Chapter 2
CLARA
His hands are like warm velvet against my hypersensitive skin as he coaxes me out of bed. When he guides me to the bathroom, I dig my heels in.
“Wait, what are you doing? I’m not getting into the shower. I worked too hard on my hair and my makeup.”
What I don’t say is that if I walk into Emily’s bachelorette party with wet hair and no makeup, she’s going to know instantly that something is amiss.
There is a rumble of laughter. “I believe we’ve done a number on both, but let’s just get cleaned up.”
“Oh, okay.” I hear the sound of running water before he gently guides me into the tub, giving me a slow and sensual sponge bath.
His mouth follows the soft cloth down my neck, over my shoulders, to my breasts.
It’s all I can do to hold back the moan building.
He takes his time, and I’m savoring every second, but I honestly have no idea how long I’ve been with him, and I’m afraid Emily is going to call her law enforcement fiancé if I don’t show up soon.
A touch of guilt takes over when I remember that I’m the one who’s supposed to be taking care of her tonight. But I still can’t help but shiver and gasp as he gently cleans me. There is no teasing, no words, just the gentle, methodical movement of the cloth interspersed with kisses.
And then, it’s over. He leaves for a beat, then returns and helps me out of the tub, wrapping a plush towel around my shivering body.
“Put your arms up,” he orders, and I do it, feeling the silk of my costume slipping over my arms and then my head before he adjusts it back into place and reties the corset. When I hear the rustling of fabric and the zip of a zipper, I’m surprised at how sad the finality of the sound makes me.
This wild fantasy in the middle of my everyday life is over.
I know I’m going to wake up tomorrow morning and wonder if it really happened, or if it was all just a dream.
Did Emily plan this? She’s always telling me I need to get out of the office more and have some fun.
Did she pay this man—some high-end gigolo—to be my lover for an hour?
But I’m not going to ask. I’m not going to say a word, because then the spell will be broken. And I want to remember this night for a very long time.
“What happened to my underwear?”
“No underwear,” he says. “You’ll go without for the rest of the night. I want to remember this vision of you; to know you’re out there with my scent on you, panty-less.”
This time, I can’t help the groan that escapes, a flush of heat soaring through me, from my cheeks down to my toes before it sets up a new throbbing between my legs. Damn it. How many times did this guy make me come? Apparently not enough.
“I really have to go,” I tell him, the words sounding breathless and reluctant.
Another deep chuckle before he takes my hand and leads me to the elevator in the hallway outside his door. We wait in silence, his hand enveloping mine, until the elevator dings far too cheerfully.
He guides me inside and closes my hand around the strap of my purse. The world grows smaller as he leans in and kisses me. It’s rough, demanding, and full of heat and desire. I never want it to end.
But it does. He pulls away, and I hear the doors beginning to close. I rip off my blindfold just in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of his light hair and chiseled jaw, a smile with a slight, sardonic curl, and ice-blue eyes.
My legs feel like gelatin. I lean back against the railing, the mirrored glass cool against my flushed skin.
Jesus, I can’t believe that just happened. The memory of his kisses is burned into my skin. I don’t want to forget the feeling of his hands on me, of how he felt inside of me, the way every sensation was magnified by a million.
I look at myself in the mirror and gasp.
My lips are kiss-bitten, my cheeks flushed, my hair a wild tangle, and my makeup smudged.
It’s like I’m having some kind of out-of-body experience.
I take a few moments to compose myself, trying to finger comb my hair back into place and fixing as much of my makeup as I can, though I’m still afraid I look disheveled.
And then I catch the number glowing above the elevator doors—12. The bachelorette party was supposed to be on the 11th floor. I was on the wrong floor the whole freaking time.
I punch the button for 11 and feel the elevator start to descend, taking me away from this luscious fantasy and back to real life.
When the doors open, I follow the clues to another room, although this time, I don’t put on the blindfold. I feel like it was the magical key to the quest and putting it on again without my mystery man would cheapen the experience.
I knock and recite the verse again loudly.
Emily answers, dressed in a shimmering white gown and a long, dark wig, along with the ears she crafted for herself for a Ren Fest she dragged me to several years before.
I can tell my best friend has already had more to drink than usual. Her cheeks are flushed, and she gives me an enormous hug, as though we hadn’t just seen each other two hours ago.
“What the hell took you so long?” she asks, shutting the door behind us as she leads me inside.
The other women are already in the penthouse, dancing to a mix of techno and fantasy tavern music.
One woman’s right elf ear has fallen off, leaving her looking like some lopsided mixed breed of species, while another has her long skirts hiked up.
The others are dancing with drinks in their hands around a guy dressed in a sword belt with nothing but the sword and a crown on his head.
He’s done a fair job of making himself look like Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings, minus the clothes. The likeness is impressive.
Emily has always had a thing for the elves. On the other hand, whether in the books or the movies, the human king has been more my style. This guy isn’t bad, but he’s not the one I want, not at all.
I watch the girls dance in a circle, lost in the fantasy, and have another out-of-body experience. Just fifteen minutes ago, I was in the arms of a guy I don’t know, whose face I barely got a glimpse of. But fucking hell, if he didn’t worship me like I was the one and only thing he’d ever wanted.
Oddly enough, that gives me a feeling of power. And for the first time in a long time, I feel like the boss babe I used to be, the one who got lost somewhere in the middle of everything but is finally back. And I got some mind-blowing orgasms in the process.
The patio door is open, letting in the late summer breeze.
The hum of the city below mixes with the pounding beat of the odd music.
The air brushes across the bare skin under my short skirt, and I shiver.
Part of me thinks about marching upstairs and demanding my underwear.
But another part loves the reason why I don’t have them.
I decide I’m going to keep him as a decadent memory, all to myself, at least for the time being. I’ll bask in the glow while I celebrate my best friend’s last days as a bachelorette.
Holy hell, that man played me like a fiddle, a happy, satisfied fiddle.