Loving Lies (10 page)

“Maybe I'm in love with you and just don't want to risk rejection. You know what rejection does to me. Just the thought of it makes my poor little body quake in fear.”

Jessie stared at him in disbelief. Turning back to the sink she began to sniff the beer cans. Someone had given him mind rot rather than rotgut.

“Funny Miss Smartypants.” He laughed at her then reached out for her as she evaded his grip and headed for the exit.

“Clean this pervert wagon up,” she snapped. “I'm not cleaning it again. And I'll be damned if I'll put up with your insanity either. Figure out what kind of bee is up your butt and get rid of it before I get rid of it for you.”

He followed her outside quickly.

“Maybe the problem is that I want up your butt,” he griped as they stepped beneath the awning. “Come on, Jess. I promise not to hurt you. Let me have your butt…”

She turned to slap at him, but a surprised cry left her as an enraged snarl sounded behind her. A second later Jazz was flying into the clearing, head first, and a tall, too-familiar figure was jumping after him.

“You lying fucker.” A fist slammed into Jazz's face, throwing him backwards before he even had the chance to gain his feet. “Son of a bitch, I'll kill you.”

“Ron!” Jessie screamed for the patriarch of the camp, knowing if anyone could calm the enraged beast hell-bent on breaking Jazz's head, it was Ron. He might need reinforcements. The only problem was, they weren't doing anything to help.

Fists were flying and if Jessie wasn't mistaken, there was a damned good chance someone was going to end up dead. Or hospitalized.

“Would you stop them?” She ran to Zack, gripping his powerful forearm and staring up at him pleadingly.

“Hell no. Best fun I've seen here in years,” he drawled, lifting the beer in his other hand as he glanced at Ron. “My money is on Slade. He just came back and that boy has a load of pent-up pissed. Fifty bucks.”

“Naw, Jazz will take him. He has staying power…” Money was being passed to Ron.

“Like hell!” Jessie snarled, fury whipping through her. She ducked the hand he reached out to attempt to catch her as she turned and raced to the two combatants.

“Enough.” She pushed herself between them the moment she saw an opening, slamming both hands into Slade's hard chest as his fist came flying toward her face.

He stopped. Barely.

Jessie stared at the fist in shock. Broad, hard as a rock, scraped and bleeding and no more than an inch from her nose. Swallowing tightly she raised her eyes to his face and felt that first shocking awareness again like a punch to her womb.

Enraged gray eyes stared back at her, then at his fist, as Jazz staggered to his feet, gripping her shoulders and panting above her.

“Hell, baby, I think Slade is mad. What do you think? Was it the butt comment?”

Slade growled a curse so explicit Jessie shuddered in fear at the rage in his voice.

“Both of you are asses.” She was fighting to breathe, struggling with rage, confusion, and an echo of past pain, staring at an older, harder Slade, her hands curling against his chest as the heat and sensations of pleasure began to rush through her system.

She jerked back, her teeth snapping together in self-disgust as she stared into his dark, forbidding expression. Saw the black fury that overwhelmed him as he glanced at Jazz's hands on her shoulders, looked in her eyes, then back to the hands.

She wasn't about to move. She couldn't move. She was mesmerized by him, by the savagery in his expression, the white-hot fury that turned his gray eyes black.

Slade was home. She couldn't see anything, couldn't feel anything past the fact that he was back.

“Hey, baby, I want to point out you're staring at him like he's fresh meat and you're starving. Not good for that claim of being over him, you know,” Jazz spoke at her ear, his voice amused, his hands frankly caressing on her shoulders as Slade's gaze snapped to them, jerking Jessie back to reality.

“Have you lost your mind?” she sneered, pushing Jazz back as she retreated as well. He was following her lead much too easily. “Are both of you insane?”

Her face flushed with embarrassment as she caught sight of the crowd gathered behind Slade, watching in interest at the scandal unfolding before them.

“Get your fucking hands off her!” Slade's voice was low, a rough, furious growl that sent alarm shaking through Jessie.

