Roxy (Pandemic Sorrow #3) (11 page)

Chapter 13

I had spent every day with him.

Every.

Single.

Day.

For over a week.

And we still hadn’t slept together. Days on end of spending every second with someone, of constant foreplay, of being mentally fucked while knowing physically you wouldn’t be, was enough to drive
anyone
mad.

Jag kept telling me he wouldn’t sleep with me until I believed he liked me, and now I was being forced to believe he really wouldn’t. Every preconceived notion I’d held about this guy had been wrong. He surprised me every single day, shocked me, angered me, drove me mad in a way no one else ever had. And day by day he peeled back pieces of me no one else had ever cared to discover, and not once did he judge me.

Twice that week I had gotten ready to go to work, and in the process Jag somehow talked me into calling in sick. And there I was, trying to leave to go back to my apartment so I could get ready, and Jag was begging me not to go.

“Oh, come on, Roxy, don’t go.” He blocked the doorway with his ripped, shirtless body and stood before me with one of those wicked smiles that lifted the corners of his mouth.

I crossed my arms in front of my chest, huffing as I tapped my foot over the floor. “I have to. Unlike you, I need money. I have fifty dollars in my account.”

“I’ll put money in your account. How much you want? Ten thousand? Fifteen?”

“Jag!”

He smiled, then rolled his bottom lip underneath his white teeth. “Okay, twenty. And I’ll even throw in some oral sex to sweeten the deal.” He placed his hands on my hips, digging his fingers into my sides as he leaned down and placed his warm lips on my neck.

His tongue skirted over my flesh. The smooth texture of his studs rolled over me, the sensation creating a wave of chill bumps that rushed over my skin. I tilted my head to the side to better enjoy the way his mouth felt working down my neck while I fought to maintain control of the situation.

“Just call in, princess. Don’t leave me,” he whispered in my ear before blowing a heated breath over it.

Placing my hands firmly on his shoulders, I tried in vain to push him away. He laughed and tightened his grip on me.

“I have to leave.”

That hadn’t come out sounding as serious as I’d intended.

“Nah, you really don’t,” he said.

When he panted words like that right by my ear, everything inside of me stiffened and then quickly went limp.

His lips swept over my jawline, and he let go of a soft groan.

Now that hot throbbing sensation was building between my legs.

“Mmm.” He placed his mouth over mine, the intoxicated taste of him loosening my body even further.

With each swipe of his tongue, each soft movement of his mouth, little by little I lost my ability to reason.

“Jag, I’ve got to go.” I was pleading because if he kept at me like that, I knew I would go nowhere, and so did he.

He pulled away and stared at me. I watched his pupils dilate briefly as he studied each detail of my face. His thumb pressed down on my lip, then brushed over it before he gave me another short kiss. “How can you leave me when I’m begging you to stay? All I want right now is you. I want every second with you, and if you go to work, I can’t have that.”

Another kiss, this one a little longer and harder than the last. His hands swept my hair up, releasing it as he moved away from my face. He softly sang the chorus to Eric Clapton’s “Layla,” substituting, of course, my name.

His fingers trailed down my neck to my shoulders, then caressed gently down my arms. He stopped singing and took both my hands in his. “All I want is you. Not for sex. Just for you. You only live once…you really want to waste your time at that bar?”

“I can’t lose my job.”

“You won’t.” He paused momentarily and reached down into his pocket to get his phone. “Promise you won’t get mad?”

I didn’t even have time to answer him before he had dialed a number, placed the phone to his ear, and walked across the room.

I watched him run his hand over the back of his neck, his wavy hair shifting from the movement.

“Yeah. Is Carlos there? Yeah, yeah. Well, this is Jag Steele.”

He turned and looked at me, a deep grin set on his face. “Yeah,
the
Jag Steele. I’m sure he won’t mind if you interrupt him for me.”

Shit. Did he really just call my work? He’s gonna get me fired!

My eyes pulsed open and I furiously shook my head and mouthed no.

All Jag did was laugh and place his finger over his mouth to tell me to hush. Then he walked to me, planting another hot kiss on me. He left his hand on the side of my face, his thumb stroking over my jaw as he stared intently into my eyes.

That look was unlike anything I’d ever seen. He looked determined, he looked possessive. He looked almost desperate to keep me there with him.

That look scared me. It forced me to see that there was more between the two of us than I had allowed myself to acknowledge. There was something there. We had connected on a level that I had never experienced. It had only been a little less than two weeks, but it felt like this—like the two of us being together was how it should be.

Dare I even suggest, it felt like fate?

And fate had been nothing but a bitch to me. I knew I should run, but how do you run from fate?

His hand was still laid sweetly on my cheek when Carlos came to the phone. Jag kept his eyes trained on me as he spoke into his cell. “Hey, yeah, Carlos. It’s Jag…yeah, man, real good, real good.” He fell silent, kissing me again as he responded to a question with an “mmm-hmm” over my lips. His hand slid down my neck to my collarbone, and then his fingers danced up my neck.

His eyes remained locked on mine as his fingers deftly brushed through my hair.

“Yeah. I can do that.” Jag held the phone between his ear and shoulder. “Well, hey, real quick, man. I’m kinda busy and needed to run something by you. You know you’ve got this bartender there, Roxy Slade…” Jag rolled his eyes. “No, man. She’s fine, she hasn’t pissed me off, not at all.” His eyes concentrated on his thumb, which was now sweeping over my lip. “I need you to let her outta work.”

Jag grinned and narrowed his eyes on me. “I need her, that’s why. She’s standing here in front of me right now, and man, she keeps trying to leave to come into work, but I just can’t let her do that. You understand, right?”

He fell silent again, listening to whatever Carlos was saying as he walked over to his couch. I was speechless. My insides were turning; that was romantic as hell, but it scared the shit out of me because I couldn’t lose my job.

