Cold hearted bastard, p.10
Cold Hearted Bastard, page 10
He finally releases me with a soft brush of his mouth and gazes into my eyes. “We are so fucked.”
Surprise at his admission flutters in my chest. “I know.”
He rubs his thumb over my lower lip. “You couldn’t just be a pretty face, huh?”
“I could say the same to you.” I give him a pout. “You’re supposed to be a raging asshole.”
“I am a raging asshole.”
“You are.” My inner muscles squeeze along the length of his cock and he lets out a strangled groan. “Except that you’re not.”
A shadow passes over his expression and his whiskey eyes darken.
Heart skipping a beat, I put my hand on his cheek. “What?”
A little shake of his head and when he speaks his voice is gruff. “You know we have no future.”
“I know.”
“I can’t come with you, Gwen.”
There’s something different about the phrasing, or his inflection. His emphasis is on can’t instead of won’t. Certainty settles in my stomach. Something is holding Jackson here, in this place. Something more powerful than his love for cooking, or his lust for me. Until I know what I’m contending with, no argument I make will hold water, so it’s useless to argue.
But there’s something between Jackson and me. Something beyond sex, and desire, and chemistry. I don’t know what will win out in the end, probably not me, but I will get to the bottom of it.
I nod, tilt my hips into his and pull him down so our faces are close. “It’s okay.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt.” His arms snake around my waist.
“I’m a big girl, Jackson. I know what I want and I make my own decisions.” I kiss him. “You’ll do the same.”
“We need to get back out front.” His hold on me tightens and I take comfort in the fact that he doesn’t want to let me go.
“If we must.” With reluctance we pull apart and spend the next couple minutes putting ourselves back together again.
I smooth down my tank top and smile at him. “How do I look?”
“Like sex.”
I laugh. “Beau should be happy.”
He grabs a fistful of my tank top and pulls me close. “You know everyone in this place knows we’re fucking.”
How could they not? We’re not being at all discreet. I grin. “Don’t think I don’t feel a thousand females plotting my murder.”
He laughs and lets me go, only for his attention to snag on a black marker on the shelf. His gaze narrows and he picks it up, fiddling with it before turning on me with an evil grin.
I raise my brow. “Can I help you with that?”
He pushes me against the door, then raises my top, baring my stomach.
I laugh. “What are you doing?”
He kneels down on the floor, and when he presses an open-mouthed kiss to my belly, my hands tangle in his hair. He drags his tongue over my skin, circling my belly button, before his teeth sink into my flesh and I let out a gasp.
He raises his head, studies the flat plane of my abdomen for a good fifteen seconds before he takes the cap off the pen and presses the marker in the hollow between my ribs. “What are you doing?”
“Marking you.” His tone is matter of fact.
He starts to write but I can’t see the word because his bent head is in the way. I try to shift, but he holds one hip steady as he continues to work. When he’s satisfied, he pulls back and studies his penmanship. “Perfect.”
I look down and read the word written across my stomach. Jackson’s.
My chest squeezes. I am.
11
Gwen
Three days later, Jackson and I are sleeping in tangled sheets when his cell phone rings. I shoot instantly awake, my gaze flying to the clock. It’s three in the morning.
Next to me, every muscle in Jackson’s body tightens, and he sits up and mutters, “Fuck.” He picks up the phone and turns away from me, putting his feet on the floor. “Yeah.”
I can’t hear what the caller is saying but it’s a female voice.
My heart skips a beat. What woman is calling him at three in the morning? His sister? But why would she call in the middle of the night? A wife? But how can that be? We’ve been together almost constantly. We haven’t been discreet. What wife would put up with that?
The muscles in Jackson’s back flex, and the tat his left shoulder ripples along his skin.
A wife of Jackson’s, that’s who.
He runs a hand through his hair. “Slow down. What happened?”
There’s more talking and a sense of unease creeps along the back of my neck. I pull the sheet up to cover my breasts.
He gets off the bed, and starts picking up random items of clothes we’d tossed in the urgent dash to get skin to skin.
I blink. He’s getting dressed.
He’s leaving.
The call is important enough to make him leave my bed in the middle of the night.
As he starts putting on his jeans his face is remote, his expression unreadable as he listens, but he sure as hell doesn’t meet my eyes.
My stomach twists.
“Got it.” He sits on the chair where I’d straddled him countless times, working my hips to drive him out of his mind. He crooks the phone between his ear and shoulder and starts putting on his boots. “Just sit tight. I’m on my way.”
He hangs up and puts the phone on the table before pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.
When he doesn’t speak, I do it for him. “You’re leaving.”
He nods. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I sit up and lean against the headboard. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”
In the shadows I can’t see his face, can’t read what he’s thinking. He shrugs his shirt over his head and covers his magnificent chest. “What would you like me to say?”
