by Maisey Yates
“Nope, in the corner.”
He pointed her to a door in the corner and she went to change.
Five minutes later she returned, the waist of the sweatpants rolled over so they didn’t fall off her hips, the shirt nearly sliding off her shoulder. She felt self-conscious and yet also surprisingly comfortable in Alex’s clothes, clothes she’d never, ever wear, and just about as far as possible from her usual crisply tailored outfits. Her armor.
She walked toward Alex who was stretched out on one of the leather sofas in the living area, his feet propped up on a solid, scarred coffee table of dark wood.
He glanced up as she approached, his gaze sweeping over her. “I like it. The new Chelsea Maxwell look.”
She laughed softly. “A T-shirt and sweatpants? I don’t think so.”
“A very sexy look,” he told her, all seriousness even though his eyes sparkled with humor. “They look very easy to take off.”
“Is that a promise?”
“Absolutely.”
She sat down on the sofa next to him, glanced around at the comfortable space. “No TV?”
“I get enough of that at work. This is my escape.” He slid his arm around her waist and drew her against him in a move that wasn’t seductive so much as gentle. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I’ve never brought a woman back here, Chelsea.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
She nodded and then, even though it went against every self-protective instinct she had, she leaned her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. Spoke the truth of her heart. “This is scary, Alex.”
“I know.”
“I’ve lived my life the way I have for a reason.”
His arm tightened around her waist, fingers splayed against her belly. “So have I.”
And neither of them asked what the reason was. That was as emotional or honest as they could go right now, Chelsea suspected.
Alex rose from the sofa, tugging her by the hand toward the corner of the apartment where a wrought-iron spiral staircase led, Chelsea assumed, to the roof.
“Time to show you the pièce de résistance of this place.”
“Which is?”
“Just wait and see.”
She followed him up the twisting steps and through a door onto the roof. Stopped and stared at the glassed-in pool, Manhattan in all of its sparkling glory visible on one side, the inky darkness of the Hudson River on the other.
“Very nice. Your own private rooftop pool, and for a man who doesn’t even like to swim.”
He laughed softly. “But no one can ever push me in and watch me drown.”
She walked slowly around the pool, gazing out at the lights of the city. “You don’t need water to drown,” she said quietly, and then wished she hadn’t. Too much information. Too much vulnerability.
But Alex didn’t respond, just watched her, and while she felt relieved that he wasn’t going to pry, she also wondered if he just didn’t want to know. Maybe that would be easier all around. Just skim the surface of all that intensity, all that emotion, but don’t actually dive into the damn pool.
A thought which should have brought reassurance, but instead she felt only a restless disappointment.
“Time for dinner,” Alex said, and they walked back downstairs.
“Are you going to cook for me?” She asked as she slid onto a high bar stool in the kitchen area and propped her elbows on the black granite countertop while he went around to the other side.
“You wouldn’t wish that on your worst enemy, I’m afraid. How do you feel about takeout?”
“I feel fine. That’s my usual MO, anyway.”
“How about pizza?”
“How about Thai?”
He shook his head, amusement glinting in his eyes. “Nothing’s easy with you, is it?”
“Nothing,” she agreed solemnly, and suddenly the air felt charged between them, expectant, as they both remembered and wanted still.
Alex cleared his throat. “So, Thai. I think I have a menu somewhere.”
A few minutes later he’d put an order in and they wandered over to the living area once more. Chelsea perched on the edge of one of the huge sofas. She felt ill at ease, awkward in a way she never allowed herself to feel. Everything about this felt weird and yet somehow normal, too. Just an evening at home with her lover, eating takeout. So normal, and yet so alien to her sterile, isolated existence.
Alex sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulder, drawing her against him again, and it felt that same weird mix of normal and bizarre to put her head on his shoulder, relax into his body. It felt so unbearably good to be so close to someone, to touch.
He kneaded the muscles in her neck with his strong fingers, laughing softly as he did so. “You are as taut as a bow.”
