Identity Crisis (9 page)

Chapter Ten

He held the remote so tight that his fingers hurt, but he didn’t care. He slid from the chair onto the floor, as close to the TV screen as he could get. With the back of his hand he wiped tears. It was her! Dear God, it was her, there on national television. There for all the world to see. He had pictured her a thousand ways in his mind. He had imagined a thousand ways she might look, a thousand personalities she might have, but he knew that when he saw her he would know her like he knew himself. He would feel her like the other half of him. He knew it, and he’d been so right.

He ran a trembling hand along the image of her bright cinnamon hair piled high on her head, along the soft curve of her cheek, along the full red of her lips as she opened her mouth to thank everyone for the Golden Kiss Award. Tess Delaney, close up and personal, shining like the sun all new and bright. She was exquisite in ways he could have never imagined, even in the very best of his fantasies. She took his breath away. She made him ache all over with longing. She was a religious experience, too sacred for someone like Garrett Thorne to be pawing at. And yet she felt so comfortable, so familiar, like he’d always known her.

The fact that she was with Garrett Thorne tied his gut in a burning knot. It didn’t matter, he tried to convince himself. Thorne wasn’t known for staying with one woman for very long. And who could blame him for wanting to stand in the radiance of Tess Delaney’s light? But he was certain Tess couldn’t really feel anything for someone as shallow as Garrett Thorne. She would see right through him and it would end soon enough, and even if it didn’t, it made no difference to him. He hadn’t come this far to be denied the prize.

He listened as she made her little speech. Her voice was like the music of the angels to him, flowing from her lips honeyed and sweet, and flooding him with such ecstasy; not what she said, but that it was she who spoke it, breathed it, willed each word of it into the world. Dear God, how had he survived all of this time outside her radiance, outside her beauty? He watched as she waltzed down the aisle like the queen of the world before her adoring public. He watched as she returned to her seat. He watched as Garrett Thorne stood and took her into his arms like he owned her, like she belonged to him, like he could fuck her with his mouth right there in front of everyone.

The flash fire of rage in his belly felt like it would burn him to a cinder. There was a sharp pop and crack as the plastic casing of the TV remote shattered in his vice grip. Slivers of hard plastic sliced into his palm. He felt the warm wet of his blood flowing from the wound down his wrist. He smelled the sweet-metal scent of it and was instantly hard, imagining that it was her blood. Imagining that it was her blood mingled with his own, imagining the pleasure of the pain he could share with her, and how much more intense that pain would be for the way she allowed Garrett Thorne to slobber all over her, to grope at her like some animal in rut.

He ignored the soft drip, drip, drip of the blood on the carpet as he watched the beginnings of the musical number through a hot haze of tears, impatient for more of her, impatient for the press conference that was to follow, impatient to hear what she had to say for herself, for allowing Thorne’s behavior, even inviting it. He watched as that damned Barker Blessing mauled her. Fuck, had she really fallen so far? Had she really lost her way so badly that she had become nothing more than a whore for anyone to fondle and rut with?

When Garrett Thorne rose behind Barker with his hand on the man’s collar, he found himself hoping that he would kill the man, strangle him right there in front of the whole world on national television, make the man pay for touching Tess. And then … And then … He would find Garrett Thorne and make him pay … And then, he would take Tess, take her away, and make her pay … For a very long time, he would make her pay. And then, once she was purified, once she understood, once her mind was clear again, they could truly be together.

‘What the fuck?’ he growled, as Tess dumped her dessert in Blessing’s lap, close up and personal, covering the man’s bulge in chocolate mousse. That’s not what was supposed to happen. He wanted the man covered in blood; he wanted the man choking out his last breath while everyone watched in delicious horror.

‘No, no, no!’ he roared at the monitor, up on his knees, close enough that his breath misted the screen as Garrett Thorne took Tess by the elbow and led her from the hall to the loud applause of all present. ‘No! That’s not right! That’s not the way it’s supposed to happen! That’s not the way I want it,’ he raged, shattering what was left of the broken remote against the monitor over and over again, streaking it with more of his blood before rising to his feet, yanking the monitor from its stand and smashing it over and over against the wall, the sound of crumbling sheetrock, splintering plastic and metal, drowning out the electronic crackle of shredding wires.

