by J. Kenner
“Just a job?”
I cock my head, studying her. “You know it’s not just a job.”
She nods, twisting a lock of hair around her finger. “So I was wondering. About last night….”
She trails off, but I stay silent. If she’s going where I think she’s going, the only way this will work is if she gets there on her own.
For a moment, there’s silence. Then she clears her throat and says, “I was thinking I’d like a do-over.”
“Were you? What does that mean, exactly?”
I watch as the blush rises on her cheeks. “What do you think?”
I brush my forefinger over her lower lip. “I think I want to hear you say it. I think I’d like hearing you tell me what that means.”
“I guess that’s fair. I—I mean, I was the one who stopped.”
“And if we’d kept going? Tell me what you liked.”
“I liked the way you kissed me.”
I tap her lip gently. “Here?”
“I—I like being kissed there. But that’s not what I meant.”
“I see.” I lean back a bit. She’s changed into a nightgown over which she wears the hotel robe. I reach out and untie the sash, then push the robe open and off her shoulders, relishing the soft little whimpering noise she makes.
The nightgown is soft cotton with a wide, elastic neckline, and I use both hands to tug it down, so it resembles an off-the-shoulder summer dress. Then I lower one side even more until I’ve exposed a breast.
I put my finger back to her lips and whisper for her to suck, then I tug my finger free, feeling the corresponding ache in my cock, before circling my wet fingertip around her nipple as she arches back, her breath coming faster.
“Here? Is this where you want to be kissed?”
“Yes. Oh, yes, please.”
I stand, and she blinks up at me, clearly confused. Then I hold out my hand to her. “Come with me if you want to be thoroughly kissed.”
The corner of her mouth twitches, and she takes my hand. I tug her to her feet and lead her into the bedroom, then nod at the bed. “Leave the robe,” I say. “And get on the bed.”
“Just the robe?”
“Oh, baby.”
She holds my gaze as she reaches down and pulls the gown up over her head, then drops it on the floor with her robe.
“You’re perfect.” I draw a shaky breath, relishing her smooth skin, her delicious curves. She wears pale pink panties that hug her hips, and when she crawls onto the bed, I run my hand over the fabulous curve of her ass.
“Uh-uh,” she says, with a definite tease. “Not yet. Finish what you started.”
I follow her onto the bed, then straddle her waist, my cock straining against the athletic pants I’d tugged on once we’d settled in for the night. I bend forward, blatantly rubbing myself against her as I close my mouth over her nipple, one hand cupping her breast as the other slides down the length of her body, then eases up the inside of her thigh.
As I had last night, I find the edge of her panties, and as I stroke along the length of the elastic, I tug my mouth free of her breast and look into her eyes. Slowly, I slip my finger under the silk and cotton as her hands slide up under my T-shirt, her nails scraping my back.
She arches up, sucking in a shaky breath as I skim my finger over her slick labia.
“Baby,” I say, slipping my finger inside her sweet pussy, “this is where I want to kiss you.”
“Yes. Oh, yes, please.”
I kiss my way down her body, reveling in the taste of her, in the way that she squirms with pleasure and twines her fingers in my hair.
I slip my fingers under the band of her panties, then tug them off as she lifts her hips, then boldly spreads her legs for me, her obvious desire making me even harder. I want to bury myself in her—I want to look into her eyes and fuck her hard, then slow down and make love to her all night long.
First, though, I want to taste her, and as her hand in my hair guides me, I kiss my way from her hip down to the landing strip that leads the way to her bare, wet pussy.
I run my tongue from her core to her clit, then slip my fingers under her ass cheeks to raise her up. Her hips rock as I eat her out, and as I close my mouth over her clit, I thrust two fingers inside, then almost shoot my wad when her body clenches around my fingers, her orgasm coming hard and fast and unexpected.
“Baby,” I say, licking her, sucking her, tasting all of her as the last throes of the explosion run like shudders through her body.
