What If I Never

by Lisa Renee Jones

  “Everything okay?” Dash asks, sitting down next to me.

  “Nothing from my mother. Just Tyler and my father.” I hit the text message log and read the message from Tyler: Tonight was a work event, Ms. Wright. Call me back.

  Dash must read my expression. “Everything still, okay?”

  “I need to call Tyler and I may quit my job.”

  He refills my glass. “Not that I have any problem with you telling Tyler to fuck off. But maybe you should drink that and call him in the morning.”

  “Except I have a real need to know if he knew what he was doing when he invited my father to his party.” I pick up the glass and sip, the burn in my throat and rush to my head a reminder that drinking is a bad idea. “Okay, that’s probably not a good idea.” I set the glass down. “I haven’t eaten in a very long time.”

  “Food is ordered. If you have to make that call tonight, eat first.”

  “I don’t think I can do that. If you don’t mind—”

  “Of course, I don’t mind. I just don’t want you to regret what you may or may not say when you do.”

  “Me either,” I say, “but I’m still going to make the call. I’d like to keep the paycheck Tyler offered me coming in, but I have savings. I don’t like using it, but I came to Nashville, ready and willing. If I have to donate my time to work on the auction, rather than be auctioned off myself, I’m willing.” And on that note, I don’t give myself time to chicken out. I dial Tyler and walk to the window, dread in my belly, but cowardice is not. Been there, done that, and I’m proud of myself for what I’m doing right now, in this minute.

  “Ms. Wright,” Tyler answers. “It’s about time you returned my call.”

  “Did you know?” I demand.

  “You’re going to have to be a little more specific with your questions.”

  “Did you know that I want nothing to do with my father when you invited him?”

  He’s silent a beat before he says. “I did not.” There’s a pulse of agitation on the line before he adds, “He’s been out of the country and came back early to surprise you.”

  I want to believe him, I do, but practiced liars can speak a lie as a truth, with nary a hesitation. “How did you know he was my father?”

  “While I don’t like being questioned, I sense a history behind your aggression that we need to detach ourselves from. I sent an email to my clients introducing you and explaining your experience Ms. Wright. He’d previously declined the invite to the party, but he called me shortly after receiving the email to accept and ask for my help in surprising you. He also promised a healthy donation.”

  “If you’re lying—”

  “I am a lot of things, Ms. Wright,” he bites out, “a liar is not one of them.”

  “All right then. You should appreciate me being honest and I’m about to be. I won’t deal with him. I don’t even want his donation for the event.” I pause. “Okay. I’ll take the donation because it’s not about me, but the people it can help. If me not dealing with him is going to be a problem—”

  “It’s not. I’ll handle your father.”

  I quite literally laugh at that idea. I have no idea if Tyler is his attorney or if he dumped my ex altogether and Tyler reps him now, and I really don’t care. “He’s obviously one of your clients, Tyler. We both know he’s the one who will handle you.”

  “You underestimate me, Ms. Wright. I’ll handle your father. You handle the auction. And the next time you have a problem, give me the benefit of the doubt, and I will extend you the same. Talk to me. Are we clear?”

  “I hope so,” I say. “I’ll see you Monday.” And then I do what I would never do. I just hang up.

  Dash is there when I turn, offering me my drink. “I think you need this.”

  “Except I still have to go home on my own two feet.”

  “Drink the drink, Allie. I told you, I’ll take care of you.”

  I know he means tonight, just tonight, but there’s a stir of emotions and a pinch in my chest at his promise. I open my mouth to say what I shouldn’t, not in this situation, “I don’t want to be taken care of,” but I’m saved from both emotional stupidity and foot-in-mouth disease when the doorbell rings. “That will be the food,” Dash says, “I’ll grab it and be right back.”

