7. Valentina
7
VALENTINA
“ C ome on, you guys…” This was the third time I tried to steer the conversation back toward the purpose of everybody gathering at my apartment. I would’ve had a better chance of herding cats. Nobody wanted to focus, and my jaw ached from clenching it so tight. “I’m only trying to firm up the list of ideas so we can put an itinerary together for the wedding weekend. The sooner we finish, the sooner you can all enjoy your Friday night.”
Yet, throughout the calamity of it all, my mind still went there. With him, fooling around, then getting caught. Wishing we hadn’t.
“Everybody listen to her,” Rose’s voice cut through my heated thoughts, and my gaze darted to hers, where she rested her legs in Colton’s lap. Like him, she had come straight from work, and now her heels sat on the floor while he rubbed her feet. “Otherwise, don’t complain when you end up having to do something you don’t want to do before the wedding.”
“I mean, I thought we had things pretty much settled.” Lucian tossed an olive in the air and caught it in his mouth, earning faint applause from the rest of the group. “Golfing and sailing on Saturday, wedding on Sunday. I guess we’ll have a rehearsal dinner?” he asked, looking around. Clearly, he was in a hurry to move on with the evening.
“Of course,” Colton confirmed. “At the country club, right?” he asked Evan, who nodded.
He had been ominously silent since showing up an hour ago. That was fine with me. The less he said, the sooner we could get this over with, and he could leave. I was too annoyed with him and with myself after Wednesday’s fiasco to face him. What a shame I had no choice.
You had a choice not to screw with him. Right, but I couldn’t resist. Who could? Sitting there, watching him turn into some throbbing, aching pile of horniness. He hadn’t tried to hide it, openly ogling me with his tongue practically hanging out of his mouth.
I never could turn down the chance to make a man squirm, especially when that man happened to be somebody who broke my heart—any little way I could get a piece of my pride back.
Okay, so it was fun too. But then he went and kissed me, and everything flipped around. Now I was the one who wished I hadn’t been such a horny, needy mess who had basically humped him in the middle of his place of business. I knew better than that.
“What about the Friday before?” I prompted. “The spa at the Delamar looks amazing. I’ve already booked a group package for the Friday before the wedding. Massages, facials, mani-pedi. A whole day of pampering. What about the guys, though?” I asked, looking around for ideas.
Evan gave me nothing, blank-faced. Was he sulking now ?
“Any good strip clubs in the area?” Lucian suggested, earning dirty looks from all of the girls, including me.
“We’re thinking something a little more family-friendly,” I pointed out, rolling my eyes. “Besides, the answer’s probably no anyway.”
“Not that I’m interested in doing that,” Colton insisted, even though nobody asked. “I never cared about strip clubs anyway. It’s all an act.”
“If I want somebody to strip for me…” Noah grabbed Sienna, who giggled while he pulled her into his lap. “I’m all set. I don’t need to pay for it.”
Why the hell did it make my heart hurt to see them so happy? I was turning into a complete disaster over this wedding and everything around it.
“How about a fishing trip?” Evan suggested. “We could take a yacht out from the harbor. The hotel is right there and spend the afternoon on the water.”
“So long as this one promises to wear sunscreen.” Rose nudged Colton. “I don’t want you sunburned for our photos.”
“Same goes for you,” he retorted. “I’m not trying to marry a lobster in a wedding gown.”
“How romantic.” Aria snickered, rolling her eyes as she walked past them with a glass of wine in hand. Rose looked so envious, and I felt sorry for her.
“Aria here will make certain the girls are slathered in sunscreen,” he offered.
We threw around another few ideas, including the shopping trip on Greenwich Avenue and a group excursion to the Audubon Center to explore the nature trails. “And we’re good on rehearsal plans?” I asked, looking at Colton, who insisted on being my point person. “You’re okay with the menu, the schedule? ”
“This is completely in your hands. I trust you.” When I continued to stare daggers at him, he nodded. “Sure. Everything’s great. No suggestions.”
“Thank you.” Trust was nice, but verbal confirmation was more important.
“What do we do now?” Noah threw his arms overhead, stretching as we wrapped things up. “Wanna go out for drinks?”
“We’re drinking here,” Aria pointed out, lifting her wine glass.
“You know what I mean,” he grumbled. “Do we want to go out?”
“I’m really not feeling up to it,” Rose admitted, looking around like she felt guilty. “Sorry.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for. Besides…” Sienna offered, “… I’m not feeling it either. I think I just want to take a bath and put on a mask. But you boys are more than welcome to do whatever,” she added, offering her boyfriend an apologetic smile.
“Ah, fuck it,” Noah decided. “I have a couple of contracts to look over anyway.”
Poor Lucian. He looked around like a puppy whose favorite toy had been taken away. “Seriously? Evan?”
Evan shrugged a shoulder. Until now, he may as well have been a statue sitting in my armchair. Tapping his fingers against his knee, he shook his head. “I have to go out to the Cape Cod location first thing in the morning. We’re having some work done to the clubhouse,” he explained with a sigh.
“You know, there’s a reason you pay people to work for you,” Colton reminded him. “So they can be the ones to do the shit work like driving out to Cape Cod first thing in the morning. On a Saturday, at that. ”
Evan only scowled. “I don’t trust anybody as much as I trust myself.”
Aria laughed. “You sound like somebody I know.” She turned to me. “Practically begging for burnout.”
“I’m a hands-on girl,” I explained.
