Primal (2 page)

Her dark eyes danced merrily. “It’s likely a mouthful is exactly what you need.”

As a dark-haired and free-spirited naturalist, Jazmin Plant was the opposite of the Beverly Hills born blonde Olivia in almost every way. Why her blunt words were a surprise Olivia didn’t know.
 

“If the man doesn’t know what to do with his cock to get you off, then why put up with all the other shit that comes with having him in your life?”

She huffed out a laugh and smiled at her closest friend. “Only you, Jazzy.”

Jazmin grinned. “You know I’ll always tell you like it is, and in this case, you should definitely listen to
me
and not some spoiled-ass banker who’s trying to blame his failings on you.”

“There’s more to a good relationship than sex,” she said. Not that she’d know from experience, since in her forty-four years she’d never had a relationship last more than three months—the honeymoon stage as she called it. Olivia didn’t blame the sex, though. She liked sex enough and enjoyed it. She blamed her career. “Tom’s breaking up with me didn’t have anything to do with sex, or the quality of it. He just got tired of me canceling dates because I had to work. He didn’t like playing second fiddle to my clients.”
 

“If he was any good in the sack, then you’d be less inclined to stay late and work and more inclined to head out to be with him.”

Olivia laughed. “He wasn’t that bad.”

“Ah-ha!” Jazz cried, pointing a blunt finger at her. “Not bad is not the same as good, my friend, and you know it.”

The weird thing was Olivia did know it.

She took another sip of her Chardonnay and relaxed completely for the first time since she’d left Tom’s place earlier that evening. She might not agree with Jazz about sex being the glue that held a relationship together, but she got that Tom wasn’t the man for her. He was a nice guy, a good guy, and maybe that was the problem. He’d bored her, in bed and out of it. She
would
rather be at work than with him.

“Enough about my life,” she said with a smile. “Tell me about this new store you’re opening.”

As Jazz explained the concept for the new cafe/gallery/bookstore she was opening, Olivia listened and marveled at her friend’s ingenuity. She sat and soaked up the energy her friend radiated and thanked whatever higher power had thought to make them roommates at college so many years ago. It had been a fight with her family for Olivia to be allowed to live in the dorms at UCLA, but she’d been determined. Getting out of the house she’d grown up in and into those dorms had been essential to her plan of escaping the family folds that tried to desperately suffocate any sense of individuality. She’d completely lucked out getting the nonjudgmental Jazmin as a roommate. They’d both wanted the same things in a way. Jazz had wanted to get away from her commune roots as much as Olivia had wanted to ditch the silver spoon she’d been born with.
 

Both of them had been eager for new experiences and had become close quickly. By the time they’d graduated, Olivia was closer to Jazz than she was to any of her blood-and-bone family. Despite living very different lives for the past fifteen years, the two had only become closer.
 

“We don’t get together enough,” Olivia said after they’d paid the bill and Jazz was unchaining her bike from in front of the cafe. Olivia glanced up and down the near-empty boardwalk. The sun had set almost an hour ago, and now, almost all the shops were closed and the lively and colorful vibe of Venice Beach in the daytime was gone. They’d hung out longer than they’d planned.
 

“Now that Blake is away in college you have to promise me that you won’t just bury yourself in that store. You will set aside time for yourself,” she said as they walked to the parking lot together.

Jazz smiled. “And you?”

“And me,” Olivia confirmed.
 

“How about we make a weekly date, like we used to do before…”

“Before you fell in love with a wonderful man, had a beautiful baby girl and made a family together?” Olivia asked gently.
 

Jazz smiled sadly. “I’m sorry we lost touch, Ollie.”

“I’m not.” Her friend’s teary eyes widened, and her mouth rounded in a surprise. “I’m glad one of us lived the dream of finding and falling in love with a good man. I couldn’t be happier that you married and had a baby, and had a good full life with Daniel before he was wrenched from you so unfairly. It’s my fault I let you drift away. You always invited me to Blake’s birthdays, and family dinners, but I didn’t always show up.”

“You showed up when I needed you.”

Olivia remembered striding into the hospital that night after hearing they’d been hit by a drunk driver. Scared out of her mind, she’d found Jazz covered in blood and cuts with such unbelievable pain in her eyes at the loss of her husband and had known true heartbreak for the first time. “I’ll always be there when you need me.”
 

“I know,” Jazz said softly. “I’ve always known. And I promise, now that Blake is in school and the shop is almost open, you’ll be seeing me a lot more often. Say every Thursday night again?”

Pleasure warmed Olivia’s heart. “It’s a date.”

When they reached the parking lot and found it near empty, Olivia realized it was quite late. The women hugged, and Olivia watched Jazz hop on her bike and pedal away before she climbed into her old Jaguar.
 

She turned the key in the ignition and growled when the engine coughed but didn’t turn over. It was the first car she’d bought with money she’d made on her own, and even though she could easily afford a new one now, she loved the car and hung onto it for all it stood for.

She glanced around the near-empty beach and boardwalk, and a tingle of unease fluttered in her belly. Clearly, she’d hung onto it longer than was smart. Closing her eyes, she muttered a quick prayer and turned the key again, relieved when it caught and began to purr roughly.
 

A sharp rap on the driver’s side window and a shouted, “Yo!” made her eyes pop open and a squeak jump from her tight throat.

She turned her head and tamped down her fear at the smiling face in the window. “Get out the car, bitch.”

She slapped her hand over the automatic locks a split second before he tried the handle. Then she shoved the car into reverse and was about to slam her foot on the pedal when there was a loud bang on the hood. She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw another gang-banger there, this one pointing a gun right at her.
 

