For a moment, I just stand there taking it all in, and then I sink down on her side of the table, against the wall to allow myself to see the rest of the bar. A waiter appears, and I order a white russian, when I should order coffee. I don’t drink well. I’m too tired and too much of a light-weight. The waiter moves away, and I have no idea why, but my eyes lift across the bar, where a man is standing up to leave. The man with him, who I cannot see beyond a glimpse of an arm, rises to his feet as well, and they shake hands. They speak for a few moments that become a full minute, and my drink arrives.
I tear my gaze away, attending to the waiter, before lifting my beverage. The man I’d been watching, or I believe he is the same man, since I’d only seen his back, walks toward the door. For reasons I can’t explain, I set my drink down and my gaze slides back to the other man, only to have my eyes collide with his, my lips parting in shock. It’s the man from the street this morning. We sit there, staring across the room at each other for what could be seconds or perhaps a full minute before he stands up and starts walking toward me. I was wrong this morning. He’s not gone, and this isn’t over; it’s only just begun.
CHAPTER THREE
Lori
Tall, dark, and lethally good-looking with an air of power. That’s this man, who’s now set his sights on me. I watch him close the space between us, his stride long and calculated. A panther on the prowl, hunting and I’m the prey. I am not sure there is a woman on this planet that wouldn’t want this man’s attention, even if she felt obligated to decline, for whatever reason. Until this moment, here, now, somehow coming together with him two times in a span of twelve hours, I would have thought I was one of those women. But something has shifted in the air today. Something has changed in me, in my future. I feel it.
He stops at the table and he doesn’t ask if he can sit. He just does. He claims the chair across from me, and the heat in his eyes tells me he plans to claim me with it. “Cole,” he says, and his voice still rough, deep, masculine perfection. And if anything, the charge between us is more powerful than this morning.
“Lori,” I say.
“I thought you couldn’t do drinks tonight, Lori?”
“Maybe I just didn’t want to do drinks with you.”
His lips, which are full, beautiful lips that I shouldn’t be looking at, quirk at the sides. “Is that how it is?” he asks, amusement in his blue eyes.
“I haven’t decided,” I say, because he’s a man who consumes a woman, and I can’t afford to be consumed.
“Then I consider that a win.”
“How is that?” I query.
“This morning you said no,” he points out. “Now you’re not sure.”
“How are you even here?” I ask. “People don’t run into each other two times in a day. Are you stalking me?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
“That’s not an answer,” I point out.
“I have business in the area, and my days tend to turn into nights.”
“What type of law do you practice?” I ask.
“Am I that readable or do you just know the area of town and assume I’m a lawyer?”
“Both.”
He arches a dark brow. “Really? I’m that readable.”
“Really.”
“Then tell me what you see,” he orders, lifting my glass and drinking before offering it back to me.
The question, and the offer of my own drink, that he’s intimately taken it upon himself to share, represents his challenges to me: 1) Am I really as good at reading him, and people, as I’ve indicated, and 2) Am I willing to entertain where this might be leading?
And the thing about a challenge is I like it. I miss it. I haven’t felt it, beyond the drive to just survive, since leaving Stanford. I haven’t let myself feel a lot of things in a very long time. Reading people really is my thing. I take my glass from him, our fingers brushing, heat sparking between us so sharp it’s like a bittersweet blade that cuts, and you somehow want it to keep cutting.
I lean back and drink, assessing him like I would an opponent in a courtroom, like he does his opponents in a courtroom. He settles against the leather back of his chair, waiting, his expression is unreadable. “You’re thirty-five,” I say, setting my glass down. “Criminal lawyer. Ivy League school. Trial experience with a high win ratio. Mid-size firm. Partner. Successful.”
He leans forward. “Do you know who I am?”
“Should I?”
“You tell me,” he presses, a sharpness to him that wasn’t there seconds before.
