Hurts So Good

by Mallory Rush

  As Billie Holiday crooned another song, Neil guided her with such fluid grace that she found herself moving effortlessly to an increasingly rapid beat. His praise burned hot and sweet in her ears, in her breast, compelling her on until she was soaring again, higher than before.

  His heart beat above hers, no longer in a gentle persuasion but in a rough rise and fall as they galloped together in the joy of unrestrained passion. The more she gave, the more he gave back. She took him. And took him. And took him until she thought he might tear her into fragments of ecstasy.

  And then he did. She cried at the beauty of it. She covered his face with kisses, which he returned until he wrenched his mouth away and lunged forward.

  He stared down at her as she felt the pulse of his release. He came in a stunning silence. He came in absolute stillness, not even with a blink.

  Andrea began to shiver, unsure if it was from the chilled air that fanned over their sweat-slick bodies or his continued stare, as if he were in shock.

  "Neil?" She touched his cheek, and he softly bit her palm. "Are you okay?"

  "I don't think so."

  "What's wrong? Please, tell me."

  "Math," he whispered.

  "I don't understand, Neil."

  "It's very simple, chere. Simple as two halves making a whole."

  * * *

  Neil studied his surroundings as he blew another smoke ring into the early morning light.

  A roach skittered across the floor in the kitchenette.

  The avocado-green refrigerator in the corner wheezed for another breath while Billie Holiday sounded as if she needed a rest from the automatic replay.

  It wasn't only Billie's voice that needed a rest. Neil pulled Andrea closer and was amazed to feel that part of him that should have needed a rest stir. He stroked Andrea's hair away from her face and studied her profile.

  He'd never been more sober. Sober and eager to have Andrea in tow when he crawled out of bed. The mattress beneath them was thin, and at least ten springs had unhinged since they'd taken each other on. But the sheets were clean—if he didn't count the sweat now on them or the faint streak of blood that he'd discovered earlier. He'd blinked and blinked again, while he groped with the realization that he'd been Andrea's first, not the second.

  It had certainly been a first for him, making love to a woman he loved. A woman he had the good sense God gave him to never let go.

  "Seems I stand corrected," he whispered. "You and Lou were both right, chere. It don't matter where a person rests his head, so long as he wakes up next to the right person."

  While the refrigerator hummed and Billie Holiday sang on. Neil lifted a candle stub from beside the bed and took a shot at the roach.

  He laughed quietly. "Bull's-eye."

  His next target might not be as easy: Getting a ring on Andrea's finger and the first of their children in her belly before summer was out.

  He'd give them everything he'd been deprived of, the things he still craved, his very own Father Knows Best home. Yet he couldn't lie to himself. Even in this he was being a selfish bastard. He wanted to be the breadwinner, the sole provider, for all the right reasons, but there was one that wasn't exactly noble.

  Fear. Fear of losing her, whether it was to another man, to death, or even a career. All the things that had shaped his life and him into what he was: a man who loved her, needed her so desperately that he would use any means to keep her tied to him.

  Chapter 14

  "You're fired."

  "I'm what?"

  Without bothering to look up from his ledger, Neil said matter-of-factly, "You're fired. F-I-R-E-D. As in, fired."

  "Did I just hear you say that I'm fired?"

  "As of tonight, you are no longer tending bar."

  "As of tonight, I'm no longer tending bar!"

  "Is there an echo in here or what?" Pushing back his chair from the desk, he stretched, then popped the suspenders riding his shoulders. He looked at her then, a sly smile on his lips. "Another bartender starts tonight, the one who's taking your place. You've got a new job, chere. The club manager quit, and guess who's taking his position?"

  Andrea eyed Neil warily. If she'd learned anything in the past few weeks of sharing a pillow with him, it was that he was a master chess player—another of his attributes he hadn't mentioned but made sure she found out about. Whether at the game board or the bedroom or in this immaculate office she couldn't believe was the same one they'd first met in, he called every checkmate. It was his game, and anyone who challenged it left with nothing, not even a shirt.

