That final thought hit him like a punch to the face.
Well, shit.
Rose twisted in her seat to face him. “I think it’s time to go, don’t you?”
They said their hasty goodbyes and walked out of the ballroom with their arms around each other. Nick felt so light and euphoric he could almost float and all that other corny shit he’d never, ever admit to out loud.
Rose needed to make a quick stop in the ladies’ room, so he let her go and waited for her at the landing of the grand staircase. That’s my woman, he thought while watching her make her way down a hallway. Mine.
****
She never thought she would say this about one of her mom’s society parties, but Rose was actually having a good time thanks to Nick. She laughed to herself, remembering that one time she thought he would make a good gigolo. It turned out her instincts weren’t that far off. He was a perfect escort, attentive and solicitous to her and polite and charming to everyone else. All her concerns about how he’d comport himself in this stuffy country club setting now seemed silly and unwarranted.
Nick may lack the ornamental polish that the other men there had perfected since childhood, but he had lovely manners and treated everyone with sincere kindness. Mostly, she was impressed with the super-human tolerance he’d shown Rob.
As great as this non-date was though, Rose couldn’t wait to get him home.
She walked past a dim, open terrace and was pulled to an abrupt halt. A restraining hand was locked on her arm. She shrieked in fright.
“Not so fast, Rose. You and I are going to have a private conversation.”
****
Nick’s eyes narrowed as he watched Rose from across the room. She looked agitated as she spoke to someone hidden from his view. He saw her scan her surroundings quickly before finally stepping out into the terrace with whomever it was she was speaking to.
Instincts on high alert, Nick looked around for Rob and didn’t see him anywhere. He muttered a curse under his breath and weaved through the crowd to get to Rose.
****
“Mom, you scared the living shi—daylights out of me,” Rose said with a trembling voice. Her eyes darted around, checking to see if someone had been close enough to hear her scream bloody murder. “What are you doing lurking in dark corners like this?”
Diane ignored the question and gestured for Rose to step out with her. Reluctantly, she followed.
“What do you think you’re doing with that man?” she demanded.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean, young lady,” her mom said, voice dripping with well-bred disdain. “Your father mentioned that he’s been trying to get you two together.” She rolled her eyes, letting Rose know how ridiculous she found the idea. “I was sure you were smarter than that. But you brought him here. I want to know why. What is he to you, exactly?”
Rose hesitated, and that was answer enough for her mother.
“Oh, Rose. You can’t be serious.” She shook her head in disappointment. “A common brawler? Really? You’ve always had questionable taste in men—”
“He’s a professional athlete,” Rose said angrily.
“Athlete? You mean that thing where men punch each other for money? That’s not really a sport, Rose. That’s…that’s cockfighting.”
“He owns his own business. He’s very successful at what he does and he has more money than I’ll ever hope to make in my lifetime, if that’s where all this motherly concern is stemming from.”
Her mother softened. “I know what you think of me. I know you think I’m mercenary. That I’m a silly trophy wife, a shame to womankind and all those other things you care so much about. I was never as smart as you, Rose. I made the most of what life has given me, and I did what I could to make sure you got the best possible chance at a good life. I won’t stand idly by while you throw it all away with the poor choices you’ve been making, first with that job you have and then with the men you date.”
Rose was shocked into silence. Her mother had never before spoken this candidly to her. And what she said reminded her too much of what Nick told her not too long ago. For the first time in probably ever, she felt an odd sort of empathy and kinship with her mother. They might never see eye to eye on some fundamental issues, but perhaps they could finally reach an understanding and—
“You’re my daughter. I know you more than you’ll care to admit. He’s not the sort of man you’ll be happy with. You need someone who is your intellectual equal, someone cultured and someone you can have meaningful conversations with. Anyone can see you have nothing in common with that man. You’re embarrassing yourself, Rose. Be honest, can you imagine him fitting into your life? Fitting in with our friends?”
Our friends? Stuck-up snobs like Rob and other people like him who her mom seemed to adore were not her friends.
“You’re an intelligent girl, I didn’t think I’d have to tell you that relationships shouldn’t be based solely on physical attraction. You need someone from a common background—”
Someone like Rob. She didn’t say it, but Rose could tell that was what she was getting at. And just like that, her anger flared anew. She needed to get out of there, away from her mom. But, for the life of her, she couldn’t resist baiting her one last time.
“We’re just fucking, Mom,” she said with a blasé shrug of her shoulders. “He’s hung and he can do things with his tongue like you wouldn’t believe—”
“Rose Margaret Shannon!” her mother exclaimed, utterly scandalized.
Rose smirked and turned to go, leaving her mother speechless and red in the face.
****
She unlocked the door to her small one-bedroom apartment and tossed her keys on the kitchen counter. During the drive back to her place, Rose kept replaying the conversation with her mom and silently stewed on her anger. She was too preoccupied with her own thoughts to notice that Nick had not said a single word until he pulled up to her building.
She invited him up to her apartment out of formality, because wasn’t it pretty much a foregone conclusion that he’d be staying over? But if Rose didn’t know any better, she thought Nick seemed somewhat reluctant. Nonetheless, he parked his car and followed as she led him inside.
