Chapter 26
CHAPTER 26
“ C ome on, Jamie. It’s time to get up,” Nick said in a soothing tone as he pulled her to her feet.
“Go away. I’m tired and I hate you,” Jamie muttered, trying to pull away from him so that she could go back to sleep, but he wouldn’t let her go. The horrible man didn’t seem to care that it was barely one in the morning and that she was exhausted. In seconds, he had her back on her feet and was nudging her off the plane.
“We’ll be at the hotel in half an hour and then you can go back to sleep, okay?” Nick said in that same tone that he probably thought would make her nod and do whatever he asked when it just made her want to pass out again.
“Mr. Quinn’s right, Miss Harris. Once we get to the hotel, you can rest until the book signing this afternoon,” Holly, the woman who now made them a trio for the rest of the tour, said from somewhere ahead of her, but Jamie was too busy struggling to keep her eyes open to look at her.
Not that Jamie thought the woman would be difficult to find. With stunning red hair, exotic looks, and way too much perfume, she was kind of hard to miss. Since her ticket was a last-minute booking, Holly had been forced to sit several rows away from them, but unfortunately for her, that wasn’t enough. Her perfume invaded the cabin space, and within minutes, everyone, including Jamie, was complaining about having a headache.
If Nick tried to force her to share a room with Holly, Jamie was going to revolt. She’d pay for her own room because there was no way that she would survive eight more hours with that stench.
“You’re doing great, Jamie. Just hang in there and we’ll be at the hotel soon,” Nick said after they grabbed their luggage and headed for the exit.
“I don’t need a pep talk,” Jamie mumbled around a yawn as she readjusted the duffle bag over her shoulder. “I need sugar, lots and lots of sugar,” she grumbled, wishing that he would have at least let her get her hands some before they left, but the infuriating man decided twelve hours ago that he was going to turn into Super Overprotective Man, which, of course, meant keeping an eye on her and depriving her of her much-needed and beloved sugar.
Then again, she couldn’t really blame him. Not after reading those letters. She still couldn’t understand how someone that didn’t even know her could hate her so much. When she showed them the letters, she’d been hoping that they’d laugh it off and tell her that it was nothing to worry about, but the looks on their faces when they read the first letter told her everything that she needed to know.
Within minutes, Rick had been on the phone with the police and Nick wouldn’t let her out of his sight, not even to use the bathroom. When she couldn’t hold it any longer, he made her use the men’s room so that he could stand guard. He thought she was kidding when she told him to sing so that she could use the bathroom. She hadn’t been.
Not even a little bit.
Besides learning that the men’s bathroom was a lot cleaner than the women’s bathroom, she also learned that Nick had a very sexy singing voice. That, of course, didn’t make up for the fact that she hadn’t eaten anything in almost twenty-four hours. As soon as they reached the hotel, Jamie was going to order food and then pass out. If Nick didn’t like that then that was too damn bad. She was a tired, cranky woman in need of sugar and he was the big jerk denying her, her fix.
“How much shit does she need?” Nick asked as he reached over and grabbed her duffle bag and threw it over his shoulder before taking her hand in his.
They watched as Holly directed the man carting all eight of her bags towards the waiting line of taxis. Jamie realized that they wouldn’t be heading home for four weeks, but eight bags was a bit much, especially since they would be traveling a lot. While Holly’s bags were loaded into a taxi, Nick signaled for another taxi and had their things thrown in the trunk.
“Nick!” Holly said brightly, waving to get his attention.
With a muttered curse that had her lips twitching, Nick glanced back at Holly. “I thought it would be a good idea if you and I shared a taxi so that we could go over a few things,” Holly said casually, but there was no doubt in Jamie’s mind that talking was the last thing she wanted to do with Nick.
It wasn’t difficult to figure out Holly was interested in Nick. What woman in her right mind wouldn’t be? He was incredibly sexy, handsome, and charming and she wasn’t the only woman that noticed.
He opened the passenger side door and gestured for Jamie to get inside. She barely managed to hold back a disappointed sigh as she resigned herself to riding to the hotel alone. “We’ll meet you at the hotel,” Nick said as she closed her eyes and settled in for what she hoped was a short ride.
