“Uh huh, that too.” He put the truck in drive. He looked like a man on a mission. I just wasn’t sure what it was yet.
I grabbed the edge of the seat for support as the truck toddled onto a rough dirt road. The characteristic low, verdant hills, typical in this area, provided a picturesque backdrop for an otherwise inherently industrial building site. We traveled along at a pace that was slow for the street but possibly a bit too fast for the primitive road. Twice, I clutched the armrest to keep from being popped off the seat. A long, white trailer with a Kingston Construction banner was parked at the back of the site. We pulled up in front of it.
I looked around. “It’s very deserted out here.”
“Exactly.” He jumped out of the truck and I followed.
He came around to my side, took my hand and led me up the portable steps to the trailer. “This is the hub of the construction site.” He put the key in the door and opened it up.
There was a massive desk covered with papers at the far end of the trailer. A computer desk was lined up next to it. Three sets of drawers were on one side of the office, and two metal chairs sat in front of them.
“Are we going to do some office work?” I asked.
He shut the door behind us. “That’s a good term for it.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me into his arms. “That half hour ride back to the beach was too damn far. I need you now.” He kissed me long and hard. As always, I was like melted butter in his arms.
He stared down at me with that heated gaze that made every part of me flush with warmth. “I thought I could be the boss and you could be my very naughty assistant.”
I glanced back at the desk and then shook my head. I walked out of his arms. His disappointment was palpable, and I had to bite my lip not to smile. I stopped at the desk and turned around. It looked as if someone had knocked the wind out of him.
I was done teasing. “I’m the boss, and you are my very naughty, very hunky assistant.” I slid off my sandals and unfastened my shorts. I pushed them to the floor. My panties followed.
He sucked back in a deep breath. His hands were balled at his sides as if he was using every ounce of his control not to grab me.
“Get over here now, hot assistant, or there will be no Christmas bonus this year.”
Denver crossed the floor in two long steps. He pulled out his condom and had his pants down to his ankles in seconds. He reached behind me and shoved back the paperwork. His strong hands gripped my waist and he lifted me onto the edge of the desk. The varnished wood felt cold and smooth beneath me. I leaned back on my hands and stared at him from beneath lowered lids as he fumbled with the condom package.
“Come now, love, don’t keep the boss waiting.”
“Fuck,” he growled as he finally ripped open the package. “These fucking things sure put a crimp in the whole spontaneity thing.” He gripped me around the knees and lifted my legs around his waist, yanking my ass closer to the edge of the desk.
A small cry of anticipation jumped from my lips as he slid one hand along my inner thigh and dragged his fingers through the moisture in my pussy. “God, baby, you feel so damn ready.”
With that, he pushed his cock inside of me.
He lifted my legs higher around his waist and held me tight as he thrust into me again and again, making the delicious ache more intense each time. I leaned my head back, reveling in the raw, rough feel of being taken on the desk in the middle of a strange place with the one man who could make me hot just by looking at me the right way. He continued his sweet assault, holding me firmly with one hand, while reaching between our bodies with the other. His thumb stroked my clit.
“Oh, Denver, yes.” I writhed against him, holding him tightly with my legs and bracing myself against the desk to meet each thrust. A final blow sent my body spiraling into ecstasy, and my pussy pulsed and tightened around him. My arms shook beneath me, and my legs trembled as I held him between my thighs and braced my hands against the desk.
Then, without warning, he withdrew. He pulled me against him. I was still in a blissful haze as he kissed me roughly, urgently. Just as he’d done before, his hands circled my waist and he lifted me off the desk. My feet hit the cold floor, and the air in the office cooled the moisture between my legs.
“This assistant has another plan for his extremely misbehaved boss.” With one quick turn, he had me facing the desk. His hard chest pressed against me as his large, callused hands smoothed down my arms to my hands. He took hold of my wrists and braced my palms against the edge of the desk. His knee urged my legs wider as he gripped my hips and pulled my bottom out farther. Before I could catch my breath, he’d pushed his cock back inside of me.
My arms felt the fatigue of our first position, but I hardly noticed the tremble as the beautiful ache of his thrusts filled me again and again. It was rough and punishing and amazing. Denver’s fingers dug into my flesh as he held me in his iron grip. Then with one final push, he jammed his cock in deeper. His low groan of release rolled over my shoulder as he came.
He reached out and wrapped his arms around me, holding me against him while our breathing and heartbeats slowed. “This office is going to look completely different to me now.”
I leaned my head back against his shoulder with a sigh. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to walk past a desk again without smiling.”
A long, sad moment followed.
Denver tightened his hold on me. “Shit, Holliday, when you leave me, every damn thing is going to look different. Nothing will be the same. Hell, I won’t be the same either.”
Chapter 30
Denver
Jami was standing in the doorway wearing a blue sundress and that sexy, heartbreaking smile that I woke up aching to see. I’d been under the house patching a plumbing leak, and I was covered with sweat and the fine silty dust that filled the space beneath the foundation.
