by Kelly Favor
And she knew he’d only let her down if she told him the truth about his manager, Kurt, not to mention the newest developments with the club.
Jake was acting jealous, acting the way a boyfriend might, but it wasn’t real. “You’re just fake,” she said, finally, the best answer she could give, all things considered.
He flinched a little. “I’m fake,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m fake?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s see how fake I am, Raven,” he said, and then he’d grabbed her around the waist, his strong hands touching her hips, pulling her close. And suddenly his lips were on her lips, and he was kissing her, and she moaned and shuddered in his arms.
This was more than she could have asked for. Jake’s lips were soft and when they molded to her mouth, it was like excitement had been shot throughout her entire body—like a drug had been injected into her veins.
His tongue was sliding into her mouth, and his hand grabbed hold of her butt, while the other slid up and grasped her breast through her blouse.
He stopped kissing her momentarily. “Is that real enough for you?”
She blinked at him, her chest heaving. “That doesn’t prove anything, Jake.”
“You want me to prove it?” he said, gripping her blouse on either side with his hands and ripping it open, revealing her lacy white bra. He grabbed her bra and unclipped it from the front, and it fell away from her breasts.
“Jake,” she said, “We can’t.”
“Oh yes we can and will,” he said, “because I’m not going to pretend anymore. I’m done being fake, Raven, what do you think about that?”
“I, I think you need to…to stop and really slow down and consider…”
“Consider what, exactly?” he said, as he pressed forward.
She stepped back. “Consider the consequences. Maybe we shouldn’t…” But the truth was she wanted it, wanted it worse than she would ever have dared admit.
“I think maybe you’re the phony,” he said, grabbing her hips, sliding her skirt down so that it dropped to the floor at her feet. “I think maybe you’re the one who’s afraid of making this thing real between us.” He grabbed her hips and pulling her against him again, jamming his bulging hardness against her, through her panties.
She could feel him between her legs, and she was stunned at how quickly this had all come to pass.
She was half-naked, more than half-naked, and he was kissing her.
His lips pressed on hers, opened her lips, and then his tongue went inside, and she met it, breathing out, a tiny high-pitched moan that said she was about to give into him completely.
He met her, moaning himself, deeply, and then he was grabbing her buttocks with both hands and pulling her against him, grinding against her, and she could feel him on her pussy, and she was getting so wet.
“Fuck me,” she whispered, as he kissed down her jaw.
“Raven,” he said, holding the side of her face with one hand and making her look in his brown eyes. “I want you. I’ve wanted you from the very beginning.”
“Jake, I’m scared,” she breathed.
“Don’t be,” he said, and then he was pushing her against the wall, and he was sliding her panties down, finger-fucking her wetness with two fingers while he kissed her neck and pinned her right arm against the wall with his left.
He was slowly fucking her with his fingers, almost as if it was in place of his cock. And she wanted the real thing, even though she’d never had that before.
“Oh, God,” she said, as her legs spreading out almost involuntarily. His fingers were penetrating deeply into her, and she was gushing, her juice was spilling out and she could smell sex in the air now.
“Fuck you are tight,” he muttered, continuing to thrust his fingers in and out and in and out.
She screamed, and then she was coming despite her best efforts to hold out, and the orgasm was like an explosion, and it shuddered through her body, leaving her weak and breathless.
“Grab me,” he told her, his breath coming in harsh gasps. “Take me out.”
She unzipped his pants quickly, her fingers fumbling. “I want you in my mouth so bad,” she told him, even though she’d never done that before either. What if she was terrible at it?
But Raven didn’t care—she’d been taken over completely by lust. Everything in her wanted him, wanted to suck him, to feel his perfectly huge cock in her mouth and then her pussy. She wanted to be filled up by him, to be as close as they could possibly be together.
His brown eyes stared into hers as she found his cock with one grasping hand, and she began stroking his shaft, and it was slick with his own excitement. She started to bend down to put him in her mouth.
“No,” he said. “Just your hand.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to rush you,” he told her.
“But I want to.”
He looked into her eyes. “Your hand is enough,” he said. “More than enough.”
And so she began stroking him again, faster and faster, and he started to finger fuck her wet pussy again.
The palm of his hand was slapping into her slit as she felt pleasure waves vibrating up through her legs into her center space.
Meanwhile she was grasping his shaft and then sliding her hand up and down, feeling his swollen head, wishing it would just go into her wet hole and open her up now. She was so ready, so willing, so needing all of him.
“I’m going to come soon,” he told her, and his eyes closed as she pulled on him faster and faster.
“I want you to come for me,” she said, going faster.
He started pushing his fingers into her more quickly too. And now she was so very close again.
Finally, he released, shocking her with the spray of thick white semen that splashed her with its warmth and wetness, hitting her legs and stomach and dribbling down her hand.
He shuddered as she continued to drain it out of him, thinking how much she would have liked to feel all of that pouring into her mouth. Could she have swallowed it? She wanted to try, wanted to feel him inside her mouth, wanted to make him shake like that using her lips instead of just her hand.
