by Lexi Ryan
You’re not my man, I want to scream. But it doesn’t matter. Brandon has only been back in Vegas a couple months, and soon he’ll remember I’m no longer his “type” and he’ll find someone who is. In the meantime, I just need to let him feel like the one in control.
“Do you have everything you need?” he asks softly. “Whether you’re with me or not, I don’t want you going without.”
“You’ve already done enough.”
“I’d do even more. For you….” Again, that low whisper. “Damn, I miss you girl.”
“What about Quinn? Don’t you miss her?” God bless that girl. Finding out about her visits with him gave me the perfect excuse to cut ties while he was gone. Or cut them as much as I dared.
“Cally, baby, please.”
I look up at the stars. When did I lose sight of mine? My father raised me to believe in magic, in wishes, in beautiful destiny. And then life went to shit and destiny played second fiddle to just getting by.
“Come see me when you get home. We’ll talk about what we can do for your sisters. We’ll talk about us.”
“Okay,” I lie. I won’t go to him willingly again. Not if I’m left with a choice. But if I say no, he’ll think I’m playing hard to get, and that will make him want me more. “Goodnight, Brandon.” I end the call before he can reply.
I catch my breath in the darkness, trying to let the adrenaline fizzle out and my heart rate slow. Just the sound of his voice makes me crave a hot shower and a scouring pad. Or maybe just the touch of a man who makes all the ugly go away.
I scroll through my sent texts to find Lizzy’s number. I punch it in and hold my breath while I wait for an answer.
“Cally!”
My chest warms with the enthusiasm in her greeting. “Hey, Liz. I was wondering if you had William Bailey’s phone number.”
The gym is nearly empty tonight except for Max, who’s working behind the counter, and Sam, who’s spotting for me as I attempt to channel my frustration into the weights.
My phone buzzes, and I open the latest text from Meredith, detailing exactly what she’ll do with her tongue and certain parts of my anatomy.
Our grandmothers have been doing their best to set us up, and I’m beginning to think I made an epic mistake by sleeping with her. I thought we were on the same page, though. We both wanted something casual. Companionship. A good time.
Or so I thought. But these texts are becoming more frequent and when I was at her place last week, she slipped and asked how soon I wanted kids.
I’m about to throw my phone back down when it buzzes again with another message from her.
“Meredith?” Sam asks.
“None other,” I mutter. I tap out a quick excuse and toss my phone down.
“Why do you suddenly seem so uninterested? She’s fucking hot. And smart. And she’s got her shit together.”
“She’s getting too serious. I think she’s going to want something…long-term.”
Sam lifts a brow. “So complains the Mayor of Commitment-Land?”
“Shut up,” I growl. “That’s not what I want right now.”
“Hey, I heard Cally Fisher’s back in town,” Max calls from behind the counter.
“Cally Fisher?” Sam asks. “You shitting me?”
I grab a pair of forty-pound dumbbells. “Yeah, I saw her already.”
Max grunts. “Did you tell her to fuck off?”
I drop the weights and turn on him. “Don’t.”
Max lifts his palms up in surrender. “Message delivered and received, man, but you do remember that she totally burned you, right?”
How could I forget? “It doesn’t matter anymore. That was a long time ago.”
Sam chuckles. “Who knew she could still have a hold on you, what, six years later?”
“Seven,” I mutter, dropping down to the bench to rest my head in my hands. I swear my mind hasn’t stopped spinning since I spotted her lost outside my house.
“You still want her,” Sam says softly. It’s not a question.
Max heads over to join us. “Is she sticking around?”
“Her mom died. She’s here to move her sisters in with her dad, then she’s heading back to Vegas.”
“That sucks,” Max says.
One look at my eyes, and Max is backing up. “Fuck. And I thought you had it bad for Maggie.”
My phone buzzes again.
“Meredith again?” Sam asks.
“Probably.”
Before I realize what he’s doing, Sam scoops my phone off the ground and reads my text, his eyes going wide.
