Chapter 5 Jamie
I'm lying on my bed with my laptop balanced on my stomach, scrolling through the wreckage of my reputation. What started as romantic speculation has curdled into something with teeth.
I click on yet another hashtag with my name on it and see: Anyone else think that journalist seemed a little... unhinged?
I should close the app. I should stop reading and go to sleep like a normal person, but instead I keep scrolling. It’s hard to stop when everyone is talking about you.
It also doesn’t help that photos and videos of Carter Crane are all over the internet. He’s out at some business thing right now and at a premiere the a few nights before that.
He looks just the same as he always did, with the terrifying exception that now I have met him, I know what he smells like.
Unhinged doesn’t even start to cover it. I wasn’t obsessed with him before Point of Contention, but I sure am now.
My phone buzzes against my chest. I almost ignore it. I glance at the screen anyway. It’s an unknown number.
This is Carter Crane III. We should talk privately and off the record.
My heart slams against my ribs. Heat spreads through my chest and pools low in my belly. Suddenly, I'm back in that studio, drowning in winter and snow, unable to look away from his eyes.
I set the phone down on the mattress beside me. Pick it up again. Set it down. My hands won't stay still.
I close my eyes, trying to get my heart rate under control. This is insane. It’s just a text message.
I breathe out slowly and open my eyes. Get it under control, Dean.
It’s some kind of trap. They want to get another reaction to make me look like the omega they’re painting me as. Unhinged.
Or maybe Carter wants to talk about his family. I could have a source right on the inside.
Or maybe he wants to talk strategy about how we are going to handle the media storm.
Or maybe he wants…
I've been dreaming about him, waking up hard and aching.
I pick up the phone and type a response before I can talk myself out of it.
Where?
His reply comes faster than I expected, fast enough that I wonder if he's been staring at his phone the same way I've been staring at mine. It’s an address I don't recognize, a hotel somewhere on the outskirts of the city. There are instructions for a side entrance, a room number and a time.
Tomorrow. 8 PM.
A secret evening meeting in a hotel. Of course, it’s a hotel. We need privacy to…talk without anyone seeing.
I stare at the message for a long time. I should ask what he wants to talk about and demand some kind of assurance that this isn't a setup. Maybe I should insist on bringing a friend.
I'll be there.
I hit send before I can change my mind, and then I lie in the dark with my phone clutched to my chest like a talisman and I don't sleep at all.
I am completely useless the next day. I haven’t slept and all I can think about is Carter Crane and hotel. Luckily, I only have two interviews scheduled and neither requires a great deal of brainpower. I answer the same questions I have for weeks on end.
The Crane family is corrupt. Truth.
Yes, the evidence is available to back that up. Truth.
No, I am not obsessed with Carter Crane. Lie.
When the last one finally wraps up, I escape with a sense of relief. Whatever is going to happen this evening, I want to get it over with.
It’s hard not to arrive early. I end up sitting on my hands in the apartment to stop myself from leaving too early.
When I arrive, the hotel is forgettable, the kind of place people stay when they need somewhere clean, cheap and quiet but they have no intention of staying in their room longer than they need to sleep and shower. There's no doorman stationed at the entrance or concierge hovering in the lobby.
The side entrance Carter specified opens onto a service corridor that leads directly to an elevator bank.
The elevator climbs with a soft mechanical hum.
My reflection stares back at me from the mirrored walls, pale and tense, dark circles under my eyes from the sleep I didn't get.
I'm wearing jeans and a button-down because I refused to put any more thought into my appearance than that.
This isn't a date. This isn't anything romantic or meaningful.
We're going to talk about how to handle the media circus and coordinate our public response. Or we’re going to talk about his family.
I'm going to leave with my dignity intact.
I've been telling myself that all day. I've rehearsed every possible conversation in my head a dozen times. I can handle a rich entitled alpha like Carter Crane.
The elevator stops with a soft chime. I walk down the corridor on unsteady legs, my palms sweating and find the room number he gave me.
I raise my hand to knock.
The door opens before I can.
Carter stands in the doorway, and for a moment neither of us moves.
He's not wearing a suit. That's the first thing I notice, stupid and irrelevant, but my brain latches onto it anyway because I've never seen him in anything else.
He's in a dark sweater and slacks, casual in a way that makes him look younger and more human, less like the polished politician from the press conferences and more like a real person.
The second thing I notice is the scent.
It reaches me before I've even crossed the threshold and it's so much worse than it was in the studio.
There's no crowd to dilute it here and no competing perfumes and colognes. Just Carter, three feet away, his scent filling the doorway and wrapping around me and pulling me forward like a hand on a leash.
Every argument I rehearsed evaporates.
Every wall I built crumbles.
Carter's eyes meet mine, grey-blue and intent, his pupils already widening as my own scent reaches him. His chest rises and falls and I watch the way his hands curl into fists at his sides.
I step inside. The door swings shut behind me with a soft click.
We stare at each other.
The silence stretches between us, growing heavier by the second. It fills the room like water, pressing against my ears, my chest, my skin. I can hear my own heartbeat and the soft in and out of Carter's breathing.
A muscle twitches near his temple, jumping beneath his skin in an erratic rhythm. He's holding himself so still that I can see the effort vibrating through him, the control it's taking not to move, and something about that stillness makes me want to shatter it.
All of my blood has rushed south, pooling hot and insistent between my legs, and I can feel myself getting wet with mortifying speed, my body responding to his presence with absolutely no input from my brain.
His nostrils flare. His pupils blow wider, swallowing the grey-blue until only a thin ring remains.
