Chapter 17
Not Room Service
JAMIE
Thank fuck I was tired enough that I fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.
In the morning though, I still couldn’t shake the image of Sarah in that fucking swimsuit.
And the man in the gym.
It was the day of registration, with an attendees’ welcome cocktail hour tonight and the conference—with my keynote—kicking off tomorrow morning.
Today, attendees would start pouring in from all over the country.
The hotel would be a zoo, so I headed out for a day of cross-country skiing with a few people I regularly met up with at this conference.
There were five of us altogether, and they ranged from people I liked to a couple I could barely tolerate.
I loved being outside though, and me and the ones I liked usually quickly outpaced the ones who were more of a pain in my ass.
Like Bob McIntyre, the CEO of a concrete company, who thought asphalt was a titillating topic of conversation for everyone with the misfortune to cross his path.
Although last year he’d confessed to me he suspected his wife was thinking of leaving him, and we’d surprisingly had a decent heart-to-heart.
I wasn’t a gossip, but I was genuinely curious to know if she’d followed through, and how he was doing.
But when I turned up at the lodge, my favorite of the bunch, a forty-something fabricating company head named Ravinder Singh who loved ABBA and whose wife did roller derby, informed me Bob was coming late.
“He’s devastated to be missing your keynote,” Rav said, sipping the pre-ski latte he’d ordered from the bar.
I harrumphed.
“Your keynote’s the only time we get any peace,” Jen, another favorite, added from my other side.
Jen ran a contracting firm about the same size as Reilly right here in Maine, and had left her husband a decade ago for a woman she met here at this conference.
We talked from time to time on the phone when we had problems only a peer could help with.
She’d helped me out through the Gary debacle, and I planned on getting a private moment with her on the trail to ask her to keep her eye out for him.
She knew what he looked like. And the hell he’d put the firm—and me—through.
His name wasn’t on the attendee list, but he could have easily signed up as someone else.
“Well, Bob’s not here,” Rav said, leaning backward on the bar as we finished the last of our drinks. “But someone else is.”
He lifted a brow at me, then pointed his chin at the door.
Shit.
A tall woman in her forties with a dark bob and a knockout figure breezed through the lodge’s front door.
Alexandra Jones was an architect in Charlotte, and a few years ago at this conference, we’d spent some time together.
The thought of going anywhere near her now made me feel ill. Just like any other woman over the past couple of years.
Fuck, maybe that was why I couldn’t get Sarah out of my head in a way that hadn’t been so intense since the day we’d met.
But the lie popped out of that thought like a buoy in the river. It wasn’t loneliness that had me fucking pining after Sarah. It was just Sarah. The minute I met her my fucking soul had shuttered its doors to anyone else.
With that depressing thought, I met Alexandra’s intense gaze.
“Hello, everyone,” Alexandra said, waving as she joined our group, though her eyes were on me.
Rav snickered into his mug. I’d kick him in the ankle if we weren’t standing where everyone could see.
After a few embraces and handshakes, Alexandra wasted no time in coming directly over to where we stood.
“Jamie Reilly,” she said. “As I live and breathe.”
“Hello Alex.” I met her eyes only because I didn’t want to be a complete dick. I had to keep myself from peering over her shoulder though, as if the only woman I actually wanted to see was going to randomly turn up at a ski hill an hour from the conference center.
“Missed you last year,” she said. “Were you here? Or avoiding me?”
“Wasn’t here.”
“As verbose as always, I see.”
Years ago, I’d half enjoyed her sardonic jabs. Now, I just wanted to get the hell outside.
I downed my coffee. “Rav?”
He was the only one who could keep up with me.
“See you, Alex,” he said for me.
Maybe I should have felt bad dodging her so hard. I just felt relief.
The workout was good. I went so hard Rav had a hard time keeping up, and he was ten years my junior.
“Don’t worry,” he’d panted as I practically speed skied up a slight incline. “She’s not chasing you.”
I’d slowed down just enough to make sure he could catch his breath and talk to me.
“Okay,” he said between breaths. “You need to tell me what the hell is up, and do not tell me you’re nervous about your talk tomorrow. I know you can do those things in your sleep.”
I squinted into the winter sun. I considered lying. But we had each other’s confidence, even though we only met up on the road. And actually, I suddenly remembered I’d mentioned Sarah to him before. Not in the context of her being my employee, though.
I slowed to a pause and looked over at him. “Do you remember, a few years ago, when I told you I met that younger woman at a meteor shower?”
Rav nodded. “How could I forget? The one that got away.”
I grimaced. “Turns out she didn’t exactly get away.”
It was good telling someone. So good, I felt a thousand pounds lighter by the time we met back up at the lodge. I even gave Alexandra a polite smile as I told her we would not be meeting up again the way we had in the past.
Except I didn’t count on the effect reliving every moment of my history with Sarah would have on me once I was alone.
