More Than Meets the Ink (31 page)

James turned to her and stroked her back, but she stood, jerking away, and all but ran to the front door. She needed fresh air; she was going to pass out.

James was too tuned to her, and he came after her. She was bent over, her hands on her knees, her eyes shut tight, trying to get her head to stop spinning. Her breath was choppy, and no matter how hard she tried to breathe, she wasn’t getting enough air.

He reached for her. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

She straightened, fighting to get herself together.

“You and I are through.” She hadn’t planned to come out and say it like that, but there it was. She kept her eyes glued to the wall on her right; her resolve would falter if she looked at him. He had that much power over her.

“What are you talking about? Look at me, princess,” he said, grabbing her and forcing her to face him. She did her best to look at him and not see him. “You are joking, right?”

“No, I am not joking.” The air she was getting was barely enough to let her talk. She needed to finish this conversation now, before she choked, or worse, broke into tears.

“This is because of Faith? Whatever she told you, ignore it. I made it clear to her I was with you.”

She shook her head, afraid to even give his words consideration, or she’d falter. “Give your keys to Elle.”

Tim came out. “Is everything all right?”

Tate nodded, but James ignored him, his gaze never leaving her. “Talk to me.”

She disentangled herself from him. Time to be strong. “Good-bye, James.”

“Don’t do this, Tate.”

She hurried back in, whispered to Elle to close for her, and avoiding questioning glances and without stopping to explain anything, she ran to her apartment. Walking would have been more dignified, but she was past caring about saving face. And running away was more important at this moment. She needed to be alone, pull herself together. It had been nice as long as it lasted, but now it was time to get off the ride before it derailed, crashed, and burned with her in it.

Once in her apartment, she barely managed to sit before the door opened. It was James; the man didn’t know when to quit. Although she had to recognize it; she’d been surprised he’d let her run away down there.

She sighed, her voice coming out like a broken string of sound. “What are you doing here? I asked you to give your keys to Elle.” She felt dead tired, drained, but she had to stand, show him she meant business.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He widened his stance. Clearly she wasn’t going to drive him away that easily.

“Language,” she reprimanded him.

He remained silent, his eyes flaring. He was pissed.

“Please don’t make this more difficult. Just go.”

“What’s gotten into you?” She kept quiet, her arms also crossed. “Talk to me, dammit. I deserve at least that much!”

“There’s nothing to talk about. This thing between us is history. We are history.”

“Not so fast, sweetheart. I want to know why you are freezing me out. This is about Faith, right? What did she tell you?”

She shrugged. Yeah, this was about Faith, but then again, it wasn’t. “Faith just sped thing up. I knew you weren’t the kind I could trust in the long run.”

“My kind?” he said, his eyes glittering furiously. “Are we back to that shit again?”

“As far as I’m concerned, we never left it behind.”

He laughed bitterly. “You’re such a bitch; I tell I love you, and what do you do next? You drop me like a bad habit. Hasn’t it occurred to you I may deserve better than a coldhearted hypocrite so full of fears and prejudices she can’t tell her head from her ass? I won’t beg for anyone’s love, and yours is no exception. I deserve a woman that doesn’t have to be talked into showing that she cares. Someone who’d trust my commitment to her.”

“Good luck finding her,” she said, trying to keep her expression blank. Lord help her, the mere thought of James with someone else made her physically ill.

Cursing, he strode toward her, pulling her against him. “Who the fuck am I to you, uh? A stray dog to be returned to the kennel when it pleases you? I’ve been bending myself backward and forward like a damn pretzel for you, accommodating you, giving you all the control in the speed of our relationship so you wouldn’t feel pushed! So you wouldn’t flip out!”

“Accommodating me? Fuck off, you asshole! I am not your project! Or your damn rescue operation! No one asked you to go to such trouble! I just wanted a fuck! You get it? A fuck! I made it crystal clear from the beginning that this was sex. You were the one obscuring everything, pushing again and again for a relationship I didn’t want. Don’t blame me if you aren’t getting what you think you deserve! Now get the fuck away from here!”

He fell upon her lips, kissing her with an intensity that bordered on pain.

