And while thoughts of Eden were far from my mind as well as any desire to make this encounter more than what it was, what it had to be—a one-night stand—a fleeting curiosity swirled through the chaos of pleasure: if Blue Eyes finger-banged girls he didn’t like and went down this spectacularly on those he did, just how well would he treat a girl he loved?
Four
I woke up to the sound of a jackhammer.
I sat up, startled, and immediately regretted it when my stomach lurched from the movement. Thank God the room was mostly dark. Even the small slit of light coming from behind the blackout curtains was enough to make my eyes hurt. My head, too. Though most of that pain seemed to be associated with the terrible hammering.
I rested back against the wall and closed my eyes, trying to calm the headache and get a sense of balance before figuring out how to deal with the world. I took a deep cleansing breath. In. Out.
Wait a minute.
It was only a handful of seconds later when my eyes flew open again. Having spent the last several days at Kendra’s, I’d gotten used to waking up somewhere other than my own bed. But not only wasn’t this my bedroom, it also wasn’t hers. And I hadn’t the faintest recollection of arriving there.
I scanned the room for something to jog my memory. I was alone. Nothing was familiar. Not the rustic wood floors nor the plush gray rug nor the tall modern lamp at the side of the bed nor the sleek black wall behind me. Definitely a male’s room. Everything about it screamed man, including the vague musky scent. It wasn’t until I’d spotted my dress—rather Kendra’s dress—draped over the back of an armchair I’d never seen before in my life, that I realized I was naked.
I clutched the sheet around me in what was likely a much-too-late attempt at modesty. What had happened last night? I remembered the party. The shots. Blue Eyes. The limousine.
Oh my God, the limo.
Three incredible orgasms—or was it four? After that, everything went blank.
I would have been less irritated at the fact that I’d obviously gone home with Blue Eyes if I had the pleasure of remembering it.
The jackhammering stopped suddenly, though the pain that accompanied it still vibrated in my head, and I was pretty sure it hadn’t been an actual jackhammer but something more domestic. Coffee grinder?
Shit. He was making breakfast. The whiff of bacon in the air confirmed it. And though the idea of a man making breakfast was very appealing, there was no way I could stay for this. I’d taken too much of a risk even getting in the car with him. He could have found out that I hadn’t actually been invited to that party, and if word got back to my boss… Not to mention that he was a stranger, and I hadn’t told a soul where I was going.
Well, he’d said he wanted to be one of my mistakes. Congratulations, Blue Eyes, you just may have landed the top spot.
I had to get out of there. I didn’t have any idea what the layout of the apartment was, but maybe I could slip out while he was distracted. After a quick trip to the en suite bathroom, I put my dress back on as quickly as I could without throwing up. My shoes and purse were next to the chair, as if they’d been laid out for me. My panties, I suspected, had been tucked away as a souvenir because they were nowhere in sight. My phone was almost dead, but I was able to shoot off a quick text to Teyana.
Went home last night with the pervert from the roof. Tell you more later. If I disappear, here’s where I was last.
I sent her a GPS ping giving her my location, then tucked my cell in my purse, grabbed my shoes, and tiptoed out of the room. A short hallway led to a living room. A formal dining room was next to that. Both were immaculate and spectacularly designed. I didn’t have to be an art aficionado to guess that the multicolored modern painting on the wall cost a fortune. The floor-to-ceiling windows let in the perfect amount of light to show it off. One thing was for sure—Blue Eyes had cash. Which made sense. He’d actually been invited to the Sebastian party, and from what I’d learned from knowing Kendra, those rich folks tended to hang out in packs.
As much as I wanted to stay and explore, top of my agenda was sneaking out unseen. I had two options for my route of escape—another hallway or a swinging door that led to another room, likely the kitchen.
Hallway it is.
A couple of yards down this one, and another hall broke off to the right, this one leading to—hallelujah—the front door. I’d made it.