Evidently, Jazz wasn't in his normally intelligent frame of mind.

“Hey, you gave her to me to take care of. I just did what you asked. I'm taking care of her.”

Shock rocked through her system. She stared back at Slade, rage slowly burning inside her as the truth began to fill her.

“You touched her.”

Jazz sighed. “Yeah. I did. And boy did I—”

Jessie slammed her elbow into his abdomen, smiling with sharp pleasure at his indrawn breath. She could feel her body shuddering from the inside out, anger eating away at her control before she stepped away from both of them.

“Gave me to him?” Her lips were shaking, her hands clenching into fists to keep the rage from exploding through her. “You dared to care one way or the fucking other what happened to me?” She was screaming, only barely aware of the tone of her voice as her arm swung, involuntarily, the anger surging so hard and fast inside her that she wasn't aware of what she was doing until she felt the shock of her fist connecting with his jaw.

His head jerked to the side then swung back, his gaze piercing, his body tight, his expression drawn into lines of dangerous, soul-deep rage.

“Before you hit me, I do need to point out that I've been a very good boy lately.” Jazz held his hands in front of him, smiling despite the bloodied, bruised condition of his face. “I even promise to clean my pervert wagon.”

He wasn't in the least regretful. He didn't show even an ounce of remorse. Jessie could feel the eyes on her, dozens watching the scene in fascination. She stepped back from both men, tears filling her eyes as betrayal washed through her.

“You have no right.” She pointed a shaky finger toward Slade. “No right. You know it and I know it.”

He didn't speak. He stared back at her, the storm raging in his eyes, his expression stoic as he watched her.

“You are mine!” The snarling claim left her blinking in shock.

“Yours?” She drew herself carefully erect, a mocking smile twisting her lips as she felt the pain, the humiliation she had felt for years wrap around her. “No, Slade. I haven't been yours for a very, very long time. And I never will be again.” She turned, sneering at the three men who had refused to help her earlier. “There's a bet for you, boys. But if I were you, I'd put my money on me.”

She turned, stomping away from them, uncaring if they killed each other. She pushed through the crowd, moving to the RV she now wished she had burned as she had once considered. It was the location of her greatest pain. By God, she could still burn it.

 

“Now look what you did,” Jazz snapped as they both watched Jessie's RV peel from the line of vehicles and begin down the lane toward the main road. “She's leaving, and she's going to pout on me for weeks. You sure as hell know how to crash a party, Slade.”

Slade couldn't take his eyes off Jessie. Her shoulders were stiff and straight within the dimly lit interior of the RV driver's seat. Staring straight head, she didn't look toward him, she didn't look back. This wasn't the woman he had left. The one who never yelled, who always laughed, whose eyes sparkled with light and love.

This was the woman he had left in her apartment, crumpled on the floor, dejection marring every line of her body. He had seen her through the partially opened slats of the shades that night, watched her melt to the floor, saw the tears that coursed down her face as she stared straight ahead. There had been no sobs, no screams, just a silent misery he had never forgotten. A misery that matched the one that built inside him with each year away from her.

As the crowd moved away, he was left staring at Jazz, Zack and Ron. The three men held varying degrees of suspicion and sympathy. Finally Zack shook his head.

“You should have called, Slade. I could have warned you.”

He hadn't called anyone other than Jazz. Only Jazz had seen the pain and rage killing him, only Jazz had allowed him what he needed to walk away from Jessie. He turned back to his friend, his eyes narrowed, rage eating away at him.

“Hit me again, and I'll hit back,” Jazz murmured, the words reaching his ears only. “We can talk or we can fight. Your choice.”

They were brothers in a sense. Slade, Jazz and Zack had come together in the boys' home outside town more than two decades ago. All unwanted, considered too wild, too uncontrollable for adoption. They were fostered out often, but they always returned. And they stuck together.

Slade would have never imagined Jazz would betray him so thoroughly as to take Jessie to his bed. To touch her, God, love her. Had she forgotten him that easily? Hell no, she hadn't. She couldn't have, because his soul had died without her, only breathing, only living again with his return.

