Chapter 1

 

Jax

 

They say the bigger you are, the harder you fall. Well, when it came to women, I was a fucking giant. And when it came to Lizzie, I fell real fucking hard.

Just a little over a week ago I was screwing more women than a sexist hiring policy. I would make girls come so hard it took them weeks to remember what normality felt like. I’d make fantasies they never even knew they had come true.

I was the sharp-suited shaman that could fuck all the problems out of them. The dangerous drug that got them shaking and sweating for more.

Now I’m sitting in a booth at what used to be my favorite bar, staring into the bottom of an empty whisky glass, wondering where it all went wrong. When Joni Mitchell’s ‘Don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone’ comes on the bar speakers I know two things for certain: One, I’ve been in the bar so long it’s well past the dancing hours, and two, the universe is most definitely fucking with me.

Ain’t karma a bitch? Hell, if anyone deserves it, it’s me. I’ve been a very bad boy for a very long time.

They say the devil comes as a beautiful woman - and I was sure I’d met a few of them. Girls who fucked like they weren’t sure whether they wanted to come with me or kill me. Women with eyes so intense they could fuck you from across the room. Women who were into every kink known to man – a few of them known only to this man.

But I never thought Lizzie would be the one to really tear me apart. She wasn’t supposed to be that girl. She was the one with the big brown eyes and the goofy sense of humor. The one who needed a few drinks to dance. The one who was all coy and innocent until I got her in the sack.

I should have known she was trouble when she asked me to teach her how to fuck. Well, I must have done a damn good job, because right now I feel like the entire cosmos just fucked me.

She’s given me the works. Turning the cheek when I go to kiss her on the lips. The ‘we can be friends’ and the ‘you’d really like him’ and the ‘it was great.’ Shit. God may have given men dicks, but he really overcompensated when he gave women the ability to fuck with our emotions.

What was his name again? John? Jim? Jackass? James. Met him in a grocery store and hit it off. I know it’s the whisky talking, but I would like to meet this guy. I’d like to ask him politely to take a trip to a distant continent, and if he refuses, hit him so hard he’ll wake up there anyway. Who does this guy think he is?

Lizzie was meant for me. Sure, I’ve never actually dated anyone. The week of daily (and nightly) fucking I just spent with Lizzie probably constitutes the longest relationship I’ve ever actually had. And yeah, you don’t need to be a psychologist to realize I’m as likely to stick around as a sunset, especially when I was the one who said ‘no commitments, no feelings.’ But that’s exactly why this is the hardest kick in the balls I’ve had since a possessive ex-hookup caught me kissing a Victoria’s Secret model in the parking lot after months of not replying to her texts.

I was ready to change. Ready to try this ‘dating’ thing out and see what all the fuss was about - but only for Lizzie. She was hot enough, funny enough, smart enough, and again, hot enough, to make me feel like I wouldn’t be missing out.

Instead, she met someone else, just when I was about to tell her. Just after I taught her how to be the best damn fuck in all of LA.

“You lucky son of a bitch, James,” I say, raising my glass to the empty bar and downing the last drops.

The bartender is by my side in seconds.

“Jax?” he says, like I just beamed out of thin air. “I never see you around this time. Something up? Where’s your…?”

I wave away the question before he can finish it. “It’s a long story. Get me another.”

He shakes his head like I’ve seen bouncers do with guys in bad shoes. “It’s way past two AM. No serving alcohol. I can get you a Coke or something?”

“Can you put a little whisky in that Coke?” I say, raising my finger to my lips, poking myself in the nose, and realizing just how utterly wasted I am.

The bartender shakes his head again, this time like a mother disappointed in a bad report card. “Sorry, man. You sure you’re ok? I can call you a cab.”

“I just. Need. A drink,” I grind out. You’d think I was speaking another language, the way he’s looking at me all crossways.

“Plenty of booze at my place,” comes a husky voice from somewhere beside the bartender.