I ease up and kiss her deep, telling her how good she tastes. And telling her how much I want to be inside her.
“Yes. Please.” She lifts her knees, opening herself for me, and I kick myself for not having brought a condom in from the other room. I hurry back, find my wallet, then strip and sheath myself. “Like this?” I say, kneeling between her legs, wide and open to me. “Or do you want to ride me?”
“You tell me.”
“Like this,” I say. Because right now, she’s mine, laid out like a feast for me.
I lean forward as I bend over, kissing her deep as she cups my ass, silently urging me inside her, but I wait, my cock poised at her core. “Tell me you want me,” I say.
“I do. Please, Cayden. I want to feel you inside me. Please. Please, take me.”
And since that’s exactly what I want, too, I do, thrusting deep inside her core, so hot and slick and tight. We rock together, the bed squeaking, the headboard knocking against the wall. I’m sure they can hear us in the next room, and I don’t care. Hell, I want them to. I want to make Gracie scream. I want to own her. I want to claim her.
I want to come with her.
And when she trembles beneath me as I explode into a million pieces, all I can think is that she gave me exactly what I wanted...and everything that I needed.
We spoon together, my hand cupping her breast as I bury my face in her hair, completely content.
So content, in fact, that I’m not quite sure why I say what I do. But the words that come out are, “I caught her in bed with another man. My wife. You asked me last night about why I was so quick to assume you were the cheater rather than Peterman being a stalker. That’s why.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She was a professor. I’d been overseas. I was home on leave. I thought things were fine. I went out one day, came back early, and found the two of them in bed. I learned later it wasn’t a one off.”
“That’s horrible,” she says. “But thank you for telling me.”
“It messed me up,” I admit. “I thought you should know.”
She snuggles closer, and I hold her tight. And I’m just starting to drift off when she says one more thing. “Cayden?”
“Mmm?”
“Your wife. She was a freaking idiot.”
I smile against her shoulder, and I fall asleep holding her tight.
Chapter Thirteen
Gracie’s work schedule is thankfully light. She has some sort of show Friday night at a boutique on South Congress, but other than that, she’s working at Off The Grid.
Since my schedule is also light—I made it so once Gracie ended up on my itinerary— we end up dividing the time between Blackwell-Lyon downtown and Off The Grid up north.
By Wednesday, I’m cursing traffic even more than usual as we head south back toward the hotel.
“I’d say we could stay at my house,” Gracie says, “but it’s not quite ready. And it’s further away from Off The Grid than the hotel.”
“And my house is all the way in hell,” I say, resisting the urge to honk at the asshole in front of me who’s going forty in a seventy zone. “That’s okay. I love traffic. It’s my happy place.”
“Liar,” she says and puts in a Lyle Lovett CD. We listen for a while and then she turns the volume down. “What are we going to do?”
I don’t have to ask what she means. As much as we’re enjoying each other, we both have jobs that need more than our partial attention. More important, Gracie
needs to feel safe.
Which means I need to catch Peterman.
“Working on it,” I say. “I promise.”
“I know. I just…” She trails off and looks out her window. “I just don’t like knowing he’s watching me.”
“I know, baby.”
She smiles at the endearment, and I reach for her hand.
“Anything on the cameras?”
“No.” After we received the photo outside Off The Grid, I had a team install an array of cameras to cover the parking lot, back alley, and the facade. So far, no sign of Peterman, though. Presumably he witnessed the installation and is staying away. “If we could just figure out a way to ensure that he would be somewhere…”
“The show on Friday?”
“We’re working under that assumption, but I have a feeling he’s going to be a no-show.” It’s a fashion show that’s been advertised to customers and also several of the models’ fans. And while getting lost in a crowd might appeal to Peterman, I think he may stay away simply because that many people mean too many variables. He may have gone off the deep end, but at the same time, he’s not stupid.
