by K. M. Scott
“How long does it usually take for Kane to confirm a reservation?” Erin asked.
I looked down at my work email and clicked refresh, sure that he wasn’t even awake at that time on a Saturday. “Not long, but he keeps much later hours than I do. He probably just got to bed a couple hours ago.”
“Sounds sexy. I need to find a man like that instead of the workaholics I keep dating,” Josie said. “He’s the scary brother, right? I could handle scary, don’t you think?”
“I’d be more worried about him,” I said with a chuckle. “All joking aside, now that he doesn’t scare the hell out of me every time I see him, I sort of can see what someone would find attractive about Kane. He’s got a dark thing about him.”
As Erin began asking for more details on Kane, my email dinged and I looked to see his reply. “I was wrong. He’s already emailed back. Here’s what he has to say. ‘Monday night is confirmed for a gold room with all the same components. Reserved for midnight in Room 12. Please follow the same instructions as always.’”
“He’s as personal as my credit card company when they explain why they’re raising my interest rate, Liv. Does it always sound like that?”
I nodded at Josie’s question. “Yeah. Nothing new there. I’m just surprised he replied so soon.”
“It’s a sign. I say it’s a good sign,” Erin said in her chipper voice.
“Let’s hope so.” I steepled my fingers and grinned. “Now we wait.”
* * *
I’d never worked late on a Monday night, so I was surprised at how many people actually partied at Club X on the first working day of the week. I’d obviously been missing out on a lot of life. Cash and Stefan had been out of the club all day, only showing up in time for the crowds to appear. I tried to get a sense of Cash, but other than being professional and friendly, I couldn’t get a vibe from him.
Just before midnight, I poked my head into his office and found him sitting behind his desk wearing a serious expression. He looked up at me and smiled. “Decided to work the late shift tonight?”
“I did. I have plans tonight, so it worked out.”
I watched for any change in his expression, but I saw none. That didn’t mean anything, though. It’s not like he was anything but cool in the office on most days, so I tried not to read anything into it.
“Have a nice night, Olivia.”
“Thanks! See you later.”
As I made my way upstairs through the crowds dancing to the techno music, I worked to still my jitters about what I was about to do. It was a big step, but Erin was right. I had to take this chance. I flashed a smile at Kane as I passed him at the top of the stairs and headed to my assigned fantasy room. I’d chosen a very informal sundress for work that day, so all I had to do was tie the blindfold around my head and wait.
Like every other night, my other senses kicked into overdrive once my vision was taken away. Each creak of the floor outside in the hallway put me on edge as I wondered if the noise signaled Cash’s arrival. Wiping my sweaty hands on my thighs, I tried to remain calm even as the reality that it was all going to be laid on the line in just minutes hung over my head.
I took a deep breath and let it out. I could do this.
The sound of the door opening made my heart pound, and I sat up straight on the chair, ready for him. He closed the door, and I quickly licked my dry lips, hoping my nervousness didn’t leave me with cottonmouth.
I sensed him standing in front of me and took the initiative. It was now or never, but I wanted him to see my eyes when I spoke to him. Sliding the blindfold off my face, I stared in amazement at the man looking down at me.
“Where is Cash?”
“He’s not coming.”
Leaping off the chair, I angrily threw the blindfold on the couch. “Kane, what the hell is going on? I said I wanted the same person, so why isn’t he here?”
Kane simply stared at me, his blue eyes hard. “I don’t know, Olivia. I just know he said he wasn’t coming.”
I couldn’t decide if I was hurt, humiliated, or angry. They all mixed together inside me like some emotional stew. Whatever I was feeling, I wanted some damn answers. I deserved better than having his half-brother give me some vague bullshit answer. If Cash didn’t want to do this anymore, he damn well better be prepared to tell me himself.
