by Hazel Kelly
Ladies and gentlemen, Lucy Ryan has left the building. And that’s when it hit me. She couldn’t have left. I was her ride. She was still around somewhere. Which was worrying.
Sometimes when she had too much to drink, she just disappeared. She always found this to be a strength of hers, the fact that she would cop on to her drunkenness and leave before she made a scene. Unfortunately, this drove me crazy more than I could say because she never gave me warning when she did it.
Plus, it was dangerous. When we were in high school, it was fine to look for an empty bed and “take a nap” as she used to call passing the fuck out. But when we were in college, it used to cause me so much stress. One time I even broke a door down looking for her and ended up looking like a lunatic because she’d just gone on a beer run with some people.
Regardless, I knew I couldn’t check every room in the hotel. Still, she seemed alright when I left her, and the fact that she knew one of the beds had her name on it gave me confidence.
“Hello, sir,” the man at reception said as I approached.
“Hi,” I said, glancing at his name tag. “Barry.”
“How may I help you?”
“I need the room number for one of your guests.”
“I’m afraid I can’t give out that information.”
“It’s fine. She’s a friend.”
“I apologize, sir. Our guests appreciate the lengths we go to in order to insure their privacy.”
“It’s an emergency,” I said.
“If you give me the name, I can connect you by telephone.”
I clenched my jaw. “Lucy Ryan.”
The pinch faced clerk punched some buttons on the phone. I tried to catch the number he dialed but the angle of his fingers made it hard to tell. He held the receiver to his ear until it began to ring. Then he handed it to me.
I waited and waited. With every ring my heart sank in my chest. Damn it, Lucy! Answer the fucking phone!
The clerk kept his eyes on the monitor to his right, pounding the keys too hard in between dramatic pauses like he was checking me in for a transatlantic flight.
I held the phone back across the desk.
“No answer?” he asked. “Would you like to try one more time?”
“No,” I said. “I would like to go check on my date like a normal person.”
“I’m afraid I can’t-”
I pointed across the main hall towards the room where the reception was being held. “You know the Briggs-Thompson wedding going on down the hall?”
“Yes.”
“The one that’s responsible for four hundred of your rooms being booked this weekend?”
“Yes.”
“Well my name is Aiden Briggs and my Dad booked those rooms.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And I’d hate to interrupt him right now because you won’t let me go make sure my date isn’t unwell.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Is your privacy policy really more important than me going to make sure she’s not dead up there?”
Barry’s face dropped.
I was two seconds away from reaching in my pocket and handing the weasel a hundred bucks to squeal.
“415.”
I felt disgusted having to use my Dad’s clout to get what I wanted, but when it came to finding Lucy in a hurry, there was nothing I wouldn’t do.
Moments later, I was pacing in the elevator like a caged animal. When the door opened, I turned the corner so fast I nearly knocked into an old lady whose hip would’ve shattered if she’d hit the floor.
Fortunately, I was able to keep her from falling. Then I stuck around to make sure she caught the elevator safely, which was good because it gave me a second to calm down before I found the hallway leading to Lucy’s room.
I knocked on the door when I arrived. When there was no answer, I knocked again much louder.
“Lucy, open up. It’s me.” I banged again.
Then I heard the chain being unhooked and saw the door handle point down to the floor.
She opened the door and looked at me.
It was obvious from her face that she’d been resting and when I saw how fragile she looked in the dim light, I felt the volume of my voice decrease exponentially. “What are you doing up here?”
She tilted her head. “This is my room,” she said. “What are you doing up here?”
“Looking for you, obviously.”
She put her bare arm out to the side and flared her fingers. “Well, you found me.”
“Can I come in?”
She took a step back, taking the door with her.
I stepped inside. There was a bottle of champagne half empty on the table and the sheer curtains were drawn so the room was dim with soft evening light.
“You having your own party up here?” I asked.
She shrugged.
I looked from the dent her body had made in the bedspread to her slightly disheveled hair. She looked hot as hell in her lazy state.
“I just needed a break,” she said.
“A break from answering your phone?” I asked, sitting on the end of the bed.
“Sorry,” she said. “I think I fell asleep for a few minutes.”
“Let’s just hope my Dad isn’t doing the same thing in the middle of the dance floor.”
“I thought he could do anything he wants on this, the day of his daughter’s wedding?”
Her Godfather impression was bad when she wasn’t tipsy, but this attempt was a joke. “It’s that you have to grant any request,” I said. “Not that you can do what you want.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s both.”
“Maybe,” I said, admiring the way the yellow dress hung off her hips.
“Champagne?” she asked.
“That would be great,” I said. “God forbid I sober up.”
She smiled and filled the empty glass.
I took it. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“I’m okay,” she said, walking over to grab her own glass off the night table. “Is Chelsea okay?”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay in the head or okay as in gone?”
