I moved a step closer to her. As if realizing how close we were, she moved one step back. Her ass hit the dumbbell rack, stopping her retreat. “Your first name’s classic. It’s too beautiful not to be said out loud.” Yep. Might have just lost my man card with that sappy-ass shit, but fuck it. It was true. I liked the sound of her name. Fuckin’ sue me. “Who were you named after?”
A deep shade of pink darkened her cheeks, making her even more tempting.
Christ! Like you haven’t recently gotten laid? Man the fuck up.
I had to stop teasing this chick, because I could see her being a potential problem for me. The nervous energy she gave off was a little addicting. She thought too much about what she said, but then when she got heated, she just spewed shit out. She responded to me on instinct, which I dug. But I intimidated her on some level and I didn’t like that at all.
“My birthday is on Valentine’s Day.” She leaned against the weights and chuckled before looking at me. “You said your mom’s original? Mine’s a twisted ancient civilizations professor.”
“I would have gone with hopeless romantic.”
A genuine belly laugh that wasn’t a nervous reflex or response filled the space between us. It was a vivacious sound, and a fucking turn-on. I couldn’t stand women who faked laughter. What was the point? Life was too short for anything but real.
“Hardly.” She brought my attention back to her. “You know the origin of Valentine’s Day? The story behind it?”
“Not familiar with it.” As long as she kept smiling up at me, I didn’t give a shit what came out of her mouth. Jesus, that smile killed me.
She nodded and heaved her bag over her shoulder. “Long story short, naked Romans celebrated a feast that basically involved sacrificing goats and whipping women. Not a bad thing for the ladies, because they believed it made them fertile, so they actually lined up for it—”
“Don’t take this wrong, but I kind of love your mom.”
She dropped her shoulders and glared up at me. “Don’t be shallow. Not like that.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Sorry, go on.”
“Third century, an emperor executes a few men. They become martyrs for the Catholic Church and are honored with St. Valentine’s Day on the fourteenth. Fast forward to the fifth century—a pope merges the pagan Roman ritual with honoring the martyrs of St. Valentine’s Day, and we get a watered-down version of the festive celebration originating with the Romans. We can thank Chaucer and Shakespeare in the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries for turning what we now know as Valentine’s Day into a celebration of corny cards, chocolate, and goofy hearts. Mom loves Chaucer and the Romans, and therefore, named me Valentina. Thank God, I wasn’t born on Halloween.”
Longest fucking explanation ever, but worth every second just to hear her ramble on without the quivering edge to her voice. “Like I said, classic.” I pointed to the front of her pullover that read, Give me chocolate, or give me death. “Either Valentina or sugar—your call.”
She dropped her head to stare down at her chest, before looking back up to glare at me. “You’ve known me all of, what? A few weeks? And I can’t even justify the use of the word ‘known,’ because all we’ve done is exchange civilities and you just happened to save me one day. You don’t get to call me Valentina.”
“I’m not calling you Toni.” Grinning at her, I took a step back toward my machine.
She readjusted the strap on her bag as she scowled at me. “Then don’t expect me to answer.” Picking up her dumbbells, she put them back in the rack.
“You’ll answer,” I said.
As she swung around, her bag swished around her, hitting the opposite hip. The weight of her duffle bag threw her off balance, but she righted herself with a small huff. “You are an infuriating man.”
“You’ll get used to me.”
When her mouth gaped open this time, I reached out and chucked a finger under her chin before she had time to pull away. “Close your mouth, sugar.”
I turned back to my bench, but watched her through the mirrors on the weight room walls. She narrowed her eyes at me and swatted at her chin before shaking her head. She tried to hide her grin as she glanced down at her chalk-dusted fingers, but it was too late. I’d already caught her reaction. When her head flew up, meeting my eyes in the mirror, I nodded at her. “Have a good day.”
“You in no way deserve a reciprocating response, but you too.” She lifted her chin, gave an impressive little spin toward the weight room doors, and marched out without a look back. She was a spunky thing. Cute, hot, awkward, and beautiful all rolled up into one slammin’ package. And I knew firsthand what it felt like to have her pressed tight against me.
