One Last Time ?: Bad Boy Bachelors of Orange County BK 1

by Gray, Khardine

  He stood up. “That part sent me here. It wants to walk on the beach like normal people who just want to enjoy the day and get to know each other. It also wants some context to what sent you to the bar last week, more context to the cheating ex story.”

  I straightened and gazed at him. “Is this the nice part of you? I’m not sure I want to get to know that part and then get the asshole part tomorrow.”

  He looked a little thrown by that. “There was a reason for that part of me.”

  That was an interesting thing to say. “A reason?”

  He stood up and nodded. “A reason.”

  “Do I get to hear it?”

  “Come walk with me, and maybe I’ll tell you.” His gaze drifted over me and seemed to touch me everywhere, like invisible fingers caressing my skin.

  This felt like it could be a bad idea, but something compelled me to go. A simple walk on the beach wouldn’t kill me. I’d go for a little while, then come back.

  “I’ll go get dressed,” I stated.

  A smooth, cocky masculine smile slid across his lips, and desire filled his eyes when I stood up. “I’ll wait.”

  I got the feeling that this was going to be one interesting afternoon.

  Chapter 9

  Taylor

  * * *

  I liked when the beach was like this. Quiet with a few people here and there.

  Dylan and I had walked out to the beach and were heading down the path to the rock pool.

  “You should go first,” Dylan said, glancing at me with a smirk.

  “What do you want to know?” I asked.

  “About the ex you compared to an ax murderer.”

  “I caught him cheating on me with his girlfriend,” I began.

  He narrowed his eyes. “Girlfriend?”

  “Yes, he had a girlfriend.”

  “Did you know about her?”

  “No, not until I caught them in bed and she told me.”

  “What?” He raised his brows. “You actually caught him in action?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Great, right?”

  “That really sucks. Sorry that happened to you.”

  “It’s okay. I’m over it.” I said that like I really was over it. The thing was, I actually was over the part about my feelings for Brody. The hurt was still, however, there. It would sting for a while.

  “Really?” He narrowed his gaze at me. “Just like that? All that drinking, and just over a week later, you’re fine?”

  “I’m not fine. I just think there are certain things in this world that people do, and once it’s done, everything you felt for them goes with it.”

  “Didn’t you love him?”

  He’d already asked more questions than my sisters had. Maybe because they knew the only guy I’d truly ever given my heart to was Nick. My relationship with him didn’t end that long ago. If I were to say that I loved anyone, it would have been him. I’d been more careful since. I dated two guys before Brody, then, when he came along, I just kept my heart on a leash.

  “I didn’t get to that stage. I was serious though. I wanted to be with someone who wanted a relationship.” It was strange talking about my feelings for Brody to Dylan when only nights ago, I’d kissed him like I wanted to consume him.

  “Is that what you want, a nice relationship guy?” He quirked a brow.

  “No, I don’t care about that anymore.”

  He laughed like I’d said something funny. “What does Taylor Cartwright care about?” He stopped and looked me over.

  I stopped too, and the wind picked up my hair.

  “I don’t know. I’m not perfect like you, with my life figured out. Right now, I don’t even have a handle on my job.” I folded my arms.

  “You don’t have to worry about your job. I told you I’ll fix it.” He nodded. I wasn’t sure how the hell he planned to fix the situation because I knew what Dad was like. But I’d let him try. “And I’m not perfect.”

  I looked at him and mentally disagreed. “Dylan Patterson of Patterson Inc. So, family business.” I hadn’t looked up Patterson Inc. and done the background checks I would have normally done if I were in my usual state of mind. Dad picked them, so that was enough. They had to be above the rim good. “I’m guessing your father owns the company, or a relative, and you’re the pompous face of the organization making sure every single cent is accounted for. God, maybe it’s you who owns the company. So, you could be one of these guys who made his first million at eighteen, and you plan to increase your net worth tenfold by the end of the year. I’m guessing you went to an Ivy League university, were an ace at everything, and God forbid if you ever got drunk and were a minute late for work. In fact, I peg you for drinking orange soda or something like that. Never alcohol. And you probably don’t have a girlfriend because your parents want you to be with some Jackie O. Stepford-wife type.”

  I thought I was right. Completely right. Nothing was wrong with any of it, but it meant that when mingling with someone like me, he’d come across as an asshole who wanted to change everything.

  At first, he just looked at me, but then he started laughing. Really laughing. It was a good sound. A sound I could have gotten used to.

  “Am I right?” I widened my eyes at him. “And I’d bet you went to Princeton or Harvard. Didn’t you?”

  “Columbia, and I barely made it to graduation. You couldn’t be more wrong about me if you tried. Not that long ago, a night wouldn’t pass without seeing me drunk out of my mind and turning up for work looking it. I don’t have a girlfriend because I’m the perpetual bachelor who believes in-no-strings attached relationships, and yes, my father owns Patterson Inc., but I’m definitely not the face of it. This job with you is… a chance. A chance to redeem myself and show I can be trusted.”

  This was very interesting and piqued my interest even more. I couldn’t imagine him being the way he described, him having to show he could be trusted. That sounded like he’d done something.

