by Kylie Walker
So she was hot. More than hot. She had something he couldn’t put his finger on and something he wanted in his life. He hadn’t known he was missing it until he met her. He couldn’t stop thinking about whatever it was once he had realized it. All he knew was, Samantha and the others did nothing for him compared to her.
So what was her problem? He hadn’t been too rough, had he? He thought it over as he bench pressed. No, he had hardly done anything but nibble a little bit. He hadn’t forced her. Besides, she had rejected him before that, when he had asked her to dinner the first time. And he knew he hadn’t done a damned thing to warrant that.
She wanted to keep it professional. That was a convenient excuse. Chase laughed bitterly as he finished his last set, sitting up after he did. She wanted to be the type who earned her work with her camera, not her pussy. He laughed again. Who did she think she was, some chick from a romantic comedy? It was ridiculous. He used to think the innocent act was cute but it only got on his nerves when it involved being rejected.
The worst part was, he had no intention of showing favoritism because they had fucked. He wasn’t that kind of person. She had misjudged him. That might have pissed him off worse than anything else.
He walked through his apartment, its size and silence doing little to soothe him. He usually liked a big, empty apartment. He looked forward to it at the end of a long day. Instead of giving him comfort, it only reminded him of how empty his life was. He couldn’t imagine calling Samantha to have her over, even though they had been sleeping together on and off for eight months. She wasn’t his girlfriend or anybody he would consider getting serious with. Nobody was. And he had been okay with that for a long time—ever since he got out when he was twenty-six. Eight years of playing the field, making up for lost time.
He sometimes still woke up in the middle of the night thinking he was back there. It would take him a little time to calm himself down, to look around his massive bedroom and remember that he had been released. Sometimes he would need a walk through the apartment to remind himself that he was safe and that he would never go back to a tiny ass prison cell again. He wouldn’t have a cell mate again. He wouldn’t have to share a shower with a bunch of other guys, always watching his back. Another reason why he didn’t work out at the gym, the thought of the locker room showers. He wouldn’t go back to that place, even in his head. There were too many memories. He dealt with them every day.
Leaning against the granite counter, Chase thought again about how good it had felt inside her. He had been with so many women—so, so many. He couldn’t remember the names of almost any of them and the faces of even fewer. They all sort of blended together. He took a long, deep drink from his bottled water. He remembered the way Jordan had sipped her water during the interview. Had it only been three days? And yet he knew he wouldn’t forget her the way he had the others. He would remember the simple things, like the way her lips pursed around the mouth of the bottle and the way her throat had moved when she swallowed. He would remember all of it.
He kicked off his shoes in the bedroom and peeled off his sweaty workout clothes as he walked. The maid would take care of it in the morning. He didn’t have it in him to pick up after himself, not when his head was spinning with so many conflicting thoughts. He should respect her boundaries. He should talk to her. He should forget all about her. He could never do that, not after he had been inside her and felt her and tasted her. He should fire her ass. He should avoid a lawsuit. He should avoid her, period. Somebody else could handle the campaign. No, he didn’t trust anybody else but himself. His head was suddenly in chaos and it was enough to make him groan in frustration.
He stood in the shower with the hot water cascading across his tense muscles and it did nothing for him. He already knew that he wasn’t going to sleep tonight, not unless he was able to talk to her first and straighten this out. He couldn’t leave it hanging the way it was, eating away at him. Even if she slammed the door in his face, he needed to tell her she was wrong about him.
He looked up her address in the company records after drying off. If he knew her the way he thought he did, and she wasn’t all that hard to read—she would be home.
Chapter 9
Jordan
She sat on the sofa next to Natalie with her face in her hands. There was a bottle of wine open on the coffee table and an empty one next to that.
“Then what happened?” Natalie asked, rubbing her back in gentle circles.
