Dirty Little Secrets (17 page)

James smiled. “You’re not a crazy bitch.” His voice was soft and warm, comforting after everything she had put him through.

Megan dusted a piece of imaginary lint from her running pants. Suddenly she felt awkward and out of place. She didn’t know what to say to him. She extended her hand to shake his. “I stayed to tell you I don’t think this is going to work out. I’m really busy. But you really
are
a nice guy,” she added lamely.

James stared down dubiously at her extended hand. “Is this where I get my marching orders? You think I’m nice so you can’t see me any more? Every time I think we’ve arrived at the bottom of your shit, there is another layer.” James ran his hand through his hair, smoothing it down. “Christ you are one fucked-up woman.” His words were harsh but his tone lacked any malice, instead it was laced with sympathy.

Megan’s back straightened. She knew she was messed up but she didn’t want him to know. She managed to keep up the persona of the ice queen with everyone else but James was constantly chipping away at it. Everyone else thought she had it together. Her facade was poised and polished and no one questioned it except James, not even Ben. She had hidden herself away for so long, she wasn’t even sure what was beneath the mask she had created. She knew the victim she had left behind in Mississippi and she knew the wild child who had arrived in New York, but she had no idea about the woman she was other than the roles she played. “Wow, your ego is even bigger than your dick. Ever consider that I am going home because I don’t want to be with you?” She winced inwardly at her words. She was doing it again, lashing out. She hated that she couldn’t stop. Her go-to mode was attack. She wasn’t a victim when she was on the offensive. How did James manage to be kind and still not let people take advantage or hurt him? She wished she could do that.

James shook his head. “Don’t forget I can see now. Hurts like hell but I can see. I can tell you’re lying. You’re pulling back because whatever this is between us has got you shit scared. If you want to end it, do it, but just be honest.”

Megan pulled back her hand. “You don’t need to analyse it. Maybe I’m just not into you. Or maybe I really am as big abitch as people think I am.”

James smiled again. “Sweetheart, we both know you want this. I have never met a woman as sexually driven as me. We’re well matched that way. Give me five minutes and you would be coming so hard and fast you would forget your name. Let’s not pretend this is about lack of desire. And stop pretending that you’re a bitch. You’re not. You’re uptight and shit scared but you’re not a bitch. A bitch wouldn’t have driven me home the first night, and a bitch wouldn’t have stayed today to make sure I was OK. Stop pretending with me. Be honest, you owe it to yourself.”

Megan froze. She felt trapped and exposed and vulnerable. With a few words he had stripped her bare. “You don’t even know me.”

“True. If you have your way, I never will. No one ever will. That’s what you want isn’t it? Is that the real reason you married Ben? He is so fucking self-absorbed that he does not know the incredible woman he’s married to. It is the Ben McCoy show. But that is exactly how you want it.”

“Don’t talk to me about Ben. And don’t compliment me. I don’t want it. You know bugger all about my relationship with him. I am not pretending to be anyone other than I am.”

James stepped down from the last stair and pulled her in against him, close enough that she could smell the subtle scent of cologne that clung to him.

“You want to run. I can see it in your eyes. You’re scared. I scare you.”

Her back straightened. “I’m not scared of you.”

“Prove it. Spend the night with me.”

“Ha,” she scoffed. “I have slept with you before. That won’t prove anything.” She turned away from him and reached for the door.

“I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about you in my bed until the alarm goes off and we both need to go to work. I’m talking about reading the paper together over cereal and coffee. I’m talking about what normal human beings do alongside their sex. But if you can’t do it, just keep running, sweetheart.”

She turned slowly to face him. She wanted to run but she would not give him that satisfaction. He thought she couldn’t manage a whole night with him. “Why? What are you trying to prove? You’ve said yourself that you don’t like having someone stick around after sex. But you’re willing to keep me around to prove a point?”

“Since I met you I have realised, I simply don’t want someone around after sex. You can’t handle it.”

She did not bother denying it. She had never managed a proper functional relationship with anyone other than Ben. “So what if I do? What will spending the night prove?”

