Say You Need Me

by Carrie Lomax

  Sweet.

  He didn’t want to be sweet. He wanted to do all the things he’d done in that horrible video she’d watched, and make her love every second of it.

  Janelle wanted nice. This maddening, slow, sensual tease that left him breathless.

  Had he ever been innocent? In high school, maybe, before his entire world had collapsed, and he’d started tearing down the remaining structures of his middle-class, suburban life. Too long ago to remember. All his innocence had long since been wiped away by too much gambling and too many drugs. Whatever had been left had been ruined by Penelope.

  Kissing Janelle reminded him of liftoff.

  Taking flight meant crashing down. Wings were the province of angels and birds and insects, not men. He’d already learned the lesson. He didn’t need to retake the course.

  Trent pulled back and sucked in a breath. Slowly, the sounds of conference attendees talking as they shuffled into the main hall filtered into his brain. Sleeping fucking Beauty hadn’t been this dazed by a kiss. Trent shifted his weight back, uneasy.

  Cute little Janie had woken something buried deep inside him. He didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t care. He only wanted it to go away.

  Her eyes were bright beneath lowered lids. “Again. Your way, this time.”

  Everything in Trent’s body tightened at once. “Dirty.”

  Janelle nodded once. All blood flow directed itself to one uncomfortable, demanding place, a divining rod pointed at her. Helpless, he leaned back in, wrapped one arm around her waist, and shoved her hard against the ugly hotel wallpaper. Janelle’s lips parted in a gasp. He took full advantage, kissing her hard, all the while expecting her to resist.

  Instead, she parted her lips. Her tongue slipped over his, and Trent groaned.

  She was soft. So, so soft. He dug his fingers into the hair gathered at the base of her skull, tipping her face up for better access. His other hand slid from the curve of her waist to grab a palmful of her ass. Trent ground his hips against hers, letting her feel exactly how badly he wanted her.

  She whimpered, a little desperate sound that shredded his remaining self-control, and tilted her hips forward. With a final hard, openmouthed kiss, Trent pushed forcefully away. He adjusted his clothes to hide his raging arousal and peered into the hall. Only a few straggling conference attendees were left.

  “Let’s go.” His voice sounded rough, even to his own ears.

  She leaned there against the wall, her magnificent chest rising and falling erratically, her skirt hiked up and lipstick smudged. After a minute, she nodded. Her hands were unsteady as she straightened her skirt and closed the top button of the pink jacket.

  Trent wiped away any lipstick that had transferred to his face with the back of his hand and silently cursed himself. Sharing that tiny hotel room for the next couple of days was going to be impossible.

  * * *

  She shouldn’t have done it.

  Trent’s mouth had crashed down over hers, possessive but gentle, and sent her heart rate into overdrive. It made no sense. She’d lost her virginity to Ben, wanted to marry him. Yet her ex was a pale shadow compared to the neon pleasure that Trent sent cascading through her body.

  It had been a terrible idea. Crammed up against the wall, she could neither fight him off or squirm away easily. It should’ve made her afraid, being pinned against a wall in a deserted public hallway by a near-stranger. But all she’d felt was a lightning surge of excitement.

  Bravado leached out of her like color out of a dying coral reef. By the time he jammed the plastic key card into the slot on the room door, her armor was back in place.

  Mostly.

  “I'll take the couch,” Janelle announced, eager to paper over her massive fuckup.

  “You'll never fit.”

  “And you will? Besides, it’s your room. I'm the one crashing.”

  “We could share the bed.” Trent offered neutrally.

  Janelle gave him her best sardonic smile. “I'm sure that wouldn't be weird at all.”

  “The offer stands if you change your mind in the middle of the night.” Trent yawned and began to unbutton his shirt slowly. Janelle turned her back, but she caught a glimpse of him in the mirror again. He pretended not to notice until he had to unbuckle his belt to pull the hem out of his waistband. She paused midway through arranging sheets on the little sofa. Trent stopped what he was doing until she glanced up and their eyes met briefly in the mirror. She dropped her gaze instantly.

