Page 67 of Jazz

“When you change your mind, Charlie, and you will, I know you better than anyone. I’ll have your drink waiting for you.”

I let go of her hair and she stepped into me further, pushing up on her tiptoes and dragging her lips across my cheek in a hint of a kiss and then turned, stalking out of the bathroom, the ruby red of her nightgown billowing out behind her.

Chapter Thirty Four

His arm clasped around my stomach, hugging me into his body, heat and the slight prickle of his chest hair against my back. The woody scent was weak, just the slightest hint of his aftershave in the air, but something deeper underneath. Clean. Masculine. Hot. Him.

The room was lighter now, the blackout blinds covering the dormer windows in the attic letting slivers of grey in through the cracks. But the red was harsh on tired eyes, making the room darker and dingier than it needed to be.

I listened for a while, at Chase’s soft breathing, his chest moving against me, closing my eyes as memories came flooding back. My insides flushed. Heat rising through my stomach. A pulsing between my legs. There was a soreness there. A familiar soreness that was satisfying as it ached. And here I lay naked with the man who had helped them take me, who’d held me. Who’d tied my hands and legs. And that ache between my legs grew heavier. Needier.

But inside me, something else swirled. Uncertainty. Worry. I was safe from the Rats. For now. But we couldn’t stay here. Holed up in a brothel, fucking each other to pass the time. I needed to go home. To live. I squeezed my eyes shut, sucking in a big breath of air, trying to still the rising panic inside of me.

“Tiger,” Chase mumbled, lips stroking my shoulder, the tip of his tongue darting out to taste me. “You ok?”

I sighed loudly, his lips still moving against me, his fingers spreading out over my bare stomach.

“What’s wrong?”

“Everything.”

Chase’s lips stopped, pulling away from me. His hand pushed into my stomach, rolling me over as he propped himself up on an elbow. Between his eyebrows there was a deep funnel, the slightest of crinkles around his eyes. The hazel was deep this morning. His face concerned. He had a beautiful, manly face, but with bone structure women would envy. It was boyish and experienced all at once. An arm moved up by my head, the tattoos on his hands moving like they were alive.

“I need to get you home.”

“I want to go home,” I agreed, reaching up to trail my fingers over his face, like I was committing it to memory. Chase turned his head, pushing his lips into the palm of my hand. “Then what? We go back to being enemies?”

Chase moved over the top of me again, and now I felt him between my legs, his cock hard, a bead of wet against my thigh.

“No. But I can’t stick around for the Kings to gut me like a pig on a hook.”

I scooted down the bed a little, feeling the tip of him against me. Chase closed his eyes.

“Will you come back here?” I looked around the room.

Chase stared down at me. “What do you want to ask me, Jazz?”

And I sighed, because that question had been on the tip of my tongue since she had opened the door last night.

“Who is Gina? To you, I mean?”

Chase sighed, rolling off me and onto his back. And now we both stared up at the ceiling, the space between my legs going cold. Empty.

“I went off the rails in my early twenties,” he started, the words slow like they were hard to get out. “I was at the top of my racing career.”

“Bikes?”

“Uh huh. I’d travelled the country. My dad worked three jobs just to pay for it and sold anything of value. I was so close to being top spot, to getting signed as pro. Me and another lad were neck and neck. The last race was just between us. Whoever won it got the contract. I took him on the second last corner,just sliding past in his slipstream. It was beautiful. A move I’d practiced for weeks. But he nudged my back wheel. He meant it. It wasn’t a mistake or bad riding. The bike slid out, and I tried to control it, but once that back wheel starts to fishtail at a hundred and forty, you’re just along for the fucking ride.” He gave a humourless laugh, pushing his hand through that thick head of hair. “I tried to counter it, weight over the bars, throttle steady, but it was gone. Rear tyre caught, gripped too hard and then, bang. I high-sided. Straight over the top like a rag doll. One second you’re flying, the next you’re watching your bike cartwheel past you, sparks flying off the fairing like fireworks.”

He stared straight up at the top of the four-poster bed with the thick satin drapes, not saying anything, but I was sure he was recalling that crash. Every painful moment.

“I hit the tarmac shoulder first, slid twenty metres easy. Leathers shredded, visor smashed. I remembered the sound more than anything. Scraping, the engine screaming as it spun out without me. You can tell when a bike’s dying; it’s got this… death rattle. Like it knows it’s fucked.”

He exhaled, the muscles in his neck tight. “They said I was lucky. Just a shattered collarbone, dislocated shoulder, busted ribs. Should’ve been dead. But that crash killed everything else instead. Sponsorship gone. Dad couldn’t pay for a new bike. And me? I couldn’t ride for months. And I had nothing else. No adrenaline. No freedom. A friend gave me some pot. It took the pain away…for a bit. It made the nights easier. Stopped the noise in my head. But it also dulled everything else. And when you’ve lived off adrenaline your whole life, dull’s fucking unbearable. Then someone handed me a line. Said it’d wake me up. Christ, it did more than that.”

He was silent again, his eyes squeezing shut like he was fighting off those memories, that they might ignite that want in him again. “It was like being back on the track again. Heart hammering, skin on fire, world sharpened to a point. Everything brighter, faster, louder. For a few minutes, I felt invincible again. Felt… alive.”

His jaw shifted, teeth tight against whatever he didn’t want to admit. “Didn’t take long before I needed that hit just to feel normal. Every time I swore I’d stop, I’d find myself cutting another line. The more I chased the high, the further away it got. Same as the bikes. Same as everything else. And it cost money. Money I didn’t have. I stole things. Things I shouldn’t. My mother’s wedding ring…”