‘She’s not yours! You can’t have her,’ he shouted as the image of Thorne and Tess Delaney disintegrated and crumbled in a shower plaster dust. ‘She belongs to me. To me!’

When there was nothing left of the television monitor or the remote, he sat back on his heels and sobbed, holding his bloodied hand against the spastic jumping of his heart. It was ages before he finally stood. He wrapped his hand in half a roll of toilet paper, shoved on his trainers, and went for a run. He would not let Garrett Thorne have his Tess. In the end she would still be his, but they would both pay for their betrayal. He’d be sure of that. He ran and ran, he didn’t know for how long. He didn’t remember anything about it, except that the night vision of the Portland streets was filtered through the red rage that surrounded him like a fog. He wasn’t even sure how he wound up back at the door of his apartment, struggling to get the key into the lock, struggling with all his might not to think about what Garrett Thorne might be doing to his Tess right now. It was unbearable. It was agony. He’d waited so long. And then this!

In the bathroom, he peeled away the bloodied toilet paper from his hand. The gash had clotted clean, but reopened with the removal of the tissue. He washed it for ages under cold water, then, when he was sure it wouldn’t bleed any more, he stripped off his clothes and shuffled back into the living room. Ignoring the rubble that was once the television, he went to the makeshift desk and booted up his laptop. Sitting naked, as dawn began to break grey over the city, he surfed through everything he could find in the press about last night’s Golden Kiss Awards.

At last, he went to Carla Flannery’s article. She was a young nobody of a journalist, who always seemed to find out what no one else could. As he read her report about the strange goings on at the Golden Kiss Awards, an idea began to form in his head. It wasn’t that hard to get the attention of the media these days, and it was Carla Flannery’s attention he wanted. All the reporters were watching her out of the corner of their eyes after she broke a story about an illegal landfill near John Day. She was only just an email away. He rubbed his hands together and began to type.

Once the limo pulled away from the curb, Garrett pried the award gently from her fingers, then hefted its weight. ‘I’d say the bastard was damn lucky he got the mousse in the crotch instead of the Rodin upside of the head.’

Kendra forced a pained laugh, in spite of herself, and he could tell her control was near the breaking point, but he didn’t care. He didn’t!

As the anger dissipated slightly from her face, she took a careful breath and said, ‘Garrett, you should have let me handle it. I’ve had to deal with gropers and droolers and all sorts, and I know what an asshole Blessing is. I was ready for him. Really I was. But you forced my hand. Damn it, you forced my hand.’ Her grip on the leather arm rest was white-knuckled, and Garrett was pretty sure it was in attempt to keep from punching him good. ‘You should have let me handle it. That’s my job, Garrett, that’s what you’re paying me for, and frankly I –’

‘Shut up, Kendra.’ He risked life and limb by stopping her words with a hard kiss, followed in quick succession by several more. The wild and furious battle between her tongue and his came as a total surprise. When they both pulled away in a breathless gasp, he said, ‘I’m sorry. I fucked up. I couldn’t stand him touching you. If you hadn’t moussed him I might have done something that would have required my brother to bail me out of jail, and that would have completely ruined Tess’s evening.’

‘That wasn’t my plan, Garrett. The mousse wasn’t my plan, and now we can’t foresee the consequences of what I did.’

‘Kendra, you only did what every writer in that room and all the writers watching from home wanted to do. I can’t imagine the consequences of your actions being anything but good. You were stunning and amazing. And right now I want you so badly I can hardly stand it.’

For a second Kendra froze, her whole body tensing, her eyes locked on his. The only sound was their heavy breathing above the soft purr of the limo engine. Garrett was sure this was the point at which he got slapped again. He held his breath.

At last she found her voice. ‘That makes two of us,’ she whispered.

