Grounded (29 page)

Frankie rushed to hug a stiff James as soon as she spotted us at the event.
 

“Will you at least talk to me about it?
 
You can’t freeze me out forever, James,” she said into his cheek.
 

“Oh, we’ll talk,” he told her ominously.
 

She just smiled, seeming to take that as a good sign.

She greeted Stephan and Javier like they were all old friends, before moving to me.
 
She pointedly didn’t try to hug me, just bending at the waist to give me a jaunty little bow.
 
“Bianca, the lion tamer,” she said, grinning at James.
 

I put a hand on his arm, wishing he would just let it go.
 
But James was James, and he would get there in his own time.

Frankie seemed to know him well enough to see that, and gave him space.

We ran into Tristan next.
 
He was looking debonair in a black tux as he posed for one of the photo ops.
 
The photographers seemed to be in a frenzy to get shots of him.
 
I shot James a puzzled look.
 

“Is he famous or something?” I asked.

James grinned and then laughed.
 
“Or something.
 
He stars in the magic show at the Cavendish property, and he’s the lead singer in a band that had two hit singles last year.
 
It doesn’t make me even a little bit sad that you aren’t a fan of his.”

Tristan turned to us the instant he finished with the shots.
 
He grinned that wicked grin of his from ear to ear when he saw me.
 

He moved as though to hug me the second he got within our reach, but James was expecting that.
 
James moved in between us, catching the other man in a bear hug and saying something that I couldn’t make out into his ear.
 

Tristan just threw his head back and laughed.

The two men were of the same height, but Tristan had James beat in bulk.
 
Where James was ripped but elegant, Tristan looked like a linebacker in a suit.

James pulled away from the other man, and moved me very obviously into his body, shielding me.
 
I thought it was ridiculous, but it still made me smile.
 

I gave Tristan a little wave.
 

He bent forward in a solicitous bow, but his wicked eyes never left my face, and his smile didn’t falter.
 
He flashed one of his dangerous dimples my way.
 

“So no touching,” he said in his deep, rich voice.
 
“Can I at least see her tattoo?
 
I heard all about it.
 
I heard her back was lovely, just like the rest of her.”

He was clearly baiting James, but he still got an unexpected giggle out of me.
 
The man was outrageous.
 

James agreed with me, and he was not nearly as upset with the other man’s comments as I’d thought he’d be.
 
“Outrageous bastard,” he muttered, but with little heat.
 
Perhaps being deliberately baited had made him see how over the top possessive he was being.
 
Or perhaps the two men were better friends than I’d realized.
 
Who knew with Mr. Beautiful?

We introduced Tristan to Stephan and Javier.
 
Of course, Stephan knew who he was.
 
He was the media savvy of the two of us.
 
I didn’t know how I’d been so clueless as to his identity.
 
If he had a headlining show in Vegas, there must have been billboards for him everywhere.
 
I made a note to keep an eye out for his ads.

My suspicion that James and Tristan were actually close friends was reaffirmed at the way the two men joked and generally gave each other shit for a solid twenty minutes amidst the red carpet chaos.
 
Only good friends could give each other that much grief without any real low blows.
 
Tristan had to know about the sex tape, everyone seemed to, but he never mentioned it.
 
Most of his jabs involved talking about how pretty James was, which didn’t bother James at all.
 

And James never mentioned Danika, who I had discerned right away was Tristan’s own sore spot.
 
Most of the jabs aimed Tristan’s way were comments about ‘singing magicians’, which only seemed to make Tristan smile.
 

At one point Tristan ran his hand through his hair, then pointedly checked his watch, which looked familiar.
 
“Are you about done harassing me, pretty boy?” he asked.

James cursed, then held out his hand.
 
“Give me my watch back,” he said.

Tristan waved the watch at him.
 
“It’s almost my birthday.
 
Can’t we just call it even?”

James shook his head, grinning.
 
“I don’t like you that much.”

Tristan was handing it back to him when his expression became arrested, his eyes moving to look at something behind us.
 
Something raw moved behind those golden depths that seemed impossibly sad for the charismatic man.
 

I glanced behind us.
 

