by JJ Knight
But it definitely feels perfect now.
I rest my head on his shoulder and imagine that it really is 1925. He’s just a man and I’m just a girl who has caught his eye. The passion flowing between us promises everything. And we’re blissfully unaware a crash might be on the horizon.
Chapter 16: Hudson
I never want this night to end, to ever leave this illusion with Chloe.
But it will happen. The speakeasy isn’t open all night. Both the entrance and exit to this establishment are set by appointment. They don’t allow people to linger. The staff controls the flow in and out of the hidden room.
All around us, couples begin to drift away. The uniformed man arrives to discreetly stand beside them until it’s time to escort them through the door. I know it’s almost our turn.
The music slows down, softer, almost as if it’s drifting us into sleep. Chloe rests her head on my shoulder, and we rock together.
“Chloe,” I whisper near her ear.
She looks up. “Yes?”
I want to say something profound. I need the words to be perfect. I want them to carry us from this amazing night into whatever could be next.
Except I don’t know what to say. I’m not good with words. So instead, I lean down and kiss her.
Her lips are soft. Her small body moves with mine. My hand stretches almost the entire width of her back. I press her in a little closer to me. Then I break the kiss.
“Chloe, I’m not ready for this night to end.”
“Me either.”
“Come back with me,” I say. My voice is hoarse. “To the hotel.”
“Okay,” she says. “Yes.”
Relief floods through me. And then an electric zing of anticipation. She’s coming with me. She will be mine.
The music slows even further. I glance around. Only a few couples remain. The escort arrives beside us and clears his throat. “Do you have an item checked?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. I pass him the little note.
While he collects it for us, I dance with Chloe for these last moments. We circle the near-empty floor, our feet gliding along with the music.
The man returns with Chloe’s purse.
“It’s time to go,” I say to her.
She looks around, seeming startled that that the room has gotten so empty.
The man returns. Chloe hurries to pick up her rose from the table, clutching it to her chest like a prized possession. We’re led through the hidden door and outside, where my Ferrari waits. I tip him precisely what I have been instructed to do, one dime.
The valet nods at me, and I step into my car. Chloe is already inside, smoothing her dress. As we ride through town to my hotel, I pray she doesn’t change her mind. I wish I had thought to get a nicer place. The one where I’m staying is pretty low on the spectrum of hotels. But it’s what Chloe knows. To change it would have been to presume too much. It’s better this way.
We chat about the dances, the other people’s outfits, and speculate on how long we think the speakeasy has existed. We wonder if people do try to post about it and the references get taken down.
We pull up to the hotel. There’s no valet here. It’s not that sort of place. I park in the lot and hurry around to Chloe’s door. The way she looks up at me as I take her hand to lift her from the car makes my heart dance.
We cross through the quiet lobby and step into the elevator.
“Have you lived here long?” she asks.
“About three months. I lived with my brother and sister at first.”
“How long do you think you’ll be here?”
“Not much longer.” I don’t really want to elaborate, because that would bring up The Cure and his stipend. Another conversation we have to avoid.
The elevator stops with a lurch. We’re no longer in the elegant perfect world of the speakeasy. It’s back to my mediocre hotel and its crappy elevator and its lackluster decor.
We take our time walking down the hall. It isn’t easy to hold on to the magic we felt earlier now that we’re in these surroundings.
But Chloe squeezes my hand, and my worries start to calm. We belong together. I’ve known this from the first time she rolled down the window to her little yellow Bug.
I pull the key card from my pocket and open the door. Chloe steps inside first.
“I think I would go crazy living in a little room for months on end,” she says. She sets her purse and the rose on the dresser.
“I don’t spend a lot of time here,” I say. Before she can assume I’m always at a gym, I quickly add, “I’m at my sister’s house a lot.”
She looks around, as if trying to decide where to sit. I grab a glass from the dresser and fill it with water for the rose.
She watches me. “Tonight was amazing. I didn’t know places like Hobo Speakeasy existed.”
“I only know because of my friends.”
We both stand in the center of the room. Despite the strength of how I feel about her, I’m unsure of my next move.
Then I have it.
“Maybe we should continue the theme of the night,” I say, pulling out my cell phone.
Thank goodness for curated playlists. I quickly find a 1920s Pandora station. Luck is with me, because when the first slow jazz number begins to play, I recognize it as the last song we heard at the speakeasy.
“One more dance?” I ask.
I extend my arms, and Chloe slides into them.
Forget the speakeasy; Chloe is the magic. We move across the floor in small, close steps.
Her soft hair brushes against my neck as she lays her head on my shoulder. If I could freeze time in a moment, this would be the one. The quiet music is just right for the space. We’re so close that I can feel her heart beating against my belly.
I slide my hand up to the back of her neck. She sighs against me. Yes. This is exactly right. When it’s just the two of us, it’s perfect. Our differences are outside the door.
She lifts her head to look up at me, and I lean down for the lightest of kisses. Her lips part and the mood shifts, and before I can realize exactly how things have changed, I have both arms around her, pressing her against me, and our mouths melt into each other.
