Pulse - Part Three (The Pulse Series) (5 page)

"You're scared," he whispers into my lips. "You're scared I'm going to hurt you."

I nod. I am scared of that. I'm scared I'll let him back in and he'll fuck me over and not in a good way.

"Do you remember what I said to you at the club last night?" He runs the pad of his thumb across my lips.

"About waiting forever for me?" My voice cracks. I've replayed those words in my mind since I heard them.

"They're true. I've waited forever for you."

"You say things like that, but…" my voice stops. But what?

"I can't fuck anyone else." The words are abrasive and bold. "That isn't going to happen, Jessica."

"You don't mean it." I push back against him. I need to leave before he convinces me there's more to him than a man after a piece of ass.

"I mean every word."

"So you're saying Fingers is a one woman man now?" Rebecca stares at me across the table in the crowded diner she chose to meet at for lunch.

"So he says," I try not to sound discouraged. When I left his office an hour ago I didn't stop to turn back around to look at him.

She takes a bite of the sandwich she ordered. "This is delicious. Not as good as what you make, but second best."

I smile at the awkward compliment. "There's just so much about him I don't understand." Understatement alert. That didn’t even begin to cover how confused I was about him. I had so many questions but the minute I started asking them, I'd be reinvested in the relationship and with his track record and the line of women he's been through, the effort just isn't worth it.

"So he went down on you at the club?" The words are muffled as she chews through another bite of the sandwich.

"What?" I almost drop the spoon of soup I'm holding near my mouth. "How did you know?"

"I saw him pulling you into one of the private rooms," she says it so nonchalantly as if it's an everyday occurrence in her world.

I shake my head to chase away the thought of Nathan on his knees, his face buried between my thighs. "Private rooms?"

"Did Fingers pop your private room cherry?" The fact that several people turn to look solidifies my first thought that she's talking way too loud.

"You practically screamed that." I point out. "I've never been in a private room before." I've never heard of a private room before. I feel like I lived in a cave before I landed in Manhattan.

"All club members have access."

The words hit me with the full force of a baseball bat. "Members?"

"You get special perks if you're a member of certain clubs." She stares down at the rest of her sandwich. I can tell she's having an internal dialogue about whether or not she should devour it.

"He had to be a club member to get in that room?" The gravity of that statement is sinking in slowly, coursing over my brain and seeping into my heart.

"You need a key card." She picks up her oversize purse and starts rifling through it. "See." Her face lights up as she pulls three separate cards from her wallet. "I'm a member of all three of these."

"Nathan had to be a member to get into that room last night?" Why am I asking her that? I know the answer.

"Absolutely." She picks up the sandwich. "That club just opened. I'm not even a member of it yet."

***

"Why are you such an asshole?" I ask it without any emotion. At least I don't think there's any emotion in it.

"Is this a trick question?" He swings the door of his apartment open wider so I can walk past him.

I survey the room. The last time I was in here, I felt safe, adored and special. Now I just feel like Jessica R again. "It's not a trick. You're an asshole."

He rubs his temple with his index finger. "Jessica. Do you want a drink?"

The question feels completely misplaced. "I have a hangover."

"Right." He taps the tip of my nose before he pours himself a glass of bourbon. "So you think I'm an asshole?"

"You took me into a private room last night." I'm just going to launch into this without a parachute. Bombs away, Jessica.

He takes a heavy swallow of the liquid. "Don't tell me you didn't enjoy it." The smirk that accompanies the statement pulls at the edges of my anger.

"That's irrelevant. We're talking about the private room." I need him to stay focused on something other than sex for twenty seconds.

He scratches his forehead. "Jessica, what's this about?"

Why does he have to say my name like that? Why didn't I tell him my name was Jess? If I had done that it wouldn't pull up so many feelings each time he said it.  "You have a key card to get into that room, don't you?"

He studies my face. His expression is so indifferent. I can't read it at all. "I do, yes."

"Nathan." I feel my knees buckle slightly so I lower myself to a chair. "Nathan," I repeat his name.

"No." His voice is serious, the tone uncompromising. "Jessica, no. Don't think that."

"Think what?" I can feel my stomach knotting. "You have a key."

He slams the glass down with a thud on the bar before he's in front of me. "Jessica, listen to me."
I want to cover my ears. I don't want to hear another lie seep out of his mouth. "I just wanted to know if you had a key." It's the truth, that's all I came here for. I just wanted him to acknowledge that he had a key because he takes women in there to fuck them when he's at that club.

He moves swiftly to where his suit jacket is hung by the door on a coat rack. I watch silently as he rummages through the inner pocket, pulling out his wallet. "I need to show you this."

"You don't have to show me anything." I'm on my feet. I have to walk out of his door and never look back at him again. I can't keep doing this to myself. I can't keep circling back thinking he's going to magically change into a decent human being.

"God, this is so fucked up." His voice is barely recognizable. There's so much raw emotion in it. "Jessica, wait."

"No." I brush past him and reach for the doorknob. "I'm going."

"Look." He shoves a key card in my face. It's so close my eyes can't register anything beyond the blue and yellow hues of the card. "Take it. Just look."

"I don't want to." I turn the door handle. "You're never going to change."

"Look at the god dammed card, Jessica." His hand covers mind and twists the door handle back into place. "You're not going anywhere until you look at it."