His voice is cold. Nothing like the one that had been whispering in my ear like he couldn’t live without me. The Jackson I met that first night is back, the one that hasn’t made an appearance since the day we’d spent at the lake.
The coldhearted bastard.
I cross my arms over my chest. “Oh, I don’t know, how about an explanation?”
He sits back, casting his features even more in darkness, making it impossible to read his expression. “I have to go.”
He’s not going to tell me. There’s only one reason I can think of why he’d get a call from a woman in the middle of the night. Only one reason I can think of as to why he’d leave me because of it.
The fact that I don’t want to ask the question tells me everything I need to know about my emotional state. Of course, I’d known I was in deep. But only right now has the full impact hit me. How infatuated I am with him. How much I want him.
Because I don’t want to know.
Not because I don’t want to hear his answer, but because I don’t want to be forced to stop.
I’m that addicted to him. I want to bury my morals, my values, my sense of right and wrong. If I don’t ask, I can continue. The thoughts scare me. I will not become that woman.
I force the question to my lips, the question like dirt in my mouth. “Jackson, are you married?”
My heart pounds as I wait for his answer.
His fingers flex, curling into a fist. “No.”
Relief floods my system, so strong it makes me dizzy. I ask again, just to be sure, so I can relax completely. “Would you tell me if you were?”
“Yes, I would.”
There’s a heavy silence between us. If not that, then what? What is driving him? “Then why are you going?”
He sits forward and puts his hands on his knees. “My time still isn’t my own.”
“What does that mean?”
He picks up his phone and keys from the table. “It means I have to go.”
“Fine.”
He stands, his face is still in shadows, but his shoulders are ridged, his posture stiff and unforgiving. “This isn’t a relationship, Gwen. I told you that from the beginning.”
That’s true. He had. But like all the other women he’s been with before me, I hadn’t believed. Not really. I’d believed what I’d wanted to believe, just like he said I would.
My throat tightens and my eyes brighten with tears. I need him gone so I look away and shrug. “Go.”
And without another word, he walks out the door.
Jackson
I didn’t want to leave.
I want to ignore the call.
And worse, I wanted to tell Gwen everything.
An urge I’ve never had. An urge I don’t want. A dangerous urge. I do not share any part of my life with the women I fuck. Ever.
But after five days of her clawing her way inside me, I want to let her in.
I want her that much.
And that’s why I left without a word.
There’s no point to this, to us. Fucking until this burns out of our system is the only point, and that doesn’t seem to be working.
Her life is in Chicago. That’s where she belongs.
My life is here. There is no escaping that. No matter how much I want to.
The problem is, I want to.
She makes me want to.
It panics me. The cold rush across my skin and skip of my heartbeat tells me everything I need to know. This isn’t sex. It isn’t even lust or chemistry.
It’s something I can’t name and don’t have time for.
So I’d done the only thing I could. I’d been a bastard and left.
It’s the only way. I need to escape her before she causes any more damage. Since I’ve been back home I’ve obtained a certain amount of peace I can live with. Gwen threatens that peace and I can’t allow that.
What happened in that room—the way I felt—the desperate desire for her proves this needs to end.
I pull my keys from my pocket and make my way to my bike, roaring away before I change my mind.
12
Gwen
Okay, I spent some time crying and feel like complete shit, but I am determined to take action. I have to uncover the truth of him.
I have to understand. My mom always says it’s my downfall, my need to know. And I can’t disagree, but now’s not the time to change.
So after he’d left, I’d squashed the crazy desire to follow him home to see what he’s hiding. Instead, I’d Googled his name again for lack of any other options. Just to trick myself into believing I’m taking action.
His address hasn’t magically become listed since the last time I looked. Nor has any articles popped up about him. I did search his name and the word married, and still came up empty.
Jackson’s digital footprint is just as small as it was the first time I researched him. There’s virtually no information about him after he walked out of his job and didn’t look back. After the article that states he was going home, that was it. He’d disappeared.
And, because the media has the attention span of a gnat, they’d moved on. I mean, he’s not Brad Pitt, he was a small-time celebrity at best.
Everyone but me had stopped caring about him.
At a dead end, I pace through my small room, watching the clock. The second it hits nine I pick up the phone and call Jillian who answers after the third ring with a groggy hello.
I wince. I’d been hoping to avoid waking her. “I’m sorry I woke you. I thought you’d be up.”
“It’s okay, I need to get up. I was up until two preparing for my upcoming show on Friday.” Jillian’s voice sounds mildly more alert.
After years of being aimless, Jillian’s making quite a name for herself in the Chicago art world and ambitious drive has kicked in. Between her father, her friend, Brandon Townsend III, and her charming personality Jillian has made contacts all over the city. She’s earned the reputation of having a good eye for untapped talent. One of her last undiscovered artists, a beautiful Frenchman by the name of Gaston, went from unknown to not being able to paint fast enough to keep up with the demand for his work.
