by Larkin Rose
I’d make a fortune.
Suck that, billionaire! (inside joke…sorry)
Night all.
X
Mayson was watching Paige from her car half a block away when her phone sang out the X blog tone.
She smiled with every word.
Finally, she’d made it into one of Paige’s blogs.
Soon, she’d make it again. Very soon.
She closed the phone with a smile, cranked her truck, and drove away.
Chapter Ten
Paige awoke feeling strangely emotional, though completely satisfied for once in way too many years. Maybe that was the reason she didn’t want to get out of this bed or the reason she had an incredible urge to snuggle something. With another uncharacteristic need to share her night, the real night, with her bloggers.
Not only last night, but her glorious night in New Orleans as well.
She wanted someone to know what had created X. Wanted someone to know why she’d become so addicted to finding unforgettable sex again. It was out there. She’d found it once. Now, she truly believed, she’d found it again, if only for a brief while. There was hope for her future, with or without masks, with or without scavenger hunts and mysterious adventures.
Of course, she’d play out this game for as far as Vinden was willing to take her, but this wasn’t real. It was a game of sexual bliss. And soon, it would end, just like New Orleans.
She could find what she was looking for outside the box, outside this game. She was positive she would even after Vinden.
Satisfied with her decision, Paige pulled her laptop onto the bed and opened the blog link.
She stared at the blinking cursor and let the words gather. Did published authors have this much trouble conjuring up their sentences? Did they agonize over every detail?
What was their secret for finally being satisfied with the outcome?
Paige put her fingers on the keys, took in a steady breath, and let her thoughts begin.
Something happened to me last night. Something that has already happened to me once before. Only once. Never again. Until last night, that is.
But before I begin, let me start at the beginning.
The very beginning.
*
Mayson ended her conference call with the chief designer guru of a wind turbine fabrication company in Germany and stretched in her office chair.
She was filled with anxiety this morning for some reason. Maybe it was her late night with Paige and early morning of business proposals. Not to mention the weather report that had snagged her attention away from her newest turbine design. There was a tropical storm in the Caribbean Sea predicted to strengthen within days.
It felt like she’d just returned from a natural disaster. Because she had. She wasn’t ready to get yanked away to another. Not when she was having so much fun with Paige, as the mysterious Vinden.
As hard as it was to admit, she liked Paige. Liked all the things she stood for. From her business mind, to her sharp tongue, to the way she wouldn’t let Mayson off the hook, Mayson liked all that she knew about Paige. She liked a woman who went after what she wanted, who wouldn’t take shit from people because it wasn’t in her genetics, and who would stand her ground and fight for what she believed in.
That’s what she saw in Paige.
Mayson couldn’t wait to give her that long-awaited apology, the one she’d tried to give all those years ago when she raced back to the park. Instead, all she’d found was a soggy diary floating in the water. A diary she still possessed. One she’d never read. She had no idea why she’d kept it all these years, or why she’d never been able to toss it. Someone had loved it. Paige had loved it. The worn binder said as much.
Tonight, Mayson would hand it back to its owner with a request to be forgiven for being such an ass. Hell, Mayson wasn’t sure she’d ever truly forgiven herself. That act of unkindness had gone against everything she stood for, everything her parents and grandparents had instilled in her throughout her life.
She was proud of the person she was, the woman she’d become.
Her inbox chimed. She opened it to find a new blog from X.
I must warn you, I’m in a rare mood this morning. This may very well be the only mushy blog you ever get from me. Treasure it!
Six years ago, I sent myself on a vacation. It was well deserved, trust me. I was mentally and physically beat to hell and back. A week in New Orleans was just what I needed.
I needed sin. I needed sinful sex.
I found just that at a private sex party. I’d never been before. Too curious to refuse the offer, I used the secret passcode, pushed aside my convictions, and stepped inside a world I’d never experienced. Not sure what I was looking for, or what I expected, if anything at all.
What I found, I can’t get out of my mind. A masked woman lured me into intimacy with nothing more than an outstretched hand.
I experienced pure, unadulterated sex. It was the most blissful night of my entire life. I wish that were an understatement, but it’s not.
The sex was indescribable. It touched and opened something inside me. Something I haven’t been able to replace since. No one compares to my mystery woman. Sex can’t compare to that one single night.
I’ve searched. I swear.
I was convinced I would never experience that kind of raw heat again.
But I have. A masked stranger took my breath away, again, with nothing more than a whisper and a hot, gentle kiss.
Am I a twisted person? A person who only finds satisfaction within the mystery of the experience, when she can’t see the person behind the mask? Is it my own secrets I’m trying to shelter? Or my past? I don’t believe so, or didn’t, but I’m not sure of anything anymore.
What I do know…I need to be taken there again. Over the brink. Into the glorious abyss.
Please, I beg you, take me there again.
X
Mayson stared at the monitor in complete shock. Her breath was frozen. She read back over the words, positive she’d misread something. New Orleans. Six years ago. Sex party.
She shook her head. X couldn’t be her mystery woman. That was impossible. Wasn’t it? She read the words again. New Orleans. Six years ago. Secret passcode.
