“Fuck pity. I don’t want some nasty stalker sending you messages like the ones from last night. Call it a gift.”
I plunge my hand deep into my hair, trying to hold onto my fraying composure. “I don’t like your mouth,” I hiss, hating the F-bomb as it explodes from his lips.
Jayce gives me a slow look, intimate and searching. His hands drip with water, but he reaches to touch my face. I steel myself. I will not flinch.
“Oh, but I love yours,” he murmurs, his thumb ghosting across my lower lip. He strokes my cheek as my color rises. I’m frozen under his gaze. “And this blush. I can’t help it. Seeing what he wrote makes me a bit … protective.”
I stumble backward out of his grasp. I don’t know Jayce from Adam. I was stupid to let him take me home, and to trust him in my apartment while I freaked out and melted down. He could be another stalker, for all I know.
“I don’t want to be protected,” I say, and the lie slides out of my mouth as I edge back toward my room, wishing Neil would hurry up in the bathroom so I could dive in there and get away from Jayce. “I want to be left alone.”
“As you wish, princess,” he says, and he winks. He stinking winks, like he knows I’ll get that line from The Princess Bride. Like he knows I can’t stay mad at him because he’s irresistible.
I can’t. He is. But that’s not the point.
“You can’t just come in here and act like you own me, like you can just do things and I’ll be OK with that,” I say, pointing to the phone, but my argument’s already losing steam.
Jayce shakes his head and picks up his keys from a side table. I think he’s going to walk out the door—and an apology is on the tip of my tongue—but he spins and walks straight to me, invading my space, backing me up against my apartment wall with a soft thud.
His chest rises and I feel heat radiating off him, less than an inch separating our bodies. There’s something so powerful, so masculine about him that my heart beats fast in my chest, and he threads his fingers through the wild tangles of my hair.
“I don’t act like I own you,” he says, his breath on my cheek, tickling the corner of my mouth.
“You act like you want to control me.” I whimper as his hand tightens to a fist in my hair.
“Ah, but control is a different thing entirely. Control can be earned. Power can be given.” Jayce’s nose brushes my cheek. “You gave me control last night. You let me protect you.”
I raise my hands to his chest to push him away, to put distance between us, but I falter as I feel his chest rise and fall, feel his heart beat hard inside it. I shake my head. “No.”
Jayce’s shoulders drop and he allows another inch of air between us, his hands skimming through my hair as he releases me. “No is a word I respect. Always.”
I feel his body shift to turn away from me and I’m suddenly bereft without his touch, limp like I could slide down the wall. “But—”
His body is hard against mine in an instant, erasing the air between us. “But I want to have you. And I will.” Jayce’s mouth twists toward mine and I part my lips, anticipating a kiss. Instead, I feel a sharp sting in my lower lip.
He bit me!
And in one motion, Jayce turns and walks out the door.
CHAPTER 11: JAYCE
My hands twitch as I hold the red embossed business card and tap out ten digits on my phone. As it rings, I take a quick sip of beer and lean into my couch.
Today sucked. My head pounded from lack of sleep at Violet’s apartment last night, chased by too much caffeine.
Band practice brought more bickering. Gavin was in his cocky I-can-do-no-wrong mode, with songs coming out of his ass and the rest of us just along for the ride, and since Tyler’s in the hospital, Dave and Gavin outvoted me at every turn.
Considering I have more musical training than the rest of the band put together, you’d think I’d get a bit more respect for my ideas when we’re working on a song.
But no, the magic’s back because Gavin’s back.
He’s not the only one of us with magic. He might be the front man, but we’re a band, not a solo act with a bunch of backup musicians.
“Viper Records, how may I direct your call?”
“Darren Bishop, please.” I read the smoking man’s name from his card.
“Is Mr. Bishop expecting your call?”
No. Yes. I don’t know. “Tell him it’s Jayce McKittrick.”
