Jagger

 

 

 

“He’s killed her,” I said as I stared at the image on the screen.

The past few days hadn’t been good. No, actually, they had been some of the worst days of my life. I’d rather be tied to a chair in an abandoned warehouse in the desert with ten large men taking turns using me for boxing practice, than dealing with Tiffany acting like our kiss never happened.

And then I saw the picture. That’s when I imagined every worst possible outcome. In each of them, I’m too late and she’s dead.

“You shouldn’t be calling me, Jagger,” Tenn said over the phone.

I called him this morning in desperation. There had to be some way Tenn could look up this guy Tiffany was standing next to. He seemed seedy, suspicious, and must have been a criminal.

“What could I do? He’s probably going to hurt her. She’s not safe. I need your help.”

I heard Tenn groan in the background. “Fine, what’s his name?”

“I don’t know.”

There was silence for several moments.

“You don’t know? Then how am I going to help you?”

“Don’t you have access to the ITA’s face recognition software?”

“Yes, but—”

“Tenn, please. If this were reversed and you were the one desperate for my help, I wouldn’t think twice about it. I would be there for you no matter what.”

When I saw that picture on Aria’s site, it felt like my heart was being fed into a shredder. I wanted to reach through my phone and pull her out of there. Away from his arms and into mine.

It’s not like I had been stalking her or her friends on social media, or anywhere on the Internet. Maybe a little. But I had to make sure Tiffany was safe. That nothing out of the ordinary was happening to her. Specifically, any risk that she experienced from getting to know me, and of course, marrying me.

I knew how to deduce where she was based on what was in the photograph. The furniture and, even better, the view from the window behind them, gave me everything I needed. Tiffany was downtown, in the Eternity room at The Lemington.

I tried calling her, several times, but she didn’t answer. What could I do? I grabbed my keys, intending to head down to the hotel and make up a story about being a federal agent and needing access to the twelfth-floor rooms. But when I was about to open the door to my tiny apartment that backed up to the red line, I stopped.

That was why I didn’t deserve Tiffany. I would lie to everyone just to get near her. Something was very wrong with that. My career went into the gutter because of what I would do to be near her.

That’s why I needed Tenn. He could do all that for me.

“Fine. But just this once. Send me the image and I’ll get back to you. But don’t call me anymore. I can’t be talking to you,” Tenn said, his voice hushed and I assumed Katlin was probably nearby.

He hung up and I pushed send on the image I already had waiting for him.

Then I waited. My foot bounced up and down. Glancing at my phone, I swiped the screen back on. He hadn’t responded yet. I put the phone down and started to bounce my foot again.

Standing, I went to the kitchen to see if there was anything to eat in the refrigerator. Glancing at the clock on the microwave, it stated it was eleven thirty. Only one minute had passed since I had gotten off the phone with Tenn.

“Fuck,” I said slamming the refrigerator door. I could hear something fall inside but I didn’t care.

I needed to get out. Take a walk. The fresh, late summer air might help clear my mind. Maybe I’ll take a walk to the lake.

Doing just that, within minutes I was out the door and walking the three blocks to the park. Once I went through the tunnel under Lake Shore Drive, I was there. Among the dog walkers, baby strollers, rollerbladers, and the evil squirrels. There was something about the squirrels in Chicago. I think they were tougher than the mobsters.

Without thinking, I headed south. Did I do that on purpose, I don’t know, but I ended up not far from Tiffany’s building. I like to think it was subconscious but I know it wasn’t.

A refreshing walk turned into a twenty-minute dash to Tiffany’s place.

I turned away from the park and back onto the city sidewalks. Since her building faced the lake, there weren’t that many people on her side of the street. Therefore, I couldn’t help but notice her as I grew closer. She was half a block from her building heading north and I was a block away, heading south.

Just as she glanced up from digging into her purse, she saw me. I braced for the worst. Pretending she didn’t see me or making a U-turn and disappearing.

But something much worse happened. When she lifted her hand to wave at me, some guy ran up and grabbed her purse. She tugged back, and my heart pumped so fast I thought it might give me superpowers.

I don’t even remember crossing the street as I ran to her.

“Let the fuck go, bitch. Don’t make me take out my knife.” The mugger let a hand go and started to reach into his pocket. But, this happened right when I got there.

Tiffany fell back, letting go of her purse. The thief had officially stolen her purse and threatened violence, which made it okay for me to rough him up. I would have tossed him around anyway, but at least I can tell the police I was afraid he would take out his knife and did everything in my power to stop him.

The idiot didn’t count on a highly trained former secret agent to be directly behind him as he lifted the blade from his pocket. The moron turned which made it almost too easy to grab his knife-wielding arm—which I did. I wrapped my other fist so tight around his greasy ponytail I thought his scalp might bleed.

