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  One Long Kiss

  Affair Without End Series

  ~Book 3~

  Susan Ward

  Copyright © 2015 Susan Ward

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1511412964

  ISBN-10: 1511412968

  “I knew it the first time I laid eyes on him. Some men have that power. They instantly ignite something feral in you, whether you want it or not, and the sexual electricity is always there, in every room and every moment, from the first time you see them. An inescapable web, swirling around you until you surrender. And at that point, they devour you.”~~Linda Cray.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental

  Prologue

  June 1981

  Jack comes through the bedroom door, his eyes fix on me, and then he freezes. When he notices my packed bag his gaze sharpens.

  I can’t look at him. “I didn’t tell you everything last night, Jack. You were so happy. I couldn’t do it. I figured why not wait until morning? Why ruin our night?”

  He stares at me as if unable to comprehend what he’s seeing or my words.

  “The job I got isn’t in Los Angeles,” I say abruptly. “The job I got with Sandy Harris is an eight-week tour in the UK as a road manager’s assistant for some band Craig Entertainment Management just signed. Blackpoll. I leave Friday.”

  His eyes are rapidly moving back and forth, searching my face. “You’re leaving Friday? What are you trying to tell me, Linda? I thought we’d decided. You’d do the last leg of my tour with me, and then we’d figure out how to make us work better. You want to put us on opposite sides of the planet when you don’t have to so you can take some roadie job you don’t need. Why the fuck would you do that? Take a job and leave Friday?”

  Roadie job? Now I’m pissed. “When you get it wrong, Jack, you get it wrong. You don’t understand anything. I need the job. I need the fucking money. I’ll make enough money to make it through my year abroad.” I’m so angry now tears are pouring out of my eyes. “You pretend we’re equals, but we’re not. We’re worlds apart, Jack. Not just socially, but economically. You have everything and I have shit. And I chase after you, fighting to keep up with you, desperate to be who you need me to be, and I love it and I love you, but it’s not fucking easy. Not by a long shot! Sometimes when I come to see you during the tour breaks the only thing I’ve got is enough money to get there and back. Shit, the black sundress I wore here isn’t even my own. It’s Jeanette’s. Fuck, I don’t even have enough money today to get my car out of the Hyatt parking lot. You need to focus on your life. Your daughter. Walter. And I sure as hell need to work on my life.”

  “I’ve offered to help you financially. I want to share everything I have with you. You’re the one who has been too stubborn to take it. You never let me help you. You refuse everything I try to give you.”

  Now both my heart and my pride are bruised. “I don’t want you to take care of me. I want to be able to take care of myself. Why can’t you understand this? I’d rather die than end up like Doris.”

  He closes the space between us, and everything about his posture, the way he reaches out to me, tells me he’s trying to calm me. “What is it you want? I can’t understand unless you explain it.”

  “Explain what? The obvious?”

  Jack’s gaze turns glittery. “That’s not helping. Attacking me won’t help.”

  I brush at my tears with angry swipes of my hands. “I was hoping you’d understand.”

  “You just told me you were ending us, Linda. How do you expect me to react?”

  Through gritted teeth, I say, “I’m not ending us. I’m taking a job. I’m going to school. I’m taking care of me.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “I never had you,” I say in welling aggravation.

  His eyes grow intense as they fix on me. The rapidly rising emotions are too numerous to count. “You have me if you want me.”

  I stare. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “If you want me, I’m yours. And I’m sorry I flew off the handle, but when a man wants to spend the rest of his life with a woman he wants to start it the day he decides it. You’ve made me wait eight months.” His voice breaks off. It looks like he’s trying to forcibly pull himself into calm order. “I’ve never thought of what we have as an affair. You are the woman in my life. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  The rest of his life? What is he saying? He takes something from a small suitcase. Oh my…he has a ring box. I’m the one who has read everything wrong. All these months Jack has been preparing to start us, completely and always. When he arrived in West Hollywood, he had already decided to ask me…

  “Marry me, Linda.”

