Chapter 2
Two
WRYAN
“ P lease prepare for landing,” the flight attendant announces over the intercom as I look out over the skyline of London. The lights of the city shine in the darkness.
As soon as the plane arrives at the terminal, I unbuckle my seat belt and slowly stand. My body aches in places it never has before, and I’m utterly exhausted. I slipped out of Tanner’s suite around six, crossed the hall to mine, and quickly showered and packed what little I had unpacked. I made sure he wasn’t in the hallway and kept an eye out for him when I reached the lobby, where a limo was waiting out front to take me to the airport.
The next leg of my tour starts in London. I’ll be here for a couple of weeks, doing store signings and attending a convention. I love London and have been here a few times. I wait until I’m off the plane to switch my phone off airplane mode. The nice thing about first-class seating is getting off before everyone else.
My phone starts pinging with messages. I see one from my brother, one from my mother, and one from my agent. I select my agent’s message first because she’ll have information on Eddie.
Cortney
Eddie and I will meet you at the hotel after we land.
Me
Awesome. Just landed. Miss him so much. How is he?
Cortney
Same as always. Grumpy with me and missing you.
I pull my roller bag behind me as I make my way to baggage claim. My body is stiff, and my legs ache from the flight, but it’s nothing compared to the other pain. A slight twinge in my chest makes me pause for a moment. Feeling as if I might collapse, I search for a place to sit. But the pain recedes, and I continue walking. I check my heart rate on my watch. It’s high but not too bad. I need to sit down and check my blood pressure, but I want to get to the hotel first. For a fleeting moment, I think of Tanner. I miss him. I wish we could have had more time to explore the desire between us.
While I wait for my bags, I read the other text messages.
JD
Thought you were going to try to come home. Mom misses you. Dad is down in DC for some meetings, so she’s lonely. She could use some mother-daughter time.
Mom
Love you, baby. Hope your European leg goes well. Call me when you land in London. I’ll be on shift but will still answer.
I don’t respond to my brother. It’s just a guilt trip—the same one he’s been giving me for almost a year. I’ve traveled and stayed away from home, except for Christmas. I don’t want to hear about how I’m not being a good daughter for not staying home. Both he and my father think I should find a traditional job and give up writing. They don’t understand how much I love it or how much money I’ve made doing it, especially with the television series on the horizon.
When I was at home, I worked at a friend’s tattoo parlor, drawing designs for them. But I don’t want to settle, and I’m not looking for marriage, not yet, anyway. Well, maybe if it were Tanner. I shake my head, trying to push that thought away. I like him, but I can’t do more than that. I don’t want another man telling me what I can and can’t do or dictating what counts as a real job.
As soon as I have my luggage and clear customs, I step outside to find a gentleman holding a sign with my name on it. I walk over and smile at him.
“I’m Wry.” My agent doesn’t book me under my pen name to keep fans from finding me. We’ve worked hard to keep my true identity hidden.
“How do you do, ma’am? I’ll be your driver for your stay here. I’m Chet.” He smiles as he takes the cart from my hand and begins loading my luggage into the back of the black car. I love the traditional cab look.
I move to the back door he opened before starting on my luggage. I put my carry-ons in first and then slide into the seat.
After chatting with Chet for a moment, I pull up my mom’s contact on my phone.
“Hello, Mama.” I try to sound happy, but I know she’ll see right through my facade.
“Hello, baby girl. I miss you. What’s wrong?”
Yep, she can always tell.
“Nothing, just J.D.,” I fib. I am not going to admit to my mom that I regret walking out on my one-night stand.
“He’s just worried about you.” She defends him, and I shake my head. It has always been this way. I love my family, but they don’t get me. They are all in the medical field, and I never wanted to go down that path. It killed my father when I failed science classes. I’m smart, just not into science. I can quote the classics and have a secondary minor in literature, but J.D. says that’s a degree a partier would get. My brother should know I’m not the party type. I could have stayed at home and gone to Eastport University, but I didn’t want to. I was tired of my family controlling everything. If it wasn’t about what my job or career should be, it was them hovering because of my health.
I chat with my mom and tell her about the signing in New York. I don’t tell her about Tanner. She tells me she’s loving her shift in the ICU and can’t wait to move to maternity next. She rotates between departments, making sure that nurses are all current on their continuing education credits and addressing any further education needs. She’s part of the nursing education department.
