Reckless

by Stella Rhys

  Adam peered over at me. “What?”

  I blinked as I averted my eyes to my phone. “Nothing. Just putting Caspar’s number on silent,” I said since it was exactly what I turned over to do in the first place.

  Adam had turned back to the TV after his initial question, but now he was looking at me again, his eyebrows pulled together in a frown. “He’s still texting?” he asked.

  “Yep,” I said, my bleary eyes skimming the latest message. The hundredth version of “we need to talk about this” with some dig thrown in about my maturity. “God, why the hell does he think this is salvageable?” I muttered.

  “Because he’s delusional in every sense of the word.”

  “This is true,” I murmured distractedly as I clicked around on my phone, proceeding to look at things I told myself I wouldn’t look at till Adam firmly interrupted.

  “AJ. Stop.”

  I didn’t look up as I frowned. “Stop what?”

  “Facebook-stalking the girl he was with.”

  My eyebrows lifted as I paused mid-scroll, peering up to see Adam still watching the game. Damn. He hadn’t even been looking at me while I was doing it. But I wasn’t totally surprised. Sometimes he just had a sense.

  “It’s just I recognize her,” I said quietly as I put down my phone. Grabbing a pillow, I hugged it against me. “I mean… pretty hard not to.”

  Adam looked over at me. “Why?”

  “Because she has green and blue hair.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Does she also shop at Hot Topic?”

  I cracked a faint smirk. “Well. She’s definitely young. Still in college,” I said, feeling a twisting in my chest as I remembered when Caspar first introduced me to her in December. His new PA who was in her second year of undergrad at USC. “I remember thinking she was really shy and awkward, but I figured it was just because she was a kid. Not even old enough to drink,” I said with a weak laugh of disbelief as I zoned out at a random spot on the floor.

  Uh oh. I could feel a ramble coming on, and though I wasn’t looking at him, I could see Adam’s head still turned to study me closely, as if he sensed I was going into a place.

  “And it’s not that I ever imagined Caspar would cheat, but if someone told me I had to, I don’t think I would’ve pictured a college kid with green hair who can’t even make five seconds of eye contact at a time. I just… I never would’ve thought that’d be what he’d want more than me,” I said. But I’d barely finished my sentence before Adam cut in.

  “It’s not, AJ,” he said sternly.

  And when I lifted my eyes to him, I found him looking at me from the couch like I was a total dumbass, which was fine and actually made me want to laugh, because it felt normal. As much as Adam and I supported each other on a daily basis, we were never outright nice to each other. And if he was going to be this nice to me tonight, I understood that it was probably going to come with some level of taunting and ridicule.

  “Let’s just be real here, alright?” he said in his I can’t believe I have to explain this to you voice. “You’re way smarter than that girl. Way more interesting. More sophisticated. You can hold a conversation with Caspar or anyone else in this world for way longer than she can, and I don’t even need to see her to know that you blow her shit out of the water in the looks department,” he said so matter-of-factly that I could barely process the compliment before he was already barreling on.

  “Your idiot ex just wants someone who’ll be blindly impressed with him regardless of his achievements. He wants someone who doesn’t know about all his flaws yet. His failures. If he can’t be the person he wishes he was, he wants to at least live the fantasy of it, and that girl he cheated on you with—she still believes that fantasy,” Adam said simply, looking me dead in the eye. “And that’s the only thing she’s got on you, AJ. Naiveté.”

  I stared.

  Well, shit.

  A giant lump formed in my throat as I hugged my pillow tighter to my front. Because apparently, I hadn’t been ready for Adam to give such a surprisingly accurate read on Caspar. Nor had I been ready for him to be this sweet to me tonight.

  This protective.

  It was silent for several seconds before I finally gathered myself enough to speak again.

  “Naiveté’s a big word for you,” I observed softly, to which Adam promptly snorted.

