by Crowe, Liz
“Yes, please, get me out of here.” She put a hand on his chest, and was satisfied to hear his breath quicken at her sudden, unexpected touch. He grinned and took her hand, guiding her towards his motorcycle. She pulled back, then shrugged.
Why the hell not?
As she threaded her arm through Craig’s relishing his familiar clean-washed scent a feeling of calm slipped over her zinging nerve endings.
“Sara!” she turned to see Blake on the step. “Headed out?” he yelled, louder than was necessary, Sara thought. She faced him, standing next to Craig’s bike as he handed her an extra helmet.
“Yeah, thanks,” she blew him a kiss, and he waved as Jack came up behind him. Sara put a helmet over her hair and Craig adjusted it under her chin. She watched as if from far away as Jack started down the steps but Blake’s strong arm shot out and blocked him.
“Not today Gordon,” Sara heard her brother growl. “You’re lucky I don’t kick your sorry ass down the steps and off my property.”
She watched Jack glance down at the arm blocking his way and shoot a murderous look at her brother. Her mouth dropped open at the sight of Evan taking three long steps across the deck to stand between her brother and her lover, facing Jack, pushing him backwards. Rob had positioned himself in front of Blake who tried to follow Evan and Jack.
Craig gunned the motor so she couldn’t hear anything but it was painfully obvious that Rob had some difficulty restraining Blake. The crowd stared first at him, then at Jack who had broken free of his friend’s influence and was pointing at Blake. Suzanne and Evan stood on either side of him, holding his arms, until he turned and stomped off to the opposite side of the deck and out of Sara’s line of sight.
Blake stood, fists clenched, neck vein popping in anger as Rob put an arm around him and led him inside. She turned, put her arms around Craig — for safety, she told herself — and laid her aching head on his shoulder as he put the bike in gear and took off down the dirt drive.
She had the distinct sensation of having ripped a huge chunk of her soul out, leaving it back on the deck when she saw how possessive the woman was with Jack.
Craig may ease that but he won’t ever be what you need.
Enough! You are done with Jack Gordon. Everyone is right about him. Focus on the man who rescued you twice now — see what he has to offer instead.
Sara sighed and tried her best to force visions of Jack’s face out of her head, the sight of his eyes that night when he pleaded with her to let him get close and not be afraid, that he would hurt her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sweat poured off Jack’s body by the time he finished an early morning ten-mile run on what promised to be a ninety-plus-degree day. He stood stooped with his hands on his knees in his front yard, surveying the street scene on the muggy Michigan early fall morning, shattered in body and mind.
“Hey Mr. Gordon,” the kid across the street yelled. Need that lawn mowed again this week?”
Jack waved at him and shook his head. “Not until it rains a little, but I’ll let you know.” He had a brief vision of his own father, yelling at him to get up off his ass and mow the lawn again, even after he’d mowed it a few days before. Jack had spent hours staring at the ceiling in his room vowing never, ever be the type of unrelenting, critical father his was. Now look at him, over thirty with not a kid in sight to ruin with his impossibly high expectations.
And who can you blame for that, eh, Gordon?
The thought of his own stupid behavior last week brought chills to his sweat-soaked skin and he stared up at the piercing blue sky to regain his composure. The memory of Sara’s gorgeous green eyes filling with angry tears nearly seared him in half, all over again. Even though he had truly been trying to disentangle himself from Heather, she had caught them at a bad moment. Bad timing was the name of his game lately it seemed.
He turned and walked into his house — the house he’d bought with his hard-earned money, and renovated himself using his equally hard-earned experience on the job with his father as a young man. Anymore it was an empty cavern, mocking him with its lack of a certain female presence.
The night they’d shared in his bed was never far from his mind. He’d felt so content then, better than he had in years. Had convinced himself that Sara would complete his life, could bring out his best as he coaxed out hers, and he was imagining the future with her on his run the next morning when he’d walked right into the shit storm created by his own bad behavior.
