“I’m really sorry, I had a doctor’s appointment and I didn’t realize how long it was going to take.”
“You’re three hours late. You could’ve had open heart surgery in that amount of time,” she says with a snarl.
“Yes, I thought it was a simple test, but they made me stay for two hours after it was done. I’m really sorry, I can make up the hours.” In order to make sure my spinal fluid didn’t leak, I had to lie flat on my back for two hours in a little room with four white walls and pretend that the place they probed me with the giant needle didn’t hurt.
At least I feel completely fine now, apparently because I laid flat on my back. I think I could actually do an aerobics class right now.
Without dropping her scowl she says, “I had a lot of work to do this morning, I couldn’t afford to lose three hours covering the desk. Do not let it happen again.” Nice, she doesn’t have any concern for me whatsoever. Which is fine, I don’t expect people to. Why should they? But that’s one of the reasons I don’t like to talk about all this stuff — this is my personal cross to bear. I don’t want to be that person with the sob story. The one who’s defined by their problems and nothing else. I’m determined to be promoted to manager soon. I’d much rather focus on that.
Even if it does make me an ostrich burying my head in the sand.
“It won’t happen again, I guarantee it.”
Nathan was supposed to be working this morning, and I wonder why Cynthia had to cover the desk since he is here.
Hurrying around the desk, I drop my bag and kick it underneath the counter with my foot. Cynthia huffs and turns away. She marches across the tiles, her shoes clicking, to her office door. With any luck she’ll get transferred somewhere soon. Preferably Alaska.
I debate calling Xander’s room but chicken out. I don’t want to seem like a desperate, star-struck person.
“There she is,” Nathan says, twirling his finger pointing at me as he rounds the corner from the elevators. “Cynthia is pissed off at you.”
“I know. She was here waiting for me when I got here.”
“Where on earth were you? You’re never late.”
“A doctor’s appointment this morning took way longer than I thought. But I wasn’t too concerned because I thought you were here, so I didn’t think there’d be an issue.”
“That’s because you didn’t know Miss Cynthia has been on the rampage for the past two days. First, she made me do all that useless crap yesterday for some report or another and then today she’s actually made me survey the guests. Because guests like nothing more than being disturbed to answer stupid, pointless questions.”
I immediately ask, “Did you survey Xander?”
“I tried, but he didn’t answer his door for me,” Nathan says with an exaggerated frown. “But he did phone down here for you earlier, while I was still at the desk. I told him you hadn’t turned up for work yet.”
“Really? He phoned looking for me?” I say in disbelief.
“He did indeed. So, what happened last night? Tell me. Every. Thing.”
“We ate pizza and talked until after two,” I say with a massive grin.
“Talked?” he says, making quotation marks with his fingers.
“Yes, talked. And he may have kissed me, but that’s it.”
“Oh my God I am so jelly! That is unfucking real.”
“It didn’t feel like it, everything felt really normal and natural between us.”
“And the reason he’s here? Did he happened to mention it?” he says, looking at me sideways.
“We did discuss it, yes and it’s all,” I start to say made up but remember my promise to keep it a secret and stop myself. “Exaggerated. There’s going to be more coming out today that will make everything clear, we just have to wait and see.”
“As long as you are okay with that, darling.”
“Absolutely,” I say, turning my head for effect.
The television in the middle catches my eye. Xander’s picture fills the screen with Breaking News written across the bottom. There is no volume, only subtitles and my eyes flick across it, eager to read everything. My heart races as I wait for Luna to appear on screen and retract the stories.
Nathan notices where I’m looking and stands beside me, watching the screen.
We have a breaking news story. In another twist, the Xander Whitman sex scandal has taken a new turn. He hasn’t been seen for a day, but we now know that he is hiding in a New Jersey hotel with this unnamed woman, giving credence to Luna Grosvenor’s story about him being a sex addict.
My face fills the screen and my heart stops. Slowly the camera pans out, revealing a photograph of me wearing the red corset and bent over with my cleavage on full display, my head thrown back and my hair disheveled. Behind me, Xander stands in the hotel room doorway, his eyes fixed firmly on my butt.
Already feeling fuzzy from seeing my supposedly private boudoir photo on TV, my knee buckles. Fortunately, Nathan flings an arm around me and props me up. He drags the stool across the floor and places it behind me. I perch on it but don’t let go of him.
“Yes, Nancy,” the male newscaster says. “Most people in hiding from a sex story would not shack up in a hotel with yet another woman.”
“Agreed, Phil. And one has to wonder what his girlfriend Luna Grosvenor makes of all this,” the bleached blonde newscaster says.
“Well, according to her allegations, this is all par for the course.”
“Very true. Which begs the question, why on earth is she still with him?”
“I imagine many men are wondering what his secret is,” Phil says, looking far too much like he’s believing what he’s saying.
“I guess you get away with things when you’re the world’s sexiest man.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Nathan asks.
“I have no clue. I guess Becca went over the photos last night, realized who he was and gave them to the media.” I’ve never felt so betrayed in all my life. She has no right to share those photos with anyone. They were my secret, just for me. And now everyone I’ve ever met, everyone I ever will meet, is going to see it thanks to the internet. Can you be promoted to manager with a photo like that of you online?
