by Candi Heart
Eyeing me with a coy grin, she slammed back her martini, and then said, “Lead the way.”
I put my arm out and she looped hers through it as we made our way to the elevators. This woman had turned me into a madman, and it didn’t matter a lick that I barely knew her. I could feel the sincerity in her. She wasn’t a groupie or a potentially stalkerish fangirl. She was... different somehow, more mature than most women her age, or even twice her age. While I could obviously reach the vulnerable soft of her, she was independent in a way that seemed she didn’t need to rely on men for her sense of self.
It made me want to know her on a deeper level than the physical, even as my body burned to be inside of her, to immerse myself in her depths, and stake a claim that I’d yet to feel the need to establish with another woman.
When the elevator didn’t stop at the main floor so we could walk back to the Mirage, she looked questioningly at me. I kissed her nose, and when the elevator dinged our arrival at the parking garage, she let me lead her through a small door set next to the elevators. We walked down one flight of concrete steps, hand-in-hand, until we reached another door. Using a small card key I’d obtained from the desk earlier, I used it to enter a large room.
I flicked on the lights and watched Charlyse’s reaction when the room revealed six cars. Set up just like one of the hotel’s ballrooms, it seemed to be completely out of place in the basement of a parking garage.
“Oh, wow,” she breathed, letting go of my hand to walk toward a red 1963 Corvette. She ran her fingers lightly over the hood, then the roof, and down the windows. She peered inside, and looked back at me with a smile. “This is super cool.”
When her eyes caught sight of the green 1959 Aston Martin roadster I was leaned against, her gasp shot through me with a crash of electricity that it took everything within me to hold back. Charlyse was seriously a woman after my own heart, stunned by a vintage race car that seemed to mean just as much to her as it did to me.
“Oh, my God!” she cried, going directly to the engine, where the hood was propped up to display its shiny innards, which she gently stroked her hand over. She then went around the car and I grabbed the door handle so she could sit in it.
I caught her kiss the moment I opened the door, my teeth lightly nipping the exquisite, soft flush of her lips, my hands covering the ample swell of her breasts. Charlyse’s breathy moans thrummed through me, so intimate in their invasion of my psyche that I folded into her.
I gently eased the driver’s seat back and instructed her to sit. I then covered her, pulling the door closed, my body pressed to hers, hands roaming the intense welcome of her curves, making their way past the luxurious silk her golden skin was draped in. We continued to kiss, rough and frenzied.
She shivered against me as my hands lowered the strap of her dress, and my fingers slid through the fabric’s slit, the heat of her skin matching the warmth of my own.
She was perfect; breathless, chest-heaving, and wanton. She accepted me without question. It drove the beast within me wild. My hands tugged her flimsy panties off and I tossed them outside the car, happy the car was a convertible and the top was down.
Lowering to pull a nipple onto my tongue, nipping it with my teeth and sucking it deeply into my mouth, I unclasped my pants and pushed them down, taking myself in my hand, my desire throbbing with need. Too impatient to care about a condom, I slid myself inside, splitting her wide around me, and when her hips arched up to meet mine, that made me groan against her ear. Thrusting deeper inside as she adjusted to my size, I pulled her hands over her head, pinning us there, my strokes fast becoming lustfully invasive, dominant, and marking.
Following my rhythm, her hips circled with me, mimicking my movements perfectly as one. With her breath stuttering, she caught my kiss so gently, I shuddered against her. She was everything I wanted in a woman, soft, hypersensitive to my touch, and completely, openly bare to me.
I claimed her with an intensity that was beyond me, almost too roughly, but toeing the line of giving her too much of the passion driving me deep inside of her.
I couldn’t fucking get enough.
I drew it out as long as I could hold out. She’d already come once, and I’d had to exercise restraint to keep going. This woman completely unraveled me, bringing me close to losing that control I always kept so neatly wrapped up. But when she seized up and shivered against me, the rise and crash of her climax completely did me in as her thighs quivered and tightened around me. I then rammed inside of her rough and fast, growling as the impossible build of pleasure that rushed forth and broke past the dam of my reserves. With one last thrust, I finally lost it as she clamped around me, welcoming it all from me with her own second climax.
