“Austin.” I look to the right and see Serena coming up the stairs. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” She kisses me on the cheek and holds onto my arm.
“I’ve been here all night.” I look down at the dance floor. The girls are still going at it, but Matthew has taken off with Karrie.
“Isn’t it fabulous? We did it, we’ve got another hit.” She digs her claws into my arm, while I try to shake them loose. “We could rule the world, in and out of bed,” she purrs. “Don’t you think?”
I shake my head at her audacity and huff out an annoyed laugh as I firmly peel her hand from my arm. “Serena, that’s never going to happen. Ever.” I look down and see that Lauren is heading to the bar.
I walk away from Serena and down the stairs. I head in the direction of the bar, talking to different people on the way down, thanking those who have showed up. I see Noah and Kaleigh walking in.
“This place is insane.” Noah looks around. “Congrats, man.” He shakes my hand.
“Your shirt isn’t even buttoned properly,” I point out to him.
Kaleigh shrugs her shoulders. “I can’t help it if he dresses like a guy on GQ. Where is Lauren?” She looks over my head.
“Oh, shit. Is that Jake and the home wrecker?” She looks toward the bar.
I don’t even wait to hear what she says next. I turn to make my way over to Jake and Lauren when I see her try to walk away as he stops her by grabbing her arm. My blood boils, my hands clench into fists at my sides. “Get your fucking hand off her before I break every single bone in it,” I growl at him, my voice loud and angry, causing the people around us to turn and look.
Lauren jerks her arm away from him. She looks at Camilla and says, “ Good luck, Camilla. You know what they say, once a cheater, always a cheater.” Then she turns and moves through the crowd toward the bathroom.
“I know you’re just playing around with her,” Jake states as he steps in front of me.
“I knew you were stupid. I just didn’t think you were a fucking idiot, too.” I look from him to his girlfriend, who holds his one hand in both of hers. “You not only downgraded, but you got the cheapest knock-off on the shelf.” I turn to Camilla. “I was waiting to see if you remembered me, Camilla. I wasn’t sure if you would. But I’m sure you remember Max?” Her face pales the minute I mention my good friend’s name. “He’s doing well. You know, after you fucked him out of house and home. Made him lose everything, and for what?” I snarl at her and then look back to Jake. “If you think you’re the first student’s father she’s fucked, think again. You’re just this year’s model.” I glance at her in disgust. “I bet she’s already fucking someone else right now. After all, the game is over for her. You gave up everything. The thrill is gone.”
I scan the room, my eyes going to the last place I saw Lauren. “She hides a second cell phone. Max found it in her tampon box.” I leave the fool with that tidbit and head to the bathroom.
I wait outside the bathroom for two minutes, or maybe it is two seconds, before I knock on the door. “Coming in,” I shout, walking in and nodding hello at the girl handing out paper towels. Lauren is at the sink washing her hands. “We need to talk,” I tell her while she looks at me in the mirror, her mouth hanging open.
She shakes the water off her hands and then grabs the towels from the attendant. “I’m not really in the mood to talk right now.” She wipes her hands, throws the towels away, and then walks out.
She gets out the door, and I snap into action. I grab her hand and drag her the other way toward the office. “Austin, really,” she says as I hear her heels clicking against the floor behind me.
I open the door to the office I have used in the past to discuss the floor plans, then close the door behind us and lock it.
She walks into the room and to the window that overlooks the whole club. “I’m really not in the mood right now, Austin.” I stare at her. “I honestly just want to go home.” I walk over to the window, standing next to her while she looks out.
I spot Jake and Camilla fighting right where I left them. “She is called ‘Camilla the Cunt’ in my circle of friends. One of my best friends, Max, married to a great woman, a father of three. She taught their oldest son.” I see her look at me, so I turn to look at her. “He’s an idiot.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She shrugs her shoulders. “It really doesn’t matter. If it wasn’t Camilla, it could have been someone else. Who knows? And with you”—she laughs out—“I am so out of my league with you. I have kids, I’m a mom. I’m not cut out for this.” She points to the dance floor. “This is your world. That blonde is your world.” She laughs humorlessly and turns to walk away. “I guess that policy was the right call after all.” She starts to walk away as my hand snaps out to hold hers, my fingers folding into hers. We both look down at our hands, but she slowly pulls hers away. “I can’t do this.”