“Just a moment.” I hear better-than-average hold music and guess it must be one of the label’s artists. I’m actually getting into the track when I hear Darren’s gravelly rasp.
“Jayce. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He chuckles like he’s just coaxed me to do a shot of tequila.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“You’ve got a pretty good idea, I’m sure. I think we should get together, see where you want to take your career next.” Darren’s voice is confident, like I’ve already signed with him. Great. Another cocky bastard in my life. “How does tomorrow look?”
“Practice at two, that’s about it.”
“Well, if you come to Viper, your Friday nights will get a lot more interesting, my friend. How about an early lunch?”
I don’t know if it’s this guy calling me his friend, or the fact that he’s talking down to me like I haven’t just come off headlining two stadium-grade tours, but his comment makes my skin crawl. Still, I play nice. “I can do that. Name the place.”
Darren picks a see-and-be-seen place in Midtown, and I balk.
“Can we go a little bit more low-key?”
“I get it,” Darren says. “We’ll keep it private for now.” He names a windowless pub beneath a better-known restaurant and I agree.
I click off the call and roam my apartment restlessly, finally settling back into the couch.
After the call with smarmy Darren, I’m second-guessing myself. Maybe I was just being irritable at practice, running on too little sleep or distracted by thoughts of a certain redhead.
My phone lit up today with texts from Shelly and another girl I vaguely remember from a month ago, but nothing from Violet. That bugs me. Is she using the phone I gave her?
I walked out of her apartment with her old phone still in my pocket—I didn’t want the texts to keep freaking her out. Hell, they freaked me out, and after handling aggressive stalker fans, that’s saying something.
I curse and switch her old phone back on. There were a couple of random messages this morning from numbers that hadn’t appeared before: lewd comments about Violet’s body. They got my hackles up, but none carried an overt threat like the texts that proved someone was watching her house last night.
Where the hell is this all coming from? Why is she a target?
I hope she called the cops today.
I hope she barricaded herself inside her apartment.
I hope she thought of me.
Shit.
I slam down the rest of my beer and peek at one new message on Violet’s old phone, feeling like a bit of a creeper myself for invading her space. I want to protect her from the stalker shit, but she’d want to know if a friend sent a message, right?
When I touched your skin for the first time today, Violet, it was like silk. Now I want your skin on my tongue and between my teeth.
The text makes me bolt from the couch like a hot poker jabbed me in the ass. How did he get to her?
I fly through my apartment—phone, keys, wallet—and jab the elevator buttons as I stare at this message. Teeth? I hate the way the word reminds me of the sexy little nip I gave Violet’s lower lip when I left her this morning. Suddenly, it makes my bite … skeevy.
The elevator moves glacially. The town car takes forever. I’m at the door of her apartment building, leaning hard on the intercom as I dial her new phone number.
The intercom crackles first. “Who’s this?”
“Violet. It’s Jayce. Let me in.”
“Are you seriously outside my building? What are you thinking? Someone might s
ee you!”
What? I’ve never known a girl who was embarrassed by me before. Girls I date parade me around like arm candy every chance they get. Before I can splice together the right response, somewhere between offended and apologetic, the door buzzes and I push through into the lobby.
I take the steps to her apartment two at a time and she’s standing there, door open a crack but chained.
A frown tugs at her makeup-free face, but it’s like my world gets ten times brighter. Her red hair is a halo, backlit from the light in her apartment, and she pushes the door closed a bit to unchain it.
“He touched you. How did he touch you? Where?” I demand, and Violet’s brow wrinkles in confusion.
“Who? I’ve been home most of the day. Alone.”
My eyes dart around Violet’s apartment but there’s no one else here. I fix on a tall bouquet of stargazer lilies and a strange feeling of jealousy weighs heavy on my chest. I squash it down. “Nice flowers.”
Violet glances at them. “Thank you. You didn’t—” she hesitates, that pretty blush creeping up her chest and neck again. It makes me want to peek down her shirt and find out exactly where the blush begins. “You didn’t scare me, you know. When you bit me. I thought it was kind of … hot.”
