Just for Today...

CHAPTER THREE

SEAN COLLAPSED on top of her and Jess welcomed his weight. She let her hands explore his broad, powerful back, sweeping over the curves of muscle and the bony protrusions of his spine.

He sucked in a deep breath, then raised his head to drop a kiss on her nose.

“Don’t move,” he whispered.

“Why?”

“Just...don’t. Okay?”

Jess shrugged her agreement but regretted it as he moved away from her, withdrawing from her body and her embrace.

“I’ll be right back.”

He disappeared with the flash of a grin, retreating into the darkened corridor. Of course. Jess remembered the condom. Inconvenient things.

Her naked, perspiring body felt suddenly chilled without the furnace of Sean’s presence nearby. And with that chill came a creeping sense of mortification. She’d met him, what, less than an hour ago? She’d begged for his touch, run her hands all over his body and—if she was perfectly honest—would love to do it all again.

But the idea of waiting for him, of cuddling with him on the sofa, enjoying the afterglow? It was all a little too...intimate. A strange thing to think, given what they’d just done.

Suddenly, all the fears and hesitations she’d successfully suppressed earlier in the evening came back in a wave. A cold, horrible wave.

Get out of here. Now.

Jess scrambled to her feet and found her dress. It took a moment to sort out the folds of fabric—she’d removed it in haste and left it in a pool on the floor—but once she’d found the hem, she pulled it over her head and was smoothing it down her body when Sean returned to the room.

“I thought you might like—” His words cut off abruptly when he saw she was dressed. He was still naked—still astoundingly, eye-wateringly gorgeous—and he held a bottle of wine and two glasses in one hand.

The man was sex on legs. What was she doing? Jess knew a strong, clenching feeling of regret at the thought she’d not get to experience being with him again, but the more solid certainty that she needed to leave won out.

“Sorry.” She gave him a smile. “I have to get going.”

“But...” He trailed off.

Jess had the definite impression that women didn’t walk out on Sean Paterson very often.

“Thanks, though,” she said, gesturing to the wine. She could feel a muscle in her cheek twitch with the forced smile she’d plastered on her face. Her breath was coming a little too fast and she forced herself to slow it down.

“Oh.” Sean dumped the bottle and glasses with a clatter on the table. “How will you get home?” he asked. “Do you want me to drive you?”

“No,” Jess said too quickly. It was absurd to be disappointed that he hadn’t tried to object to her leaving. “It’s late. I’ll get a cab.”

“I’ll call one for you.” He took a step toward his discarded suit, presumably to seek out a phone.

Jess put a hand on his arm to halt him. Oh, so hard and so velvet soft all at the same time. Really, Jess, would it be too much to ask to hang around for more? She shook the annoying inner voice away.

“It’s fine. I’ve caught cabs from here before. There’s no point calling one at this time on a Saturday night, it’ll take hours. I’ll just walk up the street to the main road and hail one.”

He blew out a breath and Jess wondered for a moment if he was going to argue or finally get around to asking her not to go. But then he shrugged. “Okay. Give me a minute to put some clothes on and I’ll walk with you.”

“No!” It came out louder and more forceful than she’d intended. “I mean,” she said, modulating her voice, “I’ll be fine on my own. I’ve done it hundreds of times.” A slight exaggeration. Maybe twice.

He gave her a look that made him seem older than his years. “Jess, forget it.” His tone brooked no protest. “I’m either driving you home, walking with you to hail a cab, or we call one and you wait for it here. I’m not letting you head off into the night by yourself. It’s just not happening.”

His commanding tone made Jess bristle. “I’m a grown woman. Old enough to look after myself. Older than you, remember?” He probably usually slept with nineteen-year-old airheads who’d get into a stranger’s car when offered candy, Jess thought, knowing she was being more than a little ridiculous. But the strange feeling of panic was growing, and her every instinct was yelling at her to escape.

Sean muttered something under his breath, then reached for his clothes. Jess told herself not to watch, but it was impossible. He pulled on his suit trousers without bothering with underwear and zipped them up in front of her, seemingly unconcerned by her close observation.

“What’s it to be?” he asked, ignoring her protest.

The quickest option would be to have him drive her home. Waiting for a cab at this time of night could, literally, take hours. It was impossible to know how long waiting for one on the street would take. From previous experience, Jess knew it could be minutes—or not.

All the options meant spending more time in close company with Sean. And Jess wasn’t sure what was going on, but her gut was screaming at her to get away from him. She didn’t know why. She needed to be alone to work out why she needed to be alone.

Her indecision must have shown on her face, because Sean reached out and took her hand.

