by Rissa Brahm
Antonio sent a mental apology through the ether to her as he brought the opaque divider up. He couldn’t bear sight or sound of them. He just couldn’t.
He buckled his seatbelt, intentionally keeping his eyes from the rearview while the partition lifted. He had started the car, doing everything not to break the starter with how hard he wanted to jam then turn the key.
She was drunk. Johnnie had probably pushed the wine or champagne. And he knew from the other day how her defenses fell with only two beers. She was strong but so small. That fucking cocksucker.
She’s a grown woman. A strong, smart woman. And she’s not your woman.
He didn’t have to glance in his rearview to get out of the parking space. He really only needed his side mirror, but his eyes lifted anyway, betraying him. He had to check her state.
As expected, she looked a shade of green, panic in her hazy eyes, leaning on Johnnie Demonte’s shoulder like a rag doll. Who the hell knew where the dickhead’s right hand was? She was pulled so damn close to the fucker that it might have been wrapped around her, under her, goddamn in her for all he knew.
But what the fuck could he do? Again, she was a grown woman. On a date, albeit with this fucker. God, the prick in his backseat was a manipulative son of a bitch. He really pulled off an award-winning performance, getting one over on Jana, of all people.
Fuck! He was choking with rage and nausea. He should fucking do something. About what, though? Nothing had happened. She seemed somewhat content back there––not shouting or screaming or contesting.
Anyway, he wasn’t her protector. He was a chauffeur, Johnnie Demonte’s chauffeur. That was all Antonio was to her.
He continued pressing the auto-up button of the privacy window, which lifted at its terminally slow-ass pace. Once it was up, he’d be free from the back seat scene.
Hell, she’d be fine back there. Her carsickness may not even be an issue. Not with Johnnie…distracting her. Oh God!
He reached for the mp3 player she’d left him as a big “fuck you” and got ready to tune-out and drive. Just fucking drive.
He took a deep breath and pulled out of the parking space. Halfway into the lane, he spotted in his side view mirror a motorcycle shooting by and slammed hard on his brake. He heard a moan from the back seat and glanced up. Jana held a look of intense and desperate focus as she struggled to catch her breath. And incidentally, Johnnie’s hand was up on her opposite shoulder, fingertips playing with the material of her dress, at her neckline.
He released the privacy window button, stopping its upward direction. Then he brought the partition back down for her. He didn’t want her sick or scared, even if it meant torture for him.
He could tune them out. He could. He was trained to tune out, to center, to focus. He began breathing through his nose, deep centering breaths, as he focused his eyes on the road ahead like a sniper on his target. With his free hand, he adjusted the earbuds so they wouldn’t slip out, then he fumbled with the device on his lap to get any music started, any distraction at all to replace his gut-wrenching thoughts.
It took a moment for something to cue up.
Then, Jesus.
He tore one earbud out and forced his fingers to the side of the device to take down the volume. His eardrums, his chest, his entire body felt the jolt, the hiked volume had hiked his pulse through the moon roof.
Not the distraction he meant.
He breathed deeply.
As the sound of his breath quieted in his skull, he could now make out what music remained piping in his one ear.
A Spanish salsa beat-based rhythm?
He got to the red light and looked down at the music player. The playlist was new and not his. ‘Jana’s I’m Sorry Songs’ was the playlist’s name.
Then he felt a kick to the back of his seat, a kick that sent rippling wrath shooting up his spine.
*
He yanked the earbuds out and shot around, glaring at Johnnie Demonte.
“I said it three times, man. Put the partition up!”
“Do not. Kick. My seat. And the divider stays down.”
“Look, asshole, we want privacy, and I want it up. I pay you enough; do what I say. Your seat, your engine, your tires, they’re all ours, and you still get paid a shitload extra. Put the fucking—”
“Johnnie!” Jana spat while holding her stomach as if she couldn’t say much more without getting sick everywhere. “I get carsick. It has to stay down. Antonio knows that. Please.”