The crazy bitch, Heather, he’d picked up in his friends’ beer bar would not let go of him, even though he’d only fucked her once. In a colossal fit of bad judgment, he’d reverted back to his old ways in her office at the title company a few weeks earlier. He’d attended that stupid fundraising thing with her, gotten drunk off his ass, and spent hours wishing it were Sara on his arm, even sending her texts the whole night, before passing out on Heather’s couch.
She’d kept at him for days afterward, ramping up the sex talk until he’d snapped. He’d had a frustrating day, felt thoroughly avoided by Sara and had taken the woman, never once picturing any other face but Sara’s the entire time. It was the stupidest thing he could have done and he was far from proud of it.
Yep, King Shit of Bad Timing Mountain, that was him.
He’d tried, wanted to be trusted. Had seen Heather at the party and decided that was the right moment to set her straight.
Jesus.
The hot shower felt great, going a long way to soothing his troubled brain. Jack let the water sluice across his face, and he turned to let it beat a pattern on his back as he recalled the fallout from Sara’s brother’s party. He and Blake had come within seconds of a brawl, and Jack knew that the man would have kicked his ass, but damned if he would let him treat his sister like some sort of precious jewel, unworthy of Jack’s presence. She was a grown woman, capable of making her own decisions. Blake’s overprotection had reached unreasonable proportions, something Evan and Suzanne agreed with him on, although they had both beaten him around the head and shoulders that night for his behavior even though he’d tried to explain. No one believed him. Suzanne’s disappointment had been the most palpable and upsetting.
“Stop trying to prove what an asshole you are, Gordon,” she’d said, her eyes bright with angry tears. “Maybe people will figure it out on their own.” She’d not talked to him the rest of the night and he’d sat with Evan and stared at a baseball game until his eyes were numb with boredom. Evan had put a hand on his shoulder before he left.
“I’m going to ask Julie to marry me,” he said. “But I swear on all that is holy if you don’t start acting like a man and not a sex-crazed teenager, you are not gonna be invited much less stand with me. I know what you need Jack. Why you won’t admit it to yourself is beyond me. But, keep acting like this and we are through. And that will piss me off so much I may even revoke your Mug Club card,” he’d given Jack a fierce hug and pushed him out the door.
Jack had pondered this turn of events on the way home. Julie was a lot like Sara as best he could tell. Fiercely independent, sexy, successful, and temperamental but Evan was not willing to lose her, jumping off the deep end in order to keep her. Going beyond a mere Dom/sub arrangement to actual marriage was a bigger leap than many realized.
Lame excuse Gordon. Listen to yourself. You want control? Then fucking take it from her. Show her how happy she can be, that she can trust you. That you can trust yourself again.
He’d spent the next day enmeshed in work crises and had stumbled in the front door of his house to find Heather, naked, on a velvet blanket on his living room floor, candles flickering, wine open, music playing. He’d hustled her out, amid much whining and pouting. He’d tried to call Sara, text her, send her email, but she effectively ignored him. Her uncommon stubbornness made him insane, and he wanted her even more. He needed to be the caretaker, the Dominant; it suffused his every fiber. She had started to cede that to him, no matter what she said, at that moment he knew t
hey’d never come to terms with their clashing type-A personalities otherwise. She’d struggled like hell against submission but he sensed she wanted it. He’d had plenty of practice sorting out what a submissive needed. Why couldn’t he just give in and let it happen?
Jack stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. This called for a large gesture, and he was ready to make it. It was what he wanted and needed to prove it to her — in front of witnesses. He dressed, called Jason to tell him he’d be about an hour late — that he had a project he needed to complete. Once he arrived at the office, shopping trip accomplished, the two of them spent the rest of the day working on Jack’s power point presentation he was giving at the Stewart all-company meeting, highlighting the progress of his downtown renovation project.
