Playing With Trouble

by Chanel Cleeton

  I gripped the stem of my champagne glass, my body fighting the urge to flee, my chest tight.

  He’d finally stopped calling a few weeks ago. I hadn’t listened to any of his voice mails, hadn’t been ready to face him.

  He began walking toward me, apparently taking my frozen stance as permission to approach. Maybe it was. I didn’t even know anymore. I hadn’t been prepared for this, but now that it was here, I wasn’t sure what I felt. I wasn’t angry anymore. Wasn’t even really sad. He felt like a stranger with whom I’d once shared a few intimacies.

  Maybe more than anything, I was just confused.

  And then he was right in front of me, and I couldn’t avoid the moment anymore.

  “Hi.”

  I couldn’t make myself smile, could feel the weight of dozens of pairs of eyes on us.

  So awkward.

  “Hi,” I echoed, my head spinning, feeling as though I was having an out-of-body experience.

  He swallowed. “You look nice tonight.”

  Apparently, we’d been reduced to social pleasantries. “Thanks. You, too.”

  This was too bizarre for words.

  “Can we go somewhere and talk?” he asked, a pleading look in his eyes.

  Shit.

  I could do polite and superficial. Anything more seemed like a bad idea. I didn’t know what was left to say.

  “I don’t—”

  “Please.”

  It was the look in his eyes that did it. Somewhere along the way I’d convinced myself that he was an asshole for what he did to me, but seeing him up close again, staring into the eyes of the boy I’d grown up with, it was hard to believe. I was hurt, but something inside me made the decision for me.

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  I walked out to the patio, the same one I’d stood on with Gray, Thom trailing behind me, ignoring the whispers that surrounded us. It felt like the longest walk of my life. When the fresh air hit me, finally, I could breathe again, no longer skewered by the intent gaze of a hundred prying eyes.

  Thom closed the door behind him and stared at me. Silence stretched, filling the chasm that separated us. I waited for him to speak, figured that since he’d initiated this reunion it was up to him to set the tone.

  And then he did.

  “I’m sorry.”

  My breath hitched.

  “I never meant to hurt you,” he continued. “Ever. I didn’t think it would affect us. That I could pretend like it wasn’t a part of me. Obviously, I was wrong.”

  “Wouldn’t affect us?” I choked the words out. “You had sex with someone else on our wedding day. In a church.”

  His eyes got tight. “I know.”

  “Just tell me why. Because that’s the thing I don’t get. If you knew you were gay, why did you get involved with me? Why did you propose to me? Why did you make me think you loved me? That we’d have a future together? You were my friend. Always. How could you hurt me like that?”

  “I loved you, Blair. I always loved you.”

  “As a friend.”

  Guilt flashed in his eyes, and he nodded.

  “Did you cheat on me when we were dating?” I asked, my tone hollow.

  I figured I knew the answer to that one, but if he was going to give me some of it, then I needed all of it.

  He stiffened. “Yes.”

  “A lot?”

  He shook his head. “A few times. I hated myself afterward every time. And each time I’d convince myself that I was going to end things with you, that I was going to come out to you, my parents, but I just couldn’t.”

  My hands trembled. “Our wedding—seeing you and Brad—do you love him?”

  “I do.”

  I wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse, but on some level, the part of me that couldn’t completely erase our past was glad he’d found someone that made him happy.

  I pressed my lips together. “When did you realize you were gay? Did you always know?”

  He rubbed his brow, his shoulders hunched. “Did some part of me always know? Probably, yeah. I didn’t really recognize it then, maybe because I knew my parents would never accept it. I tried to do what they wanted me to. Tried to be the person everyone thought I should be. I asked you out because you were one of my best friends. I loved spending time with you. Loved you. And I thought that we could work together. That if I was with you, that other side of me would just go away. I didn’t want to be gay. Didn’t want to be different. My father gives a fortune to conservative political candidates each year. I knew how he’d feel.”

