Feverish (Bullet #3)

by Jade C. Jamison

  As she patted herself dry, she heard Mary in the kitchen. She was hollering at Clay, not out of anger—Emily could tell that much. Mary was raising her voice so she could be heard. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you’re getting up earlier and earlier. I’m just not used to it.” Based on the quality of the woman’s voice, Emily could tell she’d moved to the living room or maybe even the hallway.

  And then Emily felt a chill zip down her spine.

  Shit. Her clothes were still strewn all over the music room, and that was one of the first places Mary cleaned because it was far away from Clay’s room. Even though Clay got up earlier nowadays, Mary hadn’t changed her habits. Emily needed to get her ass in there immediately and pick up her shit. She threw on her robe and wrapped the towel around her hair. She peeked out of the bathroom door and saw that the coast was clear, so she ran down the hall and into the music room. She again felt immense relief to find the room empty.

  It didn’t seem like less than twenty-four hours ago. It seemed like so much longer that she’d lost her clothes in this room. And she and Clay might have agreed to go back to business as usual, but things felt different. She hoped she hadn’t ruined everything. She saw his t-shirt on the floor and figured Mary wouldn’t think anything about that. After all, they’d joked once or twice about what a slob Clay was. But, one after the other, she picked up all of her clothes. She’d lost them all in that one room, so that was easy. She started walking toward the door and then figured she’d better grab Clay’s shirt. She could take it and throw it in the dirty clothes later. As she made her way to the door, she heard Mary walking down the hall, talking to Clay. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

  Her mind raced through possible cover stories. She ran over to Clay’s unorganized stacks of CDs and started looking through them. She heard Mary enter the room and pretended not to hear her. “I’ve considered organizing those stupid things for him.”

  Emily hoped her laugh seemed genuine. “I was thinking about that myself. I wanted to find something new to listen to, but it’s such a mess, I got distracted.” Inside, she was giving herself a high five. She wasn’t out of the woods yet, but close. And since she hadn’t had any dirty clothes in the bathroom, it would just look like she’d stopped by before heading to her room. To make it as convincing as possible, she grabbed a Thousand Foot Krutch CD and then turned as though her mission were accomplished. God, please don’t ask anything.

  Mary didn’t ask a single question, but as Emily got closer to her and the door, Mary said, “You probably shouldn’t be traipsing around the house like that. Just…trust me. You know I love Clay, but you don’t want to be giving that man any ideas.”

  Too late.

  Emily smiled and said, “You’re right. Thanks.” And she hurried out of there.

  Once she was in her room, she slumped on her bed. She’d had enough emotional baloney for the past twenty-four hours to last her quite a while. She sat there a few minutes and then stood so she could put her dirty clothes in her hamper. She hung onto his shirt and brought it to her nose, breathing it in. Then she shook her head. How the hell had that happened?

  She knew Clay was never the kind of guy she’d be serious about, so why was she feeling so weird about him? Her dad had reminded her of that when he’d texted. She’d called him back last night. When Bryce hadn’t been able to reach her, he’d called her dad. Dirty trick. There was no way she was going to talk to Bryce, no matter what her dad said, and then she told her dad she was not going to talk to him about Bryce either. End of story. Her dad wound up saying, “I don’t expect you to tell me what the problem is. I just promised to pass on a message. Bryce said he’s very sorry.”

  She didn’t say anything. She didn’t want her father knowing about her love life. She didn’t want him to know that Bryce was screwing around on her, and she certainly didn’t want him to know about her revenge sex. She also didn’t want him to know she even had regular sex. He had to know, of course, but dear old dad was old-fashioned, and she didn’t want to be bold about it.

  She felt a little pissed that Bryce had tried to manipulate her through her father, but it didn’t escape her notice that she wasn’t nearly as upset as she should have been.

  * * *

  So he was awake, but Clay still didn’t feel like getting his ass out of bed. He could smell her on his pillow, and even though he knew they were acting normal today, he wanted to just bask a few more minutes before moving on.

