“I guess not,” she replied. Sex with her was out of this world. Like nothing I had experienced before. If I thought the first time in the bathroom was explosive, this time was even more crazy. I just couldn’t get enough of her body, and surprisingly, given my track record, I was in no rush to leave afterward either.
“I wasn’t lying when I said that I was genuinely interested in your art, and that I wasn’t here for the sex,” I told her, and Aubrey reached for my beard. She began stroking it lightly with her fingers, playing with the strands.
“I believe you,” she said in a hollow sort of voice, like her thoughts were elsewhere.
“So, will you sell it to me? Before you’re discovered by some fancy art gallery and your value increases tenfold?” I said. We looked at each other and smiled. I could see that she was pleased by what I was saying, and I hoped she knew that I meant it. I wasn’t lying. I genuinely wanted to add some of her work to my collection.
Aubrey rolled over from me and lay down beside me. Our arms were grazing, and we were both looking up at the ceiling.
“I don’t think I want to sell my paintings to someone I’m sleeping with,” she said, and I looked at her. In profile, I noticed the shape of her small slender nose, the pointedness of her chin. She had a gentle, heart-shaped face. She wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, not runway-model material, but I knew I had never seen a more beautiful person in my life.
“So, I’ll have to stop sleeping with you for you to sell me your painting?” I asked. When our eyes met, Aubrey laughed.
“I guess. Depends on what your priorities are,” she said, and I ran a hand through my hair.
“You’re putting me in a very tight position,” I said with a laugh, and Aubrey’s smile disappeared from her face.
“I could be making a very stupid decision right now, especially because I now know who you are,” she said in seriousness, and I arched my eyebrows at her. She smirked and then bit down on her lip.
“I looked you up once you told me your name,” she added, and I shook my head, jokingly mocking her for her curiosity.
“So yeah, maybe you endorsing my work could be the ticket to me getting discovered, but that is not how I want to do it. I don’t want to get famous because I happened to sleep with the right person,” she continued, and I couldn’t stop staring at her. I watched as her lips moved when she talked, and the way her eyelids fluttered on her rosy cheeks.
“Okay, I accept that. It’s my bad luck that I’m also crazily attracted to you, I guess,” I said, and we both laughed again.
I threw my arm over her head again, and she cozied up beside me. She placed her head on my chest, pressing her soft cheek into my skin, and I realized that I was enjoying this moment. I couldn’t remember the last time I had spent so much time talking and snuggling with a woman right after sex. Usually, the routine was seduce, fuck, leave. With Aubrey, everything was different. She was bringing out a different side to me that I didn’t even know existed.
“Thank you, Gareth,” I heard her say, after we had been lying there in silence for a few moments.
“What for?” I asked, and she looked up at me again. There was a genuine soft glow in her green eyes now, and the corners of her lips were stretched in a smile.
“You were right. All you’ve tried to do since we first met is be nice to me, and I’ve kept pushing you away. You didn’t have to be so kind to me. You didn’t have to come here, and you didn’t have to me make me feel special about myself. I owe you thanks,” she said. I reached for her face, cupping her cheeks with both hands.
She had no idea just how much thanks I owed her. Aubrey kept appearing in my life when I most needed her, and having her with me had stopped me from going crazy.
“Maybe we should stop thanking each other and apologizing to each other now,” I said, and she threw her head back and laughed.
“I’m glad you bumped into me, Gareth Gray. Like literally,” she said, through her laughter. Just watching her laugh made me happy.
These were all new feelings in me, and I had no idea what to do with them. I was beginning to feel like this thing with Aubrey could actually mean something. Mean something more than just sex.
***
“Maybe we should go out on an actual date,” I found myself saying. I wasn’t sure if the timing was right, but it felt like the natural thing to say. We had slept together twice already, and it was pretty obvious that we were deeply attracted to each other. Now that she had already declared that she wouldn’t sell her painting to me, we might as well take it a step forward. That’s what I wanted.