  “Alright,” he said, rolling his eyes back to the game and adding something or another about me being a smart ass, which I barely heard because I’d only cracked that joke to deflect from the realizations sweeping over me.

  Hindsight really was twenty-twenty, because in retrospect, I could admit that things had been declining between Caspar and me for awhile. That I’d been blinding myself to a lot of things about him that angered me to no end—in particular, his painfully fragile ego, and his constant need to be praised and assured.

  “I don’t even know why I stayed for so long,” I said, staring blankly at the game.

  “Sunk cost fallacy,” Adam replied. When I looked at him, he explained. “You put all that time and energy into someone, you don’t want to feel like it was for nothing. Especially when you love them. Makes it hard to know when to cut your losses.”

  My eyebrows pinched together as I found myself reckoning with the fact that Adam casually nailed it again. I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “Were you always this smart?” I questioned.

  He laughed. “Me? Yeah. Believe it or not, I’m more than just a pretty face.”

  I snorted despite the fact that I couldn’t help myself from studying his face when he turned back to watch the game.

  Though my eye line was angled toward the TV, my gaze subtly lifted toward Adam, running along his razor sharp jaw, those strong cheekbones and that goddamned dimple that lingered the way it always did when he flashed that deceivingly boyish grin. Fuck that grin, I thought. But then my eyes raked through his thick brown hair, which was fully dry now and tousled in a way that made the corners of my mouth curve up.

  Ugh.

  It was undeniable that Adam Maxwell was impossibly handsome.

  Gorgeous, really.

  Which was why it had been awhile, probably years since I’d let myself stare at him like this, and the only reason I was letting myself do it now was because I was drunk, this night was crazy, and as far as I was concerned, nothing I did, said, or thought right now counted. I was still completely rattled, having been tossed into the head bitch of emotional wringers tonight, and when you topped that with whiskey, it was grounds for a mental free-for-all.

  So I gave myself a pass. Even went ahead and checked Adam out when he got up ten minutes later to send a work email from his laptop.

  As he leaned over the table, I observed the stone-carved straightness of his nose, his finely etched lips, and the annoying perfection of his tan against his white T-shirt—along with every little twitch and flex of his muscled forearms as he quickly typed away.

  Ridiculous. Imagine being this effortlessly good-looking, I thought to no one in particular.

  Well. Maybe to Georgia.

  It was at that point I decided it was time to text my best friend about all that had happened tonight, because the sooner she knew about Caspar, the sooner I could tell her about Adam—in particular, that moment we had by the door.

  Along with the whole impromptu sleepover situation that was going on right now.

  And the fact that I was currently willing myself not to stare at his package under those sweats.

  “Oop—fuck,” I cursed as I knocked my purse onto the floor while trying to grab my phone. Serves you right for not looking where you’re reaching since you’re too busy staring at forbidden boss dick, I scolded myself just as Adam looked up from his laptop and snorted at my purse on the floor.

  “Seems like more than you’d need for a weekend,” he remarked as I pulled myself over the side of the bed to grab my toppled purse, which had ejected a comically long strip of condoms on its way to the ground.
<
br />   “Yeah, probably,” I laughed, because it had clearly been wishful thinking that compelled me to pack three dozen rubbers for less than forty-eight hours with Caspar. “I guess I can admit now that he was shit in bed,” I snorted as I put my purse back onto the nightstand and snuggled back into the covers.

  Adam laughed. “I mean I always knew that, but I’m glad you finally got to get it off your chest.”

  “Shut up, you did not always know that,” I retorted. But Adam said nothing in response, only wearing a self-satisfied smirk as he shut his laptop—which was a specific type of Adam smugness that meant he was telling the truth. I squinted at him. “How?”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I know what women look like when they’ve been thoroughly fucked,” he said as he ambled over to the bar.

  “What wrong way would I take that?”

  “I have no idea. I was just putting some kind of preface on the statement since we don’t usually talk about this shit, and I don’t know how weird you’re going to be about it,” he said, lobbing a water bottle onto the bed. “Drink that.”

