Hearts on Fire: Romance Multi-Author Box Set Anthology

by Violet Vaughn

  I’d have rather just stuck my head in the sand, but he was right. This was my chance to tell him what I wanted, what would hurt me and what I didn’t care about. Then I couldn’t claim the injured party if we’d hashed it all out, and neither could he.

  Communication. That’s what relationships were really about. The attraction and sex were all great, but it would all fall apart without talking about expectations—both reasonable and unreasonable. I knew that.

  I had this nervous habit of biting my lip, but my mouth was so raw from our sessions, I stopped myself in time.

  “I don’t want you to come to the club anymore,” he blurted.

  My first instinct was to think that it was because he wanted to hide something from me. “Why?”

  “Because I’ve seen the guys who let their girlfriends come to the club.”

  “I didn’t freak out on Brant.”

  “Yeah, but you weren’t in love with him, right?”

  I processed that. I wasn’t in love with Brant, but I’d thought of him as mine, after a fashion.

  “Right?” he asked again.

  “Right.” I nodded. “But I know it’s your job. I have to say, it makes me uncomfortable to be told you don’t want me to go.”

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  “I think that goes both ways. I have to trust you’re not going to cheat on me and you have to trust that I understand what your job entails. If I can’t watch you work, we shouldn’t be in a relationship.”

  “I know that.” His voice was quiet.

  “Then, what—” I braced my hands on the counter. “I see. You don’t think this is going to work.”

  “I want it to.”

  “It can’t if we don’t trust each other.”

  “I certainly don’t want to see you with your hands all over some other man. I know it’s backwards as fuck that I expect you to tolerate it, but I just can’t.”

  That shouldn’t have pleased me, but I did. I should have called him on the double-standard, but it didn’t bother me.

  “Okay.”

  “Really? Just… okay?”

  I shrugged. “Why not? It’s not a big deal to me. I don’t need to punish you because of your job or hold my breath for something that’s not important to me just to prove a point.”

  “So what is important to you?”

  “That you come home after work. I don’t want to be staring at the clock at five in the morning wondering where you’re at or who you’re with. If you change your mind about being with me, that you tell me.”

  “I can do that. What else? I know there’s something that you’re holding back.”

  There was, but I looked away from him. “I don’t want you to take any more hotel calls. I know they’re more than private dances, strip-o-grams or whatever you want to call them. And I know it’ll eat into your money, but I also know you fuck most of them.”

  I’d just said to myself that I wouldn’t ruin Chubbalicious for him, that I didn’t expect him to give up his work for me, but that was a hard limit. I guessed it was my turn to have a double-standard.

  “Claire, it was really hard to set that up. If I ever need that income back…”

  “Are you telling me no?” I asked quietly.

  He shook his head. “I’m asking you to wait until you make sure I’m what you really want, that we’re forever.”

  “So it’s supposed to be okay for you to fuck other people?”

  “Finn, not me.”

  I nodded slowly. “But you told me the other day that Finn was you. You can’t have it both ways. Make up your mind.”

  “They don’t mean anything but a zero on a check.”

  “Then why would it be so hard for you to just stop?”

  He didn’t have an answer for me.

  “That’s a hard limit, Kieran.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  I could ask him the same. “Really? What about if I put an ad in the paper and started taking money for “erotic massage” or “dancing”? Would that be okay?”

  “No,” he growled.

  “Why?”

  He didn’t answer me.

  “Why, Kieran?” I’d raised my voice. “Answer me.”

  “They wouldn’t hire you anyway.”

  I don’t know if he’d meant to kill me, but he did. There was something in me that withered and died when he said that, but I refused to break in front of him. Instead, I lifted my chin and stared at him until he could meet my eyes.

  “I didn’t mean that,” he said.

  “You don’t have to apologize for speaking the truth. You’re right. A traditional service wouldn’t hire me, but there are plenty of men who like thick women. Maybe I’ll start my own service right out of the house. Yeah, I think I will.”

  “Claire, I just… Christ.” He pushed his fingers through his hair and the look on his face mirrored what I felt inside. “I shouldn’t have—I was defending myself.”

  “Against what?”

  “Against the truth. No, you can’t go sell yourself. You don’t have to. You can do so many other things. I can’t. This is all I have, all I’m good at.”

  “Fucking spare me the sob story. That’s a cop out. It’s a sad little boy who wants everything to be done for him and when it gets hard, he just gives up and goes back to what’s easiest.”

  “What’s wrong with easy?” He completely missed my point.

  “Nothing is wrong with easy, but you keep acting like you have no choice. Like the life you live isn’t wholly and solely up to you and it is.”

  “This is why I don’t date.”

  “Really? You’re going to go there?” I shook my head. “Dancing is your job. Fucking is a choice.”

  “That pays well. What does it matter if it’s Finn and not me?”

  “Where shall I start? The part where you stick your dick in people you don’t know and then you want to fuck me without a condom?” Dear God, I had to get tested. I swallowed hard. “Or the part where you being with another woman hurts me. It doesn’t matter if it’s Finn or Kieran. It’s still you.”

