Getting Rough

  Well, didn’t that just make me feel like the biggest douchebag on the island? An ass and a douchebag, now that was one hell of a combination. “Shit. You were scared. I should’ve stayed here with you.”

  Mia finally sat back in her chair and turned away from the screen to give me her undivided attention. “Casey, honestly… you’re just entirely too hard on yourself.” When she smiled, I swear the whole damn room lit up despite the boarded-up windows and powerless lamps. “I wasn’t scared. And before you go there, I wasn’t upset about what happened between us last night, either. I couldn’t sleep because Jayson was in the mood to talk, so I had to purge him from my mind.”

  “Jayson?” Was he her boyfriend from back home? The little green monster inside me stuck his head out of the cave where I’d banished him after I’d nearly let a man drown to death all over a woman.

  “Oh, I never told you,” Mia said, her eyes lighting up with excitement. Sitting forward, her whole body came to life as she explained further. “Jayson Bass is my protagonist’s name. I swear I’m not crazy. The voices I hear in my head are completely normal for an author and not a Sybil complex or whatever. Says my therapist,” she added with a wink. It was the cutest thing I’d ever seen.

  Putting an index finger to the tiny dimple in her chin in thought, she continued, “Though we can’t rule that out completely when there are so many personalities bouncing around in there. Hmm…” She cocked her head to the side. “Maybe writers cover up a multiple personality disorder under the guise of artistry, and we’re just really good at fooling everyone else.”

  She laughed, the sound fluttering toward me like a thousand butterfly wings. My flesh pebbled all over from its delicacy, which was weird as fuck because laughter was not a tangible thing that could be physically felt.

  “So you’ve been up all night writing?” I asked because, of course, a douchebag of an ass would egotistically assume he had been the reason.

  “Yep! That’s my happy place.” She put her hands on the desk and maneuvered herself back toward the laptop, getting busy with her fingers on the keyboard again. Man, but the woman typed at the speed of light.

  “A happy place in the middle of a hurricane, huh?” Not just in the middle of a hurricane, but in the middle of my douchebaggery as well.

  If Mia could only hear the assholes inside my head, she probably wouldn’t be as calm as she was. “My happy place is always there. The weather has no bearing on it. Writing is a way for me to escape. Do you know what I mean? Sort of like how I imagine fishing is for you.”

  Well, damn. She’d pegged that one. But I was no doubt the reason she’d needed to escape in the first place. Though there was no way for me to take it all back, even the feel-good parts, I knew I had to find some way to fix the unfixable.

  “I need to apologize for last night,” I blurted out before I lost my nerve.

  She remained facing forward, her expression unchanged. “Need to or want to?”

  “Both.”

  Leaning in toward the screen to read over what she’d written, she still managed to answer me. “Don’t. Really. It was great inspiration.”

  It was hard to tell by the inflection in her voice whether she’d meant that or not. “Can you look at me, please?”

  “I can and I will,” she said with a sassy grin.

  Note to self: Remember to use proper grammar when speaking to an author.

  “Just let me save this real quick,” she said, moving the wireless mouse around. With a simple click, she closed the laptop and turned back toward me. “What’s up?”

  I looked her in the eyes, not only so I could tell how she really felt about what I was saying, but because that was what a man was supposed to do when owning up to his fuckups. “I don’t want you to hate me.”

  She linked her fingers together in front of her and casually propped her elbows on the armrests of the chair. “Why on earth would I hate you? Didn’t you hear me? It was great inspiration. I should be thanking you.”

  Nope, didn’t see that one coming. “You were inspired?” Admittedly, I was confused. I hadn’t even put forth my best effort. The sex we’d had was good, but it wasn’t great. If given another chance, I was sure I could blow her mind. Because, yeah, I wanted to give it another go. Whether it ended up in her book or not.

  “Oh, definitely.” She cocked her head to the side and studied me for a moment before continuing. “You’re obviously out of sorts about it, so I’ll make a deal with you. I’m willing to tell you all about what I wrote, if you promise you won’t get mad.”

  Not that I had any right to get mad, but like I said before, whatever it took to make her feel better, she’d have it. Plus, I had to admit I was a little curious. “Deal.”

  “No, you have to say you promise,” she said, pointing a finger at me, which we all knew was the international sign for I mean business.

  Again, author, so I was sure that meant I literally had to say those words to satisfy her. My lips parted to do just that, but she interrupted before my vocal cords formed the first syllable.

  “Before you do, just know that I take promises very seriously. So if you say the words, you have to mean them.”

  I sighed, which made her brows lift in question.

  “Okay,” I said, finally. Taking a seat on the bed across from her, I leaned forward to put my elbows on my knees and spoke the words she wanted to hear. Not only because she wanted to hear them, but also because I meant them. “I promise I won’t get mad.”