“Are you about done now?” I ask her. “I’m a lot of things, Lauren, but I’m not a liar or a fucking cheat. I want you.” I close the distance between us, running the back of my fingers from her shoulder to her elbow. “Only you. You drive me absolutely fucking crazy, and you keep me on my fucking toes. You make me want everything, and I’ve never wanted everything. I’ve only wanted me. Now, I want you and everything that comes with you. I want the dinners at the table. I want laughter. I want the kids’ banter. Fuck, I even want Rachel calling me Asshat, but not all the time.” I chuckle as I see her smile. “I want more Sundays like the one we had when we woke up together.”
I pull her to me as I wrap my arms around her, placing a kiss where her shoulder meets her neck. I feel the shiver that runs through her in response. “Austin,” she whispers, her chest rising and falling with her nerves. “I would really hate to cut off your dick,” she says quietly, “but I will. If that doesn’t work, Kaleigh will finish the job.”
I push her against the door, taking her mouth before she says anything else. The need to taste her more powerful than my next breath. My mouth devours hers, while her mouth matches my need with her own.
Our tongues are tangling together when her hands go straight to my belt, my hands going for her ass.
I leave her mouth, running my lips down her neck to the plunging V at her chest. Pushing the material off her breast, I bend to take her nipple into my mouth. I suck on it deeply, and her head falls back against the door, her hands stopping their assault of my belt.
“Austin,” she moans, lifting a leg to my hip, my hand holding her leg then roaming up it and dipping into the slit to slide along the back of her thigh. I glide my hand all the way up to cup her bare ass.
“You better be wearing panties,” I warn her before giving her nipple a soft bite. Releasing her leg, I squat down in front of her, both hands roaming up the backs of her legs until they get to her ass.
“Oops, my bad. I guess I forgot to put panties on.” Her breathing turns a little deeper as my hands squeeze her ass.
“Fuck,” I hiss, realizing that this whole time, she has had nothing on under this hot-as-hell outfit. I stand up just as she reaches behind her neck, unclips the top, and in one swoosh, the material glides down her body until she’s standing in front of me, gloriously naked, except for her gold shoes.
She cups her breasts in her hands and asks, “You ready to drop the whole ‘don’t shit where you eat’ bullshit?” Her eyes close as she rolls her nipples between her fingers. I would give away my soul right now to touch her. Her tongue darts out to lick her lips, and one hand moves down her body as she buries it in herself.
My hands are in my hair, pulling at the strands, as my cock jerks against my pants as if to question why he’s not already buried in her. “Fuck. Fine,” I give in as I start undoing my pants.
“You would do that for me? For us?” she asks.
“Anything,” I tell her then place my forehead on hers. “Anything for you,” I whisper, knowing I would give her the fucking moon if I could.
“Good, I quit.”
She smiles. “Now, how about you show me how much you’ve missed me?” I pull my pants down to my thighs, reaching into my pocket to grab my wallet and a condom. I cover myself quickly, but it still takes longer than I want it to.
I pick her up. “Really sorry, but this is going to be fast. I promise you I’ll make it up to you,” I tell her as I plunge my cock into her and fuck her, hard and fast, against the door. No talking is necessary as our bodies, heaving with our need for each other, do the talking for us.
I pound into her over and over again until her pussy finally clamps down on me and she yells out my name. I stroke into her roughly before I plant myself all the way in her and follow her over the edge into orgasm. She’s wrapped around me with her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist. My head is resting on her shoulder as I catch my breath. “Tell me you’ll come home with me.”
She giggles. “Can I say no?”
