by Joya Ryan
~
“Would you like to come in?” I asked Jack as we sat in my driveway.
He glanced in the rearview window, seeing the reflection of the fire station behind us and across the street. Stillness washed over him. Learning Jack was like figuring out how to dance around a sleeping bear. In one breath, his body could go from tense, to calm, to still. Scary still. I’d never met his equal when it came to the kind of intense presences that radiated from him. Everything was always on another level with him. Just when I thought he couldn’t be more dominant, more perfect, he surprised me with yet another layer of his personality and demeanor.
“Jack?” His gaze snapped from the mirror to my face. Whatever thoughts he’d been having were consuming. “Do you miss Cal?”
It was obvious he wanted to laugh that off, but instead, he adjusted to face me slightly.
“Miss?”
“Yes, miss. It’s an okay emotion to feel, you know.”
“I never said it wasn’t.”
“But you balk at the word.”
“Cal and I have a tricky friendship. We spent a lot of time together growing up, protecting each other. I know he’ll be back. But when he’s gone…”
I leaned in a little, excited for another tiny fact about the closed off man beside me.
“When he’s gone,” I prompted, but got nothing, so I tried to fill in the blank myself. “It’s like a disturbance in the force?”
Jack smiled. “Something like that.”
I smiled back, and grabbed his hand. He was opening up! He clearly had a tight bond with Cal, but whatever they went through as kids forged something unbreakable.
“True friends are hard to find, and even harder to keep. I’m glad you have someone you trust.”
Jack looked at me. “I trust him with everything in my world, including my life itself, and he’s come through on that.”
There was a dark undertone to the last part of that statement. So much shaped the man that Jack was, and I didn’t even understand a fraction of it. Sitting in my driveway, with the firehouse behind us, and him talking, I wanted to know more.
“You said you protected each other. From what?”
“From our lives,” he said, and opened his door to exit the car.
A thick tremor slowly crept up my spine at his words.
What kind of lives did they have? What life did Jack have? What made it so bad that his seemingly only friend in the world was more like a comrade-in-arms?
Jack walked around the car and helped me out, taking my arm as he walked me to the front door. His stance and silence shutting down the minimal conversation we’d barely scraped the surface of.
Pulling the keys from my purse, I unlocked the dead bolt, and we walked in.
He cupped my hips, pulled me into him. “Thank you for staying with me this weekend.”
I brushed his biceps, my palms trailing up, as his went lower to the small of my back. “I feel the sudden urge to throw a fit and demand that you stay,” I whispered, my mouth hovering over his.
He raised a brow. “Demand?”
He squeezed my ass hard, pulling me even closer against him, until I felt his cock nudging my stomach. “You have me walking around like a damn teenager. Hard and ready to take you at any time.”
“Is that such a bad thing?” I said, and swayed my hips, just enough to brush against his swelling length.
“You tease me.”
“Maybe you should do something about that then?” That time I was really challenging him.
He nipped my bottom lip. “I see your brazenness is coming out. Tempting me now? You know what happens when you tempt me.”
I wrapped my arms around him, stood on my tip toes and whispered in his ear. “I liked it. All of it. You take me over. And I love it when you do.”
His hard chest rose and fell on a deep breath, the action causing his sculpted torso to brush along my nipples, which only made the inner heat pooling low in my belly rise.
“I slapped your ass,” he said quietly.
“Yes, and I liked it.”
That seemed to please him, but when I leaned back to look in his eyes, they were conflicted. His hold on me was tight, like letting me go, giving me space, was something he wasn’t willing to do.
“You liked it,” he repeated. Not as a question, but almost a statement of proof he needed for himself that everything worked out. I wanted to ease whatever was weighing on his mind.
“I’ve seen you,” I said, repeating his words from the first time he saw me in his office. “I’ve felt you. There’s no reason to worry anymore about what I can handle.”
“Hot or cold?” he asked. “I need to know if the other night was too much. If the spanking was—”
“Hot. The only time I start to feel cold is when you pull away.”
That seemed to take him off guard. Whatever internal battles he fought, it was clear on his face that they were raging. He was confident, sure of himself, but over the past weekend, I’d caught glimpses of a man beneath that I didn’t understand. But wanted to desperately. Because all signs pointed to him caring about me.
“You’ve been with women,” I started.
“Yes,” he said with a faintest “duh” in his voice.
“I feel like you worry about me a significant amount. Did you worry about the others like this?”
“No, I didn’t worry about them the way I do you.”
“Is something about me different than the others?”
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
“You don’t strike me as a man that asks for much. Yet you’ve gone out of your way to make sure I’m comfortable.”
He looked at me like I’d just took a hammer to a mirror and shattered his prized possession.
“The other women were all masochists.”
“They enjoyed pain?”
“Yes, they took pleasure in it.”
“I liked the spanking,” I restated, hoping he believed me this time. “And you’re intense, but never too rough with me, and you don’t scare me or hurt me.”
