We had a few drinks and I had invited both of the pretty young things back to my place. The evening had progressed in typical fashion. Kimmy, or whatever her name was, had immediately stripped down to her underwear and—was it Gail?—had stuck her tongue down my throat. Sometimes they’d kiss me, sometimes they’d kiss each other. They sucked on each other’s tits, while I played with my junk, trying to get a hard-on. Normally this would have been enough for a monster case of wood, but tonight it wasn’t working.
My mind wasn’t on sex with random hot women. And that bugged the hell out of me.
Was her name Gemma?—went to unzip my pants and I tried to blank my mind and appreciate the feel of her fingers around my cock.
“You’re so big,” she squealed, and I wondered how many times she’d used that line before.
The woman I thought might be named Khloe joined us on the couch and started kissing her friend again, their tongues slobbering all over each other while—was it Georgia?— attempted to jack me off.
“Come on, baby,” Gia purred, pulling on my pants, trying to get them down over my hips.
Maybe Katie lifted my hands and pressed my palms to her boobs. “Touch me, I like it,” she moaned a little too loudly to be genuine. I hadn’t really done anything yet to warrant that kind of response.
My phone buzzed and I dropped my hands and grabbed it from the side table. It was a message from Rob.
Great ceremony. Too bad you couldn’t make it.
It was accompanied by a picture of Lena accepting a rolled-up piece of paper from a man with a really bad comb-over. Rob had zoomed in so that Lena was in close up. She had worn her dark hair long—I had always preferred it when she wore it that way—and the expression on her face made my chest tight.
Fucking hell.
Keira, or Kimber, or whatever her name was, was trying to get my attention by touching herself, her fingers disappearing between her legs. “Mmm,” she moaned loudly, pretending to come as she fingered herself.
Yeah, this wasn’t working.
I gently pushed maybe Gretchen off my lap and stood up, fastening my pants.
“What are you doing?” they both asked in unison. Their identical looks of indignation were almost amusing.
“I think it’s time you two leave,” I said, buttoning up my shirt and smoothing my hair.
“But I thought we were having fun,” I’ll call her G—complained.
“Sure, we were, but now it’s time for you to go,” I repeated, walking to the door and opening it.
Both girls started to grumble, and I was pretty sure one of them called me a dickhead. They weren’t wrong. I was a dickhead.
When they were finally dressed, G turned to her friend. “Come on Kailey. Fuck this guy.”
Ah, so her name was Kailey. Not that it mattered much at this point.
“Do you need some money for a cab or something?” I asked. I wasn’t a complete dickhead.
“Screw you,” Kailey spat out, but then she held out her hand for the cash, which I gave her.
With final flicks of their overly processed hair, they stomped down the hallway.
I closed the door and looked around my empty apartment. It was sterile and cold. A lot like my life. There wasn’t much in the way of personal touches. I was a dude after all. What did I know about throw pillows and afghans?
The only thing that indicated a person lived here and not a robot was the framed photo of my mother and me taken when I was probably five years old at my uncle’s house on the Cape. It was one of the few happy memories I had of my childhood. I wasn’t the sentimental sort, so the fact that I held onto that picture was out of character.
I picked up the low ball glasses the girls had been drinking from and took them to the galley kitchen. I put them in the dishwasher before opening up the refrigerator, looking for something to eat. Unsurprisingly, there was only a two-week-old Chinese takeout and a couple of beers. I didn’t cook so I very rarely ate at home.
Now that the evening was wide open, I didn’t know what the hell to do. I paced my apartment aimlessly. I opened the message from Rob again. Marlena looked happy. Of course, she was. She had just graduated from law school. It wasn’t so long ago I had done the same and I remembered how good it felt to finally be done with school.
I wondered if Adam had given her the offer. I half expected her to reject it out of sheer stubbornness. I wish I could have seen her face when he handed her the letter. Would she be surprised? Irritated?