  His words resonated with me in a way I hadn’t expected. The pressure he spoke of, the expectation to fit a mold, was one I easily identified with. The mask he’d worn was much harder than anything I’d ever dealt with, but I understood what it was like to pretend you were someone you weren’t. To feel like no one saw you. There wasn’t much that was worse than being surrounded by people who were supposed to love you, and feeling invisible instead.

  “I’ve tried calling you to apologize. I understand why you wouldn’t take my calls, and I’m so sorry for everything that happened. I never intended for it to become the mess it did, for our business to be spread all over the tabloids like that.”

  In all fairness, that had been more due to my reputation than his.

  “I know.”

  His eyes were pleading. “I thought we could be happy together. I thought our friendship would be enough.”

  And then I realized, really realized, that we’d both been settling for something because we’d been afraid to take a chance, to step outside of the world we’d lived in. We were living our lives on paper, on the society page, at dinner parties, and that was no life at all.

  I didn’t love him. Not like that. And as hurt and embarrassed as I’d felt fleeing my own wedding, as much as the memories of people on the street shouting, “Hey, where’s the groom?” as I left the church still stung, those emotions weren’t about my relationship with Thom. They were about me.

  “It wasn’t. Not for either one of us. I didn’t see it, but I should have.” If things had happened differently, if I hadn’t been nervous and gone to talk to Thom, if the timing had been off just a bit—minutes—I would be standing here at this party with his ring on my finger and a life ahead of me that never would have made me happy. Not the way I deserved to be happy. Not the way he deserved to be happy.

  And what had been a Shakespearean tragedy became my saving grace.

  “Are you happy with Brad?”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  “And your family?”

  He gave me a wry smile. “Freaking the fuck out.”

  “Join the club. My parents are livid.”

  His expression sobered. “It wasn’t your fault. If anything, they should be pissed at me.”

  I shrugged. “My mother thinks I should have married you anyway. You know how she is.”

  “You did the right thing. For both of us. I’m just sorry it got as out of control as it did.”

  “Me, too.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “I miss you. Miss talking to you. Miss hanging out.” His voice got tight. “We were friends before. Do you ever think we could be friends again?”

  I never would have thought I’d feel that way, but once you stripped the embarrassment away, I realized there wasn’t any pain left. He hadn’t broken my heart; hadn’t even touched it.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Maybe we can get coffee sometime?” he suggested.

  I smiled. “I’d like that.”

  We spent ten minutes on the patio, catching up, the awkward tension between us slowly dissipating with each moment we spent together. When I’d finished, I didn’t have the heart to return to the party, to deal with the stares and the questions.

  So I left.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Spotted: Blair Reynolds and Thom Wyatt sneaking away at her parents’ annual Christmas party. Wonder what they discussed . . .

  —Capital Confe
ssions blog

  Blair

  I called a car to take me from McLean to D.C., cringing slightly at the expense, and met up with Caitlin, Adam, and a few others from our section at a bar around the corner from the W. By the time I arrived, everyone was well on their way to plastered. Caitlin insisted I catch up.

  So I did.

  I’d never done much partying; even college had been relatively tame. And now I just wanted to let loose a bit. I wanted more than a life of playing it safe. I wanted more—

  I wanted Gray.

  So for the second time that night, I left the party early, in favor for a very special, private party—

  For two.

  * * *

  This was probably not my best idea. And yet here I was.

  I stood on Gray’s doorstep, slightly intoxicated. For a moment I questioned my sanity as I lifted my hand in the air to ring the buzzer, and then months of sexual frustration came to a head as my finger pressed the button.

  Buzz. Buzz.

  I waited, and then I heard the sound of the door opening, and Graydon Canter in all of his masculine glory stared at me from the other side.

  His eyes were wide, his expression slack. “Blair? Are you okay? It’s two a.m.”

  For a moment, we just stared at each other. He was dressed in a pair of dark blue pajama pants and a gray T-shirt. His hair was rumpled from sleep, his feet bare.

