Chapter 23
23
A buzzing noise wakes me from a deep, deep sleep. It’s the kind of sleep where you’re so snug and you feel so secure, your dreams are magic-dusted and restorative and you wake up feeling like a better, calmer, more grounded version of yourself.
I’m not ready to open my eyes. I’m wrapped in the warm cage of his body. I wish I never had to move.
His phone is ringing.
“Fuck,” he grumbles, reaching for it. “Yeah?” he answers. Not the usual “Alexander Maddox” I’ve heard him answer with before.
He listens and I can vaguely hear the man on the other end of the line. “Thirty five million cash,” the man says. “There are seven apartments in the building. Do you want it?”
“Yes,” Alexander says. “With the purchase made in the name I gave you.”
“Yes, sir. The paperwork’s in place and it can all be done today. They’re just waiting for the call.”
“Seal the deal,” Alexander tells him.
“Yes, sir. I’ve also got all the intel on the individual you asked about,” the man continues. “There’s enough here to pin him to the wall.”
“Good. Did you get a phone number?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, thanks, Bruce. I’ll give you a call later today when I’m back in the city.”
“Okay, boss.”
Alexander ends the call. Then he burrows his face into my neck, inhaling deeply. “Morning, gorgeous. You want to take a shower with me?”
“Okay, boss. But not yet. I’m too comfortable. What day is it?”
“Sunday.”
It’s the last day of our fake date.
He’ll fly me back in his helicopter after the farewell brunch and that will be that. I’ll get the subway home, find a Plan B somewhere along the way and worry about Jack Dempsey’s threat as I wait for Josh’s return home tomorrow night. I know we talked about me staying with him tonight, but I can already feel the noose closing around my neck. I need to be ready for it.
“Ivy.” Alexander says my name not like a question, but like he’s about to say something serious.
“Yeah?” I finally open my eyes. And I’m greeted with a vision of tousled, relaxed, gorgeous alpha male perfection. I don’t know if I’ve ever thought about “alpha males” so much before this weekend, but he’s just so obviously that. Like a black-haired lion or a pirate king. His irises are so blue they look like stolen jewels this morning. His square jaw is dark with his stubble. I have never met such a physically beautiful person before.
He’s watching my face with a look that could only be described as…caring. Invested.
Or maybe he’s just about to let me down easy.
Which is fine. I’m expecting it. He said some very nice things to me this weekend. I think we both got a little carried away—or a lot, come to think of it. But the performance is over now. It’s time for us to re-enter the cold hard light of reality. And Manhattan is very good at providing exactly that.
“I’m going to say some things to you right now,” he drawls, “and I want you to let me finish before you say anything. Okay?”
“What things?”
He kisses me, like he can’t help himself. “You’re going to come back to my apartment with me tonight. And stay with me. You already agreed so don’t even think of trying to back out of it. We’re going to have dinner and we’re going to talk about how we’re going to navigate this.”
“Navigate?”
“Yes, Jones. Navigate. It means find your way forward without getting lost.” His hand slides over my breast, playing my nipples sort of absent-mindedly.
“I know what it means. And thank you for the invitation. But I have to?—”
“I said wait until I’m finished before interrupting me.” He burrows under the covers like a big bear, pulling them off me. He lightly nips at my nipple, which makes me squirm. I try to push him away.
But he won’t budge. And he’s sucking on me now, making me gasp. Getting me wet, like he so easily does.
He lets my nipple slip from his mouth as he looks up at me. “Nothing needs your attention tonight except me.”
“That’s not actually true.” I pause for a second before saying it. “I kind of just want to tell it like it is, Maddox, so I’m going to. I’m not on the pill, as I mentioned. And I don’t really want to raise a baby on my own, especially when I’m still basically raising another one who’s still navigating trying to stay out of jail before he leaves for Columbia—if he leaves, which we haven’t quite established yet.”
“You wouldn’t be raising it on your own.”
I stare at him for a second. Then I exhale a frustrated huff, letting my head fall back on the pillow. He’s watching my eyes sort of…hopefully. My tone is more serious when I continue. “Alexander, I’ve known you for two days. I’m not having a baby with you.”
“Just imagine how beautiful it will be. Dark hair and golden eyes.”
“Stop it.” This is crazy. “I’m not even close to being ready for something like that.”
“Then why did you have unprotected sex with me all weekend?”
