Somehow, that seems like a metaphor for the whole damn situation.
I consider going straight to the room, after all, but the lobby bar is too appealing to pass up. It’s not quite four, so the post-work crowd hasn’t yet arrived and there are tables to spare. Even so, I sit at the actual bar, my back to the main lobby area, and order a glass of pinot.
The bartender is not a chatty type, and I appreciate that. I have worked through panic and nausea, and now I am just drifting. Not in a happy place so much as an away place.
I’ll come back down to earth when Jackson gets here. Until then, I’ll drink wine and pretend like there’s nothing wrong in my world.
I finish my first glass and then another. I’ve just taken the first sip from the third glass the bartender slid in front of me when I realize that he’s there.
I haven’t seen him. Haven’t heard him.
I am simply aware of him. His heat. His intensity.
He is like a radio emitting a low, powerful frequency, and right now, I am completely tuned to him.
Slowly, I put down my glass, then look over my shoulder to find him. He is only standing at the edge of the carpet that separates the bar area from the marble flooring. He’d gone to work in casual dress, appropriate for spending the day in a manufacturer’s warehouse.
There is, however, nothing casual about him.
Even in jeans and a simple white button-down shirt, he projects power and ferocity. He holds the envelope with the photos and threatening note in his hand, and though it hangs loose at his side, the knuckles on the hand that hold it are white, and I can see the tension in his arms.
His face tells a similar story. His jaw is so firm that I am certain his teeth are clenched. As for his eyes—they burn with the heat of a man about to go to battle, and I am certain that a similar fire reflected in the eyes of ancient warriors before they went out to decimate a village.
In other words, Jackson is holding it together—but his composure comes at a price.
I open my mouth to say his name, but he shakes his head and holds up a finger. Then he steps to the bar and puts down a hundred-dollar bill. He takes my hand to help me from my stool, and the shock that runs through me from even such simple contact is enough that I must hold on to the edge of the bar for a moment in order to keep my knees from collapsing out from under me.
He is tight with contained energy, and the thought that I will be the woman in his arms when he lets himself go makes me wet with anticipation.
Dear god I want this. Want him. I want the release of abandonment. The safety of giving myself to him. I want the delirium of being swept out of myself.
And I want the hours of bliss in which the photographs and the threat and the horror that surround us are, if not forgotten, at least pushed aside. Diminished by the power of the explosion that will erupt between us.
As he leads me through the hotel toward the elevator, I practically vibrate with need. I feel it from Jackson as well—the intensity and effort with which he is holding back—and I fear that we will both succumb before we even make it to the room.
I’m far from wrong, and the moment that we are through the doors, Jackson slams me against the wall with such force that a picture falls from its hook to the floor. His hands cage me, and though he doesn’t touch me anywhere else, he is so close that my entire body sizzles from the heat of him.
“Tell me you want this.”
“I want it. Please, Jackson, you know I want it.”
“Tell me what you want.”
I swallow, but I know that I have to say it, because he will not touch me until I do. And so help me, I cannot stand to wait even another second to feel this man against me. “I want you to take me. To use me. You feel out of control because of what that bastard is doing to us? Then take control now. Take it from me, Jackson. I want you to.”