I release Jayce’s finger from my mouth and his chest rises in little pants, visible by the city light that filters through the darkening sky.
Jayce drops his hand from my hair, his expression unreadable. “Go get ready for bed. I’ll wash the dishes.”
“Yes, sir.” I lift my gym bag off the bed and walk to the bathroom, putting an extra sway in my hips, leaving that taunt between us. Sir. I know he felt it the first time, but I don’t know if he caught its full meaning.
Does he understand me? Does he know what I need?
I scrub my face and let out a frustrated breath. I hardly know what I need. All I know is that one moment, tied up, was one of the most erotic of my life.
And I’m desperate to feel that again.
But Jayce runs hot and cold, one moment controlled, the next, controlling. He’s gentle and harsh, sweet and biting. I need to know how to bring out the beast. If it’s in him.
I change into sleep shorts and a tank top, no bra, and come back into his bedroom. A bedside light is on low and the windows are open to the night air. This high up, the city’s sounds are a reassuring hum.
The water shuts off in the kitchen and Jayce knocks at the door. “Violet? Can I get in the bathroom for a few minutes?”
“Yeah.” I shove my bare legs under his duvet cover and pull it up to mask the outline of my breasts beneath my thin tank top. He barely looks my way, just opens his dresser drawer to remove some clothes and shuts the bathroom door firmly behind him.
The shower runs. The minutes tick by. There’s no way I can sleep like this. Just as I’m debating going out to the couch to force him to sleep in his own bed, he comes out of the bathroom. He’s clad in boxers and I try to mask my startled expression at his unholy hotness.
This. Man. Is. Built. A few drops of water glint off his torso and his hair is wet, dark and sleek against his skull.
A ping sounds from the wadded-up shirt and shorts in Jayce’s hands. He fishes in the pockets for my old phone and shakes his head when he sees the text. It’s clear he’s not sharing it with me.
Jayce shuts off my old phone and drops his dirty clothes in a laundry basket in the corner. He stands at the opposite side of the bed, uncertainty clouding his face. “Can I sit for a minute?”
I nod. Sit, lie down, curl up, kiss me. I’d want him to do all of these things, if only I knew it wouldn’t end with a broken heart.
“Violet.” He breathes heavily and I focus on the Celtic knot tattoo ringing his bicep. “What will it take to get you to trust me?”
“I—I already do,” I admit, knowing it’s true. I trust him not to hurt me, physically at least. Trust he’s protecting me right now. But I don’t trust my heart not to fall for Tattoo Thief’s most notorious ladies’ man.
I’m not that kind of girl.
Jayce raises surprised eyes and turns, rolling on his side toward me. He’s on top of the duvet and I’m under the covers, so I’m pretty well protected from any hanky-panky he might have in mind. He rests his head on his arm, the length of his body a couple feet from mine.
“Then what is it? Why do you keep pushing me away? What did I do?”
“It’s nothing you did.” It’s what you didn’t do. What you won’t do when this is over.
“You told me a secret. That’s big. Thank you for trusting me with that much.” Jayce’s hand reaches idly for my hair and I still, feeling his rough fingers skim through a few wavy strands, feeling him smooth them from root to tip, over and over.
“I can’t fight it,” I confess. “I’ve never felt so powerless against something. Every time I tried to find a way to get the site to take it down, I hit a brick wall. And today I found more.”
His eyes widen. “More pictures?”
“Worse. More sites. That’s what I was doing today at my apartment. Research. And even if I can somehow sue and get a takedown for Sexy Bitches, now more sites have my pictures posted. They’re multiplying and I’m not sure I can ever get all of my pictures off the Internet.”
My breath hitches in a little bubble of a sob, but I’m all cried out. I’m past denial, past self-pity, and straight on to resolve. I will keep fighting this.
Jayce’s hand in my hair makes my scalp tingle, as if he’s working my whole body with his fingers. Nobody else touches my hair like this—Brady liked it up in a twist, like a “hot politician’s wife,” he’d say. As a teacher, I bound it into a low ponytail or braid to keep it out of the art projects.