  Gray blinked, his gaze traveling down my body, taking in the little black dress and the killer heels. He swallowed, and then he stared into my eyes, and he didn’t look sleepy anymore.

  “Can I come in?”

  He nodded, his lips parted as he moved to the side, and I crossed the threshold.

  His gaze on me the entire time, I was thankful for the dress that gave me the courage I needed to show up on his doorstep in the middle of the night.

  It wouldn’t be easy with him. He had too much baggage for easy. I didn’t care. I was ready for whatever Gray threw my way.

  I walked into the living room, turning to face him. He hovered in the doorway, his expression unsure.

  I didn’t want to be protected. Maybe he wasn’t the hero, but right now all I knew was that even though he saw himself as the villain, I wanted the darkness inside him. I wanted it all.

  “I want you.”

  Gray’s eyes widened, as though my words had caught him off guard. But really, I stood in front of him in his living room in a skimpy dress at two a.m.; there weren’t many other conclusions one could arrive at.

  “I’m technically not your student anymore. We’re both single adults. You want me. I want you.”

  “Blair.”

  Frustration filled me at the protest in his voice. No. Was it that he had been my teacher? Or his concerns that he wasn’t right for me? Either way, I’d come here for an orgasm, and I wasn’t leaving without one.

  I could have blamed the drinks for the words that tumbled from my lips, but that would have been too easy. The words had been there for years, pushing to get out, trapped behind manners, and social rules, and the media following my every fucking move. And like the devil he was, he tempted the words out of me, filling me with need, and lust, and a want only he could satisfy. So for possibly the first time in my entire life, I said every single thing I thought as I told him the truth.

  “You know what I need? I need to get laid. I need an orgasm. I need to feel a man’s body on mine. Hell, I’d like for someone to rip my thong off. They’re always doing that in books. Do you know that every single time I read a book and some guy rips the heroine’s underwear off, I think to myself, that seems too difficult to believe. Like, are they just poor quality or have they been washed too many times, or what? Because I’m twenty-three years old and no one has ever ripped my underwear off. I’m calling BS on the whole thing.”

  His eyes went dark, but I was too keyed-up to stop.

  “I want what you gave me on Halloween. I want more. So much more.” My voice shook. “Do you know that I’ve never had an orgasm from straight-up sex?”

  “Jesus.” He half-choked the word out.

  “Never. This whole time I thought it was me. That there was something wrong with me. Now that I know my former fiancé is gay, I mean it makes more sense, but for years I thought there was something wrong with me. Like I was too polite to come. I bought a vibrator—”

  “Fuck, Blair.”

  I stopped, mid-rant. “What? Yeah, I know. Ladies don’t use vibrators. They don’t have sex with their perfect fiancé, and then go home, and lie in bed, and get themselves off in the dark because they just need to feel something more.”

  He let out a sound that was somewhere between a choke and a groan. He took a step toward me. Then another. His voice got husky, low.

  “I don’t give a shit about what ladies do or don’t do. Just you. The thought of you teasing yourself, touching yourself. Fuck, that’s hot.”

  He released a shaky breath, and a surge of victory slammed into me. He wanted me. Even if he didn’t want to want me. Maybe he’d meant to go slow, but I wanted nothing to do with caution. I wanted to hurl myself down the ride of my life. I wanted to feel so much it hurt.

  “You want to be the villain? Fine. I’m not looking for a hero. I know you have issues. I know you have baggage and you’re so obviously commitment-phobic, it’s not even funny, but you want me. You can pretend you don’t, but I’m not some young girl you can intimidate. You said you were taking a chance on this—getting off the fence. Get off the fence.

  “I want you to fuck me.” There, I’d said it. And somehow the world hadn’t descended into chaos. “I want you to make me forget that the last guy I had sex with—the only guy I’ve ever had sex with—probably never really wanted me.”

