Saturdays at the Viper Rooms

by Kirsty-Anne Still

  As much as it pains me to know there are no loop holes or proof of viper damnation, I know I have to ride this out. I’ve often said that the viper girl rooms will be enough evidence, but Jace gave me so much legal malarkey that eventually I drowned it out. I know he’s still working on something and I think he feels Eleanor is one piece of evidence too strong to ignore.

  But right now, The Viper Rooms and all they entail do not exist. I’m so happy to be where I am. I’m at Jace’s Fire Island mansion and, to be honest, the heat here is so much better than the city’s. The summer has been unbearable so far. The moment you walk out of your apartment building the heat is in full force, bouncing from the concrete, creating the feeling it’s actually twenty degrees hotter. However, right here, the sea breeze cools you the moment it hits your skin. It drifts in, whips around you, and carries off all your worries.

  “What’re you thinking about?” Jace asks as he steps in behind me, his arms running around my waist to trap me. “You’ve looked too thoughtful.”

  “Just thinking how perfect this all is,” I admit as he pushes kisses into the curve of my neck. “How much I love being with you.”

  “Well that’s good,” he tells me and one arm leaves it clasp around me momentarily. “For you,” he says, raising his hand up to show me a set of keys hanging on a purple ribbon. I reach out and turn to him, evidently my shock is smothering me. “They’re keys to this place. I wanted you to have some.”

  “Why?” I ask him unable to comprehend the gesture. I understand keys to his apartment back in the city, but keys to this place is an entirely other matter.

  “If you ever need to get away, I want you to come here. I want this to be our place,” he alerts me sincerely and I cannot help the smile that graces my face. He turns me in his embrace.

  I look to the house behind Jace and look back to him. I flick my gaze between the two again and break into a small, coy smile. “Jace,” I begin to say and just resort to looking at the keys in my palm. “This is a big deal, you know that, right?”

  “So is what I feel for you,” he tells me honestly. I see there are no lies to what he tells me and I can’t help but feel my heart skip a beat. It’s hard to believe we’ve only been dating for six months. I feel like I’ve loved him a lifetime.

  I begin to beam at him and know I am running from the moment, but I can’t believe that this is happening. I’m not meant for this life, it’s written in a contract how I’m not! I decide to be playful instead of hiding entirely. "And here I was thinking we were all about fornication and no romance."

  "No romance?" he questions back, shocked at my claim and I giggle.

  "Zero," I tell him, teasing him relentlessly and push him back a little. "Let's see how many times we have sex in a week shall we?" I ask and put my left hand up. I put my fingers onto my thumb and wiggle it. "Monday," I begin and move into the next finger. "Tuesday," I continue and move on. "Wednesday." I then grab two at once. "Friday and Saturday, oh, and most Sundays. It’s almost a daily workout."

  He laughs at me now, suddenly nodding his head in agreement with me. "Right, let's get it straight. Monday, Wednesdays, most Fridays, and Saturdays you're at work at The Viper Rooms. Tuesday you're at the other club as normal bar staff, and Thursdays you're at mine after I've had a hard day’s work and need a woman's touch."

  "What about Sundays?" I ask him, leaning forward. "When I'm off Viper watch. What about days like today, Mr. Mason?"

  "Days like today I like to show you you're the only girl for me and make you fall in love with me."

  "I'm already in love with you," I admonish quickly and smirk.

  He moves in closer, he lips just above mine. "Make you fall further in love with me then." He changes his claim quickly and I have to admit one small choice of words and I am sinking further into this world of love. "Am I succeeding?"

  "Oh yeah," I murmur back softly and grin before kissing him. I love these sweet, tender moments with him. There's no inhibition or love lost. There's no sexual desire fuelling it. We're just here, together, enjoying what we have. I can't explain what it is he does to me exactly, but I can only pray he keeps doing it.

  "I could stay right here, Lee," he whispers as he drags himself away and my body craves another kiss from his lips. "I don't want to go back to the city. I want to stay here with you forever."