“Look,” he began with an exaggerated air of patience, “I’m not sure why you’re freaking out like this, but—”

“I am not freaking out—”

He talked over her protest. “But everything’s fine, okay? You’re good, I’m good and we just had a helluva lot of fun.” He grinned. “I was kinda hoping you’d hang around a little longer so we could do it again, but I get that you might’ve had enough. And that’s okay. You only need to tell me how you want to get home.”

Faced with his sensible, emotionless dissection of the situation, Jess’s reaction felt like hysteria. A colder, more unpleasant feeling settled in her belly. If she didn’t know better, she’d call it disappointment.

“I’d like for you to drive me home,” she said after a moment. Logic won out. Of all the options, it meant getting home fastest. “If that’s okay.”

He squeezed her hand and then let it go. “That’s fine. Just give me a sec to grab a T-shirt.”

Jess had put on her shoes but still hadn’t located her underwear by the time he returned, wearing sneakers, a tight gray T-shirt that hugged his shoulders and chest, and his tuxedo pants. It should have looked silly, but instead he looked effortlessly sexy and it made Jess’s resolve weaken. Would there really be anything terribly wrong with staying a little longer? Maybe even sleeping over till the morning? If it had been a long time since her last sexual experience, it had been even longer since she’d slept with a man’s arms around her. Jess liked that feeling. Missed it.

Yeah, right. Sean had said he wanted her to stay so they could enjoy round two—nothing about breakfast in the morning. She was sure that after round two was done, he’d be the one bundling her into his car or calling for a taxi. All she was doing was speeding up that eventual outcome. And in doing so, staying in control of the situation. That was what was important.

“Ready?” he asked.

Jess opened her mouth to say something about her missing underwear, but the idea of going on a search for it seemed too...undignified.

“Sure, let’s go.”

* * *

SEAN THOUGHT he’d encountered pretty much every postcoital reaction womankind was capable of. This was a new one on him, though. He’d seen tears. Giggling. Snoring. Even one unfortunate episode of throwing up, but they’d both been very drunk and it had been a long time ago.

He’d never seen ruthless efficiency. He wasn’t sure what else to call the reaction from Jess Alexander. It was a pity, because he hadn’t been finished with her—not by a long shot.

She’d barely said a word since they’d left the house, just brief directions on how to get to her home. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, the silence in the car magnifying the soft rustle of her dress. The silence reminded him uncomfortably of the final weeks of the one-and-only long-term relationship he’d attempted.

Ten months—it hadn’t been a bad effort considering ten days was pretty much his usual limit. If you didn’t count the last month when they’d pretty much stopped talking to each other. There was still a minor ache somewhere hidden deeply away when he thought about that. He’d actually thought he’d been in love, when in reality he’d just been young and stupid.

“Crap,” Jess said suddenly.

“What?”

“My car. It’s parked at the hotel. I totally forgot.”

Sean backed off the accelerator. “Do you want me to take you there instead?”

“No... No, I’ll get it in the morning.”

“Sure?”

She nodded. “Positive.”

He thought about offering to pick her up in the morning, but after the argument about driving her home, he figured it was an offer extremely unlikely to be accepted, so he kept his mouth shut.

She shifted in the seat again, discomfort written all over her face.

“Are you okay?” he asked as she squirmed once more. He hadn’t hurt her somehow, had he? “You look like you have ants in your pants.”

“I, uh, couldn’t find my underwear.”

“Huh?” It took him a moment to realize what she’d said.

“I couldn’t find my underwear,” she said again.

He couldn’t help but laugh, even when she shot him a look designed to wither. “Is that why you’re twitching around over there?”

“It feels weird,” she said, not bothering to hide her annoyance.

“So you don’t make a habit of going commando, then?”

“No, I don’t. When you get back, turn the lights on and find my thong, okay? I don’t want Hailey and Rob coming back and finding it under a chair or something. I don’t even want to imagine Hailey trying to return them at work one day.” She shuddered.

“She wouldn’t know they were yours. Unless you write your name in your panties or something?”

Sean didn’t have to look to know that she was rolling her eyes at him. She seemed to like dismissing him like that.

“No. I imagine having you stay at their house means they’re fully expecting to have to go through it and remove discarded women’s underwear in every room before they unpack.”

Ouch. That one was designed to wound. And it did. Sean wasn’t sure why—it wasn’t too far from the truth. Hailey had been clear that if—when—Sean brought female company home while he was staying, he was only to use the spare bedroom he’d been assigned. Rob had later said that all Hailey was concerned about was Sean having sex in their bed and Sean hadn’t found it hard to promise that he wouldn’t do that. And he’d once again marveled at his brother’s ability to settle down with one woman for the rest of his life.

