Suzanne Wright - From Rags

“Alright, what if…What if we both agree that while we’re…”

Amused at his struggle to describe their lack-of-a relationship, she supplied, “While I’m your replacement shag doll?”

Connor did a double take. She had to know he’d never think so little of her. “While we’re having casual sex -”

“Oh very primly put.”

“- we don’t see other people?” He knew he sounded over-possessive and unable to control his jealous streak, but it wasn’t just about that. The idea of another bloke touching her made him feel sick. As he’d waited in her apartment after the charity event and the hours had ticked by with no sign of her, he’d known she was busy with her ponce. He had kept feeling more and more nauseous until he honestly believed he’d spew up. Now that he had been inside her and felt her come apart around him, the idea of another bloke touching her was even worse.

Jaxxon hadn’t expected him to say that. Not now. Not ever. It was a commitment – teensy, sure, but still one of sorts. It was a commitment that a woman wasn’t even guaranteed to get in an actual relationship. Not that Jaxxon thought he suddenly cared for her or anything. She was just surprised that he was willing to go to that length not to have to share her.

He gripped her by the nape of her neck and tugged her to him. “You won’t have time for anyone else anyway, not if I’m going to do all the things to your body I’ve got in mind.”

Jaxxon de-tensed as he massaged her shoulders. “Alright,” she agreed with a small nod. He seemed relieved. There would never have been a different answer from her, she hadn’t thought of anyone else since she heard his voice on her machine. “Got to go.”

As much as he wanted to haul her arse into his shower for that shag he had planned, he didn’t try to convince her to stay longer; he suspected he’d already pushed her by asking her to agree to things being exclusive. The simple contact of his lips against hers had his senses hyper. “If you give me a few minutes, I can drive you.” Any other time he’d have insisted on it, but again he was conscious of pushing her.

“Thanks but I’ll be alright.” Jaxxon needed to physically demonstrate to him that her small concession didn’t make her another of his rats following the Pied Piper. He needed to have the memory in his head of her casually breezing out of his apartment, indifferent about leaving him behind. She couldn’t afford for him to see that she did care for him. Predators and weaknesses…Disastrous mix.

Awkward – that about described the situation. Jaxxon supposed this was what it was like to have a father sit his teenage daughter down for a ‘talk’. Only in this case it was three blokes. And they were all self-appointed honourary uncles. And she was twenty-two years old.

Tony, the bugger, had ushered her away from his dining table the second she had polished off the Roast Dinner a la Lily and had urged her into a lounge where Ollie and Richie were waiting. Tony had gestured for her to take a seat and now the three men were stood looking down on her with expressions that said they were anxious.

Ollie slapped today’s newspaper onto the coffee table in front of her. “Well aren’t you going to flick through it?”

Instead, she mirrored their posture; arms folded, face twisted in a grimace. She didn’t need to look at the paper. Anna had raced over to Jaxxon’s apartment at a very unreasonable hour of the morning to share all the details about her time with Warren – who she was now dating – and then she had produced the newspaper. There were three photos of her and Connor outside the bar; one of her giving him a wedgie while he was carrying her caveman-style, one of her running from him after she’d played a little with his car, and then one of him holding her close with her legs around his waist while they laughed.

The tabloids, predictably, had blown it out of proportion – suddenly her and Connor were infatuated with one another and in a serious relationship: Connor McKenzie so besotted that his primal instincts have kicked in and, for the first time ever, he is territorial over a woman; and hard-arse Jaxxon Carter is melting under his sensual nature and his utter determination to have her. She could only imagine what Connor must be thinking of all this. The more she thought about it, the more she became convinced that he would want to get out of this now just to set the world straight.

“Will you leave the poor girl alone,” griped Lily, her face a mask of frustration, as she barged into the room. Her short sandy-blonde hair bounced with her harsh footsteps.

Ollie began, “I’d heard the rumours about you and McKenzie, but I didn’t think much of them until I saw these photos. Then Tony tells me McKenzie was waiting for you at the end of your photo-shoot on Wednesday like some sort of weirdo.”

Jaxxon snickered. “He wouldn’t have known where to wait if your secretary had any sense of discretion. A few flowery words and he had my phone number, address and schedule.”