  I close my eyes as the sentiment sinks in. "I could too." I speak as my eyes flutter back open to look at him. "But I can't help but worry about what's going to happen to you if we do."

  “I know,” he agrees, again showing his willingness to understand me. “Take the key, Joely. One step at a time. As much as I want to lock out the world, I know the horrible truth to this. One day we will be free of that damn place and we can be what we’re destined to be.” I nod, gulping as tears begin to appear. “One day we will have that big house I promised you and all the time in the world to just love one another.” He raises the key back up, and wiggles it a little. “What do you say, Joely? Take this step with me?”

  And there it is - one of the best propositions I have ever been given. Who am I to say no?

  “Okay,” I relent and reach out. As I grab the ribbon holding the key, Jace pulls me flush against his chest. Then slowly raises my head to look at him, and the moment I do, he kisses me, sealing the deal.

  Another part of my life just fell into place.

  ***

  I watch the sand wash between my toes and wish I could just stay here forever. Life is simple here. I know I can’t be hurt. I’m safe and secure and happy. They’re the only three things I want in life. They’re here, at Fire Island with Jace. There are no doubts with that.

  Jace was right earlier when he said he could stay here forever. There’s nothing like it and I know there never will be anything like it after. This is our own little piece of summer loving heaven and I can’t stop myself wishing for the ability to just freeze time.

  “If you don’t quit thinking so much I am going to have to punish you!” Jace’s voice calls out from behind me causing me to release a small giggle. “Trust me, you don’t want to find out what that would be!”

  “I’m curious,” I tell him and shrug. “What would you do, Mr. Mason?”

  He just issues me with a smile so full of wicked intent I feel the swirl of scared excitement rush through me. He’s at the grassy bank that leads onto the beach, but he’s quickly sprinting across the sand, closing the gap between us. It’s as he gets near the shoreline that I realize he’s actually about to reach me. He chases me into the ocean, the water crashing against my body, the chill stealing the sun induced heat from me instantly. It’s a gorgeous relief to finally have. The thrill of Jace chasing me takes over and I squeal. I know he’s close and I’m scared he’s going to catch me. It’s not scared like I want to run and hide, I’m more excited and love this part of Jace’s personality.

  He captures me and he spins us both around the moment I’m caught in his arms. When he sets me down, I force myself to face him, knowing what I’ll find. Automatically, my hand runs down his drizzled chest, my fingertips tracing every curve of his chiseled body and I bite my lip. It might be secluded here, and I know we’re alone, but there is always that deep residual of broken altruism to allow him to take me against the sandy banks. The delight prickles my skin and I can’t help but feel the longing between us erupt.

  But I feel a part of me stop what I’m feeling. I want to feel the romance between us. I want us to be more than just sex. There is something intrinsic between us. We’re instinctively driven into one another’s arms and we just explode. It’s electric and it’s heavily driven. We want to feel the other, find the one thing we’ve both been fighting for - a warm body to wrap around us. We spent so long fighting our own demons that when we found each other we could only recover. Now it’s time to grow together and enjoy the love that keeps us faithful and happy. It’s time to worry less and love more.

  I won’t ever allow Clara to find out about Jace, and
I want to stop dreading what my heart feels. I want to just love Jace and stop feeling like a bad guy over it.

  “You’ve gotten quiet again,” Jace teases me, breaking my reverie again. My head shoots up to look up at him and I find myself gawping. “What’s going on, beautiful?”

  “Nothing,” I say and revert my gaze to his chest. I allow my fingers to run shapes around his body and I sigh. “I want this more often. I want you all the time. I’m sick of hiding it, more now than ever. It’s not fair.”

  “Petulance will get you nowhere,” he tells me and I sink into a moment of brief humor. “Plus, it’ll ruin our next sixteen hours together.” I pout harder and he laughs harder. “Why are you pouting?”

  “Because sixteen hours is too little time,” I admit and I try not to mope at how limited we are for time. I knew the plan when he came for me earlier. Once he picked me up from our safe spot, he told me that we were taking a drive and he would take me back in the early hours of Monday morning. Then he had to head to the airport for a flight out at eight AM.

