by Amelia Wilde
Even so.
I hang a tea bag over the edge of the cup and frown as a memory creeps in unbidden.
Michael, screaming at me, face purple with rage, fists clenched at his sides, because I’d dared to go home to visit my parents for the weekend without telling him first. Facing his fury, my stomach had grown cold and my legs tensed, getting ready to run.
It wasn’t the only time he made me fear for my life.
When I finally ended that two-year relationship, which had swallowed my senior year of college and the year after it whole, I swore to myself that I would never allow a man to hold such power over me again. Any partnership I entered would be one built on equal footing.
Alec could be that man. The thought bubbles up from somewhere deep in my mind, but I push it away. I need to consider all of this very carefully.
The mug of tea is steaming, the heat a pleasant contrast to the bitter temperature of the air conditioning in the office as I slowly retrace my steps to my cubicle.
I can’t dive headfirst into anything with Alec, and not because of what happened with Michael. The terms we agreed to on Friday night were that there would be no last names and no strings. It was supposed to be a one-night stand, and that was it.
It won’t exactly put me on equal footing with him if I send him a message asking to see him again. He’ll know he has a hold on me if I do that.
On top of that, who’s to say he feels the same way about me? Even if we hadn’t spent the entire night feasting on each other, licking each other, slamming our bodies together, the boundary I’d set at the bar prevented us from exchanging the kind of information we’d need start a relationship. I remember his reaction when I suggested we keep it simple and only about sex—he didn’t hesitate. He wanted that privacy as much as I did.
So, as much as I want to open the app and send him another message, I can’t. My cheeks flush pink at the thought of him and the intensity of what we shared together Friday night, the way my body spiked with adrenaline for the rest of the weekend, wanting desperately to be back in his bed as I went to brunch and did my shopping and cleaned my apartment, the clean masculine scent of him filling my mind and overwhelming my senses the entire time.
That doesn’t stop me from taking my phone out of my purse twenty times over the course of the day and opening a new message window, my fingers hovering over the keyboard.
Every time, though, I close the app without typing a single word. I can’t find a way to reach out to him again without going back on my promises to myself, a way to breach the agreement we had without putting him in control of my emotions.
My breath is shallow by the time I step out onto the sidewalk a little after 5:00, the space between my legs aching with need for him. Ridiculous, I tell myself. You’re being ridiculous.
When my phone buzzes in my purse, I stop dead on the sidewalk and rifle through my bag, snatching it up with shaking hands.
It’s not a text.
It’s not an email.
It’s a message in the dating app.
And it’s from him.
8
Alec
I spend the rest of the weekend scrolling through the profiles on three different dating apps.
Not one picture stands out.
The only image in my mind is of Jessica, her back arched, her breasts rising and falling as she works herself over my cock, head thrown back, blue eyes closed, as she gets off over and over again.
This is not how I imagined this playing out. I was going to hit it and quit it as many times as possible in the big city.
When she left on Saturday at noon, ten minutes after waking, she gave me a wink and a wave and didn’t look back as she headed toward the building’s elevator. Once she’d stepped inside, she seemed to notice me again, my shoulders and torso out in the hallway, unable to take my eyes off of her.
She pressed the button to go down. “I’m glad you were available,” she called down the hall to me with a smile, a confident smile, on her face.
I wanted to sprint down the hall in nothing but my boxers, block the elevator doors from closing, and sweep her back into my arms. I wanted to kiss her until she melted against me and then carry her back into the apartment, take her in the shower, and spend the rest of the day in bed with her.
Instead, I return her smile with a cocky one of my own. “It was a lucky break,” I say.
Did I imagine a flash of longing in her eyes as the doors closed?
Probably.
Saturday and Sunday I search for someone to replace her.
I fill out profiles on two new dating apps and scroll endlessly through the lists of eligible women.
I check in with Nate and, in a fit of loneliness, invite him to spend Saturday evening with me. We make our way through every bar near the apartment I’ve rented. The women there can’t get enough of us. Nate does his best to be a decent wingman, and I return the favor. It’s easy to talk up his darkly handsome looks, and his deep brown eyes draw the ladies in like moths to a flame.
He has better luck than I do, even though he doesn’t cave in completely to the party mood and never touches a drop of alcohol. I don’t push the matter. It’s enough that he came here with me instead of hauling me back to the royal palace in Saintland. After we hit the second bar, he’s garnered a bit of a fan club and allows one girl, a petite blonde with wide gray eyes, to sit at his side for the rest of the evening.
It’s not yet midnight when I signal to him that it’s time to go. The blonde looks disappointed, but Nate charms her with a whispered word in her ear and a kiss on the cheek.
We walk side by side on the sidewalk leading back to the building I’m staying in, and it’s not until we get to the front entrance that I realize Nate never asked for directions.
“Are you staking me out, old buddy?”
He gives me a sidelong look. “Did the international flight sap you of all your intelligence?”
