‘I’m not thanking you for saving me from something that was never going to happen. Taxi, remember?’
He stepped closer. So close I could smell the salty maleness of his skin. He breathed in deeply, like he could smell me, too. I hoped he was getting two nostrils full of gin!
‘Chloe,’ he said softly, ‘it’s not my fault Marcus isn’t giving you what you want, but if you tell me what you do want, I’ll give it to you.’
I tried to laugh, but it came out choked and fake. ‘What would you know about a committed relationship?’
‘I know you’d be upstairs in bed with Marcus if that’s what you had with him.’
No answer to that. Just the hollow ring of truth.
‘I watched you tonight,’ he continued. ‘And I saw what I see every time. You want something he can’t give you, Chloe.’
‘Stop watching me.’ Through gritted teeth.
‘Or are you telling me that a kiss on the forehead is enough to get you going? That that’s just a prelude, just the way he starts? That the next kiss is different? And the one after that starts a domino effect, right down your body until he gets to that luscious little place between your legs?’ He stepped even closer and stared down at me. ‘Because that’s where my mouth would be right now, if you were in a committed relationship with me.’
Something flashed through me, vivid and hot. No! I couldn’t, wouldn’t feel … that. ‘He –. He kissed me differently. Outside. When there were just the two of us.’ Conveniently not mentioning that I’d had to ask for it. And why was I even responding? Nothing about my relationship with Marcus was any of Nick’s business.
‘Then why aren’t you two upstairs in bed?’ he asked, relentless.
But I couldn’t bear to say the excuse out loud – a video call about Hawaii. ‘You know how to operate the door release, now I’ve shown you twice, so see yourself out,’ I said and made for the elevators.
But nope – there was his hand, gripping my wrist. ‘Running away again rather than facing the issue?’
‘There isn’t any issue.’
‘Give me two minutes and I’ll prove there is.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about and I don’t want to know. What you think you know isn’t important. You’re not important.’
‘Then stay here with me and you can prove that instead.’
Premonition.
No. I wouldn’t accept it. Nothing had changed, nothing was going to. I wouldn’t let it. ‘Will you leave me alone if I prove it?’
‘Yes, Chloe. I’ll leave you alone. If you prove it.’
Deep breath in. Calm, calm, calm. Deep breath out. ‘Two minutes,’ I said. ‘Start talking.’
But he didn’t talk.
Instead, he reached for my hand, held it flat against his chest, over his heart. A tingle started in my fingers, and I knew right then I’d made a mistake. This was a bad, bad idea. Nick looked – no, blazed – down at me. No laughter in his eyes. No softness in his face. I counted his heartbeats as I stared into his dark eyes, wanting to turn away, but unable to move. One, two, three, four. I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. And then, he lowered his head. I thought he was going to kiss me and waited while my nerves jangled and my head spun, telling myself I didn’t want this. Did. Not. Want. It.
But it wasn’t a kiss. Instead, he nudged his lips against mine. Open. That’s what he was saying. Open for me.
Coffee. Salt. Something else. Something I wanted desperately. And my lips fell open, gasped open.
I waited for the rush of his tongue, the smash of his mouth, longed for it.
But, again … no.
He sucked my bottom lip into his mouth. Kept it there, hovering between pressure and release, as every drop of blood in my body rushed between my legs and pooled, heavy and pulsing.
‘You feel it, Chloe, don’t you?’ he eased back just far enough to ask. ‘It’s always been there. Since day one.’
A whimper. That was all I could manage.
‘Ask me to kiss you,’ he breathed against my lips. ‘Tell me to.’
But I couldn’t speak. I was both hot and frozen. Poised, waiting, wondering, caught between guilt and desire. My hand, the one he’d flattened over his heart, was clutching his T-shirt now. Twisting in it. I should not be doing this. Oh but I want it, I want it.
‘No?’ he asked, and laughed softly. ‘Stubborn.’
And then he shifted to my top lip. Licked it, over and over and over, breathing out words in between. ‘Come on, Chloe.’ ‘Ask me.’ ‘Tell me.’ ‘Say it.’ And then, hovering, hovering. ‘I can’t finish it until you do.’
