Always Box Set

by Ward, Susan

  “Anything I want?”

  “I’m yours,” he whispers, lying back on the bed in a seductive and inviting posture.

  My fingers are in his hair. My mouth claims his unrelentingly. Every naughty fantasy I’ve ever had about this man flashes through my head. I feel his body hard and wanting against me. Oh no, Jack, this is not going to be fast. But first I need to do something about the pulse in my sex you’ve made beat too fiercely.

  I slipped from his arms onto my knees. My fingers curl over the top of the headboard mounted against the wall and I pull myself into position above him, my legs straddling his shoulders. This time I’m going to ride him my way, letting him pleasure me with his mouth while I’m still in total control. His glorious rhythm of tongue and breath and fingers sends the blood pulsing even faster through my veins. My body moves into him, away from, forward, backward, up and down; teasing him and driving my own flesh mad. My back bows. My head tilts back. I reach with my hand, closing my fingers around him, and begin to stroke his erection. I come apart quickly, grinding into his mouth, slowing the motion of my hand around his cock, already near bursting and hard from the play of my fingers.

  With the slowing of my breath and pulse, my body melts into a less frantic motion. I use the headboard to ease myself up. His eyes are deep ocean blue, fiery with want and urgency. He wants in me now. He thinks I’m going to ride him. I always want him to fuck me hard after I come against his mouth.

  I don’t climb off of him. I turn and I wonder how long he will let me patiently stir him to the brink before he flattens me on the bed and fucks me.

  ~~~

  Later, lying spent, Jack groans and says, “You’ve been holding out on me. You can patiently savor our bodies and God you are flexible.”

  I blush. “I studied ballet for fifteen years. What did you expect? Of course I’m flexible.”

  “Why don’t you ever attack me that way? You drove me out of my mind. I loved every second of it, waiting to see what you’d do next. How you would use that delicious body of yours.”

  I kiss his chest. “I like it better your way. When you are done making love to me I always feel cherished and loved.”

  “You are definitely cherished. You are definitely loved.”

  His arms tighten around me and his eyes have a funny look to them, heartwarming but silly.

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to move for the rest of the day,” he whispers, his lips in my hair.

  I smile. “That’s fine with me. We can lay here forever for all I care.”

  This is our world, Jack. And I don’t want to leave it. Not a moment sooner than I have to.

  He sighs, stretching and still holding me. “The plane leaves at 11a.m. tomorrow. We’ve got a lot to do today.” He groans. “Not that I don’t want to stay here and do nothing but make love to you. Trust me I do. But we’ve got a lot to do. Things we should take care of whether we want to or not. What do you say to going to Encino and having dinner with Doris tonight?”

  I nestle closer into him. “I don’t want to do anything. I don’t want to go out tonight. I just want to be here with you.”

  He starts to gently stroke my hair. “Don’t you think I should meet your mother before I whisk her daughter away with me?”

  “You already know Doris,” I answer, evasively. “I know that when you’re at the label you make sure to take your charming self over to her work station and chat with her. She tells me everything. Always.”

  He lifts my chin. “Meet her officially. That’s what I want to do, Linda. I want to tell her I love her daughter. And thank her for giving you to me.”

  Emotion again. All through me. My lips tighten into what I’m sure is a stupid expression. “You say it that way to Doris and she’ll ask you to take me off her hands.”

  Jack laughs. “Good. I plan to.”

  I shake my head. “No Doris, Jack. Just us tonight.” I peek up at him, widening my dark browns eyes in a way he calls wheedling and irresistible. “Just us. OK?”

  He stares. He sigh and then rakes a hand through his hair. “We should really go to Encino, Linda. Have a talk with Doris so she doesn’t worry over you.”

  I kiss him on the chest. “She won’t worry, Jack. I’ll make sure. I promise.”

  Sadness runs through my veins even in this total bliss of my body’s contentment and being here with him.

  “We leave tomorrow. Early,” he reminds.

  That comment painfully reminds me of too many other things. I take my lower lip between my teeth. This is our last night together. I need to tell him everything.

  Do it, Linda. Do it. No stalling.

  I lay my cheek over his heart. “Jack, there is something I have to tell you.”

  His head lifts up from the pillow. “What?”

  “It’s sort of good news.”

  “Sort of?”

  Shit, why am I stumbling around in this? I take a deep breath. “Remember that graduate program I applied to?”

  “The writing intensive one in London?” he asks.

  I lift my face. “Well, they accepted me into the program. They really liked the writing samples I sent them. They want me to attend. They are giving me a full tuition scholarship and…I’m going.”

  His golden brows lift, and his gaze searches my face. His eyes widen. “That’s great, Linda. That’s one of the finest writing programs in the world. Fuck, why didn’t you tell me? I’m so proud of you, baby.”

  Oh no…He looks thrilled for me. I didn’t anticipate this. Get the rest of it out, Linda. Tell him the rest.

  “The program doesn’t start until September right?” he says, his brow furrowing. “That is what you told me when you applied, isn’t it?”

  I nod. All words seems to have deserted me.

  “I don’t like the long distance thing, sweetheart,” he continues, his voice oddly sounding very far away. “But it is only a year. We can do anything for a year. We’ll make it work.”

  He smiles, touching my nose with his nose, holding my face in his hands. “I’m so proud of you. Have I told you today how amazing you are?”

  I shake my head.

  He laughs. “God, Linda. You are incredible. Nothing stops you when you decide you’re going to do something.”

  Oh Jack... In all moments he surprises me and is wonderfully him. Everything inside me collapses in slow, turbulent waves. It makes it impossible to tell him the rest.

