Chapter Two
The elevator doors slide open on my floor and my phone beeps.
‘We need to talk.’
The text isn’t a surprise, but the fact that the words show up on my personal phone instead of my Wonderfuck phone is. The text is from a number that isn’t connected to a name, but I’ve seen this number hundreds of times. I know exactly who wants to chat with me.
‘Anytime,’ I type back.
She sends me a time and a place. After all our time together we’ve never gone out to dinner. We may cause a scene. Her with the billion dollar business, and me, Mr. Wonderful-eligible bachelor-with-loads-of-cash, even if I do sport a tragic backstory. Hell, I’m more attractive to some women because of the tragic backstory.
I walk down the hall to my condo. I was determined to sell my place, but now? Now I’m unsure. I glance across the hallway. Tara’s place appears abandoned. Now that she isn’t moving, will she keep her condo?
I open my front door.
Woof. Woof.
Two paws land on my thighs and a slurpy wet smile greets me with a lick on my hand. I glance toward the balcony.
I always glance toward the balcony.
Tara paces in the living room. “You’re an asshole.”
I pat Jango, knowing that Tara’s pup does not share her mistress’s opinion of me. I curb my tongue because after Tara’s betrayal I have some choice adjectives I’d like to hurl her way, but I don’t do that. I don’t hurl anything, adjectives or otherwise, at women.
My heart races. My hands clench and unclench. Tara’s betrayed me and now she’s in my home calling me an asshole.
I walk into the kitchen and set my keys on the counter. I open the refrigerator and grab a beer. I pop the top and turn toward the woman that I love and prepare to hear what she has to say, which apparently, from her demeanor, won’t include the words ‘I’m sorry.’
“You are an asshole,” she says again.
“Yeah, I heard that part when I walked in.”
I got nothing to add if that’s all Tara has to say. I tilt my beer to my lips and head toward the back of my condo. I’ve got work and a computer and a ton of stuff to do that doesn’t include Tara repeating the same four words all evening. She’s behind me all the way down the hallway to my bedroom.
“Did you hear me?”
I glance at her. I nod.
“Well don’t you care?”
I shake my head no. It’s a lie. The calm, cool, nonchalance is the biggest fucking lie I’m telling myself because I do care. I love her. I hate her. I’m nearly destroyed by her.
My insides burn.
Heat pulses through me. The desire to throw this beer bottle against the wall tears through me. To get in Tara’s face and tell her just exactly how she broke my fucking heart, how she used me, and betrayed me, and fucked me over. How my grip on sanity is tenuous at best, and she didn’t have the right to throw me over the edge into this fucking shit show. Because not only did she betray me and cheapen what we have, she took away the thing that’s been keeping me sane.
She took away Wonderfucking.
She’s in my face now, all heat and anger and the scent of a woman that makes me hard.
“You ruined my promotion.”
Her breath is hot against my face, her anger a living thing sliding supple over my skin. Fuck if I don’t want to grab her and stick my hard cock into her.
“You have no loyalty. I have nothing to say to you.”
The air between us crackles with anger, which fuels my desire.
“That’s rich. You’re fucking women all over Los Angeles because it’s your vocation, and I betrayed you?”
“I didn’t fuck other women. Not after you. Not….not after the hotel.”
Her lips part into slack jawed surprise. Damn, shouldn’t have said that. Tara’s hold over me, my heart, my cock is absolute. Too much power for her to have. Fuck. Fuck. This is the worst.
“You loved her.”
She points toward the balcony I don’t ever walk onto.
“Enough to forgive her. She fucked hundreds of men, hundreds while you were engaged, and you forgave her. All I ever did was fuck you and you can’t forgive me?”
I close my eyes. “You told the world.”
What’s left of my heart rips apart behind my ribs. Little bits of that muscle held together with the hope that there will be a lover that is kind and generous and honest and will make my heart sing with joy and not shred from pain. I did forgive Susie. A million and one times over a million and one betrayals.
“Maybe she used up all my forgiveness.” I open my eyes. “Or maybe I just loved her more.”
I know it’s coming before her hand hits my face and I step into the slap because pain is my fucking salvation in this life.
Smack.
She lands a solid slap on my left cheek. That’ll leave a mark.
