by Tessa Bailey
She had to get out of there—figure out a different way to eat. Anything was better than being judged. Laughed at.
Lita spun on a heel—too fast. She’d moved too fast. The room spun and blurred around her, stomach clenching around nothing. Her hip rammed into a table, upsetting drinks on a pair of female customers. She tried to mumble an apology, but her legs chose that moment to stop supporting her. Down she went, like a sack of wet laundry. Down…down…
Powerful arms caught her around the middle just before she hit the floor.
Chapter One
Four Years Later
This time she would finally crack him.
Ignoring stares from her cellmates, Lita jogged in place, preparing for the confrontation with James, her band manager. This was her ritual before shows, too. It loosened the limbs, shook out the demons. She took her role as drummer for Old News seriously, same way she considered riling up James a form of art. For four freaking years, they’d been repeating this song and dance—and Lita was over it. Today was the day James lost his cool. The way he’d lost it the night they met.
Remembering the state she’d been in when James found her, Lita jogged a little faster. At twenty-three, she wasn’t that scrawny, starving girl now. Not in most ways, anyway. The memory of what took place that night still had the ability to steal her breath, make her restless. But unlike the girl she’d been at nineteen, Lita didn’t wait for fate to wave its magical hand. No. She grabbed fate’s wrist and shook, shook, until the pieces fell into an acceptable pattern. That modus operandi is what had landed her inside a musky, Wilshire division holding cell of LA County’s jail system.
Lita didn’t have a head for numbers, but was pretty damn sure today would mark the twenty-first time James had bailed her out of a jail-type situation. Looking after the interests of Old News’s members was his job. Their relationship, however, fell outside the parameters of a typical musician-manager arrangement. Not that he would ever admit it. No, James simply continued to show up when Lita got into trouble, lecturing her about proper behavior on the way to dropping her off. And leaving. He left every time, that distinguished jaw of his firmly set, sunglasses hiding the guilt she knew lurked in his eyes four years later.
Not this time. Last night, Lita had gone above and beyond to ensure this morning wrought one of two outcomes: James quitting, giving up on her like everyone else did eventually, or his control finally slipped. One way or another, she wouldn’t be in limbo come tonight. She’d been there too long.
Lita stopped jogging when she heard the jingling of the guard’s keys. James was right on time, as usual. Her cellmates craned their necks, some coming to their feet in the hopes they were being released. Lita stowed a pang of sympathy and whipped her hair into a quick ponytail. The guard cast a tired-eyed glance in her direction and unlocked the door. “Lita Regina, your bail has been posted.”
“Sweet, thanks.”
The woman who’d recognized Lita held up a hand for a high-five as she passed through the cell exit. “Aren’t you worried about cameras waiting outside?”
Lita slapped the woman’s palm. “Not as long as they get my good side.” She turned and shook her ass, kicking up snickers around the cell. “Hope everyone gets home for dinner.”
Unenthused good-byes followed Lita down the hallway, at the end of which she knew James would be pacing in the waiting area. She already had a sarcastic comment chambered about the wrinkle-free suit he no doubt wore, how out of place he looked. Although, she held out hope he’d been so pissed off by her antics, he’d thrown on jeans for once in his life. James in jeans. Lita ran fingertips down her belly, imagining the way denim would ride his hips. How the smooth circle of the metal button would rest against his stomach all day, warming with his body temperature. Please, please, let today be the day he stops treating me like a child. If her body’s reaction to thoughts of James were any indication, she was all woman. And she needed the man who’d awakened her needs to tend them.
The guard pushed open the waiting room door, indicating Lita should precede him. When Lita entered the room and saw James, standing with his suited back to her, a smug smile tugged at her lips. God, his tailored glory put their surroundings to shame. Dark hair dusted with salt and pepper at the temples made him more suited to a corporate boardroom than a county jail. The scene reminded Lita of a Marvel Comics movie where the hero tries to blend in among mortals, but is so obviously everyone’s savior. Her savior. If he would only allow himself to be. “Well. If it isn’t my prom date.”
