After This Night

by Lauren Blakely

  “No.”

  “Did anything happen with her?” she asked once more, and this time she felt like the lawyer, turning over the question again and again until the witness answered.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do I need to spell it out?”

  “Yeah. You do,” he said firmly.

  She pretended to mime sign language as she spoke. “Were you involved with her? Because I’m getting a serious vibe from her that she’s tripping down memory lane from the days of old,” she said, now holding her hands out wide. “College this. College that. Clay in college. It’s like she’s holding on to something in college with you.”

  “We kissed once. We weren’t involved.”

  He said it so matter-of-factly, but it slammed into her, and she nearly stumbled backwards. He reached for her, but she held him off. She was fine. She didn’t need him.

  “Ohhhhh,” she said, long and exaggerated. “Right. Of course. A kiss. That’s not involved what-so-fucking-ever.”

  “What the hell, Julia? I was never involved with her. She’s a friend. Not an ex-girlfriend.”

  “You kissed her,” she said, jutting her chin out at him. “That makes her kind of an ex, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I don’t think that constitutes an ex.” The low-key way he answered her pissed her off, because he truly seemed to believe his own line of bullshit.

  “Okay, let’s get technical and legal about it then, if you’re going to be like that. So I’ll walk you through what constitutes being involved. When you’ve kissed someone, and I ask ‘Were you involved with her?’ that’s the moment when you say ‘Yes, I kissed her once, Julia, and it meant nothing to me, and we’ve been great friends ever since then, and I have drinks with her every Thursday night and talk about you, but don’t worry that I had my tongue down her throat because we’re just friends.’ It’s not at the fucking poker game I’m losing that you tell me,” she said, practically spitting out the words through her anger.

  “Are you pissed because you’re losing, or are you pissed that I kissed her?” he asked her through narrowed eyes.

  Anger flared deep inside her. Anger over that woman. Over Charlie. Over the three thousand miles between her and Clay. Anger, annoyance and frustration all fused into a cocktail of heat and rage as she grabbed his shirt collar. “Thanks for pointing that out, because it’s kind of both. I have a shitstorm of trouble waiting for me back home if I don’t win,” she said.

  “That’s not true. I told you I’d help you,” he said, and his hand moved briefly towards his pocket, but then he stopped.

  “Why do you keep reaching for your phone? That’s not your style.”

  “Flynn is out with the Pinkertons. Just wanted to make sure it’s all going well,” he said, then shifted quickly back to the matter at hand. “But I wish you’d stop worrying about the game. You’re going to be fine.”

  “I don’t want you to help me, though. I want to win on my own,” she said, and she was damn near close to digging her heels into the sidewalk. Didn’t he get it? Didn’t he understand how important this was to her? But everything had collided right now. The game; Michele; the possibility of truth and lies.

  “And you will.”

  She pushed her hands through her hair. “I just wish you’d told me when I asked you in San Francisco if you’d been involved with her. I asked you if Michele was your ex and you said she was just a friend, and always had been. But now it turns out you kissed her,” Julia said, but she knew deep down it wasn’t the kiss that bothered her. That wasn’t why she was upset about Michele.

  “It just wasn’t important, but it’s not as if you’ve been totally honest with me.”

  “I didn’t lie, though. I told you there were things I couldn’t tell you.”

  “I feel like we’re parsing words here. I don’t understand why it matters that I kissed her. Hope this doesn’t come as a shock to you, but I’ve kissed other women before.”

  “I know,” she hissed.

  “So why does it matter so much that I kissed Michele once? I don’t even think about her like that.”

  “Because. Because she is here, all the time. Because she sees you. Because I don’t get to.”

  “We can change that,” he said, his voice suddenly soft, all the harshness banished from his tone.

  “How? I live far away and she lives a block away,” she said, dropping her face in her hands, hating the sound of her own voice. “Ugh. Look what you’ve done to me. I’ve become this whiny woman pining away, and she’s lovely and smart and funny, and it pisses me off that she can see you any time she wants.”

