Chapter Fourteen
Harrison led me through the lobby, pausing only to request the concierge find and send up a first aid kit, then using his body to block the other passengers in the elevator from gawking at me.
He reached down during the short ride, gently grabbing my wrist to lift and turn my arm so he could inspect my palms.
I’d felt that telltale burning sensation that said I’d scraped them when trying to break my fall, but I hadn’t looked at them myself until that moment.
They looked pretty gnarly: a dozen or so scratches of varying depth, all jagged like pavement cuts always were, with bits of grit and dirt filling the cuts.
Harrison’s thumb gently moved side to side across my wrist before giving it a reassuring squeeze when we reached our floor.
“What? No presidential suite?” I teased as we stepped off onto a relatively normal hotel hallway, albeit with fewer rooms.
“This hotel doesn’t have one,” he admitted. “We will have to make do with a king suite with city views.”
We.
There was no rational reason my heart flip-flopped at that word.
Thankfully, if any tell was on my face, Harrison was too distracted by his keycard to notice.
The inside of the suite was nothing like the one in Vegas, but was pretty in its own way.
The carpet was dark blue, and the windows were abundant.
We stepped right into a lounge. No kitchenette or office area, just a few nice chairs to sit in, a TV, and a good view.
Harrison led me through the bedroom with its king bed and gray sheets, then the bathroom that featured tiles made to look like gray hardwood, a soaking tub, and a glass shower niche.
He led me over to the sink, running the tap, washing the blood off his knuckles, then pressing my hands under the running water.
“One second,” he said when there was a knock on the door.
Alone, I stared at myself in the mirror, taking in the tousled hair, the dried blood on my lip and chin, the split in my lip that still shone with fresh blood whenever it moved, and the wild look in my eyes still from the fight.
I looked away, carefully adding some soap to my hands to clean out the wounds.
Harrison was back quickly, setting down the first aid kit, then grabbing a towel to put around both my hands before pushing me down on the tub deck.
I turned on the tap and scrubbed my feet together to clean off the dirt from stepping out of my shoes before turning back to Harrison.
He worked on my hands first, squatting down with a tweezers to pick out any small pieces of gravel, squeezing some saline on the wounds, swiping on some triple antibiotic, then wrapping them loosely with nonstick gauze.
When his gaze slid up to mine, the look had impact, a little punch to the gut that knocked out my air.
“It’s not bad,” I said to the tender look in his eye. “I’ve had worse scrapping with my cousins. My girl cousins,” I added, making his lips twitch.
He wet some gauze with saline and wiped the blood off my skin before gently pressing a fresh wet gauze to my lip and holding it there until it stopped coming away wet.
“I can’t put anything on this,” he said, “or you’ll be eating it.”
“It’ll heal fast if I don’t do too much smiling.”
“Guess we’re lucky that you don’t usually smile much around me.”
I was sure when he was thinking it, he meant it as a sarcastic throwaway comment. But when it came out, there was a heaviness in his voice that made my chest feel weighted too.
“Did John rat me out?” I asked as he started to clean up the supplies.
“Rat you out?”
“Tell you where I was going,” I clarified.
“Yes. But not, I don’t think, on purpose. Don’t hold it against him. He just mentioned that he’d offered to set you up with a driver in LA, but you’d turned him down.”
“I’m not mad at him. He’s a nice guy. Though it’s ridiculous that you made him stay at the hotel for three days waiting for me.”
“He didn’t have to. I offered to send my driver over to do shifts so he could go home. He’s very… dedicated.”
“He’s very incentivized, you mean,” I clarified.
“There’s that,” he agreed, zipping the first aid kit closed. “Want some coffee?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Iced?” he asked. “A straw might be easier with that lip.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be right back,” he said, reaching out to give my knee a squeeze before standing.
Alone, I told myself that I would just wait for him to get back with my coffee, then I was going to get a ride-share back to my hotel.
