The Beauty Series Bundle (32 page)

C
harlie gives
me that look most of the time we’re performing, and I’m pretty sure I don’t need anyone to translate its meaning. It reminds me of what I once saw in Jack Henry’s eyes—a forewarning of things to come.

I still recall the way he could make me tremble when I saw that look from him. I desired all the things my sexy Aussie man had in store for me. And I still do. Desperately.

I’m not being fair to Charlie. He doesn’t deserve what I’ve put him through the last couple of months. He’s a sweet guy and is so good to me. He’s been incredibly kind and understanding about Jack Henry. He even said that he’s willing to wait for me, but tonight’s there’s something different in his eyes. It’s a fire and it’s new. I consider it a warning that he may be changing his mind about patiently waiting for me to get over a man I’ll never see again. Or never stop loving.

We wrap up the show and the band heads backstage to the lounge. I’m exhausted as I fall onto the couch. I just want to go back to the hotel, shower, and crawl into bed so I can sleep for a year—or until this ache in my heart has left me. But I can’t. Charlie wants to talk and there’s no way I’m letting that conversation happen in either of our hotel rooms.

He sits next to me on the couch and I find myself alone with him. He reaches for my hand and cups it inside his while his thumb strokes the top of mine. “I want to talk about what’s going on between us.”

He’s right. We have to talk about whatever this is. I need to tell him we aren’t going to happen, so it’s only right for him to know before he has a chance to say too much. “Okay, but I need to go first.”

Charlie’s hand releases mine and he moves it to my knee. He begins rubbing it the way Jack Henry would when we’d sit on the couch and talk. I catch myself closing my eyes so I can pretend it’s my caveman’s hand I feel—not Charlie’s. “I already know what you’re going to say and that’s why I’m going first. I need to tell you how I feel before you have the opportunity to shoot me down.”

That confirms it. He’s about to make his move.

“I know you aren’t over him. I’m not stupid. But I really believe I can make you forget him if you’ll only let me try.” He moves his hand higher up my thigh and twists his body so he’s facing me. “Would it be so hard to let me in? Would it be so terrible if you let go of all your pain and found happiness with me?”

It’s what I want—to be happy again—and sleep a whole night without seeing him in my dreams. In my sleeping fantasies, he’s cradling my face with his hands and asking me if I want to try to make things work. Then I wake and my heart breaks all over again. It’s a vicious cycle and as hard as I try, I can’t make it stop.

I don’t say anything—because I can’t—and Charlie doesn’t stop pleading his case. “Those who can’t forget the past are condemned to relive it. That’s what’s happening to you, and it has to stop. You have to let him go. It’s been three months. He’s in Australia and you’re here. The bastard hasn’t even made an attempt to call you.” He reaches for my face and his thumb catches the single tear rolling down my cheek. “I want to be the calm in your storm, not the shipwreck that takes you down. That’s what he is to you.”

He reaches for my face and leans over to kiss me. I let him because I’m desperate to feel anything besides this pain that consumes me night and day. It’s smothering me and I die a little more each day.

Charlie’s lips are soft and his kiss is gentle. There’s nothing demanding about it. Or stimulating. And it’s at this moment that I’m swallowed up by the fear that I may never find a man who makes me feel the way Jack Henry did.

The lounge door swings open and PJ breezes into the room. I jerk away, embarrassed at being caught kissing Charlie. He stops and looks surprised. “Sorry. Maybe I should’ve knocked but I had no idea you two were going to be lip-locked.”

“No problem. We all share this lounge. You don’t have to knock.” I don’t know what else to say.

He holds out a red rose for me. “You have an admirer.”

I take the rose and bring it to my nose. Being given a bouquet of flowers isn’t unusual after a show but I’ve never been given a single rose before. It seems so intimate. “A fan, I suppose?”

“I found this dude standing outside the door looking in here just now. I asked him who he was but he didn’t say. He just told me to give you the rose and this guitar. Oh, and tell you he enjoyed the show—that you were ‘fan-fucking-tastic.’” He puts the case at my feet and the world around me begins to spin way too fast.

It’s my Martin. That can only mean Jack Henry was here. Right outside that door—that cracked door—while Charlie was kissing me.

I dash off the couch and run down the hallway, calling out for him like a maniac. “Jack Henry! Jack Henry!”

