Chapter 13 #2
“She’s an actress,” I parried. “We started shooting last night.”
“Great. You’ve got pictures? Send them over. We’ll discuss.”
My hand hovered above the keyboard. All the pictures of Jordana were stored in a folder. I’d edited them last night, continuing to work after she went back to sleep.
“Any time now,” Andy prodded.
I was a fool to think these pictures were private. Everyone who worked on and bought this book — she’d be in all of their hands. Naked and gorgeous, bursting off the page.
Clenching my fist under the desk, I clicked the folder labeled Jordana and selected images that didn’t reveal her nudity.
Her bound wrists, her bright eyes, her arched neck and curling hair.
Finally, I added a full-body shot, where she twisted away from the camera.
It showed the curves of her exquisite ass, but not much else.
“Wow.” Andy’s eyes widened. “Wow, wow, wow. Joy, are you seeing this? The charisma. I can’t take my eyes off her. Who is this girl?”
“A friend. She’s helping me out.”
“She’s dynamite. How’d you find someone like that in Hawthorne, New Hampshire? Is she a student?”
“Yep.”
“Gavin, these are gorgeous,” Joy gushed. “Have you got more? Is she able to do what we need for the book?”
My fingers tapped the desk. Fuck it, I needed to let go. This was for the project, my project, that I’d dreamed about for years. Jordana knew exactly what she’d signed up for. Hell, she’d pushed for it.
There was a loud rapping on the office door.
“Hang on,” I told Andy and Joy. “I’m using Rachel’s office. Someone’s here.”
“Oh, Rachel,” Andy said. “Shelby's friend, right?”
I nodded briefly. “Come in,” I called.
The door opened, and my least favorite person in the Hawthorne theater department poked his head in.
“Rachel?” he began, in that overconfident voice. “...Oh.”
He rolled back his bulging shoulders. Outside, it was cool and crisp, jacket weather, but this Corey character wore a sleeveless white undershirt like he’d been interrupted midway through getting dressed, or having his way with an impressionable theater girl.
Like he was Stanley fucking Kowalski himself.
I gave him a cold stare. “Can I help you?”
He blinked. The guy was an asshole, but he wasn’t used to people knowing it.
“I’m here for Rachel. She's my advisor. We're supposed to have a meeting.”
“She’s running errands.” I shrugged. “I guess she forgot.”
“Forgot?” His face puckered inward, like a kid whose parents were late to pick him up from school. The last one sitting on the steps, waiting.
I could see it: he’d grown up forgotten. His parents had overlooked him, maybe for other kids in their family. He was terrified of being forgotten. And now he was massively overcompensating.
For a minute, I almost felt sorry for him.
Then he muscled his way into the office. “No worries. I just need to borrow a book.”
“I’m in a meeting,” I said flatly. “It can wait.”
“Give me two seconds.” He walked up to the bookshelves, surveying them.
The little shit didn’t need a book. He was marking his territory. I half-expected him to whip out his dick and piss on Rachel’s carpet.
“Not now.” I tried to sound civil. “You need to leave.”
He crossed behind me. Instinctively, I pushed down my laptop’s screen partway. His breath hitched.
Had he seen Jordana? Naked and luminous, her ass offered up like a ripe fruit?
Or had he only noticed that I didn’t want him to see my screen?
“Got it!” He slid a book triumphantly off the shelf.
Structural Forms in the French Theater, 1500-1700. I’d eat my camera if he actually read it.
“Tell Rachel I came by, will you? Thanks, pal.” He gave me a big smile and strolled out, leaving the door wide open.
“One second,” I told Andy and Joy, getting up to close the door. “You're welcome, pal,” I muttered.
If he’d seen the picture… My vision hazed, and my muscles tightened. That picture would go public when the book released. It wouldn’t be a secret. But our work together, right now, was secret. Our fucking was secret. I wanted her to be my secret.
And Corey had already had more than he deserved of her.
Jealousy swirled through me, hot and potent and complicated.
My hand clenched on the door handle, disgust twisting my stomach at the thought of this arrogant jackass putting his hands on Jordana. Keeping her on a string since she arrived at Hawthorne. Having her for two full years.
Which was roughly how long I’d been married to Shelby.
My ex-wife flickered through my mind, replaced by a picture of Corey and Jordana together as he selfishly used her. The idiot had had a diamond in his grasp and treated her like dirt. I shoved the image away.