Visions? Paige’s nightclub.
“No way.” Mayson forked her fingers through her hair and slammed back in the chair.
No way X, Fedora, Paige, her mystery goddess, were all one and the same.
She pushed out of the chair and leaned over the monitor to search the screen again.
The words, the truth, the realization, were written in black and white.
Paige was the woman who’d sounded angelic as Mayson pushed deep inside her. Paige was the woman who had curled around her body like a cozy blanket. She was the one Mayson couldn’t rattle from her mind?
Paige was the one she’d let get away. Twice.
Mayson paced the office, convincing herself this couldn’t be what it seemed. This wasn’t happening. Sure, it happened in novels. Obviously, it happened on the silver screen. But never in real life. Never.
She stalled in front of the computer and read the words again.
This had to be some reasonable, yet far-fetched coincidence. Had to be. Shit like this didn’t happen for her. Natural disasters, rebuilding dreams for everyone else, but never for her.
Images sprang to mind, and she clutched the back of the chair. She’d vowed to find that kind of scorching bliss again. Vowed to find her happy-ever-after. She craved that indescribable connection, needed that spontaneous spark. The very emotion she’d felt slithering through her last night with the sound and feel of Paige.
What the hell? Was this real? Was this really happening?
Paige had been here all along, right under her nose? The angel Mayson had shoved in a fountain? The goddess she’d made arch and moan and come for hours?
That was impossible. Absurd. There had to be another explanation.
Mayson dug her cell
from her pocket and dialed Eric. She had to tell someone. Needed someone to shake her and tell her this was ridiculous and coincidental. He was the only person she’d shared that night with. No one else would have understood. Eric was a hopeless, yet realistic, romantic.
“You heard the news as well?” Eric said. “Not looking good for the home team.”
“Oh, yeah. I saw.” Mayson felt guilty that he was referring to natural disasters while she remembered a night of raw sex.
“But that’s not why you called. Obviously.”
Mayson dropped into the chair and let her gaze flick over the blog. “Remember New Orleans?”
“The sex party? That you didn’t invite me to? Of course I remember. I pouted for months.”
“I know who she is.”
“No way. Really?”
“It’s Paige.”
Eric was silent for several seconds. “Okay, that’s stretching things a bit too far, don’t you think? I mean, the woman can’t stand you.”
“Listen to this.”
Mayson read the blog to him and cringed as he fell silent once again. “I think you’re wishful thinking, Mayson. A million people have retold stories exactly like that.”
This couldn’t be coincidence. Absolutely couldn’t be.
Paige had described too much. The details were too accurate. Outstretched hand. The code.
Her club was called Visions. There couldn’t be coincidence in that.
Mayson could never forget that year. It was etched into her memory for both personal and professional reasons. That was the year she’d achieved worldwide recognition as an award-winning architect, the youngest ever to receive the coveted Flaverty Prize for her innovative design features that made an aquatic wind farm off the Scandinavian coast possible, the year when her worth rolled from millions into billions. More importantly, though, it was the year she’d first recognized romantic dates for what they truly were. Money hungry. The name Montgomery inevitably brought the glitter of greed sparkling in their eyes.
Though not in Paige’s eyes. In her eyes, money was dirty. Had Mayson created that monster with her cowardly actions as a child?
Most importantly, it was the year she’d had life-changing sex with a faceless stranger, then walked away with life’s goals on a new path. She’d vowed after that night that she’d find a woman to settle down with. Vowed that woman would love Mayson for who she was, not what she was worth.
She would be hard to find, Mayson knew, but she’d known from that moment she was ready to find her. Though why she hadn’t searched harder, she didn’t know. She could have. She could have put work aside. She could have found someone.
Mayson let go a sigh. Her gaze returned to the computer screen and X’s blog. It was her! Dammit. It was Paige.
“Visions was the passcode to enter the sex party, Eric. It’s her.” Mayson stared in disbelief. That night had been just as earth moving for Paige as it had for Mayson. Paige hadn’t forgotten. Neither had Mayson.
“You’re shitting me.” Eric’s tone proved Mayson wasn’t in this belief alone.
Paige was the woman who had changed her life with an erotic sigh.
She thought of that unforgettable night so many years ago. She thought about the woman she’d kissed last night, the very same woman she’d kissed six years ago. The very woman she’d pushed into a fountain trying to impress people who didn’t deserve her friendship, let alone her punk bravery.
Paige. X. Fedora. Her mystery angel.
“Goddamn. It’s her.” Mayson leaned back in the chair with a sigh.
She still couldn’t believe how the universe worked. How fate operated.
She’d never believed in the stars-aligning crap. Never believed in love at first sight. Never believed that each person had a soul mate. Sure, people could fall in love, but not instantly. Of course people could find the person they wanted to live the rest of their lives with, but it didn’t have anything to do with astrology. She simply believed that two people met, liked each other, adored each other’s company and their personalities, and chose to live happily ever after with that person.
Now staring at Paige’s blog, the truth, the facts, she wasn’t so sure anymore.
How could the universe continue to draw two people together?
It was crazy.