But, well, he took a while.
And the couch was a lot more comfortable than I’d been anticipating.
Before I knew it, I was drifting off.
Only to wake up with a belly-dropping sensation as I was lifted up.
“You’re okay,” Harrison said, holding me tightly to his chest. “I’m just moving you to the bed.”
I knew I needed to object, to make him put me down, to go back to my own damn hotel.
But, well, it felt good to be held. Just for a moment.
So I sank into the sensation, into him.
“You take the bed,” he said as he lowered me down and pulled the covers over me.
“It’s a big bed,” I said, glancing up at him. And I was going to get out of it and go back to my hotel room eventually, dammit.
“Sure?” he asked, swiping my hair off my cheek.
I gave him a little nod.
He moved back toward the doorway to hit the light, letting just the moonlight stream in through the room.
He toed out of his shoes, his socks, then moved over to the dresser to take off his cufflinks and watch.
His tie was next.
His jacket.
My chest tightened as my breath caught. And as he started to unbutton his shirt, my pulse found a frantic rhythm, pounding in my chest, throat, and wrists.
When he whipped off the shirt, though, there was a matching pulsing sensation somewhere else entirely.
Why did he have to be so damn attractive?
Couldn’t I have married some boring, unappealing, rude guy?
The whooshing sound of his belt pulling free of the loops had me pressing my thighs together to ease the growing ache between them.
My breathing went fast and shallow as I watched his hands go to the button and zipper of his slacks.
His gaze cut to me, forcing me to squeeze my eyes shut, hoping I wasn’t caught.
I heard his pants hit the ground and felt a tug of disappointment that I couldn’t look again before he moved to the other side of the bed and climbed on.
It wasn’t until he was settled that I spoke.
“Harrison?”
“Yeah?” he asked.
“How did you find me here?”
“I figured there was only one reason you’d be flying out.”
“A poker game.”
“Yeah. And I have a friend I’ve done a lot of business with out here who is a pretty serious recreational player. I made a call.”
My back was to him, but I nodded anyway as the silence grew long between us.
“Harrison?” I called again.
“Yeah?”
“Why did you follow me out here?”
His answer was so long in coming that I didn’t think he was going to respond at all.
Then, finally, his voice low, he said, “I was hoping for another chance.”
“A chance for what?”
There was another long pause.
“To show you what we found in Vegas.”
There was a tug in my chest at that. Not because there was any memory that surfaced, but at the clear hope in his voice.
“I… just wanted a couple of days away from it all,” I admitted.
“I should have respected that.”
“If you had, you wouldn’t have gotten the pleasure of getting into a street fight,” I teased, turning over to shoot him a smile.
“Even though you didn’t need to be saved,” he said.
“Exactly.”
I watched him for a long moment, my mind and body at complete odds.
“There is one thing I do remember being good about Vegas,” I said.
“Oh, yeah?” he asked, tone casual, not picking up on the heat sparking off every inch of my skin.
“Yeah,” I said, shifting up on my knees and moving to straddle him.
His hands lifted automatically, settling on my hips as I dropped down on him.
Apparently, it wasn’t just me who’d been wrestling with their desire since getting into bed.
Beneath me, Harrison was already hard, straining against his boxer briefs.
There was no stopping myself from dropping down, from shifting until his length pressed against the core of me.
His hips bucked upward instinctively, dragging a low moan out of me.
I hadn’t changed my mind.
I didn’t want to give him forever.
But we could have this.
Just one last time.
My hips rocked, making both of us gasp at the much-needed friction.
Harrison’s fingers tightened on my hips as his own bucked up against me, making a choked whimper burst from my lips.
“I remember this being good in Vegas too,” he agreed, fingers teasing up under my shirt. “And in the city.”
My blood warmed at those memories, in anticipation, as he sat up, taking my shirt up and off, then touching me without the barrier.
I swear each touch rewrote my awareness of my own body.