I hold out hope that we’ll randomly run across Peterman as we’re walking down a street. I can take him out fast in an alley, and we can leave him to rot in a Dumpster. But of course it doesn’t happen. Instead, we pass the week at our various jobs with breaks for shopping, sex, drinking, sex, friends, and more sex.
Despite the lingering threat, I really can’t complain.
Wednesday night, we have dinner at Pierce and Jezebel’s house at a stone table in the beautiful garden that Jez has been tending.
“She’s wonderful,” Jez tells me in the kitchen where I’m filling a tub with fresh ice. “Is it serious?”
“Oh. You know. It’s all so up in the air.” The words seem to fall from my lips, staccato and strange. I have an odd desire to kick my own ass. It should be serious. Hell, it probably is serious. Gracie is amazing. Smart and funny and beautiful and there’s that connection. That Mona and Ted thing. I feel it; I’m certain of it.
And yet I can’t just say yes. Can’t admit that I want it to be serious. That I want Gracie.
Can’t admit that I want to commit. Because what if that’s the wrong move? What if I get burned all over again?
I look away from Jez, who’s openly contemplating me. “It’s hard being with someone in the spotlight,” she says, and while Jez isn’t famous, her little sister Delilah is.
“Gracie’s very down to earth,” I say, which is both true and entirely irrelevant.
Jez sighs. “Well, if you ever need to talk…”
I’m saved from answering by Kerrie bursting through the door with Gracie right behind her.
“Instagram,” Kerrie says. “That’s the answer.”
I frown at her and Gracie in turn, then look to Jez who shrugs.
“Okay,” I say as Connor and Pierce join us in the small, now cramped kitchen. “What’s the question?”
“How he found her and how we’ll catch him.”
Kerrie tosses her arm around Gracie’s shoulder and pulls her close. “We are brilliant.”
“Not arguing,” I say. “Why?”
“Pierce took a picture of me and Jez and Kerrie earlier this evening. And I was saying to Kerrie that if I wasn’t so private, I’d post it on Instagram.”
“But she is private,” Kerrie says. “Because, hello?” She passes me Gracie’s phone, and I scroll through all the comments to the various images she’s posted over the last few months. Lots of positive thoughts from women. Quite a few nice and not overtly creepy posts from men, some of which lead into requests for dates or online conversations. And more than a few sleazy, suggestive posts that bump up against an NC-17 rating.
That tightness in my gut ramps up again. The idea that these men are there. Watching her. Wanting her.
I glance at her and see that she’s watching me, her expression like a question mark. I conjure a smile and shake it off as Kerrie rushes on.
“And then we started talking about how a lot of the other models aren’t private at all. And we started poking around, seeing who’s posted what and who’s tagged Gracie and—”
“Sheila,” Gracie says. “My good friends know not to mention me. But I hardly know her. She’s sweet, but we don’t really talk.”
My head is swimming, but I keep listening, assuming they’re building up to something.
“She’s the one who posted about the shoot at Cecilia’s studio,” Gracie says. “That’s how Peterman was able to tell you to go there to meet me.”
“And we all know this guy is out of his head, right?” Kerrie says, stating the obvious. “I mean, he is seriously living in a fantasy world.”
“Kerrie…” Connor’s voice is low and firm, and his eyes are on Gracie. “Just get on with the story.”
“Sorry,” she says, but of course she’s right. And the fact that he’s stepped over into non-reality only makes him more dangerous.
“Go on,” I tell her. “You’re leading up to something.”
“She also mentioned that I was at The Driskill. Just a passing my friend is staying at my favorite hotel kind of post. But he knew that, too. He told you where I was hold up.”
“And she’s posted about Friday night’s show at the boutique,” I guess, but Gracie shakes her head.
“Not a word. She’s not doing that show. So I’m betting he’s not going to be there. I didn’t advertise to my fans. Not with everything going on.”
“We can’t rely on that,” Pierce says. “Nothing changes on Friday. We have security lined up. It stays lined up.”