  He strokes my hair, a tender gesture that’s already becoming familiar with Dash, and then he’s headed out of the room. I down the drink and tell myself I do not do so because of his offer to take care of me. I’ve had those offers. They were all lies. And this is just one night.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  I delete the message from my father without listening to it and down the rest of my drink, fighting the urge to check on my mother, who I know just needs a little space. I’ve all but talked myself into texting her anyway when Dash reappears, the scent of delicious food with him. My stomach rumbles in delight. “I’m so ridiculously hungry right now,” I say, setting my phone down on the coffee table.

  He eyes my glass, and I don’t miss the satisfaction at my empty glass in his gaze that I really don’t understand. But then, I’ve been drinking which means I don’t have it in me to even try and figure it out. “Me too,” he says, sitting down next to me and pulling the coffee table closer. “I didn’t eat before the party.” He begins unloading the takeout bag. “Two lasagnas,” he says, setting a silver container in front of each of us before he sets even more items on the table, “Bread,” he adds, “bottled water, and the biggest slice of cheesecake you’ve ever seen to share.”

  “In other words, I’m going to need the gym at the house,” I say. “And to stay away from the bakery. It’s hard not to eat cupcakes when I’m there, but my mom’s health has me thinking about my own health. But even as I say that, I justify unhealthy eating with this.” I raise a finger. “I do have a gym at the house. I’ll pay for my sins there.” I try to lift the lid on my silver bowl but it’s this foil top thing that is ridiculously hard to get off.

  “I’ve got it,” Dash says, grabbing it. “They seal in the heat but make you solve a puzzle to get to the food.” Only he doesn’t struggle at all. He has the lid off in an instant.

  I have a feeling the vodka is working me over more than I even realize.

  “I’ve had practice,” he assures me as if he’s read my mind. “I order there all the time.”

  “You don’t have to make me feel better. I’ve had vodka. I know what that means.”

  He laughs a soft, sexy laugh, and says, “It does require a magic touch. Promise.”

  Now I laugh. “Is that what you call not being able to open my own food container?”

  He winks, and I’ve already come to love those winks, probably a bit too much, but I blame that on the vodka, too. “Try it,” he urges. “It’s really good.”

  “Hopefully I’ll remember it in the morning.”

  “You better remember everything in the morning.”

  My cheeks heat but I still manage the rather daring reply of, “I’m pretty sure I’ll remember the good parts.”

  “I’m pretty sure I want you to tell me what those were.”

  “Some things a girl keeps to herself,” I say quickly, not about to start detailing more intimate matters.

  “She shouldn’t,” he says. “Or how else will the guy know what to keep doing?”

  “I think you’ve figured it out on your own, Dash Black.”

  “We’ll see, won’t we.”

  I think that means he’s planning on us getting naked again which is fine and good, but I really do need to sober up if I plan to enjoy myself. With that mission in mind, and it’s a really inviting mission, I take a bite of my food and it’s good, really good. “Okay this is definitely memorable,” I say. “And this place is in your building?”

  “Yes,” he says. “And on that, I’m a lucky man.” He takes a bite.

  There seems to be an undertone of him being unlucky in other areas, but I decide I’m reading too much into the comment. “Very,” I agree, and we
both reach for our waters before digging back in, but I almost land my bite on the front of me. Of course, I do. I slide down onto the floor. “I’m safer here,” I say, glancing up at Dash. “Less distance between your shirt and my food.”

  He laughs, and I do love Dash’s laugh. It’s warm and genuine and does funny things to my chest. He joins me on the floor and moves the table slightly closer. “How long have you lived here?” I ask.

  “Since the first movie,” he says. “I was in a house, still near downtown, but it ended up on one of those tourist tours. It was insanity. This place came on the market and the privacy it offers won me over.”

  “I guess I wasn’t fair to you earlier in the elevator. I do know how you handle fame, and that is humbly and well. I forget you’re kind of a big star when I’m with you. You don’t act like a star. Actually, Tyler is the one who acts like a diva.”

  “Don’t get me started on Tyler. Aside from agreeing with you, that is. As for me, I’m just me. You’ve dealt with authors, even highly successful authors. You know we’re just people.”

