Complicated Creatures: Part One

by Alexi Lawless

  “What do I owe you, Jack?” she asked idly.

  Jack stiffened as if he’d been slapped. He put down his spoon slowly. “Are you implying what I think you’re implying?” His voice sounded low even to him. He felt a little dangerous.

  Her brow cocked. “Depends on what you think I’m implying.”

  “That we had some sort of transaction, and I feel slighted.” Anger heated his face. “Like a whore.”

  “Well,” she began slowly. “You clearly feel slighted. What am I missing?” she asked, her demeanor relaxed. “Hence the question… What do I owe you?”

  Anger beat against his ribcage, singeing his vocal chords. “You owe me honesty, decency, and some kind of communication, Samantha,” he responded, glaring at her. “You act like we were just fucking like two nameless strangers. You know more about me than I’ve told anyone in years,” he pointed out. “And you let me inside you, Samantha. It wasn’t just sex. I know the difference. I got to you, and you thanked me by running.”

  Samantha laughed softly. “You’re over-dramatizing, Jack. Sure we connected, but so what? We’re not in a relationship. We have no rights to each other,” she replied, her tone casual.

  Jack’s hand smacked down on the table, jarring the silver. “It’s not that I’m upset over rights or exclusivity or things we haven’t discussed,” he stated vehemently. “It’s that you handled me carelessly. Shut me out and shut me down before I even realized what was happening. You surprised me, Samantha,” he confessed bitterly. “And I can’t believe I’m going to say this out loud, but since I’m already black and blue and this whole conversation already stings, I’ll just come out with it,” he paused, closing his eyes before staring at her again. “You hurt me, Samantha. You fucking hurt me.”

  Silence.

  The silence was so dense, it was nearly palpable.

  “We barely know each other—” she began.

  “That’s a bullshit evasion, and you know it,” he countered angrily. “You brushed me off. And I started to consider why. Was it because you felt nothing?” he asked.

  Samantha shrugged.

  “No. I don’t believe that,” Jack sneered. “So was it because you felt more than you wanted to? Is it because you know with me it will be bigger than something you can contain and control and relegate to the side when it inconveniences you?”

  Samantha’s jaw ticked. He was certain she didn’t like the exposure or the accuracy of his assessment. He watched her think through ways to get out of this, to detach. He wouldn’t allow it. He was already bruised and raw, so he figured he’d go for broke. What else did he have to lose?

  Jack leaned across the table. “I see you want to protect yourself from me, but I’ve also done nothing to wrong you, Samantha. So I’m struggling with something I can’t see, some hidden layer or experience I can’t know,” he continued. “But you’re here, and I can’t help but think you want me to shove past something. And maybe we’re at odds, but I don’t want to force your hand. Give me something, Samantha,” his voice softened. “Christ, I’ll take almost anything. But I’ve fought with this for two weeks, fought last night—”

  “You didn’t do that for me—”

  “I did it because of you, you infuriating, maddening woman,” Jack nearly shouted, exasperated. “Because you make me feel like something’s been torn loose.” He stopped, taking a breath as he shoved a hand through his hair. “Do you have any idea how angry I feel? How badly I wanted to hurt someone—hurt myself—to work through it? Because you didn’t give me the chance to work it through with you?” he asked, looking at her.

  “I owe you nothing, Jack,” she murmured.

  “Quit making this about paying some unpaid debt,” he snapped, cutting off her escape routes. “This is about something far more important. This is about the fact that you feel something for me and you won’t give yourself a chance to acknowledge it. So you slice me to distract yourself.”

  Samantha sat back, regarding him, her expression impassive. “I suspect this won’t end well for you, Jack,” she said after a moment.

  “Maybe not,” he shrugged, standing. “But I’ve never not gone after what I’ve wanted. And now that we’ve had the conversation I wanted to have over the last couple weeks the painful, circuitous way, let me be clear,” he told her, rounding the table to stand in front of her. He pulled her up, though it cost him, his bruised body aching.

  “I won’t be nothing to you, Samantha.”