As I stormed down to the first floor, my brain filled with what I wanted to say to him. Who the fuck did he think he was? I wasn’t some bimbo plaything he could just throw aside when things got too real. If he didn’t want me, he was going to have to be a man about it and tell me to my face.
The crowd nearly parted as I walked through the nightclub. I imagined my expression told people to get the fuck out of my way, but I didn’t care. Hell hath no fury like a woman who wanted answers!
I knocked on his office door and didn’t even wait for him to invite me in. Throwing the door open, I saw him sitting in front of his laptop as he had been earlier, like leaving me waiting up there in that fantasy room was perfectly okay. I marched up to the front of his desk, placed my palms on the glass top, and when he turned to look at me, stared straight into his eyes. “What the fuck is your problem?”
His eyes flashed emotion for the briefest moment—anger or maybe confusion—and then he was calm again. “Excuse me?”
Leaning toward him, I said even louder, “Excuse me nothing. There’s no excuse for what you did.”
“Oh, so now you admit you knew it was me all along.”
His statement surprised me, and I stood up to my full height, folding my arms across my chest. “So that’s what this is about? Is this a punishment because I didn’t show you I knew?”
Cash calmly closed his laptop and pushed his chair back away from his desk. “I don’t want to have this conversation, Olivia.”
My blood pressure soared, and I felt my heartbeat hammering in my ears. “So that’s it? You decide you don’t want to tell me what the fuck tonight was about and I’m supposed to be okay with that?”
“You wanted to feel what it was like to not be in control all the time, so no, you don’t get to demand any answers from me.”
I stood staring at him, stunned at how cold he seemed compared to the man I’d grown to respect at work and the one who’d driven me half out of my mind with desire in our private room. “Are you kidding?”
He stood from his chair and straightened the knot in his black silk tie. “I simply decided I didn’t want to continue our time together.”
“And that’s it? Don’t fucking pretend that you didn’t enjoy our time together, as you call it.”
Cash appeared to consider my words for a moment before he returned to fiddling with his damn tie. Brushing a piece of lint off it, he said, “I don’t deny that I enjoyed it. I simply decided I didn’t want to continue it.”
“You’re an asshole, you know that? You knew I liked you, and still you left me sitting there tonight and had your brother tell me you weren’t showing up.”
I felt tears building up inside me from the anger I couldn’t seem to express well enough. His icy answers stopped me dead in my tracks, leaving me unable to tell him exactly how shitty he’d treated me. I watched for any reaction to my words, but all he did was brush off his fucking tie.
“Look at me! Stop fiddling around with your goddamned tie! Is this how you are to people you care about? I know you were into me. I know you liked spending time with me. I’m not stupid, Cash. I may be shy, but I know when someone likes me. Why are you acting like this?”
He looked up from his tie and those stunning blue eyes of his stared directly into mine. “You seem to know my name well enough now, Olivia.”
“Don’t do this. If I did something to offend you, I didn’t mean to. That doesn’t mean I deserved to be humiliated upstairs.”
Cash ran his hand through his short hair and took a deep breath, as if he was working to keep himself calm. I didn’t want him calm. I wanted to know how a man who could be so bothered by me not a
dmitting it was him there with me in that fantasy room could be so cold to me now.
“Good night, Olivia.”
Chapter Twelve
Olivia
I wasn’t going to let it drop like that. As he stood there behind his desk, I marched around it to stand right in front of him. I wasn’t sure what to do next, but I wasn’t going to let this go.
“No! I want an answer from you. I know you wanted me like I wanted you, so why are you acting like this?”
He stared down at me with a look that was ice cold and searing hot at the same time. I felt the heat coming off him and knew whatever he was saying wasn’t how he truly felt. Moving closer to him, I lowered my voice. “Cash, I just want to understand what’s going on.”
“I don’t think that’s what you really want, Olivia.” He stepped forward, his chest brushing against my breasts making my nipples squeeze into hardened peaks. Lifting his arm, he pressed his palm against the wall, trapping me, and looked down. “So what do you really want, Olivia?”
