She tip toed back in to the bedroom, and saw that Jameson was still asleep. She watched him for a moment. His hair was rumpled and cute, his arms akimbo to his head, hands clasped under a cheek. His position made the muscles in his broad shoulders bunch and come together, and she chewed on her bottom lip, tempted to scratch him awake.
She didn't, opting to find her underwear instead. She found her bra hanging from the side of a mirror and quickly slipped it on; she decided her underwear was a lost cause and threw them away. She was shimmying back in to her dress when she heard the covers rustle around.
“Sneaking out, baby girl?” Jameson spoke, his voice scratchy with sleep. Tate chuckled.
“No, I would've woken you up to say goodbye,” she replied, struggling with the zipper on her back. Once she had it all the way up, she looked at him. He had pulled himself in to a sitting position against the headboard, hands behind his head. His piercing blue eyes were traveling over every inch of her.
“Ah, but who told you that you could leave?” he asked. She laughed and walked over to the bed.
“I didn't realize I needed permission,” she responded, kneeling on the mattress and making her way to his side.
“You need to ask permission for everything.”
“Probably not gonna happen, Jameson,” she laughed, sitting back on her heels. He sighed and dropped his hands.
“Well at least we broke you of one bad habit. I swear, your mouth must get you in to so much trouble. Very defiant, baby girl. If I had to hear you say 'Kane' one more time,” he didn't finish the thought, just sucked air through his teeth.
“I don't see what the big deal is – pretty much everyone else calls you Kane,” she pointed out. He leaned forward.
“You're not 'everyone else', you're different. You get to see the real me,” he told her.
Her heart leapt in her chest. She was different to him, she got to see the real him. Too much info. She didn't know whether to jump for joy, or head for the hills. Ang had told her to be careful, and she had laughed at him. She should have heeded his warning a little better.
“Well, I'll have to see the 'real you' later – I have to go,” Tate laughed. Jameson narrowed his eyes.
“Why?”
“Because, it's almost eleven o'clock. I have to go home, run some errands, shower, get ready for work. I work at the bar Thursday through Saturday,” she explained. He nodded and yawned, rubbing a hand over his face.
“Right, right, the shit hole. I'll be in Manhattan this weekend, but I'll be back Sunday. I'll call you,” he told her.
“Ooohhh, Manhattan weekend. Lifestyles of the rich and the famous,” she teased. He rolled his eyes.
“There's that mouth. Hold on, I'll have Sanders get the car,” he said, leaning over and grabbing a phone that was next to the bed.
While Jameson barked orders at poor Sanders, Tate did her best to wipe away the makeup that was under her eyes. She could go in to the bathroom and wet a towel, but it was too much effort. She didn't want to move away from him until she had to go. She swept her hair up in to a ponytail just as he was hanging up the phone.
“Poor Sanders, I don't think you're very nice to him,” she commented, pouting out her bottom lip. Jameson reached out and pinched it.
“It works for us,” he replied, running the edge of his thumb along her bottom teeth.
“Where did you find him?” she asked, when he let his fingers trace over her lip and down the side of her jaw.
“London,” he answered, his fingers moving down to her throat.
“Is that the accent he has? Didn't seem British,” she commented. Jameson nodded, his fingers moving around the edge of his bite mark, which was just barely peeking out the side of her collar.
“It's not originally where he's from, but it's where I found him. He was trying to steal from me,” he continued, pushing the material to the side and leaning close so he could examine the wound.
“Steal from you!?”
“Yeah. He was thirteen, a pickpocket. A bad one. Probably about a week away from collapsing. I admired his tenacity. He's been with me ever since,” Jameson finished the story, smoothing her dress back in to place.
“How old is he now?”
“Twenty.”
“Wow. That's crazy, I thought he -,”
“Tate,” Jameson interrupted, his hand going to her neck and cupping the back of it. “You're obsessed with other people, I swear.”
“Says the man who stalked me to get me here,” she countered. He snorted.
“I didn't hear you complaining last night.”
“You wouldn't have listened, even if I did.”
“You're okay with all this? You're not running away to hide from me?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at her. Tate laughed.
“Jameson. If you knew some of my stories. One time Ang and I got kicked out of a fancy restaurant because he crawled under the table and went down on me during the whole first course – last night was nothing scary to a girl like me. I can handle anything you can dish out,” she assured him.
“There is a big difference between me going down on you, and me calling you the 'dumbest cunt I've ever fucked'. It has been my experience that most women will say they're okay with something, and after the fact not be okay with it at all,” he said, his fingers massaging her skin. A shiver ran through her body at his words.
“I'm not most women,” she reminded him. “It's all fun to me. A game. Sometimes, I'm the dumb cunt. Sometimes, you'll get to be.”
“I very much fucking doubt that,” he snorted. She started laughing.
“I don't have time for this, Jameson,” she managed to say. “We can play some more on Sunday, I have to go home now.”
Tate started to move to get off the bed when he yanked her forward. Suddenly, his mouth was over hers, and she was gasping in to him. Both his hands went to the back of her head, drawing her forward. She followed, straddling his lap and pressing her own hands against his chest.
They hadn't kissed at all the night before – she hadn't even realized it till after she had woken up. Their lips had been all over each others bodies, but no kissing. She hadn't thought it a big deal at the time. Now it seemed like a very big deal.
Tate had forgotten what kissing him was like, like he was stealing all her breath away. Sucking it right out of her lungs. She moaned, scooting as close to him as she could get, rubbing herself against his chest while she coiled her arms around his neck. She could feel her heart palpitating, and if she hadn't been so lost in the moment, lost in the taste, and scent, and feel of him, she would've gotten nervous. Heart palpitations weren't a good thing, when it was only supposed to be games between them.
His hands dropped to her spread knees and he slid them up her thighs, under her dress. The palpitations got worse. Just as he was discovering she wasn't wearing any underwear, the bedroom door opened behind them. Jameson pulled away a little, but didn't take his eyes off of hers.
“The car is ready, sir,” Sanders' clipped voice came from the doorway. Jameson stared at her for a second longer and then flicked his eyes over her shoulder, his hands continuing their journey under her dress.