“How has your BP been? Did you wear compression socks on the airplane? Did you get an electrolyte?” She starts in with her concerns. “That could be why you’re so short with J.D.”
“No, it’s the fact that he doesn’t understand that I have a real job. That I make plenty of money. It’s the fact that he is overly protective and worries I might get taken advantage of out here without him. That’s what is bothering me about J.D.” I pause and decide to answer her questions before she asks again. “My blood pressure has been good. I thought I was going to collapse after I got off the plane, but it was just a twinge. Yes, I wore my compression socks—the graduated ones, even. As for an electrolyte, Cortney always has one waiting for me.”
“Good. How is Eddie?”
“I don’t know. He’s flying over with Cort. I’ll get to see him in the morning.”
“Okay. I’ll let you go. I’m going on shift soon. Ignore your brother. I love you, and I’m so proud of you.”
“Love you, Mama.” I sigh as I hang up. “I think I fell for my one-night stand,” I whisper into the phone, needing to say the words out loud.
“Excuse me. Ma’am?” Chet asks.
“Nothing.”
We pull up to the Emory Hotel. Normally, Cort checks me in to keep my identity secret, but I’m on my own since she’s currently over the Atlantic. Hotels, just like all my travel arrangements, are booked under my real name. It’s a security measure we implemented a few years ago.
I’m exhausted from the little sleep I got last night, and I don’t sleep on flights very well. As I make my way to the counter, I notice a couple of other people standing there. At first, I don’t realize they’re watching me, but then I catch a guy looking my way. He seems kind of familiar, but I shake off the paranoia. It’s probably just my mind playing tricks, fueled by the weird Snapchat messages I’ve been getting and that guy who hugged me at the New York con.
When I reach the counter, I lower my voice as I give the attendant my real name. The girl repeats it a bit too loudly. I glance around and find the man is gone. I breathe a deep sigh of relief and relax a bit.
Once I’m in my room, I take in the view of Hyde Park. Moving back to the door, I flip the bolt over the anchor to secure it. I explore the suite and notice a second door that enters through my bedroom. My brother got me an alarm because hotel locks can be bypassed. I decide to put the alarm on that door and a chair up against the other.
I can’t shake the paranoia after all the Snapchats and the guy who hugged me yesterday. He whispered that our love story would be written and hit all the lists. The creepy guy and the messages were among the reasons I was in the bar last night. I was stressing out. The person messaging me is upset that I’m changing my writing and insists that someday we’ll meet, and it will be worth writing about.
I move to the bar and reach for a bottle to pour myself a couple of fingers, but I shake my head and decide against it. I need food instead.
After a filling room service meal, I head to bed and, as usual, manage only a couple of hours of sleep before I wake up with words swirling in my mind. I love writing and can’t imagine doing anything else. When my alarm goes off, I dress in a pair of compression joint stability leggings and a sports bra, which I top with a large, baggy hoodie. I need to go for my daily walk. I don’t have Eddie to accompany me yet, but they’ll be here in a couple of hours.
An hour later, I’m walking up to the hotel when I notice a black cab pull up. The door opens, and a large blur of black and white fur rushes me. He doesn’t hit me but stops and brushes up against my leg. His big black head presses into my stomach, lingering there as if he’s trying to absorb my scent. I squat down and wrap my arms around his furry body.
“How’s my baby boy? I missed you so much, Eddie.” I stand up and see Cort standing there watching us. Eddie is named after one of my favorite anti-heroes. Cort likes to say that Eddie goes into Venom mode when someone gets too close to me.
“I can’t believe he did that,” she says. “I don’t think he likes me at all. He never cuddled with me, not even while he was hurting.” Cortney gripes, and I just laugh. This has been a running joke since she started working with me two years ago.
“He knows his mommy,” I coo down at him.
He stands at my side, and I reach down to grab the handle on his harness. Eddie has been my service dog for the last three years. I worked with a special trainer to teach him how to assist me when I faint. I have postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or POTS. I will faint when I go from a seated to a standing position because my body doesn’t control my blood pressure very well. I also have a couple of other conditions, and Eddie helps me with those too.
“Would you like me to get us reservations for dinner tonight?” Cortney asks, shifting into agent mode as she pulls out her phone. She’s dressed in a pantsuit and looks me up and down, taking in my workout gear. My curly hair is up in a messy bun. I had no time to style and blow it out after the shower I took yesterday, the one I took after sneaking out of Tanner’s suite.