Everything in me coiled. I was panting, twisting both hands in his T-shirt now.
‘No?’ he asked again against my mouth.
I shook my head – then whimpered once more, as that slight movement rubbed my lips against his and brought his taste more deeply into me.
‘So if you won’t open your mouth to me, open your legs. Just a little. I need to be there.’
And for reasons I did not understand – at all – I did it. I shifted my feet, and he edged into me, between my thighs. And boy, did he fit. Like a puzzle piece, slipping right into the space.
‘Ahhhhh.’ The tortured sound sighed out of me at the same time as I reached my hands up, dragged his head down, and jammed his mouth onto mine.
It still wasn’t exactly a kiss. It was a … a crush. Mouth to mouth, breath to breath, tongues battling to fill and lick and taste. It was about heat and hardness and demand. And as he responded to the desperation of my hungry mouth, he growled low in his throat, his arms closing around me like a vise, his pelvis grinding against me.
My blood was roaring as I pushed my body against his. ‘God, God! I am so hot.’
‘You are,’ he said, mouth breaking from mine. ‘Hot as hell.’ Another deep, dark kiss. ‘And cold as ice.’ Kiss, kiss, kiss. ‘And that’s why I want you so badly.’
Click. A sound. The release at the building entrance, doors opening, a voice, ‘Oops! Sorry.’
Nick and I broke apart, eyes wide, chests heaving.
Someone – who knew who? – scurried past with a muffled, tittering, coughing laugh. Ping of the arriving elevator. Doors whooshing open, then shut.
We were alone again.
And I saw myself as whoever it was had seen me.
Swooning at a well-known rugby league player who was not my boyfriend. Letting him do whatever he wanted to do with me, in a public space. Worse than sitting on his lap, as Ruby had done. A gasping mess, spreading my legs and slapping myself against him.
Against Nick Savage!
I was every bit as eager, panting and pathetic as every other sports groupie who notched their bedpost. Sex for the sake it, never mind the name of the guy, never mind the guy I already had.
I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth, and started backing towards the elevators. ‘Chloe, you know how it is,’ he said and there was an urgency there I’d never heard in him before. ‘You just proved it. It’s not my imagination.’
Shaking my head. ‘No. I don’t want to know.’
He came after me. ‘Everyone – everyone – knows what I want to do to you. Everyone on the team. Everyone in that apartment tonight. Drew and Evie, they know I want you. And you know it. You want me too.’
The words slapped at me. I shook my head, more vigorously.
I’d reached the elevator, turned to stab at the button. Stab, stab, stab.
‘Do you think Marcus is blind?’ he pushed. ‘He has to see it. And yet Marcus left you,’ he said, relentless. ‘Thinking you were coming up to the apartment, where I was. What does that tell you, Chloe? What?’
‘It tells me you’re a bastard, Nick.’
‘A bastard? Okay, I can wear that. I will wear it. But at least I won’t waste time kissing your forehead. I’ll be kissing your mouth, and your breasts, and between your legs where I know you’re hot and wet and ready for me. Are you hot and wet and ready for him, Chlo
e?’
I spun around lashing out to slap. But he caught my hand, hard, and held it a few centimetres from his face.
‘Are we back to that?’ he asked, jerking me close.
‘I wish I’d broken your nose.’
‘You’re welcome to break my nose, or tear my skin with your teeth, or rip me to shreds with your nails. Mark me any way you want – as long as you’re coming when you do it.’
‘I will not come for you.’
‘Then I’ll come for you, Chloe. I’ll come for you.’
The elevator door opened, and he released me. ‘Ask me up,’ he said.
I made some kind of scoffing sound.
‘Chloe.’
I stepped into the elevator. Straightened my dress. Touched my hair. And then I looked between Nick’s left eyebrow and the wall behind him.
As the elevator doors closed, I heard the ‘Fuck,’ that erupted from him. And then, louder, as I started to ascend, ‘FUCK!’
I imagined him punching a wall – hopefully shattering a knuckle – and took some perverse kind of comfort from that.
All those premonitions weren’t premonitions anymore.