“Then I left his office and wished I were dead. No big deal.” Jordan couldn’t look at her. She spoke with her hands over her face. She was horrified that she had let herself get carried away the way that she had. What the fuck was wrong with her? She had been right to push him away, to refuse him when he first asked her out. What was she thinking, having sex with him? “In his office, too,” she groaned. “I could tell Brigitte knew what had happened. How will I face her tomorrow? What if she blabs to everybody about what happened? They’ll all know, and they’ll judge me. I can’t stand the thought, I really can’t.”
“Honey, it’ll be all right. I’m sure you’re not the first person who came out of his office after something like that.”
Jordan dropped her hands from her face, glaring at her best friend. “Thanks. That makes me feel so much better,” she smirked. She knew Natalie meant well, but feeling like just one out of a hundred others didn’t go far toward making her feel better.
Natalie’s face went as red as her hair. “You know what I meant,” she insisted. “You’re not a whore for doing what you did. You’re a human being.”
“I’m a slut, if anything.”
“Say’s the girl that hasn’t been laid for almost six years! Really?”
“Natalie, I love you, and I know you’re trying to help, but you’re not helping when you say things like that.”
She smirked. “Fine. I’ll say this, then: maybe you needed it. You know? Maybe this was your body’s way of telling you it’s only possible to deny it for so long. I mean, six years?”
“You know very well why it has been so long,” Jordan said.
“I do know,” she said cryptically. “I was there. And I’m still here. And I’m telling you it’s been long enough. You don’t have to settle down and have babies with Chase Louis, but you do have to open yourself up to life again. Who knows, if you had done it sooner, you might not have fallen into his arms in his office.”
“This is all my fault. You think it’s all my fault.” She leaned back on the sofa with a shuddering sigh.
“There is no fault! You had sex. Big deal. Everybody does it. So you did it with your boss, lots of people do that, too. And they live through it, just like you will.”
“You sound very sure of yourself,” Jordan said, staring at the ceiling.
“I am sure of myself. It’s one of my most prominent traits.” Jordan had to laugh a little, and Natalie joined her.
“Oh, what a god damn mess,” she moaned. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was amazing.”
“I knew it would be,” Natalie said, squealing a little as she clapped her hands. “That’s what you should focus on. How great it was. I knew a man like him would be good.”
“Oh, good isn’t even the word. He was…amazing. He took control right away.”
“Ooh, sexy.”
“But he never made me feel like he would hurt me.” Jordan turned her head to the side, looking at Natalie. “That was the most surprising part. A man of his size? He could have done anything he wanted. All he wanted was to make me feel good and to feel good himself. That was it. It was…refreshing.”
“Sweetheart, you had a bad break, to put it mildly. All men aren’t like that asshole son of a bitch you used to date.”
“I know. I know. It’s surprising, still. Knowing it in my head and finding out for real are two different things.” She remembered the way Axel had treated her in bed. No matter how hard she had tried, no matter how many years had passed she couldn’t get those memories to
leave. She had even gone to a hypnotherapist at one point, desperate to erase her memories or to at least change her reaction to them when they popped up unexpectedly but it hadn’t worked. She had never been able to stop them from flowing whenever they wanted to and she hadn’t been able to change the way her blood ran cold when they did.
He had always been controlling, right from the start. She hadn’t known any better. She had only had two boyfriends before meeting him. She had been twenty years old when they first got together. What did she know about life? At the time she had thought she was so mature. She had thought she was worldly since she had been bounced around the foster system for most of her life, street smart even. As it turned out there was so much she hadn’t known. Like how a man could tell a woman he loved her one minute, then humiliate her the next. How he could swear he wanted to protect her and care for her right after beating her. How could a man force a woman to do things she wasn’t comfortable with in bed right up to the point where she cried and begged him to stop, and then act like she was the one with the problem. She had been so naïve, so unaware of the world and the depravity that could exist in it. Axel had changed all of that.
