Chapter Four
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Jackson watched the ancient pickup pull off onto the gravel at the road’s edge and ran even faster, determined to catch Nicky before she got inside. Before she took her life in her hands trying to get away from him.
It could be anyone in that truck. Some mountain man who hadn’t seen a naked woman in years, a couple of drunk teenagers who would take turns raping the woman they picked up on the side of the road before dropping her off on the streets of San Bernardino. Or even worse, there could be a bona fide psychopath driving that vehicle, a man who would have his fun with Nicky and then kill her, dumping her body in the surrounding wilderness where it might never be found.
Or maybe the driver is a nice grandmotherly type who will buy her some clothes before taking her to the police station to file a report against the man who kidnapped her.
Nicky skidded to a stop as the driver’s door to the truck whipped open. “Help, I. . .” Her voice trailed off and she backed away as an obese man in tattered overalls leveraged himself out of the vehicle.
“You need help, darlin’?” the man asked, weaving a bit as he lurched forward. “I’d be happy to help.”
Despite the chances of being convicted of a felony, a part of Jackson wished it had been a sweet granny in the truck. Now he was probably going to have to get into a brawl with a man who looked like an extra from Deliverance to keep Nicky safe. And he had a witness who might report what he’d seen to the authorities.
Not that it really mattered. If Nicky decided she wanted to press charges, it wasn’t as if he’d do anything to stop her. Despite what the voices in his head had been telling him lately, Jackson wasn’t a psychopath.
At least not yet. If this drunk did anything to Nick, however, Jack was sure he’d lose what was left of his sanity in a fairly memorable fashion.
“No one needs help.” Jackson’s teeth ground together hard enough to make something in his jaw pop as he watched one of the other man’s large, meaty hands reach toward Nicky’s chest. “Get back in your truck.”
“I don’t think I was talking to—”
“Get back in your truck,” Jack repeated as his fingers closed around Nicky’s elbow and pulled her behind him, shielding her nakedness with his body.
“Why don’t you fuck off? The lady asked for my help.”
Jackson cursed himself. Why the hell had he demanded Nicky take off her shirt? She was irresistible enough clothed. Of course he hadn’t thought anyone would see. It was the middle of the night, for god’s sake, and most people knew better than to try to navigate the treacherous mountain roads at night, especially after hitting the bottle. God, he could smell the whiskey on this character from three feet away, which gave him an idea.. . .
“All right, don’t get back in your truck. I can smell the alcohol on your breath from here. Call me crazy, but I doubt this will be your first DUI. Put your hands on the hood.” Jack heard Nicky suck in a breath behind him as she caught on to what he was doing. “I’m taking this one in for attempted prostitution, it will be no trouble to haul you into the station at the same time. I’ll just go lock her in the backseat and come back with some cuffs for you, Mr.. . .”
“Uh. . . ca. . . um. . . Beam. Walter Beam,” he said, already backing toward the door to the battered pickup. “But I haven’t been drinking, Officer. I swear.”
“We’ll see about that when I get back with the Breathalyzer.” Jack turned around and urged Nicky in front of him across the street, whispering as he went, “Get in the backseat.”
“Prostitution?” She hissed the word over her shoulder, obviously angry but relieved to have escaped “Mr. Beam’s” attentions. Mr. Beam. . . riiight. It didn’t take much imagination to guess Beam was the brand of whiskey he’d been drinking, not the name on his license. “Do I look like a prostitute?”
“I don’t know. What does a prostitute look like?” Jackson asked, not surprised to hear the pickup roar to life behind him and tires squeal as old Walter took off down the mountain like a bat out of hell.
“I don’t know. You’re the one who lives in Vegas. I heard it’s legal out there,” she said, shivering as he opened the Expedition’s door and urged her inside. “That was a pretty lame cop act, by the way. I thought you had your own television show. I expected better than ‘haul you into the station.’ ”
“It was a reality show. I just had to be myself, not act like anyone else.” Jackson reached into the front for Nicky’s bra and shirt and tossed them into her lap. “Put those on and don’t run away from me like that again. You could have been seriously hurt.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” The car’s overhead light illuminated Nicky’s face, revealing the flush that heated her cheeks. “I could have been hurt?”