“I’m not doing this little show for you. You want me to tell you I want you so you can throw it back in my face because I didn’t let you know I knew it was you there with me.”
My hands shook at my side as he continued to stare down at me so intently. A tiny lick of fear flickered in the back of my brain at the chance that I didn’t know Cassian March as well as I thought I did. I’d always seen him as a calm, almost cool person, not easily ruffled, but maybe that controlled façade was just that—a façade meant to hide something far more violent that lived inside him.
The problem was that even as I shook in fear at what might happen next, part of me had never been more turned on by any other man. I waited for him to react to my refusal to play along like we were still in the fantasy room, unsure what to do but knowing I wanted him more than ever.
“So instead of just going after what you want, you’re going to stand there like a little girl angry that you don’t get what you want. Is that it, Olivia?”
“Fuck you! Fuck you and your games. I should have just trusted my instincts about you.”
He stepped closer, his body pressing full against mine, but never broke his stare into my eyes. Low and deep, he asked, “And what did those instincts tell you?”
My defensiveness kicked into high gear and before I could stop them, the words I knew would hurt him most tumbled out of my mouth. “That the only March who could ever show me a good time is Stefan.”
I turned to look away, but I was too slow. His expression morphed into one so full of anger that I instinctively moved to run. He grabbed my arms and pushed me back against the wall as his leg pressed into my thighs just above my knee. In a voice so low I barely heard it, he said, “Then you should have played your game with him, little girl.”
Every way I turned, I saw his face. It was the face of betrayal, and I’d done that. I didn’t mean to. I’d just lashed out without thinking and before I knew it, those horrible words had come out. Instantly feeling awful, I quietly stammered, “I’m…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“I know what you meant,” he bit out. “And you were wrong.”
He released his hold on my arms and backed away like I disgusted him. All at once, my fear turned to disappointment at myself and the entire situation. I hadn’t wanted this to turn out this way. Suddenly feeling alone even as he stood there in front of me, I reached out and grazed his shirt sleeve with my fingertips, hoping to stop him from leaving.
My touch surprised him, and he looked up at me with eyes so full of intensity I had to believe he cared and there was a chance I could make up for what I’d said. If I didn’t do something now, he’d leave and we might never know if there could have been something between us. So I stepped toward him and before I could chicken out, I kissed him full on the lips. It was crazy and stupid and I’d never felt more vulnerable. If this was never going to be anything real between us, at least I’d be able to say I’d conquered my fears and done everything I could to make this happen.
His lips hardened against mine as he fought kissing me, but gradually they softened and he kissed me with a passion he’d never shown me in our fantasy room. I felt like I was burning up as his mouth devoured mine, like at any moment the two of us would be consumed by our desires if we kept this up.
But I didn’t want to stop, and if the way his tongue slid over mine was any indication, he didn’t want to stop either. My hand clung to the back of his neck, desperate to have him closer. His cologne filled my nose, a powerful male scent that added another layer of need to my desire. He was sensory overload, taking my mind and body to a level I wasn’t sure I knew how to handle.
He pushed his hips forward, thrusting so his cock pressed long and hard against the front of my dress. I wanted to feel him—feel his skin against mine instead of through the barrier of our clothing. I knew it might look eager, but I angled my hips upward like he was fucking me, needy for some release after everything I’d felt that night.
“Olivia…” His voice was thick with passion and the promise of more. I wanted more. I wanted it all.
My core clenched at the thought of actually having more from Cash. Just kissing, he overwhelmed me, nearly taking my breath away. He intimidated me and enthralled me, all at the same time. Outside his office door, the rhythm of the music pounded like the beat of my heart, each moment faster and faster as we shared this moment together.
He directed me toward the conference room behind his office, never once breaking his kiss. As the realization of what was about to happen settled into my brain, I opened my eyes to see the man I was about to sleep with. I needed to see he wasn’t that cold fuck anymore but the sensual man who’d thrilled me every Friday for the past month.
