by Alice Ward
Taking that as an invitation to eat, I dove into the hen and shoved a bite into my mouth. I was much hungrier than I’d thought. “This is excellent. Are you going to have some?” I raised a heaping fork in her direction.
Her eyes flashed with distress. “No, sir, I’ve had lunch.” She’d quickly reined herself in and was a stuffy old badger flicking a towel once again.
“You’re not going to talk to me, are you?” I asked, giving up my fruitless mission.
“What would you like me to say?” She sighed, and her stiffened posture relaxed a fraction.
“I don’t know. I met a woman last night I’d really like to get to know, but she gave me the cold shoulder. I just can’t figure out why… thought maybe you’d know.” I felt remarkably uncomfortable having doffed my business-as-usual attitude and wished I hadn’t let my guard down.
Ms. White stopped her cleaning and turned to face me, taking a deep breath. “I’ve known you most of your life, Mr. Wellington, and I would suggest you try to relax. Liliana and that Peter seem to have a lot of fun, maybe they can teach you how to loosen up. God knows, I’m not the one to help you with that.”
She laughed and shook her tea towel at me like I was eight years old again, making me grin. “Help me anyway.”
“I will say, though, I know you’re a good man and when it comes to women, what most want is respect. Give her a chance to impress you, don’t always be looking to run the show. Sometimes all you have to do is listen. Women, above all things, want to be heard, understood, and appreciated.” She removed her apron and smoothed out the creases on her uniform.
“Thank you for your candor, Ms. White. I’ll take your advice and do what I can with it.” I gave her a broad smile, hoping she saw the sincerity in it.
“I’m sure you will,” she said, returning the smile. “Look for the beauty inside, because a smart woman knows her beauty will fade.”
The beauty within. For the first time, I wondered if the Butterfly wore her mask to hide something she felt kept her from being beautiful.
Could I make her feel beautiful without her mask?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Adara
It was as if my own shout ripped me from the dream, and I bolted upright in bed, my heart shattering in my chest.
The sun shone through the window. It was Saturday, and late by the slant of the light. But I didn’t care. I just wanted my old life back. Or any life beside the one I now led. I missed Nate, my sweet, caring, reckless Nate. I flopped back down on the pillows and burst into tears.
And cried myself back to sleep.
Nate’s hands were cupping my cheeks. “Adara, I’m not coming back. It’s time you let go and live. What you’re doing now, it’s not living. Don’t bury yourself, you’ve so much more to live for and so much to offer.”
He moved closer and ran the back of his hand down my cheek, making me shudder. I couldn’t let him go, could never. I shook my head as a tear rolled down my cheek.
Nate’s body pressed against mine, and he bent his knees a little as he pulled me close. I could feel the heat of him, the heat of his precious breath.
“I’ll always love you, Adara. I want you to find someone who loves you like I did. Don’t run from love, you deserve it.” He dipped his head and pressed his lips to mine.
A sigh escaped as I opened to his kiss. It felt so good to have his arms around me again.
He was warm and comfortable, and as we kissed, he became more passionate, more intense. Taking control, crushing me against his hard chest and plundering my mouth with his tongue.
He’d never kissed me this way. He was Nate, and Nate was the nice guy who would never dream of kissing me until we were rife with raw, unbridled sensuality. I could hear his breathing, ragged, and it thrilled me to know I could excite him this much.
My panties grew wet with desire, and I shifted so I could rub my breasts against his chest, wanting him to do more than just kiss me.
Feeling flirty, I pulled away from our kiss for a moment to tease him. My breath seized in my throat.
Nate wasn’t standing before me with his kind blue eyes.
It was Roman.
The stage, the fans had disappeared and there was only me and Roman. Roman, with his blazing hot stare that could make me want to wiggle in my seat, stood there. His eyes were like smoldering embers, a mix of brown and yellow hues with enough fire in them to ignite us both.
