Rogue (Real #4)(8)
I flip over to my stomach to give him room to talk and quietly study his profile. His eyes and one of his hands stay on the curve of my ass as he speaks into the receiver.
As he discusses what I think is business in a low, gruff voice I can barely make out, I memorize the grooves of his abs, trailing my fingers along his stomach. I edge toward his lap and, as he keeps squeezing my ass in one big hand, I kiss his hard cock and lick up the wetness, which makes him squeeze his eyes shut for a moment and exhale roughly.
When he finally opens his eyes, they’re hard and cold. He snaps a list of numbers into the receiver, then hangs up and remains thoughtful, and that’s when I sense he’s pulled back from me.
I sit up in bed with a sick sensation. This is it, and then my suspicion is confirmed when his glorious body rises from the bed where he was just mine. I watch him disappear into the bathroom, a sinking sense of despair burning in the pit of me. I know what’s coming, don’t I? I know. The look I thought I saw last night was a trick. A trick of the drink. A trick of the light. A motherf*cking trick and I should’ve known it. Now I’m dying inside and it isn’t of excitement. This little fantasy? This fleeting connection I thought I had with someone? It’s over.
It wasn’t a connection. Or even real. It was a little alcohol, some rain, some hormones, and a couple of sexy lines that made me believe he really was as turned on by me as he’d ever in his life been.
“I’ve got a flight early and need to take care of one last thing before I leave.” He comes back with his clothes fisted in his hands and quickly jumps into his jeans. His jaw is a little too tight, as though he isn’t enjoying this any more than I am.
“Sure,” I say, and I hope to hell I sound nonchalant enough. All of these orgasms and the way I made those embarrassing noises for him are making this extremely awkward because I lost it. Omigod, I lost it, I lost myself in a complete stranger.
He looks at me, then opens his mouth for a moment before anything actually comes out. “It’s f*cking complicated—you don’t want me in your life.”
“Don’t. Please don’t. You don’t have to do this. Let’s leave it at this. I know how this goes. Goodbye, have a nice life. Adios, Pepe.”
We stare, he whispers, “I shouldn’t have touched you.” He heads to the door. I look at his broad back while working on my brave face. I’ve done this a million times. I’m putting up walls around the parts where it hurts so that it doesn’t hurt one whit. Not one whit.
“One of my guys vacuumed your car last night.” He stops with his hand on the doorknob, then stalks back and presses the keys of my car into my hand, and strangely, he kisses my eyelids. “Your eyes,” he whispers. Then he leaves.
My stomach literally aches when the door shuts behind him. I plop down on the bed after the most delicious sex of my life, completely . . . devastated. A crushing loneliness settles over me, magnified a thousand times from when I walked into that party just hours ago, hoping to make myself feel better. One more frog. No. God, he was not a frog. He was . . . something without a name. And now he’s gone. And that fleeting connection I was so certain of is gone too.
And I am truly, inexplicably, devastated.
A ton of bricks sits right on my heart as I gather my stuff from the bathroom, and when I realize it’s all still wet, I wince, struggling to pull the damp clothes over my body. I can’t find my panties. I look around the entire suite. When I look under the bed, I swear I can still feel him in my swollen * as I bend. Greyson.
Fuuuuck, even his name is sexy.
“Did you actually take my panties?” Disbelieving, I go look on the other side of the bed, refusing to remember how sensual I felt when he took them off me.
While searching beneath the bed skirt, I hear a click followed by footsteps. I raise my head to face the door, and blink in confusion. He came back? He’s standing right in front of me. An ache so deep its unfamiliarity overwhelms me.
My insides flutter as I stand. His dark brown hair is deliciously tousled and it goes beautifully with his eyes, eyes that are like all the glasses in a bar that reflect the light, shining almost unnaturally on me. He’s tall and sculpted but he oozes some unnamable, almost unnatural power over me. When he looks at me with those eyes, when he stands even this far away, somehow aloof and untouchable, he only makes me want to touch him all the more.
“You forget something?” I say. I’m dying of embarrassment at being caught talking to myself like this. He makes me feel as girly and vulnerable as I’ve ever felt in my life.
“I didn’t take your panties.” He signals to a lamp and frowns slightly, as though he can’t figure out why they ended up there. They’re hanging right over the top of the shade.
My cheeks blaze bright red. “Thank you,” I lamely mumble as I peel them off the shade. “I really like these panties.”
He crosses his arms and quietly watches me slip them on. “I really like them too. They look especially gorgeous on that ass of yours.”
I slide them on and pretend to be engrossed in my toenails when he comes over and drops on his haunches beside me, and tips my head around to his. The timbre of his voice drops to a level that is beyond intimate. “I want to take you home.” My toes start curling, and he continues in that low, husky voice until my whole stomach feels like a knot. “And I want your phone number, and when I come back to town, I want to see you again.”