I thought I was seeing double, but when I squint a little I can see a tall redhead standing beside him – the same woman I blew off last week when I brought Lizzie here to dance. My one night stand from days of yore.

The bartender leaves, and I slowly take in the redhead’s figure.

She’s the kind of woman that looks like she eats men for breakfast, and doesn’t spit any part of them out. She’s got more curves than a race track packed into her tight black dress. Though it has a high neckline, they don’t make many dresses that can disguise tits that glorious, and you can see every eye-catching jiggle as they struggle to get free.

It’s the kind of body that you can’t get at the gym; it’s been sculpted by plenty of ferocious, hair-pulling sex. My eyes roll around curves so crazy they make me dizzy, before I return her green-eyed gaze. It’s the kind that hungry predators have when they spot their prey.

I rack my brain for memories of the rendezvous I had with this woman way back when, but I get nothing. No name, no idea where she lives or what she does. What I can tell just by looking at her now is that she’s a little older than the usually twenty-somethings at the bar, old enough to have a few tricks up her sleeve, but young enough to still be able to pull them off. And I’ll be honest, I’ve always been partial to slightly older women, because I like someone who knows what they’re doing and isn’t intimidated by my demands – but then again, I’m partial to any woman who can fill a dress like that. Despite my inability to drum up any solid remembrance of the redhead, I have to assume that if she’s come back for more, it’s a pretty safe bet that she’ll be willing to fill in the blanks for me.

My head is swimming right now though, and as much as I’d like to attribute that to the x amount of whiskies I’ve had, I was out for the count as soon as Lizzie got up and walked away about half a night ago.

“Is that an invitation?” I slur, trying to muster up some sexual energy despite the empty feeling inside.

She leans a little towards me, and I notice the most fuckable cherry-red lips I’ve seen since…well, Lizzie’s.

“It’s an offer,” she says, in that husky voice that seems designed to vibrate through my body and stop at my balls.

At this point, most guys would be looking around for the candid cameras to pop out. Most guys would be half-way to coming right about now. Most guys would be trying to remember every move they ever saw in a porno in the hope that it could satisfy this amazing piece of ass.

Me, I’m trying to stop thinking about what Lizzie is doing right now so I can get in the moment and give this woman the fucking she’s so expertly asking for. And given that this isn’t our first encounter, and that she’s already familiar with my advanced level of sexpertise, I know I’ve got some seriously high expectations to live up to.

“I love a good deal,” I say, pulling myself up out of the booth with a little less than my usual elegance, putting an arm around her waist, and leaving the bar with her. “It’s Jax, if you didn’t remember—”

“Valerie,” she purrs into my ear, though we both know it’s a formality. By tomorrow I’ll have forgotten it, just like the morning after we defiled that bathroom stall, however long ago that was. “But I already knew your name,” she says. “How could I forget it?”

I find myself flashing back to that night, this woman screaming my name loud enough to bring security bursting into the bathroom to escort us out of the bar. I was expecting a temporary 86 for making a scene, but the next time I showed up at the door, what I got instead of a boot to the ass was a round of backslaps and handshakes from the bouncers, security, and of course my favorite bartender. Just another crazy story to add to the legend of Jax Wilder.

Valerie walks close, snapping me back to the present, bumping into me a little on purpose so I can feel that those ass cheeks are as firm as they are round. I can smell her perfume, applied just lightly enough that I can still pick up the pheromones of a woman in heat.

“My car’s over there,” she says, pointing towards a Porsche some way off.

“Good taste,” I say.

She looks me up and down with x-ray eyes.

“Always,” she whispers.

When we get close to the car I start getting a little worried. Not because this woman has a walk that’s sexier than most stripper routines. Not because she’s offering me the ride of my life – that’s an everyday thing.

But because I’m just going through the motions.

It’s not the whisky, not the suddenness of the situation, and it’s definitely not the woman – I just can’t get in the mood.