Couldn’t get a read on her age, though. My guess was late twenties, early thirties, but something about the tormented look that glazed her eyes at times made me think older. I was good at reading people. Always had been, but I couldn’t get a solid read on this woman, and that irritated the shit out of me.
Enough, fucker. Way too much thought happenin’ about one woman.
Right, I was indulging in the single life of the recently divorced. Was two years considered recent? Fuck it, I needed to be dating and banging everything hot on the same page as I was, when I had time and Valentina, while hot, didn’t qualify. That I inherently knew. Casual dating or friends with benefits was not her deal, which was all I was interested in.
I’d been on dates, but to be honest, I guess marrying young, I’d missed out on how that whole scene worked. Work being the key word. I had to mentally prepare for that shit. A lot of it was my fault. I was a work-a-holic and I stuck to a schedule that didn’t leave time for much dating. I had a couple ladies, friends, who were on the same page as I was, which basically meant we had dinner and fucked when we needed to with no attachments.
But that shit got old. Or I’d turned into a homebody. According to Chase, I wasn’t “applying” myself to the dating scene. New Year’s Resolution—date more. Fuuuck, even thinking about it made me tired. I was too young to be this old.
As far as the mysterious Ms. Valentina, she’d be cool to mess with in between sets and would make the time go by faster at the gym, but that was it. If I was able to get her to calm down around me. What the hell, I had to be here anyway and I had a feeling this livewire was going to prove a challenge.
Fuck it. Gym buddy with no benefits, but she was feisty, had a will of steel, a work ethic that rivaled any dude up in here, and I liked her . . . a little more than I should. I hadn’t started the day with much laughter over the past two years and she was funny as shit. Maybe I could get her to lighten up around me enough to get to know her a little better.
8
Valentina
Thump. Thump. Thump. The heavy oak headboard steadily bangs against the wall just behind it. I study the shadows from the streetlights below swaying on the vaulted ceiling of our bedroom. I imagine them as kindred spirits waiting for me . . . waiting for him to finish.
My arms lay loose around his shoulders. His sweaty back slides under my forearms faster now. He’s close. I squeeze my eyes shut tighter with every hard thrust, every disgusting grunt. Tears trickle down my cheeks as my head inches up the pillow, until it too knocks against the headboard.
Rick doesn’t notice.
His face, while buried against my neck, doesn’t mask the stench of beer slithering into my nostrils. I roll my head to the side, leaving my shadowy friends without an audience. When the muscles in his thighs tighten against mine, I pull him closer and lock my ankles around his waist, hoping it gets him there quicker. With a final thrust, he rolls off of me without a word.
I can breathe again.
He kisses my cheek and scoots to his side of the bed. I lay staring at the wall at the painting of Shakespeare’s Ophelia floating dead in a stream. She looks peaceful—so peaceful.
I turn my head to Rick, making sure he’s asleep so I can make my usual escape to the balcony, but I gasp. The face s
taring back at me isn’t my husband.
It isn’t Rick—it’s Jaxxon.
I awoke with a start and looked around my office. I’d nodded off on the couch again. This was a recurring dream, which had been my reality for a decade. The new twist—Jaxxon. It was as if even my psyche felt compelled to warn me not to get too attached to this man, who was never far from my thoughts these days. Thirty-four or not, I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
How many times had I lain next to Rick, asking, Is this my life? Is this all there is to sex? Rick had tried foreplay, but after that time he’d walked in on me during a shower and seen all the scars in broad daylight, all foreplay had stopped. If I closed my eyes I could still see his wide, bulging eyes, mouth agape, and the remnants of his breakfast sinking into our shaggy cream-colored carpet . . .
He had liked that he’d been my first. Before we’d had sex, I told him about the scars, so lights off were fine with him. I’d always been diligent about hiding my scars. Rick knew I’d been in an accident when I was younger—at least, that was what I’d told him—and he’d never questioned it or pressed me about sex. He’d felt them, of course, but as little as possible, and after seeing them, he’d avoided them as if they were a disease. It’s hard to be intimate with a person when you know they find you repulsive.