  ~~~

  An hour before dawn I wake and slip carefully from the bed. I go into the bathroom and dress in a simple outfit. Sweatpants. A tank top. Flip flops. I brush my teeth, and then collect my things from the vanity without doing my makeup. I return to the bedroom, and quietly pack up my things. I take my suitcase to the living room and settle on the couch to wait for Jack.

  I want so very much to cry. But if I start now I won’t stop for a very long time, and that wouldn’t be a good thing for either of us.

  Ten

  Jack comes through the bedroom door, his eyes fix on me, and then he freezes. When he notices my packed bag his gaze sharpens.

  I can’t look at him. “I didn’t tell you everything last night, Jack. You were so happy. I couldn’t do it. I figured why not wait until morning. Why ruin our night.”

  He stares at me as if unable to comprehend what he’s seeing or my words.

  “The job I got isn’t in Los Angeles,” I say abruptly. “The job I got with Sandy Harris is an eight week tour in the UK as a road manager’s assistant for some band Craig Entertainment Management just signed. Blackpoll. I leave Friday.”

  His eyes are rapidly moving, back and forth, searching my face. “You’re leaving Friday? What are you trying to tell me, Linda? I thought we’d decided. You’d do the last leg of my tour with me, and then we’d figure out how to make us work better. You want to put us on opposite sides of the planet when you don’t have to so you can take some roadie job you don’t need. Why the fuck would you do t
hat? Take a job and leave Friday?”

  Roadie job? Now I’m pissed.

  “When you get it wrong, Jack. You get it wrong. You don’t understand anything. I need the job. I need the fucking money. I’ll make enough money to make it through my year abroad.” I’m so angry now tears are pouring out of my eyes. “You pretend we’re equals, but we’re not. We’re worlds apart Jack. Not just socially, but economically. You have everything and I have shit. And I chase after you, fighting to keep up with you, desperate to be who you need me to be, and I love it and I love you, but it’s not fucking easy. Not by a long shot! Sometimes when I come to see you during the tour breaks the only thing I’ve got is enough money to get there and back. Shit, the black sun dress I wore here isn’t even my own. It’s Jeanette’s. Fuck, I don’t even have enough money today to get my car out of the Hyatt parking lot. You need to focus on your life. Your daughter. Walter. And I sure as hell need to work on my life.”

