—so it took two tries, but the gate finally opened.
The property was well outside the city, secluded up in the hills instead of in one of the lavish gated communities where most of LA’s rich and influential set up shop. There’d been some concerns about Jordan’s safety out here considering he’d had a few stalkers over the last couple of years, but he’d been satisfied having a bodyguard, aka me, whenever he left the house. So far, knock on wood, no one had disturbed him here.
At the end of the long driveway, I reached the house. It was on top of a hill overlooking a few smaller hills and the Pacific, the kind of view people killed for around here.
The house itself was nothing out of the ordinary for Southern California—Spanish style stucco, red tile roof, a few cacti alongside the steps leading up to the front door.
Technically, I had permission to key myself into the house, but I knocked anyway. Better safe than sorry until I knew for certain where I stood with Jordan.
Jordan’s housekeeper answered the door. “He’s out on the balcony.” She gestured at the stairs. “The upper one.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
I headed up the stairs, my skin crawling with nerves. At the top of the stairs, I walked through the living room, but paused there.
Four empty water bottles—three capped, one not—stood in a straight row on the coffee table. Another had fallen over onto a stack of papers. Yet another lay in the crevice between two cushions.
Jordan’s guitar lay across the couch like a passed out guest. Pages and pages of what I guessed were lyrics were strewn all over the table and cushions. Some were in neat stacks, others looked like a heavy wind had blown through the room. Crumpled balls of paper were everywhere. So were pen caps, though the pens themselves were lined up in a perfect row beside one of the neat stacks of paper.
Some of the lyrics were written in his usual angular handwriting—not exactly the type to win penmanship awards in school, but certainly legible and uniform. Others were scrawled with no regard for lines, consistency, legibility. It was like he’d written them in a manic state, his hand moving as fast as possible to keep up with the flood of thoughts trying to pour out of his mind.
I didn’t read any of the lyrics. Those were his and his alone until he decided to record them, and this was his house. What he left out wasn’t public property.
The state of the room, though, made me wonder about his state of mind.
On the way from the living room to the balcony, I walked faster this time, still nervous but almost frantic in my need to see him and make sure he was okay. Or close to okay. Alive and lucid at the very least.
As the housekeeper had said, Jordan was
out on the balcony. Another guitar leaned on one of the wrought iron patio chairs, and a handheld MP3 recorder acted as a paperweight for another tidy stack of papers. The crumpled balls on the table were at the mercy of the wind, and a few rolled around the balcony like letter sized tumbleweed.
Jordan’s back was to me. He stood by the railing, posture rigid and hair blowing in the wind.
I opened the door, and tapped on it with my knuckle. “Jordan?”
He stiffened at the sound of my voice, but didn’t turn around until I’d closed the door. Once it had, he faced me.
Christ. He looked like hell. He hadn’t shaved in a few days. Maybe not even since I last saw him. Thick stubble darkened his jaw and emphasized just how dark the circles under his eyes had gotten, and how much his cheeks had hollowed. Was that an illusion, or had he lost weight? It was hard to tell in the oversized T-shirt and workout pants. As if he could afford to lose more than a pound or two.
He glanced at his watch, which was a little loose on his wrist. “You’re early.”
“Early is on time,” I said, quoting my father.
He nodded. “I’m supposed to go—” He caught himself, and broke eye contact. “Visiting hours start at eleven. I… needed you to come with me. I mean, if you’re all right with—”
“Of course.”
He relaxed a little, as if relieved for permission to cease rambling and justifying why he’d brought me back.
“When do we leave?” I asked.
“In”—another glance at the watch—“half an hour.”
I hesitated for a moment, then asked, “How’s Daniel doing?”
Silence.
After a moment, Jordan pushed himself away from the railing and started toward me. My heart jumped into my throat. What was happ—
He walked past me, opened the door, and headed inside. Over his shoulder, he asked, “Coffee?”
“Sure. Thanks.” I gritted my teeth, but else what could I say? I followed him through the dining room and into the expansive kitchen. Neither of us said anything while he pulled some coffee out of a cabinet. He ground the beans and started the coffeemaker.