As soon as she joined the crowd of people she whipped her phone out of her pocket and hastily typed, “I'm somewhere in this sea of people,” then continued to stare at her phone not only to await his reply, but also to make sure she looked busy if he caught sight of her. She knew it was bit childish, but she couldn't seem to shake that habit.
She had been scarcely standing there for a minute before she felt something tap her on her shoulder. She looked up to find the tall, blond man she vaguely remember from the New Years Eve party. He wore a thick leather jacket and a gray beanie, a style combination that made him all but unrecognizable as the Wall Street whiz she assumed he was, or the nautical champion his profile picture made him out to be. In fact, as he stood before her, his genuinely bright and excited smile revealing a set of perfectly straight and bright white teeth, she couldn't help but find him strikingly down to earth.
“Hi!” She greeted him, flashing him her set of tickets.
He bit his lip. “Ugh! Great! You already have tickets.” he exclaimed.
“Yes. So now we can walk right past this crowd and straight into the exhibit like a couple of bad asses.” Reese joked as they started to work their way through the crowd.
“Right, because spending a Sunday at a Cold War exhibit is totally bad ass.” He teased as he opened the door for her.
Reese slipped inside and immediately unwrapped her scarf. Jack followed suit and they made their way to the coat check, where Reese offered up her coat, hat and purse and Jack followed with his jacket, but he kept his beanie on. As they stood in the short line in front of the man who was checking tickets, Reese stole a sidewards glance at Jack. She couldn't help but smile at how adorable he looked in his beanie and thick, black sweater. “Hey! At least I had an adventure to offer.” She shot back as they stepped inside of the first room of the exhibit.
Jack opened his mouth to say something else, but his response hung in the air as the two of them surveyed the room, disappointment settling in with its depressingly dark glow. The room's walls were all bare save for the random photo of Berlin here and propaganda poster there. As they scanned the exhibit, they found that the most interesting thing was a rendition of the famed Marilyn Monroe pop art piece by some obscure Andy Warhol wannabe. As they reached the landing of the stairway leading up to the second floor, Jack paused. “This is surprisingly underwhelming.”
Reese giggled at this. “God, I know.” She replied. A group of serious-looking middle-aged men approached them so she tugged on Jack's arm to get him out of the way. “I can't believe I almost dragged Daniel to this. He would have been so pissed at me.”
Jack furrowed his brow in curiosity. “You were going to take Daniel?” He asked in a voice that sounded more like he meant, “I wasn't your first choice?”
Reese grimaced. “Of course I was going to take Daniel.” it came out much more rude than she had originally anticipated.
“So why didn't you?” He snapped back.
She lowered her gaze. “Because he had to work.” She mumbled.
“What?” Jack leaned in closer so that he could hear her.
“He went to the office.” She repeated in a louder voice.
“On a Sunday?” Jack replied in a judgmental voice.
“Don't give me that!” Reese cried. “I don't understand it anymore than you do.”
Jack grimaced. “Wait, he didn't tell you why?”
“Well he did.” Reese insisted, but as she lowered her eyes, she added, “Kind of...”
“You have no idea how it works with him do you?”
“It's not really important....” Reese mumbled defensively.
“He's your boyfriend and you don't think it's important for you to understand his life?”
“It's not his life... it's his job. And he doesn't think it's important.” She corrected.
“Well, that's weird. Julie is currently two thousand miles away and she knows everything about my life.”
“Julie's your girlfriend?” Reese asked, just as she realized she was, indeed extremely jealous of his girlfriend.
Jack shrugged, as if to dismiss the idea of his girlfriend all together. Another, larger group of people came up the stairs, so Jack pushed the two of them farther to the side. In the tight space of the back corner of this secluded landing, they continued their conversation. “I will never forgive you for getting me excited about this exhibit.” Jack changed the subject, feigning anger.
Reese rolled her eyes. “Well, I didn't ask you to bet your whole life on it, I just told you I was going.”
Jack rested his hand on the wall just above Reese's head, closing her in. “I just assumed it was going to be amazing because you were going.”
She bit her lip in order to keep her smile from growing too wide. “You've got to stop doing that.”
He cocked his head to one side, but kept his gaze fixed on her.
Reese, feeling herself falling deeper into his eyes and feeling her breath slip farther and farther away, lowered her stare.
“Doing what?”
“Making assumptions about me.” she muttered as she stared intently at his boots.
“Why?” He asked. “Are my assumptions... wrong?”
Reese glowered at him. “You know exactly why. And that's not it.”
Jack chuckled darkly, and as he did this, Reese could have sworn he had drawn himself closer to her. “Don't make this into something it's not.” He murmured in the silkiest voice Reese had ever heard.
She took in quick, shallow breaths as her mind struggled to hang on to coherent thoughts. “And what is this, exactly?” She asked, finding it harder and harder to resist his intoxicating stare.