  The man had starred in a porn video, but it didn’t mean he was interested in screwing some random girl who’d barged in on his conference. How could she keep making so many stupid mistakes?

  A toxic knot of self-loathing lodged in her stomach. Keep your hands and lips to yourself. Shame wormed its way in, one more bad feeling to add to the mix.

  Janelle snatched up her bag and retreated stiffly into the bathroom. She had to say something. Clear the air. But words tumbled through her mind, incoherent and useless.

  She pulled on the only pajamas she’d brought. They were new, like several of the items she’d splurged on in a fit of optimism about this doomed venture. The white silk tank top and matching shorts were simultaneously too sexy and too sweet, a whisper-light fabric that left nothing to the imagination. There was no help for it. She exited the bathroom with a standoffish, “Your turn.”

  So much for clearing the air. Was there anything more to say?

  She collapsed onto the makeshift bed couch and clicked on the TV without looking at Trent. Dignity was hard to come by when you’d thrown yourself at a hot guy and had to sit on his couch with your nipples showing through your jammies. Another fail.

  She was so sick of failure.

  * * *

  Masturbating in the shower took the edge off the frustrating attraction Trent knew he couldn’t act on. He had to be better. She was in trouble, and he refused to take advantage. His job was to help her, not fuck her. Besides, she radiated embarrassment. He should find a way to let her know that she didn’t need to feel like that.

  Clean, he waltzed back out to the bed in nothing but his boxer briefs and a t-shirt. It was more clothing than he usually slept in, and she wasn’t any more modest. Janelle didn't look away from the TV. If he hadn’t already deflated, her lack of attention would've done the job in a far less pleasant way.

  “The Bachelorette?” he commented after a minute.

  “It's my favorite show, okay?”

  “This is trash.”

  Janelle turned and shot him a green glare that would’ve slayed a lesser being. “Says the man who starred in a porn video.”

  She turned back to the TV. Dismissed. Easiest way to win a fight: no matter what I’ve done or said, at least I didn’t film myself having sex with a porn actress. Argument over.

  Trent tried not to be depressed about it.

  The TV went to commercial. Janelle hit mute before turning to him. “I’m sorry. Low blow. I catch a lot of flak for my preferred entertainment.”

  Trent shifted on the bed. “It’s a fantasy. How come you like it so much?”

  “You answered your own question. I like it because it’s a fantasy. That’s the point.” Janelle settled back against the couch arm, her feet propped up on the opposite end, a thoughtful expression on her naked features. Warranted or not, it gave Trent the sense he was seeing the true side of her, not the armored version she presented to the world.

  He hadn’t been around women in a very long time. The Army didn’t encourage consorting with the comparatively few women who enlisted, and Afghan women had been strictly off-limits. “What’s the fantasy?”

  “The show is about men competing for a woman’s attention, instead of assuming they have it automatically. It’s the fantasy of having a selection of partners, instead of having to settle. I don’t expect you to understand this problem.”

  The show returned, and Janelle unmuted the TV.

  Someone had taken Janelle for granted. It had to be the
one partner. Trent couldn’t decide whether he wanted to punch the guy or thank him. Hurt him for causing Janelle pain, or slap him on the back for breaking her heart and leaving her for someone more deserving to find.

  Like you.

  Shut up, he told his heart. You’re the least deserving man on the planet.

  Deserving or not, if Janelle gave him another opening, Trent was taking it.

  “You’re a romantic,” he observed.

  “Absolutely and unapologetically. I like men who remember my mother’s and my sister’s birthdays and bring flowers on our anniversaries, even the silly ones nobody cares about but me. There must be a few out there. I only need to find one who loves me back.”

  That one is not you. Trent wasn’t stupid. He understood the substance of what she was saying: the kiss had been an experiment, a novelty. Nothing more. Don’t get any ideas. Understanding slashed through him, clean and cold and bloody.

  Janelle had poked and prodded—gotten under his skin all day—and the impulse to give back as good as he was getting elbowed out common sense. “You had your one. Your Prince Charming left you, didn’t he, princess?”

