“Well,” I said. “This is fun, but I’ve got to get to my next appointment.”
Bobby pulled the door open, as if this had been the plan all along. “See you later, Anna.”
Alec passed through as well, but not without a long, hard stare at his coworker.
When we were alone outside, I turned on Alec, my temper brimming over. He cut me off before I could start.
“Stay clear of him,” he said. “He’s . . . trouble.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” I said. “Do you actually like these people?”
His jaw was still flexed with anger. Without asking, he took the massage table and flung it over his shoulder as if it weighed no more than a bag of feathers.
“It’s complicated.”
“Complicated,” I huffed. We’d reached my car, and I jammed the key into the trunk to unlock it. “You know what else is complicated? Your boss offering me hundreds of dollars for my loyalty, whatever that means. Your coworker asking for a happy ending in the middle of the living room. The fact that you and I have been sleeping together, and I don’t know where you live or what you’ve been doing all day or anything about your past.”
“Do you want to tell me about your past, Anna?” He tossed the table inside the back of my car and bent down so that his face was right in front of mine. “You want to tell me why you have a different address every three months?”
“That’s not fair,” I said. He was throwing the background check in my face, and even though I was fuming, I still felt the pull to slide closer. It was like this man was made of magnets.
“You want to know all about me without giving up anything in return. That’s not fair.” His gaze shot off to the side, and once again I couldn’t help but feel like he was hiding something.
I rocked back on my heels. “I’m late to see my next appointment. Call me later if you’re not working your way down the list of women your boss so kindly mentioned.”
He reached for my arm, but I whipped it back.
“Don’t run away,” he warned.
His words stopped me momentarily, but before he could see the tears in my eyes I’d retreated into my car.
He didn’t try to stop me from leaving.
*
“Double fudge or salted caramel?” Amy held up two cartons of ice cream from her freezer. I was sitting on her couch, curled up inside a blanket. My phone sat on the cushion beside me. Apart from a quick check-in from my dad, no one else had called.
“Double fudge,” I said.
“Uh-oh.” Amy brought two spoons and sat beside me on the couch. “Trouble in paradise?”
I couldn’t hide the frown anymore, not since Paisley had been put to bed. “How did you guess?”
Amy turned her spoon upside down and stuck it in her mouth. “Because if things were going well, you’d have chosen salted caramel and you’d be dishing about how great he is in the sack. That’s the sexy ice cream. Chocolate is for mopey mamas.”
I snickered. “I think you’ve missed your calling.”
“Fortune-telling and ice cream readings,” she mused. “That’s where the money is.”
I took another bite. She was right. Chocolate was pity-party ice cream, but that didn’t mean I was going to push it away.
“Apparently the money is in massage,” I said. When she motioned with her spoon for me to continue, I told her about what had transpired with Maxim Stein earlier in the day, ending with the part where he’d alluded to Alec’s man-whoring ways.
“So Alec’s had a lot of sex. Look at him. Of course he has.”
I took another bite. “That makes me feel so much better, thanks.”
“Obviously you’ve got something special, otherwise he wouldn’t be coming back.”
Another bite. “I’m not sure he is now.” As much as I tried to hold them back, one tear fell free.
Amy reached for my hand. I told her how Alec and I had argued outside of Max’s house. It felt good to get it off my chest, but more final in a way, too, like I was sealing our fate.
“Maybe you should call him,” she suggested. I looked at my phone, then kicked it off the couch. “Maybe he’s not telling you everything because he’s afraid you’re going to walk away.”
I stared at my phone on the floor. On some level I knew that was true, but I was too busy guarding my own baggage to consider what he was doing with his.
*
It was after ten when I’d finally gotten home and changed into my comfy clothes—a tank top and boxer shorts. It was impossible to get my mind off Alec; reminders of him were all over my apartment. The comforter on the bed was rumpled; he’d left a cabinet in the kitchen open. Even my shampoo was in a different place from where I normally left it. I’d picked up my phone half a dozen times, but couldn’t figure out what to say. Right when I’d settled on a simple Sorry, it buzzed with an incoming message.
Remember what I told you at the beach?
I closed my eyes. I want you, Anna. I want all of you.
Yes, I responded.
Lock up and come downstairs.
I stood up from where I’d been sitting on the bed and went to the window. Down on the street below, Alec leaned against the hood of his car. He looked up at me, and in that moment I replayed in my mind every romantic movie I’d ever seen where the hero waits outside his girlfriend’s house. Time stood still. I could almost hear the sappy love ballad playing in the background.
Excitement, relief, and something else, something more powerful, coursed through me. I didn’t know where we were going, so I grabbed my purse and my keys and met him downstairs.
He pushed off his car when he saw me, and I crossed the sidewalk quickly, not caring that I was still in my pajamas or that patrons loitering outside the bar down the street could see me. Alec was here, sexy as ever in his T-shirt and jeans with his thick, messy hair and his thoughtful smile, and I wanted him. Just him. All of him.
When I was close enough to touch, his knuckles skimmed over my cheek and down my arm. The warm feel of his skin was a welcome replacement to the cold air, and when his lips brushed mine, my heart skipped a beat.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” he said.
