Mutual Release

by Liz Crowe

  “Yeah, she called me yesterday. I’m with my sister’s family up North for the holiday, though, so I couldn’t get to her…” Jack’s voice faded.

  Evan closed his eyes and tried to sort through all the information rolling through his brain. Julie’s willingness to submit and his failure to really close that deal last night he’d made up for this morning, giving her a small taste of what was in her future with him. But then the dinner with his mother had thrown him, and the way Julie had handled it, calming everyone concerned – that made him even more rattled. Because the visions of her, of them together, were invading his subconscious in ways he was a little afraid to acknowledge.

  “Oh, hang on, Jack.” He opened the blinds further and saw Suzanne, her petite form walking towards the front door. “She’s coming. She’s fine. I’ll talk to her.”

  Suzanne had been through utter hell in the last years, abused by her husband to the point she’d landed in the hospital, then when he’d died after a not-so-mysterious fall down his own front steps, Suzanne had taken up with Evan’s very-much-younger-than-her brewer. Then without warning had dumped him. Which had led to the kid leaving Big House Brewing altogether. It had been a real cluster-fuck, but he and Jack had seen Suzanne through it and had tried to be as supportive as they could.

  What was it about him and women who were victims? He glanced over his shoulder at Julie again. Her thick blond hair curtained her face, her tall-boot-clad foot was propped on his bar seat. The long line of her leg made his mouth water. He shook it off. She may have been a victim at one point in her life, but he was going to make it his mission to make sure nothing bad ever happened to her again.

  He set his jaw and opened the locked Tap Room door so Suzanne could enter. But not before he sent a text to Kyle and made a reservation at The Suite for New Year’s Eve in one of the club’s exclusive overnight rooms.

  Chapter Ten

  Evan ran his hands along the leather chair arms, nerves dancing with anticipation. He’d spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s working through a marketing plan with Suzanne and Julie that they were going to roll out with a giant party on January fifth at one of the biggest beer and wine retailers in metro Detroit. Then they would spend every night that week at a different marquee bar or restaurant hosting “tap takeovers” where most or all of the beer taps would feature Big House products.

  His two brewers were working around the clock to back up all the beer they’d be depleting to cover the taps and the ramped-up bottling schedule. Julie had been adamant she would not support such a giant launch unless he was one hundred percent sure he had all the product the bars and stores wanted. It was going to be a real stretch, but he and his staff had figured out a way to make it happen.

  The week had also been a fun test of will for him as Julie had dropped more than enough hints she was ready to play again. But he’d denied her, claiming they were too busy, needing to focus on the business stuff first. Her ramped-up lustiness was like a damn neon sign over her head by the time December twenty-ninth rolled around. And as he’d promised, they had gone out on dates – once to a movie and dinner, and once to a concert at the Filmore, plus drinks after. It was odd to him, but he would admit he loved simply sitting and talking with her, listening to her smart-ass, sarcastic sense of humor almost as much as… well, almost.

  He squirmed in his chair, the ever-present semi-hard state of his cock getting real behind his zipper at the thought of how much he was making her work without her realizing it. She was fun as hell, truth be told. Now that she had finally relaxed around him, they’d spent hours talking, laughing, sharing stories. He put his feet up on his desk, and looked at the email he’d composed to send her with the official New Year’s invite, recalling last night’s one rough moment.

  “Why didn’t you go back and press charges against Bart?” he’d said, sipping his bourbon at their perfect window table in the Rattlesnake Club. They’d sung and danced their way through a killer rock concert, and enjoyed a late night snack and drinks. He wasn’t completely sure why he’d brought it up, other than the fact the question was burning a hole in his brain – he needed to know why. And where the guy was now so he could murder him.

  She’d stiffened, put her glass down, and touched her napkin to her full lips. His eyes trailed along her neck to her arm and across her breasts, the tops of which were visible thanks to the slinky silk shirt she’d been wearing under her leather jacket. Focus, Adams. Focus, he’d had to remind himself.

