PART TWO
Chapter Seven
JACKSON
Roxanne was a smart woman. I could tell it had pissed her off that I didn’t trust her to get the information we needed. But did she really expect me to leave Ana’s fate in her hands? I was the trained professional. I was the one who Chase and Jordan had hired to get the job done. If we didn’t come back to Atlanta with Ana, it was going to be my fault.
Roxanne knew how to use her body to get what she wanted, but our interaction seemed much more than just a ploy. She wanted me. There was no way she could pretend as well as she had. But I had to admit, I wanted her, too.
If she had started to fuck me right there in the lap dance room, I wouldn’t have argued. The moment was hot, it was primal, and it left me wanting to bring Roxanne back to the hotel and fuck her until she couldn’t take any more. It was weird how she drove me absolutely crazy, and yet I wanted to have her naked in bed. I had never been around a woman who had such an effect on me.
I did as Roxanne had instructed me to and I waited thirty minutes and then drove around to the back of the club. But she wasn’t there. I pulled off to the side of the building and walked up to the back entrance to see if I could get a look inside.
My gut said that something was wrong. I didn’t know what it was just yet, but my senses were on high alert. I looked back and forth around the area to see what was going on. I didn’t want to get jumped by some security guard of Stephano’s or anything like that. I wasn’t going to go inside, and I wasn’t going to confront anyone. Part of being a good investigator was staying out of the eyesight of people so you could take note of what was going on.
Then, I saw something that made my blood go cold. A man had his hand around Roxanne’s throat and she was pinned up against the building. It must have been Stephano. He probably figured out that she was feeding information to someone and he flipped out. I didn’t have time to figure out who it was for sure or what was going on. I needed to neutralize the situation.
I came up behind the man and wrapped my arm tight around his throat. I held onto him as tight as I could as I pried his fingers away from Roxanne’s throat. She crumbled to the ground and gasped for air, but at least she was trying to breathe. The man I held onto was about 30 seconds away from passing out because I had his oxygen supply totally cut off.
Although I currently worked as a private investigator, I had many years of experience in a Special Forces unit. My training had taught me how to deal with men like that in a hand-to-hand combat arena. There was nothing he could do at that point; my grip was perfect and he didn’t have the skills necessary to free himself.
“Are you all right?” I asked Roxanne as she stood up and started to punch the man I was holding.
“You fucker! You goddamn motherfucker! You tried to kill me,” she screamed at the man.
But within seconds, his body went limp and I let him slide down to the ground. For a second, I saw a look of concern in Roxanne’s eyes. I assumed she thought I had killed the man. If you hadn’t seen a man pass out before, it was quiet concerning. But I wasn’t about to get in trouble for killing a man. I just wanted him to sleep it off until we were long gone.
“He’s just unconscious,” I said as I grabbed her to bring her to the car.
She pulled away from me and started to kick him in the stomach before I was finally able to pull her away. There appeared to be a lot of pent up anger toward that man and as much as I didn’t mind her kicking him, we really did need to get out of there.
“You should have killed him,” Roxanne said as we climbed into the car.
“Who was he?”
“One of Stephano’s goons. He’s a lowlife. Stephano was pissed that I had brought a John back to my house and that the same guy had been in my private room with me. He thought I was whoring myself out.”
“Oh, he saw us?”
“Yeah, he saw that you didn’t pay me anything when we were done, and he was pissed. But I think he was more concerned that I had said I wouldn’t do anything like that and now he thinks I’m doing it. Or at the very least, he thought I was making very poor decisions. Stephano didn’t make it sound like his goon was supposed to hurt me, though. He just told him to escort me out.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“What are you talking about, Jackson? That is not good. He had that goon strangling me out back to teach me a lesson. I don’t see how any of this is good.”
“It’s good that he didn’t tell the guy to strangle you. That means the goon took it upon himself and that never works out well for guys like him when Stephano finds out.”
Roxanne was worked up and I didn’t want to argue, but it was good that Stephano just thought I was a John trying to get some free time with Roxanne. It was much better than thinking I was an investigator looking for Ana.
