He nodded, amusement crinkling his eyes. God dammit! Donuts. DoughNuts. Nuts of dough that distract me in the best possible way.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, climbing the next step only to stop when his hand gently clasped mine.
I went to turn and face him once more but was stopped by the brushing of his body against me and the hypnotic scent of his aftershave. “You want a new headpiece? I’ll get it for you.” He subtly nuzzled my hair, breathing me in. “And if you want new head, I’ll give that to you, too. I’ll give you anything you want. All you need to do is ask.”
His fingers released mine and then he was gone.
… as were any clear and rational thoughts I possessed.
Chapter Thirteen
Tash
Dale made good on his first promise, providing me with a new headset not too long after we’d parted ways. He was a man of his word, which was admirable, yet it was also concerning considering he’d spoken words that were forbidden and delicious if they were to come to fruition.
Thankfully, the rest of the night had gone on without a hitch, Australian Open tennis players and their partners, together with tournament officials and sponsors, enjoying the celebratory wrap-up of the annual event. I was so pleased and proud of myself and my team for successfully ensuring a trouble-free evening and for once again showing the world why City Towers was one of the most revered hospitality and entertainment establishments.
In a nutshell, I was buzzed and riding a triumphant wave. I looked good. I felt good. Everything was good.
… until it wasn’t.
Pressing my phone to my ear and blocking my other ear with my finger, I answered Dean’s call while smiling at guests as they made their way out of the ballroom at the conclusion of the event. “Hey, what’s up?”
“How’d it go?”
“Fine, but it’s not over yet so I can’t be long.”
“No, that’s good. The boys haven’t seen you on the TV yet. They’re really disappointed. Are they still filming there? Can you manage a background flyby before they wrap up?”
I scrunched my face and looked over the sea of people gathered in the Atrium, spying the television crew interviewing guests as they said goodnight and left the venue. I also spied Bryce and Alexis there too. “Maybe. Leave it with me. I can’t make any promises though.”
“Okay. Go get ‘em—” I heard him say as I disconnected the call, unintentionally hanging up on him. I just didn’t have time for small talk if I were to inconspicuously photo-bomb the national broadcast.
Making my way across the room, I stopped a mere metre from Alexis, who was being interviewed about her outfit, and turned my back to the camera just slightly, raising my hand to my ear and pretending to listen to something important through my headset. I was also in the line of filming when Dale stopped next to me and leaned in, asking why I was posing as a member of his security staff — the hottest member of his staff.
“I’m trying to get on camera for my kids,” I explained through gritted teeth while maintaining my semi back-turned position.
He glanced over my shoulder in the direction of the film crew. “I see. Maybe we should put on a show, though. Your performance it a little boring.”
The pit of my stomach dropped together with both of my hands. A ‘performance’ was the absolute last thing I wanted to be a part of. “You wouldn’t dare,” I whisper hissed, slowly inching out of the film frame.
He chuckled. “Try me.”
Try me? I’m not trying anything.
Dale’s expression had turned impassive, not one feature giving his intent away. I was screwed. The thought of making a dash for cover crossed my mind, but that, in itself, would draw attention. There was also the option of calling his bluff, but something told me he wasn’t the bluffing type. So I was basically left with three choices: one, enter into a performance with him, whatever the hell that meant; two, shock him by saying something he wouldn’t expect and then slip away while he processed it; or three, pray to God the broadcast ended … this very second.
Crossing my fingers for choice number three, I proverbially pricked my ears like a rabbit and caught wind of the interviewer still embroiled in questions regarding Alexis’s attire. For fuck’s sake, hurry up already. She’s wearing a pretty pink dress and a pair of hot shoes. Go home already.
“You’re cute as hell when deliberating fight or flight, Tashy.”
I glared at him. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Yeah, it is.”
The smug bastard placed his hands in his trouser pockets and rolled back and forth on his heels. I both hated and loved when he did that, but more than anything, I wanted to push him over. Now that would be a performance.
