Too. Damn. Close.
She glances at the screen, then rolls her eyes and starts walking again, totally unaware of the fact that I’m gagging for another scent of her golden-brown waves. “Hailey’s phone is fixed,” she throws over her shoulder at me. “They’re heading back to the hotel.”
We’re staying at The Grand, in a suite. I have a sinking feeling Cole’s already arranged for another suite for him and Hailey.
The last thing Alison and I need is to be alone in a hotel suite together.
Fuck me.
I’m not an idiot. I see how she looks at me.
It can’t happen.
That image of her, naked and on all fours for me, flashes through my head again.
And I’m back to swinging the shopping bags in front of my body. I don’t know why my dick ever bothers going down. Might as well just stay hard all the time—it’s an inevitable state around her.
She ducks her head as we approach the hotel. I don’t see any paparazzi around, and they haven’t bothered the girls yet this trip, but it’s a reflex she’s honed over the last two years.
Her family has done a fucking number on her head, that’s for sure. I almost feel sorry for her, before I remember that she’s one of the richest twenty-year-olds in the country and if she wanted to stay out of the limelight, she could.
There’s something about Alison that’s attracted to the fire. She’s the youngest of four, and on paper, most definitely a good girl.
Straight-A student. Not a party girl.
Not a wild child hippie like her sister, who’s a rebel in her own way. I grin to myself as we cross the lobby. I like Hailey a lot. She pisses me off when she ditches me, but she doesn’t do that much anymore. We’ve come to an understanding.
Her baby sister, on the other hand?
No, there’s no hope for Alison and me to ever come to an understanding. Not unless she is naked and turned over my knee.
As if she can sense my spanking fantasy, she turns and looks at me. “What?” she asks, her sculpted brown eyebrows tugging close to each other.
“Nothing.” I wait to smirk until she’s moved past me onto the elevator. Too late, I catch her watching my reflection in the mirror.
She stares at me in the glass for a minute, then smiles, and the feline power there makes my balls pull tight. “Right. Nothing.”
— —
Four hours later, I’m sitting at the bar in a trendy New York restaurant, watching Alison taste the first pour of a bottle of wine. She rolls it around in her mouth, then gives the sommelier a smile so full of grace it fucking hurts, and he gives a slight bow before filling the rest of her glass and that of her sister.
Not only is she drinking underage, but it’s probably a two-hundred dollar bottle of wine and everyone here will bow and scrape to pour it for her.
She’s the epitome of a spoiled little rich girl who gets everything she wants. Well, most of the time. I denied her my forced attendance at her birthday dinner. It was an asshole move, but necessary for self-preservation. Cole had begged off of dinner, which gave me an excuse to sit across the restaurant instead of right next to her. “Enjoy your dinner with your sister,” I’d said, and Hailey had given me a knowing look as she’d pushed Alison toward their table.
We aren’t fucking subtle, that’s for sure. Ten months we’ve been circling each other, Ms. Reid and I.
Ten months I’ve been jerking off to the barely-legal fantasy of her on her knees, me teaching her how to suck my cock just the way I like it.
Ten months I’ve been punishing myself for being such a fucking pervert. Doesn’t stop me from doing it again the next night. Or morning. That first moment of consciousness when I imagine her sliding down my body, licking my abs as she makes her way to my cock…
I groan and rub my jaw.
“Tough day?”
I glance up.
The bartender—pretty, young, interested—is smiling at me. She’s got straight black hair and bright blue eyes. This is a classy place, so she’s covered from the neck down, but it’s all tight black fabric, and she knows how to stand to show off what she’s got.
It’s meant to be tempting.
I’m not dead, so it works, but just for a second. “I’ll take another of these.” I point at my ginger ale. “I’m working.”
“Sure thing.” She straightens up, her smile shifting from seductive to helpful. “Let me know if you need anything.”
First thing I learned when I came back from London was that “I’m working” was universal code for “I’m a cop.” Which I’m not, but since it’s a made-up, imaginary code invented by bartenders to make sense of a guy like me not drinking in a place like this, I use it to my advantage.
In England, everyone assumed I was either a wealthy American businessman or a spy. That was convenient, because both were true.
And then neither was true, and my life fell apart.
But I pulled myself out of the gutter and now I’m here—watching Alison Dashford Reid cross her legs in that too-short dress for the waiter. I’d say I’m being punished, but other than wanting to bodily move that guy out of the way and enjoy the flash of her thighs for myself, I can’t honestly call this penance.
She’s why I’ve stuck with The Horus Group for nearly a year.
And she’s why I’m going to have to walk away after this weekend.
—three—
Alison
Dinner is fantastic. I feel like a million bucks and I have my sister’s undivided attention.
So why do I care that Scott’s being all chatty with the bartender?
I don’t care.
Liar.
Okay, I do care. I don’t understand why he won’t touch me. I don’t understand why I can’t get over that. I’ve obviously turned him into some kind of romantic hero in my head. My psychology prof would have a field day with this mess.
It would get even worse if I told her about my mother.
“What are you thinking about?” Hailey frowns at me.