Change. It was here, now. Nothing I could do to push it back. Not now that Nick had kissed me. A shattered knuckle was nothing compared to the grief of knowing I’d betrayed Marcus. Knowing I’d ruined the life I had wanted so badly, fought so hard to get. The perfect future I was building with the perfect man was ruined because of one kiss.
I hoped Nick had fractured every bone in his hand.
I held it together as I opened the door to my apartment. As I took my phone out of my bag. Tapped for Marcus. Waited for the pick-up.
‘Chloe, I told you, I’m about to –’
‘I kissed Nick Savage tonight. And now I’m breaking up with you.’
Pause. I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears as I waited it out. Seven seconds.
And then he said, ‘Okaaaay.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
There was a deafening silence as I finished telling Drew and Evie my break-up story the following evening over cocktails.
And then, ‘Okaaaay,’ said Evie.
A word of which I’d had about enough, frankly! ‘You’ve been saying “okay” like “okaaaaaay” since you got back from Morocco,’ I said. ‘And it’s creeping me out. Okaaaaay?’
‘Okaaaay,’ Evie said, then giggled. ‘All right, enough with the death stare! I’ll ask a question instead. Did Nick call you?’
‘That’s your first question?’ I asked, incredulous.
‘Yes, it is. So?’
‘If you think I’m ever, ever, going to get together with Nick Savage, let alone the day after I break up with my boyfriend, who happens to be his teammate and is therefore in his same social circle, and would therefore be off limits even if I didn’t detest him? Well, you’re insane. That is all.’
‘So, did he call?’ As though I hadn’t just said all that.
I threw my hands up in defeat. ‘Yes, he called.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He said: “It’s Nick”.’
She leaned forward. ‘And then what?’
‘And then … nothing. He hung up.’
‘He hung –’
‘It went to voicemail because … Well, because I didn’t accept the call.’
‘So what happened when you called him back?’
‘I didn’t call him back.’ I squirmed in my seat as she looked at me reproachfully. ‘He didn’t ask me to. Not that I would have, even if he did ask.’
Evie was frowning. ‘Has he tried to call you again?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure? Because if you’re not used to the number –’
‘I’m not an idiot, Evie. I … I saved the number. He didn’t call back.’
‘Oh. Because I could have sworn –’ She broke off, looking sheepish. ‘Well, I could have sworn, that’s all.’
‘What exactly did you two talk about up there on your own last night to make him your new best friend?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ she said airily. ‘Just your old street dwelling buddy, Vodka Vern.’
My blood ran cold. ‘You did not tell Nick about my time sleeping rough.’
‘What? No! God, Chloe, of course not, so stop looking at me like that. Nick told me what happened the night he met you, when you slipped Vern the twenty, that’s all. He volunteered the story of his own accord. It’s not like I was pumping him for information.’ She cast a superior look in Drew’s direction. ‘Unlike Drew in the kitchen with Marcus.’
I turned to Drew. ‘Drew?’ Storm cloud warning.
Drew rubbed a cautious finger over his chin. ‘All I did was casually suss out whether there was someone else in the picture. I mean, come on, three months without sex? It flies in the face of nature. It seemed to me the most logical reason was that he was banging someone else.’
‘Oh, you just casually sussed that out, did you? As if Marcus wouldn’t see what you were up to and clam the hell up.’
‘Subtle is my middle name, I’ll have you know.’
‘No, that would be “Dickhead”,’ I said.
‘Well, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of dick, Chloe.’
‘Dickhead,’ I said. ‘Head.’ But it was no good, I was laughing. ‘And it’s not funny.’
‘Sure it is. But before we all fall about in hysterics, let me reassure you that there was nobody else. And seriously? I don’t think two-timing is Mark’s style.’
‘Great! That makes me feel so much better about my own treachery!’
‘Treachery?’ Drew laughed. ‘Talk about melodrama. It was just a kiss, Chloe, not a full-blown love affair.’
Just a kiss that I could still feel, still taste. I realised I’d put my fingers up to my lips, and hastily brought them back down to curl around the stem of my glass. ‘Anyway, I already knew that wasn’t Marcus’s style so I didn’t need you’re alleged help.’