Then she looked up at Antonio through the rearview. “Could you please…?” She paused with her hand over her mouth. Antonio had a bottle of water at her eye level the next instant. “Oh, thank you.” She opened it and took a small sip as Antonio pulled over and put his hazards on. “Could you get me to the studio?”
“No, my place is only a few blocks away. You’ll stay with me there.”
“Johnnie, no. I want to stay at the…oh God….” She swallowed hard then took another sip of water. “I want to stay at the apartment, alone.”
“Jana. Listen to me, you don’t have to be in a car that long if you just stay with—”
“She said she doesn’t want to stay with you.” Antonio wouldn’t hold back anymore. If Johnnie wanted to stop paying him, if his father wanted to call the loan on his vehicle and on his entire business, so be it. He wasn’t going to let this shit go down, not to Jana. She was his business. He cared about her, and there were already too many vultures in her life preying on her. That hell was over.
“Mind your own fucking business, asshole.”
“Get out of my limo. You live so close, go walk there—by yourself. I’m taking Jana to the apartment.”
“It’s my apartment, and you don’t know who the fuck you’re—”
Antonio was out of the car before Johnnie could finish his thought. He opened the back door, grabbed Johnnie Demonte’s arm and yanked him out. “Jana is sick. You’re drunk. Go walk it off.” Antonio followed up by taking a step toward the other man, an up close and personal chest in the face. “Or I’ll tell your father exactly what happened here, and he won’t have a bit of trouble believing me. I can embellish a bit, too. Say the cops had to be called.” Everyone knew Jake Demonte hated the cops. Johnnie’s ass would be torn to next year for bringing heat to Jake’s door.
Johnnie stood as tall as he could, chest out, but was still more than a head shorter than Antonio and obviously only half the muscle mass. Somehow the prick made the wise decision to step back.
“So what happened here?”
Johnnie said nothing, just fumed through his flared nostrils, death stare through half-lidded eyes.
“That’s right…nothing. Absolutely nothing. Now go.” Antonio turned back to the opened car door and looked inside. “Would you feel better sitting up front?”
She nodded and started to shimmy out of the car, her hand reaching for his.
“Listen, cocksucker, that’s my date. My employee, my…” Johnnie was apparently still there.
Sitting at the edge of the seat, both heels now on the pavement, Jana looked up at Antonio, desperation in her eyes. She whispered, “I still need the money.”
He gnashed his teeth and felt his left eye flicker as he turned to Johnnie. He hated to say the words, but for her, dammit, he would. “She’s still your employee. She’s just sick, dickhead. Go home. Tomorrow afternoon, after the hospital, I’ll bring her to the club, like usual.”
“Oh no, you won’t. Send someone else. Anyone else but you, motherfucker. Trying to take my girl,” Johnnie said, hailing a cab with one sloppy arm waving in the air.
Antonio ignored the rest of his ranting and helped Jana into the front seat. “Buckle up and hold the handle above you. It’ll help with the queasiness.” Then he drove off, Johnnie Demonte flipping him off in his rearview.
CHAPTER 38
“I’m sorry. About the other night and tonight. God, what a—”
“Don’t, Jana. Really, it’s all okay. You’re safe,
that’s what matters. God, I should have told you. I don’t know when, but I should have said something…”
“About what?
“Johnnie. I wasn’t sure about your relationship with him, and I didn’t want to overstep. You’re a strong woman, I just…”
“Spit it out, Antonio.”
He grabbed a water from his console, opened it, and took a long swig. Offered it to her, but she waved it away. “No, thanks. I feel a lot better now. Just tell me.”
“It’s that I’ve taken countless women to Johnnie’s apartment. Strippers, prostitutes. It’s his pad, his bachelor pad. None since he’s hired you, but two or three women a week before you. And I didn’t want to put my nose in your business, but tonight might not have happened if I had.”
She sat in silence for a time, staring ahead. Then took his bottle, and slammed half of it back. She swallowed and then burped. “Excuse me.” Then she sighed in relief.
