by Scott, Talyn
“You’re terrible,” her mouth fought to form coherent words through an uncomfortable snigger, “he’s awful young to know stuff that you don’t. Very young.” Azure figured Sayer was twenty years old, maybe twenty-one but that was pushing it. The reason she insisted they go as friends since she was past thirty.
“Youth and stamina go hand-n-hand, and considering how pretty he is,” he left that statement out there a couple of seconds before continuing. “Sayer’s easy going. Did I remind you that he’s gorgeous? Not to mention that his accent is another version of oral sex altogether.”
“Yeah,” she said dreamily before she caught herself, “his words have a peculiar lilt to them. One I haven’t heard before. I can’t place it. When he settles down, he’ll make someone happy.”
Nick made a piffling sound in the back of his throat. “He’s perfect for you.”
“Oh, please, Nicholas.” She fanned some smoke away. “Let’s avoid delving into that today.”
“He’s adamant about safe sex, he can breeze through hotties without any emotional attachments, and I don’t see him changing anytime soon.” He pointed his cigarette at her. “That’s why he’s the perfect fall guy for you.”
She had to laugh at his silliness. “My fall guy?”
“Your heart doesn’t race for anyone available right now.” He smiled sadly. “Neither does his. Therefore, he’s a temporary fix for my baby Azure.” His smile broadened as he stomped his cigarette butt on the bottom of his heel before placing it in a water-filled coffee can. “No strings pulling you where you don’t want to go.”
After staring at his makeshift ashtray for a couple of heartbeats, she whispered, “When I was in school, we called it ‘on the rebound’. And if you dated another to bridge that healing gap, for lack of better words, you were a user. Of course, maybe people agree to use one another nowadays. But that’s not me.”
“Azure, if I have to do it, I will.”
“Do it?”
“The breakout sex,” he explained, “the kind that gets you over your hump.”
“You’re gay.”
“I know, but in the interest of true friendship, I’ll help you out this once. But let it be known that I’ve only attempted to nail one member of the opposite sex, and it didn’t go well for either of us. Like…it didn’t go at all.”
“Got it,” she cracked up, thinking she was apple red all the way to her hairline. “But your mercy sex isn’t necessary.”
“Prove it.”
“You can take me clubbing tonight?” It came out as a question, but it was the best she could do right now. It was Nick’s nature to get drunk quickly, and then he’d leave for the night with an equally hot participant. When that happened, she would take a cab home and settle in for the remainder of the night with her e-reader. He’d never know the difference. Problem solved.
“Yeah, we’re off tomorrow so clubbing it is. You won’t be able to dance with that sore leg, but you can sit and look beautiful. As usual, the men will flock around, buying our drinks while telling you those golden eyes of yours are such a turn on. And, baby, they are. You’re such a keeper, Azure. If I were straight, you’d be my cougar,” he said, shaking his head regretfully.
“I’m honored.”
“You’re the only babe I’ve ever gotten a semi for.”
She sighed when embarrassment’s heat flushed her body. Instead of commenting, she studied the storm clouds.
“You weren’t messing with me, were you?” His eyes narrowed on her flush, and his voice softened considerably. “Dumbass jock really is the only lay you’ve ever had.”
“I didn’t realize that admission would be incredibly humbling. I thought it was a good thing to be,” she trailed off, reaching out her hand and cupping rain as it fell. When refreshing droplets hit her palm, her body tensed uncomfortably. Then she had the most horrific vision of drowning, gasping for breath and swallowing thick muck.
“What is it?”
“Nightmares,” Azure answered with a half-hearted shrug, willing a thundering heart to slow. “Sometimes I remember bits and pieces throughout the day.” She rubbed her dampened palm against her knee, wishing she didn’t recall anything from her nightmares – her monster that tasted her.
“Why won’t you tell me about him? Maybe it’ll ward off these terrible dreams. You know, easing up your subconscious.”
She didn’t miss a beat, knowing exactly whom the ‘him’ was. “He’s a sports celebrity. I don’t think it’s fair to air dirty laundry that might publically hurt him.”
“It’s just me, and sooner or later, you’ve got to learn to trust someone again. Life’s easier that way.” Nick’s eyes mirrored the overhead storm clouds, gray and misty. “Maybe that’s your first step in truly getting over him. Can’t you trust me with your inner struggles? Opening your internal locks can be a cleansing experience. It couldn’t hurt the grieving process, that’s for sure.”
Or it could break her. She glanced around, and he followed her eyes. “How long do we have?” In her haste getting dressed for her work, she’d forgotten her watch.
“Just start,” he murmured, steering her to the side and settling them on a rickety, sun-worn bench. The rain slowed, and with the exception of random drops beating her knees, she stayed protected from the elements.
“When we came back to Miami,” she started though it went against her better judgment. “We moved into The Garden.”
“Ah, prestigious,” he said, recognizing where a good portion of Miami’s elite lived when they chose luxury condos over estate homes.
The Garden boasted glass walls that nearly touched the sky, pristine accommodations catering to every whim imaginable, and security insuring complete privacy to those who lived there while keeping out the world clawing to get inside. For a short time, Azure had lived a floor beneath the penthouse in a five-thousand square foot condominium. She didn’t miss the condo one bit, just its owner. And that was an embarrassment she tried to keep to herself.