  “You weren’t nothing to me, Jack,” she replied, looking into his eyes. “And here I thought I was getting one of the most lauded Casanovas in all of Chicago. You were a lover, Jack. A great lover. But that was all it ever was.”

  “You don’t want a lover, Samantha,” Jack replied. “You want an opponent.” Even as he said it, he was acutely and painfully aware that he was on the receiving end of one of the very conversations he’d perfected over the years. “And you’re not going to ‘Dear John’ me out of your life.”

  “I live a complicated life, Jack. I’ve learned not to create long-term attachments,” she countered, a flash of remorse on her face.

  “I can name three attachments that I know of. I’m guessing there are more,” he finally replied.

  “What?”

  “Carey,” he ticked off his fingers, “Talon, and Rush. You can’t tell me you’re not attached.”

  Samantha shook her head. “That’s different. We work together. We have each other’s backs.”

  “So now you have someone who has your back in your personal life,” he reasoned. “How is that a bad thing?”

  “Jack—” she began, her voice a warning.

  “No,” he interrupted. Jack tugged her toward him again. “I’m not going to listen to you justify why you can’t be close to me. I don’t know exactly what this is,” he gestured between them. “It’s not like I went looking for it. But there’s something between us that I never anticipated. And I’m not going to let it slide by like so many of the meaningless flings I struggle to remember.” Jack took a breath and leaned down, kissing her shoulder. “I want you to be with me in every way that matters,” he told her, nuzzling the soft skin of her nape. “And if this doesn’t work out, if there’s nothing else, then I want to be able to say we had as much of each other as we could.” Jack lifted his head to look at her. “Can you do that, Samantha?”

  “That’s my point, Jack,” she murmured. “I don’t stay. In my line of work, I’m hardly around.”

  “You’re offering up excuses.”

  “I’m not,” she insisted. “I’m trying to be honest.”

  “Then I wait,” he replied, squeezing her closer. It felt so good to be near her. He’d been so off kilter, missing something he hadn’t fully owned up to and didn’t completely understand. Now that she was here, it all seemed so clear. So inevitable. “We’re together when you’re here, and we take it from there. For you, I can do that. For you, I want to do that.”

  “I’m not the girl you wait for, Jack.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the way I live, there’s an exponentially higher chance that I don’t make it back,” she told him quietly, glancing away.

  “So you’re not actually against this,” Jack murmured, rubbing his thumb against her cheek. “You’re just trying to protect me from some imaginary outcome by deciding for me that you’re not a safe bet.”

  “No one’s a safe bet,” she replied. “But I’m the kind of bet that should come with hazard pay.”

  “Ain’t that the truth?” he smirked.

  She switched tactics. “Has it occurred to you that the only reason you’re so invested is because I’m not joining the line of women trying to get a piece of you? Perhaps I just present something of a challenge, Jack,” she said, pushing him back carefully. “Perhaps you just don’t like hearing the word ‘no.’”

  Jack laughed a little at her accusation. “I have been lucky in that department, yes, but I wouldn’t say there’s a line.” Samantha
slanted him a disbelieving look. “Has it occurred to you, Samantha, that even though I don’t know everything about you, I want to? That I’ve been a little bit crazy about you since we met? Has it occurred to you that there’s just something about you that works for me on every level?”

  “I can think of a few levels you’re not going to like,” she replied. Her fingers ghosted over his cut brow, the swollen ridges of his cheekbones, and the bruise on his jaw. “Don’t do this again,” she told him, switching topics. “You don’t let someone hurt you so you can name the pain.”

  “I would have let you hurt me some more, if I could have figured out where the hell you were,” he replied, only half-joking.

  “I’m serious, Jack,” Samantha argued. “Vidal could have done terrible damage. You’re fit, but don’t go looking for trouble. It’s irresponsible. You scared the shit out of people who love you.”

  “People?” he responded, watching her.

  “Jaime, your mother, Mitch—”

  “You?” he cut to the chase.

  “You just managed to piss me off.” The thumb that had traced over his brow now pressed hard against the stitches.

  Jack winced. “Fuck, I can tell.”