Except, halfway there, a figure stepped out from a door to the right, another entry to the kitchen, apparently. Blue Eyes had looked good in a tux. Wearing nothing but gray sweatpants, he was absolutely sinful. Rock-solid abs highlighted his bare chest. A perfectly toned arm held a black coffee mug, which he held inches below his devilish smirk.
“Sneaking out?”
“Uh…” I smiled guiltily.
He took a casual sip from his mug, appearing to not be at all bothered by my intentions to leave without a goodbye. “I made eggs and bacon, if you’d like a bite to eat before you go. Fresh orange juice and ground coffee too.”
It was tempting. Even though the sound of food made my stomach churn, the image of him cooking for me, serving me, got my pulse racing.
Honestly, he just got my pulse racing in general. The chemistry between us was wickedly charged. Whatever had happened between us last night, it hadn’t been enough to run the heated energy to its end. A fleeting image of what might transpire if I stayed flashed through my mind—me bent over his kitchen table, his body pressed to mine as he entered me from behind.
Nope, nope, nope. “Sorry. I’m running late,” I lied.
“On a Sunday?”
“Church.” My face went warm. Did I really suggest I was going to church? Once it was out, there was nothing to do but run with it. “Really devoted to my congregation. Never miss a week. I’m going to have to go home and change first, though. So…”
His lips twitched with amusement, and I wondered for half a second if he was going to call me out on the fabrication. Then he said, “I’ll have my driver take you.”
“Already called an uber.” I dug out my phone from my purse and waved it in the air. I hoped I had enough battery to actually call for one when I got downstairs.
“Cancel it.”
How did he manage to be both commanding and pleading at once? My chest fluttered in response. Why did I have to have met him the way I did? If my deceit wasn’t tangled up with our meeting…
But there never would have been an occasion for me to meet a man like him at all without my deceit. That’s how it was for girls from my side of the tracks. We had to hustle just to get the scraps.
My hesitation or my expression must have told him all he needed to know. “Okay. No ride. You don’t want me to know where you live. I can take the hint.”
Good.
Why did it feel so bad? And not the good kind of bad. The kind of bad that I was sure Blue Eyes was really good at being.
“Well, then.” I forced myself to cross to his door. When he was behind me, I paused to slip one shoe on, then the other.
He didn’t move. I could feel him watching me, the heat of his gaze searing into my backside. “At least tell me your name,” he said after several seconds had passed.
“No reason to know it now.” My hand was on the knob.
“I don’t accept that. Without your name, how am I supposed to see you again?”
Bingo.
But I didn’t want to be that blunt. It wasn’t his fault I had to cut this off right now. In other circumstances, I would have been all over his invitation for breakfast. I would have been all over him period. Knowing it was an impossible fantasy, I threw my head over my shoulder and gave him one last flirty smile. “I don’t know, Blue Eyes. Maybe you’ll find me anyway. You seem like that kind of guy.”
I had the door open before he took his first step toward me. “Blue Eyes? Is that how you’re going to refer to me when you think of me in the future?”
I paused before turning toward him. I wanted to ask him
why he was so sure that I’d think of him, but I didn’t have the energy to deny what we both knew was the truth. “It’s your most notable feature,” I said instead.
I let the door go, but it didn’t shut in time to block off his last words. “In that case, I’ll remember you as Pretty Pussy.”
I walked on shaky knees to the elevator. If I’d had any sense at all, I would have run.
Five
“I’m dying. Literally dying.” Teyana leaned on our kitchen island, the tomato and salt sandwich she’d been making abandoned as she’d become engrossed in my story of the previous evening, particularly the parts about my mysterious one-night stand.
“Considering how often you say that, I think you might not have a good grasp on the meaning of the word dying and/or the word literally.” Often when she used the term she was curled up in the fetal position with pain. Today she was bouncing with excitement. I was happy to see she was feeling better.
