Undone (Club V Book 2)

by Gisele St. Claire

  “It was a little lonely over at my place,” he said with a shrug.

  I nodded. “Yeah, mine too. Samantha is working today and I was going to take the day off, but I figured I might as well jump back in.” I looked at him suspiciously. “But wait, you’re really here because you were lonely?”

  “Well, I was lonely, but that’s not the only reason exactly.”

  I felt a tiny raindrop hit my nose and looked up at the sky. There was a rainstorm moving in and we were going to be right in the middle of it.

  “There was something I meant to give you before you left…or, well, I wasn’t sure when the right time was to give it to you, but it’s something I wanted you to have. Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart. This is yours.”

  He handed me an envelope and I opened it to find a check.

  “This can’t be right,” I said as I pulled the check out of the envelope. The rain started then, slow, but then picking up its pace.

  “It’s right. I promise you it’s right. I want you to take it and do something that will make you happy.”

  “Wait, what is this for?” I asked, not entirely sure what I was looking at. My brain could process what it was—a check for one hundred thousand dollars—but I didn’t understand why there was a second check. He had already paid for my father’s mistake, as had I. I had given up two months of my life and spent them with this man. I still wasn’t sure what he had gotten out of the experience, other than making me submit to him and letting him get that pleasure out of it.

  “It’s for you. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to feel like you had to stay for more time or like I was trying to buy your affection, but I had planned to give you the money all along. Listen, I didn’t talk about it because I knew that it was a sensitive subject for you, given what you and your dad were going through, but the thing is—I come from money. A lot of it. I have always been able to buy what I want. I have more money than I will ever be able to use. If I could give some away every day I would still have too much. I’m not saying this doesn’t mean anything to me, I’m saying that it’s important to me that you have it. Because I want you to have the things that you want and need. I want you to have the kind of life that you deserve, but that you may not be able to afford yet.”

  I shook my head. “I really don’t know what to say to you, Jake. It’s far too generous. I mean…is this for the time I spent with you?”

  Jake shook his head, rain flying off his shoulder-length black hair. “It’s not that you earned it, Tay. You just deserve it. I want you to take it and use it to do something amazing. Whatever you want—go to college, expand your family business. You name it—whatever your dream is, I want you to have it. You are so intelligent and strong and frankly, you’re a big ol’ badass. I know that you weren’t really into the idea of submitting to me, but the fact that you did—the fact that you put your feelings aside and were willing to step into the unknown and let me be your guide there. That, Tay,…is what is so fucking hot about you.”

  I gulped back tears. We were standing in the rain like some stupid romantic comedy, only there was nothing comedic about this at all. He was standing in front of me trying to tell me how he felt and I still wasn’t sure how I felt about him, was I? All those feelings when I left his house, when he essentially sent me away with hardly a goodbye—it had felt like heartbreak, but why?

  “Tay, I’m not trying to tell you how to feel,” Jake raised his voice so I could hear him over the driving rain. “But I think that maybe you aren’t as in touch with your heart as you think you are. I don’t know what the best thing for you is. But I can tell you what the best thing for me is, and that’s you.”

  “Me?” I called out over the rain before I grabbed Jake and pulled him into the garage. “I know we’re soaked to the gills, but at least it’s not hitting us in the face in here.”

  “I want you!” Jake said. “That’s what I learned during those two months. That I want someone who is willing to take the risks with me, someone who is willing to trust me to make decisions. I never knew that, Tay. Not until you. You have shown me so much about who I am. You showed me what I wanted when I had no clue what that was.”

  “But you’ve got this crazy life with the club and I really don’t know how I fit into that. Is it something that you are ready to give up? Because I don’t want to get in the middle of something and find out that you’ve changed your mind. I’m young and have a lot of life ahead of me and I don’t want to get tied down to something that could go away in the blink of an eye.”

  Jake grabbed me and pulled me close. “Listen. Any of this could be gone in a heartbeat. You know that as well as I do. Look at how things happened with your dad. That could have gone the opposite way, but it didn’t. I don’t want to keep living life in fear, waiting for the next big high. I’ve been looking for the right person to settle down with…but not to settle down. What I want is someone who can fly with me—someone who dreams big dreams and doesn’t let them go. I want to be with someone who knows that she is in control of her own destiny.”

  I laughed through happy tears, something that had never happened to me before. “I’m crying, Jake. I’m crying because I’m happy. What is this all about?”

  “I don’t know, is it something new for you?”

  I nodded and put my arms around him. “I didn’t know what to think when I left your place this morning. I thought you didn’t want me or that our time together hadn’t meant anything to you or…”

  He pulled back to look into my eyes. His were the brilliant green I had come to love over those two months, the green eyes that greeted me every morning when I woke without a blindfold on my face.

  “Our time together meant everything to me. I don’t ever want it to end. I’m not asking you to make any promises right now, but I would like us to move forward in life together. Is that something you would be interested in?”

  I nodded affirmatively. “And one more thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I love you, Jake Mesa,” I said as I planted a kiss on his mouth.

