2. Ally
CHAPTER TWO
ALLY
“Nice place you’ve got here.” My fingers trail along the industrial-style brick wall as I walk through Dan’s living room for the first time.
It’s a one-bedroom in Soho he bought a few months back and every inch of it spells out Dan Blackwood. He’s always had a thing for dark rooms lit by neon lights. I swear that’s the only way I ever saw his bedroom back at our parents’ penthouse. We’re standing in dull red light right now, curtesy of the neon strip skirting the ceiling.
I don’t know what it is about the neon lights, but they always evoke a sinful feeling, like it’s two a.m. in a dive bar where nothing good ever happens. They make me think of sex, secrets, danger and.… all the times I was alone with Dan in his bedroom when I shouldn’t have been. I’m tempted to ask that we turn on the regular lights, but can’t seem to make myself say the words, shamefully comforted by the return of this sinful feeling I haven’t felt in a year.
I continue scanning the apartment, attempting to distract myself from thoughts of sex. On the coffee table, there are a few towers of poker chips and a mess of playing cards, along with a bottle of whiskey and five crystal tumblers.
“Did you win big?”
When Dan doesn’t answer, I glance over my shoulder, catching his gaze flick up from my ass to make eye contact. Heat pools in my cheeks which I’m thankful can’t be seen in this red light. My breath catches at the way he’s looking at me. This silence between us. The sexual tension has been thick since we locked eyes at the airport.
Regardless of whether Dan has moved on from me, I know he’s thinking about all the times I got undressed in front of him and… performed. I’ve been thinking about them too. Non-stop. As a twenty-year-old virgin, I didn’t think it was possible I could think about sex more. But since the moment I stepped off the plane tonight and saw Dan, my mind is in overdrive. My skin is constantly tingling with a nervous state of arousal, being with him again. Hearing his deep voice. I forgot how intoxicating it is to have Dan Blackwood simply look at me. To be in his presence. Be the girl he’s thinking about.
A lock of dark hair falls in his eyes. I want to reach out and touch that piece of hair and trace the shape of his lips with my fingers. He has a thin layer of stubble and my fingers crave to brush against his jaw to feel the coarse hair.
In the year we’ve been apart, he’s changed so much and is all… man now. His shoulders have broadened. He’s taller. More muscular. I feel so tiny beside him, like a little girl. I don’t think I’ve changed much at all. Paris was meant to be a reset. A chance to meet new guys and forget about my feelings for Dan.
Paris changed nothing at all.
I didn’t meet any new guys. I didn’t make any lasting friendships. I’m still the same awkward girl from a year ago who can’t hold a conversation with anyone outside of my family.
I always wonder if talking to guys and finding a boyfriend would be easier for me if my mom hadn’t sent me to an all-girls school, or if I’d grown up knowing my father instead of the violence I was exposed to from Mom’s ex-boyfriend. The trust issues would be fewer. I’d have more confidence in social settings. More friends. Maybe I wouldn’t have been bullied for being so quiet. Maybe I wouldn’t have panic attacks or have needed to see a therapist for years.
Dan doesn’t need to know how stagnant my year abroad was. Let him think I’ve moved on from him. It’s for the best. I can’t risk people finding out about us. Our parents would be disgusted in me. Forever Families’ reputation would be disgraced and never recover.
“I should go to sleep. It’s late,” I say, needing some way to break this spell between us, though I’m not the least bit tired. I didn’t expect to feel this instant overwhelming need for Dan, and if I don’t distance myself from him immediately, I know I’ll cave in and do something with him tonight I regret.
“Of course. Take my bedroom. I’ll sleep on the fold-out couch in the living room.”
My stomach clenches, thinking about being in Dan’s bed again. He sees the apprehension on my face, and I swear a flash of annoyance crosses his eyes.
“The sheets are fresh, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
That’s the last thing I’m worried about. “I can’t take your bedroom. That would be rude.”
“Ally, you know I don’t give a shit about you taking my room. You’ve been on a long flight and are bound to get jetlag. It’s easier if you take the bedroom so I don’t disturb you.”
Dan opens the door to his room and places my luggage inside. It too is dark in there, soaked in neon blue light.
“Okay, um, thanks.” I step into the room, staring at his king-sized bed, imagining the two of us— No. I shut down that trail of thought. “I suppose… goodnight, then.”
“Ease the fuck up, okay? We’re not like this.” Dan jabs my ribs as he walks by, and I squeal at the sharp poke. A smug grin tugs at his lips and he shuts the door on his way out, leaving me alone in his bedroom. “Night, sis.”
I spin around, staring at the door he left through, my eyes wide and my cheeks hot all over again at his parting words. There was a tone to them I can’t figure out. Slightly sharp and sarcastic. Also suggestive. Sexual.
Overall, Dan has been nice to me in the few hours I’ve been back in the country. I wonder how much of his behavior is genuine, considering how things ended between us. If Dan is furious with me, I won’t hold it against him. What I did was harsh but necessary.
After I graduated from high school, Dan secretly sent an audition tape to the Paris Conservatoire of me playing the piano. I didn’t have confidence to apply to the institute myself, due to my anxiety around auditions. When I received my acceptance letter, it was the tipping point that made me realize I’m in love with him. He’d done something so incredibly thoughtful for me and we kissed for the first time ever, which sounds bizarre considering everything we’d done prior.
