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All She Ever Needed

From: Black Velvet Seductions

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Category: Romance

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All She Ever Needed
Lora Logan
Chapter One

I landed on my butt with a thud, still holding the tray of food high above my head. Somehow, I managed to balance the plates which were overflowing with burgers and onion petals. The ramekin, however, hit the ground before I did, and splashed my bare legs, covering me in the sticky mayonnaise-based special sauce.
“Good save, Becca!” Amelia grabbed my tray and set it back on the counter, then held her hands out to help me up. She’s a good friend. The rest of the kitchen staff just clapped at my little display, which was most likely a slow-motion river dance style of a fall. I took a brief bow, straightened up and grabbed the tray.
“Did I just hear Jameson is back?” I leaned into Amelia and whispered the words—not everyone needed to know the reason I’d taken a swan dive across the cold tile of the kitchen floor.
“Yes, and what is it about him that makes you turn into a completely awkward”—she paused, searching for the right word—“whatever this is?” Her fingers pulled at the special sauce which was apparently caking layers of my hair together.
Mortification struck me instantaneously. “Like, tonight?!”
Not tonight, please, not tonight!
“Tonight,” she deadpanned. “You may want to think about doing something about…all this.” She motioned toward my sticky, disheveled appearance. “And, if you’ve got enough time in the bathroom, I don’t know, maybe stop acting like a crazy person.”
Despite the hard time she was currently giving me, Amelia had easily been the best part about working at Maggie’s for the past two years. At twenty-four, she was a few years older than me, and instantly became the older sister I always wanted. At five foot two and maybe a hundred pounds, she was the sweetest, wildest person I’d ever met. Half Greek and half Armenian, she was stunning on her worst day. If she was supposed to be at work at five, they told her to be there at four. She was an hour late wherever she went, but the life of the party everywhere. When I needed a good shopping partner, and had a good ten hours to spare, she was my girl.
“Ha!” I laughed bitterly as I shoved the tray of burgers at her. “Table twelve, please?”
Smiling, she accepted the tray while I hightailed it to the bathroom. She had a small point. Something about Jameson did seem to bring out every ounce of awkwardness that resided in each individual strand of my DNA.
Frantically, I pulled paper towels from the dispenser and wet them, then scrubbed them up and down my legs. Once satisfied, I looked at my reflection and was horrified to see the sauce hadn’t just managed to ricochet across my legs; I also had specks of it decorating my “Maggie’s” T-shirt.
Of course, they just had to order extra sauce!
What was my deal with Jameson anyway? Yes, he was gorgeous—strong tattooed arms, wavy, dark, wild hair, and a devilish grin. I just wanted to stare at him. Unfortunately, talking to him was much more of a challenge. As much as I didn’t want my mind to go there, it immediately flashed to the first time I’d met him—my first day at Maggie’s.
My attraction to Jameson was instantaneous. So instantaneous, in fact, that I’d felt him before I saw him. While I’d heard of that type of attraction before, I never would have believed it until I experienced it myself. I was busy straightening and re-straightening the menus at the hostess stand when something caught my attention—a dropping feeling in my stomach, and an almost anxious curiosity at who was coming around the corner. When our eyes met I thought the dropping in my stomach must have made an actual sound because he was watching me just as intently. I fidgeted nervously with my short jean shorts and the Maggie’s T-shirt, which was just a bit too tight across my chest. At least, since I wasn’t serving, I was able to keep my sandy blonde hair down, where it fell just below my shoulders, instead of having to keep it up in a sloppy ponytail.
“You new?” He gave me a sideways, disinterested glance.
“Um, yeah. I mean, I’ve worked for restaurants before…just not this one?”
Why did that last part come out like a question?
A smile etched across his face as he passed me, heading toward the front door, where he remained for the rest of the night. As a bouncer, he arrived later in the evening and checked IDs. Maggie’s was a restaurant, but after nine p.m. it was much more about the bar. There were always a few fights, and people needing to be unceremoniously taken outside. Maybe it was the way he looked, or maybe he just had a way about him, but people usually calmed down when Jameson got involved. A lot of the bouncers at Maggie’s were on the eager side when it came it getting in the middle of an altercation, but Jameson handled it differently, usually walking the offending parties outside without needing to get nasty.
Maybe I’d done a terrible job of hiding it, but Amelia picked up on the fact that I had a thing for him pretty quickly. On one particular day, she winked at him when we caught him eyeing us from his post, and I immediately complained that I wished I had as much courage as her. She never had a hard time being bold, and it was something I’d always admired about her. When she didn’t understand what I meant, I explained that the ability to wink was not something I’d been granted. When pressed, I attempted to show her what I meant. Suffice it to say, my attempt at winking at someone resulted in the nearly involuntary movement of the entire left side of my face. With my nostrils flaring and one side of my lips puckered up—it was not a pretty picture. So naturally, that would be the moment Jameson walked up to us to say something.
Whatever it was he’d planned on saying would never be known, since as soon as he saw me he laughed and headed back to his spot up front. And that is how my time with Jameson went. Often, I’d feel his eyes on me, and whenever I looked his way he’d simply wink at me and go back to work. Never once did the butterflies stop putting on a show in my belly when he was near, and despite the fact that it seemed like he felt it too, our interactions never went past a few words here and there.
By the time I worked up enough courage to have an actual conversation with him, he was gone. In an attempt to act complacent, I didn’t ask a lot of questions, but from what I heard he was busy with a rock band he was putting together.
Over the past year, the what-ifs had bothered me. Never had I felt a connection with anyone like I did with Jameson. But now, as I stood in the bathroom of Maggie’s, covered in special sauce, he was back. Would we still have that same connection? More importantly, had I gotten over whatever spell he seemed to cast over me?
Chapter Two

