Chapter 18
Casey
London, noon…
The top floor of The Luxe in Kensington was stunning, with gold-trimmed walls and a royal blue carpet leading us down the hallway to a penthouse suite.
Nate slid the card through the slot, then held the door open for me.
I had stayed at his hotels many times, so I knew better than to let my jaw drop when taking in the richness and sensuality of the rooms, but I had never stayed in the penthouse suite in London before.
The suite was palatial, and impeccably appointed with a British flair to the furniture, but still outfitted in the sleek and sexy style The Luxe was known for.
I was about to make a quip about how it’s good to know the CEO, when he dropped our two suitcases on the floor, grabbed my wrists, and backed me up against the wall.
“Look at the room later,” he said in warning, his eyes blazing at me. He had that hot and hungry look that made me feel as if he wanted to eat me up.
“I have my meeting soon with Sofia’s,” I said in protest, but he didn’t seem to care, because he’d nudged my legs apart with a strong thigh, and I was spread-eagle, standing up, pinned to the wall.
“This doesn’t need to take long,” he said, grasping my wrists so tightly his fingers dug into my flesh, delivering a sharp bite of pressure. Of ownership. Of possession.
“But it’s at one p.m. I don’t know how long it will take to get to Hyde Park,” I said breathily, fighting the battle my body was waging, because my body wanted to take him up on his quickie offer, thank you very much.
He dropped one hand from my wrists to run his thumb along my cheek. “Don’t think you can wriggle away from me. After what you did to me at Oliver’s, I’m going to need to bend you over the bed, and show you what happens when you try to take control like that.”
I made a purring sound, momentarily feeding his appetite and our game. “What will you do?”
“Fuck you into submission. Fuck you until you come again and again. Fuck you until you beg for me to do it again.”
“Is this supposed to be a punishment for me taking charge? Because it sounds pretty good,” I said, arching an eyebrow in some sort of challenge.
“Don’t test me, Casey,” he said, and surely, he was playing a role again. He was my lover, calling all the shots, keeping me under his command. Dropping his hold on my wrists, he crushed his lips to mine, kissing me so hard that I was nearly ready to throw in the towel and say screw the meeting.
Especially when he turned on his tender side, and whispered, “Let me take care of you now.”
But I had an appointment and I intended to keep it. Tardiness for the sake of an O might be momentarily rewarding, but it was foolish long-term.
I gently, but firmly pushed him away. “I want to. I truly do. But I need to shower after the flight and change and freshen up. I don’t want to be late,” I said, then ran a finger along his jawline.
He hitched in his breath, closing his eyes softly.
When he opened them, there was something different in his expression.
A vulnerability I hadn’t seen in him often.
“Besides, I need you to know that I didn’t do that to you in the dressing room to get something back,” I added, looking him square in the eyes.
“This thing between us doesn’t just have to be about you teaching me.
Sometimes I want to lead, and sometimes I want to give.
I hope you didn’t mind that I took the lead on that and just kind of pushed you up against the wall at Oliver’s. ”
He shook his head vigorously. “I loved it, Casey. When is it going to get through to you that I love everything you do to me?”
Warmth bloomed inside my chest, like a big daisy flower in the summer.
This man made me feel so sexy, and so passionate, and no one had done that for me in years.
When I’d been with Scott, I’d spent my days engineering pleasure for others, and my nights trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong in the bedroom.
With Nate, I felt both beautiful and desired.
I wanted to clutch this feeling close to my chest, and hold onto it for all time.
I wanted to share it with him too. “I’m happy you liked it.
I wanted you to feel better,” I said, running my hand along his arm.
“I hated that Joanna put you in a funk, so I wanted to do something to get you out of it.”
He wrenched back, narrowing his eyes, staring at me in surprise. “Please tell me you didn’t give me a blow job because you felt sorry for me because of my ex-wife.”
Cold needles of worry pricked into me. I shook my head quickly. “Of course not,” I said, my voice rising.
He backed away, shoving a hand through his hair. “Casey,” he said, in a frustrated tone as he reached the doorway to the bathroom, leaning against it.