  “I’ve offered to help you financially. I want to share everything I have with you. You’re the one who has been too stubborn to take it. You never let me help you. You refuse everything I try to give you.”

  Now both my heart and my pride are bruised. “I don’t want you to take care of me. I want to be able to take care of myself. Why can’t you understand this? I’d rather die than end up like Doris.”

  He closes the space between us, and everything about his posture, the way he reaches out to me, tells me he’s trying to calm me. “What is it you want? I can’t understand unless you explain it.”

  “Explain what? The obvious?”

  Jack’s gaze turns glittery. “That’s not helping. Attacking me won’t help.”

  I brush at my tears with angry swipes of my hands. “I was hoping you’d understand.”

  “You just told me you were ending us, Linda. How do you expect me to react?”

  Through gritted teeth: “I’m not ending us. I’m taking a job. I’m going to school. I’m taking care of me.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “I never had you,” I say in welling aggravation.

  His eyes grow intense as they fix on me. The rapidly rising emotions on his face are too numerous to count. “You have me if you want me.”

  I stare. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “If you want me, I’m yours. And I’m sorry I flew off the handle, but when a man wants to spend the rest of his life with a woman, he wants to start it the day he decides it. You’ve made me wait eight months.” His voice breaks off. It looks like he’s trying to forcibly pull himself into calm order. “I’ve never thought of what we have as an affair. You are the woman in my life. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  The rest of his life? What is he saying? He takes something from a small suitcase…Oh my…he has a ring box. I’m the one who has read everything wrong. All these months Jack has been preparing to start us, completely and always. When he arrived in West Hollywood, he had already decided to ask me…

  “Marry me, Linda.”

  He says it simply, quietly, and every emotion inside of me collides in a torrent. I feel dizzy, disoriented and weak. I sink onto the sofa. My rounded eyes fix on his.

  “It’s all planned, you know,” he begins quietly. “I didn’t want you out on the road with me as anything less than my wife. I know how sensitive you are, Linda, underneath that tough girl front you have that doesn’t really fool anyone. I wanted to surprise you.” His laughter is gravelly, low in his chest, something other than of humor. “The plane at eleven isn’t going to Australia with the rest of the tour. It goes to Lake Tahoe so we can get married without waiting another day. We can collect Doris in thirty minutes. I thought we might get married today.”

  I stare. It’s nearly impossible to breathe. How am I going to manage to talk? And how the heck am I going to manage the right words?

  “I can’t marry you, Jack. The last four days has made that clear to me. I am not who I want to be, who I need to be for you. Or even myself. If I marry you today I never will be and I will ruin us.”

  Jack stares. I try to read his expression and I can’t. We are suddenly farther apart than we have ever been. And I don’t want that, and I hate knowing I brought us here.

  He sinks down on a chair across the room from me. A neutral distance. Purposely, I think. “God, you’re the most complicated woman I’ve ever known. The most remarkable. And the most aggravating.” He rakes a hand, agitatedly, through his golden waves. “How could marrying me possible ruin us?”

  “I have nothing, Jack. No life of my own. Not really. Not yet. I’m just starting to figure out who I am. Who I want to be. And if I marry you now I’ll just get sucked up into your life and I’ll be completely dependent upon you. I’ve seen what that does to a woman. It makes her needy and bitter and desperate. And then one day she wakes up alone, because she’s driven the man in her life away, and she has nothing except now she’s old. It’s not a pretty thing, Jack. I don’t want that. You shouldn’t want that for me.”

  “Has it ever occurred to you marrying me might just make us happy,” he asks, his tone inflectionless.

  I can’t meet his gaze any longer. I stare out the window. “For a while. Sure. Anything is possible. But what happens later? When I need you too much and you need me not at all.”

  I feel his gaze sharpen and grow heavy in its hold on me. “I will always need you because I love you.”

  I shift my eyes to meet his again. “Or perhaps you love me because you need me.”

