Pleasure Point: The Complete Series

by Evans, Jennifer

  Oh shit. Jax was breaking up with me. I removed my hand from his. “And what is she now?”

  He moved to sit on the edge of the lounge chair, facing me. “I don’t want to hurt you. But to answer your question, she’s the mother of my son.”

  Of all the things I expected Jax to say, this was not on the list. “You have a son?”

  He smiled a tentative smile. “Came as a surprise to me too.”

  My eyes were wide. “How long have you known about him?”

  He barked out a laugh. “Well, let’s see, I’ve known about him since roughly the day after I landed in Santa Cruz.”

  This was not good. This woman who Jax had gotten involved with was a loser. Had she really kept this from him? Maybe things would work out with us after all. I put my hand on his knee. “Oh, no. You mean to tell me you never knew? Weren’t you guys in touch?”

  “Nope. Hell of a secret to have kept from me, right?”

  I waited for him to go on.

  “Thing of it is, we hadn’t seen each other in over thirteen years.”

  Blood pounded through my ears. “What? She kept that— How’d she keep that secret?”

  He smirked. “I thought she’d fallen off the face of the earth.” When I saw the look in Jax’s face, I knew he was in love with this person, whoever she was. His eyes misted over, and he had a faraway look as though I wasn’t even in his presence anymore. He turned to face me. “Rosalyn—her name is Rosalyn—needs me. I’m really sorry, but as it turns out, she’s family. Can you believe it? I’ve got a son and a …”

  “And a what?” I snapped. I’d been trying to relax on the lounge chair, but a bolt of adrenaline shot through my system, and I sat upright.

  The look Jax gave me was pathetic, his face filled with pity. “Rosalyn and I … we’re picking up where we left off.” He looked down.

  What kind of breakup story was he concocting? I jabbed a finger in his face. “You led me on! Is any of this even true? What kind of cockamamie story is this? You really expect me to believe you’ve got a son? Why don’t you just be a real man and tell me to take a hike? You think you can just fuck me, get my heart in a knot, and then waltz back here to say you’re leaving?”

  Jax put his hand out to steady me. “Making this up? Why would I do that?”

  I jumped off the lounge chair like a jack-in-the-box, my hair flying around me. My vision narrowed, and I felt woozy. It wasn’t like me to get so worked up. But Jax had gotten under my skin. I had actually allowed myself to care. I towered over Jax and laid into him. “I don’t know, Jax. Why don’t you tell me? Everything was going so great. But you’re a liar! I don’t believe a word of your story.” I bolted into the house, and Jax followed. I didn’t want him to see me cry.

  I stood in the kitchen and couldn’t get enough air in my lungs, no matter how fast I breathed. Jax touched my arm lightly. “Why would I make this up? Holly, I’m sorry. I wasn’t planning on this.”

  I whirled around. “And what exactly were you planning? Last time we were together you told me I was your woman. You told me you wanted to take care of me. I believed you!” I thought of all the times we’d shared, surfing, walking the beach, having mind blowing sex in my bedroom until I screamed. “I thought we had something special. You led me on.”

  Jax tightened his grip on my arm. “You’re overreacting. Calm down.” I tried not to get caught up in those blue eyes.

  I stalked across the living room, distancing myself from Jax, backing up against a long table that hugged the wall. My body tensed. So much for my sexy underwear, I thought wryly. Had Jax been cheating on me? Who was this person he claimed was an ex? I was not going to allow Jax the upper hand. I had things over him. Things he didn’t think I knew. My teeth grinding, I decided to play my cards. “Since we’re being so honest, I’ve got a question for you.” I paused for maximum effect. “Who’s Olivia?”

  I will never forget the look on his face. Jax had taken a few tentative steps toward me and stopped mid-step. All the color drained from his face, and his jaw went slack. “How do you know Olivia?”

  I crossed my arms and smiled a devious smile. “I’ve got a better question. How do you know Olivia?”

  Jax backed away, his hands raised. “She’s … just somebody I met through work.”

  What did I have to lose at that point? “Were you fucking her?” I said, through gritted teeth.

  A muscle twitched involuntarily underneath Jax’s left eye. “It’s not what you think.”

