I start to respond when he reaches out and touches the side of my face. His skin is smooth and warm as he caresses my cheek, his thumb stroking my jaw deliberately. My breath hitches in my throat and I fight not to lean into his touch. It would be too easy. Way too easy, and I want to show him I too have some restraint. Maybe. Barely.
“I have to work for a couple of hours,” he says.
“What?” His words are like cold water being dumped on my head. I guess the suit should’ve been a giveaway, but it still shocks me that he’s leaving me already.
He drops his hand and chuckles. “I do. Just for a little bit. I did come here to work, remember?”
“Oh, of course. I just . . . I . . .”
“Did you have something else in mind?” he teases.
My cheeks heat. I shake my head, my long locks swishing against my shoulders.
“I think you did, Brynne.”
He tips my chin with the touch of his finger so I’m looking at him again. “I’ll tell you a secret. I had something else in mind as well. But something has come up and I have to go. But what you had in mind? We’ll get to it, I promise. Whatever you envisioned, I’ll make happen.” His head bows slightly, leaving a shadowy look to his features. “And I’ll make it happen in a way you’ll never forget.”
He removes his touch and I instantly miss it. Crave it. Need it.
“When the time comes, I don’t want to be rushed. I want to take my time with you. That’s the reason I’m not touching you right now, okay? I want that to be very clear.” He leans in, his breath dancing across my cheek. “When I finally touch you, I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop.”
He steps back, putting much more space between us. The energy in the room swirls, so charged that I get a little light-headed. Fenton watches me for a long minute before turning toward the door. He stops in the entryway and faces me.
“If you need anything, you have my number. Or call the front desk and they’ll arrange for whatever it is.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“A couple of hours. Three at most. But trust that I’ll be back as soon as possible.”
He leans against the wall, one hand stuck in his pocket. He looks calm and collected. And he’s leaving me like this—a wound up ball of sexual energy. That’s not fair.
He sweeps my body with his eyes. I can feel them roaming over my shoulders, down my breasts, over my hips, and pushing slowly down my legs. He licks his bottom lip and I’m done.
Screw restraint.
“Hey, Fenton,” I say, moseying unhurriedly towards him. My heels click against the floor, each step a douse of gasoline on an already burning flame. He shoves off the wall, his eyes flickering until I stop a couple of inches away from him. “Hurry back, will ya?”
Before I can talk myself out of it, I rise up and press my lips against his. I’m not sure what his reaction will be, but I won’t be the only one waiting around flustered for him to come back.
As soon as contact is made, his arms are wrapped around my back, pulling me deliciously into his rock-hard body. Our mouths move against one another, a frenzied, yet luxurious pace. The rhythm is immediate, like they’ve done this a hundred times before.
His lips are soft against mine, his breath hot with a touch of sweetness. My fingers find the back of his silky hair and I urge him on, relishing the contact with the hottest man I’ve ever seen. His large palms press against the thin fabric of my shirt, the friction and pressure searing.
Way too soon, he pulls back, a huge smirk on his face. With raised brows, he shakes his head. “Keep that up and this entire trip will be futile.”
“I’m not sure how bad that would be,” I breathe, my voice raspy.
He glances at his watch and laughs. “I’m late and you’re making me want to blow off a meeting I’ve been after for six months.”
Guilt swamps me. I take a few steps back and motion for him to go. “I’m sorry, Fenton. Go. Go work.”
He laughs and comes to me, planting a sweet kiss on my lips. “Don’t apologize. Don’t ever apologize for that, Brynne. I’ll just have to talk to my associates with a raging hard-on.”
Giggling, I shoo him off again. “Do whatever it is you have to do and get back here.”
He tosses me a wink and is gone before I know it, leaving a trail of his cologne behind.
I watch the door, hoping he comes back, but he doesn’t.
Heading into the living room, I find our bags sitting next to the sofa. I have no idea how they got here or when, but I dig around until I find my cell phone. Flipping it on, I find three missed calls from Pres.
I call her back and stretch out on a cream-colored sofa beside a wall of tinted, curtain-less windows. Vegas is stretched out below me, the mountains in the distance. It’s a gorgeous view. Not as good as the one that just left, but good nonetheless.
“It’s about damn time!” Presley screeches into the phone, making me laugh. “I was about ready to call Nick and have him send people to go get you.”
“And to think—you’re the one that told me I’d be fine.”
She sighs dramatically into the phone and I laugh again. My head rests on a red pillow with navy blue swirls as I listen to her go on and on asking why I didn’t text her when we landed.
“I’m fine, Pres. He just left to go to a meeting, so I found my phone.”
“He left you? Already?”
“Well, he did come here to work.”
“True.” She blows a bubble and it pops loudly. “So, what’s the plan? You just hang out while he’s gone?”
“Yeah,” I shrug, watching the lights blink below. “I might go down to the pool or something. He said to do whatever I want while he worked. But I need to explore this suite first. You should see this place. It’s incredible.”
“The suites are nice in Vegas. And the hotel you’re in is really known for its elegance.”
I roll my eyes. “You would know. Sometimes I forget who you are.”
