It wasn’t that. Well, it wasn’t only that. Going up to Becca’s apartment was a bad idea. He knew that on every level of comprehension he possessed. She was too tempting. They had too much history. The last thing he needed in his life right now was to heap her drama on top of his own.
But there was a cloud lined in silver hovering up those stairs—a cloud he might need to camp out under for a few weeks. He’d left Dana fuming and bloodied back at the club. Dana, the man he was staying with while he tried to figure out a more permanent solution to his financial problems. Dana, who’d punched a twenty-four-year-old woman in the face without so much as a twinge of conscience. The idea of crawling back to him and begging entry for the night wasn’t one he relished by any stretch of the imagination.
Becca had space. And money. And she was a hell of a lot of fun. If he was going to have to earn his living as a parasite, he couldn’t think of a better host to affix himself to.
“Sure thing, Tiger. I’ll come up.” He slid out of the car and extended a helping hand to extract his tipsy step-aunt, battling the somewhat new sensation of desire and guilt mixing in his gut.
She released a relieved sigh and looked up at him with such a pleased, beaming expression that the guilt took a clear lead in the stomach-churning department.
“Thanks, Jake. You’re the best.”
He wasn’t, and hearing such a compliment from her lips was almost enough to send him running back to Dana’s. But she was drunk and in pain, so he let that one slide.
* * *
Becca’s apartment was housed a few blocks outside Gramercy Park in a gaudy, garish building that towered over its more historic and brick-laced neighbors. She’d never loved the location—it was too staid for her tastes—but tonight, home had a welcome aura about it that made her happy to be somewhere familiar. And with someone familiar too. If anyone could frighten away the ghosts hiding in the corners, it was the devil himself.
She grabbed Jake’s arm more firmly and squeezed, allowing his careful pace to lead her into the elevator and up to her third-floor residence.
“Christ, Becca. Don’t you have a cleaner?”
She could see Jake’s fastidious nose moving up as they crossed the threshold into her mess of a home—though mess wasn’t quite fair. There wasn’t any dirt in the place, not unless you counted things like a few hairs in her brush in the middle of the living room floor or the speckled powder of her bronzer that had shattered all over the kitchen counter before she left. Or the piles of clothes that lay strewn about like party favors gone awry.
She was good at getting dressed, but like all things worth doing well, it was a process. And she was an Aries, who everyone knew couldn’t be bothered to clean up afterward.
“Of course I have a cleaner,” she said, and wound her arms around his neck, hoping to cajole him another one of those knee-knocking kisses. For all his faults, Jake had always been a good kisser. So precise and intent. “But she wasn’t here this evening when I was getting ready. She came in the morning.”
“You did this much damage in one day?” Jake didn’t seem to care that her lips were mere inches from his as his gaze skimmed over her apartment’s interior. Her home was Spartan as far as interior design went—mostly big white couch-like showpieces that looked more comfortable than they actually were and shiny, opaque tabletops that showcased every fingerprint. Her mother’s designer thought the minimalist setting and oversized furniture would set Becca off to advantage, as if she was a fairy Alice in her own private winter Wonderland. When she’d gotten the apartment for her eighteenth birthday present, she’d been photographed just like that for Centerpiece magazine. Sky-blue dress with a ruffled underskirt spread around her, her hair bound in a ribbon and a fluffy white rabbit in her lap. How precious.
“You’re a more destructive force than I realized.” Jake shrugged himself out of her embrace. “Is there a bed under one of these piles?”
Becca frowned. She’d thought that once Jake was up here, he’d be a little more amenable to seduction. She was warm. She was willing. And, oh, God, how she wanted to feel something right now. Anything. Having once enjoyed the pleasures this man offered, she knew the cathartic bliss of fifteen minutes under his care.
Heck—at this point, she’d take ten minutes. Five. A slap and a tickle before bed.
She sighed, resigned to none of the above.