“Why should I?” He breathed into her lips, his gaze boring a hole in her. “I’m always up for a fuck myself. And don’t give me that look. You want me. I can feel your heart speeding up; I can sense your need for me.”

Damn, he was as arrogant as ever. And twice as right.

“We’ve established you can turn me on.” She shrugged dismissively. “That just proves my point. Now leave.” She kept going for indifferent, but her breath was labored.

Suddenly her back was against the wall, James pressing at her front, his hard cock forcibly grinding at her lower belly. “I don’t think so, babe; you don’t get to dismiss me. Not yet,” he said, nuzzling her ear, his hands gripping her hips. “Stop pretending you are not interested. We both know you are wet for me. And I can give it to you the way you like it.”

Her breath caught in her throat, and she shivered. Her felt so right against her. Damn, she wanted him. She wanted this, for the last time. If this was the end of it, she wanted to feel him inside her once more. He noticed right away the sexual tension flowing through her, grabbed her buttocks, lifting her to him, nudging his erection against her core. She gasped, her nails sinking into his shoulders, her eyes closing.

He looked furious and very aroused. “Yeah, you want me to fuck you. Let’s get to it, shall we? That’s at least one we’ve been able to agree on without any problems since the beginning. And I deserve to fuck you one last time too, if for nothing else than for all my troubles.”

“You asshole.” She slapped at him, but he didn’t budge.

Unbuckling his pants, he lifted her skirt and tore her panties aside. He parted her legs with his thigh and roughly probed her with his finger. It was totally unnecessary; he could make her wet with his voice alone. Her muscles greedily sucked him in.

Covering her with his body, James entered her. She was wet but not ready for him, and as he filled her to the hilt, she cried out. James stilled and looked her in the eye. Such a cold stare. So aroused yet so hard. This wasn’t the attentive lover she knew, but her body was so tuned to him it wouldn’t deny him anything.

She held him tight against her, willing her muscles to accommodate him; she hadn’t been planning on having sex with him, but now she wanted it, wanted it badly.

There was nothing tender in the way James took her. He pumped into her hard until she came, and then he used her body even harder until he found his release and his semen spurted into her. He didn’t look at her. No tender words, no wicked comments, no caresses. No intimacy. Just heavy breathing, heavy fucking, and the sound of slapping bodies.

Still panting, she looked at him. “I love to get fucked by you; I won’t deny it. But that’s all.” Her voice trembled with a lack of conviction she found difficult to hide.

“Don’t insult me with your bullshit. You’re scared of giving yourself to me, scared shitless of investing yourself in this relationship. At least recognize that much.”

He was so right. Not that it made a difference. She closed her eyes, steeling herself for the hurt she was going to inflict upon him. “I don’t want a relationship with you, and I don’t love you, so get that through your thick skull. To me, you’re nothing more than a good fuck. And a temporary one at that.”

His stormy eyes, always so expressive, turned glacial, and she inwardly winced at the sharp change in him.

“Fuck you too, Tate.” He didn’t scream, he didn’t look mad, he was just icy cold. He pulled out of her, buckled up, and left her apartment. On his way out, he left the keys on the table. “Have a nice life,” he said without looking back.

Mission accomplished. He was gone. For good. Her legs gave out, and she fell to the floor. The pain she’d been feeling before James came up to her place had been inconsequential. This was so much worse, so much more real. The world was crashing down around her. She opened her mouth to gasp for air, but nothing came in. She wrapped her arms around her stomach, pressing it, the knot at the pit of it tightening and tightening. It was done; she was alone. Although she knew this was the right thing to do, that didn’t make it less painful.

Madly panting for air, she closed her eyes, but then she opened them again, for all she saw was James’s warm hazel eyes turning ice-cold. She curled into herself like a baby.

Come on, Tate, get your shit together, she reprimanded herself while getting up. You knew this was coming, nothing new about it, just business as usual. You’ve survived much worse things.

But no matter how hard she tried to pull her shit together, all she could see was James walking away.

Chapter Thirteen

His cell was ringing, but hell if James was interested in answering it.