Chloe tastes of champagne and liquor. I smell her light perfume, the shampoo from her hair, and the faintest trace of smoke.
We continue to dance in easy steps as I kiss her. She pushes my jacket away from my shoulders. I let go of her so that she can slide it down my arms and drop it on a chair.
Her fingers work the buttons of the double-breasted vest. I didn’t realize how many layers we had between us until they begin to fall.
When the vest is with the jacket, only my cotton shirt and her dress separate us. I reach behind her for the zipper. It slides down with a gentle hiss. I trace my finger along the bare skin of her spine, and she shivers. I smile against her mouth, and I realize that once again she’s not wearing a bra. Maybe she never does.
I slip the dress off her shoulders. We pause in our steps as the heavy sequined dress drops to the floor.
“Let me get that,” I say. “It was your great-grandmother’s.”
We separate, and Chloe steps out of the dress. I bend to pick it up. I lay it carefully across the chair. When I turn back, the sight of her steals my breath. She wears tiny, dark gray lace panties surrounded with a garter. Small straps fasten to the top of a pair of barely-there stockings. They’re so fine that I never realized she was wearing them.
Her gray shoes have a small heel. And that’s it. Panties, stockings, and heels.
She’s like a fantasy.
I’m not sure I’ll be able to control myself at all.
Chapter 17: Chloe
I’m totally entranced.
I wonder if this is what it felt like for a young woman in the twenties. You break tradition, go to the speakeasy to drink and smoke cigarettes with strange men. You end up practically naked, a handsome man admiring you in his hotel room. You feel forbidden. Powe
rful.
Somewhere, your parents are weeping at your lack of propriety. You don’t care. This is what you want.
I almost wish for a cigarette in a long elegant holder, the burning ember red and hot.
Hudson stands there, taking me in. I feel my nipples tighten and the heat searing me between my legs. I’m that powerful, sexy girl. I can do what I want. Nobody can stop me.
“You’re a vision,” Hudson says. He takes a step closer, and now his hands are on either side of my bare waist. He can’t stop looking at me.
He kisses me again, and this time, his hands are everywhere. My back, my waist, my belly, sliding up to cup both breasts. His thumb crosses a nipple, and I suck in a breath against his lips. It’s been a very long time since Chad. I’m ready. More than ready.
The music shifts from one slow, easy number to the next. The girl who would defy tradition presses against the boy who has corrupted her. I move my hands to the buttons of his shirt. I want to feel and see and taste all the things I missed the night we met.
I push the shirt away. It catches on his wrists, and he pauses to pull out the cufflinks. It hits the floor. When we draw close again, the heat of his skin against mine is intoxicating. I’m absolutely swept away.
Hudson bends slightly and his arm slides behind my knees. He lifts me against his chest to walk across the room.
He sets me gently on the bed, his eyes on me as he kicks off his shoes and removes his pants. He wears fitted boxers, dark gray and edged with red.
“That’s underwear is not 1920,” I chide him.
“Then I guess we will have to get rid of them.”
“Let me,” I say.
He crawls over, and I slip my thumbs in the elastic band. Now I’m the one who can’t stop staring at his strong arms, bare chest, and lean belly. The backs of my hands bump against the hard plane of his abs. He’s the sort of man you only see in movies or on photos shared on Instagram.
But he’s real.
I slide the boxers down. He breaks free, hard and hot, to rest on my thigh. I reach down to stroke him, one end to the other. My eyes finally lift to Hudson’s. His jaw is tight with control.
He lets out a small growl, and his mouth lands on mine. My back arches up to him as his hands slide up my body. He breaks the kiss, making his way down, capturing one breast, then the other. He teases a nipple, his fingers slipping down to the hooks on the garter belt.
I feel one stocking, then the other, coming loose. He makes his way down to my belly button, dipping his tongue inside. His hands work swiftly, reaching down to remove one shoe, then the other. The stockings slide away.
His hands come to my hips, lifting me, as he removes the garter and my panties.
Then we’re both naked, and my body is practically begging for him to enter me.
He slides my legs apart and slips his fingers inside me. My body jolts up to him, pleasure flowing through me.
I close my eyes, lost in the magic and fantasy. We’re forbidden lovers, and that makes it all the more intense. He shifts down below my belly, and his tongue moves with his fingers.
I clutch at his hair. I’m lost, completely swept away. So many emotions and sensations spiral through my body that I can scarcely take it all in.
He works me intuitively, as if he’s known me all along and has figured me out. I start to go over the top, my hands grasping his head. I call out his name, over and over, the orgasm blasting through me to places long left dormant.
Hudson shifts, and I realize he’s sliding on a condom. Before I can come down at all, he’s inside me, and it all starts over again. He buries his face in the side of my neck, his powerful body working over mine.
I’m not sure where I am anymore. My legs wrap around him, and my arms clutch his back.
He moves with grace, not just in and out, but up and around, directions that make me gasp and suck in air.
I can barely breathe, and it seems possible I’m actually dead. I’m not even on the bed anymore, but hurtling through space. I tighten around him, and I’m lost again, calling out, and actually crying, tears streaming down the sides of my face. He holds me tight then, his body still, the small pulses against me telling me he is lost, too.
