Beautiful Bastard(64)

She answered on the first ring. “Mr. Ryan?”

I winced. She was with other students. Of course she wouldn’t call me Bennett now. “Hi. I . . . um, was just making sure you had a way to get back to the hotel.”

Her laugh came through the line, muted by the sound of voices and the pulsing of loud music all around her. “There are about seventy cabs waiting outside. I’ll just grab one of those when we’re done.”

“When will that be?”

“When Melissa finishes this drink and probably another. And when Kim decides she’s done dancing with every filthy manwhore here. So you can expect me back sometime between now and tomorrow morning at eight.”

“Are you being a wiseass?” I asked, feeling a grin spread across my face.

“Yes.”

“Fine,” I said, exhaling heavily. “Just text me when you get back safe.”

She was quiet for a beat and then said, “I will.”

I hung up and dropped my phone on the bed beside me, staring at the floor for probably an hour. I didn’t even know what to do with myself.

Finally, I got up and walked back downstairs.



I was still in the lobby when she came back at two in the morning, cheeks bright and smile firmly in place as she dropped her phone into her purse. My phone buzzed in my hand and I glanced down.

I’m back safe.

I watched her walk past the reception desk and directly toward where I sat near the bank of elevators. She stopped when she saw me, bleary-eyed, in my rumpled suit. I was sure my hair was a f*cking joke because I’d been worried sick. I suddenly had no idea what I was doing waiting for her like an anxious spouse. I only knew I couldn’t be the one to decide we wouldn’t work, because deep down, I wanted to figure it out.

“Bennett?” she said, glancing at her friend, who waved and walked to the elevator. I didn’t give a damn what the friend was thinking, but I could feel her stare on us until she got into the elevator.

Chloe was wearing a tiny black dress and heels I wanted to petition become a uniform until her internship ended. Thin straps crisscrossed all the way from her pink-painted toes midway up her shins. I wanted to peel the dress from her body and f*ck her into the couch, gripping those heels for leverage.

“Hey,” I mumbled, mesmerized by the miles and miles of bare leg in front of me.

She walked closer, stopping just a few inches away. “What are you doing down here?”

“Waiting.”

I struggled to hide how she affected me, how my present thoughts could barely be torn from the fantasy of my fists in her hair, the way my thumbs could completely cover her small, pink nipples, or how her clit was the softest part of any body I’d ever touched. I wanted to taste her from her toes to her earlobes, telling her every thought I had on the way.

“Are you drunk?”

I shook my head. Not the way you mean. “Someone saw me looking at you earlier.”

“I know.” She reached up, ran her fingers through my hair. “At the keynote. I saw your face.”

“I panicked.”

Chloe didn’t say anything in response to that; she just laughed, a soft husky sound.

“I’m not worried about how it looks for me. I’m worried about how it looks for you,” I said.

I heard her sharp inhale, felt her fingers tighten in my hair. When I looked up at her face, she looked bewildered.

How could she not know how infatuated I’d become? I was sure she could see it every time I looked at her. As always, I wanted to grip her from behind, spank her when she made a sound. Pull her hair when I came. Bite her breast again. Drag my teeth over her spine. Pinch the back of her thigh and then smooth it over with the softest touch.

But I also wanted to watch her sleep, and then watch her wake up and see me, and gauge her feelings from that first, unfiltered reaction.

I was starting to see that this wasn’t just sex, and it wasn’t just working something out of my system. Sex was just the fastest route to the deeper possession I needed. I was falling in love with her, and falling too fast and hard to easily find any footing.

It was scary as f*ck.




I decided to give her the truth.

“I need another night.”

She sucked in a breath and stared, and only then did it occur to me that she could be feeling something very different than I was.

“Feel free to say no. I just . . .” I ran a hand through my hair and looked up at her. “I just would really like to be with you again tonight.”