“It was risky business,” she said with a solemn nod. “Everything had to go just right, or it never would have worked. I could have ended up freezing to death. Or drowning in that flood they were so worried about.”
“And what would you have done if I hadn’t noticed you?” I asked, playing along. “What would you have done if I hadn’t been interested, hadn’t stalked you that first night, waiting for you to come down to dinner?”
She leaned toward me and dropped her voice to a husky whisper. “I had plans to take care of that. But I can’t tell you. Or I’d have to kill you.”
At that point, I couldn’t hold it together anymore and dove toward her, my fingers out and curled into prime tickling position. I grabbed at her, but to my surprise, she proved to be completely immune to my attack, and a moment later I was drawing back, somewhat confused at her lack of ticklishness.
She lifted one eyebrow and gave me a sideways smile. “I’ve never been ticklish,” she admitted. “But don’t worry; you’re not the first person to have assumed I was. Now, you, on the other hand…”
She looked my body up and down, spending more time on my crotch than any other part of me, and I felt myself growing hard all over again, exhausted as I was. Then, to my shock, she jumped on me, and looked down at my semi.
“You, on the other hand,” she repeated, “look like you’d be extremely ticklish…right…here…”
It took us half an hour to finally get out of bed, which was how we ended up eating Italian food at an all-night café at the shocking hour of three in the morning. It definitely wasn’t going to do anything helpful for the low-carb diet I was supposed to be on before I started the tour.
But there were no paparazzi out at three in the morning in that neighborhood. And she’d been right about the food. I crammed another bite of spaghetti and meatballs into my mouth and watched her take a bite of her calzone, then roll her eyes in bliss.
“I wish this place was closer to my house,” she moaned. “Although…if it was, I’d probably be out of the industry in no time flat. I could never eat this much food every day—which is exactly what I’d do if I had easy access to it. This calzone is better than sex.”
At that, I actually dropped my fork in protest. “Hold up. Better than all sex?”
When she leaned in close, I matched her movement, ready to put this argument to the test. But she gave me a lazy, catlike smile, then reached up to marinara sauce off my lip. I turned my head just enough to bite her thumb, making her catch her breath in surprise.
“What we do isn’t just sex,” she murmured. “And this food—and anything else—has nothing on that.”
I reached out, cupped her cheek, and pulled her face to me for a sweet, nearly innocent kiss that promised to become much, much more as soon as I had her to myself. When I pulled back, I promised myself one thing: I wasn’t going to let this woman get away from me again.
No matter what it took, I was keeping her. She was mine, and nothing was going to change that.
Rian
I stretched luxuriously in the bed that wasn’t my own, recalling exactly where I was and exactly why, and then allowing myself to relive every luxurious, decadent, sinful moment of the night before. I smiled to myself as I remembered seeing her in the bookstore, then grinned outright when I remembered her running toward me and jumping into my arms.
That was the moment when I felt like I’d found what I’d been searching for my entire life. The moment when I finally felt whole again, after weeks of walking around feeling empty.
The panic I’d been feeling up to that point had completely disappeared, and I’d felt like a whole man. Someone with something to live for.
What a night it had been. Making love against the door the moment we got in here. Making love again on the couch, and then again in bed. Then again on the couch after we got back from our impromptu Italian meal at three in the morning. Climbing back into bed and pulling her up against me so that I had her spooned in front of me, my breath on her neck, her hand twined up in mine, my other hand tangled in her hair. Every inch of it had spoken to what was between us. Belonging. Something that fit so perfectly it didn’t even take any additional thought. No planning. No explanation.
Something that was just meant to be.
If I’d sat down to plan an absolutely perfect night, that would have been it. There was no doubt about it in my mind. And I couldn’t wait to wake up fully, grab her and kiss her good morning, and then go off to breakfast somewhere. Anywhere that we could arrange to sit in the back, out of view of the public—and the paparazzi that were buzzing around this city like gnats.
I wasn’t ready for this to be public yet. There were a million and one things to take care of before that happened, in terms of ending some things and starting others. And then, there was the most important thing: I wasn’t ready to share her with anyone else. Not just yet. Maybe not for weeks. This relationship was so new, so fresh and lovely, and I wanted to keep it to myself. Cradle it up against my chest and nurture it and enjoy it in the quietness of our little bubble—with her—before we allowed anyone else in.
I reached out toward her side of the bed, grasping for her hand, for that feeling of togetherness that we’d achieved last night. For the promise that whatever the future might hold, we were going to walk toward it together, and figure it out as a couple, rather than alone.
Finally, I could stop figuring things out alone.
I frowned when my hand met cold sheets.
Then, I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling, praying that I was wrong. No, praying was the wrong word. I was flat-out begging the universe that I was wrong. That I wasn’t going to turn on my side and see the same thing I’d seen that morning in China. That I wasn’t going to have made the same. Exact. Mistake.
I frowned, telling myself that I was making things up. Overreacting. Being paranoid. But when I looked to my right, I let all those thoughts go.