They were inches apart now and faced with Jack's piercing almond eyes, with his body heat surrounding her like a summer aura Reese couldn't bring herself to stop what she knew was coming at a hundred miles a minute. She held her breath as he placed his hand on her cheek... then his lips against hers. She sighed as she felt herself relax in this gentle embrace. It was like someone had just opened a window in a room that was filled with carbon monoxide; like she had been carrying a million tons of weight on her shoulders and Jack had simply lifted it with no effort at all. In fact, she almost kissed him back until awareness washed over her like a wave of icy water.
Reese abruptly drew her head back and shoved him away. He took two big steps back in order to catch his step, but, other than that, seemed completely unphased by her reaction. She opened her mouth to reprimand him from kissing her, but, unable to bring herself to say anything, scurried off the landing, down the stairs, and out of the Whitney.
Chapter 16
The elevator doors swung open and Reese stepped into the hallway in front of Daniel's door. Her heart pounded in her chest at a rate and intensity she refused to believe was possible, let alone healthy. Her blood seeped through her veins, cold and thick with guilt over what she had just allowed to happen and anticipation of whatever was coming next. She placed the key Daniel had had made for her into its lock but then froze. What was she going to do? Daniel would almost certainly be on the other side of that door by then, and he's going to want to know what she had been doing all day. She pressed her head against his door and squeezed her eyes shut willing herself to forget the fact that she had just kissed another man... or that she liked it-
The door was ripped away from her.
Reese took two startled steps backwards, then looked up to find herself staring at a very unkempt looking Daniel. He held a cocktail glass half filled with what looked like Bourbon in with trembling fingers. His eyes were red around the rims and he wore nothing but his Armani boxers and a pair of house-slippers.
Without thinking anything of it, Reese threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around him. He seemed startled at first, but he then melted into her embrace. She had barely buried her face in his bare chest, when he violently drew himself away from her.
It was in watching the way that Daniel haphazardly stumbled backwards, that Reese re
alized he was well beyond sober. “Why are you wearing cologne.”
Reese's heart stopped. She wasn't wearing cologne. She shook her head and pushed past him into the apartment in order to buy herself some time to answer. Yet just as she reached the raised platform at the end of the front hallway, she stopped, taking in the sight of an overturned lamp, unearthed cushions and what looked like a broken wine fluke. With her jaw hanging stupidly open, she stepped down into the living area.
“What the hell happened?” Reese demanded, turning her gaze back on him.
But he was glaring at her. “I'll answer your question if you answer mine.” He sneered.
She threw her hands up in surrender, hot tears of guilt pouring from her eyes. “I'm not wearing cologne. Someone else was.” She felt the confession pressing against her lips, begging to be set free.
Daniel shook his head as his face contorted into the most painful expression Reese had ever seen him make. He then waved his hand dismissively, took a generous swig of his drink and pressed past her into the living area.
“You went to the Whitney with him?” He asked in a raw voice.
“W-with who?” Reese asked.
“HIM! The guy you're cheating on me with!”
Reese's eyes went wide with fear. “I'm not cheating on you...” She muttered in a shaking voice.
Daniel sat on the window seal, keeping his head hung low. “So, what were you doing?”
As she cautiously approached him, she felt an explanation forming just on the tip of her tongue. “I just went to the Whitney with a friend I swear.” It was most of the truth, but she knew she couldn't tell him all of, not like this.
He nodded. But his glass slowly slipped from his hand and crashed onto the hard, tile floor.
Reese wrapped her arms around him, rocking the two of them back and forth.
“I was right about why they called me.” He muttered darkly.
Reese nodded. “I know, Daniel, I know.”
“It was that twenty billion dollars I let slip from my fingers.” He continued as he rested his head on her shoulder.
“I'm sorry.” Reese breathed. She wasn't just talking about his job.
“I have no job. And I have no money.” His voice was heavy and raw.
Reese lifted his chin and planted a kiss on his cheek. To this, he responded by kissing her deeply on the lips. Reese pressed her body into his, willing this contact to make him feel even a little bit better. “You have me.”
Daniel squeezed her in his arms, his fingers digging into her back.
Then,
With a poisonous voice,
He muttered,
“This is all your fault.”
Chapter 17
Reese stood in the center of Daniel's living room; her feet square in front of her and her arms hanging like dead limbs on either side of her. She scanned the room. Her eyes picked up the blinds, stained with wine and crookedly hanging just above the window panes.
They grabbed the pile of broken glass sitting in a puddle of red wine from a wine flute that had evidently been thrown. They landed on a couch whose cushions had been turned out, whose upholstery was stained with some unknown substance. They found the blanket, which, having been haphazardly flung into the air, had landed on top of the shade of a ten foot standing lamp. This cast shadows on the hardwood floors, on the destroyed cushions and the pile of glass... and on Daniel.
She rested her eyes on the man, whose figure, tense and mangled, sat just across from her, perched on the window sill with the uneven blinds, his face in his hands. As she took in the frazzled waves on his head, trembling as he seethed with anger and with a kind of pain Reese couldn't hope to understand, she began to contemplate what had brought her to this point. Peculiar was it? That a researcher by day, waitress by night could find herself on the upper east side, standing in the middle of an apartment that had been destroyed by her once-billionaire boyfriend.