  He gently peeled her hands away from her face, tucking his finger under her chin and lifting her gaze to his. “I don’t feel a thing for her. I didn’t tell you when you asked if she was an ex because I don’t even think about her like that. I don’t think of her as an ex. It was one kiss, one time, one drunken night. Nothing more. I don’t think about her because you’re all I think about. To the point that I’m sure no man has ever felt this way for a woman. You shouldn’t be jealous of her. She should be jealous of you.”

  She stared at him, narrowing her eyes. “Seriously, Clay? Cocky much?”

  “It has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with how I feel for you,” he said, moving his hands down to her arms, holding her tight. “Every woman should be jealous of you because of how I feel for you. Because no man has ever wanted a woman like I want you. No man has ever craved a woman as deeply as I crave you. And no man has ever fallen this hard and this fast for a woman.”

  Her heart stopped, then thundered furiously against her chest, wanting to leap into his hands. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, all her anger draining away. “I’m a jealous witch. It’s just hard for me to see her and know you’re so friendly, and that she’s so in love with you.”

  He froze like a statue. Then seconds later, though it felt like a minute, he looked at her as if she’d just spoken Russian. “What are you talking about?”

  “You don’t know that?” she asked, shocked.

  “No.”

  “It’s patently obvious to anyone who spends ten minutes with her. She’s madly in love with you, Clay.”

  He swallowed, and shook his head, as if he were shaking the strange notion away. “How can you tell?” he asked, the words coming out all choppy.

  “Because of how she looks at you,” she said, as if it were obvious, because to her it was.

  “And that’s enough for you to conclude she’s in love with me?” For the first time ever she’d truly surprised him. She hadn’t intended to drop a bomb, but he so clearly didn’t see it at all.

  “Yes.”

  “Why? How? How can you tell she looks at me like she’s in love with me?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Because I recognize the look.”

  The look on his face was no longer shock. It was hope, and the dawn of something so much more. “You do?”

  Then she realized she’d practically said it. “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “Because it’s how I look at you,” she said, the words falling from her lips in a tumble. Time slowed, and the moment became heady, rich with possibility. The air between them was charged, electric, like a storm. They were magnets, needing their opposite.

  He reached for her, cupping her cheeks, brushing his thumb over her jaw then her bottom lip, watching her shiver. She looked up at him, and his eyes were fixed on her. Waiting for her. His lips parted, and she was wound tight with anticipation of what he’d say. “I love the way you look at me.”

  Tingles ran down her spine, spreading to her arms, her fingers, all the way to her toes. “You do?

  “I do. I love the way you touch me,” he said, taking her hand, and spreading her palm open on his chest. “I love the way you talk to me. I love everything about you. And I recognize the look in your eyes, too. Do you know why?”

  She shook her head, and her entire body was trembling with want, with hope. “
Why?”

  “Because it’s the same as in mine. Because I love you, Julia. I am completely in love with you, and I love you, and I want you to love me,” he said, never breaking his gaze from hers, his beautiful brown eyes flooded with love.

  “I do. I do. I do,” she said quickly, the tension in her chest disappearing, and relief washing over her in waves. “Clay, I love you so much.”

  He ran his hands through her hair, burying his fingers deep. She felt him trembling. He returned a hand to her face, brushed the backs of his fingers against her cheek, and she leaned into him, savoring the gentleness of his touch. Feeling the reverence that he treated her with, like she was precious to him. He ran his hand down her neck to her throat. “Julia,” he said, his voice low but so intense as he spoke. “I have never fallen in love like this.”

  His words bathed her in some kind of bliss, as if her veins flowed with liquid gold. “How have you fallen?” she asked, overwhelmed with all she felt for him, with the way her body seemed to reach for him, to need him.