Unfortunately, choice number two was looking more and more like my only option, so I closed my eyes for the briefest of seconds then opened them with a renewed sense of confidence, ready to shock him into submission to facilitate my escape. “Sooo … I’ve been thinking,” I teased, tapping my index finger on my lip before gently biting it. “Does your offer still stand?”
His eye twitched.
His brow furrowed.
“My offer?”
“Uh huh.” I smiled, albeit a calculating smile. “You’re cute as hell when confused, Dale.”
Sparks of recognition flickered in his eye. “Confused? No, I’m not confused.” He stepped closer, and for a split second my heart all but stopped. “Are you sayin’ you want head now?”
“Who doesn’t?” I countered, standing my ground.
“I don’t give just any head, Tashy.” Oh Jesus.
The head attached to my neck, which was attached to my body, which was buzzing to my very core, felt as if it were ready to explode. I had no doubt whatsoever that he’d deliver what he promised, because you couldn’t fake the type of arrogant hunger and sexual aptitude he possessed. You couldn’t fake sex when you were sex. And that’s exactly what he was: walking, talking, living, breathing S. E. X.
“What’s ‘just any head’?” I asked, biding my time. “I’m curious.”
“It’s when your pussy isn’t wet just from anticipating my touch.”
“Right.” I swallowed. “That’s it, is it?”
He chuckled, a little sinister sounding. “No. It’s also when my mouth doesn’t trail kisses up and down the insides of your thighs, when I don’t feather my tongue over your clit, and when you don’t clench my head tight.”
“Uh huh,” I choked out, clenching everything that could be clenched. “Sounds interesting.”
“It’s more than interesting.”
“Oh?”
“It’s when this spot here,” he said, placing his hand on the centre of my back, “isn’t arched in ecstasy. When you’re body isn’t covered in sweat, and when you’re not tearing at the sheets.” He moved his mouth to my ear, his voice low and deep. “And it’s when my name isn’t rolling from your tongue as you fight for breath and repeatedly come on my face.”
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t breathe.
I was statuesque, frozen … a stunned mullet. I wanted his head, not ‘just any head’. I’d had ‘just any head’ with my legs spread in bed. Fuck me dead. Shit! I’m rhyming. This isn’t good. Donuts. Donuts donuts donuts!
“That’s a wrap,” one of the television crew announced.
I startled at the loud voice and blurted “Donuts!” Double shit!
“Donuts?” Dale asked, amusement dripping from his cocky as fuck smiling face.
Blinking rapidly, because I wanted more than anything for the constant flutter of my lashes to levitate my body and carry me far faraway, I stuttered as I regained my composure. “Um … yeah. Donuts. I feel like donuts. I might order them as room service.”
His eyes lit up. “You’re staying at the hotel tonight?”
“Er … yeah. It’s easier than going home. I don’t like to drive so late at night. It’s not safe.”
“It’s probably safer than during the day.”
; I shrugged. “So you think I should drive home?”
“NO! I think you should get your donuts. You obviously want them.”
I glared at him, playfully. “I do. I love donuts.”
As if about to say something, his lips parted, but he paused when my phone rang, sounding ‘You Sexy Thing’.
“Hot Chocolate? Really?”
I glared at his grinning face of mockery. “Sorry, but I have to take this call.”
“Sure. Not a problem.”
Stepping behind a large concrete pillar for privacy, I answered. “Hey. Did the boys see me?” I was excited and proud of my stealth-like camera bombing.
“Na, they didn’t. Thomas pointed out your workmate, though. That made him happy. He seems to really like the guy. What’s his name? Dale? He was chatting to a woman in the background. And we saw Bryce and Alexis, of course. Where were you?”
The smile on my face slowly vanished as disappointment punched me in the gut. My husband hadn’t recognised me, hadn’t recognised his own wife. Granted, I was rockin’ a new do. But fuck, the rest of me remained unchanged.