“Good.” He placed a firm hand on the small of her back and pushed her toward her bedroom. “Go put on pajamas and get under the covers. I’ll bring you some water and an ice pack.”
“I don’t have any ice packs.” She wasn’t even sure she had water.
“Do you always argue when you’re drunk?”
“I’m not arguing.”
He didn’t deign to reply, but wandered off in the direction of the kitchen—the most likely holding place for water in its various forms. Left with the unpleasant task of holding her injured head up even though it felt as if it weighed three tons, she shuffled toward her bedroom, where the oversized white bed was decorated with about twenty throw pillows and at least as many discarded outfits.
She unzipped her dress and disentangled herself from the straps, allowing the garment to fall to the floor with a soft thump. Rooting around the piles for something appropriately pajama-like to wear was too monumental a hurdle to tackle, so she lifted the blankets at the foot of the bed and crawled inside, tunneling her way to the top.
The sound of Jake entering her room and looking for her among the piles was muffled but discernible, and she knew the exact moment he realized she was yet another bundle under the bundles.
“Drink,” he commanded, and a cup materialized at her head.
She sat up grudgingly, the blanket falling away.
“Christ.” Jake pulled back, his movements sharp. “I thought I told you to put on pajamas.”
His sudden movements caused a wave of water to splash over her neck and down her bare chest. She fought an urge to giggle at the horrified confusion that crossed Jake’s face. He had to have seen his fair share of naked breasts in his day, and discomfiting him with hers held a certain kind of charm—especially since she’d never considered them all that fantastic. They were on the small size, with too-big nipples that made wardrobe malfunctions a real threat when she wore something plunging, but they did the trick most of the time.
She drank. “They aren’t going to bite you.”
“Here.” He exchanged the water for a towel, which was wrapped around something lumpy and cold to the touch. “Slip that under your pillowcase while you sleep. It’ll melt, but it’s better than nothing. I’ll be in the guest room next door if you need me.”
“You’re not going to join me in this big cozy bed?”
“No, Becca. I’m not.” He dropped a gentle and uncharacteristic finger to her cheek. Jake had never been a touchy-feely man—at least, not unless the touching and feeling were directly related to sex or the pursuit thereof—so she appreciated the gesture. “You’ve had a rough night. Sleep it off.”
The mention of the evening’s preceding events moved through Becca’s head in a blur of images—all of them accompanied by a hollow, aching sensation that settled on her chest. She clutched his hand.
“Stay with me.” When she saw his frown, she spoke faster, almost frantic. “I’ll put on pajamas. I’ll put on six layers of pajamas and a parka. Just stay in the bed with me. Don’t leave me here by myself.”
Jake stared at her—at the decent and the indecent parts of her, at the disastrous explosion of crap that covered her bed, at the sloppily drunk mess she was sure her hair and makeup presented. She was hardly operating at her best here, but she brought her hands together in a clasp, her plea evident. Say yes. Please say yes.
Time had a way of losing meaning when a person had consumed as much alcohol as she had, and it seemed an eter
nity before he finally gave in. Heaving a sigh, he began tugging at the tie that pulled all the impeccable lines of his tailoring together.
“Sure thing, Tiger. If it’s that important.”
Her gratitude wasn’t so much a squeal as a long, thankful exhalation of air. She put on the T-shirt that he tossed over her head and laid herself gingerly on the icy cold pillow. It seemed ages before Jake finally joined her, his body long and warm and still fully clothed. The impression of his weight at her back brought a restful kind of comfort. She flopped to her other side and snuggled against him, placing her head on his chest, loving the steady, regular sound of his breathing.
Jake was unflappable and calm, even now. Nothing ruffled this man. Nothing upset his carefully ordered existence.
As he held her close and whispered a long-suffering “Good night” to the top of her hairline, she wondered what it must be like to live in a world like that. Where everything made sense. Where pain came in only when you allowed it.
