Sweet Tal

Yes, I'm back. But, as a warning from the get-go, updates will probably be a few weeks apart (at least), since the "real world" kind of has a monopoly on my time, these days.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy Chapter 5. Let me know what you think.

As always, happy reading.

~Eve

Even with his back to her, Anna could see the rage wash over Jason. It was clear in the tense set of his shoulders, from how he'd planted his feet—and the balled, white-knuckled fist he'd made his with left hand was a dead giveaway about the fury coursing through him.

As she stared at his back, waiting for a reaction, for him to speak—for him to do

something

—she traded an anxious glance with Sam who, true to his born-rescuer instincts, ran a hand through his hair and took a cautious step toward Jason's tense form.

"Look...Jay..." he started, only to come up short when, finally, Jason swung around, his burning golden gaze skidding across Sam, to land on Anna, who felt pinned in place by his barely leashed temper.

"Leave," Jason ground out, his unflinching gaze boring into Anna, even though it was obvious he was talking to Sam.

Caught between them, Sam cast another worried look in Anna's direction, then held up both hands toward Jason in a placating gesture. "Look," he repeated, "I don't think this is the—"

"I don't give a

fuck

what you think," Jason bit out, shifting his glittering eyes to Sam. "This is between me and Anna, so get out of my face."

Sam stiffened. "You can go to hell. I'm not leaving."

Anna could feel the tension in the hallway heighten as if it were a physical thing, pressing in against her chest, making it hard to breathe. For the second time tonight, she had the uneasy feeling that things were about to get ugly, and fast, if she didn't do something.

Edging in toward Sam, she placed a calming hand on his arm. "It's okay," she half-whispered. "Just go. I'll be fine."

A long moment passed as Sam and Jason stared each other down, then, expelling a hard breath, Sam dug his hands into the pockets of his slacks, and shot Anna a half-hearted smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Fine." He shifted his attention back to Jason. "I

would

tell you not to be any more of an asshole than you can help," he muttered, "but we all know I'd be wasting my breath."

Jason didn't respond. Just glared at Sam with a cold, closed expression that made it clear that his patience was drawing dangerously thin.

Sighing, Sam shook his head and turned to leave. "Call me if you need me," he told Anna, before retreating down the hallway.

Then, too soon, she was alone with Jason, feeling like her skin was about to burst into flames under his livid scrutiny. Already, she felt horrible about what she'd said; no matter how mad she was, she shouldn't have thrown his past in his face like that.

Sometimes, though, he just got to her and she lashed out, wanting to hurt him back in some way. It was an incredibly dysfunctional reaction, she knew, but when it came to dealing with Jason's volatile temper...well, she could only turn the other cheek so many times before she snapped.

Still, even with regret making her feel almost ill, she couldn't get her mind, or her mouth, to form an explanation, or an apology, to try and set things right. And one look at his expression told her that it didn't even matter. She could see that he was beyond hearing her.

After a long stretch of tense silence, when she still hadn't spoken, Jason cocked his head, a nasty smirk playing across his usually-attractive lips. "That's it, huh? You've got nothing to say now?"

Anna searched his face, trying to find some emotion, any emotion, besides anger, but there was nothing.

She shrugged with a miserable shake of her head. "What do you want me to say? That I'm sorry I said what I did? Because I am. But you were acting like a crazy person upstairs, and Andreas—"

"Don't!" Jason's long legs ate up the distance between them in a few angry strides until he stopped in front of her, shoving his face in close to hers. "Don't you fucking

mention

him," he demanded, his golden eyes flashing. "You talked to that asshole for, what? Five minutes, and now you think you know all about it? You don't know a goddamn

thing

. And the most fucked up part about it is that I bet you honestly believed everything that piece of shit told you."

This close to him, the look in his eyes made Anna sick to her stomach. He was pissed off, yes, and he'd been angry with her before, but this...this was fury mixed with betrayal. It killed her that she couldn't tell if that hurt was directed toward her, for talking to Andreas about him, or for bringing up his past, with Rachel.

And, perversely, she had to know.

