Falling for Fate (Second Chance Book 2)

by Quinn, Caisey

She wanted to be surprised. Mostly, all she felt was a slight twinge of loneliness. She’d never slept an entire night with anyone, but she’d been able to convince Trevor to take a few naps with her in college. After that, he’d made it clear that, if they spent the night together, it would be for more than sleeping.

  “Not a big spooner, huh?”

  Dean scoffed. “Not really. At least not that I know of.”

  “Because spending the night implies you want more and you always keep the lines of communication clear?” This was bullshit, but she wasn’t in the mood to call him out on it and risk ruining their weekend when it was already half over as it was.

  The way he’d held her, reassured her, was still a vibrant memory in her mind.

  “I’ve got you, baby. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

  Please. More like ‘I’ll lie here until you lose consciousness. Then I’m out. Enjoy waking up alone.’

  “Something like that,” he said evenly.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “I’m pretty sure you’ve answered all of my questions with questions. What’s one more?”

  He was astute. She’d give him that. Fate chose her words carefully. “You’ve explained why you wanted me here, but I guess I still don’t completely understand. What’s the difference between me and the woman whose face you had no trouble slamming the door in yesterday?”

  Fate was determined not to repeat her past mistakes. The idea of being the woman whose face Dean closed the door in while a new conquest stood on the other side of the door with him made her feel restless.

  Dean’s eyebrows rose then lowered on an exhalation. “To be honest with you, I can’t answer that in a way that doesn’t make me sound like a complete asshole. Because there isn’t a solid foundational reason for the way I am. All I can tell you is that, up until now, sex has been something I did with the exact same amount of consideration I use to take a piss. If I felt the need, I did it. No attachments and no particular plans for repeat encounters. I’m attractive and successful. Much like a spoiled kid in a candy store, I see what I want and I reach for it. When I’m done, I’m done. The difference between Brynn and you is that I’m not done with you yet.”

  “Thank God you’re pretty. Because yeah, that does make you sound like a complete asshole.”

  And that, Fate thought to herself, is why we should stick to sex and quit with the talking. Not done yet, he’d said. So would he be done soon? Did an alarm go off when she was all used up? Her palm tingled and alerted her brain that it was completely up for slapping him if the conversation remained on this path.

  Dean shrugged. “I’m just trying to be honest, sweetheart.”

  His voice faltered on the last two words and Fate detected a slight aversion in his gaze. Was he really being honest or trying to convince one or both of them that this is who he was? She’d seen other sides to him—considerate sides, protective sides, even thoughtful and unselfish sides. So why hide all of that with the asshole shield?

  A weekend wasn’t nearly long enough to figure it out.

  “I feel like you’re trying to tell me something in code. If that’s the case, I have to tell you, I’m still a little sleepy and my brain is drunk on listening to the ocean. Whatever it is you want to say, perhaps you should try spelling it out for me.”

  The amusing and slightly ironic part was that—if he was who he said he was—he was the exact type of guy who’d convinced her to stay a virgin until marriage. But that night on the beach and the attentive lover he’d been last night spoke to the case her mind had already made that he wasn’t the type of man he was attempting to portray.

  Dean took a long swallow of his coffee and cleared his throat. When he set the cup down on the table, it was with more force than necessary. His steely eyes drilled directly into hers when he finally continued.

  “I don’t mean to be vague. In fact, I’d like to be as clear as possible. No matter what happens in that bedroom, on this deck, in the sand, ocean, pool, or on the kitchen counter for that matter, I am who I am, Fate. And that’s a guy who doesn’t commit and doesn’t cuddle and sure as fuck doesn’t spoon. I wasn’t lying when I said I’d happily fuck you any day of the week from now until doomsday, but my career comes first and that’s just the way it has to be right now.”

  Fate gave a curt nod. The locations he’d listed were spawning some serious fantasies in her head—fantasies she hoped would become reality before this weekend ended. Was the man on a mission to be a walking contradiction? When he was done, he was done, but he’d fuck her any time she wanted? Oh-kay. He made his intentions about as clear as a lead vest.