The band manager turned around—and ice formed in Lita’s belly, halting her progress halfway across the room. There was one thing she could count on in life—and that was James being furious with her for fucking up. For placing herself in jeopardy. Hell, for getting him out of bed at the crack of dawn. On rare occasions, James tried a new tactic, such as feigned indifference, but he usually broke before they even reached the parking lot. Once he’d attempted sensitivity, but that had failed with flying colors as well. James was a hard, unbendable man. It was one of the reasons she couldn’t live without him.
But this? This man waiting for her looked…blank. His arms were at his sides, eyes devoid of feeling as he gave her his typical once-over to determine she’d survived in one piece. A hamster ran on a wheel inside Lita’s stomach, faster and faster, when James said nothing. Just existing across the room without any of his usual bark or bite.
“James?”
His slate gray eyes lit on the guard, a silent command to leave. Although he held no authority in the jail, the guard turned and lumbered back into the hallway, keys clanking as he went. “Let’s go.”
She couldn’t move. “What’s wrong?”
A muscle ticced in his cheek. “We’ll need to go out the back exit to avoid the cameras.” He left the sentence hanging in the air, turning on a heel to stride from the room. Lita commanded her feet to move, to follow, but catching up to him was like wading through chilled molasses. Maybe this was just a new tactic James had thought up to frighten her. If so, it was working. So much dread had settled in her midsection, it was an effort to walk straight.
At the end of a brightly lit corridor, James stopped at the back entrance and pried open the metal door. He placed one shiny wingtip just outside and checked both directions, presumably for cameras, before gesturing her forward. “All clear.”
She started to pass him in the doorway and stopped, craning her neck to meet his stony gaze. “Why won’t you talk to me? Why aren’t you lecturing me?”
There. It was only a flash, but her proximity affected him, as always. Shoulders tensing, Adam’s apple sliding up and down. Yet his tone was dull when he answered. “When has lecturing you ever done any good, Lita?”
“Stop being so cryptic,” she whispered. “You’re scaring me.”
Another tick in his expression, so fleeting she might have imagined it. He stared over her head, though, not directly at her. “Are you hurt in any way?”
“I’m fine.”
He gave a single nod and left her in the doorway to unlock the passenger side door. Lita had no choice but to climb inside and engage her seatbelt, as if in a daydream. One from which she desperately needed to wake up. Granted, she hadn’t known exactly how James would break—what it would look like—but gut instinct told her this reaction wasn’t what she’d been after. She’d wanted James so angry that he’d have no choice but to stop hiding. Stop pretending they weren’t denying themselves something vital. Something they both needed.
The hotel she’d been living in since their international tour ended was a fifteen-minute drive from the jail. Silence filled the car, growing denser by the mile until a scream clawed at Lita’s throat. “James—”
“You could have been killed.”
Finally, a reaction. Disapproval. Lita soaked it in like a sponge, sounding breathless when she said, “I’ve never seen you this mad.” Was this the breaking point? Please, please let this be it.
“I don’t
know what mad is supposed to feel like anymore.” His deep voice reached out and smothered her from across the car. “Admit why you did it.”
“What do you mean?”
They pulled to a stop at a red light. “You stole a police car last night.” His eyes closed, then opened to reveal more nothing. Nothing. Just emptiness. “You could have gotten in an accident. Or been shot by the responding officers. And I want to hear you admit why you did it. No more games, Lita.”
“I’m not the only one playing games,” she whispered.
James was silent for too long. “So you admit it. This is my fault.”
“Yes.” Hearing herself confess to such recklessness out loud brought home the reality of what she’d done, forcing redness to spread up from her neck. “I don’t know how else to get through to you.” Lita’s voice vibrated, her mind scrambling for the right words to make him understand. “This is what it takes just to get a crumb of what I need. The rest of the time you’re a statue just watching and watching and watching me. At least when you’re angry, I can feel a tiny part of what I felt that night.”