  "I don't know anything about running a club, Neil."

  "Not yet. But if you pick up how to run a club as fast as you did bartending, then you'll be the best club manager this side of the Mason-Dixon Line. Besides, I can't concentrate while every man at the bar's hitting on you."

  So that was it. He'd already thrown out several patrons, cutting short a few numbers to do it.

  "This is ridiculous. How many times do I have to tell you that I can take care of myself? I've more than learned the best way to deal with a drunk." A state she'd yet to see him in. Not only had he cut his smoking in half, his drinking was down to a trickle.

  Still, that didn't make him an easy man to live with, although he did accept her explanation of the typewriter she'd taken to his house—that it had been a graduation present. More than that, he was always sober, surprisingly neat—and not a day went by that he didn't bring her fresh flowers or a trinket she'd admired. For some reason his nonstop gift-giving bothered her, so she'd quit pointing out whatever caught her eye—not that it stopped him from showering her with presents anyway.

  "Don't matter if you can deal with a drunk. Proprietor's prerogative. We'll work on the books together tomorrow. Tonight, we'll work on each other." He glanced at his watch. "I've got an hour before I need to warm up. Practice making perfect, how about an early start? I'm already hot."

  He reached for his sax and slipped loose the mouthpiece. Andrea edged toward the closed door of his office.

  "That's far enough, Neil. Put it down."

  "Make me. Or better yet, I'll make you." As he stroked it between thumb and middle finger, her knees wobbled, and she steadied herself against the wall.

  He tossed the mouthpiece to his desk and, with a quick stride, reached her and slid his hand up her skirt. She'd begun to wear skirts lately at his request. One of many requests she'd agreed to. Like the one that had her sharing his bed while her apartment floor swarmed with carpenters and plumbers and electricians. They were toppling walls, reclaiming hardwood floors, replacing light fixtures. And the bathroom! Black marble tile wrapped around a sleek sunken tub, and a bidet.

  "Gets you every time, chere. Good thing I don't have the same problem onstage, or it could be a very embarrassing situation." He smiled as her nails sank into his wrist, and he tightened his intimate grip. "Why, Andrea, what a good sport you are. Usually, it takes at least five minutes before you start to claw. Ten to bite. You're making excellent progress, and I most certainly approve."

  "Sink your teeth into this, Slick. I have no desire to be your club manager. You'll have to hire someone else."

  "Then where will you work?"

  "Behind the bar, of course."

  "No such thing. I don't want you tending anymore, not here, not anywhere. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Yes, you do. Now I'm making myself clear. I've worked hard to learn the ropes. I'm fast, the clientele likes me—"

  "Too much, that's the problem."

  "I'm a good bartender, Neil."

  "The best."

  "Then you have no right to take away my position."

  "I claim the right, as the man who loves you and sleeps with you, to enjoy any position the two of us can devise. The wall's right handy, but the couch is a mite more comfortable. Take your pick, unless you want me to choose. Say, both?"

  "Forget either unless you've got something better to offer than trying to bully me into a job that I d
on't want."

  "Lord, but you do drive a hard bargain." He sighed and shook his head. "I was afraid of this, so I did give some thought to another arrangement. Come park them sweet little buns on my lap, chere."

  When she refused to budge, he picked her up and moved to the couch, where he nuzzled her neck and murmured sweet, naughty nothings into her ear until she slumped against him with a sigh. Here they go again, she thought, bracing herself. He wanted something and knew exactly what strings to pull to get it, which included shifting her thighs until she was straddling his hips.

  "Go ahead, Neil. Lay it on me while I'm still coherent."

  "Okay, try this on for size. You don't tend bar, and you don't manage the club. Instead, you manage yours truly."

  Could it be? She'd seen the amazing volume of work he put out, often writing in a frenzy as she looked on from the bed.