Dreaming of that kind of existence was almost enough. As the deep reaches of sleep beckoned for the first time in what felt like forever, she was nearly able to banish the images that haunted her every time she closed her eyes, images so eerily close to the ones in the nightclub earlier.
In those images, she was still kneeling on top of a body, still frantically clawing and pushing to get a reaction. But instead of trying to take the life out of that rat bastard, Dana, she was trying to put life back into her best friend, Sara. Trying and striving and failing long after the paramedics pulled her away and ordered someone to tranq the bitch before she makes things worse.
Silly paramedics. As if things could ever get worse than that.
Chapter Four
Jake had woken up in many a strange place in his life—and with many a strange setting in the background. The sights and sounds of the surf in a Tahitian villa were by far his favorite. The bleating of goats outside a hotel room in Mexico fell at the other end of the spectrum, but that was part of a long story he didn’t care to repeat.
He wasn’t so sure he cared to repeat this one either. This was unquestionably the first time he’d ever heard “Eye of the Tiger” blasted at top volume while surrounded by a cloud of fluffy white bedding.
“What the hell—?” He rolled over and felt the friction of his fully clothed body rustling against the sheets as awareness of his surroundings dawned. The softly curled form pressed lengthwise against him brought understanding even more into focus, but he had yet to determine the source of the god-awful music or why the hell it was so loud. “Becca? Becca, wake up. Someone is trying to Rocky us out of bed.”
The pitch and frequency of her groan indicated just how intoxicated she’d been the night before—and it was much more than a woman of one hundred pounds should ever be. Her head was burrowed under about three pillows, but as the song slipped into a refrain, she poked one tentative side of her face out. “That’s Mean Max. I didn’t think he’d come today. Ignore him.”
Despite the fact that Jake made it a point never to ignore a man whose name was preceded by mean, he took a pillow from Becca and slammed it over his ears, hoping to drown out some of the noise. He thought it worked as the music came to a stop, but a heavy whirring took its place. It sounded as if someone had put nails in a blender.
He rolled over again, this time taking a moment to swing his feet to the floor. He wasn’t an early riser by any stretch of the imagination, but once he was up, he was up. Unlike Snoring Beauty over there, who seemed to have nodded back off to a happier, less hungover place.
His place was far from happy. His clothes were rumpled beyond recognition, and as he brushed a hand over his jaw, he felt a scratchy growth that reminded him all his belongings were still at Dana’s house.
“Out of bed, Becca,” a deep and annoyingly cheerful voice called through the flung-open French doors leading to her living room. “I warned you about over-intoxication and how hard it is to counteract the effects. Right now, your body is grieving for the damages you put it through. It has every right to be upset. Oh—hello. You have company.”
Jake didn’t move as the man referred to as Mean Max materialized in the doorway. There was no questioning whether or not the qualifier in front of his name was apt. He certainly looked mean. Big and mean, composed of layers of flesh that might taste good over an open spit. He was one of those men whose neck and head were virtually the same width, who couldn’t quite cross his arms all the way over his chest. A buzz cut and form-fitting athletic gear completed a look of bovine aggression, though he extended a glass of something murky and pink to take the edge off.
The man’s eyes took Jake in—wrinkled, frowning, possibly the least rested he’d ever been in his life—and shook the glass. “Your guest looks like he could use a little less intoxication himself. Have a sip and make sure Becca drinks the rest. We’re out the door in ten.”
“No, thanks.” Jake didn’t drink pink cocktails. Or take orders from men who seemed perilously close to overstepping their bounds.
Max shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He pressed the glass into Jake’s hand with a request for him to hold it, and marched up to Becca’s bed. With one firm tug, he sent the blankets and all the crap they’d been too tired to move off the bed last night flying. He also yanked on Becca’s ankle, expertly flipping her from her stomach to her back.
Jake released an almost unrecognizable growl at the familiar way Max took charge of Becca’s personal space. He didn’t know who this guy thought he was or what kind of arrangement he and Becca had, but he’d gone from perilously close to overstepping his bounds to plunging headfirst into Jake’s angry place.
