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“Oh! I see how that all got fuckered up. Too many coincidences for one night—especially with all the rousting about we’ve been doing over these sexy-as-hell Black Mountain Bikers.” Madison walked over and hugged Jazmyn. “You go on home and I’ll tell the rest of them you were sick and needed to rest tonight. Tavia will text you as soon as she’s done with Pepper, I’m sure. I’ll tell her to be sure to shoot you a message to be sure. Go on. Get home and do whatever you need to do to feel better. Don’t let this bring you down, girl.” Maddy smacked Jazzy’s ass as she left the lounge.
Jazmyn left by the side door, not wanting to pass the others as she left and not wanting to accidentally look up and make eye contact with Gage. Thinking about the things she said, the things she accused him of made her stomach knot up. So stupid!
She hurried to her car and pulled out of the parking lot without looking back except in her rearview. Three curves down the mountainside, it came to her that she almost always ran from her problems and hid when things got hard or uncomfortable. That’s something she vowed to work on in the coming months. She was a grown woman and needed to be stronger if she wanted to survive in the business her and the girls had started up.
By the time Jazmyn arrived in her driveway, she’d pretty much cooled off from the incidents at the Hideaway but she was still mortified at how she’d talked to Gage. Sh
e was convinced that he was innocent in all the happenings. She’d had no right to talk to him so badly.
As she gathered clothes to take a shower, she checked the time. It was opening time at the Hideaway. Tavia still hadn’t texted her to say what had happened between her and Pepper. Jazmyn hoped they hadn’t argued too harshly. It was uncommon for the group to argue amongst themselves, but not unheard of, by any means. They were women and they were prone to being catty with each other at times.
Even in college they had sometimes argued. Although it had been a long time since the last argument, in Jazmyn’s mind, this one was justified. She had given Pepper more than one opportunity to stop and zip her lip, but she had not done so. The reason she would go at Jazmyn was elusive.
In the shower and beginning to physically feel better, Jazmyn came to a conclusion about Pepper that she wasn’t sure about—maybe Pepper knew that Gage was interested in Jazmyn and it had upset her because she liked him. Or, worse, maybe Gage had, at some point rejected Pepper’s come-ons. That had always been a sure way to piss her off. Though, why she would decide to take it out on Jazmyn, she didn’t know. Maybe she’d hoped Jazzy would throw herself at Gage and he would reject her also—misery loves company and all that bullshit.
Chapter 5
Sitting in her cozy den, wearing only her extra long t-shirt that acted as a nightgown, Jazmyn turned on a movie that she half-heartedly watched as she sipped Jaegermeister from the bottle.
Halfway through the bottle of Jaeger, Jazmyn held up the bottle to check the level of the remaining liquor and the white, flickering light from the television refracted off the green glass. The bright green bottle reminded Jazmyn of Gage’s eyes. His beautiful, emerald green eyes could say so much even when he didn’t speak a word.
She replaced the cap and set the half-full bottle of liquor on the coffee table. Looking at the television but not seeing any of the movie, Jazmyn fantasized about what it would be like with Gage. What did the rest of him look like underneath those jeans and that tank top? Was all of him as tanned as his face, arms and hands?
Glimpses of his chest had been visible during the few times they had met and spoken to one another so she knew his chest was smooth and that he had ink on it. What kind of tattoo was still up in the air, she hadn’t been able to see his chest well enough to make it out, but she was sure it was something dark and sexy, just like the tats on the bulging muscles of his shoulders.
A Cherokee Indian head, replete with a full headdress adorned his right shoulder and bicep. A collage of animals—eagle, bear, bison, and wolf—adorned the left. An oriental dragon curled on his inner right forearm in bold colors. A triangle, an arrow, and an oddly shaped 2 had been placed on the back of his right hand on the muscle between his thumb and forefinger.
Jazmyn, literate in many occult things, knew that the triangle was a fire sign, which meant that Gage was a fire sign in the zodiac. The arrow was the zodiac sign for Sagittarius, which was indeed the mutable fire sign. The oddly shaped 2 was actually the astrological symbol for Jupiter, which was the ruling planet of Sagittarius.
That he was also well-versed in occult knowledge had been one of the first things that had drawn Jazmyn to him. That’s when she felt the first sexual stirrings toward him. In her experience, finding a man who knew anything of the occult beyond a misinterpreted five-pointed star or the Ouija Board was exceptional. Apparently, men in their thirties had other things on their minds than the occult—or any knowledge outside their profession. They needed to know how to do their jobs well so they could earn a good living so they could afford to fuck around on their wives or significant others and cover their asses with said money.
Money might not buy happiness but it could purchase many things that lead to happiness for men, especially, such as plausible alibis for the times when they are with their mistress. That had been Jazmyn’s experience anyway. Her father had done it to her mother; her sister’s husband had done it to her sister; and Jazmyn’s fiancé, several years gone now, had also done it to her. Little did that bastard know that he bribed the wrong person to lie to his fiancé—turned out that the man he paid to lie to Jazmyn had actually been her boyfriend in junior high. Jazmyn and Freddy had never said anything about their stint as a couple to her fiancé because it had happened so long before, but Freddy, bless his good little heart, couldn’t let Jazmyn be hurt like that.
Jazmyn lay partially draped over a throw pillow and the arm of the sofa as she let her mind wander and eventually it came back to Gage and all his sexiness. It had been so long since she’d had sex with anyone that the mere thought of him caused a pleasurable tightness between her legs. Finally giving up on the movie, she rolled to her back and slid down on the cushions of the sofa.
What she would give to have Gage poised over her right now. The heat of his naked much larger, much stronger body hovering only inches from her naked body would be close to nirvana. His lips on hers would be divine. His lips on other parts of her body would be pure bliss.
Shortly into her fantasy, Jazmyn dozed off into a deep sleep. The precipice of sleep’s abyss approached slowly and openly. Jazmyn hadn’t tried to fight it for long; she rather welcomed a night of deep, liquor-induced slumber with the hopes that her embarrassment would vanish by morning.
Sometime during her eventful snooze on the sofa, Jazmyn climbed up from the numbness and oblivion and was aware of a sound that hadn’t been there earlier. Fighting to open her eyes and come to full consciousness, she heard a knock at her door only a few feet from where she lay.
The movie she’d been watching had gone off and another had started. Had there been one between them that she’d missed? She didn’t think she’d been asleep that long. Determining the time she’d slept, Jazmyn used the length of the movies and where she’d lost track of the first one and the time this one had played, she figured she’d slept most of two hours. Seemed accurate, give or take fifteen minutes.
The knock sounded again and Jazmyn stood slowly. The floor yawed under her feet—maybe the influence of the Jaeger; maybe the fact that she’d just been awakened from a very deep sleep.
“Hold on. I’m coming!” The day had gone full dark outside. Who would be visiting her now? The girls would all be at the Hideaway, working. She had no friends or family who visited during the week.
She got her land legs under her and walked to the door. It seemed the tilting floor was mostly due to being jerked from a deep sleep. She tiptoed and peeked out the window. All she could see was dark hair. The peephole was useless without the porch light and the bulb was blown, so she couldn’t see her visitor there either. The window on the other end of the front wall seemed too far away to consider, but that was the only other place where she could peek and see her front porch.
Instead of doing that, she leaned on the door and asked, “Who is it?”
“It’s me. It’s Gage. Can I come in?”
Jazmyn’s heart dropped into her feet. No way. She was still dreaming. Had to be.
“Gage?” She opened the door without hesitation.
He stood there smiling. “In the flesh, Jazzy. Feel like a little company?”