“Nate, it wasn’t a pity blow job,” I said, closing the distance between us again, refusing to let him shut down.
“You just said you did it because you felt bad about Joanna.”
“I did feel bad about Joanna. I also wanted your dick in my mouth,” I said, choosing to be particularly blunt.
He laughed once, then stopped. “I like the second part of that better than the first. Can you say that second part again?”
I tap-danced my hands up the front of his shirt. “I loved doing that to you. But I’m not going to shy away from saying the hard things. And that’s this: I wish Joanna didn’t have such a hold on you,” I said with a sigh.
“She doesn’t have a hold on me,” he said quickly, perhaps too quickly, too insistently.
The memory of last night outside his apartment flashed before me, and I pressed on. “I think she does though. She hurt you and seeing her reminds you of how deep that hurt is. Right?”
He sighed, then held up his hands in admission. “Fine. She hurt me. And, fine. I don’t like seeing her. You got me on both accounts. Can we just talk about anything else?”
“We don’t have to talk about her,” I said.
“But sometimes I want to talk about the past. I want to understand it. I want to move beyond it, and I want you to be able to as well. And maybe sometimes I want to do something physical to bring you back to the present, okay?” I said, staring hard in his eyes, refusing to let go of this issue.
It was important to me. I didn’t intend to let Joanna stand in the middle of us, whether we were friends or part-time lovers.
“I hate that she hurt you. I don’t want anyone to hurt you ever.
But don’t let the hurt define you. Don’t let her define you.
You have so much to give a woman, and I don’t want you to lose out because of what she did, Nate. ”
He nodded slowly, then swallowed. “You’re right,” he said, as if the admission cost him something.
“Seeing her just reminds me of how stupid I was to ever trust her, and how I had no clue what she was up to. I had no idea that it was happening right under my nose. I was such a fool, Casey,” he said, shame thick in his voice.
“I went out to dinner with the two of them. They were at our apartment for a New Year’s party once.
He even thanked me for supporting my wife and putting her through the MFA program.
The whole time they were having an affair.
It probably would have gone on for another year if she hadn’t left an email open on her computer when she asked me to check the movie times for a film we were going to see that night,” he said, cringing, and I rubbed a hand gently down his arm, as if that would somehow take the pain away.
It wouldn’t, but it was all I could do. “What if it happened again? How would I even know?”
“She’s the exception. She’s not the rule. Most people don’t do that. I’ve never done that. I never would.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” he said softly. “And yeah, I’d really like to keep moving past her too.
So if you want me to be totally honest, this thing with you,” he said, gesturing from me to him and back, then wiggling his eyebrows in a suggestive fashion, “has done more for me than anything has to put her more in the rearview mirror.”
My lips curved into a smile. “Aha! So this isn’t totally one-sided!” I pumped a fist.
He dropped his hands to my shoulders, clasping me firmly.
“It was never one-sided. Get that through your head once and for all. It’s all-sided.
It’s me-sided. It’s two-sided. It’s fifty-million sided,” he said.
“But if you want to start bringing up exes and talking about the past, I could say the same for you. Because Scott made you think you can’t be true to yourself with a man.
That you can’t be forward. But some men love when you talk back and say what you want,” he said, flashing me a naughty grin that was like a shot of sunlight in my chest when he pointed at himself.
“Yet he somehow convinced you that you’re not as beautiful or sensual or passionate as I’ve known you to be in just a few short weeks of playing your lover,” he said, and I bristled at the word playing.
Right now, I didn’t want him to be playing.
I wished we could stop playing, and he could simply be my lover.
Not forever, not for all time, but for now.
For real, here in London.
But I focused instead on what he’d said about Scott.
If I expected him to be honest with me, I had to do the same.
“Yeah, he did a number on me. I felt like a failure in bed after him, and you’ve made me feel anything but,” I said, and there it was again.
That flash of vulnerability in his eyes.
I’d seen playfulness in them, I’d seen laughter, I’d seen passion, and I’d seen anger.