Want stirred, a lazy curl beneath my skin that spread and grew as his hands drifted over my ribs, traced the edge of my bra, then, finally, worked the clasp free and tossed it to the side.
I arched back.
He leaned in.
His mouth was on me then, sucking, circling, flicking.
All the while, my hips rocked, riding his length, giving us both a taste of what we needed, but allowing the frustration to grow in equal measure.
His hands slid back down my sides, across my belly, then worked my button and zipper free.
Anticipation buzzed across each nerve ending as he grabbed me behind each knee and pulled until I flipped onto my back on the mattress.
He moved up to his knees, reaching down for my pants and dragging them and my panties down my legs.
Then I was completely bared to him.
His gaze lingered.
His fingers grazed every inch of me, as if he knew this was the last time too, as if he were trying to commit me to memory.
The reverence in his gaze had something breaking open in my chest, leaving me feeling raw and split open.
When the tears pricked my eyes, I knew I had to stop him, had to turn the sensations into something hotter, something that burned instead of warmed.
I shifted back up, pushing him until he was flat again, until I was straddling him, taking control.
I reached between us, pulling down his underwear until his hardness sprang free.
I shifted up, then pressed down, feeling the slide of him against me.
A soft curse escaped Harrison at the slick feel of me, at the needy whimper that escaped my lips.
Harrison’s hand shot out, digging around in the nightstand and coming back with the small square foil.
Desperate for the feel of him, I lifted up, allowing him a second to protect us.
Every muscle in his body was tense, shaking with his barely contained need.
When his hands went to my hips again, they dug in, bruised.
“Ride me, Layna,” he demanded, his voice a raspy sound that brushed over my skin, and sank into my bones.
I lifted up, positioned, and sank down.
A cry escaped my lips at the thick stretch of him.
Losing the battle with his control, Harrison’s hips thrust up into me, his cock settling deep.
It was pure instinct then.
I rocked.
Harrison thrust up into me.
With each moment, our movements grew harder, rougher.
The want tightened, sharpened, hurt, and yet I chased more of it, riding harder and faster.
Until, finally, the tension snapped and my body surged.
Everything clenched.
Everything released.
Harrison groaned, his hips surging deep as his body tensed, coming with me.
I fell forward afterward, every bone melted, every muscle atrophied.
My head buried in his neck as I fought to even out my breath.
Harrison’s arms went around me—one low on my hips, the other between my shoulder blades, holding me against him.
Slowly but surely, calm returned to our bodies. Beneath my ear, his heartbeat slowed. But I couldn’t seem to make myself lift away. I wasn’t sure he’d let me if I tried.
So I didn’t.
I let myself be held.
I let the warm feeling in my chest grow and spread through me.
At some point, when my hips began to ache, I shifted off to his side, still nestled close.
Eventually, I drifted off to sleep, still wrapped in his arms.
—
I woke up sometime in the middle of the night, warm, content, my face pressed to Harrison’s shoulder, his arm draped casually around my hips.
I wanted to stay just that way forever.
And that was why I pulled away, inch by inch, making sure I didn’t rouse Harrison as I slipped off the bed.
I fumbled around in the dark, gathering my clothes, then went into the sitting room to dress.
I found my bag, made sure my phone was inside, then carefully made my way into the hall, closing the door as soundlessly as possible.
The click made my heart drop.
And I chose to believe it was because I was worried I’d woken Harrison up, not because it felt like I was closing the door on our sham of a marriage for good.
My eyes burned the whole ride back to my hotel. My limbs felt heavy. My clothes felt too tight. Everything felt wrong.
“Thanks,” I said to the driver as I slid out of the car and made my way into the hotel.
In the elevator, my hand slid into the front pocket of my purse, looking for my keycard.
That’s when I found it.
The diamond ring.
A pained whimper escaped me as I slid it back on my finger.
For, you know, safekeeping.
Until I could give it back to Harrison in court.