  "You mean you're ready to record again? To tour?"

  "Have you been drinking what I haven't? Since you moved in, my muse seems to think I've got a machine gun for a brain. I need a rest, not an ulcer. I'm talking about something much more appealing than me coming out of the closet and firing one of those sure hits you've inspired me to crank out."

  Something more appealing than what she'd subtly been pushing for? "This I have to hear."

  "Here's the deal. You quit working and spend your free time decorating. Thanks to all the bucks I'm shelling out for overtime labor, the third floor'll be done before summer's out. It's gonna have lots of style, but it'll need a woman's touch. Your touch. A touch I need worse than our home does. I want you sitting at the front table every night while I play each song for you. And while some other club manager closes up the bar, we'll tear up the sheets, then watch a rerun of Father Knows Best." His gaze searched hers as he said softly, "I would like to be a father. The kind of father I always dreamed of having. With you as the mother, better than the best."

  Andrea groped for words, while his words echoed between her ears.

  "I—um, I'd prefer to be married first, Neil."

  "That could be arranged."

  "But—but we haven't known each other long enough."

  "Long enough for me to know that I love you like crazy, and I'll do whatever it takes to keep you. Do you know what it means to me to be the one who makes you smile and wakes you up with a kiss every mornin'? What a deep sense of pride I feel, being able to take care of you? Let me. Let me make you as happy as you make me."

  He couldn't be proposing this soon. Despite Liza's warning, she wasn't prepared. Neil wanted a wife who made him her career, while he kept his own and thrived on her total dependence on him. The kind of dependence that had made his mother weak. It was a weakness that he saw as strength.

  Andrea knew he loved her. Passionately. So passionately, his love was all-consuming. He held on too tight, as if certain she'd desert him if he let her loose. Knowing what she did of his past, she understood. But she had to make him understand that love couldn't be caged or bought with lavish gifts. What she wanted, needed, was his trust. Trust so absolute she had no fear of his desertion once she confessed her deception.

  She needed even more: his support of her chosen career. She was, would always be, a journalist. Oh, how he loathed the press, and she probably would, too, had her life been held up to public ridicule and titillation. But she wasn't Neil, and she couldn't give up her profession any more than she could give up her love for him. Did he love her enough to accept that? Could their whirlwind affair compete with his lifetime of distrust?

  Sadly, she doubted it. Time. They needed time.

  "I'm sorry, Neil," she said slowly. "I love you, more each day, but I can't live in a gilded cage. That's not real, and it's not enough. Not for me."

  "Then what do you want? I couldn't deny you a thing, chere. Everything I have, all that I am—such as that is—is yours. Problem is, there's a part of me that wants to put you in that gilded cage along with the children we're going to have."

  Andrea took a deep breath. "Did you miss me this afternoon?"

  "I did. Where was—were you?"

  "At the doctor."

  "You're not sick are you? Tell me you're not sick."

  "No. I went for the reason we're discussing."

  His fervent expression of concern eased into an expectant smile. "Chere, you're not—"

  "No, Neil. I'm not pregnant. My period was late, so I went to have it checked out. The results were negative, and I left with a prescription for birth-control pills."

  His smile went flat, and the spark in his eyes died.

  "I see," he said dully.

  "Quite the contrary, I don't think that you see at all."

  "Then why don't you get busy and enlighten me?" he snapped. How quickly he could turn, and it only increased her apprehension.

  "All right, I will. I grew up in an orphanage, always wanting a home and two parents who loved me. Things most children take for granted."

  "Not me."

  "I realize that. And so you, of all people, should understand what it means to conceive a child, to give him or her the advantage of stability, a home where the parents might disagree but aren't at terrible odds."

  "We don't fight!"

  "Not lately, but as of now we're making up for lost time." She shoved a finger into his chest and her face into his. "Get this, Neil, and get it good. I've taken your laundry to the cleaners and cooked your meals—"

  "I've cooked just as many for you. I thought you liked my grits at breakfast. The only thing you said you liked better was my jambalaya. And even if I don't get the clothes washed I have bought you several dresses to make up for the ones I've ripped in my hurry to get you naked."

