Degradation (31 page)

“No. She wants
you
. She has been
waiting for
you
.”

Jameson scowled. He wasn't in the mood for Sanders' little riddles. He stood up and pulled Tate to the edge of the bed, picked her up in his arms, curled her in to his chest. He nodded at Sanders and then strode from the room.

Once he had her laid down, he stripped the rest of her clothing off. She slept through the whole process, breathing heavily through her nose. She rolled back onto her stomach and he let his eyes wander over her body. He stretched out next to her, massaged his fingers against her skin. There were no signs on her body that another man had been there. She must have been a lot gentler with strangers. She started to move under his touch.

“
Jameson,
” she mumbled, her face turned away from him.

“You sure it's not Sanders?” Jameson teased. She managed a laugh.

“Oh, I'd know his fingers anywhere,” she joked back.

“Are you okay?” he whispered, smoothing his hand over her back. She shrugged.

“Yeah. Nothing a tough chick like me can't handle,” she replied.

“Sometimes I wonder.”

“I was just so angry. You had promised, and there were all these pictures of the two of you, and I just ..., I got upset. I didn't have any right to, I'm sorry,” she said softly. He sighed. He liked to pretend he didn't, but he knew he owed her something.

“I got upset when I realized you were wearing his shirt,” he replied.

“You sleep with girls all the time,” she pointed out.

“I still got upset.”

“So I can't sleep with other guys?” she asked. He thought for a second.

“
I just don't want you using it against me, trying to upset me with the fact. I've never done that to you – if anything, I sleep with other women because I know it turns you on. I've never done it to hurt you. You wearing his shirt, in my house, though, trying to upset me;
it worked,
” Jameson growled at her.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered.

He rubbed a hand across his face. How far did he really want to go for this girl? He looked down at her, stretched out beside him. When he had first seen Tatum, at that party, he hadn't believed his eyes. A dark haired sex kitten engaging in dangerous banter with him. Then again at the meeting with his lawyers. Pulling her panties off in a room full of people; she had blown him away. He had wanted to play with her some more, maybe finish what they had started seven years ago. Only now, there wasn't an end in sight. He'd already gone too far.

“I met Petrushka at a party, a couple years ago. She's a huge bitch, so we hit it off. She's a freak in the sack, you'd love it,” he said. Tate laughed.

“Sounds like a keeper,” she chuckled. He put his hand back on her back and her skin jumped at his touch. Just like the first time they had ever touched. Just like every time.

“She's fucking crazy. We fucked, we fought, we broke up. Got back together. She wants everything her way, very demanding. We stayed together mostly because of our positions, I think. Supermodel, rich guy, I don't know. I was doing a lot of work in Europe at the time, it was easy,” he tried to explain.

“You have a home in Copenhagen. She's Danish,” Tate commented. He laughed.

“Seriously, Tate, sometimes I forget what a girl you are. I owned my home before I even knew her. We met in Germany,” he told her. She sighed.

“
I'm so stupid.
”

He moved his hand up and down her back, touched his fingers to her scratches.

“Sometimes,” he agreed. “I was unhappy. Pet dug her claws in, distracted me from that fact. I was angry a lot of the time, and sometimes she would let me treat her badly,” he continued.

“Like me?” Tate asked. He laid down on his side and leaned close to her.

“No one is like you, Tate. You're the real deal, she was an act. She likes to play my part, she wants to be the one holding someone down. She faked everything for me. I don't think she ever really liked me, or that I even ever really liked her. We just liked how each other looked, liked how we fucked,” he said.

“You spun two years away on liking how someone fucks?” Tate asked.

“You've been doing the same thing for seven years,” Jameson pointed out.

“Yeah, but with different people, different flavors. Not just one person that I don't even like. And if you didn't like her, how did you wind up engaged?” she pressed. He groaned and rolled onto his back

“It was an accident, I was kind of tricked in to it. I was picking up a ring from Harry Winston, in New York. It was my grandmother's ring. Huge, gorgeous. Pet and I had just had a very public fight, it was all over the tabloids. Some fucking paparazzi piece of shit took a bunch of pictures of me in the store with the ring, talking to the jeweler, taking it out of the store. It was everywhere. She freaked out, got all excited. When I told her what had really happened, she freaked out even more, pointed out that it would be everywhere, if I took it back. How could I take it back, when I'd never put it out there?” he asked.

“What a prize bitch,” Tate mumbled.

“I don't know, it was easier to go with the flow. There I was, almost thirty, and utterly alone; aside from Sanders. Who hated her, by the way. A very good judge of character, Sanders,” he pointed out.

“
Duh
. I would trust anything Sanders said. I would trust him with my life,” she was quick to comment.

“Goddamn, Tate, maybe you should be sleeping with him,” Jameson laughed.

“Who says I'm not?”

He smacked her on the ass, and some of the awkward tension between them eased as they laughed.

“Shut up, don't make me kill him. He's my favorite person –
you
can be replaced, Sanders can't,” he teased. She chuckled. “Anyway, I figured why not. She was one of the hottest fucks I'd ever had, she was gorgeous, and I had gotten pretty good at tuning out her bitching. I went with it. Gave her the ring. Big mistake. I never got it back.”

“What made you finally end it for real?” Tate asked.

“I had tried to break it off a couple times; once when she flipped out after she caught me fucking this tennis player – she was not as free a thinker as you. She never wanted to have sex anymore, and when we did, it was always kind of weird. Well, you know, weirder than usual. I finally told her it was over,
for real
over. That I had
never
wanted to marry her, and
would
never marry her. She begged and pleaded. Cried. I could never resist tears, you know.