Danika approached.
 
She was looking at us, not at Tristan, but she seemed different than I’d ever seen her, more stiff, her limp more pronounced.
 
If I hadn’t known these two had a history, I would have quickly caught on by the way they changed when in each other’s vicinity.
 

She wore a long silver gown that hugged her perfect figure like a glove.
 
Her straight, blue-black hair was parted down the middle and hanging down her back.
 
The severe and simple style brought out the elegance of her face, the rosebud lips, the high-cheekbones, and those stunning, pale-gray eyes.
 

Danika strode directly to me, bestowing a kiss on my cheek.
 
She was unsmiling but polite down to her toes.
 
“So lovely to see you again, Bianca.”

She nodded to James, who introduced her to Stephan and Javier.
 

“Hello, Danika,” Tristan said softly, after all of the introductions had been made.
 

She nodded in his general direction, but didn’t look at him.
 
“Hello, Tristan.”

“It’s great to see you,” he told her.
 
“You look exquisite, as always.”
 

She smiled tightly.
 
“Sure,” she said.
     

A man approached her from behind, wrapping a hand around her waist and smiling warmly.
 
He was about my height, with medium brown hair and a light build.
 
He was handsome, in a nondescript kind of way, but I thought that he complimented Danika well.
 
They made an elegant couple.
 

She touched his shoulder lightly.
 
“Everyone, this is Andrew.”

“Her boyfriend,” Andrew added.

She gave us another tight smile, then introduced the group to him.
 

I snuck one glance at Tristan, but the way he was looking at Danika was so blatant and raw that I quickly looked away.
 
Being around the two of them felt like overhearing a couple’s worst fight.
 
It felt like we should all excuse ourselves and leave them alone to sort things out, Andrew included.
 

Danika and Andrew quickly made their excuses and moved on.
 

Tristan quickly followed suit.
 
“If you’ll excuse me, I need to go punch something now, so that I don’t give in to the urge to punch some
one
.”
 
With that telling remark, he strode away.
 

“I take it there’s beef between Tristan and Andrew?”
 
I made it a question.

James shrugged.
 
“I don’t know that they’ve ever met before.
 
I think it’s just the beef that Tristan would have with any man that Danika might date.
 
He’s been in love with her since I met him.
 
For five years, at least.
 
Poor bastard.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Mr. Distraught

James stayed glued to my side almost constantly for an entire week.
 
If I wasn’t working a flight, he was there, and I couldn’t say I minded it a bit, though I began to suspect the reason.
 

He was terrified that I would watch the video of him and Jolene.
 
He hadn’t asked me not to watch the thing, but he knew me well enough to suspect that I would want to view what was out there for the world to see.

And so I didn’t find myself alone for nearly a week after the sex tape’s release.
 
James had worked plenty in that week, but only when I was working, or when I had someone keeping me company.
 
Lana took me shopping; Stephan sat with me while I painted.
 
Marnie and Judith flew to New York to spend the afternoon with me.
 
Danika dropped in for an afternoon to observe my current projects.
 
I had a constant barrage of friends to keep me company if James had to work and I didn’t, and I didn’t think for a second that any of it was a coincidence.

I was in the New York apartment, painting, when it dawned on me that I was actually alone.
 

I glanced at the computer in my studio but just continued to paint.
 
But once the thought occurred, I found it difficult to focus on anything else.
 
I knew I’d have to watch it eventually, and it seemed for the best to just get it over with.
 
It seemed like the whole world must have watched that video by now, and he was
my
devoted lover, so why shouldn’t
I
get to see it?

I was sitting at the computer and searching for it online before I could give it much more thought.
 
I typed ‘James Cavendish sex tape’ into the search engine.
 
It was that easy.

My gut knotted painfully from the moment I dragged the mouse over the play button.
 
Every instinct I had told me to just turn it off.
 
Some things you couldn’t take back, and watching James have sex with another woman, a woman I’d met, one who I openly disliked, couldn’t be a healthy thing for our relationship.
 
Still, I watched.

It hadn’t been taped in any place that I recognized.
 
I’d expected that.
 