Somewhere in the galaxy a divine miracle or some one-hundred-and-fifty-year eclipse took place, and I managed to get cut before running into Jameson. As excited as I was to see him, I’d much prefer it to be on my own terms, with my clothing and hair free of the debris and smells of Maggie’s. Leaving early meant I had time to run home and shower before meeting Amelia at her house.
“Why exactly did I agree to get ready at your place?” I asked as I scanned her bedroom.
I’d only made it to her bedroom door before being completely overwhelmed with the mess that was Amelia preparing to go anywhere. Technically, she lived with her aunt and uncle, but they had given her the entire main floor of the house and renovated the basement to be their apartment. It even had a separate entrance, although I’m not sure why because every time I was there they were all upstairs.
Since her bedroom was the master it was impressive in size. Taking up the middle of the room was a four-poster king size bed that at that moment held more clothes than the walk-in closet.
“Hey!” She popped her head out of her en-suite bathroom.
“I’ll be ready in ten minutes.” She winked slyly and disappeared back inside.
That comment was laughable considering she still had her long thick hair up in a sloppy bun on the top of her head. I was pretty sure she’d never walked to her mailbox without straightening her hair, let alone actually go out for the evening.
We spent the next twenty minutes searching for the perfect black bra to wear under her other black bra. Apparently, for the less endowed, there is an art to wearing two bras to maximize cleavage. This isn’t the type of thing I’ve ever had to worry about being that I was a big C—okay, D—by my freshman year in high school.
“Why don’t you pick out something of mine to wear?” She looked me up and down with disapproval.
“Milly!” I only called her that when she was really getting on my nerves. Mostly because one of our previous managers at Maggie’s was named Milly, and she’d been a flaming bitch, but also because four syllables is too many when you’re trying to yell at someone in exasperation. “Seriously?” I looked down at the outfit I’d spent twenty minutes picking out. “It’s midnight, and I have two feet and twenty pounds on your skinny behind. Let’s go!”
Thirty minutes later I looked at my reflection in her full-length mirror and conceded that I seriously needed to listen to her more often. If there’s one thing I can pull off it’s a mini-skirt, and I felt good in this gold sparkly one, teamed with a white low-cut top with spaghetti straps. The real winner was the shoes. Aren’t they always? Three inches taller is a lot of fun—before you start drinking, of course.
“So… did Jameson show tonight?” I looked away from her as soon as the words left my mouth. I didn’t have to see her to know she’d been waiting this entire time for me to bring him up.
“Yeah, just after you left, you big freaking chicken!” She laughed while nudging me with her elbow. “He was looking all over for you, too.”
“Shut up! He wasn’t!” As much as I’d have liked to believe that was the case, I wasn’t falling for her teasing.
“Mmm hmm… I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”
What was that supposed to mean?
Chapter Three