“I’m not used to this.”
“To what? Sitting on a sofa?”
“Basically.” She straightened to look at him. “I haven’t had any kind of meaningful relationship in ten years, Alex.” As soon as she said the words she wished she could snatch them back. They made her sound so lonely, so pathetic. Hadn’t she just told herself they wouldn’t go deep? Yet here she was, practically telling him the opposite.
Because the opposite, despite every self-protective instinct screaming otherwise, was what she wanted.
Alex regarded her thoughtfully. There was, thankfully, no pity in his gaze, just consideration. “I haven’t either.”
“Just a lot of one-night stands.”
“Basically. That’s what drew me to you at first, you know. I thought you were the same.”
“I was. Am.”
His mouth quirked in a small smile. “Which one, Chelsea?”
She shook her head, her confusion making her honest. “I don’t know.”
“Me neither. So at least we’re on the same page here, right?”
But what page was that?
Alex leaned forward and brushed her lips with his own. Ah, this page, she thought with relief. This page, she liked. And these kisses just about undid her. They were so sweet, so tender, so much. He would kill her with these kindnesses. He’d melt icy Chelsea Maxwell, and what—who—would be left?
The intercom buzzed with their meal and reluctantly Alex eased away from her. “We’re not done,” he warned her with a smile and Chelsea smiled back, although she was starting to hate that expression. We’re not done. But they would be...when? Which one of them would decide?
As Alex paid the delivery man Chelsea rose and went into the kitchen to search for cutlery and plates. She wouldn’t think about when this would end, she told herself. She was going to stop wondering and worrying and being afraid and just enjoy this time with Alex...for however long it lasted.
* * *
They spent the rest of the evening lounging around, eating far too much Thai food and chatting about everything and nothing.
Chelsea told him how Michael had discovered her practicing her delivery in the newsroom after hours, how she’d felt ridiculous and yet he’d actually given her a chance. How the idea behind Chat with Chelsea came when Michael overheard her talking to a washed-up celebrity at a cocktail party, and was impressed with how she’d been able to draw her out.
“I wasn’t even trying, then,” she said with a little laugh. “She was just drunk and wanted to talk.”
“And you were in the right place at the right time?”
“I suppose.” Although she didn’t like to attribute all of her success to dumb luck.
“It’s not just luck,” Alex said softly, and she looked at him in surprise.
“You’re doing it again. How did you know what I was thinking?”
“I don’t know. I just do.”
He knew her, Chelsea thought. She’d fought against it, still kept so many secrets, and yet he knew her. And she liked being known.
“Come on,” Alex said softly, and reached for her hand. He drew her up from the sofa and across the open apartment, moon
light streaming in through the long sash windows and sending slanting beams across the oak plank floor.
Chelsea followed him, her hand linked with his, to the bedroom area, and then to the bed. He turned to her with a smile and then tugging gently on her hand he drew her right up to him, so her hips bumped his and she felt the powerful evidence of his arousal.
“Hello,” he said softly and she closed her eyes as he whispered a kiss across her mouth.
“Hello.”
He slid his hands behind her neck, plucking the pins from her hair and sending it streaming down her back in a dark river. “I’ve never actually seen you with your hair down,” he murmured, with another whisper of a kiss across her jaw.
Chelsea shuddered in response. “Is that a euphemism?” she joked feebly, for her brain was starting to short-circuit as Alex moved his mouth from her jaw to her throat and then to the shadowy vee between her breasts, his mouth inches from her scar.
She tensed, because in ten years she’d never let a man kiss her breasts. Never even taken her top off. And yet she remained still and silent as Alex slid her T-shirt up over her breasts. She still wore her camisole and bra, but it didn’t feel like enough. His hands slid over the silk to cup her breasts.
He gazed up at him, his eyes dark and liquid. “May I?” he asked, and his fingers tugged gently on the edge of her camisole.