When he gave me a wide smile, his face opened into a friendliness that made me want to share my burdens with him. “Don’t run from this, Adara, you deserve it.” His husky, sex-laced voice was somehow a mixture of Nate’s and his own, and it hummed through me as he leaned in and trailed kisses down my cheek, my neck.
My mask. Where was my mask?
“Stop, I… you can’t see me like this.” I pushed on his shoulder.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered as he gathered me to his chest and held me tightly. “Someday, I’ll make you see how beautiful you really are.”
I shook my head. I needed to… to…
His mouth on my neck was clouding my brain, making heat simmer in my abdomen.
“You don’t want me to stop,” he breathed like some kind of Latin lover in the movies, and I could feel his lips turn up into a smile.
A laugh tinkled out of me before I could stop it. Then he laid kisses over my collarbone, down my chest. I opened my mouth to tell him to stop and his lips clamped around my nipple, sucking it into his mouth. It was as if there was a string that started in his mouth and pulled tight from my nipple to my core. My toes scrunched up as his hand ran down the outer curve of my breast, over my ribs, waist, circled my hip then lifted my short skirt and covered me.
My blood rushed faster, and I knew I was panting, but I couldn’t stop myself. Everything in me wanted more pressure from his hand.
His mouth moved to my neck as he dipped his finger into my underwear and slid it slowly between my folds. Letting out a hissing “yes,” his finger found a rhythm as it skimmed across my sensitive skin.
My hips bucked, wanting his finger to go deeper, and his rock-hard cock jutted into my stomach. A moan escaped me, and I gave in to this wild feeling, wrapping my arms around his neck as I pressed my face against his hard pecs.
His finger was joined by another and together they circled my clit, spiraling mercilessly as he pressed his body closer to mine. My hips instinctively gyrated against him and his other hand gripped my ass as he stooped, pressing his erection against my mound and rutting sensuously back and forth against me.
My eyes wanted to roll into the back of my head, and I plunged my hands into his hair, gripped it as if that could keep me from unraveling into oblivion. A tingle shot up my spine as one finger found my opening and pressed inside, then pumped in and out, in sync with his hips.
“Do you still want me to stop?” he asked as he slowed his pace and angled his body even closer to mine, his thick hardness buried against my belly.
I thought about Nate’s sweet face, the way he kissed me, his lips so soft and caring. No one other than him had kissed me since that terrible day.
“Will you let me love you?” Roman whispered in my ear as he slid his tongue along the rim.
Moisture gushed from me, wetting his fingers.
He laughed. “Whatever your mouth says, I think your pussy has said it louder.”
He moved from my ear to my mouth and kissed me again. Soft, sensuous, his mouth moved against mine. When I parted my lips to tell him I couldn’t let myself have this, he nipped at mine before offering me his tongue.
Fire roared within me, the heat scrambling my brain.
“You haven’t answered me,” he scolded as he removed his fingers and lifted me against him, spreading my legs across his chiseled abs.
My whole body cried out at the loss of his fingers and my insides clenched, searching. Then he shifted me lower, positioning my entrance right at the tip of his cock. I couldn’t think, could only focus on the tip
of him that would only need to move a fraction before it was inside me, stretching me. Filling the ache.
“Will you let me love you?” he asked again, resting his full length between my lips and tilting his hips up so his cock slid through my wetness and over my clit.
A sound that was half whimper half wail left me. “Yes,” I breathed. “Yes, please.”
Then I was wrapped around him as he slid into me in tiny, teasing thrusts. His mouth resumed its position, taking, giving heat.
I was at his mercy. “More.”
His fingers tightened on my ass and he growled, going still for a second as if fighting the beast within. “Promise.” He sank himself inside me to the hilt and held my hips tightly to him.
I cried out and my legs and arms tensed around him as my hips tried to buck, to let him plunge inside again, but he held me immobile.
His teeth sank into my neck, took my flesh into his mouth. When he came up for air again, he breathed, “Promise to let me love you.”
My head fell back as a wave of longing wrung through me. I’d say anything, do anything. “I promise.”