  “You’re another level of success than almost all other authors,” I say, and since I’ve somehow inhaled half my lasagna, thank you, vodka, I seal my meal and scoot the container aside. “Even more so than your father, which must make him very proud.”

  He slides the tray top back into place and pushes himself onto the couch, offering me his hand. I scoot to my knees and let him help me up, feeling far more steady and sharp now than I was fifteen minutes ago.

  “I don’t talk to my father, Allie,” he says. “At all. So while some may not understand where you’re at with yours, I do.”

  Given his career, this news surprises me, but I have heard the stories about his father, and they aren’t good. “How long has it been since you talked to him?”

  “Only twice in fifteen years, and one of those times was at my mother’s funeral.”

  “Five years ago,” I supply. “I googled you,” I admit. “And there wasn’t even any alcohol involved.”

  “Don’t believe everything you read, Allie.”

  “I’m a fiction editor, or I was. I don’t believe everything I read.”

  “Good,” he says, “because I learned the hard way, the press will print anything to get a story. And as for my mother, yes,” he confirms, “it was five years ago next month.”

  “Were you close?”

  “Both me and my sister were extremely close to my mother.”

  “But neither of you took over her business?” I catch myself and say, “I’m sorry. I’m being nosy.”

  “It’s fine, cupcake. We’re getting to know each other,” he says. “The company had gone public by the time she passed. She hated what that did to her business model, and she stepped down from the board and sold out about a year before she died. The money we inherited works for me.” He lifts his martini glass and sips. “I think my sister finds it intimidates the men she dates.”

  I’d assumed he inherited a large sum of money but there’s also no doubt that he’s wildly wealthy on his own. “She’s around a lot of wealthy men, who would be her equals.”

  “And she thinks they’re all asses. Of course, she tells no one how much she’s worth. She wants to work and she wants her relationships to be honest.”

  “Unfortunately, I understand where she’s coming from. Any man who finds out who my father is, expects me to inherit his fortune.”

  “Now it seems, you’re the one speaking from experience.”

  He’s right, but I don’t go there. I may never go there, with Dash, or anyone for that matter. “I don’t want his money, Dash, and not because I’m stubborn like my mother. He showed up at my door two years ago. He said he was a changed man. He—he did some things and you know how he tried to make those things better?”

  “He tried to buy you,” he supplies easily.

  “Yes. I can make my own money. I don’t need his.”

  His eyes soften and he catches my hand. “Come here.”

  I let him ease me closer, and when he pulls me onto his lap again, I say, “Am I going to end up with my hands behind my back unable to touch you again?”

  “Not unless you want me to tie you up and tease you.”

  There’s no denying the idea of Dash in control and me at his mercy, is a delicious prospect I won’t even try to deny. And so, I don’t deny anything. Instead, my arms slide around his neck, and I lean into him. “Not this time, Dash. Please.”

  “Well now, as long as you say please, you can have about anything you want.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  With his promise that I can have anything I want if I say please, Dash’s hands slide under the T-shirt I’m wearing and up my back. Molding me close, my breasts pressed to his hard chest.

  “For instance,” he says, his voice low, a rough sandpaper tease on my nerve endings. “I’ll lick you anywhere you want to be licked if you just say please.”

  I’m really, truly a rather shy person and no one has ever spoken to me so boldly as Dash has this night, but I’m different with Dash I’m starting to realize. More comfortable in my own skin and sexuality. I just can’t find it in me to hide from this or him. “What about where I want to kiss you?”

  “Where do you want to kiss me?” he asks, squeezing my backside and Lord help me I can feel the thick ridge of his erection between my thighs, and through his jeans that I want to be gone now.

  “Everywhere,” I assure him.

  His lips curve and he says, “Is that right?”

  “Oh yes, but you resist me, Dash Black.”

  “I assure you, Allison, I’m not resisting.” Somehow him calling me Allison in this moment is more intimate than Allie, and I don’t know why. “I want nothing more than your hands and mouth on my body,” he says. “But you’ll have to allow me to kiss you everywhere first.” He drags the T-shirt over my head and by the time it’s on the ground his hands are on my breasts, and when my hands cover his hands, his finger strokes my nipples.