She looked at him. “Listen, Antonio. I was in the club scene for almost ten years. Johnnie Demonte is nothing. I knew about him, deep down I knew. Maybe I was in a bit of denial, sugarcoating his intentions because I needed––still need––the money. Convincing myself he was maybe safer than he is. But I definitely knew it was too good to be true. That’s why I never let him touch me.”
Oh God, thank you. A burst of levity starting in his throbbing heart circulated throughout his body. Johnnie Demonte hadn’t hurt her or touched her. He looked upward. Thank you.
He could feel her eyes on him as she grabbed another sip of water. He knew she felt his relief. Don’t look away from the road. Don’t even think about looking at her. He couldn’t. Not without losing it to the joy overtaking him. He’d kiss her, devour her whole for being so strong and smart. And sacred. Sacred and fucking stunning.
No. Drive, man. Nothing at all has changed.
Then a small snicker escaped her lips. “The issue is just, well, relativity. I’ve known so much worse than Johnnie Demonte. Johnnie is just…the watered-down vanilla brand of asshole compared to the sick fucks I’ve been in contact with.”
“It’s dangerous, Jana, playing with fire. At whatever level.” It scared him shitless.
“Look, I’m no martial artist, true, but I’d know how to handle him if he got too aggressive.”
He threw her a glass-shard glare.
“Fine. I wouldn’t have,” she admitted as he refocused on the road. “But you were here. I’m safe and not sick. I owe you so much.”
“You owe me nothing.” And he meant it.
“God, Antonio. You can’t say that. You’ve been here for me not just tonight, but from the start of this fiasco. I mean, Jesus, somehow you were even able to salvage things for me with Johnnie, my job! Because you took the brunt!”
His lungs constricted. “Wait. Am I hearing you correctly? You’re still going to do this thing, the club gig? Be in the same proximity as that asshole? Even after what I told you about his…his…fuck pad? And after what just happened?”
“I have no choice. My folks need the money. And I need to get it for them.”
His blood boiled. But he closed his eyes to check his temper. Breathe and think.
Motivation, money. Always money, with everyone! Her loyalty to her selfish family. He could help her. But, her pride. Fuck! Her pride, like his pride.
He blew out a hard stream of hot air at his windshield. “Well, I don’t want you staying in that apartment.”
“I’m not trying to spend a hundred dollars a night on a hotel room, Antonio. He’s not coming over, and he hasn’t been over. I’m telling you, he’s vanilla. Nothing to worry about.”
She was not stupid, but was she blind? “Jana, tonight, if it had been any other driver…and that partition went up, he’d have—”
“Done nothing to me, because I would’ve vomited all over him.” She stared out the window, seemingly done with the topic.
“Stay with me. At my place. I’ll sleep on the couch. I’m done with taking Johnnie Demonte’s orders. And I don’t want his father’s money either. But I’ll still drive you, wherever you need to go. In fact, I insist.”
Out of his peripheral vision, he saw her narrowed eyes focused on him. “You insist, huh?” She squirmed in her seat, obviously trying to keep her pride and temper in balance. “I don’t know if you’ve gotten the rundown, but I don’t do well with men insisting. I know you’re trying to help, but––”
“I got your playlist. Thank you,” he blurted out, completely out of context.
She swallowed, sighed, and then smiled at him. “You’re welcome. But you can’t go changing the subject on me, nice try, though.” Her brows lifted for emphasis. “If you don’t make money from driving me, you won’t hit your goal.”
“I don’t need the money, Jana. I’ve been greedy, like all these money-driven assholes. I don’t need any more. I just…I got hooked on a stupid ‘magic number,’ a kid’s pipedream from nearly thirty damn years ago.” He pulled over to the shoulder of the highway then, veering so hard that she bumped her head on the window. “God, sorry…are you all right?”
She nodded as she rubbed the side of her head, but confirmed with a slow blink and another nod, that yes, she was fine. “Is there a problem with the car?”
“No. No problem with the car.” Just a problem with his thrashing heart warring with his goddamn brain. Because what the fuck was he doing?
