House Rules: The Jack Gordon Story (12 page)

“Oh,
come on, Jack. Let’s just not do this.” He kept his distance, the rumbling in
the back of his skull ready to explode, and god knows what he would do then.

“You
fucked my roommates? Did you take on Adams too?” He rubbed his neck, attempted
not to shove her into the wall. “Let’s not do what, Jenna? Be grownups? Jesus.
Go, leave the chain on the counter.” He walked out, every inch of his skin on
fire. A strange sense of relief claimed him then morphed into fear—raw, abject
terror at being alone again.

No,
you stupid idiot. You utter fool. Women are bitches. Cooking, cleaning, and
fucking was right.
His
father was right. He shut the door of his bedroom, didn’t slam it, wouldn’t
give her the satisfaction. When he heard her car squeal out into the street he
walked back to the kitchen, saw the ring box and the chain on the table. With a
roar of rage he flung them both against the wall.

Evan
was out, god knows where, so he made three phone calls and within thirty
minutes the house was full, he had a hot woman on his lap and a bourbon bottle
in his hand. It was the last thing he remembered for a while.

* * * *

When
Evan found him the next morning he’d passed out on the floor, and it took
getting his stomach pumped to revive him. Not something he would ever do again;
lose it like that over a woman. They sat in the car after he’d been released
from the hospital and he’d reassured both Rob and Suzanne he was alive and
fine, and sans the bitch they all hated anyway.

He
groaned and put his head against the side window. The monumental fact of his
complete idiocy consumed him. He’d heard it all last night, all the times Jenna
was at her “study group” but was instead fucking some other guy, countless
other guys. He had been played. She had topped him in an impressive way and in
public. As in everybody knew about it but him.

The
glass was cool on his face. But he didn’t think he’d ever recover from the
horrific moment he’d allowed himself to feel something beyond the physical and
had his heart handed to him, still beating and dripping blood, by the very
woman he’d given it to for safekeeping.

Evan
spent a bit of energy trying to convince him not to lump all women into the
same group as that evil slut he’d actually considered “wife material.” After
he’d assured Jack that he, Evan, had not laid a finger on the woman. Jack
believed him. Evan Adams was the most straight-up dude he’d ever encountered
despite his freak show tendency to switch and go sub to older women.

He
snorted.
Wife. That was rich.
He would never marry. Not if it meant
being willing to compromise as he’d been prepared to do with that cunt. His
chest hurt, and his throat felt like it had been ripped out because of the tube
they had to shove down it. He could thank Jenna for that too.

“Goddamn
it.” He pounded the dash, furious at himself for even saying her fucking slut
name in his head. A dark shadow curtained his vision, bringing with it an angry
restlessness he hadn’t felt in years, not since he’d discovered what made him
tick, what got him off, and what he’d neglected, in service to that whore.

“Starting
over,” he said to the window, as he sat in the car with his friend. “That is
job one now.”

“Yep,”
Evan agreed, climbing out of the car. Jack watched him head to the house
wincing when he tried to swallow around his aching throat.  He had a job lined
up for himself, and one for Evan if he wanted it. After what that guy had been
through he’d let the job search lapse so Jack, in his typical take-charge way,
had found him something. They were both headed back to Ann Arbor, and the
“starting over” time began right now.

Chapter Eleven

The
dark room felt familiar, so many of the sights and sounds the same. He’d found
a new club, run by none other than the former NFL star Kyle Summerlin. The
Suite was in downtown Detroit, not far from that first, much smaller and less
well-appointed place where he’d learned his way as a sexual Dom—or more
realistically, the only way he knew to truly calm his nerves.

He
knew Kyle already, from his Chicago club days, but met up with him again at a
big-time fundraiser for a politician he hardly gave a shit about but had been
dragged to by his woman of the moment. The men had hit off immediately, and
once Jack realized “The Suite” that his Chicago friends told him about and
Kyle’s place were one and the same, he procured Kyle’s cell phone number and an
invite to his club. After he screwed and then summarily dumped the woman from
the party, of course.

Because
that was the one thing that defined him lately—screwing around and dumping
random women—and he liked it. Or at least it made him happy. Well, okay it kept
him on an even keel. Having his first million in the bank helped, of course,
and he could thank his own resourceful, hard-working self for that.

He
sat, sipping tea and pondering just how much had transpired for him in the last
few years. He had stayed away from the whole BDSM scene for a while, trying to
wrap his head around what the hell he had done so utterly wrong with Jenna.

The
job he’d found in real estate title law was mind-numbingly boring which left a
lot of time for self-contemplation. Finally, after signing one gigantic
commission check too many he enrolled in the next real estate licensure class,
on a total whim, out of the same sense of boredom and non-direction that had led
him to law school in the first place.

Like
anything else he put his mind to, he excelled, giving it a hundred and fifty
percent of his energy and after a few years he was the superstar agent at
Stewart Realty, the largest regional, independently owned brokerage in Ann
Arbor. As a total side bonus: he’d taken on the challenge of seducing every hot
female agent in the company plus a few clients, and memorably, the mother of a
client. She’d been a very eager cougar who’d made him nostalgic for Mindy,
until the woman got a wee bit too clingy after a couple of fun nights so he had
to cut her loose.

John
Gordon Senior had kicked the bucket in the meantime as well. Massive heart
attack dropped him on a job site in his tracks, dead before his stupid head hit
the floor. That had been one of the more surreal weeks of Jack’s life. Not only
had he lost his father—the one man who still motivated him, if for no other
reason than to prove him wrong, that he, Jack would be more successful in every
area of his life—but he’d gained a brother-in-law.

