JAKE

by Juliette Jones

  “Exactly what part wasn’t important, Jake? The part where you met with her alone or the part where she blackmailed you into having sex with her?”

  His jaw hardens as he subjects me to a knife-like stare, clearly struggling to control his temper. “I didn’t have sex with her.”

  I’m having less success controlling my own temper. My jealousy has taken over the motherboard of my control panel. He’s mine. I’ve already decided that I want him and I love him and I don’t want to share him. Ever. And now this!

  “I should have known,” I say, grabbing my coat and my bag. I need to get out for a while. I need some goddamn fresh air. “I knew about your reputation. The serial one night stands and the ‘sordid past’.” I do some air quotes as I say it. “Were you lying about getting framed, too, or was that just a convenient excuse to swan over to the Plaza for some quality time with your so-called stalker?”

  Jake has the nerve to exhale an annoyed huff. He pins me in place with a look of ragged irritation. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No! I’m not kidding! I wish I was kidding! You know what else I wish? I wish I’d never believed your entire sob story! No wonder you have legions of women crying into their Dom Perignon over you, you bastard! Writing you tearful letters and confessing their undying love. Well, you can cross me right off your list, Mr. Alpha Eligible Reformed Playboy A-List Sex on a Stick! I’ve had enough. I’m leaving!”

  I storm out the door. Jake follows me and easily keeps pace with me, watching me the whole time with his hands in his pockets and an unreadable expression on his unfairly handsome face. If I didn’t know better, I’d almost say he looks almost amused, which does nothing to tone down my rage.

  I stop right in the middle of the busy sidewalk, my hands on my hips. “Is this funny to you? Is it some big joke that you’re incapable of being anything but a promiscuous badboy criminal with no scruples and no heart?” I turn and keep walking. I don’t know where I’m going and I don’t care.

  “You’re overreacting.”

  I stop again. I can’t walk and properly express my outrage at the same time. I turn to face him. “Overreacting? So I’m just supposed to just ignore the fact that you went to the Plaza to have sex with the woman who hacked into your computer so you can escape a prison sentence right before you came to me and –” A sharp stab of sadness pierces through my anger. Not regret. Even if it’s now tainted, it was still the best night of my life. Ever. By a margin of about ten million. So I keep walking. If I keep talking, I’ll end up crying and I’m simply not going to give him the satisfaction.

  I see the sign for Saks Fifth Avenue coming up on my left and I decide I need to go shopping. “Don’t follow me in here,” I tell him. Some overpriced retail therapy is exactly what I need, to ease my fury.

  Jake ignores me and follows me anyway. He takes my arm and whirls me around so we’re standing there facing each other right next to the handbag area. People are glancing at us curiously as they walk past but I hardly notice them.

  “Sugar,” Jake seethes. “I did not touch her and I did not have sex with her! Standing five feet away from her was enough to make me feel like either killing myself or killing someone else. I spent the entire ten minutes of the meeting wishing like hell I was anywhere but fucking there! She made her demands and I refused them. I walked out. That’s it. That’s all that happened.”

  “How do I know you’re not lying to me?”

  “Because I’m telling you I’m not lying to you! I have never fucking lied to you and I never will!” Goddamn it, he’s fucking hot when he’s mad. There’s not only the brimming anger shining out of his midnight-dark eyes, but the unmistakable glow of fevered lust. His gaze rakes across me, from head to toe.

  “Then why didn’t you just say all this when I asked you about it? Why the big goddamn secret?”

  “There was nothing to tell! I was in a terrible fucking mood over the whole thing and wanted to forget about it as quickly as possible.”

  I shake off his grasp and start walking towards a nearby escalator.

  “Where are you going?” he growls, following me.

  “Up.”

  As soon as we reach the top of the escalator, Jake takes my arm and hauls me around a corner where there’s an alcove with a small window and a door that looks like some sort of storage room. My back is against the wall and he cages me there, with his palms flat on the wall on either side of me. His thighs corral me and I can feel the heat of his big, buff body.

  “You warned me and I should have listened,” I say, and damn it, my eyes sting am I’m struggling to hold back tears. “You use people, that’s what you said.”