But now, there was something that seemed to go deeper; something that was usually reserved for someone who was much more than a friend.
He raised a hand to my face, softly brushing the backs of his fingers against my cheek.
“You didn’t need to learn to let go. You didn’t need to figure out how to give up control.
You’re perfect the way you are, and I love what you did to me in the dressing room.
Giving up control isn’t what makes for great sex.
At least, that’s not what does it for me. ”
I swallowed dryly. A swarm of butterflies flew in my chest. Things were changing with Nate, and I hardly understood what was happening, only how it felt inside my heart. Wild and free. “What does it for you?”
He locked eyes with me, and my insides flipped, a spark of desire swooping from head to toe.
“What turns me on are two people who have to have each other. That’s what makes for great sex—when you need to be as close to a person as you possibly can.
It’s about wild, sweat–slicked, hot desire and your pulse pounding in your ear.
It’s about heat and need and want, and fucking in stairwells, and screwing standing up, and clawing off clothes to get at each other.
It’s about kissing her while you make love to her, and fucking her senseless at the same damn time. ”
My skin sizzled. My heart tried to fight its way out of my rib cage.
My fingers ached to touch him. The way he gazed at me made me feel as if all those words were meant for me.
Maybe he was talking in general terms, or maybe he was talking about me.
My throat was dry, but I pushed past it.
“Tonight? I have a request for tonight.”
“Anything.” His voice was raw.
“I want you to drive me wild. I want to feel that abandon I’ve only felt with you. I want to be so wound up with desire that I practically beg for it,” I said, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head. He licked his lips, and blew out a long stream of air. “Would you do that for me?”
“Don’t you know by now? I’d do anything for you.”
“Then on that note, I need you to let me slip away from you to shower,” I said playfully, and he lifted his hands and I slid away.
I grabbed clothes for my meeting along with my makeup, then I rooted around in my bag for my toiletries, hunting for my Alba Botanica shampoo, but the search was fruitless.
I cursed. “Crap. I did it again. I forgot my favorite shampoo.”
I headed into the bathroom and reached for the hotel shampoo on the vanity.
It was a good brand. I really couldn’t complain about Acure, even though it wasn’t my favorite.
But when I pulled the bottle toward me, it wasn’t the expected hotel brand.
It was my favorite cruelty-free brand. My eyes widened, and I grinned like a fool.
Chuckling from the doorway alerted me to Nate’s presence.
“Don’t tell me it was in my bag and I didn’t even notice you unpack it.”
He shook his head, looking as pleased as a cat that had captured a mouse.
“Did I already bring it in here and forget about it?”
He continued to shake his head. “Wrong again.”
“Well?”
“I brought it on at The Luxe for you.”
“You did?” I said, my jaw going slack.
He nodded. “It’s your Achilles’ heel when you travel. You sometimes forget to bring your shampoo. And you’re kind of obsessed with your hair.”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“So I figured if it passes the Casey test, it’s good for everyone,” he said, handing me the matching conditioner. “Besides, this way you’re always covered.”
It was only shampoo. But it was so much more than shampoo.
My heart started a stampede again, galloping closer to him.
To this man I was having some kind of strange, friendly, temporary affair with.
A man who knew so much about me, and who seemed to embrace all my quirks, my habits, my needs, and in the last few weeks, my desires.
My lips parted, and I was about to say all these things, but the clock was ticking. I tipped my forehead to the shower. “Thank you,” I said, and then stripped to my birthday suit, and stepped under the spray.
When I finished my shower, he handed me a towel, and as I started to dry off I knocked playfully on the shower door.
“Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?” he asked.
“Dewey.”
“Dewey who?”
“Do we really have to use a condom?”
He blinked once, like I’d caught him off guard. “I’m negative. I was tested before you,” he said.
“Me too. And I’m on the pill,” I said, trying to keep the conversation casual as I toweled off water droplets on my legs.
But standing naked before him, having just showered, discussing the sex we planned to have, and sharing a room with him?
It hardly seemed that what had started as casual could be classified that way anymore.