by L. A. Witt
The thought made my stomach turn. Anyone I dated in the foreseeable future would be in his crosshairs too. Even if Jesse didn’t get violent with me or anyone else, he’d definitely be a pain in the ass. Elliott didn’t need that. No one did.
Which meant that meeting Elliott for coffee would be a mistake.
I took out my phone, and before I could talk myself out of it, sent him a text.
Have to cancel—emergency patient.
The lie made me wince, but I decided it was a little white lie to spare his feelings. If he tried to reschedule, I could just be non-committal until he lost interest. Again, not my favorite thing to do to someone, but I didn’t know how to say I need to get over that asshole and I’m afraid I’ll start clinging to you without sounding like either needy or stupid. Both of which kind of fit at the moment. I was an idiot for letting not one but two men treat me like shit for five years, and I was needy as fuck. Especially now. Not because I was flailing without Jesse, but because Elliott had awakened something in me. Some need for human affection that had gone dormant.
I closed my eyes and blew out a breath. I needed someone like Elliott in my life and in my bed so bad I could taste it, and that was exactly why I had to cancel. He deserved better than to be saddled with someone like me, especially while I was still struggling in the wake of someone like Jesse.
As if I needed any more reasons to hate my ex-boyfriend.
~*~
I couldn’t get comfortable, and it wasn’t just because my dog and the cats were hogging the sofa.
A glass of wine hadn’t done a thing to calm my nerves. Nothing on TV caught my attention. Not one of my DVDs—not even the movies I could always watch—piqued my interest. I’d gone for a run earlier, and that hadn’t helped. Then I’d tried to catch up on some admin stuff from the clinic and couldn’t focus.
On my end of the sofa, I squirmed for the hundredth time. Nima was almost always in my lap, but he’d stomped off half an hour ago and flopped down on the kitty condo by the window. He didn’t like it when I fidgeted. Mehrang didn’t seem to notice. He and Shouka were sprawled out on their backs, snoring in unison as they tried to occupy as much space as possible.
Well, at least they were relaxed.
Me? Not so much.
It wasn’t just that I was listening for a car in the driveway or footsteps on the porch. Hopefully Jesse was off getting rejected at a bar somewhere and didn’t pay me another visit, but I wouldn’t be letting my guard down any time soon.
What kept me restless and unfocused, though, was Elliott.
After I’d canceled on him, he’d texted me back with hope the patient is ok, maybe another time.
And somehow, that message had thrown me for a loop. It was probably a perfectly normal response to that kind of cancelation. In fact, I was pretty sure it was. But I had half a decade’s worth of conditioning to the contrary, and I’d stared in disbelief when the message had come through.
Jesse would’ve had something snide to say. When we did meet up again, he’d make sure I knew he was pissed that my job had once again inconvenienced him. He sure as shit wouldn’t have been concerned about the patient.
Before him, Ollie would have shown up at the clinic and grilled whoever was on the front desk until I came out and confirmed that, yes, I’d really been there with an emergency patient, not sneaking off with some other guy. And if my scrubs hadn’t been covered in enough fur and bodily fluids to convince him, he’d even demand to see the patient.
So when my phone had chirped to announce I’d received a reply from Elliott, I’d braced, fully expecting something in the ballpark of a Jesse or Ollie response.
Nope.
hope the patient is ok, maybe another time.
Of course it was entirely possible he was rolling his eyes or cursing my name on the other end. Or he just really hadn’t given a shit, and it wasn’t worth the energy to get pissed off.
Still, I couldn’t get the message or its sender out of my head.
Elliott wasn’t Jesse. Elliott wasn’t Ollie.
Elliott wasn’t someone who needed a fucked-up guy like me in his life, but damn it, I really, really regretted not meeting him for coffee today. It wasn’t like we’d been meeting to discuss moving in together. Worst case scenario, we might’ve ended up fucking again.
I swore, and apparently it came out louder than I’d expected because Shouka and Nima both jumped. Mehrang kept right on snoring.
