by Mia Wolf
Unlike yesterday, I’m dreading meeting Andrew again. After a lot of trying to keep my feelings for him in check, I know they’re spiraling out of control. That's not even considering the physical tension in the room when we’re together. I don’t know if he feels it too, but my heart aches like a wounded soldier’s when he’s in the same room as I am.
It took all the power in me not to respond to his text. It’s for the best this way. I pushed the notification aside, and that was that. I cannot fall for him, not when I’m presenting at the Regal fashion week. My entire life has been leading up to this moment, I will not throw it away because my body is betraying me.
Besides, it’s Andrew Brehm we’re talking about. He’s clearly some hot-shot owner of a company, rich and carefree, he probably goes on casual dates all the time. He can’t be serious about me. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a total player, he most definitely looks the part. Just imagining women swarming around him makes my temper flare. I want no part of that, it doesn’t matter how briefly or long he might be considering feigning interest in me. I’m no longer a damsel in distress forever looking to be saved.
He’ll get bored soon, anyway, I just need to stay focused until then.
For the rest of the day, I nearly wear my feet to bleeding from all the running around, trying to get things in place. Andrew finally shows up in the evening, later than all the rest of the models. Violet informed me earlier that he got a customized schedule for the tryouts which obviously prompted me to ask why he gets to do whatever he pleases while everyone else makes it in time.
“He’s the founder of RISE. It’s a pretty big brand. Regal’s board of directors are a part of his clientele. And the President of the United States is too, for that matter. He’s a pretty big deal, and he isn't late on purpose. He really doesn’t have the time. It’s a miracle that he even agreed to do the show. Have you looked at him? He gets asked to model all the time and never agrees.”
That helped me get an idea about Andrew Brehm. Now his persona makes more sense and so do the fan groups. What makes less sense is why he would be interested in me at all? I can’t think of any other reason than that I’m some kind of joke to him. That thought only infuriates me more. I wish I didn’t personally need to deal with him, because being in the same room as him, my body just wants to devour him whole. Having to deal with these infuriating feelings is too much on top of trying my best to make this show a success. Every day seems to be getting more daunting and exhausting than the last, and the vision that’s in my head seems increasingly difficult to bring to life.
I don’t get a moment to breakdown either, not a moment to fret, to doubt. It’s a churn, and I’m a simple cog in the machine that can’t help but keep moving.
I make it through the rest of the tryouts and days of preparation relatively unharmed. I even find myself able to tolerate being in the same room as Andrew Brehm, although I manage better on some days than others. On the final evening before the show, I go back to my hotel room to get ready for the organizing committee dinner.
As I make my way out of Regal’s main building, I run into Andrew again. We managed to have several serious meetings without letting our personal matters get in the way, but I’m not sure that I can keep my composure around him after work hours. I have every intention to walk past him, but he obviously stops me in my tracks. I can’t help but think that he is trying to sabotage me on purpose. He clearly doesn’t have any real feelings for me, so what could he possibly want from me?
“What are you doing tonight?” he asks as if I’m answerable to him.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t remember being so close to you that you casually get to ask me about my whereabouts,” I respond with bitterness in my voice while crossing my arms in front of my chest.
“Have I offended you somehow? At least talk to me,” he says far too politely. It only irks me more that he’s so nice despite my harsh words. Plus, I walked out on him in a restaurant. That’s pretty uncouth even for me but what choice did I have? I’m falling for him, and he won’t be around for long enough to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of the crash.
“Andrew,” I say, and my voice cracks. I’m about to beg him to stop talking to me about anything but work when Violet shows up.
“Good day, Rose,” she says. She looks like a completely different person without her headset. “Ashley is pretty impressed with your progress. I just talked to her on the phone. I’ve sent her the latest plans for the show. I’ll let you know what she thinks.”
“Thanks, Violet, that’s great to hear,” I tell her, hoping that she doesn’t sense the tension between Andrew and me.
Violet waves goodbye to both me and Andrew and just when I think she is about to leave she drops the bomb.
“You should bring a date to the committee dinner,” she says then looks at Andrew.
“That would be me. I’m her date,” Andrew says, suddenly jumping in.
“Alright,” says Violet, wide-eyed and grinning at the same time. I try to say “no way” to Andrew, but nobody listens to me.
“See you guys then,” are Violet’s last words before leaving the two of us alone.
“What’s wrong with you?” I say to Andrew through gritted teeth.
“All I’m asking is to clear the air, Rose. You can’t be mad at me for nothing. We’re working together anyway. We can both go our separate ways after we talk about this. How does that sound?”
Reasonable. It sounds reasonable, but I’m far too mad to admit it to him. I reluctantly agree.
“So when should I pick you up for dinner?” he asks so kindly that my heart instantly melts.
“Can you try to not have a herd of women circling you?” I ask, feeling defeated.
“I would want nothing more in the world, Rose. I wish I could, I really do,” he pauses then stares at me. I briefly meet his eyes and feel the electricity shoot up in my skin under his gaze. “I can wear a cowboy hat if you’d like. I bet that would ward them off.”