I should have left sooner, but I’d promised for better or worse. Apparently, he couldn’t handle the “worse” part. For that, I didn’t blame him. For lying and for the emotional abuse, I did. I would have respected honesty.
In most situations, we’re attracted to people physically at first, and then we get to know them. No amount of plastic or cosmetic surgery would ever erase my past. It was engraved into my skin, like a badge of shame. The scarring was ghastly, even now, almost two and a half decades later. A doctor had once suggested plastic surgery, although he admitted it would be a complicated procedure requiring multiple surgeries. But even if I could have found a plastic surgeon willing to do the complex job of patching my skin back together, there was no way I could stomach the idea of letting myself lie unconscious on a table while a man cut into me with a knife again, especially given the area where the damage was the most severe. In which case, I’d accepted there’s only so much fading that can happen with stab wounds that deep and gashes that long. It wasn’t about vanity for me. My scars were a part of me and I’d acknowledged that a long time ago. I may think they’re disgusting, but I could live with them—Rick couldn’t.
If I couldn’t keep Rick happy, the chances of keeping a man like Jaxxon satisfied? Slim to none—hence the dream.
Subconscious warning acknowledged.
The loneliness, the emptiness in my chest, in the deepest parts of me, at times made it hard to breathe, which was why I stayed so busy with work, training, and instructing my students. At times, it consumed me, as if I were drowning in an ocean of . . . want. The need to be loved, desired, was palpable. Maybe that was why I was so good at my job and took on as many clients as I did. I experienced aspects of love in a way I never would in real life. Fiction was beautiful that way, offering an escape, an alternate universe for those of us who lived outside the margins of the aesthetically perfect.
As scared as I was about starting another relationship, about the imminent sexual rejection once anything got serious, I still hoped to experience it at least once. What would it feel like to be genuinely loved, cherished, and accepted for exactly who I am—to be wanted as a woman, despite my scars? No inhibitions. No barriers.
Enough!
Unraveling myself from the blankets and pillows on my couch, I stalked to my bedroom to take a shower and wake up. So I went to my sanctuary.
My bathroom was stunning. I’d renovated it as soon as I’d moved in. A huge Jacuzzi tub lay just beneath a set of four long, high, rectangular windows. I had a large brushed-glass shower with a bench and a lot of room to move. I liked space. The bathroom was my favorite place in the house.
Cranking the nozzle, I shut the glass door to let the water warm up. I looked at my reflection in the mirror above my counter. Dark half-moons stained the skin under my eyes. I studied the face staring back at me. I was whiter than usual. All color had left my cheeks days ago. I needed to sleep at some point. But I knew what waited for me once I closed my eyes.
I shut the bathroom door with my foot and slowly twisted around to the full-length mirror on the backside. As a rule, I never looked in that mirror when I undressed. Never. But tonight was a strange night. I pulled my shirt over my head, letting it drop to the tiled floor. Unhooking my bra, I let the straps fall down my arms. My pajama pants hung low on my hips, the top of the jagged scars jutting out of the elastic waistband. “Jesus.” My voice came out muffled in the large bathroom as steam descended from over the top of the shower.
I ran my fingers over the bumpy patterns on my skin above my pajamas. Puckered and angry, flat and faded, jagged and long. My image began to fade as condensation built on the mirror. I slid my pants and underwear down my legs and closed my eyes as I straightened.
Look at it. Face it. See it.
One at a time, I forced my eyelids open. My lower abdomen was a scene from a horror film, except I’d lived. Long, crisscrossed lines slashed across my pelvic area. Two or three ran along my hip, and the deepest of them all crossed from the top of my right thigh to the inside, stopping just before my knee.
“How did you survive at all?” I whispered and for once, I couldn’t stop staring at them.
Three of the inch-and-a-half-wide lines above my pelvic bone were the ones that still looked fresh, even after all these years. Straight and deep puncture wounds. They’d healed in such a way that there appeared to be a seam holding them together. I gently slid my fingers over the three marks that had ensured I’d never produce a life beyond my own.
