by Lucia Black
“So, about that hot date you were on. What’s his name?”
I laughed. “I never said I was on a hot date.”
“But you were.” Preston shifted to face me and brought his legs out from under the bar and moved them under my stool. With my legs crossed he placed his legs on either side of mine, caging me in. I guessed he probably needed more room because of his height, but the new position felt possessive, almost like he was claiming me, even though he wasn’t touching me. And it felt good.
“Okay, fine. I was on a date. But not a hot one. It was a lukewarm date at best.”
Preston laughed. “I knew it. I don’t know why you were trying to hide it.”
“Because I was out with someone else and now I’m here with you. I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”
The bartender returned with my order, placing it in front of me without a word before quickly moving along to another patron. I took a heavy drink.
“The only part about that sentence I care about is that you’re here with me now. I didn’t think this was going to happen, but I’m happy you called.”
I took a sip, and then another. “I am too. Maybe a little too happy,” I admitted.
He gave me a sly smile as if he already had me. “Help me out here, Moretti. What mistakes did this guy make so I can avoid them and keep you from running to a third date tonight?”
“This isn’t a date,” I said, but I couldn’t help the smile on face.
“Humor me,” he said and shrugged.
I laughed. “Nothing. He didn’t technically do anything wrong. He’s attractive and smart and I wanted to get to know him better, he just . . . he’s too nice. It feels forced. If that makes any sense? And not that I want a jerk, but I do want someone who takes what he wants.” The words came out and I couldn’t stop them.
I took a deep drink, feeling the warmth spread as the liquor moved through me. Preston abandoned his beer on the bar to place a hand on both of my hips. Between his legs and his hands, he had me locked in place. “What I want is to make you forget you were ever attracted to this other guy.”
I swallowed hard and then took a deep breath. “I think it’s working.” I’d like to think I was normally cooler than that, but between the pressure of the night and the drinks and not eating much of my dinner, I wasn’t feeling completely myself.
“Good. Because I don’t want to scare you, but I don’t want to play games with you either. I felt something that first night we met, and I really want to get to know you.”
His words were straightforward and sweet, and they undeniably mimicked the way I felt about him in return. “Preston.” I placed my hand on his knee. Instead of pulling away, he tightened his grasp on my hip. “I want that too, but—”
“Then the first thing you need to know about me is I’m a champion dart player. And this bar just so happens to have a nice little set up over there.” He pointed behind me to the wooden board on the wall. Beside the circular green bullseye in the center, all the other different sized and colored areas meant nothing to me. “And we’re playing.”
He hopped off the stool and offered me his hand.
“That hardly seems fair.” I downed the rest of my drink before getting up. “You’re a champ and I’ve never even played.”
“Well, I’m also an excellent teacher.” He led me to the board on the other side of the bar. “Do you want to be red or black?”
“Black.”
“Okay. Here.” He plucked the dart from its shelf and handed it to me. “Show me how you hold it.”
I pinched the dart between my fingers as if it were a pencil and then closed one eye to line it up with the board. With a quick sharp movement, I hurled the dart at the board. It hit the left of the center with a satisfying thwap.
“Not bad.” Preston nodded, impressed. “But try this.” He came up behind me and gently pressed himself into my backside. While holding onto my left hip, he brought his right hand up to mine and closed his fingers around my hand and another dart. “Don’t hold it so tightly.” He whispered in my ear. And don’t close your eyes. Now try again.”
Preston only moved away enough so I could throw the dart. I hit closer to center this time, but it still wasn’t a bullseye.
“There you go, Moretti. You’re a natural.”
Without picking up another dart, I leaned into Preston and let him hold me. I liked it. I liked it so much I wanted to turn around and kiss him. But I didn’t have the luxury of being able to do that. And what would he think of me when he found out who I was? He would be angry with me for letting things go this far.
I stepped out of his arms abruptly. “It’s getting late. I should probably go.”
He looked like he wanted to ask me a question, but he didn’t. Instead he nodded and said, “Okay. Let me drive you home.”
“No, it’s okay. I have a ride.”
Preston took my hand and led me back through the bar and to the front door. He had a much easier time opening it than I did. I took in a deep breath of the fresh air outside, no longer minding the breeze.
“I’m glad you called.” He hadn’t let go of my hand yet, and I didn’t have the resolve to tell him to.
He leaned in and pressed a kiss to my cheek. That feel of his lips sent vibrations through my body and made my core tighten in anticipation. He didn’t move his face away, instead, he kept his cheek to mine. All I had to do was turn my head just a little and we would’ve been kissing.
I pulled away.
“Me too, Preston.”
Chapter 8
I was screwed. I was irrevocably attracted to Preston. My nerves were frayed. I’d probably had too much to drink, and—
“It’s not a date, right?” Jimmy yelled as he came out of nowhere. One second the sidewalk was clear, and then the next he was standing there.
“And who the fuck are you?” Preston asked.
Jimmy ignored his question. “We’re going home.” He took me by the arm and tugged. I wasn’t ready for it, still in some kind of shock over Jimmy’s behavior and everything else, and I stumbled.