  I scoffed. “I’m not going to be weird. We talk plenty about your overactive sex life,” I said as I uncapped the bottle and took a swig.

  “We talk plenty about the women I go on dates with. Not how good I am in bed and how good you haven’t had it for years.”

  I paused, something about that sentence bringing heat to my cheeks.

  “Okay. Fair,” I relented, clearing my throat. “So, fine—you know what women look like when they’ve been thoroughly fucked. And you’re saying in the five years you’ve known me, I’ve never once looked that way to you?”

  Adam wore a dubious look as he leaned against the bar. “You really want me to answer that?”

  “Yes,” I said. And for the next two-and-a-half seconds, I did my best to withstand the pressure of his gaze as he tried to decide if I could in fact handle the truth. For some reason, it was making my pulse pick up.

  But then with a smirk and swig of his water, Adam finally spoke.

  “I saw you look like that once. But not because of Caspar.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ace Hotel in Chicago. Two years ago.”

  I paused. Then my eyes went wide.

  Oh, shit.

  That was all he had to say for me to know exactly what he was talking about, because that had in fact been a particularly stellar orgasm thanks to the two-hundred-dollar vibrator I’d bought on that business trip. My cheeks heated up as I ignored the look of sheer entertainment on Adam’s face.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I answered the door a good twenty minutes after I… finished. So I’m really not sure how you could’ve known.”

  “Like I said, I just know what it looks like.”

  “Of course. Because you’re the king of orgasms and every woman you’ve ever slept with has woken up all fresh-faced and glowing.”

  “You’re mocking me right now, but you know it’s true.”

  “Only because you’ve subjected me to being in the hotel room right next to yours for the past five years. I swear to God there were times the moaning was so dramatic I thought you were blasting porn.”

  “Nah. I don’t even watch porn.”

  “Yeah, right,” I laughed. But when I looked at him, I could tell he was being serious. “Shut up,” I said. “You don’t watch porn, Adam? I don’t believe you.”

  He only smiled at me. “You don’t have to.”

  “Okay. So basically, you’re saying you never…” I trailed off, suddenly realizing exactly what I was asking a man who was very much my boss.

  Adam cocked an eyebrow. “Never what?”

  I wrung my hands behind my pillow as I tried to figure out my phrasing. “Never… take care of yourself,” I finally said.

  He eyed me with amusement. “You’re asking if I ever jerk off?”

  My stomach clenched.

  God, was I? Was I really asking my boss if he masturbated? How did this conversation even get here?

  My toes curled under the sheets as I forced myself not to bite my lip. “Yes. That,” I confirmed, to which he smirked.

  “I do.” He held his glinting gaze on me as he took another long pull of water. “I just use my imagination.”

  I nodded.

  “Huh,” I said, making some vague sound of acknowledgment to play off the sudden pulsing between my legs—and the fact that my boss was literally watching me right now as I thought about him jerking off.

  Dear God, stop, stop, stop, I chanted in my head, but my insides clenched without mercy as my traitor brain flashed with images of twitching forearms and nine-inch dicks.

  Adam laughed. “You good?” he asked.

  I was legitimately burning up inside, but despite the internal chaos, I narrowed my eyes at him. “Yes? Why wouldn’t I be?”

  He was still leaning there casually in those goddamned sweats, that dimple showing as he capped his empty bottle and tossed it in the bin. He let the silence stretch another tormenting few seconds before he finally answered. “No reason,” he said before pushing off the bar and going to the bathroom.

  Only once I heard the electric whir of his toothbrush going did I finally exhale.

  Because we both knew he was lying.

  He knew well that my mind had just gone deep in the gutter—that I had just been picturing him in ways that were so beyond inappropriate for our relationship that I was literally staring at the ceiling mouthing what the fuck because I needed someone, something to react to.

  Unsurprisingly, the ceiling did not suffice.