She rolled her so-dark-brown-they-were-almost-black eyes at me. “You know what I mean. I can’t believe you had such an incredible night. Good for you. You needed it.”
I resisted the urge to feel bad that I’d been having my incredible night while she’d been miserable and focused on enjoying the retelling for her sake. “You’re right. I did need it.” I reached over the island to grab a tomato off her plate. I’d already been to Kendra’s to drop off the dress and change before coming out to Jersey City, and I was only now getting an appetite. “Too bad I got so drunk. Best sex of my life, and I don’t even remember it.”
“How do you know it was the best sex of your life then?”
“Based on what I do remember, there’s no way it wasn’t. He knew exactly what he was doing. Three times.” Just remembering made my panties damp. Pretty Pussy, he’d said. I really should have named him Filthy Mouth instead of Blue Eyes.
Tey sighed dreamily. “I don’t think I could come three times with my vibrator. This man must be a god.”
“Or a devil. Is it possible to be both?”
“I think you’ve just described every man you’ve ever dated more than two weeks.” She smacked my hand as I reached for another tomato slice. “There’s too much salt on that for a healthy person, Tess. Cut up your own if you want some.”
Feigning a pout, I reached for a banana in the fruit basket instead. “He really was exactly my type. Which means it’s probably a good thing that I’m not seeing him again since my type always leads to disaster.”
Tey brought her sandwich up to her mouth and paused before biting into it. “Disaster is not inevitable with the guys you like. It’s just how it’s worked out.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I didn’t want this to lead to another one of her lectures about being patient, there were loads of fish in the sea. It was hard to hear it over and over, and not to be snide, but it wasn’t like she had a steady man of her own at the moment.
I also didn’t think it was a good idea to keep talking about Blue Eyes. Thinking about him did a number on my libido. I was already looking forward to alone time later tonight when I was back in Kendra’s guest room. For now, I needed to think about something else.
Maybe a banana hadn’t been the best choice.
I shook the thoughts about the phallic shape of the fruit in my hand and took a bite. “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. I met a Sebastian.”
“You what?” She had to set down her sandwich. “Are you freaking serious?”
“Yep.”
“Which one?”
“No idea.” I quickly told her about my encounter with Green Eyes, including how he’d programmed his assistant’s info in my phone.
“Give it here.” Teyana reached her hand out for my cell.
I hesitated for a minute wondering what she was up to, but curiosity won out, and I unlocked the screen before giving it over. “What are you going to do?”
“This.” She dialed the number and put it on speaker so we could both hear.
“There won’t be anyone there on Sunday,” I said as the phone rang.
“I know, but there will be a voicemail.” Sure enough, the ringing switched over to a prerecorded message that announced we’d reached Julie Sanchez at the office of public relations for Sebastian Industrial Corporation.
“That wasn’t helpful.”
But she wasn’t done. She quickly clicked END on the call then pulled up my internet browser. Less than a minute later, she had the SIC website’s leadership page loaded. She scrolled through several positions filled by various Sebastians—Blue Eyes was right; there were a ton of them—until she landed on the name next to Vice President of Image and Outreach. “Scott Sebastian,” she read. “That has to be the head of PR. Dammit, there’s no image. Was he cute?”
“Scott Sebastian,” I repeated, trying to picture the man who’d wanted to talk shop. “I guess he looked like he could be a Scott. And, yes, he was fine with a capital F. He was really flirty. If he hadn’t been hiding, I think I could have gone home with him.”
“Oh my God, you settled!”
I shook my head, laughing. “I wouldn’t have traded Blue Eyes for the hottest Sebastian in the world. Besides. It was risky enough going home with just another attendee at the party. If I’d gone home with a Sebastian and then he’d found out that I’d snuck my way in—”
“He wouldn’t have found out, and if he did, do you think he’d really care?”
Yeah, she was right. I was being paranoid. “Better to be safe than sorry.” But now I was thinking about the other opportunity I’d been denied because of caution. “Why did I have to meet him like that, Tey? He’s looking for a charity for Sebastian Industrial to back. I could have pitched to them.”