They’d made it a few paces into her living room when she slid her hands up his chest. She looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to take the lead like he always did. Except this time he didn’t.
Nick looked like he had a million things going on his mind. His eyes darted around, looking anywhere but at her. Rose felt a rush of guilt for dragging him to that stupid party and inflicting Rob’s company on him. Surely he had better things to spend his precious little downtime on.
Determined to make it up to him, she slipped one hand inside his jacket while the other cupped the back of his neck. She kissed his throat. That was about as high as she could reach despite her heels.
Instead of kissing her back as she expected, he circled her waist with his hands and forced her backwards until the back of her thighs hit the arm of her couch. Then he spun her around and bent her over. Rose gasped, not in fear exactly, but more like surprise. Even at his roughest, there was always an underlying tenderness in Nick’s touch. He would never hurt her. Everything he did was meant for her pleasure.
Tonight he was different. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it was in the way he ran his hands along her spine and palmed her bottom.
He flipped the skirt of her dress over, and she felt cool air hit the back of her legs and thighs. She squirmed in anticipation. She might be getting a different man tonight, but she was hot for him just the same. Nick stopped moving. She could feel his eyes on her. She knew what he was seeing—black French lace and little red silk bows, the most impractical underwear ever designed, the kind she hoped never to be caught dead in. She wore it with him in mind. There was no point lying about it. I wore slutty lingerie for the guy I’m having a fling with, so sue me.
She wished she
could see his face right then. The man seemed to have a thing for lace.
She heard him undoing his belt as he nudged her legs apart with his knee. He hooked his finger on the crotch of her panties and pulled it aside. Soon, she felt him shove his bare cock between her thighs and tease her lips with just the tip. She moaned, her fingers digging into the cushions.
“Is that what you want, Rose? You want me to fuck you?”
“Yes.” She barely got the word out. She was shaking and breathless with need.
“You want my big cock?”
“Yes,” she said again, getting frustrated from his teasing. “Please, I need you now.”
He flipped her skirt back down and stepped away. Rose pushed herself up to look at him over her shoulder. “Nick? What’s wrong?”
He shook his head at her. “I can’t do this.”
“What do you mean?” She straightened herself to face him and reached out to lay her hands on his shoulders. “Can’t do what?”
He caught her wrists and drew her hands down. “You’d better find yourself another willing cock, Rose.” He fastened his trousers then made his way to her front door. “I got more to offer than that and I deserve as much.” He slammed the door behind him, leaving Rose in open-mouthed astonishment.
CHAPTER 21
A knock on her car window jolted Rose out of her thoughts. She unlocked the door and Chris climbed into the shotgun seat.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said morosely. She’d been parked outside Nick’s gym for a good part of an hour, working up the courage to go inside. She’d waited two whole days before she decided to go see him. They needed to talk this out, whatever this might be. They owed each other that much. She waited and waited for him to call, but he never did. She figured it was her turn to stick her neck out and make the first move.
“Did you and Nick have a fight or something?”
“How can you tell?” Rose asked, hopeful. Maybe he’d said something to Chris that would give her a clue as to what was going on in his head. They weren’t girlfriend and boyfriend, for sure. But “fuck buddy” didn’t quite encompass what they had either. It was mutable and undefined, whatever it was, and it hadn’t previously existed in her limited repertoire of male-female relationships. Friends one minute, lovers the next. She thought they were both fine with that. In fact, she thought he’d been pretty clear that he wasn’t looking to get serious with her. So what had changed?
“I was just interviewing him for my story,” Chris said. “He seemed a little out of it. He didn’t ask about you. He usually does. And then I saw you out here…” He trailed off, waiting for Rose to fill in the details.
“I think he’s mad at me,” Rose admitted.
“Why would he be mad at you?”
She hesitated, unsure of how much she could share with her brother without crossing the line into awkward territory. But then, he probably knew the gist of it already. Nothing got past Chris. “I think he thinks I’m only using him for sex.”
“You sure that’s it?” he asked, sounding dubious but not surprised. “He doesn’t seem like the type who’d have a problem with that. Most guys wouldn’t.”
That kindled a spark of anger in her that burned hot and bright. Of course he’d doubt her. Who wouldn’t? It wasn’t crazy to assume that if there was anyone angling to turn sex into something serious, it wouldn’t be Nick, who could get any girl he wanted easily.
“Well, he told me I better go find another willing cock because he has more to offer and he deserves as much,” Rose replied.
Chris squirmed in his seat, clearly not comfortable with the turn the conversation had taken. It served him right for being so nosy. “So why don’t you like him then? We’re sort of friends now, I guess, and he seems like a nice guy.”
She didn’t doubt their budding bromance, but Rose could also detect a tiny bit of hero worship in Chris’ tone. She shrugged. “He’s not my type.”
“Okay,” he said, skeptical. “So what’s your type, exactly? Those docile and diffident men that you always seem to pick for yourself? Men who let you run right over them?”
She turned to him in surprise. She never knew he thought so little of any of her exes, and she took it not just as an attack on them but on her judgement as well. “Just because it didn’t work out with any of the guys I dated, it doesn’t make them bad men. They’re all still my friends, Chris.”