That makes me laugh for the first time all day. It’s also the first time I look at Andrew like he’s just another human being and not an evil monster out to get me. Gorgeous evil monster, my brain corrects me. Just another human being. Then I remind myself, as I often have to since I forget it from time to time, that I’m no human myself.
“Pick me up in an hour, I’ll text you the address.”
At the hotel, I’m frantically scavenging my suitcase for a dress appropriate to be worn by the date of Andrew Brehm.
Andrew Brehm is my date for the night. The thought sends tingles down my spine, and the butterflies in my stomach won’t stop fluttering. The man is the most beautiful specimen I have ever laid my eyes on. And then there is the whole story about the effect he has on my body.
I finally decide on the orange dress with plates, the one that’s up on my website. It has a lot of history attached to it, but I think I’m ready to rewrite it. It’s the first thing I made that I was proud of. In many ways, that dress is what started this all. No better occasion to wear it than now.
I look at myself in the wardrobe mirror. I let my hair fall down, and use no accessories since the dress is a little elaborate in itself. It doesn’t have too much going on, but there are enough details in it to make it interesting. I wear my golden bracelet since I don’t feel comfortable going out without it. I twirl once in the six-inch heels that I decided to wear. Andrew is quite tall, so they’re perfect.
I’m suddenly reminded of Michael and how I could never wear high heels with him because Michael was only a few inches taller than I was. I told him that I didn’t mind, but obviously, he minded. He was not okay with his girl being taller than him. It sounds petty now, but at the time, I felt seriously distressed over the matter. That seems like a forever ago.
I shake my head to leave the painful memories in the past. My phone buzzes and I check it to see that it’s Andrew. Right on time, I realize. The text says he’s waiting outside the hotel.
I mak
e my way to him, and avert my gaze when I spot him leaning against his car. When I finally find the courage to look up, my breath hitches at the sight of him. Could he have actually gotten more good-looking in the time that I was away? The strong fragrance of his perfume reaches me and fills my lungs, and I’m at a complete loss of words when it does. As he sees me approaching he pulls me in for a hug. The brief contact is enough to set me on fire. Neither of us lets go, we linger for just a second longer in that close proximity.
“You look divine,” Andrew whispers into my ear, and my heart forgets how to beat in time. I grab hold of him a little tighter, afraid to lose control since my knees are buckling.
Andrew doesn’t mind and lets me cling to him for a while. We stand motionless until I find the strength to get a grip.
“Sorry about that,” I say as calmly as I can. “It’s probably the exhaustion of the day catching up to me.”
I let go of Andrew and sit with him in his convertible BMW. He’s absolutely unreal. Actually, none of this is real. I can’t wait to tell Jessica all about this once I find a moment to breathe.
We reach the hotel where the dinner is organized. Andrew tells me he is a regular at the place. He catches the attention of females the entire ride, but at least since we’re in the car, they don’t stick to him like bees on honey.
The dinner is merely for the designers and the models to get together, information that I didn’t have prior to coming here. What that means is that Andrew was also invited. The realization makes me want to dig a hole and then lie in it.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to come anyway?” I whisper to Andrew. He’s sitting right beside me.
“Who said I was going to come anyway?” he replies, looking me in the eyes. “I just wanted to talk to you, but you had to attend the dinner so I thought I could accompany you. You wouldn’t talk to me otherwise.” He makes a sad, puppy face that warms my heart. My brain wants to yell, ‘Why is he so damn attractive and kind at the same time?’, but I bite my tongue.
The dinner time conversation mostly revolves around who knows who and who’s done what. Andrew seems to be more updated on those matters than I am so I eat my dinner only occasionally weighing in whenever someone asks me something about the show. I do get a lot of compliments on my designs which makes me feel oddly satisfied because I worked so hard on them.
That makes me think of the time I worked on the showstopper’s outfit. I made it the same evening I met Andrew. Sitting down and working on it was an emotionally turbulent experience for me because his face elicits a deep, primal emotional response from somewhere so deep within me that I can’t get a grip on it. Usually, that’s what I look for in terms of inspiration, but in Andrew’s case, it’s as if that part of me is in overdrive. It’s something I need to be careful of; otherwise I can get hurt.
I look at Andrew from the corner of my eye as he makes conversation with people around the table. There are a lot of gorgeous women who are part of the gathering, but he doesn’t seem to be giving any of them too much attention. Except for me. I roll my eyes at the thought. I still don’t want to believe that his feelings for me are sincere. They can’t be. We belong to two different worlds, we’re two completely different people.
The thought saddens me because the truth of the matter is that even if his feelings were sincere, I would still put my career before him. I’m not here to fall in love. I remind myself of that with a stinging bout of pain straight to my heart.
The night ends and leaves a bittersweet aftertaste in my mouth. Andrew takes me back to my hotel. When he stops the car and is about to leave, that’s when I do what I really shouldn’t have.
Chapter 12 – Andrew
“Do you want to come up?” Rose says when I’m thinking I should walk away from this before I do something stupid.
Walk away, Andrew. My head is trying its best to make rational decisions, but this is not about the human in me. I don’t know why but everything about Rose goes straight to the bear shifter that I am which is precisely why I should look the other way and not complicate her life with this.