“Try it, I dare you,” I challenge her right before there is knocking at the door.
“Austin, are you in there?” The whiny voice calls from the other side.
“Fucking Serena,” I mumble. I place Lauren down on her feet, where she picks up her outfit, sliding herself into it, and fastens it at the neck. I take care of the condom and buckle up. I drop a kiss on her lips right before the door swings open and Serena stands there. “Hey, the door must have been stuck. Serena, this is my girlfriend, Lauren.” I grab her and bring her close to me. “Lauren, this is the owner of this place, Serena.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
LAUREN
The door swings open, and the brunette from earlier comes in. “Hey, the door must have been stuck. Serena, this is my girlfriend, Lauren,” Austin introduces, curling an arm around me and bringing me in closer to him. “Lauren, this is the owner of this place, Serena.”
I smile at her. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
She looks me up and down, the disdain obvious in her expression. “Hmmm, likewise.” She turns her attention to Austin. “We haven’t chatted or taken pictures yet.”
“Sorry, Serena, but we have to go. We took pictures earlier, and I’ll make sure that Scarlett sends them to you,” Austin says as he takes my hand and leads us out.
We make our way back to the booth that was reserved for us. Cooper is sitting there with Parker on his lap, John and Dani are sitting next to each other on one side, and Noah and Kaleigh are seated opposite them on the other side of the booth.
“Hey,” Kaleigh greets when she sees me. “Where have you been?” she asks, leaning over Noah to look at me. They slide over in the booth, giving us space to sit down. Austin sits first and then pulls me down on his lap. Kaleigh leans in and whispers conspiratorially in my ear, “You totally just had sex!”
I gasp loudly and look at her, denying it by shaking my head no. “Oh, yes, you did. You are glowing and have the ‘I’ve just been fucked’ face. Trust me, I know that look.”
Everyone is talking amongst themselves and the music is loud so no one is really paying attention to our conversation. “You’re crazy,” I tell her.
“I’m starving,” I say loudly, and everyone agrees.
“Pizza?” Dani suggests, standing up. “Let’s go.” We all get up to make our way outside.
I hold Austin’s hand as we leave the club. Some fans have spotted Cooper, and he goes over to them to take some pictures. While he’s doing that, the rest of us climb into a huge black party bus that Scarlett has ordered for guests who drink and don’t want to drive home.
“I can’t wait to take off these shoes,” Parker whines, propping her feet up in Cooper’s lap.
“You can wear flip-flops tomorrow when we go skating with Austin,” he tells her.
“Skating?” I ask.
“Oh, yeah. I was telling them about Gabe, and since Matthew is in town and wants to run drills with Cooper, we are all meeting at the rink at noon.”
“Oh, that sounds like fun. Can I come?” John asks from his side of the bus.
“Can you skate?” Austin asks.
“Well, not like you guys, but I can keep up,” he states as Dani laughs out loud.
“Honey, I love you dearly, but you can’t skate.” Dani leans over and kisses his cheek.
“I’m coming,” Noah announces from his seat.
They talk and make plans for the next day, while I take it all in. We spend two hours at the pizza place, laughing over their stories from the ‘old days.’
Austin asks me, “Your place or mine?”
“I’m going to Noah’s. So you can go home and have loud monkey sex without me hearing it.” Kaleigh runs up behind Noah, who has already flagged down a cab.
“Let’s swing by my house and grab some clothes for tomorrow,” Austin suggests, yelling at Noah to wait for us.
We wave good-bye to everyone as we cram into the cab. “You live near each other?” I ask.
“I couldn’t leave my boo,” Noah jokes.
We pull up on their street, a chic, modern neighborhood, where all the houses are three stories high.
We get out of the cab. I look at Austin’s house. It’s white with a brown, wooden door. There is a huge window above the door, trimmed in black, and narrow, long rectangular windows are on either side of it.