I have no idea which way to go, but I run toward the auditorium. It’s empty other than the cleaning staff, so I run toward the lobby and out to the street where I pray I’ll find him standing on the sidewalk.

It’s storming and the raindrops pelting down sting as they hit my face. I reach up to push my wet hair from my eyes and that’s when I see him. He’s getting into a cab up the street. “Jack Henry!” I shout at the top of my lungs but he doesn’t hear me. He’s too far away. “Jack Henry!”

I run toward the car screaming his name and I reach the cab as it’s leaving. I slam my hand across the top of the trunk as hard as I can before watching it pull away, taking him out of my life again.

“Nooo!” I scream so loudly, my vocal cords spasm. I drop to my knees there on the cold, wet concrete. I try to scream, and again, nothing comes out because my breath has been taken from me.

Please, don’t leave. Please, don’t be gone out of my life forever.

The cab moves for a moment but then I see the blurry, glowing red lights through the downpour against my face and heavy lens of tears covering my eyes. The cab’s brake lights. The car has stopped, as have I—and then I see the back door open.

It’s my Jack Henry.

He gets out of the cab and stands in the heavy rain looking back at me. I don’t know how—because my body has turned to mush—but I’m off my knees and running toward him. I pummel him against the open door when I reach him and squeeze my arms around him tightly, using all the strength I can muster. My knees are far too weak to stand in his arms without falling. I bury my face against his neck and breathe him in. This is where I want to be forever—in Jack Henry’s arms.

“Are you in or out, man?” I hear the driver call from inside the cab.

Jack Henry doesn’t answer and I ease my tight grip on him so I can look into his eyes. I touch his face because I can’t believe he’s real. “You sort of have a beard. Almost. I love it. It’s sexy.”

As I cradle his face with my hands, I’m bothered by what I see. This should be the happiest moment of our lives—it is for me—but his expression leaves me with a different feeling. Something isn’t right. “What’s wrong?”

His face is pained. “We need to talk.”

Of course, we need to talk but his tone makes me uneasy. If I’m being honest, it downright scares the shit out of me because it sounds so ominous. “Okay.”

“Do you need to go inside to get your things?”

“Yes. But it’ll only take a minute.” I take his hand because I don’t want to be away from him for even a second. I’m afraid he’ll disappear. “I want you to come with me.”

He leans inside and tells the driver, “I’m staying,” before he shuts the door.

I grasp his hand tightly as we walk toward the entrance to the concert hall.

I’m certain he saw Charlie kiss me. Shit! He probably thinks I’m with him now. But I’ll explain. I’ll make him see that he’ll always be the only one for me.

When we get to the door of the lounge, he stops. “I think I better stay out here.”

Yeah. He definitely saw Charlie kiss me.

“I won’t be long.”

I walk through the lounge door and Charlie is still sitting in the same spot I left him. I have no idea what to say to him. He’s spent the last two months patiently pursuing me in the sweetest manner. It’s going to be painful for him for a while, but my heart knows it’s the only way. He deserves to be someone’s everything, not second place to a man I could never stop loving.

I sit next to him to explain—because he’s a friend and I feel I owe him that—but he already knows. I see it on his face. “He chose to come for you on the night I planned to make my big move.”

I nod because I can’t answer. Charlie loves me and has been so kind the last two months. It’s painful to hurt him like this.

His forearms are propped on his thighs as he leans forward, staring at the floor. “That’s good. You deserve to be happy. But I sure wish he’d come before I had the chance to fall in love with you.”

Dammit. Why does this have to be so hard? “I’m sorry. I truly didn’t intend for that to happen.”

He continues staring at the floor and I suspect it’s because he doesn’t want me to see the tears in his eyes. “I know, and it’s not your fault. You’re just too damn easy to love. You told me from the beginning you didn’t think you could love anyone else after him. Now you’ll never have to try.”

I want to tell him he deserves so much more than me and reassure him he’ll find the one to give him all the love he deserves, but he’s not in a place where he’s ready to hear that. “I have to go, Charlie.”

“Of course you do.” He looks up at me. I was right. He has huge tears in his eyes and my heart breaks for him. “Don’t forget that the bus pulls out at nine sharp tomorrow.”