Tanner and I showered together one time, and he took me during that shower. My mind chooses this exact moment to remember I need to get a morning-after pill. Do they have those here? I don’t want to ask Cort. I’ll have to look up that information when I get up to my suite.
The shower was the first time Tanner took me without a condom. Afterward, he messed up a couple more times and took me unprotected. He said he would pull out, but he didn’t. We got lost in the heat of the moment. My core clenches when I think of how he felt bare inside me. Against the shower wall after I gave him a blow job. On the bed with me on my knees and him behind me. The memory of his cock inside me as he came causes my skin to flush and my core to spasm, aching to be filled by him again. I miss him.
“That’s some blush you got going on, girl. Give me all the details,” Cortney says.
“No.” I shake my head and turn away from her.
I wait in the lobby while Cort checks in. Once she’s finished, I lead her and Eddie onto the elevator and press the button for my floor.
“You know I won’t tell your parents if you got to bump uglies with a hottie.”
I can’t stop my reaction. My breath increases, and I bite my lip, thinking of how hot Tanner was.
“He was a hottie.” I let out a sigh and slap my hand over my mouth.
“OMG. Tell me more.”
“I met him at the hotel in New York. He was amazing.” I hear the sigh in my voice as I softly smile.
“You go, girl,” she cheers.
The elevator stops, and I show her where my suite is. She follows me inside, and I release Eddie’s handle so I can maneuver to the desk where I left my laptop open. I start to search for the morning-after pill in London when Cortney distracts me. I close the window so she doesn’t know what I’m doing.
“So, plans for dinner?” she asks as she walks toward me.
“I’ll just eat in. Sorry. You can head out and do what you want.”
“Got it. Text if you need me.”
“I will.”
Tanner
Waking up alone but smelling her on my body and my sheets had me storming around the suite until I finally gave up. I don’t know why I’m so angry. I wanted a one-night stand, and that’s what I got with her.
But I came inside her body. What if I got her pregnant? I’m not angry at that thought. We weren’t exactly careful. First, there was the shower. Then, there was the broken condom that happened later on. After that, when I woke her up to take her the last couple of times, I didn’t even wear a condom. I couldn’t do it. I loved feeling her. I also told her she was mine in the throes of passion. Maybe that’s why she snuck out on me.
The plane bumps to a landing, and I take my phone off airplane mode. A message from my friend Ryan pops up, saying he’ll be waiting outside baggage claim. I smile. I like working here. I left the hectic hospitals of Boston and New York for this. Eastport is growing, and I’m excited to be a part of it. Plus, being so close to the water is a bonus as I like to fish.
I don’t have to wait for checked baggage since I only had my carry-on for the weekend in New York. I step outside the exit and immediately spot Ryan in his Challenger. Even though he’s married and has a family now, he still takes his car out every once in a while.
“I get the privilege of riding in this sweet ride?” I chuckle as I slide down into the seat.
“The Durango is in the shop getting some work done. Jasmin had to take the baby to an appointment, and I figured you’d want to check on your patients before heading home.”
“You know me so well.” I laugh. He’s right; I hated leaving my patients, but I promised to speak at the conference.
“How was it?”
I think of my little kitten, but I won’t share her with anyone. “It was good. Stupid comic con shit going on at the conference center too, but other than that, not bad.”
“I’ll be on shift tonight. Do you need a ride to your condo?”
“No, I’ll be fine. I left my car at the hospital and got a ride to the airport.”
“Good.”
A couple of hours later, after checking in on my patients in the ICU and confirming the standards I want followed for them with the new educational nurse, I’m home. I open the door, and the quiet washes over me. I usually love it, but not tonight. I want Wryan waiting for me.
I head to the bedroom and take a shower, finally washing her scent completely off my body. I hate doing it, but I have to move on.
Maybe it’s because it’s been so long since I was with a woman that I was so attracted to her. I’m trying to come up with excuses as to why I reacted to her the way I did. Why I still want her.
I slide into bed naked and close my eyes. Her voice drifts through my mind.
“Tanner, harder. Please squeeze me harder.” Her voice is raspy as I tighten my grip on her throat. “Tanner, harder,” she begs me as I fuck her from behind. “Yes, Master,” she says over and over throughout the night.
I throw the comforter off of me and head back to the shower, where I take myself in hand and get off to the memories. When I finally fall asleep, I dream of Wryan and her sweet body.