When he pushes the door open and the lights come on, I take in the modern, masculine space that looks like it could be in a magazine. “You live here?” I ask him, walking into the all-white sunken living room. The back wall is the showpiece of the room with its floor-to-ceiling windows.
“I live here.” He laughs. “Want to come see the upstairs?” He holds his hand out for me to take it.
We head up the stairs, which are black and look like they are held together with wire. “Should I take off my shoes?” I ask him when we make it to his room and I see the plush white carpet. His bed sits in the middle of the room, overlooking a wall of windows. He walks in, touching something on the wall so that the lights turn on. Walking further into the room, he opens the door to his walk-in closet, except it’s the size of a bedroom. “Jesus, how many suits can one person own?”
“Should I ask about your shoe collection now?” He turns to me while grabbing his bag from the shelf, throwing in a couple of pairs of pants, then going to the wall that has drawers, where he opens a couple and pulls out socks and shirts. “Should I pack boxers?” he asks with a smirk.
“I don’t know. Should I go to work on Monday without panties?” I smile back at him and yawn.
“You know, we could stay here and then go back to your place tomorrow.” He shrugs off his jacket and kicks off his shoes, pulling his shirt out of his pants and unbuttoning it from top to bottom before shrugging the shirt off and throwing it in the basket in the corner. His pants are next to go. “Sleep with me in my bed?” I look back at the huge bed with its thick, white covers and think that it looks like a cloud. “I want you in my bed. I want to roll over when you’re not here and still smell you on the pillow.” I take the pins out of my hair, letting it fall down to my shoulders.
“Are you going to do dirty, dirty things to me?” I ask him, unclipping my outfit so it falls to the floor. I kick it over to join his pants. “I just need to take off my shoes.” I walk out of the closet to the bed, bending down at the waist to unclip my shoes when I hear him groan behind me. “Like the view?”
“Change of plans.” He picks me up and throws me on the bed. “I want to feel those heels digging into my back when I fuck you hard.”
“Well, since you asked so nicely”—I spread my legs wide—“let’s put those marks on you.”
By the time we finish, I think I see the sun coming up, my body is well used, aching in places that I will feel all day. My shoes are gone, long ago thrown somewhere in the room.
I turn to look out the window, Austin curling around me, where we both fall into a deep sleep.
The alarm next to his bed wakes us up, both of us snuggled under his blankets that really do feel like a cloud.
“We
need to get to your house.” Austin kisses my neck while he cups my breast.
“I need to call Jake and ask him to bring Gabe early.” I yawn, blinking my eyes to stay awake.
I get up from the bed to call Jake, who sounds as tired as I am, and he doesn’t argue with me about dropping the kids off early.
I borrow a pair of his basketball shorts that are so big they go down to the middle of my calf, even rolled at the waist, and a blue Hugo Boss t-shirt. My shoes dangle in my hands as I make my way from his car to my front door.
Thinking that this is what they call the walk of shame, I look over my shoulder at Austin. He is dressed in blue jeans, a tight t-shirt, and his aviator glasses. He didn’t shave this morning, so his face is covered in light stubble. The thought that there is nothing shameful about spending the night with him crosses my mind.
“Remember the last time we were at this door?” Austin asks while gripping my hips. I, of course, move fast before my neighbors get the chance to experience a replay.
I unlock the door, walking straight up the stairs to my room. “I need a shower so bad.” I dump the clothes in my hands on the bed. Austin is already without his shirt by the time I turn around. “What are you doing?”
“Conserving energy,” he answers while he picks me up and tosses me over his shoulder.
The shower lasts until the water coming out feels like ice pellets hitting our skin, my legs are limp, and I need a nap. Having awesome sex is freaking exhausting.
We are both now dressed and downstairs having coffee together. He sits at my table, reading the Sunday paper, while I flip through the living section. Every now and again, he takes my hand and kisses it.
It’s almost as if we have been doing this forever. The doorbell rings, and I get up to answer it. “I think the kids are home,” I tell him, getting up to answer the door.
Tempt The Boss Page 18