He lifted me, sliding me up his length, then slammed me down again. I met each thrust of his hips with my own as he pumped in and out of me. I could feel him grow harder, larger inside me, yet he centered on my pleasure, bending and taking first one nipple into his mouth then the other. He explored my body, looking for the places that made me gasp or moan.
When his cock touched a spot deep within me, a place of arousal and sensation so laced with nerves it shot explosions of pleasure through my entire body, I screamed.
His cock hit the spot again, and I sank my teeth into his shoulder to bite back another scream.
He smiled against my breast. “Ah, there it is.” Then danced his dick over that place until every muscle in my core clenched into a ball and my vision blurred. He laughed a self-satisfied laugh. “Are you ready?”
“Ready?” I panted as I dug my fingernails into his back.
He slid his tongue along the nape of my neck as he drew my body upwards, closer, melding us into almost one.
The stubble of his chin scraped my neck as I moaned in response, “Ready. Please.”
“Remember, you promised to let me love you,” he instructed as he drove his cock into me sharp and fast. Pulling my legs tighter around his waist, he locked them behind him with one arm as the other pressed me tightly to his chest.
His hips were molded to me as he jettisoned into my pussy with short, deep thrusts, his moans and growls matching mine now as I angled my hips to take more of him inside. My belly was a twisted knot of tickling heat that spiraled up to my heart and seized it hard as I exploded. My legs shook, and I quaked around him, clenching and releasing, then clenching harder, releasing longer. Heat bloomed between my legs and I flooded his cock.
“Look at me,” he rasped, his breathing stuttering, every muscle in his body flexed and straining.
I turned my face to his and our eyes met. And I was overwhelmed by pleasure, by desire, by love…
He plunged into me once more, and he roared as he filled me on a long shudder. My pussy clenched around him, squeezing until I’d drained him before his muscles went slack.
Still buried in my center, he leaned in, kissed my lips. “Don’t ever forget this,” he said sweetly as he cradled me in his arms, and I laid my head on his shoulder, closing my eyes with a contented sigh.
When my eyes opened, I was still trying to catch my breath. Smiling, I stretched and sleepily realized I was hot and wet and satisfied. “Wow,” I whispered.
The smile died when I shifted to hug myself and the stuffed monkey flopped off the pillow onto my chest.
I flew up to a sitting position and looked around the room to make sure it had been a dream. It was so real. Roman had been so real, my body was still throbbing from it.
And I’d promised to let him love me.
Rolling onto my side, I saw that my monkey had fallen onto the floor. I immediately reached for it, but paused.
“It’s time we had some space, little guy. Just some space for now,” I said as I stretched, trying to drive out the fatigue.
I picked up my cell phone. “Aghh, two o’clock.” I only had eight hours until I had to be back at Jewel. Not quite enough time to get my life together and leave.
I knew I was being crazy thinking that way, but maybe I could find something else. Being at Jewel was making me feel depressed all the time. I only had one day of freedom, which had seemed like enough in the beginning, when I was driving myself in an effort to not think about the past.
Sometimes, it felt like slavery. And now, after the run-in with Brandy, then Jack last night, I had to wonder if some of it wasn’t close to actual sex slavery. I would never allow myself to be manipulated into selling myself. But would I be given that choice?
There were two unanswered calls from Brandy. I laid in bed and listened to her voicemails, which only spiked my anxiety. She was “calling to see if I was okay,” which I interpreted as making sure I hadn’t committed suicide and would be at work on time. There had been a suicide last month and everyone was still on edge from it.
Well, after that conversation last night, fuck her. When I showed up, then she’d have her answer.
After watching the ceiling fan make its lazy rotation over and over and wondering how many women had been pressured the way I had last night and not had the leverage to stand up for themselves, or a handsome gentleman to take on their aggressor, I finally hoisted my body out of bed.