She held up a bag of bagels. “Thought you might have worked up an appetite last night.” She punctuated her words with a sweet wink and walked past me. “I’ll make some coffee.” She put the bagels down and paused to look at me. “You know I’m all about the manly man thing—sweat, dirt and all that. But this might be just a bit too much manliness for me.”
“It’s definitely too much for me. Hate to think how much of the dirt under a house is made up of rat droppings and decayed cockroaches. I’m going to go in and take a very long shower before I even go near you or those bagels.” I lifted a brow at her. “Did you get a cheddar and jalapeno one?”
“I sure did.” She headed to the door. “I’m going to go to my place and get my coffee. Yours tastes like man coffee.”
“Man coffee?”
“Yeah, a cross between sludge and tar. Man coffee. Mine has a hint of hazelnut. And since you’ll probably need a few minutes to wash off the cockroach debris, I’m going to take a quick hike to the beach. I’ve got almost an entire loaf of bread that is too dry to eat. I’m going to make a lot of seagulls very happy this morning. I only hope I don’t lose an eye. I’ll be back in ten minutes expecting to see a shiny but still very manly version of this.” She waved her hand in front of me and headed out the door.
Chapter 31
Jami
“You’re welcome, you ill-mannered birds.” The sand was covered with a carpet of seagulls. Even a few pigeons had joined us for the bread feast. Now that I knew what to expect, it wasn’t quite as frightening as the first time when I’d tossed my sandwich onto the sand. I pushed the empty bag into the trashcan and headed back toward the house.
My time away from home was half over. Every second had been worth the commotion and bickering I’d endured when I’d told my mom I was leaving. She hadn’t called me since the late night plea for help. I hoped that Harold had, in the meantime, figured a way out of his problems without involving me.
My mind w
as still constantly racing with the idea of how I could keep this relationship going with Denver while still fulfilling my professional commitments. Sometimes it felt as if it would be completely doable, but in reality, a long distance relationship was hard, especially one where I was never quite sure how much time or distance would separate us. Surely, it wouldn’t be enough for a man like Denver. He was strength and passion and confidence, everything I wanted but everything other women wanted too. I would lose him for sure in between bookings, and it would be selfish to ask him to wait for me.
Denver was probably close to finishing his shower. A white van was parked on the street in front of the house. Most likely a delivery of some kind to the neighbors. They tended to get a lot of packages, although Sunday seemed like an odd day for it.
I had just reached the back of the beach house when I saw someone jumping off the last step of the stairwell leading to my apartment. An icy shiver went through me as if someone had reached inside my chest and wrapped glacial fingers around my heart. The ground seemed to drop out from under my feet, and for a brief second, I was sure I was stuck in a bad dream. Stuart’s violin case was dangling from the man’s gloved hand. I was awake. It wasn’t just a bad dream.
“No! Don’t you dare!” My feet slapped the sidewalk hard as I raced toward the van. The man dashed through the open cargo door. Stuart disappeared inside just as I lunged for the door. “No! You can’t take him!”
A man I’d never seen before sneered at me through black sunglasses from beneath the brow of his beanie. Then the cargo door slid sharply shut . . . on my hand.
Chapter 32
Denver
The hot shower had revived me. I turned off the water. A scream penetrated the walls of the house and bounced off the tile in the bathroom. It took me a second to decide if I’d actually heard it. Then I heard it again. It was Jami.
I jumped out of the shower and struggled to pull my jeans up over my wet skin. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I yanked them up over my ass just as I reached the front door.
I wrenched the door open. Jami was screaming at someone inside the cargo hold of a van. I raced out to the street just as she reached for something in the van. And then the blood curdling scream followed, a sound that I would take to the grave, a sound that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
Jami dropped to her knees. All the fingers on her left hand were jammed tightly in the door.
I flew at the van and reached for the handle. It was locked. I pounded the door. “Open up!” Then a sound followed that made my heart slam against my ribcage. The driver had put the van in gear. He was taking off.
I flew to the front of the vehicle. The driver put his foot on the gas before he saw me. I hurled myself onto the hood and grabbed hold of the mirror to keep from being ricocheted off as he slammed on the brakes. “You can’t drive off!”
The guy had on a beanie and black sunglasses. He pulled the beanie lower over his brow and motioned for me to get off. He rolled down his window. “I’ll run you down if I—”
I reached around and grabbed his arm, which he quickly flung off. “She’s stuck in the door. Unlock the fucking door.” Fear and rage burned my throat, and I could hardly catch my breath to speak.
The asshole leaned his head closer to the window. “What?”
In frustration, I lifted my fist and hit the front windshield. It shattered into a long mural of tiny cracks. “Her hand is caught in the fucking door!”
His face blanched, and he reached down and hit the unlock button.
I slid off the front of the van and raced around to the side door. Thin trickles of blood were running down Jami’s thin white forearm. A small crowd had gathered. I yanked open the door and Jami cried out. Her fingers were warped and bloodied. She couldn’t stand up, but she lunged for something inside the van again.