  “That was a long fucking time ago!” he fumes. “About ten years before I met you when I was a lost, lonely kid with no hope. I’m not that kid anymore, Sugar, and I haven’t been that kid for a long time. I haven’t used you or cheated on you. You’re the only thing that’s good in my life and I would never, ever hurt you or fuck that up. So what you need to do is to stop taking that crazy bitch’s bait and just believe what I’m telling you! Because it’s the goddamn truth.”

  “And tomorrow night? You expect me to sit back and wait for you while you go over there and fuck her?”

  Jake glances down at me sharply. I don’t think either of us can believe I just said that. I want to rile him. Because he’s making me crazy. Of course I believe him. I believe everything he’s said to me. But all of a sudden, the intensity of our whirlwind romance and everything it means is scaring the hell out of me. We’re both breathing hard. His body is pressed against mine.

  Jake’s gaze turns sly, sexier than I can handle. “You do believe me,” he says.

  “No,” I lie. “I don’t.”

  “I can tell you do. You know I’m telling the truth. I can feel it.” Bastard! By the way my body has gone pliant against him. By the way I’m practically panting with lust. He’s murmuring now, nibbling on my ear. “You know I’m not going to be fucking anyone but you, sweet Sugar pie. You’re the only one I want to fuck. And you want me to, so bad, don’t you? Right here. Right now.”

  “No,” I protest weakly. “No more. I can barely walk as it is.”

  “Yes,” he murmurs, biting my ear lobe, which makes me instantly, shamelessly wet. “I haven’t even gotten started, sweetheart. You have no idea how hot I am for you.”

  Jake undoes the buttons of the little jacket I’m wearing, revealing a stretchy lace bralette. His hands reach under the fabric, finding soft, sensitive skin. He mutters a low oath and yanks up the fabric, squeezing my full breasts, taking the erect peak of my nipple into his mouth. His hot tongue twirls around the sensitive bud and his teeth scrape, until I moan softly. Jake moves to my other breast, nipping and licking. Then he takes my mouth, searching deeply with his tongue. His fingers pull up my skirt, impatiently tugging my panties aside. His thumb slides over the saturated folds of my pussy to skate across my clit. His fingers dip inside, gently rubbing and gliding. The pleasure is quick-rising and disorienting. I feel drunk with lust. Blind with need.

  “You’re so fucking wet for me, baby. You want my big cock inside that juicy little pussy, don’t you, Sugar? You want my cock to fuck you so bad it’s making you fucking crazy, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I breathe, sliding my palm across the hot, gargantuan ridge inside his jeans. Jake rips open his buttons and lifts me with shocking ease. Do it, I might be saying. Do everything. I wrap my arms around his neck as he enters me and I squirm at the impossible thickness of him as he drives deep. He lowers me so my toes graze the floor, opening me fully to his luscious invasion. I’m moaning so loudly, he puts his hand over my mouth as he thrusts into me.

  “Shhh,” he croons, fucking me slow and hard. “You’ll get me arrested again.”

  I laugh a little, even as I’m crying and moaning from a pleasure that’s so extreme I have to wriggle against him. I bite his fingers. The delicious friction shatters me. My orgasm explodes, flooding my core with sweet, spa
sming warmth. Jake’s body goes still, then shudders as his big shaft jerks violently inside me. My inner muscles caress him in soft flutters as he comes hard.

  The hot, wet pulse of his thick cock deeply wedged inside my rippling core is the only thing I’m aware of for several minutes.

  Slowly, we return to ourselves. I open my eyes. “Jake,” I whisper. “We just did it in Saks Fifth Avenue.”

  “I know, Sugar pie. You wouldn’t take no for answer.” His eyes are spangling as he pulls my clothes back into place. “You needed some proof of how much I fucking adore you. Are you convinced yet?”

  I blush as he tucks himself into his jeans and buttons up.

  He’s smiling smugly. “You’re so damn cute when you’re jealous.”

  I try to smooth my hair a little. “You’re hot, I’ll give you that. But you’re an arrogant jerk.”