“Go on,” Nick encouraged her. “Holding back won’t make it better.”
“He spent long nights looking over play tapes, especially if he had an upcoming game,” she started, though she wasn’t certain she could go on. “So it wasn’t unusual for him to be out of bed for most of the night. But, uh,” she stopped, clearing her throat, “one of those nights, I went to find him. I had missed him like crazy. He’d been on the road a lot.”
“Tell me that you didn’t walk in on him and another before I leave to hunt him down.”
“No” – she shook her head fiercely, causing her hair to slip through its knot – “not exactly. He was on the phone, telling someone that he had dumped me, and I was moving out the next morning.”
“And he’d never mentioned anything of the sort?” Nick’s voice held a fraction of the shock Azure had felt that fateful night.
“Never.” She lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. “We’d even made love that night.”
“Was it goodbye sex?”
“Sure was,” she said irritably. “I never let him touch me after that.”
“That’s not what I mean,” he spoke slowly. “Was he desperately pounding into you, turning the fuck into a monumental moment?”
“You’re so crude,” she scoffed. “I say make love.”
“Well, you can say it all you want to,” he replied. “But tell me this: Did he really make love to you that night, or did he fuck you?”
Her spine straightened until she thought it would crack. “I guess you know the answer to that. Do you want to hear the rest or not?”
“Go on, baby,” he coaxed.
“Will saw me standing there listening and didn’t have the decency to flinch. He just took me in with those challenging eyes, the same ones he threatened his rookies with on the field, and explained how things had drastically changed.” She crossed her leg, searching for a lump around her knee, but she couldn’t find anything to explain away the pain. “He’d been seeing the general
manager’s daughter behind my back, hiding the relationship easily since he was on the road most of the time. But she was sick of being his dirty little secret, and she wanted to go public – wanted to move in with him.”
“Tapping the GM’s daughter?” Nick gaped. “Shit. What an idiot. No matter how well he plays, he screws himself if he screws her over and she goes crying to daddy.”
“Yeah, well, people have their stupid moments. I sure have.” And she’d been a remarkably good sport about the whole thing, but bitterness continued to eat away at her. “Anyway, Will tried to say he was coerced into his circumstances. That he couldn’t refuse when he’d finally worked his career to the top, or she would make sure he fell back down.”
“Please tell me that you-”
“No,” she interrupted him, “being in love made me stupid not crazy. I didn’t fall for it. But I was a mess all the same.”
“Of course you were a mess,” he said while looking at her with pity. Empathy was something she could deal with, but not pity. Accepting pity meant she was somewhere she couldn’t bounce back from. “What decent human being wouldn’t be a mess?” He asked, “You’d been with him for how long?”
“Since I was a virginal twenty-one,” she whispered, swiping a stray tear. “Years I’ve wasted. And after Will explained his situation. He said, ‘let me hold you’ while he brushed his thumbs across my cheeks, wiping my tears. He claimed that he hated causing me pain. But I knew what he actually hated; I wasn’t a means to his end. He couldn’t use me to further his career, so he was forced to cut me just like any lackluster player who wasn’t pulling his weight for the team.” She wiped her face on her sleeve.
“Will is a few years younger than me,” she forced through clenched teeth, “but at his current age of twenty-eight; he was running out of time and desperately needed to solidify his quarterback position with a major team. In his line of work, men retire when they reached their middle thirties if injuries don’t take them out sooner. That’s the best explanation that I could come up with. His desperation to keep his career intact was paramount. Our relationship wasn’t. He claimed that they’d only recently started a physical relationship. But later, I found out that he was leading this duplicitous, faithless life for at least a year.” She shifted for a minute and then tacked on, “Screwing me over while he was screwing her.”
Nick pushed an errant strand behind her ear. “Even in the end, he couldn’t be completely honest?”
“Nope,” she said with a mirthless laugh. “So when he called me the following week, asking me to come over and work through our mess, I told him no one could win a losing battle. Especially since, his entire focus was always on his career, and his relationship with me remained second throughout the time that we spent together. I’d been too understanding for years, but when he chose her and football over me, I soon realized there was a thin line between being supportive and losing what’s me inside someone else’s vision,” Azure hitched on sob. “And who deserves to be saddled with the blackest of liars? Who among us can fight lies? I sure can’t. We either live with them or become strong enough to walk away from their delusional traps. There’s no in-between, and if anyone thinks it is, that person’s the biggest liar of all.”
Nick sat next to her, cradling her against his chest. “Keep going.”
“So Will said ‘I don’t think that you understand’,” she whispered, drawing in an uneasy breath while resting in the familiar warmth of Nick’s arms. “He still wanted us to be together and insisted that he was scared to death of losing me totally. I voiced my thoughts aloud, asking him if he expected to be with her and keep me on the side, reversing our roles. Then, I would become his dirty little secret.”
“And he was taken aback, right?” Nick guessed. “Like you were leaving the best thing you could have, and he couldn’t understand your audacity.”