Because she wasn’t there. The sheets were wrinkled and displaced, and I knew she’d slept most of the night there—hell, I’d been awake an hour ago, and she’d still been completely knocked out, her face beautifully flushed with sleep, her lips pushed out in a slight pout—but she was absolutely, definitely, unmistakably gone, now.
Maybe she’s just in the bathroom, I told myself quickly. Maybe she got up early and had a shower already, and she’s down in the lobby getting coffee. Maybe she’s getting breakfast and is going to bring it up to me, as a surprise. Appear with a room service tray, laughing. A tray full of bowls of whipped cream.
I knew I was lying to myself. That voice knew I was lying to myself. Because I’d been in this same position before, waking up with a grin on my face and warmth flowing through my veins at the memory of her skin up against mine, only to find that I was the only one in bed, and she’d fled in the night like we’d done something wrong.
Be honest with yourself, bud, you knew this was a risk when you came here last night, I thought to myself.
And that, at least, was the truth. Yeah, she’d seemed overjoyed to see me. Yeah, she’d seemed just as happy as me—just as relieved to have reconnected. She’d been a flame in my hands, pure desire, and it had gone right to my head. I’d stared into her eyes as I made love to her and thought that she couldn’t be faking it. Couldn’t be faking the beautiful, naked vulnerability there. She’d even told me that it was more than sex between us. And I’d thought she’d meant it.
I’d thought she was letting me in this time. Actually letting me see her true heart, letting me enter that place where she kept her soul.
I’d thought we were playing for keeps.
But it turned out she’d just been faking. Again. Or…if she hadn’t been faking, she’d done some serious backpedaling this morning and had managed to talk herself out of that vulnerability.
I might have been playing for keeps. But now, I realized that I shouldn’t have been sleeping on this. I shouldn’t have let myself relax—not yet, when I knew how scared
she was. When that fear had already bitten us once before. I should have been awake, to talk her out of whatever it was she’d talked herself into.
But then I bit my lip and let my rational side speak for a second. Tell me that this couldn’t be my fault. Or, rather…that it couldn’t be my responsibility to fix what she was doing. This was the second time she’d run out on me, and I was starting to think that whatever game she was playing, I would maybe be better off if I stepped off the ride. Jumped off it and ran the other way. Well, maybe that was pushing it a bit too far. I desperately wanted to be on that ride—but I couldn’t afford to be. Not if this was always going to be the outcome.
I’d wanted another chance with her. I’d had it. And she’d chosen to walk out on me. Again.
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” I muttered, swinging my legs over the side of the bed and starting to search for my clothes. I needed to get dressed and get the hell out of there before any reporters picked up on the fact that I had just spent the night in a room with Alexis Taylor’s name on it.
I’d pick up the pieces of my broken heart later. For now, I needed to make sure I at least kept my reputation intact.
Alexis
Two Weeks Later
I stared at the paper in my hand, trying to decide what the hell to do with it. Well, let me be straight. I knew exactly what I should do with it—take the number and dial it into my phone as quickly as I could, without thinking twice. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, just dial that damn number.
Everything in my body screamed out for me to do just that. To at least save the number into my phone so it would be semi-permanent.
But there was a far more rational part of my mind in control, now. I’d given it two weeks to talk me into its side of the story, and I’d worked hard to shut down the more romantic part of myself so the rational part could win out. The problem was, the rational part was starting to sound a whole lot like Sophie.
He had a girlfriend. Even if he didn’t have a girlfriend, he had a fake girlfriend that his label had set him up with and that they were absolutely, definitely counting on him to maintain. His career depended on that. His contract with the label most likely depending on that. His reputation—and hers, I supposed—depended on it.
No one would thank him for screwing that up. And I was willing to bet that the label executives would go out of their way to punish him if he did. He might have thought he was in control of his own life, and able to do what he wanted with it—see who he wanted—but that was the farthest thing from the truth. I knew. As soon as you signed contracts like the one he’d almost definitely signed with his label, it meant they owned you. They owned your reputation; they owned the shows you did; they owned the crowds you brought and the money you made.
They got to dictate what you did. You had to escape them if you wanted to change that. And though I’d seen hints that Rian wanted to do just that, I didn’t think he was ready to make that call. Maybe someday. But not yet.
I didn’t think any amount of good sex or sparks flying between us was going to change that. Which was exactly why I’d gotten out of that bed in that Hilton, still warm with our body heat and smelling of us and our love, and walked out of there. I’d laid in that bed for at least an hour, watching him sleep and taking the chance to touch him again. I’d run my fingertips over his cheeks, trying to memorize the way his stubble felt. He’d woken for a moment and turned his face to kiss my palm, and I’d tried to memorize that, too.
Tried to take a snapshot of it and stick it to the personal bulletin board I always carried in my head, to remember after he was gone.
Because I’d known right from the moment the thought occurred to me that if I did what I was planning to do, I would never be able to see him again. Never be able to make up for what I was about to take from him. I’d known he would never forgive me—and it would have been really stupid for me to expect him to. It was stupid and horribly unfair.