“Get fucked,” Slade snapped, pushing past the other man and heading for his cycle. He knew where she was going, it was as instinctive to her as it had been to him. He knew it. Felt it in his soul. She would go to the little camping spot where he had parked his RV once before, the one place where the silence and the peace of the land could soothe whatever pain filled them.

“Oh, no you don't, buddy.” Jazz swung him around, jumping back before Slade could strike out. “You're not going after her. You left her, remember? Five years, man. She's not yours anymore.”

The hell she wasn't.

“Are you claiming her?” Slade hated to kill a friend, but he'd be damned if he'd let anyone else stand between him and Jessie.

“Don't push me, Slade. Jessie will decide what she wants, not me, not you. Now let's go talk, or we can fight. Those are your only choices. Going after her right now is not an option.”

Slade clenched his fists, determined to knock Jazz out of the way and head out for the woman who had tormented him for five long, agonizing years. Before he could, Jazz, Zack and Ron moved around him.

“Might as well have a drink and forget it, son.” Ron pushed a beer into his hand, his smile cold. Hard. “You're not going anywhere tonight.”

“Come on, Slade.” Zack slapped him on the shoulder, his unsmiling face lacking hostility, but filled with determination. “You'd do the same thing. Let her get used to the idea that you're back, no matter how big an ass you made of yourself. We all need to talk anyway, it's been a long time, and there's a hell of a lot you didn't tell us before you left.” There was recrimination in his voice.

His gaze sliced back to Jazz.

The grinning fool shrugged. “Hey, they saw you leaving my RV that last night, and their fists are almost as hard as yours. I like to stay pretty, you know.” He worked his jaw with one hand. “Let's go share a stiff drink, man. Your fists have gotten stronger.”

Slade wanted to shake his head, to force himself back to reality. His best friend had slept with the woman who held Slade's soul and he was supposed to share a drink with him?

“She was dying inside, man,” Jazz told him softly. “She whispered your name, she cried for you, and I let her pretend. Which was better? Me or one of those yahoos?” He waved his hand toward the crowd behind them, his words reaching no further than Slade's ears. “I saved her for you, man, just like I promised.” A wicked smile crossed his face. “Maybe. I'm thinking though…maybe I could win her from you.”

Jazz sauntered off as Slade stared at his back broodingly. What the hell was up with the maybes?

Chapter Ten

 

She owned the RV Slade had sold, so there really wasn't any place to run that Slade couldn't find her. But she had no intention of running. She didn't head to the small campsite, suspecting he would follow her. She drove back to her apartment instead, climbing the steps outside the offices of Rigor Construction to the large apartment she had rented from Jazz and Zack several years before. She locked the door carefully, set the security then moved through the darkened living room to her bedroom.

It had been Slade's apartment as well. He had slept here, in that big bed, sometimes for weeks on end while he was building his house. He had just finished the house the month before that ill-fated weekend they had spent together. Until then, this had been his home.

No, she had never gotten over him, she thought as she moved into the bedroom. She had never forgotten, something inside her had refused to let her release the past.

She had installed sliding doors on the back wall of the bedroom, complete with a locking screen door to allow the fresh summer breeze into the room while securing her safety on summer nights. Outside, the balcony Jazz and Zack built beckoned her, if only the weariness tearing through her would subside. She opened the glass doors, leaving the screen secured before stripping and crawling into the bed, staring through the screen into the darkened night as she let herself get used to the fact that Slade was back. Harder, broader. A more dangerous Slade. One she was no more immune to now than she had been five years before.

She wiped her hands over her face, breathing out roughly as she fought to make sense of his return. He had left her five years before. After an incredible weekend of sex, he had walked away, claiming her immaturity as the reason he didn't want her, and three weeks later had disappeared, taking Amy Jennings with him. Experienced, sophisticated Amy Jennings had married him, lived with him.

The news that Amy had died several months before in D.C. had reached the gossips in town a few days ago, but Jessie hadn't expected Slade to return. Why would he? There was nothing left here for him.