His
sister Maureen had gone and fallen head over heels for none other than his old
friend Brandis, right under Jack’s nose. He had rejected it even as he saw it
coming. Even after he caught them together in Brandis’ bed in the house he
shared with the guy one summer. While it took him a while to accept it, he knew
it was just him being the overprotective big brother. It had not helped that
Brandis and Mo had moved overseas nearly immediately to an airbase in Germany.

His
friend had become a respectable, reliable grown up—not much different than he’d
been as a teen really. Jack had just been too busy to notice. There was not a
man on the planet who would be a better husband for his sister than Brandis.
Their wedding had been one of the happiest days of his life, to date.

And
they now had twins, a boy and a girl, that Jack truly adored. They made it home
twice a year, and he had been over there once or twice. “Vacation” being a word
he didn’t truly give much weight to, considering his drive to make more, be
more, and have more, even now after having just rounded the corner on his
mid-thirties, and still alone.

He
stretched his arms over his head and observed the subs being led into the dark
wood-paneled room. His skin pebbled in anticipation but his mind was not on the
task tonight, he could tell. And that was probably not good for any woman who
wanted him, so he started to rise and head for the side door, hoping to catch
Kyle on the way out and apologize.

A
whiff of perfume, or something more primal, made him stop and turn, narrowing
his eyes at a luscious female form. She knelt on the stage, dressed in a
leather bustier, a thong, and high black leather heels. He stuck his hands in
his pockets and watched her a minute, trying to square what his head was
telling him—to go home—with what his body now suddenly, urgently messaged—go to
her.

He
let his body lead, which was par for his course, and something he should
probably change. But his skin was tingling in a familiar way, and his brain was
clearing of all clutter. He knew nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing—but her.

She
was curvy perfection, legs that went on for miles, and a head of thick auburn
hair that made his fingers curl into fists in anticipation of diving into it. 
He hesitated a split second, realizing why he’d been drawn to her and that he
should just leave and let someone else have her.

That
hair…he touched it as he stood in front of her. It was like spun red silk under
his fingers. Heart pounding, he did the forbidden thing, unable to stop
himself. He put his finger under her chin, tilted it up so he could see her face.
He had to—the imperative drove him to break rules, even as he heard Kyle’s
throat clearing admonition behind him.

Her
eyes were huge, hazel, and sincere. Her full lips parted, which made him bite
back a groan of anticipation. He sighed and walked away, kept going until he
hit the door. He heard Kyle calling his name as he pressed the elevator button.

He
had to get the fuck out of here. He had no business doing this anymore. It
might calm him some but it revved him up too high at the same time. He needed a
break. But his body was putting on an admirable show of resistance. His legs
trembled, his scalp kept tingling in that way he knew could only be helped by a
long, hard, session aided by—he could guess by looking at her—handcuffs, a ball
gag, a flogger, and hot wax that he would drip, slowly, down her creamy white
torso.

“Fuck
me,” he muttered, leaning on the wall with both hands, shaking like a leaf.

“Jack!”
Kyle was nearer now, and Jack punched the button again, willing the damn
elevator to rescue him, as if he’d be free once the doors were shut. Which he
knew was nonsensical. But the way he felt, a slave to his…kink…to his fetish.
It was too much. Jack was a guy who had to be one hundred percent in control of
everything, everywhere. This thing he did, this urgent, base need he exorcised
more than twice a week, was gaining the upper hand. He had to wrestle it back
into its cage where it belonged.

“Gordon,
shit.  What the hell? Do you have any idea who that was you just left, alone,
like an abandoned prom date? Jesus.” Kyle’s eyes were bright with angry
confusion. Jack was his prize pony, his Master stud, whose prowess was known
far and wide among the circles that cared about such things.

At
that precise moment, Jack hated Kyle. Hated this whole sick scene. Despised
himself for falling prey to it.

“No,
I don’t. I don’t care. I’m not…I don’t feel too hot. I gotta go.” He turned
from the man who had become a good friend to him and to Evan, and had been his
friend Rob’s lover, briefly, before that guy had run off to Chicago. What a
convoluted mess. When Rob had told him he was bi-sexual, after his years in
France had opened his eyes to that fact, it felt like one more thing Jack
should have figured out but hadn’t.

He
sighed. Kyle put a firm, and very large hand on his arm. “I am not in the mood.
I won’t be any good for anyone.” He kept his gaze trained on the still closed
elevator doors.

“Relax.
It’s fine. Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply you had to do anything you didn’t want
to.”

“Oh,
I want to.” Jack turned around fast, anger licking at the edges of his brain.
“I want to toss her sweet ass up on a cross and spank her, hard, use wax on her
too…I want to make her scream my goddamned name and beg me to fuck her. Then I
want her to suck my cock with those amazing red lips so hard I see stars.” He
tucked his hands in his pockets, not even sure why he’d said all that. Now that
he’d stated it, he wanted it even more.

Kyle
leaned back, raised an eyebrow and stared at him. The guy was nearly six foot
ten and three hundred pounds of powerful muscle. With a light brown complexion,
odd, reddish–brown, tightly-curled hair and gray eyes. He’d always been a
specimen on the gridiron. Now, covered in bespoke dark navy silk and wool,
Egyptian cotton with three-thousand-dollar leather shoes and sporting a watch
that cost twice as much as Jack’s own, he was the epitome of success.