  What the heck ever. If he had shit to work out, then that was his issue. She could do this. She could. She might not have been a high-level executive yet, but her career mattered too. It was really and truly all she had. And after everything with Trevor, she was in a healing phase, not a fall-in-unrequited-love-with-her-boss phase.

  “Have I done something, Dean? Something to make you think I’m expecting more from you than this weekend?”

  She might have imagined it, but it looked like he twitched slightly. “No. No, you haven’t. I didn’t mean to imply that—”

  “Oh, good.” She breathed an exaggerated sigh of relief. “If I did, I certainly didn’t intend to. I mean, I’m almost twenty-three years old and just now learning what I like and what I’m comfortable with when it comes to sex. I was pretty sure we hadn’t made any stipulations on one another about being exclusive, so I’m glad you cleared this up.”

  He was gaping—fish-out-of-water, open-mouth-close-mouth-open-again gaping—at her. She’d never seen him speechless before. It was amusing, but she managed to keep her smile to herself as she stood from the table.

  So she didn’t have any plans to be intimate with anyone else anytime soon, but if he was going to keep going all in and then pulling out to give these disclaimer speeches—Warning, do not get attached! Penis is only available on loan—then she was going to start making some.

  “I have another question for you,” Dean sputtered just before she’d walked back into the house to wash her breakfast dishes.

  She paused and tilted her head to wait for whatever else he wanted to know. He was inquisitive in the morning, apparently.

  “Are you wearing anything under my shirt?”

  That was more like it. Fate grinned and shook her head. “I was about to take a shower if you’re interested in joining me. Lucky for you, shower sex is on my bucket list.”

  She giggled like someone much younger, someone she couldn’t even remember being, when Dean charged at her, growling like an animal, and tossed her over his shoulder. She nearly broke the dishes when she tossed them into the sink. A hard slap on her ass caused her to cry out.

  “Oh, God. Okay, we can shower together. But I should warn you,” she huffed out through laughter and lack of breath from his shoulders pressing into her rib cage. “Just because I let you fuck me in the shower doesn’t mean I’m going to let you use my toothbrush or my loofah. I am who I am, Dean. And that’s a woman who doesn’t—”

  Another hard slap on her ass cut her off with a cry for mercy. She was still laughing when he placed her in the shower still wearing his shirt and turned the water on.

  What had begun with playful banter turned intense and all-consuming once their soaking wet clothes were removed.

  Thin rivulets of water ran down Dean’s body as Fate washed him with her plum-colored loofah sponge.

  He lifted her onto his waist and risked broken necks for both of them by fucking her against the slick shower wall. They’d been unprepared for how quickly the situation had turned intimate and she held him inside her with no barrier of protection.

  His hand slammed the wall next to her head with his long, echoing “Fuuuuck,” when he released inside her body.

  “It’s okay. I take birth control regularly. Never miss a pill. It’s fine.” She whispered reassurances in his ear until his breathing slowed. She s
oothed and stroked him, finally washing the both of them clean.

  “I’m sorry, Fate. Fuck. I’ve never lost control like that. Swear to God, I always use a condom and I had every intention of pulling out.”

  She nodded, believing him, trusting him. She’d been just as lost in the moment as he had, not snapping back to reality until his hand had slapped the tiles beside her head.

  “You know what they say about the path to hell.” She winked and pulled his face to hers. “I liked it, Dean. If I’m being honest, I loved it, the closeness of it.”

  A low groan escaped his chest and his head fell forward. He placed a wet kiss on her shoulder beneath the cascading waterfall. “Me too, baby. Damn it to hell, it was wrong as fuck. But I loved it too.”

  “A month-old frozen pizza, the few slices of bacon you didn’t make this morning, pasta with no sauce in sight, or something I can’t even begin to identify due to layers of frost that have now made it one with the freezer.”