We rode back to the hotel in silence because I didn’t know what else to say to Roxanne. She had had a long and difficult night, and I assumed she was exhausted. I could see the red welts on her neck and was just happy that she didn’t appear to have any problems breathing. It was easier than most people thought to fracture a windpipe and that could make breathing very difficult.
At the hotel, we walked together into the lobby and then into the elevator. The sexual tension between us seemed to grow with each step toward our hotel rooms. But I didn’t think it was my place to make any moves on her. She had to be in charge of that end of things; I didn’t want to be perceived as the jerk who tried to take advantage of her.
“Thank you,” Roxanne said as we both stood in front of our hotel rooms and unlocked the doors.
“No problem. I’m glad you’re all right.”
I moved slowly into my room in the hope that she might stop me and ask for me to come eat with her again. But there was nothing else she had to say. We both went to our respective rooms.
I left the door between our rooms open, but Roxanne left hers closed and locked. She didn’t need me that night, I figured.
Our time in the back room had been so intense, I genuinely couldn’t wait to get her back to the room and continue things. But after the strangling incident, I knew she was going to need her space. I wanted to reach out to her and see how she was doing, but I didn’t want to seem pushy. A traumatic event like the one she had just been through wasn’t something I could help her much with. She just needed to not think about it and move on.
Luckily, I knew that Roxanne wasn’t the type of girl who had a lot of emotions to show. She was hiding almost every emotion she had and I wasn’t interested in trying to break her of that habit. I had met women like her before; they had hard lives so they hide behind this lack of emotion. Sooner or later, though, that emotion was going to break through, and I didn’t want to be the person who was around when that happened.
I ordered food for myself and watched television as I tried to wind down so I could sleep. Unfortunately, the scene from the private lap dance room just kept replaying in my mind. I felt myself get hard just thinking about her tits in my face.
Roxanne was a beautiful woman, that was for damn sure. But her complicated situation and emotions weren’t anything I wanted to deal with. A woman like her was certainly more than I could handle and I wasn’t going to get myself all mixed up in her life. I was there to do a job and that’s exactly what I was going to do. Nothing more and nothing less.
More than once, I wanted to knock on the door between us to see if she was awake. Out of kindness, I wanted to make sure she was still breathing well and not having any problems. Strangulation was a dangerous injury and a person could stop breathing very easily if they didn’t pay close attention to the warning signs and aftermath of the injury.
It wasn’t just her health that I was thinking of, though. My mind swirled with the thought of having Roxanne in my bed. The idea of having her naked lying next to me was an enticing one, and I couldn’t wait until it happened. I felt like it would sooner or later. She could only resist my charms for so long before she finally gave in.
Stop thinking about her.
Every time I thought that I would never give in to my desire for Roxanne, I had the exact opposite thought only a few minutes later. She was occupying a lot of time in my thoughts and the naughty thoughts seemed to be coming more frequently than before. I just couldn’t keep her off of my mind.
Then, I realized that Roxanne hadn’t really gotten to experience many of my good charms yet. We had been working since we met each other. She probably thought I was just some muscle-bound oaf who didn’t care at all about women. But that was as far from the truth as possible.
I loved women, especially strong, independent women. I still wasn’t sure if Roxanne was really my type or not, but she was the only woman I’d had my hard cock up against in several months, so she was starting to look more and more like my type every day.
I knocked on the door between our rooms to see if she was doing all right. It was just to check on her health, I told myself. I wanted to make sure she wasn’t feeling any pain when she took a breath, and I wanted to know if she had any pressure in her chest while breathing. As soon as I found out how she was feeling, I was going to go right back to my bed.
“How are you feeling?” I said through the door.
There was no answer at first, but then I heard the door unlock and saw Roxanne standing there in front of me. She looked like she had been crying and her eyes were puffy and red. Her black mascara seeped down her face in a waterfall of emotions.
It surprised me. Roxanne hadn’t struck me as the kind of girl who cried, and I stood there and looked at her as the scene sunk in. Then, I realized she must have actually been really scared when that guy was strangling her. She probably thought he was going to kill her.
Emotions and women were not my thing. I didn’t know what to do or what to say. Give me a disaster that I could fix any day of the week over the emotions of a woman. Women were so hard to predict. I liked my life and my ability to predict what would happen next for me.