  "That's beside the point. I want more in my life than to tend a man who has a career, or what remains of it."

  "What the hell does that have to do with you and me and our future?"

  "A lot, Neil. It has to do with you not liking what you ended up with after climbing the path to the top. Once you were there, the room with a view didn't look out on what you'd envisioned. So what did you do?"

  "Changed it, that's what."

  "Yes, that's exactly what you did. Made horrible scenes in public, didn't show for concerts—"

  "I told you, my life had already gone sour, but when the music stopped, I lost my want to please a crowd. So what if a few fans had to get tickets refunded?"

  "A few people? Try Carnegie Hall, sold out, while you checked into a ratty motel with a bottle and a gun. Thank God you called Lou to tell him goodbye—long enough for him to trace the call and fly in just in time to drag you back home. If recent memory serves, you did say that you were sick for a week and haven't left New Orleans since."

  "Saw enough of the world to last me a lifetime, thanks. No reason for me to leave when my lawyers could take care of the bloody mess." He grinned, making light of the horror that time had apparently diluted for him but not for her, never for her. "Picked that bloody word up on tour in England."

  She sighed. "The point is, they took care of your mess. You didn't want to deal with it, so you paid someone else to so you could stick your head in the sand. How irresponsible."

  "It most certainly wasn't! I survived the only way I knew how. And as for paying somebody else to deal with my legal messes, wise up. That's how it's done in the real world. Believe me, all involved were well compensated."

  "That's another thing that bothers me. Money. You and your damn money. You've got more than you know what to do with, and you won't even hire a personal accountant. And why?"

  "Because it's mine, and as such it's my right to count it, invest it, and spend it how I see fit. You grew up poor, so surely you can understand my fondness for keeping my own books. What's your beef with that? I'm generous with you."

  "Too generous. Did it possibly occur to you that sometimes I might want to use my money? Or that your open-coffer policy robs me of the right to contribute?"

  "Ain't no need for you to do that. I've got plenty for us both.
"

  "That's not the issue. Look, your money is a security blanket for you, and I empathize with that. But you have to understand that I want some security of my own."

  "What I understand is that I'll make sure you never lack for money or security. But since you want to fend for yourself, I'll give you a tip. Money is a very powerful tool. So's the truth. They got me a divorce and out of a record contract the label's CEO had plenty of incentive to wash his hands of. Seems he didn't want his dirt aired by those rags that lap that stuff right up."

  Andrea shifted uneasily, feeling an incriminating blush stain her chicks. The more he confided, the more her charade became worthy of punishment. She knew too much, and she knew him too well. Neil's core was hard, and he never forgave a betrayal. She shivered as her heart raced.

  "What are you getting at?"

  "The moral is, you don't seem to trust me enough yet to let me protect you and provide for your future. I, on the other hand, trust you. I've given you the means to provide for yourself at my expense. You could always write a story about me that would tide you over for some time."

  Andrea felt like the fraud she was, pointing the finger at Neil's character weaknesses while desperately covering her own. She was a liar, a cheat. Worse, she was a coward, terrified of losing his love.

  "So tell me, chere," he said, stripping off her shirt and bra, "what does all this have to do with you getting on the pill because you don't want my babies any more than you want to settle down with me?"

  "It's not that I don't want to."

  "Then what is it?"

  Fear, Neil, she wanted to scream. Knee-knocking, dry-heaves fear. I'm afraid to relinquish what independence I still have left, afraid of what you'll do once I tell you the truth. I can't marry you with this lie between us, the lie and the damning evidence of it that grows with each page I type.

  God, how she wanted to tell him that. She had to before they could take the next step. The fact that she couldn't was proof their relationship needed time to mature. But at least she could offer him a portion of truth.