All she had done that night was to tell him that she didn’t want to leave the party when he did. That was it, the catalyst for the man that said he loved her to try and end her life. For once she had been having fun, dancing with one of the girls in the MC. She couldn’t even remember her name now, but there were still things she couldn’t remember from that time in her life. She wondered sometimes if maybe her brain had taken mercy on her and let her forget a thing or two on purpose. But she remembered dancing and having a good time. That was rare in those days and Axel had tried to get her to leave. She had only resisted for a moment before remembering who she was dealing with and how much trouble she could be making for herself. But it had been a moment too long. He had been embarrassed that she had tried to assert her will in front of his friends. She had humiliated him. So he had nearly killed her for it. In fact, she was sure he had and so was he. She could remember how it felt to float above herself and watch him leave the scene of the crime. She hadn’t seen him since. He probably thought she had died and had moved on with his life. That was fine with her. She didn’t want him to know she was alive.
“It’s been too much to consider,” she admitted. “Being with a man again. Taking that risk. You know how that feels, right?”
“To a much lesser extent than you do,” Natalie took a sip of her drink. “I should never, ever complain.”
“It’s all relative.” Jordan looked at her, pleading with her. “Please, don’t ever feel like you can’t tell me what’s happening in your heart just because of what happened to me. Okay? I don’t want to be ‘that friend who was abused’. I just wanna be Jordan. And you deserve a good friend.”
Natalie smiled, leaning back beside Jordan to look around their little apartment. “You are a good friend. A good roommate. I’m glad you’re here.” Jordan heard the tears in her voice and shook her head.
“No tears,” she insisted.
“Okay.” Natalie sniffled, then gathered herself up. “No tears.”
“Good girl.” Jordan took a deep breath, focusing again on her problem with Chase. Natalie was right. If she hadn’t held herself back for so long, the need to be with him might not have overtaken her. She might have been able to control her urges. Instead, she had given in and made a fool of herself. And she would have to face him again. How could she do that?
“I think you should go in tomorrow and act like nothing happened,” Natalie smiled, handing Jordan her forgotten wine glass and putting her feet up on the table. “I think you should start fresh. What’s he going to do, hold it over your head?”
“Nat, he held it over my head all day that I refused to have dinner with him last night. He likes to tease and play games. He’ll find a way to have fun with me over this—his own kind of fun.”
“So throw it back at him, then. Tease him right back. Make him work for it. Now that he knows how good it is when you’re together, he won’t be able to forget it. Make him remember. Make him want you more than he’s ever wanted anything.” She sat up, looking at Jordan with a gleam in her eye. “You could actually use this to your advantage.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t want to use him at all, or the situation. I don’t feel comfortable with it.”
“So you’ll let him walk all over you and make you feel like shit for what happened?”
Jordan scowled. “He can’t make me feel bad unless I give him permission to,” she said, repeating something she had learned years earlier in therapy.
There was a knock at the door. The girls looked at each other. “Laurel?” Jordan asked.
Natalie shrugged. “Did you call her or anything?”
“No. I thought maybe you had.” Jordan got up and paused feeling a little woozy from all the wine. It was after nine o’clock. Who in the world would show up at the door with anything important at that time of night? Jordan looked through the peephole and then whirled around with her back to the door and her eyes wide with surprise.
“Who is it?” Natalie whispered.
“It’s Chase Louis,” Jordan whispered.
“What?” Natalie jumped up, just about as uncoordinated as Jordan was thanks to the wine, taking a look for herself. “Ooh,” she whispered.
“Shut up!” Jordan pushed her out of the way, looking again. He was standing there with his hands in his pockets, wearing a pair of jeans and a tight black t-shirt. His arms surprised her. She couldn’t stop looking at them. The ink—two full sleeves of ink. She had never seen them before. Those damn tattoos made him that much sexier. So he had a naughty side, she marveled. Of course, he did. He had ridden her like a man who had a naughty side.
Her skin flushed at the memory.
“What are you gonna do?” Natalie mouthed.
“I don’t know,” Jordan mouthed back, shaking her head. “What should I do?”