“I didn’t say they were bad men,” he insisted. “Maybe you genuinely admired them because they met all the conditions on some mental checklist you might have…”
Rose had an actual checklist in an Excel file in her computer, but she didn’t bother mentioning that to Chris.
“…but I never understood what you saw in them to begin with. It was clear that they were all wrong for you. Everyone could see it, everyone but you. Why do you think Mom and Dad are always trying to set you up? They don’t always get it right but, well, neither do you.”
Before she could reply, they were interrupted by another knock on the car window. Moira smiled and waved from the outside before letting herself in the back seat.
“What’s up? Are we having a meeting?” She leaned forward through the gap in the front seats, looking at them expectantly.
“Nick is mad at Rose because, apparently, she only wants him for his body and he wants more,” Chris summarized for Moira.
Rose shot her brother a withering glare while Moira’s eyes grew wide with astonishment.
“He slept with you?”
If Rose wasn’t so miserable, she would’ve been insulted at Moira’s disbelief.
“Please, please, please tell me he’s a rock star in bed and that hot body of his is not just for show.”
She couldn’t help herself. She gave Moira a smug look. “He’s fucking phenomenal.”
The other girl made a big show of fanning herself with her hand. “Is he big? Straight or slightly curved?”
“Hey!” Chris interrupted. “I’m right here. Don’t talk about that. That’s too much information, even for me.”
Moira rolled her eyes at Chris and turned her attention back to Rose. “What’s wrong with you?” she demanded. “Most girls would kill for a chance with a guy like that.”
“Maybe so,” Rose said, “and maybe he’s better off with any number of them.” As the words left her mouth, a hot and ugly sensation that felt a lot like raging jealousy filled her. Funny, she always thought she was above such a petty and useless emotion. Certainly none of her ex-boyfriends had ever aroused such a primal reaction out of her. It seemed like Nick had a monopoly on her primal side–good or bad. She found the realization unsettling, if not downright scary. All the more reason getting serious with him was a bad idea. “C’mon, tell me you guys don’t see how utterly wrong Nick and I are for each other,” she persisted, needing them to agree.
“Yeah, I kinda don’t see what he sees in you,” Moira said. “No offense,” she hastily added when Rose glared at her.
Chris took his time and mulled it over. “Well, on the surface you guys don’t look like you have much in common, and I guess that could be a hurdle. But I see the way you look at him, Rose.”
“That’s just lust. Show me a girl who doesn’t look at Nick like she wants to tear his clothes off and—”
Chris held his hand up in warning. “Do not go there. I don’t wanna hear that.”
The car door was pulled open once again. Moira scooted to the side as Anna climbed in beside her. “What are you all doing here?” Anna asked. “Rose, I didn’t know you were stopping by.”
“By all means, Chris,” Rose said dryly, “give Anna a recap of what she’s missed.”
He was only too happy to oblige. As Chris filled her in, Rose watched Anna’s reaction carefully through the rear view mirror, grateful to have an ally. Her best friend would surely understand where Rose was coming from. But what she said next was wholly unexpected.
“Rose, he’s the onl
y man who’s ever managed to give you an orgasm. That must count for something.”
Chris put his hands over his ears. “Oh God, I did not just hear that,” he muttered.
“What? Say that again?” Moira said, eyes growing wide and her mouth dropping open in a frozen ‘O’ of surprise.
Rose ignored them and turned around to face Anna. “I don’t believe you. You don’t even like Nick. Where’s all this coming from?” Her best friend was even more of a hard-liner than Rose was. She expected support from her and maybe a pat on the back for not chucking her principles for a man.
Anna winced, looking embarrassed. “I’m big enough to admit when I’m in the wrong. I might have unfairly judged him. I mean, he does look like an unreconstructed misogynist. And he’s at the top of a sport that rewards and glorifies male aggression. You can’t blame me for having my doubts.”
Rose caught Moira and Chris sharing a look and rolling their eyes as Anna continued.
“But Nick and I got to talk a couple of times recently, and you could say I’ve been enlightened. Did you know that his mom worked two jobs to make ends meet while his dad stayed home to care for them?”
Rose scoffed, unimpressed. “Yes, I know. How convenient he found a way to mention that to you. You’ve always been suspicious of charmers, Anna. I can’t believe he won you over so easily.”
“Give me some credit here. I’m suspicious of guys who pretend to be nice but turn out to be sexist assholes with ulterior motives. But from what I’ve seen so far, Nick is freakishly nice to everyone. He’s even nice to me. He doesn’t have to be, and God knows, I haven’t made it easy for him. He’s probably one of those who can’t stand people not liking him and feels like he has to do something to change their minds. The fact that he beats people into a pulp on a regular basis made me wary of him at first, but maybe that’s his secret. Maybe if I’m allowed to hit people in the face from time to time, I’d be a much nicer person too.”
They all shot Anna doubtful looks. She was temperamental enough as it was, she shouldn’t be allowed to hit people under any circumstance. She might like it too much.
Submission Moves: An MMA Romance Page 15