And then, as she imagined that, she came too, and he slammed his fingers against her so fast that she cried out and out and out.
When it was over, they looked into each other’s eyes.
Neither of them said anything, neither of them seemed to need to.
Raven felt like Jake had already said it.
This is real.
This is real.
For the second day in a row, Raven was lying in Jake’s arms, this time in her hotel room, and it was even more amazing than the last time.
For one thing, after crawling under the covers together, Jake had started to kiss her again, a deep and passionate kiss that stole her breath away. Their bodies seemed molded together, clicking into place like a lock and key that finally fit perfectly.
His tongue entered her mouth as his fingers caressed her hair.
“Raven,” he whispered, looking into her eyes as she looked back at him.
And then, somehow, they’d ended up falling asleep for a little while. Maybe it had only been half an hour or something, but when they both woke up, he was holding her with his arms wrapped protectively around her.
“I really hope we don’t end up regretting this,” Raven said, hearing him stir.
“Why would we?” he asked.
“I don’t know. You kept telling me how you couldn’t give me anything other than the business arrangement we had before.”
Jake sighed. “All I can say is I don’t regret this even a little bit right now.”
“Oh, that’s really comforting,” she laughed.
“Maybe it’s not comforting,” he said, “but then again, neither is the fact that you lied to me about where you were earlier.”
She turned her head to see his expression. “Are you angry?”
“I just want to know, Raven. I want to be
able to trust you.”
She thought about it, but her insides seemed to tighten and twist when she opened her mouth. “I’m not sure I can tell,” she said.
“Why, because you’re afraid I’ll be mad?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe.”
He took a deep breath and squeezed her closer to him, his hands rubbing her arm and leg, giving her tingles all up and down her body.
“How about I tell you a little story first?” Jake said. “Maybe it will put you in the mood to talk.”
“Okay, but I won’t promise anything.”
“That’s fine, then. But I want to tell you a little something about my life. You know, after my fiancé passed, I decided it was time to throw caution to the wind and try and pursue my dream of being a singer/songwriter.”
Raven nodded, glancing over her shoulder at him again. “That seems to have worked out pretty well for you.”
He nodded. “But the thing most people don’t realize is that I started out as more of an indie rock kind of guy. I was writing and performing songs like the bands and people I listened to. People like Bob Dylan, Beck, bands like Radiohead and Coldplay. Maybe I didn’t write songs or sing exactly like any of them, but those were my inspirations. And my first demo had all of that stuff in it.” His hand caressed her back as he continued speaking. “Then I got my record deal, the label only really loved two of my songs. Those were the two most commercial, pop sounding songs, and also probably my two least favorite songs I’d written up to that point.”
“Did they try and make you write more songs like those?” she asked him.
“You’re very bright, maybe you should be a record producer,” he said, his voice light, seemingly enjoying being there with her and telling her the story.
“I’m sure I’d be great at it,” Raven said, snuggling closer to him. She loved how this felt. Jake was opening up, and it felt real.
It felt right.
“Anyway, they sat me down and basically gave me an ultimatum,” Jake told her. “Write more songs like the two they already had picked out, or they’d find songwriters to write stuff for me and I’d record those other songs for my album.”
“They wouldn’t even use any of the other songs you’d written?”
“No,” he said. “They wanted all new ones that were more in line with the pop sound they wanted from me.” His voice had changed now, gotten angrier, almost bitter.
“What did you do?”
“I think you’re smart enough to know, miss record producer.”
“You wrote more pop songs,” she said.
“Yeah, I caved and did it. I’d come within inches of telling them to screw, going it alone and waiting for another break. But I wasn’t sure another break would come, and the label wanted to put major muscle behind me. I knew they were serious about breaking me as a big star, and I guess I wanted that more than I wanted my own artistic integrity.”
Raven turned to face him, her hands pressing on his rock hard, smooth chest. “Anybody would’ve made that choice,” she said. “You know that, right?”
He made a face, almost a grimace. “I told myself I’d do it their way for one album, just one—enough to make a name for myself. And then I would strike out on my own and do it my own way, write songs I actually cared about.”
“But that didn’t happen either,” she said. She felt bad for him, even though he’d obviously had a wonderful career. He didn’t want this kind of career, it seemed, and yet he continued to do it for some reason.
“After my album broke, it went huge, bigger than anyone thought. Nobody, not even my biggest supporters in the label, thought it would sell millions like that. And then the movie offers poured in, and one of them was clearly going to be a hit. I’d never acted before, and here I was suddenly working with great actors and an incredible director.”
“Was that the movie Dark Rising?” she asked him.
He nodded, closing his eyes. “Yeah, it was a dumb action movie and I knew it, but I was just happy to be in it at the time.” He opened his eyes. “After that movie went to number one on its opening weekend, everything changed. It was like I was on this track, and somehow there was never a good time to step off and do anything else.”