I could picture her blue eyes widening the way they did when she was taken off guard by something. Then they’d narrow as they always did when she became annoyed. Sometimes she’d clench her teeth and I would tease her that she’d hurt herself doing that. Then she’d tell me to fuck off. And so it went between Marlena Ducate and me.
I stopped pacing and stared at her face for a second longer than I should before shutting the damn phone off and shoving it in my pocket.
Now that I was alone, I realized I couldn’t stand being in my own company. I wasn’t in the mood to think about things. That was bad for a guy like me. So even though I had given up on the chance of an easy lay, I knew that staying at home wouldn’t be good for me.
So, I grabbed my keys and my wallet and headed out.
**
The club was loud and suffocating. Too many people pressed together on the dance floor made it hard to move. The air smelled like sweat, alcohol, and too much perfume. Best of all, my mind was gloriously blank.
It was fucking perfect.
My shirt was unbuttoned again, my chest sticky with sweat and spilled booze. I had lost track of my buddies, Derek and Todd, who I had talked into coming with me. Neither had been thrilled to spend their evening at Club Galactica, but then again, neither would ever say no to me. It was the glue that held our friendship together.
I danced with a hot thing sporting a pixie cut and not much else. She gyrated against my crotch while I held on to her narrow waist. Her ass pressed into my cock as she bent over and shimmied upright again, all the while smiling coyly over her shoulder.
I wasn’t drunk, but I was feeling a nice buzz. And the best part was the music was too loud on the dance floor to talk.
The songs bled into each other and I danced until my legs could barely hold me upright. Finally, I extricated myself from Miss Pixie Cut and made my way to the bar. I caught sight of Derek and Todd at a booth toward the back nursing on drinks. I knew this wasn’t their scene, but I also knew Derek would do anything not to hang out with his mother-in-law for the night and Todd was desperate for a break from newborn baby duty.
“A Corona with lime, kind sir,” I called out to the bartender. I leaned against the bar while I waited for my drink, giving the woman beside me my best you-want-to-have-sex-with-me smile. She was sipping on a red cocktail with a very thin straw. She was cute in a schoolteacher kind of way.
“That any good?” I asked, indicating her drink.
“It’s not bad if you like cherries,” she replied, giving me a brazen once over. “Do you like cherries?” she asked, sucking one into her mouth slowly. My eyes widened at her ballsy attitude. It wasn’t at all what I expected by looking at her.
I plucked a cherry out of her drink and popped it into my mouth. “I love cherries,” I said seductively, handing her the stem I had just tied with my tongue. It was a fun party trick that never failed to get a reaction from the ladies.
“Nicely done,” she giggled, angling her body closer to mine.
“I can do a lot of fun things with my tongue,” I informed her with a grin.
“Christ, I can’t leave you alone for a second, Hannah.”
My stomach tightened again. What the hell?
The girl’s friend had appeared beside her, long dark hair flowing behind her, low cut shirt revealing the right amount of creamy white skin. Her full lips were turned upward in a slight smile, probably because she hadn’t noticed me yet.
Hannah rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You’re such
a party pooper.”
I leaned in close to Hannah’s friend, my lips brushing her hair. “Hi, Marlena,” I whispered into her ear.
Lena jumped as if I had shocked her. She whipped around and stared up at me, her eyes widening and then narrowing in irritation, just as I knew they would. I had spent a long time studying Marlena Ducate’s reaction to things. “I should have known Hannah would zero in on the biggest douche in the room.”
At her words, I felt a flash of something that felt too much like hurt. I pushed it away with an effortless smile. “Are you jealous I wasn’t saving all of my attention for you?” Lena made a face. “I don’t operate under the delusion that you save your attention for anyone at all. You’re too busy giving it away to whoever wants it.”
Hannah looked from Lena to me, a knowing look on her face. “I take it, the two of you know each other.”
“Unfortunately,” Lena muttered.
I slung my arm around Lena’s shoulders, squeezing her tight against my side. Her entire body went stiff and I tried to ignore the way she fit perfectly against me. I had learned years ago that she and I clicked a little too well. That was a big part of the problem. “The beautiful Marlena and I are old friends.”