*
Traffic zoomed past. The headlights of each passing car had a strobe effect inside the vehicle, making Jana’s face come in and out of view, highlighting her features. He’d memorized her features. He could draw her face free-hand by now. Her high cheekbones and her cat-shaped eyes, currently underlined by a shadow of smudged makeup. Her delicate nose and her lush lips. God, those lips. Her mouth and her smile, presently taken over by a razor-straight and serious line, but that always came out when she sang, whether she knew it or not. And oh Jesus, when she sang. Or laughed, or spoke. With anything and everything she did, this woman twisted him tight and sent him reeling.
Calm yourself. He pulled a memory, the feel of her lips on his, that afternoon at the pub, and he closed his eyes to relish the thought.
A beat passed. He opened his eyes again. Her expression had morphed into a look of deeper confusion.
“That goddamn number of mine, Jana…it was an illusion. A decades-old illusion, an obsession. Me, never living, hooked on that damn number. But I’m hooked on something far more important now. More…rare, precious. I see…clearly now, Jana.”
He swallowed and let his eyes meet hers.
She sighed, her eyes still questioning what the hell he was going on about.
The rhythmic and blinding headlights of each passing car slowed time.
“It’s you. You’re more important to me…than anything, Jana. And I—”
Before he could finish, her hands held his face, her lips softly at his lips. Then, tilting her head slightly, their mouths connected, fully interlocked in a long-awaited kiss of sweet and utter bliss.
Synergy.
Lips caressing, pulling, lingering, dragging. Synergetic sweeps of ecstasy.
There were only her lips, like heaven and clouds skidding over his mouth, and the resounding heat, burning heat filling his chest. All else melted away. But God, so much heat, fire. Like their spark had been given oxygen, life breathed into something that might very well be…love.
She pulled her lips away, pausing, panting, pensive. Her eyes soft, but searching. Had she heard his thoughts? Like he’d sensed hers ever since the first time he’d seen her in his rearview?
*
Their foreheads resting on one another, she dug into him with that look. No sunglasses. No shield.
“What is it?” he whispered.
A puff of laughter. “I’m hooked on you too, Antonio Ruiz. I am. Just completely, utterly hooked.”
That internal heat raged hotter, higher, joy spreading throughout his being, healing his heart.
He slid
his hand under her thick, lustrous hair, at the nape of her neck and pulled her into him, this time, he kissed her, devoured her.
His tongue swept in, tasting her, reveling in her, his fantasy meeting reality. He felt so alive, vibrant and alive.
Their breath fell into a rhythm as their passionate kiss waxed and waned, lips dragging and pulling, teeth nipping, tongues exploring and swimming.
She was hooked on him. Perfect and surreal.
Don’t wake me, God. Don’t you dare wake me from this dream!
The kiss continued, deepened, but he wanted every bit of her connected to him. He wanted it now. He wanted it always.
He pulled away, gasped for air. His eyes seared into hers. “Come home with me?”
“Yes. Let’s go home,” she said, a glint of fire in her eyes that he realized, then, had been there for him from the start; he’d just been too blind to see it.
CHAPTER 39
Antonio led her to his bedroom. It was pristine and tidy. The floor was spotless. There was a chest of drawers against one wall with only a lamp on its surface. An armchair sat by the window. The queen bed was centered on the wall opposite the dresser, and it was immaculate: hospital corners; crisp, tight sheets; and no blanket, only a throw, a weave of vibrant colors, assumedly from his Mexico.
She pictured him sleeping in that bed naked. And she couldn’t wait to have him pressed up against her, his skin igniting hers on fire, his taut, muscular build wrapped around her. She looked up at him as he studied her, deliciously hungry for her. But it was a hunger so different than what she’d known before from the clubs, from Johnnie, and back to even her few boyfriends. This hunger wasn’t to possess her, not to own or dominate her, and not even to pleasure her just to have been the one to do so. The starvation in Antonio’s eyes was a selfless one. It was as if he was starving to give her immense joy just to make her happy.
And she wanted the same for him, to erase his wounds, his suffering, to give him release. She wanted to give him back what he’d given her already, that warm, glowing energy in her chest, pounding, exploding out of her, what she could only imagine was something like love.