  The television blinked off. “Yes. He did. So, I need to find one more decent man.”

  Trent snorted dismissively, though her words carried an unexpected sting. “Says the woman who demanded to be kissed dirty.”

  “Good night, Mace.” The lamp winked out.

  * * *

  Jerk.

  I can’t believe he’d say it.

  Yes, she could. She hadn’t been very nice, either. Janelle lay still with her feet propped up on the end of the couch. Alyssa had once told her elevating that your feet above your heart made you feel calmer. It wasn’t working.

  Darkness, soupy with tension, pressed down on her body. Mace wasn’t asleep. She could hear his breathing, the sheets crinkling every time he moved beneath them.

  She shouldn’t ask. But questions had been bubbling away in her mind ever since her perfunctory background check. Night gave her cover to voice them.

  “If it was a sex tape, why are there credits and a cast listed?”

  “They were added later.”

  “Why?”

  A long silence stretched between them. She sensed him shifting a few feet away on the bed. Answer the damn question, Trent.

  “Penny was the one who wanted to make the tape. We’d been on the skids for a while. I wanted her to quit her job. She insisted it was only work, except when she was with me. Her star was rising, and she didn’t want to stop when she was starting to make real money, but I told her I wouldn’t share her anymore. We got back together because she’d promised to get out of acting.”

  Janelle nodded. He couldn’t have seen her, but he must’ve sensed her movement.

  “A week later, that video was everywhere. Not because anyone gave a shit that she was in it. Because I was. The youngest top-ranked pro poker player in history.”

  Janelle gasped. What a betrayal. And she’d played the video, or part of it, out loud. She’d forced him to relive an incredibly painful experience. Her very soul writhed at her thoughtlessness. Another fuck-up.

  Nothing she did was ever right. The earth should open up and swallow her before she bungled anything else.

  “I hired a lawyer and fought tooth and nail to get it taken down,” Trent continued after a long minute. “Spent a fortune on legal fees. Every time we got it taken down with a cease-and-desist letter, it would pop back up somewhere else. I tried appealing to US copyright law to prove I owned the video. I can tell you our legal system hasn’t evolved to cope with 21st century technology.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why there’s credits.” Janelle sat up, legs curled beneath her under the blanket.

  “I’m getting to it. Are you always this impatient?”

  “I like to get to the point.” She had to know, though she knew Trent owed her no explanation.

  “Penny leaked the tape because she needed money for drugs. She’d sold it to fund her new heroin habit. She wasn’t getting out of the adult business willingly. She’d been blacklisted for intravenous drug use.”

  Oh. My. God.

  “I kept trying to pull her out of that world. She was determined to drag me in deeper. That was the breaking point. Penny spiraled out of control fast after we broke up. She overdosed a few weeks later.”

  “Is she dead?” Janelle whispered, afraid to know the answer.

  Another weighty silence. “No. It would’ve been kinder.”

  Janelle was hyperaware of his stillness.

  “Penny suffered extensive brain damage from oxygen deprivation. She can walk, but her memory’s gone. She’ll never hold a job. She can’t live alone. She needs help with everything—cooking, bathing, paying bills. Hell, she can barely get up a flight of stairs on her own. That kind of care is expensive, and she’ll need it for the rest of her life. Someday the royalties from her acting career will dry up. I tried to win the money to pay for it at poker, but I was off my game, and I lost everything I had. All of it, except what was in the trust I couldn’t touch. So, I agreed to license the video on the condition if all revenues went into a trust for her.”

  The information smacked Janelle like a boxer’s glove. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Trent.”

  He was a damn hero. Her nose felt thick and her cheeks were hot. Janelle raised one hand. Her lashes were damp. And she’d been downright unkind to him this evening, feeling prickly with embarrassment and wounded pride.

  “Get some rest,” he replied.

  Though she couldn’t see him, the bedclothes shuffled as Trent turned away.