“Let’s revisit that list of what I know of you. I’ve now decided that you’re more successful than I thought and arrogant enough about that success to believe that everyone, including a random stranger, knows about that success. I don’t know you. I don’t know who you are. I didn’t come here for you.”
“But you’re staying for me?”
“No. I’m staying for me.” But the truth is, if he’s someone I don’t know but should, this could be a mistake. I’ve worked where I worked, and avoided mainstream legal affairs to preserve my image. To ensure when I put my best foot forward, I put it forward right and solid. I should leave, yet I’m still sitting here, letting him study me, assess me, touch me without touching me, because that’s how intense the pull is between us.
He stares at me for a few beats and instead of confirming anything I’ve said about him, he assesses me, “You’re twenty-seven. Ivy League. Fresh out of law school and think you can rule the world.”
Somehow, he sees the person I was, that I want to be again, but I’m not that person. If I go home with him, to a hotel or a home, or whatever, I’m not the person he thinks he’s sleeping with. I’m not this person. I don’t want to pretend to be her. I want to be her and until I can, I won’t. “Don’t you have a flight or something in the morning?”
“Yes,” he says, watching me closely. “Which means we better make tonight count, don’t you think?”
He doesn’t live here. He can’t become a complication. He can’t hurt me and yet I’m still not the person he thinks I am. It shouldn’t matter. It won’t matter when we’re naked, but tomorrow it will. I know it will.
“I should let you rest.” I stand up, grab my briefcase, where I’ve also stuffed my purse, and I don’t wait on him. I dart away and damn it, I can smell him; that same evergreen, musky male scent, that just makes me want to roll around in it and get lost. I exit to the lobby, and dart right when I would normally go left.
I’ve just turned the corner to a quiet, deserted street to cut back to the subway when a hand catches my wrist and I whirl around to find myself facing Cole. “What just happened?”
“Now I think you really are stalking me,” I accuse, while the heat where he grips me rides up my arm and over my chest.
“Call it what you want,” he says, “but I’m not letting you run again when we clearly want each other.”
“You really are arrogant.”
“Yes. I am. But I’m also not wrong. I’ll be back next week.”
“I don’t want to know that,” I say. “I don’t want to know you.”
He arches a dark brow, the moonlight catching on the renewed challenge in his eyes. “No?”
“No,” I say, but even to my own ears, I do not sound convincing. I do want to know him. It’s just the wrong time. The wrong place.
Suddenly though, his hand is at the back of my head, and he’s stepping into me, his big body framing my body, and then this stranger’s mouth, this gorgeous stranger’s mouth, is now on my mouth. His lips are firm, demanding, and yet somehow a gentle seduction. He’s kissing me, tongue licking into my mouth in a deep, drugging stroke, followed by another. I moan softly, and any will I had to resist is gone. I sink into the taste of him, drinking him in, and he tastes like cream and whiskey, and sin and satisfaction. I melt into the hard wall of his body, and he is so damn hard everywhere, and yet, this is the easies
t thing I’ve done in months. The smell of him, that evergreen, musk, and man scent consuming me, drugging me. I don’t want it to end, and my fingers close around his tie, and for these moments, nothing matters but him, this, now.
He rotates me and presses me against the wall, and I swear I want him here on the street, when that’s ridiculous. I don’t want time to think. I don’t want time to find logic again, but that won’t be easy to do anyway. His lips have left mine but he’s caging me. His powerful thighs framing mine. His fists on the wall on either side of me. “I’m going to take you home and then you’re going to give me your number so that we can arrange part two of that kiss.”
Reality. Now he’s trying to bring me back to reality. I don’t want to go there and while I’m not a shy person, I go far bolder than is my norm. “I don’t need to be seen home,” I say, “and if you want to fuck me, why wait?”
“Never rush anything that feels good and different.”
“I’m not different.”
“And yet, you are. And I don’t do different. I just fuck and move on, yet, I can’t seem to want that to be this. I can’t not do this.”
“You don’t know me enough to say that.”