“For the millionth time, stop calling me Marlena,” Lena growled, wiggling out from beneath my arm.
“This is Jeremy Wyatt, Adam’s other partner at the law firm,” Lena told her friend by way of introduction.
I held my hand out to Hannah, who shook it with a surprisingly firm grip. She lifted an eyebrow. “Ah, the jackass.”
I gave a pained chuckle. “The jackass? Come on now. You couldn’t think of a better descriptor? What about devastatingly handsome? Or the one with the genius level IQ? I’d have settled for the man with the quick wit and unfailing charm.”
Lena huffed, turning her back on me in order to get the bartender’s attention. “To say any of that, it would have to be true.”
Ouch.
“Now, darling, don’t go all Taming of the Shrew on me.” I gave Hannah another smile and a shrug as if to say, ‘she’s ridiculous, but what can I do?’
Hannah gave me a strange look before turning to Lena. “Watch my drink, will ya? I’m hitting the ladies.” She gave me a final once over, then a wave, before leaving me alone with the she-devil.
Given that I was still waiting on my Corona, I sat down on a stool beside Lena, who was making it a point not to look at me. Since her attention wasn’t on me, I took the opportunity to let my eyes drink their fill. Because, goddamn Marlena Ducate was a beautiful woman.
It had been the first thing I noticed about her all those years ago. But then I came to see that there was an amazing mind lurking underneath all that shiny hair and perfect skin. When she had come to work at the firm, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Our introduction years before hadn’t gone very well, so I wasn’t necessarily on board with the little sister hanging around. But Adam spoke glowingly about her of course, though I figured he was speaking from brotherly bias. I remembered her being sexy and sweet and she knew her shit when it came to the players in the town of Southport. But would she work as a paralegal? I wasn’t so sure.
That was before she proved how amazing she really was.
And she hated me. Despised me. Wanted to crush me beneath the heel of her sexy Manolo Blahniks.
I knew why. I had been callous toward her. I knew she had been interested in me back when I first met her. That night at the law firm’s launch, I hadn’t expected Adam’s younger sister to be so gorgeous and entertaining. I hadn’t expected to enjoy talking to her as much as I had. But she had been a naive undergrad and I was fresh out of law school and thought no one could touch me. I had liked her. I was ungodly attracted to her. I had wanted to bed her the second I laid eyes on here.
And Adam, being the perceptive guy he was, picked up on that instantly. He was not amused and there may have been a pretty specific threat of physical harm. Not that I thought for one minute the guy could take me, but I respected Adam and I would never have compromised our partnership.
I had humiliated her. I knew that. I felt shitty about it but it had happened and there was nothing I could do to change the choices I had made. So, when she came to work at the firm last year, Adam’s warning still rang loudly in my ears, no matter how much I lusted after his very luscious younger sister.
But then something had changed. For a brief moment, Adam’s warning didn’t matter. But it wasn’t meant to be and that was just as well. I didn’t have time for what Lena so obviously wanted.
I wasn’t a hearts and flowers kind of guy, no matter how much Marlena Ducate wished I was. It was best to show her the worst of me so that she would never long for the best because that would only end in heartbreak. And probably a broken tibia or two.
Her shoulders were rigid, her back upright. She was anything but happy to see me.
My stomach tightened again.
“Congrats on the graduation,” I said finally.
Lena didn’t even glance my way. “Thanks,” she shouted over the music.
“Sorry I couldn’t make it,” I added. I had every intention of going at first. But then I had thought about it…
Lena turned to look at me as if she wished she didn’t have to. “Yeah, I heard you had prior commitments.” She pointedly looked around the crowded club. Her talent at calling me on my bullshit without saying a word was impressive.
I allowed myself to inch closer to her. Not too close or I’d end up with a knee to the junk. “Did you get my card?”
Lena nodded. “Yeah,” she replied distractedly.