After attending two closings at the end of the day, he’d gone home, changed into running clothes and run until he’d nearly dropped from exhaustion. He’d not gone this many days without female companionship in a while, and was starting to not only wet dream about Sara but daydream about her too. His many attempts to contact her still went unanswered, and the two times he’d dropped in on her office she wasn’t there — or her friends were hiding her, which he wouldn’t doubt.
The morning of the monthly all-company meeting dawned bright and clear. Jack meant for the day to be unforgettable. He dressed in his best tailor-made blue suit, snapped his Rolex on his wrist and popped a small box into his pocket before donning sunglasses and heading out into the brain melting heat.
Jack couldn’t remember a time he’d been more nervous, and skipped his usual double espresso. He’d had Jason extend an invite to Blake on his behalf and was gratified to see the familiar late model F150 parked in the hotel parking lot where their meeting was held each month.
He waved to Greg Stewart as he entered the building and fielded a few work calls, working his nerve up to go in the huge room filled with milling realtors, title company minions, lenders and others. He hadn’t seen Sara’s car in the lot, but he knew she’d be along. She usually showed up just in time for these things. Jack took a deep breath, touched the small velvet box in his trouser pocket. Then pasted his smile on and walked into the room.
*
Sara ran late, as usual. She’d gone to a six a.m. Bikram yoga session and made the mistake of sitting at her laptop to answer some emails before leaving the house. Caught up in a transaction crisis, she stayed sitting and typing away until nearly eight forty-five. Her phone buzzed and she glanced at the text. Craig. She smiled.
He’d been amazing during the last week after rescuing her from that fiasco of a party. They’d gone for coffee and he had let her snivel her way through an iced latte before taking her hand across the table and telling her that he was sick of talking about Jack, and asking if she wanted to see a movie.
They’d gone to the latest summer blockbuster, shared a bucket of popcorn and she’d enjoyed the hell out of it, letting her thigh rest against his, and his arm across her shoulders. He’d not tried to kiss her or grope her or anything, but at one point she turned to catch him looking at her, which made her blush and turn away.
The next night he’d asked her to go with him to his band’s gig, out in the Detroit suburbs. They’d taken his old SUV, which smelled even more strongly of bleach. “What the hell, Craig, are you a clean freak or what,” she’d insisted. He gave her an odd look.
“What, why,” he asked as he steered his car into the bar’s parking lot.
“Everything about you smells like bleach,” she said. “And this car, it’s like a swimming pool in here.”
“That’s because I swim every single day,” he’d pulled his guitar case out of the back and opened the door for her to enter ahead of him. “How do you think I keep my boyish figure,” he’d whispered in her ear, making her shiver.
She wanted him to kiss her again, like he had in her condo the weekend she was attacked, but he kept his distance, treating her like a buddy. Sara didn’t know if she felt relieved or annoyed by it. It was hard enough ignoring Jack’s constant stream of texts, calls and emails. She needed Craig to step up and be a real distraction. But he didn’t oblige.
Three exhausting sets later, exhilarated and a little drunk from watching Craig perform, Sara waited while they broke down their equipment. The band “JakeLeg” did nineteen nineties and current rock covers. Everything from the Foo Fighters to White Stripes but also managed to sneak in a few original tunes. Singing duties alternated between Craig and his drummer. Sara couldn’t remember a time she’d had more fun dancing to live music. The sight of the young man caressing the mike with his lips, his eyes squeezed shut as he riffed made her more than a little damp between the legs. She could see how women feel in love — or at least mad lust — with rock stars.
It was nearly two a.m. when they wrapped up, Craig’s black t-shirt soaking wet and every female in the bar salivating and hanging around hoping to buy him a drink. Sara admired his denim-clad ass for the millionth time. She was proud of herself for going the entire three-plus hours without obsessing over Jack; wondering what, or who, he was doing.
At the thought of him, his strong body, piercing blue eyes and deep voice in her ear she shuddered and squeezed her eyes shut to expel him. She opened them to find Craig pulling her to her feet.
“Hey, you still here?” He smiling and avoided the little crush of groupies that closed in on him. “Let’s go, I’m starved.” He propelled her ahead of him out the door.