Her last word is a whisper and it’s got me hot. I move closer to her and she stands her ground, letting me invade her space. “Good. I wasn’t trying to scare you. Just wanted a little taste.”
My lips are rapidly closing the distance to hers, my hands aching to touch that soft hair again, when she breathes a few more words. “Then don’t apologize.”
“I didn’t.”
“The flowers.”
I pull my head back and look at her squarely. “What do you mean, the flowers?”
“You said you were sorry. In the flowers.” She turns to them and plucks the card from a little plastic spear at the heart of the bouquet.
I’m sorry for scaring you, Violet.
I shake my head. “No. These aren’t from me.” The smell of lilies is suddenly cloying, too strong in New York’s sticky summer heat. “How did you get these?”
“Delivery. I signed for them this afternoon.” Her mouth drops open and I can see the gears working. If they’re not from me, they’re from her stalker.
“And so you left your apartment, walked downstairs, opened the door—” My voice rises and I take a step back, raking my hand through my own hair instead of hers.
“I buzzed him in,” she whispers. “I buzzed him into the lobby and met him on the landing. I signed…”
“Did he touch you? When he gave you the flowers, or the paper to sign?”
Violet nods and her eyes widen. She might have just come face-to-face with her stalker, but what’s clicking into place for me is that he could have forced her back into her apartment or even taken advantage of her in the lobby.
“So then what happened?” I force my anger to a simmer, leading her to the couch. She looks like she’s about to fall over.
“Corey, my upstairs neighbor, came in when I was signing and said he wanted a DVD back that he’d lent Neil last week.”
“And so the delivery man left.”
Violet nods again. “And then Corey followed me upstairs.”
“Into your apartment?” She nods. “And did he touch you when you gave him the DVD?” Again, she nods.
I breathe out heavily, resting my head in my hands. It could have been the deliveryman. Corey might have saved Violet from … I don’t know what. Or it could have been Corey—he’s close enough to know when she comes home. He’s close enough to watch her.
“Did you go anywhere else?”
She rewinds her day: she went to a coffee shop around the corner. She stopped at the bodega on her block and bought a few things. As she describes each interaction, I’m building a list of suspects in my head, men who are too close to her, who could have touched her, who could watch Violet, covet her, see her as prey.
“Please tell me you went to the police.”
Violet presses her lips together, and for once I’m not distracted by that pretty, full mouth that begs to be bitten. “And tell them what? I’m getting dirty texts? I don’t have any proof! You stole my phone!”
I shake my head, unwilling to give it back to her. “I didn’t want you to have to see any more texts. I can take it to the police with you. Did you tell your friends about your new number?”
Violet frowns, and I want to kiss that frown off her face more than breathing. I can’t, though. The way her shoulders are hunched, her body drawn into itself as if she’s bracing to be physically hurt or ill, sets off every alarm bell in my head.
“I sent a few texts, to Neil and Stella and my little sister Katie.”
“You have a sister?” Weirdly, this interests me. I don’t know why. I never cared whether Shelly or the other girls had families.
“Three of them. Katie’s going to be a senior in high school. Brianna’s a sophomore and Sam’s a freshman. They live upstate.” Violet crosses the room to the kitchen, a frustrated huff escaping from her lungs. “Why are you here, Jayce? Are you going to give me back my phone?”
“If you tell me why you’re getting these texts.”
She crosses her arms. “No.”
“Then that’s my answer, too. You don’t need this kind of shit.” I hold up her phone and she strides toward me, lunging for it but I hold it out of reach. “Why won’t you tell me what’s really going on?”
The gates slam closed on her expression and her hair looks even more fiery when she’s mad at me. “It’s personal.”
“I want to know.”
“Do I have to spell it out for you? It’s personal, as in, none of your stinking business.” She makes another grab for the phone and I wrap my arm around her, hauling her against my chest. Her green eyes are blazing and her cheeks are flushed, but not enough to hide the sweet sprinkle of freckles across her face.
