by Serena Grey
He’s not done. “And I wasn’t ‘flirting’ with anyone. So there’s no reason for you to be jealous.”
“There’s no reason for me to be jealous,” I retort, angry at myself because he was right I had been jealous. “Why would I be? You’re just some guy I’m having sex with, for now.”
His jaw tightens and I falter. The words are so far off from what I really feel that I almost take them back, but my resentment wins and I don’t.
“Thanks for clearing that up,” he says quietly.
I fold my arms, stubbornly meeting the anger in his eyes. “It should never have been in doubt.”
“Of course not,” his movements are jerky as he starts to loosen his tie. “After all, only a few days ago you were entertaining your ex-boyfriend. Were you ironing out your issues? Deciding that you’d made a mistake agreeing to come here with me? Arranging how to get back together once this pesky little situation with me was out of the way?”
“Maybe we were,” I spit at him.
His face hardens. “Then you must be a glutton for punishment,” he says scornfully. “Why don’t you go to him now? Pack your bags, the plane will take you to join him wherever he is. You might have to compete with another woman for his attention, but it wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”
The things he’s saying, the disdain in his voice…. I swallow my hurt. “Fuck you, Landon.” Turning on my heel, I start to leave, but he stops me with a hand at my waist, pulling me against his body.
“I have and I will,” he grates. “You’re not going anywhere, Rachel. You’re going to stay here and I’m going to make you come, over and over, with my hands and my mouth, and then I’ll fuck you properly just to remind you that when you’re with me, there’s no room for him.”
With his proximity and his words, my body has already turned to liquid desire, but I’d rather die than give in to him. “Why are you so concerned about him,” I ask heatedly. “Why do you care so much?”
“Why?” he threads his fingers in my hair and lifts my face to his. With his other hand, he gathers my dress up, his fingers finding their way between my legs. “Because right now, you’re mine.”
His fingers start to stroke me through my panties, the sensual gleam in his eyes, telling me that he’s aware of how wet I already am, how much I want him, even now. His fingers move and my hips grind involuntarily. “I’m not yours,” I spit at him.
“Aren’t you?” He pulls the crotch of my panties aside, his fingers moving over my wet sex. “You’re so turned on,” he continues, before plunging his fingers inside me, making me gasp in shock and pleasure. With his other hand, he unzips my dress, freeing the bodice enough to pull it down along with my strapless bra. My breasts are heaving, the pink tips fully extended. A sound escapes him, the mixture of aggravation and arousal equal to what I’m feeling. “Does he make you feel like this?” Landon continues, his fingers driving me crazy. “Does he make you so hungry to fuck even when you know you should be angry?”
I can’t think past his fingers inside me, his hot mouth as he bends to take a nipple between his lips. But I’m not ready to let go of my anger. “Maybe he does,” I taunt, “maybe I’m thinking about him right now.”
His hand stiffens, and I feel his fingers press deeply inside me, until I can feel his knuckles pressing against the wet surface of my sex. Involuntarily, my hips roll, rubbing my body against his hand.
“You don’t mean that,” he cautions.
“Don’t I?” I force a breathless laugh. “Maybe you think you’re the only one who’s allowed to be an ass.”
He releases me, his fingers pulling out of me as he lets my dress fall back to the ground. I sway slightly, unable to balance on my feet, and my hand reaches out to steady myself on the back of the sofa. My body is pulsing, inches away from coming, my exposed breasts aching with each heavy breath I take.
His face is tight with control, and I can see the hard ridge of his erection in his pants, but he makes no move towards me. He’s really going to leave me like this.
Furiously, I reach behind me and pull down the zipper of my dress all the way, tearing it off, and bundling it a huge ball before I throw it at Landon’s face. “Fuck you.” I hurl the words at him.
He advances towards me, his movement lightning quick. One moment he’s standing in front of me, the next, I’m bent over the back of the sofa. “I already said I was going to,” his whisper is rough against my ear.
