Yes, Yes I do.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Cassie’s “Woo-hoo!” joins the screams of support from the crowd. She throws her arms up in the air, claiming the center of the dance floor. She takes possession of what will always be hers, and no one will dispute her. No one will even try.
An explosion of lights erupts across the stage as the music starts. The crowd goes wild. Energy and tension crackles through the dance floor. Jeb’s voice fearless and true.
His eyes find mine, and he consumes me. His body moves to the hypnotic rhythm while he dreams of tearing me apart.
I think about how young we are and how much life there’s left to live, and I become a spark about to ignite.
“…I’m on FIRE!” He screams the outrageous high note like its nothing more than a low tenor. Pyrotechnics explode all around him, illuminating his brilliance. Disco lights pulse to the beat, and the dance floor swells with sweaty bodies in motion. Cassie’s devil in a blue dress and too-big bleached blonde hair draws every male to her like moths to a flame. I let the crowd push me away from her and toward the man who brought me here.
Jeb lights me up and sets me on fire. With every word he sings, I wind tighter and tighter. A volcano about to erupt.
He tells me he knows what I did in the dark, but if he only knew…
He reaches for me. I dance away from him. I won’t let him take me. Not yet. He needs to want me. Desire me.
His words, his voice, his movements turn me on. Every imagined touch explosive. And I want it. My god I want it.
I want to soar to heights I’ve never been to. Places I could never go on my own.
The music swallows me. I am but a body in motion.
He reaches for me again. I dance away to tease him, to tempt him, to invite him. His eyes narrow. He jumps off the stage and prowls toward me. The mighty panther stalking his prey. My breath catches watching, waiting, wanting. I am so wound up I might explode at his very touch. His arm wraps around my waist and he takes possession of me. Desire and want seep into the air between us. We are so close, closer than we’ve ever been before, but it’s not enough. In a crowd full of people, it’s not enough.
Without letting go, he spins me around and pulls me against him. I move up and down. He clutches me to him, so tight it might hurt if I wasn’t so worked up. I feel him grow hard against me, and I like it, and I want it.
Every touch, every motion, turns me on. My dress rides up my thighs as we move to the music. Up. Down. Back. Forth. He removes his hand from my waist and reaches for the inside of my left thigh. His touch sends shivers up and down my leg. He bends lower so he’s almost right there. I moan in desire. He groans with me. My insides clench and I feel myself getting wet. It’s so hot, and I wonder if he can feel my wetness too.
I need release. Sweet release.
Thoughts become impossible to form as the motion increases. Back. Forth. Up. Down. Back. Forth. Up. Down.
The music consumes.
The heat ignites.
The scent of sex intoxicates.
I want him. Here and now. I need him. Here and now.
His fingers climb up my thigh. A thin strip of black lace separates us. And it is too much. Somewhere, someone else starts singing, because he’s sucking on my neck.
Up. Down. Back. Forth. I continue to climb. My insides clenching. My tender folds swelling. Forbidden and hot. A crescendo of pleasure.
His lips suck and pull, and it’s too much. I bite my lip to keep from moaning. I climb to a peak there’s only one way off of.
“Tiffani!” Someone shouts, and then he brushes my clit. I’m almost there. One more touch, one more…and… and…his hand jerks from my leg, I fly across the dance floor, grasping for something, anything to hold on to, but there’s no one to save me. Nothing to stop me. I collapse in a heap. My chest rises and falls as I sober up enough to realize what I almost did. What I still want to do.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Tiffani,” he gasps. My name echoes through the speakers, reverberating off the walls and the crowd. The room falls silent, and the bodies in motion stop as if someone hit pause. Two hands, one clutching a microphone, wrap around my waist, and lift me into an upright position. I avoid looking in his direction, culpability my greatest enemy. I smooth down my dress dragging my hemline down to a more appropriate level.
I glare at Cassie. She stands next to Jeb, giggling with that stupid drunk grin you want to simultaneously smack and laugh at. “Sorry Tiff,” she hiccups. She grabs my hand. “Let’s do some shots.” Music spirals around us again, but no one is singing.
“Haven’t you had enough to drink?” he asks through gritted teeth.