  “Why would you need to show you can be trusted?” I giggled.

  “This is completely off the record because I shouldn’t be telling you this.” He got this half-uneasy, half-cunning look on his face that raised my curiosity even more.

  “Oh my God, what is it?” I beamed.

  “I’m a completely different person at work because I have to be. Let’s just say I haven’t always been professional.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “What does that mean?”

  “I didn’t always treat my father’s clients with… the professionalism I should have. In the sense that I… I used to sleep with them.”

  My mouth dropped, and all I could do was glare.

  “What?” I gasped.

  Now, he looked embarrassed. “Yeah.”

  “So, wait… Did your father know?”

  “He caught me. That wasn’t my finest moment at all. A lot of stuff happened along the way, but I promised him I would never do that again. I was the best person to work with you because of my expertise in PR and marketing. It was a no-brainer to send me, but only if I promised to keep my pants on.”

  I laughed but stopped and sucked in a sharp breath as I remembered that ‘Will you sleep with me’ question of mine at the bar. I must have shocked him more than I’d thought. More than the average shock since it was the very thing he wasn’t supposed to do.

  “Oh my gosh, this is unreal. I’ll bet you never expected the first conversation you’d have with me to be sex related.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t.”

  “You sound like the wild child.” I chuckled.

  “Let’s just say I was a little wilder a few years back.”

  I smiled at the thought of that. “A few years back? You make that sound like a lot of years. Like, how many?”

  “Now we’re getting into dangerous territory.”

  “Are we? How old are you?”

  “Thirty-two.”

  He didn’t look like thirty-two. He looked more like my age, but I liked that he was older.<
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  “You look younger than that.”

  “Thank you.”

  “So, why is it dangerous territory?” I had to know. “It wasn’t a few years back, was it?” I gave him a curious look.

  “No… it wasn’t.”

  I laughed. “Oh my gosh. So, you are human?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “I want to hear more about the wild version of you. That guy sounds like fun.”

  “Yeah?”

  I nodded. “Oh yes.”

  With a wicked glint in his eyes, he turned and started walking. I joined him, and he started talking again.

  “I almost lost my father a million-dollar deal because I got wasted before the meeting and insulted our investor’s wife,” he confessed.

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him she had a face like a dog’s ass and an ass like a whale.”

  I laughed. “You actually said that?”

  “Yeah.”

  * * *

  That little while I’d planned to walk on the beach with him turned out to be the whole afternoon. We stayed out until late, walked to the marina, and sat on the sand continuing the discussion until it got so late the place was quiet. I completely lost track of the time.

  It was nearly eleven when he walked me back to the house. My empty, sister-free house that was starting to get that way a lot these days.

  Dylan and I lingered on the porch still talking. I was amazed I’d spoken so much to him, and with such ease too, about nothing whatsoever to do with work.

  He’d just been telling me about his last vacation. It was a wild trip to Aspen. Silence then filtered into the space between us, and it was that natural pause in the moment that should have given me the chance to say good night. Except, I found I didn’t want to. I should, but that part of me that had kissed him the other day had gotten completely sucked into him and his wild personality. His wild no-strings-attached personality that lived the kind of life everyone I knew did.

  The corners of his mouth turned up into a smooth, sexy smile as he looked at me.

  “Thanks for today, Dylan. I never expected to spend the whole evening with you. You’re not half bad.” I nodded.

  He laughed. “Not half bad? I gave you my best stories, and that’s all I get.”

  “Okay, you’re not that bad at all, then. It was nice to meet this version of you.” It was. If only for tonight. “FYI, you seem more human like this. I could almost like you.” I leaned against the smooth wall.

  He moved closer and rested his hand above my head. “Almost? Is that the part of you that kissed me talking?”

  “You kissed me. That was your fault.” I chuckled.

  “You kissed me back, a lot. If your dad hadn’t come in, that would have been my ass fired.”

  I gasped and pretended to be surprised. “Dylan Patterson, are you suggesting that kiss would have turned into more?”

  Under the porch light, his eyes held a sheen to them, but when the normal light blue of his eyes darkened with sinful, sensual desire, I absolutely noticed.

  “Yes, I had that naked image of you in my head. There was no turning back. Are you saying it wouldn’t have turned into more?”

  I wouldn’t even try to tamp down what I’d felt that night, but I thought I’d do a little more teasing and make him think otherwise. “No, and… now that I know that and your unique circumstances with your clients, it would be very wrong of me to tempt you and keep you out so late on a school night,” I teased, running my fingers leisurely over the hard wall of his chest. When I stopped and tried to move past him, he caught my arm, pulling me back.

  “Really?”

  I smiled back at him playfully, like I could really play with him and tease him and do nothing, but I was kidding myself. That pull of wild chemistry rippled within me. It had been present all through the evening. It started with a sparkle in the pit of my stomach and grew as time went by. Now, it was full blown and coursing through my body with savage energy, which only intensified as he lifted my chin and lowered his head toward me, slanting his mouth over mine.

  A blast of electricity scorched my nerves as soon as his lips brushed over mine. It took me by complete surprise. I’d assumed this was going to be like the kiss from the other night.