“Hey! Get your hands off her.” Preston reached over my head to grab Jimmy by the collar. I was stuck between them, wedged in like a rose between two thorns.
“It’s okay.” I put my hand on Preston’s chest. “He’s my bodyguard.” It wasn’t okay; I knew that, but the look in Preston’s eye told me he was ready to do some serious damage. The future vice president couldn’t get into a fight outside a bar. Even if Jimmy did deserve an ass beating.
“I don’t care who he is.”
“Get the fuck out of our business, dude.” Jimmy tugged on my arm hard and I yelped in pain as he tried to drag me to the car. “You’re a slut.” He hurled the accusation at me with hurricane force.
The next thing I knew, Jimmy was splayed out on the concrete while Preston stood over him.
He cupped my face in his hands. “Are you okay?” He turned my chin from side to side, his face was so close to mine.
I nodded my head. “Yeah. I’m fine. Can you get me out of here?” I was suddenly freezing despite the fire burning in my core. Preston punched Jimmy out for me. It turned me on more than it had any right to.
“Yes.” He wrapped his arms around me and steered me down the sidewalk. “Is that guy really your bodyguard?”
“Yeah . . .”
“You need a new one. I’ll take you home.”
Preston walked me to a sleek silver Aston Martin and carefully shut me inside like I was precious cargo. He settled into the driver’s seat. Despite the altercation being over, Preston’s body was still taut with tension in the way he clenched his jaw and gripped the steering wheel.
“Thanks for that, Preston. Jimmy has a temper, but he’s never acted like that before. I don’t know what got into him.”
He loosened his hold on the steering wheel and placed his hand on my knee. “No one can touch you like that. Ever.” He squeezed my knee. “Where’s home, Moretti?”
I rambled off my address while I texted one of Jimmy’s friends to go check on him.
“Remember when you said you weren’t mysterious? What you see is what you get?”
I laughed. “Yes.”
“You lied.” He squeezed my knee.
“You have no idea.”
“I have a feeling I’m starting to.”
“Well, what about you? Dive bars and punching assholes out in the street don’t seem to go with one hundred and fifty-thousand-dollar sports cars and running for vice president of the United States.”
“I’ll take a dive bar over one of those fundraisers any day.”
“I can understand that. There’s no pressure at one of those places. You just relax and have fun.”
“Right.” He paused for a long minute. “I guess I’ll have to give those up if Cal and I make it to the White House. I’ll have to give up a lot.”
I winced at the mention of Cal’s name. I had a lot to give up. We had that in common. “But you’ll be the vice president. Isn’t that someone in your position’s biggest dream?”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “But it’s not mine.”
I surveyed him as he drove, wondering where all the honesty was coming from. “Then why do it? What’s making you take this next step?”
“My family.” Preston glanced from the road to me. “Sometimes I think my dad only had a kid to guarantee a political ally.”
What he said was heartbreakingly and astoundingly relatable. “I know what you mean.”
“Oh yeah? Is your dad pushing you to run for office, too?” he teased.
“No. But he does try to control my whole life.” I was being honest. Too honest. More honest than was wise when I was hiding something so huge from him.
I placed my hand over Preston’s over to move it from my leg, but something wasn’t quite right. His fingers were too stiff. I picked up his hand and studied the blueish bruises already coming through.
“Your hand is swelling up.”
“It’s nothing.” He pulled his hand back, like he didn’t want me to see the extent of the damage.
We rolled to a smooth stop in front of my building and the idea of ending the night left me feeling dejected and unsatisfied. I didn’t want to stop talking to him.
“Why don’t you come up so I can get some ice on that hand? And I probably owe you a drink.”
“My hand is fine, but I do want to come up.”
As I unlocked the door, we made our way across the living room.
“Nice view,” Preston said, walking to the windows. I followed closely behind. The windows spanned the whole room from floor to ceiling and all the lights at night made for an impressive sight.
“I keep the lighting low so I don’t dim the view. Part of the reason why I love the city so much is there’s always something to look at. There’s always something going on.”
“You’re the kind of girl who would have plenty going on even if you lived in the middle of nowhere.”
I laughed. “You’re wrong about that. I’m very boring and quite content with it. All these things just happen to me. If I moved away from it all, I’d probably have infinite peace.”
He drew his eyebrows together. “What do you mean?”
“I have to be someone else, someone very specific, for my family. If I was willing to give them up and move away, I could be whoever I want.”
“Who do they want you do be? What do they want from you?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head. “I’m just being dramatic.” I couldn’t say anything more without giving anything away. “Make yourself at home while I get us something to drink.”
I made my way to the kitchen as my jumbled thoughts all vied for top billing. I had an almost good date with Cal that ended with cold rejection and a picture of what my future would look like. I asked Preston out for a drink. Jimmy nearly assaulted me. Preston decked him. And that was only one night. Could I honestly blame my family for everything when I’d brought so many of these problems on myself?
But the most pressing of all? Preston was sitting in my living room. His honesty in my world of lies was so appealing I didn’t want to give up the freedom I felt when I was with him.
I searched through my liquor cabinet until I found a bottle of Grey Goose. I poured myself a shot and downed it.