I loved children. Always had. I had wanted to be a mother ever since I could remember. But for the past twenty-five years, I’d known motherhood was never going to happen for me unless I adopted. I wasn’t against adoption. There were too many children in the world who needed a good home, someone to love them and maybe someday, I’d consider it.
My pubic area was lasered. According to my doctors, the wounds were so varied and deep in that area that the hair would never grow in correctly. Wanting me to have some semblance of a regular sex life, my doctor suggested waxing, which if the pattern was kept tight, provided a decent illusion. When I met Rick, I took their advice. It helped make me look at least a little normal, as long as the abdominal scars stayed covered.
Lifting my arms away from my body, I stared at my forearms. My mom had lost her mind when I got my tattoo, but I had needed something—something beautiful on my body to hide some of the ugliness. Something to remind me I was lucky. A visual reminder that I used to be an Olympic-caliber athlete with an unyielding work ethic, and that I had survived.
I looked at the black script against my pale skin.
Die and rise. I should have died, but I didn’t. I fought my way back to life. And for the ones who didn’t make it, I owed it to them to fight and not take my second chance for granted.
Spinning away from the mirror, I showered and scrubbed at my disfigured mementos. By the time I got out, I was cherry-red all over.
I was not in the right mindset to work tonight. My clients deserved me at my best. When I put my watch back on, it was later than I thought. 2:45 a.m. After that dream, I wasn’t going back to sleep. I needed comfort and only one place could provide it. Sunday mornings at the gym were quiet, peaceful.
Jaxxon never came on weekends—a welcome relief. I didn’t think I could take an encounter with him and come out in decent shape.
I sighed, lifting my gym bag over my head. Chris and Kyle escorted me to the door, where I gave them each a treat and a kiss on the head. “Don’t wait up, boys.”
9
Jaxxon
3:15 on a Sunday morning—no way I should’ve been up and in this goddamn gym. I should’ve been home, dead asleep. I’d
had a long day yesterday. I’d been at work early for an inspection, and stayed late to finish adjusting the design for the new projects we had coming up.
Design was my specialty. I had to go to Arizona this coming week to go over the blueprints on a sky-rise project there. It was a casualty of becoming a partner and lead designer for my firm; I was now being loaned out for jobs.
This week was gonna suck. I hated traveling. I’d arranged it so that I only traveled Monday to Wednesday mornings, or late Wednesday nights to Fridays so that I could still see my kids on Wednesday evenings. That was my hard line when I was promoted to partner and agreed to move here—nothing stopped me from seeing them on my scheduled days.
Christ, I missed my kids.
Enough with the sorrow, asshole. Hit this shit, go home, and sleep.
I dug through my bag for resin. As I stood back up, a flash of long, multi-colored hair caught my eye through the mirrors. Valentina. Did the woman ever sleep? She dropped her gear at a treadmill and cleaned the machine. I’d always come in after her, so I’d never seen her hair all the way down. Almost to her waist, it bounced around her in wavy layers before she jumped on the machine and viciously manhandled that mane into some sort of messy ponytail.
Jesus. Easy, kitten. You’re gonna pull half that hair out.
Fucking tense. The woman was a live wire. I’d bet my house there was no man in the picture. No way she should have that amount of energy at this hour if there was a man at home taking care of her right. I sure as fuck wouldn’t be in an empty, smelly-ass gym on a weekend if I had a woman warming my bed.
Glancing up through the mirrors at Valentina, an idea hit me.
Playing with fire, motherfucker. Worst idea in the history of fucked up ideas.
Whatever. She did tell me she was an editor . . .
If I handled this right and with a little luck, I could get her out of the gym. Bridgette did need that manuscript read, and I sure as shit didn’t want to read it. Two birds with one stone—I liked that. A lot. I didn’t have to face the reality my sister wrote fucking graphic, sex-filled novels, and I’d to get to know my hot gym buddy a little better. I made her nervous, but I could work around that. She’d said fiction editor and I needed to know what kind of fiction.
Phoenix (Flames & Ashes Book 1) Page 7