She’s been working on his next show for months and everyone who’s anyone in Chicago will be there.
I clear my throat. “I’m sorry, do you want me to call you back?”
“No, what’s up?”
“I have a problem.”
“What’s wrong?” Her voice loses all traces of sleepiness.
“Well, see,” I falter and squeeze my eyes shut as fresh tears form. I try again. “I’m falling for Jackson.”
“Oh, I knew that from the second you met him, but what’s the problem?”
“All he wants from me is sex.”
“Hmmm…” There’s a pause over the line. “And that’s not good enough?”
“I want it to be, I’ve been pretending it is, but it’s not.” I wipe the wetness from my cheeks. Thank god for Jillian, the only person I can confess to. “There’s something else.”
“What?”
I swallow hard. “He’s hiding something.”
“Like what? Is he married? Does he have a girlfriend?”
“He says no.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Yeah, I do.” I sniff, remembering the cold way he informed me that this wasn’t a relationship. That I had no right to ask questions about his life. He’d warned me, laid out the rules when this started, but damn it, it feels like I have the right. I drag my hand through my hair. “He’s too brutally honest to lie. I think if he were married he’d tell me upfront.”
“So what do you think it is?”
I shake my head. “I have no idea. I just know that it’s something, and whatever it is keeps him here. That it’s the reason he dropped off the face of the earth and works at a bar instead of cooking like he’s meant to.”
Jillian sighs. “But he won’t tell you.”
“Nope. He’s not going to let me in, Jilly.”
“So what are your options?” This is why Jillian is my best friend in the entire world. She asks the question and supports whatever I want to do. Just like I do with her.
“I know what I should do.” I just don’t want to.
“Start there. Tell me what you think you should do.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “I should tap out, admit defeat, come home, and start working on finding another chef to work with for my new venture. It’s the only reasonable option, because the truth is, it is already too late to work with Jackson professionally. Even if he wasn’t hiding something, if I could get him to agree, the way it is between us…” I shake my head, remembering our straining bodies moving across the bed, desperate to get closer. “There’s no way we could be professional. There’s too much chemistry. His cooking is my only reason for coming here, and as much as I’d like to pretend otherwise, that’s not an option. So I should be smart and come home, right?”
“Sure.” Her response is noncommittal and frustrating.
I’m not sure what I’m hoping for her to say, what I want her to tell me. I try again. “What reason is there for me to stay?”
“Because you want to?”
And there it is. It’s exactly what I want to do.
“I do.” A tear slips down my cheek. “But for what purpose? He’s going to break my heart, Jillian.”
“Is that the worst thing in the world?” Jillian is no stranger to lost causes, it’s one of the things we have in common. That and gritty, single-minded determination. She’s married to her lost cause, so I understand why she thinks I should fall.
I blow out a long breath. “It’s not like you and Leo. There is no chance for a happy ending.”
“We thought that about Leo too, remember?”
I grind my teeth. “We did. But you lived in the same city. Have the same friends. And he was already half in love with you before he caved.”
“How do you know Jackson’s not half in love with you too? You’re pretty irresistible, Gwenie.” Her voice rings with her fondness for me.
Tired of pacing, I flop down on the bed. “I don’t think Jackson is capable of loving me, no matter how much I want him to.”
How could he with the coldness in his eyes?
There’s a long silence over the phone. “Are you going to come home?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You always have a choice.”
I want to stay. More than anything I want to stay. To be with him for as long as I can until I have to go home. But it’s not smart. I’m not going to change his mind. He’s not going to move to Chicago and come work for me. Even without his secret I know him now—there is no way he’d ever work for me—to his point, we’re equals.
Being his boss is not something he’ll ever be okay with. It’s time to cut my losses and start new, with someone else.
And then there’s the matter of my heart.
I have never backed down from a challenge in my life. I take risks. I love risks.
But the price is too high. There are some things in this life I refuse to settle for and a man that only wants me for sex is one of them. Being on my own has never bothered me, and I decided a long time ago I’d never be happy with comfortable love. I want what Jillian has in Leo. Someone who loves and adores me unconditionally, someone who challenges me and pushes me, but is also unshakeable. Leo might be a hard-ass, but there’s nothing he won’t do for Jillian. Or she for him. They are completely and utterly in love and together. But more than that, they make each other better.
Jackson is never going to give me that.
So how can I allow myself to fall helplessly in love with him?
It’s not that I think it’s not possible to recover. But even if I leave right now, while I still have a shred of sanity, it’s going to take time. Every man I meet will be compared to him. How long will it take until he doesn’t overshadow everyone? Already the answer is too long.
Spending the next week and a half with him will only make it worse. It’s all risk and no reward. No pay off. Which isn’t smart, and I’m nothing if not smart.