  Breathing hurt. Her lungs were being crushed. Janelle sipped air until the tightness in her chest eased. It didn’t matter that she’d met him barely twelve hours ago. She was halfway in love with Trent Mason.

  When you meet the right person, you know.

  She believed it. She always had. Trent was right to call her a romantic. As stupid, hopeless, and pointless as it was. She’d already blown her chance at a happy ending, and she no longer deserved love, success, or anything else good in life.

  7

  Trent kicked hard against the tangle of cloth imprisoning his legs. He rolled over, nearly fell out of bed and staggered to the bathroom. The door opened as his hand connected with the handle. Light stabbed him in the eyeballs. A female gasp.

  Janelle.

  Hotel.

  Shit.

  Pieces of dreams kaleidoscoped through his mind. Sex dreams. All. Damn. Night.

  Trent didn’t need to look down to know he had a raging case of morning wood. One glance at Janie’s shocked face and he followed the direction of her attention down to his extremely naked, erect cock.

  Weird. He hadn’t gone to bed naked.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, belatedly moving his hands to cover his genitals. Now that he was wide awake, a vague memory of tossing his restrictive boxer briefs across the room came back. Sure enough, they’d landed on the lamp and knocked the shade sideways.

  “Nothing I haven’t seen before,” Janelle replied coolly. Then she yanked on the hotel room door and let it slam closed behind her.

  Where’s she going? He was too late to form the question out loud.

  Trent took care of his bathroom business, retrieved his underwear from its perch on the light fixture and pulled on running clothes. For the next hour, he tried to outrun, out-lift, and otherwise exhaust his mortification and pent-up frustration.

  What she’d said bothered him. It shouldn’t. By this point, millions of strangers had seen his erect dick online. If he had any shame, he sure hadn’t demonstrated it with Penny. But it had been years since then, painful years of discipline and self-regulation, and Trent couldn’t help feeling he’d earned a modicum of privacy.

  It wasn’t as though he could do anything about the video, though. He’d signed his rights away long ago, against his lawyer’s advice.

  Sure, he’d done it to support his disabled,
drug-addicted adult film actress ex-girlfriend, but, regardless of his reasons, it was a lot of baggage to cart around. The few times he’d tried dating since his discharge from the Army, women had tried to speed past dinner straight to making him dessert. Those experiences had made him paranoid, and he couldn’t stop worrying about it.

  If he was going to replace memories of Penny with new ones, they had to be better than a mindless fuck with a near-stranger.

  There was also the not-small question of whether he could fuck sober. Whether it would be too intense—or worse, not intense enough. Better not to find out than to resign himself to a lifetime of longing for the sickening combination of cocaine and hardcore sex.

  Trent swiped his hand across his face and pushed harder, muscles straining against memories. His eyes stung with sweat.

  When he got back, wet with punishing exertion, Janie had showered and dressed, her long hair braided and sleek against her scalp. If she wore makeup, he couldn’t tell. She’d pulled on a short black skirt and a form-fitting pink tank top, over which she’d draped a loose cardigan like a shield. She’d tucked her leg under her body to slouch over his computer, but she straightened as soon as he came in.

  “I was looking for phone numbers in my email. Everything is in my phone.” Her posture radiated humility and discomfort, and she barely looked at him.

  “Go ahead and make calls while I clean up.” It was for the best. The sooner she called her parents, the sooner Trouble Tits would get out of his life. He stayed in the shower longer than necessary, trying to wash away the way the sting of disappointment. She was pretty and lively and full of attitude, and a large part of him wanted her to stick around. Specifically, the large part in his fist as he tugged one off. Pathetic. Penny would’ve teased him endlessly, if she’d known what he was reduced to.

  Janelle bounced up again when he came out of the bathroom, in wool suit pants and an undershirt. Saturday, the second day of the conference, was the main event. He had a full schedule.

  “I made coffee. Do you drink coffee? It’s not very good. I work in a coffee shop most mornings, before my job and on weekends. So, I’m opinionated about the quality. But I’m also a raging caffeine addict. I’ll drink anything.”