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“You’re being awfully quiet there, sweetheart,” Travis softly notes. “What’s going through that pretty little head of yours, hmm?”
Now that my lusty haze has cleared, reality has set back in. There’s too much going on in my brain, and I can’t make heads or tails of it all. My emotions are being pulled every which way, and I feel as if I’m ruthlessly being ripped in two. I go from feeling uncontrollable lust with one man, to feeling guilt over another, and it’s not right.
I am having consensual sex with a criminal, and isn’t that, like…oh, I don’t know…a mix of cheating on Adam and Stockholm Syndrome? What the hell am I’m doing? I’m not being true to Adam, Travis, or myself.
“Jules?” Travis prods.
“I’m okay.” I hide my shame by snuggling further into his neck.
“No, I don’t think you are.” He disengages our bodies and sits up to look at me. Immediately, I stretch to my feet and grab the blanket to pull it up around me. He then rolls me onto my back, forcing me to meet his gaze as he lifts a questioning brow. “Are you cold?” he asks in a concerned voice.
“Maybe a little bit,” I lie.
His lips thin in thought as he rubs the sides of my arms with his hands, heating my skin. “You don’t feel cold. In fact,” he adds with a little smirk, “I had you pretty heated up.” I feel even more shame with him voicing what we just did, so I avert my eyes from him. “Hey, what’s going on?” he asks, and then gently guides my chin with his fingers as I’m met with a set of narrowed, quizzical eyes.
I steal a deep breath and decide to clear the air. “I think I need to talk to Adam. I think I deserve that much,” I blurt out quickly before I lose my nerve. For some odd reason, a part of me feels as if the request is betraying Travis.
“What the fuck, Jules!” he exclaims, his body vibrating with immediate anger. “You think you need to talk to him?”
I shrink back into the pillows as he gets up off the bed in a rush. He finds his jeans on the floor and hastily puts them back on, and suddenly, I feel very cheap. Hostility is evident in his short, abrupt movements, making the hairs on the back of my neck prickle in alarm.
Zipping up his pants, he turns around with a snarl and shakes his head at me, waving his hand back and forth between us. “What we just did…my God, Jules…did it even remotely mean a damn thing to you?” he bellows, his tone full of incredulous disbelief. The muscles in his jaw visibly clench as he places his hands on his hips, and then his voice hardens to stone. “No, you can’t get in touch with him.”
My mouth drops open in surprise, and both of my brows lift high. “No?” My voice comes out high-pitched. “You decided just like that?” I shoot back as I snap my fingers together.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Let me rephrase that for you so you can better understand,” he says in a sardonic tone. “Not no, but fuck no!” he yells. “There. Is that better? Did I speak a language you could comprehend?”
My heart pounds loudly in my ears. I swallow hard and damn near choke on the lump in my throat. Nervously, I twist the sheets in my hands and pull them up to my chin. I can’t cope when he gets enraged like this. I remember this Travis from when he took my medallion at the facility.
I have a right to be upset, don’t I? “I don’t understand, Travis. It’s a simple request,” I softly plead. “Can’t you understand—”
He cuts me off mid-sentence, “He was in your life, once upon a time. It’s past tense, and your past is behind you now; that chapter is closed.”
“I don’t remember closing any chapters in my life,” I whisper, narrowing my eyes, “and my past just doesn’t go away because you tell it to. You said at the hotel that I could eventually call home. When will the right time be, Travis? You keep leading me on.”
“Calling home is a far cry from wanting to call Adam,” he bites back.
“Adam was my home too,” I whisper, defeated, and drop my chin to my chest. “You’re never going to let me go…are you?”
“Look, this discussion is over.” Exasperated, he grits out, “I don’t keep your past lover’s contact information, and even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t even know where to begin looking.”
My head jerks up as I pin him down with a hateful glare. “Oh, bullshit,” I spit out, pissed off over the fact he can blatantly lie without blinking an eye. “Don’t you dare try to lie to me anymore with your bullshit lines, Travis Jackson.” I point my finger at him with renewed determination. “That’s a load of crap and you know it! You’ve got enough equipment and intel at your fingertips for an army.” I lean forward, my icy eyes drilling a hole into his as I become determined to win this one.