Unfortunately, all I could think about was getting my hands on Evan. As annoyed as I was, as embarrassed after my shameful performance earlier this week, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Why did he have to be… him, looking like walking sin in a striped shirt with its top two buttons popped open and a pair of pants whose seams were extremely strong, considering they held fast around those thick thighs of his?
It was my turn to stare at him like some deranged psycho tonight, it seemed.
Lucian dragged his feet out of my apartment. “Sure you don’t wanna go have some fun?” he asked me.
“I’m beat,” I told him, and I wasn’t lying. I was downright exhausted, and there were still a bunch of emails I needed to follow up on. “You’ll have to have a little fun on your own. But we both know you won’t be on your own for long.” That got him laughing as he headed out.
Noah and Sienna followed him, with Sienna confirming availability for dress fittings in a couple of weeks.
“See you later.” Evan slung his suit jacket over one arm, barely looking my way before joining Colton and Rose on their way out.
Aria and Miles brought up the rear, with Aria stopping to hug me. “Try to get some rest,” she urged, studying me while Miles waited for her by the elevator. “You look exhausted.”
“And you are going to give me a complex about myself,” I retorted before playfully shoving her out into the hall. “If I end up with a face full of filler before I’m thirty, it’s on you.”
At least it was something to laugh about as I closed and locked the door, leaving me on my own. The loft was almost painfully quiet after being filled with laughter and voices a couple of minutes ago.
I valued my solitude above most things. This was my safe place, my refuge, but there was a thin line between that and loneliness. I didn’t know that line existed until now as I wandered around, picking up glasses and tossing what little was left of the snacks I’d put out. Most of them had someone to go home to. Somebody to be with. I had emails, a vibrator, and what was left of the wine.
A sudden, hard knock at the door startled me into almost dropping a wine glass on the floor. “Lucian, I meant it,” I muttered on my way across the living room. “I’m not in the mood.” I wouldn’t have put it past him to try to convince me to come out, after all.
So, I was in no way prepared to find Evan standing in front of me when I swung the door open. “I left my tie,” he explained. “It’s probably on the chair.”
Dammit. He had a way of knocking me off balance. “Go ahead,” I shrugged, stepping aside so he could enter. He was so overwhelming in every way—his size, not to mention that damn cologne he insisted on wearing. Something he must have worn in the years since we broke up, right? Why had it never mattered as much as it did now when it turned my knees to jelly?
“You know,” I told him, turning to watch him fish for his tie in the space between the arm of the chair and the cushion. “I could have brought you the tie whenever you wanted. You didn’t need to come back up for it.”
“I figured I was still downstairs and might as well grab it.” He pulled out a length of navy blue silk and folded it neatly before tucking it inside his jacket pocket.
“Are you sure that wasn’t just an excuse to come back up here?” And it was. Time might have passed, but I could still see through him. Just like I could when I was sampling those dishes at his country club. He might as well have written his thoughts across his high forehead.
“Do you ever get tired of busting balls?” He tossed his jacket over the back of the chair before his brows knitted together. “I wanted to clear things up after Wednesday. I shouldn’t have thrown all that shit at you when I jumped you like that.”
For once, we were clearing the air after an argument. Did this qualify as growth? “It’s not your fault. I was messing with you, which you know,” I admitted when he scowled. “You were right to call me out. I don’t know why I wanted so much to tease you the way I did.”
That was all it took. One little admission.
The air in the room shifted until it crackled with energy. “I know why,” he told me in a low voice full of danger, taking one slow step after another in my direction.
Red flags waved in my head. “Wait a second.”
Either he didn’t hear me, or he didn’t care. “Why don’t you make up your mind?” he asked, stalking me like he was the hunter and I was the prey. I couldn’t deny the heat racing its way up my spine, making my breath come shorter and ragged. “Either you want me, or you don’t. And we both know you do. Why are you hell-bent on pretending otherwise?”
There was a plain answer to that question, but I didn’t want to get into it. Not now, not when the sight of his lustful stare stirred unspeakable heat in my core.
No, this couldn’t happen. If I didn’t trust him with the truth, how could I trust him with my body? Because he’s so damn good at it .
Feelings and sex didn’t have to go hand in hand. The best sex was usually with the person it would be the worst idea to get serious with.
Just this one more time.
What would it hurt?
I knew before he reached me it was always going to be this way. We couldn’t be in the same room anymore without this explosion of heat, the sort that made a girl want to take her clothes off. I was wet by the time he ran the backs of his fingers down my cheek, my body already prepared and hungry for what I knew he would give me. Escape. Release. I didn’t know how much I craved them until now when his touch promised so much. No way would I risk losing it by telling him exactly why we were probably making a mistake by doing this.
“Not upstairs,” I whispered, taking him by the hand and pulling him to the chair he sat in earlier and probably hid his tie in so he’d have a reason to come back.
Dropping his pants and black boxer shorts, I shoved him down and then straddled him. If we were going to do this, it would happen my way.
I pulled the foil wrapper from his grasp and tore it open with my teeth before rolling it along his swollen cock.
“What are you doing to me?” he hissed in the instant before we kissed.
He thought I was doing something to him? He was the one making me doubt everything I ever thought I knew, wanted, or believed about myself. He made me throw everything I remembered out the window in favor of scratching an itch only he could reach.
I couldn’t think about that now, not once I impaled myself on his rigid cock. Sheer, open-mouthed pleasure washed over me and demanded I ride him for all I was worth, to forget everything, to let it all go. It didn’t have to mean anything but a good time. I wouldn’t let it.
It was getting easier to lie to myself.