“I’m all right,” she said. It was clearly a lie.
Why did strong women always do that? The second a man asked them if they were all right, their answer was always that they were just fine. It drove me nuts when women didn’t say what was really going on. Just tell me you aren’t doing well. Tell me you had a horrible night and just want to cry. Tell me something real, I just don’t want to hear a lie.
“Do you want me to stay with you tonight?” I asked.
I genuinely didn’t mean it in any type of sexual way and I would have been perfectly fine with staying above the covers. I hated seeing the pain in her eyes. Even if she said she was fine, I could tell she was hurting.
“No, I think it’s best if we stay in our own rooms tonight.” Roxanne smiled slightly.
“All right, but maybe we should leave the doors unlocked, just in case you need something. I’m a pretty light sleeper. I can come in and help out again if you need me to.”
“Okay. Thanks. I’m going to sleep now. I’m exhausted.”
Roxanne shut the door, and I saw the lights turn off under the door. She seemed distant and sad, not at all like her regular feisty self. Although I had only known her for a couple days, so maybe I really didn’t know what her regular self was like.
I climbed back into bed and pulled my laptop out to email Chase and Jordan. I gave them an update on what we had found out so far and told them that Roxanne and I were getting along great.
I lied and said that we hadn’t run into any problems yet. There was no reason to get them worried by telling them about Roxanne being strangled outside the club.
Chase had a tendency to want to handle things when he felt like he could help. I didn’t want him rushing back down to Miami just because of the incident that had just happened. Roxanne and I could handle things. I was confident we were on the right path.
***
I always had dreams where I fought people off. It was a danger of my profession and past in the military. On that night, I replayed the scene of Roxanne being strangled. I found myself there again and fighting with her attacker. Kicking him, punching him, and nothing would get him to let go of her throat.
In my dream, as it turned to a nightmare, Roxanne slumped down limply as I stood there unable to save her. The assailant and I were in the midst of an all-out battle as I had to fight to save my own life and couldn’t come to Roxanne’s rescue. It was a nightmare to me because I always tried to protect the people I was around. If someone actually was able to hurt one of my loved ones or partners, I felt like that was the ultimate defeat.
I felt the helplessness as it overwhelmed me, that feeling of not being able to save someone I loved. The feelings of losing Rose in Qatar flooded over me throughout my dream. It was like Roxanne was Rose and I had lost her. Rose had been my sweet girlfriend and I felt the pain like it was real again.
My body wanted to wake up from the nightmare and I felt myself struggling to come out of it, but I just couldn’t. The sadness of losing Rose, or Roxanne, was too much and I stayed in the dream in hopes of getting a different outcome. I wanted to wake up and have everything be all right. I wanted to wake up and learn that the reality wasn’t the truth and Rose was still alive.
“Jackson,” I heard a woman’s voice call.
I grabbed her and pulled her into my bed with me. In a daze between a dream and sleep, I grabbed the woman I thought was Rose and held onto her tightly. Her skin felt so good next to mine, I had missed it for so long.
“Oh, Rose, I’m so glad you’re safe. I’ve missed you so much,” I said.
“Jackson, its Roxanne. Are you all right?”
I started to wake up and released my grip on Roxanne. It wasn’t Rose who I had been holding. As much as I wished she was still alive, it wasn’t her.
“I’m sorry. I was dreaming,” I said as I sat up in bed.
“Who’s Rose?” Roxanne asked as she sat next to me.
I didn’t really want to go into all the details with her. It wasn’t like we were friends or anything. She was just someone who was working with me on a case. She didn’t need to know all the details about my life and my past.
“Just a woman I once loved,” I said as I got up and went to the bathroom.
“I’m sorry. Is she dead?”
I pretended not to hear her as I used the bathroom and grabbed a drink out of the fridge. I really wasn’t in the mood to explain my entire past. I just wanted to go back to sleep. My past wasn’t something I shared with people. It was mine and it wasn’t public knowledge, there was no need for Roxanne to know about Rose.
On the other hand, I felt bad for what Roxanne had gone through and I didn’t want her to think I was being a jerk. I decided to tell her a little bit.