She swallowed and nodded jerkily, her heart starting to thump. Alex began to slip the camisole off and she grabbed his hand.
“Wait...” She wasn’t ready to be that naked. She knew he’d seen her scar before, but then she’d been hiding behind her anger and pride. This was different. Now she had nothing to hide behind but this scrap of silk, and Alex seemed to understand that for he smiled and dropped his hands.
“Okay,” he said, and kissed her again, and Chelsea sagged against him in relief. She wanted to say she was sorry for not trusting him that much yet, but the words tangled on her tongue and then he kissed them away, and they didn’t speak for a long time after that.
It was as far from the raw urgency of their previous encounters as possible. This was sweet and tender and slow, and it melted everything inside her so she felt like there was nothing left.
As Alex moved inside her she wrapped her legs around him and drew him in even deeper, his gaze fastened on hers. And when she came, crying out in a sob of both joy and surrender, he kissed her lips.
Afterward they lay tangled among the bed sheets just as she’d envisioned, limbs and fingers laced together, the only sound the ragged draw and tear of their breathing as their heart rates slowed and the moonbeams slid silently across the floor.
Chelsea had no words for what just happened, no way to express the truth of her soul. She wanted to tell Alex how he’d broken her right open, how everything in her felt exposed and that wasn’t necessarily a bad feeling. She wanted to tell him so many things, from the ugly episodes of her childhood to the lost years of her late teens, drifting through a series of broken relationships, to the three years of hell with Brian Taylor.
She wanted to tell him, but she wouldn’t. It was too much to share, too much for him to take in. She still wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it. In fact, she was pretty sure he didn’t.
Eventually Alex fell asleep, and Chelsea watched him for a while. Asleep he looked so relaxed, almost boyish. His dark, lush lashes feathered onto his cheeks and his lips were slightly parted on a sigh. She could see the dark hint of stubble on his jaw and she brushed her lips against it. He stirred, tangling one hand in her hair and drawing her against him. She curled into him for a moment, savoring his solid warmth, and then as he settled back into sleep she rose from the bed and slipped on the T-shirt and sweatpants he’d stripped from her just hours before.
She wouldn’t sleep tonight, she knew. As much as she craved the comfort of another body close to hers all night long, she knew she wouldn’t be able to relax into it. Let go of all the tightly-held anxiety and fear.
She slipped from the bedroom area and went up the spiral steps to the pool. The door squeaked as it opened but Alex didn’t stir.
Chelsea slipped out into the night. The city stretched around her on every side, the buildings lit like jewels against a dark and fathomless sky. She walked slowly around the pool, fighting an inexplicable sorrow. She’d had the sweetest, most wonderful time in Alex’s arms tonight. She felt as if she were teetering on the edge of a whole new world, vibrant and frightening, and yet...
She didn’t know if she could jump into it, as much as she wanted to.
And more importantly, she didn’t know if Alex could catch her if she fell.
* * *
Alex woke to darkness and an empty bed. He tensed, hating that smooth expanse of sheet for even though he almost always slept alone, in a single night he’d got used to Chelsea lying next to him. He missed her.
He lay there for a moment, processing that, resisting it. Things had changed so suddenly and intensely between them, and even though he’d enjoyed this evening, hell, yes, he didn’t know how much further down this road he was willing to go. How much he could.
A glance at the floor told him she’d put his clothes back on, so at least she hadn’t left.
He rolled off the bed and reached for his boxers.
Another quick glance told him she wasn’t anywhere in the apartment; the bathroom door was open, the room dark and empty. He headed upstairs, paused when he saw her at the far side of the pool, her back to him as she stared out into the night.
Her hair was loose about her shoulders and she’d wrapped her arms around herself; she looked lonely and sad and beautiful, and Alex felt a lurch of panic deep inside.
Too much.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked and she didn’t turn around.
“No. I’m an insomniac, I’m afraid.”
He took a step toward her, but the pool remained between them, a chasm of water. “What are you thinking about?” he asked after a moment’s pause, and then wished he hadn’t.