After a long night getting acquainted with his old friend Jack Daniels, James was feeling weirdly numb, finally; he didn’t want anything or anybody bringing him back to a shitty reality he didn’t feel like facing yet.

Tate.

He was pissed and hurt. He’d thought he could work around any shit Tate threw at him, but apparently he couldn’t. Yesterday he saw a glint in her eyes, a resolve that hadn’t been there before, not even once in all their clashes, every time she said no to him and he ignored her. She was letting him go, with or without his consent. He knew he couldn’t fight against that; if she didn’t want him, he couldn’t hold her. The sad part was that he thought she did want him, but not even then could he hold her; she’d decided he wasn’t worth the effort, and nothing he said would have mattered.

Ah hell, he was so fucked. Dumb shit that he was, he’d fallen in love with her hard, in a way he’d never fallen in love before. But he was done banging his head against the wall; he couldn’t keep fighting for the both of them—wouldn’t, actually. Life was too short and he had too much respect for himself to destroy his life chasing after her.

Shit happened; it hurt, yeah, but he’d get over it. Eventually.

He had trouble remembering what he used to do before she entered his life, how he’d occupied his time. He figured he should head to the office and get on with his life or go to the gym, sweat off all this crap clenching his chest, but he felt empty. Gutted. Every instinct inside him yelled to go to Tate and shake some sense into her—which, taking into consideration her lovely farewell words to him, could only mean he was completely deranged, but fuck if he would perform tricks for peanuts; he wasn’t a pathetic chump ready to settle for scraps. There was a limit to everything, and he’d reached it. He was done. He didn’t want to have to convince Tate she loved him or force her into seeing something she didn’t want to; he had too much pride for that. He deserved a woman that would fight for him too, not one that would run scared in the other direction.

The constant beeping of the phone was driving him mad, so he reached for it and checked the caller ID. Elle.

“What do you want?”

“Hi. Is Tate there with you?”

“Why?”

“Listen, I know you had a fight yesterday, but I figured you’d made up by now. I need to talk to her, and since she’s not answering her cell, could you please get your hands away from her long enough to put her on the phone?”

He went on alert right away. “She isn’t here. What do you mean she’s not answering?”

“She was supposed to meet me at Heaven for coffee and then some shopping. She hasn’t showed up, and nobody’s picking up the phone at Rosita’s. I thought about going there, but I don’t have the keys and I’m already downtown.”

The hairs on the back of his neck were standing straight up. Damn, he had a bad feeling about this. Tate was too thrilled her sister was finally coming around; she wouldn’t voluntarily miss a date with her.

“No, stay where you are, I’ll take care of this. As soon as I contact her, I’ll ask her to give you a call.”

As he was getting dressed and dialing Tate’s number all at once, another call came in.

“What?” he barked at the cell.

“Clint is out on bail,” Jack answered. “I just got a call about it.”

“How the fuck did that happen?” They’d been in the police station yesterday afternoon giving a statement, and the case against him seemed solid.

“Not sure yet how that happened, but someone bailed him out. You better call Tate and let her know, just in case.”

“Tate isn’t answering. Elle just called me because she was supposed to meet her and she hasn’t shown up. I was trying to reach her when you called. I’m on my way now.”

“I’m almost an hour away from Rosita’s. Wait for me.”

Yeah right. “Whatever.”

“There’s another thing. I’ve been checking the Internet cafés where some of the e-mails came from. You aren’t going to like this.”

* * *

His blood was boiling; it had been boiling since yesterday. That he had spent the worst night ever didn’t help a shit. Sleeping had been out of the question of course, and he was still wearing the same clothes as yesterday, before his world had been tilted on its axis. All his plans ruined. Now he was out of patience. Enough. He’d lost enough time, enough money, enough sleep over that bitch.

The metal shutters were halfway down, and there was a temporary door instead of the front door he had a key for, so he knocked. Snooping through the glass of a window, he saw Tate at the counter, the receipts from last night in front of her. He’d figured she’d be there this morning doing the paperwork for the restaurant. Tate was a creature of habit, stubborn in her ways. For once this was going to serve him.