  My voice shook with nerves, anticipation, and a sexual desire that ran through me like a flash flood.

  Now or never.

  I reached behind me and unzipped the dress, letting the fabric fall to the floor in a pool of silk and satin, leaving me exposed in a lace Agent Provocateur half-corset.

  Gray sucked in a deep breath, his mouth tight. His gaze darkened and my nipples pebbled in response, heat flooding my body as wetness pooled between my legs.

  I wanted him. Fuck everything else.

  Gray

  I didn’t know how I’d ever been so stupid as to think she wasn’t sexy. The girl standing in front of me was, hands down, the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. She was a fucking fantasy.

  She wore black lace that pushed her tits up as if offering them to my hands and mouth, and a little thong that showed a lot of skin.

  I wasn’t sure who moved first, but the end result was the same—Blair in my arms, my hands on her ass, pulling her against my aching cock. She gave me her mouth, and I took it with my lips, tongue, and teeth. I sucked on her bottom lip, my teeth sinking into her flesh while she moaned against me, her hands moving under my shirt to stroke my back, her nails digging into my skin.

  Fuck.

  I’d always thought of Blair as the kind of girl who’d want candles and soft music and flower petals. I didn’t imagine her stripping in my living room and demanding I fuck her, but there was no chance in hell I was passing this opportunity up.

  I broke away from our kiss so that she could pull my shirt off over my head, and then her mouth was mine again.

  Her hands explored my chest, her fingers trailing down my torso until she reached my navel, teasing the skin there, dipping below my pajama pants. Her fingers curved around my cock and my hips jerked forward, pressing against her hand, my mouth torn from hers.

  “Fuck me,” I hissed, barely able to come up with a coherent thought as she stroked me, her fingers curled in a fist. I fucked her hand, my erection hard and aching, the need to come nearly overwhelming. It had been months since I’d had a woman. Months of nothing but my hand and thoughts of her.

  She fisted my cock, her wrist twisting, hand pumping, her fist sliding up to palm the head, the move sending a shiver down my spine.r />
  I bent my head, my teeth connecting with the soft curve of her neck and shoulder. I sucked on the skin there, my teeth nipping at her, not caring that it would leave a mark. I wanted to mark her. Wanted everyone to know she was mine. There was something savage here between us—the realization that I didn’t have to pretend I was someone I wasn’t with her, that I could be me, in all of my screwed-up glory, and she’d still have me.

  I reared back, the taste of her on my tongue. My hands came to the front of her bra, to the line of hooks that ran between her tits. I flicked one open, the black lace gaping to expose her naked flesh. Then another, my knuckles grazing her skin, tantalizingly close to the delicious curve of her breasts. She shuddered against me, and then the hand on my cock went completely still.

  It was like I was unwrapping a present, hook by hook. Each opening gave me another inch of skin and tore another shiver from her body. I stopped midway down, staring at Blair’s face. She was gone, the mask she hid behind completely obliterated.

  Her eyes were wide and unfocused, her lips swollen and red, her cheeks flushed. Her long brown hair tumbled down around her shoulders, the bottom curl hovering over the slope of her breast. A red mark marred her ivory skin where my mouth had claimed her.

  Her chest rose and fell with harsh breaths, thrusting her tits up toward me. Her nipples were still covered by the black lace, but the need to see them, taste them, overwhelmed me.

  I fumbled with the rest of the hooks, dragging my fingers down her skin until I reached the final one and pushed the lace away and she was bare before me.

  For a moment all I could do was stand and stare at perfection.

  Pink nipples. Creamy skin. Soft curves.

  I cupped her breasts, my callused fingers grazing her silky skin.

  I could die a happy man from this alone.

  And then she moved, arching her body toward me, and said the magic words that broke whatever restraint I reached for.

  “More.”

  My mouth closed down on her nipple. Blair shuddered against me, her legs trembling, and I wrapped my free arm around her, holding in her in place while my lips and tongue destroyed her.