“I was there,” I deadpanned.
“You were?”
“Yeah, I was the woman Dale was chatting to.”
The line fell silent — the worst kind of silence — a result of foot-in-mouth or forced comprehension. It was eerie. Unpredictable. It tightened my chest and prickled my fingertips.
It was horrible.
“That … was YOU?” he asked, his voice an octave higher and much, much louder.
“Yeah. Surprise!”
“What the fuck happened to your hair?”
A strangled laugh left my throat, but I went with it. “Gone.”
The horrid silence from before crept back into our conversation like thick unwelcome fog. I wanted to wave it away, or run away … either way.
“Dean?”
“What, Tash?”
His icy tone cut through me like a blade, regret punching me in the lung, guilt staggering my stance. I stumbled, losing my balance, and I had to brace myself against the pillar. “Are you not going to say anything?”
“What’s there to say?”
“That it looked good. That it suited me. I don’t know … something nice, something encouraging.”
“I didn’t see enough of it to tell you that.”
Wow! His words stung more than I could have ever imagined. They welled tears in my eyes and trembled my bottom lip. They hurt. But mainly, they disappointed. I was still me, still the same Tash. I was still his wife.
You know what? Screw him. It was just hair. Stupid hair that would eventually grow back. And it was my fucking hair. My choice. If he liked long hair so much, he could grow his own.
“Okay then. See you tomorrow,” I said, deliberately unperturbed as I hung up on him. I looked great whether he thought so or not, and I didn’t need his validation. I didn’t need anyone’s validation. Only my own. What I need is fucking donuts. That’s what I need.
Wiping my eyes to prevent mascara-massacre, I sucked in a deep breath and squared my shoulders before stepping out from behind the pillar. Dale was standing where I left him, poised like typical security personnel. His feet were planted shoulder-width apart, his back straight, his hands cupped over one another and suspended just below his stomach. He looked adorable in a you-don’t-want-to-mess-with-me kind of way.
I smiled as I approached him, burying the last few minutes and wanting nothing more than to mess with him. But, instead, I had a crazy idea. “So… what are your plans for the rest of the night?”
He raised his crinkly, sexy, scarred eyebrow. “Apart from being on standby, not much.”
I didn’t say anything, instead nodding my head in acknowledgement, purposely drawing his intrigue.
He took the bait. “What about you?”
“Meet me on the sundeck in thirty minutes and you’ll find out.”
* * *
Allowing only thirty minutes had been a bit ambitious for heading to my room, changing out of my gown, and collecting a box of donuts and two coffees from the hotel kitchen. But I’d done it, more or less, arriving at the sundeck just as Dale was taking a seat on one of the cane sunlounger-pods.
“Are you the real Cinderella?” He searched the ground around his feet. “That would mean your lost shoe is around here somewhere.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, tilting my head and smiling curiously as I walked toward him.
“It’s gone midnight and you’ve changed out of your gown.” He stopped searching, stretched and laid back on the pod, raising his arms and interlacing his fingers behind his head. “Damn, can’t find it.”
The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up and his biceps were straining against the material, and never before in my life wanted to lick a muscle like I did now. But I just stood there and stared, a box of donuts balanced on one hand, a tray of takeaway coffees in the other. Words, Tash. Say some words.
“Well … er … you know how the story goes: strict curfews, which is why you better take these coffees before they transform back into the toilet water they were made with.”
“Shit! Sorry.” He scrambled to sit upright again and took the tray from me. “And the donuts? What will they become?”
I sat on the pod beside him. “Toilet rolls, of course.”
“Nice. So you’ve brought me toilet water and toilet rolls. I’m so glad I decided to meet you here.”
I shrugged his remark by bumping shoulders. “Meh, you had nothing better to do.”
“Is that right?” Dale levered a cup free from the tray and passed it to me.