“Well, I’m in town until the thirteenth, so if you could just let her off until then, I would appreciate it. I’ll be sure to make up for it, throw some parties there or something…Thanks, man. Yeah, I’ll see you around, Carlos.”

Jag hung up his phone and tossed it onto the couch. A smug look crossed his face as he turned back to me. Wrapping his arms snugly around my waist, he pulled me into him. “Now you have no excuse to leave me. You’ve got nothing else you need to do. And since I pretty much just got you vacation against your will, I’ll make sure your expenses get covered. The least I can do.”

I huffed, trying to hide the huge grin wanting to pry its way across my lips. “You are unbelievable.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that. Hate to see what you think when I finally fuck you.”

I laughed. “I don’t believe you’re going to, ever.”

“Oh, trust me, princess. I will when I’m good and ready.”

*****

I stood in his oversized bathroom that was covered from ceiling to floor in white and grey marble. My entire apartment could have easily fit in this one room; hell, his shower was almost the size of my kitchen area. Training my eyes back on the mirror, I coated my lips with a shade of electric pink lipstick and rubbed them together. I snapped the lid on, laid the tube down on the counter, and stared at the black dress hung on the back of his closed bathroom door. I grabbed it from the hanger and read the tag out loud.  “Prada,” I said, shaking my head.

That dress probably cost more than I made in a month, possibly two, and he’d just bought it without thought, on a whim. Because he could.

I slipped it over my hips, delicately pulling my arms through the thin straps and reaching around to carefully zip it up. I spun around to look at my reflection and caught sight of his ridiculous closet. Moments like this brought me back to reality, forcing me to realize that Jag was in no way a normal guy, despite how many times I’d said he was. He wasn’t.

I had been praying for normal and this…this was not anywhere close to it.

I wiped away a stray smudge of lipstick, deep in thought about what a nice little daydream this all had been. It was a vacation from the real world and I knew it would end. Jag was leaving to go back on tour the next afternoon, and I figured that would be the end of this. He would have hundreds of girls groping him, begging to fuck him; he would be back in his rock star world and I’d be here, just another one of the girls left in his wake.

When I walked back into his bedroom, I found Jag lying on his bed, arms crossed behind his head, resting against the sleek black headboard. His lips lifted at each corner and he let out a low growl. “Fuck, you are hot. That dress is killer on you, princess.”

“Thanks. That was really sweet of you to get it for me.”

“I knew it would look amazing on you.” He pushed himself up from his bed and made his way toward me, his bottom lip tightly gripped beneath his stark white teeth. “Makes me want to fuck you instead of going to dinner; after all, you did say you believed I liked you the other day…” He grabbed my hips and yanked me to him, his hard-on pushing against me through the thin material of my dress.

My heart tapped unevenly my chest. A tingly heat washed over my neck and bled down to my fingertips.

“But,” Jag let go of me and strode to his dresser. He picked up his wallet, shoving it in his back pocket as he grabbed his keys and jingled them in the air. “Fucking on an empty stomach’s not a good idea. You’d probably pass out, and I suck at CPR.”

Moments like that, I knew he was fully aware of what he was doing to me, and it managed to both piss me off and turn me on. He was cocky and arrogant, and I was ashamed that those personality flaws did nothing but make me want him even more.

I slipped my feet into the strappy pair of Chanel shoes, listening to the heels clack against the marble floors and echo from the tall ceilings as I followed him out to his car. This life he was allowing me to live was so far removed from what I’d been used to. For a short while, I had been Cinderella, with a fucked-up rocker as my Prince Charming.

*****

The sun crept below the horizon. I watched the vibrant oranges and reds fade into a dark blue. Within seconds the sun had disappeared behind the rising hills, and the white lights from the Hollywood sign burned against the dusky sky. For the first time, I didn’t feel trapped by that sign. It didn’t loom over me at that moment.

My fingers dug into the molded leather sides of the seat as Jag wove in and out of traffic. He floored the accelerator, only to slam on the brakes a few seconds later. The sight of cars whizzing past and bright red flashes from brake lights nearly sent me into a panic. I closed my eyes to block out the numerous near-death experiences.

Jag laughed and I opened one eye to look at him. “What?” I asked.

“You scared?”

“Uh, yeah. You suck at driving.”

He slammed on the brakes again, cussing under his breath at the driver in front of us.

“Oh, that a fact?” he asked, directing his eyes back to the road to swerve around the car he nearly rear ended.

Opening the other eye, I said, “I really don’t want to die. I’m not ready.” My pulse pounded in my temples, and my palms grew slick with sweat.

“Oh, come on. I’m not gonna kill us. I haven’t fucked you yet, we can’t die until I do that at least.”

I huffed and closed both eyes again. “Just tell me when you get off the interstate, okay? I want to stay oblivious your shitty driving until we are going about forty miles per hour, okay?”

“Sure thing.”

I pressed my head into the headrest, flinching every time he’d slam on his breaks, slap his hand over the steering wheel, and curse at someone for driving too slow.

I felt the car veer to the left and slow, then round a curve.

“You can open your eyes now. I told you I wouldn’t kill us.”

I blew out the breath I’d been holding in. “Thank God.”

“You like this song?” he asked, turning the volume up and immediately belting out the lyrics.

I nodded, watching him sing. That got to me because it caused flashbacks to watching Pandemic Sorrow’s videos on MTV. That made it hard to separate Jag from the rock star, and it made the moment seem surreal. I was getting a private show by one of the world’s biggest rockers; for the past two weeks I’d shared his life, seen what he did, had him touching me, kissing me, telling me I was gorgeous, and it wasn’t until things like this happened that it clicked that he
really
was that guy.