Filthy Beast(21)

Slowly, the kiss ends, after what feels like forever. He releases my hair but he doesn’t release my body as he looks down at me with a smirk on his lips.

“Like I said,” he whispers softly. “You want me to kiss you.”

“Get out of here,” I say to him, shaking my head, but I can’t stop the smile on my face.

“Does this mean that the truce is permanent?” he asks.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I say, pushing him away.

He laughs and stumbles back toward the door. “Don’t be mad, Tara girl. I’m just giving you what you want.”

“Asshole,” I say with a smile. “Go away and let me do my job.”

“Fine. But I’ll be thinking about that kiss.”

“I bet you will.”

“In my shower. Right now.” He grins and winks at me.

I groan. “You’re so crude. And still making jokes like a high school boy.”

“I’ll never outgrow a good jerkoff joke.” He waves and leaves the room, and I can’t help but laugh.

I feel like I’m floating, but I don’t know what the hell I’m thinking. I can’t trust Jackson, not at all, and I still think there might be something between him and Holly. I don’t want to just be some idiot he uses and abuses again. I don’t want to let him back into my life just to have him destroy me all over again.

I don’t think he understands what he did to me when he left. I was torn to pieces, totally devastated. I basically didn’t speak for a week, and did nothing but cry into my pillow every waking minute. The pain was something I’ve never experienced before and I’m not sure I’ll ever get over it, not completely.

Kissing him and letting him back into my life is just begging for that kind of pain again. But god, it’s also begging for a pleasure I haven’t felt in so long.

It was a good kiss, a damn good kiss, but I don’t know how far it can go. If I let him, he’ll take even more from me, and I’m not sure I can get any of it back again.

But I want to feel that pleasure. I want to feel even more pleasure. I want him and badly, and I don’t know what to do.





11





Jackson





It was exactly what I thought it would be. No, actually, it was so much fucking better.

It was like coming home. But it was like coming home to find that your house had grown up and gotten a fantastic fucking pair of tits.

Okay, maybe that metaphor’s pretty fucked and mixed to hell but whatever. Kissing Tara was better than I expected, and I had some high expectations.

I’ve been thinking about seeing her again and finally kissing her one more time for years. There were some dark points overseas where the thought of holding Tara in my arms one more time kept me fucking going. I thought about her over and over again, used the memories I had of the two of us to keep me going. She’ll probably never really know how much she saved my life. There’s no way she could understand, even if I tried to explain.

I’m understandably distracted an hour after I finally got to kiss the woman I’ve been dreaming about for so long when my agent calls me.

“You got dinner plans,” Mickey says to me.

“I do?” I ask him, just getting into my apartment.

“Yeah, you fuckin’ do, so get dressed. There’s a car coming in an hour.”

I smile to myself. Normally this would annoy me. I hate when Mickey forces me into these last minute fucking glad-handing networking bullshit dinners, but whatever. I’m in a good mood today.

“All right,” I say to him.

He pauses. “That’s it? Just all right?”

“Yeah,” I say. “What, you want me to argue?”

“Hell no. The producer of your film wants a meeting with you, so you better be on your best behavior.”

That gets my attention. “Any specific reason?”

“Not that I know of. Just go and enjoy a free meal on their dime.”

I sigh. “Fine.”

“Have fun. Be charming!” He hangs the phone up before I can tell him that I’m always fucking charming.

I’m still in a good damn mood as I shower up and get changed. I’m in the back of the car exactly an hour later, still smiling to myself and still reliving that kiss over and over in my mind.

The car takes me up into the hills, and the houses get bigger and bigger. Eventually it stops outside this fucking huge mansion, which I assume is the producer’s place. I don’t know much about him, although I know he’s filthy rich and named Harold. I’m sure I was told more, but I don’t really pay attention sometimes when Mickey goes on and on about the important people.

I ring the bell and a man wearing a waiter’s outfit opens the door. He leads me in through this huge entrance hall, complete with a chandelier that probably costs as much as my car, and out through the back.