  Her skirt was on the bed under the covers. That was another problem. It didn’t matter where he would wind up putting it; until it was back in Emily’s possession, Mary had the potential to find it.

  He grabbed the pillow she’d laid her head on all night and rested his head on it, and the next thing he knew, Mary was chatting at him. “I thought you were getting out of bed.”

  He startled awake. He hadn’t realized he’d fallen back asleep, but he’d just been lying there, so he wasn’t surprised. “I’m wearing nothing but my birthday suit under here, Mary. Maybe if I felt like I could get out of bed…”

  She glared at him. It was playful, but he knew she meant it too, because all he’d had to do was ask. “Let me finish emptying your trash, and then I’ll shut the door behind me.” After a few seconds, she said with emphasis, “Master.” She walked in the bathroom.

  He chuckled and raised his voice so she could hear him. “I like the way that sounds. Do I have to pay you extra to keep calling me that?”

  She walked back in the room and crossed to the door that led to the rest of the house. “I don’t think you have enough money for that.”

  He was still laughing when the door closed. So…back to normal. He could do that. First was to get his ass in the shower and continue doing all the things he normally did. He took the skirt with him, because he didn’t want the damn thing out of his sight. He didn’t know if Mary had ever seen Emily wearing it before, but women remembered shit like that. He wasn’t gonna let himself get busted.

  After his shower, he threw on a pair of jeans and combed out his hair, brushed his teeth, all the normal things he did every morning, and then he looked around his room, trying to figure out where to put the damn skirt. He couldn’t put it in a dresser drawer or in his closet, because Mary would be in them. He couldn’t leave it in the bed, because she would definitely make it when he left the room. She might change the sheets too. He couldn’t remember if Mary did that on Mondays.

  After looking all around the room, he finally decided to put the skirt in the nightstand drawer where he kept his condoms. He was pretty sure Mary avoided that drawer like the plague for multiple reasons. One was the condom stash but two was the occasional toy he’d stash in there. Just to be safe, though, he wadded up the little cotton thing and tucked it in the back.

  He could smell coffee, so he headed to the kitchen. He was satisfied he’d covered their tracks.

  Fuck. Except for the music room. For all he knew, Mary had already been in there cleaning and, if so, the jig was up. As he passed the kitchen, he saw the basement door open, so he knew she was doing laundry. That meant he’d be able to sneak off to the music room unnoticed. He hightailed it down the hall. He passed the office, not even noticing Emily was in there, but he heard her. Her voice was strained. “Clay!”

  He would come back. First, the music room. But when he went in there, the clothes were already gone. Fuck. Mary already knew. So…either she’d found out when he’d been in the shower, or she was cool with it. Or both. But he highly doubted it. He needed to prepare for the fallout.

  He walked out of the room and back down the hall, shoulders drooping a little. He could not afford to lose Mary. She’d put up with a stream of tramps, but he knew she’d be über pissed if she knew he and Emily had been together. He just knew it.

  He got near the office, already having forgotten that Emily had called him. As he passed the door again, she said, “Clay!”

  He looked over and decided to see what she needed. He should probably warn
her too. “Yeah?”

  She wiggled her index finger at him, inviting him to come closer. When he got to the desk, she lowered her voice. “I got the clothes out of the music room before Mary got there.”

  Clay felt a crashing wave of relief wash over his entire body. “Great. Thanks.” He almost wanted to say he loved her for that, but considering the state of things, that would be a stupid thing to let slip. It wasn’t true. He really dug her and, after having given it a lot more thought, would enjoy nothing more than spending more time with her, but love? Nope.

  Still, what he was feeling at that moment was close. “Back to normal now then, right?”

  She smiled and nodded and sat back in front of the computer, but he saw her looking at his bare chest. He didn’t mind. She’d been all over it yesterday. He hoped those were good memories for her.

