by Marr, Maggie
“Okay, sit here.”
Holy hell. Tara’s bedroom is way different than the cozy-cutesy living room. The entire room is blood red and mahogany. Not at all what I expected. The bed is gargantuan, taking up nearly the whole room, with four giant posts that reach toward the ceiling. So easy to tie you up, to . . .
Down boy. My cock, which usually only responds in hotel rooms with near strangers, is suddenly quite aware that Tara’s room is somehow . . . somehow out of character and yet enticing.
A blush unfurls over her swanlike neck and toward her cheeks.
“Greg hates my room,” Tara says.
“It’s different than the rest of your place.”
“He says it looks like a bordello.”
The thought . . . well, yeah, it had crossed my mind. “Red’s a powerful color.”
“I love red. The bed set was my grandparents’ and they left it to me. Been in the family for generations. And I like red.”
Enough of an explanation. A family heirloom. But it’s obvious from the look on her face she’s fought some kind of fight about this bed and these colors for a long time.
“Sit here.” She points at the left-hand side, where two pillows are propped up against the headboard. Her side. Where she sleeps.
Heat unfurls in my belly. A vision of Tara lying in bed naked flashes through my mind. My turn to feel weird. Jango eyes me as I sit on the edge of the bed with my feet still on the floor.
“No, no, no. You have to sit like you would if you were me. Put your feet up.” She grabs my feet and sets them on the comforter, then puts her palm on my chest and pushes me back against the pillows.
Hot fierce desire coils through me. She leans over me, two-thirds of her body above me. Her shirt hangs down, revealing her bra and her breasts, those gorgeous breasts, in it, to me. My incredibly disciplined eyes roam, as they never do, to the glorious sight of those breasts, her neck, her jaw.
Our gazes meet. She jerks back from the live wire of desire that pulses between us.
“Like this?” I feign nonchalance. I engage the skills I utilize in my vocation. Tara’s mouth is an O shape, her pupils dilated with a hint of fear combined with shock and surprise. I’m hoping she doesn’t notice that my cock is hard as a rock. Jango stands beside Tara, tail wagging.
She takes my cue and pretends she doesn’t feel this heat smoldering between us.
“Just like that.” She runs a hand over her hair, pulling stray wisps from her face. “Okay, now stay here.” Jango eyes her, looks at me, and then jumps onto the bed to curl up beside me.
“Jango?” She tilts her head, obviously not used to Jango cozying up to menfolk who come to her place. By menfolk, I mean Sir Douche-A-Lot.
She turns and walks out of the room. “Okay,” she calls from the front of her condo. “Wait for it.”
I lean back, put one hand on Jango’s head to pet him, and close my eyes. I’m exhausted. So very exhausted. Truly exhausted to the core.
Life is weird. I sit here, on Tara’s bed, eyes closed, petting her dog, and this feels oddly normal. Then the bed shakes. I open my eyes. No . . . I wait . . . the bed shakes again. No way. A few seconds later, Tara’s front door opens.
“Did you feel it?” she yells.
“Maybe.”
“I’m going to do it again,” she calls back.
What part of the building goes from my front door to Tara’s—hell, there it is again. Her bed shakes. Not a lot. Not enough to be that noticeable, unless you were sitting here working or sleeping or basically minding your own business and then—there.
“Jango, that’s weird.” I stay where I am, waiting for Tara to return with a satisfied smile. But instead, Jango issues a deep and throaty bark. He jumps over me and tears across the room, headed to the front door. I follow him. Voices grow louder the closer I get to Tara’s front door.
Jango stands at the door, sniffing the edge near the floor. Low growls come from his throat.
Through the peephole I see McDouche and Tara. She stands in my open front door and he’s gesticulating with his arms. Does me coming out of her place after sitting on her bed make this better or worse for her? If he were a good guy, a guy who was on the up and up, then this wouldn’t matter. Unless he actually caught me jackhammering his beloved, he’d believe her. But he’s not, from what I can tell, a good guy. He’s suspicious and jealous as hell. Which is crazy, because it’s pretty damn obvious that Tara is not the type to fuck around.