He was furious with her, she knew that, but if what Andreas had told her was true, she wanted to hear it from Jason's own mouth, to watch his face while he said the words—while he, unknowingly, broke her stupid, masochistic heart yet again, by admitting that he'd been in love with someone else.

Someone that wasn't, and would never be, her.

"Then

you

tell me," she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest, more as a protective gesture, than out of defensiveness.

He stared at her for a long moment, only to let out a harsh, humorless laugh. "Why should I tell you a damn thing? As far as I can tell, you already got the whole story from Andreas. I had a girlfriend. He fucked her. Case closed, right?"

She flinched at his caustic tone, not knowing what to say, what to do to diffuse the situation. When he got like this, usually her best option was to wait for the storm to pass. But she couldn't do that this time. Instead, she took a cautious step toward him, tilting her head to get a better look at his face, which was drawn taut with anger.

"No," she said, slowly, "I don't think it

is

case closed. If it were, you wouldn't be acting like this. And, what happened upstairs," she gestured over her shoulder, toward the now-quiet elevators, "wouldn't have happened. There's obviously more to this than an old fight over a girl, Jason. I just wish you'd

tell

me."

He leaned in close then, coming down so his face was level with hers, his normally glowing golden eyes gone hard and flat, like a pair of worn pennies. "You wanna know what really happened?" he half-whispered, his voice vibrating with tension. "You wanna hear about how I dated that girl, the one who

dumped me

," he spat the word, "for almost six months, only to walk in on her fucking Andreas in one of the bathrooms at the CIA? Is that what you wanna hear, Anna?"

He cocked his head to the side, the bunched muscles in his jaw working furiously as he gritted out his words through clenched teeth. "Or, how about the fact that when I found her with him, I got arrested because the lying, fucking

bitch

told me he'd raped her—and I tried to kill him for it."

Horror roiled through Anna's stomach and she found that she couldn't meet his eyes, knowing that if she did, she'd see the rawness beneath his anger and she wouldn't be able to hold back the tears. God, she hurt for him. She knew how hard it was for Jason to trust, to trust

anyone

, so the fact that he'd been betrayed, and so horribly, tore at her heart.

With a helpless shrug, she stared down sightlessly at the carpet beneath her feet, knowing that if he saw the pity in her eyes, it would just enrage him even more. "I'm so...I'm so sorry," she managed to gasp out, biting the inside of her cheek to keep her voice steady. "I wish you'd told me."

He exhaled roughly, backing away from her with a careless shake of his head. "What the fuck difference would it have made? Huh?" He flung his arms out, watching her with an expression of mocking inquiry. "Tell me something, though.

When

should I have told you? Should I have called you while I was sitting in jail for six goddamn hours, hating myself for letting what I

thought

happened, happen to someone I cared about?"

"But, no," he barreled on, "I guess I should've called you when the cops filled me in about that bitch's little side-job with Andreas, right? Or should I have waited until after I damn near broke my hand when I got so fucking drunk I tried to punched out Sam's passenger-side window?"

Flexing the fingers of that hand, he slowly walked back toward her, the muscles in his jaw working, his low voice vibrating with cold fury. "You already know the whole fucking story, though, so,

you

tell

me

, Anna—when,

exactly

, would've been a good time for me to call and cry to you?"

Shaking her head, she raised both hands, only to let them drop back, uselessly, against her thighs. There was nothing she could say; she knew it. A Jason who kept things to himself, closely guarding his emotions, was nothing new to her.

Yes, he'd been acting like an ass upstairs with Andreas, but she knew him—should've known him well enough to know that, whatever it was between him and Andreas, it wasn't something petty and silly, like Andreas had made it sound. She should've known.

And, from the way Jason was looking at her, she knew he was thinking the same thing.

Licking her bottom lip, she tried, again, to think of something to say to make this all right. But there was nothing. "I don't know what to say," she murmured, at last.

Eyeing her critically, he gave a slow, dismissive nod. "That's what I fucking thought."

Then, without warning, he turned around and headed for the hotel room door, roughly jamming his keycard into the slot.

Hurrying to after him, she caught the door with the palm of her hand, the sound of the wood slapping against her flesh echoing loudly in the hallway. Pushing the door open, she followed him in, her heart jamming hard against her chest when he stalked to the closet and yanked his suitcase from its confines.