Exhaling, I sat down and sent the entire folder of photos to Andy and Joy.
They loved them. They loved Jordana.
“Silver linings, huh?” Andy asked. “You’ve got some magic going here. We know how tough it was with Shelby the first time around. That just wasn’t working for the book.”
Joy nodded in agreement.
“Right,” I said quietly. “It wasn’t working.”
The meeting ended, and I closed my laptop, hoping no eyes had seen Jordana’s picture that shouldn’t have.
A knock came on the door, softer this time.
“Come in,” I called, pulling on my sweatshirt to leave.
Jordana walked in and closed the door behind her.
“Hey,” she whispered. “I heard through the grapevine that you were here. I only have a minute. I came to say hi.”
“Hi.”
We stared at each other, the desk between us.
Her hair spilled over her shoulders, her eyes shining and uncertain. A hint of cleavage disappeared into her snug green sweater.
“I borrowed your Tennessee Williams book.” She touched the canvas bag that hung from her shoulder.
“Keep it as long as you want. Take your time.”
“I will, since it’s over 600 pages.”
She smiled at me. An answering grin tugged at my mouth. Her hands clenched, and she tucked them into her pockets.
In bed this morning, she’d seemed relaxed. But seeing her now made it clear: after being with someone new, Jordana had no idea how to behave the next day, because usually, there wasn’t a next day.
I wanted to hold her, calm her down. But I couldn’t do that here.
Her eyes dropped to my arms, and I realized I was fiddling with my sleeves, pushing them up over my elbows. I guess I didn’t know how to behave either. It had been a long time.
“May I?” Stepping forward, she skimmed her fingers over my tattoos.
I sucked in a breath. “Sure.”
She traced an abstract clock face. Her touch shot fire through my skin, pushing my cock against my jeans. I braced my hands on the desk.
“How long did it take to get all these done?”
“Ten, eleven years.” My voice was thick. Hoarse. “They’re a work in progress.”
She pushed up her sleeve to show me the dark cursive tattoo on her smooth inner wrist: Whate'er the course, the end is the renown.
“This is my only one,” she explained. “I want another one that says ‘Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie.’ They’re both from All’s Well That Ends Well. But I have to earn it, you know? Figure out how to solve my own shit.”
I jerked a nod.
“You’re the expert,” she said softly, backing against a bookcase. “Where do you think I should put it?”
I was in Rachel’s office. I wanted a job at this university. There was no justification for going to Jordana.
But I walked out from behind the desk, stood so close to her that she was pressed against the bookshelves, and rolled up her other sleeve.
“There.” My fingers circled her wrist, my thumb rubbing her soft skin. “Put it on the opposite wrist, to match.”
Jordana raised an eyebrow. “Like handcuffs?”
“Mmm.”
She was trying to sass, but she had no idea. Her eyes widened, green with brown flecks, as I pushed her wrist against the shelf and held it there. For all her experience, the big game she talked about how debauched she was, she really was innocent in this area.
“So with the tattoo you want,” I said softly, “you’re saying that often, we’re the only ones who can save ourselves.”
She nodded quickly.
“Do you want to be saved?”
“Do you?” Her free hand met my chest, moving down until her palm cupped my cock.
I grunted, pleasure bolting through me, and caught her wrist. But when she arched her throat toward me, I bit her neck. I couldn’t keep my mouth and hands off her. I wanted to mark her all over.
My head was spinning. I grasped for control before I lost it all.
“Not now.” I released her wrists. “Tonight.”
“Okay.” Jordana’s face was flushed. “Tonight.”
I rested my hands on the bookshelf so I wouldn’t tear her clothes off.
“There’s something I need to tell you. Corey was in here earlier.” How I hated saying his name. “I was meeting with my editors, sharing the pictures we took. It’s possible he saw one of you.”
Jordana’s eyelids fluttered. Then she gave a short, hard laugh. Suddenly, she seemed older. “It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before.”
“If he says anything, I’ll handle it,” I promised. “Nothing will happen to you.”
She put her hands in her pockets, her brow creased in thought, and finally met my eyes.
“I’m not ashamed of what we’re doing, Gavin. Or of this book. Are you ashamed?”
For long months, I had been. I thought there must be something wrong with me, to cling so doggedly to a vision that helped wreck my marriage.
I didn’t have to feel that way with Jordana.
“No,” I said. “I’m not.”
“Good.” She kissed my cheek — quickly, impulsively — and hurried out of the office.