We never engaged in sex together. It was always one-sided. Me, stripping out of my clothes, the innocent virgin eager to be taught about my body and how to give myself an orgasm. Though what we did was wrong, the physical barrier between us was a comfort, making me feel like I hadn’t technically done anything with Dan.
The kiss was different. It broke that barrier. In came a rush of emotions that made me realize I was in too deep and I couldn’t resist my feelings for him any longer. Sooner or later, someone would have found out about us, and I was so addicted to Dan that there was no other option than a clean break.
I accepted the scholarship and fled town. I should have said a proper goodbye to him in person instead of through the letter, but I couldn’t go through with it. I knew he would find some way to convince me we should be together. I would have given into him too.
Trying to forget those memories and that Dan is sleeping on the other side of the wall from me tonight, I take in my surroundings, scanning his bedroom—the built-in closet with a mirror sliding door; the massive windows that give a jaw dropping view of the Manhattan skyline.
I sit on the edge of the bed to remove my shoes, my attention snagging on the bedside table to a photo of Dan and our three older brothers at a black-tie event. They’re all very handsome men but don’t have anything on Dan, in my opinion. I have a normal, healthy relationship with my other stepbrothers, and it will be nice to see them again.
Behind the photo of Dan and his brothers is one of the two of us. There are no faces, thank God. The photo is from the waist down. But I know it’s us. I remember the exact moment. We’re sitting together on a couch. My legs are draped over Dan’s and his hand is high on my leg, between my thighs in such a possessive way.
A thrill runs through me, traveling to that same spot between my legs where he held me. The feeling turns into an ache, one I’m all too familiar with whenever I think of Dan touching me.
In the next room over, the shower turns on. My eyes flick to the sound, finding light seeping beneath what I assume is a second bathroom door. It only deepens the ache low in my core.
In an attempt to not think about Dan in the shower, I change into my pajamas and crawl between his black satin sheets, needing to sleep this night away, along with the growing pulse in my groin.
But sleeping through this tension, this urge for release, is near impossible.
My eyes snap to the bathroom at the sound of something deep. A… groan?
My body flushes with even more heat. The pulsing between my thighs gets heavier. Outright painful. It was only a small groan. Maybe not even a groan at all. Maybe I’m imagining the whole thing. Surely Dan isn’t…
The shower turns off. I hear him leave the bathroom.
My God. I just heard Dan jerking off. I know I did.
An image comes to mind of what he’d look like with his hand wrapped around his cock. Of all the things that happened between us, I never saw Dan without his clothes on. I never got to see him come.
Jesus. I should not be thinking about Dan jerking off.
Or what he would sound like having sex.
Or how his muscles would flex when he thrusts.
I told myself this obsession would stop in Paris. I promised myself—I even promised Dan in the letter I left him—that I would be returning as a friend.
I’m going to keep that promise.
But not right now .
Not while I’m in Dan’s bed. It won’t hurt if I give in just one more time.
I squeeze my thighs, teasing the ache. I’m sure Dan has brought many girls back to this bed. We never spoke in depth about his sex life, but I know he’s experienced. Girls have always flocked to him, and not only because he’s a Blackwood, though his father’s wealth never hurt. Dan is the kind of guy who gets invited to every party, has countless friends, and fits in everywhere he goes. He doesn’t do girlfriends, just fucks girls, and never the same one twice. He hasn’t mentioned any girlfriend since my return, so I assume not much has changed.
Right now, I’m the girl in Dan’s bed, and it’s a thrill I haven’t felt in the longest time. I squeeze my legs tighter, intensifying the throbbing ache in my muscles. A rush of flutters travels through me, down to my clit, and draws out a tiny moan from my lips. A little voice in my mind tells me I definitely shouldn’t be doing this, not in Dan’s bed.
My thighs squeeze tighter.
I love defying that little voice. It’s fucked up that this is what gets me off—doing the wrong thing. Being the good girl everyone thinks I am, but secretly a slut for Dan. For him and only him. I like that I shouldn’t be doing this in Dan’s bed.
“You’ve never had an orgasm?” I hear the memory of Dan’s smooth, deep voice from one of the most intense nights of my life. The night he walked in on me touching myself.
“No. I’ve tried. I can never get myself there unless I think of…” I wouldn’t say his name aloud, but he knew I was referring to him. “It feels… wrong.”
“That’s the whole fun of it, Ally. The more wrong it is, the better it feels. Let me teach you how to take care of yourself. ”
My hand slips beneath my panties, into the wet heat as I replay that night, remembering Dan’s praise as he stood back watching me naked on my bed and telling me what a good girl I was while instructing me how to give myself an orgasm. He corrupted me and I loved every second of it, especially the excitement that came with doing something I shouldn’t. Doing something wrong for once in my life.
Another time, I let him teach me how to use a dildo.
It was by far the most erotic moment of my life. So fucking wrong to be doing with Dan, of all people. Again, he didn’t touch me, yet from the way his eyes lay on me and the soft praise of his voice, the way he took care of me afterward, it felt like we’d had sex.
I was so confused after that night, riding a wave of both empowerment and shame. I’d lost all dignity, desperate to find my orgasm. Fucking that dildo in front of Dan was the hardest I’ve ever come. I let the memory take over my body as I lay in his bed now, with mind-blowing pleasure unravelling through me as I hit my peak.
Another intense orgasm, given to me by the thought of Dan.
Something is seriously wrong with me.