“Damn it.” She knew better. She really did.
 

Venice Beach at night wasn’t the bed of crime it used to be, but victims of random violence made up a good many of her clients. Crime was everywhere and anywhere; she knew it in her head, but suddenly none of that mattered. What mattered now was that, as she looked around, the only people she saw were the two car-jackers and a couple of lumpy shadows that were likely homeless people who wouldn’t get involved.
 

“Come on, bitch, get out the car!” the guy at her door shouted. “The longer you make us wait, the harder it’s gonna be on you.”

She put the car in park and quickly slipped her heels off while she grabbed her purse and pretended to fumble with the door locks. She could hear them laughing and talking shit outside the window, but she ignored it, instead focusing on what she had to do. She had to get past the guy at the door and run. They could have the car; they couldn’t have her.
 

Most people liked to run on the beach in the morning. Start the day off right, and all that shit. Adam worked-out every morning but in his gym. He preferred to run the beach at night a couple of times a week. It was less crowded, and the sound of the waves rolling up on the beach weren’t drowned out by barking dogs or seagulls hunting. Plus, every now and then, he got the bonus release of handing out a beat-down to some idiot who was stupid enough to see him as a target when he strolled the boardwalk for his cool down.
 

He was standing in front of the red and white striped awning of the cafe where he’d seen Beauty before he started his run, when a sharp scream rent the air. South, it came from the south.
 

Adam didn’t think twice. In seconds, he was at the parking lot and saw one guy wrestling with a woman on the ground next to an old Jaguar Coupe, and another dancing around them, waving his hands in the air and egging his buddy on.
 

One of those hands held a pistol, but the idiot was so intent on watching his buddy he didn’t see Adam coming until it was too late. His eyes widened, he aimed and fired, but Adam had already started his roll. He came up to the left of the gunman, grabbed his outstretched hand, turned into him, and pulled it down sharply over his own shoulder, dislocating the shooter’s elbow and shoulder. The guy’s scream of pain was cut off sharply when Adam spun again and punched him in the throat, effectively dropping him out of the fight.
 

It had taken a total of three seconds, and when Adam turned to the pair on the ground, the second attacker was already on his feet and taking off. The animal inside him wanted to chase down the other prey, but the man needed to stay and protect.
 

Adam turned to the wheezing, moaning pile of shit next to him, slammed a roundhouse into his jaw, knocking him out, and then turned to the woman now kneeling on the ground.

It was Beauty.

“Oh, my god,” she whispered, staring at him.

He squatted so he was at eye level with her but didn’t move closer. He didn’t want to scare her any more than she already was. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She stared at him a moment longer, pupils dilated, lips parted, then she gave her head a shake and pushed to her feet, visibly gathering herself.
 

“Of course you’re not going to hurt me. You saved me,” she said as she picked up the purse nearby and dug through it. “Is he dead?”

“No.”
 

Adam listened, looking her over as she called 911, and asked for police at their location.
 

She was very calm and cool. Her voice didn’t waiver, her hands didn’t tremble, and her avid gaze never left his.
 

He’d had no fear heading into the fight, but when he looked at Beauty, he was afraid—afraid he’d just found someone he wouldn’t be able to let go.
 

Her hero was tall, dark, and dangerous. One second, she’d been fighting to keep from being raped and, the next, she’d been free. It was that god-awful scream of pain echoing around them that had stopped the guy who’d been on top of her. They’d both looked up in time to see a vengeful angel of death turn and head in their direction.
 

Olivia had frozen, but her attacker wasn’t so slow. He’d jumped up and ran off quicker than a sprinter from the starting blocks at the Olympics while everything in her had slowed and focused on
him
. Even now, while she automatically answered the questions the operator was asking, everything was sort of moving in slow motion—except her heart rate. Her heart beat a rapid tattoo against her chest, and it wasn’t fear or adrenaline.
 

Okay, maybe adrenaline. But there was also arousal. Some primordial part of her had gone all soft and brainless at the sight of the big, strong man in front of her. Visions of him throwing her over his shoulder and carrying her off as the spoils of victory had her creaming in her panties instead of screaming at the 911 operator to hurry the hell up.

He was one magnificent animal. If she were too blind to see it in the lean muscles clearly defined beneath his clinging T-shirt, she’d see it in the way he moved—graceful strength and power held in check. It vibrated off him. She could feel it brush against her skin even from ten feet away.

Sirens screamed through the air, and she disconnected from 911. The police were almost there.
 

“Why’d you take your shoes off?” her caveman asked, ignoring the black-and-white patrol car that swung into the parking lot.
 

She looked down at her bare feet and wiggled her toes. “I kicked them off so I could run faster.”

Stealing a glance at him from under her lashes, she was surprised to see him almost smile.
 

“Smart.”

Heat crept up her neck, and pleasure washed over her at his soft praise.
 

“Step back from the lady, now!”
 

“It’s okay, officer,” Olivia called out as she pulled her gaze away from the man in front of her and turned to two policemen striding closer. “He’s the one who saved me. You might want to cuff that one though.”

While one officer handcuffed the guy on the ground, who had just started to come around, the other came over to question her hero. She should’ve stopped them from treating him like a perpetrator, but she wanted to hear his answers as much as—probably more than—they did.
 

“Adam Kessler,” he answered, calmly. “I was just cooling down after a run on the beach, and I heard her scream.”
 

Adam, she thought. The first man. Was there nothing about him that wasn’t powerful?