“Exactly,” she agreed. “The whole conversation was pathetically sad, a ridiculous way to end a ten year old relationship. But he didn’t get it. He just didn’t get it.” Azure looked up, searching for the sun behind the clouds, but it refused to make an appearance. “Like I’m seriously going to be the dirty little secret of a two-timing bastard? I guess that’s the best he thought I deserved.” When was she ever so used? The past flashed across her mind. For years, she’d dedicated herself to the perfection known as Will Adrian. And when he moved up as Miami’s new jewel of a quarterback, he kicked her to the curb when she refused to accept a demotion as his surreptitious mistress.
“Just calm down,” Nick read the tension behind the tears, sensing her body morphing into a near rage.
Azure should have never driven back down this road, keeping this part of her life under wraps was a necessity. Putting herself last was a mistake she would never repeat. She hadn’t finished her Master’s program due to all the traveling in order to support Will’s career. And all those hours of nursing his crazy injuries and encouraging him to follow his dream were all for nothing. After he had reached his summit, he didn’t want her there to share it. “He never loved me the way that I loved him. He was passionate, but he always held something back.”
“People like him consider the rest of us rungs on a ladder.” Nick offered. “If they can’t step on us or keep their footing on us for a little while, they’ll skip us over on the way to the top without looking down.”
That was when her stomach rolled, climbing toward an epic hurl. She moaned, clutching her middle.
“Please say you’re not pregnant,” he pleaded desperately.
No, she wasn’t pregnant. “I’m not sure.”
His eyes widened, before he got a hold of himself.
“Why do men always assume a woman is pregnant when she’s nauseous?”
“Knee-jerk reaction,” he explained sheepishly, “even for a gay man. But I’ll help you raise it,” he said as if he were talking himself into it instead of her. “We’ll be awesome parents, baby.” Gently, he patted her stomach, twisting his fingers and searching for her baby bump, but only found an embarrassing roll of fat she needed to work on.
“Relax. I’m honestly not pregnant,” she said, pecking him on the cheek and pulling back his hand, “just not feeling so well since I came back from Scotland.” Azure needed her oil checked. A trip to the gynecologist was in order as soon as she found the time. Something wasn’t right. She didn’t think she could go into perimenopause at thirty-one, but she had to rule it out. The heat, moodiness, wet dreams, nighttime sweats, and cramping were the tip of her bodily iceberg.
“We’ll move you behind the counter for the rest of the day,” he said as acting supervisor and incredible friend. “You can ration out the pills and prop up your leg in the process.”
“I’ll take you up on that,” she replied gratefully.
Sylvia poked her head out of the door. “Nick, Greg says you haven’t given him his pills, and you’re putting him off schedule.”
Nick looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Holy Moses, you mean to say he keeps a schedule when he’s out on Miami’s streets blowing mommy and daddy’s retirement while driving around high and drunk?”
“Guess so.” She cocked a brow. “Surely that DUI. he picked up is gonna put a damper on his partying.”
“Well, hope springs eternal.” He stood up. “Tell Gregory the medicine man cometh and to keep his shirt on. Literally. I don’t want a glimpse at what I saw when they brought him in last night. Doesn’t fit in my job description, and for that matter, you girls stay as far away from him as you can.”
Sylvia patted her shoulder sympathetically and went back inside. “I’m ready to get back to work,” Azure said, figuring she should keep busy so the tears would stay at bay. She needed this job desperately, and they still hadn’t offered her a full-time position.
“Onward then,” he said with faux enthusiasm. “Did it help you at all to get away, baby?” Nick worried aloud. “Vacations are meant to replenish the body, not exhaust it.” He tugged her up, leading them
to follow Sylvia.
“That’s hard to say.” Her Scottish trip was originally intended for her to take with Will as a couple’s getaway. They’d planned it more than a year ago, and after they had broken up, Will refused the travel agency’s offer of a partial refund and insisted that Azure go anyway. Alone. She closed the door behind her and allowed the scent of industrial grade disinfectant to bring her to the present. “In a weird sense, going to Scotland changed me, though I don’t understand how.”
Chapter Four
Jordan Marketing, Miami Florida
“Gage, I understand you found your mate and a string of bastards took you out in the worst possible moment. I know the need for vengeance when another creature comes between me and what’s mine firsthand. But the full moon’s around the corner again, and the celestial pull is killer this time of year. Hell, I feel its pull while walking in the noonday sun, and I’m sure you do, too.” Blue eyes flared with cold calculation. “Am I gonna have to put you on lock-down?”
“Since you’re Alpha and the decision’s all yours” - Gage rubbed the painful knot on the back of his head - “I’m assuming that’s a rhetorical question.”
“Work with me here, man,” Jayce snapped, thrusting long fingers through his hair in sheer frustration. “Shit’s flying all over the place on the islands. Vampires are acting like, well, vampires. I’ve tucked my tail between my legs and personally called for backup from Scotland since I’m several males down on our side. Meaning I need your head in the game.” He stared at the blood seeping from Gage’s ear. “Your skull has been cracked open like a boiled egg, and all out of sheer stupidity. What were you thinking? What part of watching your own ass do you suddenly not understand?”
