Burn (Songs of Submission #5)(14)

He turned to me, as if having decided something. “You and Darren take my plane up to Vancouver. Let me put you up in a hotel.”

“No.”

“Would you stop making me crazy?”

“You’re not hearing me.”

“I’m hearing a lot of pain from all quarters. It’s going to get worse if you don’t let me protect you. When you get back safe, we talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Oh, goddess.” He brushed my cheek with the backs of his fingers.

“Don’t call me that.”

“We have so much to talk about.”

I closed my eyes. His touch felt like a boat on still water, leaving ripples in its wake. When would I stop craving him? “I don’t want my life ruined.”

“Neither do I. But this...” He brushed his hands over my face, bringing my skin to life. “This, I want. I’ve never wanted anything so badly. I feel your hands on your phone when you read my texts. I go to the Stock after your shifts just to stand where you’ve stood. I fall asleep on the pillow you used when you were in my bed. I need to share whatever piece of the world you’re in. Tell me you don’t feel the same.”

“You know how I feel,” I croaked.

“We can’t go backward. You and I are going to figure out how to make this work.”

His confidence should have made me hopeful, but it only filled me with dread.

“I want to go home now. Please.”

He walked me to my car. When he handed me my keys, dangling them from his fingertips, I had the desire to do what I did when we’d met, what Will Santon had done: overshoot my grasp for a touch. Just a little. But then Jonathan spoke.

“Until we talk, and you get your head on straight, I’m not touching you. You were right. We get reeled in, you and I. We touch and we feel good, and then we land in bed and we forget the basics.”

“Talking’s not going to fix this.”

“Neither is f**king.”

I snapped the keys from him. “We can fix us, but we’re not going to fix the world, Jonathan.”

“The world is full of ass**les.” He opened the driver’s door for me and closed it when I was safely in.

I lowered the window. “When I met you, I thought you were an ass**le.”

He smiled. “You did not.”

“I did. A gorgeous ass**le.”

His laugh came from deep in his chest. He bit his lip and reached out to cup my cheek but fell half an inch short. “I was an ass**le for making you another conquest.” He put his hand in his pocket, and I missed the potential in that almost-touch. “Get out of here, goddess. Get some rest.”

When I got back to Echo Park, Darren was out. My face was a little swollen. I made myself an ice pack and went to the couch. I lay there with the TV muted, remembering him. The kiss we shared. His touch, the heat. I slid my hand under my cotton panties, shuddering in anticipation. I wanted to come. I wanted to want to come. I wanted to fall into my filthiest imagination and wrap myself in sexual desire.

But when I touched my opening, I found it unprepared for attention. A little fiddling got me nowhere, and I felt as though I was trying to get music from an instrument I’d never heard of. I pulled my hand away and went into an uneasy sleep.

CHAPTER 9.

JONATHAN

I’d walked her to the car with few words, but not because I had nothing to say. I had plenty to say. In the time it had taken for her to forgive me for destroying her career, I’d thrown a dozen mental balls in the air, and if I spoke, I would have dropped them.

I didn’t have compassion for her situation. I had a raw empathy that made me want to hold her and whisper lies of comfort. But it wasn’t going to be all right. Things weren’t going to go back to normal. The only one way the whole thing would blow over was if she lived a life of obscurity. The recognition and success she’d earned and deserved promised to exacerbate her situation. There was absolutely no chance of people unknowing what they knew, and there was even less chance she’d drop her ambitions to protect her privacy.

If I let her go, the most likely scenario was that she’d swear off men until another dominant appeared. Then she’d fall right back into her submissive role with him.

That was not acceptable.

I had calls to Asia until well into the night. In the morning, after what felt like thirty minutes of sleep, I had Kristin find out when Eddie Milpas would be at the Loft Club. I needed to feel him out. I didn’t want to take action based only on Monica’s exploding imagination.

CHAPTER 10.

MONICA

I woke at half past eight and stared at Darren’s popcorn stucco ceiling. The vertical blinds cast stripes across it, and only when my eyes hurt from looking at their odd symmetry did I get up.

I had an email from Kevin. I was tempted to delete it without reading it, but I was curious. I read on my phone while bleary-eyed and in the bathroom.

Dear Monica,

You’re not going to pick up my calls. I know you.

I feel like such a f**kup. I don’t care. I’ll put it all in writing.

I never knew what I did wrong. I should have damned my pride and waited on your porch until you told me why you left me. Really why. Not because of Tuesday nights. That could only be a symptom of some other disease.