She laughs. “Call me when you can. I have a date tonight, actually, so I need to go get spiffied up.”
“Oooh! A date? With who?”
“Just some guy I met at a cocktail party last week. He’s pretty cute and has a band. I’m going to be careful though. Swoon regret with rockers happens a lot.”
“Your’e so dumb,” I laugh. “All right, I’ll call you when I can. Have fun!”
“Hey, Brynnie?”
“Yeah?”
She pauses before she continues. “I like hearing you like this. Excited. Happy.”
“What’s not to be happy about?” I ask, raising up on the sofa. “I’m rebounding.”
“That you are.”
Resetting the button. That’s all I’m doing. That’s all this is.
Stepping inside Funda, the upscale restaurant tucked inside the hotel, is like walking into a different planet. The hotel is loud and glittery, everything buzzing and pulsing with energy as casinos typically do. But inside the restaurant, nestled into a back corner, it’s the exact opposite.
I smooth my hands down my dress, a sheer, nude sheath dress with a turquoise embellished overlay. It has beautiful ribbons that wrap around my waist, making me look curvier than I really am. A dapper-looking man in a suit smiles as I walk into the restaurant and I nod politely, but don’t make eye contact. I’m nervous enough as it is—too nervous to risk opening my mouth. Besides, I’m here to see one man. The man that left the suite nearly five hours ago.
I didn’t hear from him all day. I headed to the pool after talking to Presley and read a little on a chair until my skin started feeling like it was going to melt off in the Nevada sun. There’s a little ice cream shop on the way to the room that I stopped in for lunch and then napped a little in the room. I was surprised that it had been two more hours and still there wasn’t a missed call or text. After showering and trying to read again, the text came to meet him at Funda.
People sit on oversized, backless sofas in the entryway as I ma
ke my way to the hostess desk. Once I identify myself as a guest of Fenton, I’m whisked through and pass other impeccably dressed diners through an archway to a more private dining room. There are five or six tables, but I don’t check them out. I’m focused on the man sitting at the table in the far corner.
Fenton’s running his finger around the brim of a tumbler, looking off into the distance. His forehead is marred, his mouth forming a thin line. The waiter clears his throat as we approach and Fenton jostles back to the present. Once again, his gaze roams slowly over my body. When it lands on my face, the stress melts from his.
He stands and whips around the table, pulling out my seat. “You look gorgeous, Brynne.”
“Thank you,” I tell him, sitting. “You look more stressed than I’d like to see you.”
He moves back around the table and takes his seat once again. He pours me a glass of wine. “I apologize for being gone so long today. Things took longer than I expected.”
“It’s fine. Like you said, you came here to work, after all.”
“True. But that doesn’t mean I’m happy about being gone all afternoon.” A stormy look passes over his features and I wonder what happened today, but I don’t ask. It’s not my place. So I go for the more general inquiry.
“How was your meeting?” I ask.
“Good. Tense. Frustrating.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too. Some people are just really hard to deal with. I wonder sometimes if they get off on just being complete jackasses.”
I laugh, having had those same thoughts before myself. “I think they do. You can completely bend over backwards for some people and it’s just not enough. They’ll press you for more and more. Or they’ll turn you around and bend you over again and stick it to you from behind.”
A waiter slips in and places a covered dish in front of each of us and is gone within seconds.
“I ordered for you. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” I say, lifting the lid. “This looks great.”
“I hope so. I didn’t want to spend any more time here than we need to.”
“Good idea.”
His eyes sparkle with promise, making my mouth water. He’s so different than any guy I’ve been with before in every way. He puts them all to shame.
We begin to eat, a comfortable silence descending on the table. Every move he makes is done in a way I’m realizing is the way he does everything—exquisitely. Each motion is purposeful, every movement executed in a precise way. He may be incredibly good-looking, but that aside, just being around him is intoxicating. I catch myself wanting to know more about him, what makes him tick.
This is a rebound, not a date.
“What did you do today?” he asks, taking a bite of his food.
“I called Presley and took a nap. I laid out for awhile today at the pool.”
His jaw drops an inch. “You were in a bikini without me?”
My insides do a flipflop, tumbling head over heels. The idea of him being annoyed by that little fact never occurred to me, but the stormy look on his face makes me deliriously happy.
“What else am I supposed to lay out in?” I taunt, watching the storm darken.
“Without me? A trash bag.”
“Fenton!”
He shakes his head and suppresses a growl. It’s the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard. Ever. “Look, Brynne, I know I told you to do whatever you wanted while I was gone. And I want you to enjoy yourself—I do. But I need you to do those things clothed.”
“So the fact that a guy bought me a drink is probably a no too?”
His jaw drops wide open, but I start giggling before he can comment. “Fenton, I was kidding. About the drink anyway. I was in a bikini, a very little red one that Edie said you’d love . . .”
“I’d love. Me. That’s the part you seem to have missed.” Everything about the way he looks at me tells me he’s serious. But the tug at the corner of his mouth makes it feel playful and I run with that.