  “And what exactly am I supposed to think?”

  Jax stood still, glancing over one shoulder. He was a terrible liar because what came out of his mouth next was sheer stupidity. “We never actually had sex … all we did was … I never really …”

  Bastard! My nostrils flared, my breathing became erratic. “You never really what?” And then I decided to take a wild chance. My voice was solicitously sweet when I said, “Jax, why don’t you tell me all about what you did and didn’t do? At the Ritz-Carlton.”

  His eyes were wild, and I thought the guy was going to keel over. “How do you know about the Ritz?” He backed away from me as I advanced on him.

  Oh, my God, I was right. The vision of Olivia and that other woman in the ladies room flashed through my mind. “I was in the bathroom stall on a break from my sales meeting. And you know what happened? I heard some women talking about you.” I didn’t admit that they’d never actually used his name, but Jax was so stupid that he didn’t know a bluff when he heard one.

  Jax stood in the kitchen, his mouth opening and closing like a goddamned goldfish.

  I turned away, my face in my hands. “I can’t stand to even look at you! I actually let you fuck me? What’s the matter with me? How could I have fallen for your cheap, dime-store sex?”

  I turned around, and Jax stood in the kitchen looking stricken. “Holly, I was only doing it till I got back on my feet financially.”

  “You’re not even going to deny it?” I screamed. “You didn’t even try to hide Olivia’s number on your caller ID. You mean to tell me I was right? You let those women use you in exchange for money? How much did they pay you? Was it as much as I paid you? With my heart?” My jaw clenched tight, and my body shook. I backed up against the low table that held my collection of sea shells. My fingers closed around a heavy conch shell. I picked it up and hurled it across the room. “You bastard!”

  Jax ducked and the shell hit the refrigerator, pieces of it splintering onto the floor. Dinah and Matrix, who had been sleeping on the grass, rushed into the kitchen, slobbering all over my dear, sweet, two-bit surfer boyfriend. I fell to my knees, my hands tugging at my hair, my face slack. “Tell me it’s not true.” Jax slowly crept to my side, his hand on my back. “Don’t touch me! Get the fuck out of my house. Now!” I screamed.

  And then I heard a low, muffled, pathetic sound. Jax was crying. He knelt next to me, his face in his hands, and the guy was actually bawling like a baby. “Holly, I’m so sorry,” he said in between hiccups. “I really messed up bad. My life has been nothing but a total screw up. I don’t blame you if you never speak to me again.” He rocked back on his heels. “I deserve to die. It should’ve been me, not my brother!” he screamed. Dinah and Matrix looked on with concern, licking Jax’s arms and face. He reached a hand out to pet Matrix.

  I pulled Matrix away and hugged him to me. “Don’t touch my dog!”

  Jax’s hair hung in his face. “I’m sorry Holly. I screwed up bad.”

  Violent anger thrummed through my system. “Damn right you did.”

  He covered his face with his hands and tears leaked from between his fingers. His frantic voice quaked. “Everything’s been a nightmare in my life starting with when my parents were killed.” He choked out a sob. “My mom and dad were good people.” His voice was almost a whisper. “And then Tyler.” He stood up fast. “You have every right to hate me.” He towered over me and pointed a finger at himself. “I hate me.”

  How dare he bring up
his parents to try to make me feel pity? I stood up and stalked into the kitchen. Jax shuffled behind, his head bowed. I folded my arms and glared at him. “Let me ask you something, Jax. Are you sorry you screwed those women behind my back or are you just sorry you got caught?” Thinking of Jax with those other women made me want to scream.

  He hung his head. His voice was pleading. “I didn’t mean for it to turn out this way.” He looked at me, his eyes wet. “I thought I was ready for a relationship again.”

  My voice was high pitched. “Ready? Don’t make me laugh.”

  He sniffed back tears. “You were the first person I’d met in years that—”

  “Shut up! I don’t want to hear your lies. If you were so ready then why the fuck did you screw those other women?” I felt like tearing my hair out, then killing Jax slowly, but not until he told me every detail of how he’d become a paid whore.

  His pathetic voice was low. “It was just meant to be temporary. I needed the money.”

