Rough Rhythm: A Made in Jersey Novella (1001 Dark Nights)

Rough Rhythm: A Made in Jersey Novella (1001 Dark Nights)

Tessa Bailey



Prologue



God help the woman he took home tonight.

James Brandon stared down the bar, pegging each customer as they entered his field of vision. Recent divorcée making up for lost time. A new employee showing off to his blasé coworkers by buying a round of tequila shots. Two women pretending to be indecisive over their beverage order, when really they were just waiting for someone to send them drinks. It wouldn’t be him. Christ, he hated this meat market. What the hell had he been thinking coming here?

Something new. Anything new. Lately, a voice had been chanting those words at the back of his skull. Louder, louder. He thought he’d found the solution to his restlessness this afternoon upon quitting his job as corporate council for a multimillion-dollar investment firm. But, no. It hadn’t. While it might have eased his ceaseless irritation knowing he wouldn’t be responsible for babysitting a bunch of pampered thieves in Armani suits come tomorrow morning, there was still a gnawing in his gut. A need to…wake up.

Fully aware that another pointless one-night stand couldn’t satisfy his growing hunger for a high he couldn’t name, here he was nonetheless. On his third whiskey in a place he could only describe as obvious, nursing hope so futile, he might as well ask for the check. But…maybe this time. Maybe tonight he would walk away satisfied from an encounter. Fulfilled even to the smallest degree.

A romantic or idealistic person might suggest James was searching for an emotional connection at the ripe old age of thirty-one. Someone he wanted to discuss current affairs with over bagels the morning after. Not so. He quite enjoyed his solitude, thank you very much. No, it was what took place between the sheets with a woman that left him hollow, and it was through no fault of theirs. This was his. He had a problem. And that same voice that chanted for him to chase an unnamable peak…had begun to project images. Rough, graphic images that shouldn’t turn him on. But did.

Hell yes, they did.

So he’d resisted. When you came from a background like his, you fought off any similarities at all costs. His determination was waning, however. Growing weaker by the second. Making a mockery of his will.

That’s when he saw the girl.

James’s lungs evacuated all air, deflating him like a cheap balloon.

And in a split second, nothing else mattered but her.

Too young. But somehow he knew that wouldn’t stop him. Nothing would. His body responded beneath the bar, his hands gripping the wood to steady himself. It was more than the usual stirring of attraction. Far, far more. A moving picture flashed in his mind, the girl nodding as he spoke softly to her, that delicate chin pinched between his fingers. As if there were perfect understanding between them. Not right now, though. Now, she looked lost, an anomaly among an otherwise seamless pattern of overconfidence. A pattern he hated, needed to remove her from. Now. Urgency took him over, making him feel almost delirious.

Even the girl’s adrift expression couldn’t hide the sharp intelligence behind her wide eyes, couldn’t hide an unknown mission there. An unmistakable surety that she was looking for him wouldn’t go away. She was the reason he’d come here tonight instead of going home, which had been his initial plan.

Thank God he hadn’t.

When the girl stopped and faced a group of men, James rose to his feet, poison ivy climbing the back of his neck. Spiked and dangerous. Its leaves extended and curled tight. Scared. She was scared. Why? He was coming. She just had to hold on a second.

James’s world tilted right along with the girl when she pitched to the side, her beautiful eyes gone glassy with fear. He moved.





Lita Regina wasn’t a prostitute. That’s not what tonight was about.

She just needed to get off the street for one night. One. Night.

Thought you were made of sterner stuff, didn’t you? Well it turned out, a week of being homeless on the streets of Los Angeles was about all Lita could withstand. While crashing in shelters might have been an upgrade from the situation from which she’d split, cozying up in some rich guy’s hotel room sounded even better. Women had one-night stands all the time, didn’t they? Dressed up, put on expensive perfume and suffered through forced conversation just to feel needed by someone?

As Lita saw it, her reasons for cruising for a man ranked slightly higher on the survival scale. She’d stretched the fifty dollars she’d vamoosed with by sticking to street vendors and the McDonald’s dollar menu, but someone in the shelter had pocketed her last ten two nights ago as she slept, leaving her broke as a joke. And speaking of jokes, hunger pains were not one. Lita nearly staggered under the intensity of them as she crossed the crowded hotel bar on Wilshire Boulevard, looking for—

Who? A man with a thing for scrawny chicks with fading bruises? Gazes followed her as she circled the bar, customers probably wondering who the hell had let her into the swank establishment. If they knew she’d ducked in behind two tall blondes while the bouncer checked their identification, outrage would abound. How dare this imposter breach the inner sanctum?

Lita’s chin went up with that last thought. She wasn’t the imposter. They were. The privileged corporate slaves she’d laughed about with her bandmates, back when she’d had a band. Back when she’d had people who cared. If she hadn’t chosen a man over those friends, they might still be there, too. Then she wouldn’t be in the Beverly Wilshire trolling for someone who’d let her share his clean, fluffy hotel bed for the night. Maybe let her take a shower and share a plate of French fries.