Before he had time to wonder if he’d heard her right, she scooted and wriggled her way onto his lap, scrunching the skirt of the dress, exposing the silken flesh of her thighs between stocking tops and a gold lace garter belt. He caught a flash of matching panties that were barely there. Then she straddled him, and the heat of her against the uncomfortable expansion in the front of his tux trousers was exquisite.

His mouth vied for position with the golden pendent in the soft swell of her cleavage. He nuzzled away the silken smoothness of the dress to get to the rounded hillocks of her breasts, far more silken than the dress, high and tight and crested with ripe-fruit nipples that grew impossibly erect at his caressing. And when he took them into his mouth in turn, she gave a little gasp and shivered against him, curling her fingers in his hair.

Deftly she managed his belt and his fly and shoved up so that her knees supported her on the leather seat either side of his thighs. He wriggled his trousers and boxers down over his hips, releasing himself into the stroke and grip of her hand, which caused an involuntary groan that began low in his belly as he ground his ass against the seat beneath them.

From somewhere she produced a condom even before he could get to the one stuffed in his pocket just in case. As she rolled it onto him, he pushed aside the crotch of her panties, and she whimpered at his touch, gripped at his fingers as he stroked her open and circled the swell of her with his thumb. Then, with a shifting of her hips, she rose up into position and squatted onto him, settling down tight and wet and sweeter than anything.

For a second she sat very still atop him, fully impaled, her bright eyes burning into him in the scant light of the limo. Then her lips curled into a bow of a smile and she said, ‘Here’s to Tess Delaney, the winner of the Golden Kiss.’ And she began to shift and undulate against him as he thrust up to meet her like his life depended on it, like he’d never get another chance, like being inside her was the best thing ever, and at the moment, that was pretty much the truth. Kendra Davis riding him hard, surely this must be the end of the world, but he could happily live with that.

They strained and shifted and grasped, bathed in the strobe of the passing night lights of Portland. The leather seat creaked in the hard friction of expensive clothing and exposed bare flesh, in the grip and release, thrust and stroke of need born of excitement and anger and some sort of wild animal magnetism. They came together, trembling and gasping and holding tight.

They barely had time to tuck and tidy before the limo arrived at his house. He didn’t ask if she wanted to come in. He wasn’t about to give her the chance to say no, and now that he’d been with her, he was sure one dose of Kendra Davis was nowhere near enough to cure what ailed him. To his relief, no manhandling was necessary. She followed him willingly up the porch steps, offering him a hug and a caress from behind while he unlocked.

As he opened the door and turned on the light in the foyer, she slid a hand under his jacket to stroke his ass, which had the exact effect on his cock he figured she was aiming for. He turned and trapped her against the door, capturing her mouth with his, cupping the rise and fall of her, delighting in the hard and soft of her. In mid-kiss, she reached behind her, unzipped her gown, and let it slide down her body, almost in slow motion, as though it intended to caress each inch of her bared flesh all the way to the floor.

She wore no bra, and it was perfect that she didn’t. It would have been such a shame to put any more clothing on those exquisite breasts than absolutely necessary. She stood before him in only the garter belt, stockings and panties, and the gold fuck-me heels that made her legs look like they went on for ever before they joined her body in the scant swaddling of gold and lace. Jesus, she was a sight to behold!

Still holding his gaze, she removed a gold clasp from her hair and it fell in a cascade of mussed copper around her shoulders.

He wound a soft fall of curls around his fingers and reeled her in until he could taste her breath, until he could possess her lips and her mouth and her breasts. While he traced the pathway along the well-muscled length of her spine, she shoved his jacket off his shoulders to puddle on the floor next to her dress, never missing a beat in the tango of their tongues. ‘I want to undress you, Garrett. I want to see you. All of you. So hold still.’

‘Christ, you’re bossy,’ he grumbled half-heartedly.

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ she said as she pushed his hands away from her breasts and deftly undid his bowtie. And he obeyed her. Kendra Davis exploring him, touching him, unwrapping him like he was her Christmas present made the weight already heavy in his groin feel nearly unbearable. And yet it felt way too intriguing for him not to hold on for as long as he could, to hold on for her, until she wanted it all for herself, and he was sure that would be soon.