“It's not fun anymore. It's scary. I don't know this game,” she whispered. He nodded.
“I know, ma'am. I know.”
*
Jameson was woken up a couple hours later to the sound of footsteps in his room.
Tate?
He had stayed up for a while, waiting for her to crawl in to bed, or to hear her sneaking out of the house. He had maybe gone a little too far with her, but she had made him so mad. How dare she Google him. How dare she look in to Petrushka. How dare she not trust him. How dare she fuck some guy just to get back at Jameson. Wear that guy's clothing home, to Jameson's home. He wanted to put her in her place. Remind her exactly what she was to him – even if he, himself, wasn't exactly sure.
But her eyes had looked so detached. Telling him to mark her with the scissors. Daring him. She wasn't present. She wanted the pain – not to remind her that she was with him, but to make her forget. He never wanted her to forget.
It broke his heart a little.
“Jameson.”
Sanders was in his room. He couldn't remember the last time Sanders had fully entered his room. Jameson sat up, rubbed his face, and then climbed out of bed. There was morning light shining through the windows, and the clock said it was six-twenty. He looked around him. Tatum wasn't in the room.
“Where is she?” he sighed. Sanders turned and left. Jameson followed close behind him.
She was asleep in Sanders' bed. Jameson was a little shocked – he was pretty sure no one else had ever been in Sanders' room. Jameson hadn't been in there since the remodel. She was laying on her stomach, and she didn't have anything on her top half. He winced when he saw the nicks and cuts on her back. They had been cleaned, there was no blood, but they still looked evil.
“I tried to take her to your room, but she wanted to get cleaned up first. She fell asleep. She was going to join you,” Sanders explained in his soft voice. Jameson sat on the edge of the bed, traced his fingers down her spine. She shivered in her sleep.
“No. She wanted to be with you. She feels safe with you,” Jameson replied.
“No. She wants you. She has been waiting for you.”
Jameson scowled. He wasn't in the mood for Sanders' little riddles. He stood up and pulled Tate to the edge of the bed, picked her up in his arms, curled her in to his chest. He nodded at Sanders and then strode from the room.
Once he had her laid down, he stripped the rest of her clothing off. She slept through the whole process, breathing heavily through her nose. She rolled back onto her stomach and he let his eyes wander over her body. He stretched out next to her, massaged his fingers against her skin. There were no signs on her body that another man had been there. She must have been a lot gentler with strangers. She started to move under his touch.
“Jameson,” she mumbled, her face turned away from him.
“You sure it's not Sanders?” Jameson teased. She managed a laugh.
“Oh, I'd know his fingers anywhere,” she joked back.
“Are you okay?” he whispered, smoothing his hand over her back. She shrugged.
“Yeah. Nothing a tough chick like me can't handle,” she replied.
“Sometimes I wonder.”
“I was just so angry. You had promised, and there were all these pictures of the two of you, and I just ..., I got upset. I didn't have any right to, I'm sorry,” she said softly. He sighed. He liked to pretend he didn't, but he knew he owed her something.
“I got upset when I realized you were wearing his shirt,” he replied.
“You sleep with girls all the time,” she pointed out.
“I still got upset.”
“So I can't sleep with other guys?” she asked. He thought for a second.
“I just don't want you using it against me, trying to upset me with the fact. I've never done that to you – if anything, I sleep with other women because I know it turns you on. I've never done it to hurt you. You wearing his shirt, in my house, though, trying to upset me; it worked,” Jameson growled at her.
“I'm sorry,” she whispered.
He rubbed a hand across his face. How far did he really want to go for this girl? He looked down at her, stretched out beside him. When he had first seen Tatum, at that party, he hadn't believed his eyes. A dark haired sex kitten engaging in dangerous banter with him. Then again at the meeting with his lawyers. Pulling her panties off in a room full of people; she had blown him away. He had wanted to play with her some more, maybe finish what they had started seven years ago. Only now, there wasn't an end in sight. He'd already gone too far.
“I met Petrushka at a party, a couple years ago. She's a huge bitch, so we hit it off. She's a freak in the sack, you'd love it,” he said. Tate laughed.
“Sounds like a keeper,” she chuckled. He put his hand back on her back and her skin jumped at his touch. Just like the first time they had ever touched. Just like every time.
“She's fucking crazy. We fucked, we fought, we broke up. Got back together. She wants everything her way, very demanding. We stayed together mostly because of our positions, I think. Supermodel, rich guy, I don't know. I was doing a lot of work in Europe at the time, it was easy,” he tried to explain.
“You have a home in Copenhagen. She's Danish,” Tate commented. He laughed.
“Seriously, Tate, sometimes I forget what a girl you are. I owned my home before I even knew her. We met in Germany,” he told her. She sighed.
“I'm so stupid.”
He moved his hand up and down her back, touched his fingers to her scratches.
“Sometimes,” he agreed. “I was unhappy. Pet dug her claws in, distracted me from that fact. I was angry a lot of the time, and sometimes she would let me treat her badly,” he continued.
“Like me?” Tate asked. He laid down on his side and leaned close to her.
“No one is like you, Tate. You're the real deal, she was an act. She likes to play my part, she wants to be the one holding someone down. She faked everything for me. I don't think she ever really liked me, or that I even ever really liked her. We just liked how each other looked, liked how we fucked,” he said.
“You spun two years away on liking how someone fucks?” Tate asked.
“You've been doing the same thing for seven years,” Jameson pointed out.
“Yeah, but with different people, different flavors. Not just one person that I don't even like. And if you didn't like her, how did you wind up engaged?” she pressed. He groaned and rolled onto his back
“It was an accident, I was kind of tricked in to it. I was picking up a ring from Harry Winston, in New York. It was my grandmother's ring. Huge, gorgeous. Pet and I had just had a very public fight, it was all over the tabloids. Some fucking paparazzi piece of shit took a bunch of pictures of me in the store with the ring, talking to the jeweler, taking it out of the store. It was everywhere. She freaked out, got all excited. When I told her what had really happened, she freaked out even more, pointed out that it would be everywhere, if I took it back. How could I take it back, when I'd never put it out there?” he asked.
“What a prize bitch,” Tate mumbled.
“I don't know, it was easier to go with the flow. There I was, almost thirty, and utterly alone; aside from Sanders. Who hated her, by the way. A very good judge of character, Sanders,” he pointed out.