She panted softly as I claimed her lips again, arms wrapping tighter around me as I collapsed against her perfect body. She was lush, and soft, and consummately feminine. It did something to a man to take a woman so completely at one with her vulnerability, a woman who knew her comforts were anything but a weakness.
“Let’s go back to the room,” I whispered in her ear, the slightest squeeze of my heart telling me I wanted her with me for more than just her body tonight. I needed her in my bed and by my side, and that again scared the shit out of me. She was more than just fun, more than just a toy. Just the way she looked at me stirred my stomach into what must be what people referred to as butterflies.
“I don’t want to be anywhere else,” she said.
Chapter 15
Charlyse
I WAS BECOMING TOO sensitive. I shouldn’t have cared that he hadn’t cuddled beside me, that he’d taken his space as far to the other side of the gargantuan bed as he possibly could. Maybe I was overthinking it, but I soon found my mind fixating on it. After leaving the party last night, we’d had fun in the vintage car showroom, and made our way back to the luxurious room. We then had a heated and frenzied roll in the sack, me on my knees, him behind me pulling my hair and punishing my backside with delicious stinging slaps, until we both collapsed, out of breath and sated. It was superhot—but it had also been superfast, and wasn’t as intense as it had been in the past. I had stared at Tyler’s naked sculpted back lying a million miles away, and had hoped I hadn’t been reading into something that wasn’t there. It had taken me a good, long while to get to sleep because I had been dwelling on it. And it was a fitful sleep when it finally did happen.
When Tyler woke me with a jangle of keys the next morning and gave me a kiss that lacked the usual warmth, the tightening in my belly told me that we were beginning the end of our wild ride. He was distancing himself. Girls like me weren’t stupid; we were keen to that sort of thing.
He’d deny it if I called him on it, though, and it would be ridiculous even if I did so this soon into our connection, but that was exactly what he was doing.
“I’ll be back after the check-in. We can have breakfast before the preliminary races. You don’t have to attend those.”
“I don’t mind going.” I frowned, not liking the look in his eyes or the tone in his voice.
I noticed him bristle, and then fidget with the keys in his hand. “You’d be bored. Go down to the wave pools, instead. You’ll love those. Very extravagant and relaxing.”
“I’m not in the mood for the wave pool, Tyler, I’d rather—”
His gaze flicked up to meet mine, and I internally flinched at the burning I saw there. It wasn’t the same type of burning I’d seen yesterday when we’d been tangled up in each other, heated and breathless. There was a hint of annoyance—or was that disdain? What the hell was going on?
“You came here to have fun, right?” he asked on his way to the door, acting now as if I was making him late.
“Yes, with you,” I replied, getting frustrated.
“We’ve spending plenty of time together, don’t you think?” With his hand on the doorknob, he turned and looked at me. “I can’t spent every second with you, Charlyse. I’m here on business.”
Asshole. Why
was he talking to me like I was some simple trick he’d picked up at a bar?
“Tyler, I wasn't asking to spend every second...” I bit back against the anger stirring in my gut and took a deep breath. “Look, Vegas just isn’t the same alone.”
“And we did have some fun, didn’t we?” he asked, now sounding more impatient than ever.
“Yeah, so, I’m only entitled to a little bit of fun? I came here with you because—”
He cut me off. “Well, you’re sounding a little... clingy. It’s taking the fun out of this trip. Why don’t you just go get a facial or something, do some shopping, and maybe hit the pool? Or go see the volcano. Just don’t wait around. I don’t know what time I’ll be back.”
“But you just said—”
Adjusting his cufflinks, he pulled his sunglasses from his pocket and said, “I gotta go. I’ll leave a ticket in your name at the booth so you can see the race.”