“That shit’s private,” I protest, but I really don’t care. There’s nothing worth protecting about my relationship with Meredith. But then Sam lets out a low whistle that has me whipping my gaze back up to him.
“‘This is Cally,’” he reads. “‘Is your offer still good for tonight?’”
I snatch the phone away from him, half convinced he’s screwing with me, but sure enough, Cally’s message is staring back at me. I punch the call button without hesitation.
“William?” I would recognize that sweet voice anywhere.
“Cally?”
“Yeah. I hope you don’t mind. Lizzy gave me your number. I didn’t want to call in case it was a bad time.”
Max smirks, but he and Sam head to the other side of the gym so I have some privacy. We’ll give the assholes credit for that much at least.
“Of course it’s not. Is everything okay?”
The line is silent for a few beats too long, and I look at my phone to make sure it didn’t disconnect. Then finally, she says, “If you seriously don’t hate me, I’d like to go to dinner with you tonight. That would be…amazing.”
“Can I pick you up in an hour?”
“Okay.” Pause. “William?” I love the way my name rolls off her tongue. She takes my very corn-fed, middle-America name and makes it sound almost exotic.
“Yeah?”
“Could we go for dinner somewhere outside of New Hope? I just remember how people talk and I don’t want that.”
There’s more to it than that, but I’m not going to push. Not now. “I know just the place. I’ll see you in an hour.”
“You look cheap,” Drew says from behind me as I take in my muddled reflection in the old mirror. “Do you really have a date, or are you planning to stand on the corner and give five-dollar blow jobs?”
I spin on her. “Watch your mouth, missy! You think Mom would want you to talk like that?”
She lifts a brow, unimpressed by my wrath, and returns her attention to her cell phone.
With a long, deep belly breath, I turn back to the mirror. She’s right, of course, which just pisses me off more. I brought clothes suitable for cleaning, unpacking, and sleeping. Nothing for a date with the sexiest man I’ve ever met. And as much as I tell myself it doesn’t matter, that’s just a bunch of crap. I was forced to open a box of Drew’s clothes and borrow her black cotton dress—a “favor” she only allowed when I promised I would send her money for a new dress. But Drew is shorter than me and less curvy, so something that looks sweet and sophisticated on her makes me look like a floozy showing more leg and cleavage than the showgirls on the strip. I’m tempted to call Lizzy and see if she has a dress I can borrow, but Will’s going to be here any minute, so there’s no time for that.
Someone squeezes my hand, and I look down to see Gabby giving me a half smile. I don’t know if I’ve seen her smile all-out since Mom died. I miss her smile. I miss the sound of her voice.
Reaching onto her tiptoes and behind my head, she pulls the hair tie from the base of my neck so my long, dark hair falls free, then she places her hand against my cheek and nods her approval. She might not be talking, but most days she communicates with me one hundred times better than Drew does.
I pull Gabby into a hug and take in the sweet bubblegum scent of her hair. When I release her, Drew is staring at us and, for the split second before she can hide it again, there’s
sadness in her eyes.
“You sure you guys will be okay?” I ask.
Gabby squeezes my hand, and Drew nods, averting her eyes. “You deserve to have a little fun too.”
My breath catches with surprise, and that need to cry is back. Damn it. I shove it down. “Thank you.”
Drew lifts a shoulder. “I can tell you like him. Anyway, he’s hot.”
I grab a pillow and throw it at her. “Hot and too old for you!”
She laughs and throws it back at me. “Yeah, but which one of us is going to be living here?”
“I don’t care how hot he is, if he touched you, I’d cut off his balls.”
Something flickers in her eyes, a secret caught peeking from the hidden corner of her mind. Even though I haven’t lived under the same roof as the girls since I was sixteen, I’ve remained their primary breadwinner and been involved in their lives. My role as surrogate mother isn’t a new one. And yet there’s so much I don’t know about her. I want to fix that, but there’s a rift between us that I don’t know I can heal from a distance.