She thought of the girl from the park. Paige had sure grown up from that too-frail girl. That little girl who had seemed so shy, so distant from the world and her surroundings. Maybe that’s what had attracted Mayson to her. That she seemed not to care that she was different. She’d seemed content to be wearing her out-of-date clothing. Seemed content to be in her own skin.
Mayson had run her fingertips over that skin. She’d pushed her fingers deep inside the beauty.
An ache throbbed between her thighs with the memory. She was going to do it again. Very soon.
“What now?” Eric disrupted her heated thoughts.
Mayson ran her fingers over the screen. “The game just changed.”
*
Paige grabbed her purse and keys from the table beside the door and looked down to find Damien staring up at her. His ears weren’t back. He wasn’t hissing.
She wasn’t sure what to do. Pet him? Baby talk? Hiss? Their relationship wasn’t defined by physical contact. Their mutual dislike didn’t require sweet nothings.
“What?” Paige squatted and held her hand out to him. To her surprise, Damien pushed his face into her palm and purred. She’d never heard that sound come from him. Ever. She truly hadn’t known if he possessed the necessary trait to purr. But sure enough, he did. She stroked behind his ear, half expecting him to whip around and bite her. Instead, he pushed his body against her leg and arched up.
Was this his way of calling a truce?
Was this her way of agreeing?
“I gotta go, fur bag.” Paige scratched down his back. “Will you be back to normal when I return?”
He U-turned back into her outstretched fingers, gave a low grumble, and then darted from the room.
“Yeah, figured that wouldn’t last long.” Paige rose and turned the doorknob when her new phone chirped.
Vinden: Believe in fate, Fedora?
X: No.
Vinden: Triple beginnings are our common denominator.
What the hell did that mean? Was it another coded set of instructions for her new destination like the coordinates? Couldn’t Vinden just say what, when, where, and how? Didn’t she know by now that Paige was just that easy?
X: Is this another riddle I have to figure out? All by myself? *grin*
Vinden: I am your riddle. Unravel me, Fedora. Take off my mask.
Paige considered her response and then realized she didn’t have one. Why was Vinden pushing her to take off her mask? Would it be too forward to let her know she didn’t have reason to unveil her? That she’d found all she wanted while it was in place?
Four hours later, Paige jerked the stage curtain open with the rumble of drums. She prowled toward the pole in unison with Cynthia and Marsha. They each turned their backs to the cold steel, then slowly slid down the length with the whine of the guitars.
They rolled onto their stomachs, and Paige dared a glance into the audience. She found herself locked in Mayson Montgomery’s hot gaze.
Hot damn! Did she have to look so edible in her dark denim, tight T-shirt, and tousled hair? She was a billionaire, for shit sake. Couldn’t she wear a suit and tie, slick her hair back? Maybe some kind of boring slacks and business button-up? Anything to tone down the appearance of her six-pack abs and detailed cuts down her arms?
Fuck. Mayson wasn’t supposed to look that good. Not when Paige was half-naked before her, grinding her body to the beat of drums.
The girls climbed onto their chairs while Paige pushed her ass backward, folding herself over her thighs, then finally rolling onto her back and arching off the floor. She prowled toward her own chair and pulled herself into place accompanied by the kick of an electric keyboard.
/>
When she spun around in the chair and snapped her legs open, she caught Mayson’s stare once again and had to swallow back a moan. Mayson had her forearms propped on her knees, intently watching Paige. She didn’t blink, smile, smirk, not a damn thing.
That stare was so agonizing Paige had to look away. The drums rumbled as she and the girls stood beside the chairs, legs hiked onto the seats. As if summoned, her gaze found Mayson again.
Mayson was disguising her reaction very well, but Paige could read the heat in her eyes. She was turned on. It gave Paige a rush to know she could affect her. That she invoked any kind of sexual response in her. She could eat her fucking heart out.
However, Paige found herself grinding harder, arching deeper, and dipping a little bit lower, all for Mayson’s carnal stare. She was dancing for her and her alone, oblivious to the rest of the audience around her. Worse, Mayson never steered that intense gaze away.
She almost sighed with relief when the music came to a banging close.
Fuck. That wasn’t supposed to be hot. She wasn’t supposed to be intrigued with that bitch. She didn’t like her. Not even a little bit. So why was she still thinking about her, wondering what their date night would hold? Would Mayson treat her to some fancy, dark-lit restaurant? Take her to Paris on her private jet? Wasn’t that what billionaires did? Do all they could to impress and prove they could hang their hat on the moon?
Paige stormed into her dressing room and yanked the cell phone off the makeup table in haste to check for messages from Vinden. She cheered when she found her new set of instructions. Tomorrow. Lingerie boutique on the corner of West and Palm. Midnight.
“Midnight? Who is she, Houdini?” Paige frowned. She knew the exact place. She’d prowled the windows and licked her lips at the satin fabric and delicate lacing. The place closed every night at ten. She was positive.
“I can be Houdini if you need me to be.”
Paige spun around to find Mayson and Sam standing in the doorway of her dressing room. She grumbled under her breath and searched for her robe. The last thing she wanted to do was show skin to a woman who had heated her with a stare.