Was he leaving? He couldn't seriously be leaving because of all of this, could he?

"Ja—" she started, only to be cut off by the furious glare he pinned her with.

So, she stood and watched as he flung the case open and took out a pair of jeans, which he pulled on over his basketball shorts. Next, he crossed the room, grabbing his wallet and cell phone off the bedside table.

He

was

leaving, she realized. But not Chicago, and not the competition. He was just leaving the room, despite the fact that it was after ten at night and he had to compete in the morning.

Shoving his things into the pockets of his jeans, he approached the door, and it wasn't until he stopped, staring at her, his eyes turned to molten gold with still-seething fury, that she realized she was blocking the door and he was waiting for her to move.

She did so in silence, sliding to the left, watching mutely as his large fist grasped the door-handle in a white-knuckled grip.

"W-where are you going?" she heard herself asking, before she could stop the words.

He was angry with her, furious really, but she was worried about him, and hated the idea of him wandering around some strange city in this kind of blind rage.

He paused for an imperceptible moment, not looking at her, but she caught the way his shoulders bunched, and his nostrils flared on a heavily exhaled breath. For a moment, she thought he might stay, that she might get him to calm down—to make him listen.

Finally, though, he flicked a dismissive glance over her. "Don't worry about it."

Then, the handle twisted beneath his palm as he pulled the door open—and he was gone.

* * *

As far as Jason was concerned, the only non-shitty thing about Chicago was that the bars stayed open an hour later than they did in Seattle.

After walking out of the hotel room, he hadn't bothered looking at his phone to check the time but, he figured, as he slid onto a stool in the hotel bar, it had to be closing on midnight, at least. Which, as far as he was concerned, meant he was way past needing a drink.

A bartender appeared, took Jason's order and walked away, leaving him alone with his thoughts. It'd been over an hour, at least, since he'd walked away from Anna, and his hands were still shaking with livid tremors as he tried to calm down.

It was a futile effort, though, and he knew it. Even thinking about looking through that window upstairs and seeing Andreas put his hands on Anna, and about what she'd said—well, he was starting to wonder if he'd ever be able to calm down again. If he'd even be able to get himself under control enough that he'd be able to compete tomorrow.

Truth be told, in that moment, he almost didn't give a fuck about the competition anymore. Yes, he wanted to win, and no, he didn't want to quit, but it was pretty damn hard to give a shit about custards and crème brulee when it felt like his life was crashing down around his ears.

"Thanks," he muttered as the bartender returned and sat his drink in front of him. The ice cubes floating in the liquor clinked together, before settling down to slowly, inevitably, melt. He stared at the ice, furiously wondering why he couldn't be like that.

Anna had crossed the line, they both knew that, but he honestly felt like he didn't have it in him to get past it anytime soon, to be able talk to her about it in a normal conversation. The fucked up thing about it, too, was that a small part of him wanted to.

He almost wanted to go back upstairs and work things out with her, but he also knew that if he did that, she'd want to know the whole story about Rachel—and not just the part about how the bitch had fucked Andreas.

No, he knew Anna. She'd want to hear why he'd never told her about Rachel. She'd want him to talk about his goddamn feelings and admit that, yeah, the whole damn thing still pissed him off—even four years later. But, he didn't want to talk about any of that, and he never had.

By the time he'd gotten to college, he had a pretty clear idea of what people—mostly, women—thought of him. He was attractive. He knew this; didn't hesitate to use that fact to his advantage, but most of the women he hooked up with, they all knew what they were getting into when they came after him.

He'd never pretended to be some kind of Prince Charming and past history had shown him that he wasn't exactly cut out to be someone's boyfriend; at the end of the day, he knew he just didn't have it in him to do the whole long-term thing.

And, at the most basic level, that's what'd gotten to him—and still got to him—about Rachel. She was the first, and last time, he'd tried to be more than who, and what, he already knew he was. He'd gone the exact opposite route with her. Even though they'd started out as a casual thing, he'd taken things slow, put off sleeping with her for almost a whole fucking month—all because he wanted things to work; wanted a shot at normalcy, for once.