Aubrey looked up at me with a jerk, and there an unmistakable excitement in her eyes.
“I would like to,” she said softly, and then she leaned in to press her lips to mine. It turned into a hot kiss, and within seconds, my tongue was inside her mouth and she was panting.
I drew my mouth away from her to catch my breath, and we both smiled at each other again. It was crazy how crazy I was feeling about her.
I hadn’t been in a real relationship ever. I had always been too busy trying to build a career for myself, to get back at everyone who had put me down in my childhood. Relationships and women had been a side interest, nothing I felt the need to put an actual effort into. Up until now, I hadn’t noticed that I was missing something in my life.
Now, I felt like the time was right to start something, and I had found the perfect person to start it with. I didn’t want to lose this opportunity now that I had met Aubrey.
“So, now that you know things about me, how about you tell me a little about yourself too?” I suggested, and Aubrey rolled back on the bed again.
“All I know about you is what I got off the internet. That you’re rich, a wolf in the boardroom, smart and handsome, and a force to reckoned with. So, all good things,” she said with a smile.
“And I know nothing about you!” I retorted, and she laughed.
“You know the whole sad story about my artistic struggles, and you know about my childhood dog!” she replied. We tenderly kissed again.
We turned our bodies to face each other, and I drank in the sight of her beautiful naked body. Did I really care what I knew about her? Nothing mattered to me. Where she came from, how many siblings she had, how she liked her eggs—all I cared for was that she had agreed to go on a date with me.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” Aubrey said, and I looked at her, waiting for her to say more.
“Well, I’m not from New York as you might have guessed,” she said and tossed a bunch of her red hair over her shoulder. She was propping her head up sideways with a hand, just like I was. Our gazes kept dropping toward each other’s bodies. I knew that we were both gearing up for round two. I could feel a movement between my legs already. I couldn’t wait to have her again.
“So, where are you from?” I asked, and Aubrey rolled her eyes.
“You’re going to laugh,” she said. I smiled.
“I’m from New Jersey. There, now it’s your turn,” I coaxed her, and she licked her lips. Her cheeks were flushed again, and I could see she was genuinely embarrassed.
“How can it be that bad? It doesn’t matter to me where you’re from, Aubrey!” I remarked. She bit down on her lip and sucked in her gut. She had an apologetic look on her face, and in that moment, I wanted to pounce on her and kiss her again.
“I’m from Georgia,” she said and clamped her hands on her mouth, like she had told me something awfully embarrassing from her past. My brows crossed, I was still a little amused by her reaction, but the word Georgia had struck something in me. It was a strange coincidence.
“Georgia? Where in Georgia?” I asked, and now I started sitting up in her bed. Aubrey did the same, and her long red hair flew down over her shoulders, covering the tops of her breasts.
“Brunswick. It claims to be a city, but after being in New York, I can see that it’s nothing more than a big town,” she said, rolling her eyes.
This was insane. How was this h
appening? How had I coincidentally bumped into a girl from the same town as the C Scape men? It seemed too unlikely for me to believe.
By now my brows were furrowed, and I could feel my face darkening as I glared at her.
“Do you know anyone who works at C Scape? The shipping company?” I asked her, and Aubrey stared at me curiously.
“Yeah, I do, in fact. Hunter Morgan is my first cousin, my father’s nephew. He is one of the partners of the company,” she said.
That was all I needed to hear. I swung my legs off her bed and stood up with a jerk.
“I know who Hunter Morgan is,” I growled as I hurried to pick up all my discarded clothes off the floor. Aubrey was standing up too now, and she had a flustered look on her face. She could sense that something was wrong, and I had an idea that she knew exactly what was going on.
“What’s the matter? What did I say?” she asked, while I pulled my pants up. I didn’t want to look at her anymore. I could feel my blood boiling in my veins. I couldn’t believe I had been such an idiot to fall for a honeytrap like this.
“Gareth?” I heard her say, as I half buttoned up my shirt and picked up my tie and jacket off the floor.