“We wound up fucking, and she asked me to hit her. She never let me do that before, never asked me to – she would let me do other things. Hot candle wax, cat-o-nine-tails, paddles; things she had the option of doing back to me. But hitting ..., it's kind of a one way street. You'll never be able to hit me as hard as I can hit you,” Jameson said softly. Tate laughed.

“We'll see about that.”

“Very few women will let you do that to them, I've discovered. Lot's of other crazy shit, but not that, so it was kind of like dangling forbidden fruit in front of me. I was gentle, I didn't do anything crazy. Slapped her once, maybe twice. She went fucking nuts. Fucked my goddamn brains out – almost comparative to you,” he told her.

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Tate snorted.

“
I mean, it was crazy. Even for me. We were all over the place, every surface in the apartment. But then she started hitting herself.
Hard
. It got a little strange. I tried to stop her. She gave herself a bloody lip, pulled out a hank of hair, and when she came, she gave herself a black eye. I like some freaky shit, but that was too much. I got off of her, made her stop. She laughed at me, said that I was the freak, that there was something wrong with me for liking the things I like, said she was gonna tell everyone, sell pictures of her face to the press. Fucked up. I packed a bag and left. I've never gone back to that apartment, though I'm pretty sure I'm still paying rent on it,” Jameson said.

“Fuck the apartment! What happened to crazy bitch!?” Tate exclaimed, propping herself up on her elbows so she could look at him. He smiled and traced a finger down the side of her face. Her hair was a mess and her eye makeup was smeared down her cheeks, but she was looking at him. Really looking at him, all of the detachment from earlier gone.

She is so beautiful.

“I should've looked you up,” he blurted out. Her eyes got wide.

“Excuse me?”

“Seven years. I should've looked you up. I thought about you. Wondered what you were doing. That night was a pretty big deal. I never imagined that you would turn out like you did,” he told her.

“What, like you?” she asked. He nodded.

“Yeah.”

“I wouldn't have imagined it, either, back then. You unleashed something in me. Thank you,” she told him. He laughed and pushed himself so he was sitting up, resting back against the headboard.

“Don't thank me yet. You were ready to kill me earlier,” he reminded her.

“I was hurt. I was stupid. I'll get over it,” she assured him. He shook his head.

“It wasn't stupid. I could've told you. I would've wanted you to tell me, I guess. Dealing with her isn't always the most pleasant experience. We broke up last year, but besides having some investment plans together, we just run in to each other a lot. Sex happens sometimes. Old feelings get stirred up. It's fucked up, but I'm kind of a fucked up guy,” he told her. She laid back down, facing away from him, and there was silence for a few moments.

“Old feelings, huh,” she said softly.

“Tatum.”

“Hmmm?”

“
If I tell you something, will you please,
please
, not be a girl about it? Not read too much in to it?”

Tate propped herself back up. Pushed her messy hair out of her face. She scooted closer and rested her chin against his knee. He smiled down at her, reached out and ran a hand over her hair.

She deserves better than me.

“I make no promises, but I'll try. I'm usually pretty good about it. Just not today,” she replied.

“I didn't want to like you,” he stated bluntly. She held her breath, but kept staring at him. “When I first saw you, got them to hire you as a temp. I had no intention of knowing you. I just wanted to sleep with you again. You looked so amazing, and god, your mouth. That was my plan the whole time. I wanted to see if you were like how I remembered, if anything could ever be that good again. It was
better
. You weren't scared of me, you stuck around. Were willing to take more than I was even prepared to dish out,” he told her. She laughed, leaned to the side and nibbled on his thigh.

“I told you, flattery will -,”

“I like you, Tatum.
A lot
. I don't want you to leave. When you didn't come home tonight, didn't answer your cell phone, that was my first thought. That it was over, you were bored, didn't care. I always thought it would be me first. I was upset. I don't want to let you go, not yet.
I like you,
” he stressed.

She frowned at him, her brows creasing together.

“That's very sweet, Jameson, but I'm not sure I understand. Why am I not supposed to be a girl about that?” she asked. He sighed, running his fingers through her hair.

“Because it won't ever be more than that. You're a friend, a very good friend. But that's it. There will never be a ring from Harry Winston. I will never ask you to marry me. I don't want those things, I never did. Not with Pet, not with anybody. I like to have fun, I like to fuck. I don't want to put stars in your eyes, I'm not that guy. I'm the devil, and I don't have any plans to change. But I like you, and I would like you to stay with me, for a little while longer,” he said.

There. He didn't know how else he could say it. How did he explain to a woman that he only ever wanted to be ..., how had she put it? “
Fuck buddies
”? He liked Tatum, probably a lot more than he was admitting to himself, or to her. But he didn't want to get her hopes up. Things had gone so badly between him and Pet; he didn't want that happening with Tate. She was someone he always wanted to call a friend. He wanted to hold her down, and bend her to his will, and make her do degrading, horrible things with him.

And I want her to be my friend.

“I'll stay, Jameson. I'll stay,” she murmured, moving away from him to lay back on her stomach.

“You're okay with all that?” he asked. More silence.

“I have to be. It's all you have to offer,” she finally replied.

“You don't want more?” he pressed.

“Do you want me to lie?”

“No.”

“Of course I want more. I
am
a girl, you're right. I want Prince Charming to ride up on a white horse, and carry me off to his castle. The only difference between me and other girls is once I get there, I want him to bend me over the throne and pull my hair while he fucks me hard and calls me names. But I know that'll never happen with you. I'm not sure I'd even want it to be you – you
are
the devil,” Tate agreed with him. Jameson laughed.