by Stacey Lynn
Dean’s hand tightened on my shoulder and he pulled me closer to him. And when he did, I watched Jack’s lips pull together and his eyes darken. He noticed the gesture, even from the distance and I almost wondered if steam was going to come out of his nose he looked so angry. Like a bull ready to charge the matador, and Dean was the red cape.
I smirked at him and then turned around and back into Dean’s embrace just as Macy and Tate joined our table.
“You two look cozy,” Macy sang teasingly as I sipped my drink.
“Jack’s here. Dean’s trying to make him jealous on my behalf, and before your head spins around; he’s behind us.”
“You trying to get your ass kicked like Marcus did?” Tate asked.
Dean smiled and kissed the top of my head. “Nah. Just thought I’d help her out. And if it has the added bonus of making the Jack McMillan feel like shit,” he shrugged and continued, “I’m all for it, man.”
“Your funeral.” He set down his beer and grabbed Macy’s hand, an unspoken invitation to get back out on the dance floor apparently. Macy clearly understood because she giggled like we were twelve and let Tate lead the way.
“They’re good together,” Dean observed once they walked away. “You know he asked me to be his best man?”
“You going to walk down the aisle with me, then?” I asked while wiggling my eyebrows.
“The fuck he is.” A very familiar, and completely pissed off Jack spoke from right behind me.
I turned to Dean, momentarily widening my eyes, and saw his twinkling with mischief. I loved that he was willing to play this game for me. But Tate was right, we took it too far and Dean could possibly die.
At the very least, be incapacitated for a while.
Neither option sounded good to me so I slowly turned to Jack, while allowing Dean to wrap his arms around me just a little bit tighter.
“You need to leave.” Jack bit it out as a command and I instantly felt my heels dig into the floor. I took a deep breath trying to calm myself down because when Jack was in front of me, even when I wanted to be pissed at him for hurting me, all I could think was how sexy he was and how much I loved him.
It made me feel all sorts of warm and tingly all over as his eyes roamed up and down my body, taking in every inch of my high heeled brown leather boots, short frayed denim skirt and tightly fitted one shoulder tank top.
Seeing Jack’s eyes fill with lust as he finally reached my long curly locks that fell down over my breasts and then my eyes…made me so glad I was dressed the way I was. I could practically see him thinking of all the things he wanted to do to me in those boots and my lower stomach warmed. My legs pressed together, not even remembering that Dean’s hand was still wrapped around me and he could feel it.
“Calm down,” he whispered into my ear and I felt my cheeks turn pink from embarrassment.
“You need to leave. Now,” Jack repeated.
I smiled and turned my head toward the stage. It went against every instinct I had in me to play this Dean’s way. I wanted to curl up against Jack. I wanted to breathe him in, touch the ripples of his chest and feel him move against me. Instead, I forced myself to lean back to Dean.
And then I shook my head. “No. I like this band.”
Jack’s fist clenched and I saw the tendon in his neck pop out a little bit. I bit my lip to keep from my smiling when I saw his eyes flash a feral anger in Dean’s direction who, if I was correct, had stiffened slightly under Jack’s furious gaze. His eyes held a realm of fury I had never seen before and never knew existed.
A lesser man would have shrunk back, or run away, under that kind of stare. I watched Jack glare at Dean for several minutes, and I swore, even though the music was loud, that a low growl actually escaped his lips.
It was then that Dean leaned towards my ear and whispered, “I’m going to go before we push this too far and he kills me. Plus, I think you’ve proven your point.”
“I’ll give you two a few minutes,” he said, nodded at Jack before heading out to the dance floor with Macy and Tate.
TWENTY-FOUR
After what seemed like an eternity of Jack and I glaring at each other, he finally spoke first. “You trying to make me jealous?”
He crossed his arms and arched an eyebrow.
I wanted to smack him, and then I wanted to lick him. His neck, his jawline, all the way back to the sensitive part behind his ear that I knew drove him absolutely wild, because hot damn Jack was just the sexiest man I had ever seen or touched. And even angry at me, or me angry at him – and I still was – he was just perfection wrapped up in an even prettier package. Instead, I smiled sweetly, hiding every annoyance and sexually frustrated feeling. “I already told you. I like this band.”
“And Dean?”
God I hated that he couldn’t tell me what was really going on. I hated that he didn’t trust me enough to let me in. But I really enjoyed getting even, even if it was originally unintentional, by playing coy and letting him seethe in jealousy. Immature? Maybe. Deserved? Definitely.
I just turned my head and smiled at Dean on the dance floor. That boy could move, and for the second time that night, I knew Dean was going to make some woman incredibly happy one day. If he could move his hips like that on the dance floor, I could only imagine how he moved them in bed.
“It’s really none of your business anymore, is it Jack?”
“Damn it, Emma.” He took one more step closer to me, closing the space between us and whispered more harshly into my ear. “Have you stopped for one fucking second to think that I’m doing all of this to keep my promise to you? Don’t show up here, in a hotel and bar I own, with some other guy’s hands all over you and pull this game with me.”