After the warmth of the shot spread through me, I fixed myself a vodka and soda and grabbed an ice pack and one of Jimmy’s beers out of the fridge for Preston.
He’d taken my words to heart. He spread out on the couch with both arms stretched out across the back. It gave me a full display of his body. The way the shirt hugged his torso and stretched across his muscles gave me pause.
I sat next to him and handed him the beer and ice pack. He ignored the cold pack and he let his right hand fall around my shoulders.
He took a drink and looked around the room. “I like your place. It suits you. It’s stylish and modern, but so high up its unapproachable.”
“If I’m so unapproachable, why did you have no problem asking me out? Even after I turned you down the first time.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean me. But I’d assume lesser men are scared to approach you.”
He had no idea. Between the bodyguards and my father’s reputation, I never got approached. “I might give off an intimidating vibe now and then.” I sipped my drink.
“You’re hard to figure out, Tessa. The fancy dresses and the swanky apartment—but you didn’t bat an eye at that shithole bar. You have a job and like your independence, but you’re tied to your family. Plus, nothing I’ve said tonight has shaken you.”
I moved in closer and inhaled his intoxicating scent. “You always say what you’re thinking. You have no idea how refreshing that is.”
“It doesn’t always go over well with everyone, but to get what you want out of life you have to let go of inhibitions. I don’t have time for bullshit and lies. Life is too short.” He let his hand fall from my shoulder to my lower back, just above the curve of my hip.
“I wish I was more like that.”
“Never too late to start.”
“I guess you would know. You are really old,” I teased.
“Ouch,” Preston drawled with a mock hiss, leaning away from me. “And she aims below the belt. It’s fine. I’m thirty-six. You’re what? Twenty-four? I should know better than to think a graduate student—”
“Hey!” I said and smacked his arm. “Now that’s below the belt.” He chuckled and I smiled. “Okay, okay. I’ll bite. What should I do first, oh wise one? Teach me your ways.” I chided and downed my drink in one gulp, setting the glass aside.
He leaned toward me again, but it felt much closer this time. His expression didn’t change as he kept his smoldering gaze on me, the moment becoming far more intense than it had been only seconds before. “Well, when I see what I want I have to go for it.”
“Do you see anything you want right now?” I whispered.
Preston’s stare darkened. He set his beer aside and took my chin in his hand. He brought his thumb to my bottom lip and slowly dragged it across. “These,” he breathed. “I want these.”
He pulled my face to his and crushed me in a kiss. I held his lips between mine for only a few seconds before I needed more and gently coaxed his tongue out of his mouth and into mine.
My body and my desires took over. I straddled him and let my knees sink into the plush cushions of the couch until I could press myself further into the growing bulge beneath me. Preston fisted his hands in my hair and pulled me closer as I let my hands explore the hard planes of his chest. When the thin fabric felt like too much between us, I managed to stop kissing him long enough to pull his shirt over his head.
My hands skimmed over his warm skin, tracing the deep outlines of his perfectly defined abs. I leaned forward to place a trail of kisses across his exposed shoulder, grazing my teeth over him with little bites.
Preston leaned his head back against the cushions and moaned.
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I ground my hips against him, feeling his cock throb against me. Preston brought my face back up to meet his lips and then tugged the top of my dress down and massaged my breasts through the lace of my bra, my nipples reacting instantly to his touch.
I shifted, my dress hiking up higher, and he pressed against me him. I leaned away from his kiss, reaching between us in an attempt to free him from his jeans, but I moved back too far and nearly fell off his lap.
He caught my arm and pulled me back in place. He studied my eyes. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” I breathed. I tried to go back to kissing him, but he stopped me.
“How much have you had to drink tonight?” Preston’s hands stilled as he looked at me, waiting for an answer.
“I don’t know. Not too much that I don’t know what I’m doing right now.” I moved in closer and kissed Preston’s neck. He didn’t stop me, but he didn’t react either.
“Tessa, maybe this isn’t a good idea.”
I felt like I’d been slapped. Cal’s rejection came back to mind, and Preston’s rejection stung far more than I wanted to admit. I pulled my dress up, scrambled off his lap, and stood. The movement was too quick, and my body reacted.
“I’m going to be sick.” I bolted for the bathroom, passing the one off the living room in favor of the privacy of the one in my bedroom.
I got to the toilet just in time to lose the contents of my stomach. I heaved, and then I heaved some more. There wasn’t much in there besides the alcohol, but my stomach contracted as if I had a seven-course meal to get up.
Preston had followed me and made my attempt at privacy useless. He crouched down next to me and piled my hair in his hands, rubbing my back as he spoke to me softly. “Get it all up. You’ll feel better if you do.”
I wasn’t in the position to make him go away, even if I was embarrassed. Eventually, the heaving stopped, and Preston gingerly helped me to my feet.
“We’ll clean you up and get you in bed and you’ll be as good as new in the morning.”
He kept one arm around me for support as he squeezed toothpaste onto my toothbrush, he carefully removed my dress and respectfully turned around as I got out of my underwear and into an oversized T-shirt, and he pulled the covers up all around me after I climbed into bed, mumbling my drunken gratitude.