“What?”
“What…should…I…do?” Jordan mouthed. Natalie shrugged, shaking her head.
“I know you’re in there,” Chase said. “I could hear you coming to the door. More than one of you. Can I come in, please?”
“Oh, shit.” Jordan rested her forehead against the door.
“Let him in,” Natalie whispered. Jordan looked down at herself, her oversized t-shirt and unicorn pajama pants not exactly the fanciest outfit. She realized she wasn’t even wearing a bra. Then again, he had already seen her breasts, hadn’t he? She warmed all over.
“Your friend is right. Let me in.” Jordan closed her eyes and took a deep breath finally opening them and unlocking the door. She took one more look at Natalie before pulling it open.
Chapter 10
Chase
He had just about enough of the comedy going on behind the closed door as Jordan and her friend decided whether or not they should let him in. He hadn’t counted on her having a roommate, but it didn’t really matter. He didn’t have anything to say to her that somebody else couldn’t hear. If anything, he wanted her friend there. He wanted a witness when he told her he had no desire to hurt her or push her into something. They had just met. He just wanted to get to know her better. That was all that mattered, he had realized as he drove to Jordan’s apartment in Queens. He only wanted her. He didn’t want to use her or trap her in any way.
He heard a lock turning on the other side of the door before it opened.
And there she was. His first thought was of how adorable she looked in a beat-up t-shirt and pants with unicorns and rainbows on them. He bit his lip to stop himself from laughing. He would only upset her like the last time he had laughed at something she had done.
“You wanna come in?” she asked. He could practically smell the wine on her breath from a distance. He nodded, entering carefully and looking around as he did. It was small, painfully small. The living room was about the size of his walk-in closet. Real estate in New York was a joke.
He couldn’t imagine trying to live without money. Lucky for him, that was an issue he didn’t have. Except when he hadn’t. When he had lived in a room less than half the size of Jordan’s living room.
“This is nice,” he said, the words ringing hollow when he said them. He heard her snort behind him like she knew he was only trying to be nice.
“Have a seat.” She waved to the sofa. “Would you like a drink? Some wine, maybe?”
“No, thanks. I’m good.” He saw a redhead standing in what had to be the kitchen doorway. Her arms were folded over her chest. He could tell she didn’t want to like him. So Jordan had told her what happened, then. She had deep red hair, thick and curly, and a thin sprinkling of freckles over her nose and cheeks. Cute, but nothing compared to Jordan.
“This is Natalie,” Jordan said, standing in front of him. “My roommate. My best friend. Natalie, this is Chase Louis.”
“A pleasure,” Natalie said. One corner of her mouth twisted up in a grin that she tried to hide but couldn’t. He thought she might like him a little more than she wanted to. Maybe she was only putting on a front for Jordan’s sake. He grinned back, then looked at Jordan. Her arms were folded, too, like she wanted to give him shit.
“Can I talk to you? Please?”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
He frowned. “You know what I mean. I would rather it be in private, if possible.” He looked at Natalie. “No offense. But if you want me to talk about what happened today and give your friend all the details, I’ll do it.”
Jordan sighed, then cut her eyes at Natalie, who nodded before disappearing behind another door and closing it behind her. A bedroom, Chase guessed. Jordan turned to him, then, unfolding her arms.
“Can you sit, please? You’re freaking me out a little, just standing there like that. I want to have a conversation with you, but you’re being all…defensive.”
“I don’t mean to be defensive,” she clarified. He watched the tension drain from her like he had pulled a plug in a sink. Her shoulders fell to a more reasonable level before she sat on the opposite end of the sofa. There was room between them, but not a lot. Not enough to keep him from wanting to reach out and touch her. She drew her legs up to her chest, though, showing him with her body language that she didn’t want to touch him. He kept his hands to himself. Even the slightest touch would leave him wanting more. She was dressed in pajamas with her hair piled up on top of her head and she still looked gorgeous.