“Sorry, guys.” I patted Shouka’s rump. She groaned, put her head back down, and went right to sleep. Nima glared at me as he started cleaning his paws, claws out. Sometimes I wondered if that was his way of reminding me he could scratch the shit out of me if he wanted to.
“Go ahead,” I said with a chuckle. “I’ll put those claw covers on you again. Pink ones this time.”
His glare intensified.
I snickered, but even my cat couldn’t get a real laugh out of me.
Shit. Hadn’t I wasted enough time and energy on my asshole ex-boyfriends? Why couldn’t I see Elliott? I could talk to him. See if he was interested in a replay of last night. Be upfront and let him know what I was up against with my unhinged ex-boyfriend. Let him decide if that was a deal-breaker. What did I have to lose?
Especially since I knew exactly where to find Elliott tonight.
Chapter 7
Elliott
“Is it a full fucking moon or something?” Julien snarled, his subtle French accent more pronounced like it always was when he was mad. He glared after the cop car pulling out of the Wilde’s parking lot.
“I don’t know, man.” I shook my head. “Let’s just hope that’s our last idiot for the night.”
Fat chance. It was Friday night, so Wilde’s was busy as hell, and though there was heavy cloud cover over Seattle—what else was new?—it probably was a full moon. The belligerent drunk we’d just had arrested for smashing a barstool probably wouldn’t be the most exciting thing we saw tonight.
Muttering something I didn’t catch, Julien shook his head and went back inside. I followed.
The club was packed; Friday nights were never quiet in here. And it was only nine-thirty. The night was still very young.
We took our usual places against the wall. From here, we had a hundred-eighty degree view—the door, the booths, the dancefloor, the doorway leading to the hallway where the restrooms were. And of course, all along the far wall, the bar, with the thick crowd and the half dozen bartenders silhouetted against a colorful backdrop of glowing top shelf liquor.
The lights from the deejay booth and above the dancefloor made it hard to focus on people, but the crowd had a certain rhythm to it. When something started that shouldn’t have—a fight, usually—it stood out. Drew our focus straight to the epicenter. Sometimes it was a challenge to get to it thanks to the crowd, but no bouncer lasted long without learning how to shoulder through a thick crowd.
When I’d first started, Julien and Casey had both warned me that the lights and crowds might screw with me. They’d been to combat before too, and PTSD had millions of ways of making itself known.
The lights didn’t bother me too much, though. Really the only thing that had ever given me a cold sweat was when we had to subdue someone, and that was just because it was so unknown. For the most part, I did all right.
The guy we’d sent off in a police cruiser had triggered some of that. He’d been beyond belligerent, swinging at anyone who came close, and he’d nailed Julien in the gut with a busted piece of the barstool. It hadn’t been a severe injury, but it had sure as hell been enough to piss off the former Legionnaire. As if the idiot hadn’t already done that by throwing a glass at a bartender who happened to be Julien’s husband.
Between Julien and me, we’d gotten the guy under control and hauled his ass outside for Seattle’s finest to take care of. Everything was okay. The jittery feeling and the cold sweat should’ve been gone.
They weren’t.
Edgy and uneasy, I scanned th
e crowd under the flickering lights, searching for that telltale shift in the rhythm that meant shit was about to go down. That there’d be fists and fur flying again, and the possibility of a weapon again, and—
“Hey.” Julien leaned in enough I could hear him over the music, and nodded toward the door. “Wasn’t he in here the other night? With that fucker we had to throw out?”
Before I even turned, I knew who he meant, and… Yeah. It was him. It was Samir.
My heart sped up. Then he turned my way, and when our eyes locked, he gave a little nod of acknowledgment before starting toward me.
I glanced at Julien. “I’ll be right over here.”
He nodded and went back to watching the crowd.
“Hey,” I said when I was in earshot. “How was your patient?”