  He says it simply, quietly, and every emotion inside me collides in a torrent before lodging in my throat. I feel dizzy, disoriented and weak. I sink onto the sofa. My wide eyes fix on his.

  “It’s all planned, you know,” he begins quietly. “I didn’t want you out on the road with me as anything less than my wife. I know how sensitive you are, Linda, underneath that tough girl front you have that doesn’t really fool anyone. I wanted to surprise you.” His laughter is gravelly, low in his chest, something other than of humor. “The plane at eleven isn’t going to Australia with the rest of the tour. It goes to Lake Tahoe so we can get married without waiting another day. We can collect Doris in thirty minutes. I thought we might get married today.”

  I stare. It’s nearly impossible to breath. How am I going to manage to talk? And how the heck am I going to manage the right words?

  “I can’t marry you, Jack. The last four days have made that clear to me. I am not who I want to be, who I need to be for you. Or even myself. If I marry you today I never will be and I will ruin us.”

  Jack stares. I try to read his expression and I can’t. We are suddenly farther apart than we have ever been. And I don’t want that, and I hate knowing I brought us here.

  He sinks down on a chair across the room from me. A neutral distance. Purposely, I think. “God, you’re the most complicated woman I’ve ever known. The most remarkable. And the most aggravating.” He rakes a hand agitatedly through his golden waves. “How could marrying me possible ruin us?”

  “I have nothing, Jack. No life of my own. Not really. Not yet. I’m just starting to figure out who I am. Who I want to be. And if I marry you now I’ll just get sucked up into your life and I’ll be completely dependent upon you. I’ve seen what that does to a woman. It makes her needy and bitter and desperate. And then one day she wakes up alone, because she’s driven the man in her life away, and she has nothing except now she’s old. It’s not a pretty thing, Jack. I don’t want that. You shouldn’t want that for me.”

  “Has it ever occurred to you marrying me might just make us happy?” he asks, his tone inflectionless.

  I can’t meet his gaze any longer. I stare out the window. “For a while. Sure. Anything is possible. But what happens later? When I need you too much and you need me not at all.”

  I feel his gaze sharpen and grow heavy in its hold on me. “I will always need you because I love you.”

  I shift my eyes to meet his again. “Or perhaps you love me because you need me.”

  He lets out an angry shudder. “I hate this habit you have of taking a full glass and smashing it so it’s empty. I’m not Brian Cray. You are not Doris. Maybe we’re just going to be happy.”

  “I love you, Jack. I always will.”

  I bite down hard on my lower lip, trying to keep from saying the words fighting to be spoken. Wrong words. Words t
o please him. Words to make me less afraid, because it’s not going to be easy to walk away from Jack this time. Not that it was easy last time, I amend silently in my head. But this time we are not two strangers who fell in love. We are two people who love completely and with eyes wide open.

  I stare down at my hands. “It’s not forever, Jack. It’s an eight-week tour and a one-year graduate program in the UK. I think it’s a good time to give us a rest. You can work out your issues with Walter and I can do some of the things I need to do.”

  “I’m an all-in kind of guy, Linda.”

  “And I’m all in whether we are together all the time or not. You should know that, Jack.”

  “So your answer is no?” It hits me like a slap how calmly he says that, the lack of inflection in his voice.

  “I’m not who I want to be yet. And I can’t be with you until I am. It’s better for us both if we don’t try that. I’m not saying never. I’m just saying not today.”

  “Then do what you have to do, Linda. And we’ll see where it leaves us.”

  My insides go cold. What does that mean? The silence in the room is so heavy it hurts. The sudden separateness between us a torture.

  “I need to do this, Jack.”

  “Then do what you need to do, Linda.”

  I don’t like that he’s repeating things. “Jack…”

  He crosses the room. He cups my chin with his palm and his fingers lightly caress my cheeks. “Go quickly, Linda. Don’t drag this out. Get out of this room quickly.”