  “I’ll make you a deal,” Samantha offered, soothing over the cut.

  “Shoot,” he replied, pulling her hand from his brow. “I’m in a deal-making mood.”

  “I won’t…avoid you. But the next time you feel like a fight, you call one of my guys if I’m not around. I trust them to put you through the paces without really hurting you.”

  Jack frowned at her, affronted. “I don’t exactly get put down easy.”

  “I’m not suggesting that,” she replied. “But I also don’t trust that you won’t let your temper get the best of you after last night. If it goes there, so be it. But no more fight clubs with guys who are hungry to make a name for themselves off of powerful men with nicknames like ‘Jack the Ripper.’”

  “You heard about that, huh?”

  Samantha grabbed the paper she’d tossed on the table earlier. Somebody had sold a picture of him standing over Vidal after the knockout, sweat and blood rolling down his chest, his face darkened by a combination of the lighting and his mood, the nickname in a bold headline.

  “Do we have a deal?” she asked.

  “Are you going to stay with me?” he countered, pushing the paper back.

  “I think the deal was that I wasn’t going to avoid you.”

  “But that’s not the same as trying,” he pointed out.

  “Jack…” she began, mounting another blockade. Jack bit her lobe in retaliation.

  “I want you, Samantha. Like nothing else,” he whispered into her ear.

  “I’m no good for you, Jack.”

  “Samantha, if anyone’s going to do terrible damage, it’s probably you,” he acknowledged. “But it’s a risk I’ll take. I want every part of you. And maybe, someday, you’ll give it to me.” He tilted her chin up. “In the meantime, I’ll take everything I can get. So do we have a deal?” he asked, looking into her eyes, her mouth just a breath away.

  She stared back at him for long moments.

  “Do we have a deal?” he asked again.

  Her lashes dropped as she looked at his mouth.

  “Deal,” she whispered, covering his mouth with her own.

  *

  Mid-November—Two weeks later

  Chicago Midway Airport, Private Jet Terminal

  J A C K

  It probably happened on the boat. Or when he saw her at the elevator before the gala. No, that wasn’t it. It happened the first night he saw her swimming, though he hadn’t realized it then. Regardless of when it began, he understood what it was now. And though anyone in their right mind would be terrified to free-fall into the depths of Samantha Wyatt, Jack felt a sort of acquiescence, a certain rightness to the surrender, because there was no struggle when he realized he loved her. He simply did. Samantha was the woman he wanted with absolute, crystal clarity. And though he had real doubts as to whether she felt as strongly about him as he did about her, he was certain about one thing: she had him. There could be others, certainly, but not like this. Not like her.

  Jack looked up into the chilly Chicago night as he heard the plane approaching. He watched the private jet land on the airstrip in front of him. There was just enough nip in the late fall air for Jack to see his breath puff in front of him as the plane taxied. He was too wired and eager to see Samantha to wait inside his Range Rover.

  They’d only had a week together before she’d had to hit the road again. As painful as that recovery week had been, it had also been the best he’d had in as long as he could remember. Samantha had returned to him each night, and they’d done wonderfully mundane things: trading stories, listening to music, making dinner. His body was so exhausted from healing that he’d slept peacefully nearly every night, waking to her, his new normal. The night before she’d left for a business trip to Dubai, they’d made love slowly, a quiet discovery of whisper-soft touches and languorous movement, their joining nearly aching in its reunion. The way they were together now was intimate on another level. But since that night, his body had healed significantly, and Jack had about a hundred different things he wanted to do to her over the next few days.

  As the jet door opened, Jack pushed off his car to greet her. The minute he saw her appear, he breathed a sigh of relief. She dressed casually in tight jeans and a dark sweater, her glossy, raven hair down. God, but was she sexy. Samantha shrugged into a camel hair coat as soon as she felt the cold, stepping down the stairs of the jet. Jack scooped her up in his arms, smiling into her hair as she laughed against him.

  “Jack—darlin’, your face is freezing! Why were you waiting outside?” Samantha exclaimed, clasping his cheeks in her warm hands.