I hear the sound of his buckle, and the ripping of fabric as he tears off my panties. The next moment he’s probing my wet sex with his cock, giving me no warning before he plunges deep inside me.
There’s no gentleness in what he’s doing, and it’s exactly what I need. He fucks me hard, pulling my arms up and pinning my wrists together. With each thrust, my nipples rub roughly on the leather of the sofa. I feel helpless, boneless, as if nothing matters but his cock inside me, stretching me, stroking me, setting me on hot, sweet fire.
He bends over me, reaching for my hair, and turning my head to the side.
“Look at me,” he commands.
I do as he says, crying out with each hard thrust. His face is drawn into an expression of stark arousal. “I want you to be sure who’s fucking you right now,” he says, his voice rough as he pumps hard into me.
My eyes glaze and I let out a long moan. “Don’t stop,” I beg.
He releases my hair and squeezes one of my breasts. “You like it, don’t you?”
My hips are shaking. “I love it,” I moan, close to coming.
“Fuck! Rachel,” he groans loudly, growing harder inside me. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
The helpless arousal in his voice sends me over the edge. I cry out, my legs giving way as I come. He continues to pound into me, his hand tightening on my breast, and a deep growl tearing from his lips as he explodes inside me.
He buries his face in my hair. “Rachel.” He says my name as if it’s a prayer. “God, Rachel. You have no idea how you make me feel. No idea how crazy you make me.”
My brain is foggy, unable to focus, but his words penetrate my clouded mind. How I make him feel?
He pulls me up, gathering me into his arms. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I lost my head for a moment. But thinking about you with him, remembering you two having that cozy moment at the lounge the day I returned from New York… It makes me feel…” he searches for the right word.
I remember what I’d felt earlier, when he was talking with Davina Bledsoe, and I turn my face to look up at him. “Jealous? Possessive?”
He chuckles. “Crazy. Enraged?”
I sigh, confusion and sadness taking over me. He hurt me by dismissing me when I asked about his dreams, and he hurt me again by throwing Jack in my face. I had hurt him too, by taunting him with Jack. But we shouldn’t have been able to hurt each other. The whole idea of our arrangement had been the sex.
I take a shuddering breath. “Landon,” I start softly, “You weren’t… We weren’t supposed to feel anything at all.”
“No,” he agrees quietly. “We weren’t.”
He’s still holding me, and in the warmth of his arms, I start to wonder what kind of chance we have after tonight. I was the one who insisted that our arrangement would only last for a week. But he’d agreed. Which had to mean that it was what he wanted too. Or did it?
I pull back from his arms. I’m naked, with only my bra hanging somewhere around my middle. He unhooks it, dropping it to the ground. It’s so clear in my mind that I don’t want this to be the end. I want to tell him that I want us to keep seeing each other. But I’m afraid. The last time I opened up to a guy emotionally, he threw my feelings back in my face.
Looking up at Landon, I know that if he ever rejects me, I won’t be able to bear it.
I link my arms around his neck. If this is going to be our final night together, then I want to make the most of it. Pulling his face towards mine, I start to kiss him. His hands tighten on my back, his fingers flexing as he pull
s me flush against him.
He lifts me off my feet, still kissing me as he carries me into my room, where he makes short work of his remaining clothes.
“I’m addicted to your body,” he says almost reverently, tracing his fingers over my arms. “I can’t get enough of you.”
I sigh and pull his face down so I can kiss him again. My whole body is trembling, not just from arousal, but because I feel so emotional, on the point of tears. I feel as if I’m breaking, and I just want him to touch me, to make me forget that the thought of losing him is driving me crazy.
He lays me on the bed, his mouth tracing a path from my lips to my breasts. He takes a nipple in his mouth, sucking deeply, while at the same time slipping a finger between my legs, spreading my wet lips, and sliding a finger over my clit. Of their own accord, my legs spread wider, opening up to him, and I hear him moan against my breast.