  “Give up Chubbalicious, then.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s the same thing.”

  “No, it’s really not.”

  “Because dancing and pleasure aren’t viable careers, right?” he snapped.

  “That’s not what I said. I didn’t ask you to stop dancing. That’s not illegal. Whoring yourself is.”

  “So now I’m a whore?”

  “You said so yourself.” I wasn’t backing down from this, even though I knew what that meant. As soon as I’d gotten Kieran, I’d lost him, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. I wasn’t going to say I was done so he could go cry to himself about how horrible women were and about how no one understood him. I understood him better than he understood himself.

  “I don’t want to fight with you and I’m not trying to hurt you. But that’s where I stand. Why don’t we both think about where we’re going and where we want to be and talk about it later?”

  “I’ve got a call tonight and I’m taking it.”

  My nose prickled like I’d been punched and I knew I was about to cry. “Be sure that’s what you want to do.”

  I went to my room and closed the door. I had to fight not to slam it, but instead, I gently clicked the lock into place with shaking hands. I melted into my quilt without letting the tears fall.

  13

  I didn’t come out of my room for the rest of the day. I tried to work on Chubbalicious, but my heart wasn’t in it.

  I got an email from Ryan, the photographer, with all of the images attached. Hollie and Rosa looked great. I didn’t even want to look at mine and I shouldn’t have.

  Everyone said I looked so good at the shoot, that I was so hot, but all I could see was my double chin. Or my ass looked too wide, my thighs to fat, and the rolls around my middle were disgusting. I hated the sight of myself and I kind of wanted to gouge everyone’s eyes out who’d e
ver seen this picture or who ever would.

  This was in Ryan’s portfolio. He was going to show that to people.

  They wouldn’t hire you.

  No, they wouldn’t hire me to sleep with anyone.

  I slammed the lid on my laptop closed.

  Kieran didn’t love me. He was with me because he thought my self-esteem was bad enough that I’d put up with whatever he wanted to do and I’d never leave him. I wasn’t a threat to his fear of abandonment because he didn’t think I could get anyone else.

  This thing with Brant, he just wanted to prove I still belonged to him.

  In that moment, for all that I loved Kieran, I kind of hated him, too.

  I’d read all the self-help books about loving myself, about not allowing myself to feel inferior, that I had to give permission to let other people’s comments and actions elicit any reaction from me.

  But I wasn’t ice or stone. I was just a fat girl trying to fake until she made it.

  My phone rang and when I saw it was April, I swiped to reject the call. She called back and I rejected it again and turned my phone off. I just couldn’t deal with her shit. I had my own to worry about. I get that she was hurt by what happened with Kieran, but she knew what she was getting into.

  I guess I should have too.

  I didn’t know how long I lay there staring at the ceiling, waiting for the numbness to give way to something else. It never did.

  Not even when another loud banging commenced on the door. I ignored it until a short time later, there was a tap on my window. Someone was really determined.

  “Fuck off.”

  “It’s me,” Brant said.

  I went to the window and opened the blinds, then pushed up the glass. I saw it was creeping on dawn. Purple and orange tendrils streaked the sky. I’d lay there in my own misery and stewed all night. How pathetic was that?

  And Kieran hadn’t come home.

  It was the mother of all battles to keep my expression neutral as the realization washed over me.

  “What’s up?”

  “Can you let us in? Kieran lost his keys.”

  I raised a brow. Part of me wanted to say fuck him. He could come home when he dug them out of whatever skank he’d left them in, but I didn’t get to be angry. He’d been honest with me.

  “Why isn’t Kieran tap-tapping on my window?”

  Brant looked as if he was ashamed for Kieran. “God, Claire. I didn’t even want to bring him home. I told him to crash on my couch, but he…” Brant just kept shaking his head.

  “How drunk is he?”

  “You’re not going to let him in?”

  I sighed and pulled my robe more tightly around my waist. “I’ll be there in a second.” I closed the window.

  Brant and Austin dragged him inside, and he stumbled. He wasn’t quite ready to pass out, but he was close.

  “You mad, baby?” he slurred.

  “You guys know where his room is.” I turned to go back to my own room.

  “What’s going on?” Brant asked.

  “I can’t.” I shrugged. “Just no.”

  “I didn’t go,” Kieran mumbled. “I didn’t go.” Brant and Austin hauled him into his room and got him settled.

  I wanted to go back to my room and stew some more, but that wasn’t going to help anything.

  “Thanks for bringing him home.”

  Austin looked back and forth between me and Brant and said, “Yeah, anytime. I’m just going to wait outside.”

  Brant nodded and waited until the door closed behind him before he said anything. “What did you fight about?”

  “I’m not doing this with you.”

  “Why not?” He seemed so sincere.

  “You said you’d call.” As if I had any right to be mad about anything.

  “Oh, Claire. We both know that you and I are done. I knew that when we invited Kieran to join. Remember? I told you this was coming. I didn’t need to call you after to have you tell me that you and Kieran were together.”

  “But we’re not. Not really.”

  “I gathered. He was a fucking wreck tonight. He didn’t dance.”

  “What did he do?”