“What do you think Walter would have done to you?”
“I don’t know. Taken me back to town?”
“Doubtful. And even if he did, not before he took advantage.”
“Took advantage?” She laughed as she finished up with her bra, but her hands were shaking as she reached for her shirt. “He might have copped a feel. At most.”
“He might have raped you,” Jack said, anger making his voice even deeper.
“No, he wouldn’t have,” she said, returning his glare, making it clear she wasn’t scared of his angry voice. “I can take care of myself, Jack. In case you don’t remember.”
“Then why didn’t you get in the truck with him? If you were so sure he was a safe bet?”
“I guess I didn’t want to see what you’d do to the poor guy if I did,” she said, her eyes glittering in the dim light. “I mean, you’re the psycho who’s kidnapping a woman so he can make permanent alterations to her body. And you used to love me. Who knows what you might have done to some fat old man you don’t even know?”
The bravado in her tone made him positive she was simply saying what she knew would hurt the most, but the words still cut him. Just like she’d known they would. She wasn’t stupid, his Nick. Volatile, emotional, and oftentimes too impulsive for her own good, but never stupid.
“I did love you. Enough to believe everything you said to me the night before you ran away,” Jack said, careful to keep the emotion out of his voice. “And I don’t hate you now, Nicky. I hope you know that. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Tattooing someone against their will is bound to hurt,” she said, her voice still hard, though he’d seen the flash of guilt on her face when he’d mentioned the night she’d fled Carson City. “Literally hurt, and probably do a pretty decent job of destroying a person’s trust.”
“Trust,” he said, letting the word linger between them. “Is that what this is about? You regret letting me dominate you?”
Nicky’s eyes dropped to her fingers and she suddenly seemed very interested in the workings of the buttons on her shirt.
“Answer me. Do you regret what we did?”
She sucked in a deep breath and let it out on a sigh. “No,” she mumbled, still not looking him in the eye.
“Then why did you run right after we finished?” he asked, certain he was onto something. This wasn’t about her trying to get away from him because she was afraid or didn’t want her tat modified. It was about the power games they’d begun to play, the amount of trust she’d given him so readily.
The trust that had floored him, aroused him, and come closer to softening the walls he’d built around his heart than anything had. Anything or anyone. . . even Nicky herself eight years ago. If he was a smart man, he’d turn the truck around and take her back to Los Angeles right now. No amount of ink modification was going to give him peace if he let Nicky get under his skin again.
Too bad he was an absolute idiot where this woman was concerned.
“Finished? That’s a really nice way to put it,” she said, hurt obvious in her tone.
“I’m sorry. What do you want me to say?” Jack asked, ignoring the strange tightness that gripped his throat. “After we had sex?”
“Fucked would be fine. That’s all it was, right? A little fucking between friends?”
She was hurting, that was obvious, but how much of that pain had to do with what he’d done and how much was the result of her obviously troubled recent past, he couldn’t say. But he could at least apologize, try to make things as right between them as he could before they were holed up alone together for forty-eight hours.
“It was more than that. You know it, and so do I,” he said. “I’m sorry if what we shared left you feeling confused, but you can’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it. Or that you didn’t need it.”
“What do you know about what I need?”
Jackson sighed, recognizing her defiance for what it was, a mask for the fear many submissives felt when starting a relationship with someone new. He certainly hadn’t meant to “start” anything or inspire those kinds of feelings in Nick, but now he had no choice but to deal with them.
“Listen, it’s natural to be anxious about giving yourself over to another person, even if that person is someone you used to know very well,” he said, keeping his tone soft and reassuring. He wanted her to know she was safe, that he wouldn’t abuse her trust, that all his cards were on the table. “Especially if you’ve been in a relationship where your trust has been abused.”
Jackson was willing to bet money her ex was the cause of her emotional trauma. He knew better than anyone the pain an ex-lover could cause.