“Not even close,” she says and tugs me away. I allow her to pull me from him. I don’t know why I don’t fight her. Bodies form a barrier between us.
“I want to dance,” I whine. I’m hot, bothered, and not satisfied.
“First, you need a blow job,” she says. “Bartender, blow jobs for my friend and I!”
Shout ‘blow job’ and every penis within a five mile radius runs toward the open invitation. Within seconds, a crowd of testosterone surrounds us. “Shot! Shot!” They chant. Their enthusiasm reinvigorates me. Cassie and I exchange grins as we clasp our arms behind our backs. My lips wrap around the double shot glass and I tilt my head and open my throat to allow the warm liquid to rush down my esophagus. When the flow of liquid ceases, I set the shot glass back down on the counter.
“Shot! Shot!” The guys chant.
Cassie turns to me, her face bright and filled with exhilaration. “Another?”
I shake my head, wiping my mouth with my arm. Creamy foam trails across it.
She turns to her captive audience. “Who wants a body shot?”
A dozen hands go up in the air. She grabs the collars of two of the hottest guys and pulls them to her chest. “Into threesomes?”
She jumps up on the bar and pulls her tank high enough to reveal the bottom of her black lace bra. Then she lays down.
The bartender pours a shot in her belly button. He caresses her arm that’s now wrapped around his waist. “Where should I put the other?”
“You know where,” she purrs. He shrugs and places a shot glass between her exposed mounds of flesh.
“One…two…three,” I shout. Chest shot guy squeezes her boobs together as he bends down for his shot. The crowd goes wild. Belly shot man’s tongue swirls around Cassie’s stomach. She arches her back to reward his enthusiasm.
Someone snakes his arm around my waist. “You’re next.”
My lips curl down at the stench of alcohol and stale cigarettes. I lift an elbow to deliver an uppercut, but he disappears before I can jab him.
Jeb pins both of my attacker’s arms behind his back. He’s more ogre than man. Some brave or stupid soul etched a giant satanic star across his cratered cheek and a tattoo necklace around his tree trunk of a neck. “You’re a dead man,” he growls at Jeb.
Jeb smashes his larynx. While the ogre chokes and sputters for breath, Jeb hisses, “You’re the dead man.”
The scene reminds me of a similar threat he made to Isaac the night of the reunion more than three months ago. Jeb revealed a dark, hidden monster capable of anything and Isaac wound up dead.
For one shuddering inhalation, I wonder if Jeb delivered on his promise. Did he kill Isaac after he left my room?
No. No way. Jeb’s not capable of murder. The police ruled Isaac’s death accidental. Meth overdose. Jeb did not kill Isaac.
He slams my attacker to the floor. “Apologize to the woman.”
The ogre jerks and wrenches, flailing like a rodeo bull, but he’s no match for Jeb. Jeb slams his elbow into the rounded vertebrates of the ogre. A sick cracking sound shatters the space around us, and his body goes still.
Jeb digs his fingers into the fat folds of the ogre’s forehead and rips his head back. “Apologize,” he says.
The narrow snake eyes find me. His chest heaves up an
d down with each strangled gasp. “S…sssorrry.”
Jeb throws his head away and delivers a hard kick to his gut. The ogre collapses to the floor. He won’t be harassing girls for a very long time.
Jeb steps over the still frame and drapes my scarf over my shoulders. The wet silk sticks to my skin. I try to shrug it off.
“Leave it,” he growls. My breath catches as his body presses against mine. An insurmountable tension exists between us. Fear. Passion. I’m not sure which. He grabs my hand and yanks me through the crowd. There is nothing gentle or tender about his actions.
The darkness of his mood frightens me. I consider fighting him and disappearing into the night, never to return, but I don’t think I’m strong enough to leave him. He pulls me up the stairs to the stage and sets me down on some speakers. “Stay.”
Language escapes me. The edge of his words leave no room for question, argument, or debate. I am terrified and aroused.
He grabs the mic and nods to the band. The beat starts up fast and electric.
He leaves me alone, an island of isolation as he performs for his audience. Singing, moving, feeling the song for them. I feel abandoned. Lost and abandoned. Alone in a crowd of people.
