by Dale Mayer
She groaned silently as the water beat down on her shoulders.
It was important. She was going to have to tell the cops. And given the closeness of the design, it was likely Morgan’s ass someone had seen. It had been years since she’d done the last one. But that man would have to be contacted, too. Greg was an accountant. They’d had a wild fling that had been incredibly tempestuous. She’d loved everything about it, but there’d never been a sense of forever to it.
For him either. He’d really wanted a piece of her art. She’d given it to him gladly. They’d loved and parted on good terms. But his dragon was the closest to Morgan’s. Greg’s was good. It was just Morgan’s was… brilliant. It had to do with loving him. When she’d done it, she’d know it was her last. Known it was the best of them all. Happy to never have to do another again. At that time, Morgan was still with her. Living with her, loving her.
The door opened, startling her. She stared bleary-eyed through the water streaming down her face at Morgan. He stepped in behind her and wrapped her up in his arms.
Resistance was futile. She’d always been putty in his arms. She’d taken that to read something deeper into the relationship. That they had something way more than either had experienced before. The water sluiced down her back and her tears ran down her front.
He leaned back, took one look, and with a muffled curse, he pulled her tighter into her arms.
“I’m sorry. God, Jazz. I’m so sorry.”
She didn’t know what he was sorry for, but the tears wouldn’t quit. She’d turned into a weeping idiot and she fucking hated it. And she bawled some more.
Through the torment in her mind, she heard his whispers. “I’ll explain. Honest. I promise. I’ll do my best to answer all your questions. The biggest reason for not wanting to explain is that I know the excuses no longer are valid. I made that decision to walk for what seemed like the right reason at the time but somehow was the wrong reason. I’m so sorry. I’ve been miserable without you.”
They were the words she wanted to hear, at least some of them, but the pain and emotion in his voice hurt. She wanted him to hurt for what he’d done, but she didn’t want him to hurt.
Suffer, yes, but now hearing the suffering, she realized that whatever had happened hadn’t been a light, ‘okay-I’m-done’ type of walking out. Something deep and painful had happened. She needed to know what. Maybe he’d finally tell her, but she’d have to give a little, too.
“I missed you so much,” she whispered over the water raining down on them. It gave a deeper level of intimacy that what she’d always known. What they had was special. As if they were a waterfall of their own making. She loved it. And she loved him. Had always loved him.
He squeezed her tight then stroked his big hands up and down her back. “Know that I’m sorry. Know that I’d do anything to go back and change what I did. Know that now that my head is on straight, there’s nothing that would tear me out of your arms again.”
Really? She tilted her head back to look up at this strong man and heard the truth in his words. She searched his gaze, seeing the caring, the need, and … the fear.
She smiled. “I’m really glad to hear that. I might still kick your ass when I hear the bullshit excuse, but if you ever do that to me again – know that you will never come back into my life, my world, my heart again.” Her gaze narrowed as she drilled her message home. “I’m struggling with giving you this chance, and it can’t be over as easily as hearing your explanation. The hurt has gone too deep. The distrust too big. But I will try and see where we can take this.”
He closed his eyes briefly, the relief in his face something she could feel in her own heart. She squeezed him tight, so damn grateful they were here. She was reserving judgment about his reasoning for what he’d done, but there was one thing she didn’t doubt. He’d done it because he felt he had to. And that made all the difference.
Just as she was finding a sense of balance, a sense of rightness to the moment, he picked up the bar of soap and slipped it between her legs.
“Ack.” His actions had her leaning to the left, where she hung onto the shower door and the soap holder, struggling to stay upright. as the soap danced up and down her leg and returned to the heart of her, stroking and sliding around through her legs and up the crevasse behind. She wanted to give him better access, wanted him there for her, inside her.
But that wasn’t to be. As if realizing he’d been given a second chance and needing to show her that he was there for her… he was determined to break down all the barriers between them.
She leaned her head back and enjoyed the sensations as he soaped her from head to toe and used the showerhead to rinse her off. He was always so damn good at the caregiver role. She heard the click as the wand went back onto the shower rack. Too bad. She’d have used a wild sexual interlude right now to ease the tension and bring them closer.
Just as she went to stand full upright he dropped to his knees, his hands cupping her bottom and tilting her forward, and placed his mouth on her. His tongue dove inside then retreated then dove again before licking his way forward.
She cried out, a moan escaped. She wiggled to escape the tantalizing touch, but he held her firm, then all thoughts of escaping fled as he latched onto her nub and fire licked upward. Her hips lurched forward and she couldn’t stop the words from escaping.
“Please, Morgan. Oh God, more please.”
He laughed. That deep dark laugh of his that sent her higher and higher. God, he was good. She shuddered as his fingers stroked down the crease between her cheeks, toying with the sensitive skin. She squirmed and gasped and pleaded for more. And more he gave her as two fingers slid inside and wiggled. She shuddered as her release swept through her.