On the drive back to the hotel, every memory I’d brought to the surface had brought along all the intense feelings that came with them. And now they were hammering their way through my body.
I’d regressed. Desperate to shove them away, I called Seamus on the truck’s Bluetooth.
“Hey!” I said when he answered, cheery as fuck that he’d picked up.
“Are you okay?” He asked. “You sound strange.”
“Yeah, of course. I just uh… wanted to know if you had any issues you wanted to talk out.”
“Issues?”
“At work.”
“Dad.”
“What?”
“I’m heading home. Chels and I are going out to dinner. I’ve kind of wrapped up thinking about work for the day.”
“Okay. Anything else going on?”
“Seriously, are you okay?”
I rubbed a hand over my face. “Yup. Yeah. Fine.”
“That was three words where one would have done. What the hell is going on?”
“Nothing,” I barked. “I just want to talk to my son.”
I grimaced. Finally I confessed I’d had a rough day, even if I didn’t tell him exactly why.
Because yes, it had been great getting outside and meeting up with friends.
It had been great, at the time, to relieve the tension screaming through me over spending so much time with Sarah.
But now, anticipating seeing her again, I felt stretched out on a rack, waiting for the torturer to come back with whatever evil surprise he had in store for me.
Limb-stretching. Hot needles. An iron maiden.
Any of it would be preferable to what I was actually feeling.
That evening when I got back to the hotel, I ordered room service for dinner.
They warned me they were busy and it would take a while, but I said that was fine.
I needed a shower anyway. As I got in, my muscles aching under the hot stream, I reminded myself the grueling physical workout I’d put myself through on the trail would likely help me crash tonight, making the day a success in terms of avoiding Sarah.
Though I’d missed any opportunity of figuring out if Gary was here.
I hadn’t thought about him in hours, and my stomach immediately twisted itself into a knot, this time of anger.
It probably hadn’t been him last night. He wouldn’t be so stupid as to come here knowing I was delivering the keynote and would be all over this place.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling I was wrong.
I tried to put thoughts of that asshole aside as I scrubbed the sweat from my body. But he kept coming back. What if he was here to interrupt the keynote? Make a fool of himself?
What if it’s not really him?
I thought of how Sarah had looked at me when she saw me see him through the glass.
And then, fuck. The only intrusive thought that could get Gary out of my brain was exactly what I’d been agonizing over all fucking day.
Sarah.
Sarah, with her eyes on me in my truck.
Sarah, dripping in that bathing suit.
Fuck.
It had been a long, long time since I’d let myself give in to thinking of her this way. But the bathing suit was now front and center in my mind. The way it clung to every curve of her body. The way her tight little nipples tented the fabric…
In a last desperate attempt to do the right thing, I slammed on the cold water.
But it was no use. I took gasping breaths as my body temperature dropped. But somehow, my dick got even harder. If anything, the self-flagellation of the icy water beating down on me somehow made it better. More desperate.
Made me forget everything I’d been trying to restrain.
Without meaning to, I found my hand wrapping itself around my straining cock.
I found myself gliding over my hardness, Sarah’s face, her scent, her laugh, her body consuming every sense I had.
Sarah was the only thing that could distract me from anything bad.
She was pure and perfect, and now, with my hand on my cock and her existence suddenly inhabiting every cell, I let myself fall into feeling everything I felt for her.
Everything I shouldn’t feel, because I could never.
Would never, because I couldn’t be anything like that other man, who was the antithesis of every one of my personal values.
Honor. Loyalty. Not being a fucking scumbag lusting after younger women.
But Sarah. Fuck, Sarah.
I stroked my length, tugging at my balls with my other hand.
I pressed my forehead onto the tiles and moaned, my dick so hard I knew I was going to come in seconds, like I used to as a teenager.
“Sarah,” I moaned again. Pleasure built through me, hot and fast as I increased my rhythm.
I pictured hooking my fingers in the straps of her swimsuit, peeling it down her shoulders slowly, so her tits took their time popping out for me.
I pictured myself dropping to my knees, gripping her waist and taking one of those buds in my mouth, sucking its already firm point to sharpness, until she was begging me to drop down further.
To taste her right where I so desperately wanted to—
Bang bang bang.
I froze. Room service.
Fuck me. I’d forgotten.
They were probably banging because I’d missed the quiet knocks.
I shut off the shower, opening my mouth to call out to ask them to leave it outside.
Then a voice called my name.
“Jamie?”
Sarah. The woman I was fantasizing about was right outside my door. My employee. My girl. The one who was mine in the deepest part of me but never would be in reality.
I stood in the dripping shower, still steamed-up from the heat before I’d flipped the temperature.
My cock was still in my hand. And my brain did the worst thing possible. Without my body moving a muscle, I pictured Sarah, opening the door. Coming in to catch me with my dick in my hand. Seeing me at my lowest; her name on my lips.
The only way I kept from coming right there was by raising my hands in the air like a goddamned criminal, breathing hard, and thinking of fucking Gary.