“It will prove to yourself that you can do it. It will get you over the hump so to speak. Because, Megan, you’re not a bitch and you’re not incapable of intimacy. You need to know that. Someday, after me, after Ben, you may want to have a real relationship. And no man worth his salt is going to put up with your shit for very long.”

Megan took a deep breath. Her instinct was to say something caustic and then run before he had the chance to think of a comeback but she stopped herself. She ignored her reflex. He didn’t deserve it. And deep down she wanted to believe him, she wanted to be the person he thought she was. He saw something in her that wasn’t there, but she wanted it to be. She wanted to be the decent person he saw. She had been nice once, before she realised nice girls just made more compliant victims. And she was nobody’s victim. “What if I really am just a bitch?” she had to ask. What if he was only seeing shadows of kindness in her, a glimpse of who she was a lifetime ago?

James shrugged his shoulders. “Then I would be wrong. There’s a first time for everything.” A slight smile tugged at his lips. “Before I met you the first time, I did some research. I spoke to your boss. And do you know what he said? He has never met a DA with more compassion. He said that you don’t see your victims as cases you see them as people who need your help. He said you fight tooth and nail for them because no one else will. He told me about the scholarship fund you set up to pay for private schools for inner city kids. You’re not a bitch. Sometimes you do a fabulous impersonation of one, but you’re not fooling me.”

Megan shook her head. She swallowed hard to dislodge the lump that had formed in her throat. A strange pressure built behind her eyes. “Please don’t put any expectations on me. I will only disappoint you.”

“Don’t worry about me. This heart is unbreakable.” His smile broadened as he tapped his chest with his casted hand. “Look at the pain you’ve inflicted on me thus far, woman, and I’m still standing.” With his cast he indicated his blood-red eyes and jagged stitches.

Megan smiled despite herself at the levity that only James could provide. As much as she wanted to run, something deep inside her was drawn to him. Something in her wanted to stay put and learn from him, discover how to find joy. She wanted to learn how to be kind again and still be strong. But she couldn’t say that so instead she said, “Ben has his election committee over anyway. I suppose I have less chance of being seen here than a hotel.”

“Good. I’m starving. Let’s put those ordering skills to the test. What kind of pizza did you get?”

“Pepperoni. Is there any other kind?” She smiled again. She was making a habit of it.

“It’s like we share the same mind.” James put his arms around her waist and pulled her close to him. His head lowered as he captured her mouth with a deep greedy kiss. She relaxed into him. She felt safe in his arms, happy even, and it scared her. But her body didn’t seem to care. His lips teased hers open. With each skilled caress of his tongue she thawed and opened to him.

Eventually he pulled away, but not before she could feel the thick length of his erection pressed against her, high on her belly.

“Let’s eat,” James said, pulling further away from her, separating his body from hers completely. His demeanour changed, going from electrically charged to friendly but distant. The eyes that had been looking at her with hooded passion were now staring through her.

Megan’s eyes narrowed in confusion. The food would wait. What was he playing at? Was it a game? Or a joke she wasn’t in on? She sighed in exasperation. “Did you just want to see if you could get me to stay? Are you one of those guys who gets bored after the chase?” The realisation was a slap in the face. Maybe he wasn’t the nice guy she thought; maybe he was just another asshole trying to play her.

James shook his head. His hand reached between them and pulled her hand down to his hard erection. “This isn’t bored.”

“Then what is it?”

“I’m not going to give you another excuse to run tonight. I’m not going to let you blame it on the postcoital drop in dopamine this time.”

“Serotonin,” she corrected. “You want me to spend the night and not have sex?” Was he having a laugh? “What’s the point of that? Are you trying to make another point? Because I’m really not interested in your pop psychology. I don’t need you to fix me.”

James grabbed her hand and led her through the living room into the kitchen. “I want to spend the night with you, Megan, but I know if we have sex you will find a reason to pick a fight or run. I’m not going to give you the chance. Don’t read anything more into it. I just want to spend a quiet evening with a woman whose company I happen to thoroughly enjoy. God only knows why. Now I am hungry, so let’s eat.”