  Dean called out edible contents of his kitchen because, after their shower and more lovemaking in bed, Fate had admitted that he’d distracted her from her breakfast and she was hungry. Judging from how many times her stomach had growled, she was practically starving to death.

  “It’s like one of those cooking challenge shows where they give you random ingredients and you have to make something gourmet from them.”

  He chuckled and let the refrigerator door close. “We could just cook the bacon, pizza, and pasta, and toss them together hoping for the best.”

  Fate nodded from the stool where she sat beside the counter. “Or we could venture out into the world and grab some takeout. Get enough to have leftovers later for dinner. I’m guessing we can grab breakfast on the way home tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow. It loomed over them like an expiration date.

  “Okay. I know a few places. It’s a little cool out. Maybe grab a sweater and we’ll go.”

  Dean had made a decision after losing control inside her in the shower. He wouldn’t pursue her like he’d done before. He’d asked for—okay, begged for—this weekend and he’d gotten it. But he’d been honest about what he was willing and capable of, and if she was interested in no-strings sex, he’d be there.

  But the way she’d casually mentioned being nonexclusive and how easily she’d handled his warnings about not being more than physical set him on edge. Fate had never come to him. Well, maybe once she’d had and he’d acted like an ass and ruined it. The thought that she might really be done after this weekend struck him hard in the chest.

  Deep-set tension worked over his nerves. He wished he’d made her agree to one month instead of one weekend.

  Using the few moments while she was grabbing a sweater from his bedroom to compose himself, Dean checked his phone for the first time since yesterday afternoon. Not that he’d be answering any of the messages right away.

  Scrolling down the screen, he saw an alarming amount of missed calls from his father. He started to call him back—out of concern that it was business-related—but shoved the thought aside when Fate appeared with a cream, cable-knit sweater of his over her navy-blue sundress. Her hair was down and straight, and he doubted she had any makeup on, though he knew some women were experts at applying layers of the gunk only to make it appear as if they had naturally flawless skin. But he’d seen Fate in the shower. She was flawless all over. A dress and an oversized sweater nearly took his breath away.

  “You do naturally beautiful amazingly well, Ms. Buchanan.”

  “You do compliments pretty well yourself, Mr. Maxwell.”

  She did some complicated series of wrist flicks behind her head and her long locks became a sexy, mussed, low ponytail that he wanted very much to pull while taking her from behind, but he figured he should probably let the poor woman eat first.

  “I’m glad you approve,” he said, placing an arm across her shoulders as they made their way to the door.

  “Ditto,” Fate answered with a wink once they reached the door.

  Dean released her long enough to hold it open. He hadn’t heard anyone say ‘ditto’ in so long that he’d nearly forgotten it existed as part of the English language.

  Fate didn’t miss the perplexed expression on his face apparently. “What? Do New Yorkers not say ‘ditto’?”

  Holding her car door open, Dean tried not to think about what the word had once meant to him. Attempting to shove it back into the vault of painful memories, he straightened and nodded brusquely before shutting her safely inside the car.

  “Guess not.”

  He didn’t see the streets as they drove into town. He knew the area well enough to get to the restaurant he had in mind while functioning on autopilot. His boat was docked near it. Somewhere in his preoccupied mind, he wondered if Fate would like to go out on the boat for brunch before they left the next day, but he knew that was probably just his subconscious trying to prolong their time together and attempting to distract him from the past hurts he’d been avoiding for more than ten years now.

  Mom? Are you sick again?

  It was always the sound of violent vomiting from behind a closed bathroom door that gave her away. He was twelve when she’d been diagnosed with Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Thirteen when the third round of treatment had failed to send her back into remission. And barely fifteen when she hadn’t come home from the hospital for the final time. The last thing she’d said made him suspect she’d already known what no one wanted to tell him.

  “I’ll always be with you, Dean. I love you much, most beautiful darling—more than anyone on the Earth. And I like you better than everything in the sky.”