It was after one a.m. by the time we pulled into the garage and made our way to Iron City, Over-The-Rhine’s newest reinvention. This area used to be a real dump, but with years of work the city had really started to bring back what once was the “new New York”. I wouldn’t walk around this place by myself, but generally speaking it’s the ones involved in drug deals who end up getting shot.
“Milly! Line!” As usual, she was dragging me to the front, bypassing everyone patiently waiting to get in.
I swear she has more energy than the Energizer Bunny. Despite her short black dress and three-inch heels, she led me through the crowd, her hair swaying back and forth with her excited gait.
“Hey, Jeremy!” Amelia skipped toward the bouncer and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Jeremy looked just as you’d expect a bouncer to look like in the newest swank club in the area—dark, smoldering eyes, and lips which held no smile until Amelia made her way to him. Dressed in black dress pants and a long sleeve collared black shirt, it was pretty obvious he was not someone to fuck with. Aside from his arms and shoulders attempting to bust from his sleeves, he also had that intimidating thousand-yard stare.
“Jeremy this is Becca. Becca, Jeremy.” Amelia motioned excitedly between the two of us.
I nodded at Jeremy and stuck my arm out to shake his hand, but instead he took my hand, pulled it to his mouth, and delicately kissed it. Like a practiced flirt, he had no shame as his eyes surveyed me.
“Try to stay out of trouble, girls.” He grinned his warning at me and held onto my hand a little longer than necessary as Amelia pulled me into the bar.
Iron City has the industrial, warehouse feel you’d expect, given the name of the place. The floors are cold concrete and the ceiling is completely exposed with pipes and ducts dropping down beside high hanging fluorescent lighting. The bar itself, which takes up the entire left wall has no stools, just the words, “LOADING ZONE” stamped in construction yellow across the floor. The wall behind the bar is dark brick, with endless steel shelves holding various bottles of liquor. At the end of the bar are concrete stairs with steel handrails leading up to the second-floor overlook, which, while small, gives the perfect view of the vintage stage that takes up the entire back wall of the club. If we’d gotten there early enough, which obviously we hadn’t, we’d have been able to actually sit down in one of the long eight-seater steel tables with the backless leather barstools.
The place was packed. This is always fun since I’m too short to see over the crowd. Our method of choice is to find the biggest guy going in the direction we want to go in, grab on to him, and let him carve a path through the crowd. As per protocol, off to the bar we went, our guide leading the way.
“Two vodka and Red Bulls please,” Amelia yelled over the hard rock music that Iron City is known for.
“Before you say it, don’t! You can afford to live a little tonight,” Amelia shouted before I could interject.
“Here’s to you, my love!” she shouted over the noise, and she held up her drink. “You may be leaving me for Providence, but you’d better believe I’ll be joining you in a year! Then we can get our apartment, find rich Ivy League husbands and live happily ever after,” she insisted with a toothy grin.
“I’ll drink to that! But enough with the talk of me leaving! We have two months before I go, and we’re gonna make the most of it!”
Generally speaking, Amelia hadn’t been able to talk much about me leaving for school in Providence without tearing up. Our plan had been to go together, but when her uncle got sick our grandiose ideations had taken a backseat.
Before I could think much more about it, we made our way toward the stage, just in time to hear them introduce the next act. In places like this it’s hard to hear much of anything, but I was able to make out the band they were introducing. The nerd in me appreciated the name: The Metalloids.
The room was so thick with smoke that you could cut the air with a knife, but when I saw four guys walk out on stage, my eyes immediately went to one in particular. My jaw dropped when I saw it was Jameson.
The romantic in me quickly noted that I could now add bassist to his list of sexy attributes. With the lights and the number of people in the crowd I doubted very seriously that he was able to recognize me. Occasionally, I would look his way and our eyes would meet. Then again, maybe he was just staring off into the crowd and not really seeing me. He looked better than I’d remembered. Maybe it was the musician side of him I found so appealing, or maybe it was just him, but there is nothing quite like seeing someone completely in their element. It was pretty obvious he belonged on that stage. Some of the songs they played were covers, so we sang along with the ones we knew, and danced to the ones we didn’t. Before I knew it, Jeremy was bringing us more vodka and Red Bulls.
“Thanks, Jeremy!” Amelia hugged him, but he didn’t take his eyes off me.
“Now, why is it Amelia here gives me a hug for a thank you, but all I get from you is a smile?”
He winked, and my look of betrayal immediately landed on Amelia.
“I didn’t tell him!” she laughed, innocently holding her hands in the air.
I looked back at Jeremy who was looking at me with a confused expression, and from the corner of my eye I could make out Amelia grinning. She was perpetually trying to hook me up with a random someone.
“Thank you, Jeremy.” I smiled up at him and went in for the asexual side hug, but he quickly grabbed me by my hips and slid me around so I was giving him a full on frontal hug, while his fingers played across the delicate bare skin of my sides. Okay, so he smelled good, I’ll give him that.
