24. ELLY
24
ELLY
I can’t think of a single thing I’d want to buy with Jack Lansen’s black card. It sits on my dressing room table, glaring at me every morning.
Mr fucking Moneybags .
The thing is, I don’t want his money. I want him .
“Penny for your thoughts?”
I look up to find Jack staring at me across the kitchen island. It’s Saturday morning, and he’s heading to the gym and is wearing shorts and a t-shirt, muscular arms and legs on display. It’s a good look on him, and I can’t decide if I prefer this version of him to the suited one. They’re both yummy.
Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve slid into this semi-awkward but friendly rapport. He hasn’t given up making suggestive comments, but he’s also sweet and kind and thoughtful, and he leaves little notes for me in the kitchen on the mornings I’m not awake before he leaves for work.
He stares at me, waiting for an explanation for my unfocused expression. But I can’t tell him that all I’m thinking of is him, and how I’m wishing I hadn’t turned him down on that offer to have more ‘fun’.
What am I frightened of? Would being one of Jack Lansen’s many women really be that bad?
I’m all too aware of his reputation, but for some reason, he feels like a safe space. Somewhere I could let loose sexually. Like he could hold it all, and let me be what I’m meant to be. And I’d love it. I know I would.
I’d get invested.
I would fall for him, and he’d walk away like it was nothing more than sex. Good old physical fun times. I’d end up with a broken heart and he’d move on to the next woman on his list.
I can move on from a blow job in the kitchen, but not from heartbreak.
Jack brings his coffee over and sits next to me at the kitchen island. “Well?”
Shit . Sitting next to him has my nerve endings blasting off like a firing squad. Lethal .
Just have sex with him. You know you want to.
He’s still waiting for my explanation. I have to give him something else.
“Lydia told me not to touch you.” The comment is out before I can stop it.
Jack’s lips pucker as he tries to restrain what I assume is a smirk. “Before or after you took my dick in your mouth?”
My face immediately gets hot. “Can you please not throw that into casual conversation?” He chuckles, low. “Are you sleeping with her?”
Jack tenses and everything feels awkward. “No. And I haven't slept with her.” Fuck. This is a definite reminder that I should not get involved with someone like Jack Lansen. Too many women, too much baggage. “When were you talking to Lydia?”
“I bumped into her at the supermarket, and she told me to ‘keep my hands off Jack Lansen’. In fact, she said, ‘Don’t. Fucking. Touch. Him’. She looked like she might kill me if I disobeyed.”
He barks a laugh. “You didn’t listen, did you?”
“This is serious.”
Jack shrugs, his eyes halfway to rolling. “I was joking. I agree, it’s a bit odd. But so what? She can’t touch us here. We can do whatever we want.”
“I guess so.”
“But you don’t want to do what I want to do, so…” He raises a suggestive eyebrow. “We’ll have to do something else.”
My skin prickles. What is he up to? “Oh, yeah?”
“You’re performing for Nico’s party, right?”
“Yes.”
“Are you ready for it?”
I wince, recalling how I wept in Jack’s arms about the Marchmont and being pelted with tomatoes. I’ve been back to the bar since then, but my performances have been shaky and subpar. And without fail, my mediocrity raises the memory of my disastrous non-interview with Robert Lloyd, like a vampire clambering from a coffin I thought I’d locked, seeking to suck the fucking life out of me…
“I want to help you,” he says when I don’t reply.
I cock a brow. “Another pep talk?”
Jack huffs and rubs a hand over the scruff on his jaw. “The last one went down so well, thought I’d try again. What can I say? I’m a glutton for punishment.”
I don’t know why, but the word punishment has my veins steaming. The effect he has on me is unprecedented. I’m spinning from annoyed to aroused and back again like I’m in orbit, and the effort it takes to pretend I’m unmoved is leeching my energy. “What’s your agenda? Is this so you can get in my pants?”
He chuckles. “No. Well, not entirely.”
“Why, then?”
“Because you’re ridiculously talented, but you aren’t positioning yourself for success. You’re underperforming.”
My spine straightens. How dare he.
Jack scans my face. “You think I’ve just insulted you, don’t you?”
Fuck. The man is a mind reader. “Sort of.”
He points a finger at me. “That right there is where you’re going wrong. Your mind is primed for insults. You’re expecting them. You have to flip the script.” He sighs. “If you won’t have dinner with me as a date, then let me take you out to talk about your career instead.”
“We can talk about my career right here.”
“Out is more fun.” I tut and shake my head— always after the fun —but Jack is undeterred. “I might not be a musician, but I do know a thing or two about getting ahead.”
I pause, trying to sink into my body and work out how I feel about this. But all I come up with is, this sounds like another game. And no matter how much I’m pretending I don’t want to play with Jack Lansen, I absolutely do.
“Sure,” I agree, and Jack grins so wide it makes me want to kiss that fantastic mouth of his again, and thoughts of all the wonderful things he could do with it drop into my mind in a slideshow of temptation.
He taps the kitchen work surface with one hand, snapping me out of my fantasies. “Great. Tonight.”
His decisiveness has nervous laughter spilling from my mouth. “You don’t waste time. What if I have plans?”
“Do you?”
“No,” I concede.
“Then let me take you out.”
I want to disagree because seeing him get his own way and look so smug about it is infuriating. But instead, I blurt, “No blow jobs. No kissing.”
My heart thrums, and the realisation hits me all at once. I don’t want him to think I’m just another slut who’ll get on her knees for him. I’m trying to claw my way back to some idealistic version of chastity, as if that would make him want me more. There’s me thinking I could be all sexually liberated with Jack, but social conditioning has done a fucking number on me.
Jack’s brows shoot up at the same time as his lips tug up at the edges. He places his hands on his heart and says, “You’re crushing my dreams here, El.”
My stomach dips like the damn thing is swooning. “Let’s keep it to my career,” I say calmly, as if kissing and blow jobs, and the idea that they might feature in Jack’s dreams, doesn’t turn me on.
“Sure. But just so you know, I still want to kiss you.”
All the air in my lungs escapes in a gasp, making Jack bite his lip with his perfect teeth.
“You’re not making this easy,” I mutter. “We need rules so this thing doesn’t go off the rails.”
“I love that you think we’re still on the rails.” He reaches out, and before I can stop him, his thumb grazes my cheek as he runs his hand down my face, leaving a trail of blazing heat.
He knows exactly what he’s doing, and my boundaries are so flimsy, he can push right past them. I’m tilting towards him, leaning into his hand. Hopeless.
His fingers fall away, but his eyes are trained on me, and amusement flits across his gaze. As it almost always does. “We’ll leave at seven,” he instructs. “Be ready.”