  That spoiled grin that made its way across her gorgeous face made me want to promise her anything she’d ever wanted. “So Jayson has just found out that the woman he loves, Janell Kain, no longer loves him back. And it’s sort of a mess because Janell is in love with someone else.”

  Wow, she really was writing my life. I’d been expecting her to tell me about some mind-blowing sex or about how the dude made a giant ass out of himself. I wasn’t sure how to feel about my broken heart serving as inspiration. Then again, Mia had always been pretty insightful where I was concerned, so I was curious as to how it had all played out in her “fictional” book. Because those sorts of stories always had a problem and a resolution, right?

  “And what does Jayson do about it?” I asked, hoping she’d gotten that far.

  Mia’s teeth tugged at her bottom lip. “Um… Well, he um… He sleeps with another woman.”

  Her face drew up like she was waiting for me to blast her over it, which I had zero intention of doing. But damn. Talk about opening wounds. Mine weren’t only open, they were oozing crimson gunk all over the place. I wasn’t mad. I really wasn’t. I’d earned all four knuckles of reality’s punch to the teeth.

  “Why would he do that?” This was where I got to see Mia’s feelings about what I’d done to her. Hard as it was going to be to have to hear, I had to know.

  Damn, but I wished she wouldn’t look at me with so much pity.

  “Because he’s hurt and frustrated and he just needs to feel something other than the pain.”

  Hearing her say it out loud was like having salt poured into those wounds. It stung like a son of a bitch, only because that was some real shit. And through my own pain, I couldn’t help but be in awe of Mia. Not only did the woman write books about people, she read people like they were books, as well.

  But the truth was the truth was the truth, so I put it out there. Blunt as blunt could be. “So he uses one woman to get over another? What a dick.”

  “I don’t see it that way, and neither does his concubine.”

  “Concubine” was an interesting word choice. I wondered if that was the way she saw herself when she looked into the mirror this morning. Because I really wasn’t okay with that.

  “Oh, really? And what’s this concubine’s name?”

  She hedged, and then her voice was soft. “Maria.”

  Maria… Mia… Nope, not a coincidence.

  “Maria knows she’s being used and she’s okay with that?”

  Her e
yes glassed over while the tip of her nose turned a shade of pink. Fuck me, she was trying so hard not to cry. Mia swallowed and forced a smile before saying, “Of course. She actually gives a shit about him. Besides” – she blinked away unshed tears and then shrugged – “what are friends for?”

  Bullshit. I was going to kick my own ass. Any douchebag that could make someone as virtuous as Mia cry had it coming. The woman had a heart of pure gold, good to the core, and she didn’t deserve to be made to cry. Not one day in her life. No one would ever convince me otherwise. Yet I’d done it. I’d fucked her with a total disregard for her feelings. What kind of friend does that? And the thing was, I’d never even seen Mia as just my friend. She was something I couldn’t explain.

  She was… a possibility.

  I slid off the bed and onto my knees before her. “Mia, when you look at me, what do you see?”

  It took a moment before she answered. A moment during which she seemed to study everything about me, leaving my eyes for last. And when she looked into them, it was as if she’d found her answer there. “I see Jayson… just a figment of my imagination.”

  For whatever reason, that wasn’t okay with me.

  “You know, when you came to town and said you wanted to interview me for the book you’re writing, I figured you were trying to get some of the technical details about lobstering and a lobster fisherman’s way of life. I didn’t realize you were going to write my life.”

  “I honestly didn’t intend to. But, Casey, you’re the ultimate alpha hero: flawed yet perfect; confident, not cocky; passionate about everything you do; strong and strong willed; smart without being a smart-ass; you have the swagger of a bad boy with a boy-next-door’s heart; you’re dominant, yet not aggressive; and you are a very capable lover.”

  That last part made my cock flinch in my jeans. Huh. I didn’t have the heart to tell her an alpha male would never use an innocent woman to get over another.

  Mia must have taken my contemplative silence as a sign that I was insulted because she said, “I’ll scrap the whole manuscript. I promise. Contracts be damned. I’d never want to offend you or make you feel like your whole life is on display.”

  That wasn’t at all what I wanted. Truth be told, I was honored that she thought me worthy of being a topic in the first place. And to make me the hero? Well, I didn’t feel very much like the hero at the moment. Be that as it was, she saw me that way. Maybe she was the only one. And I didn’t want that to stop. Having had an insight into her beautifully creative mind, I wondered if the answers were hidden somewhere within all that brilliance.

  “No, you don’t have to scrap any of it. But maybe you can help me with one thing.”

  Her voice was soft again, a gentle swallow drawing my attention to a neck I suddenly wanted to mark. “Anything.”

  “Tell me what happens to Jayson.”

  “You know what happens, Casey… You are Jayson.”

  “No, not that. I meant, what happens to him at the end of the book?”

  “He sails off into the sunset and lives happily ever after, of course.”

  “With who?”

  A meek smile tugged at her lips and a flourish of pink tinged her cheeks. “Guess.”