I shrug casually. “It’s a good thing I’m not sure if there were guys at the pool today or not, since I spent the whole time imagining what you would look like shirtless.”
A faint rumble drifts to my ears and the smirk that melts me trickles over his lips. “Good girl.” He composes himself before continuing. “You do look like you caught some sun. You’re golden.”
“I didn’t stay long,” I report. “The sun is so hot. And there were so many people.”
“You aren’t a fan of large crowds?”
“Not really. I’d prefer watching a movie at home over going to the theater any day.”
“And I bring you to Las Vegas.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “But for the record, I’m the same way. I always feel like I’m strange because I don’t like going out in public. But maybe I’m more normal than I thought . . . or you’re just weird too.”
The waiter comes by and checks on our table. Fenton has a quick conversation with the man and I wonder if they know each other. They have a much more natural rapport than anyone I’ve seen him with yet. I don’t have time to think about it much because before I know it, he’s gone.
Fenton takes a sip of his wine, watching me over the brim. He places it back on the table and relaxes back in his chair. “So what do you normally do when you date?”
“I don’t know. Dinner. A movie, if the guy is uncreative,” I confess. “I’d rather go to the beach with a picnic or to a play or ballet though, really.”
“I haven’t been to something like that in years.”
“I make sure I see The Nutcracker every December. There’s nothing like it. And if I can sneak another one in, I try to.”
He drops his napkin on the table, his eyes wistful. “My mother loved ballets and plays and operas. We would see something on Broadway every year for her birthday.”
“She sounds fantastic,” I whisper.
“She was.” He nods his head solemnly. “My father was a successful businessman. When they married, I think he expected her to stay home and just enjoy being taken care of. But not my mother,” he laughs. “She started her own endeavors, built her own empire in a way. But where my father’s was purely aimed at making coin, my mother’s was aimed to make a difference in the world. She was fearless.”
I watch him gaze across the room, deal with the memories he’s feeling. A small grin touches his lips before he looks at me again.
“So who are you more like? Your father or your mother?” I ask.
“I’m a mix, I think. Somewhere in the middle,” he shrugs. “I’m like my dad in that work comes first. It came before anything besides my mother, and I think she was an anomaly. If he hadn’t found that exact woman, I think he’d have been a bachelor his whole life.”
I nod, letting that sink in.
“But I’m like her, too. She had a hard time connecting to people on a personal level. She could do these big things and her heart was always in the right place, but she never had close friends or acquaintances. Just my father and I for the most part.”
“You don’t have friends?” I find that hard to believe. The pull to him is a force to be reckoned with.
“Not really. I just don’t connect well to most people. I grew up with a bunch of clowns with inheritances, but like you, my parents made me work. I helped them, had chores, didn’t get spoiled to the level of the kids I went to school with. My mother came from a poor background and she didn’t believe in making me ‘rotten,’ as she’d say,” he grins. “Why? You seem surprised.”
“I am. It’s just not what I was expecting you to say. That’s all.”
He shrugs again. “What about you? Are you like your parents?”
“Nope. Not at all. They’re both detailed and organized and I’m more of . . . a mess.”
He laughs at the look on my face. “I hardly would call you a mess.”
“You haven’t seen my house.”
“True,” he grins. “You live with Presley, right?”
“I do. We’ve lived together for a couple of years now. I think she’s the only person I could ever live with.”
“You’ve never lived with anyone else?”
I shake my head. “Nope. Besides my parents, of course. I haven’t trusted anyone else enough to live with them. What if they don’t pay the bills or steal from me or something?”
He seems baffled, his forehead crinkling at my statement. “You’ve never lived with a boyfriend?”
“No.” I look at the table and take a deep breath. “I’ve had various boyfriends, of course, but only one I dated for an extended period of time. He was never . . . responsible enough . . . for us to co-mingle our things, our lives. So I’ve always lived at home or by myself . . . or with Presley now.”
“Sounds like a smart thing. But you know,” he chides, “men are generally irresponsible. You may have to make concessions as you go through life on that.”
Laughing, I place my fork on the table. “True. But I can take your typical irresponsibility—leaving the toilet seat up and shoes all over the place. But when I have to pay a guy’s bills because they can’t manage their money, that’s a different thing, you know?”
“It absolutely should be. If you’re paying for his things when you’re dating, there’s no hope of him ever stepping up in the future. A man should want to spoil their woman, give her things, make her life easier. Not the other way around. That’s a sign of a lack of character that you’ll never get around.”
I snort. “No joke. That’s obvious now.”
“You are better off without him. Trust me.”
“Probably so.”
Watching the candle flicker on the table, I wonder where Grant is and what he’s doing. For the first time since we broke up, my immediate reaction isn’t to hate him or to think back to what we used to have before Africa. I just feel ambivalent. I don’t know if it’s because I’m here with Fenton or because of this reset button I’m pushing, but the unfeeling about Grant is like a gush of fresh air.
“Did you love him?”
I’m startled by Fenton’s question. He asks it cautiously, leaning back in his chair again. I wonder if it’s intentional, to put some actual space between us, or just a coincidence.
Wherever It Leads Page 7