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JAGS RESTRAINED HIS carnal urges and let Star sleep in. When she woke, just before noon, he asked her to drive him to Copper Creek. He was going stir crazy and just needed to go somewhere. He was also starving. He had eaten everything edible in her house. He even eyed the half empty bottle of ketchup, debating whether the condiment could pass for sustenance.
She tried to convince him to rest for another day but when he threatened to show her again how well he felt, she quickly conceded.
With a heavy arm draped around her neck he snuggled her as they strode to an empty table near the back of Copper Creek's dining room. She slid in the booth and he climbed in beside her, shoving his hips into hers.
He kissed the nape of her neck, swirling his tongue . . . suggestively.
She scrunched up her shoulders. "You're embarrassing me."
"This is embarrassing you?" He nipped on her ear lobe before standing on the booth.
Gasping, she clawed at his arms.
"Hear ye. Hear ye," he bellowed across the dining room clapping his hands.
All chatter ceased.
All eyes on Jags.
"This beautiful woman right here." He glanced down offering her his hand. "Stand up Sexy."
Forehead to tabletop. Covered her head with her arms.
Undeterred, he panned the dining room. "This beautiful woman is the woman I am in love with, the woman I've been waiting all my life for, the woman who was put on this earth just for me, the woman who will birth my children." He glanced down, lowering his voice. "The woman whose soul I've melded with my own." He dipped his head, signaling the finality of his speech and gave a slight wave. "Thank you for your attention." Stepping off the booth, he sat beside her and draped his arm over her back. "Sexy?"
Her cheeks crimson, she glanced up from the shelter of her arms. "You're right. My definition of embarrassing has been altered."
Cam approached. "You should be in bed."
"Rubbish," Jags said, "I'm fine. Well, maybe not fine. I'm starving."
"You do look a lot better," Cam said. "You look ten pounds heavier since the last time I saw you and that was only yesterday." His focus drifted to Star and snapped back to Jags. "I've seen corpses with more color. What are you doing to the poor woman?"
"I've been loving her."
Star buried her head under her arms again. "And yet my definition of embarrassing has reached an all new high."
Cam grimaced. "Well stop it."
"I don't think that's possible. But if it makes you feel better, I haven't touched her today." He kissed the back of her head. "Not yet anyway." Jags looked to his brother. "Two cheeseburgers, a bowl of today's soup and—."
Cam held up a finger. "I'm getting Star an orange juice before the poor woman faints."
"Okay," Jags yelled to Cam's back, "But hurry, I'm hungry."
––––––––
AFTER LUNCH, STAR DROPPED Jags off at his apartment so he could get his truck. Now that Jags was on the mend, Star felt comfortable enough to return to work. He spent fifteen minutes saying goodbye, nearly taking her in the front seat of her car.
He watched her drive away then drove to his dad's house.
Upon arriving, Jags went directly to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge.
His father gestured to the chair beside him at the kitchen table. "Talk to me."
Jags kicked his gold sneakers onto the neighboring chair. "I'm losing posthaka. I can't see past Star."
"Since you brought her up, I was wondering if she was pregnant yet."
Jags slammed his beer to the table. "Dad?"
"Can I help it if I want grand kids?"
Jags sighed. "Can we get back to me please?"
"You're losing yourself?"
"Yes!"
His dad tapped Jags' hand reassuringly. "You're emotions are running a little high right now. You're still recovering from the Transai."
"I feel like I've lost a part of myself just as if I'd lost my eyesight or hearing."
"I know. It's been a part of you for a long time. You will get it back. Give it time."
"Get it back? I thought my gifts would be stronger after the Transai, not disappear."
"They will be stronger. Just give it time." His father cocked his head and gazed at Jags curiously. "There's something . . . else . . . going on with you."
Jags guzzled his beer empty. He headed for the fridge. "I want to hurt somebody." He grabbed another beer and leaned against the counter. "I want to kill him."
His father frowned. "This concerns me."
"You haven't heard the worst part. I want to torture him, kill him slow. I want to set him on fire and watch him burn. I want—."
"Enough." Doug held up his hand. "I get the picture."
"What's wrong with me?"
"Maybe you sense darkness in this person you're upset with."
Jags laughed, a sinister sound. "Upset with? That's one way to put it. And I haven't sensed anything. That went with my visions. I had lunch at Copper Creek today. I sensed nothing with Cam. It was like trying to read a book except all the damn pages are blank. Do you have any idea how frustrating that is?"
"I want you to stay away from this person that's causing you aggression. Just until we figure out what's going on with you."
Jags scoffed. "Before I lost my vision, before Star and I were even friends, I sensed danger, evil in him. I don't trust him and he works for Star. I'm not taking any chances. I won't let him near her."
"I think your feelings for Star are clouding your abilities to sense others. Since you have temporarily lost your empathic senses you should take what you're feeling for this gentleman with stride. It may be nothing more than your protective instincts for Star and a wild imagination getting the best of you. I went through a similar stage when I met your mother. But I got it back and so will you."
"You're probably right. Just my imagination." Jags finished his beer and tossed the bottle across the kitchen, shooting his fist above his head when the bottle dropped into the trash can. He glanced at his father. "I'm going to work."
"Thought you were taking a few days off?"
"Not necessary. I'm fine. Besides, I miss her." He patted his father on the back and strode for the door.
"I haven't lost my senses."
Jags stopped in the kitchen doorway and looked back.
"I sense extreme uneasiness in your meka. You don't believe your anger for this man stems from your imagination and you're not going to see Star because you miss her. Well, not only for that reason."
