Relentless Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Epilogue

  Dear Reader

  About the Author

  Check out More of Joan's Books

  Relentless

  by Skye Jordan

  Copyright 2015 by Skye Jordan

  Cover art and design by Skye Jordan

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in encouraging piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Dedication

  For Marina Adair and Joya Ryan

  Thank you girls for helping me plot out this fabulous story of love, loss, and the powerful magic of second chances.

  You ROCK!

  The smokin'-hot, triple-D gave Troy Jacobs another one of those wicked I'm-gonna-fuck-you-until-your-eyes-cross grins from across the Venetian's concierge suite. Her attention should have excited him. Should have knocked him out of this damn funk. Should have guided his feet her direction.

  But Lifehouse hung in the background singing “From Where You Are,” layering Troy's melancholy mood with an edge that felt more bitter than sweet tonight. He glanced at his watch and muttered a curse under his breath. He needed to stay and schmooze at least another twenty minutes to make the director happy.

  So as the lead singer spoke of distance, wishes, loneliness, and regrets, Troy lowered his gaze to the whiskey in his crystal lowball, resisting the urge to glance out the window for the hundredth time since he'd walked into the suite. A suite with a perfect view of Giselle's gorgeous face splashed across a billboard crowning the Vegas skyline. He worked to repress the familiar blend of frustration and hurt that created anger. Anger that ate at his soul.

  “Got somewhere to be?” Zahara Ellis, a member of Troy's stunt crew, strolled to his side with that loose, sexy sway of hers and set her glass of red wine on the window ledge. The scrape she'd earned on the set earlier in the day looked raw against her creamy skin.

  “Anywhere but here,” he said. “How's that cheek? As soon as you bit the dirt, I knew it was going to leave a mark. It's bruising. You've got a very pretty blue halo going.”

  She lifted her wineglass and pressed it against the scrape. “Feels better with something cold on it.”

  Lifehouse's subdued tune transitioned into a fun, sexy riff from Nickelback's newest album, “No Fixed Address,” which helped Troy pull his mind from the topic that had been dragging him down for almost a month.

  “Was worth it,” he told her.

  “Easy for you to say.”

  He grinned, thinking back to the clips they'd come here to watch after a sixteen-hour day. “The dailies rocked.”

  “Thanks.” She grinned, but then winced and let the smile fade. Zahara wasn't an official Renegade, but she contracted with the group when they needed a quality all-around stuntwoman. “You're doing great work with Channing. I know you want to be the one doing the stunts, but you're teaching him a lot.”

  Troy's gaze skipped to Channing Tatum where he was talking with the producer and director across the suite. “He doesn't need much coaching. He's the kind of actor who could put me out of a job.”

  “Never.” She lowered the glass. “Casey's going to have to work magic with the makeup tomorrow. And speaking of Casey, I feel obligated to give you a heads-up. I overheard her and Becca talking. They've all but got you tied to the bed in your suite, taking turns until none of you can walk in the morning.”

  He rested his hip against the windowsill and lifted his drink to suck down half the Kentucky Mule floating there, then scanned for the brunette again. Casey had been joined by another dark-haired woman, a production assistant Troy recognized from the set, and now they were both giving him the same look.

  “Oh yeah?” he asked, trying to cover for the dive in his mood.

  “Oh yeah.” The words dripped innuendo, along with a hint of disgust. “Hey, you deserve to play a little. I haven't seen you with a chick since you got here almost a month ago. But the murky depths of those women's minds scare me.”

  “Thought nothing scared you.”

  She hummed around a sip of wine. “It's tough to rattle me, but when they started doling out responsibility for the sexual paraphernalia-lube, cuffs, vibrators, anal beads, nipple clamps, cock cages-I have to admit, it turned dicey. I'm more than a little nervous for you. I think you ought to put 9-1-1 on speed dial in case you need to call in the cavalry.” Her hazel eyes focused on him. “And, dude, I'm only half kidding.”

  He purposely tried to engage himself in the idea of a no-strings threesome with the bombshells. Z was right, Troy's schedule had been brutal, but not just for that month. He'd been traveling from gig to gig for going on fifteen weeks. He was in desperate need of extracurricular activity, but he was having trouble working up the interest. And the fact that he was still letting Giselle get to him seven years later seriously pissed him off.

  “They must not have seen what kind of day we had.” Troy tossed back the rest of his bourbon. “Please tell me you're as sore as I am.”

  “Hell, yes.” Her soft smile revealed perfect teeth that reflected the strip's glow. “I'm going to make one more round of small talk here, then I'm headed to the hot tub, the masseuse, and bed, in that order.”

  “Damn, that sounds good.” He imagined hot water and skilled hands easing his aches and pains. “Why didn't I think of that?”

  “Probably because you're too busy thinking about what you've been trying to forget since you got here.”

  He pulled his gaze from his fellow Renegades stuntmen, Keaton and Duke, where they chatted up a couple of blonde production assistants, and refocused on Zahara. “If that's a riddle, I give up.”