But I’d also known that it was the only real choice. He thought he loved me right then, but he didn’t know how much he’d be giving up for it. And he’d meet other girls. I mean, they probably lined up outside his dressing room every damn night, just dying to meet him. He must have had reams and reams of fan mail with girls asking for dates. With those dimples and that hair, are you kidding? Just wait until they saw his abs!
He wouldn’t find it hard to replace me.
I’d hoped. Because I hadn’t wanted to hurt him. I’d wanted—been desperate for—some way to stay there. To start our lives together right then, to take hold of each other and never, ever let go. I would have sold my soul for it, and then some. I would have done damn near anything.
Except risk his career. In the end, that was the one thing I could never do. It wasn’t mine to risk, and I didn’t think he’d ever be able to forgive me if he lost what he’d worked so hard for, over a little thing like a love affair—which might not even last. Hell, we might not even last over a month, and then what? We would both have thrown careers away for the sake of a month of infatuation.
Not worth it. Definitely not worth it.
And that was why I took one last look at the paper where he’d jotted his number down, that night in the hotel, and then ripped it up and tossed it into the trash.
I didn’t need a man, anyhow. I was successful in my career, highly sought-after, and was now looking at a whole new career for myself. I’d even started down that path, signing up for photography classes, which were due to start next month. I was only a few steps away from getting started down the path toward that goal. A love affair at this point would just distract me, keep me from focusing on the things that were most important. I couldn’t afford it.
I wasn’t going to afford it.
There. That was that decided, I thought. Now, I could put it out of my mind. I demanded that my heart heal, and quickly, and that it then rebuild the walls I’d had around it for so long, to protect me from situations just like this one. I went through my mental filing cabinets and cleared out all the pictures I had of Rian there. Cleared my memory of the touch of his fingers on my skin, his lips on mine, his weight on top of me as he pressed into me, his eyes staring into—
No! That was exactly the opposite of what I needed to be thinking, and I put that away as well. Into a box that I then locked, with multiple padlocks, and shoved into the furthest corner of my mind. I would keep it there, just in case, but I’d never look at it again, never open it, unless I absolutely had to.
I didn’t have time to take on a boyfriend. I didn’t even know myself yet, and surely that was more important than trying to know someone else.
I looked over at the phone, though, considering—and then saw the notification that said I’d needed to leave ten minutes ago.
“Dammit,” I swore under my breath.
I was late. And with the traffic in this city, I would be cutting it close, even if I ran to get a cab.
Alexis
I had rushed to the appointment without even thinking and now sat in the exam room, in that awful silence that follows an exam with your OB/GYN, waiting for her to come back. It was nothing big; this was my yearly appointment. I’d wanted to get it over with before I jumped head-first into the schedule I was going to have to keep to start going to all the classes I’d signed up for. Granted, I was taking three months off from work just to take those classes.
But I’d signed up for three of them. That was a lot, even for a workaholic like me. Especially when it was going to mean learning an entirely new skill. I also had appointments to go to shoots with a bunch of photographers, and even that offer to go into the developing room, which I was absolutely going to do. It was going to be a very busy three months for me.
Literally the last thing I would want to do when I was that busy would be to go to an appointment with my OB/GYN, so I was happy to get it out of the way now.
When she finally came back into the room, though, she looked less than casual. In fact, she looked
…worried.
I frowned, suddenly concerned. There weren’t very many reasons for an OB/GYN to look like that, and none of them was good. Come to think of it, I didn’t think any doctor looking at you like that was good. She looked like she had swallowed a marble and was trying to figure out how to get it out.
Or like I was dying of cancer and she had to tell me about it.
Stop overreacting, Lex, I lectured myself firmly.
I wasn’t dying of cancer. If I was dying, I was pretty sure I would have felt at least a little bit sick. People only usually died without feeling sick when they had a stroke or a heart attack or something. And if I was having one of those, I’d have already been dead. Doctors didn’t just come in and say, “Oh, sorry, according to this test, you’re going to be dead in a minute or two.”
But what could the problem be? It still can’t be anything good, girl…
That voice was really starting to piss me off.
“Dr. Burns?” I asked hesitantly. Better to just get it over with, I thought. Whatever she was going to say, I’d rather she just get it out. “You look like you have bad news for me.”
At that, her frown deepened, then cleared, then deepened again, in an array of changes that could only mean she was going through a number of different emotions in her head. Maybe a number of different responses to my statement.
“Oh, out with it,” I told her, trying to make a joke of the whole thing. “Whatever it is, it’s not going to get any better if you keep it secret.”
At that, she finally made an effort to clear her face and nodded.
“You’re right, of course. As for whether it’s bad news…honestly, I guess that depends on what your plans were for…well, the rest of your life.”
Um, what? What was it with people asking me what I wanted with my life lately? And since when did an OB/GYN ask you—
How To Have Surprise Quadruplets (How To... Book 2) Page 9