Rogue (Real #4)(12)

“Where’s this going to go?” Pandora asks as she unwraps a pretty glass lamp.

“Oh, that little darling goes in the girl’s room,” I say, then I check all my files for the third time today. “It’s over that old pink vanity and this little fellow.” I toe a small striped ottoman that is so fun, it takes all my effort not to hug it. “Isn’t it cute?”

“What’s cute is how you keep pulling out your phone like it’s a warm, live puppy.”

“Oh, hush! I’m checking my signal.”

And my signal looks . . . okay.

Hmm.

Interesting.

NO text. Still.

Sometimes guys need nudges. They’re scared. It was too intense. He gave me “the” look. Right now, he could be sitting at home thinking—What the f*ck, Greyson man?

I mean, it’s very possible he could be having problems like I am. I cannot go to sleep without fingering myself. So there. He’s made me think of only him, his skin, his touch, and I want it . . . I crave it . . . I freaking need it again. I’ve mentally checked myself into the Greyson Addicts Anonymous and only he can remedy my disease.

So for the sake of helping him, for the sake of easing the little sting of disappointment that’s starting to grow on the left side of my chest, hell, for the sake of him knowing I am definitely still interested and please, dude, if you liked me at all, do as you said and call me, I consider breaking my cardinal rule of texting and maybe texting him again.

Should I?

Rules say I shouldn’t. But I’ve never liked rules, and Greyson doesn’t look like a rule man either.

What do I do?

I want to ask Pandora but I already loathe the smirk on her face.

I want him to know the truth, that I want him to call me. I don’t want to play games. Not with him.

Even so, I force myself to tuck my phone back in my bag and remind myself Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was any worthwhile relationship.

“Melanie,” Pandora says, her lips flattening into a thin black line.

I blink innocently and smile. “What?”

“Face it. He was a douche.”

“Not.”

“Is.”

“NOT!”

“Is . . .”

? ? ?

Four days after Greyson

“NOTHING YET?” PANDORA asks.

I want to groan when she comes up to my desk, where I was hoping I could hide from her and her peering black eyes. But today, it happens that she’s the one with a flat, angry little smile, and I’m the one with the scowl.

On Monday I didn’t know my name; I was on cloud nine. On Tuesday I was still hopeful and upbeat, on about a cloud three. Today I’m not only back on earth, I fell a couple notches down to purgatory or maybe even all the way to hell. All I know is that today is Thursday, and I have heard zip, zero, nada from him in days.

Like a fool, I’ve been smiling, glancing at my phone and waiting for something, but to be honest, my phone has started to feel like a heavy, motionless boulder in my bag, and its silence is telling me things—things that GREYSON probably doesn’t have the balls to tell me himself.

It was good. For a one-night stand. Thanks for the f*ck. You won’t be hearing from me again.

“Nothing yet,” I defensively tell Pandora as I stand up and carry my phone to the ladies’ restroom. I lock myself inside and go wash my face in the sink. I think of hazel eyes with flecks of green and the look Greyson King kept giving me . . . and I feel so beyond wretched and disappointed, I slowly type another text while a well of emotion keeps growing in my chest.

I keep thinking I imagined you.

I wait for a couple of minutes. I wash my hands, dry them, check my phone, stare at my nails, check my phone. There’s a knock on the door and one of my colleagues calls, “Anyone in there?”

Fuck.

I shout, “I’ll be right out!” then I pace a little, reread the text I sent him, including that mopey sad face, and suddenly, I feel like the world’s biggest fool.

This morning I Googled him and found, surprisingly, nothing at all.

No trace of Greyson King on the Internet. He could’ve been a ghost.

A ghost not answering my texts, not interested in me, not feeling the connection that has been eating and gnawing, haunting and consuming me.

A ghost that I, drunken Melanie, made up to stop feeling lonely.





FIVE




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IT TAKES WORK BEING AN ASSHOLE


Greyson


I can’t remember anyone f*cking with my head more than my father has, so I’m not sure what’s happening to me, except I’m distracted as f*ck this week.

Melanie’s deep in my f*cking head and deep under my f*cking skin.

I’m trying to shut her out of my conscious thoughts, but there she is. In my subconscious. Playing with my nipple ring like it’s her own personal toy.

I’d wanted to taste her. Now I’ve tasted her, but I’m not satisfied.

I want to make her pant like she just won the New York Marathon—I want to make her moan like a f*cking pro winning a f*cking National Moaning contest. And I want to make her smile like she did when I took her home.

I’ve been forcing myself to focus, keep my head in the game, my eyes open.