  Brant looked uncomfortable.

  “Never mind.”

  “I’m not going to carry tales because I don’t know what happened. April came to see him.”

  If any more sharp things stabbed my heart, all I’d have left in my chest was applesauce. A ton of questions bloomed rancid on my tongue, but I didn’t say any of them. I wasn’t going to grill Brant and put him in the middle of it.

  He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Did you get the pictures back yet from the shoot?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Hollie’s and Rosa’s are just what I wanted.”

  “What about yours?”

  “We shall never speak of them again.” I managed a weak smile.

  “I’d like one. One of you and me?”

  “I’ll just forward the email, if you promise not to put it on Facebook.”

  “No, it’s just for me.”

  I nodded. We stood there in awkward silence for almost a full minute.

  “I should go.”

  “Take care of yourself.”

  “When I said I’d miss you, I meant it.” He kissed my cheek and his lips were warm, his scent safe.

  “I know. I miss you, too.”

  “You’ve got my number.”

  “Yeah, see, if a guy says he’s going to call and doesn’t, that’s not usually a cue to me that I should text.”

  “I was giving you time. I still am.”

  “Time for what?”

  “To be with Kieran without feeling guilty. Without worrying about hurting me or how you’re going to break it off. I took care of that.”

  “How did you know I would? Why do you and Kieran both think you get to choose how I feel about anything?”

  Brant sighed. “Do you think I would choose for you to be with him? I sure as shit didn’t choose that. But when I left, if I’d said, that was a good time, but if you want to be my girl, Kieran has to go back to his own room, what would have happened there?”

  I bit my lip.

  “I don’t want to be your second choice, Claire. I deserve better than that and so do you.”

  He was wrong. I didn’t deserve better, but maybe he did.

  “Then why did you set all this up?”

  “Because I want you to be happy.”

  It seemed like such an easy thing—happiness. Something made of light and bubbles, but it wasn’t. It was complicated and heavy, like a brick.

  “I want you to be happy too.” I did. I didn’t want to hurt him, but if I was being honest with myself, I didn’t want to give him up either.

  For all that I wanted it to be about me, it couldn’t just be about me.

  “I know.” His voice was strained.

  “Then why does this hurt?” I blurted. I should have kept it to myself, let it fester with everything else.

  “Because I’m something different than Kieran. Because you’re looking at what he did tonight and you’re thinking I’d never do that to you. And you’re right, I wouldn’t, but I’m not the one you’re in love with. He is.”

  I looked back at his closed bedroom door. “I don’t know what I’m feeling.”

  “I do. You’re feeling lost and betrayed.”

  My gaze wandered down to my hands. “You’re right. I feel so betrayed and I don’t even know what happened.”

  “Do you trust Kieran to tell you the truth about what happened?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s important.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “I keep waiting for you to ask me what I saw, but I don’t think you’re going to. I’m glad.”

  “I wouldn’t put you in that position.”

  He nodded. “Take care of you, okay?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “You too.”

  I watched him leave and I wondered if maybe I’d screwed up. Well, I knew I’d s
crewed things up, I just wasn’t sure what the fallout would be yet. I never should’ve crossed the line with Kieran. He was something better left as an unrequited fantasy. Then we’d still be friends. All of us would still be friends.

  Only, I didn’t miss April.

  I didn’t want to be her friend.

  It was nice not having her voice in concert with the voice in my head taking little digs at me all the time.

  But I still wanted to be Kieran’s friend. I wanted to have that part of him no one else did and I was pretty sure I’d lost it.

  Or worse, maybe it had just lost its luster. He wasn’t some sex god to me anymore, neither was he that guy just needing the right woman, that guy who could be fixed. The one I’d warned April that he wasn’t in the beginning.

  He was Kieran, the keeper of my heart and he’d twisted it and torn it in half.

  The sound of retching echoed from his bathroom and I looked up at the ceiling, half hoping there’d be some kind of cheat sheet with all the answers taped up to the crown molding.

  I could leave him there—I should.

  But I wouldn’t.

  “Pussy,” I muttered to myself.

  I braved opening his door and creeping into the bathroom. It stank of rye whiskey and stale smoke, and aftershave. He was on the floor with his head leaned back against the mint green tile on the wall. It was ugly as shit—the wall, not him—even drunk and acting the wrung out bastard, he was still beautiful as sin.

  I ran a washcloth under the cool water from the tap and crouched down next to him to sponge his heated forehead.

  I was thoroughly disgusted with myself. This was condoning his behavior. It was setting the standard for how he’d treat me. He’d done God knew what with God knew who and I wasn’t screaming, crying, or throwing things. I wasn’t even ignoring him. I was coddling him, petting him and offering him comfort.

  I agreed with my earlier assessment of myself: pussy.

  His hand closed over mine. “It’s too much,” he mumbled.

  “What is?” I eased his hand back down into his lap and continued to administer to him.

  “This. You. I wanted to prove to myself and to you that you’d leave.”

  “Why?”

  He opened his eyes, dark and turbulent—gorgeous in his suffering. “Because anyone I love leaves. I fuck it up.”