  “Because, Francis, I was barely seventeen, terrified, in pain, and had one thing on my mind – getting the fuck away from him. You think it would have been in any way possible for me to waltz into some police office and claim my mother’s husband had repeatedly raped me, and it had taken me almost twelve weeks to report it? Isn’t there something about ‘possession as nine-tenths of the law’ or some shit that would have made it look like I had been consenting all that time?”

  “The phrase you want is ‘preponderance of evidence’,” he’d replied. He kept watching her and cursing himself, but it was out there now, might as well keep going down the path. “You are just so… strong-willed and independent. It seems bizarre to me that once you reached the point where you were brave enough to run away, you could have…”

  “You know what, I don’t want to talk about it.” She’d put her drink down and got up. “Excuse me, I need the ladies’ room.”

  He’d stood and taken her hand. “One thing you need to know about us is there are no secrets. None. Okay?”

  She’d yanked her hand out of his grasp. “I’m not withholding a secret, Evan,” she ground out, her face flushed. “I just don’t want to fucking talk about it. Let go of me.”

  He did and sat back down wondering how he’d get through his own issues with the man who’d harmed her, his woman, his Julie, without bringing it up to her again.

  But that had been two nights ago. She’d avoided him the last couple of days, but they were busy, that was a fact. And his surprise plan for a New Year’s Eve she would never forget, lay out in front of him sparkling and full of promise. He re-read the email once more, then hit send, but then sat up with a frown when he got an immediate reply.

  This is Julie Dawson. I will be out of email contact until January 3. Please direct all questions or concerns to…

  What the fuck…? He picked up his phone and called her. It went straight to voice mail. He sat back, stunned, his heart pounding.

  By the time he finally figured out how to contact James Dawson to make sure she was all right, he had the whole thing figured out. Question was, what should he do about it?

  Julie sat in her condo the second day after her last date with Evan, still dressed in workout clothes, sweat drying on her face. Her body was exhausted, but no matter how hard she pushed herself, her brain would not still. All she heard was his voice asking her one question. After nearly a week of rebuffing her physically, but taking her out on dates, Evan had to open his stupid mouth and bring it all up again.

  Why didn’t he get it? She was done with all of that, had moved on, grown up and out of the bullshit. Yes, he had dragged it out of her at Thanksgiving, but that was all the purge she needed. God, he was like a dog with a bone – unable to stop gnawing at it.

  She flopped back in her chair, her body clanging with another sort of need – the kind she could blame him for, too. Evan Adams was a perfect gentleman, opening doors, taking her to a movie she picked, a concert she wanted to see, bought her drinks and food, and generally treated her better than she’d been treated in her life. James was a nice guy, had opened a few doors for her, but they’d both been playacting for the majority of those years. She closed her eyes, and the image of Evan’s boyish handsome face rose up in her mind’s eye, and with it, heat from the soles of her feet, up her legs, to her core, ending with a distinct tingle in her scalp.

  Cursing him, she jumped up and got in the shower to keep from turning on her phone or taking the away message off her emai
l. Hoping to give him a little taste of his own medicine, she’d done her pseudo-disappearing act, but it was turning out to be harder than she’d thought. She was pissed off at him and his little teasing games but wanted to see him, be held in his arms so badly at the same time, her eyes burned.

  The shower distracted her some. But by the time she got out, the memory of his commanding voice, his lips, his touch, but mostly the look in his eyes when he was finally inside her, connected in the most intimate way, made her twitchy. The vibrator she’d last used maybe three years ago buzzed her to a quick climax. But left her gasping and even more pissed he’d reduced her to this.

  That fucker – if he thought he could really control her, he had another think coming.

  On a somewhat desperate whim, she grabbed her phone, turned it on and watched her fingers flying over the screen’s keyboard, texting James to ask if the Miami condo was free over New Year’s. She threw some clothes into a suitcase and kept shoving away her new reality – she wanted Evan Adams right now, all of him and everything he represented.