And, what he couldn't tell Anna—what he

wouldn't

tell her—was that it was all because of her. In the weeks leading up to when he'd left Sweetwater for New York, they'd spent even more time together than they normally did. Part of it was because he knew she was sad that he was leaving, but more than that was the fact that she was like family to him, and he was going to miss her.

It'd dawned on him, sometime in those last few weeks, that if he could find a girl like Anna, someone he could actually trust, depend on, he'd be okay. She was always nagging him about hooking up with girls, leading them on...so he'd decided to do the exact opposite with Rachel.

On a harsh snort, he passed a hand over his face, swallowing down half of his drink in a single go. So much for that, though. He'd tried that with Rachel and all it had gotten him was cheated on, arrested and almost kicked out of school.

Then again, considering the shit-storm that his parents' marriage had turned into, he wasn't really surprised by any of it. He didn't believe in curses or jinxes or any of that bullshit, but he

did

believe in genes, and, as far as he could tell, he'd not only inherited his dad's in-born talent for being an asshole, he'd also gotten more than his fair share of bad luck with relationships.

His mouth twisted at that thought. Not that he blamed his mom for leaving, though. Truth be told, Gary was a miserable son of a bitch, and, to this day, Jason couldn't understand why she'd stuck around as long as she had—the only real problem he had with her was the fact that she'd left him behind.

She and Gary had been like a gasoline-fueled fire, though. And, in a way, that's what he and Anna were starting to seem like, lately. Yeah, they were good for each other, especially when she was making him pull his head out of his ass, nagging him into getting some work done; and he knew how much she needed him around to keep her from taking life too damn serious half the time.

Other times, like tonight, it got so bad between them...when he'd say something he didn't mean, or she pushed him so hard, so far, that he just had to get the fuck away from her before he said, or did, something

really

insane.

They'd always fought hard, though, and, yeah, usually it was his fault. Those times, things mostly blew over, or were forgotten. He didn't end up walking the streets in the middle of the night just to calm down, or posted at a bar, sucking down Jack Daniels to take the edge off after a confrontation with her.

No, this shit was brand-fucking-new, and he didn't know what it meant, or what to do about it.

All he did know was that, at the moment, he didn't want to see Anna. Didn't want to talk to her, or hear her goddamn voice. The further away from each other they stayed for the time being, the better. For both of them.

Even as that thought crossed his mind, he felt the light, unmistakably female, pressure of a hand settle on his shoulder.

Anna.

He stiffened, steeling himself for another confrontation.

But, when he shifted on his stool, turning to look at her, he came up short when he saw that it wasn't Anna standing behind him, but Carmen, the woman he'd flirted with during competition earlier in the day.

"Mind if I join you?" she asked, a dimple forming at the corner of her pretty mouth as she smiled at him.

Not really in the mood for company, Jason opened his mouth to tell her no, he'd rather drink alone, but then he paused. The longer he sat here by himself, the longer he was going to seethe over all of this bullshit between him and Anna.

And, hell, if he needed distraction, at least it was coming in a well-built package. "Sure," he said, pushing out the stool next to his for Carmen to take.

Grinning, she launched into idle chitchat almost immediately, before the conversation shifted to talk about the competition. Well, Carmen did most of the talking and he tossed in a few comments, nodded along, just enough to keep the conversation going.

No matter what he did, or what Carmen said, he was gonna need a lot more than small talk with a pretty woman to get his mind off of that scene upstairs.

Speaking of which...

Jason peered down the length of the bar, looking for the bartender so he could get a refill.

"So, what're you doing up so late?" Carmen asked. Then, noticing the direction of his gaze, she threw a subtle wave toward the bartender to catch his attention, before turning back to Jason. "Doing a mental recap of today?"

When the bartender showed up, Jason ordered another drink for himself, as well as another rum and coke for Carmen, before responding. "I was just gonna ask you the same thing." He glanced around the mostly-empty room. "I mean, this doesn't really seem like the hot place to be on a Tuesday night."

Carmen laughed, picking up the drink that the bartender placed in front of her. "Yeah," she whispered in a mock-conspiratorial tone, "I'm

thinking

the hideous hotel carpet probably doesn't have people kicking down the door and ready to party."