  “Ditto,” he’d said, because that had been their thing.

  She always has these little sayings, quotes from poems he didn’t know about until AP high school and college English courses, that she’d felt explained how much she loved him. And he’d always said ditto. Fate’s saying it had brought back memories he’d thought he’d long since buried along with his mom.

  “I love you to the moon and back and around again,” she’d say at bedtime when he was little.

  The older he’d gotten, the more he’d rolled his eyes, but even at fifteen, he’d still said it. “Ditto, Mom.” They were the last two words he’d spoken to her before she’d died.

  Maybe it was because her mouth-watering legs were bare beneath the dress, or maybe it was because he needed something to pull him from the past and anchor him in the present. Whatever the reason, he needed his hand on Fate’s knee. She leaned toward him when he put it there as if gravitating toward his warmth.

  He didn’t know if she sensed his need for quiet or what, but when she laid her head on his shoulder and spoke, it was practically a whisper.

  “If I forget to tell you when we get home tomorrow, I had a wonderful time this weekend.”

  “Holy lobster roll of the gods,” Fate moaned after taking her last bite. “I get it now, why they refer to some foods as orgasmic.”

  The Grill was a locally well-known place, but it being this late in the year, it was practically empty. Dean was glad they’d still been open at all.

  “Good, right?” Watching her take an erection-inducing pleasure in eating had effectively erased Dean’s melancholy mood from earlier. “Do you want dessert, sweetheart?”

  The term of endearment came easily, too easily. It rolled off his tongue in a way that felt familiar—as if they’d been doing this for years. Technically, it was sort of their first date.

  And our last, a voice inside his head reminded him.

  “I’m not usually one to order dessert with lunch, but I have no willpower when it comes to chocolate. Want to get something and share?”

  Dean glanced at the menu even though he knew it by heart. He nodded to the waiter and pointed to the dessert he thought Fate would like the best once the guy had come over.

  “I know you like to order for yourself.” She’d made this very clear when they had ordered dinner. “But there’s only one dessert
with chocolate worthy of your taste buds.”

  Fate smiled. “Strangely, I don’t mind you ordering for me. It just used to be a…a pet peeve of mine, I guess.” She didn’t elaborate, but a hint of that world-wounded pain softened her eyes.

  “Well, I’ll try not to do it anymore if I can help it.” Dean drew her attention to the back patio doors behind her. “See those boats out there? One of them is mine.”

  Fate looked over her shoulder then back at him. “Oh yeah? Which one?”

  “You can’t see it from here. It’s one of the smaller ones on the end, slightly less ostentatious than the rest of what I own. It’s called The Wishing Star.”

  Fate paled several shades, the mirth from her enjoyment of their food fading instantly. “You don’t say?”

  Her hand trembled when she retrieved her wine glass from the table.

  Dean watched her cautiously. He wondered if maybe she wasn’t crazy about boats and he should forgo his plan for brunch tomorrow. “It was just something my mom and I used to do when I was a kid. I got a scholarship to NYU and invested the money I’d saved to attend. I’d always wished on stars for a boat, so when I’d made enough money from investments to buy one, seemed like the only fitting name.”

  Fate chugged the remaining blush-colored liquid in her glass. “Makes sense. My mom and I used to do the same thing. Wish on stars, I mean.”

  “Ever been on one?” Dean’s curiosity at her odd reaction intensified.

  Fate shook her head. “No. I was supposed to go on a cruise…once. But that didn’t work out.”

  “I’d like to take you on it tomorrow if you’re up for it.”

  She nodded, but her smile wasn’t as genuine as the ones that had come before. “Sure. I’d like that.”

  Dean was thankful that their dessert arrived when it did. Fate’s eyes went wide as the chocolate soufflé torte with raspberry sauce was placed on the table in front of her. He grinned, thoroughly enjoying her appreciation of food.

  “It’s almost too pretty to eat,” she said with reverence lifting her voice. “I don’t know where to begin.”