My leg, which had been completely shattered in the accident, was reconstructed over a series of surgeries. Despite being pinned back together, I had lost a lot of muscle function when the ligaments were ruined beyond repair. My only option had been cadaver muscles to replace the useless ones, but my health insurance was cut off before I had a chance to explore that option.
I mostly dragged my leg behind me like dead weight without the brace. I’d gone from America’s Top 50 Most Beautiful Women — number nine, behind Angelina Jolie — to covering my face with a mask and walking like Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I laughed at myself and made “bwahaha” sounds as I ambled my way into the bathroom to brush my teeth.
Usually, I avoided my reflection in the mirror, but this morning, like a person on the interstate craning their neck to see a car wreck, I inspected myself closer. The scar that ran from the uppermost part of my eyelid — I had just missed being blinded in my left eye — and curved to cut through the middle of my cheek was still a distinct, raised line. No amount of makeup could hide it without also making me resemble a plastic faced mannequin.
I was forever changed by the accident, but Brandy was right in a way. I had to stop running from the past. But instead of forgetting it, I needed to face it.
I traced my finger slowly over the scar.
Someday, I’ll make you see how beautiful you really are.
Last night, Roman had been unreal and that had apparently trickled into my dreams.
“I’m not beautiful, not anymore,” I told my reflection. Then looked closer, trying to see past the scar. “Am I?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Roman
Since Adam had left an urgent message on my phone, I drove to my office in Butte since I didn’t have anything else to do besides harass my housekeeper.
Even though it was Saturday, it was nothing for most of my staff to be in the office. I gave out quite a lot of perks and people went over and above to reach their goals within my employment.
“Adam,” I greeted my assistant and stopped in front of his desk as he stood with a distracted frown.
“Sir, I phoned you. There’s been an internet article on whistleblower dot com naming Crave as a top company for taking advantage of the third-world poor. They’ve made some concerning allegations and name several items on the online shopping platform.”
This wasn’t completely unusual. Any time you were at the top there were plenty of people trying to p
ull you down again.
“Show me the article.”
Adam typed on his keyboard then swiveled his screen so I could read the article, which claimed I was using people in dire poverty to sell their goods at ten times what I paid for them. It ultimately accused me of enslaving the poor to make a huge profit for myself.
I gritted my teeth, pissed at news stories that didn’t come close to the truth. “Don’t be concerned unless this is mentioned in multiple sources. Someone is always trying to peck away at anything successful.” As I strolled into my office, images of a pissed Jack Marshall popped into my head. To cover my bases, I called my publicity team to ensure that the next round of advertising spotlighted a synopsis of the many businesses and schools I’d built with company funds and the partnerships I’d forged in developing nations.
After that, because of my run in with Marshall, I called Peter. Better safe than sorry. The asshole immediately switched the phone call to a Facetime call.
“Brooooooo!” was Peter’s overenthusiastic answer, doubly jolting because of his overzealous expression popping up unexpectedly on my phone screen. “You should be here.” Before I could say a word, he maneuvered the iPhone camera three hundred and sixty degrees, and I caught a dizzying glimpse of the Canadian landscape.
I instantly regretted calling.
“Hey there, broski,” Liliana added, popping onto the screen with a wide smile. “Are you at the office? You need to be here, stat! Weekends are for weekending, workaholic. Get your overworking ass out here. We saw a bear this morning, and you missed it.” Her smile melted into a pout.
As much as I hated to admit it, she was gloriously happy with Pete. He — for all of his devil-may-care philosophy on living, and his throw common sense to the wind lifestyle — was great for her. She’d been the more adventurous of the two of us and she needed a man who loved her quirks and enthusiasm.
Ever since we were little, she’d been hatching one scheme or another. She’d set up a stand on the lawn of our city estate and thrown her all into whatever her latest passion had been. There was: “Save the wild river ducks,” “Lemonade fundraiser for Lyme disease,” and my personal favorite of her awareness campaigns, “Halitosis happens, dare to carry a spare,” where she’d handed out free toothbrushes and mouthwash. She was one of a kind.
