Chapter 19
19
I’m wearing my high-heeled sandals because they’re the only pair of shoes I brought with me.
Several other women are at the pool, chatting in lounge chairs. I don’t recognize any of them from last night. They all look up as I walk past them, murmuring to each other, and I smile, finding an empty lounger a few seats away from them.
I spread my towel out and take a few minutes to put my Sun Tropez Bronzer sunscreen on, a gift from one of my clients. I lay back, taking a selfie with the tube of sunscreen visible. Then I post it, tagging them and the swimsuit company.
The perfect sunscreen to go with the perfect bikini on a sunny day in the Hamptons #ad #hamptons #wildswimcali #suntropezbronzer [splashing water emoji] [bikini emoji] [sunshine emoji]
Then I enjoy the sun for a while, letting myself completely relax. I have a lot of things I could worry about right now, but I give myself exactly one hour to bask in the beautiful day in this stunning place, my body still humming from all the orgasms. I figure that’s forgivable. I mean, who knows when it’ll ever happen again?
I’m grateful to be here, by this glittering pool. I know how lucky I am, to get to spend the day like this.
I’m grateful people liked the song last night and so many people complimented my music.
I’m grateful I got to meet Alexander Maddox. It’s a crazy scenario that led me here and I have no idea what will happen, but I’m grateful…it was him. I’m grateful he felt so freaking good. He was so big. So hard. God. The way he felt when he came inside me…it was like the jets of his cum were a kind of trigger, like my body couldn’t get enough of the warm, pulsing force of it.
I’m supposed to be doing my gratitude practice and instead all I can think about is my fake date’s gigantic cock.
I’m getting wet just thinking about him. My pussy’s tingling and softening. Like it did when he swirled his cum all over it, pushing some of it back inside. Why did he do that?
I decide to take a dip in the pool, to cool down a little. I go over to the far end where the steps are and wade in until I’m up to my neck. I let my arms rest on the edge of the infinity pool, looking out over the view of the ocean.
It’s then that I hear more voices.
The men are back from their fishing trip. I can see Blake, Alexander and a few others entering the pool area. They’re followed by Margot.
I swim back to the steps and, dripping wet, head to my lounger.
When they see me, every single one of them stops in their tracks and they all go completely silent. Staring at me. From my toes, up. Lingering on each one of the triangles. Not even reaching my face.
One of the men covers Blake’s eyes with his hand. Another guy, who looks a lot like a slightly younger version of Blake, glances at Alexander before covering his own eyes with his own hand.
Margot, dressed in a new beige outfit and clutching her iPad, looks pissed off.
The expression on Alexander’s face is one of stormy, layered fury.
He walks toward me, grabbing my towel on the way, which he carefully wraps around me. In fact his carefulness clashes with the fire in his eyes. He leans close to my ear and growls, “I’m going to request that you come back to the room with me immediately, Jones. Please, don’t protest. Because you’re coming with me even if I have to carry you over my shoulder.”
I glare at him. If it was any other weekend, under any other circumstances, I’d do what I want and return to my lounger. But we had a deal. “Fine.”
“Good.” His arm is around me. I step into my shoes and he grabs my bag, leading me out of the pool area, as the cluster of people watches us.
“What’s your problem?” I ask him, once we’re out of earshot. I probably should have said what’s the problem, but it’s too late. The way I’ve phrased it sounds like we’re familiar. It’s a petulant question you’d ask a friend or a sibling or a lover.
But to hell with it. He is familiar—in some ways more familiar than anyone else in my life has ever been. He is my lover. Or he was. And he’s pissing me off by dragging me along with him like he owns me.
We get to the door of the suite and he opens it, ushering me through it before basically slamming it shut, trapping me against it with the cage of his big body. “You want to know what my problem is?” he seethes.
“Yes! I don’t appreciate you treating me like some kind of possession!” I don’t care if he paid for my time. He didn’t pay to boss me around like he’s my damn CEO.
“I’m not treating you like a possession, but if I have to watch ten feral men ogle you in that…that bikini, there’s a very real chance I’ll kill one of them, and that would really ruin the fucking wedding day, wouldn’t it?”
He’s so freaking bossy. “They weren’t ogling me.”
“Oh yes they were! Every single one of them was fantasizing about taking you to bed!”
“Who cares? It happens.”
“It happens?”
“Yes! All the time! And you told me to put on a show, so here’s your show!” I let the towel drop, noticing then that the bed has been made by housekeeping. The flowers are still on the table, the champagne has been freshly iced and some of the food is back under its silver domes.
But Alexander doesn’t notice any of it. His eyes are on me. On the tiny triangles of animal skin fabric, and more specifically on the areas not covered by the tiny triangles of animal skin fabric.
I’m a little shocked when he drops to his knees. His warm palms slide down my thighs. “I can’t fucking handle this. I spent the whole morning going insane because I’m addicted to how fucking sweet you are. Let me taste your pink pussy again, baby girl. I need my fix. You can’t tease me like that and not give me more.” He presses his mouth between my legs, kissing me through the thin layer of my bathing suit. Gently biting.
I gasp, grabbing fistfuls of his thick hair. I should refuse him, of course. He’s an overbearing jerk. And this is definitely not part of our “deal.” We should be sitting down and talking through what we’re going to do about the very real consequences we might have on our hands from last night’s sex-a-thon.
But he’s pushing my bikini to the side, licking me in lewd, delving swipes. Eating me in lusty mouthfuls. Sucking on me until the pleasure waves are already close to pushing me over some crazy edge.
“Alex,” I protest, lightly pulling on his hair. I don’t know if I’m trying to push him away or pull him closer.