I exhaled slowly.
“What promise, Jack? The one where you promised you’d fuck up? Because there were a lot of promises you made to me so you might have to be just a bit more specific.”
“The one where I promised I would keep you safe from all of the Senator’s bullshit because you’re mine and I will protect it at all cost, but you have to put a little bit of trust in me.”
“You fired me!” I hissed back at him. “And you’ve shut me out. If you want to protect me, then tell me what’s going on.”
In one quick second, Jack’s arm wrapped around my waist and I was pressed against his chest. We were both panting heavily, our chests rising and falling at an incredible pace and all I could think about was how amazing he smelled. His cologne mixed with just….him.
I breathed in heavily, and allowed my forehead to rest against his chest and relax. In that one second, everything was perfect all over again. The lyrics in the background, the only other sound I heard above our beating our hearts.
You can run away, but you can’t hide
You duck and dodge, keep it all inside
With a whisper, a wink, a spin of the wheel
At the end of it all, it’s no big deal
Only love is real
Only love is real
I just wanted Jack to let me inside, and to realize that all I needed was his love. But then he did, and I wanted to vomit.
I felt Jack inhale a large breath and then his free hand brushed my loose curls behind my ear. “He has pictures and a video…of us.”
Holy shit! My head snapped up and met Jack’s eyes. All the color drained from my face as I stared at him wide eyed. “What do you mean?”
With his eyes closed, Jack’s face scrunched up in a look of disgust. “Remember that night on the roof?” He choked the words out and I knew instantly what night….and what roof he was talking about.
“How?” My own voice sounded scratchy and barely audible. Oh my god. How in the hell could he have pictures of that night?
“It’s all I can tell you, but just fucking trust me that I’m handling this in the only way I can. And the only way that will keep you, and Logan, safe.”
“Brian?” I asked, even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know anymore.
I let that sink in for a few minutes before I slowly pulled away. I reached up slowly, to feel Jack but at the last second he took a step away and glanced around. Slowly the pieces were beginning to click together. He really had done all of this to protect me.
With a safe amount of distance between us, Jack pulled his hands from me and placed them in his pockets. He rolled his shoulders back and erased his emotions, business look finally stamped back in place. But his eyes told another story. I saw the passion and desire he still had for me.
“What I need you to do is stay away from any place that can be connected to me. You can’t come to my place again, or any club or building with McMillan involved. And I need you to stop letting other men paw all over you before I end up screwing up everything I’ve just put weeks into. You got me?”
Slowly, I nodded. I hated it, but I got him.
A slight smirk of his lips was the only indication he gave me that he saw me. Then he turned toward the dance floor, found Dean, and nodded his head in my direction.
“Everything okay?” Dean asked cautiously when he approached us and slowly went to put his hand on my shoulder.
He stopped, wisely, when Jack took another step forward and moved his hands from his pockets.
With the same feral look he gave Dean earlier, he unleashed it again as he spoke deeply. “I’m going to forgive you for touching Emma earlier because she didn’t know what the hell was going on.” Quickly, his eyes went to mine before he looked back to Dean. “But now she knows enough to know that I’m serious as hell when I tell you that if I see your fucking hands on her again, or your lips anywhere near any part of anything that belongs to me, you will regret it every day for the rest of your very short and very painful existence.”
Dean very quickly pocketed his hands in his jeans and rocked back on his heels. “Understood.”
I bit back a laugh.
Jack’s eyes came back to me, and while he was still distant, they were at least slightly softer when he glanced at my mouth before moving up to my eyes.
He smiled lightly. “I need you to tap your shit down and trust me. And trust that this will be over soon and I’ll explain the rest.”
“Okay, Jack.”
“Good.” He looked to Dean with a visibly pained expression. “Get her home. And keep her safe.”
As we walked away, I heard Jack shout, “And keep your hands off her.”
I laughed and from behind me, I knew Dean was doing the same. “He’s an intense asshole, isn’t he?”
He really had no idea.
“Sorry!” Logan shouted with glee as he picked his card from the top of the pile. We were in the middle of our fifth and never-ending game of Sorry!.
I moaned into my hands and cried out, “You’re killing me kiddo!” He really was. How a five year old could kick my ass in Sorry! I had no idea. But he did, almost every single time. Currently he had three of his blue guys at home, while I had all four of mine – make that three, now, spread throughout the board.
My phone rang on the kitchen counter, but I ignored it. I hadn’t spent nearly as much time with Logan as I was used to. With him spending more time with Marcus and having sleepovers, I was missing my favorite little man.
Logan simply laughed and filled his mouth with a handful of popcorn, half of which ended up in his lap and on the floor, while he moved his last piece from Start and kicked my red little piece back to home.
“You know, buddy,” I said teasingly while wiggling my eyebrows. “Someday you’re going to beat me so bad, I’m not going to play anymore.
It was a lie and he totally knew it. Smart little kid that he was.
He shrugged a shoulder and wrinkled his nose, a move so similar to Marcus that it now made me smile. It really was amazing how much of a mirror image he was to his dad. “Dad will play.”