She sat next to me on the bed. “Both.”
“I’m settling for the latter.”
She nodded. “I guess she took the break up pretty hard, huh?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I think she just wanted to make sure I was taking it hard.” I took a sip of champagne.
“And are you?”
“What?”
“Taking it hard?”
I turned to look at her. “No. Are you kidding? Breaking up with her is the second best thing I’ve done in a long time.”
Her dark eyes searched mine. “Second best?”
I nodded.
“What’s the first-”
I put my hand on her bare knee.
She swallowed.
“Are you okay? Really?”
She nodded.
“I know my family is a handful and there are a lot of people here.”
“Yeah.”
“And I owe you an apology for being such a shitty date.”
“You haven’t been a shitty date.”
“Yes I have.”
She sighed.
“I was a dick to you when I picked you up.”
She pursed her lips.
“Then I was punishing you for the fact that my ex girlfriend was- is- a deceitful monster.”
She took a sip of her champagne.
“I’ve done nothing but ignore you all day.”
“You had a lot of responsibilities today. I know it wasn’t personal.”
“It’s not good enough,” I said. “You deserve better.”
Her hair fell to the side so I could see the curve of her shoulders and the length of her smooth neck. “And then I left you by yourself so I could deal with Chelsea. I don’t know why. I guess I was just-”
“Trying to avoid a scene?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But there’s nothing I neede
d to say to her that I couldn’t have said in front of you.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said. Then she crossed her legs away from me, and my hand fell from her knee.
Chapter 13: Lucy
His expression fell with his hand. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I shrugged. “Nothing.”
“That’s not fair, Lucy. Come on.”
“I just- well- I came after you.”
“I know. Claire told me.”
“She did?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you for the last half hour.”
“I didn’t mean to find you,” I said. “I just figured having your Mom and Claire barge in wasn’t going to help anything.”
“What’s your point?”
“I found you.”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand what-”
“And I was confused by what I overheard.”
He angled his body towards me, raising one leg off the floor. “What did you hear?”
“I only stayed for a second. As soon as I realized you were okay I left so-”
“What did you hear?”
I sighed.
His face was full of kindness, and I found it unsettling, like his expression would make it easier to believe any lies that came out of his mouth.
“I heard you say you only brought me because I know your family and because you had to ask someone.”
He let his head fall to the side.
“I heard you tell her there was nothing between us.” I looked down at my glass. “That we weren’t a thing.”
“Oh Lucy. You don’t believe that do you?”
I kept my eyes down.
He lifted my chin with his fingertips. “Of course we’re a thing.”
“You don’t have to say that just to-”
“I’m not just saying it,” he said.
I pursed my lips.
“We’ve always been a thing.”
“That’s not what I mean. I mean-”
“I know what you mean,” he said. “And you have to believe me when I say this isn’t nothing.”
I swallowed. “So why did you say it?”
“Cause the less Chelsea knows about my life- and who or what matters to me- the better.”
I drained the rest of my champagne and squinted while the bubbles burst in my nose.
“Okay?” he asked.
“I want to believe you.”
“So believe me.”
“But that’s not the only thing I overheard.”
“Okay.”
I rolled my shoulders back and pushed my hair to the side. “I heard her ask you about the panties.”
“Yeah.”
“How did she even find them?”
Aiden looked up at the ceiling and then back at me. “Cause she showed up at my place one night like a psycho.”
“I’m listening.”
“Which is my fault cause I should’ve taken her key when I first kicked her out, but I was in such a hurry to make her leave, I didn’t think about it. And I certainly didn’t think she would fucking turn up uninvited.”
“Like she did today?”
“Yeah.”
“I see.”
“Does that answer that question?”
“Sort of.”
“Spit it out, Luce. What’s on your mind?”
I sat back against the pillows and put my legs straight out on the bed behind Aiden.
“Well?” he asked.
“Were they mine?”
“What?”
“Were they my panties that she found?”
His eyes went wide. “Of course they were yours. What do you mean were they yours?”
“I thought maybe they were someone else’s? I mean, you haven’t spoken to me in weeks so I thought maybe you were-”
“What? Maybe I was what?”
“Seeing someone else? Or other people? Tindering? I don’t know.”
“I haven’t been seeing anyone else,” he said. “To be honest, I haven’t even noticed another woman since I spent that night with you.”
I folded my hands in my lap.
“Okay?”
“I’m sorry to be so stupid. I just-” I exhaled.
“You’re not being stupid. I’d rather you ask me then-”
“I guess my feelings were hurt because you almost sounded ashamed.”
“Ashamed?”