  So with a groan, I yanked the covers over my head and burrowed myself deep into the sheets. I was never one to go to bed without getting ready, but clearly, tonight was the night for all the firsts.

  Brushing my teeth be damned. It was time to sleep all this away.

  7

  ADAM

  I had to give myself props this morning despite the fact that this wasn’t exactly a surprise.

  I was accustomed to crushing presentations.

  Regardless of circumstance.

  It didn’t matter how foreign the territory, how early the meeting, or how annoyingly cold and unwelcoming the client—like the one sitting in front of me at this table.

  Sean Knox. Twenty-nine. Right-handed pitcher with a cutter you couldn’t hit if he told you it was coming. He was an incredibly talented athlete with a nightmare reputation and just about no other agencies pursuing him, thanks to the whole nightmare reputation thing. But I’d had my eye on the kid for awhile now. Three years to be exact, which was why I’d been preparing for this meeting since the day he dropped his agent last month.

  That agent, of course, had been his unqualified friend from back home whom he’d hired because he was famously untrusting of authority and the so-called “suits.” Which put my chances on the slim side.

  But I didn’t give a shit.

  I was hell-bent on landing this prickly motherfucker and that started with crushing this goddamned meeting in spite of multiple obstacles, the first being that Knox had moved the start time up three hours on short notice.

  The second being that I was coming off one serious mindfuck of an unexpected night.

  One that ended with me adjusting my fully hard dick under my sweats just ten feet from where my assistant lay asleep.

  Or fake-asleep.

  Whatever it was she was doing.

  I’d come out of the bathroom last night to see AJ completely hidden in the sheets, wrapped like a cocoon with only a few locks of dark hair peeking out from under the comforter. But her feet were still moving here and there and I could hear her breathing patterns, which weren’t the actually-asleep breathing patterns I knew well from basically a thousand flights and layovers in which she’d dozed off right next to me.

  If I had to guess, she was awake for at least twenty minutes after I got out of the bathroom last night, and as annoying as I found it when she pretended to be passed out—which
was often, given how often I emailed her past work hours—I was half-grateful she’d pulled that stunt on me last night.

  Because talking to her about jerking off wasn’t exactly a breeze for me either.

  Especially not when her eyes got all big like that. Her cheeks all pink.

  I’d witnessed a lot of AJ’s expressions—in fact, I was sure I knew them all. But I was clearly wrong, because I’d never seen that look from last night. Just that second of reluctant lip biting had been enough to make my dick stir, but then she started squirming under those sheets. It was subtle, but it was just enough for me to notice.

  And just enough to have me willing down a hard-on for the rest of the night. Though needless to say, my dick won that battle.

  Thankfully, of course, that was doing nothing to hinder my performance today.

  “Well, in case it didn’t come across, I have to say we’re certainly impressed with everything you put together today.”

  The grinning praise came from Ben, Knox’s older brother and one of three men in the team of advisers who were clearly pushing him to hire a real damned agent already. They had both spoken on his behalf all meeting while Knox grunted here and there with a disinterest that remained even now at the end of the presentation—which was fine.

  Because if we’d swayed the brother, we’d won half the battle.

  “Adam. We’ll be in touch soon,” Ben said as we all got up from our seats in the rented conference room and did the obligatory round of handshakes and goodbyes.

  And before long, the room was cleared out. Our financial advisor Craig was still lingering out side the door with Ben, but aside from them, it was just me and AJ as we gathered the files off the table.

  Shamelessly, I watched her as I did this.

  She was wearing what she had on by the time I got back from the hotel gym this morning: a navy blazer and pants with a white shirt buttoned nearly to the collar—her way of warding off unnecessary attention at the office.

  It usually worked.

  Of course, it wasn’t doing shit on me today, since my brain was back to thinking about what I hadn’t let myself think of last night—her palms pulsing on my chest. Her full, fucking perfect tits barely contained in that paper-thin lingerie.