  I smirked. “Money? I hope to hell you made a fortune, because you, my friend, are ruined. What if I talk? What if I decide to tell everyone in the surf community about your whoring business?”

  He trotted to my side and touched my arm. “You don’t want to do that.”

  I flung my arm away. “Don’t touch me! I don’t want your hands anywhere near me.” I shot him a gaze full of venom. “Don’t test me, Jax. You think it’s okay for you to break my heart, then waltz in here and make up some phony story about a son and all is forgiven?” I laughed a bitter laugh. “Doesn’t work that way Romeo. You don’t get to spread my legs, come inside my mouth, and then kick me to the curb when you’re done with me.”

  “Holly, don’t talk that way. It wasn’t like that. I cared about you.”

  I advanced on him and shoved him hard, but Jax was a strong man. He barely budged. “I hate you! Don’t look at me with those pathetic eyes ever again. Just get the fuck out of my house and go have yourself a good cry somewhere else where I won’t hear you sniveling.” I turned my back on Jax and goddamn if the man didn’t start crying harder. It was getting embarrassing. “Just leave. Please?”

  Matrix and Dinah had settled on the sofa, watching Jax and me. The only sound in the room was the dogs panting and Jax’s pitiful weeping. Jax made no move to leave. Christ almighty, was I going to have to call the cops?

  His head bowed, Jax peeked up at me from behind that long blond hair that I had once delighted in as it tickled my tummy. His voice was a croak. “Can I have some water?”

  I stalked to the pantry, flung the door open, retrieved a bottle of water and tossed it his way. He expertly caught it and slunk to the sofa. The nerve of this man. Anxiety crept up my spine as I watched Jax settle in next to the pups. I sat in the chair opposite him. He wouldn’t look at me, just kept his head down, taking sips of water. I was beginning to worry, the way he carried on, his face red, tiny tears streaming down his face. I hated it when men cried. Was Jax mentally stable?

  Then he hit me with the bomb. The one thing I did not want to rehash. His tear-streaked face looked at me. “What was she like? That woman who killed my brother?”

  Oh God. I did not want to discuss Tatyana. Jax wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Will you tell me? How did she … get him to fall for her?”

  Jesus Christ. He was not playing fair. The memories of that sicko Ukrainian mail order bride Stan had brought into our lives came flooding back. I drummed my fingers on the side table. “Why do you want to know about that?”

  The look he gave me just about broke my heart. Those blue eyes held a lifetime of pain and trauma. “Tyler was my only family. I understand if you hate me Holly, but if you tell me what happened, I promise, you’ll never hear from me again.”

  I folded my arms tightly around my body, pursed my lips and looked away.

  Jax said, “Please?”

  I should’ve thrown him out right that second, should’ve made him suffer. But in that moment, I remembered what Stan had gone through when he found out that Tatyana was a cold-blooded killer. During our time together, Jax had never wanted to discuss the event. I always wondered how he could ever smile again knowing that his brother had been so diabolically murdered. I caved.

  “Come on. Let’s sit at the table. This is going to require some serious alcohol.” And against my better judgment, I prepared to tell Jax about the woman who murdered his only brother.

  I removed a bottle of whisky from the cabinet, set the bottle on the table, and we sat, while I poured us both shots. I set the shot glass in front of Jax and raised my glass. “Down the hatch.” He smiled shakily and bolted the whisky down.

  I took a sharp breath as the alcohol hit my system with a satisfying heat. “Jax, I’m still pissed at you.” My body flushed, my vision growing hazy. “Why do you want to know about her?”

  His head was bowed, and he glanced up at me. “I know you’re mad at me. But you’re the only person I know who knew her. I need to somehow come to terms with this.” He poured himself another shot and threw it back. “I need to know about that monster who killed my brother.” He smacked the shot glass on the table harder than intended.