Not to mention the fact that I’m now wrapped up in this infamous sex story. When, really, I have nothing to do with it.
Or do I?
After all, last night I was more than willing to sleep with Xander, and here I am today standing here in a thong for him.
But Becca doesn’t know any of that. She probably looked at the picture and saw dollar signs. I’ll bet any money she sold it. Something she had no right to do.
Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath trying to calm my speeding heart. Nathan rubs my back and I try to calm down. Not easy when I’m already feeling anxious for the spinal tap results and upset from Cynthia’s telling off.
The front desk phone rings and I jump.
“Front desk, how can I help you?” Nathan says into the receiver. There is a pause and he says, “Yes, she is, sir.”
I open my eyes, and Nathan’s holding the phone out to me. Putting it to my ear, I say, “Yes, Elsie speaking.”
“Elsie, you finally came to work,” Xander says.
“My appointment this morning took longer than I thought it would,” I say on reflex.
“Well, now that you’re here, there is a problem with my TV and I need you to come up and help me with it,” Xander says, his voice is flat and impossible to read.
Does he know about the breaking news story with my photograph?
Chapter 13
Elsie
Butterflies crash in my stomach as I make my way to Xander’s room. As excited as I am to see him, what is he going to say when he finds out about the photograph of me in lingerie?
Maybe he’ll never want to see me again. In fact, why would he? If I were him, I would assume that I gave the photo to the news station. His tone on the phone was flat, and it’s easy to assume th
at he already knows and has made up his mind.
I can only assume the issue on his TV screen is me.
My palms are already sweating and in an attempt to delay arriving at his door, I opt to take the stairs. I’ve gone up one and a half flights when my left knee buckles. Thankfully I’m holding the handrail and catch myself. Not now, I think, I can only deal with one thing at a time.
Arriving at Xander’s door, I wipe my palms on my skirt and take a few deep breaths. This wasn’t how I thought our next encounter would go. After last night I thought everything would be full of eager excitement, but right now I’m scared he’ll yell and slam the door in my face.
Although maybe he won’t. There’s only one way to find out. I lift my hand and lightly tap the door with my knuckles.
A moment later a shadow closes over the peephole and the door opens just wide enough for Xander to reach through and pull me inside.
“I’ve been waiting for you to turn up at work all morning,” he says and pulls me into his arms.
Relief floods through me and I melt against his strong chest. But the relief is only temporary, and I’m soon hit with a wave of panic. Has he seen the latest news story? I have to tell him.
“My appointment took forever,” I say, starting to feel like a broken record of excuses.
“I couldn’t get you out of my head all night. You sure made it hard for me to sleep. And by hard, I mean hard,” he says and grinds his erect cock against me.
Xander crushes his lips against mine and backs me up against the wall beside the door. He laces his hands through mine and raises them above my head. Heat immediately burns in my core, as if we were still on the roof and this morning never happened. My nipples turn into hard pearls and strain against the fabric of my bra.
This is crazy. For one thing, I’m at work and have already been told off by Cynthia once today. For another, there’s the whole lingerie photograph in the news. I have to make sure he’s seen it.
He breaks our kiss and growls, “I told myself I was going to do this to you right the first time, but I can’t control myself. You make me crazy.” Tingles race down my back at his words, and I widen my stance.
Closing his mouth back over mine, he shifts both my hands into one of his and pins them against the wall. He firmly runs his free hand down my side until he reaches my waistband. Creating a gap between us, he undoes the single button of my blazer and yanks my crisply tucked-in shirt out of my skirt.
Xander plants his hand against the bare skin of my waist, and once again this morning my legs threaten to buckle. My walls drench with want and I whimper. The stress of the morning melts away under his touch and there is only one thing I want right now. Even if it does get me into more trouble with Cynthia.
Right now I don’t care about her.
Putting his lips to my ear he says, “I need to fuck you.”
I swallow hard and force out my own word, “Good.”
Releasing my hands, he roughly shoves his other hand up my blouse and both his hands cup my breasts. I want him to rip my clothes clean off. I can’t wait to see his reaction when he discovers the thong. I want to feel him inside me. My thoughts are consumed by what he’s going to do to me next.
Moving his hands from my breasts, he yanks up my skirt and grunts in approval when he notices my thong. The thong that is now drenched.
“Just like I imagined last night,” he says and bites down on my neck. His teeth send a shock straight to my pussy.
I shuffle my feet wider and he runs his hand up the inside of my sensitive thigh and cups my mound. He twists his hand, closes his fingers around the wet fabric and shoves it to the side. The cool air of the room connects with my lips, and a shiver runs up my spine.
Fully exposed, I forget to breathe as I realize what I am doing and with whom. A voice in the back of my head yells at me to tell him about the photograph but he rams two of his fingers into my entrance and I quickly forget about anything else.
Without any hint of gentleness, he pumps his fingers against my walls, hooking them so that they hit my most sensitive spot. I gasp at the intensity and he increases his treatment. He’s half holding me up with his own body and I turn into a limp doll, but he doesn’t slow or ease his touch.