  He lets out an angry shudder. “I hate this habit you have of taking a glass full and crashing it so it’s empty. I’m not Brian Cray. You are not Doris. Maybe we’re just going to be happy.”

  “I love you, Jack. I always will.”

  I bite down on my lower lip, hard, trying to keep me from saying the words fighting to be spoken. Wrong words. Words to please him. Words to make me less afraid, because it’s not going to be easy to walk away from Jack this time. Not that it was easy last time, I amend silently in my head. But this time we are not two strangers who fell in love. We are two people who love completely and with eyes wide open.

  I stare down at my hands. “It’s not forever, Jack. It’s an eight week tour and a one year graduate program in the UK. I think it’s a good time to give us a rest. You can work out your issues with Walter and I can do some of the things I need to do.”

  “I’m an all-in kind of guy, Linda.”

  “And I’m all-in whether we are together all the time or not. You should know that, Jack.”

  “So your answer is no?” It hits me like a slap. How calmly he says that. The lack of inflection in his voice.

  “I’m not who I want to be yet. And I can’t be with you until I am. It’s better for us both if we don’t try that. I’m not saying never. I’m just saying not today.”

  “Then do what you have to do, Linda. And we’ll see where it leaves us.”

  My insides go cold. What does that mean?

  “I need to do this, Jack.”

  “Then do what you need to do, Linda.”

  I don’t like that he’s repeating things. “Jack…”

  He crosses the room. He cups my chin with his palm and his fingers lightly caress my cheeks. “Go quickly, Linda. Don’t drag this out. Get out of this room quickly.”

  His lips touch mine. A gentle parting kiss. His eyes lock on me as his face lifts. A lump rises in my throat. How can he look at me this way after I’ve told him I’m walking away? I fight to keep the tears from rising.

  “I’m don’t want us to end,” I whisper. “That’s not why I’m leaving. It’s not you. It’s not us. The time isn’t right for us. I can’t be who I want to be with you. It’s about me, Jack.”

  Jack’s smile is winsome and tender. It makes my heart ache even more.

  “I know, baby. Go do what you have to do. I hope you get everything you need. And I definitely hope when do, you’ll finally be able to
really see me.”

  One Long Kiss

  “I knew it the first time I laid eyes on him. Some men have that power. They instantly ignite something feral in you, whether you want it or not, and the sexual electricity is always there, in every room and every moment, from the first time you see them. An inescapable web, swirling around you until you surrender. And at that point, they devour you.”

  ~~Linda Cray.

  One

  The thundering applause makes the dark, narrow corridor vibrate as I push through the crowd, gesturing the guys ahead of me into the tiny closet that the promoter considered a reasonable dressing room.

  I motion like a cop directing traffic. “In! In! Hurry up,” I exclaim. With economical moves I hold back the girls rushing the band and forcibly shove the guys ahead of me into the room.

  I silently count in my head. One pecker, two pecker, three pecker, four…oh crap, I’m one pecker short. I anxiously search the overfilled hallway. Nope, I can’t see Alan Manzone, and it’s not like he’s someone you can miss. How the hell did he disappear so quickly this time?

  Fuck, this tour has been shit.

  I slam the door behind me and take a steadying breath. I’m sweaty, tired, frustrated…definitely underpaid since no amount of money could compensate for a job involving Alan Manzone…and ready to be done with this. Eight weeks on the road with Blackpoll. Complete shit. I left Jack to join a deranged, virtually unknown hard rock band on a tour from hell through the UK. I need my head examined.

  No, Linda, no. You left Jack because it was the right thing for the both of you. He needs to focus on the custody battle over his daughter. You need to build your own life. You didn’t leave Jack for this. You didn’t leave Jack at all. Working as Blackpoll’s assistant road manager is only temporary. In two weeks, graduate school starts and this nightmare will be a thing of the past.

  These are fucked-up guys in every way. No sane woman would spend a moment longer than she has to with them. And then there is Alan—I shake my head, remembering I’m not to address him by that name and quickly amend to Manny…