Save My Soul (8 page)

As if life wasn't already crazy enough, now she was attracted to Jordon Kemmons.

• • •

Talking was Jordon's noble intention before he pulled her to his chest and set off a blast of hot lust so powerful he struggled not to act.

“You should let go of me,” she whispered. Giant eyes searched his face, and little sprays of her staccato breath bounced against his hungry lips.

He knew he should be glad that one of them had the presence of mind to end the insanity. Still, he found himself releasing her amid swirls of disappointment. “Maggie, I … ”

“Dr. Collins.” She took two steps back and bumped against the utility sink.

“
Maggie
.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “It doesn't matter what I call you, I'm still going to struggle with things.”

“Because you think I'm a promiscuous flake?” Fine lines stacked on her forehead, and the edges of her soft-leather eyes dipped.

“I never called you a flake.”

“But you think it. I can tell.”

“And you think I'm close-minded and evil, which doesn't sit well with me. Then again, I've given you ample reason to think those things. Correct?”

She dropped her head and pinned her eyes to his chest. “Just because a woman doesn't wear a bra doesn't mean she's promiscuous.”

The corners of his mouth lifted. “Understood. And just because a man is serious and inclined to ask pointed questions to which he expects specific answers doesn't mean he's evil.”

Maggie raised her head. “Of course.”

He was right, but so was she, and she was also … beautiful. Dangerously beautiful. The kind of beautiful that made men do crazy things. Jordon was right there on the edge, ready to jump when she told him to, and that was why he wanted her — needed her — to be flaky or promiscuous. Either characteristic helped him rationalize his behavior. Flaky meant he could continue to convince himself that he couldn't stand to be around her. And if flaky failed to keep him in line, promiscuous meant if things went too far, there would be no negative repercussions, no guilt for his actions.

But after watching her take genuine care of Carlos and after holding her in his arms, Jordon knew without a doubt, Dr. Maggie Collins was neither flaky nor promiscuous, and he was in serious trouble.

Maggie couldn't sleep. She missed her bed. She missed her mother. And she had no desire to spend another night tormented by a possessed arachnid.

The anger she felt for Jordon earlier in the day chipped away at her spiritual foundation, but that was nothing compared to the jolt of electricity she felt in his arms. Visions of his dark body sprawled across the iron bed filled her weakened mind.

She tried meditation. She tried chanting. She even spent ten minutes in a head stand, hoping to dump thoughts of him from her brain.

Pulling the soft bedding over her body, she gave in and contemplated the peculiar situation. Crystal raised Maggie to be free in word and deed, which meant Maggie thought what she wanted to think and did what she wanted to do. Sometimes she wanted to have sex with men who simply stirred her desire. But never with a man like Jordon.

He was dark where every other man she'd been with had been light. And he was paying her — a lot — to do an important job, a job that provided her with enough money to finally achieve some stability in her chaotic life. Sleeping with him served no other purpose than to scratch an itch, and that simply wasn't a good enough reason to risk mental, professional, and spiritual health.

She threw the blankets off and filled with shame. Jordon's talk about promiscuity must have bothered her more than she realized. Sitting and twisting her legs over the edge of the mattress, she decided wearing something to bed in someone else's house was more respectful than wearing nothing at all. She tugged a yoga tee over her head and pulled a pair of spandex leggings over her narrow hips. As she did, she felt foolish for compromising her beliefs. She'd been sleeping naked since she was born. It was as natural to her as breathing. And since she wasn't dressed for sleep, she didn't expect to get any.

She was dressed for yoga.

The house was dark as Maggie made her way to the deck with blanket in hand. She pushed outside, taking a gust of chilly wind to the face, and her skin pimpled. In the distance, water lapped at the rock walls bordering the property.