He looks up from my breast. “I love how ready you always are, how wet.” His voice is a seductive whisper as he continues to play with my clit. His eyes are looking deep into mine, inviting me to drown in their depths even as his fingers work between my legs, driving me to another round of sweet helpless pleasure.
“Yes,” I moan, moving my hips. He lowers his head back to my breasts, moving his mouth from one swollen nipple to the other, grazing the aching skin with his teeth.
He plunges his fingers inside me, then pulls them out, slowly, while my body clenches around them, aching for more. I feel his erection against my leg and I almost come just from the thought of him inside me again.
Removing his fingers from between my legs, he moves lower on the bed, stroking the insides of my thighs lightly before wrapping his hands around them and holding them apart while he bends his head to stroke me with his tongue.
I almost explode from pleasure. His tongue moves in sure flicks, licking my clit, then sucking deeply on it. Heat spreads like flames through my body, incoherent pleas escaping my lips as I beg him never to stop. When his fingers join his tongue, I feel as if I’m hovering on the point of madness. My fingers grip the sheets. My hips buck uncontrollably against his mouth, a tight scream escaping me as I lose myself in a bone shaking climax.
He lifts his head, watching my face as I recover. I rise from the bed, getting on my knees as I push him to lie on his back. His cock is erect, facing upwards like a thick, hard mast. Bracing my hands on his chest, I straddle him, slowly lowering my body until he’s completely sheathed inside me.
His hips grind upwards, a small groan escaping his lips. “You feel so good,” he says.
His hand grips my hip as I move up then slide back down. His lips open. “Fuck,” he breathes.
My body clenches around him as I ride him again. Sweat beads on my skin, and his low grunts blend with my soft moans. He grips my waist, holding me still as he braces his back on the bed, pounding his hips up at me. He’s fucking me so hard, so fast, making me a helpless mass of warm, hot pleasure. My body starts to pulse uncontrollably, and then I’m exploding, spiraling into a sea of nothing but pure ecstasy.
His hands tighten around my waist, his hips pumping as he thrusts deep into me with an explosive groan. The movement lifts my knees off the bed, and I feel the warmth as he spurts his pleasure inside me. I fall onto his chest and his arms cover me, holding me to him. I’m almost drifting to sleep when he moves, laying me on my side and pulling the covers over me. Then he picks up his clothes from the floor, putting on his pants before he leaves the room, and me.
WE leave for New York the next day, after spending the morning at the Gold Dust, which, in one week has made so much progress that to my eyes, it’s ready for the grand opening. I can only assume that Landon’s presence had something to do with the speedy progress, as the opening night is still weeks away.
Landon hardly says a word to me, even on the flight back. Apart from a few polite words, we might as well be strangers again.
What had I expected, after last night? We’d made love. He’d left, and it had obviously been his way of saying goodbye. Of telling me that whatever we had, it ended last night.
The truth is, I don’t feel like talking either. The less we say to each other, the less I’ll be tempted to dwell on the things we’d both said in the heat of our fight, and afterward. I don’t want to hope that maybe, just maybe we have something that can be parlayed into a real relationship. It’s safer to stick with the original arrangement, a short time together, and then a clean break. It’s what I asked for. It’s what I wanted. Only, now I don’t feel as if I’m getting what I want. I feel like I’m losing something I can never replace.
His driver is at the airport to pick us, the same one who took me to the airport when I was on my way to San Francisco. God! How different I’d felt that day, excited at what lay ahead, and confident that afterward, I’d easily be able to walk away.
How wrong I’d been.
On the drive to my apartment, the silence continues. The knowledge that getting out of the car would signify the end of what we had, fills me with something that’s close to panic. It’s unreasonable, and I push it to the back of my mind, concentrating on other thoughts, like how glad I’ll be to see Laurie. Anything, other than him.
At my building, as soon as the car stops, I reach for the door handle. Joe is already retrieving my things from the trunk to take them to my door. I don’t want to wait around in hope that Landon would say something to change the direction we’re going. The sooner I’m away from him, the sooner I can start to face the fact that whatever it is we had is truly over.
