Wild Child (16 page)

“So I’m going to tip the scales?”

“You teaching at the camps will tip the scales, or at least, that’s what the producer seemed to think.”

He was so pained, standing there, backlit by the sun coming in through the sheer curtains. His hands were in fists beside his khaki pants. He wore a white shirt and a red tie, something she’d never seen him in before. It didn’t quite make him look mayoral. He looked like a good southern boy on his way to church.

“You’ll be lying?”

“The ends justify the means, right? I mean, if we win, no one will care. I doubt people will care anyway.”

“This Shelby woman probably cares.”

“She’s agreed.” The way he said it implied it wasn’t easy, implied a whole lot of not really agreeing. For some reason, she immediately cast Shelby as a lonely old woman with a cat problem.

She laughed, feeling small, a commodity. A chip moved around on a board. “No.”

“No?” he gasped.

“That’s what I said.” She lifted her heel up onto the edge of the bed again and unscrewed the top of the nail polish.

“I need you, Monica,” he said.

That was no way to win her over—she wasn’t big on being needed.

“Why?” she asked, stroking red polish across her big toenail, using her pinky to clear the runoff. “It’s a show. A contest, Jackson. Probably—considering the way they’re talking about this town in Alaska—rigged.”

Jackson hauled her desk chair over to the corner of the bed and sat, his legs, his hands, his body so close to hers that she dropped her foot in surprise and found herself staring at him.

“When I took office this town was literally bankrupt. We couldn’t pay the pensions of retired employees. Garbagemen, policemen, firefighters, people who’d worked for this town in good faith their entire lives and we couldn’t
pay them
. That factory closed and one-third of the population moved away. The housing bubble burst and people were just abandoning their houses, just walking away rather than selling them. It was like the Depression around here.”

Monica felt the hair on her neck stand up, something that always happened when she sensed people flirting with the edges of their control. It was a defense mechanism,
a survival instinct, a warning of danger. And usually when all the hair on her neck stood up, she cleared out. She stayed far away from any emotional storm that wasn’t her own.

But right now, looking at the pain in Jackson’s face, she couldn’t have walked away if she tried.

“I did what I could, robbing Peter to pay Paul, but there’s nothing left. The city is out of money and if something doesn’t happen fast, we’re done. Bankrupt, and I will have failed everyone. Everyone.”

“It’s not you, Jackson. It’s not your fault, or your responsibility to fix it.”

“The hell it’s not, Monica. Whose else is it? Who else is standing here?”

She could tell by the rock-hard way he held his body that she wasn’t going to convince him. He’d spent years telling himself this was his job.

“So what’s the show going to do? If you win it?”

“Maybream opens the factory. Moves its headquarters here. We’re talking about at least a hundred jobs. The city—and I’m not exaggerating—will be saved. And I will do anything to see that happen, Monica. Anything. I will lie, beg—”

The nail polish fell to the floor and before she could stop herself, before she even realized what she was doing, she had his face, that strong jaw, those cheekbones, in her hands. His eyes, liquid and blue and beautiful, met hers.

“Okay,” she said.

“Okay?” He gripped his hands over hers. “Really?”

“Yes, really. But I’m doing it my way, Jackson. I’m not causing a scene and I’m not feeding the gossip mill and I am definitely not teaching little kids. Or kids at all, really. It’s adults or nothing.”

“Good. Yes. No problem.”

She eyed him skeptically, pretty sure he was making
promises he had no way of keeping. “And if this Shelby woman so much as looks at me funny, I’ll snatch her bald.”

Laughter, deep and resonant, thundered out of his throat. “Deal. Thank you, Monica. Thank you.” He pulled her into his arms and perhaps she helped, perhaps she jumped when he pulled, but she ended up in his lap in the chair, their bodies flush. Their hearts pounding against each other.

Slowly, carefully, as if there were trip wires all over them and any sudden movements would blow them up, he leaned back.

“Are you always this good?” she asked. And as if she’d pulled one of those wires, his eyes went dark. And she knew what was coming; she knew this kiss in this hotel room wouldn’t be stopped by the police chief or Jackson or her. Despite knowing there was a good chance it would end badly—for both of them—this kiss was going to happen.