“Feel better?”
Her fingertips fly to her lips and tears spring to her eyes. Her remorse is too late for me, for her, for us. She ruined what we could’ve had for a good story, a good click rate, a huge headline.
“You won. You got what you wanted. You’re a big-time reporter with a big-time story.”
“It’s…it’s not what I wanted.”
Tears drip from her eyes and roll down her cheeks. She lifts her fingers from her lips and reaches toward my cheek. I grasp her wrist.
“No.”
“Jake, please, I…I’m sorry.”
And she is. She’s sorry. It’s in her eyes, her voice, I can feel it in my heart. I know she’s sorrier than she’s ever been and she’d do anything to make me whole. And I’ve been down this road before with a woman, and the story didn’t end well. I point toward the front door. Because sorry doesn’t fix this and I won’t go down this road again. I can’t. I tried.
“You need to leave.”
Her bottom lip quivers, and I pretend that my heart isn’t breaking. If she reaches out to me again, if she steps forward and kisses me, if she does anything other than walk out the door of my condo, I won’t be able to watch her leave.
“You may not want to love me, but you do.”
The sad fucking truth of the matter is that no matter how mad I am at her, what Tara said is abso-fucking-lutely true. She steps closer to me. I’m hard, and ready, and wanting no one but Tara.
“And I love you too.”
I close my eyes. How fucked up is this? How fucked up am I? Pathetic, and infuriating, and the truth. And I want to fuck. I want to rip away her clothes and pull her to my room, and I want to fuck her into submission. Or maybe it’s me who needs to surrender to the feelings I have and let go of the fury pounding through my heart.
She licks her lips. Inches from me, just inches away. The heat of her breath, and the warmth of her body, and the scent of lemons and lavender.
She leans forward and we are locked in a fury-filled soul-ending kiss. Heat flames through my body. Her mouth opens and my tongue slips deep into her mouth.
I want her. She’s mine. Tara will always be mine even though I’m fucking furious. I don’t want anything to do with her, and yet, all I want is her.
Her breasts press against my chest and her fingertips skim the soft fabric of my pants. She reaches beneath the waistband and she has my cock.
Hard. Long. Strong. She rubs me with her hand. I can’t stop now. I won’t stop now. I pull her shirt up and over her head and her pants down over her hips. My thumb strokes her nipple.
A moan comes from her lips and her grip tightens around my cock. I pull my lips from her, and dip down and pull her taut nipple into my mouth. Her fingertips weave through my hair and pull me closer. I roll her nipple in my mouth. I part her sex with my hand and gently circle her clit. Her hips roll forward and back in a rhythm my body knows, and I press two fingers deep into her sex. Again a moan, and I pull my lips from her nipple and kiss across her chest and pull her other nipple deep into my mouth. Yes. Yes. I want to fuck her. I love her. I hate her. But I will always want to fuck her.
It’s been long for me. Too long. I can’t go this long without the release of sex. I need to fuck. Fucking is what makes me feel alive. Fucking is what makes me feel whole.
I shove the dark thoughts away. Instead, I pulse in and out of her sex, and her body tightens around my fingers. Her hand still strokes up and down my cock. I turn her around and I walk her toward the wall of windows, the sliders by the balcony.
I press both of her hands to the glass.
“You want to fuck me,” I hiss in her ear. “Fuck me here.”
I spread her legs with my knee. I reach around to her front and my fingers slide through the curls of her sex. I circle her clit with the tip of my finger.
“Oh Jake, Jake,” she says.
I look into the window. I see her reflection and it is enough. I don’t want to see her face, I don’t want her to know the rage and the pain and the love that fight for primacy across my features. I pull my hips back and I position my cock at her entrance. My arm snakes around her waist. With one hard, brutal, thrust I’m in her sex.
“Jake,” she wails.
Her hips roll back and forth with each motion. I can see her reflection in the window. Her features wracked with physical pleasure and emotional pain. Will this be the final time we’re together? The last time we fuck? The last time I touch her body, kiss her skin, smell her scent, feel the pounding sensation of my body slamming against hers? Tears roll down her cheeks. I bow my head and press my cock in and out of her body. She’s given me so much pain, I’m nearly numb once again.