  I refilled my glass, exhaling heavily. The world pressed down, and I felt like I weighed a thousand pounds. I tried to avoid eye contact with this man who I thought I’d cared about. My voice was low when I launched into the story. “She was gorgeous. Physically that is.” Jax stared at me as though hypnotized. “Stan had been divorced and lonely for ten years, and one night he decided to start trolling one of those Ukrainian mail order bride sites. At first, he didn’t tell me or his mother, but when he booked his trip to Ukraine for a visit”—I threw back another shot of whisky—“we hoped it would be a phase. But it wasn’t.” I looked away. “Stan actually proposed to her.” I looked at Jax. “He’d only spent a few days with her.” My palms were sweaty. Why was I even telling this loser the story? I was angry as hell, but went ahead with my tale. “I tried to talk him out of it. How could he have known anything about her? But Stan was determined. He brought her here on a”—my fingers made air quotes—“fiancé visa, which was supposed to be good for ninety days. Then he married the freak.”

  Jax’s eyes filled. I could barely look at him. I pushed the bottle toward him, he refilled his shot glass and tossed it back. “Did you go to the wedding?”

  Why did Jax want to torture himself? “They married at the courthouse. Didn’t tell a soul.” My eyes leveled with his and I pushed away visions of him screwing other women. “Things went wrong right away. I knew from the minute I laid eyes on her that she was a manipulator. But the thing of it was, she could be charming. I’m sure that’s the side your brother saw. She spent all Stan’s money, started screwing the local dog trainer and who knows who else.” Matrix trotted to my side, his brown eyes adoring. I patted his head. “Matrix was one of the many purchases she made on Stan’s dime. Fully pedigreed rottweiler.”

  “Then what happened?”

  I smirked. “Stan got suspicious of all the phone calls she was making to Ukraine, started recording her calls, and found out they were to a man back home, somebody she’d been screwing.” I leaned forward. “Stan actually had the calls translated.” I shook my head. “Let’s just say he was a lot more than a friend to her.” I thought Stan and I told each other everything, but he didn’t tell me the other way he’d been spying on Tatyana until much later. “He also purchased some panties which had a GPS device implanted in them.”

  Jax sipped his whisky. “No way.”

  “Oh yes. That’s how he found out she’d been having sex with the dog trainer. Tracked her right to where they’d been meeting for their rendezvous.” I glanced at Jax. Every time I looked at him, I saw him with those other women. I squeezed my eyes shut. “They had a huge fight, and that’s when Tatyana left Stan and went to Twentynine Palms.” My throat constricted. “And met your brother.” Tears threatened, and I refilled my glass. “They say she’s sick.”

  The
high-priced psychiatrist who’d taken on Tatyana’s case said that she suffered from dissociative identity disorder. Her alter ego had been created during an abusive relationship with her first husband, a man who became her first murder victim. To hear the psychiatrist tell the story, when she met Tyler, she fell in love, and her alter flew into a rage and murdered the poor guy. But Jax already knew most of that story.

  I drained my whisky. “She was a sick, manipulative woman who used sex to lure men into her web.” Jax hung his head. I was still angry with Jax, probably would be forever, but he looked so sad that I reached out and touched his arm. “They say she really did think she was in love with your brother. I hate the bitch.”

  Neither one of us said anything. I couldn’t believe that just minutes earlier, I’d found out about Jax’s whoring business. Now all I felt was extreme weariness. I sat up straight. “I think you need to leave now.”

  “Holly, I’m so sorry.” I cut him off with a chop of my hand. His sad eyes were heartbreaking. “I really did think I was ready to have a relationship.”

  “Well, you had one heck of a way of going about it. Can I ask you something?” I said. “Do you really have a son?”

  He nodded.

  I stood up, cleared the table, and placed the shot glasses in the sink. “Goodbye, Jax.”

  After Jax left, I called Stan. Good old faithful Stan. He was in his truck and at my side within the hour. We spent the evening finishing that bottle of whisky.

  Rosalyn

  Jax arrived in Santa Cruz around midnight. I hadn’t been sleeping well, and when his tires crunched on the gravel, I woke instantly. I heard the screen door slowly close and him brushing his teeth, and then his warm body was next to mine.

  “Hey,” I said, rolling over and facing him. His face was barely visible from the streetlamp glow coming through the window.

  He brushed my hair back with his hand. “Hey yourself. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “It’s okay. How’d it go?”

  He turned on his back and stared at the ceiling. “It’s been a long day.”