Chapter 3
Chapter Three
“Kat. Wake up, baby girl.” The voice was deep and smooth, if not annoying because it cracked open the blissful shell of nothingness I had been enjoying.
But somewhere in my subconscious I recognized the tone and felt no fear.
At the same time, a silent alarm was going off inside me, making me feel like Quasimodo riding the bell in the tower. "Katrina.”
The voice took on an edge. A tone more like my father would have used when I wouldn’t eat my Lima beans at dinner.
Except he would have added the delightful sobriquet Ungrateful Little Bitch.
"Shhhhh, Jesus.” I flailed around in search of a pillow to tug over my head but my seeking fingers came up empty. The sandpaper texture of my tongue glued itself to the roof of my mouth.
"Get up."
I tried desperately to make sense of the voice, at once both gentle and ear-splitting. I turned my face into the corner of wherever it was I was sleeping, squeezing my eyes shut ever tighter against the waking assault and shoving the heels of my hands against my ears, but it was no use.
"I said get up. I won't ask nicely again."
“You’re not being very nice already.” As something in my brain clicked back online, the voice was identified and waves of panic rushed over me.
See, the worst part of a hangover isn’t the nausea, headache and muscles that hurt for unknown reasons. Nope.
It is that moment when consciousness breaks through, the tiny fingers of awareness tap inside your brain and then the floodgates open and all the stupid shit you said and did the night before washes over you like warm, chunky puke.
In fact, I would rather be drenched in my own vomit than have another morning replaying all the idiocy of the night before.
“Fuck. Stop. Talking.” I was begging now.
Insistent fingers pressed into the back of my neck, shaking me, while another hand swept the blanket off. Every cell in my body screamed for more sleep. More nothingness.
The room felt like a seesaw, and I pressed my face into the cushions as the gears in my head began to whine and turn, remembering where I fell asleep the night before. I already pieced together the voice, and I knew it was Jesse.
Shit. I was so fired.
Even as the grip of his strong fingers left my neck and I heard the aircon on the wall of his office come to life, my entire being was engulfed in him.
Jesse. The scent of his deep masculine coffee-with-a-side-of-sex filled my nose and only added to my self-disgust. It was a scent I’d known for so long, and it evoked emotions I’d rather not admit.
Had I really possibly thrown away the last good thing in my life?
“Go away,” I screamed, trying to fight off the sob that clutched at my throat.
I didn't want him to see me like this. What would Kent have said if he was still alive right now?
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen. You are in my god-damn office. Wake the fuck up, Kat.” His voice thickened into a deep vibrato. “I said, get up. Now do it."
His iron grip was on my arm this time, pulling it from my face, and all the evil light of a dozen hundred-watt bulbs met my red-rimmed eyes.
"Ow! Stop!”
He tugged at me until I wobbled into a semi-sitting position, desperately trying to hold back the nausea threatening to make things a million times worse.
"Why did you sleep here last night?" he demanded. "Where was Jenette?"
"She doesn't owe me anything--"
"The fuck she doesn't. I pay her rent and bills in exchange for making sure you're safe and have a locked door between you and the outside world, because you won't let me do it, and then I find you here? I'm going to kick her out on her skinny ass."
"What?" My brain was in no condition for this sort of influx of information. "Jenette's the only nice person around here," I protested.
I needed a drink.
He snorted. "Yeah, she's a sweetheart."
The familiar squeak of his desk chair had me sneaking a peek in his direction while hatching a cowardly plan to slither out of here and never come back. It’s just easier to avoid things, even if it means throwing away the last person you have on earth that honestly gives a shit about you.
I leaned forward, masking my face in my hands for a few breaths, then straightened my back, threading my fingers into the hair hanging in my face. It felt like straw. Greasy, stringy straw.
I needed to get to the bathroom and out to the bar for a glass of ice water and a shot of something before disappearing out the front door.
Through slits, I allowed myself a look at him. The star in so many of my midnight fantasies.
Jesse wasn't busy surfing through paperwork or staring at the screen on his Mac with that furrowed brow of annoyance as I expected.
His hands were folded perfectly across the expanse of his rock-hard abdominals as his eyes burned into mine from across the room.
The carved steel of his jaw flexed as a rush of Judas warmth exploded between my legs.
God, he’s handsome.
No, not handsome. Fuckable, but more. Lovable, sure, but still more.