  He laughs and takes my face in his warm hands. He kisses me. The kiss is slow and achingly sweet. He looks into my eyes for a long moment. “I belong to you,” he says. “I’m yours.”

  There are tears in my eyes. I’m not sure why. I’m overwhelmed by the lingering endorphin hangover of my recent stellar orgasm. And by the fact that I believe him and trust him and am so in love with him I think my heart’s going to burst.

  Which ends up giving me an idea, as it turns out.

  Jake walks me back to the bakery and his brother happens to be there, sitting in Jake’s booth, where his laptop is still sitting, waiting for him.

  Alexander stands, and gives me a kiss on the cheek. “I hope my brother’s behaving,” he says.

  “Not really,” I laugh and Jake winks at me, which makes me blush again, damn it.

  Alexander watches our exchange but thankfully has more pressing things on his mind. “Camille has sent another letter to our lawyers,” he says to Jake. “She’s threatening to expose more of your fictional criminal activities.”

  “We’re just going to have to call her bluff,” Jake says. “No more meetings. Tell her I’m not cooperating.”

  “Fine,” says Alexander. “But the fallout could be spectacular.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  Why is she doing this to you? I almost ask him, but I know why. Because she can’t have him.

  Alexander sips his coffee. “I also found out some dirt on Butch Flint we might be interested in. Apparently he’s the king of underhanded deals. We might be able to use some of them against him.”

  “I’m not sure I want to use anything against anyone,” I say. “I’d rather just be left alone to live my life. So we can get on with it without these people and their cloying demands hanging over our heads.”

  Jake looks at me. His smile touches on that dark edge that seems to haunt him a little less lately. That shadow I know how to cure.

  It makes me wonder what would inspire anyone to act out the way Camille is. What would drive her to such extremes? Maybe no one’s been nice to her lately. Maybe she hasn’t had a good meal in a while.

  The idea lands in my head fully-formed. And the time to act on it, I realize, is right now.

  “If ya’ll will excuse me,” I say, “I’m going to back to the bakery. I’ve got two new people starting first thing tomorrow morning and there are a few things I need to do.”

  Jake watches me, but he has no idea what I’m planning. And he’s distracted enough by Alexander’s news to let me go. As subtly as possible, I go to the kitchen and grab two boxed pies. Then I head back across the street to the bakery.

  This Camille thinks she can win him with threats and bribes. I need to tell her that was never going to work. She needs to move on. And I’ve decided something: I’m going to be the one to get him out of this mess. The old-fashioned way. The Georgia way. Forget all these sharkish New York tactics. I’m going to convince her to leave him alone, girl to girl.

  The white van is still parked on the street. There’s one around the back of the restaurant, too.

  But there isn’t one around the back of the bakery.

  The risk, I figure, is small. I don’t plan on being gone long.

  Before I can change my mind, I carry the pies and sneak out the back door.

  I grab a taxi. I’d googled the address of Firebrand on Lexington. After a ten-minute drive, the cab pulls up in front of a nondescript office building. I pay the driver and walk in to the foyer, where there’s a man sitting at a desk. He looks up from his phone and glares at me. I hold up the pie boxes. “It’s Camille Ames’s birthday today and I have a surprise birthday delivery.”

  He lets me through and I make my way to the elevator. Firebrand, according to the small black sign, is on the third floor.

  By some miracle, the secretary has stepped away from her desk so I walk right on in, down the hall and start looking into offices to see if I might be able to guess which of them is Camille’s. It doesn’t take me long to find her.

  Her door is open and she’s sitting at a large, cluttered desk with several big computer screens, talking on her phone. There’s an engraved name plate sitting amongst the papers: Camille Ames. Bingo.