Gray eyes grew even more shuttered, and his hands flexed on the steering wheel at the forbidden mention of the night they’d met. They pulled into the valet driveway outside her hotel, but James held up a finger to the attendant who stood outside the driver’s side window. “I can’t give you what you need, Lita.” His hand paused on the door handle, his voice grave as she’d ever heard it. “And I will not stay around knowing I’m the reason you continually put yourself at risk.”
Lita’s reality slowed down, every tick of the imaginary clock sounding like a gong in her ears. Denial expanded, pushing to the furthest edges of her insides, leaving no room for air. “What d-does that mean?”
James stared straight forward as he delivered words that stalled her heart mid-beat. “I’ve found my replacement. One week from today, I’ll no longer be managing Old News.”
Chapter Two
James couldn’t even look at Lita. Not without feeling as though his stomach were being extracted through his throat. The jail-issued plastic bag containing her possessions was clutched in his right hand as they walked down the carpeted hallway of her hotel. On the way through the revolving glass doors, he’d caught sight of her reflection and knew it would be imprinted on the back of his eyelids for life.
Abandoned. She’d looked abandoned.
James drew a long, deep breath that did nothing to ease or fortify him. It had to be this way. This dysfunctional game between the two of them had gone on too long. He’d found a way to justify it, found a way to stay close by any means necessary, until last night. By simply being in her presence, he put her life at risk. Considering his life’s dedication had become the exact opposite four years ago, James had no choice but to get a safe distance away. He hadn’t fooled himself into thinking he could give her up completely, but his role in Lita’s life now would have to be…peripheral. Much as it would kill him.
Even now, his decision-making remained shoddy, as had been the case since their first meeting. With good-bye on the line, the least wise place James could be was inside Lita’s hotel room. Amidst her smell, her clothes…her. Always her.
The fucking jig is up. James wasn’t a band manager. Nor was he a decent man. The longer he kept the charade up, the harder it would be to walk away from Lita. And since the night he’d taken away any chance of normalcy between them—because once that particular beast was woken, it didn’t go back to sleep—he’d known this day would come to pass. His appetite had no business with a fragile girl, twelve years his junior. One who’d raced from one tragedy to another more permanent one. Him.
James didn’t question Lita’s intelligence. She happened to be the most astute person he’d ever met. A huge heart reserved for her friends and an accurate judge of character. When it came to him, however, she couldn’t see below the surface. Had no idea what moved in the shadows of his psyche. Lita wanted something she didn’t understand—and worse, James didn’t fully understand it either. How could he get a bead on something that constantly shifted and grew, wanting more?
Without thinking, James removed Lita’s room key from his pocket and dipped it into the metal reader. As natural as breathing, except it shouldn’t be. Lovers kept keys to one another’s rooms. He hadn’t laid a hand on Lita in four years.
James pushed open the door and set the plastic bag inside, refusing to take one step inside the room. He held out the card for Lita to take as she passed, eyes fastened on the air above her head, but so aware of her nearness his stomach muscles protested from being clenched so tight.
“Oh, goddamn you.” Lita plucked the card from his fingers and hurled it back into the hallway with a muffled scream. “Four years leads to this, huh? You’re just going to dump me in this fucking…”—she waved her hands to encompass the hotel—“…rock star purgatory and bail? If you’re doing this to teach me a lesson, I will never forgive you, James.”
“I’m not.” He cleared the cobwebs from his throat. “That’s not what this is.”
Without looking at Lita, he knew she’d be chewing her bottom lip, leaving teeth marks that would take until nighttime to fade. “I guess we really meant a lot to you if it’s this easy. No notice. Just…peace out, suckers.”
James swallowed the urge to shake her. “I think you know this is the furthest thing from easy.”