James pulled out a chair from the solid oak kitchen table. Megan hesitated a second before she sat down. As he placed a plate in front of her, she asked, “So are we giving up on the fuck buddy thing?”

James leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. “Oh no, there will be plenty more fucking, we’re too good together to give that up, just not tonight. Or any night I want to actually spend time with you. Looks like I’m learning to compartmentalise. You have taught me so much.” He served her up two slices of pizza and half of the salad before he served himself. “There is the Megan I thoroughly enjoy fucking and the Megan I want to talk to. I know I can’t have both at the same time. Wine?” he asked.

She shook her head. If there wasn’t going to be any sex, there wasn’t really any need for a drink and she slept better without alcohol. If she had any chance of making it through the night in his bed, she was going to need to go at it sober. “Just water please. And only water for you too,” she reminded him.

“If sex was on the cards, you would ask for wine, wouldn’t you?” he asked, reading her mind.

She did not deny it. He knew too much about her. “If I am abstaining, so is my liver.”

“Fair enough. But we will have sex sober at some point. Lots of it,” he assured her as he handed her a glass of chilled water.

He was wrong but she didn’t correct him. “How are your eyes?”

“Shit sore. But at least you know that stuff works. I’m glad you carry it when you run. I would prefer if you didn’t run by yourself though. If you want to run along the river at the crack of dawn, I will go with you. You might need to train a bit harder though, if you want to keep up with me.” James winked as he sat down across from her and bit into a slice of pizza.

Her eyes widened. How could he still be concerned about her after everything she put him through? He really was a nice guy. She enjoyed the company of a nice guy, who knew that was even possible? “What I lack in speed, I more than make up for in endurance. One hard run with me and I’ll leave you crying in the dust, boy.”

“Challenge accepted. I’ll set the alarm for 4:30.” James finished off his slice of pizza and then reached for another. He put another slice on her plate at the same time.

She thought for a second before she reached for the additional slice. It wasn’t even Thursday, her preordained red meat and carbs day. “For real? You want to go running with me?” Not even Ben ran with her. Even before he tore his ACL, Ben only ran at the gym. She always ran alone. It was her time. She was intrigued by the idea of running with someone else. No, that was a lie; she was intrigued by the idea of running with James. It was something simple and mundane, something normal. She aspired to normal.

“You’re sexy when you’re surprised. Why are you shocked? I don’t want you running alone but I wouldn’t dream of trying to stop you. So I’ll run with you.”

Her stomach did a flip. He was being protective and sensitive at the same time; she did not know that combination was possible. Men were either aggressive like the men she tried, or emotional like Ben. James was something entirely different, a creature so utterly masculine but also surprisingly caring. She did not know how to react so she changed the subject. “Have you ever spent the night with someone?”

James nodded. “Not willingly but yes, there has been the occasion where I couldn’t get away. When that happens I spend most of the night staring at the ceiling waiting for the alarm clock to go off. The worst is the morning, when they want reassurance that the sex meant something and I can’t give it because I’m not going to lie; that part is always fun. Tears are always a great orgasm chaser. Promise me you will never ask if it was special.”

Megan nearly choked on her pizza. It was like he was reading her mind again. She felt the same way, though no man had ever needed reassurance after sex. They arrived, they fucked, they left, just the way she liked it. God she really was a wombat. “Never going to happen. As you know, I don’t stick around after sex and God forbid if I start to think it means something. The day I start equating sex with love is the day I give it up. You’re safe on that front.”

“I wish we had wine so we could toast to that.”

Megan scrunched up her nose as she smiled. “So do you just have a string of fuck buddies then or do you have a series of short-term girlfriends?”

James swallowed the salad he was chewing before he answered. “You are my first proper fuck buddy. I always put all my cards on the table but every woman I’ve been with thinks that they are the one that’s going to change me. I just need to meet the right woman and all that bullshit. It usually takes them a few months to figure out I actually mean what I’ve been telling them from the beginning.”