Now Douchey? I have him pegged as a serial cheater. Just my guy sense.
I keep my eye pressed to the peephole.
I can hear their tone, and a bit of language. He points to her door and turns toward my front door. An asshole like this guy, he sees her coming out of my place, then me coming out of her place, and he’s the type who won’t believe the truth. Doesn’t believe what Tara is telling him—that we had dinner, and her bed shakes when I open my door, and she was simply trying to prove her theory to me. He doesn’t believe that what Tara tells him is the truth, because he’s never told the truth to her.
I know that Douchey lies.
All men lie.
Greg lies, and he’s still so fucking deep in his lies and unable to see the goodness in Tara, that he is nearly convinced Tara lies too.
She walks toward her front door. He crosses his arms. Rolls his eyes toward the ceiling, mouths “whatever,” and is off down the hall toward the elevator. She stands alone in the hallway, watching him, then turns to her front door and takes a deep breath. Steadies herself. There are only two inches of door between us, and barely one step. Her face is so close to mine.
Through the peephole I see it.
I feel it.
Tara is miserable.
Heartbroken.
My heart jolts. My breath stops. Was this how . . . Oh my God, was this how . . . I can’t breathe. Tara looks straight at the door, and the pain on her face stabs my core. My God. She is so tragically sad and yet . . . She glances down the hall toward the elevator, where the guy she’s engaged to just went, and there’s this longing in the curve of her mouth. She swallows and wipes her fingertips across her eyes. She turns back. I watch her psyche herself up and summon a small smile to her lips. Forcing herself to look happy . . . for me . . . for me, the neighbor she never sees, who always forgets to give out holiday cards, and who has weird hours and never invites her to dinner until tonight. Tara forces a smile to her face, because that’s the type of woman she is.
I take four long steps back as her hand finds the doorknob. The door opens. “Did you feel it?”
Again, her mouth has that bit of a smile and her voice sounds halfway happy, but deep in those blue eyes lurks a hint of pain.
“I did. You’re right, your bed shakes when my front door opens.”
The pain is banished, and I see satisfaction mixed with happiness. She’s won. She’s vanquished my doubt and proved her hypothesis. I return her smile. I only wish the doubt she feels for her fiancé and her upcoming marriage could be banished from her eyes just as easily.
* * *
Hot angry noise and ugly words pull me from my sleep. My phone tells me the time is 2:22 a.m. I squint and lift my head. In the hallway. I hear them, someone. A man, a woman, a tone . . . from both. Suddenly the thought that my door-shutting rattles Tara’s bed doesn’t seem nearly as far-fetched as it did before. Not when words all the way in the hallway have pulled me from the dream. That same fucking dream I’ve dreamt nearly every damn night.
Susie.
Still.
Susie.
I wash the fucking “what if” questions from my mind. I roll from my bed and my feet hit the floor. Cool feel of the cement actually helps me when I’m conflicted. I stand and pad out of my room down the hall to my front door. I look out of the peephole and see that McDouche is back. He stands in Tara’s doorway with his arm braced against the door jamb. He looks like a beast standing beside Tara, who is in the doorway, arms crossed. This asshole, the douchebu
cket, leans down and attempts to kiss her. With his jerky movements, I can practically smell the booze from here.
Nice. Not a move I’m innocent of. Pulled more than a couple in my day. Long night. Drunk. Show up at the girlfriend’s house—this case, the fiancée’s—looking to score. Right. There isn’t a guy alive who hasn’t pulled that trick. And most women, if you’re dating and if you’re on their good side, are okay with this bad-boy behavior if it only happens once in a while. But Douchenugget pulls this scene often.
I must have thin walls, because I hear this guy pounding on her door at least twice a week, usually around 2:30 or 3 a.m. But tonight? Huh? Tonight it appears Tara wants nothing to do with Greg and his piss-drunk bad behavior, because not only is she holding her position at her front door, but she actually pushed his smelly-alcohol mouth-breathing face away with her palm.
A low whistle comes from my lips. Yeah, Douchenugget is getting nothing but cold shoulder tonight.