I start freaking out, and do the one thing that comes naturally to me. I grab this Valerie and kiss her. Wet tongues fuck each other’s hot mouths. My chest presses up against those glorious tits, pushing her back against the side window of her Porsche. My hands grab and pull at that magnificent ass. She raises her knee up against my hip, and I run a rough hand along the toned lines of her thigh.

Suddenly I’m feeling back to my old self. It’s like the blood is finally pumping through my body once again. My muscles start to tighten as a little strength flows back into them. My cock comes to life, getting so hard my pants are struggling to keep it caged. I’m like the Hulk getting angry, Frankenstein after a bolt of electricity, the werewolf on a full moon – I’m back.

Then I open my eyes, see that it’s not Lizzie, and I’m a slurring, drunk, weak little mess again. I pull back a little and she notices.

“What’s wrong?”

I put my trademark knowing smirk on, though it takes a little effort now, and say: “The only thing wrong is how sexy your body is.”

I cringe after I say it – even my own lines aren’t coming out right. Still, she smiles, and we get in the car.

Before I know it, we’re doing eighty through the streets of LA. If Valerie fucks like she drives, we’ll reach our destination quicker than usual – and with severe risk of injury.

“I had my eye on you all night,” she says, her fingers hanging off the wheel so casually that we’re a pothole away from slamming more than our bodies together. “Guys like you don’t usually stick around bars like that until times like this.”

“Neither do girls like you,” I reply.

“I knew you were playing hard to get last week, but I can be pretty patient – or not,” she says, reaching a hand over to my crotch. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get what I want.” I’m not sure what she finds down there, but all I can think about is Lizzie: where she is, who she’s with, what she’s doing with him.

Suddenly Valerie frowns and turns to me.

“You’re that drunk?”

“It just takes me a while to get into the mood sometimes,” I say. Even though I’m saying a lot of things I never thought I’d say tonight – that has to be near the top.

“Well then let’s see if we can speed things along a little, shall we?”

She presses a high-heeled shoe even harder on the accelerator, and at the same time manages to get my zipper down – I guess this is what they mean when they say women are good at multitasking. As the car engine growls and roars, and the lights of LA turn into a blurry abstract painting to my drunk vision, I feel her expert fingers tease and stroke the life back into my cock.

“Oh shit,” I say, as she tickles and teases my balls. “That’s it, right there. A little more. Good. Fuck, that’s good, Lizzie. All the way up, Lizzie.”

Suddenly I feel like a freight train just hit me in the back. The car skids for a full two seconds. I slam forward so hard I hit my head on the dashboard, imprinting a finely German-engineered glove compartment texture onto my forehead.

Valerie turns to me with a look that doesn’t look like a hungry predator anymore – it looks like an angry one.

“Lizzie? I told you my name like forty seconds ago.”

I look at her with incredulity and a throbbing pain in my cranium.

“Who cares about names? Lizzie’s my…dog. Honest.”

She shakes her head and nods outside. “This is just too weird. Get out.” The door locks pop and she unbuckles my seatbelt with a rough tug.

“What the hell?! I don’t even know where I am!”

“I don’t care. I should have known something was up with you. Only the freaks stay ‘til three AM. Get out!”

I’m about to plead my case again when she exhibits a flexibility I’ll never fully take advantage of, raises her leg, and jams a high heel into my thigh.

“Fuck! Ow!”

“Get out!” she says, jabbing me out of the car like she’s scaring raccoons out of her trash cans.

I open the door and stumble on the hard pavement.

Valerie gives me one last look, shakes her head, and says, “Talk to me when you get your shit together,” then revs the Porsche into the night like she’s trying to beat a lap time.

I stumble to my feet, clutching my painful forehead, and check my clothes.

So this is how the mighty fall. With their dick out on a random LA street. Is this what it’s like for normal people? Losing their minds over women they can’t have? Finding themselves alone and unfulfilled at the end of the night? Not knowing what the hell they’re going to do about the emptiness inside?

Lizzie leaving was devastating, but taking all my mojo with her? That’s fucking terrifying.