“Okay,” Jamie mumbled sleepily.
“Okay, what?” Nick asked as he joined her and took her hand back in his.
Jamie opened her mouth to explain that she thought that he was riding with Holly, but she was too damn exhausted to try. Instead, she curled up next to him and forced her eyes to stay open during the blessedly short ride.
It seemed like minutes later, she was leaning against the hotel foyer wall while she watched Nick check them in. She was waiting to see how many rooms they had before telling him that she was getting her own room since she didn’t want to hurt Holly’s feelings by flat-out refusing to share a room with her.
Holly walked into the hotel foyer, followed by a man pushing her bags on a trolley when Nick walked back over to Jamie. He handed her a keycard and one to Holly when she finally joined them.
“So, we get our own rooms?” Jamie asked, sounding hopeful.
Nick shook his head as he reached down and grabbed his bags. “No, I’m afraid our original reservations still stand. Two of us are going to have to share,” he announced as she watched the expression on Holly’s face turn calculating. Jamie knew the minute that she was out of earshot that Holly was going to offer to share a room with Nick.
That wasn’t happening. She might be a pushover, but that didn’t mean that she was going to stand by quietly while another woman made a play for her boyfriend, she was-
Utterly shocked that she thought of him as her boyfriend.
For the first time in her life, she had a boyfriend. She ignored the fact that kind of made her pathetic and focused on the here and now, and right now, there was another woman flirting with her boyfriend. She was going to have to take Holly aside and explain to her that-
“Miss Harris and I will be sharing a room,” Nick announced, shocking Holly and putting the matter to rest, which was a good thing since Jamie really didn’t think she would have had much energy to deal with this right now. “We’ll see you in the morning,” Nick said, grabbing Jamie’s bag and threw it over his shoulder.
“Wait! You can’t do that!” Holly yelled after them.
“Goodnight,” was all Nick said as he ushered Jamie onto the elevator. Just before the elevator doors closed, she saw the furious expression on Holly’s face, and thanks to growing up with Caitlyn, she knew that she was going to make her life a living hell.
Great, Jamie thought dryly as the elevator doors closed. That’s all she needed to make her life perfect.
“I could have got my own room,” Jamie mumbled as she stepped out of the bathroom, drying her damp hair and wearing a pair of light pink flannel pajama pants and a tiny white tee-shirt that had his blood simmering.
“They were sold out for the night,” he lied. “It was either share a room with me or with Holly,” he explained, noting the pinched expression on Jamie’s face at the suggestion. Not that he could blame her. The woman was incredibly annoying and that perfume of hers was strong enough to peel paint. She was also the last person that he wanted to tag along on this tour.
When he’d realized who Holly was, he took Rick aside and told him to pick someone else. Unfortunately for him, there was no one else. Correction, he could have had someone else if he’d been willing to wait a few more days, but that wasn’t an option.
Not after seeing those letters.
He wanted to get his little recluse out of there as soon as possible and for damn good reason. It wasn’t uncommon for celebrities and authors to receive death threats from unhappy fans and psychos. He knew that she’d no doubt receive more over the years, but the letters were alarming.
Not only had they gone into graphic detail about how the psycho wanted to kill her, but the letters were all addressed to Jamie, not J.L. Lewis. That probably wouldn’t have been entirely alarming since her family had taken it upon themselves to give away her real name, but that had only been a few days ago. The letters dated back a month ago before anyone knew her real name. The biggest concern was that none of the letters had been sent through the mail.
There wasn’t a single postage stamp on any of the death threats, which meant that whoever wrote them had hand-delivered them to Jamie’s mailbox. Thankfully, Jamie’s landlord decided to throw her ass out, otherwise, he’d probably be having a hell of a time convincing her to move out. All of her things, her personal items like her computer, clothes, and toiletries were being moved out of her place at the moment. He’d convinced her to donate all of her furniture, not because he really thought it was a nice thing to do like he’d claimed, but because it allowed the movers under Rick’s direction to get in and get the hell out without tipping anyone off about what they were doing.
They had a month left of this tour and he hoped the police were able to find the sick fuck before it was over. If they didn’t, some things were going to have to change and he was afraid those changes were going to push Jamie back into a corner and she’d go back to being afraid of her own shadow. It was only because they’d kept certain details from her that she wasn’t panicking right now.