Shocked, Ollie was about to curse loudly but then narrowed his eyes at Jaxxon. “Don’t you change the subject. We’re talking about you and McKenzie.”

“I already know what goes where and that babies aren’t made in a factory so we really don’t need to have ‘the birds and the bees’ chat.”

“I want to know exactly what’s going on with you two.”

She shrugged. “I’m using him for sex.” She heard Lily chuckle.

“Going by the loved-up expressions on that last photo, the tabloids have a different theory.”

“And like most stuff in the tabloids, it can be filed under ‘fiction’, or ‘complete shite’.”

Richie smiled gently. “We just want to be sure that you know what you’ve got yourself into. Connor McKenzie might be handsome and successful but he’s also -”

“A good shag,” she finished. “That’s all I need to know. And anyway, you and Ollie have spent the past how many months jabbering on at me to get in some kind of high profile relationship, and now that the tabloids think I’m in one, you’re fuming?”

Ollie waved his hand dismissively. “McKenzie isn’t like Bruno or that footballer. He isn’t some brave yet ever so foolish soul who’ll be intimidated by you and do as he’s told. He’s a law onto himself. I don’t like that this bloke who’s never chased after a woman has been on your case. He even carted you out of a bar over his shoulder.”

“Is this about you not liking him?”

Sighing, Ollie shook his head. The way she had looked smitten with the bloke had spooked him. He needed her to understand what was to come. “The reason the tabloids are all over this is because you’re both liked by the public for being people who don’t live to please others. You’re entertaining because when you’re angry you show it, when you’ve got something to say you say it, if you don’t want to smile for the cameras you won’t. You’re not interested in putting up an act for everyone, you’re real. And now you’re together – or so the public believes – embarking on an exciting, spontaneous, no-holds-barred relationship: something most people dream of having themselves.”

“I know I do,” grumbled Lily for which she received a frown from Tony.

“Throw in the fact that most blokes would happily be Connor McKenzie and most females would happily be you, and you’ve got a very nice following of fans,” said Richie.

“They will follow your relationship like it’s all a soap opera,” continued Ollie. “That means that when it ends, it’ll end with the world watching. And believe me, luv, it will happen, and it’ll be nasty. You won’t get a happy ending from him, just ask his past lovers.”

Tony held his hands up in a helpless gesture. “We don’t want you to be one of the multitude of girls who have fallen for him only to end up broken.”

Ollie nodded. “You won’t get to keep your pain private, no, because the world will be watching.”

“You’ve said that already,” said Jaxxon in a bored tone. “And for the record, I know that he doesn’t do committed relationships. Do you know why that’s okay? Because I’m not looking for that. So you can simmer down and breathe, Caption Cautious.”

But Ollie couldn’t simmer down at all. He didn’t want to see this girl who he instinctively knew had already been through enough to have to go through what was inevitable if she didn’t end things with McKenzie now. He wiped his face with one hand. “Why couldn’t you have just picked a nice, well-mannered lad like Bruno?”

Jaxxon leant forward in her seat. “Do you want to know what nice, well-mannered Bruno said to me when he was plastered at the charity event? He said that I was even more gorgeous than his dick, and that if I was hungry I could always put my mouth around it.”

Everyone but Ollie burst out laughing. “W-well,” stammered Ollie, “like you said, he was plastered.” He wasn’t going to get through to her, he could see that. At least they had the tour coming up soon. That would get her away from McKenzie for a while. Maybe she would see things more clearly with him far away, or maybe McKenzie would meet someone else while she was gone and this could be over before it got any worse.

Jaxxon stretched. “Well, as fun as this has been, I must go.” She stood and joined her hands as if in prayer. “I promise to file away all your advice, Papa Wolves.”

As she drove back to her apartment, she tried not to think on that advice. Tried really hard. But Ollie had got her thinking. She’d known that she could never come out of all this emotionally unscathed. But she hadn’t given much thought until now into how she would be put under a microscope having every expression scrutinised and dissected. She wouldn’t be allowed to wallow and heal in peace. The public would know the full extent of her pain. And, therefore, so would Connor. That was something she really hadn’t banked on.