“It’s not the same.”
“I don’t understand why. Why are they masochists and I’m not? You worry about me, but not them? Do you think I’m weak and can’t handle things?” That was the exact opposite of what I was going for. I wanted to show Jack, and myself, I was more. That I didn’t need constant worry. “I’ve enjoyed everything we’ve done.”
“Every woman I’ve been with, I’ve found based on their self-proclamation of being passive and masochistic. It’s a lifestyle they live and breathe. You are not a part of that lifestyle. You like a spanking, but there’s way more to it than that.”
I swallowed hard. “So, if this is a lifestyle, and they enjoy receiving pain, does that mean you enjoy inflicting it?” My voice was soft, and I held my breath awaiting his answer.
He stared at me for a long moment.
“Good-bye, Lana.”
He pulled away, opened the door, and walked out.
“Wait!” I went after him. “You can’t just cut me out like that.”
He spun on his heel, kissed me quickly, then went back to walking away. There was pain behind his movements, his eyes. He opened his car door.
“I’m standing right in front of you, just trying to understand. I wouldn’t judge you.”
He shook his head. “Of course you wouldn’t. Because you’re better than that.” He wasn’t condescending, actually, he sounded wounded.
“Please,” I said, as he sat in the driver seat and shut the door. His window was down, and I bent to face him. “Please don’t leave.”
“I need to.”
He reversed, pulled out on the road, and left within seconds. The walls around Jack were chipping, but the more pieces that fell, the more he pulled away. I was walking a fine line between understanding him and shoving him away.
I had no idea how to help. How to feel. How to reach him. But there I stood, standing and watching him drive away. While I waited. Wa
ited for an answer that may never come, and a man that may never return.
~
“God damn it!” Harper yelled at the TV. “Top of the eighth inning and our pitcher gives up a home run.” She huffed, and sat back on the couch. She got heated whenever watching baseball.
After Jack left, Harper came home and started dinner, while I did some chores around the house. It was nice to be in the same room with my best friend, relaxing with no agenda, and enjoying the evening.
Yet, my mind drifted to the conversation I’d had with Jack.
I’d asked him if he enjoyed inflicting pain, and he didn’t answer. The look on his face was one of disgust. Disgust with himself? The women he’d been with? Me? I had no idea. But if he liked giving pain, what did that mean for us? Because he was right, a spanking and some rough sex was different than some of the stuff I’d spent the past hour Googling.
If he was deep into this kind of lifestyle, what did that make him? A sadist?
If so, could I handle the next step?
Based on what I read, and what he said about it being a lifestyle, I didn’t know. Of course consent was always involved, but the reason I loved being with him so much was because he made me feel empowered. Even when he was exercising his dominance, I always consented and felt taken care of while giving up my control.
These women from his past were different than me. He’d made that clear. But maybe that was a good thing. Maybe he cared on a different level then? Or maybe I was looking at angles that didn’t exist and grasping at explanations without proper facts. One such thing that worried me was whether my difference from his past interactions with women was a bad thing. If I wasn’t a masochist, perhaps he wasn’t getting his needs fully met?
Jesus, I had no idea! The man shut down every time I broached a topic he didn’t like.
“What’s up with you?” Harper asked, looking at me from across the room. A commercial was on, which meant her attention was momentarily taken away from the game.
“Men are confusing. That’s all,” I said.
As if the universe could hear me, my phone rang. I reached for it on the coffee table.
“It’s my dad,” I said, reading the caller I.D.
Harper frowned at the phone like it was the anti-Christ calling. “I’ll give you some privacy.” She aimed the remote at the TV, and paused the game. “Yell when you’re done.”
She walked to her room, and I answered. “Hi, Dad.”
The man barely returned my texts and hadn’t taken my calls in the past. For him to be calling after seven o’ clock at night, when he would usually be at home with his wife, was odd.
“Hi, Pumpkin. How are you?”
“Ah, fine.” I was wondering what he was doing suddenly calling me, but my politeness won out. “How are you?”
“Well…I’m alright, I suppose.” The tone of his voice followed by a long sigh made a familiar sting in my chest rise.
Guilt.
Confusion.
Sadness.
My dad knew which strings to pull, and he could do it with a single inflection of his vowels. That was all it took for my mind to race, thinking he needed me. Thinking I could somehow help whatever was bothering him. Thinking we were still on the same team.
We aren’t, I reminded myself. We hadn’t been on the same team for a long time. But old habits were impossible to break, so I asked, “You sure everything is okay?”
“Yes. Seeing you today was just a reminder of how much I’m missing out on. You looked so pretty. Happy.”
My eyes suddenly ached and strained to keep tears behind them.
“Thank you,” I whispered. His words were so kind. It melted a piece of my heart that had been continually freezing for the past ten years. “I am happy.”
“Is it that man that makes you so happy? Jack, right?”
“Yes. It’s still new, but—”
“He likes you, I can tell.”