“So what will it take to get you to really trust me, Violet?” His eyes are serious, laced with concern. “What can I give you that’s going to prove I’m not a bad guy? That I’m not like him?”
I know he means Brady, and maybe that’s why we keep doing this weird dance, this power exchange where one minute he’s hauling me against him and biting my lip, and the next I’m calling him sir and sucking his finger like it’s his … no.
I have to stop this. The only thing that he could give me that would matter is something as intimate as what I’ve given him. “A secret.”
Jayce nods once, understanding. “Like for like. A secret, because you’ve given me yours.”
“Will you?” My voice is small, but I want this—even a tiny secret, something inconsequential. Something he doesn’t share with his groupies.
Jayce’s powerful arm comes around me, scooting me, still beneath the covers, until I’m close against him, my head tucked beneath his chin. Even through the duvet, I feel the heat of his body. “I’ll make it good, then, and tell you something nobody knows. Not even the band. Can you handle that?”
I nod a little, knowing he can feel my answer through his chin. His other hand keeps stroking my hair, as if I’ve become his pet.
“There’s some interest in me going solo,” he starts, and he tells me about the man who confronted him outside a show, the number he dialed today and the lunch planned for tomorrow.
He tells me about how Gavin’s absence for two months ripped a hole in the band, and though they’re repairing it, he’s not sure it can fully be fixed. He tells me about the creative tension, the struggle to get his band mates to accept his instrumentation rather than blindly following Gavin’s simple melodies.
When he stops, I’m quiet. It’s a big secret. Breathing a word about it to the media could tear up the band, or at least make his life hell. I don’t take this trust lightly.
He pulls back to look at me in the dim light, and our eyes meet. I’m not asleep—far from it. I’m entranced by the rich tone of his voice, the way he speaks to the feeling beneath his actions. He might be the first guy who’s ever admitted to me what’s happening so many layers beneath the surface.
Jayce moves to release me and go back to the couch.
“Wait.” I reach for him, my hand settling around his side, fingertips brushing the powerful crease of his spine. “Want to trade me for another?”
“Another secret?”
“Yes.” I would trade him secrets all night if he’d just keep talking to me and touching my hair.
“How about a small one this time?” he asks, and I hear the smile in his voice.
“I’ll take it.”
“My name’s not really Jayce. I was born Justin Cameron McKittrick, but I don’t think anyone’s ever called me that. The day my parents brought me home from the hospital, a Justin Boot salesman came to our door.”
“In Pittsburgh?”
“No, I grew up in Colorado. A ranch near Steamboat Springs. We didn’t move to Pittsburgh until high school. Anyway, Dad was so tickled about the Justin Boots that he bought a pair, and started calling me Boot. It stuck.”
“Boot? As your name?” I choke on a giggle, but imagine it wasn’t much fun for a kid to be called something so common. Like getting called Sponge or Plate or something.
“Yep. My dad’s name is Justin, too, so most people called me JC. But when I met Tyler, he just called me Jayce.”
I hmm into Jayce’s shoulder, trying on the name Justin for size.
Justin—the just. The man who’d fight for what’s right. Maybe the one who’d fight for me?
“Can I call you Justin?”
“You can call me anything you want, darlin’, so long as you call me.” He chuckles. “So what’s yours? Got another secret to share?”
“I’m stalking someone, too.”
CHAPTER 15: JAYCE
Short of changing Violet’s name or radically changing her look—and no way can I get behind cutting or dying her gorgeous hair—we’ve ruined most of the stalker’s intel.
She has a new phone number.
A new job.
And a new address, at least for now. Mine.
I feel a hell of a lot better letting Violet chase down the graffiti artist she’s been “stalking” for her photo project, knowing that the sicko stalker who’s after Violet won’t know where to start to come after her.
My place.