“You still could. You have his number. Set up a meeting.”
“And then what? Even if they decided to go with one of the charities I presented, I wouldn’t be able to go anywhere after the initial pitch without Kendra.”
She thought about it for too long, the expression on her face saying she was taking this way too seriously.
“Whatever you’re thinking, Tey—”
She interrupted me. “If you pitched them the Dysautonomia Foundation, you could do it without Kendra. Didn’t Sarah offer you a job there? You could quit working for Kendra and work for them directly instead of being the liaison.”
“Okay, no. No.” There were so many immediate problems, I couldn’t let myself entertain the idea. “First, they’d have to choose the Dysautonomia Foundation from the portfolio of charities I offered. If they chose any other, I’d be screwed.”
“You could make them pick it. Your enthusiasm would sell it alone.”
I ignored her. “Second, I wouldn’t even know how to do a pitch meeting. I’ve only been on the backend.”
“You could wing it. I saw you ace several projects in school that I know you put together on the fly.”
“Third, I don’t want to quit working for Kendra.”
“Don’t you?”
Here, I hesitated. The thing was, I could wing it. And I did have a passion for promoting the Dysautonomia Relief Foundation. I’d been trying to get Kendra to hook them up with a major sponsor for over two years now, pretty much as soon as Teyana got her dysautonomia diagnosis. But it wasn’t just because of Tey that I supported the foundation. It was a good organization with lots of promise. I was convinced the only reason it hadn’t been picked up yet was because Kendra wasn’t selling it right. If I were the one presenting it, I knew I could sell it.
And one day Kendra would let me pitch it. She would. I had to believe that. Otherwise, all the years I’d stuck by her side were just a waste of time. “If I wanted to leave her, I would have taken the job Sarah offered.”
“You’re too loyal,” Tey said with a sigh. “Kendra does not deserve that kind of loyalty.”
“Maybe not.” But I was loyal to Teyana too, and I couldn’t risk the foundation's chances of being chosen by doing this underhandedly.
I expected the discussion to be ov
er. It’s certainly where it should have ended.
But Teyana didn’t give up that easily. “Then you’d stay with Conscience Connect. That works too. Land the Sebastians, and there’s no way Kendra can let you go. Plus, she’d get to see what you can do, and she’d have to give you more responsibility. Win-win all around.”
“I don’t know…” I could already imagine a plethora of things that could go wrong. I’d seen Kendra work on deals that signed instantly. Others required weeks and weeks of hardcore negotiation. I’d learned enough from the sidelines that I was fairly sure I could seal up the former with no problems. I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to handle the latter.
Maybe if I knew I had enough time to work it out...
Tey read my mind. “How long is Kendra out of town?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“She was gone, what? Two months when she broke up with that guy three years ago.”
“But only two weeks when she broke up with that girl she was dating last year.”
I watched her fingers tap on the counter. She wore fingerless gloves, even though the air conditioning wasn’t on and it was well in the nineties outside. Her particular syndrome made it hard for her body to regulate temperature, and often her extremities were blue and icy regardless of the weather. Other symptoms that accompanied her illness prevented her from working a full-time job, yet she wasn’t bad enough to file for disability. Without help from the Dysautonomia Relief Foundation, she wouldn’t be able to afford to live.
How many other women could be helped by the DRF if they had corporate sponsorship? Could I really try to fight for it?
“This latest disappearance wasn’t even due to a breakup,” I said, wondering if Kendra was distraught enough to keep her away for long. “She said she’s torn between two lovers and needs time for her heart to decide.”
“Yeah, that sounds like her prosey bullshit.” Her tone was spiteful. She’d apologize eventually. That was how it usually went, anyway.
I chewed on my lip, giving her a few minutes to eat her sandwich and brood in silence.
Man on Top Page 4
