“That’s because he’s not just one of my men. He’s more than that, Kyler. We’ve been trying the monogamous relationship thing, or at least we are in the sex department.”
“So, you’re using each other for sex?” Kyler chuckled. “OK, that makes sense. I can’t see you getting serious about anyone, not when your career has always been so important to you. You’re finally sitting in the anchor chair. Or at least you are one day a week. I can’t see you letting a man get in the way of that.”
Jada stared back at Kyler. She was sure Kyler didn’t mean to offend her. Kyler wouldn’t hurt a fly, but she was right. Jada’s usual MO was to not care about the men she was casually dating. And her career was important to her, but she wasn’t just using Damian for sex. Somewhere along the line, their relationship had deepened, and they were more than just fuck buddies.
“You OK?” Kyler asked. When Jada remained silent, Kyler covered her mouth with her hands. “I’m sorry. Was I too forthright just now? It’s just that it’s what you’ve always said, Jada: That you don’t need a man. I’m sorry if I got that wrong. I can see you’ve fallen for this guy.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because this goofy faraway look came across your face. I’m sure you were thinking of him just now. Weren’t you?”
A slow smile slid across Jada’s lips. “Maybe.”
“It’s OK.” Kyler dipped her feet back into the water to rinse them off. “If you can’t admit it to me, your friend, who can you admit it to?”
Damian, Jada thought. She doubted he wanted to hear that despite her best efforts to keep their involvement strictly physical.
Yes, she was really in love with him.
Damian was waiting for Jada at her condo when she arrived later that evening. He watched her close the door and lean against it.
He came toward her with a glass of expensive red wine. “I take it you feel like putty after a day of nonstop pampering?”
“Yes.” She accepted the glass and allowed him to walk her into the living room. She slid down onto her sofa, and he was right beside her, placing her legs over his lap. “It was heavenly.”
“Glad you enjoyed it.”
She sipped her wine and regarded him. “How was your day?”
“Productive.” He loosened the straps on her sandals and released her delicate feet from those devices of torture. How do women stand it? “I’ve been very impressed with the numbers at the station as of late. They’ve shown some improvement.”
“That’s fantastic.” Jada beamed at him and placed her wineglass on the cocktail table. Her smile had a way of tugging at his heartstrings. “Does this mean there might be room for more changes?” She scooted onto his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Possibly. Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She shrugged.
He didn’t believe that for one minute. Jada had something on her mind. “Just spit it out, Hart!”
“Well, I was hoping that you might find a place for Kyler on air.”
Damian frowned. He didn’t appreciate Jada telling him how to run his station no matter how well-intentioned her actions might be. He grabbed her by the hips and set her back on the sofa. Then he stood up. “We should keep business at the office.” He strode toward the kitchen to get more wine.
“Don’t you think that’s a little impossible since I work for you?” Jada said as she turned her head to look at him.
“Jada.”
“Don’t Jada me.” She jumped to her feet and stalked over. “I’m merely stating that you might want to reconsider Kyler and that maybe you’ve overlooked her talents.”
“I haven’t overlooked a damn thing,” Damian stated tightly. “I’ve evaluated Ms. Barnes, and I don’t think she has what it takes to anchor the news. The ratings’ numbers don’t lie. Don’t get me wrong. She’s a beautiful woman, but I think she’s more geared toward small-town America news than she is for a big market like San Francisco.”
“You can’t know that,” Jada defended her friend. “You’ve only been here for all of a hot minute.” She snapped her fingers. “Kyler’s been there just like I’ve been, toiling and paying her dues. She deserves to at least be given a chance.”
“She did have a chance, and her numbers were nowhere as good as yours. Everyone knows it. So, should I give her your slot?” He folded his arms across his chest.
“Well … no.”
“Then what would you have me do, Jada? There is only so much room at the top. Quite frankly, she doesn’t have star power.”
Jada spun away from him and said underneath her breath, “That’s because your judgment is clouded,” but Damian heard her loud and clear. His hand reached out to spin her around. Then he swung her into his arms until they were pressed against each other.
“You think you’ve got me wrapped around your little finger, do you?”
“Don’t I?”
Those big brown eyes of hers searched his, and Damian had to struggle to answer. Perhaps she had cast a spell on him so much so he couldn’t think of anyone else. But again, the ratings were what they were. So no, no, no, he couldn’t let her win. Damian released her. “I’m not that easy. I happen to know talent, and I watched each and every one of your tapes before I ever stepped foot in the studio.”
“So, you always intended to give me a chance?” Surprise was evident in her voice.
“Yes.”
“You little shit!” She punched his arm, but it was more like a love tap than anything else. When she attempted a second punch, he caught her hand. “Let me go!”
“Not until you calm down.”
“I’m upset. You had me on pins and needles for weeks, so that what … you could get your jollies off?” She tried to wiggle out of his arms, but Damian wasn’t letting her go. With all of her movements to get out his grasp, she’d twisted herself and her bottom was now against his fly. Every time she moved, his member swelled.