Nicky tilted her head back, lifting her face to his, staring deep into his eyes without a trace of fear or deference. In that moment, she was the least submissive woman he’d ever seen. If he hadn’t experienced dominating her himself and seen how she reveled in being controlled, he never would have believed she was the type who enjoyed the lifestyle.
“You don’t know anything about my former relationship, and you don’t know anything about me,” she said, every word clipped and deliberate. “Not anymore. So don’t pretend you do. Just because we had sex, it doesn’t give you the right to psychoanalyze me. I’m not some pathetic subbie who needs a big bad dom to show me the way.”
Jackson just looked at her for a minute, not saying anything, staring into those big greenish brown eyes, seeing so much more than Nicky realized. “Is that what he taught you? That to submit is weak and contemptible?”
Without meaning to, Jack found himself cupping her cheek in his hand, then sliding his fingers into her impossibly soft hair. God, how many times had he dreamed of feeling that hair falling around his face as he kissed this woman again? And here she was, so close, but still so incredibly far away.
Her lips parted and her breath came faster, but she didn’t say a word. She only watched him, like he was a circus performer about to do some fascinating trick. In that second, Jackson prayed he could live up to the expectation in his woman’s eyes.
His woman. There was that thought again, that sense of ownership that felt completely natural and would never be anything but wrong.
“In a real dominant and submissive relationship, the submissive is an incredibly strong person,” he said, hoping she could tell how strong he’d always believed her to be. “Sometimes even stronger than her master, depending on the dom and how much experience he has.”
“Really?” she asked, doubt and sarcasm warring with the genuine curiosity in her tone.
“Just think about it. What requires more discipline, giving someone else orders or giving up control?” He leaned a little closer to her lips, unable to resist. “Trusting someone else to guide you, exploring the boundaries of your capacity for pleasure and pain, giving the gift of your faith, of yourself to another person. . . that’s pretty amazing stuff. I don’t know that I could do it.”
“Call me crazy, but for some reason I don’t think you’d want to.” She smiled, a tiny, genuine twist of her lips that made him inexplicably happy.
“Are you calling me a big bad dom again?” He laughed and she joined in, the puff of her breath against his lips reviving the desire that had haunted him since the second he saw her dancing on that bar in Pasadena.
“I call ’em like I see ’em,” she said. “Though I have to admit, I was. . . surprised.”
“You and me both. I never thought. . . certainly never expected. . .” Jack took a deep breath and forced himself to pull away. He couldn’t stay like this, hand buried in her hair, lips inches from hers, and not take this encounter to the next level.
He stepped back, crossing his arms at his chest, concentrating on the feel of the cold wind cutting through the fabric of his sweater. “I want you to know I never planned for there to be anything sexual about this meeting. I expected we’d come up here, maybe have a few beers and a few laughs, I’d modify your tat, and we’d part as friends.”
“Or that I would say no to having the tat modified, you’d hold me captive and modify it whether I liked it or not, and we’d part as enemies,” she said, a hint of humor in her tone that made this entire journey seem even more surreal.
And here he hadn’t thought it possible.
“Yeah, I admit that option crossed my mind, too,” he said, the hint of a smile twitching at the edge of his lips. “But either way, there wasn’t any sex involved. I can promise you that.”
“But there definitely is now. So. . .” She let her words trail off as she stared at him, an unspoken dare in her eyes that Jackson knew he couldn’t take her up on. Not if he wanted to keep what was left of his head.
“Don’t think I’m not tempted. I’d love to show you what you’ve been missing,” he said, his own breath coming faster as he watched her nipples bead tightly beneath her shirt. Damn, how he wanted to get those tits in his mouth, suck them until she writhed beneath him, begging him to take her, fuck her, possess her. But he couldn’t. Not now, not ever again. The first time had been a mistake. “But I don’t think that would be healthy for either one of us. We’ve got a lot of history, Nick. You should have a dominant who can provide for your unique needs and I’ve got too many of my own.”
“Like the driving desire to modify my tattoo,” she said, a hint of sadness in her eyes.