Jake’s angry place wasn’t a pleasant place to be. He knew. He spent much more time there than any man should.
“Up and at ’em.” Max spoke in the same deep, cheerful tones as before, even as Jake neared his side, prepared to break the glass of pink crap in his face. Max didn’t even blink at him. “Step back, if you please. Seven o’clock is my time. You can have her when I’m done.”
“I beg your pardon?” Jake asked dangerously.
“Rebecca Louise Clare, you have exactly ten minutes to get out of bed, drink this protein shake and meet me out front in your running gear. Every minute late is an extra mile during warm-ups. Do you understand?”
Jake didn’t know about the groggy mess under the blankets, but he was certainly starting to. “Oh. You’re her personal trainer.”
“Of course.” Max’s gaze swiped over Jake, and it was clear from the way he shrugged at the end that he wasn’t impressed with what he saw. “You should call me. I could fill you out in no time.”
Jake gave in and laughed. As much as he’d like to have a reason to crack a glass over someone’s head, this fellow—barging in here as if he owned the place, daring to tackle the groaning, hot mess of a woman on the bed—wasn’t it. “Thanks, but I don’t take orders very well. And you look like a fan of the tough-love method.”
“That I am,” Max acknowledged with a nod. He slapped a hand on Becca’s bare thigh, the crack of his palm on flesh filling the air. “You’re down to nine minutes. I don’t think you want to push me today. You know I warned you about taking it easy on your liver. If you don’t learn to treat your body well, I’ll be forced to do it for you.”
She was closer to awake now, having twisted around enough to resemble a person sitting up. Her hair hung limp and crooked to one side, her eyes so smudged in black she might have been in stage costume. And the look of abject pleading in the doe-like eyes she turned Jake’s way was unmistakable.
Jake put his hands up. “I’m not saving you from this one. I didn’t hire the guy.”
“I’m really good,” Max said.
“He’s really good,” Becca echoed. Her voice was a mumble, but at least she rolled all the way out of bed. Although Jake had managed to get
her in a T-shirt the night before, he hadn’t been able to swing much else. Her legs emerged, lean and catlike, from the bottom of the hem, the shadow of her ass visible if he tilted his head just so.
He didn’t tilt his head again. Neither, he noticed, did the personal trainer.
He decided he liked the guy.
“Eight minutes.” Max made an obvious gesture at the stopwatch around his neck and left the bedroom, tactfully closing the door behind him.
“He sounds serious. Here.” Jake handed her the drink and she grimaced, plugged her nose and downed the whole thing in one gulp.
He did a little gulping of his own. Becca had amazing swallowing reflexes, and his body was eager to remind him that he’d spent the night next to her warm, willing and annoyingly clingy legs, which had wrapped around his own within seconds of her falling asleep last night. Imagining her as a pod person had only worked when he’d been able to maintain actual physical distance. For most of the night, he’d had to lie there and count sheep.
“What’s in the drink?” he asked, primarily to distract himself.
“As far as I can tell?” After discarding the glass on the nearest horizontal surface, Becca lifted her hair from the back of her neck and twisted it into a ponytail. The upward motion of her arms exposed the neat line of her bare cunt, but she continued unaware. Or uncaring. Probably both. “Voodoo. I’ve only ever seen him add about five raw eggs and a handful of strawberries, but if it doesn’t contain the menstrual blood of the Virgin Mary, I’d be shocked.”
“And you willingly put it in your mouth?”
Becca just laughed and continued tearing around her room. She located a pair of tiny Lycra shorts and wiggled into them while Jake remained in place, unable to tear his gaze from the squeeze and pull of her naked ass into the fabric. Whether being peeled on or peeled off, clothes and this woman clearly had a good working relationship.
“Don’t question the magic. Will you be here when I get back?”
When I Fall Page 4