It was a small room with a big bed, and the camera must have been hidden somewhere high in the room, aimed down, and in the corner.
   

The small room was empty for long moments before Jolene walked in and knelt on the floor in front of the bed.
 

She was wearing a tiny black see-through slip that hung at her hips and didn’t cover a thing.
 
I recognized that slip, or at least the style of it.
 
It felt like a slap in the face to see that he’d had me wear something so similar to what
she
had worn for him.
 
It wasn’t a good start, not that there was any way the horrid video
could
have had a good start.

She knelt there, all of her glorious assets displayed, her pierced nipples jutting out for drawn-out moments before James joined her in the room.
 
Someone, either the person who had released the video or the person whose site I was watching it on, had added snarky little comments to the video.
 
Directly beneath Jolene, ‘
HOTTEST FUCKING BITCH EVER!
’ was scrawled in hot pink.
     

James was shirtless, wearing just unbuttoned slacks.
 
His body was ripped up and spectacular, though he was slightly thinner back then, his hair a little longer, the dirty blond strands tied back from his face.
 

His face was a mask of cold indifference, only his dominant persona present that I could see.
 
He said something to her and she bowed lower.
 
There was no audio, aside from a particularly graphic rap song about being a pimp playing in the background, courtesy of the video’s editor.

He pulled her up by the hair and led her the short distance to the bed.
 
She kept her eyes downcast the entire time.
 

The bed was designed vaguely like a smaller version of the beds that James had in his homes, with a sturdy frame and a top designed for bondage.
 
This bed had bars lining the top.
 
James tied her arms above her head with swift motions.
 
I couldn’t make out his words, and he didn’t speak much, but when he did, Jolene shuddered in pleasure.
 
She reminded me of a cat in heat, with her back arched and her wiggling body responding to his every movement.
 
I hated to watch it, but I didn’t stop.
 
I felt compelled to finish it, some part of me having to see if he showed her even a glimmer of the tenderness he showed me in our passionate moments.

He stood behind her once she was secured.
 
He pressed against her, and had to bend down far to say something into her ear.
 
I thought pettily to myself that she was too short for him.
 
The height difference looked ridiculous.
 
She barely came to his chest.
 

She shuddered and he moved away.
 
He walked out of the room without looking back, returning after a brief time with an object clutched in one hand.
 

It was a cat o’ nine, with long tails that were tipped with small silver balls.
 
It looked brutal, and it wasn’t anything he’d ever used on me.
 
He said something to her just before he began to work her over.

From the first strike, the music in the video changed to ‘
Smack My Bitch Up’
.
 
Whoever had edited the video seemed to have enjoyed themselves.

He worked her over thoroughly, showing no mercy.
 
She kept her head bent forward, her eyes downcast the entire time.
 
She seemed like a different person than the Jolene that I’d been subjected to.

Her body writhed, her big breasts quivering with every hard strike.
 
The flesh of her butt and thighs was crisscrossed with pink welts by the time he let up.
 

I felt like I was watching in slow motion as he dropped the whip and began to unbutton his pants.
 
My hands fisted, my nails digging hard into my palms.
 
This was going to hurt me to watch.
 
Still, I couldn’t look away.

He pulled his thick erection free.
 

‘HOLY HUGE DICK!’
scrolled along the bottom of the screen.
 

I despised with a passion whoever had edited the thing.
 

I thought I might be ill as he stroked himself, standing just behind her.

He pulled a condom out of his pocket, ripping it open and rolling it on with smooth, practiced motions.
 

He poised himself behind her, his huge arousal looking even bigger against her petite form.
 
I knew it was totally irrational, but God, I hated her.
 

My hand covered my mouth as he drove into her.
 
I’d known before I turned it on that it would be bad for my heart to watch it, but I had the thought again.
 

He fucked her so hard that it must have hurt, though I supposed that was the point.
 
She shuddered as she came, and he pulled out of her, still hard, while those waves of pleasure still wracked her body.
 

He turned her, and I realized that as hard as that had been to watch, it was about to get worse.
 

She started to raise her eyes to him as he entered her then, but he said something and her eyes lowered again.
 