Exhausted, she barely understood when he sat down and he lowered her onto the huge hot erection waiting for her. She slid all the way until he was seated deep inside. The ripples never stopped surging through an even bigger wave. He held her firm, and drove deep again and again until he threw his head back and groaned.
His seed spurted deep inside, setting off a final round of shockwaves.
*
Morgan stood up carefully, a limp Jazz draped over his shoulder. Navigating the wet floor through the glass doors, tossed her sideways, he snagged up towels and made his way to the bed.
He lowered her gently and wrapped her up in the fluffy towel. Walking back to the shower, he tossed one towel to the floor to soak up the wet trail, then snagged another one for himself.
He returned to find Jazz slowly rubbing the towel over her hair, trying to take the bulk of the moisture off.
It was time. Now or never kind of thing. But he had no idea where to start. Or indeed how to start. And how did he say what needed to be said without making his brother out to be a complete asshole? Especially if he was dead.
But it had to be said. Hopefully just once, then they could leave it behind. Forever.
“Do you want coffee?” he asked quietly.
She raised a solemn face to look directly into his eyes and said, “Later.”
Right.
Definitely now or never.
He nodded and tossed the towel he’d been using over the back of the chair beside him. Casually, trying to collect his thoughts and knowing he had better not screw this up, he tried to figure out where to start.
He sat down in the center of the bed and faced her.
Taking a deep breath, he confessed, “I screwed up. I listened to the one other person whom I loved in this world, the one person who’d always been able to twist me up in knots since he was little, and I believed him.”
Chapter 5
Jazz stared at Morgan, her mind reeling. “Billy? He was behind all this shit?” she asked, a note of incredulity in her voice.
At his nod, she snorted. “Well, now that makes sense.”
From his flat stare, she figured he didn’t understand. She had no problem filling him in. If there was ever a time to get to the bottom of
this, the time was now.
“I know you love him, loved him,” she tripped over the past tense, “but don’t be blind to who he was. If there was an easy way, he took it. If he could do it in an underhanded way, he would. If he could screw someone in the process, even better.” She glared at him. “Before you say any more, you need to hear me – I’ve said it before and I’m going to say it again, but you need to hear me right now – I’ve never been to bed with him. I’ve never even come close. Not a cuddle, not a kiss – though there may have been an arm around my shoulder or a quick hug in the beginning. He never had a part in my life or a place in my heart.”
Silence.
He nodded once and started to talk. She listened in disbelief. When he finally ran quiet, she said, her own voice low, painful. “You walked away from what we had because you believed you stepped on Billy’s footsteps and he had prior rights.”
He winced, but answered. “Yes. And I know that doesn’t wash now, but at the time, he was so damn convincing and the guilt so overwhelming…”
She stared at him, thinking of all the times Billy had played the emotional blackmail card on Morgan in an attempt to get something from him. The number of times, out of love for his brother, a useless excuse for a human being, he’d fallen into line and let Billy yank it.
And she believed him.
“Goddamn it.”
She didn’t know what else to say. She hated that he’d walked away from what they had. That he hadn’t even considered her feelings. Or asked her about her and Billy’s supposed relationship. But she’d seen firsthand how screwed up Billy was. How devious and manipulative.
And how damn caring Morgan could be.
“There is a bit of history to this,” Morgan said in a carefully modulated voice. “In college, I did bed a girlfriend of his. I was drunk and she crawled into bed with me.” He shrugged. “I didn’t plan it. I never wanted it. If I had been sober, it wouldn’t have happened… but it did. And Billy was the one that found us.” He sighed, as if staring down a long tunnel of lousy mistakes. “I never managed to convince him that I hadn’t done it on purpose. And because of that…”
She snorted. “He already had the guilt card to twist you more. Damn bastard.” Right now she wished he wasn’t dead so she could kill him herself.
“Exactly. There’s been any number of issues he held over my head over the years, but when it came to relationships, he never let me off the hook.”
“Ha, he probably told her that she should go try out his brother then walked in on the scene deliberately.”
Morgan stared at her then frowned. “She did say something about it at the time, but Billy had quite a fit calling her all kinds of names.”
Jazz shook her head. “Figures. The thing is, for all his manipulation, you let him do this to you. To us.”
“I gave him one week, then realized I was a stupid idiot and came back.”
“What? When? Where?”
“I walked into the shop, but you had some kind of party going on and he leaned over and kissed your cheek. His arm was firmly wrapped around your shoulders, and something about you two said you were an item.”
His tone of voice deepened, his gaze narrowing on her intently. “And I realized that my brother had been right. And if you’d gone back to him after such a short time, then you were not missing me.” He gazed at the pillows behind him, his body slumped into a hunched curl. “And damn it, that hurt.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. There was never any party or him kissing me.” She shook her head in bewilderment. “Never.”
“There were a dozen people there and something about a charity event.”
