The Debt 7 (Club Alpha) (3 page)

“Listen,” Bernie said, standing up,
leaving his sheaf of papers on the sofa.
 
“You’re not thinking straight, Jake.
 
This is going to ruin your life.”

Jake turned and looked at him.
 
“I understand your position.
 
All I can ask you to do is try and
protect me the best you can, given my wishes.”

“I can’t protect you if you bite the hand
that feeds you,” the lawyer scoffed, his cheeks turning red with
frustration.
 
“You want me to
protect you?
 
I’d like to have you
committed to an insane asylum—that’s what I’d do to protect you.”

“If you want out, you can quit,” Jake
said.
 
“I’ll find another lawyer to
handle my affairs.”

Bernie’s face was ashen.
 
“You’re going to be a cautionary tale,”
he said.
 
“Nobody will ever work
with you again.
 
Not in the music
industry, not in the film industry.
 
You’ll be lucky to get a job singing in the subway station a year from
now.”

Jake shrugged.
 
“I’ve done worse things than singing in
the subway.”

Raven had to smile at that comment, and
she realized that she’d never loved Jake Novak as much as she did at that
moment.
 
He was taking a stand for
himself, and even if it was a mistake, it was his mistake.

The
lawyer looked from
Jake to Raven and back
again, his eyes wide and confused.
 
“You’re both crazy,” he announced, and
then scuttled over to the couch and began quickly piling his papers back into
his briefcase.

“It’s okay,” Jake told him.
 
“You tried your best, Bern.”

“Fucking crazy,” Bernie said, ignoring
him, and taking his briefcase with him, as he quickly left the hotel room, not
looking back.

The door slammed shut and
Raven
looked at Jake uncertainly.
 
“Are you sure this is a good idea?
 
I mean, that was your lawyer, you pay
him to tell you what to do in these kinds of situations.”

Jake breathed a sigh out.
 
He strode to the window and looked out
at the city.
 
“All I know is that I
feel a giant weight off my shoulders.
 
I feel like I let fame and money make me into something I’m not.
 
I forgot who I was for a very long time,
and now suddenly I’m waking up, coming alive again for the first time in
ages.”
 
He turned and looked at her
and his eyes were bright and moist.
 
“Thanks to you, beautiful.”

She set her mostly untouched coffee mug
on the table.
 
Bernie’s nearly empty
cup was still there, and next to it a pen that he’d accidentally left behind
with the name of his firm on it.
 

“I’m scared,” she told him honestly.
 
“What if you blame me for this?
 
What if later on you decide this was all
a terrible mistake?”

Jake laughed.
 
“I can’t blame you for my decision.”

She pulled on her lip, thinking.
 
“All I want is for you to be happy.”

He smiled, crossing back to her, taking
her hands in his.
 
“I am happy,
Raven
.
 
For the
first time, maybe in my whole life, I’m truly free.”

She smiled too, and then he kissed her,
and the butterflies danced in her stomach again, but this time it was for a
good reason.
 

Jake’s lips were like dazzling fire, and
his hands moved up and down her body, touching her, making her skin shudder
with delight, and she knew that despite all of the unknowns in the
situation—she wouldn’t have wanted it to be any other way.

***

Later that day, Raven was just getting
out of the bath when she heard Jake answering the hotel room door.

She could tell, from the sounds, that
he’d ordered more room service.

Smiling, Raven slid on thong panties,
latched her bra, and then put on a light dress that was sexy and comfortable.
 
All of her new clothes had been sent
over from various designers, as per usual, but she had to admit that she loved
them all.

It was as if someone had climbed inside
her head and figured out exactly what she’d have chosen for herself if she’d had
unlimited money and knowledge of the newest styles.

Coming out of the bathroom, she pulled
her damp hair back with a hair tie and exited the bedroom to find Jake pulling
the silver covers off the carts.
 
He
revealed two large salads, bowls of creamy soup, and steak sandwiches with
sides of potato salad.

“Are we ever going to leave the room?”
she joked.

Jake glanced up at her, his eyes
serious.
 
“I want to keep you here
all to myself,” he said.
 
“I don’t
want to share you with anybody else.”

Raven shook her head, laughing.
 
She wasn’t sure if Jake was losing his
mind or finding it, but either way, she was enjoying his change of heart.

They sat down together and started
eating.
 
Everything tasted
wonderful, and both of them remarked on the quality of the food.

Jake was relaxed, enjoying himself.
 
“I can’t remember the last time I really
had nothing to do,” he said, taking a bite from his sandwich and then wiping
his hands together to dust off the crumbs.

Raven took a sip from her can of Diet
Coke.
 
Jake had ordered it, already
starting to know her likes and dislikes.
 
“Are you nervous at all about Club Alpha?” she said, hoping she wasn’t
putting a damper on the fun atmosphere.

Jake wasn’t
phased
by her question.
 
He swallowed his
bite of steak and wiped his mouth with a napkin.
 
“They got my message,” he replied,
picking up the sandwich again.
 
“I
think they’re going to leave us alone now.”

“How do you know?
 
Did something happen that you haven’t
told me?”

Jake sighed.
 
“My guys took care of things,” he told
her.
 
“You don’t want to know the
gory details, remember?”

“But if Club Alpha responded to you, I
want to know what they said.”