“No. I did it so I could see what you were made of. I needed to see if what I saw on that tape was real or just in my head because I was attracted to you. The former won out.”
At his words, her lungs deflated and all fight left her body. Rather than stop moving, however, she began grinding her hips against his front. “Don’t start something you can’t stop,” he murmured in her ear. He didn’t know why she needed to argue with him. Perhaps she relished sparring because she anticipated the makeup sessions. He supposed it was the same for him.
“Who says I want to stop?”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He reached around her to unbutton the front of her jeans, then he zipped them down as far as he could go. He slipped his hands inside her waistband and heard her sharp intake of breath when he pushed past the curls to go lower. His fingers slid across her seam, and then he slid one inside her. She was tight and damp and oh so hot. Damian couldn’t wait to ravish her, and Jada was ready for it. She was rocking on his hand back and forth, urging him on. She spread her legs wider and threw her head back against his chest, moaning out her pleasure.
“That’s it. Give it to me,” he whispered, and seconds later her core throbbed against his fingers and she let out a cry that went straight to his shaft like Jane’s jungle cry to Tarzan. She collapsed against his chest and he held her close, binding her to him while his other hand reached inside his jeans pocket for his wallet and the spare condom he kept. This woman made him insane with lust.
In seconds, he had his jeans unzipped and had yanked Jada’s jeans and panty down to the floor in one fell swoop. He positioned himself between her legs and bent her over the counter. Then he pushed to the hilt inside her with one powerful thrust from behind. A spiral of heat and light flashed through his eyes, and Damian swore he saw colors just as Jada was coming alive again from her post-orgasmic high.
She grasped the edge of the counter and lifted
her hips to give him an even better angle so he could go deeper and faster inside her. His hands slid lower, and he fingered her clit, all while thrusting inside.
“Yes, yes, yes,” she cried.
He pumped into her over and over until his passion pushed them both over the edge, and he groaned. Jada’s muscles clenched rigidly around him seconds later, milking him of every last drop of energy he had left as she came again.
“God, that was incredible!” Damian said as he buried his face in her neck and breathed in her deliciously sweet yet salty scent.
“Yes, it was.”
The doorbell rang and Jada popped up, glancing at the door. “Who could that be?”
“It’s probably the takeout I ordered,” Damian said.
“I’ll get it.” Before he knew it, Jada had pulled up her panty and jeans and was zipping up as she walked to the door.
Damian marveled at how beautiful she looked completely disshelved after he’d just made love to her.
All he could think of was the incredible moment they’d just shared.
Jada opened her front door.
Kyler was on the other side.
Jada had no time to react. Kyler barged straight into her living room holding her Fendi wallet. “I was driving home when I saw your wallet on the car floor. It must have dropped out of your purse. I thought I’d bring it by—”
Her words instantly stopped when she caught sight of Damian standing behind the kitchen breakfast bar. Kyler turned to Jada, whose cheeks had turned a bold red at having been caught with Damian in her condo.
“Do either of you two want to tell me what the fuck is going on?” Kyler asked.
Jada was stunned. She’d never heard the Ohio woman use such foul language. “Kyler, I know how this must seem.”
Kyler placed her hands on her hips and glared at Jada. “Really? You’re going to go there?”
“Ms. Barnes,” Damian started, but Kyler held up her hand.
“Don’t you dare speak to me. This is between me and my supposed friend. The one who’s been undermining me behind my back the entire time. Sleeping with the boss? How cliché even for you, Jada.”
“Kyler, please,” Jada began.
“Please what? Don’t feel hurt? Betrayed by someone I called my friend? Someone who I had as my confidante? Shared my struggles and upsets with over how this man,” she said, pointing to Damian, “was treating me? Marginalizing me? And yet there you were, listening, being sympathetic, when you were the very person stabbing me in the back.”
“It’s not like that. You have it all wrong.”
“Oh, I have it right. How long has this been going on?” Kyler looked at Jada and then at Damian and then back to Jada. “Omigod, he’s the man you’ve been talking about. The man you’ve been sleeping with for weeks. Christ! What a fool I’ve been.” She started toward the door, but Jada stood in her path.
“Kyler, please don’t leave. Not like this. Let me explain.”
“What’s there to explain? For years, no one would give you a break to be anchor, but now that you’ve been using the casting couch suddenly you get ahead? You should be ashamed, Jada. Embarrassed even. I hope you both rot in hell!”
Seconds later, Kyler slammed the door and was gone.
Chapter 20
“What the hell just happened?” Damian yelled. He moved quickly from the spot he’d been rooted in since Kyler’s surprise appearance and walked toward Jada. Tears were streaming down her beautiful cheeks. “Are you OK?” He grasped her arms.
“Of course not! I’m not sure anything will ever be right again.”
“Jada …” He tried to rub her arms, but she wrenched herself away.
“Did you just hear what Kyler said? What she accused me of? How could she think that I would do such a thing?” Jada volleyed the questions at him as she paced her living room floor.
“I don’t know.”
“I would never hurt her. I didn’t set out to sabotage her career, but that’s what she thinks. She thinks I’m using our relationship to get ahead.”