He led me around the hood of the car and opened the passenger side. When I was inside, he shut the door after me.
Twenty minutes later we were alone in the elevator of a ritzy high-rise apartment complex in Bayshore.
“Where are we going?” I asked for the tenth time. A huge grin was plastered across my face. I knew where we were going. Alec was taking me to his place.
“The zoo.” He’d given me a different answer every time I’d asked. The movies. New York City. A sex club.
“Uh-uh.” I shook my head and stepped into his arms. He lowered to kiss me, and I ran the tip of my nose along the side of his face. “The zoo’s closed. The animals have to sleep.” I bit his lower lip and he growled.
His hands tightened around my waist and then he lifted me, and I wrapped my legs around his hips. I gave a little gasp as he gripped my buttocks and pulled me closer. He was hot, hard, and ready, and with the mirrored walls of the elevator car, I could see the muscles of his back flex as I raked my fingernails lightly over his scalp.
“Sleeping. Something you and I will not be doing tonight,” he promised as the elevator climbed higher. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.
“Careful,” I said. “This is a nice place. I bet there’s a security camera in here. You never know who’s watching.”
“I know exactly who’s watching,” he said, nuzzling his face into my hair. “Max owns the building, and the security guards report to me.”
“How convenient.”
His tongue skimmed the edge of my earlobe.
Anticipation quickened my pulse, but I wanted him to know that the importance of this move was not lost on me. Tonight, I was going to take care of him, starting right now. I kissed his lower lip, and the corners of his mouth. While he hel
d me, I gripped his strong shoulders and licked his neck just below his ear.
“Mmm . . .” I hummed. “You taste good. I wonder if you taste good everywhere.” I rolled my hips, increasing the pressure against his rigid shaft. I wasn’t normally the type to talk dirty, but the energy crackling between us was enough to draw it out of me.
“Jesus,” he muttered.
The elevator climbed past the twenty-first floor.
“Would you like to see me on my knees, Alec?” I bit the base of his neck. He shuddered. His body was one hard, taut muscle.
“Would you like to put your cock in my mouth?” I whispered. He jerked, and pinned me against one of the mirrored walls. His eyes had grown dark, and he readjusted his hands so that he wasn’t squeezing my legs quite so hard.
I loved watching him lose control.
Twenty-eight, twenty-nine.
I flexed my thighs, rising an inch, then rubbing back down. Again I moved. I could feel the damp folds of skin swelling, a pressure that would build and build until I found release. I tilted my head back, exposing my neck to his hot breath.
“I want all of you,” I murmured.
One raspy breath, and he kissed me, hard enough to bruise my lips. Hard enough to make the fire in my belly rage through my blood. Desperately, our tongues mated. Our teeth scraped. I held his face in my hands and moaned, weightless in his arms and driven by a need that had spiraled out of control.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I registered the ding of the elevator. Then he was walking, quickly, and when he turned his head to the side, I feasted on his neck.
A door clicked open, slammed behind him.
“Now,” I said. “Hurry, Alec.”
He set me roughly on a hard surface—a table or a counter. Even though it was dark, I caught a glimpse of cabinets, a refrigerator. Then he was ripping the tank top over my head, freeing my bare breasts. I whimpered as he kneaded the tender flesh, then rolled my nipples between his fingers. His head lowered, and he pulled one hardened tip in his mouth. When his teeth gently teased the end, my hips bucked. All the while his wicked hand continued to massage my other breast.
Though I wanted him inside me, I didn’t forget what I’d promised. I needed his cock in my mouth in a primal way. I could already feel my tongue sliding over the smooth skin, and the tender ache in my jaw as he drove himself deeper.
I grabbed the back of his shirt, heard the stitches give way with a pop. A second of separation to discard the stretched material, and then his mouth was back on mine, and his chest was tantalizing my tender front while he nestled himself between my open legs.
He stopped suddenly.
“Shit.” His hands cradled my face. “Hold on.”
It was like a freight train plowing into a brick wall.
“What?” I managed between breaths.
“Just . . . Don’t move. Hold on.”
He backed away, leaving me topless and vulnerable. I crossed my arms over my breasts as he pulled his cell phone out of the back pocket.
He had to be kidding.
I looked around for the first time. We were in the kitchen. The dark wood cabinets were all neatly closed, and the marble countertops were clear.
The screen of his cell phone lit his face with a soft glow as he read through his messages. He looked up at me, then bit his knuckles.
“I’m sorry,” he said roughly. “I’ve got to go.”
Seventeen
“What happened?” I slid off the countertop and grabbed my shirt off the floor. “Is everything okay?”
Worry chilled the heat in my veins—in my world, a late-night phone call meant someone I cared about was in trouble—but it wasn’t worry that drew his lips into a straight line. It was annoyance.
“Work,” he said gruffly. “What perfect fucking timing.”
“Work?” I let the tank top I’d been holding to my bare breasts fall to my side. “It’s eleven o’clock at night.”
When the boss calls, I have to answer. Alec had told me this on our first date.