Okay then…
Her deep blue eyes homed in on me suddenly and I felt trapped by them. “I also got the other gift.”
The other gift? I stood there dumbfounded and confused, the alcohol I had consumed making it difficult to think clearly.
Lena gave me an exasperated look. “The offer?”
“Right. The offer.”
When Adam had broached the subject with Rob and me about offering Lena a position at the firm, I had been hesitant. Sure, we had been talking at length about bringing on an associate or two now that our caseload had exploded. But that didn’t mean I’d jump in with both feet at the idea of hiring her. I hated to admit that the reasons were completely personal because Lena was going to be a fantastic attorney. She was one of the most brilliant people I had ever met. Her work on the Gibson case had been the reason Adam had gotten the acquittal. She would be a hell of an asset and we’d be lucky to have her.
But she hated me. And I wasn’t sure what I felt for her. Only that I loved pushing her buttons and she seemed to get off on stomping all over mine. I wasn’t sure our complicated dynamic would work in a professional environment long term.
But then I had thought about it.
Remember what I said about me and thinking?
So, the three of us had put together an offer—an incredibly generous one too. We had talked for months about bringing on an associate to help with the workload and we were finally at a point where financially we could make it work. On paper, it made sense to offer the associate position to Lena. After all, she had been working at the firm, she knew us, she knew the cases, she knew the community.
It was too bad she was such a ball breaker.
“It’s not exactly a gift. It’s not as if you’re being handed the position.” I didn’t like her insinuation. “You’re a hard worker and we like your style.” I gave her a purposefully lewd look. “You know I do.”
Lena rolled her eyes. “It’s a good thing I don’t take anything you say seriously, otherwise I’d have to start using words like harassment.” She gave me a sickeningly sweet smile. She sure knew how to take a guy out at the knees.
“So, you’re accepting our offer?” I asked her, noting how the bartender brought her drink even though she had ordered after me. I tried to get the bartender’s attention, but no luck. Must have been my lack of tits. Prick.
She had ordered two sh
ots of tequila. I was surprised. I took her for a fruity drink girl like her friend Hannah.
I watched her knock one back and then the next, all without wincing or making a face. She drank like a pro. Then she ordered two more. Color me impressed.
“You might want to take it easy,” I said with some concern.
Lena rolled her eyes again. “I’ve been drinking long enough to know how to take care of myself. But thank you for the suggestion, I won’t take it under advisement.” She downed another shot and turned around. She wobbled slightly and I reached out to take hold of her arm to steady her.
My fingers wrapped around her thin wrist and I could feel the flutter of her pulse. Was that because of me? Her pupils dilated slightly, and her lips parted. I found myself looking at her mouth longer than I should.
“I’m fine,” she rasped, her voice hoarse, pulling her arm from my grasp. I immediately let go.
It was on the tip of my tongue to give her a schmoozy retort along the lines of “Yes you are,” but I didn’t. Even if I would have gotten immense satisfaction out of annoying her, this was her night. Her celebration. And she deserved to have a good time.
The bartender finally brought me my beer and I downed it in one go while Lena took her last shot. “Maybe I should get the next round. Perhaps a Cosmo or whatever fruity drink girls like,” I suggested.
“A Cosmo is a bitch drink. But I’d understand if you’d like one though.” She was needling me. Pushing my buttons with the edge of her stiletto heels. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat of the room and the alcohol. She swayed slightly on her feet. I wanted to reach out to hold her again—so she wouldn’t fall over of course—but I kept my hands to myself.
“So, you’re taking the offer,” I said again, ignoring her snarky remark and trying to get her to focus. Though this time I said it as a statement, not a question. She didn’t answer right away so I gave her my cocksure smile. “Unless you’re afraid it’d be too much for you.” Okay, so maybe I did want to goad her a tiny bit.
Match meet fire…
Lena’s blue eyes flared, and she bared her teeth in a ferocious smile. “I’m not afraid of anything, Wyatt. You should know that about me by now.”
Say You Love Me : An Enemies to Lovers Romance Page 4
