Chapter 21
CHAPTER 21
“ O pen the fucking door, Jamie!” Nick shouted as he pounded on the door.
“Go to hell, Nick!” she snapped back, shocking the hell out of him. There was no doubt that she wanted to tell him off, but he never expected her to actually do it. No matter how much he’d pissed her off, and he did that on a daily basis, she never snapped at him. She usually mumbled her way around it.
But not today.
Then again, she did have liquid courage in her room right now. He was going to kill the bellhop for bringing it to her. It was the last damn thing that she needed on a day like this, and now that she had it, and plenty of it apparently, she was probably going to do something incredibly stupid and make the news that they’d only received hours earlier a hell of a lot worse.
He wasn’t sure who he wanted to kill more right now, the asshole who’d pretended to be sympathetic as he’d captured Jamie’s reaction to the news on camera, or her so-called family who’d just shoved her to the wolves. Actually, right now, he was pretty fucking pissed at the people working below him who should have been on top of this and given him a head’s up.
They never should have walked into that mess. He should have known first thing this morning and been given all the information so that he could have prepared Jamie. Instead, they’d walked right into that mess and by now, the video clip of Jamie finding out that she was the result of an affair between her father and his secretary was all over the internet.
The only good thing that came from this nightmare was that Jamie had somehow managed to keep it together during the rest of the interview. Once it was over, she was polite to the asshole that he wanted to deck and walked out with her head held high. Unfortunately, she took off before he could talk to her and locked herself in her hotel room and wouldn’t let him in.
He wanted to hold her, comfort her, shake her for not letting him do all those things when the interview was over, but most of all, he wanted to know that she was okay. He needed to feel her in his arms and know that she was all right.
“Let me in, Jamie,” Nick said even as he pulled the card he’d managed to talk the front clerk into giving him out of his pocket.
“Go away, Nick,” Jamie said, sounding stressed and there was absolutely no doubt in his mind that she was. He didn’t think of her as his little recluse for nothing. She didn’t have many close friends, and now, it seemed that she didn’t have any family either.
It had taken a few well-placed phone calls, but he’d discovered that they’d sold the story for a hefty sum and were already booked with some of the bigger talk shows to share their story. Of course, most of those talk shows were more interested in getting Jamie to come give them her side of the story and when he made sure that she was ready.
When it became painfully obvious that she wasn’t going to let him in, Nick decided that he was done waiting. He opened the door and stepped inside, making another mental note to throttle the bellhop for this bullshit. He rubbed his hands down his face wearily as he took in the empty candy bar wrappers, snack cake wrappers, and empty cans of Coke scattered around the double bed where his little recluse sat with her legs crossed as she finished off another Coke.
His eyes shot over to the nightstand overflowing with more junk food to the coffee table with four ice buckets filled to the top with ice and fresh Cokes. Realizing that the damage was already done, he grabbed a Coke and paused by the table of junk food and grabbed a packet of Twinkies and toed off his shoes before he sat down on the bed next to Jamie.
“I’m not speaking to you,” Jamie said quietly, not bothering to take her eyes away from the television that was, unfortunately, playing a chick flick. The hell he put up with to do his job, Nick thought as he ripped open the Twinkies. When she reached over and grabbed one of his Twinkies, he simply sighed and started in on the other one.
Normally, he didn’t touch sweets. He’d never been big on them, probably because that’s all he had to eat when he was a kid. His mother and “Aunts” hadn’t exactly been up to date on parenting one-on-one and didn’t think that a growing boy might need more than soda, chips, and microwaved pizza to live on. The only time he got real food was at school or when he stole it.
When he’d been old enough to work, he’d taken jobs bussing tables at restaurants, mostly for the free meals. Once he got out of his mother’s house and into a dump of his own, he’d refused to live off junk food. He put his student meal plan to good use. Since then, he rarely ever indulged in anything sugary or sweet since it usually brought back bad memories, but with his little recluse, he found himself simply enjoying the occasional treat.
“What’s the game plan?” he asked after a few minutes.
Jamie raised her Coke. “I’m going to have another one of these, take a shower, head downstairs and find a guy to help me out with the next item on my list,” she said calmly, and he knew that she was close to breaking down. Any other woman and this would have been the point where he made his excuses and left the room, but this was his little recluse and he couldn’t leave her.
He just couldn’t.
“So, I take it that you’re ready for sex,” Nick said casually even though he felt like screaming at the stubborn woman for even thinking about letting another man touch her.
She was his .