  “Fuck!” she yelped after jamming her toe on the door jamb in her haste to get the hell out of her condo. “Damn you, Adams,” she muttered on her near ninety-mile-an-hour trip to the airport. She kept her foot hard on the gas, loving the way her new Merc flew by everyone and everything and not even caring if a cop dragged her down for speeding. At the Delta terminal, she jumped out and tossed her keys to someone, ready to spend whatever it took to completely escape. The airport wasn’t too busy and had a jolly, festive air that pissed her off even more.

  She checked her bag and flopped into a seat in the Delta Sky Miles Lounge, holding a giant gin and tonic. Might as well get into the sun and fun spirit now, eh Jules? She raised the glass to the businessmen staring at her from across the lounge and took a sip. Her phone buzzed with a call – from Evan. “Shit.”

  She hit the decline button and turned the stupid thing off. Her assistant knew she had another phone for emergencies only. Just as she was thinking that, it rang. She rolled her eyes when she recognized the Ann Arbor number. “Persistent” wasn’t a strong enough word. She couldn’t let him do this to her. She had no business depending on him – no matter how much she wanted to.

  She drank, read a book or at least pretended to, then took her first class seat about an hour later. Sleep took her quickly as the jet flew south through the night, landing at the Miami Airport right after midnight. She jerked awake when the wheels hit the tarmac, stretched, and had a split second of confusion when she reached across the aisle for Evan’s hand. Until she recalled she had been ignoring him all day and had just bolted out of town without telling him anything. A tiny flutter of dread lit the edges of her consciousness. She was different now. They had an arrangement that implied she would not do this kind of thing, right?

  Fuck that. She did what she wanted, when she wanted, and answered to no one, not even to a man she was dying to get her hands back on, and who was undoubtedly furious with her at this very moment. She de-planed, collected her bag, and hailed a luxury cab. Pouting her way through the dark Southern city, she sensed the tiny fear grow wings and start banging around against the inside of her skull. Biting her lip, she pulled her phone out of her bag and stared at it a minute before turning it on. She had never gone this long with the damn thing off.

  What had gotten into her? Evan Adams had and he had to fucking go. She had no time for all this… craziness. She needed her equilibrium back, and the only way she’d get it would be to cut him loose.

  The night city flew by, and by the time the car pulled up to the gated South Miami Beach enclave where she had spent her fake honeymoon – shopping, drinking, and sleeping – she’d composed a text to him and sent it.

  Evan: Apologies for the short notice, but I need some space to decide if I made the right decision on Xmas eve. It’s not that our night wasn’t great. It was. It’s just there are some things about me you can’t or won’t understand. And I don’t feel I should have to explain every move I’ve made in my life or might make in the future to you. Don’t worry. I’m safe. Have a good New Year’s eve. J

  She stared at the phone, willing it to show her the little icon indicating he was responding. But nothing followed, so she climbed out, paid the cab driver, and dug out her keys to the place. It was a peaceful retreat in a renovated building tucked away in the heart of Miami Beach. She’d had some fun times here, none of them involving sex with her husband of course, but lots of dinners, card games, and laughs. It was where he’d thanked her for concocting their ruse by handing her a credit card without a limit and never left her without a companion for dinner. He was a gorgeous man, and together they turned many heads. But he was gay, already had a lover, and she was nothing more than a tall, blond, hot beard who finally, for the first time in her life, did not have to give money a second thought.

  “Fuck,” she muttered, fishing around in the shrubs for the keys she’d dropped. What a stupid, stupid thing she’d done, thinking she could get involved with a guy like Evan. He was exactly what she did not need – someone to upset her carefully constructed life.

  By the time she got the front door open and dropped her baggage on the floor, all she wanted was another drink. But every light she tried defied her and the place stayed nearly pitch-black. “Shit, James, didn’t you call the super?” She fumbled with her phone, trying to remember what the guy’s name was who normally took care of the complex.