Like a father you don’t want to disappoint, but even if you do, you know he will love you and protect you and forgive you.
And fuck you.
Oh my God. The little bit of glue that was holding me together was melting. I could feel it.
"Explain," he said, his voice calmer than I deserved. "Start at the beginning. Tell me what happened last night."
"I didn’t have a ride and…or a place to crash.” I desperately tried to form some sort of realistic story that didn’t include several misdemeanors, but I was in no condition for this.
Fuck it. I had to get a drink.
With a deep exhale, I pushed off the sofa, stumbled, reached out for the door handle, and the floor turned to liquid as my equilibrium sent me nearly crumbling into the wall.
“I’ll be back. I’m gonna grab some liquid breakfast.”
My friend Black Cherry White Claw should make this all better.
“Sit your ass down, little girl,” Jesse barked from behind his desk.
My feet stuck to the uniquely pristine floor of Jesse’s office as I processed each thick, sexy word.
“Did you just call me a little girl?”
He bolted upright, the desk chair slamming into the wall, banging both his fists on the top of the desk and sending my heart like a rocket into my throat. Dry air prickled my throat as I took in a sharp breath.
“I said sit your ass down.” His booming voice echoed inside the room and in my head.
“Jesus, Jesse. What the fuck?” He’d never talked to me like this before. I took note of the veins in his neck, like fire hoses ready to burst.
His dark eyes cut into me as I rolled my eyes and shuffled back toward the couch, secretly relieved to not be upright anymore. I flopped down, exhaling hard.
“Do you have any idea who you are hurting, Kat?”
“I’m not hurting anyone,” I mumbled, picking at the peeling blue nail polish I borrowed from Jenette’s stockpile.
“You’re acting like a selfish brat, Katrina. Everything your brother gave up to raise you and this is where you end up? Don’t you remember your parents?”
“Who the fuck are you? It’s none of your god-damn business what I do. You don’t want me to work here? Then I’ll go. But I don’t need the fucking lecture, okay?”
Bullets of pain shot through my head and my heart as Jesse glared in stony, sexy silence, his fists balled, and I felt a quick jab of fear as I put together just how much damage he could do to me if so inclined.
In so many ways.
“This ends now. It’s over, Kat. Done. I tried to do things your way, because I promised Kent after that night I would never interfere with your life, because that’s what he wanted, but my oaths to your brother don't trump this.”
My stomach sank. He was being an ass, but he was all I had. Something had always seemed to bring us back together, and he was the safest thing in my life.
And the truth behind it all was I was ashamed. Down to my marrow. The self-loathing, especially on mornings like this, was dangerous. To myself.
"The drinking stops," he said. "Today."
That took me by surprise. What the fuck? “My body, my choice,” I said, not caring that I was misusing the phrase. “And I can stop anytime I want, I just prefer not to.”
My snotty tone reverberated around us. I was just a little kid again. My big brother’s best friend, who I had been in love with for ten years, was staring at me at probably my lowest point in my life, and I reverted to being the dumb little sister he couldn't quite shake off.
I was hung over, I had no home, no car, no real friends, nothing.
Nobody.
That little girl inside of me that never had parents that loved her, that always felt abandoned and unlovable, needed to fiercely defend her heart right now. I could see the fire behind Jesse’s eyes, and I knew the power he commanded.
“I watched you, Katrina. Last night, I watched you, and because of the promise I made to your brother, I did nothing. ‘Let her live her life, make her mistakes. Don’t ever touch her again, and I’ll try to forget what I just saw.
’ Well, fuck that. You’re not safe. Well, you weren’t. But you are now.”
Even the thought of Kent turned my vitriol into grief. That fullness in my throat I always got when fighting off the sobs rendered me unable to take a breath.
I pressed my quaking lips together as Jesse squeezed his jaw, the pain in his eyes mimicking my own as he finished.
“He said you needed to figure out your life on your own without my controlling ass taking over, but I can't watch anymore. I won't.” He glanced over his shoulder, then sighed. Turning, he pulled open a long door on a wooden cabinet to reveal a row of ten small security monitors. “You set off the alarm when you left the back room. You’re the only other person that has a key to my office. When you punched in your code wrong twice to turn off the alarm, the system called me. I watched your little drinking session from home. You’re killing me, Kat. Killing. Me.”
Did his voice just crack?