“Well, she’s wrong.”
“Is she?” Jada asked.
Anger flared inside Damian. He hated that Kyler had undermined Jada’s confidence. “Yes, she is. As I told you before, I recognized your potential well before we slept together and knew I was going to give you a shot. So don’t do this. Don’t second-guess yourself.”
Jada shook her head. “How can I not? Kyler and I have been friends for four years. And I never kept anything from her until now. Until we began this, this—”
“This what?” He frowned. He didn’t like the direction this conversation was going in. It could go down the rabbit hole quickly.
“Affair,” she spit out. She leaned against her fireplace mantel and looked down as if she’d said a dirty four-letter word.
“I never asked you to lie,” Damian said quietly. “If you recall, it was your decision to keep our relationship under wraps.”
Slowly, Jada raised her head. Fire raged in her eyes as she spoke. “C’mon, Damian. Don’t tell me you weren’t happy when I made the suggestion. I doubted you wanted everyone to know you were banging the help.”
“Christ, Jada! There’s no need to hit below the belt.”
“I, I’m sorry,” she sniffed. “I just don’t know what to do. What if she tells everyone at the studio? It could ruin my reputation.”
Damian ran his hand over his head. “Do you really think she’d be that vindictive?”
“I don’t know. She’s hurt and confused. I can’t much blame her. I lied to her.”
“No, I believe you told her you were seeing someone. You just didn’t to tell her who.”
“Half truths. They are still lies of omission, and she has every right to be upset. I mean look at us.” She glanced at him. “What the hell are we doing?” She moved away from the fireplace, dropped onto the sofa, and placed her head in her hands.
“Jada.”
She glanced up at him with puffy eyes and wet cheeks that were stained red. “What are we doing here, Damian?”
“We’re two consenting adults who’ve been enjoying each other,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. Don’t make what we’ve shared seem ugly and seedy.”
Jada lowered her head, and she continued to cry. Damian didn’t know what to do. He’d never stuck around in a relationship long enough to get to this part—the up and down part. He didn’t know how to handle it or give Jada the comfort she needed. He wasn’t cut out for the relationship thing. Did this mean they were in trouble?
How can he not get it? Jada thought. Kyler finding out about them changed everything. They were no longer in a bubble with no outside world. The world had slowly encroached upon the passion-induced fog they’d been under the last several weeks. Jada loved Kyler and valued her friendship. The fact that her good friend thought her capable of such horrific acts made Jada sick.
It also made her question what she was doing with Damian and where their relationship could go. Jada knew where she would like it to go. She wanted a commitment. She wanted him to say their relationship was more than just physical. But he’d put the sexual parameter there first. She was afraid to cross the line, but didn’t she have to?
Kyler knew the truth. Soon, the entire station would too.
Jada had to know where she stood with Damian because if he wasn’t in it for the long haul, she wasn’t going to put herself out there and take the ridicule and abuse she knew was coming. People would think she was using the relationship to get ahead.
She walked over to her couch and sat down. “What we have isn’t wrong, but … it isn’t right either.”
He regarded her for a long moment as if weighing his options, then he stepped to the adjacent chair and sat. “What do you mean?”
“I went into this with my eyes wide open.
I accepted your terms for a monogamous sexual relationship.”
“Why do I hear a ‘but’ in there?”
“Because there is one. Although we’re extremely compatible in bed, I want more.”
“More what?”
“I want a real relationship that I can share with the world, my friends, and family. I want someone who loves me and cares about me. Someone who wants a future with me.”
“I thought you were happy with the status quo.”
“I was. But when Kyler just barged in here, it knocked off my blinders that we can’t continue on this way, not indefinitely at least.”
“Why not? We were doing pretty well. No, we were doing darn good. Did you forget what happened before the doorbell rang?”
Jada blushed. How could she forget? She’d been completely abandoned with Damian, letting him take her doggy style. And it had been damn good, but it wasn’t enough. If she stayed with him, she would resent him for not wanting a full commitment. She didn’t want that to happen. “Of course not, but sex isn’t everything.”
“I know that, Jada. I like you a lot. You know that. I wouldn’t spend time with you if I didn’t.”
“But you’re happy with the ways things are, aren’t you? You get to have all the benefits of a real relationship without giving up anything in return, without making yourself vulnerable, without letting anyone in.”
“Are you saying I’m heartless?”
“No, but I’m saying you hold a lot inside, and it’s not easy breaking through your walls.”
“I never asked you to.”
“No, you didn’t, because you want nothing more from me than my body. Sure, you’ll share a meal or spend the day with me as a prelude to sex. I thought that was OK because Joshua fucked up my head when he left me at the altar. He destroyed my self-confidence and belief in myself. But no more. I’m listening to my gut, and it’s telling me to speak up, to say that I want to spend my life with someone. I want marriage and babies someday on top of having a career. Hell, if my sister Bree and cousins Rylee and Chynna can do it, surely I can. I want a family of my own.”
Captivated Hearts Page 19