  His lips touch mine. A gentle parting kiss. His eyes lock on me as his face lifts. A lump rises in my throat. How can he look at me this way after I’ve told him I’m walking away? I fight to keep the tears from rising.

  “I don’t want us to end,” I whisper. “That’s not why I’m leaving. It’s not you. It’s not us. The time isn’t right for us. I can’t be who I want to be with you. It’s about me, Jack.”

  Jack’s smile is winsome and tender. It makes my heart ache even more.

  “I know, baby. Go do what you have to do. I hope you get everything you need. And I definitely hope when you do, you’ll finally be able to really see me.”

  One

  Two months later

  The thundering applause makes the dark, narrow corridor vibrate as I push through the crowd, gesturing the guys ahead of me into the tiny closet that the promoter considered a reasonable dressing room.

  I motion like a cop directing traffic. “In! In! Hurry up,” I exclaim. With economical moves I hold back the girls rushing the band and forcibly shove the guys ahead of me into the room.

  I silently count in my head. One pecker, two pecker, three pecker, four…oh crap, I’m one pecker short. I anxiously search the overfilled hallway. Nope, I can’t see him, and it’s not like he’s someone you can miss. How the hell did he disappear so quickly this time?

  Fuck, this tour has been shit.

  I slam the door behind me and take a steadying breath. I’m sweaty, tired, frustrated…definitely underpaid since no amount of money could compensate for a job involving Alan Manzone…and ready to be done with this. Eight weeks on the road with Blackpoll. Complete shit. I left Jack to join a deranged, virtually unknown hard rock band on a tour from hell through the UK. I need my head examined.

  No, Linda, no. You left Jack because it was the right thing for the both of you. He needs to focus on the custody battle over his daughter. You need to build your own life. You didn’t leave Jack for this. You didn’t leave Jack at all. Working as Blackpoll’s assistant road manager is only temporary. In two weeks, graduate school starts and this nightmare will be a thing of the past.

  These are fucked-up guys in every way. No sane woman would spend a moment longer than she has to with them. And then there is Manny…

  I cut off my thoughts and whirl to face the band. They are already sprawled on the dingy sofas, swilling booze from bottles…as if they weren’t already drunk before they left stage…and look ready to bolt out of here to take advantage of all the eager band whores in the hallway.

  I arch a brow. “Where did the big cock go?”

  Len Rowan grabs his crotch and laughs. “There’s more than enough cock right here for you, Linda.”

  I roll my eyes. “All four of you combined wouldn’t even be a six-inch cock.” I exhale and will myself calm. “Where is Manny?”

  “Putting it to someone, love,” Kenny Jones jeers, staring at me in that are you jealous, Linda kind of way.

  I make a face. “Pigs. You guys are pigs.”

  They all laugh. Whoever said Brits are gentlemen is a liar. Brits from the street are like Americans from the hood. Rough. Crude. Assholes. That’s what these guys are. Hoodlums with guitars and miserable accents I can barely decipher.

  Well, all of them except Alan Manzone. I haven’t quite figured him out, not even after two months here. He’s as vulgar as the rest of them, though he has that sexy British voice that makes you think tea and cucumber sandwiches. He behaves as coarsely as Kenny does, and Kenny is beyond disgusting. And Alan’s exploits captured by the tabloids are beyond colorful. The British tabloids are obsessed with him and he’s not even famous.

  Well, not yet. Jeez, the kid is brilliant at self-promotion. Though I’m positive he doesn’t even work at that. Not with his looks or his musical genius. If this band has a shot in hell of making it into the big time, it’s because of Alan Manzone. I look at the guys loitering in the room. What the fuck is he doing with this group of peckerwoods? Marginal musicians at best. But he’s incredible—even if he is a full-blown prick 24 hours a day.