At least until he got over this weird obsession that he had with her and he would, eventually. For now, he enjoyed being with her, laughing with her and doing absolutely nothing with her. It made the not having actual sex part worth it. He normally didn’t waste his time on a woman if she wasn’t going to sleep with him, Dana excluded, but for Jamie, he’d do anything to be with her.
“You’re not ready for sex yet, Jamie, and if you do this now, you’re going to hate yourself in the morning,” he murmured softly.
For the first time since he’d entered the room, she looked at him. “Oh, and I suppose you’re an expert on when people are ready for sex? How old were you when you lost your virginity?”
“Twelve,” he said flatly.
“Twelve?” she repeated in disbelief.
He nodded as he took another sip of the Coke that now felt like acid in his stomach. “It was a thirteenth birthday gift from my mother. She asked one of her friends to do the honors,” Nick said, not really sure why he was talking about this when he usually made it a point to pretend that his childhood never happened. He sure as hell never shared any of the gory details with anyone and never planned to, but with Jamie, he felt comfortable telling her. Maybe it was because he knew that his little recluse wasn’t into gossip. Whenever people gossiped around her, she seemed really uncomfortable and always excused herself even if that meant she had to stand in a corner by herself.
“I-I thought you said you were twelve,” she mumbled.
“I was. She had no idea how old I was. The only reason she knew that it was my birthday was because the school sent home a general birthday announcement and she just happened to see it,” Nick said, shrugging it off.
At the time, he’d been excited that his mother wanted to spend time with him. All day, she’d called him her “little man.” They even celebrated his birthday. It wasn’t much, beer, chips, and video games. When eight o’clock rolled around, his mother and her friends were drunk enough that they actually thought popping his cherry that night was a good idea. When his “Aunt” Judy took him by the hand and his mother handed him a condom and smiled at him, he didn’t want to disappoint them. Two minutes after the most humiliating experience of his life, Judy patted his cheek and told him the next time would cost him fifty dollars.
There hadn’t been a next time with Judy or any of his mother’s friends. He’d stayed clear of hookers and strippers. He might use strippers when he needed to convince a vendor to give him what he wanted, but he wouldn’t touch one with a ten-foot pole, never mind with his-
“And you think that experience makes you an expert on when someone is ready?” Jamie demanded, sounding angry and so damn hurt that his heart actually ached for her.
“No,” Nick said, shaking his head as he turned to look at her. “I just know that you’re not ready for this, Jamie, and rushing off to do this because your family hurt you is only going to cause you pain. Don’t let them push you into something that you’ll only regret later.”
“This has nothing to do with them!” Jamie snapped, quickly climbing off the bed and away from him. “I’d already decided to do this before I found out,” she announced, surprising the hell out of him. She’d decided to sleep with him? That was actually kind of flattering and apparently all his damn dick needed to hear before it took notice and stood at attention.
“Then, why didn’t you talk to me about it before?” Nick asked, climbing off the bed and set his empty can on the coffee table.
“Because it had nothing to do with you!” Jamie snapped in irritation as she practically stormed out of the room, leaving him there to process her words and when he finally did, he went after her.
He found her already naked and climbing into the shower. “What the hell do you mean it had nothing to do with me? Why wouldn’t it have anything to do with me?” Nick demanded, grabbing her by the arms and gently pulled her away from the shower so that she couldn’t avoid this conversation.
“Exactly what it sounds like,” Jamie said, yanking her arms away and turning her back on him as she climbed back into the shower.
“Bullshit,” Nick snapped, stepping in behind her, uncaring that he was getting his clothes wet. “This morning, you couldn’t get enough of me, and then all of a sudden, you’re ready for sex and looking elsewhere? I’m not buying it, Jamie. So why don’t you tell me what the fuck is going on here.”
“Nothing is going on,” Jamie said evenly as she pushed him aside and climbed out of the shower. She stalked out of the bathroom naked and wet and he was right behind her.
“Then, do you mind letting me know what I did exactly to piss you off?” Nick demanded, grabbing her hand and forcing her to turn around to face him.
“Are you serious?” she demanded, taking a step closer to glare up at him.
“Deadly. One minute, you’re just as hot for me as I am for you, and now you’re telling me that you’re ready for sex, but only if it’s with another guy,” Nick said, taking a step forward and backing her up until the back of her knees hit the bed.
“I don’t understand your problem, Nick. You’re the one who ended things this morning. I’m just following your lead and moving on.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t end things with you,” Nick snapped, wondering what the hell was she thinking? He couldn’t stop thinking about her and she thought he was done with her? Not by a long shot.