The night stretched out before her, cool, calm, and endless. Dense cloud cover blocked the moon and stars. She smoothed the blanket in a sliver of light that started in the house and spilled onto the deck, running across the horizontal planks until it reached a privacy screen that Maggie now knew separated the main deck from the master suite. She remembered no curtains or blinds hid Jordon while he slept, and she had the overwhelming urge to behold the image.

Flake.
She grimaced at the insult and sat in the middle of the blanket, forming a pretzel with her legs.

A scraping noise stopped her mid-meditation. She froze, listening to the sound of footsteps creaking over the wood. When she looked in the direction of the noises, she saw nothing but emptiness.

The rational explanation was Jordon on his side of the privacy screen, but her heart raced as though she expected something else. She stood and tiptoed across the planks until she reached the wall. “Jordon, is that you?”

“No. It's a giant spider who's waiting to attack.”

For some reason, his words spoken through a raspy half-whisper left her feeling defenseless. She knew he attempted humor. She knew he wasn't a spider about to pounce, and yet she gawked around her feet, as if she expected him to scurry under the crack. “You're not funny.”

Maggie agonized through his extended pause and contemplated walking away. The rolling sound of lake water mixed with her uneasiness.

“What are you doing up this late?” He spoke a little louder, but not loud enough to chase the tingles from her skin.

“What are
you
doing up this late?”

He exhaled loudly. “There you go again, answering my question with a question. I hate that.”

His words were strong and his tone exasperated, but for some reason she smiled. “Sorry. I couldn't sleep.”

“Neither could I.”

She wished he would speak in his full voice. The vulnerability in his whisper made her stomach do silly things. Pushing the heel of her hand to her belly button, she scrambled for something to say. “Well, since neither one of us can sleep, I suppose we could not sleep together.”

More silence. She expected it, grimacing the minute the collection of harmless words crossed her lips.

Jordon made a rough sound, not a laugh, something else entirely, something that made her wonder about the sounds he made in bed.

“Maggie, if I was a big bad spider that wouldn't leave you alone, what would you say to me?”

With inappropriate thoughts filling her head, she took a step closer to the wall and pressed her palms to the splintered wood. Her dry mouth hovered above a crack in the shadowy planks. “I would say, ‘I like you. I do. You're a beautiful, powerful creature, but you frighten me, and I'm worried one of us will get hurt if you keep coming around.” He made the noise again, and she crumbled, collapsing against the barrier between them. “Please, stay away. We'll both be a lot … happier.'”

She scanned the boards at her feet as she waited for his reply.

“Do most spiders listen?”

“They do.” She was filled with a sadness she didn't understand. The dark sky wrapped around her, and instead of offering a cloak of comfort, it weighed oppressively.

“How'd you do it, Maggie?”

“Do what?”

“Get Carlos to stop crying and start eating?”

A little heaviness lifted as a cleaner image materialized — Carlos beaming over a pile of folded laundry. “We still have far to go, but the recent progress has been simple. I spent time with him. People need to feel like they're worth something. There's nothing more important to spend on a person than time.”

“The biggest names in sports psychology couldn't make progress like this. What you've done is miraculous.”

“I wouldn't go that far. The most profound breakthrough came when he let me help with his laundry. Otherwise, thank Goddess for TV.”

She dropped to the deck and crossed her legs underneath her thighs, pressing her back against the wall. She counted five deep inhales before he spoke again.

“Well, whatever you call it, I'm impressed. It's more than I could do.”

“No, you could've done it if you were here more.”

“You sound like Bethany.”

She crossed her arms around her chest and rubbed her hands along her cool skin. “Who's Bethany?”

“My ex-wife. She was always riding me about being gone or glued to my phone or emotionally unavailable, as she called it.”

He seemed to be all of those things, and Maggie imagined most women would have a difficult time feeling secure with a man whose attentions were split. Funny, those things didn't top her list of worries about Jordon. The halo of darkness that was his constant companion bothered her more. If she could figure out why it was there …

“Jordon, I wasn't criticizing you. I was merely pointing out that my progress with Carlos isn't supernatural. It's the byproduct of being with him.”