  She’s stunning, now that I get a closer look. A tad too much make-up, possibly. She’s definitely put a lot of effort into her look. No grooming detail has been left unattended. Her teeth are that artificial glow-in-the-dark white that you see on t.v. presenters. Her skin is so bronzed she either spent last month in the Bahamas or has a daily session with her local spray-tan artist. Her shellacked hair, now that I look closer, has a purple tinge to it. I can’t help thinking: if a colorist did that to me, I’d demand my money back. Not that I see a colorist, but still. Her lips are siren-red. Her make-up is so overdone there’s an element of drag queen to her look once you get a little closer. She’s wearing a tight blue dress that shows off voluptuous curves, some of which, at a guess, are surgically enhanced. It’s too bad, too. Under all that silicon and dye, she’s a beautiful woman.

  I knock on her door and she looks up. “Just come to my office,” she’s saying into her phone. “I’ll be here for another few hours.” She ends the call and eyes me curiously, with more than a little irritation tainting her question. “Can I help you with something? Oh, it’s you. The pie baker.”

  I walk into her office and close the door behind me. I put the pie boxes on her desk and pull up a chair. “I thought I’d deliver your pies personally. And I wondered if you have a few minutes to talk.”

  “Why?” she demands. “What’s this about?”

  “It’s about Jake,” I say, and this gets her undivided attention.

  “What’s your name again?” she asks pointedly.

  “Sugar Malone.”

  “‘Sugar’?” Her question is full of mocking condescension, which is weird. She doesn’t know the first thing about me.

  “Yes.” Now that I’m here, I’m wondering if this was such a good idea after all. She’s cold as ice. There’s not even an inkling of kindness behind those kohl-rimmed eyes with their spidery fake eyelashes.

  “I’ll pay you for the pies. But I don’t have time –” She’s flustered. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”

  This is starting to piss me off, if you really want to know. How could she do what she’s done to him? Just because he wasn’t interested. It’s nuts. “Well, I’ll make this quick, then. There are a few things I wanted to make clear to you, even though Jake’s done his best to do that and it clearly hasn’t worked. So I thought I’d spell it out for you and black and white. See, Jake’s not interested in having a relationship with you. And what you’re doing, trying to blackmail him into being with you, well, it’s never going to work. The only thing it’s going to do is land him further in trouble. And, just between you and me, that’s the very last thing he needs. I have to tell you: I care about his well-being. And about the damage it would do to him if he was wrongfully incarcerated. He hasn’t done anything to you, Camille.” I don’t bother with formalities. I’m not here to impress her. “Please, just let him be. He’s a beautiful
person and you’re hurting him. There must be some other way to settle this so you can move on and live your life without damaging other people’s.”

  This cracks a tiny bit of that ice. She looks more wounded by my comment than offended. “I was trying to make a point. I don’t like being ignored.”

  “He wasn’t ignoring you. Just politely letting you know that he’s busy and that he’s not interested in a relationship with you. There’s nothing sinister or insulting about that.” My specially-designed pie boxes have a small wooden knife, two wooden forks and two cardboard plates attached to their lids. For times like these. “Would you like a slice of pie? It’s still warm.”

  She’s staring at me, like I’ve been beamed in from an alternate universe. I serve her a slice, then one for myself. Caviar for dinner and Jake for breakfast (I almost blush when I think about the only nutrition I’ve so far indulged in today) has left me famished. I take a bite. I’ve been told my pie has magical qualities by more than one person. Something about this recipe tends to, well, to make people happy. I can only hope it’ll work its magic on Camille.

  Camille begrudgingly picks up her little wooden fork. “I skipped breakfast,” she says, and when she takes a bite of the pie her eyes close for a second. “This is so fucking good.”

  “I’m glad you like it. It’s my own recipe.”

  She takes another bite. “Are you and Jake in a … relationship?” she asks cagily, like she already knows the answer – which she must, if she sought me out specifically.

  “Yes.” I’m not going to mince words with this woman. She doesn’t intimidate me and I’ve had about enough bullying for a lifetime, after the fiasco with A-hole.

  She looks me up and down, really seeing me for the first time.

  “We only just started seeing each other,” I say. “He really is the sweetest person I’ve ever met. You wouldn’t know it, since he’s so successful now, but he hasn’t had the easiest life. So it’s been really hard for him to have these criminal convictions hanging over his head. Especially since none of them are true. He’s just really suffering. I thought you should know that. That he’s a good guy. He’s one of the good ones.”