Reparation (The Kane Trilogy, #3)(25)

“I'm trying.”

“Try harder.”

“I think you need a nap,” she laughed. He rolled his eyes and took the mug out of her hand, set it on a night stand.

“What am I going to do with you, baby girl,” he grumbled, grabbing at her legs through the sheets and dragging her closer to him.

“Sometimes, I ask myself the same question,” she sighed.

“No more games?” he asked. She shook her head.

“No. I had this whole game plan, you know. I was gonna eat you alive,” she warned him. He nodded, pulling her legs out and settling them on either side of himself.

“I know. You weren't exactly subtle. You have a lot to learn from me,” he informed her.

“Pfffft. You're about as unobvious as a sledgehammer to the skull,” she replied.

“When you're a sledgehammer, you don't need to be unobvious. You just need one good hit.”

“Stop being a smart-ass.”

“No more plotting my imminent demise,” he continued. Tate sighed.

“God, I suck at being a bad girl.”

“Excuse me?”

“That was my whole goal. I mean, I'm fu-cking Satan. How come none of your badness rubs off on me?” she asked.

“Because,” Jameson said, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her closer. “I hate to tell you this, Tatum, but you wouldn't know bad if it smacked you in the face. You're practically an angel.”

“For the last seven years, I thought I was nothing but bad,” she told him, leaning in to hug him. He sighed, kissed the top of her head.

“Just because you have sex with anything that moves, that does not make you bad. A slut, yes. Bad? No. There is nothing wrong with liking sex, and whoever taught you that is very, very bad,” he informed her.

“At least I'm very, very good at it,” she murmured, settling her head on his shoulder. She let her eyes drift shut. She felt so drained. So tired. So warm.

“Yes, baby girl, that you are.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, lifting her head. He groaned.

“What now?”

“You might want to check on Sanders,” she told him.

“Why?”

“Because when I left him, he was pretty drunk.”

Jameson completely froze.

“You got Sanders – my Sanders – drunk!?” he exclaimed.

“It was his idea. When I left, he seemed to be doing okay, but I think he's actually kinda partial to cheap vodka. You might want -,” she started, but Jameson was already rushing out the door before she could finish.





~5~


Tatum woke up the next morning alone. She thought she remembered him climbing into bed next to her at some point, but Jameson wasn't there. She glanced around the room before realizing there was a note on the pillow next to hers. She picked it up.

Be good.

She smiled and slithered down the bed, stretching her arms up over her head. It sounded corny, but she really felt like it was a brand new day. She felt like she had woken up without a heavy weight on her shoulders. Sure, thinking about what he did to her last fall still made her want to claw his eyes out, made her want to hold him underwater in a cold, dark swimming pool. But he also made her happy. He made her feel alive. He made every nerve ending, every synapse, come alive with want for him. He was right – she either needed to get the fu-ck over what he had done, or get over him.

She made her way downstairs. At first she was surprised not to see Sanders. He was almost always up and puttering around before anyone else was home. Then she remembered the night before and she laughed. She threw one of Jameson's coats on over her tank top and underwear, then tripped over to Sanders' house. She didn't even bother with shoes, just hurried along in her knee high socks.

He was up, and he was dressed, and he looked immaculate, as always. But he had a set of bags under his eyes that made her laugh and laugh. He didn't look her in the eye, just pressed his lips together so hard that they turned white. She linked her arm through his and walked him back to the main house, promising to cook him breakfast.

“The very idea of food makes me want to pull my own tongue out of my head. No thank you,” he replied curtly.

He said he remembered everything they'd talked about, and he wasn't embarrassed at all about being “over emotional”. He did, however, apologize for bringing up her stint in the pool. She pointed out that if that's what he considered to be “over emotional”, she was dying to see hysterical.

“Have any plans for today?” she asked as he followed her into Jameson's bedroom.

“Not really. I was hoping for it to be peaceful. Quiet,” he replied. She laughed, heading into the closet.

“I was going to go downtown. Wanna go with me?” she asked, shrugging out of Jameson's jacket. Sanders came to stand in the closet doorway and stared at a wall while she hopped up and down, trying to squeeze into a pair of leggings.

“Of course. What are we going to do?” he asked.

“I never got Jameson a birthday present, I wanna take him one,” she replied, yanking off her tank top before rifling through a bunch of shirts. She settled on a loose, grungy, black tank top with a band logo on it. She pulled it on and looked in the full length mirror. It was a shirt from her life before Jameson, a thrift shop special she had cut the sides low on, so it showed off her lime green bra. She nodded at her reflection and traipsed out of the closet, moving over into the bathroom.