Inferno Anthology (35 page)

For the first time since I moved to New York, I dreaded going to work. Jack and I had come so far in the last twenty-four hours and I hated that I had to leave him already. I wanted to stay in bed and snuggle with him all weekend. But I couldn’t let the band down, and the club would be busy on a Saturday night, so I forced myself to get up and get ready. When I walked out dressed for work, Jack was talking on his cell phone. I watched as he slowly looked me up and down. I had purposely dressed in my favorite red shirt and black form-fitting skirt, pairing it will five inch stilettos and a dozen long silver chains in all different lengths.

He kept his eyes on me as he spoke into his phone. “I don’t give a fuck what it costs, just do it.” He snapped the phone shut and walked to me.

“Is that what you wear to work every night?”

I played dumb. “No, I don’t wear this outfit to work every single night. I wear all different outfits, silly.” I placed the palms of my hands against his chest. “Everything okay, you sounded pissed on your call?”

“Yes, everything is fine. It was hotel business.” He wrapped one arm around my waist and tugged me against him hard. “Do you feel that, Syd? I just look at you dressed like that and I’m fucking hard again. How am I supposed to watch you go to work, knowing a room full of drunk men will feel the same way about my woman?”

Fuck. Me. His jealous streak excited me and now I was going to have to walk around all night with an aching between my legs. “I only want one man, sweetie.” I reached up on my tippy toes to kiss his mouth softly.

Jack had insisted that he drop me at the hotel on his way home. A sleek black Mercedes SUV was parked out front when we got downstairs. I took one look at the car and knew it was Jack’s. “Yours?” I looked at him and rolled my eyes in response to his smirk.

Jack navigated us with his hand at the small of my back to the SUV door and the driver jumped out to open it. The uniformed driver nodded to Jack. “Evening, Mr. Heston.”

We pulled up outside of the hotel and I had expected that Jack was dropping me off and going back to his place, but he told his driver to come back for him in an hour and got out with me. I looked at him quizzically as he helped me out of the SUV. “I have a few things to take care of here, so I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone.”

He took my hand and we made our way through the hotel’s front door.

“Two?” I thought maybe I had missed something. What was the other thing?

Jack smiled an evil but sexy as hell smile. “Within five minutes of walking through the front lobby holding your hand, the entire staff will be buzzing. It will make you off limits and security will make it their business to keep a closer eye on you.”

I stopped dead in my tracks in the middle of the lobby. “So you’re essentially a dog pissing on his territory.”

Jack tightened the hand he was holding and pulled me to him, wrapping the other arm firmly around my waist. “Yep. Is that a problem, babe?”

I opened my mouth to respond and Jack used it as an opportunity to cover my mouth with his and kiss me. It wasn’t a sweet quick kiss, it was a demanding make my knees week and leave me breathless kiss. His tongue explored my mouth and licked at my lips, stopping to suck in my tongue. When he broke the kiss, he kept his face close to mine, and I was lightly panting. “That should do it baby.” He looked around, apparently satisfied with himself.

I peered to one side of the room, and then the other. Jack was right, we had apparently gotten the attention of everyone in the room. “You’re unbelievable.”

He kissed me chastely before letting me go. “And don’t you forget it, babe.”

An hour later Jack came back to the empty club while I was finishing my set-up routine and said goodbye. “Your place or mine tonight?” He said it like there was never any question that we would be spending the night together again that night.

I smiled. “Yours, your bathroom is bigger than my apartment.”

“I’ll be back at midnight for you.”

“That’s not necessary, Jack. I can take a cab to your place.”

He kissed me sweetly on the lips. “I want to.”

I sighed. “Okay.”

S
unday morning we slept late and it was early afternoon before we got out of bed. Jack ordered room service and a pot of coffee for me. We sat at his dining room table that could sit fourteen and I wondered how much entertaining he did that he needed such a big table.

“Do you host a lot of parties?”

“Here? No. The only people that have ever been up here are my boys that you met in Hawaii, and they don’t require a dining room table or hosting.”

His statement peaked my interest. “So, the five hundred or thousand women that you have …
entertained
, none of them have been here?” I dragged out the word entertained because fucked just didn’t seem appropriate at the dining room table.

I saw Jack’s face growing uncomfortable. “No, there has never been another woman in my bed, Syd. You are the first woman I’ve
entertained
here.” He drew out the word entertained the same as I did, mocking my choice of words.

My inner goddess was delighted with the news that no woman had been in his bed before. But something didn’t make sense. “So where did you
entertain
the women then?”