“Then, what exactly do you call making plans with another woman right in front of me?” Jamie demanded, looking so damn hurt and alone that he wished like hell that he hadn’t been a moron. “I call that ending things, wouldn’t you?”
“No, I call it a moment of stupidity, Jamie. I don’t want to be with her,” he explained. When she snorted and moved to step past him, he cupped her face in his hands to stop her. “It was a reflexive thing for me to say, Jamie. I wasn’t thinking at the moment. Since I knew the next time that I came here that this tour would be over, I didn’t think much about making a promise that I didn’t plan on keeping. Trust me, if I wanted her, I wouldn’t be here. I threw her number away as soon as I was done talking to her.”
“Why didn’t you go home with her tonight?” Jamie asked so softly that he nearly missed it.
“Because she wasn’t you, Jamie,” Nick said, leaning down to brush his lips against hers.
The second his lips touched hers, he needed more from her, needed her. He knew it was the same for her. Whatever this thing was between them, it left them helpless to fight it. Simply touching her never seemed to be enough. He could never seem to get close enough to her and always wanted more.
She moaned softly into his mouth as she frantically worked at the buttons on his wet shirt while he reached between them and struggled with his equally soaked leather belt and pants. His zipper was barely down before they were on the bed. He settled himself between her legs even as he raised himself up so that he could slide a finger inside of her only to find her soaking wet.
It never failed to make his blood boil to discover just how turned on his little recluse could get. When she rolled her hips to ride his finger, he was forced to release his poor cock from his wet underwear to relieve some pressure. She felt so good and so damn perfect.
When she wrapped her legs around his waist, he didn’t even question it. He just went with it even as his brain screamed for him to back the hell off and give her space. She was upset and for good reason and he knew that he should back off. She wasn’t thinking clearly, but he wanted her so damn badly that he couldn’t think straight. That always happened around her. As he settled between her legs, he prayed that she wouldn’t regret this later, but he just had to be sure...
“Is this what you want?” Nick asked against her lips, pressing the tip of his cock against her core and nearly groaning in pleasure when hot liquid coated him.
“Yes!” Jamie cried as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and deepened the kiss until he couldn’t take anymore and pushed inside her.
He let out a loud groan as he swallowed her small cry of pain as he broke through the evidence of her innocence and buried himself to the hilt. Once there, he forced himself to stop. It didn’t matter that this was the wettest, hottest, and tightest hold that he’d ever experienced. The only thing that mattered at the moment was his little recluse. He had to make this good for her and judging by the way she went still beneath him, he knew that she wasn’t enjoying this nearly as much as he was.
Not thrusting into her body was one of the hardest things he’d ever done, but for her, he suffered through it as he slowly kissed her back to the point where she needed this, needed him. When she rolled her hips experimentally against him, he knew that she was ready. He slowly pulled out, groaning at the sensation of a thousand wet tongues licking his cock and pushed back in.
His pace never increased and his thrusts were gentle as he took her. It was the most erotic experience of his life. He’d never taken a woman like this before. Whenever he took a woman to bed, it was always a quick fuck and nothing more. He’d also never taken a woman without a condom before and that thought was just registering in his mind when he felt her tighten around him. Instinctively, he wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly against him. When she shattered around him, he lost control and with three deep, hard thrusts, he was joining her, barely bighting back a curse at the biggest fuckup of his life and silently praying that this didn’t come back and bite him in the ass later.
When the last spasm tore through him, Nick rolled over onto his back and pulled a panting Jamie with him. A moment later, when the haze of pleasure began to wear off, he felt the change in Jamie almost immediately. When she tried to pull away from him, he held her tighter. She wanted to escape what happened and she couldn’t do it any longer. It was time to give into the grief that her family put her through. When the first sob finally broke free, his arms tightened around her and didn’t relax until the last sob left her body hours later and she fell asleep in his arms.
After he was sure that she was asleep, he carefully crawled off the bed. He walked into the bathroom and shut off the shower and gave Rick a call asking him to cancel their plans for the day. Rick didn’t need to ask why and for that, Nick was grateful. With that done, Nick walked back into the room and looked down at his little recluse as she curled up into a ball on her side. He bent to grab his shirt only to discover that he didn’t want to leave her.
Deciding not to question his need to stay at the moment, Nick quickly pulled off his damp clothes and threw them over the shower rod before joining Jamie in bed. Once he had her back in his arms, something inside of him calmed and he found himself falling asleep with the woman that meant the world to him safely in his arms.