“Rachel.”
I pause, my hand still on the door handle as I turn towards him. It’s hard to look at his perfect face, the sensational body clad in another beautiful suit, and not feel excruciating pain at the fact that I’ll never get to touch him again. My mind floods with all the things I want, making me emotional. I want to him to tell me that he wants to see me again. I want to tell him that I wasn’t thinking right when I demanded that our arrangement would last only as long as the trip. I want him to tell me that we have something that’s much more than just sex. I want confirmation that I’m not the only one feeling something I didn’t plan to feel.
“Yes, Landon?” How I manage to keep everything I’m feeling out of my voice, I have no idea, but I manage to sound like I’m not dying inside at the thought of leaving the car, of leaving him. I even manage a small smile.
His eyes linger on my face. “About this past week…”
I pull in a sharp breath. Here comes the goodbye. This is where he would tell me that it was great, and dismiss me with a few nice words. There’s no need. He already said goodbye when he left my room last night.
“It was perfect,” I say quickly, interrupting whatever it was he wanted to say. I don’t want to hear the words that’ll tell me that he’s done with me. “Last week was exactly what I needed.”
He nods, then turns away from me. “I’m glad you had a good time.”
I open the door, then pause, and some instinct makes me turn back to him, lean over and place a light kiss on his cheek. His hand is resting on his knee, and I notice the fingers flex, but he doesn’t say anything.
“Goodbye Landon.”
“Goodbye Rachel.” When he turns back to look at me, the shutters are down, his eyes impersonal and so remote, I could be a stranger.
I leave him and walk into the building, going up to my apartment, where Joe has set my luggage on the floor by the door.
I give him a small smile. “Thank you, Joe. I can manage from here.”
He nods, and leaves me standing there. I let myself into the apartment, and Laurie flies into the living room as soon as I enter, running across the room to envelope me in a warm hug.
“I missed you!” she cries enthusiastically, before pulling back to look at my face. “Are you crying?” she asks with a frown.
“No, of course not,” I force a laugh. “I’m not that happy to see you.”
She sighs. “It’s him, isn’t it? What
happened?”
My voice is shaking with unshed tears, and suddenly I can’t hold them back anymore. “I don’t know. It went exactly as I planned. I have no idea why I’m so fucking sad.”
“Oh sweetie.” Laurie envelopes me in another hug. “Stop crying. Tell you what? Why don’t I get your bags inside, then I’ll make you something hot to drink, and then you can tell me all about it.”
YOU have feelings for him.
Those were Laurie’s words yesterday, after I told her everything.
I do have feelings for Landon. I’m hung up on him, strung out because of him. It wasn’t part of the plan, but somewhere along the way, the strong physical attraction I felt towards him turned to something else. Something that makes me think of little things about him and smile, even as the thought that I’ll probably never see him again leaves me close to tears.
I meet with Mark Willis in the morning, with a few other people from the features team, as well as the photography and copy people. We do a final walk-through of the article, then afterward I start the research for my next assignment, trying my best not to think about Landon.
Not that it helps. Every few moments, he creeps into my thoughts, leaving me wondering what he’s doing now, and if just maybe, he’s thinking about me too.
Probably not. More likely he’s busy acquiring another hotel and forgetting that he ever met me.
A few hours into the day, I use the office messenger service to send a package to Landon’s office at the Swanson Court Tower. It’s the jewelry he gave me in San Francisco. I’d forgotten to give them back to him before we left, and the staff had packed them with my luggage. I send them with regret, not because of their monetary value, but because he gave them to me.
I spent the rest of the morning working. At Lunchtime, Chelsea and Sonali invite me to join them so I can give them the dish about Landon Court. The office grapevine has been busy, especially since the pictures from the charity gala appeared online. They both plead and cajole, but I politely refuse, giving an excuse about having to finish up some work.