“Nothing much, really.” She pressed one palm against the glass, her fingers spreading out, long and slender. “Just how amazing your apartment is, really.”
Somehow he didn’t think she was just admiring the architecture, but he didn’t want to press. Maybe he should be ashamed of that, but frankly there had been enough emotional firsts today for both of them. He just wanted her back in bed, with his arms around her and her body fitted to his.
“You’ve come such a long way...” she said quietly. “Do you think you have?”
“In one way, yes. But in another...” He shrugged. “I’ll always be that poor boy from the Bronx.”
“Yes. You can never escape the past, can you?”
Alex’s whole body twitched with the need to stop this conversation. Take her downstairs. “You can learn from it,” he said, and it was meant to be a stopping point.
“Yes. Yes, you can. Learn not to make the same mistakes twice.”
What the hell, Alex wondered, was she talking about? Whatever it was, he knew he didn’t want to know. “Come back to bed, Chelsea,” he said, and finally she turned around, gave him a sweet, sad smile that just about broke his heart. And silently she walked around the pool and then taking his hand, led him back to bed.
Chapter Eleven
Alex gazed moodily out the window of his office and then back at the text Hunter had sent him that morning.
Back off. Zoe’s not speaking.
So Zoe could help Hunter but not Alex. Confront Treffen in his place of his business, with all his partners there as she and Hunter had done last week, but not on live television.
A few days ago Treffen had made the public announcement that he was leaving his law firm. He’d made a crap excuse, of course, but he was out. And while Alex, along with Hunter and Austin, had known it was coming, he’d still felt fiercely satisfied.
And dissatisfied at the same time, because he was still no closer to getting Chelsea the source she needed.
An
d if he was honest, he hadn’t even tried too hard. He’d barely thought about Treffen since Chelsea had seen the photo. Somehow it had all got lost in the rush of their relationship.
Relationship. Where the hell had that word come from? They didn’t have a damn relationship. They’d had sex. Three times.
This morning she’d left his bed, gathered her torn clothes and buttoned up her trench coat to her chin. With every button Alex had felt as if she were hiding herself from him, her expression back to chilly Chelsea rather than the warm, open woman he’d loved half the night long. And he told himself that was a good thing.
He knew he didn’t want to hear about Chelsea’s sadness and secrets, and he was pretty sure she knew it, too. Keep it light, or at least lighter. Hadn’t they gone deep enough already? This shit wasn’t easy. It hurt. And even as he craved more of Chelsea he was still debating the merits of walking away. Walking away as much as he could, anyway, because he still needed her to bring down Treffen.
Blowing out an impatient breath, Alex thumbed a text back to Hunter.
Chelsea won’t confront Treffen without a primary source. We need Zoe.
Or if Zoe still refused, maybe he could find someone else. Maybe she would name another victim. In any case he needed to stop all this ridiculous navel-gazing about what he did or didn’t feel for Chelsea and just start doing. He’d find another one of Jason’s victims. Someone who was willing to speak.
You need to tell Chelsea about Sarah.
There was so much he’d omitted. He hadn’t told her that Sarah was his friend, or that she’d killed herself. He hadn’t told her how he’d let her down. And he didn’t want to. Couldn’t admit to any of those things, to the pain inside him he’d refused ever to acknowledge or feel.
Find someone else. Another woman whose life had been destroyed by Jason Treffen. That was the easier, if less honest, solution, and he was going to take it.
Several hours later he headed uptown for his weekly squash game with Jaiven. He hadn’t seen his friend since they’d had a beer at a bar in the Bronx and he’d had Chelsea Maxwell on his mind.
Still did.
He hadn’t called her, although he’d thought about picking up the phone all day. They’d left things so abruptly and undecided that morning; looking back Alex realized Chelsea had basically hightailed it from his apartment without so much as a backward glance. And he’d let her. Maybe it was better that way, he told himself. Easier, at least.
