17. Sage
SAGE
I head to a celebrity chef’s trendy new eatery in Caesars Palace. Eating out is my jam. Especially since I live in a hotel and dinner is a great chance to escape from the one that’s my home.
I love my home, but I also love this city. The chance to visit other hotels on the Strip remains as giddy a delight now as it was when I was a little girl soaking in the sights and sounds of this city for the first time—all the noise, all the lights, all the people.
With traffic being light, I’m early to arrive.
As I weave my way through the roulette tables, my hair swishes around my shoulders.
My short black dress clings to my frame.
I’m not working the full after-hours look like at the masquerade party, but this isn’t the buttoned-up suit look I wear during the day either.
I am evening Sage.
I’m also keenly aware that I dressed for Cole.
That even if I shouldn’t have him, I do want him to be captivated by me.
I reach the restaurant and tell the ma?tre d’ I’m here.
“Right this way,” he says, escorting me to the private room where the dinner will be held. Along the way, I spot two gorgeous men at the bar, and my heartbeat quickens.
My two Prince Wickeds are indeed male specimens, and all the more handsome with their masks off. Cole rests an elbow against the bar, chatting animatedly with Daniel, who laughs at something Cole has said.
My pulse surges as I drink in the sight of the two business partners, the two longtime friends.
The pair of gorgeous men who pleasured me that night.
My skin heats, and instantly I imagine brand-new scenarios—sliding between them at the bar, perching on a stool, Cole’s hand on one of my legs, Daniel’s on the other.
I’d draw a breath, inhaling both of them.
I’d be intoxicated by the mix of their colognes, their soap, their deliriously sexy scents. Then, by their touch, as their hands glide up my thighs.
Further. Closer. I’d spread my legs for them.
I’d shut my eyes, and savor every delicious second.
And with those filthy images dancing before me, I shiver.
Yes, I definitely dressed with dirty hope in mind.
And I need to resist.
I clear my thoughts, trying to quench the fire inside me. “I think I’m just going to head to the bar and grab a quick drink,” I say to the host.
“Of course.”
When I’m several feet away, Daniel’s phone rings, and he picks it up, then signals to Cole that he’s going to take the call. As he walks away, Cole’s eyes swing around the restaurant, stopping at me. Lingering on me.
My stomach flips. My chest flutters.
I want both of them.
And I also want him .
Desperately.
Glancing at the stool next to him, he gestures for me to join him. If a gesture could be possessive, his is rife with it.
Is this why I’m early?
For a chance to see him?
Truth be told, I hoped for this— for another chance encounter.
An encounter I shouldn’t want.
So I vow to look, but not touch.
I stride over, admiring the view of the rakish Cole Donovan. He’s dressed down in charcoal slacks and a crisp checkered shirt, nursing a tumbler of what must be scotch. The ice clinks in it as I reach him.
He lifts the glass. “Join me, Ms. Carmichael.”
Leaning in, he brushes his stubbly jaw against my face, dusts a welcoming kiss on my cheek, and whispers in my ear, “So lovely to see you.”
A tremble tangos down my spine. “It’s good to see you too,” I say, a little wobbly, a little feathery, as hot sparks from that kiss rain down on my body.
I want them both, yes.
But I want this one solo.
And I don’t know what to make of these twin desires.
Or how to sort them out.
“What’s your poison?” he asks.
“Bourbon.”
He arches a brow as if to say impressive .
“Does that surprise you, Cole?”
His eyes study my face. “Everything about you surprises me.”
“Good,” I say.
He calls over the bartender, orders my drink, then says, “You like being a surprise?”
“I think I do. I think I like surprising you.”
“You’re doing an excellent job at it.”
I turn the tables on him, studying his face. “And do you like being surprised?”
He takes his time, his eyes serious. “I like all the things I’ve learned about you, especially the surprises.”
Another thing about him to like. Everything with Derek was by the book. Dates. Sex. Expectations.
With Cole, nothing is by the book. Everything from the sex to the conversations to the gift he gave me, even to our texts the night after our daytime tryst in my office, has been unexpected.
And, in some ways, they’ve been more meaningful than many of my times with Derek, and we were together for months.
It’s almost as if Cole and I are on a collision course to know each other.
Maybe we’re staying on that course too, unable to veer away.
I crave knowing him, I’m hungry to understand him.
“Did your mother enjoy her stay here?”
He smiles, a genuine sort of grin as he talks about her. “She had a lovely visit,” he says, and tells me more about what they did—shopping, dining, her spa day. “Amazingly, she still found time to chide me, like any good mother does.”
“What would she chide you about?” The bartender brings me my drink, and I thank him then lift my glass to clink with Cole’s.
“To lovely visits,” I say.