He was scrubbing his hands over his face.
“I don’t exactly keep a traditional nine-to-five.”
“What could Mr. Stein possibly need this late?”
His expression turned grave. He opened his mouth. Closed it.
“I can’t talk about this now,” he finally said.
He wasn’t going to tell me. Of course, he wasn’t. Silly me to think he might actually clue me in on something in his life.
I started to pull on the tank top, but he grabbed my wrists, holding my arms above my head. For a moment I thought he was going to share what had happened, or even say to hell with the message and take me to bed, but then he released me and stalked out of the kitchen.
Maybe coming here hadn’t been such a good idea.
I followed him around the corner and was immediately struck by a stunning view of the Bay through floor-to-ceiling windows. It was black in the night, with only the twinkling lights of a single cruise ship to break the inky water.
“Wow,” I said to myself, then took in the rest of the room. One single chocolate leather couch, placed across from a flat-screen television mounted on the wall. There was a dining area, but no dining room table or chairs. No pictures on the walls. The room was spartan to say the least.
I realized why he hadn’t brought me here before—he must have just moved in. I felt a little guilty for suspecting he was hiding something.
My bare feet shuffled over the plush carpet as I peeked my head around the corner of his bedroom. The décor was the same in here—a king-size bed on a square mahogany frame with a feather comforter tossed over the mattress, and a single dresser against the wall. There was a sliding door that led out to a patio, but no patio furniture.
Alec was inside the walk-in closet, buttoning up a dress shirt.
“When did you move in?” I asked, leaning against the doorframe.
He didn’t look up at me, frustration making his movements hurried and sharp. “Three years ago. Why?”
My brows shot up. “You have less stuff than me, and I’ve only been in town a couple months.”
“I’m used to simple,” he said. “Besides, I’m not here very much.”
“Where do you usually stay?”
He slipped on his shoes. “I’ve been at your place the last week.”
“And before that?”
He hesitated, and my gaze dropped to the floor. Stupid question. He was used to staying with other women.
“Scratch that,” I said. “Never mind.”
“It’s not what you think,” he said.
“It’s fine.” Not really, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
He finally looked up at me, and the shadows beneath his eyes reminded me of the picture I’d seen in Maxim’s study my first time at the mansion. Something was weighing heavily on him. Secrets he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, share.
“Pop quiz,” I said quietly. “The person you’re seeing gets a call in the middle of the night and takes off like a bat out of hell. He’s A, a superhero, B, a drug dealer, or C, married.”
“Christ, Anna. You think I want to leave?”
I turned away, stung by his tone, but stilled as he came up behind me. Tentatively, his hands came to rest on my waist, and I sagged back against his chest.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said. “If you’re hungry, there’s . . .” He sighed. “Take-out menus in the kitchen.”
He clearly didn’t want to go. Because it was stupid to punish him for things out of his control, I turned to face him and smoothed down his collar.
“Go,” I told him. “I’ll be naked in your bed when you get back.”
He groaned, and rested his forehead against mine.
“Thanks,” he said. And with one very chaste kiss on the cheek, he left.
*
I searched his bathroom cabinet first, then some of the drawers. It wasn’t like I was some creeper, nosing through his stuff, but
come on. He sort of asked for it, leaving me here unattended. Any girl would have done the same.
The most exciting find was a box of condoms in his nightstand drawer. It was nearly empty. So not that exciting, actually.
Alec hadn’t been lying when he said he was hardly ever here. There were a couple of plates in the kitchen, a box of plastic utensils, and a three-pack of paper towels under the sink. But his bathroom had all the regular toiletries, and his closet was filled with clothes. He obviously used this place for a home base, even if he didn’t spend much time here.
I found my red panties—the ones he’d stolen that day at Rave—in the top drawer of his nightstand. He wasn’t trying to hide them from anyone who might come looking, so that was something at least.
Still, I couldn’t stop wondering what he was doing, what kind of thing his boss might need him for in the middle of the night. I wanted to believe he was telling the truth about working. I liked him, more than I cared to admit. I didn’t want to consider the alternatives.
Unsure of when he was coming back, I took off my clothes and curled up in his bed. The sheets were high quality, but crisp, like they hadn’t been properly worn in. I liked to think I could help him with that. I wished that they smelled like him, but they didn’t. They smelled like clean laundry.
I told myself this was Alec’s place. Alec, who I’d spent every free moment of the last week with. Alec, who’d picked me up in the middle of the night, who’d been inside me. But the truth was his apartment was strange and empty, and I was alone. I told myself I could have left, caught a cab home. I wasn’t stranded; it was my choice to be here.
It helped a little.
I kept my cell phone by the bed just in case he called, but as the minutes ticked by, I became more and more drowsy. I told myself to get up and turn on the TV—I wanted to be awake when he got home—but I was already drifting away.
*
“You go have fun, understand?”
Mama picked at a spot on her cheek that was already red and raw. She was scratching at her arms again, too, the way she did after she visited her special friend. She had been pretty once. Long black hair, like I had, and smooth dark skin. Now she was skinnier than me and all scratched up.
The Masseuse Page 15