  Six months later we were adding on to the garage. We had a new sign, a new coat of paint, and enough new work to hire six new employees. My dad was thrilled and had bounced back from the trauma of a few months before like it had never happened. He had learned from his mistakes, we all had, and we had all come out on the other side the better for them.

  Jake was still with Club V, as he would always be, working there in the same capacity as the other owners. I still stopped by there on occasion, less often to pick up Sam and more often to be seen as the fiancée of one of the owners. It carried all kinds of privileges and I could see why Jake enjoyed the life there so much. It wasn’t something I had imagined for myself, but I was learning to love it.

  “What do you think about all of this?” Jake asked as he came up behind me and slid his arm around my waist, pulling me tight against him.

  I looked up at the garage at all the changes that were going on around me. “You know, I think I’m getting used to not being in control.”

  “That’s for damn sure,” he said as he pulled me against his pelvis and ground himself against me. I could feel the growing hardness of his cock beneath his jeans and it made me ache. I could never have enough of him and it made me happy to know he felt exactly the same way.

  “You know,” I said as he began kissing the nape of my neck, making me giggle. “As much as I would love you to fuck my brains out in front of all of these new mechanics my dad has hired, I was thinking there was one other place we could try.”

  Jake pulled back and looked at me. “Yeah? Show me.”

  I smiled and took his hand, leading him toward the apartment above the garage.

  “I know we haven’t done much role play, but I think I might still have one of my school uniforms in the closet. What would you think about me putting that on and us having a go at it in my old bedroom?”

  I saw the lust flare up in his eyes and he pic
ked me up and carried me over the threshold of my bedroom, kicking the door closed behind us.

  “We can get the uniform out later,” he said, tossing me onto the bed. “Right now I’ve got some business to attend to.”

  Ten minutes later we lay on top of my bed, sprawled across the covers, sweating and sated…for the moment.

  “You glad you accidentally found my office that day?”

  I nodded and gave him a sleepy grin. “Even if I had to watch you fuck another girl. Hell, especially because I had to watch you fuck another girl. I wanted to know what I was getting into.”

  Jake let out a low growl. “I’ll show you.”

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  Chapter 1

  Kayla

  It was time to visit Daniel, my stepfather. He had been messaging me for a couple weeks now, saying he needed to catch me up on some news from my mom. I had delayed visiting saying I needed to give notice to take vacation time from Greens, The Realtors I worked for. He was bound to know I was bullshitting him, he had never been a dumb ass. As I threw clothes into my suitcase, Haley, my roommate hovered in the doorway.

  “I’m going to miss you, Kay. It’s going to be so weird being on my own in the apartment.”

  “Hey, it’s only two weeks Haley. You can spend the time masturbating away as I won’t be here to listen to any rude noises. You can have a good scream.”

  She rolled her eyes. Haley was used to my ways as we had lived together a while now. Up until a year ago, there had been three of us, but our other friend, Tiff, now lived next door with her husband, Brandon. I had taken over her share of the apartment, meaning I had two good sized bedrooms and my own bathroom. We still saw Tiff every Monday when we had our girls night where we ate good food, watched a movie and gossiped.

  I had never told them much about my stepfather though. Or about my mom. They knew she had paraded me through a stream of Stepdaddy’s as she chased money. My mom couldn’t live her life without wealth and I had been an unfortunate incident for her. Her relationship, if you could call it that, with my father, had been the catalyst for all the drama that came after. He had left her penniless and she had sworn it would never happen again.

  Out of all my stepfather’s, Daniel, who I had met when I was seventeen, had been the only decent one. The only one who had realised I existed, beyond being a hanger on. He had told me I always had a place at his home, and even after my mother had worked her way through most of his wealth and moved onto Chuck, the Stepdad that came after, he still reminded me I could stay anytime. I had never fully worked out my mom’s relationship with Daniel. They had never seemed hooked on each other like she had with some of them. Her public displays of affection with one or two had made me feel nauseous. Largely, through my life, I had kept my head down and done the best I could with my education, given the fact I was never at one school for very long before she had us on the move again. Once I turned eighteen, she had moved on once more and this time she told me she was done raising me and I was on my own now.

  It wasn’t the shock it could have been. Like I said she had been absent most of my life anyway. I graduated and eventually started at Greens where I made my good friends and I never looked back. I’d had a couple boyfriends but no one special. The girls were used to my cocky manner about guys but to be truthful I was more talk and no action if you get me. I’d not had much experience, though I was no virgin. I was kind of jealous of my friend, Tiff. She had been enjoying a ménage the last year. That woman walked around the whole time like she still had a cock up her pussy. I swear she always wore a shit-eating grin. Jealous, me? You better believe I was.

  Anyhow, I couldn’t put off visiting Daniel any longer as he had said my mom had been causing chaos again and he needed to update me. I had hoped she wasn’t hanging around for his money again as he had recently recovered his wealth, having had some of his art bought by a prestigious gallery. When I had first met him, when he and my mom hooked up, he was the owner of a string of tattoo parlors. He had secretly painted on canvas, using the talent that had drawn designs on clients, until he had finally got the guts up to show them to someone. They loved his work and taken a couple pictures to try in a gallery, where they had been bought by a collector the same day. He now had a new profession, which was great because my mom had nearly caused him to go bankrupt with his tattoo business.