It was fast, the kiss. Zero to sixty in no time. They went from lips, to careful breaths, to teeth and tongues and a deep, sawing need. A breaking pulse that hammered between them.

Want. Want. Want.

More and yes and there and
now
.

Her heart pounded with excitement. The long, slow, delicious build started in her body, in her core, under her skin. Her body, untouched by anyone else for so long, woke up to pleasure, but her brain—always her reluctant brain—struggled to keep up. It kept pointing out the trapdoors, the pitfalls and dangers.

He stood with her weight in his arms like it was nothing, and her panties were wet in a heartbeat. And while he crawled over the end of the bed she clung to him, her lips fused to his, her tongue memorizing the taste of
him. Coffee and peaches and toothpaste. Honest tastes, real and good flavors.

Don’t trust this
, she thought,
don’t get carried away
.

He broke the kiss, burying his face in her neck, where his breath feathered across soft and hidden places that carried the sensation all over her body, making connections in her hands and breasts and between her legs and on the bottoms of her feet.

It’s not real, you know that; it’s desire and it fades. It vanishes
.

His hand slid from her waist to just under her breast, pausing as if to ask for permission. The gentleman. And she was suddenly furious with herself, furious with her apprehensions, all the rules that kept her alone and lonely because she was so scared of who she’d been.

This feels so good and I am not that girl
, she told herself, and she arched into his hand. Her nipple pebbled and his thumb found it, hard and waiting. Smart man, he wasted no time, rolling it between his fingers. His other hand burrowed under her tee shirt, and the touch of his fingers against the skin of her waist was fiery and ticklish all at the same time.

She tried to pull his tie off and it got stuck, making both of them laugh as he made a strangling sound.

“Hold on,” he breathed.
No
, she thought.
No pausing
. Pausing let in the cool air of doubt. And there was enough of it already, swirling around her.

She pushed him away slightly, just enough so she could wiggle her arms and pull off her Green Day tee shirt. He forgot his own shirt, lost in the sight of her breasts in the red lace of her least favorite bra.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered.

“You’re talking too much,” she said, and pulled him back down to kiss him.

He came willingly, as she’d known he would. Those lips of his, as she suspected, were not nearly as stern as
they’d initially seemed. They were full and sweet and they sipped at her lips, sucked at her tongue—ate at her as if he couldn’t get enough. As if she was all he needed.

And that was really fucking sexy.

He eased down her body, kissing the skin where it rose out of her bra. He licked her through the lace. Kissed her. At the sounds of her approval, he bit her. Too much but at the same time, not enough. Never enough.

She gasped, eager to hold onto this feeling, eager to prove that she could do this, see this all the way through. That she wasn’t ruined, somehow. She reached between them. Beneath his staid khaki pants he was hard and long. Big.

Really. Very big.

A noise escaped her, a coo of delight, and he groaned, then chuckled, though it sounded like it hurt.

She put both hands between them, holding him in her palms.

“Hey,” he whispered, and he groaned as she traced the length of him through the twill fabric of his pants.

His buckle came apart, the button, the zipper. And then there he was in her hand.

He leaned aside, pulling away, or trying to, but she had ahold of him in such a way that when he moved, he was stroked, and he groaned again, his head kicked back, his body shaking. “We … if we start here … this might be where we end.”

Two years
, she thought. That was nothing. Not even half of her own five long years of celibacy. Self-imposed because she was tired of failing herself. Tired of trying and then proving how broken she was.

But suddenly, she was desperate. Desperate for pleasure. Desperate to erase the loneliness that had grown up around her like walls. Jenna was right: happiness,
pleasure—it was all so fleeting, she had to grab on to it while she could.

This time
, she thought.
This time will be different
. She pushed him over on his back, following him as he moved. Straddling his hips.

“Monica,” he breathed, but she was relentless. At first he resisted as she yanked his pants down around his hips. “I don’t have a condom,” he said, his hand on her wrist, his thumb rubbing the pulse there.