From the outside looking in, people are probably most worried about Gabby. But me? It’s Drew who keeps me up at night. Gabby’s going to be okay. I believe that. But Drew is just old enough that she can really get herself in trouble if that’s what she wants to do.
I swallow hard, pushing back the fear and sadness and locking it away for another time. “I’m going to wait outside. Slide the deadbolt and the chain behind me. I’ll text you when I get back, and you can let me in.”
Drew nods and pops her earbuds back in, and Gabby blows me a kiss.
I push myself out the door before I can change my mind and I’m greeted by a night of glittering stars. The stars in New Hope are brighter and more plentiful than anywhere else I’ve ever been. When I was a little girl, I would look out my bedroom window each night and pick my favorite one and only then would I make a wish. My father taught me to believe in the magic of wishes and destiny, and I was such an adoring daughter that his words were my scripture and the starry night sky became my temple.
When we moved to Vegas, Drew was eight, and she told my mom she felt sorry for people who lived there because weren’t enough stars to go around. Mom laughed and said you don’t need stars when your wishes had already come true.
She thought Rick was her wish come true. That was why she took us there, away from my dad, away from New Hope. She met some guy online, hooked up with him a few times while telling Dad she had to travel for “trainings” for work. Then she served her husband with divorce papers and took her daughters to live with a complete stranger who she thought was her everything.
We were there less than a month before she realized Rick wasn’t the man she thought he was. He was a controlling drunk who liked to put his hands on my mom and sometimes me and the girls. We left his million-dollar home and found ourselves a couple of rent checks away from eviction and a homeless shelter, but it was the right decision. For all the mistakes Mom made, for all the decisions I wish she handled differently, I’m proud of her for leaving that man.
A black BMW pulls up in the spot before me, and William steps out, wearing dark dress pants and a grey button-up Oxford. The sight of him flips a switch in my body and I’m instantly buzzing with awareness.
“Hey, beautiful,” he says softly, and with one slide of his eyes over me, all my concerns about this dress fizzle away.
THE LITTLE tapas restaurant north of Indianapolis is the perfect setting for a secret date with this man who makes me forget myself. There’s candlelight and soft music, and we’re sitting in the corner at a booth that puts us at a little round table sharing the same curved seat.
We’re eating brie and fresh fruit, seared ahi tuna, and miniature crab cakes, and already coming to the bottom of our first bottle of wine.
“So, what are you doing these days?” His voice has gone deeper and husky, and for a minute I’m so tied up in the sensual pull of the sound of his words that I don’t actually register what they mean.
I blink when I realize he’s staring at me expectantly. “Oh, I…I’m a massage therapist?” I hate that the answer makes me uncomfortable. In most contexts, I’m proud of what I do, but William knew my mother. I resist the urge to get defensive and explain that she may have taught me to love her trade, but I don’t get big tips she did for the reasons she did. Not that I have any room to judge her anyway. I have my own secrets.
“Is that a question?”
I smile and shrug. “I don’t know. I like what I do, but there are always people who assume the worst.” People in New Hope. People who have already made up their minds about me and my family. “What about you? Do you still like photography?”
“I do. I teach it over at Sinclair.”
“You’re a college professor? Seriously?”
He grins. “I landed a fellowship after I finished my MFA. I like teaching, but I’d rather actually be a photographer than teach other people how to be.”
“You were always so talented,” I say softly. “I’m glad you didn’t leave that behind.”
“What about you? Did you go to college?”
“I got my massage certification at a community college and I’ve taken a few classes since, but I haven’t managed to finish any kind of degree.” I won’t any time soon, either. I need to work as much as possible and send money to Dad to help with the girls.
Reaching across the table, William catches my fingers under his. “Why did you call, Cally? What made you change your mind?”
Why am I here? Because I want him? Because I’m trying to forget Brandon? Because I’m lonely as hell and needed an adult to talk to?