“My—” He cleared his throat. “Fine. Fine. I’m… Look, I’m sorry about earlier. I—”
“I get it. Relax. You said you had an emergency.” I shrugged. “I figure that comes with the territory in your line of work.”
“Well…” He chewed his lip, and looked a bit sheepish. “I…”
I cocked my head. “You all right?”
Samir sighed, staring at our feet. “I didn’t have an emergency. I just kind of…” He swallowed. “I freaked out.”
“Freaked out? Why?”
He dropped his gaze, but didn’t answer.
I glanced around. When I met Julien’s gaze, he tilted his head toward the back hallway. Though I’d only been here a few months, I’d learned the subtle bouncer language enough to understand go ahead—we’ve got things under control. I nodded back, then faced Samir. “Let’s step in the back. It’s a little quieter.”
Samir hesitated, but then, “Yeah. Okay.”
Rather than cut through the crowd, I led him around behind the bar. He stayed on my heels, and we slipped past the boys who were expertly mixing drinks for a crowd that was lined up five-deep. How those guys kept their cool, I’d never know, but they were good at what they did and they seemed to enjoy the hell out of it.
The back hallway was usually all but deserted except by the restrooms. Tonight, the lounge and dancefloor were so crowded, people had spilled into the hallway, and a good three dozen guys were talking and drinking back here. It was hard to tell in the low light, but I was pretty sure at least two couples were doing a hell of a lot more than talking.
I checked that Samir was still with me and continued down the hall toward the entrance to the VIP lounge. There were still people even back this far, so I unlocked the stairwell and motioned for him to go up ahead of me.
Upstairs, the lounge was deserted. It was probably the only quiet place in Wilde’s right now aside from one of the offices. I was pretty sure it saw more use by employees and their significant others than actual events. Julien and Chris were not above sneaking up here when they were on break at the same time. Liam and his husband had disappeared up here more than once.
And now, here I was with a very nervous Samir, whom I hadn’t expected to see tonight.
I shut the door behind us. “So, what’s going on?”
Samir hugged himself and chewed his lip. “Look, the thing is, I really did want to meet up with you today. I…” His shoulders sagged. “Partly because I wanted to apologize for just throwing myself at you last night, and partly because… Well, because last night was amazing.”
“It really was.”
He met my gaze. “Really?”
“Oh hell yeah.” I grinned. “I haven’t been fucked like that in a long time.”
Samir laughed shyly, lowering his gaze to the floor between us. He hugged himself, and I realized he was shaking.
“Hey.” I moved a little closer. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m…” Samir sighed, and he slouched against the wall. “Honestly? I haven’t been okay in a long time. And that’s kind of why I had to bail today.”
“Your ex?”
Closing his eyes, he nodded.
I gritted my teeth, regretting the two opportunities I’d let slip by without smacking that asshole’s head against something. I didn’t particularly enjoy roughing people up, but someone who’d done this to Samir? I wouldn’t feel bad about putting a few dents in his hide.
“You’re the nicest guy I’ve met in ages,” Samir said softly. “And the fact that you were willing to be there last night? To make sure Jesse actually left?” He hugged himself again, eyes flicking toward me before darting to the floor. “After spending the last five years with men like Jesse, it was completely new. Someone giving a fuck about me. So I guess today, I was afraid you’d think I was trying to be too clingy and needy, and maybe… I mean, maybe I was. Maybe I am. I don’t know. I just…” His Adam’s apple jumped, and he shifted his weight as he cleared his throat. “I guess what I’m trying to say is I really want to see you again, but I also want to be honest about what you’d be getting yourself into.”
I blinked, trying to comprehend everything he’d just said. “Really? You want to… With me…?”
Samir nodded. He met my gaze through his lashes. “I mean, if it was just a pity fuck and I’m being an idiot, that’s fine too. I just—”
“It wasn’t a pity fuck.” I cautiously came closer, and when he didn’t recoil, I reached for his waist. “Trust me—it was a lot of things, but it was not a pity fuck.”