  “Depends how we spend it,” he jokes with me and leans in to grab my ass in his hands. He swiftly pulls me up and I naturally lock my legs around his waist, my arms looping around his neck. “It’s just you and me, Joely. Sixteen hours could feel like an eternity if we wanted it to be.”

  “Well if you think that, can we start it on a full stomach?” I ask, grinning brightly. My stomach has started to rumble and I can’t ignore it. “Can we throw something on the barbeque and really enjoy the next sixteen hours together?”

  “Who am I to deny you food?” he teases me rhetorically, drops me back into the sea, takes my hand and before I can form any sort of a verbal response, he starts to lead me out of the sea and towards the sandy shores. We walk together, hand in hand, up towards his Fire Island house. The sight of it takes my breath away. It’s not grand in height, but it spreads out around the property in all its grey beauty. It’s a place I’ve always wanted to live and I know one day in the future I will.

  We make it inside and Jace tells me he is going to grab us each a towel. While he disappears I’m drawn to the piano. This is one of the things that had us enjoying one another’s company. He has as much of a love for hearing someone play piano as I do playing it. I stand before it, running my fingers along the keys. I haven’t played in a while; torn between work and life has really stolen my freedom to just sit and compose. The black and white teeth begin to taunt me, luring me in with the thought of their beautiful sound.

  I begin to play a sweet melody with two fingers, closing my eyes as my other hand comes to join the slow tune. I play what I feel in my heart and the noise is heaven. It’s eloquent and it tells me that life is amazing, regardless of the club. I’ve never played music like this before, and I know if anything should happen to Jace, I never will again.

  “Hey girl,” I hear and I quickly twist around on my spot, my fingers falling free of the keys, the music silencing. He frowns at me and speaks, “Why did you stop?”

  “Because I don’t need to fill the silence when you’re here,” I admit sheepishly as he comes towards me. The look in his eyes tells me that’s what he needed to hear.

  My eye flicker to the clock on the wall and back to Jace as he puts the towel around me and then pulls me out into the open space of the room. He pulls me against him, holding me like he’s about to dance with me and I look up to him.

  “I’m pretty sure that melody you played will be on repeat in my head,” he confesses to me and I suddenly notice how he’s swaying the pair of us to the notes of the song I played. “It speaks more than words ever will, Joely, you know that right?”

  “I do now,” I whisper and lay my head to his chest and allow this moment to last just a little longer.

  ***

  I’ve been decisively quiet since we got in the car to return home. I guess I don’t want futile words to fill the time I have left with Jace before he leaves me. I’ve just stared at the passing road before me, praying it would take more than a measly hour to get back to my car.

  Suddenly, Jace’s hand slips over my thigh, resting upon it just before my knee. I immediately cover it, lacing my fingers between his. He then lifts it, bringing my hand up so he can kiss the back of it while he drives.

  “Could you imagine if we just carried on going and never stopped?” he asks me, pondering upon the idea.

  “Too many times,” I breathe to him and I swallow hard. Too many times I’ve worked out the plans for just running away. I wouldn’t pack properly; I would just throw my clothes into a suitcase and take to the ground running. What’s a few crumpled items of clothing to a forever with the man you love? I throw my head back and turn it to look at him. “Where would we go?”

  “Florida,” he states and looks to me quickly before turning his gaze back to the road ahead. I try to take my hand away, but he stops me knowing how that one place has hit me. “No, Joely, I would. I would give you your family back before we ran off anywhere.”

  “They wouldn’t want me back now.” I shift to look out of my window, my hand still firmly in Jace’s. “I’m lucky I have you, but I have become an embarrassment to them.”

  “Hey now,” he interrupts me, knowing I’m on this downward spiral again. “You are not an embarrassment. You could have become something so much worse than this, Lee. You could have wound up on the streets, addicted to drugs.”

  “No, instead I wound up getting paid to be a man’s puppet.” I cringe at the thought. I don’t know how my rose colored spectacles fell off, but they are well and truly crushed beneath my foot now.