Cash stopped moving as we entered the other room, and for a moment I worried whatever magical something I’d thought we shared was all in my mind. Crestfallen and confused at the change in momentum, I saw instead that he hadn’t stopped to reconsider but to begin undressing. He looked at me seductively with those gorgeous blue eyes as he loosened his tie, sliding it from around his neck before he threw it over one of the high backed chairs that ringed the long, mahogany conference table. My eyes followed it and watched as the black silk tie slid like it was in slow motion down the back of the black leather chair.
He spoke, drawing my attention back to him as he stood there unbuttoning his sapphire blue dress shirt. “Are we still playing the game we started upstairs, Olivia?”
I didn’t know how to answer him. This had never been a game to me. At first, it had just been to prove to myself and the girls that I wasn’t as boring as they thought—that I could be that sexy woman I’d always wanted to be. Then once I knew it was Cash, our time together began to truly fulfill my fantasy about him. He was sexy and irresistible, the gorgeous public face of the most exclusive club in town, and in that fantasy room, he wanted me, shy and inexperienced Olivia.
Now, I didn’t know what this was to either of us. To him, it was likely just another night of sex which he likely had more often than I changed my underwear. To me…to me it was more. I was probably the world’s biggest fool, but I wanted it to be the beginning of something bigger than just great sex.
He shrugged out of his shirt, revealing a muscular body filled with tattoos. For a moment, I stood there in shock, amazed that the straight-laced and serious businessman who sat behind that glass desk in his minimalist office hid a totally different person under those tailored dress shirts and thousand dollar suits he wore. His left arm was covered from his shoulder down to his elbow with an intricate dragon in hues of dark and light green with gold eyes, and it looked like another design had been outlined on his right bicep. Visually stunning, those tattoos were nothing compared to the one that stretched in an arc across his broad chest. Black and red letters spelled out the words LUCK HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen a more perfectly chosen tattoo on anyone.
I couldn’t help but stare, not only at the tattoos
and his pierced right nipple but also at how stunning his body was. I’d only ever seen him fully dressed in a suit and tie, and even upstairs as I ran my hands over him in the darkness of that blindfold, I never could have imagined him being so well-built. My eyes traveled down from his toned pecs to a set of abs honed washboard perfect and cut hipbones angling down toward the bulge that still remained hidden beneath his pants.
By the time I realized I hadn’t answered his question, he wore nothing from the waist up and was slowly sliding his belt from around his waist. My mind reeling, I mumbled, “No game,” as I stood on wobbly legs not sure what to do next. He’d upended all my bravado the moment he’d taken off his shirt and showed me he wasn’t that stern March brother, gorgeous but all business. That man had seemed somewhere close to my league. Now as I stared in adulation at the man who stood in front of me, I knew Cassian March was so far out of my league I wasn’t even sure we played by the same rules.
Hell, I wasn’t even sure we played the same game.
“I like the way you’re looking at me, Olivia.”
“Why do you say my name all the time?” I asked, immediately feeling awkward as he stepped close to me, running his fingertips over my shoulders.
“Because there’s no sweeter sound to the human ear than the sound of one’s name.”
Jesus, why did everything he said seem so effortlessly sexy? As I stared up at him, unsure of what to say to that, he dipped his head and placed a soft kiss just below my ear. Closing my eyes, I tried to let myself enjoy this moment, but the reality that I didn’t know what to do with someone like Cash wouldn’t leave my mind.
Sensing my fear, he trailed his tongue up to the shell of my ear and whispered, “Relax.”
“I don’t…I think…” I wanted to stop, to say that I wasn’t the type of woman for him, but all I could do was stammer those few words out.
He lifted his head and cradled my face in his hands. Looking down into my eyes with a gaze so sure, he smiled. “We both need this, maybe even more than we want it.”