He glanced down at my hand on his waist before looking in my eyes, and damn if his weren’t filled with palpable disbelief.
I touched his face with the backs of my fingers. “You really aren’t used to people telling you’re attractive, are you?”
Samir’s eyes flicked away. “Not after five years of being told otherwise, no.”
“Idiots.” I started to draw him in closer, but he stiffened, pressing against the wall. And if I’d thought he was shaking before… “Hey, easy.” I backed off a little, but didn’t let go.
“I’m sorry.” He chewed his lip. “I want…” He paused, and finally looked in my eyes again. “Look, I’m terrified of scaring you off by throwing too much at you right away, but before we go any further, I think you should know I’m a package deal.”
“A package—what?”
He sighed heavily and sidestepped my embrace. Arms folded tightly across his chest, he walked toward the windows overlooking the lounge and dancefloor. I joined him, but kept a safe distance between us so he didn’t get nervous. And while we were there, I stole a glance to make sure the other bouncers had Wilde’s under control. They did.
Samir scrubbed a hand over his face, palm rustling across his thick stubble. “Jesse’s not going to give up on me. Not for a while.”
“So you think he’ll stalk you?”
He laughed bitterly. “I don’t think he’d be that subtle.” Samir fixed his gaze on something in the club. “He came to the clinic today. I told him not to come back, but…” Scowling, he shook his head. “The thing is, I broke up with him. As far as Jesse’s concerned, it’s not over until he says it is.”
I barely kept myself from shuddering.
“I’ve actually been trying for a long time to get him to end it,” Samir continued. “If he hadn’t started cheating on me, I probably would’ve kept trying, but once I realized he was sleeping around, I was too afraid he’d pick up some disease or something. Asking him to use a condom wouldn’t go over well, so…” He gave a heavy, tired shrug. “I decided it was better to just break it off and let him be a dick for the foreseeable future.” Meeting my gaze, he added, “I’ve been tested, by the way. Since the last time I slept with him which was a couple of weeks ago. So I don’t have anything.”
“We used condoms anyway.”
“Still.” He looked out at the club again. “The reason I’m telling you all this is that he’s not going anywhere any time soon. He knows where you work. He knows about last night. He’s—”
“Wait, he knows we slept together?”
Samir’s cheeks darkened. “He accused me of cheating on him wi
th you. I didn’t think about what I was saying, and said I didn’t touch you until after I’d split with him. So he, you know, put the pieces together.”
Before I could stop myself, I chuckled.
Samir glared at me. “That’s funny?”
I schooled my expression and put up my hands. “No. No, it’s… I guess I was just picturing the look on his face when he realized we’d fucked.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. Then he snickered, and finally we both started laughing.
“He was pretty pissed,” Samir said. “He’s probably still fuming about it.”
I swallowed. “Is he…”
Samir lifted his eyebrows. “Hmm?”
“I mean, do you think he’d try to hurt you? Out of jealousy or anything?”
The humor vanished from his expression, and he once again stared out at the club. “I don’t know. I really don’t. But that’s that’s kind of why I’m telling you all of this. When I say I’m a package deal, that’s what I mean—that he’s going to be in the picture for a while whether I like it or not.”
“Do you want me in the picture?” The question came out before I could stop it.
Samir turned toward me, eyes wide. “What?”
Well, it wasn’t like I could pretend I hadn’t said anything. Steeling myself, I took a breath. “Do you want me in the picture?”
He chewed his lip, studying me with uneasiness etched all over his face. Finally, he gave a slight nod, and whispered so softly I barely heard him, “Yeah. I do. That’s why I’m here.” He paused, and his voice was a little louder, a little more sure this time. “I don’t even know what I want—if I just want us to fuck and maybe be friends, or…” He waved his hand. “But I can’t get you out of my head. And I guess I don’t want to.”
“Good. Because I don’t want to either.” I took a step toward him, and he met me halfway, sliding his arms around my neck as I pulled him closer. I couldn’t even say who initiated the kiss—only that it happened.