“Like what? What else did you want?”
He shrugged. “After doing a couple dumb action flicks, I wanted to do something indie, something dark and gritty. But each time I even thought about it, my agent would come to me with some amazing offer for tons of money. And every time I thought about cutting an album with the kind of music I love, the label would start talking about the next big tour and offer me even more money for my pop stuff.”
Raven gave him a smile. “You can still do those other things, Jake. You’re young, you’re popular…you can do anything you want.”
“Unless maybe I am the phony you said I was,” he sighed. “I think we both know that if I really wanted to, I’d have done it by now.”
“I don’t know that at all,” Raven said, rubbing his chest and then kissing it. She kissed his chest and then started licking his nipples, tasting the saltiness of him. What she really wanted, was to slide down, kissing his stomach, and then go lower…
“Hey,” he said, putting a finger under her chin.
“Yeah?” she asked, eyes wide, guilty as though he’d caught her thinking dirty thoughts.
“Now it’s your turn to share. I told you some shit that nobody knows about me.”
She bit her lower lip. Suddenly her heart was racing. “Jake, I don’t think I can—“
His eyes darkened. “I need to know where you were, Raven. I’m done messing around. I’ve put myself out there for you.”
She thought about it, and realized it was true and it was time to come clean. She was in danger and the club was threatening her life and freedom by continuing to see Jake. He needed to know the truth.
“I had to go to the Club Alpha office here in New York,” she said suddenly.
His eyes narrowed. “Why the hell would you go there?”
“They called me in and told me in no uncertain terms that I had to.”
Jake slid up in the bed so that he was sitting straight up now. The covers slid down around his waist, showing his gorgeous, chiseled body. “Who told you that?” he demanded.
“Max Mendez called me,” she said. “And so I went, and they basically threatened me,” she said. “They told me I had to stop seeing you immediately.”
Jake’s eyes went cold and flat. “Hold on a minute, Raven. Back up and tell me everything. I mean, everything, every little detail.”
She was scared of him now. He looked angry, as if she’d made him mad by telling him the truth about everything. This was her biggest fear, and from the look on Jake’s face, her fear was coming true.
Still, she had no choice but to keep going. So Raven slowly and calmly described everything to him, in as much detail as possible. She told him about the threats from Max and Scott, the horrible things Scott had said he would do to her if she disobeyed, she told Jake how they’d tried to get her to leave in that sedan and never speak to him again.
She even told him how she’d gotten such a bad feeling before getting in the car that she’d cut and run, fleeing the scene.
When Raven was done talking, she waited for Jake’s reaction.
He was just sitting there, his face a dark mask, with no clear evidence on his face as to how he felt about what he’d just heard.
Here it comes, Raven thought. The big kiss off.
There was no way Jake wanted to deal with Club Alpha and certainly not just to defend her. She wasn’t important enough to him and never would be.
He stood up, still just wearing his boxer shorts, and walked to where his pants were, picking them up and putting them on.
“Are you leaving?” she asked him.
He looked at her and didn’t say a word, just pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed it.
Raven had no idea what was going on.
“Hey,” Jake said into the cell phone. “It’s Jake. Get Scott on the phone right away.” There was a short pause and then Jake’s teeth bared. “Max, you stupid ugly pile of dog shit, did you hear me? I told you to get your master, get him on the phone now. I’m not wasting my time with you.”
Raven could hardly move or even think.
Was that Max, as in Max Mendez, that Jake had just spoken to like that? She couldn’t imagine it—it must have been a coincidence. And then Jake simply waited, his face unchanging, his eyes far away and cold.
A minute later, he spoke again. “Scott, it’s Jake Novak. Remember me?” He sounded friendly but his expression was anything but. “Haha, yeah. Yeah. That’s fine, my man. Anyway, listen, I just wanted to give you a little heads up, Scott. Raven Hartley is with me now, understand?” His jaw set and the muscle flickered beneath the skin. “No, you little slimy fuck, you listen to me. I will bury you if you try to threaten or harm her in any way.” His voice was raising a little as he spoke. “Raven is with me and that means you and your trash organization have nothing—I mean nothing to do with her or with me. And if something happens to her—I don’t care if she gets a goddamn paper cut. I am coming for you, you got that Scott?”
“Please,” Raven said, terrified now, even though her heart was soaring that Jake was actually standing up for her. She felt love for him that almost burst her heart, but she was also afraid for him, too.
Club Alpha wasn’t some tiny little company that would run away from a fight. She knew that. She knew it deep inside. They would never just walk away from this situation if they thought it might hurt their organization.
But Jake wasn’t responding to her, or even seeming to see her.
Jake listened to the phone for a brief second before speaking again into it, and his every word seemed to be a promise and direct threat to Club Alpha. “I’m coming for you and everyone you know, motherfucker,” Jake growled. “So get ready, because you have no idea what I’m capable of.”
End Of Book Three