“Oh, hang on a second.” I flopped back on the pod so that I could slide my hand into my jeans pocket, retrieving a stirrer and some sachets of sugar. “I wasn’t sure if you took sugar or not. Actually, I wasn’t sure how you took your coffee so went with a latté. Sorry.”
“A latté is fine. And yeah, I do take sugar. I’m a fan of things that taste sweet.”
My eyes rolled … and rolled … and rolled. And not wanting to encourage him, I fought the smile that was desperate to surface on my face, instead swapping the sugar and plastic stick for the cup he was still holding out for me. “Thank you, sweet tooth.”
He chuckled — a smartarse chuckle — and I was beginning to take umbrage at the triumphant sound. “You’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you?”
“Of course. Who doesn’t like coffee and donuts after midnight?”
“I’m not talking about that,” I huffed, reaching inside the box and picking up a choc-glazed ring donut. “I’m talking about your deliberate inappropriateness.” The chocolate ring of delight eagerly found its way into my mouth.
His eyes landed on the donut and stayed there. “And how am I being deliberately inappropriate?”
“How are you not?” I mumbled around my mouthful.
He peeked into the box and went to grab the pineapple glazed, custard-filled, cinnamon sprinkled ring of amazingness, but I wrenched the box away before he could get his grubby little fingers on it. “Not that one.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s my favourite. I got you the other two.”
He frowned and took another look inside. “What if I don’t like those two?”
I shrugged without an ounce of sympathy. “Then you miss out.”
“Brutal.”
“Yep. Unless … ”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you tell me what’s gotten into you lately?”
Placing the box down on the ground by my feet, I swivelled so that I was facing him. There was no more playfulness. No more avoidance. I was deadly serious and wanting an answer.
Dale searched my eyes, his smile mild yet somewhat sad, his eye-crinkles less prominent. “You want to know why I finally made a move?”
“What do you mean by ‘finally’?”
He scoffed and drank his coffee. “I mean finally, after all these months.”
My jaw drop
ped. After all these months? What?
“Don’t look so surprised, Tashy.”
I shook my head. “But I am. I don’t understand.”
He placed the tip of his finger underneath my cup and guided it toward my mouth. “Drink. It will get cold.”
I did as I was told, sipping quietly and waiting for him to offer more of an explanation. I was already confused by his attraction for me, because it didn’t make sense. I was married with children, my boobs were victims of gravity, I couldn’t sneeze without fear of bladder leakage, and I was beginning to find hair where there shouldn’t be hair. It was all just a bit absurd.
“I’ve a had thing for you for close to a year now. You’re beautiful, smart … funny, and you don’t take shit from no one, including Bryce. You’ve got balls, Tashy.”
I closed my eyes momentarily, allowing what he’d just said to sink into my clouded mind. “You’ve had a thing for me for nearly a year because I have balls?”
“Pretty much.” Dale reached over my lap and picked it up the donut box.
“Uh ah. Not so fast,” I said, snatching it from him. “I want to know why? Why now? What changed?”
“My cousin.”
“Your cousin?”
“Yeah. My cousin. She died a couple of months ago. She was hit by a car while riding her bike.”
My hand shot to my mouth and I gasped. “I’m so sorry. That’s awful.”
Dale nodded, sadly, and shifted his focus on the pool, so I shuffled closer and placed my hand on his knee, my fingers lightly squeezing for comfort.
He covered my hand with his, both of us staring at them in silence. “It was her fault,” he said, breaking the silence. “She made a stupid, split second decision that cost her life.”
I didn’t offer anything, instead choosing to remain quiet so that he could speak.
“You’re probably wondering what this has to do with you.” He lifted his gaze from our hands and focussed on my face.
I scrunched my nose. “Well, yeah, kinda. But I’m also terribly sad for your loss.”
“My cousin was in love with her best friend. Madly in love,” he emphasised, chuckling a little while glancing back down at our hands. “It was annoying as shit, actually, because she’d ring me and whine about it.”
Commitment Page 13