  “Missed you,” he muttered, pressing a hot kiss to the side of her neck as he squeezed her.

  He held her close for a few seconds longer before he noticed the flight attendant waiting patiently a few steps away. Jack pulled back slowly, clasping her hand.

  “Your bags, Ms. Wyatt,” the flight attendant said, inclining his head as he indicated her garment bag and duffel. “Shall I carry them to your car?”

  “Thanks, Harris,” Samantha murmured, giving him a soft smile. “Where’s the Aston?” she asked Jack, glancing around.

  “I wasn’t sure how much you packed,” Jack answered easily. “Some girls pack a serious set of luggage for just one week,” he teased. “So I brought the Rover.”

  Samantha laughed, the sound throaty and warm, like a sip of his favorite whisky. “Nope. Not me. Just my clothes and grenade launcher.”

  Jack smiled at her. “Don’t joke. I’m liable to believe you,” he told her as he led her to his car, helping her in. Jack leaned in to kiss her before shutting the door, thanking Harris for stowing the bags in his trunk. He couldn’t resist kissing her again after he got in. He felt a little woozy with happiness, his grin stretching his face as he sped off.

  “Whoa there, Cowboy. I don’t think we can reach g-force on I-55,” she teased.

  “Can’t be helped,” Jack shrugged, casting her a sidelong glance. “Gotta get my girl out on a date.”

  “Oh?” Her brows popped up. “You gonna take me to dinner before you get lucky?”

  Jack’s smile was smug. “That’s for me to know and you to sit back and enjoy…several times.”

  Jack took her to Bavette’s Bar & Boeuf, a warm, wood- and brick-walled restaurant in River North that felt a little bit like a Jazz Era speakeasy.

  “I like it,” Samantha murmured, glancing around as he pulled her chair out for her.

  “It’s the kind of steak joint I figured the cattle rancher in you would surely appreciate,” he grinned, reveling in her delighted smile. “They have amazing Chicago-cut rib-eyes.”

  Jack ordered them a finely-aged Burgundy, brushing her hand with his thumb, unable to stop touching her.

  “You’re looking at me
like you’ve never seen me before,” she laughed, catching him staring.

  “I missed you,” Jack confessed. “I got used to having you around that week.”

  Samantha hid her answering smile in her wine glass.

  “Good God, did I manage to embarrass the unflappable Samantha Wyatt?” he teased.

  She ignored the comment, touching his jaw. “Your face has healed. You look good.”

  “Thank you.” He inclined his head. “It’s nice to be out in public without scaring children,” he joked.

  Samantha drew a finger down to the small scar on his chin. “Tell me how you got this little scar?”

  Jack chuckled. “It’s kind of ridiculous.”

  “The best stories usually are.”

  He sat back, remembering. “I was fifteen. I convinced Carly Esposito to come to my house and relieve me of my virginity. Right after the messy and embarrassingly fast act, my mom surprised us by coming home early from court. I flipped out while I was trying to pull my pants back on and tripped, hitting my chin on my nightstand. That was fun to explain.” He grimaced.

  “How fast?” Samantha teased.

  “Fast,” Jack emphasized, sipping his wine. “She was an older, more experienced bellezza. Looking back, I’m not entirely sure who seduced whom.”

  “Still got a thing for her?” Samantha asked, her brow raised teasingly.

  “Don’t be jealous, tesoro.” Jack raised her hand to his mouth. “Last I heard, she’s got four kids and is happily married to the local fire inspector. To be honest, after the two minutes it took, me bleeding all over her dress, and my mother chasing her out of the house with my brother pointing and laughing in tow, Carly really didn’t want anything to do me.” He tried and failed to look forlorn.

  “Oh, God, I bet Jaime never shut up about it.”

  “Too right. He called me ‘Smack-That Jack’ all through high school whenever he caught me around girls. I considered tying him to a chair and leaving him in the basement, but that would have upset my parents,” he laughed. “How about you? How did you lose your V-card? Let me guess—in the back of a pick-up truck to the high school quarterback?”