“Like that,” he said, swallowing the bitter taste of regret that rose in his throat. “And the fact that I’ve never had a full-time sub and don’t plan on getting into something like that anytime soon. Especially not with a woman who doesn’t seem committed to being a submissive.”
“Doesn’t seem committed? You don’t know how committed I was, I—”
“You’re a pushy bottom, Nick.”
“What?” she asked, a ragged laugh bursting from her lips. “Me? A pushy bottom?”
“From the second we started this, it seemed to me like you wanted to take the control. You questioned and resisted a lot, even for a woman with a new partner,” he said, making it clear he wasn’t criticizing her, just sharing his honest opinion. “You try to top from the bottom, and in a real scene, I wouldn’t tolerate that. If the woman I’m with wants to be dominated, then that’s what I’m going to do. That’s who I am. I can’t turn it on and off and I wouldn’t want to.”
She pressed her lips together, a frown bunching the skin between her eyebrows before she suddenly relaxed. “You know what? Maybe you’re right.”
“Three words a man doesn’t hear very often from a woman.”
“Even a dominant man? I’d think you’d get that all the time.” She sighed and wrapped her arms around herself, shivering slightly as a gust of cold wind blew in the open car door. “But yeah, I’m not sure I’m ready to sub right now. I don’t think I’m prepared to make that kind of commitment, even one of the ‘fun for a weekend’ variety. Especially with a man who cares so little about me, he won’t take no for an answer.”
“Ouch,” he whispered, flinching at the pain in her voice. So he’d upset her? So what? She’d done her share to upset him in the past. He shouldn’t let her emotions affect him so deeply. But he did— he couldn’t seem to help himself.
“Let me try to explain this again,” he said, hoping she’d be able to understand if he opened up and gave her the real reason he needed to banish their matching ink from her skin. “I’ll be honest, Nick. I was pretty fucked up when you left.”
He took a deep breath, wishing it didn’t turn him inside out to talk to her this way. But it did, so he’d just have to suck it up and get it out as quickly as possible, show he was a true dom, one as in touch with his own feelings as those of his submissive. “And I’ve stayed a little fucked up. I loved you like. . . like I’d never loved anyone. It hurt to lose you, and looking at this tattoo every day hasn’t gotten any easier, especially not when you’ve used yours as a hook to get modeling work.”
“Believe me, Jack, I understand,” Nicky said, reaching out and taking his hand, her grip strong, though her hand looked almost child-sized compared to his own. “And if I didn’t really believe I needed this tattoo to get work, I would do what you’re asking me to do. But I do believe it, and there are other people depending on me and. . . I just can’t.”
“What other people?” he asked, the muscle in his jaw clenching up again. “A boyfriend? Your ex-husband? Is he after you for money?”
“People I don’t want to talk about right now,” she said, making it clear that was the end of it. “So are you going to take me home or are we going up to this cabin?”
“We’re going to the cabin.”
“Fine,” she said, the tightness in her voice making it clear she understood he meant to do exactly as he’d planned. That he’d modify her tat, whether she liked it or not. Still, she took his decision like more of a true submissive than he’d given her credit for. “Then let’s get going, I’m cold.”
She released his hand and half stood up, climbing over into the passenger’s seat as he opened the driver’s door. Neither of them said a word as he started up the truck and moved it back onto the road, but Jack made a promise to himself. He was going to treat Nicky with the utmost respect and care, making sure she had nothing to complain about until Sunday afternoon.
Maybe, if he showed her not all men were pigs and not all doms bastards who couldn’t command their cock down one side of their pants with any authority, let alone another’s life or pleasure, she would change her mind. Maybe they could get through this together without either of them being hurt.
Of course, that would be much more easily accomplished if he kept his dick in his pants and far away from the woman next to him.
Yeah. Good luck with that, buddy.
Jackson gritted his teeth and swore to himself he’d get control and keep control for the rest of the weekend. He was a man who prided himself on the ability to restrain himself and command others.
Surely he could resist giving in to temptation. Especially if he suspected that temptation was just the thing to get him in even hotter water than he was in already.