“Yeah, there’s bound to be piles of the stuff,” he said agreeably. It was pure instinct to respond to a hurtful barb with a quip.

Jess didn’t come back with the expected rejoinder. Instead she stiffened in her seat.

Sean pulled up to a stop at a red light and turned to look at her. Her mouth was a thin line.

“I was joking,” he said, beginning to feel annoyed. She was just like his family—just like everyone else—expecting the worst from him.

She folded her hands primly in her lap, facing forward. “Of course. The light’s green,” she added.

Sean took off. They were only moments from Jess’s home, according to her directions. If the traffic was bad, it could take up to twenty to thirty minutes to get there from Rob and Hailey’s. But at this time of night, it was going to be little more than ten. Probably for the best.

Two blocks later, he pulled up in front of a series of modern town houses, and Jess directed him down the driveway to the third one back from the street—perhaps anticipating that he wasn’t going to settle for anything less than seeing her right to her door.

“Here’s fine,” she said, her fingers already playing with the door handle.

“Jess, wait.”

She paused for a moment and turned her head to face him.

Sean cut the engine, noting the flare in her eyes as he did so. His annoyance faded. What was she so scared of?

“Don’t worry, I’m not coming in. I just didn’t want to disturb the neighbors.” Sean found Dezzie’s low rumble comforting, but he knew not everyone shared his fondness for the powerful engine, especially not in the dead of night.

“Oh, that’s...nice. Okay, well, thank—”

“Jess?” He cut her off. Sean had always been fascinated by human behavior and psychology. It was, according to his agent and publisher and various reviewers over the years, what made his books stand out from the rest. Yes, he might write about vampires and demons and all kinds of strange and wonderful creatures, but what made his books different was...the word they used was relatable. Although the world of Sebastian Douglas, Demon Warrior was make-believe, Sebastian, his assistant, Robert—a shout-out to his brother—and the people they encountered on their adventures were real. Well, as real as Sean could make them. And the situations they faced, although perhaps not everyday in reality, echoed some of the most common themes of life: hope, duty, loss, friendship, loyalty.

It was one of the qualities that made Sean so good at reading other people.

He wondered if Elvire, the vampire queen who not-so-secretly lusted after Sebastian, would behave the way Jess was right now, if Sean ever let Sebastian and Elvire do the deed. It was something his fans were very keen on—they were very fussy about who Sebastian was paired with and nothing provoked a storm of fan correspondence than a new love interest for his unexpectedly sex-symbol-status hero. Especially since double-agent Elvire had been hanging around since book two, waiting in the background for Sebastian to notice her. And not stake her. Well, not in that way, anyway.

“Hmm?” Jess said, feigning politeness. Sean could see her fingers already clutched around the door handle.

What did he want to say? As a writer, words were supposed to be his forte. Right now he was the superhero whose mortal enemy had flung his trusty weapon from his hands.

“Just...thanks,” he ended up saying lamely.

Her mouth curved almost imperceptibly in the echo of a smile. “Ditto.”

Then she was gone. The door creaked before she banged it shut—must get that fixed—and then in a flash of red from the exterior light hitting her dress, she was inside and hidden from sight.

A strange emptiness followed him home. And while Rob and Hailey’s place had always felt welcoming to him, as he reentered it he couldn’t shake a feeling of displacement.

Calling Suzie inside and pouring himself a glass of wine, Sean grabbed his laptop and threw himself on the sofa that just minutes before had held so much promise for the night ahead. It still smelled of her, of their lovemaking. Only now the body curled up beside his was furry, slightly stinky and already snoring. He opened his laptop. It was time to ramp up the sexual tension between Sebastian and Elvire. The fans were gonna love it—even if he was only teasing them. Happy endings didn’t exist in Sean’s world—not in fiction or in reality.

* * *

SEAN WOKE UP—still on the sofa—with a headache and dry mouth. He’d taken to the red wine a little too enthusiastically after driving Jess home. He’d also written an entire chapter—although he couldn’t help wondering how much of it he would end up keeping. His inebriated writing was often pure drivel, but occasionally it contained a nugget of pure gold—a gift from Bacchus.

Hmm, Bacchus. Sean let his scrambled morning thoughts meander. The god could be an awesome villain, causing havoc by making everyone party orgiastically until they died of exhaustion. Just the kind of enemy to pit against Sebastian. And it could tie in the story line between Sebastian and Elvire that he’d started to write last night, a reason for them to—

An annoying noise—the sound that had woken him—interrupted his train of thought, and it was a moment before he identified it as the phone. Rob and Hailey’s landline, not his mobile.

Whoever was calling was keen to get an answer. The answering machine kicked in but the caller hung up. Then as soon as the answering machine disconnected, the phone started ringing again.