“No. I don’t know anything,” she shouted before several silent beats passed. “Except that you’re a coward. You can’t even look me in the eye.”
He surged forward, pushing her back against the doorjamb. Going to break. Too much. I shouldn’t have come up here. He’d made the mistake of looking down into green eyes swimming with moisture, calling her bluff. “Does the thought of you hurting yourself to get my attention make me a coward? Yes? So be it, Lita.” His fingernails dug into the flesh of his palms. “If something happened to you, I wouldn’t make it to the next sunrise.”
Lita’s body deflated, head falling back. “You can’t say something like that and leave,” she said, lips hardly moving. “It’s cruel.”
“I’m a cruel man.”
“No.” Lita moved into the elegant room, booted feet dragging. A miniature hurricane in a gilded cage. He’d chosen the room himself, another sign of his madness, his need to control her surroundings. Have knowledge of everything she touched. His neck grew hot when she turned, sliding a gaze down his front.
Turning and leaving was imperative at that moment, but he couldn’t resist hearing what she would say next. Delaying the good-bye.
“Remember what you called me the first night we met?” She sat down on the edge of the bed. “Before you leave, call me that one more time.”
Panic spread dots across his vision. “No.”
There was calculation in her expression, but a thread of desperation he’d never witnessed in Lita before. A hint of hysteria. Gone was the sarcasm and wit he’d come to rely on. The difference held him in thrall as she toed off her boots…and peeled the T-shirt over her head, leaving her in a black bra and jeans. Jesus Christ. The flesh behind his fly fought to be free of its denim prison. Needing her. Forever needing her. His lungs couldn’t find satisfaction, ripping at the air to no avail.
“Enough.”
Shaking her head, Lita’s tongue danced across her bottom lip. “Maybe I’ll ask the new manager to call me that name.”
The world turned a dangerous color of red, blood pumping in waves behind his eardrums. James had traversed the room to tower over Lita without a conscious decision. Inside him, something shook, a rattle of chains against a cage, warning him to pull back, but he couldn’t. Couldn’t. Visions of another man’s hands on Lita’s skin were all he could process. James’s hands circled her biceps, lifting her off the bed and tossing her backward into the mattress’s center, finding perverse pleasure in the way her little figure bounced, green eyes widening.
James crawled over Lita, the bed dipping beneath his knees. “The new
manager is a woman. Did you think for a second, after everything, that I would overlook a detail so important?” He planted his fists on either side of her head, every inch of his skin feeling raw, exposed. I’m starving. “I had no plans to manage a band. Not until you. Now I’ve spent the last four years deciding where you slept. Where you ate. It’s not normal. Not good for you.”
“James,” she whispered, falling back on the bed beneath him. “We—”
“Stop.” He devoured the indentation of her belly button with his gaze, the slope of her ribcage. God, he would sell his soul for a single lick. To feel that shudder against his tongue. “These things I do to keep control, to keep you in places that allow me to sleep at night…that need only grows. Eventually I would stop you from being Lita and you would hate me for it. I would hate me, too.”
“I couldn’t.” She turned her head and laid her lips on his forearm, severing his heart in eighteen places. “I push you to it. I’ll stop. I promise I’ll stop pushing if you stay. If you just…kiss me, you’ll know that everything is going to be fine. Please?”
Begging was so uncharacteristic for Lita, so unusual, that James wasn’t prepared for the pleasure that skated over his senses like a revelation. He loved hearing her pleas? God, what a sickness he had. “I want bad things.” Was that his voice? “Need them.”
Lita pushed up on her elbows, bringing their mouths close. “Bring it.”
Her husky challenge untethered urges he’d held in check too long. Electric energy scratched at the insides of his veins, an unnamed force gripping him by the nape. If he didn’t release some of the mounting pressure, he would implode. What was left of his common sense twisted around, turned inside out, reasoning that if he exposed some of the need to Lita, she would make this easer. She would stop begging him to finally fuck her and start begging him to leave.