  There is something about Alan Manzone that’s different. Inescapable. Ever present. Elusive to define. He radiates stardom and he hasn’t done crap yet. One album. Brilliant. Successful in the UK and Europe, but nothing in the States. And a band isn’t anything until they’ve caught on in America so these guys are pretty much slugging it out in that hungry, working desperately to be recognized, unknown state.

  All of them except Alan Manzone. I don’t know what it is about this guy, but it doesn’t feel like I know him or have even met the real Alan yet, for all that he does spend a healthy amount of time trying to get into my pants.

  Like all these miserable jerks do every minute of the day. Toy with Linda. Flirt with Linda. Piss off Linda. Touch Linda. Shit, it’s probably a bet between the guys. Let’s see who can bag Linda first. Repulsive. Why are guys so repulsive?

  After a quick shudder, I fight to reorganize in my head what I’m supposed to tell them. I take my neatly organized daily planner from my leather satchel.

  “Listen up,” I say loudly in a dismal effort to quiet the room. I stare at them, lips tight, anger fully flashing. Len notices me first and then slaps Jimmy to settle down. “Tomorrow morning, there’s an early car. Pick up is 10 a.m. and if you want to complain, do it to Arnie. A fucking manager should know better than an early call after a performance. I am not open for complaints. You have an interview with an American entertainment program. Try to be human. Try not to be you. This is for American TV. And then we all get a four-day break, hopefully from each other and with none of you landing in jail.”

  Before they can say anything, I turn away and shove my calendar back into my satchel. I put on my coat and I can hear the guys starting to move about the room.

  “Are we free, love?” Len asks.

  Ah, just the right amount of mocking mixed with grudging obedience.

  I clench my teeth. “Of course you’re free. If you charged so much as a penny for you, it would be theft.”

  Len laughs. I turn to say my goodbyes. They’ve all already forgotten about me. Crud, Jimmy is nude and on his way to the showers. Hello, there’s a lady here!

  I start to move toward the door and Len hurries to catch me.

  “What have you got going on tonight, Linda?” he asks.

  I smile stiffly. “A book. A glass of wine. And not you, jerkoff.”

  Len laughs. “If you would stop toying with m
e, love, I wouldn’t have to jerk off.”

  He gives me a wolfish, paradoxically sweet grin, and I fight not to smile. He’s a good-hearted guy. Not like the rest of them. Not really. The bullshit I think is on the surface, maybe just to fit in.

  I wiggle the fingers of my left hand and do a jacking off motion. “Good to keep the digits exercised. It might improve your playing.”

  “Ah, so you tease me and get me hot for the sake of the music.”

  I sink my teeth into my lower lip. “Something like that. And I don’t tease you.”

  He touches my cheek with a finger. “You do by repeatedly telling me no and wearing such tight jeans.”

  I roll my eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself. You wouldn’t know what to do if I said yes.”

  He laughs again.

  This time I do smile. “Good night, Len. You guys were terrific tonight.”

  I pass quickly through the door and into the crowded corridor. Manny, should I find Manny? Or just say fuck it and head back to the hotel?

  I run my hand through my curls in a familiar manner, suddenly remembering that I’ve cut the long locks into a blunt, more dramatic style. What made me do that? I miss my hair. Since leaving Jack and arriving in London I’ve done more than a few completely random things.

  The hair. The tattoo. The freaking piercing in my brow. How stupid. Trying to make myself trendy will never make me fit in here, and I definitely don’t really want to fit in with these guys.

  My eyes disobey my will and fix on the giant pansy boldly and permanently on my wrist. Jeez, I wonder what Jack is going to think of that when he sees it. He loves it when my look is natural, and I’ve turned my body into the poster child of desperate girl wanting to fit in.

  Grrr…lame, Linda, definitely lame.

  I cringe at the memory of each of Jeanette’s disapproving looks after the latest alteration to my formerly valley girl style. God, why am still roommates with Jeanette? By the time we graduated USC, I could hardly stand her. And yet, here I am, in the UK, enrolled in the very same intensive writing graduate program and sharing a flat with her.