“She was just someone I once knew. I loved her and she died. Are you going to stay here all night or are you going back to your bed?”
“You don’t need to be an ass about it,” Roxanne said as she stormed off back to her room.
If there was one thing I was good at, it was getting a woman to leave me alone. Intimacy and feelings just weren’t in my DNA, and I was much better at being alone than I was at being around other people. Roxanne would just have to learn that I wasn’t the kind of touchy feely guy she thought I was. Even when I was trying to be nice, it often came off has jerky to the women in my life.
Roxanne slammed the door between our rooms, and instantly I felt the pang of guilt as it came over me. I didn’t purposely mean to be an ass. It’s just the only other way I had of dealing with women sometimes. I knew if I was a jerk, they would leave me alone. And I deserved to be alone for what happened with Rose in Qatar.
I heard the sound of Roxanne crying through the door and winced at the realization that I had just done that to her. Why did I always have to be such a giant ass to women? It was one of my special traits and I hated it. She had just been through a traumatic event and there I was, telling her to leave me alone.
Only a few short hours before, I had been thinking about how badly I wanted her body. I hated how I acted toward her. One minute I wanted her, and the next, I wanted to push her as far away as possible.
I knocked quietly on the door and then opened it.
“I’m sorry,” I said as I walked over toward Roxanne as she lay on the bed in tears.
“You know, I don’t care about you or your stupid dead girlfriend. My life is falling apart and I was almost killed tonight. I don’t need this shit.”
The fire in Roxanne’s eyes made me smile. Not because she was in pain, I certainly wouldn’t have smiled at anyone who was in genuine pain. I smiled because she looked so damn sexy as she screamed at me and passionately tried to hurt my feelings.
“I’m sorry,” I said again as I moved a little closer to her.
“Don’t look at me with those sexy blue eyes and tell me you’re sorry. It’s not going to work.”
“Oh, my eyes are sexy?” I snickered.
“Stop it. You know what I mean. You are all Superman sexy and I’m crying and now you’re telling me you’re sorry. I don’t want to hear it.”
“Superman sexy?” I smiled. “You think I look like Superman?”
“Oh my God. Stop putting words into my mouth. I get it. You’re sexy and you get all the women whenever you want them. But I’m not going to be one of those women. You probably have a different woman every week or something like that. Well, I’m not falling for it.”
I couldn’t hold it in another second, and I burst out laughing. If only Roxanne knew just how few women I had been within my lifetime. Sure, women came on to me and I flirted a lot when I was younger. But since losing Rose in Qatar, I had hardly looked at another woman until I met Roxanne. I certainly hadn’t been with anyone that lasted more than a short time. I just avoided them all together.
“I’m sorry,” I said for a third time as my laughter continued.
“Why are you laughing?” Roxanne screamed at me.
“Because I’m not a lady’s man. I haven’t had sex in several months.”
The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them, but when I saw the look on Roxanne’s face, I desperately wanted to take back everything I had said. Suddenly, she looked at me with confusion and bewilderment.
“How many months?” she questioned me.
“It’s probably closer to a year,” I said matter-of-factly.
“Holy shit. Why not?”
“I haven’t found someone I cared about.”
The words lingered in the air and I could tell Roxanne was processing them. I wasn’t the kind of guy who could just fuck a girl and move on. I liked being with women I had feelings for. I knew it wasn’t normal for many men, but to me, it was the only way I liked my women.
No, I didn’t need some sort of commitment or anything like that. But I wanted to know her, I wanted to like her both mentally and physically. I needed that mental connection to make it worth my while.
Roxanne looked at me and then sat up in the bed. Her tears were gone, and she moved closer to me. She gazed at me intently as I gazed back at her.
“Stay with me,” she whispered as her hands grabbed my face and she kissed me.
It was the first time we were both awake and not in a strip club. The moment was intense and I felt myself getting drawn into her and the passion she had. I liked Roxanne, I was perfectly happy with the idea of spending the evening with her in her bed, although it certainly wasn’t professional. I also liked that she had initiated the offer. She was a fragile woman and I didn’t want to push her farther than she was ready to go. But apparently, she was ready to go all the way. Roxanne was ready to take me to her bed and have me with her for the night.