  “Don’t make it out that you hate that life entirely,” he comments dryly and I force myself to look back at him. “You met me. I should make that place a million times better.”

  “You do,” I whisper and swallow back my tears. “But just because I found you and you understood and changed the game and loved me, doesn’t mean they will. You haven’t met my parents.”

  “True,” he agrees, nodding slowly. “But then again, you haven’t met my parents either. Do you really think my mother would be proud of her baby boy winding up in a club just to find satisfaction?”

  “Fair point,” I admit, seeing how truthful his thought is there. “Neither of us are going to win this are we?”

  “Nope,” he replies, popping the ‘p’ in the word. “Now will you wipe that sadness off your pretty little face? It’s not what I want to remember for this trip.”

  “Well I’m allowed to frown because it’s raining right?” I ask as I notice the rain splatter against the windscreen. “Rain in summer?”

  “It might hopefully break the heat,” he muses. “Maybe.” He shrugs and looks to me slyly. “Some heat can only be broken by one thing.” He shoots the comment at me and I know what he means. We just spent nearly twenty-four hours together and neither of us instigating sex. We were just a normal couple, enjoying some alone time. I would take that moment of a normal relationship over anything.

  As we draw up into the parking lot, I know the moments coming. The one I tried to ignore. As he parks opposite of my own car, he throws me an umbrella from the side of his door and a wink all in one moment before he climbs out of the car. I follow, but only after my umbrella is opened and ready to cover me. I rush around to the front of his car to meet him halfway for our goodbye.

  He takes me in his arms, the rain trickling over his face and he gives me a small smile. He says nothing and lowers his lips to touch mine. I savor the moment, relish the feeling of him here.

  “I don’t want to prolong this. I don’t think I’ll go otherwise,” he remarks, chuckling lightly.

  I want to tell him not to, but I know that’s not the case. He has to go. He built this company from scratch, I will not be the one who leaves it in tatters. I have to take the small battles in this life. I’ve taken enough of them already to know I can survive this. I will go to work and I will do whatever I can to throw Clara off the scent. I will make her see that there
is nothing between Jace and me except for business. He is my client, I have no sentimental value for them apart from what happens behind closed doors.

  “I’ll see you soon, Mr. Mason,” I offer my farewell. I stand upon my tiptoes and kiss him once more. The kiss is a light pepper to his lips, nothing passionate or heavy. Like him, if I prolong this I don’t know if I can leave.

  “Hey Joely!” he calls out to me and I turn to see him still standing where I left him. He’s now drenched in this unusual summer downpour. He gives me a wink, the lights from his car illustrating his features. “Come back here.”

  I obey. I don’t want to leave him behind and he doesn’t want to leave me either by the looks of it. I don’t want for us to go our separate ways quite yet. Which is why I rush back to be by him. The moment I am there he puts an arm around me.

  He pulls me back into his arms and I hold the umbrella above us both, the other arm locked around him. “I wanted one last goodbye.” His voice is so full of longing, and even with the rain crashing down around us, I can hear the undertone perfectly. Holding me close to him, he kisses me. This time it’s long and passionate and I know, unlike the first one, this is the one for the road. This is his one to keep him going until he returns to me. As the kiss deepens the umbrella falls off kilter and we’re left exposed, kissing in the rain. He pulls himself away, issuing a few small kisses as he does so. “See you in ten days, beautiful,” he whispers to me.

  He then releases me, knowing he has to leave now or not leave at all. I remain standing in my spot and turn on my heels to face his car. He climbs in and disappears behind the steering wheel and from my entire sight.

  I’m left in the glowing light of his headlights, completely shrouded, and I just remain there until he reverses and drives away. With a heavy sigh I turn and head back to my car.

  Ready to take on this week without Jace by my side.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Where’s lover boy tonight? It’s been six days. Tonight’s your prestigious three hour romp with him, but he appears to be a no show, Gilbert,” Eli comments as I come to sit at the bar. He’s being all so casual over the situation and I really hope my gut instinct to trust him was right.