I roll my eyes. Of course he knows where I’m staying, even without me giving him the address. It’s all too easy for me to forget that his experience in intelligence and security far outstrips my idiot royal sensibilities. “No. But a woman might have.”
He raises his eyebrows. “We’ve only been here three nights. You’ve already found the love of your life?”
“She’s not the love of my life, Nate, for God’s sake. She’s…” What was she? The buzz I got from my drinks has already worn off, and I’m left with a throbbing need to see her again.
It doesn’t matter that soon—likely in two weeks, if Nate has his way—I’ll be going back to Saintland, never to see her again, and despite her insistence on not exchanging any information beyond first names, there’s something about her that’s sunk its claws deep into my…heart. Yes, that’s it.
“She’s a tigress?”
Back in our school days, Nate and I referred to our hottest dates as tigresses—full of spirit and deadly if you messed with them. Looking back, every other woman I’ve been with is a kitten compared to Jessica.
I flash Nate a smile, giving him a nod. “She’s a tigress.”
“Are you seeing her again?”
“You know as well as I do that it would be a fool’s errand.” Nate doesn’t know all the details about what happened between Jessica and me, but he knows as well as I do that whatever there might be between us, it has to stay on this side of the Atlantic.
“Don’t be coy with me, your highness. I can tell you’re thinking about it.”
“Shut your mouth.” I temper the words with a sheepish smile.
Because the bastard is right.
After he walks away, back toward his hotel, I pull out my phone, open the app, and type a message to Jessica asking her to meet me again. Friday was too much fun, I write.
Who doesn’t like to tempt fate?
To my immense shock, Jessica agrees to meet me the next night. It doesn’t take me long to realize that my first impression of her last Friday night wasn’t a fluke. When I tu
rn from where I’ve been waiting by the bar and see her walk through the door, heading straight for me, a shock wave jolts through me, wiping all the smooth opening lines I had come up with out of my mind.
Jessica doesn’t waste a single second. As soon as she reaches me, she’s pulling me down to her and kissing me with such heat that the bartender whistles. “Hey, lovebirds, get a room!” he shouts over the blaring music. Without breaking the kiss, I show him my middle finger and the man bursts out laughing. “At least buy some drinks, man.”
That’s where we start.
Once again, we end up in my apartment, all over each other, ravenous, insatiable, the pile of condom wrappers by the bed growing higher as the night passes by.
Before she leaves, she rides me one more time, gyrating her hips so skillfully it’s all I can do not to come within the first thirty seconds. I reach up to tweak her nipples, causing her to cry out and dig her fingernails into my chest, rocking her hips even faster, harder against my cock.
As I explode my release deep inside her, my vision blurring with its intensity, I try to burn the memory of Jessica, her rhythmic movement, her luscious curves, her intoxicating beauty into my mind, in case this is the last chance I get to be with her.
I’m so screwed.
9
Jessica
I’m in way over my head.
Wednesday and Thursday at work are exercises in torture. I spent Tuesday night with Alec because I can’t resist a situation that’s sure to backfire.
You don’t even know him, my rational half says.
I know all I need to know about him, the hopeless romantic half fires back.
I can’t deny it. Something exists between us that’s so compatible, so unbelievably in-sync, that I know what we have is one-of-a-kind.
But I know, I know, that it’s lust. I can’t betray the promises I’ve made to myself based only on desire.
Or can I?
No, I tell myself firmly. Unless he’s going to prove to you that he wants more out of this, don’t get swept away. Don’t give him the upper hand. Stay in control, Jessica.
In the office, I can hardly concentrate on the projects I’m supposed to be managing because I’m caught in an endless internal argument.
He did prove it. He messaged you back.
That was because the sex was incredible.
So what? He had to see you again. Couldn’t live without you.
…Because the sex was indescribably good.
That doesn’t mean he wants anything more to do with me. That doesn’t mean I want anything more to do with him.
You do want more to do with him.
I don’t want anything more from him unless he’s going to prove himself. Remember Michael???
He did prove it.
On and on and on.
On top of that, Alec doesn’t message me again, and I want to message him so badly I can taste it.
I hold back, though. I need to decide how I’m going to play this before I say another word to him.
When the workday is over, I still haven’t made up my mind, even though Alec has a lot going for him. He’s hotter than sin and is better in bed than any man I’ve known.
Still, I can’t dispel the nagging doubt: Can he be tender? Can he make love? Would he love me for more than this electric, fiery connection?
I don’t know.
My head aches with indecision. It’s true. I’m the kind of person who will change anything and everything if it suits me, but I never make those decisions at random. They are carefully considered, no matter how it looks from the outside.
I can’t decide.
Go after him?
Leave him behind?
You’ll never be able to leave him behind, my inner voice repeats for the umpteenth time.