  Her gaze returned to the window, her focus directly across the strip. She lifted her drink toward the Mirage. “She's really beautiful. So…country fresh, you know? And her voice…” Z shook her head and sighed. “There really are no words. She's absolutely amazing.”

  Troy's heart took a free fall straight to his stomach. His hands clenched around his glass.

  He scanned the people in the room, searching for the leak to his past. Giselle had been long gone by the time Troy had hooked up with the Renegades. Then his mind came around to Rachel, Renegades' former secretary turned location scout, who now lived in Virginia with Nathan Ryker, Troy's best friend since childhood and the closest thing he had to a brother. Which meant…

  “Fucking Ryker.” he rasped. “This is worse than a family with everyone tattling on each other.”

  “She just wanted me to know so I could watch your back, make sure your head was two-hundred percent into the stunts. Would you rather she told one of the guys?”

  “I'd rather she talked to me about it.”

  “She was going to, but you've been so busy, you two have been playing phone tag. She thought with the demands of the film, an outside perspective might be better. We all need that sometimes.”

  “That doesn't make it okay.” Nothing about his sit
uation with Giselle was okay with him. Not the way they'd broken up. Not the way she'd ignored his calls the first few months after. Sure as hell not the way she still talked to Ryker but not to him. Never to him. Not one damn word since she'd bailed for the bright lights seven goddamned years ago. And he really hated the way Ryker seemed to think Troy was still so fucked up that he might junk a stunt just because he'd seen her picture. “In fact, it's damned insulting.”

  “Did you know she had the title song for this film before you came?” Zahara asked.

  “No.” Not that it would have made any difference in his role here, but it would have been nice to know that her face would be splattered over every inch of the strip advertising her Take Me Home tour. “Overheard it on set. Ryker could at least have told me.”

  “I saw her in concert once,” Zahara said, “when I was filming in Nashville. She's an incredible performer. Blew the crowd away.”

  Pride clashed with residual anger and tangled Troy's chest tight. Where Giselle was concerned, his emotions were as complicated as nuclear physics, as touchy as nitroglycerin, and as potent as TNT.

  “Her voice is extraordinary, that's for damn sure,” he admitted, his own voice edged with a bitterness he hated but couldn't seem to overcome.

  “She's really changing up her image. Transitioning from country to pop. They're calling her the next Taylor Swift.”

  “Fuck that.” Troy laughed at the ludicrous understatement. “They aren't even in the same hemisphere talent-wise. Giselle may sing in the country genre, but her voice would rock rhythm and blues, alternative, soul, jazz, contemporary. She's got the vocal dynamics of Mariah Carey and the technical ability of Celine Dion. She's always had a strong voice, but over the years, she's honed it into a fucking powerhouse. And her control…” He shook his head. “It's just unbelievable. She's got Beyonce's dexterity, flexibility, can lift it to be light and airy or push it to be solid, rich, and dark. She's even got a spunky, come-to-Jesus gospel flare she whips out once in a while. It all blends with the emotion she puts into every song and marks her work as something really, really special. So, no”-he shook his head, his gaze locked on the carpet-“Giselle is not the next Taylor Swift. She is already way beyond any level Swift will ever reach.”

  Troy forced himself to stop. To shut his mouth even though he could go on and on about Giselle's voice and the individual singing and performing talents that made her truly one of a kind. He lifted his glass toward a man in a black uniform and maroon half apron, who nodded in acknowledgment of his silent request.

  When he glanced at Z, her mouth had edged up into a sly little grin. “If you say so, Kanye.”

  “Ha.”

  “Where'd a white girl like Giselle get a flare of gospel?”

  “One of her foster homes. The mother sang in a Baptist choir and heard Giselle singing while she was folding laundry. Hauled her to church and signed her up. Giselle said she never did another chore because she spent all her time at choir practice. She would have broken out a lot sooner if her biological mother had left her the hell alone.”

  “Where'd you grow up?”

  “Memphis.” The bartender delivered his drink. Troy took the glass, held his hand up in a silent request for him to wait, and downed the whiskey in one swallow. Grimacing against the burn, he set the glass on the tray with a rough “Another, please.”

  Zahara waited until the server was out of earshot before she asked, “All the charity she does is for foster care. Is that how you two met?”

  He nodded. “Ryker and I were seventeen when she came to our home.”

  Z made a soft sound in her throat. “Man, you two got a rough start.”

  “Rougher for her, a beautiful little white girl raised by addict trash in the armpit of Tennessee.” Giselle had been fourteen at the time, with more scars than any one person should carry in a lifetime. “She's lucky the state took her away before her mother got a chance to sell her for a fix. That's where it was headed.”

  Z shook her head. “How long were you together?”

  Troy took the third drink from the waiter and thanked him, then sipped. “Best friends for two years, lovers for three.”

  “Wow, long time. And so young. What happened?”

  “Nashville.” And my own stupidity. The memories knifed him in the gut. “Nashville happened.”

  Z waited for more, but when silence thickened between them, she asked, “And you haven't talked to her since?”

  “Nope.”