She found herself pondering her future with him. Daniel was very much made of his money and he'd sucked her into his artificial world and she'd gone along with it and played dress up because she couldn't see herself doing anything else. Even when she had to face his boss, who stared down at her chest and made fun of her job, she still knew there was no place else that she'd rather be then wherever Daniel was.
Now she looked at a man that she did not recognize. Was Daniel his money? Now that it was gone, had it taken him with it? Or was this person who, for the first time since she started dated him actually looked and felt human, the real Daniel that had just been unearthed from underneath the countless monetary funds?
As this last thought occurred to her, her heart slowed. Her eyes dried and she lifted her right hand to her face to swipe away the tears that had already fallen. She took a step towards him, gasping at the sensation of the cold hardwood against her bare feet. As she approached him, her stomach flipped. She was getting the sense that this might be kind of like some sort of new beginning for them.
She even selfishly wondered if this new Daniel, this struggling, human Daniel, might open up to her the way that deified Daniel would never allow. She took one last step that brought her to him. With a trembling hand, she ran her fingers through his hair and felt him melt into her. His hands clutched her back with a grip that was nothing more than apologetic, but she knew that he was in no position to be introspective. She knelt in front of him; an action that brought her down to his eye level.
After a short moment, he reluctantly lifted his head and drowned her in his tired, broken gaze. His emerald eyes, once brilliant, once glistening, even in the darkness, once piercing and vibrant, now looked dull and lifeless; looked hazed and dark.
Chapter 18
“Go clean yourself up.” Reese murmured.
Daniel set his jaw, because he was not one to be bossed around.
But Reese also held her ground, so they remained there gazing with a hard stare at each other. Reese dared him to argue with her; to deny what was so obvious to the both of them. “I'll clean this up.”
He opened his mouth as if to protest, but she placed a finger on his lips. “Don't.” her voice came out harsh and authoritative. But under her touch, she could feel him purse his lips, feel him remain just as tense.
He snatched her hand away from his face. Reese grimaced as he held it in his, his grip growing tighter and tighter around her thin fingers. He reach around to the back of her head with his other hand and clutched a handful of her hair. Her jaw unhinged, hanging open as ragged breaths escaped from her lips. His eyelids hung down covering half of his eyes as he leaned into her. She could feel his warm breath on her cheeks and her chin and her neck.
She gasped as he traced her collar bone with his tongue. He kissed the bit of flesh just above her chest. Reese shuddered, a flash of electricity shooting up her spine, filling her head and then firing off every neuron in her body. She struggled to remember what it was that she had meant for him to do. She reached for that idea bouncing around in her head, the correct course of action, the responsible thing to do, but she found it impossible to grasp.
Before she knew it, he had kissed her, and was caressing her generous chocolate curves. She felt him with her lips, answering his every demand with her tongue. She could feel his anger, his desperation and his desire just in the way that he smelled; the way that he tasted. Then, far too soon, he drew away from her, but as his lips moved away from hers it was like he had sucked that one, last idea out of her. Her mind was empty save for her desire for him. So, she kissed him, her hands hungrily surveying every part of his body.
She felt his thick, warm skin under her fingertips. The warmth from his bare chest pressed against hers and seeped through her sweater. She kissed his chin, sucked on his neck, rested her cheek against his chest, sucking him in, drowning in him, breathing in him. He placed his chin on the crown of her head and wrapped his arms around her. As they sat there for one short moment, she listened to his heart beat, letting it numb her body and her mind. They
were in the midst of a literal catastrophe, but this, this felt more right than anything she had ever experienced before.
With a low grunt, he lifted her up and she straddled him. Her heart started racing again, pounding at her rib cage with a force that was almost painful as she became hyper-aware of the sensation of his cool head against her chest.
She lifted her gaze, staring straight above his head and out of their window, where the buildings were shadows towering up into the sky with their windows of warm light, dotting the thick dark atmosphere like stars shining through an overcast night. He dug his fingertips into her back and pressed his nose against her chest. She bent her head, kissing his forehead. They rocked back and forth like this, grinding against each other like two rocks tumbling in the midst of an avalanche. Reese lifted her arms as he slipped off her sweater in one motion.
“Mmm...” She murmured, as he pressed his chest against hers. He wrapped his right arm around her, encasing her like a cage, then lifted her and emerged off the sill, the two of them landing on the wooden floor.
Reese blinked to catch her bearings, but he was upon her before she could get a hold of herself. She bit her lip as he ripped her skirt off. “I need you.” he peeled her thick tights off and flung them across the room.
“I-I need you too.” Reese breathed in response.
With piercing aggression, he entered her. She gasped at this, her eyes flashing wide open. “Oh.” She slammed her fist against the ground, the pain of this impact only adding to this wondrous moment. Her muscles trembled, pulling away from her bones as that point in between her legs grew larger and larger until it ripped her in half, until it was all she had left.
City Vibes - Complete Series (BWWM Interracial Billionaire Romance) Page 8