“Yeah, at the accusation that they might be mine. So I started to worry that maybe you were ashamed of sleeping with me in the first place.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it though?” I asked. “Because if you’d rather forget it ever happened and go back to being friends I would understand.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You can’t or you don’t want to?” I asked.
“Both.”
My breath was shallow as he drained the rest of his champagne, squinting his eyes as I’d done to mitigate the burning of the bubbles. Then he leaned forwards and placed his empty glass down beside mine on the nightstand.
“I’m not ashamed that I slept with you Lucy,” he said.
“No?”
He shook his head. “I don’t regret it at all.”
I tried to smile, but it didn’t take.
“I’m only ashamed of two things.”
“What things?”
“I’m ashamed of the way I acted that night when Fiona told me you knew about Chelsea, ashamed of the way I treated you because of my wounded pride.”
I nodded.
“And I regret the fact that I haven’t slept with you since that night at my apartment.”
I pursed my lips.
“Because it’s not that I haven’t thought about it.”
I squeezed my hands together, afraid to move when he had that look in his eye.
He turned towards me, placing one arm on the other side of my legs. “If anything, I’d say it’s become a bit of an obsession of mine to have you again.”
I almost laughed from nerves but the intent in his voice was mesmerizing.
“But there is one thing I would change,” he said.
“Oh?”
“From the last time we hooked up.”
“What?”
“Next time I don’t want you to slip away in the night.”
My eyes grew wide.
“The only slipping I want you to do is on my dick.”
I felt a warm twist in my guts.
“And I want you to stay in bed beside me afterwards.”
I wondered if he could hear my heartbeat.
“So I can have you again in the morning.”
I felt my lips fall apart but nothing came out.
“Does that sound like something you can do for me?”
I nodded.
“Cause I can’t tell you how frustrated I was when I woke up and you were gone.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was the kind of frustration that only you could help me fix.”
“I understand.”
“Speaking of fix-”
I bit my lip.
“Seeing as how we finally have some privacy, what do you say I make it up to you?”
“Make what up to me?”
“The fact that I’ve been a lousy friend and an appalling date.”
“What did you have in mind?” I asked, barely able to hear my own words.
“I was thinking you could give me some medicine.”
I felt my eyes smile.
“The kind of medicine that will make both of us feel better.”
Aiden leaned forward and slipped his hand around the back of my neck, keeping his eyes on mine as he ran his fingertips up into my hair. Then he pulled my lips against his and kissed me softly, sending a wave of warmth down my spine that made the hairs on my arms stand up.
I scooted my butt away from the headboard and let him twirl his tongue around mine, stirring my insides. He tasted like expens
ive champagne, and I felt my chest draw closer to him as if I was being pulled by invisible strings.
His hand dropped from my head and he dropped his lips to my neck, kissing me with such focus I had to close my eyes so my senses wouldn’t be overloaded.
I inhaled sharply when he moved his lips to my collarbone, my breath catching in my throat as he pinned me against the pillows with his perfect mouth.
Then I felt his large hand flatten against my thigh and slide up under the short skirt of my dress until he was holding my hip in his hand. At that moment, I knew my body was his to do what he wanted with, that nothing could stop me from giving in to him.
He moved his upper body back, looking at me like prey and laid his other hand on my thigh. Then he looked down at the hem of my dress as it rose up my leg with his wrist.
And from the hunger in his eyes, I could tell what was coming.
Chapter 14: Aiden
I was hard just from her kiss, and her smooth legs were doing all sorts of things to me, too. I especially liked the fact that her dress was almost short enough that I could reach her thong without having to lift it, but once I started sliding the yellow fabric up her legs, I couldn’t stop.
I had to keep going. I was as eager to feast on her with my eyes as I was to devour her with my tongue. As my second hand reached the opposite curve of her hip, she uncrossed her ankles and I smiled.
She was readying herself for me, willing me to go on and have my way with her. It was a challenge I was all too willing to accept. The whole day I’d been lost as I tended to other people’s agendas, but now I wanted to get lost in mine.
If Lucy was half as sweet today as she was the first time I licked her sweet snatch, she would put the wedding cake to shame. What’s more, she deserved to relax as much as I did.
And I couldn’t wait to drink her tension away so she would have something to smile about for the rest of the night. I knew that if I could make her lips blush now, her cheeks would blush for me the rest of the evening on command. It would be our little secret.
I curled my fingers around the thin string of her underwear and pulled it down over the curve of her ass to her knees. “Breathe,” I said, noticing from the stillness of her chest that she had stopped. “Breathe now while you can,” I said, pulling her underwear down past her ankles and over her painted toes.
I crawled up next to her and propped myself up on my side so I could watch her face as I moved my hand between her legs. Before I’d even touched her, she’d sunk her fingers into the comforter on both sides of her body, bracing herself in the hope that the bedding might help distribute the pressure that was already building between her legs.