“Nothing.” Definitely not the fact that our mother probably has an inappropriate relationship with our grandfather, and I’ve known that long enough that it’s scarred me emotionally, and so far I haven’t been able to bring myself to have sex with anyone. Nuh-uh. Not that.
“You’re thinking about Scott.”
Sort of. “Maybe.”
“Last year, I was so worried he was going to take advantage of you, but now I think it’s him that I need to worry about.”
I stick my tongue out at her. “Your big, bad bodyguard can’t protect himself?”
She laughs. “You’re stubborn. I fear for anyone who gets on the wrong side of you.”
“I’m the nicest.”
“No, you’re the smartest. I’m the nicest.”
“That’s true.”
“Which makes Taylor the what?”
I scowl at Hailey. “Shush. Not on my birthday.”
“Sorry.”
“She sent me a text. Poolside on a rooftop somewhere. Santa Monica weather certainly beats New York this time of year. I might go visit her for Spring Break.”
Hailey’s eyes go super-wide. “No.”
“It’ll be fine.”
Our older sister is a bit…reckless. She’s a party girl, and has never met a scandal she hasn’t wanted to get sticky in. This time last year, she was blowing the Vice President of the United States. And filming it, maybe.
She’s never admitted that she was responsible for the home movie that was leaked of the two of them. But Taylor loves a good splash.
I can see Hailey’s concern. The problem is, she’s way underestimating my ability to say no.
I’m not either of my sisters.
I’m not Taylor. I’m not a party girl, dangerously reckless in search of her next high.
But I’m also not Hailey, hungry for normalcy.
Secretly, I’m a mix of the two of them. I want that reckless release, I just want it in private and wit
h the right man.
“It won’t be fine…” Hailey starts to lecture. I take a big swallow of wine, bigger than is polite. She gives me a look. She usually doesn’t let me drink out in public, but it’s my birthday. I give her a little smile, and her look softens. “Anyway, I’d rather you didn’t go anywhere on your break week, because…reasons.”
“Of the wedding bell variety?”
She tips her head to the side. “Maybe.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? Just like that?”
I nod. I want to go out to L.A. and see Taylor, but it can wait. I know I’m going to be the only family member at Hailey and Cole’s wedding. She hasn’t been on speaking terms with our father since he maybe killed a call girl.
Cole had covered it up. That’s what brought him into Hailey’s life, and for six months, she’d hated him for it. Fair enough, right? But there was more to Cole, and The Horus Group, than just crisis management and security expertise.
The fact that Hailey had been kidnapped after Cole fell in love with her is probably proof of that.
I shudder as I think about how close I came to losing my best friend and the only other sane member of my family. “Just like that. I’d do anything for you, Hailey.”
“Same, sweet pea.”
“Even let me date Scott?”
She laughs. “No, not that.”
I glance at the bar. He’s stopped talking to the bartender.
Good.
“Just as well. I don’t want to date him anyway.” She gives me an incredulous look and I stick my tongue out at her. “I don’t. I just want him to…”
“God, that’s even worse.”
“Why?”
She gapes at me for a moment, then closes her mouth and shrugs. “You’re right. It’s not. Do I need to give you a safe sex lecture?”
“No.”
“Do I need to give you a safe heart lecture?”
God, no. “That’s a definite no. I’m not romanticizing anything, Hail. I just want…It’s time, you know?”
She winces. “Stay a kid forever.”
“Can’t. That’s not how it works.”
“Then be safe. Because a man like Scott—” She cuts herself off and takes a long, fortifying gulp of wine. Like Cole. “He can overwhelm you if you aren’t careful.”
“I’m not sure he’ll be game for even a casual hook-up. He’s done a bang-up job of ignoring my advances.”
“Have you tried just being straight up with him?”
I blush. “What?”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh, Alison. Don’t tell me you’re trying to seduce him or something like that.”
Maybe. I clear my throat. “What else…how else…you know. Help me out.”
“If you play games, then he’ll always be wondering what else is going on that he can’t see. Strings, that kind of thing. But if you lay your cards on the table, then he’ll do the same. And you’ll both know—either this is a good idea, or it’s not, and you can let it go once and for all.”
“How…” Completely unsexy. Except what I think I really mean is unromantic, and isn’t that the point? Romance has its place, like with Hailey and Cole, at least once they hooked up. “Was that what it was like with you and Cole?”
We talk about almost everything, but we’ve never talked about how she started dating the intense crisis management expert—a so-called Washington “fixer”. Mostly because I assume it started with something super dirty, and I don’t need that picture of my sweet-as-apple-pie older sister.
I already have images like that of my other sister, thanks to YouTube, and my mother, thanks to my vivid imagination and too-thin walls at my grandfather’s estate.
Making a face, I reach for my wine. “Never mind. Don’t answer that.”
Hailey laughs. “It was different with us, because it’s different for everyone. And we had strong feelings from the very beginning, so there was a lot of resistance to that. I was terrified of what having a crush on Cole would mean for me, that he’d suck me back into his world, and all I wanted to do was escape it.”
Instead, she’d pulled Cole out of it. He wasn’t exactly a good guy now, but good-er. I giggle, then realize I’m way too much in my head and nod more soberly. “Sorry. Yes. Right.”