He can smell it. He can smell exactly what he's doing to me.
His control breaks.
Or maybe mine does. I genuinely don't know who moves first. One second we're standing three feet apart, frozen in that charged silence, and the next his hands are fisted in my hair and his mouth is on mine and I'm being driven backward into the wall hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs.
The kiss is fierce and consuming, all desperation, his body pinning mine flat against the wall while his hands grip my face and tilt it exactly where he wants it.
I grab fistfuls of his sweater and yank him closer, kissing him back just as hard. When I bite his lower lip I feel him growl into my mouth, a low rumbling sound that vibrates through my chest and settles deep in my core, and the noise I make in response is embarrassingly close to a whimper.
We're tearing at each other's clothes with no finesse whatsoever, just desperate grabbing and pulling.
His sweater comes off over his head and I hear it rip but I can't bring myself to care.
Then his hands are under my shirt, his palms hot against my bare skin, and I'm shaking so hard I can barely get his belt undone.
He spins me around without warning and presses my chest against the wall.
The plaster is cool against my flushed cheek, a sharp contrast to the heat of his body behind me, and I hear my own moan like it's coming from somewhere very far away.
His mouth finds the curve of my neck and his teeth scrape against my pulse point and my hips jerk backward involuntarily, seeking contact.
He's hard. I can feel him, pressed against my ass, and a fresh wave of arousal courses through me.
His hands make quick work of my jeans, shoving them down my hips along with my underwear. The cool air of the room hits my bare skin and I shiver, but then his palm slides around to grip my cock and my brain feels like it shorts out.
I hear him fumbling with his own clothes behind me, hear the metallic slide of his zipper. Part of me wants to turn around and watch, wants to see him, but I can't move, can't do anything but brace my hands against the wall and try not to shake apart while I wait.
His fingers press into me without preamble, testing, stretching.
I'm so wet it's almost embarrassing, slick coating his hand and dripping down my thighs, and he slides in easily enough that I know he can feel it too.
One finger, then two, curling and spreading, and I push back against his hand with a desperate sound I don't recognize as my own voice.
His fingers withdraw, leaving me empty and aching. Something bigger presses against my entrance, blunt and hot, and I have just enough time to draw a shuddering breath before he pushes inside.
The sound I make isn't human. My vision whites out at the edges and my fingers scrabble against the wall, looking for purchase and finding none.
He's big, bigger than I expected, and even wet as I am there's a stretch that borders on too much.
He doesn't stop, doesn't pause to let me adjust, just keeps pressing forward in one long relentless slide until he's buried to the hilt and I can feel him everywhere.
For a moment he holds perfectly still, his forehead dropping to rest against my shoulder, his breath coming in ragged gasps that match my own. I can feel him trembling with the effort of not moving, can feel his fingers digging into my hips hard enough to leave bruises.
Then he starts to move, and I stop thinking altogether.
It's brutal from the first thrust, hard and deep.
He fucks me like he's trying to break me apart.
I take it all and beg for more with sounds I can't control.
His hips slam against my ass in a rhythm that drives me up onto my toes, drives the breath from my lungs with every impact, drives every thought from my head until there's nothing left but sensation.
I'm making noise, I'm dimly aware of that, but I can't tell if it's words or just sounds.
He bites my shoulder without warning, sinking his teeth into the muscle hard enough to bruise, hard enough that I know I'll be wearing the mark for days.
The pain is sharp and bright and perfect, cutting through the pleasure just enough to make it more intense, and I reach back blindly to grab a fistful of his hair and pull until he hisses against my skin.
The pressure builds in my belly with every thrust, tension coiling tighter and tighter until I'm shaking with it. I'm close, embarrassingly close given how little time has passed, and when he reaches around to grip my cock I nearly sob with relief.
His hand strokes me in time with his thrusts, rough and perfect, and when I come it hits me like a wave, so intense that my knees buckle and the only thing keeping me upright is his arm locked around my waist.
He follows a moment later with his whole body going rigid against my back, a groan tearing out of him. I feel him pulse inside me and some deep animal part of my brain purrs with satisfaction at the knowledge that I did that to him.
Then it's over.
We stand there for a long moment, breathing hard, his weight heavy against my back. The sweat is cooling on my skin and my legs are trembling with aftershocks.
He pulls out carefully, and I wince at the sudden emptiness. I hear him step back, hear the soft sounds of him adjusting his clothes.
I turn around slowly, leaning against the wall because my legs aren't working properly yet. Carter is already pulling up his slacks, his face turned away from me so I can't read his expression. His shoulders are tense.
Carter buttons his pants and retrieves his ruined sweater from the floor. He pulls it on over his head, hiding those scratches, and locates his shoes by the door.
He doesn't look at me once.
His hand pauses on the door handle, just for a second. A hesitation so brief I might have imagined it, then he opens the door and walks out without a backward glance.
I stand there against the wall, half-dressed and thoroughly wrecked.
I find my clothes scattered across the floor and get dressed slowly, wincing at tender places. The bite on my shoulder throbs when I pull my shirt over my head, a dull pulse of pain that makes me shiver.
The elevator down is quiet and the service corridor is empty. Carter is nowhere to be seen. I slip out the side entrance into the cold night air.
In the cab home, I lean my head against the window and watch the city slide past without really seeing it.
I should probably think about what I am going to do about this. Instead, I think about Carter's hands on my hips. Carter's mouth on my neck. The sound he made when he came.
We didn't say a single word throughout. We just fucked in silence, nothing but grunts and groans as the pleasure hit.