“I want it to be my business,” I say, letting my breath fall heavily on her cheek. Her pupils dilate, her body softens against the hardness of my chest, and I admit that I’m not playing fair.
I’ll use whatever it takes to get this out of her. I need it to keep her safe.
Violet’s old phone chimes, and I read the text over her shoulder, not loosening my grasp on her body.
Get rid of him, Violet, or I will. We’re meant to be together.
CHAPTER 12: VIOLET
I struggle against Jayce, my chest constricted by his tight grip around me. I twist to see the text that makes him hiss and hold me tighter, and my lips brush his cheek as I turn.
Jayce’s amber eyes turn back to me, piercing me, demanding an answer. I can’t tell him why these texts are coming—if I did, I’d have to admit the pictures, the revenge porn site, and what Brady did to me.
What I let him do.
I squeeze my eyes shut, remembering that moment in the rented studio space when everything changed. I was behind the camera, shooting Brady for his campaign photos.
I’d unbuttoned my blouse a few inches south of decent because of the hot studio lights, and his eyes were hooded with desire. I laughed and told him to save sexy eyes for the bedroom, that we needed a Mom-and-apple-pie smile.
Brady is a good-looking guy, with a sharp jaw and piercing blue eyes beneath close-cropped black hair. I moved onto the set to smooth his jacket in a new pose and he grabbed me, taking my mouth ferociously.
I put down my camera, let him lay me back on the couch and remove my blouse, my bra, my shorts. I thought we were going to fool around for a bit, but when nothing but a scrap of silk remained between my legs, he grabbed an extension cord and bound my wrists above my head as the lights pounded down on us.
Even as Brady kindled fear, he kindled lust, too. This—to be dominated—was new and wild and wicked. It set fire to my blood and I wanted it.
Until I heard the shutter click. My head shot up in panic, but Brady knew where to touch me to blend desire and fear, terror and want
.
“Let me see all of you,” he said. It wasn’t a request. I felt the cords bite into my wrists, unyielding. “This isn’t the good little girl. This isn’t Daddy’s little puppet.”
Brady laughed as he kept clicking—his deep politician’s voice smooth. When I met him last summer as he and my father campaigned together, I saw the way he could command power, magnetic and dangerous.
Brady and my father appeared at dozens of town hall events together. Brady’s ambition is to be New York’s youngest state senator, taking over my father’s seat, while my father aims to leave the state senate and become a U.S. congressman.
At campaign events, Brady was the opener, laying out their conservative platform. My father was the closer, tugging at heartstrings with his family values rhetoric. I was the sideshow, there to pick up key demographics—women, teachers and college students.
I knew my speech, “Two great men are fighting for you,” backward and forward. While Dad usually intimidated or discouraged the few other men I’d dated, he pushed me together with Brady.
It made a great story. The media ate it up.
Brady clicked and coaxed as I squirmed, finally setting down my camera and popping its memory card into his pocket when tears leaked from my eyes. I knew he liked porn; I just never realized he wanted images of me.
“These are just for me, baby,” he said, hushing me with a kiss as he unknotted the cord. “You’re so goddamn beautiful, and it’s such a long time until I see you again. Thought I’d take a little souvenir until next time.”
***
Fingers brush my jaw and I’m slammed back into the present, into the rock-hard chest of another man who doesn’t think twice about dominating me physically. I twist and my nipples brush against him, proof that my body is betraying me again.
“Violet. Come back to me.” Jayce is still, his sweet breath fanning across my face as he holds me. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to know what’s driving this. I want to help you stop those texts.”
The softness in his voice, the way his arms relax and blend our bodies together with gentleness rather than force, uncoils the knot inside me. I slip my arms around his shoulders, leaning into him for strength, and he hoists me up and carries me back to my room where he sets me gently on my bed.
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