"You joined the club yesterday?" The details don't register. Why did he join yesterday?

"Jessica, fuck, please understand this," he's pleading. His hand is pulling on the hem of my sweater. "I can't resist you. I literally almost come when you walk in a room. I'm hard all the time when I think about you."

"Yesterday?" I repeat again.

"Shit." He moves away from me and starts pacing. "This is going to sound so fucked up."

"What?"
"I've come every day since you were in the hotel suite. I've jacked off thinking about you." He nods towards my body. "I'm so hard right now, Jessica. I can't control it. Tell me you get that."

I shake my head. "No. I don't."

He bows his head and pulls in a heavy breath. I can see his chest heave under the fabric of his light blue dress shirt. Small beads of perspiration are gathering on his forehead.

"Tell me," I spit out. "Nathan, say it."

"Your body is like a drug to me. Christ, it's like I'm fucking addicted to everything about you. The smell of your skin, the taste of you, how tight you are when you're gripping on my cock and I'm pumping myself into you." He leisurely runs his hand along the outline of his erection. "I could jerk off right now. Seriously, you make me so hot."

"The room." I want him to explain. I need that.

"You're going to hate me." His voice wavers with the confession. "You're going to walk out of here if I tell you."
"Nathan." My voice cracks. He's going to tell me he fucked someone else yesterday in that room after I left because he was thinking about me.

He reaches behind where he's standing to lower himself onto the arm of a chair. "I came to see you at your apartment. Remember I told you that?"

I nod.

"I spent all day in bed before that. Stroking, thinking, coming. I had to get you out of my system. I couldn't help myself."

"What did you do?" Why does it matter to me? Wasn't the phone proof enough that he can't keep his cock out of commission for more than a few hours?

"I don't know how many times I came but it wasn't enough." He pulls his hand over his face. "This is just so fucked up."

I rest my face in my palms. I need to walk out of here. I need to end this right now.

"I got that room at the club so I could fuck you there." The words spill out so quickly they fall into one another in a twisted heap.

"What?"

"Jessica, please," his voice is soft and tempered. "Don't hate me for this."

"You got that room at the club to fuck me?" My eyes widen. I can feel them. I'm pulled back to the club in that moment. Pulled back to when he reached around to grab my waist. My body knew it was him. My body wanted him just as much as he wanted me.

"I signed up for the membership when you were dancing." He pulls his large frame up so he's standing again. "I just wanted to pull you into a room and slide into you. I needed to feel you around me. I haven't been able to focus or think straight in weeks."

"You knew you'd have sex with me there?" I'm both appalled and aroused by the epiphany.

"When you walked out of your apartment in that dress, Jessica." His breathing stalls. "I almost lost it on the street."

"I just went there to have fun. I wanted to forget…" I can't confess that to him.

"You wanted to forget me?" There's no surprise woven into the question. He knows that’s what I've been trying to do for weeks.

"I can't deal with this." I pull my hands to my mouth hoping that will stop the rush of emotions I feel. "You can't do things like this."

"Jessica." He's right next to me now. "I can't stop what I feel."
"It's all just sex." I want him to see that. I need him to see that everything between us centers on sex.

"You're wrong." His stance hardens. I've offended him. I can tell.

"I'm right," I counter. I look up into his face. There's so much emotion in his eyes. I can't read it all. I can't grasp what he's feeling.

"If it was all about sex, I would have hiked that tight dress up, slid my cock into you and fucked you hard until you screamed over and over again."

I take a step back out of sheer need. My body betrays me when he's so crude and direct. I know my breathing has increased. I can feel my pulse racing.

"You did have sex with me." I push back. "You licked my…"

"I wanted to hear you come. I crave the sound of that. There isn't a sweeter sound in this entire world than you when you're on the edge of an orgasm. I would kill to hear that." His breath catches before he continues, "I knew in that room after I heard you come twice that it was all I needed. I didn't need to get off. I didn't need to shoot my load between these perfect lips." He lazily runs the pad of his thumb over my parted lips. "I didn't need to feel my cock sliding into you. I knew then that the craving, the addiction, this never ending need that I have here…" He hits himself squarely on his hard chest with a fist. "Isn't about my cock. It's not about my need. It's all about you."

"You've seen him again, haven't you?" Drew hands me another tray of carrots to peel. Before our awkward almost date he told me that he was recommending that I be moved up to dessert prep. My refusal to be exclusive with him meant that I'd be cleaning vegetables for the foreseeable future.

I toss the peels from the last batch into the bin for composting. "We're not going to talk about him." We aren't. The mere fact that I can't even wrap my head around what's happening with Nathan and
I is enough to keep me from trying to explain it to anyone else.

"You know that he's always at the clubs, right?" The words are meant to hit me bluntly in the face. They do. I don't turn to look at him. I can't. I'm certain right now my expression is a mixture of anger and disappointment.

I slowly slide the peeler across the carrot. "You don't know him."

"I saw him at the club for months before I met you there." If his comment is meant to enrage me, he's hit a home run.

"Drew." I turn around and dangle the carrot only mere inches from his nose. "What's your problem?"

He bats it away and we both watch it tumble to the floor. "Guys like that are bad for girls like you."

I feel like I'm listening to my father give me
the talk
before I went to high school. "I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself."