Not Another Player

16.Wake Up Call

Here I Go Again // Whitesnake

My eyes open seconds after I register the tapping sound as a knock on the door, rapidly increasing in volume.

"Jacob, are you in there? Is Char with you? Open up." Zack's voice on the other side of the door sounds exasperated.

Yeah, man. Same. I'm not thrilled about the interruption.

"It's locked?" Char asks, voice still laced with sleep. The sound of it makes me want to pull her closer and snuggle in. We're tangled together in the most relaxing way. I could seriously spend all of my time with her like this.

"Well, yeah." I kiss her cheek. "Privacy."

She scoffs. "We didn't need privacy. Didn't even come close to using it."

I eye her, brow raised in suggestion. The interpretation is up to her. "We came closer than you think."

She pushes me from her, but there's no force in the action. She doesn't really want me gone.

"Anyway," she says, dragging out the word. "We can't hide from the world forever. Let Zack in."

"Speak for yourself. I could hide all day." Especially with her, like this.

"I need to get back to work." Char sits up and pushes my leg off her. The covers are still in a heap on the floor, so I ended up being her blanket.

"I need more of this view." I watch her ass sway unabashedly as she walks to the door.

Char's looks back at me over her shoulder, sultry and hot as fuck. "Shut it, party boy."

I wink. Can't help myself. The tide has turned between us. I feel it. Char's never been so unguarded with me. I love it. I need more.

Char pulls the door open to a frazzled looking Zack. He glances past her to where I'm still lying on the bed, sheets and blankets in a pile on the floor. I'm sure it looks like we had a wild time in the sack. I smirk, not caring what Zack thinks. In fact... I throw my arms behind my head, the picture of casual satisfaction just for the fun of it.

"A little sense of urgency would be nice. We've got a situation."

I sit up. "Something else happened?" What could be worse than the asshat showing up the way he did?

"No, same thing. We had issues removing the offending party, but Clinton took care of it."

"How?" I'm out of the bed and walking toward the doorway making the needed adjustments to my disheveled clothing. I'm not even hiding the fact that both Char and I did in fact have all our clothes on when she opened the door. Kind of wrecks the hot sex impression I was going for.

"Clinton has his ways." Zack has a look in his eye I've only seen once before, and I can't put my finger on when that was.

"He pound Curt or what?"

Zack gives a slow shake of his head. "Not Clinton's style. He's fully hands off." His words tell me the whole thing was non-violent, but the look in his eye says something else. Not going to lie, I have no idea what he means.

"Oh-kay. So, what's the deal if he took care of it?"

"We need to get on the road before Curt finds a way to tag along. Like, right now. He's got some of the roadies in his back pocket. I wanted to fire all of them, but Bree feels bad so she wouldn't let me."

"You have that kind of power?" I ask, awestruck.

Both he and Char answer at the same time. "Yes."

"Damn, cowboy. You're moving up in the world." I nod approvingly.