  “With everything I have. There is no part of me that isn’t in love with you. There is no part of me that holds back,” he said, his voice steady, certain.

  Allness. That’s what it was for her, too. An utter allness. A love so deep and consuming it filled her organs, it rode roughshod over her skin. It was a mark on the timeline of her life. Before. After. She raised her hand, and touched his face, stroking his jawline, watching with wonder as she made him gasp after a simple touch. He grasped her hand, linked his fingers through hers, and brought her palm to his mouth, kissing her there. “I love you.” He bent his head to her neck, brushing his lips ever so softly against her skin, then up to her ear. “I am so in love with you,” he said, as if he couldn’t stop telling her. “I love you so much.”

  “I am so in love with you.” She stretched her neck so he could kiss her freely as he wanted to as she ran her hand through his hair. “So in love.”

  He stopped kissing her, pulling back to look her in the eyes once more. His gaze melted her from the inside out. “I can’t wait to take you home with me tonight. To spread you out on the bed. To make love to you all night long.”

  “I want that. I want that again and again. And over and over.”

  “Now go back in there,” he said, gesturing to the restaurant. “Even though you look like you’ve just had sex.”

  Her cheeks felt rosy. She was sure there was a glow in her eyes. “I feel like I’ve just had sex. Sex with the man I love,” she said, playing with his hair, not wanting to let go of him, but needing to.

  “You will have that. I will give you everything, Julia.”

  * * *

  He’d join her shortly. He would. He just needed to take care of this matter. The text on his phone was loud and clear. Business came first right now, and later, he’d find a way to explain.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Julia skipped down the sidewalk at two in the morning. Every move she made brought a smile to his face, and touched down with happiness in his heart.

  She’d done it. She’d won big. After precariously losing to Michele for a while there, she’d made a few big bets on a few big hands, and had pulled out ahead. She’d wrapped her arms around the chips, and tugged them in tight. She sure looked like she wanted to kiss them, to bring each and every one to her lips, and then shake them at the sky victoriously. Instead, she’d stacked them, handed them to Liam since he’d acted as the bank, and watched with wide eyes as those chips turned into cash.

  She threw her head back, twirling on the street, as if she were a kid catching snowflakes on her tongue.

  “And here’s your money, sir,” she sang, pretending to hand it over to Charlie. “Now, go fuck off forever.”

  She was jubilant, ready to lead a victory march. Clay grabbed her arm and pulled her in for a kiss, bending her back and kissing her like they were on a postcard. Let the whole damn city be jealous. Let the world want what he had. He claimed her mouth with his own, kissing her hard and passionately, like he planned to always. He’d never tire of the way her lips tasted, of her sweetness, of how she responded to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and held on tight.

  “Take me home, now,” she said. “I want to know what it feels like to have you as a free woman.”

  He tensed briefly as she said that. But that was ridiculous. She was free. Completely free. He hailed a cab, and ten minutes later he had her in his home, stripping her clothes off as they somehow made their way up the stairs, tangled up in each other. He was still buzzed on the night, on the things he’d said, on the way she’d won, on her sheer and utter happiness, and on telling her he loved her.

  It didn’t matter that one of those things was a lie.

  There would be time in the morning to tell the truth. When day broke, and the sun rose, that’s when he’d let her know. The night was for more.

  “Did I ever tell you I have a thing for mirrors?” he said as he left his clothes in a heap on the floor.

  She raised an eyebrow, as she stepped out of her skirt. “Then join me in the bathroom, handsome,” she said, taking his hand and guiding him to the spacious room. She hopped up on the sink with the mirror behind them, roped her arms around his neck, and pulled him in close. Resting her forehead against his, she ran her hands down his naked chest, making him shiver with desire. “Thank you, Clay,” she whispered. “Thank you for doing that for me. I can’t tell you how much it means to be free of Charlie, and free of Dillon on my own terms. And I loved it. I loved playing for real. Playing in a game that wasn’t fake. Where I had to rely on chance and skill and myself,” she said, and her words were like a tight knot in his gut. But he let her continue. “It means so much to me. You mean so much to me. I am so glad you walked into my bar, and into my life, and into my heart.”