“They didn’t exactly respond to me
directly.”
 
Jake took another bite
from his sandwich and chewed it.

Raven rolled her eyes.
 
“I still don’t get it.”

He took a deep breath and let it
out.
 
“Let’s just put it this
way.
 
That little slap around I gave
to Scott in the bathroom of that Sushi place—that was nothing compared to
what my guys did to the two chumps that kidnapped you.
 
Eventually, those idiots were returned
to sender, and when they were, it delivered a very clear message to the guys
that want to hurt us.”

“But how do you know that Club Alpha
won’t just retaliate?”

“My men had some interaction with Club
Alpha.
 
You don’t want to know
exactly what kind of interaction—but suffice it to say, some people at
the top of that organization have very much regretted and reconsidered their
actions in regards to you and your family.”

Raven wasn’t sure, it all sounded vague
and confusing to her ears.
 
“So they
won’t try and hurt us anymore?”

“Nothing’s a guarantee in life,” Jake
said.
 
“But usually, when you throw
your best punch and the guy takes it, and then hits you back twice as
hard…usually, anyone with half a brain walks away and doesn’t push their luck.”

“I hope you’re right,” she said.
 
She wondered what it had looked like
when Jake’s men had hit the Club Alpha people back twice as hard.
 
She imagined it hadn’t been pretty.

“If I’m wrong and those Club Alpha tools
decide to keep at it, they’re going to find out just what I’m capable of.”
 
Jake seemed to take some pleasure in the
prospect, his mouth breaking into a slight grin as he took yet another bite of
his sandwich and chewed happily.

After they were both done eating, Jake
went and rolled the carts outside and left them in the hallway for the staff to
take away.

He came back inside, to where Raven was
on the couch, waiting.
 
“What now?”
she said.

“You’re demanding,” Jake laughed.
 
“We just ate, and you want to know
what’s next?”

She smiled at him.
 
“I mean
,
I
don’t care if you have things to do.
 
I can entertain myself.”

“Yeah?” Jake laughed, putting his hands
on his hips and looking down at her.
 
“What’ll you do to entertain yourself?”

“I don’t know, maybe watch some TV.”

Jake licked his lips.
 
“Or maybe you can try entertaining me.”

Raven felt her pulse instantly begin
speeding up, just seeing the look on his face.
 
Suddenly, she realized just how high her
dress had ridden up her thighs, and how much cleavage she was showing.

“I—I’ll do whatever you want,” she
answered as casually as possible.

Jake grinned, his eyes suddenly gleaming.
 
He grabbed the remote control and turned
on the television, changing the channel to a music station.
 
Suddenly, a heavy bass line and
slithering keyboards cut through the air, and a sultry voice sang lyrics that
Raven wasn’t familiar with.
 
“Let’s
switch places,” he said.
 
“I’ll sit
where you’re sitting, and you get up.”

Raven wasn’t sure what Jake had in mind,
but just the same, her nipples had grown so stiff that they were poking
insistently against the thin material of her dress.
 
She got up and they moved past one
another, as Jake sat on the couch.

The music was loud, the beat thumping in
her ears.

She smiled uncertainly.
 
“What now?”

“That’s your favorite question lately,”
Jake said, crossing his legs and relaxing back into the couch.
 
“But lucky for you, I’ve got the
answer.”

She shifted her feet, waiting for him to
continue.

“I want you to dance for me,” he said,
his eyes darkening.

She froze in place.
 
“Dance?”

“I want you to give me a lap dance.”

She couldn’t be sure if he was
serious.
 
Initially, she thought to
tell him no.
 
It was
embarrassing.
 
Dancing for Jake
Novak?
 
He was an incredible dancer,
and she’d make a fool of herself trying to move for him.

But then, a lap dance wasn’t the same as
trying to do the waltz, and Raven was growing more excited as she anticipated
what it might be like to tease Jake in that way.
 
She felt comfortable in Jake’s love for
her, and she wanted to please him.

The music was already on and Jake was
waiting, watching her expectantly.
 
She didn’t want to disappoint him, didn’t want him to think that she was
too afraid to take a risk.

And yet she was so inhibited, that as she
tried to sway to the music, she felt her cheeks turning red, her whole face
flushing with embarrassment.
 
Her
body suddenly was stiff and wooden, and her sense of rhythm was lost.

Jake watched her, nodding ever so
slightly.
 
“I want you to lift your
dress a little,” he said.

Raven was grateful for direction.
 
She needed something to hang onto, some
vague idea of how this should work and what Jake wanted from her.
 
She grabbed the material of her dress in
a bunch, and slowly began pulling it so that it rode up her thighs.

And then, as she saw the lust in his
eyes, she walked towards him, so now she was standing directly in front of him,
her legs spread, and his feet were sticking out so she was nearly straddling
him, but not quite.

Raven began sinking down, and Jake
grabbed her hips as she swayed and undulated to the music.
 
The beat of it made sense now, as she
allowed herself to move in time, not worrying about being perfect, not worrying
about anything but showing Jake what she was capable of.

As his hands traveled from her hips down
to the bare skin of her legs, Raven pulled away, teasing him.

“Come back here,” he said.
 
“I want you to sit on my lap.”

“Why should I?” she asked, arching an
eyebrow, then turning and acting as if she was going to walk away from him.