  Fear struck her right in the chest when she heard a sound, a sort of shuffling noise, then smelled a lit match.

  “Who’s there?” She reached for the mace can she’d packed in her checked bag, but only managed to trip and fall over the thing in the dark, landing on her hip and spilling the entire contents of her purse out onto the marble floor. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes.

  She got to her feet and followed the single flickering light she could see in the far room, the one that opened onto the beach. And she was shocked to discover any fear she’d had at the original sound was gone. She pushed open the other side of the French doors, already knowing what she’d find in the next room.

  “I can’t escape you, can I?” She tried to be flippant but her heart pounded so hard she could barely hear herself think. “How did you know… I mean, who let you in?”

  She stood still, but her body was going into some kind of autonomic trance at the sight of Evan Adams, dressed as if he were going to court, in a dark blue suit, bright white shirt, and blood-red tie. He held the candle, so she couldn’t see much more than that. But the mere sight of him, there, in her stupid gay husband’s Miami Beach condo, dressed in a way that was making her mouth water, calmed her. She crossed her arms, resisting the urge to jump onto his lap and beg his forgiveness, drop to her knees and do whatever he wanted.

  But he didn’t answer her. Just sat, then put the candle into a holder on the table next to him and crossed one ankle over the other knee, draping his arms along the back of the leather couch. The light flickered, threw odd shadows across his face. She shifted from foot to foot, unsure what to do or say. The cat, her damn cat, leapt into his lap, purring and glaring at her as well while Evan scratched behind his ears.

  He sighed, uncrossed his legs, and kept staring at her. She looked down.

  “You have been quite the challenge to find,” he finally said. His low, rumbly voice made her entire body tremble so much she had to grip the door handle to keep from falling to the floor. “That is completely unacceptable, Julie. I know I made you unhappy a few nights ago. But flying off the handle and jumping a plane to Florida? Telling no one and leaving poor Buddy here all alone?” He made a tsking sound with his tongue.

  She bit her lip and realized she’d done something else wrong – she’d worn panties. She touched her hair, scraped back in a way he hated. The warm ocean breeze parted the curtains at the large door to the patio and pool, making the candle’s flame flicker.

  “Besides the fact that it is a very immature stunt, I thought
we had an understanding.” He kept talking, and the sound rolled around in her head like warm liquid, soothing her on the one hand but bringing a fresh shot of lust to her emotional mix.

  The breeze cooled her skin, blew the forbidden ponytail into her face. She looked up at him, but he frowned so she looked down again. By the time she’d convinced herself not to cry he was standing in front of her as the cat wound around both of their ankles.

  He put his hands on her shoulders, his touch sending that odd, welcome coating of quiet it always did along her nerve endings. “Julie,” he whispered, his lips at her ear. “You’ve done so many things to defy me today.” He pulled her hair loose from the tie-back. “So very many.” He reached up under her long, comfortable travel skirt, forcing her legs apart and ripping her panties into two scraps of silk. She grabbed his arm to keep from falling. “Don’t touch me, Julie. Not until I say so. I can tell we have more work to do than I thought. But first…”

  He tilted her chin up so she met his eyes. They weren’t hard, or angry, or even full of lust. They were just – Evan: kind, compassionate, loving, and firm. That realization – that he was not mad at her, but just… him – made her want to burst into tears or laugh with relief.

  “I’m sorry for being so nosy and upsetting you the other night. Truly. It is none of my business, and all I can say in my defense is I feel so very strongly about you.” He ran his hands up and down her arms, easing her anxiety and ramping up her desire at the same time. “I want you to be strong. I love that about you. It’s why I’m so drawn to you and you to me, believe it or not. And when you do something out of character, like not reporting the man who repeatedly raped you, it just rings false, not like you. So I got curious about your motivation. On the other hand, this whole running off thing,” he twirled his finger in the air, “this is you all over.”