  “Long time to be carrying a torch. Why don't you contact her? You know, reconnect? The film is the perfect excuse to start a dialogue.”

  “I'm not carrying a torch,” he lied, scowling at Z. He just hadn't realized how hot it still burned until he'd gotten here. “How would you like it if your ex was plastered all over Vegas while you were trying to work?”

  She lifted a shoulder, her gaze going distant. “Mmm, don't know. I've never been that much in love.”

  “Well, take it from me, no one needs that kind of heartache more than once in a lifetime. Besides, she wouldn't recognize me if we passed on the street. I'm a completely different person now-inside and out.”

  “Really.” Z crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes with a sassy smile, lightening the mood a little. “I was under the impression you were born a bad boy.”

  “Bad, yes. But I was white-trash bad. Not bad-ass bad. And our worlds are light years apart now.” He gestured out the window. “Look at her, splashed across the fucking Mirage, for God's sake.” He shook his head and smiled despite the stab of loss. “Man. She really made it.”

  “So have you,” Z said with a little scolding in her voice. “Not too many people can say they've got stupid-ass selfies with just about every Hollywood blockbuster star. Or that their phone numbers are programmed into the speed dial of every big producer in Hollywood in case of a freak problem with rigging on a set. You're equally as famous, just in a lower-profile way.”

  Troy laughed. “There's an oxymoron for you.”

  “You're not that different,” she insisted, serious again. “You're both in entertainment. You're both here. You're both involved in the same movie.” She tipped her head with a devilish glint in her eye and lowered her voice. “Don't you wish she could see who and what you've become?”

  Only every fucking day.

  “Nope. Like I said, rejection isn't my thing.” He sought out Becca and Casey and found them watching his conversation with Z. With a single nod, they sauntered toward him. And even the sight of two twelves on a scale of one to ten coming at his beck and call left him lukewarm. “That is my thing now.”

  “Oh. My. God.” Z's hazel eyes rolled. “You really are so bad.”

  He shot Z a grin. “With absolutely no plans of ever changing. I believe the present is the best way to keep one's mind off the past. And these two lovely ladies,” he said, smiling at each as they slid into position on either side of him beneath his outstretched arms, “fit my current needs to absolute perfection. Catch you tomorrow, Z.”

  Troy guided the women toward the door of the suite, forcing his thoughts off Giselle, off the pain eating at his gut like acid, and redirecting his mind toward the thought of relief through sexual oblivion.

  By the time he reached the street with Becca and Casey, the alcohol had softened a few of his rough edges, and the women's attentions temporarily numbed the hurt he'd been living with from his very first sighting of Giselle's photo.

  The cool, dry June night air layered a thin film of comfort over him after a very long day working in the caves out in Red Rock Canyon west of town. He didn't even look up at her image as they passed the Mirage, headed toward Troy's favorite sex club in Vegas-an elite, members-only place, offering top-shelf pleasure. He'd scored the membership when his boss and former mega Hollywood star, Jax Chamberlin, had gone and fallen in love. A few tugs on a couple of powerful strings had arranged a transfer of Jax's membership to Troy. He would never have been able to meet the who's-who qualification oth
erwise.

  Tonight was free-sex Friday, which meant the main salon would host live sex on-stage. How that differed from the live sex happening everywhere else in the club he didn't know. But it didn't matter because he was way more interested in the whips and chains residing in the Dungeon anyway. Beyond drinking away his angst over Giselle, Troy couldn't think of any other immediate fix for this desolate ache than fucking it away in the roughest manner imaginable. Booze would hinder his performance on set tomorrow. Sex wouldn't. And, lucky for him, the women at his sides had some hard-core predilections for domination and pain with their pleasure. Or so they'd said. Tonight, he'd see for himself.

  They slowed as a limo crept along a driveway leading from the back of the Mirage to the street, cutting off the sidewalk path as it waited to turn onto Las Vegas Boulevard.

  “Who do you think's in there?” Casey asked.

  Becca glanced up to the top of the Mirage. “Ooo, maybe it's Giselle Diamond. She's headlining here.”

  “Troy,” Casey said, her tone hushing as if someone might hear them. “Go knock on the window and ask for an autograph.”

  He barely resisted rolling his eyes. “You two are around movie stars all goddamned day, and you still need autographs?”

  “She's not a movie star, she's a musician. A singer. My favorite singer.” Becca turned her pleading brown eyes up to his. “Please.”

  “She won't open the window for another woman,” Casey said, “but she'd open it for a sexy thing like you. Just tell her you're working on the set-”

  “No.” He didn't mean to bark. He was just so goddamned sick of the way Giselle had been haunting him every goddamned minute of every goddamned day. She was plastered everywhere-billboards, buses, taxis, elevators. She was always in his head, she crept into his dreams…

  One of the limo's rear windows slid down. Casey and Becca gasped in stereo, and Troy's gut burned with apprehension.

  The rowdy shriek of several women from inside the car pierced Troy's bubble of unease. Three of the limo's occupants popped their heads out the sunroof, one of whom held a champagne flute and wore a plastic tiara adorned with fake jewels.