Sara broke her hard and fast rule about eating after midnight when she smelled the amazing odors emanating from the twenty-four hour restaurant and indulged in a greasy, loaded Coney dog. At one point, as the grease dripped down her hand past her elbow, Craig reached across the table to grab her arm and pulled her fingers into his mouth. She widened her eyes at him, as the feel of his lips on her skin sent her nerve endings singing. He placed her hand on the table, face calm, and continued eating as she stared at him, not quite believing what she’d experienced.
He finished inhaling his food, wiped his mouth and moved around the booth seat so he was right next to her. She shifted, a little uneasy with the sudden close contact, keeping her eyes on her plate as he slid an arm around her shoulders., “Sorry, couldn’t resist,” he whispered before giving her a chaste kiss on the cheek and moving back away.
The buzz of her phone startled Sara out of her quiet shock. Jack, with his usual post-midnight text.
“You awake?”
She stared at it then raised her head to observe the blonde young man across from her, unable to process anything except her longing to have Jack’s hands and lips on her. She shut the phone off resolutely, and tucked it back in her back pocket.
“Jack,” Craig inquired, finishing his soda.
“Who else,” Sara pushed her plate away and sighed.
“You deserve better,” he said, not taking his eyes from hers, which caused her heart to beat faster.
He is truly a lovely guy, what is your problem?
“Yeah, well, you and Blake and Rob can form a club, okay,” she stood, suddenly exhausted. “But leave me out of it. I’m sick of hearing about myself.”
As Craig guided her out to his truck, he kept his hand in the small of her back. She turned to him before he could open her door and put her hands on his shoulders.
“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea,” she started but was interrupted by a sudden onset of tears. “You are an amazing guy, and I owe you a lot, but… ” He took a step closer, and leaned into her lips, cutting her off mid thought. Her brain buzzed as she melted into his body. His lips and tongue were insistent, forceful, pressing against and into her and her tears fell between them. She broke away, embarrassed.
He put his forehead against hers and cradled her face, running his thumbs down her he cheeks. She could feel the calluses years of guitar playing had rendered on his palms and fingers.
“I’m here Sara, when you’re ready,” he whispered as she closed her eyes. “But not before. I have no in
tention of serving as a distraction, although I’m sure it would be fun.” His lips touched her nose and brushed her lips as he reached behind her to open her door. She sucked in a deep breath. His chlorine scent buried under sweat and the clinging aura of the restaurant.
Sara sat staring at her computer screen, realizing she was going to be late to the monthly all-company meeting but frozen in place by her own ridiculous dilemma.
You don’t have to fight for his attention or worry he’s gonna bolt at the last minute and stick his tongue down some other girl’s throat while you watch.
But he isn’t what you want.
She looked at her clenched fingers in her lap, then sighed, grabbed her purse and phone, and ran for the car. Hampered only slightly by the white pencil skirt she’d chosen to wear, with the aqua colored linen blouse she’d worn the day of her erotic picnic with Jack at the open house.
She remembered feeling sorry in a superior way for those simpering agents and others who would so obviously yearn for Jack Gordon’s wandering attentions.
Now look at you, Sara Jane, you are the worst one yet.
She’d effectively ignored him, his texts, calls and whatever else for over a week though, and felt stronger thanks to that and her sudden realization that the young blonde gorgeous man in her office had a crush on her.
So fuck you, Gordon, and your adoring posse. I’ll see you one tall raven-haired groupie and raise you a smoking hot blonde with a guitar.
She smiled at herself in the rearview mirror, glanced at the text Craig had sent her saying he’d save her a seat, and zoomed across town. When she breezed into the large hotel conference room, her eyes were immediately drawn to the nearly six-foot woman with a sleek curtain of black hair in fuck-me pumps and a designer-style suit standing in the middle of the room. She was laughing, in an obvious “notice me” sort of way and had a well-manicured hand on the arm of the man in front of her. Heather. Great.