I cringed at the click of the door closing, and I had to bite back the tears of rejection welling up in me. What in the hell just happened?
I knew I hadn’t been... “clingy.” I’ve seen clingy. It was how Alyssa was to Colton when she wasn’t interested in some other dude at that moment. And I was nothing like her. How dare he use such a word! I was his guest. He was the one who insisted I come in the first place.
“Dammit!” Banging my fist on the bed, I fought to keep from crying. I refused to cry over this shit. Tyler Dalton was just another fucking asshole, just like all the rest. I didn’t know exactly when it had happened, or what I did to turn him off, but between last night and this morning, he’d decided he was bored with me, and he’d probably been waiting for the exact moment he could dump me on the sidewalk like old trash.
Why did I open to him so soon? I knew better. This was high school bullshit all over again. Guys would act interested, but they really wanted nothing more than another notch on their bedpost. Guys like Tyler really weren’t interested in girls like me, a chunky mechanic from Austin. God, I promised myself I wouldn’t walk into egomaniacal traps like this one. Yet, here I was, sitting at the edge of a king-sized bed in the penthouse of the fucking Mirage, holding my heart in my hand, determined not to shed a single tear, even if it made me sick holding it in.
Fuck this. I’m outta here. I got on my phone and booked myself a plane ticket back to Austin. I had really wanted to watch that race, but I couldn’t stay here. I felt like I was suffocating in regret and rejection. I’ll come here with Colton next year. Not a big deal. To hell with assholes crippled by commitment issues.
I could do better.
Throwing on some clothes, I quickly brushed my teeth and went down to the hotel’s gift shop and bought myself a small rolling suitcase to take my meager belongings home in.
After packing up, I took one last look around the once-beautiful suite that looked so ugly to me now. Tears threatened at the edge of my lashes as I looked at the bed covers we’d annihilated last night and sucked in a deep breath. No tears. It was just sex, Charlyse. Time to go home.
With a resigned sigh, I grabbed the suitcase and rolled it out the door. I was in no mood for the friendly, chatty elevator assistant, but he was kind enough to walk me to the entrance and put me into a waiting taxi, telling the driver my airport destination.
Bye, Vegas.
Chapter 16
Tyler
WHAT IN THE HELL HAD I just done? Downing another shot, I drummed my fingers against the top of the bar. I’d just pushed away one of the best things to happen to me in a good, long while, and yet, I couldn’t even find it in myself to go back and beg for forgiveness for being such a coldhearted prick.
The look in those gorgeous eyes as I’d been so cruel...
The reason was stupid, really, but almost out of my control. I felt helpless to get past my issues. I was absolutely terrified. I was nervous in a way I couldn’t remember being in years. Next to nothing shook me—normally. Hell, I had raced headlong into fear countless times without a second thought. I’d sped at breakneck speeds around curves. I’d flipped a car, having to eject or be burned to death when it caught fire. I had faced my father’s funeral, devastated, but with a brave face, and had survived that without completely cracking and breaking. Barely... but I had. I had publically fired drivers for bad behavior, and had to face the angry press when they had found out, and I’d slept fine at night.
But for some reason, a witty, curvy-as-hell redhead named Charlyse had me feeling like a completely helpless, lovesick teenager. And not because I feared committing to her, or being hers. Sure, I barely knew her, but I was damn sure that wasn’t it.
I’d known quite a few women, but there had been none who’d moved me enough to want to get to know them intimately in a way beyond the physically naked sense. The problem here was that Charlyse made me want to be intimate in an emotionally naked sense.
It had completely disarmed me. Paralyzed me with fear. A fear of the unknown. For quite some time now, I thought I’d finally gotten myself together. When the one person who understood me, who had even attempted to, was taken from the world, I’d managed to paste the broken pieces of myself together on a hope and prayer. I’d worked very hard to stand up. To man-up. Now I was coming undone over a woman I barely knew... and I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. During last night—most likely the last night we would spend together—something had caved inside of me, like a dam beginning crack and spurt more than just a small leak.