“I guess that’s as much a mystery as why you would want to be here with me. After… Should we just acknowledge the elephant at the table and talk about how I stood you up for your own prom?” I let out a breath, relieved to finally say the words to his face. “I’m sorry. I’ve always been sorry. I hope you know that.”
He drops his gaze to my mouth. “Come here.”
Biting my lip, I slide around the booth so I’m next to him. The lights are so low, I can barely make out his expression, but I don’t need to in order to feel the heat between us. Is it in my head? Can he feel it too? Whatever it is—hormones, memories, the knowledge that this is temporary and I’m leaving soon—the pull between us is magnetic, and I let my bare thigh press against the soft fabric of his pants.
“That’s better,” he whispers, his hot eyes on me.
“I think so, too.”
He lowers his head and glides his lips over my neck in a movement so sweet, so simple, my breath leaves me in a rush. “I’m supposed to be pissed at you,” he whispers. “You broke my heart.”
“Then why aren’t you?”
“When I saw you again, there was no room for my anger. I want you too much.”
Under the table, his hand settles against the inside of my knee, making little circles that send my heart racing and turn my muscles to jelly. “Me too,” I admit.
His fingers trace an invisible line two inches up the inside of my leg, and I clench my thighs together instinctively, trapping his hand between my legs.
“I can stop,” he says in a whisper.
“No,” I breathe. I want the opposite, and I force myself to relax, and my legs open to the exploration of his hand.
“You look amazing in this dress. I love the way it shows off your legs, but it just makes me think of having them wrapped around me.”
I bury my face in his neck and moan softly, remembering the way he used to touch me. He smells amazing, and his whisper-soft exploration of my thigh sends tiny shivers of pleasure through me.
His hand slides higher until his fingertips reach the edge of my panties. I almost squeeze my legs together again—not because I want him to stop but because I want his hand there so badly, touching me, exploring me, his fingers sliding into me.
“What do these look like?” He traces down the satin center of my panties.
Oh, God. By some miracle, I’m already ready for his touch. I haven’t been this turned on this quickly since…since William.
His knuckles brush over me, lightly pressing the soft fabric against my swollen clit.
He opens his mouth against my ear and draws my earlobe between his teeth, nipping and sucking. My eyes flutter closed. I want to fall into the pleasure that’s spinning like a cyclone around every nerve ending, and I’m almost afraid of how quickly he has me falling into it.
I rock into his hand instinctively. “Touch me.”
“Tell me,” he whispers. He makes wicked little circles on my panties. “What do they look like?”
This desire clawing at me is madness. At this moment, I would do anything to get him to slide under the barrier between us. “They’re black satin.”
“Mmm, satin. I can tell.” He rewards me by rolling his fingers against the fabric in question.
Holy shit.
“What else? How do they look?”
Under the table, I cling to his forearm as if I’m afraid he might escape. “They’re string bikinis with a little bow at each of my hips.”
His hand leaves that pulsing, aching spot between my legs to explore the string over my hip, leaving me ready to cry out or beg or both.
“God, I bet these are gorgeous on you. If I had you alone, I’d stand you in front of me in nothing these panties and I’d untie them with my teeth.”
Yes, please.
I can hardly breathe. I want what he’s describing. More. “Have you thought a lot about getting me alone again?” Drawing back a bit so I can watch his expression, I watch his eyes and wait for the answer I need to hear.
“Every second since you showed up on my street.”
“Me too. And before.”
Heat flares in his eyes. The intensity of his gaze would scare me if I didn’t already trust this man with every inch of my being.
He presses his mouth against mine as his hand returns between my legs. It’s not a gentle kiss. It’s hard—punishing and demanding—and I need it. I could lose myself here, in this kiss that is equal parts desire, anger, and regret. I could forget who I am, what I’ve done, and become the stroke of tongue against tongue, become the pleasure of his hand working between my legs as I moan into his mouth.