When my phone vibrates with Christian’s text, I’m sprawled on the couch in my apartment, watching a shitty Netflix movie, the scenes flickering in front of my eyes, but none of it sinking in.
Purple Swan. 8:30. I have a date for you!
Ugh, I can’t. Richard was such a disaster, and Alec is so heavenly, that there’s no way I can sit through an evening of drinks and empty banter with some random idiot who can’t compare.
Can’t. Busy.
I drop my phone back onto the couch next to me and try to focus on the television. I’ve been so consumed with replaying the memories over and over again in my mind of two nights with Alec, my own Emmy award-winning production, that what’s playing on the TV right now holds no interest for me. Two nights! It’s been more like a TV show marathon than a two-hour-weeknight movie. There’s been lots of action—that I have no idea what the plot is.
The phone buzzes again, almost immediately.
Come on, Jess—it’s going to be fun!
Richard wasn’t exactly a hit.
I know, but this guy is nothing like Richard.
I’m tired, Chris.
One drink.
Whyyyyy
Aren’t we close friends? Don’t you want to see us?
You know I love you but my couch is my date for the night
Christian isn’t very good at taking no for an answer, so it doesn’t surprise me when my phone rings signaling an incoming call within moments after I send the last text, his name flashing brightly on the screen.
“Chris. I am not coming out to the Purple Swan. It’s been a long—”
“Jess, let me make it up to you for setting you up with Richard. He was a friend of a friend who wanted me to show him a good time while he was in town. I swear, this guy is nothing like him.”
“I’m not staying long.”
Christian’s voice perks up. “Don’t feel like you need to stay long. Come out for an hour, have a good time. Take today off your mind. I know that office job of yours sucks.”
He has no idea how much it sucks. When I’m not fantasizing about Alec, I’m fantasizing about picking up and moving somewhere else—anywhere else—so I don’t spend another hour at the Colton-Hayes headquarters. I don’t have a passion for organizing last-minute projects. Everyone else’s failure to plan becomes my emergency. I’m so over it.
I bite my lip, considering Christian’s offer.
At the very least, a night out with my friends—even if I am half considering leaving them behind in exchange for a fresh start—could help me focus on something other than Alec for a couple of hours. Maybe it’ll give me enough perspective that I can make a logical decision about all of this.
That’s what I need. Perspective.
I’m also starving. I only picked at my lunch because I was so conflicted about the Alec Situation, I could barely eat. If nothing else, the food at the Purple Swan will be worth it. It always is.
“Fine.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Chris says, laughing at my grudging acceptance.
“This guy had better be hot,” I say, sighing. I’m going to need to ask Carolyn to borrow a dress and then spend time on my hair and makeup. It would be far easier to stay planted on the couch, but who am I kidding? I’d end up pacing the room in an attempt to rid myself of this obnoxious nervous energy.
I hear Carolyn’s key in the lock—she must have been working a little late today—and when she appears at the door to the living room, I give her a smile and a wave that she returns before flopping down on the couch next to me.
“He’s going to blow your mind,” Chris says. “But I’m not going to tell you anything else. Show up at 8:30 with your beautiful self. I promise, Jess, you won’t regret it.”
10
Alec
By Thursday morning, thinking about Jessica—the way she laughs, the way she moves, the way her naked body feels when it’s pressed against mine, rocking together joined at the hip into the early hours of the morning—has very nearly driven me mad.
The second “date” did nothing to get her out of my system, nothing at all. Part of me knew all along that seeing her again would do nothing but stoke the flames, but like th
e idiot I am, I went anyway.
What does it say about her that she agreed to a second date without hesitation?
When I checked in with Nate yesterday—an act that seems more and more like a waste of both my time and his as this trip progresses since he tails me everywhere I go or has someone else do it—he gave me shit for not taking Jessica out on an actual date.
“If this woman is that amazing,” he said, giving me a slap on the shoulder, “you should have taken her somewhere upscale, not to the bar.”
“What do you want from me?” I shot back at him, keeping my tone light. “This is going nowhere, and you know it, yet you egg me on, you asshole.”
He’d shrugged, giving me a sly smile.
Bastard.
When I roll out of bed, I can’t ignore all the energy zipping through my body, so I pull out my phone. It’s a new one, with a new number, that I bought at the airport in Saintland for this trip so, on the off-chance the royal security corps decides to keep tabs on me through my regular phone, they’ll find that it’s parked in my bedroom at the palace. I tap the screen to type in search terms to help me find a gym.
In Saintland, there’s a gym in the palace that my brother, who is a bit of an exercise fanatic after his own year in the service, insists on keeping meticulously up-to-date with the best equipment available on the market. Never let it be said that he spends the royal fortune only on necessities, no matter what he tries to tell you. Here in New York, I’m looking for something of the same caliber. No guarantees I’ll find it.
I choose the place with the most stars, a place that caters to “exclusive clientele,” and happens to be located the next block down from my apartment.