Talking like this, cloaked in darkness without the undue pressure of his eyes and separated by an impenetrable barrier, Maggie relied on intuition as her guide. In the stillness, the night air nipped at her skin, and something else tormented her. Maybe Carlos wasn't the only one hurting. “Do you like being an agent?” she prodded.

“Immensely.”

“Then you owe no apologies for the steps you take to be successful.”

“Maybe, but I've burned a lot of bridges over the course of my career. The general consensus is that I'm a pretty bad guy. They don't call me the ‘Devil of Contract Negotiation' for nothing.”

She'd thought of him as the devil a time or two … “Does the reputation bother you?”

Delving into other peoples' psyches came naturally to Maggie. She wanted to know what made them tick and how she could help. Crystal called it saving souls, but even Crystal would wilt at the seemingly insurmountable odds of saving this man.

“It doesn't bother the agent, but it bothers the man.”

Maggie was starting to get glimpses of a man who cared about more than being right and making money, which was good for Carlos. The young man deserved to be more than someone's meal ticket. And Jordon — despite the ominous exterior — deserved happiness too. She closed her eyes and shook her head, moving closer to a man she should be keeping away from.

“Truth in word and deed is a difficult concept for human beings,” she explained. “We have a tendency to split ourselves into pieces in order to survive. We have one side we show our friends, one side we show our colleagues, another side for our family, another side for our lovers. It's sad and exhausting, but it's sometimes a necessary evil. I think it's that way for you.”

“Evil, huh?”

It was her turn to quiet.

“Maggie, do you really think I'm evil?”

At one point, she did. But now … She hung her head. If he wasn't evil, then why did she feel like crying?

“You don't have to answer that.” He moved on the other side of the wall, and she imagined him walking away.

“Jordon, wait. I don't think you're evil. There's a darkness there that I can't explain, and it makes me … uncomfortable.”

“Like the spider.”

“I suppose.” She gulped.
Save me.
Could the spider in her dreams be Jordon?

“Then I'll do my best to stay out of your way.”

Maggie expected relief, but she swept away on a wave of sadness that lingered long after she fell asleep.

When she woke, she figured Jordon would be gone, flying off to another exotic location in search of his next big thing, which was good. She needed to focus on getting Carlos to the point where she could go home and still help him get well from afar.

What wasn't good was the warm glow she felt when she found Jordon, scrambling eggs on the Hibachi grill in the kitchen.

Carlos sat at the island, buttering toast. She'd never noticed before, but there were similarities between the two men. While Carlos's skin was much darker than Jordon's, they both shared the same onyx hair. Jordon's was cut clean, but longer around the edges, and Carlos wore his nearly shaved. While Jordon's body loomed thicker and infinitely stronger as a result of regular food, both men sported defined muscles and shared a height over six feet.

And today, both men wore nothing but athletic shorts.

Her gaze lingered on the puckers of muscle stacking up Jordon's abdomen. A thin strip of dark hair spilled from his navel and disappeared into the waistband of his shorts. Her heart fluttered.

“Morning, gentlemen.”

Carlos turned his head and smiled. “Jordon caught a fish for breakfast.”

Jordon didn't acknowledge her. She felt disappointed by both actions. “You fish?”

“I do.”

His prickly demeanor fueled her foul mood. “And you kill what you catch?”

“Sometimes.” He cracked an egg in one hand.

“Why not throw the poor creature back after you prove your power and buy an already murdered fish from the supermarket?”

He saw her now, his eyes bleak. “Because
evil
men do
evil
things.”

Carlos pushed away from the island and left the kitchen.

“Wait, don't go.” Maggie scurried after him, but not before she leveled Jordon with a look she hoped was every bit as lethal as driving a stake through his blackened heart.

By the time Maggie reached Carlos, he stood at the end of his bed, untangling headphones. She knocked on the jamb. “Can I come in?”