She holds up her left hand and points at the rock. And granted, I have to say that even from this distance I’m impressed, because it’s a big rock. “This is what you think gives you the right to be an utter asshole?”
Greg says nothing, just continues to stand in the doorway with the smug look of a high school kid being scolded.
“Well this? You can have it back.” Tara takes the ring off her finger.
Smug look gone. Greg’s eyes widen. “Babe, don’t be ridiculous.”
“After what I saw tonight?”
Shit. What did she see?
The ring is off. Tara holds it with her fingertips. Does Greg have any semblance of reason in that drunken brain? He’s about to lose the best thing he ever had.
I would’ve begged.
I did beg. Fell to my knees and pled my case when the woman I loved wanted to all it off.
It worked.
For a while.
The rock glitters in the palm of Douchey’s hand.
My heart fills.
Nice job, Tara. Save yourself, save your life, tell that asshole good-bye.
Chapter 4
Uncle Jake, I love you.”
Kill me now. This kid owns me. I’m her bitch. She plants her sticky little chocolate-covered lips on my cheek and her dirty little crumb-covered fingers on my starched white shirt, which now is chocolate-covered and wrecked and I don’t give two shits. I don’t even care that this open affection is under the influence of extreme sugar overdose, because this kid, with her curly pigtails and freckles and still-pudgy little arms, makes my head spin with everything that is beautiful in the world.
“Would you get me some water, please?”
“Of course.” I pick her up and plant her on the chair where she’s been sitting on my lap, then gleefully watch her shove more doughnut into her mouth. My sister disappeared the moment she heard me open the door. How often do single mothers actually get part of a Saturday morning to themselves? Uh, never. Especially one who’s a single mother with a slacker little brother and whose own mother is losing her mind. Maybe Rachel is upstairs with a hot book and a vibrator—bad scenario. Where’s the bleach for my brain? Whatever the fuck she’s been doing for the last half hour, I hope it was good.
I pour water into a Sleeping Beauty cup, add ice cubes, and set it on the table next to Lily, the princess of my heart. I sit down beside her.
“Uncle Jake, you know my birthday is soon.”
“Soon?” I’ve come to understand that time for a five-year-old runs on a different clock. “Sweetie, your birthday is in six months. That’s a way off. That’s—”
“Soon,” she finishes for me. Sure, okay. Like most wise men, I’ve discovered you don’t argue with a woman. Without batting an eye, the tiny despot lifts a second doughnut from the box. Rachel would kill me. There is a strict one-doughnut policy in this house, of which Lily is completely aware, and I know the little pirate can count.
Whatever, I’m the cool uncle.
“Okay. I’m guessing you know what you want for your birthday, which is soon?”
She smiles her chocolate smile, the smile that makes my brain scream tell-me-what-you-want-princess-and-it’s-yours, the smile that will send me to my knees, or to the nearest Target with my credit card at the ready. Because really, she could say she wanted the Mona Lisa and I’d be on the next jet to France. “What is it, Lily?”
She glances toward the door behind me and I jerk my head around. No Rachel. I turn back. Lily’s gaze is deadly serious for a five-year-old. “Mommy won’t like it. She already said no.”
Oooo, this present gets better by the minute. “Okay. Well, what is it that Mommy said no to?”
Her lips press tight and her eyes widen. Such a sweet chocolate-cherub look. How my sister ever says no to this face is beyond me. The woman clearly has a heart of steel.
“I want a puppy.”
“Of course you do. That’s a great idea. Every little girl should have a puppy.”
“Jake!”
Lily’s eyes widen like flying monkeys are streaming through the kitchen window. Or that she’s just gotten caught sneaking a second doughnut, which she totally has. Except there is an adult on duty who is meant to act like an adult and follow the one-doughnut, we-don’t-say-yes-to-the-things-Mommy-says-no-to rules. That adult, who has now just broken not one, but two very important rules, is me. Bad boy, but very cool uncle, me. Big sis, standing in the kitchen doorway with her hands on her hips might not agree on my coolness level at this moment.
I grab a doughnut, knowing that while my sister is on a low-carb/no-refined-sugar diet, she has a weak spot for doughnuts, especially doughnuts with chocolate icing and rainbow sprinkles (the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree). Rachel licks her lips.