“Bedside table,” she said.

He shifted, was stroked again but he opened the bedside table, pulling the drawer out so hard that it clattered to the floor. The silver snake of condoms gleamed in the corner. He grabbed one, set it on the bed, and reached for her just as she reached for the condom.

They were going to do this her way. And her way was now. Fast. Before all this pleasure went away. Before her brain caught up to her body and shut it all down.

He groaned and lifted his hips, letting her push his pants off. He kicked off his shoes like he was going to stay awhile and the thought made her pause for just a moment, her desperation clearing like clouds to reveal the landscape.

What are you doing, really?
But then his arms were around her, his face between her breasts, his lips hot, his tongue clever, and she tried so hard to ignore her brain.

He held her with one hand against his body so he could position her beneath him. He shifted her, held her, moved her. He took off her bra, swore with reverence, and she smiled, but despite all her efforts, a chill was settling in her bones.

I’ve been here before
, she thought,
so many times. How will this be different?

The kisses he pressed to her belly created ripples of desire, but they were shallow and she closed her eyes and tried to feel them deeper, tried to feel
more
. He
pulled off her pants, the sensible black underwear, and ran his hands down the outside of her legs and then back, slowly, inch by inch, between them. His thumb pressed into the dark cloud of curls, finding, after a moment of searching, the hard knot of her clitoris. She jumped, her hands reaching out across the bed as if to hold on, as if to grab onto something solid. His thumb rolled over her clitoris like it was a marble.

Yes. Good. There
.

The pleasure trickled back, just enough. Enough to convince her she could do this. She closed her eyes, gathering the pleasure around her, a warm cloak against cold doubts. Her hand brushed against the crinkly wrapper of the condom and she grabbed it, opened it with her teeth, and with her old expertise reached down and slid it over him.

“Oh, God, you … you feel so good. You’re so … good,” he moaned, shuddering in her hands, his pleasure filling the air with a humming electricity that hit her skin … and stopped.

Just stopped.

And all that pleasure, all that desire, that she’d felt just
one goddamn second ago
was behind ice. Locked away. Her brain holding the key.

You’re so good, baby. So good. There’s nothing you won’t do, is there?

How many times had she heard that? How many times had she let those words define her worth, dictate her actions?

He slipped a finger inside of her, and she knew she was wet, which was a miracle in and of itself, but it was over. Her brain had won, her body lost.

No
, she wanted to moan.
No
, she wanted to cry. Why? Why her? Why was she so cold with men, so alone in their embrace? All the sexual pleasure she’d faked haunted her
now, when she couldn’t hold onto desire with a man. Couldn’t … ever … come.

“Monica?” In his voice she heard him recognize her sudden reluctance. Her sudden detachment. This, in the past, was when the show would really get good and she’d moan and writhe and pretend, like an Academy Award–winning actress, or at least an above-average porn star, that she wasn’t broken somewhere very important.

Her eyes blinked open to look deep into his—concerned pools of warm blue. His erection was still hard against her hip. His hand no longer between her legs but braced in a fist against the quilt.

“You okay?” he asked.

And now she was at the crossroads where she swore she’d never be again. She could fake it, spread her legs, invite him in—it had been so long for him, she probably wouldn’t even need to put on a show.

Or she could ask him to leave. Which seemed hideously unfair considering her actions of a few moments ago. But she’d promised herself she wouldn’t let herself get used like this anymore, even with a man as sweet as Jackson.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Jackson had no idea what was going on. None. And his brain wasn’t doing a very good job of trying to figure it out. The only thing he knew for certain was that this woman, this gorgeous, sexy,
naked
woman, was not interested in sex. A second ago, yes. Now, not so much.

Shaking, literally shaking with the effort it took to not take what a few moments ago had seemed to be offered, he pushed himself off the bed. Carefully rolled up the condom over a penis so erect he could barely push it down. He snapped the rolled edge of the latex against his skin, just to try to cool himself off. He winced, but
stayed hard. Finally, he got the damn thing off and threw it in the garbage.