‘How did you know?’
‘Infidelity is not the kind of thing those guys can keep secret. Someone always blabs to the press. Let’s just hope that guy who caught me and Nick in the lobby didn’t have a chance to snap off a pic.’ I frowned. ‘And by the way, what’s with the “Mark” all of a sudden?’
‘I’ve just decided he looks like a Mark, not a Marcus. Not that it matters, since we won’t be seeing him around anymore. A shame because that boy was some piece of eye candy.’
‘Boy? He’s twenty-five. Three years older than you.’
‘Ah, but in the school of life, Chloe, the school of life …’ He trailed off, looking suitably mystical.
‘You are such a wanker,’ I said, unimpressed.
Drew grinned. ‘Only if I can’t find a hunk to do the job for me.’
I groaned out a laugh, but Evie, who’d been running a finger around the rim of her glass, wasn’t laughing. ‘So if he wasn’t banging someone else, what was the issue?’ she asked.
Drew’s glass stopped halfway to his mouth … and then, with a shrug that was almost infinitesimal, he raised it the whole way and proceeded to toss back half of his Big Boy’s Brandy – which looked a lot like a plain old-fashioned Brandy Alexander to me. ‘Who cares, now we’ve cut him loose? There’s no chance of a reconciliation, is there, Chloe?’
‘No,’ I said, and stared into my third drink – a whisky sour. Not my usual drink, but after last night, I thought it best to lay off the gin. Gin had a reputation for bringing out the maudlin in people; even worse, back in the day it was considered a leg opener (a nugget of information for which I had Vodka Vern to thank). On either count, clearly it was not a beverage for consumption when the name Nick Savage was going to feature in the conversation. Still, the whisky was going down a little too well. In fact, I was a drink ahead of the others (which was quite a feat, when you were drinking with Drew).
‘So, moving right along,’ Evie said briskly. ‘What are you going to do if Nick calls?’
I stared at her. ‘I’m
going to not answer. What the actual hell is up with you, Evie?’
She shrugged. ‘There’s just something between you and Nick. I can feel it. I think that’s the reason you’ve never talked about him. You’ve talked about all the other guys on the team, you know.’
‘Yeah, there’s definitely something between us,’ I said dryly. ‘It’s called animosity, as you saw very clearly last night. That’s why I’ve never mentioned him.’
‘Okaaaay.’
‘Evie,’ I said warningly.
‘Oops, sorry,’ she said, and grinned. ‘But seriously, I like him. I like that he riles you up, that he can get your mask to slip. Also, there’s that little matter of you wanting more sex. Hotter sex.’
‘But not with him,’ I insisted, and picked up my glass, ready to down a nice big swallow. Was alcoholism looming? And did I care if it was? Not much. I really was losing it.
‘Why not with him?’ she asked, as I took a sip. ‘Because if I ever I saw a guy keen to get into a girl’s pants and stay there a while, it’s Nick – in yours.’
I spat the whisky sour back into the glass. ‘Evie! Now look what you made me do. I can’t drink that.’
Drew looked at the glass, apparently seeing nothing amiss. ‘Why not? It’s your own saliva.’
‘Because it’s gross.’ I waved at the server and pointed to my glass, did a smiley, drinking mime. Message given and received. I slid my barely-touched cocktail to the far side of the table.
Drew tossed back the rest of his drink. ‘Grosser than swapping spit with a guy you detest?’
He did his own signalling routine for another drink while I stared at him. ‘Oh my God, you disapprove! What happened, Andrew? Did the Pope call you last night for a heart-to-heart about morals?’
‘Me, disapprove of a little dalliance?’ he asked, all quelle horreur. ‘I don’t think so. But I don’t relish the idea of you bleeding all over the floor when that little trickle of conscience that’s already bothering you becomes a deluge. As you know it will, Chloe. It’s going to eat away at you, nibbling, nibbling, nibbling, until it half-kills you, and we’re going to have to watch it happen, and funnily enough, I don’t want to see it. Because I love you.’
Escaping Mr Right Page 7