An upsettingly good question. I stare at him for a second. “I don’t know! Because I couldn’t seem to control myself! But I can control myself now and I’m going to need to deal with it. So that’s what I’m going to do. Tonight. We don’t even know each other. It’s ridiculous to even talk about.”
“It would be mine too.” Lazily, like he doesn’t have a care in the world. “I am ready,” he murmurs against my stomach as he kisses his way down. “I want you to know that.” Like he’s whispering to it. “The Maddox heir will have only the best of everything. Nannies. Chefs. Drivers. Penthouses. More money than a person could ever spend. A Harvard education.”
This is way too much. But I ask it anyway. “Harvard?” Because I’m slightly obsessed with the Ivy League at this point.
“Every Maddox goes to Harvard. My grandfather. My father. Me. All my brothers. We give them a shitload of money. We’re one of their more generous donors. There’s even a wing being built at the business school with part of my endowments. An ‘investment incubator,’ they’re calling it, where students can learn how to invest with all the latest technology at their disposal.”
I don’t even know what to say to that. “Oh.”
He continues kissing a line down my body. “We have a lot to talk about. Which is why you’re coming home with me tonight. Give me one more night, Jones. Please?” He licks my pussy lightly.
But I push at his head. There are tears in my eyes now. Fucking hell! Because the way he describes things just isn’t realistic. “Stop it.”
He does stop, looking up at me, half-hurt and half-stern. “Don’t cry, baby girl.”
“You can’t promise me all that. It’s not fair. You don’t know anything about me.”
He’s infuriatingly blasé about all this. “I know some things about you. Like how sweet you taste. And the sounds you make when you’re coming really fucking hard. I know how your eyes light up when you talk about those little huts over the water. And you know what, Jones? It’s not enough. I want to know everything. I want you to move in with me so I can get to know you. So I can learn what every single one of your dreams is and then make them all happen.”
I blink at him through tears. “Would you stop? No.”
“Why not?” He’s kissing my pussy again, ignoring all my protests.
“Because.”
“Because why?”
Because I’m already half in love with you and if I start to believe the things you’re saying and then you walk away, which you will because it would be the normal thing to do, it’ll break my heart and also leave me on my own with an arrogant, gorgeous little blue-eyed baby to raise.
As he seems to have a knack for doing, he reads my thoughts. “I’m not your father, Ivy, let’s just make that a very crystal clear point number one. I’m not my father either, thank fuck, because if I was, that baby would be forced to be a fucking CEO when it was five. That’s not going to happen.”
That doesn’t really help. I grab fistfuls of his hair because I don’t know what else to do in this moment.
“Point number two,” he continues, licking me, “there might not even be a baby. Either way, I want to try this out because I’m fucking obsessed with you. I want you to move in with me and we can see how it goes. And I already know how it’s going to go, baby girl, because I’m going to shower you with gifts, make love to you 24/7, take you to those huts and all the other places you want to go, buy you jewelry and clothes and your own recording studio and whatever else it takes to convince you, and you’re going to fall in love with along the way. It’s that simple. Instead of only always earning money, I’m going to fucking spend some. On you.”
“Alex,” I whisper. “Please. Please stop.”
He doesn’t stop. “Oh, and by the way, I bought your building. With your name on the title. You own it free and clear. Or at least you will by the end of the day.”
“You…what?”
“You heard me. Worst case scenario, you won’t like me, you’ll move back into your apartment and you can use the income from the other six to fund an extremely comfortable lifestyle. But most likely you’ll never leave me. Because I won’t let you.” Another lewd, wet lick, damn him. “Just kidding. I’ll let you, but you won’t want to leave, because who would leave all this?”
He climbs up my body, laying himself and his giant, rigid cock over me, as though to prove a point.
“I’m too well-hung to walk away from, Jones. Admit it.”
God, he’s infuriating. He’s pushing himself against my slippery core. Inside me. Teasing the silky, crazy pleasure. I’m a little in shock, or in awe, or maybe in love.
“All I’m asking for is tonight, baby girl. Then we’ll take it from there. Say yes to me, Ivy Laine.”
It’s scary. It would involve trusting him so much. Too much. I look into his eyes and I whisper, “Maybe.”
His grin is devilish and so sublime I’m almost coming already as he pushes himself deep, deep inside me, all the way to the hilt.