“I want to know you.” He says those words low, almost guttural.
“Why?”
“There’s the question I need answered. Do you want to know me?”
“No,” I lie, despite hating lies.
He leans in close, his hand back at my waist, scorching me, branding me, his cheek against my cheek. “Liar,” he whispers by my ear, and that whisper, his warm breath on my neck and ear, shivers a path through every inch of me.
My hand goes to his chest, and I can feel his heart thundering beneath my palm, radiating up my arm. I don’t remember ever responding like this to any man, ever, in my life. Certainly not the one I’d once thought I’d love. But this isn’t love. This is just plain lust. “This isn’t about knowing you.”
He pulls back and looks at me. “And yet it is. Where do you live?”
“I’m not telling you.”
He studies me several intense beats, and then takes my hand. “Come with me.” But he doesn’t move. He waits for me to agree.
“Where?”
“To fuck. Isn’t that what you want?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Cole
I have no idea what the hell this woman is doing to me, but I want her. I want her in a bad way, in a different way than I want most women. In that way I only want to win. In that way I want a verdict in my favor, in that clawing, burning me inside out while I wait for the outcome kind of way. Like I’ve waited for this woman, fought for her, given everything for her as I do my work, when I’ve only just met her. “You aren’t answering,” I press, giving her no room to run again, to back out. Forcing her to make a decision. “Isn’t this what you want? To go someplace. To fuck.”
“Yes,” she says just as softly, her eyes meeting mine, no blink, no hesitation to her reply, and yet, there is more to her answer. “That’s what I want.”
It’s a simple answer, but there is nothing simple about this woman. She’s a puzzle I want to solve, and I’m clearly aroused as fuck by puzzles, because I’m ten degrees of hard and hot. I’m also one wrong word or move, from never getting the chance, which is why I push her for a firm decision.
“Say it then,” I press. “Say you want to fuck.”
“Why wouldn’t I say it?”
“Why aren’t you saying it?” I challenge.
Her eyes sharpen, and she leans into me, soft curves against every hard part of me, who wants her softer and me harder. She closes her hand around my tie, and tugs gently. “I want to fuck and nothing else. No conversation. No getting to know each other. And we use a condom because I don’t do this kind of thing, and I’m not going to make it life-changing. So, if you don’t have one—”
I cup her head again and kiss her. “Of course I have a condom.”
“Because you’re a manwhore?” she taunts.
“I’m no manwhore, sweetheart,” I say, and it’s true. I fuck when I want to fuck, but I don’t welcome the distraction of a needy woman when I’m in the middle of a trial.
“And yet you’re well stocked, while traveling, with condoms.”
If she were anyone else, I’d simply say, ‘yes,’ but I want more than that fuck from her, when I never want more than a fuck. And so, I play quid pro quo. I give her something. She owes me something. “My father put one in my wallet when I was sixteen and told me to replace it every six months one way or the other.”
“Because your father was a manwhore?”
“Actually,” I say, my voice hardening. “He was that and a bastard, nothing I ever want to be, but nevertheless, the condom was a good lesson. Never make one night ruin your life, right, sweetheart?”
Her eyes narrow on me, and I realize I’ve done what I never do. I’ve given her a piece of information about myself, what drives me, what motivates me, that I give no one. She knows. She’s smart. She’s sharp. She sees people. She sees me. Before I can analyze how I feel about that, she says, “Right,” and cuts her gaze, telling me that she hasn’t just seen more of me than I let most see, but that I’ve seen a piece of her, some open wound that my own wound has torn at.
She wants an escape, not confinement, and while I want to know why, I know I have to wait. I can’t drive and push and corner, which is my nature. Not yet. Not now. I slide a finger under her chin, studying her, but whatever was there is gone. “Let’s just focus on ruining each other for the night,” I suggest.
“You think you can ruin me in one night?”
“I’d like to try.”
“That’s interesting,” she says.
“What’s interesting?”
