Page 66 of Cabin Fever
“Other than me prostrating myself and begging forgiveness?”
She cracks a small smile, and my heart leaps with hope.
“Other than that.”
I pause for a moment because I know my next words will make or break our future. Together or apart, what I say matters, and when I say it is crucial. It was a painful lesson to learn, but I’m determined not to fuck it up again. I don’t want to hurt this woman because she means everything to me, and I fix her with my piercing blue gaze.
“Now, we talk.”
17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – CONFESSIONS
Talon
The table between us is silent. My heart’s in my throat as I gaze at the gorgeous girl before me because what is she going to say? I’ve stated my desire to talk, but I’m not sure Kat’s onboard. She looks wary, her plush pout pulled into a line, fingers wrapped tight around her mug as if she’s afraid it’ll get up and leave. Her posture says she’s ready to bolt, but her eyes keep pinning me, waiting for the confession I promised.
My hands are sweating. I try to hide it by tearing open a sugar packet and dumping the grains into my Americano, but I doubt she’s fooled. The whole room smells of burned beans and bookstore dust and something tense, like old paper about to catch fire.
I clear my throat, stall, trying to summon my courage. “You want the truth. Not the teaser, not the back-cover blurb. The unabridged version.”
Kat gives a single nod, eyes never leaving my face.
I drum my fingers on the table, look at the surface of the coffee, the oily sheen swirling like a black hole. “You know how in my books, there’s always a twist? That’s not just a device, it’s a disease. I’ve been doing this—setting up traps, second-guessing everyone, myself most of all—for years. It’s the only way I know how to get close to people.”
The blonde goddess lifts the cup, sips. “Okay, but get to the point, please. It sounds like you’re stalling.”
Fuck. Of course Kat’s ten times smarter than any woman I’ve ever met, and she knows all of my games already. “Yeah. I am.” I put the cup down, force myself to look her dead in the eye. “I’ve been an author for a while now, and it hasn’t been smooth. The creative process can be torturous, and the first time I had writer’s block, I lost it. I was holed up in my cabin, drunk off my ass and six months behind on my deadline. Jonah—my agent, you know this—he said, ‘Why not rent some female company? Would that help you?’ He gave me a card for Sweet Lies and told me he knew a number of men who’d used the service. ‘Keep your head clear, stay focused, blow off steam safely,’ he said. ‘Let’s see if it helps.’ It sounded smart.”
Kat’s jaw flexes, and she leans in just slightly. “So you ordered me the same way you’d order pizza. Research with benefits.”
I wince. “It started that way. Yeah.”
She laughs, but it’s brittle as glass. “Started that way?”
I nod, and it feels like I’m peeling my own skin off. “I never had any intention of writing romance novels. Not from the start. But Jonah came up with the idea of hiring a personal assistant for my alleged genre change in order to entice higher caliber women. I’m not sure if it was even needed, to be honest, becauseSweet Lies is a business and the girls know what they’re getting into. But my agent said it’d attract a sweeter type of woman, and I’d had some ladies the were rough around the edges in the past. So I went along with it. I told Sweet Lies to send a woman who had romance on her mind, and who was interested in exploring creative processes. She’d show up, share her curves, and get paid for her trouble while helping me research my alleged new book.”
Kat’s so still that for a second I think she’s stopped breathing.
I force myself to go on. “It was supposed to be easy. Clinical, almost. After all, I’ve done it a dozen times now—different girls, different seasons, always under a fake name. Never felt anything more than a quick jolt. They’d stay a week or two, and then I’d send some money to the agency and never think about them again.”
Kat’s lips twist, like she’s swallowing a fistful of glass. “How many, Talon?”
The sound of my name in her mouth makes every hair on my arm stand up. I shake my head, embarrassed as hell. “I don’t know. More than ten, less than twenty? Some stayed a weekend, some lasted a month. Never anyone twice. Until you.”
The curvy girl leans back in her chair, arms crossing tight, blonde hair spilling over her shoulders. “So it’s a pipeline. Cabin. Girl. Hot sex. Writing. Then send her home. Like an assembly line.”
I rub the bridge of my nose, wishing I could hide somewhere, anywhere. “That’s how it worked, yeah. But with you?—”
She cuts me off, voice sharp as a razor. “Don’t. Don’t try to tell me it was different. I don’t need the marketing copy.”
I should stop, but the need to confess is like an abscess; it hurts less when it’s out. “Okay. But you deserve the whole truth, Kat, even if it’s painful to hear because it gets worse. Sometimes, when I was really blocked, Jonah would send two girls at once. We’d see how much chaos it took to snap me out of my rut. There were threesomes, whole weekends of debauchery, my semen all over the furniture. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it just made me hate myself more because I didn’t give a shit about all that tits and ass. But I never wrote a womanintoa story before. Not even a cameo.”
The blonde goddess closes her eyes, slow and deliberate. Her big bust rises, falls. “So everything in the book—the roleplays, the scenes, the dialogue—it’s all from your greatest hits with other girls?”
“No,” I say, too fast. “Not at all. None of it is from other women. It’s all about you, Kitten. You showed up and my M.O. got derailed. You’re the only one who ever called me on my shit. The only one who ever made me feel like a man, not just a tourist in my own life.”
There’s a long, deep silence.