“Ouch!” I said and reached across the coffee table, tickling him.
I don’t know what brought on the feeling, but suddenly as we were laughing and rolling over the floor, a tingle went down my spine and my head snapped up.
And my jaw dropped at what I was seeing on the television.
Oh my god. Marcus was right. Shit was about to get fun, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
Completely forgetting about Logan or the game we were playing, I sat back down on the couch, vaguely heard my phone ringing on the kitchen counter again, and turned up the volume so I could hear what was going on.
I had the television muted while Logan was awake, but I had to hear this.
Because on the screen, on a stage in what looked like a press conference, was Senator Whitmore, and behind him, Marcus. He looked grim and all sorts of pissed off as he stood still as a statue with his shoulders tense and hands shoved into his pockets. A scowl on his face showed he was not happy with whatever the hell was going on.
As soon as the volume was high enough to hear, Logan turned to the TV.
“Hey, that’s daddy!”
“I know buddy,” I shushed him, rudely, but was too enraptured in the scene taking place to apologize. “Go put your pajamas on, Logan.”
“But mom!” he whined, as soon as I heard something that surely couldn’t have been anything about leaving office come out of the Senator’s mouth.
Oh my…..shit.
“Now, Logan.” I shot him my most serious don’t-mess-with-me look and turned back to the screen as he walked down the hall.
It was just in time to hear the Senator’s closing remarks. “I ask that you respect my family’s privacy as we get used to finding our new normal outside of our public office. To my constituents and the voters and others who have supported me for the last twenty five years while I’ve been in office, thank you for helping me make Illinois the great state it is today.”
He closed his eyes briefly before turning his head to Marcus. He nodded once while Marcus stayed as still as he had been the entire time. Had I not known that they didn’t have any sort of relationship to speak of, it would have looked almost resigned, and like a father needing comfort and support from his son.
Instead, he looked defeated, and as the Senator’s – or now former Senator’s jaw tightened – I saw the briefest flash of anger and malice he shot towards Marcus. Whose expression didn’t change. Not one single bit.
Marcus may have refused a relationship with his dad, but damn, in that second, I knew how much he had learned growing up a Whitmore and I thanked God that he wasn’t the man his father wanted him to be.
But that realization and thankfulness did nothing to stop the sudden rampage of questions flooding my mind. What in the hell did Jack get on the Senator, that was powerful enough to not only stop the photos of me and him from being released, but caused him to step down from his beloved throne of power midterm?
I was still sitting there, watching the newscasters and political analysts discussing Senator Whitmore’s decision to step down when Logan came out dressed in his pajamas.
“Why was daddy on TV?” he asked, rubbing his eyes and trying to stifle a yawn.
“He was just working, honey.” I scooped Logan up in my arms just as my phone began ringing again. I stopped in the kitchen to see Macy calling.
Assuming she had seen what was on TV as well, I decided to ignore her call until Logan was in bed. I was going to need wine, or something stronger, to talk to her about this.
Senator Whitmore stepping down from his Senate seat, but I didn’t know why. This was huge.
Would this fix things between Jack and I? Did I want it to? Of course I wanted Jack back. But did he have to end a man’s – granted, an asshole of a man – career in order for that to happen between us? Was I worth that?
Shaking the thoughts from my mind, I leaned down and gave Logan a kiss on his temple.
“Come on, buddy. Bedtime.”
“Can I call daddy and tell him I saw him on TV?” He asked with wide-eyed wonder.
Shaking my head again, I carried him down the hall. “He’s busy working. We’ll call him tomorrow. Okay?”
He wrinkled his nose and I pretended to bite it off, causing all sorts of laughter. “Fine.”
“You talk to Marcus, yet?” Macy asked after our initial ‘what-in-the-fuck-did-we-just-we-see’ conversation starters were completed.
I ran a hand through my hair and then took a sip of my wine. Straight from the bottle again. Why dirty a glass when you don’t have to?
“No. Although I thought of calling him.”
“What about Jack?”
“I haven’t heard from him.” I said with a bit sharper tone than I intended. Thankfully, Macy loved me enough to let my slight bitchiness slide.
“I can’t believe Marcus was on stage looking pissed as all get out. It has to have something to do with Jack. Why else would he be standing up there with his dad?”
She was right. To the few of us that knew my connection to Marcus and Jack, it was just a little too slick to have Marcus standing there with his dad like the supportive son, when we all knew how much Marcus despised his dad.
Besides that, even Macy couldn’t deny how much he absolutely adored Logan. If Marcus was standing by his dad’s side, it was all for show. It had to do with protecting Logan at the very least.
“I don’t know,” I said with my voice trailing off and staring off out the windows.
“What happened last night at the club? You never told me.”
I snorted. “That’s because you couldn’t remove your mouth from Tate’s face long enough to take a breath, much less have a conversation.”
“I know, I know…I’m such a slut with my fiancé. But we already knew that, so tell me what happened.”
“Nothing. He came over, got pissed that Dean was touching me and kicked me out.” And told me there were some photos of us having sex on top of one of his hotels.