I grabbed her around the waist and hauled her back just as the van tore off. I caught a glimpse of the man in back, another beanie pulled low. He was holding the violin case in one arm as he slammed the sliding door shut with the other.
Jami was inconsolable. The neighbors looked on in horror at the girl with the mangled hand. They were sure she was crying and screaming because of the injury to her hand, but I knew better.
She spun around in my arms and collapsed against me, struggling to take breaths between her cries of anguish. Her injured hand hung limply at her side as she clutched at my arm with her good hand. “Stuart. They have Stuart.”
“I know, baby, but we’ll get him back.”
She hid her face against me. “I can’t feel my hand, Denver. Is it bad?”
“The doctors will take care of it.”
Her shoulders shook just before she went limp. I lifted her into my arms.
The guy who lived on the east side of us came closer. “Christ, I’ve never seen anything so horrid. If you hadn’t jumped on the front of that van, they would have dragged her along the street. I’ve called an ambulance.” He lifted his phone. “And I sent a picture of the van to the police. It had no plates, but I think it’ll be easy to spot.”
“Thank you.” My entire body shook as I held her tightly against me.
Other neighbors and curious people stopped to see what they could do to help, but their faces and their words blurred. Jami was warm and alive in my arms. Her injured hand hung down, leaving a spray of blood drips on the white sidewalk. All I could think was that for a terrible moment in time I’d nearly lost Jami for good. It was a dark, hopeless feeling I never wanted to experience again.
Chapter 33
Denver
I could only see her through the glass window of the hospital room. Several doctors were looking at the hand, evaluating the damage and deciding on what to do. Jami looked small and frail and ashen against the white pillows of the bed. They had pumped pain meds into her bloodstream, so she was finally resting. But I knew, even in the darkness of her drug induced sleep, she was in pain. The violin was gone. For now. The witnesses had stayed behind to give full descriptions of what had happened while I followed behind the ambulance to the hospital. I’d let the quick thinking neighbor know that they’d stolen a rare Stradivarius violin worth seven figures. He’d looked at me as if I was nuts.
My phone had buzzed in my pocket more than once, but I’d ignored the calls. No cell phones were allowed in the area. I glanced at it. Cole had called three times. I headed out of the ward and into the waiting area to call him back.
“Denver, shit, I was wondering when you would call back. How is she?”
“How do you know about Jami?”
“You kidding? Fuck, man, the video of you jumping on that van and pulling her out of the door is all over the damn place. Freestyle king Denver Mathison saves violinist Jami Holliday from a horrible death. Christ, dude, what the hell happened? There are rumors that her violin was stolen, and that it’s one of those rare ones. Stradivarius, right? Uncle Nate has one of those in his collection. It’s worth a damn fortune. What are they saying about her hand?”
“I don’t know. I’m not even sure they’ll tell me since I’m not family or anything. They called her mom. Guess she’s flying in from Colorado with her insurance information and stuff.”
“But they do know who she is. You did mention that she’s one of the top violinists in the world, right?”
“I just told them her name and what had happened. Why would they need to know that?” My head was pounding and my stomach was still reeling from the whole thing. “I’ll just wait—”
“No,” Cole said sharply. “You need to tell them. You can’t just let some doofus, who thinks he knows how to put bones back together, do surgery on her hand. She doesn’t have ordinary hands. They’re fucking magic, but they won’t stay that way if just anybody tries to put her back together. She’ll be done with violin forever if it’s not done right. Uncle Nate threw
his fist into a wall one night when he was drunk, and they sent him to fucking Sweden for surgery. This isn’t like you and me getting a shoulder mended.”
I hadn’t been thinking clearly since the second I’d seen Jami dangling from the door of the cargo van. Everything Cole was saying made sense. “Shit, they’re not going to let me tell them what to do. And Jami’s out cold from the morphine.”
Several hospital security guards rushed past the door of the waiting room. They were headed toward the parking lot. I got up and poked my head outside the room. There seemed to be a lot of people gathering outside.
Cole continued. “Just go in and let them know who she is and tell them they need to wait for her mom to get there. In the meantime, I’ll give my dad a call. He might know someone at USC.”
A news van rolled through the lot. “Shit. I think some reporters are showing up.”
“Of course they are. That video is viral right now. And Jami is a big deal in the music world. They won’t get past the hospital doors. But don’t forget, you’re on that video. In fact, you’re the star, you big fucking action hero. Guess you learned your moves from me.”
“Guess so. That’s why they call you King.”
“The reporters will hound you until they get a picture or statement. When you leave, ask security to show you a different way out of the hospital.” Cole’s very different lifestyle was on full display. He’d told me the sad story of how his little sister had died and that the worst part of it all was that they couldn’t just be sad in peace. The press had camped outside of their estate, waiting for glimpses of the distraught, heartbroken rock star and his family.
“Hey, bro, I’m here if you need me.”
My throat tightened, and I nodded as if he could see me through the phone. He didn’t need to see me though. Cole knew. He knew how I felt about our friendship.