Page 19 of The Intimacy of Control

“Is what it?”

“No…” He waved his hand around. “No flirting? No asking me out on a date again?”

“Oh.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “Uh, do you want me to? I thought maybe you’d want at least one day off from it. Don’t want to annoy you too much.”

Scratching the back of his neck, Jack rolled his bottom lip into his mouth. He wouldn’t look at me, either. I wondered why. “Yes. No. Hold on.” He shook his head with a sigh. “It’s just different. I thought maybe I’d offended you somehow.”

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the counter. “I can definitely flirt with you, Jack. It wouldn’t be hard to do.”

“Do you flirt with every customer you meet?”

I raised an eyebrow, throwing the question back to him. “Do you sleep with every customer you meet?”

That had him pausing, looking straight into my eyes. I liked it. I never wanted him to look away. “No.”

“Hm.” I stood up. “That’s my answer, too. Interesting how that works, isn’t it? When you find a piece of magic you want to keep. A light you can’t look away from.”

“A light?” He kept looking between my eyes, almost like he was searching for a lie.

Why would I lie? “Sure. I think you have a lot more sunshine in you than you care to show off. At least, you did when you were beneath me in my bed.”

“Jesus, Forrest.”

“No, this is what you’re asking about, isn’t it? You want to know if I still think of you like that. I do. I’m still determined. I still want you. I just don’t want to chase you so hard that you start to run away.”

I watched him swallow. It almost looked painful. His chest rose and fell quicker than it had before, and for a moment, I wondered what he’d look like with my hand wrapped around his throat. Would he whimper for me? Maybe he’d pant my name, even as I placed my palm over his nose and mouth. Fuck, I wanted to find out.

He didn’t say anything, so I did. “Are you going to run away, baby?”

It took him a minute, his eyes slowly getting wider and wider by the second, but he finally said something. “I’ll see you later, Mr. Castillo.”

And then he promptly turned around and walked out of my store.

Oh, yes. He would definitely be seeing me later.

chapter eight

I was having a very horrible day. I hadn’t slept more than three hours over the course of three days. I kept dropping shit. I’d burned my toast this morning. And the second piece I’d tried to make after. My water had suddenly been shut off because of a water main leak, meaning I couldn’t even shower at the house this morning. It was awkward as hell to run into Driftwood with a change of clothes, a towel, and basically my entire bathroom with me.

Mav had been here because of course he was. Apparently, his five nieces and nephews had been causing absolute chaos, and his sister, brother-in-law, and mom had all been getting into it again. At least I wasn’t the only one losing sleep. I was glad he had the room he could crash in, though.

Thank God I had a full bathroom close to my office. I was able to shower in peace, but then my hair didn’t want to work right. There were pieces sticking up every which way and I didn’t want that, but they’d decided not to listen to me. Oh, and my mustache was being equally as fucking difficult.

No control. I’d had no fucking control over anything that’d been happening, and I was fucking pissed about it. At this point, the nightmares weren’t what kept me up. I just couldn’t fall asleep. I’d lie awake at night, all fucking night, unable to fall asleep no matter how long I’d kept my eyes closed. No matter how much warm milk I’d drunk. No matter how deep I stuck earplugs in my ears, or how loud the white noise was, or how long I’d worked out before bed to try to get my body exhausted enough to sleep.

I’d read the book I’d bought at Pride and Pages twice and even started going through the author’s other books online. I was fucking reading. I didn’t read. But I was desperate to fall the fuck asleep, and I couldn’t. When I finally would, I’d startle awake, gasping for air over and over again while the water filled my lungs and I flailed my arms, and I tried to scream for my friends, begging them to help me out, but they didn’t.

They never did.

I’d drown. Over. And over. And over again.

No control. I needed control.

Growling at myself in the mirror, I splashed more water on my face and grabbed the shaving cream. After putting an unnecessary amount on my hand, I slathered it over my jaw and upper lip. If my facial hair didn’t want to cooperate, I’d just shave it the fuck off.

That I could control. I could decide. I had half a mind to shave my entire head, honestly. I didn’t, but I did shave off my mustache and what little beard I had. The mustache didn’t even look that good on me, so I guessed I was doing myself a favor anyway.

Once I looked and felt slightly more human, I grabbed a trash bag from the janitor’s closet and put my dirty clothes into it. I’d have to store everything in my office until I could bring them back home later. But then, on my way down the hallway to my office, the damnedest thing happened. The fucking bag ripped. Tore straight at the bottom, and all my clothes fell right onto the ground.