“You want me, Jones. Your pussy’s so fucking wet for me. I can taste how bad you want me.” He licks me again with a growl.
Holy hell. I’m about to come.
“Say it.”
“Say w-what?” I manage to gasp.
“Say fuck me right up against this door, Maddox, because I need to ride that big cock until I’m coming hard.”
Oh god, I’m going to come if he keeps sucking on my clit like that.
He stands, lifting me as he does, freeing my nipples from their ridiculously small coverings and I have no choice but to wrap my legs around him. He’s so tall. So damn strong. His expression is stern, full of heat and also laced with a hint of vulnerability, like he needs me to want him as much as he wants me, and this detail almost clashes with his alpha, hard-bodied, billionaire vibe.
“Please,” is the best I can do right now because his gigantic cock is pressed up against the exact place that if he started doing that with any kind of rhythm, I’d shatter in the best kind of way.
“Does ‘please’ mean you want me to pump you full of my hot cum right here up against this door?”
“Yes.” In fact it does.
He’s unfastening his pants and kissing me. His big cock springs free and rubs up against my slick wetness and damn him. My traitorous hips tilt forward, seeking more of him. All of him.
I mean, we’ve already done it with no barriers several times. Once more is hardly going to matter. Then we’ll talk.
What, after you’re knocked up?
My common sense is screaming behind some wall of pleasure that’s so beautiful and so powerful, it washes away all my sanity. Biology is no match for common sense when it comes to Alexander Maddox, I’m learning. Something in me wonders if it’s because he’s basically perfect in every possible way. He’s an A-list alpha male apex New York predator. He’s also so gorgeous and hot and beautiful I literally can’t resist him.
I love his big muscles. I love the dark burn in his blue eyes. I love his thick black hair that never quite behaves like a CEO’s should. I even love his grumpiness, which is sexier than I know what to do with. Oh god. And I love how he feels when he teases my clit with his huge, rigid, silky length.
“Tell me what you want, Jones. Tell me you want me to fuck you hard and deep, just the way you like it.”
Damn it! “Yes. Please. Please fuck me,” I hear myself plead because I’m already starting to come and I’ve never experienced the kind of pleasure he coaxes from my quivering body. I cry out as his thickness forces entry, stretching me open and sliding deep, the hard, veined ridges of him rubbing against the soreness and most of all the sweet, perfect trigger that’s already tipping me over the edge.
He grips my ass and starts thrusting in a slow, in-out rhythm that feels so damn good all I can do is moan into his mouth as his tongue tangles with mine.
The thick, slippery friction is too much. The pleasure is crazy, crashing through me in luscious clenches. My whole body is coming, milking his throbbing length in tight tugs, over and over. He groans a low oath as his release explodes, pumping his flooding heat deep inside me in rhythmic bursts until it’s dripping down my thighs.
We’re both breathing hard. I’m dazed and overwhelmed.
My head rests on his shoulder as he carries me to the bed, somehow keeping himself inside me. Only when he lays me down does his huge, spilling bulk slip from my body.
Alexander climbs up the bed and lays next to me. We stay like that for a while, face to face on the bed with his arm around me, just staring into each other’s eyes as he smooths my hair. “It’s okay,” he murmurs. “Everything’s okay.”
Is it? I feel the sting of tears because this is all happening so fast and we’re both losing control and I don’t know how to stop it or slow it down. We need to talk about it and I don’t know how so I just blurt it out. “I’m not on the pill.”
He wipes my tear with his thumb sort of contemplatively. For a second I wonder if he heard me. “We’re going to go to this wedding,” he says. “Then tonight I’m going to hold you in my arms and tell you how beautiful you are. Tomorrow you’re going to come home with me. You’re going to stay with me and we’re going to talk everything through and figure this out.”
“Come home with you? I can’t come home with you.” That wasn’t part of our deal.
“You said Josh won’t be back until Monday.”
I told him that? I must have been rambling when I was trying to make small talk with the people at our table last night. Just hearing Alexander say my brother’s name somehow makes this whole thing feel much more real. “I can’t come home with you,” I say again.
That would be breaking our rule. The one where this is a fake date and we’re strangers and we play our roles and then we go our separate ways. That’s how this was supposed to play out.
Besides, tomorrow night I’m going to be scrambling around trying to find a pharmacy or an emergency clinic that can provide me with a Plan B because I keep getting so carried away, I’ve now had unprotected sex with a man I’ve known for one day at least five times.
“Ivy.” Alexander traces the wing of my eyebrow with his finger. “I know this is going to sound crazy, but I’m going to say it anyway. What we’re doing doesn’t feel like a mistake. It feels like it’s something we shouldn’t take for granted. I’ve never had sex without a condom. I’ve never felt like a Sasquatch capable of murder when another man checks out my date, who happens to be the most stunning girl I’ve ever seen in my life. I somehow got lucky enough to go on a fake date with a perfect little goddess who walked out of my wildest fantasies. When you get that lucky, baby, you don’t just let her walk away. You do whatever it takes to get another date with her. A real one, this time.”
Wow. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“I don’t have other girls. You’re my only girl. You’re the girl I want.”
“You can’t know that after one day,” I whisper.
“It’s not one day. It’s almost thirty years of feeling totally fucking empty.”
I have to ask it. “You don’t feel empty now?”
He pulls me closer, so my body is flush against his. His eyes are deep, the blueness of them almost surreal. “No. I don’t feel empty. What I feel like is that a supernova of beauty just landed in the middle of my life and I’m trying to figure out how to keep her there, because I’m addicted to her sweet smile. I feel like, after a lifetime of running, I might actually be trying to knock you up just so I can keep you. I don’t know what to do with all that, Jones, except whatever you need me to do to look at me and begin to see a future.”