  I was very wrong.

  This kiss tasted like wild need, filled with that wildness he spoke about. Raw, intense urgency stoked by carnal ferocity that stirred my soul and compelled me to yield to the hunger that took me.

  Hunger for more.

  Pure undiluted pleasure pulsed through my veins as his hot tongue tangled with mine in a desperate dance that lit up my body with the urgent need to possess him. The kiss turned unimaginably hungrier, and damn it, the evil creature he was pulled away from me, much to my annoyance, leaving me gasping, my mouth burning from the heat of the kiss.

  He stepped back.

  “I should go,” he breathed.

  “Should?”

  “That wasn’t the kind of kiss we say good night to.”

  That wasn’t the kind of kiss I wanted to say good night to. “Do we?”

  He raised his brows, and that desire came back to his eyes. “I should.”

  That whole no-strings-attached mantra he’d sold me earlier started singing in my mind, much louder than that whole client thing, and I remembered my new resolution. No more of these so-called nice guys who took advantage of me. Just for once, I’d like to see what it was like to be like my sisters and be with the no-strings-attached guy.

  “Because of work?” I offered.

  “Yeah.”

  I stepped up to him. “What if… what if I was the one who slept with you? You could hardly be blamed for that.”

  His eyes widened. “Fuck.”

  “I know, it’s perfect, right? I could even do all the work.” I thought I would drive him crazy by saying that. “Just one time, and we could say it was my fault.”

  I didn’t know where I got this bravado from, but I liked it. I liked this new version of me, and she wasn’t going anywhere.

  He cupped my face and trailed his thumb over the curve of my jaw, sending shivers of delight all over my skin.

  “Can’t let you take all the blame, Taylor.” Molten desire filled his eyes

  “No?”

  He tilted my face up. “No, it would be wrong because I don’t want you to do all the work.”

  I smiled, stepped away from him, and opened the front door. “Well, then, Dylan Patterson, do you want to sleep with me?”

  That sinful smile that washed over his face as he came inside curled my toes, then the earth-shattering kiss he pressed to my lips gave me my answer. Bone-tingling and wild with passion, he kissed me with greedy possession.

  Lost in the kisses, we moved into the living room, where he pinned me against the wall. The little night-light came on in the corner, bathing us in a soft sexy glow that was just bright enough for us to see each other.

  Eager for him to explore me, I pressed my head into the wall when his mouth moved from my lips, placing fiery kisses all along my neckline and down my chest, where he bunched up my little dress. He gave me a devilish smile when the straps fell down my shoulders, exposing the swells of my breasts.

  “Take your clothes off for me, Taylor, the way you did the other night. I want everything gone.”

  I stepped out of my pumps, gathered the dress at the hem, and pulled it over my head. It loosened the band holding my hair up in a ponytail, so as my dress came off, my hair tumbled down my arms in long waves.

  He stared at my breasts and ran his finger down the line of my deep cleavage and across the swells pulsing through the black lace of my bra.

  While he did that, I snapped the little butterfly clasp open and shrugged out of it. Pure sex heated up his eyes as my breasts spilled out and swayed toward him.

  He continued to watch in satisfaction when I stepped out of my panties, and raw hunger seeped into his smile when I straightened, naked before him.


  “Is this what you want?” I asked inclining my head to the side.

  “Yes, every inch of you, mine for tonight.”

  “Tonight?” I asked, tugging on his shirt.

  “One night. Tonight. All night.” He pulled his shirt over his head, unveiling his fantasy body.

  I had to take a moment to stare because he was so perfect.

  Dylan was all hard muscle. The kind that was comparable to the military types I’d seen Mia with, but his held an athletic beauty and craft with deep contours and planes that made my mouth water from the sheer gorgeous perfection.

  That smile of his returned, and he cupped my breasts, lowering his head to nuzzle his face between them, then kissing his way over to my left nipple, which he took into his mouth.

  I pressed my head right back into the wall, arching my back as he sucked and licked at the tip, working them to life. While he lapped away at that one, he played with the other, taking it between his thumb and forefinger.

  He sucked harder and deeper before he moved to my right breast, which he gave the same attention.

  A sharp gasp escaped my lips as the sensation built, and I grew so wet I was sure I was leaking. As if he read my thoughts, he slid his fingers right between my thighs and paused his wild suckle to smile at me. I moaned when he pressed deeper into my pussy.

  “Good girl, you’re so wet for me,” he said in a husky voice, crouching down and placing kisses all over my stomach, working his way down.

  As he pulsed in and out, I could hardly breathe, much less think to answer. He pushed in a second finger and started finger fucking me, and I writhed and moaned against his hand, lost in the erotic sensation.

  “Dylan…” I moaned, grasping on to his shoulders. “It’s too much. I’m coming.”

  The mindless ecstasy gripped me, overwhelming me with passion. Blissful, blistering pleasure surged through me, and I knew the greedy orgasm that was coming for me would tear me in two.

  “Come for me, Taylor,” he said, speeding up his pace.

  I came right there on his hands within seconds, and he shocked me by pulling his fingers out then licking them clean.