“I thought you’d declare victory already,” she replies.
“Why do anything that easy? You’re not easy. You’re a challenge.”
“I ran, and you have to catch,” she assumes.
“Maybe,” I say. “But you’re standing in front of me, and I haven’t caught you yet.”
“Then why aren’t we walking?”
“We are,” I say, drawing her hand into mine and setting us in motion. A few steps forward, and my fingers slip between hers, and I bend our elbows, inching her close, our hips aligned. Not about to let her escape. “Where are we going?” she asks.
“The Four Seasons.”
“Two blocks,” she says, confirming by her knowledge that her frequenting of the courthouse area isn’t a one day, and night, circumstance. This is, as I’d assessed, her world, while up until present day, or near future rather, it’s been mine only on occasion, but she’d nailed me. Age, career, attitude. I am arrogant. I have to be. It’s survival of the fittest.
The wind lifts around us, and her perfume is something almost smoky and floral, addictive and unique, like everything about this woman. And she is unique, despite the fact that I’ve known ambitious, intelligent women in the legal field. I’ve fucked women that should feel just like her, but that simply isn’t the case. She’s layers of secrets I want revealed. I’ll analyze why later, after we fuck. Or maybe I won’t. Fucking tends to put things in perspective. As my father said when he gave me that first condom, “What you want when you have a hard on for a girl, is rarely what you want when you pull out.” Crass, and ultimately as pathetic as he was, but he was right. Sex has a way of distorting reality and then punching it right back in your face.
We cross the street, bringing the hotel into view, and without a conscious decision to do so, when I never do anything unconsciously, I tighten my grip on her hand. She’s already bolted once. I’m not letting her bolt again. We approach the front door, and thankfully the doorman is attending someone else, considering Lori appears to want privacy, anonymity. I don’t waste any time guiding her toward the elevators, and once we’re inside, I stick my card into the slot to set us in motion. I snag her hand and walk her to me. Her han
ds settle on my chest. We stand there, the floors dinging by, the air charged between us, but we don’t speak. She doesn’t ask me a question. Not about the hotel. Not about when I’m coming back. Not about who I am.
Somehow, I know she knows that quid pro quo I’ve started. Every question she asks allows me to ask one of my own. I don’t push her now. Not with cameras in the elevator. That’s not what people like me do. We save our dirty business for private places. And this is going to get dirty, in all the right ways. I’ll ask my questions, and I’ll get my answers. When we’re inside my suite. When we’re naked.
The elevator dings, and then I lean in and kiss her, a gentle, barely-there brush of lips on lips, our breaths a warm puff between us that turns to fire and heat. “Come on,” I say, taking her hand, guiding her down the hallway until we stop at the penthouse suite I’ve been calling home for nearly a month. The place where I plan to strip her naked in every possible way.
I lead Lori to the door, and pull her in front of me, my body framing hers as I slide the key into the security panel. It buzzes and I shove open the door, inviting her to enter, and in doing so, I know that I have a choice to make: Take the edge off, and do her hard and fast right when we go inside, or let it simmer, let the attraction between us burn us alive until we’re both about to combust from the heat.
She pulls away from me, a sweet swoosh of her perfume teasing my nostrils as she enters the suite. My fingers curl into my fists as I resist reaching for her. I inhale for control and let out a breath before I follow her into the luxury suite, seeing what she sees. Gray hardwood floors. An oriental rug beneath gray leather couches that frame a stone fireplace with floor-to-ceiling windows on either side. A stone and glass table to our left. Winding stairs to our right.
She stops just outside the line of the living area and I could step behind her, pull her skirt up and lean her over the couch. My cock presses against my zipper, thick and hard with the thought of it. I’d be inside her in about thirty seconds, which includes rolling on the condom, and she’d be wet and hot and tight, and holy fuck, I’ve had this woman on my mind all day; this isn’t ending that fast.
Dirty Rich Cinderella Story Page 2