Once again, he held on to me a little longer than necessary before he let me go, still keeping ahold of my hand. He leaned down to talk to me, but to be heard over the music he had to put his face pretty much against the side of mine.
“I gotta get back to work. I’ll talk to you a little later?”
“Yeah, we’ll be here,” I said, putting a little distance between us.
I’m not sure why but something felt off and it wasn’t until I looked at the stage that I figured out what it was. There was Jameson, glaring a hole through Jeremy’s head. Kinda funny really, or maybe that was the vodka and Red Bull.
As soon as Jeremy left Amelia was dragging me up the concrete stairs to the second-floor overlook.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was going to be here?” I gaped.
“Must have slipped my mind.” She grinned toward the stage without looking at me.
“I’m thinking it had a little more to do with the fact that you couldn’t keep your eyes off the lead singer,” I teased.
“Speaking of lead singer…” Amelia was heading back downstairs after noticing the band was taking a break.
Usually, I have a hard time standing around by myself with nobody to talk to, but then I’m used to this sort of thing with Amelia. She is easy to entertain, and tends to make herself the center of attention wherever she is, whereas I, on the other hand, don’t always enjoy being in that kind of place.
It was then that I saw Jameson coming up the stairs toward me. Damn the grin I couldn’t get off of my face! So it wasn’t the bass that made him so sexy—it was just him.
“Becca.”
Damn, even the way he says my name is sexy!
Something about his eyes just penetrated through me and all the breath in my lungs escaped me. I could only stare.
“How have you been?” he asked.
Crap, I forgot to respond, didn’t I?
“Good, good. How you’ve been?” I shook my head back and forth. “I mean, how have you been?”
He laughed at me (again).
“Oh hey, I’ve been working on that whole winking thing,” I said reassuringly.
“So, how’s that going for you?” he laughed.
“Not well.”
Why can’t I stop grinning?
Being awkward has its downsides, but at least drunken awkward wouldn’t hit me until later.
“You look beautiful, but then you are beautiful no matter what you are wearing. But that… that… is gorgeous.” He looked me up and down in a seriously sexy, and not at all creepy way.
“Thank you,” was all I managed. I couldn’t think of a thing to say, but, God help me, I couldn’t look away.
“So how well do you know Jeremy?” He was suddenly more serious.
“Who?” I asked with a blank expression. “Oh! Bouncer Jeremy!” I said after the realization hit me. “I don’t know him really. Amelia—you know Amelia; she knows everyone.”
The months since I’d last seen him were suddenly erased, and without fail I was right back where I’d been before—stupidly wordless and unable to stop staring. He looked the same, but different somehow. He wasn’t your traditional pretty boy, not at all. It wasn’t just his forearm tattoo that gave him more of a bad boy look, but also something about his wavy dark hair and perpetual five o’clock shadow. Effortlessly sexy. Hollister could try to create this kind of man, but nothing could compete with someone who comes by it naturally. He has the smallest hook-shaped white scar by his left eye and never have I looked at him and not had the urge to trace it with my finger. I wondered how he got it, but wherever it came from it was right to be there. It made him… him.
I wasn’t sure if it had been ten seconds or two minutes that I’d been staring at him, taking him in, and saying nothing. But suddenly I caught myself, and I was much more conscious of him staring at me, too. His eyes were drawn to my lips and to the fact that when I’m nervous, or thinking hard on something, I tend to bite down on the nail of my index finger.
“Where have you been?” I ask, with far more emotion than I intended.
He had started to open his mouth to answer my question, when we both became aware that the band’s break was over and the rest of them were on stage waiting to start their next set. Jameson just smiled and took off down the stairs, leaving me still dazed.
Abruptly needing a purpose, I made my way back down to the main throes of the club and found Amelia.
“Please tell me you are taking that boy home with you tonight!” she grinned.
Thankfully, there was no chance to acknowledge that statement because the club was officially overflowing with people.
There’s a girl code in situations like these, because with all the people there it can be difficult to even figure out who has come up behind you dancing. The responsibility then falls to the best friend to either discreetly give the thumbs up, or grab hold of your hand and pull you away from the offender. That night there wasn’t a single guy that could distract me from Jameson and his world, which was quite obviously his music.
Very quickly the place had gotten out of control and it was too much. In the chaos of so many people we had become separated from each other; Amelia ending up against the stage, while I was being pushed in the opposite direction.
The guy next to me must have spilled his drink on someone, or some other inadmissible crime, because another guy turned around and laid him out with one punch square to the jaw. I jumped back, trying to stay separate from the chaos, but like chaos often does, it spread like a wildfire.
“Becca!” Amelia yelled. “Time to go!”
She caught up with me, grabbed my hand, and led me to the door.
I looked back at the stage, disappointed that this was how the night would be ending. The only way I knew to find Jameson was if he’d be playing here again. I sent him a small wave, doubting he’d be able to see it through all the people and the smoke of the club.


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