“Please tell me that they have room service,” Jamie mumbled pathetically, looking beyond fucking adorable.
“They do, but the kitchen closed an hour ago,” Nick explained as he grabbed his bag of toiletries and headed for the bathroom.
“Of course it did,” Jamie muttered, dropping the menu back on the small coffee table and plopped down on the couch with a sigh.
The knock at the door had him biting back a smile. He ignored Jamie’s questioning look as he tossed his small bag to her and headed for the door. When he spotted the bellhop waiting outside the door, Nick stepped aside so that he could roll the cart overflowing with food inside the room.
With a polite smile, the bellhop placed two trays onto the coffee table and rolled the cart back towards the door where Nick stood waiting. He slipped the kid a hundred before closing the door. That was the first thing he’d learned about this job, in places like this, money was everything. There wasn’t anything that he couldn’t get by greasing the wheels a little. It also didn’t hurt that the manager’s wife was a huge J.L. Lewis fan and Nick promised him a set of signed copies if he opened the kitchen for his little recluse.
“What’s all this?” Jamie asked, shooting the covered trays a curious look.
“This,” Nick said, lifting the tray even as he bent down to kiss her, “is dinner, sweetheart.”
“Is that double fudge cake?” his little sugar addict asked on a gasp.
He chuckled as he set the cover down. It figured that she’d focus on the cake instead of the large plate overflowing with stuffed chicken breast, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and dressing that were giving off a mouthwatering aroma that had his stomach growling, reminding him that they hadn’t eaten since last night.
“It’s actually triple fudge with real Belgian chocolate and chocolate mousse in the middle,” he said, chuckling when she released a reverent gasp of pleasure.
When she picked up her fork and went for the cake, he wasn’t surprised. “I’m going to grab a quick shower before I eat. Try to eat some real food, too,” Nick said as he stepped into the bathroom only to come to a halt and add, “and don’t touch my cake, woman!”
“I won’t!”
Little liar, Nick thought, his lips twitching as he raised the lid off his food ten minutes later and found his slice of cake gone. His little addict seemed satisfied at the moment with her sugar intake and was now focused on her actual dinner. Since he’d actually ordered the second slice for her, he didn’t say anything as he dug into his own food.
When they were done, he placed the trays outside their room just as Holly was opening her door across the hallway. Her eyes widened in pleasure when she saw him and then narrowed when they ran over his bare chest and unbuttoned jeans. Without a word, she slammed her door shut and he resigned himself to a call from Rick in the morning. Not that he cared. With some sick fuck after Jamie, he wasn’t letting her out of his sight. Holly could bitch all she wanted about the sleeping arrangements and it wouldn’t change a damn thing.
Nick closed the door and walked back into the room just as Jamie was climbing under the covers. He waited until she was settled before shutting the lights off and pulled his jeans and underwear off before he joined her. Before his head hit the pillow, she was curling up next to him and he realized that she’d ditched her pajamas and was naked.
Neither one spoke as his mouth found hers and he gently rolled her onto her back. When he slipped a finger inside of her, he found her wet and ready, which was a good thing because he was too tired to stretch this out tonight. He wanted it hard and fast and she gave it to him.
The louder she screamed, the harder he fucked her and when she dug her nails into his ass, he quickened his pace until he thought the damn bed would break. After she came the first, second, and third time, he didn’t slow down, but instead gave her everything he had. When he couldn’t hold back any longer, he pulled back and turned Jamie onto her stomach before covering her body from behind. He slammed into her as he wrapped his arms around her, cradling her breasts in his hands as she drenched him in her arousal. Her walls tightened impossibly further around him seconds before she was screaming his name.
His balls pulled up almost painfully as he felt himself harden further inside of her. As her walls clenched mercilessly around him, he pinched her hard nipples, forcing her into another screaming orgasm that robbed him of his own. He buried his face in the pillow as he roared her name.
Afraid that he was hurting her, Nick rolled over onto his side and pulled her with him, still inside of her. Moments later, they were both falling into a deep, satisfying sleep and he realized that he never wanted to let her go.