“No more wine.”
“Of course not.” I reach for the bottle. She doesn’t stop me. I want to look over at the bar again, but I don’t. I pour myself another glass instead.
“He’s watching you.”
I don’t smile at that. It’s good, but it’s not great, because I don’t know what to do about that information.
“What do you want from him?”
“Sex,” I say immediately.
She winces, but then takes my glass out of my hand and empties it in one swallow. “Then go get it, birthday girl.”
“Yeah?”
She opens her purse and pulls out her phone. “I’m calling Cole. The suite is yours for the night. Don’t get hurt.”
“Your bodyguard isn’t going to hurt me.” Not even if I beg him to.
“Right. Don’t hurt him, then.”
“I’m harmless.”
She smirks and tips her head in his direction. I take a deep breath and stand up. By the time I turn around, he’s standing, too.
There’s nothing else in my line of sight, just a tall, broad, dark haired man in a suit that fits him like a glove. The carefully designed lighting highlights his few days of stubble that looks like it was perfectly groomed like that, but I know it’s not, because I’ve watched it grow in.
My heart pounds in my chest.
I’ve been watching this man for ages. I know what he likes—my ass—and what he hates—my age, my family, my wealth, my presumed immaturity, although that last point isn’t really fair.
But he doesn’t know that.
So this is like high noon at the O-K Corral, because we’re going to do this. One last show-down.
Not really the way a one-night stand should start. I shake my hair out and try to smile, but I’m nervous.
Hailey’s gotten my hopes up. Tell him what you want. Just like that, and she thinks it’ll work.
I think she’s insane.
But I’m genetically designed for bat-shit crazy. I’ve got this.
—four—
Scott
Alison is nervous. Fuck me, she’s nervous.
I can handle her brassy. I can handle her coy. I can handle her waving lace panties in my face and promising she’ll wear them for me later.
I can’t handle her like this, raw and real and exposed.
It’s not fair, because I’m locked tight behind layers of lies, and she’s just shown me a sliver of herself straight through to her soul.
I don’t think of her as a kid. Not at all. She’s a woman, through and through, but she’s a young one, and right now, she’s wearing her heart on her sleeve.
I’m going to break her heart, and it’s going to hurt.
That little black dress swings around her hips and her hair bounces around her shoulders as she makes her way over to me. The whole picture is the definition of temptation. Long, smooth legs. Black heels. Bright eyes and lips with just a hint of shiny colour. Enough that my eyes are drawn to her mouth, but a promise that when I kiss her, all I’ll taste is eager, ready woman.
If. Not when I kiss her.
And not if, either.
I’m not going to kiss her.
Keep telling yourself that, Mayfair. I take a deep breath and shove my hands in my pockets to keep from pulling her close to me.
“Hailey’s calling Cole,” she says as she stops in front of me. Even with her in those gorgeous heels, I’m tall enough that I’m looking down at her. She’s small enough that she needs to tip her face up to talk to me, exposing that long stretch of creamy skin from her heart-shaped face down to her—
First step in not kissing her would be not looking at her perfect tits and the intoxicating shadow between them in the cleavag
e created by that bra she teased me with earlier, and the dress that, upon closer inspection, looked like it was offering her breasts up for a taste.
Second step would probably be not inspecting her God damned dress.
I nod and glance over her shoulder. “I’ll wait until he arrives, then I can escort you wherever you want to go next.”
A small smile twists at her lips. “Do you…” She trails off, then squares her shoulders. The nerves flee her face. She may be young and innocent, but she’s strong as steel at her core. “I want a cupcake.”
I don’t know what I was expecting her to say. That wasn’t it. “A cupcake? That’s all?”
She grins, her eyes crinkling, and she shakes her head. “Nope. That’s not all. But that’s what I want first. Can we do that?”
I glance back at her sister. Cole’s walking in the door behind Hailey. We make eye contact, and I nod, first at him, handing over his fiancée to his care, then again down at her little sister. “Yeah. We can get you a birthday cupcake.”
We hit a late-night bakery two blocks away, halfway back to the hotel, and end up buying a six pack because Alison can’t decide what she wants. At first it was lemon meringue, then chocolate raspberry, then vanilla bean… finally I just cut her off.
“We’ll take those four that she mentioned, and two of those Death by Chocolate ones.”
The girl behind the counter winks at Alison. “Your boyfriend likes chocolate, huh?”
Alison laughs and throws me a saucy look. “He’s not my boyfriend,” she says, her eyes dancing. “He’s just my booty call. I’m feeding him to be polite.”
I growl at her, which both women take as foreplay, and maybe it is. I hand over my credit card. “It’s her birthday. She’s not feeding me, it’s the other way round.”
“So that’s the only part of my statement you’re going to dispute?” she asks as we step back into the cold night.
I look at the cashmere wrap she’s holding tight around her body. “Are you warm enough?”
“No,” she says baldly. “But it’s not much further now.”
I stop and take off my jacket and sling it around her body. I’m not carrying my handgun this weekend, so I don’t need to keep it on, and two blocks of her shivering will just about kill me. “Come on, let’s get you back to the hotel.”
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