“I—” I’m about to make the hardest decision I’ve had to make in my life, literally, when her face withers in front of my eyes as if she’s wilting like a flower born only for one night.
I can’t leave her alone when she’s looking at me like that. We make our way to Rose’s hotel room, and I realize how deeply we’re entangled in this.
All of my muscles tense, but I can feel that primal hunger rise in my chest. I’m filled to the brim with one single thought, and I’m hoping Rose doesn’t give me an opening because the way I am right now, I cannot trust myself.
“We can have coffee,” Rose says idly but in a raspy whisper that makes the bulge in my pants worse than it already was.
Come on, snap out of it. She just offered you coffee.
“Coffee sounds great.”
I’m finally about to get a handle on myself when Rose does something that tips me right over the edge. I notice her shallow breaths and the last one out of her mouth comes out with a throaty moan.
With fifteen floors to go, I pin Rose to the back of the elevator and kiss her straight on the mouth. To my surprise and utter delight, she lets my tongue explore hers. Her body is flush against mine, and I can feel her pert nipples through the thin fabric of her dress.
I suck on her lower lip, and the feeling is sensational. I haven’t done this in a long time, I think to myself in the brief moment my mind finds the time to do so.
I don’t want to stop.
Chapter 13 – Rose
All that I know right now is that Andrew is all over me, and I don’t want him anywhere else. We’re in my hotel’s elevator, and I’m drowning in the taste of Andrew’s lips. He is kissing me hard, and I am not backing down either. We tug and pull at each other’s lips with hungry teeth as our tongues battle it out.
I’m a cacophony of sensations as Andrew sucks on my lower lip while pinning me against the wall. He’s holding both of my hands above my head, and there is nowhere for me to go except to cling onto him. The hair on the back of my neck rises as I feel his hand slide up my orange dress and rest too close to what’s between my legs. The anticipation makes me arch my back, and I press into Andrew which only encourages him more.
Neither of us wants to let go, and the desperation is evident in the way we both hang onto each other. The elevator dings and Andrew reluctantly pulls away from me. We’re on my floor, and we both take quick steps to my room. I use the keycard and unlock the door in a deft maneuver. The moment we’re inside, Andrew presses me against the door and starts kissing me. His hand goes back to my inner thigh. I lift one of my legs to take off my heels, but when I do, Andrew grabs hold of it and takes my stiletto off himself. He repeats the same process with my other leg. My height considerably reduces with heels gone so Andrew takes one of my legs and places it around his waist while lifting me up a little with his other hand.
The hunger in our kisses increases as we tangle with each other like vines. Andrew thrusts into me, and the pressure between my legs makes a moan escape from my mouth.
“Bed,” I whisper to Andrew between kisses, and he momentarily lets go of my mouth then sweeps me up in his arms and takes me to the bed. This time he doesn’t kiss me on the lips. Instead, he nips my neck and nibbles at it. The touch of his soft hair on my skin makes me want to bury my fingers in them.
He doesn’t stay too long at my neck; his mouth travels down to the deep V cut of my dress, and he stops right in the middle of my breasts. He looks up at me from there with his gray eyes full of need.
I pick myself up a little and grab hold of the hem of Andrew’s white t-shirt. He allows me to pull it over his head, and I drop it on the floor. Andrew is about to push me back on the bed when I place a firm hand on his chest. His chest is rock solid and chiseled with rips as if he’s a Greek god. He sure looks the part. I rest my hand right above his heart, and I can feel it beating like a drum. That
makes me smile faintly. Andrew has a pained expression on his face as he observes me making a ritual out of admiring his body. I move my hand down to his abs then back up to his shoulders and then around his neck to his back, touching him all over. When I’m almost hugging him, he unzips my dress from the back. I let out an exasperated sigh, why won’t he let me play with his body?
“You can touch me some other time, baby. Right now, I need to fuck you,” Andrew says in a deep, sultry voice then yanks my dress off of me.
I’m in my bra and underwear lodged in place under Andrew's weight. He’s about to kiss me, but before he can, I reach for the button of his jeans. I need him right now. He understands my plea and takes his jeans off and drops them on the floor, next to the rest of our clothes.
Andrew puts a hand on one side of my face and straddles me at the waist. I’m waiting for him to kiss me again, but he waits there, hovering over and looking down at me with his glass eyes. His examines my body up and down once, twice, the third time he does it his gaze rests at the spot between my legs. I swallow hard at that and take in a deep breath to keep my heart from lurching out of its place.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I say and look away towards the glass window.
My attention is diverted until a hand slides under my back, and Andrew unhooks my bra. He takes the piece of clothing and tosses it aside revealing my breasts to him. Then he goes back to staring at me. Why does he get to stare? I think to myself and pout.
“Don’t—” I’m about to tell Andrew off, but he attacks my mouth with his and silences me. I forgot what I was thinking and melt from the touch of his lips. My boobs press into his bare chest, and the contact sends electric signals down my spine.
I kiss him back, pushing my tongue into his mouth and putting my hands back into his hair. Andrew thrusts his hips down at my core, and I can feel the bulge through his briefs. That makes my eyes roll back into my skull, and I arch into Andrew.