My core is a blazing sun that grows bigger with each second of his touch. With his other hand, he finds my swollen clit and pinches it between his fingers.
Unable to stop myself, I cry out in sheer ecstasy. My walls start to pulse and a wave rockets through me, forcing me to clutch on to Xander like my life depended on it. He grunts in some sort of primal satisfaction, spurring on another wave of bliss. My legs spasm with the effort of holding me up when all I want to do is collapse. The orgasm is intense, like nothing I’ve previously experienced. Although I haven’t ever been pinned up against a wall and treated so roughly before. Or roughly at all.
There’s a vicious pounding at the door and we both freeze.
“Elsie, I know you’re in there. I can hear you,” Cynthia barks. “Open this door right now.”
My eyes widen in horror and Xander yanks down my skirt. Cynthia continues banging on the door as I frantically tuck in my shirt.
Xander gives me a coy smile and pats my hand reassuringly and opens the door. Cynthia barges into the room, her face red.
“How dare you do this in my hotel,” she snaps.
“Our guest needed some help getting his TV to work, so I’m helping him,” I say, trying to study my breath as the dying orgasm floats around my body.
“Bullshit, I could hear your sex games from down the hall. I saw the news and I will not have that go on here. I already gave you a warning this morning for being late, but this takes the cake. You are suspended for two weeks effective immediately,” Cynthia says with an angrier tone than I’ve ever heard her use before.
There’s nothing I can say to argue with her, no way to change her mind — that much is clear from her voice and her beet-red face. “Understood.”
I bite back tears and try to remain professional looking, although this might have just ended my career with Good Rest Inns. Everything I’ve worked so hard for, gone because I couldn’t control myself around Xander.
She turns to Xander and says, “And you are not welcome here anymore. I will not have the reputation of my hotel destroyed by some,” she pauses, considering her words, “weird sex games that you photograph and spread all over the news.” Without pause, she turns and marches back out the door.
As soon as the door shuts, Xander hugs me and asks, “Are you okay?”
I nod although I’m not sure I am.
He holds me while my heart settles down and stops hammering against my ribs. When my breathing returns to normal he says, “What did she mean by sex games that I photograph and give to the news?”
Chapter 14
Xander
In the continued attempt to avoid seeing anything the media is currently saying about me, I haven’t turned on the news or looked at my phone all morning. Luna is supposed to phone when she holds up her end of the bargain and retracts the story, but I haven’t heard from her yet. What the fuck is she waiting for? Christmas?
And what was with the woman at the door?
“Seriously, what was that crazy woman talking about?” I say, looking down at Elsie.
Her head is buried in my chest and I slide my hand underneath her chin and tilt it up to make eye contact. I hold her gaze for a second, but she shifts hers away and fixes her eyes on the carpet.
A tremble runs through her and she says, “I have to show you.”
“Show me what?” I say, a sense of dread closing down on me.
Elsie extracts herself from me and flicks on the TV. She puts it on one of the news channels, but they are showing a story about a celebration in a town somewhere unimportant and uninteresting.
“My phone is downstairs, you’ll have to look it up on yours,” she says.
Taking two steps across the room, I retrieve my phone from the bedside ta
ble and turn on the screen.
“It would help if I knew what I was looking for,” I say.
“You’re looking for the latest development in the Xander Whitman story on TMZ,” Elsie says, her voice strained.
I navigate to the TMZ website and am met with an image from Elsie’s photo shoot yesterday, with me in the background enjoying the view of her ass. I can’t stop looking at the photo. She looks amazing, her breasts hang from her frame, and I want to run my tongue down her cleavage. Without thinking, I put my fingers to my mouth and taste her. I was really fucking enjoying myself before that idiot woman interrupted us. My mind wanders over all the things I’d intended to do to her, including fucking her from behind so I could watch her juicy ass jiggle as I pounded into her.
“I’m sorry,” Elsie says, snapping me out of my fantasy.
Why is she apologizing? Did she give them this picture? My chest heaves with betrayal.
“You sent them this?” I say in disbelief.
“No! I would never do that. It must’ve been the photographer,” Elsie says, her green eyes huge and pleading. “Why on earth would I want that photo to be out in public? It’s on the internet now, my grandkids are going to see it. Not to mention it’s already got me suspended from my job and probably ruined my career.”
“Enjoy your fifteen minutes of fame,” I say, sarcasm dripping from my voice.
“Well, I don’t want it. They can take this fame and shove it up their asses.”
Where was she this morning, anyway? What was this appointment that took so long? Negotiating the highest price for the photo?
“Why were you late for work today?” I ask casually. I don’t think she did it, but I have to confirm it for certain.
Elsie narrows her mouth and eyes at me. After several breaths she says, “I was at a doctor’s appointment. You have no right to accuse me of these things. The story hurts me a lot more than you.”
I sit down on the bed and run my hands through my hair. She’s right, the story doesn’t make much difference to my life, not after the last twenty-four hours of Luna’s shit but it did just get Elsie in trouble at work and thrust her into notoriety. There’s no way she did it.
Raw Page 6