I hoped so.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since you quit. I was rash in dismissing you. I think you’d do great at Case-VanBuren.”
My heart wanted to ask why, but my head picked up on the slight altering of his voice, which made me realize that this wasn’t him calling to fix things between us. This was a sales pitch.
He was putting on the professional hat.
“I appreciate that, but I have a job for the summer now.”
“Of course, and I wouldn’t want to get in the way of that. Perhaps we can do something off the books to get you cemented in the company, then you can work while going to school, maybe oversee a single account, just to get your feet wet.”
“Are you serious? You want me to take over an account on my own?”
“Well, you’d have to land it first, but yes.”
“Wait, land it?”
And there was the second sigh. “I wasn’t lying when I said before that the Denver branch is struggling. We need a new client with substantial investment means to get Denver performing at the same level as New York.”
And the dots connected.
My entire body deflated like a balloon that had just been stabbed with a steak knife.
“You want me to get Jack to invest in your company, don’t you?”
“I’m giving you the opportunity you said you wanted. You wanted to work for me. Be an associate.”
Actually, I wanted to be a Finance Analyst. Something I’d told him several times over the years, yet he still didn’t seem to know.
I shook my head. “Here, I thought you actually called because you cared.”
“I do. I care about your future and I want you at Case-VanBuren.”
“Because you think I can benefit you somehow now. You had no problem letting me walk out, telling me Brock was taking over, and kicking me to the curb.”
“You’re being dramatic, Lana.”
Those words stuck to my stomach like day-old liquor in a burning gut. Only instead of day-old, it was more like ten years. It was always me being dramatic. Not the truth. Not the truth then, and not the truth now.
“I can’t help you.”
“Just talk to Jack. Set up a meeting for us to discuss business.”
By “business,” my father meant trying to sway Jack into entrusting his money to them on some level.
“No,” I said sharply. I wouldn’t use Jack like that, and I wouldn’t turn a blind eye to my father obviously using me.
He huffed like he had a right to be frustrated with me. “I told you, I’d make you an associate. You can help with an investment strategy for his funds. This is something you could actually put on your resume.”
“No,” I said again, calmly this time.
“If Denver gets a client like Jack Powell, there would be no need for Brock to be here. He could go back to New York.”
My heart stopped. My dad was pulling out the big guns of persuasion now. Using my fear and unease of Brock being in the same city against me. I hated that Brock was so close. That his encounters caught me off guard and put me on a higher anxiety level, knowing he was near. But I still couldn’t do that to Jack.
“What do your wife and Brock say about this grand plan of yours?”
There was a long pause, and I heard my father shuffle like he did when he was nervous. “Brock will play ball. And Anita wants what’s best for both Brock and the company.”
Uh-huh. Everything in my body was sick with disgust and realization that this was what my father and my relationship had descended to.
“I can’t help you,” I said. “If you want Jack Powell’s business, you’ll have to acquire it without me.”
“We’d have to woo him.”
Which was why he was coming to me. But I wasn’t going to help with this.
“Well, good luck with that.”
My father scoffed. “You talk about your dislike of Brock. I give you an opportunity to work for me, gain distance from Brock, and you refuse. Stands to reason that your issues with him are more in your mind than re
ality.”
Knock. Out.
In a verbal left hook, my father managed to call me a liar, defend Brock, insult me, and blame this entire mess and the lack of a client on me in one fell swoop. All while maintaining the passive aggressive approach and using words like “issues.” And it hurt worse than anything he’d ever said.
“Good bye,” was all I managed to get out before the tears spilled over. I tossed my phone on the couch and caught the water before it could skate further down my cheeks. I wouldn’t cry over this. Reality was too much to handle, but crying would only prove to myself that I gave weight to his words. And I wouldn’t.
Maybe there really was nothing left of the man I once knew as my father. Because all I could see was manipulation.
I called for Harper to let her know I was off the phone.
“Everything okay?” she asked, resuming her seat.
“Yes and no.” I needed to tackle one thing at a time. Since I wouldn’t help my father with his scheme of “wooing” my boyfriend for his professional gain, I’d stick to the more important issue: understanding Jack.
“What was your dad calling about?”
“He’s just trying to suck up to get something out of me.”
“Dick,” Harper mumbled.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But there’s more than that going on.”
“With Jack?”
“Yes. Whenever I try to get any kind of personal details out of him, he gives me a little, then totally shuts down.”
“Just enough to drive you crazy, huh?”
“Exactly!” I threw my hands up. “And now I’m sitting here wondering what to do. Trying to plan some kind of solution based on what may or may not even be relevant.”
“Slow down,” Harper said. “First, you start with what you know for sure.”
I took a deep breath and mentally calculated all the tiny tidbits of Jack I’d gathered over the length of our relationship.
“He controls his world. He’s intense.”
“Duh,” Harper agreed.
“He doesn’t think so himself, but he’s thoughtful and kind. He makes me feel strong, and he’s…”