  He started walking back to the kitchen, definitely ready for that cup of coffee now. He was glad that overnight he’d gotten his emotional shit together. Not having Emily for longer than one night was much easier having had time to sleep on it. He had no doubt she was still attached to her dickweed fiancé anyway, and he didn’t want to be rebound guy. That’s all he would be if he even tried to pursue anything with her.

  So he let that new song start rattling around in his head again. He planned to give Brian a call in a while to see if they could jam soon. They’d planned on recording the next CD sometime in the fall, so it was time to start solidifying songs anyway. He was feeling good about it when he rounded the corner to the kitchen.

  He was pouring himself a cup of coffee when Mary entered from the basement door. “Anything in those sheets I should know about?”

  It felt like gravity was pulling on his face. Had she found something? He looked up from the mug. Okay, no. She was half teasing. But what about the other half? He wasn’t going to give anything up. “Why do you think there would be?”

  Mary got up to the counter right next to him and said, “I’m not stupid, Clay. I can tell when you’ve had a lady friend over. But let me just say, for the record, that I think it’s pretty inconsiderate. The way you carry on, Emily probably felt like she couldn’t come out of her room.” Clay’s eyes must have been wide. The worried look on Mary’s face faded. “Unless, of course, you prearranged it with her.”

  Hot damn. She hadn’t figured it out. Clay had to be careful not to let out a sigh as his muscles relaxed. Then she would figure it out. “She knew about it. She was cool.” No, it wasn’t confined to his bedroom, but Mary didn’t need to know anything else. “So…if you find some shit in my bed, I had no idea it was there.”

  Mary nodded. “Good.” He continued looking at her for a moment, afraid to say anything else, because he didn’t trust that he couldn’t give it away. Mary smiled and shook her head, then took off in the direction of his room.

  That’s when Clay let out the air he was holding in his lungs. Now maybe they could get back to normal…whatever the fuck that was.

  Chapter Nineteen

  WEDNESDAY, EMILY GOT yet another email from Bryce, short and sweet. Such an asshole. Em, I’m sorry. I love you. I understand why you’re mad. Please tell me when you’re ready to talk.

  Well, short maybe, but about as sweet as a dill pickle.

  She had decided to think about it a while. She’d accepted his offer of marriage at a time when she thought she’d never love anyone. She still wondered if she’d ever be able to feel deep feelings about anyone who was any good for her, but she was beginning to suspect that she’d never be satisfied without any passion in her life. She was starting to think it’d be better for her to be alone.

  And maybe that was what she needed to focus on for a while. That was the plan, and so she just threw herself into her work. Clay was at least a good boss, in that he was pleasant, appreciative, grateful (and vocal about it), and he paid well. The basic things he had her doing were simple, almost too simple, but fine. She’d started looking into his social media and trying to find out what she should do and how she should do it. He definitely needed some interaction, even if it wasn’t much. The only activity he’d had on his Facebook page in two months was from fans posting. Even if all she did was post a picture a week, it would be better than what he’d been doing. She’d talk to him about it after she came up with a solid plan which, she figured, would take another couple of days. She needed her ideas to rattle around in her head and gel at some point. Whatever the case, she thought she’d need a handle—a username—for when she posted as an admin. She didn’t want girls propositioning her. But she also figured she’d do better to have a neutral username, something like death or black hole, so her presence as a female wouldn’t scare off those ladies. They were a huge chunk of his fan base, and she didn’t want to alienate them.

  Emily had spent a lot of the afternoon brainstorming and writing down some of those ideas, and near the end of the day, she was responding to emails. Clay walked in and sat in the chair to the side of the desk. He didn’t say anything. Emily finished reading the last two sentences of the email and then looked over at her employer. “Yes?”

  “You know it’s after five, right?”

  “And?”

  “And this shit’ll wait till tomorrow. You and me, we’re gonna go drink some beers.”

  “This shit is for you, Clay.”

  He leaned over and looked at the computer screen. “It’s email, Emily. It can wait till the morning. How many unanswered ones? Three?”

  “Four.”

  “See? Big damn deal.”