  I hadn’t stayed at Daniel’s much. Instead, a school friend’s mom had practically let me move in there, knowing my background with my own mom. No, I hadn’t stayed at Daniel’s very often for good reason.

  I had always had a huge crush on my stepdad. There was no way I could have lived with him and my mom. If they had kissed I would have wanted to punch something. I knew that was stupid. Girls got crushes all the time. But Daniel was something else. He was ten years younger than my mom and had been twenty-eight when I first met him--eleven years my senior. He had dark shaggy hair back then and the darkest eyes. When he smiled he always looked sexy and goofy at the same time. His face all kinda crinkled up. He had these really plump cheeks when he smiled. I had always wanted to reach out and touch them. I was sure that whenever he spoke, heat rose in my cheeks. I guess that was when I had started to become the brash kind of Kayla because I hadn’t wanted to appear all young and innocent around him. I always felt he was trying to save me, you know? Always telling me I had a home with him, even after my mom almost ruined him. He had got this look in his eye like he hadn’t wanted me to lose touch and even though I had tried to cut contact with him over the following years he had never given up. Still texted, called, sent me birthday and Christmas cards and checks I never cashed. When I did visit I would do it on the way somewhere else and not stay long because I couldn’t. Being too close to him killed me. But now, I had to go and he had told me I would need to stay a while—at least a few days, so somehow I was going to have to work through this crush I had. I was twenty-four now. It had been six years since my mom had hitched a ride with her next victim. I had never seen or heard from her again, yet now she had done something that affected Daniel and me once more.

  I zipped up my case and turned to the doorway. I had been so lost in thought, Haley had left. I went out to spend some time with her before I drove to Daniel’s. She was my best friend and I was gonna miss her while I was gone.

  The drive to Port Jeff was less than a couple hours which made my lack of visits there even lamer I guessed. I swung into the large driveway of Daniel’s colonial. He was so lucky to have not lost this amazing property. His four bed, four bathroom home in Harbor Hills looked out over the waterfront and had its own private beach. I exited my car, leaving it in front of the double garage and walked to the front door where I rang the bell. After a couple minutes the door opened and Daniel stood there.

  He looked as hot as ever and I felt my cheeks burn again. Why was I so goddamn sensitive around him? His face broke out into his signature smile and he stepped forward and embraced me in his arms. The heat from his body enveloped me. I didn’t want to move, but he then outstretched those strong arms and looked me over.

  “Hey there, Kayla. It’s good to see you. You look well.”

  I half smiled at him, feeling uncomfortable.

  “Shoot, ignore my manners leaving you out here on the porch, come inside. You need help with your luggage?”

  “Please. There’s a case in the trunk.”

  “I’ll grab that and then I’ll park your car in the garage. We’ll take your luggage to your room and then I’ll fix us a drink, okay.”

  “Okay,” I replied.

  I hovered in the hallway while I waited, taking in the vastness of the space. Every time I came here the place took my breath away. He hadn’t decorated the place and the Realtor in me saw the potential of the property that had yet to be unleashed. The hall had a central staircase leading up to a landing from which all the other rooms veered off. It was a little old fashioned to me with its wooden moldings. It cried out for a modern makeover. If it were mine it would be fabulous.
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  “Okay, let’s get your things in your room.” Daniel had reappeared with my case. I grabbed my holdall from the floor and followed him up the stairs.

  This wasn’t good. He was wearing jeans and they hugged his ass as he climbed the stairs. I wanted to reach out and feel his ass cheeks, see if they were as peachy as they appeared. His biceps bulged as he carried my case up the stairs. I felt between my thighs get wet. For fuck’s sake, he was only walking!

  We headed a little way down the landing to my old room. He pushed open the door. It was exactly how I had left it, or rather, how my mom had decorated it. The room was ocean blue—everywhere. With its frilly curtains and bedding, it hurt my eyes to look at it. Daniel caught the grimace on my face.

  “Maybe we could decorate while you’re here? Make it more your own?”

  “Maybe. Though I’m not planning on staying too long, you know. My life’s back in Brooklyn and I need to return there as soon as I can.”

  Daniel nodded. He looked a little disappointed and that made me feel bad.

  “Though I guess it wouldn’t hurt to do a little makeover, given the hideous paint colors in here.”

  “Great.” Another smile broke out on his face. “It would be good to get the house looking a little more modern. I need to make the most of having a hot Realtor in the house.”

  At that, my face burned so hard I thought I might need a fire extinguisher.

  Daniel ran a hand through that still shaggy brown hair. “Christ, Kayla. I meant hot as in good at your job. Jesus, I’m an idiot.”

  “It’s fine.” I waved my hand in front of my face. “I knew what you meant and I am really great at my job.” I needed to get sassy Kayla back as soon as possible. That’s how I was. Confident and not afraid to speak my mind. “I’ve seen enough of this room for now. How about you fix me that drink and we sit out on the deck?”

  “Sure,” Daniel answered.