  He kissed her softly, brushing his lips against hers. At least this part was true. This contact. This touch. “That’s the only place I want to be. In your heart,” he said, then took a beat. “Though I like being in your pants, too.”

  She laughed. “Then get in my pants. Except I’m not wearing any,” she said, gesturing to her naked body, covered only in the stockings he’d bought for her. “So this ought to be really easy.”

  He shoved everything else aside, clearing his mind. He wanted to be with her completely. “Nothing worth having is easy,” he said, lifting her off the counter and setting her down on the tiled floor. He shifted her around so she faced the mirror above the vanity, then spoke low in her ear. “I want to watch us. I want you to watch us.”

  She gasped a yes as he dipped a hand between her legs, running his other hand up her belly. He entered her slowly, rolling his hips, savoring the delicious wetness, the tightness. Her eyes floated closed as he rocked into her. “Look in the mirror,” he told her, and she opened her eyes, meeting his dark eyes in the reflection. There was so much want in her gaze, so much openness. “Watch.”

  “I am,” she said, breathing in, breathing out. “I am watching.”

  “What do we look like to you?”

  Her eyes were hazy, her lips falling open.

  “Like two people in love,” she answered.

  He nodded against her neck. “Exactly. That’s what we are. And I’m going to take you there, Julia. I’m going to take you over the edge. Because I love fucking you, and I fucking love you,” he said, tugging her tighter, holding her closer as he thrust into her. She stretched out her neck, leaning against his shoulder, her body becoming a canvas for his hands as he touched her breasts, her belly, her neck, and her throat. He wrapped one hand around her throat, not so tight that it hurt, but tight enough to let her know she was his. He was possessing her. “Tell me you’re close.”

  “So close.”

  “Tell me who’s fucking you right now.”

  “The man I love,” she said in between broken breaths, her lips open, her green eyes watching him in the mirror.

  “That’s right. The man you love is fucking you. The man
you love is making you come,” he said, watching her face contort in pleasure, feeling her body tighten on him, feeling her heat all over him as the sound of her ecstasy rang in his ears and he followed her there, chasing her to the other side.

  He breathed out hard, and so did she as he wrapped his arms around her when they were done.

  “Julia,” he started, and he should have been nervous or scared, but he wasn’t. Not one bit. He knew what he wanted. “I hate the thought of you going home tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Me too, but I have to.”

  “I know, but what if you come back, and this bathroom becomes our bathroom? And the bedroom becomes our bedroom? And this home becomes our home? I can’t stand being without you. I want you here in New York.”

  He searched her features, but her expression gave nothing away. Her mouth was set in a line; her eyes were stoic. He tried to read her, to understand what was going through her mind, but he came up empty. And that’s when the real fear shot off inside him. Had he scared her away? Asked for too much from a woman who needed to live life on her terms? He opened his mouth to backpedal, to say he’d take what he could get, because a little of her was better than losing her.

  But then she turned around, face to face. “I could give you some long answer about how that’s too hard or too complicated, and how I don’t know how to pull it off or make it work, and how I have a job and a family and a business in San Francisco, and that’s all true . . .” she said, then stopped talking, and in that silence his heart thumped hard against his chest, and he swore she could hear every heartbeat of his fear, could tell that each persistent pound was the soundtrack of his misery, of her leaving him.

  “And?” he asked, his throat dry.

  “And,” she answered, the corner of her lips curving up, “and if you’re willing to work with me and help me figure all that out, then I can’t give you a single reason why this shouldn’t be my bathroom, because I love your tub,” she said pointing at the tub, and a smile broke across his face. She leaned back and tapped the mirror. “And I love this mirror.” She gestured to the bedroom. “And your bed.”