I walk to my lunch meeting with Darren Bishop with a wide grin on my face, like I scored big time. It feels like I did. I never laid a finger on Violet last night (unless you count her hair), but we stayed up late trading secrets like junior high school girls.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I’ll tell you what. At some point I skipped right past just caring about getting into her pants, to caring about her.
When I first laid eyes on her, I said she was a witch, a sorceress, a fairy princess. I was wrong. She’s something far more powerful than that: she’s the girl I can’t have.
She’s not saying why, but I think I get it. Maybe it’s my track record with other girls, which the paparazzi take gleeful delight in documenting. And maybe part of it is that we didn’t meet under the best of circumstances.
I’ve been bossing her around, grabbing her, pushing her to do what I thought was right. I never asked for what she needed and wanted from me.
And so now she doesn’t want me.
Someone ought to tell that to my dick. It still wants her like whoa. I fell asleep with Violet in my arms last night, the comforter creating a damn chastity belt between us where the only parts of her I could actually touch were her arms and her head. I woke up with a raging hard-on and practically limped to the bathroom for a shower and some relief.
I turn down a narrow street as I zigzag through the city toward the out-of-the-way bar where I’m meeting Darren. On my way, I see an unusual graffiti of a man in silhouette, painted like he’s hanging onto an actual fire escape ladder. The stencil next to the painted man reads, “Hang on. Help’s coming.”
I smile. That’s the kind of message Violet needs to hear right now. If she’d just let me help her … I shake my head in frustration and pull out my phone, take a photo and text it to Violet. I start walking again and I’ve barely gotten a hundred feet when she texts back:
Violet: This is the artist! The one I’ve been stalking! Where are you right this minute? Can anyone else see it??
Jayce: West Village, at Christopher and Hudson.
Violet: I’m coming with my camera right now. Can you, I don’t know, stand guard?
Jayce: Don’t freak out. The painting is safe—it’s nearly two stories off the ground.
Violet: You sure? The people who deface this artist’s work are pretty ruthless.
Jayce: I’m sure. You want me to stay anyway?
Violet: Would you?
I glance at the time—ten minutes ’til noon. If I hang out here, I might be five minutes late to meet Darren, maybe ten.
But Darren wants me; he’ll wait for me. Violet says she doesn’t want me, but I’m willing to wait for her.
Jayce: Yes. I’ll get a town car to be there before you get down the elevator.
Violet: Justin, I owe you a kiss.
And for that—not because she owes me, not because of a promised kiss, but because she called me Justin—I’m on cloud nine as I stand around and wait for her.
Good to her word, she kisses me. She looks around quickly like she’s about to do something wrong, but nobody’s watching us. She delivers a chaste peck on my cheek at first, but then she draws back, her eyes settling on my mouth, and she does it. The sweetest kiss, so soft I strain to feel it, to memorize the taste of her mouth on mine.
I have to leave her then and jog to my lunch meeting, but leaving her exposed kills me. Somewhere in the city, her stalker’s still out there.
I slide onto a barstool opposite Darren at a raised table. Layers of white paint peel off the brick wall beside us.
“Glad you could make it.” Darren’s voice is light but he’s not the kind of man who is made to wait. His half-empty pint of beer says he was right on time.
“Thanks for inviting me.” I pick up the menu. “What’s good here?”
“The privacy.” He laughs at his own joke. “Don’t worry. Decent food here. Get a club sandwich or something.”
We order and as soon as the waitress puts a beer in my hand, Darren switches to business. “So what do you think about my offer?”
“I don’t think you’ve made one yet. Have you?” I raise my brow to challenge him.
“You know what I mean. Going solo. You could ditch the dead weight of your band and launch a new career at Viper.”
“I’m not ditching Tyler.” My dead-set statement falls out of my mouth and tips my hand, showing Darren I’ve given his proposition more than a little consideration.
“So you want Tyler Walsh, but not Gavin or the drummer?”
“His name is Dave.”
“I know his name. He can pound a beat, but he doesn’t have the flash and pop that top bands expect from a drummer. I don’t know what you guys saw in him.”