“We were simply discussing pets,” I say. “Every child should have a pet.” Her eyes are focused on the doughnut while I speak. Big sis wants this doughnut, my sister would nearly die for this doughnut, she might even let a felon roam the streets of Los Angeles for this doughnut right now. “You remember Matilda.” Her eyes snap away from the lovely sugar confection and latch onto mine.
“Don’t.”
“You loved her.”
“I did. I can’t, it’s too—”
“But you’re glad she was in our life.”
“Jake, stop.”
“Who is Matilda?” Lily asks.
“Now do you see why?” Rachel mutters under her breath, grabs the doughnut from me, and takes a bite. I realize that my fond memories of Matilda, much like most memories in my life, are laced with pain.
The doorbell rings and saves me.
“Expecting someone?” Rachel is a homebody on weekends.
“Uh, no”—her guilty gaze flashes toward the front door and she takes a final jumbo bite of doughnut—“just a friend of mine.”
I know guilt. I also know when my sister is hiding, lying, or simply trying to be conniving, none of which she does well. Nope. I inherited all those abilities, not her. Rachel heads down the hall.
“Hi!” I hear her say at the front door. I follow. When I turn the corner, I see a woman who looks vaguely familiar.
“Jake, do you remember my friend Cassidy?”
I reach out my hand. Do I remember Cassidy? I’m not sure. I have some sort of vague memory of a woman . . . with long black hair and dark brown eyes, tall, looking a little bit like a dominatrix. Also, the first time we met, Cassidy started talking about her baggage too fast. Ex-husband. Desire for kids. Wackadoo mom. Not the topics I like before a few toss-away conversations starting with; “Hey, so how about those Lakers?”
“She was at Lily’s birthday party last year.”
“Right. Of course.” We have a winner. She also cornered me in the pantry and eye-fucked me all afternoon.
“I thought maybe we could go grab lunch,” Rachel says. She runs her hand over her hair. Then I notice that Rachel is dressed. Not like Saturday schlubby-mommy dressed, but like Saturday I-have-a-brunch-date dressed.
“Su
re. You guys want me to watch Lily while you hang out?”
Cassidy gives big sis a look. I’m obviously not playing the role as they intended. I know how women communicate without words. I’ve spent my life studying women.
“Is Lily in the kitchen?” Cassidy asks, wading through the tension that laps between Rachel and me. “I’m going to say hi.” She slips by. Her guns look good, and she’s pretty and perfectly polished. If I remember right she’s a litigator and a partner at a big law firm. I glance at big sis.
“Are you a lesbian? Because as good-looking as Cassidy is, I think she likes guys.”
“Ha, very funny. I wish. If I didn’t like cock so much, it’d be easier.”
“TMI, sis. But really, if you’re not a lesbian then what’s up with the random brunch date that I’m obviously intended to go on with you and Cassidy?” I lift an eyebrow. Rachel crosses her arms. “Oh, no.” I over-pretend, like Rachel’s whole charade wasn’t completely obvious. “You want me to go out with her? You’re trying to set me up.”
Rachel is not a good liar. When she’s caught, she crumbles like a week-old cookie. Her blush looks like an alcoholic Irishman’s, not nearly as cute as my neighbor Tara’s. Her nose even turns red.
“Not interested.”
“She’s perfect. She’s smart. She’s successful—”
“And she’s beautiful. And while I appreciate each of those traits singularly in a woman, or in Cassidy’s case, in a woman who is the whole package, I’m not ready to date.”
“It’s been almost six years.”
My heart lurches. I careen from pain to near rage. I take a deep breath.
“It could be fifty and I won’t be ready.”
“You can’t spend your entire life in mourning.”
“And you don’t get to spend your entire life being the big sister who tells me what to do.”
Her lips thin and her eyes hold pain.
Damn. Damn. Damn. I’m an asshole. I scrub my fingers through my hair, take a deep breath, and turn back to Rachel. “Sorry for that. Look, I’m not willing to chance a repeat performance. Okay? Did that once, not doing it again.”