  “Maria?”

  She nodded. “He’s all she’s ever wanted but never knew she’d been searching for.”

  “I don’t see how that’s possible after what he’s done to her. Maybe you should just kill him off.”

  Mia laughed. “That’s impossible.”

  “Why is that impossible?”

  Her smile never fell, but those eyes? Those eyes did some wicked shit to the rhythm of my heart. “Because, silly… if a writer falls in love with you, you can never die.”

  My eyebrows reached for my hairline and damn near permanently relocated. “You’re in love with me?” Shaking my head, I made a quick correction. “I mean, Jayson?”

  “I’m in love with all of my characters.”

  “Mia —”

  She cut me off before I could say another word. “Casey, please don’t freak out on me, okay? I’m a romantic. It’s not a big deal. Really. I do this all the time – with fictional characters, not actual men – and I eventually get over it. I promise. You don’t have to worry that I’ve dreamed up some real-life scenario born of fantasy in my head. And while it’s true there’s a fine line between brilliance and insanity for artists, and we walk it every single day, I haven’t yet crossed over to the delusional side. I know I’m not Maria, and I know exactly what last night was all about. You needed a concubine, and I was glad I could be there for you. And hey, I got a breakthrough in my plot and a couple of really awesome orgasms out of it. So it’s cool. We’re cool.” She stopped and took a much-needed breath before her shoulders drooped with the exhale. “Right?”

  Catching her completely off guard, I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to me, forcing her legs to unfold and form a cage around my ribs. Just as I’d wanted. And then I kissed her. She’d told me she could tell how a person felt by the way they kissed, and that was something I’d used the night before to let her know I wanted to fuck. This time, I used it to show her something else.

  Her lips were so sweet, so pliant beneath mine, and when I deepened the kiss, her mouth was receptive. Mia moaned, a sound that went straight to my cock, and then she wrapped her arms around my neck to push her fingers through my hair. With an arch to her back, she pressed her center to my chest, the warmth nearly scorching me through my shirt. Mia was no concubine. And she was more than a possibility. She was… everything.

  I pulled back ever so slightly to allow her a moment to catch her breath. She kept her arms and fingers just as they were and pressed her forehead to mine, simply breathing.

  “Wow,” she whispered, and I had to smile because, yeah, my message was received.

  “You don’t get seasick, do you?” I asked, knowing damn well she didn’t.

  The shake of her head was almost imperceptible, but I caught it. I also caught the sexy little way her teeth pulled at her bottom lip.

  “Casey, please be sure. If you’re just looking for a rebound —”

  “I’m sure,” I said, not letting her go there. “What man wouldn’t want to live forever? Make me immortal, Mia Morgan.”

  Leaning in for a soft, chaste kiss, she said, “You’re already halfway there.”

  “Yeah? Does that mean I’m like bulletproof or something?” I asked, because I sure as shit felt like there was a giant S on my chest at the moment.

  Mia laughed. She laughed and my heart soared like a bird, like a plane, like a speeding bullet, like it could leap tall buildings in a single bound. I’d be her hero in the flesh, despite the fact that she was the one who’d rescued me.

  But I’d fight for her because I knew she’d fight for me. Fuck it; we could be some dynamic duo or whatever. I didn’t care as long as we could take on the world together; her with a gold lasso on her hip, and me with a red cape blowing in the wind.

  And no, I wasn’t delusional either. She’d be leaving Stonington, just like Cassidy did. I knew that. Though this time, I wasn’t going to leave fate to the wind. This time, I was going to get off my ass and make damn sure I convinced Mia to stay.

  CHAPTER 17

  Shaw

  People always talked about the calm before the storm, but no one ever mentioned how deafening the silence afterward could be. Cassidy and I were fine within the four walls of her bedroom, but outside those walls lurked the reality I’d warned her about. The only way to identify that reality was to open the door and walk out to meet it. Together.

  Right after we showered. Together. I’d had to sneak into my room to grab a change of clothes for that one, but we managed to pull it off without getting busted. I didn’t want this thing between us to be a secret anymore, though I wasn’t sure how she’d feel about it. Not that I was planning on hiring a blimp with a scrolling neon advertisement to proclaim my feelings. Especially when I hadn’t even told Cassidy,
but still, I was all about making damn sure that happened in the very near future. Telling Cassidy, not the blimp thing. That would be overkill.

  Cassidy tightened the laces on her second gym shoe and looked up at me while tying the bow, a graceful smile lighting up her entire face. Jesus, the woman even made tying her shoes look sexy as hell.

  When she was done, she slapped both knees and stood with her hands on her hips. Hips that were covered by yoga pants that she’d pulled up to her knees to show off those toned calves, by the way. I thought about asking her if she’d brought any of those fuck-me heels with her, but the distraction wouldn’t have been conducive to the work waiting to be done.

  “Well, are you ready to see what the aftermath looks like?”