“I’ll drink to that,” he says, then knocks some back, sets it down, and taps his sternum. “She wants me to watch out for my heart.”
“Do you not look out for your heart? Are you eating too much red meat?” I ask, teasing.
He laughs. “I’m all about fish and salad and healthy meals.”
“Then why does she worry about your heart, Cole?” I tilt my head, gentling my tone. “Was it broken?”
He takes a deep breath. In that silence, there’s my answer.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make light of it.
” I bring my hand to my chest, opening myself up to him.
“My heart was broken several months ago. I was falling in love with the man I’d been seeing, and I learned he’d been cheating on me.
He did it publicly too. It was incredibly humiliating, and I was devastated. ”
Cole sneers. “He didn’t deserve you. And you don’t deserve to be devastated.”
“No one does, and yet so many of us are.” I swallow some of my drink, enjoying the burn and the way it makes my nostrils tingle too. I return to the issue of his heart. “May I ask? What happened to you? Broken heart? Something worse?”
He’s quick, clipped, even. “She died. In a car accident.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I say, my own heart lurching toward him, my hand reaching for his arm, rubbing it up and down.
But not in a sexual way. More in a comforting way.
But I still feel like an idiot for having said something about my situation when his story runs deeper, hurts more.
I let go of him. “I didn’t mean to commandeer the conversation and make that comment about a breakup, since what you went through is much worse. ”
He shakes his head, adamant, then sets a hand on my shoulder.
Possessively, once again. That’s his style, and I don’t mind it.
“Don’t belittle your experiences. We go through what we go through.
That was something to you, and the way you were treated is awful.
And you didn’t know what had happened to me. ”
I take a beat, then dive back in. “What happened? May I ask?”
He clears his throat as he takes his hand off me. “We were in LA. The three of us had gone out to dinner.”
I file that data point away. The three of them.
“We were out as friends,” he clarifies. “Daniel was driving. A car swerved out of nowhere, hit her side of the car. She died on the way to the hospital.”
My heart craters, shards of pain slicing through me like jagged glass as I try to imagine how he felt. The horror of all that. The immediacy of the loss. The terror and the fear and the denial that must have come that night, and in the days to follow.
“You were in love with her?” I ask, seeing the feelings in his brown eyes.
“No,” he says. “I was, however, falling in love with her—yes.”
That adds another layer of complexity. “It’s so hard when you lose someone. I’m sorry that happened to you.” I tilt my head, curious. “You didn’t mention anything about it last week when we were talking about loss.”
“Because you were talking about your parents. This was just a nascent relationship.”
“But that can hurt too. As someone recently said to me—we go through what we go through.”
He lifts a glass, giving me a small smile. “Let’s just say we both understand that life can get complicated and life can be painful.”
“It can be painful,” I say, taking another drink of my bourbon. “I will definitely second that.”
“I’m glad you’re not with that guy anymore,” he says, his gaze locked tight on mine.
“It’s all for the best. Looking back, we didn’t really connect. I didn’t realize it at the time, but with hindsight I know he was the wrong guy.”
Cole finishes his scotch, sets it down, and roams his hungry eyes over me again, like he’s cataloging my dress, my hair, my lips. The heat in his dark eyes sears me, as do his words when he asks, “Did he not understand all your sides, all your kinks?”
I give him a curious look, a little surprised at the way he jumped right into that question. “Do you appreciate them?”
“Oh, I definitely appreciate them. I adore them. I worship them.” His lips part, and his stare sends the temperature in me soaring as his body inches closer. “And I want to experience them again.”
A hot flush spreads through me. “I thought we agreed we weren’t going to do that,” I say in a low voice.
“We did agree. That’s true. Yet I still believe kinks should be explored. With trusted partners, that is.”
My lips curve into a grin, and I can’t resist zeroing in on one thing he said. “ Partners being the operative word, Cole? Partners, as in plural ?”
His eyebrows lift. “If you want to explore more with partners .”
This is my chance to understand him. To dive into what makes him and Daniel tick. “Is that your kink with your friend?”
He owns it with three strong words. “It certainly is.”
“That’s interesting. That this is a regular thing.
That I’m a part of it.” I digest this new intel, trying to understand it, to make sense of it.
But I suppose I don’t have to make sense of it.
Because it makes sense on its own pure level.
On the level of pure pleasure. On the level of kink. On the level of exploration.
It’s what they like.
They have their kinks.
I have mine.
“You are a part of it, Sage.” But then he takes his time, inches even closer to me, lifts his hand, and runs it over a strand of my hair, making me shiver. “But you’re also the only one I’ve had something separate with since . . .”
He doesn’t have to finish the sentence. I’m the only one since the woman he lost.
The trouble is I have no clue what that means or what I want it to mean.