We cling to each other, soaring without boundaries, our breathing blending together as if we’re one person.
Only as Hudson curls me into me do I return to the covers and the pillows and the room.
Hudson withdraws slowly. I cover my face with my arm. I can’t stop weeping. How could he do this? Why is this so good?
Why is this so impossible?
He shifts beside me. “You okay, Chloe?”
I nod.
He moves my arm away and kisses my ear. “You’re amazing,” he says.
I can only nod. He pulls me close to him and shifts the sheets over us.
I turn in to his strong body and relax as he caresses my arm.
Why does this feel so right?
And now that I have him, how can I possibly let him go?
Chapter 18: Hudson
Chloe and I stop by her apartment for regular clothes before heading out for the promised doughnuts. She changes into little shorts and a tank top that make me want to carry her straight back to the hotel.
While we laugh and talk and argue the finer points of chocolate-frosted versus jelly-filled, I sense an undercurrent of reluctance to enjoy ourselves.
It’s not just her. It’s me, too. We both know that tomorrow I’ll return to the gym and she’ll go back to work. And those two things do not live in harmony. She’s out to stop what I love. And I have no intention of quitting my life’s work.
After our sugary breakfast that would’ve had Jo making me do push-ups for an hour straight if she knew, Chloe and I decide to walk around the park where we went for ice cream two nights ago.
The trail is busy late morning on a Sunday, but the magic is still there. Even if we’re not dressed up and drinking classic cocktails in vintage outfits, there’s still a sense that the real world is far away.
We talk about the dogs that pass, and how much they do or do not resemble their owners. Chloe points out flowers that she loves. I take pictures of them with my phone, secretly keeping a trove of information for future bouquets.
Assuming we have a future. As the sun gets high, and the weather turns too warm to walk as comfortably as we did an hour before, we return to my Ferrari.
“I should probably go home,” she says.
“You sure?”
She nods and looks out her window.
The drive is quick. When I pull up to her apartment, I ask her, “I guess you’re kind of busy during the week with protests and work?”
“Probably.”
I know this is the moment that I should mention that I’m planning to do a rematch with Face Wrecker next Friday night. But I don’t. I can’t have our wonderful weekend end with that ugly revelation.
“My door is open,” I say. “I hope I get to see you again.”
“Me too.” Chloe glances down at her hands.
“Can I text you?”
“Sure, that’s fine.”
“Will you answer this time? I mean, I can always call a SpeedRide.”
She gives me a small smile. “It will be fine,” she says. “Maybe our lives won’t always be the way they are now.”
I don’t know exactly what she means by that. Would she quit her job? Or maybe decline to bust the fight? That might not be an option. Her boss may require it.
But I’ll simply take her at her word. “I believe that,” I say.
She leans over for one last lingering kiss and then she’s out of the car, closing the door, and hurrying up the sidewalk to her apartment.
I wait until she has unlocked her door, gone inside, and closed it again. Only when I can no longer see her do I put my car in reverse.
Our team doesn’t normally work out on Sundays, but I have a few hours until the family dinner, so I head up to Buster’s gym.
Buste
r himself sits at the little desk by the front door. He looks up from his ledger and gives me a small wave. “Annex is open to the public,” he says. “Let me know if you want me to clear it out.”
“It’s fine.” I pass through to the weight room.
The gym is quiet midafternoon. Most of the weekend diehards will try to get it out of the way first thing in the morning, or will squeeze it in tonight. I pull on my gloves and head to the heavy bags. It feels good to punch something.
One, two.
One, two.
Kick, cross, jab, one, two.
I focus on the pattern and shut out everything else. Chloe. The lack of Chloe. Waiting to see Chloe again. Maybe never seeing Chloe again.
When I finally stop, the room is empty. I hear a faint buzz and realize that it’s my cell phone from my bag in the corner. I head over and pull it out. My heart hopes that it’s Chloe, but it’s not. It’s Jo.
Are you coming over to change or did you really take some suits yesterday? Leaving for dinner.
I check the time. Crap. Hours have passed.
I type out a quick note that I’m coming and shove the phone into my bag.
By the door, Buster hasn’t moved, still poring over his books. “See you tomorrow,” he says.
I run the distance from Buster’s to my hotel, my bag strapped to my back. It feels good to sprint flat out and really exhaust myself. I jump in the shower before realizing that unfortunately, I didn’t bring any suits other than the vintage one. Which means I still have to stop by Jo’s house. I’m going to be late.
When I finally arrive at The Cure’s house, no one seems to notice my tardiness. Dinner hasn’t begun yet. Bear is busy knocking down blocks onto the floor of the fancy living room. Parker is here tonight, and his daughter Lily sits next to Bear, assuming the role of builder to Bear’s destroyer.
Jo looks up at me for a moment, then away. I know she wants to ask me how things went last night with Chloe. But I’m not sure what to tell her. That I think I’m a goner for this girl? That I know it’s a mistake?
Parker sidles up to me. He leans in. “So, word on the street is that you agreed to do a rematch.”