  My fingers catch long strands of his light brown hair and I tilt his gaze to mine. Any control I’d thought to gain in that moment is lost when Dash pinches my nipples, sending darts of pleasure straight to my sex. I moan and he captures the sound with his mouth, kissing me with the kind of passion that a girl thinks she will never know because it can’t be real.

  Oh, but it is. It so is.

  My hands tunnel into his hair and when his gaze lifts to mine, I find hunger there. So much hunger, and all for me. He catches my hands and presses them behind me, bracing them on his powerful thighs, his arm wrapping my waist, securing me. Watching me now, he cups my breast and leans in, licking my nipple, sensations rippling through me, my sex clenching with impossible need, need for him. Need to have him inside me, thrusting and pumping, but we are so far from there, it’s brutal.

  His mouth clamps down on my nipple and he suckles and licks. My head tilts back and I bite my lip, fighting the sounds that threaten to escape my lips and failing.

  I moan and pant and before I know what’s happening, Dash has lifted me, stood up, and set me down on the couch. He stares down at me, his lips pressing to my knee, watching me as his lips travel lower, down my thigh, and I know now, I was never, and will never control anything with this man, with or without my clothes on. Not that I want to control him. I just want to touch him, but I’m too lost in the way he’s touching me right now.

  His fingers slide between my thighs, stroking the delicate flesh. My lashes flutter as he says, “So wet, baby,” kissing my leg again, his tongue an erotic tease, while his fingers are exploring me, driving me out of my mind.

  And the way he’s watching me, confident, dominant is incredibly sexy. I wonder now why I swore I’d never let another man control me.

  Sensation begins to build and I breathe out, “Dash,” in a plea for more, and yet, less. I don’t want this to end. And more is exactly what he gives me. He leans in, his breath warm on my clit, and licks me there. I gasp, arching i
nto the delicate touch that is gone too soon.

  “Say please,” he orders softly.

  His satisfied smile curves his lips, but he doesn’t deny me what I both want and need, which is his mouth on my body in the most intimate of ways. He licks me again, and then he’s suckling me, licking me, pumping me with his fingers and I’m losing my mind, and just too far gone, to hold back. I mean he’s just so damn good-looking and good at everything he does to me, and I tumble over the edge of that invisible cliff, with a jerk of my body that I cannot control. And then I’m spasming deliciously, trembling all over.

  The moment I collapse, Dash’s fingers are gone and he eases my legs off his shoulders, kissing my belly. “Can you be inside me now?” I ask, my voice breathless, my body weak with the burn for what I have not had.

  “No more condoms, baby. I wasn’t exactly planning this weekend.”

  “You don’t need it. I’m on the pill.”

  His fingers curl at my hips and his body tenses. I feel his reaction like a stab in the very belly he just kissed. “Right. Either I’m not safe or I’m a slut.” I try to move and he holds me steady. “Let me up, Dash. I need to go home.”

  “Don’t do that. I don’t not use a condom.”

  “Okay. Can you please let me up?”

  “I don’t think you’re a slut. Not even close.”

  “I didn’t lie about the two years. I like knowing when to expect my period.”

  He stares at me a moment, God, he just stares at me, and then he’s standing, dragging his pants down his legs, but I feel dirty and wrong. I stand up and when I would just walk away, he captures me to him, his thick erection at my hip.

  “Damn it, Allie,” he says, his voice low, guttural, “don’t run away.”

  “I’m not running away, Dash. I’m just leaving.”

  “Don’t,” he says. “That wasn’t what you think it was. I wanted to ask questions I have no right to ask. Who he was, and what he was to you, when that doesn’t matter. Shouldn’t matter.”

  But it does. That’s what he’s telling me and I really don’t know what to do with that information. He cups my face and stares down at me. “You’re making me crazy, Allie. You know that, right?”