Is he afraid I won’t come back? “I’ll be there.” I pick up my Martin and place it on the couch next to him. “Can you ask the crew to be sure this makes it onto the bus?”

“Sure.”

Jack Henry is waiting for me in the hallway. He’s standing on the far side of the corridor and I wonder if it’s because he’s afraid he might overhear something Charlie has to say. He walks in my direction when he sees me. “Where do you want to go?”

I want to go wherever I can get naked with Jack Henry and show him how much I’ve missed him. And I don’t want to risk running into any of the band or crew. “Where are you staying?”

“I have a suite at the Fairmont.”

“I want you to take me there.”

We’re both silent in the cab on the way to the hotel. He looks straight ahead while I stare at him from where I’m sitting. I’m sure he must see me but I don’t care. I can’t stop because I’m afraid he’ll disappear like a phantom.

I want him to kiss me like crazy all the way to the hotel, but he doesn’t. In fact, he never even looks in my direction. I wish I were brave enough to reach for his hand so I could get some kind of reaction from him, but I don’t. I’m too afraid—I’m not sure where his head is after seeing Charlie kiss me.

This isn’t going to be good. Why did he have to see that?

We walk through the luxurious hotel lobby and get onto the elevator. I’m closed up with him and two other people in the tiny space for only a minute or so, but the sexual tension we’re radiating is almost suffocating. I want him so badly, it hurts. I need to touch him, to feel his skin against mine.

I don’t have time to brush up next to him because the elevator arrives on the sixth floor where his suite is located. After the door clicks behind us, my heart, and my body, rejoice. We are alone at last. And I’m scared to death.

We’ve been apart for three months and another man is kissing me when Jack Henry sees me for the first time. The situation is a nightmare that never factored into any dreams or fantasies I had about our reunion.

Damn, this sucks. What is he thinking? Is he angry with me? Or hurt? Or worse—maybe he doesn’t care enough to feel pain or anger. I can’t tell because he’s being so obscure.

The air conditioning is on and the room is really cold. I’m soaked to the bone and feel myself shivering. Or maybe I’m trembling from fear. Either way, he takes notice. “You’re drenched and freezing to death. Go take a hot shower to warm up and we’ll talk after you’re finished.”

I think it’s a bad sign he doesn’t want to take me to bed and strip me out of these cold, wet clothes so he can warm me up himself. That’s what my Jack Henry would do, without any hesitation at all.

“Okay,” I say, feeling deflated. This isn’t what I had in mind. I’d hoped he’d want me as much as I want him. But he doesn’t.

I go into the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. Holy shit, I look awful. No wonder he wants me to shower. Who wants to look at this? I look like a drowned raccoon thanks to the black mascara smudged under my eyes. Beetlejuice never looked this shitty.

I turn the water on as hot as I can tolerate and step under the raining heat. It feels good and I warm up in a matter of minutes. I use his masculine products to wash my hair and body and I remember the way these scents mix with his skin to create the most intoxicating essence. Oh, I have missed his smell.

I hurry through my shower because I’m eager to be with him. Next to him. Hopefully, under him.

Once I’m out, I blow-dry my hair using the hotel-provided dryer. I flip my head up and my tresses are wild and untamed. I could really use a brush. I rummage through my purse and find an old one floating around in the bottom. I brush out the tangles and wish I had a flatiron to smooth it down.

I use his toothpaste and my finger to brush my teeth before I slosh around a mouthful of minty goodness. I would’ve preferred to have found a toothbrush in my purse to the hairbrush.

Two luxurious velour robes hang on the back of the door. I slip one on. I don’t really want to wear it. I’d like to hang it back on the hook and walk out naked. But I don’t because he says he wants to talk.

I come out of the bathroom and see him sitting on the couch. He’s traded his wet clothes for a T-shirt and lounge pants like he used to wear around Avalon on his days off. He’s drinking from a short, clear glass containing a dark amber liquid over ice. I suspect it’s some kind of whiskey, which isn’t like my Jack Henry at all. He never drank straight whiskey before and I’m suddenly more afraid than I already was.

I stop just outside the bathroom, unsure what to do. He watches me from where he’s sitting. He seems looser than when we arrived, and I wonder how many of those little amber drinks he had while I was in the shower.