He moves up and down, back and forth, gyrating with the microphone stand, instead of me. It should be me he moves for.
I am starved for his attention.
Mid chorus, he winks at me and suddenly everything is better, and I know, I know this is where I want to be. His lips curl as he sings for the crowd, but the words are for me alone. The very lips I dream of mashing mine against.
He extends his hand. I shake my head ‘no’ but it only encourages him more.
Good, because I want a kiss. No, I want much more than a kiss. I want to climb back to the height I’d never been to before. The peak I can’t wait to return too.
He stalks toward me. His movement slow and deliberate. He drives me crazy with possibility. The anticipation of his touch. The sultry heat. Our erotic movement.
When he’s close enough that I can pull him to me, he jumps on the box speaker above me. His legs straddle my shoulders. He moves to the music. Up. Down. Back. Forth. Every pore of my being is aware how close his penis is to my head. So close, that if I turn just a few short inches my mouth would be on it.
He dips in and out. Teasing me. Tempting me, and I’m tempted. Oh, I’m tempted. I fight to resist him, to play hard to get, so I ignore him and watch the dance floor.
Cassie’s dancing with her shot guys flanking her. Boob shot cups her breast while his other hand grabs her ass cheek. Body shot grips her other boob. His right hand clutches her crotch. Cass thrives on attention, but these guys go too far. I bite the inside of my cheek and wonder what I should do. I glance around the room for someone to save her from the threesome she’s about to have, but there’s no one to save her.
The strap of her dress falls off her shoulder. Her boob bursts free from it’s constraints. Breast shot guy dips down to suck on her, and Jeb explodes past me.
Shouts and screams erupt from the dance floor. A mass exodus of dancers leaves a heap of tangled bodies behind. Body shot guy knocks into me. Blood drips from his nose. A wounded boar eyeing me wildly before escaping into the jungle. Breast man collapses in a crumbled heap. His once breast-full hands now cupping his balls.
Jeb tosses Cass over his shoulder. Her game over. Her arms hang limp down his back nearly groping his ass. He grabs my hand unfazed by the dead weight he now holds. “It’s time to go,” he says through clenched teeth.
“What about the band?” I ask. He either ignores me or doesn’t hear me. I tug on his hand, “Jeb!”
He turns to me, his eyes expectant.
“What about the band? You can’t just leave them.”
He leans in close. I close my eyes in anticipation, but his soft, full lips don’t find mine. They brush my earlobe instead. He whispers, “I just did.”
Kiss on mouth. Whisper in ear. The effect is the same. I will follow Jeb anywhere.
Chapter Twenty-Six
My mini-flashlight sheds a narrow path of light down the hallway to my door.
“I can’t believe you haven’t fallen and broken your neck on those stairs,” Jeb says his voice loaded with disgust.
I asked Drew every time he came home to change the bulb, but he blew it off and made me feel like a nag. I shrug. “I don’t have a ladder, and I couldn’t reach it with a chair.”
“After I get rid of your friend, I’m changing that bulb. It’ll take two seconds.”
I reach for the spare key above the door jamb. “Don’t tell anyone where I hide my key.”
He steps closer. Heat radiates off his body even on this cool spring night. “Your secrets are safe with me,” he whispers. His hot breath tickles my neck. Our double meaning conversations stimulate every fiber of my being.
As I soon as put the key in, Fischer’s nails scrape across the wood floor. He growls a warning. “It’s okay Fischer. It’s just me.”
I push the door open. He’s all wags and kisses until he realizes I’m not alone. His hackles jump up. A low, protective growl forms deep in his belly. His big brown eyes are glued to Jeb still standing in the hallway. Jeb eyes him with annoyance. “Put him away so I can come in.”
I tug on Fischer’s collar, but he won’t budge. “Come on baby. It’s okay, it’s okay.” I pull again but he holds firm. In a battle of wills, I lose every time especially when I forget what sober feels like. “I’ll just hold him. You can set her down on the sofa.”
When Jeb steps into the apartment, Fischer snarls at him. Jeb drops Cassie onto the sofa in a heap of passed out drunken bliss and backs out into the hallway. “Get a bulb and I’ll change that light for you.”