“What the hell?” she carried on, while I stormed toward the front door.
I didn’t turn to look at her when I banged the door shut behind me. I couldn’t believe that those fucking C Scape men had stooped so low!
Chapter Ten
Aubrey
“And he just left in the middle of that?” Ira was sitting on our couch, still in the cocktail dress she had worn for her hot date that night. I was glad the date had gone badly, and that she had returned way before midnight. I really needed her right now, while I felt like I was losing my mind.
I had changed back into my dungarees, and I was pacing around in our apartment, rubbing my forehead over and over again.
“Just like that. I have no idea what I said!” I remarked, snapping my fingers and shaking my head wildly.
Ira began to take her heels off now, and she had a worried expression on her face. In the months we had known each other, I had never spoken about men or dates. I hadn’t had the time for them, and now, in the past week since I met Gareth, I hadn’t been able to stop talking about him to her. I could sense that she was worried about my mental health now.
When I’d told her earlier about Gareth and what happened with him at the ball, Ira had cheered and congratulated me on a successful one-night stand. Now she could see that he had struck a deeper chord in me.
“Okay, the first thing you need to do, Aubrey, is calm down,” she said, flexing her free toes. I couldn’t calm down. I couldn’t even stand still. I didn’t know what to do. One minute we were lying tangled up in my sheets, and the next minute, he was slamming the door shut behind him. I couldn’t decide if he was a total asshole and I’d misjudged him, or if I was the one who had hurt him in some way.
Gareth had asked me out. I had seen earnestness in her eyes. I knew he had meant it when he said he wanted us to go on a date, that he was genuinely interested in me. Then, in a split second, everything had changed.
“Does it have something to do with your cousin?” Ira asked, and I stopped stock-still in the middle of the room.
“Hunter? Well, maybe, but I don’t know what it could be though. He seemed to flip the moment he heard that I was from Georgia, and that I knew someone from C Scape,” I said, and Ira stood up and walked toward me.
I was panicking. I didn’t even know why. Till a few hours ago, I didn’t even think I would see Gareth again, but now it felt like a life-and-death situation.
He had made me feel amazing. In the span of a few hours of being with him in my apartment, I had felt beautiful and special and inspired. I wanted to paint him, I wanted to paint the whole world, and now he was gone from my life in the blink of an eye.
“Aubrey, honey,” Ira said, in a calm coaxing voice as she placed her hands on my shoulders. She squeezed the tensed-up muscles and smiled weakly at me.
“He is the owner of a shipping company. Your cousin owns a shipping company,” she said, tilting her head to one side.
How had I not realized this before? They were competitors!
I jumped out of Ira’s grasp and clasped my hands to my mouth.
“Oh my God! They hate each other, don’t they?” I squealed, and Ira stood watching me sympathetically.
“Did you not think of this before?” she asked, and I shook my head wildly.
“No! Hunter didn’t even cross my mind till Gareth asked me about him. We were never really close as kids, and as adults we drifted even further apart. I mean, other than a couple of Christmases as kids and our grandfather’s eightieth birthday, we haven’t really spent any time together. Our lives are completely separate,” I explained to Ira, who rushed toward me again.
She threw her arms around me and hugged me close.
“Hey, it’s okay. Gareth doesn’t know that. He probably thought this was some kind of trick. He doesn’t know how close you are or aren’t to your cousin,” Ira said as she stroked my hair.
I pressed my eyes closed and shook my head while she held me in her arms.
“It’s over. I can’t reach him. Gareth Gray is unreachable. He is too rich and too powerful to entertain my excuses. How am I ever supposed to explain all this to him?” I said in a whimper.
Ira peeled me off herself and held me at arm’s length. I didn’t want to look at her. I felt like I had lost my chance at a once-in-a-lifetime connection. I had felt something real with Gareth, and now I’d blown it.