Her gaze widened. “What? That was a fundraiser for the local animal shelter. We’d collected a few thousand bucks to help out.” She paused, trying to remember. “Damn. Billy added a check for a few hundred bucks to the pot and said I’d been the reason or some damn thing at the time. I never paid attention.” She shook her head. “And he might have kissed me. The papers were doing an article on us, and there’d been a mess of photos. But not just with Billy.”
He stared at her and swallowed hard. He opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out.
Instead, he groaned and flung himself full length on the bed. “Goddamn it.”
“Ya think?”
She didn’t know what to say. All the pain and suffering because of his damn brother. And now they were dealing with more bullshit like stalkers and shootings all connected to the same asshole.
When the hell was he going to stop screwing up their lives?
*
Morgan had hoped he’d feel better after finally getting it all out. Instead he felt like shit. How could he have been so gullible? So damn naïve. Loving his brother was no excuse. He knew what he was like. He knew what shit his brother could pull and still… even after all these years, his brother had done it yet again. And it wasn’t his brother to blame for this mess. Like Jazz had said, Morgan was the one at fault.
“I’m so damn sorry,” he said quietly. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“No, you meant to honor your brother,” she said sadly. “But at no time did you come to me – ask me – about this. I would gladly have told you what he was about.”
“No, I figured that it wouldn’t be fair. And that if you weren’t in his arms in a week, then he was right and you’d have made your choice without me being there to muddy the waters.”
When there was no answer, he opened his eyes and studied her face. “And that was so completely wrong that as soon as I realized what I’d done, I came back.”
“No, you came back on the given timeframe,” she accused.
“No.” he sat up. “I wasn’t supposed to come back for a month. But I couldn’t stay away. I’d been lurking outside your place for days trying to figure out how to make it all right. But there wasn’t anything to say. So I couldn’t say anything.”
She shook her head. “Stupid. Fucking stupid. I can’t believe you did that to me. That you put your brother above me. Above us….” she couldn’t get any more words out. She just stared at him, lost.
He reached out and tugged her close. “You’re right. I love you and I desperately want to make this right. I know I don’t deserve forgiveness, but I’m asking for it. I know I don’t deserve your understanding, but I’m asking for it, too.”
She reached up and placed a finger across his lips. “And that is the part I do get. I do understand why you did this. I do understand the thought process that led you in that direction. I don’t like it. But I do understand it. Because…” she took a deep breath. “Because I know your asshole of a brother, and I saw how he could twist you up with guilt sometimes just for fun.”
He smiled and went to speak. She rapped him across his lips, silencing him.
“Forgiving you is another thing altogether. I was prepared to let you back in my life, back into my bed, with the idea of not letting you back into my heart.”
He groaned.
“I can’t take it if you disappear again. I trusted you and you broke that. I let you have everything I have to give and you dropped it all on the ground as if it had no value.”
He snatched her into his arms.
“That’s not how it was.”
“I hear you now,” she whispered. “But I don’t know that I can go back to what we had. I feel like I have to hold something of myself back. To make sure there is enough of me left behind to make sure I survive when you walk again, because inside I know you will walk away again.”
“No, I won’t,” he vowed, his heart breaking that they’d come to this. That he’d done this to her. She was so damn special he’d have done anything to not have hurt her.
And yes, even if that meant hurting his brother. That’s what he should have done. He should have taken Billy right to Jazz and brought up the issue right then and there.
Instead, he’d gotten sucked into Billy’s bullshit and done what his brother wanted.
>
“I will make you believe in me again,” he whispered against her hair. “I will do everything I can to regain your trust.”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure that’s possible.”
Chapter 6
When she woke up the second time, Jazz smiled to see bright sunshine outside. It must be mid-morning. For all their uneasy talks and no final answers – after all was there to decide – she’d fallen asleep in his arms. Needing to be close to him and still hurting from his garbled explanation to want to promise too much.
She might be able to move forward all the way, but it would be easier to do if his brother was dead. And that made her feel terrible. Not the person she’d like to see herself as. Even if she had a way to guarantee that Billy would never be welcome back into Morgan’s life, she’d feel so much better – but how fair was that to Morgan? Billy was his only surviving family.
But she didn’t think she could look at his face and not see the damage he’d done. If she accused him of trying to cause trouble, he’d just laugh and say if what they had was real, then he couldn’t do any damage. And to a certain extent, he was right.
The room had an empty feel to it. She rolled over carefully to find the huge bed empty. She already knew that’s what she would find. For all her rebuttals about not trusting him, her body, heart, and mind were so in tune with him and his actions that she’d know when she woke up if she was alone.
The only questions were where he was and what he was up to. There were muffled noises from outside. She figured he was working on cleaning up his shop. Hopefully nothing else had been damaged.
Her bag of clothes, collected last night sat on the chair beside her. Throwing back the covers, she gingerly moved enough that she could reach it. Pulling out clean clothes, she dressed as quickly as she could. Her hair, she twisted into a ponytail and clipped back. The t-shirt was more difficult, but eventually she was fully dressed in clean clothes. Now if she had a toothbrush, she was all set. She found it in the bottom of her bag along with her cosmetic bag.