“Yeah?” Sean managed to stumble from the sofa to the phone, but a polite “hello” was beyond him.

“Man! Where have you been? I’ve been calling your mobile for the past hour!” Rob’s voice was equal parts annoyed and frantic.

Sean’s phone was on silent. He’d changed the setting when he’d entered the house with Jess, because he hadn’t wanted to be disturbed. That was too much to explain, though. “What’s up?”

Rob swore. “Stupid Lucy. She’s pulled out.”

“Huh?” Lucy?

“The house sitter—Hailey’s cousin. She’s a university student and she’s met some guy who lives on the opposite side of town so she’s decided she doesn’t want to look after the house and Suzie anymore.”

“Oh.”

“Our flight leaves in a couple of hours.”

Sean scratched his stubbled jaw. He now deeply regretted the impulse to finish the bottle of red. If only he’d left it at one or two glasses. But the way things had ended with Jess had left him with a weirdly unsettled feeling—as if he’d somehow done something wrong. He hadn’t wanted to think too much about that, and diving deep into the cabernet sauvignon pool had seemed like a good idea at the time.

“That sucks,” Sean said, trying to sound sincere. His thoughts hustled to catch up.

“So we need your help.”

Ah. Right. There was the reason he needed his brain right now.

“Can you stay a couple more days?” Rob asked. “Just long enough to organize a kennel for Suzie? If you need help, Hailey’s boss, Jess, could probably give you some advice—there’s a fridge magnet in the kitchen with her clinic details. We thought about asking her to take Suzie, but it’s a big imposition for six weeks. Lucy has agreed she’ll come and collect the mail once a week, and that should be enough—”

Rob broke off as a muffled voice spoke in the background—Hailey. Sean couldn’t make out what she was saying.

“Yes, yes,” Rob said, annoyance strong in his voice. He then clearly passed on what it was Hailey had said. “And don’t forget to take the garbage out when you leave, because otherwise it will sit there.”

It prickled that his brother—his younger brother—didn’t trust him enough to know to take the garbage out. It prickled even more that they hadn’t even thought to ask if he would step in and look after the house for them. It was just assumed that he wouldn’t accept the responsibility.

Just like Jess with her quip about the women’s underwear—Sean hated that people always expected the worst from him.

Especially his family.

Just because he loved words and pictures more than numbers, his family of accountants figured he wasn’t capable of any kind of logic.

Story of his life.

“I was planning to be in Sydney for a meeting I have on Monday,” Sean began.

“I know.” Rob sighed, a heavy, put-upon sound. “Okay, well maybe we’ll just have to ask Jess to pick up Suzie and organize the kennel.”

Hailey’s voice was shrill in the background. Sean was sure he heard the words told you so in there somewhere.

“Listen, mate,” Sean said, raising his voice, his hurt transforming into irritation. He might prefer a more freewheeling life than his tradition-following brother, but that didn’t mean he was incapable of being responsible when the occasion called for it.

“Would you just shut up for a second and let me talk? I was going to say, I have a meeting in Sydney but I can arrange to do it by teleconference. Why don’t you just leave it all with me? I’ll stay here and take care of things for you. I have to be back in Melbourne in two weeks for a convention anyway.”

There was a moment of silence.

Did his brother really mistrust him that much?

Sean jumped in, quick to give Rob the out he so clearly needed. “If you don’t think I can do it, that’s fine....”

“Dude, it’s not that at all.” There was a pause as Rob seemed to choose his words. “I didn’t want to ask, because I know it’s not your scene. But if you were up for it, I’d be grateful. We both would.”

Sean doubted that Hailey would be all that thrilled with Sean’s presence in the house for more than the couple of nights he’d originally been allocated, but he was prepared to take his brother at his word.

“Then just forget about it all. Get your things together and head out to the airport. It’s all cool.”

“Yeah? Seriously? Are you sure?”

“Seriously. Just go...have fun. I’ll work things out. If there are any problems, I’ll call.”

“Just a sec.” There was the muffled sound of a hand covering the phone and an indecipherable conversation. Sean just bet it was Rob convincing Hailey to go along with the plan. Then Rob returned to the call. “Thanks, mate. I owe you one. First the wedding and now this. I owe you big-time.”

“Yeah, yeah. Name your firstborn after me.”

Rob laughed. “Sure. I’ll get started on that right away.”

Sean heard Hailey’s voice in the background, asking what they were talking about.

“You’ll be waiting awhile,” he heard her yell out after Rob explained the request.

Sean smiled to himself at her vehemence. “I bloody hope so,” he said to Rob.

“We’ll need to discuss this further. It could get awkward if it’s a girl.”

“There’s always Shauna.”