“Sure,” Gracie says, “but what about Saturday?”
She and Kerrie are both grinning wide, so I know they have a plan. “And Saturday is…?”
“Our engagement party, of course,” she says, batting her eyes at me as Kerrie bursts out laughing.
For a second, I’m befuddled. Then lightning strikes and I look at both women in turn. “You’re right,” I say. “You really are brilliant.”
“Well, I’m not,” Jez says. “Explanation, please?”
“They’re suggesting we have Sheila post about Gracie. About how she’s excited for the small engagement party and her friend’s whirlwind romance. Peterman—sorry, Daniel—will see it, he’ll crash it, and we’ll catch him.”
“Sounds dangerous,” Jez says, then looks around at all of us. “And it also sounds like a great idea.”
“It’s both,” I say, taking Gracie’s hand. “But I’ll keep you safe. That’s a promise.
The store is called Bliss, and the fact that they have a local distiller serving free whiskey makes me think that it was aptly named. We have a ten-person team from Blackwell-Lyon working the show, including five women, three of whom are undercover as salesgirls while the other two are in the back of the store, which is being used as a makeshift dressing room for the product the girls will be modeling.
It’s a decent-sized space, and the racks have been rearranged to make way for an open area that acts as a runway. When the show begins, I have a ringside seat as Gracie and a half-dozen other woman of all shapes and sizes model a range of everything from business attire to underwear for the mostly female audience.
The owner was kind enough to let us put up temporary cameras, and whenever Gracie’s not on the runway, I’m looking at my screen, constantly checking the feed. So far, no sign of our guy. That’s expected, but unfortunate. I want him caught. And I don’t want to have to rely on tomorrow’s fake engagement party as our last hope.
Not last. Latest. Latest hope.
Because no matter what, I’m going to make sure that Gracie is safe and that she stays that way.
The show ends with the underwear, and now Gracie and the others mingle with the whiskey-drinking crowd while wearing Smart Vixen lingerie, the brand that the store carries and which sponsored the event.
I hang back, just watching, that tightness in my chest returning
as dozens of Joe-the-Waiter clones fawn all over her. I watch each face, searching for any sign that one might be Peterman in disguise. But I don’t see her stalker. All I see are men who are fascinated by her. In lust with her.
Men who want her.
Seriously, I fear for drool.
“You look jealous.” Kerrie’s familiar voice comes from behind me, and I turn to find her with Pierce.
“Any sign of him?” I ask, ignoring Kerrie.
“None,” Pierce says. “I think our theory is right. He’s tracking her using Sheila’s social media posts.”
“At least we know,” I say.
“And we’ll catch him tomorrow,” Kerrie says loyally as Gracie comes over to join us.
“Nothing?” she asks, and we all shake our heads.
“You were amazing,” Kerrie tells her. “On stage, and the way you handled those guys.”
“Why do you handle them?” I ask.
Both women turn to me, their expressions equally baffled.
“They’re her fans,” Kerrie says.
“And I’m part of the reason they’re here,” Gracie adds.
“That doesn’t bother you? You don’t interact online. Why do it now?”
Kerrie stares down her nose at me. “What bug crawled up your butt?”
Gracie ignores her. She doesn’t ignore me. Her response is level and overly reasonable. As if she’s talking to a child. “I don’t get into it on social media because I made a decision not to. But I still have a fan base, and these men aren’t Peterman. Maybe they’re here for the lingerie, but maybe they just like the glamour. Maybe they want a tiny escape from their ordinary lives. They aren’t bothering me—every man here was perfectly polite, just like the waiter you got so touchy about.”
I wince. I hadn’t realized she’d picked up on that.
“Besides,” she adds, “I’m not going to completely shut down my life because Peterman has an obsession. Do that, and he’s won.”
I rub my temples, trying to dial back this foul mood. “You’re right. Sorry. I just don’t understand it. Why does the store even want them here? They’re not going to buy the clothes.”