“His business sense.”
I’m torn between defending Dave’s musical skills—which I admit aren’t virtuoso-level, but anybody who’s been gigging on the reg for more than five years like we have is pretty damn solid. The other part of me wants to agree that Dave leaves something to be desired on the musician side of things so Darren’ll know I’m discerning like that.
I’ve taken music lessons since I was four. I took four years of private drum lessons in high school before I decided to focus solely on the guitar, which is about three more years of lessons than Dave ever took.
“But Dave’s not your manager anymore,” Darren points out, as if we should have cut him loose long ago.
“Still acts like it,” I mutter and take a quick gulp of beer to get my mouth to stop flapping. I don’t need to alert Darren to all of the petty little annoyances that happen behind the scenes. Especially not if he wants to talk contracts.
“So, no Gavin either. The disappearing act and all. You think he’s clean?” Darren’s implying that Gavin’s two-month hiatus, in which he severed contact with all of us, had more to do with drugs than a need to find himself and finally admit the part he played in the death of his muse.
“I’m sure he’s clean,” I confirm. “But serious about the music? Not so sure about that. It’s like everything he’s writing doesn’t have room for improvement.”
“So, no room for you,” Darren sympathizes. “I get it. You’re stifled creatively. You want to work with a label that has your back, but isn’t gonna wrap you up in a bunch of marketing bullshit and red tape.”
I catch myself nodding. “Exactly.”
“What’s your exit clause look like with Tattoo Thief?”
I mumble something about needing to look into it, but the truth is there’s nothing holding me back. I can leave anytime I want, and I’ll still get a quarter of royalties for everything we’ve put out so far.
We don’t have future tour dates planned, so there’s no exposure on pulling out of that. Gavin’s gung-ho about getting Wilderness recorded soon and we have most of the songs ready, but another studio musician could sub in for me and no one would be the wiser.
Except me. And my band. They wouldn’t be Tattoo Thief anymore.
Or maybe they would?
“So, Tyler. Why do you want to take him along for the ride? I gotta be
honest with you: his musical chops are fine, but he’s just not solo artist material. His voice can’t wail like Gavin’s.”
“All the more reason to stick with him,” I say. “Look, in music it’s hard to know who has your back. With Tyler, I know he has mine. Always. And I always have his. Either I go with him, or I don’t go at all.”
Darren nods. “Fair enough. I’ll draw up some terms and courier them to you Monday. When do you think you’ll have a chance to look them over?”
I swallow. This is all moving really fast. I don’t even have an entertainment lawyer outside of the one Chief hired for us, so I’ll need to do my research, put down a retainer, schedule time to talk with him or her … the list looks menacing.
Darren must see the strain in my face because he lifts his dwindling second beer in a toast. “Relax, buddy. Not going to rush you. Take as long as you like to think it over, figure out what’s gonna fit you best. But just remember: time kills all deals.”
CHAPTER 16: VIOLET
Today looks a heck of a lot better than last night.
I’ve got one thing to do: take my old phone to the police. Jayce grudgingly gave it back to me this morning after I swore I wouldn’t look at any more texts. I still hadn’t made up my mind whether to make a report when Jayce sent me a photo of this new art.
He doesn’t know it, but he’s just given me an enormous gift.
“Hang on. Help’s coming.” The spray-painted words mean everything to me today.
I gaze up at the graffiti, one of the artist’s largest pieces to date. How did he reach the fire escape to lay the stencil? Who helped him? The fire escape zigzags up the building past six stories of apartments, so it’s anyone’s guess.
First order of business: shoot the piece.
I assemble my camera, choosing a mild zoom lens that won’t warp the image from my vantage point. Even from across the street, I can see the artist’s stylized signature woven into the stencil: VIIIM.
I step into the street to get a better angle and a delivery truck races past me, laying on the horn and nearly taking off my lens with its side-view mirror. Heart in my throat, I jump back onto the sidewalk.
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