Jack’s jaw tensed and I instantly knew I wasn’t going to like the answer. He looked down at his plate. “I keep a room on the fifteenth floor.”

I almost choked on my coffee. “You keep a fuck room?” My voice was louder and more condescending than I meant it to be.

“I kept a room where I could spend the night, a small suite. I kept some of my things down there. It has an office in there too.” His voice was controlled and I could tell he was trying to restrain his emotion and not be defensive.

“Do you have an office here too?” I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic, but it came out that way anyway.

“I told you I wasn’t proud of my past, Syd. But we’re together now and you’re in my bed, not in that room, so let’s not do this.” Jack got up from the table and stormed out of the room.

I sat for a few minutes, thinking. Jack was right. I was jealous and acting like a brat. He had been honest with me from the start and never pretended he was anything other than who he was. He didn’t deserve my judgment. I cleared the table and went to apologize.

I found him in his exercise room, running full speed with headphones on. He watched me as I walked in, but didn’t slow his pace or take out his headphones. I mouthed the words
I’m sorry
to him and he nodded his head as he ran. He was dripping from the insane pace that he was running at and his shirt was sticking to his heaving chest, outlining every cut of his gorgeous body. Jack kept running, but caught my eyes wandering around his body. I could tell that my admiration for his body had distracted him, but he appeared content to keep running.

I pulled off his big t-shirt that I was wearing and stood there before him, completely bare. His lust-filled eyes roamed all over my body, but still he didn’t break pace. Then I slowly knelt down and looked up at him under hooded eyes. That was it. He pushed stop and was in front of me within seconds. I pulled down his pants, opened my throat, and gave him the best apology I knew how.

Sunday night we sat around reading the three different newspapers that Jack had delivered and I was in my glory. It felt so natural and easy that I couldn’t believe we had only met a month ago. I hated to leave, but we had been together since Friday night and I was nervous it would be too much too fast. Besides, I had no clothes or toiletries with me and I definitely needed my birth control pills.

“I’m going to take a quick shower if you don’t mind, and start to get ready to go.” It felt awkward to say, but I wasn’t sure why.

“But you don’t have to be in work until tomorrow night?” More of a statement then a question.

“I know, but I don’t have any clothes or things here.”

“What do you need? I’ll send Mateo to get whatever you need.”

“Mateo?”

“My driver. He’s paid to be on call and usually I’m running around. It will give him something to do.”

“I need clothes and underwear, Jack. Is Mateo going to go into my apartment and rummage through my underwear drawer?”

“No. I’d have to break his fingers for touching your underwear. But I can send him to Barney’s to pick up some items that Chloe picks out.”

“Chloe?” Did this man have a person to do all of his errands?

“She picks out my clothes. I’ll call her and she can pick out some things for you and Mateo can pick up the bags.” He said it as if it was simple and normal to have people run out and get my underwear.

“That’s sweet, Jack, but I’ll just go home. You are probably getting sick of me anyway. I’ve been here all day and night.”

Jack froze. “Are you sick of being with me, Syd?” For a second he looked vulnerable.

“No, of course not.” I could see he needed reassurance. “It’s just, I’m afraid of taking things too fast. I know you are new to relationships and I don’t want to push you too fast and scare you away.”

Jack’s confident face returned as he grabbed his cell phone. “I spent three weeks torturing myself without you, babe. I’m not letting you slip away now that I have you.”

My heart swelled a little more at his affirmation. He pushed a button on his cell and the conversation was over. He kissed my forehead as he walked out of the room talking on his phone. “Nope, not for me today, Chloe, I need you to put some things together for my girlfriend.”

His girlfriend? I loved the sound of that.

Two hours later there was a knock at the door.

I heard Jack and Mateo talk for a minute, but I was only dressed in one of Jack’s t-shirts so I didn’t go out to see what Mateo had brought, even though I was curious. A few minutes later Jack came back to the living room. I was camped out on his area rug with newspaper sections spread all over the floor. He plopped a few bags down on the couch. “How about we go out to dinner tonight?”

“That sounds great.” I motioned to the half dozen bags on the couch. “It looks like I have something to wear.” I smiled and shook my head.

Jack walked to me and reached down to where I was sitting and kissed me on the forehead. Something about when he kissed me on the forehead made my insides melt. “As much as I’d really love to make you model all your new clothes for me, I have an hour or two of work that I have to get done. So why don’t you go see if you can find something you like and I’ll go to my office to work so that seeing your naked body won’t distract me.”