  She sighed, trying to feign exasperation, but he was right. They could wait until morning. “Fine. One thing, though.”

  “Name it.”

  “That children’s charity you donated to—they want you to come to a dinner next week.”

  “Oh, fuck, no. I did that last year, and I had to wear a tux. No way.”

  “It’s for a good cause, and they want to honor you and the other donors.”

  “No.”

  She arched her eyebrows. “I bet you look great in a tux.”

  He sucked a breath in through his nose and leaned forward, just a little. “Would you go with me?”

  She considered him. Yeah, she’d known the last thing she said was going to be a mistake, but she hadn’t been able to resist. As much as she loved Clay in his rock star casual wear—today, snug blue jeans and a black Machine Head t-shirt—she would collapse under her own body weight viewing him in something like a tuxedo. She was crossing that line again, so much easier now that she’d felt him inside her. “If you wear a tux, sure, I’ll go.”

  He smirked. “Fine. Done.” He leaned back in the chair. “Anyway, I didn’t come in here to get roped into doing shit I didn’t want to do—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m almost done. I’m doing what you pay me to do.”

  “That’s not what I was going to say.” He leaned back and stretched, fishing into his right jeans pocket. “The coast is clear, and so I wanted to bring you this.”

  This was the multi-colored mini she’d worn Sunday night. He set it, wadded up, on the corner of the desk next to the keyboard. “Oh, thanks.” She logged off the computer and then picked up the skirt. “Now that you mention it, I, uh, still have something of yours too.”

  He cocked his head. “Yeah?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Let me go get it.” She thought it was funny that he was so intrigued. He should have remembered. But they were talking about Clay, the guy who couldn’t remember to pay his electric bill until the power was shut off. Of course, he wouldn’t remember she had his shirt. She was lucky he remembered to give her her skirt back…although she’d never be able to wear it again. She wouldn’t be able to think about anything but Clay if she wore it again.

  She walked down the hall to her room, and she didn’t realize until she’d gone in there that he’d been following her. He stayed in the doorway, though, and just leaned against the jamb. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

  She smiled and walked acro
ss the room to her bed, tossing the skirt on the chair in front of the small desk. She had his olive green t-shirt rolled up and wedged between the two pillows at the head of the bed under her comforter. She pulled it back and removed the shirt. She turned around and noticed he wasn’t walking into the room. Ah…he was honoring their agreement in some weird fashion. She’d never said he couldn’t enter her room, but maybe he realized that was the only place that belonged just to her in his house. The smile on her face hadn’t faded when she met him in the doorway and handed his tee to him.

  He cocked his head. “Interesting.”

  “What?”

  Clay had never struck her as the analytical type, but there it was nonetheless. “I’m just wondering why, of all places you could have put this in your room, you hid it in your bed?”

  That was weightier than she’d expected. She wasn’t going to tell him the real reason, but she suspected he already knew. “I figured, even if she looked in my room, Mary would never look in my bed for something.”

  His smile grew lopsided, and his eyelids looked heavy. “She wouldn’t look in your drawers either.”

  No matter how much practice she’d had with playing it cool, she could feel a blush crawling up to her cheeks. “So I wasn’t thinking.”

  He took one step in her room then, and that made him close. She could still feel the fire she had inside for this man, and she knew it would make him hard to resist. “Maybe your heart took the lead.”

  She felt her heartbeat speed up in response to his words, and then she knew she might as well quit trying. Against all reason, she wanted him. Just as always, she wanted the bad boy who’d likely break her heart while at the same time fail to nurture the parts of herself that needed to grow. But fuck it. Whether Bryce had cheated on her or not, her blood hadn’t boiled with him. The hair on her arms hadn’t stood on end, hoping to feel his touch. Hell, she hadn’t dampened many panties with the guy even; Clay, on the other hand, had infected her with deep desire, and she couldn’t deny it. Her pussy was throbbing, wanting to feel him again, and she decided to take the plunge. Without thought, she grabbed him around the collar and pulled him the other step of the way into her.