Charlyse had instantly begun to look very, very different to me. She’d become a threat. Someone who was no longer just a whirlwind of fun and sex and heart-stopping grins, but would bring me to my knees with a passion that set me completely on fire. She’d become someone who could pierce the armor I’d worked so very hard to latch onto my skin. The layer that was meant to keep everything—and everyone—out. That armor was meant to be formidable, goddammit.
Shaking my head, I beckoned the bartender by tapping the bar, signaling my desire for another shot. I downed it as soon as it arrived and gritted my teeth.
I’d known her all of a few wonderful days, and she’d melted my resolve with effortless ease. There was nothing that was going to stop that. She’d already gotten in, and I’d pushed her away. I’d been cold when I did it, too. I knew I hurt her, and was still unsettled by it. How was it possible for a person to walk into your life and change the way you saw the world in the space of a few days?
A voice broke me out of my melancholy musings. “You look like a man who’s had a rough one.”
Turning to the stranger taking a stool at my right, I drew a breath, quickly nodded, and averted my eyes back to the empty shot glass. The last thing I needed was a chatty bar buddy right now. I’d rather sit tortuously alone with what I’d done than tolerate someone’s well-meaning but naïve attempt to make me feel better.
“Only a woman can make a man look that,” he said, amusement in his voice.
“Something like that,” I murmured, not sure why I was even engaging him in conversation.
“So... why not go get her?” he asked, not giving up. I studied his face, and he had kind brown eyes and an outdated moustache, with hair to match.
“Not gonna happen.”
He chuckled. “It will, I can tell you’re in pain. It’s written all over your face, man. I’ve been there. I know.”
The man was older, looking like he had some additional weight on his soul that sped the clock on how his body had aged. Well-meaning, though. He had the look of someone who was genuine, or at least aimed to be.
I ignored his comment, but he was a persistent bastard.
“Trust me when I tell you; it's not worth letting the one that got away become a reality for you. It tears a hole in your heart you’ll never be able to close.”
Shrugging, I attempted to swallow my tension and averted my eyes to the shot glass. The kind stranger patted me on the back, picked up his beer, and wandered off, leaving me to let his words haunt my heart and my soul.
The
one that got away.
Dammit! The guy was right. Not that I had needed him to point it out, my dumb ass would have figured it out eventually. It was ten a.m. and I was downing shots for God’s sake; that should have been a big enough clue. I didn’t have inspections until three, but I had needed to get out of that hotel room to distance myself from her.
My mind was a jumble of emotions, but at the very least, I owed Charlyse the real truth. I would go up there and apologize and maybe she would forgive me and agree to spend the next day or two by my side, and when it was over, we could part amicably, like adults.
I rode the elevator up, practicing what I was going to say. When I entered through the doors, her beautiful body wasn’t in the bed with her dark hair splayed out on the pillow. She wasn’t in the bathroom or looking out through the picture windows. Her purse, clothes, and toiletries were gone.
Charlyse was gone, and it was all my fault.
Chapter 17
Charlyse
AS I PERUSED AROUND the Curvy Hips and Sexy Lips website, I noticed I hadn’t downloaded the specialized meal plan they had made for me. And Lord knew I needed to follow it. Clearly, I was going to continue to get used and dumped by assholes if I didn’t get some damn self-esteem, and losing some weight would help with that.
Most days, I was okay with my weight, and with me in general. Then other days, when I was wallowing in self-pity and feeling sorry for myself, like today and every day for the past two weeks, I thought, maybe if I was thinner... maybe if I was healthier... I would be more of a catch to someone who could see I wouldn’t be used and abused, and that I was worth more than a fleeting one-night-stand or weekend of debauchery.
I hated the self-depreciating way of thinking that had so many times invaded my thoughts. But I couldn’t help it. Along with not having a loving motherly figure to model myself after, and society’s expectation of young, successful women, I was falling short of the expectation laid out before me.