Jags gave his father one slow nod.
"Don't ever lie to me again."
"Yes sir."
––––––––
FRANCINE STOOD FROM behind the large circular counter centered in the lobby of Chase Industries. A half million-dollar crystal chandelier hung from the four-story high ceiling. The chocolate marble in the floors and walls glimmered in the sunlight that streaked through the glass ceiling.
The gray-haired woman wore her waist-length hair in a braid. Pink framed glasses slid low on the bridge of her nose. She flipped open the counter and let Jags pass into her circle of marbled counter top.
They embraced.
She looked him up and down. "I heard terrible things about your health."
"Rubbish." Jags held her at arm's length. "Ms. Francine. You must have had the boys lined down the street in your day."
She sat behind the counter. "When are you going to stop whoring around and settle down?"
"Ms. Francine?"
"Just found out my granddaughter's getting a divorce. You would love her." She gave Jags a naughty look. "I hear from all her ex-husbands that she's quite a free spirit, if you get my drift." Ms. Francine pulled a pen from the drawer and wrote down a phone number on a yellow sticky note and held it out to him.
"I'm sure your daughter is very lovely," Jags said for the umpteenth time. "And I'm truly honored that you would deem me worthy enough, but I have found someone special." He kissed the back of the old woman's wrinkled hand.
Making his way to the elevator, he heard Ms. Francine holler, "If things don't work out—."
Jags bowed, giving her a wink. "I will certainly give your granddaughter some consideration." As I would a recurring hemorrhoid.
Jags rode the elevator to the second floor. He sprinted down the corridor and found her office empty. He skipped down the corridor of cubicles, peering into each work area, until he found her. She was leaning over a young woman's shoulder staring into a monitor.
"That's good," Star said, "Just add a column showing the dimensions altered by three percent. Show me running calculations all the way down."
Jags wrapped his arms around her waist and bit her earlobe. "Hi Sexy." He offered the young brunette his hand. "I'm Jags. Star's lover. You are?"
Star glanced over her shoulder. "Do you make it your life's ambition to embarrass me?"
The young woman shook his hand. "I'm Christy." She almost seemed as embarrassed as Star.
Almost.
"I'll be in my office. Email me the report as soon as you can."
"Sure," Christy said.
Star led him back to her office. She rounded her desk and looked up in time to see him closing and locking the door. Star stood, gave him a stern look. "Open that door."
Jags walked toward her.
She pointed. "If you don't open that door, I'm not going grocery shopping."
"But there's nothing to eat in your house."
"Because you devoured everything. I'm serious. Open the door."
He took another step. "I'll grab something to eat at Copper Creek."
Closing her eyes for only a moment, she pulled her rolling chair under her and sat, her elbows braced on the desk and her fingers laced before her mouth. "We got to set up some ground rules."
Grinning, he sat in the chair across from her and stared at her, mimicking her stance with his fingers laced before his mouth.
"We are not having sex in my office."
He stared at her thoughtfully. "What makes you think I want to make love with you here?"
"Because you're awake." She circled her desk and opened the door. "Go. Get some work done at your own desk before Zeke fires you."
"Alright." He wrapped his arms around her and gave her ass a squeeze. "But can you come out to play after work?"
She stifled a smile. "If you behave yourself and give me the next few hours to get some work done."
She walked toward him, waving him toward the door and watched as he sprinted down the hallway, jumped with both feet and tapped the decorative molding above the elevator.
When the elevator door slid open, her husband blew her a kiss.
Smiling, Star returned to her desk.
––––––––
DEEPLY ENGROSSED IN finding the error in a particular line of code, Jags didn't notice Rane enter his cubicle.
"You got a second?"
Jags held his hand out, gesturing to the chair beside his desk. "I'm glad you stopped by."
Rane took a seat. "Really?"
"I was rude earlier today and I want to apologize."
Jags saw this opportunity to rectify his anger and right now was the perfect time, because he was desperate to rid himself of the hate darkening his heart. The sooner he did, the sooner he and Star could start a life together. "I was thinking since you and Star work together, maybe you and I should make an effort to get to know one another, maybe even strike up a friendship."
Rane relaxed into the chair and crossed a bent leg over his knee. "I thought maybe I did something to upset you."
"Not at all," Jags said, "You just caught me at a bad time is all."
"From your state of your dress or should I say undress, I'd say I caught you at a really good time."
Okay.
So the guy was a bit of sleaze, but Jags was determined to get past whatever it was between them. He stood, his hand stretched toward the opening of his cubicle. "Thanks for stopping by. I hope things won't be weird between us."
Rane stood and offered his hand.
Unwilling to touch the man and risk another useless, uninformative, dark trip into Rane's psyche, sparking another tornado of rage inside Jags, he simply nodded at the offered hand.
Rane snickered and headed for the corridor. He looked back. "When you're done with her, you mind if I give her a whirl?"
Jags realized at that moment that Rane was just one of those guys who simply didn't understand boundaries and somebody who let the wrong head do his talking. Unfortunately, his brother was one of those types so he was familiar dealing with such assholes. "I won't tire of her and if I did, you're the last person I would let anywhere near her."
Rane laughed. "Honesty. I can appreciate that." Giving Jags a mock salute, he turned on his heel and disappeared down the corridor.
Jags handled him with calm and at the same time, made his feelings toward him and for Star clear. Rubbing his hands together, he muttered, "Fantastic." Rane tested him and he passed. With any luck, his visions would return, as well as, his ability to sense others.