I felt the fist around my heart loosen just a bit.
 
There was no eye contact as he pounded into her from that angle.
 
He fucked her hard until he had her shuttering again, and then again.
 

New words scrolled along the bottom of the screen.
 
‘RICH, GORGEOUS, AND HE FUCKS LIKE A MACHINE.
 
WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE?’
 

Again, I had some nasty thoughts about the editor.

He pulled out of her roughly, and I saw his cock twitching inside of that tight rubber with his own release.
 
Unfortunately, the video was good enough that I could make out every detail, even the tip of the condom filling with cum.
 

At least he hadn’t come inside of her.
 
And at least he’d worn that rubber.
 
I knew it was ridiculous to feel possessive of a body that I hadn’t even known at the time of the video, but knowing didn’t change the feeling.
 

He left her tied to the bed and strode from the room.
 
When he came back in, he was fully dressed in a suit.
 

It didn’t look like they said another word to each other, and she never once raised her eyes to him as he untied her and she lay down on the bed.
 
She was curling her body around a pillow as he strode from the room.
 
He never looked back.
 

My heart was pounding as the video ended.
 
It had hurt to watch it, but I felt like I’d learned something important.
 
It was a fact that James had been a slut before he’d met me.
 
As much as the images in the video had bothered me, there wasn’t an instant of their interaction where he’d shared anything but his body and his cold domination with her.
 
There had been nothing that I would have called intimacy between the two of them.

He’d told me once that sex had just been a bodily function for him before he’d met me, and I’d just seen the proof of it.
 
I knew it was perverse, but I felt both sick and relieved at the same time.
 

A movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention.
 
I turned to look.

James stood in the doorway.
   

His face was stricken
—
his eyes bleak, as he looked at the computer screen.
 
I wondered how long he’d been there, but obviously it had been long enough to see what I was watching.
 

Too late, I closed out the window of that horrid video.
 

I looked back at him, but he wasn’t looking at me.
 
His eyes were glazed and unseeing, still glued to the computer.
 
He took a step back and closed the door behind him, leaving me alone in the room.

I just sat there for a few minutes, my mind still processing what I’d seen.
 
I needed a minute to compose myself before we spoke about it, if there was even anything to say.

So he’d had sex with that horrible woman, probably too many times to count.
 
Watching it had at least given me some clarity.
 
James at his angriest, at his coldest, at his most furious, had never been to me what he was to Jolene.
 
They had been a Dom and a sub letting off steam, nothing else.
 

Although I hadn’t realized it at the time, James had always been different with me.
 
Looking back on it now, James had shown me a profound tenderness and love that belonged only to me, from our very first time together.
 
I realized that I needed to value that more, because it was more precious of a gift than I’d allowed myself to see.
 
He was my Dom, and I was his sub, but our love had turned it into so much more than what I’d seen on that video.
 
Yes, James had been a hedonist and a slut before I’d met him, but I saw now that I’d been his first lover.
 
He’d changed his rules for me.
 
He bended for me constantly.
 
Because he loved me.

I sat and brooded for maybe ten minutes before I got up and followed him.
 

I thought I’d find him in our bedroom.
 
It was empty.
 
I found my phone and called him.
 
He didn’t answer.
 
I searched the huge apartment for him, even venturing tentatively onto the fourth floor in my efforts.
 

I finally resorted to calling Blake.

“Ms. Karlsson,” she answered promptly.

“Blake, do you know where James is?
 
Did he leave the apartment?”

“Yes, Ma’am.
 
He left just a few minutes after he’d arrived.”

“Do you know where he went?”
 

“No…”

“Can you find out?” I asked, starting to panic a little.
 

I wanted to see him.
 
I didn’t want him thinking the worst about my reaction to watching that video, as I knew he would.

“I’ll make some calls, Ms. Karlsson.”

“Thank you,” I said.
 

She hung up.

She called back about ten minutes later.
 
“I couldn’t locate him, Ms. Karlsson.
 
Clark isn’t picking up, and he’s the only one with Mr. Cavendish.
 
The only answer I could get from the others is that he went out.”