“Just give him some space, give him some time, Aubrey. He needs to figure this out on his own. Let’s hope that he’ll realize that you have nothing to do with this feud going on between the two companies,” Ira said. I covered my face with my hands.
Those moments when we were lying in bed together after sex were the happiest and most content I had felt in a very long time. With Gareth, in the short time that I’d known him, I had felt alive and inspired. He gave me the motivation to keep trying. He empowered me. Now it was over. It all felt like one of my fantasies, and I was still trying so hard to cling to it.
“Come here, poor Aubrey.” Ira pouted her lips and clucked her tongue as she pulled me into her arms again.
“What am I going to do with myself, Ira? I feel so lost,” I said, sinking my face into her arms. She was swinging me from side to side gently, and even though this was comforting, even though she was my best friend, I wished that I was in Gareth’s arms instead.
Chapter Eleven
Gareth
This was probably my third whisky, and I had the entire bottle of single malt Scotch to go through. I was determined to drink it all tonight. If tonight wasn’t a night to get drunk out of my mind, I didn’t know when was.
I had stormed back to my penthouse in absolute rage. My body was jerking and jolting with the degree of anger that I was feeling. The one thing I hated most in my life was being made a fool of, and I knew very well it was because of the bullying I had faced as a child. Nonetheless, I couldn’t get rid of those feelings. I hated C Scape and I had allowed those bastards to get to me. Those familiar feelings of being ridiculed and pushed around by bigger, more popular guys had returned, and I couldn’t stop the anger.
I had thrown my jacket and tie on the floor and gone straight for the bar in my den. I shouldn’t even have bothered to pour the whisky into a glass because I was gulping the drink down like it was lemonade.
I was alone in my penthouse. In my several million-dollar home, surrounded by all this luxury, in the midst of the impeccable decor that an expert had decorated for me. I had everything I needed and more than what I could possibly want, and yet, I couldn’t stop thinking about Aubrey. She was still the only thing on my mind, and how easily she had manipulated me.
She had made me feel things tonight that I didn’t even know I was capable of feeling. Lying on her single pull-out couch, in the midst of the clatter and the mess of
her studio apartment, I had felt like I’d finally found someone I could share my life with. I had already started imagining a future with her, even though we barely knew each other. That was my first mistake. I shouldn’t have let my guard down. Had life taught me nothing?
I drank some more whisky.
Not only was she beautiful, and not only was her body the most enticing thing I had laid my hands on, I enjoyed talking with her. From the first moment we’d met at the ball, we had fallen into a natural rhythm together. I thought we were comfortable around each other, like we could be ourselves, and I knew she wouldn’t judge me for it. Little did I know that she was pretending the whole time.
To top it all off, she was a talented artist. It wasn’t just my attraction toward her that was clouding my judgment. I had a sixth sense about the fact that she was just waiting to be discovered. Her paintings were unique and beautiful, and I could sense that she had some real skill.
Had it all been a big fat lie? Did she even paint those things hanging on her walls? Did she even have a dog that died under the wheels of her father’s car?
I clutched the bottle of whisky tightly in my hand as I poured myself a few more fingers of Scotch. I gulped it down thirstily, and now I could feel the effects of the alcohol going straight to my head. I was getting progressively drunker by the minute, but it was the only way I knew how to keep my rage under control.
I wanted to smash every piece of expensive crystal in this room. I wanted to rip the chandelier off the ceiling and throw it to the ground. I felt insulted and humiliated by the fact that I had been made a fool of. The C Scape men, Hunter Morgan specifically, were nothing more than a bunch of bullies, and I had let them bully me.
They were there that night at the ball. Rhett Larkin and Owen Rivera were at the summer ball, and I had seen them just moments before I bumped into Aubrey. It was all planned. They had hatched a honeytrap, using Hunter’s beautiful cousin Aubrey. Did they know that I would fall hard for her? Had they trained her in the things to say? Had they bought all these paintings from some other struggling artist because they knew that I was a collector?
Desire Me Page 6