“Going somewhere, motherfucker?” I said and let go of his hair so I could punch him in the face. And the stomach. Just for good measure, I kneed him in the balls too.

The knife fell and I kicked it away, into the street.

He couldn’t run anywhere, even if I let him out of the hold I had him in. I pinned him to the ground and forced his hands behind his back. When I gazed up I found Tiffany standing there, her ponytail askew and a few other people around her.

“I called the police. Man, that was a cool takedown. Are you a cop?” One of the guy’s in a bike helmet asked.

“Something like that,” I said but focused on Tiffany, looking for any signs of injury. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. Just a scrape on my elbow,” she said but most of the color had drained from her face.

The police arrived shortly after and we explained what had happened. I informed the police that there were security cameras outside the building if they needed security footage.

Once we were done, I insisted Tiffany go to the hospital but she refused. Instead, I guided her to her apartment. Once we were inside, I told her to lie down in her room. I found her first-aid kit and cleaned up her elbow.

“What if it’s broken. I may have ninja moves but I’m no doctor,” I said with a chuckle trying to lighten her spirits.

She had been quiet coming up to her place. I was worried there was more damage than she was letting on and Tiffany might be in shock. Checking her pupils, I saw they weren’t dilated. Perhaps it was just taking a while for the situation to settle in for her.

“Thank you, Jagger. For saving me,” Tiffany said lying back on her light blue- and green-patterned bedspread.

“No need to thank me.”

Placing the first-aid kit on her small, wooden bedside table, I turned back to put my hand on hers. She was shivering. I grabbed a navy throw at the end of her bed and pulled it over her.

“What will happen?” she asked as her eyes stared at the ceiling and tears ran down her cheeks.

“They’ll lock him up. Then—”

“No, I mean here? With David?”

“What do you mean? Is he about to come home? Do you want me to tell him?”

Because I would do anything for you.

Her face crumpled as she gritted her teeth. Tiffany covered her eyes with her hand and sobbed. “I don’t know what to do? He’s everything to me. What will happen when I’m gone?”

I crawled onto the bed and pulled her into me, squeezing her trembling body.

“That’s so long from now. Don’t worry about that. Shh. It’s all right. I’m here.”

She turned and buried her face into my chest. Her arms tightened, and every tear she shed onto my black T-shirt felt like a stab to my heart. That bastard was going to pay for hurting Tiffany like this.

After a few minutes, she pulled back and looked up at me. Her face was streaked with tears and possibly some snot, so I reached over to the other bedside table and grabbed a tissue for her. She sounded like a fog horn as she blew her nose.

I chuckled a bit, but the laughter soon died as a few tears continued to stream down her face.

“What can I do?” I pushed strands of hair that had stuck to her face behind her ears. Her ponytail holder had long since disappeared, falling out somewhere in all this. Tiffany’s hair was wild, her cheeks flushed, and her whimpers were subsiding.

“I don’t care anymore,” she said as she reached up and curled her fingers into my hair. “I’m so beaten down. I’m not brave. My friends, they think I’m strong but I’m not.”

I lifted her chin. “Yes, you are.”

“Not like you. All I could do was pull on my purse and in the end, I wasn’t even strong enough to hold onto it. What happens when someone stronger than me wants more than my purse? I don’t care about myself but what about David? What will happen to him?”

My eyes began to burn as I cradled the back of her neck with my fingers. “No, don’t say that. Please, don’t. I care about you.”

“Then make me forget,” she said as she took my hand from her neck and pushed it down until it was between her thighs. “I want your fingers to stroke and push and pinch away all the uncertainties. Even if it’s only for today.”

Twisted trepidation swirled in my head as I tried to figure out what to do. She lifted her head toward me until her lips dusted my ears. “I don’t want to be Tiffany Blackburn today. I just want to be yours.”

“I don’t know if we should do this right now with what you just went through,” I said but didn’t remove my hand.

My cock was throbbing. It was so hard, and she knew because that’s where her hand had drifted to when it left my hair.

“Tiffany—” I groaned, and I meant to say more but words failed me as she cupped and stroked me over my jeans.

“I’m sorry for walking away the other day after our kiss,” she said as her fingers tugged at my button until it gave way. “I was scared. It had been so long.”

“How, uh, how long?” I shook my head so I could see straight.

“Over a decade. And this,” she slowly pulled at my zipper until the large bulge of my black boxer briefs poked out, “I haven’t gotten to touch anything good like this in just as long.”

Four things happened all at once—she yanked down my briefs, her eyes widened, and she licked her lips. And I tried my damnedest not to come.