Cassie moans. I release Fischer to check on her. He sniffs the air, his head bobbing back and forth. He takes his post by the door and stares at me with his big brown eyes. I know he’s thinking, ‘Not on my watch.’
I brush some blond hair off her face. “Cass, you okay?”
She cracks a bloodshot eye open. Her lips smack together. “Water.”
I hurry into the kitchen. Two lipstick stained wine glasses, an empty bottle of Barefoot Merlot, and a half empty bottle of Fireball litter the surface of the dinette table. I forgot about the Fireball. A wave of nausea hits me. I grab hold of the kitchen counter until the desire to puke subsides. Neither one of us will be drinking for a while, quite a while.
I stick two glasses in the sink and flick on the faucet. As they fill, I grab a light bulb from the cabinet above the refrigerator. I gulp down half my glass in preparation to the long, hair holding night ahead of me. Cassie’s not usually a puker, but we’ve only got one toilet.
“Water,” Cassie moans from the sofa. I grab her glass and set it on the steamer trunk while I prop her up. Unfortunately, gravity works against me. I shove a few more pillows under her back and head until she’s upright enough to drink.
I hand her the glass. “Here, Cass.”
She jugs it, then collapses against the arm of the sofa. Her glass rolls across the floor and knocks into her suitcase. In a few short seconds, loud snores fill the room. Fischer raises his head and looks at her.
While he’s distracted, I try to nudge him away from the door, but he’ll have none of it. He sets his head back down on his front legs and stares up at me, as if to say, ‘it ain’t gonna happen.’
“Scoot!”
He pricks his ears forward but doesn’t move. I pry open the door. Fortunately, the rug he’s on slides across the floor. I slip through a crack and slam the door shut. Loud barks echo his disapproval. Mrs. Sullivan has never complained about his barking, but tonight may change all that. “Shhh,” I whisper through the door, “Fischer, it’s okay.”
He quiets down, but I know it won’t last. Not when he knows I’m close by and he’s not with me.
I collapse against the door.
“Took you long enough,” Jeb grunts. I can barely make out his outline in
the dark hallway.
“I had to get Cassie some water, and Fischer wouldn’t let me out the door. I don’t know what his problem is.”
He sidles up next to me. He smells of cedar, sweat, and sex. My sex. “Maybe he thinks you’re in danger.”
A single drop of dread runs down my spine. “Am I?”
He releases a long, annoyed exhalation. “If you keep hanging out with that girl, you will be. She’s a bad influence. You’re reckless when you’re with her.”
In the darkness, I feel much braver than I am. The alcohol certainly doesn’t hurt either. “You don’t like reckless?”
He lifts my chin with his finger. His jaw sets in a hard line. “Not when you put your life in danger.”
I’m not sure I can breathe, let alone reply. He watches me without saying a word, but with Fischer’s barks, the hallway is far from silent.
He lets the tension build between us for a few more beats before he removes his hand. “I think I better change that light bulb.”
I press the oblong bulb into his hand, wanting to leave an impression on him any way I can. His amber eyes never leave mine, as he clutches it. On tiptoe, he reaches up and twists the old one out of the socket. He’s nowhere near as tall as Drew but still taller than me, tall enough to make all the difference.
“Is there anything else you need Miss Watson?”
Every time he calls me Miss Watson, I feel like I’ve gone back in time and live with the lovely and entertaining sisters of “Pride and Prejudice.” Perhaps Mr. Rolles serves as Mr. Darcy. But I fall short of Miss Bennet’s spunk or her breadth of self-esteem. There will be no smart retort, nor funny reply coming from my lips. “I…,” bark, bark, bark. Silence. “I…,” bark, bark, outrageous barking. I purse my lips and shake my head. “Give me that.”
He places the blackened bulb in my hand. The want I see in his amber eyes reflects my own, but the incessant barking of Fischer is enough to ruin any mood. “I’ll see you soon,” he promises. His ring finger trails from the corner of my ear down to the inside of my left wrist. Desire courses through me. He walks away, but I feel like I should say something, like I have to say something, like I can’t pretend that nothing happened, because something almost did.
And Then He: A Rogue Mountain Billionaire Novel Page 9
