Collide & Burn (7 page)

~ Five ~

FRIDAY CAME, AND I put on my little black dress, brushed my red hair until it glowed, and checked my dark make-up around my eyes, which were sparkling green because, I suppose, I was still anticipating tomorrow with Wade.

I headed on over to the club to meet Dee. It is a little local spot in Syosset—an easy, ten-minute drive.

I parked in the rear parking lot overlooking the train station and went in from the back door. Waving at acquaintances as I passed the bar, smiling at others milling about, I made my way to the main galley. Dee stood with some mutual friends at the small rear bar, laughing with Sam, who bartended on weekends to pay for his graduate classes.

There was a whole lot of hugging and chattering before we got drinks and found a table, and then Jeff arrived, grinning and joking. He held up a beer and slid into the booth beside me.

“Here you are,” he said. “Thought you were going to call and set up a dinner date with me?”

“Oh-ho, don’t try to turn things around, my friend,” I said, hand on my hip as I gave him a ‘look’.

He laughed and put up both hands. “Guilty as charged. I know, I was supposed to call, but then I got caught up with the damn funeral and couldn’t get away. Bumped into Dee this afternoon, and she said you were meeting here tonight. Thought I’d buy you a drink and make it up to you.”

“You can buy me some fries. I already have my drink … I’m driving, so only having one beer,” I told him.

“Come on, enjoy yourself …” He grinned. “I’ll put you in a taxi when you’re done, and you can pick up your car in the morning.”

I grimaced and said, “Just get me an order of fries and we’re good.” I sipped my light beer and arched a brow at him.

“Sure, after this dance,” he answered.

I turned to see what Dee was doing, but she was already getting up and going to the dance floor with a cute guy.

I smiled and gave Jeff my hand. He took it a bit too tightly and swung me into his arms. It wasn’t a slow dance, but that was how he started, slow and sexy, and I wondered if he was a little drunk.

“Er … what are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m holding you. I figure it’s a good way to start …” he said, and it sounded hopeful. What was this? Jeff had never given any indication of being interested in me romantically, and
I didn’t want
him to be.

I pushed at his chest for some distance, but he surprised me and held me to him. “Please, Charlie, just let me take in your scent … hold you … I—”

“
Stop it.
”
It was all I could think to say as I pulled out of his embrace.

Jeff grabbed my arm. I glared at him. “Stop it,” I repeated. “What is wrong with you?”

He eyed me belligerently, and I realized he was drunk.

The air suddenly filled with a pulse so strong I swear I could have reached out and touched it. It was Wade Devon, larger than life, just like the ad says.

He eyed Jeff and said, “Hey, Jeff, how the hell are you? Good, I hope, but now, I think Charlie asked you to let her go.”

No, oh no, this was so not good.

Jeff had been my friend. I was torn between wanting to protect that friendship and really being just a little scared at his aggression. What had happened? Had I somehow given Jeff the wrong signal? And what was Wade doing here, making my heart do flip-flops?

Jeff put his hands, palms facing us, in the air and backed down. He looked at me and said, “Sorry, Charlie.” The next minute he vanished into the crowd of dancers.

Wade touched my face and said, “Baby, I know you didn’t see it, but the guy’s heart is on his sleeve for you. Ask your friend, if you don’t believe me.”

I looked at Dee, who had watched the whole thing from the dance floor. She rolled her eyes. I remember her once saying that Jeff had a ‘thing’ for me. I had laughed it off.

Wade interrupted this thought and asked, “I like this song 
… you?”

Wade had a way with his eyes. When they smiled, that smile traveled to his lips and was infectious.

And, yeah, I so needed to dance. To answer him, I began to move to the beat of the music. I bopped a bit more than I usually do and saw him grin broadly as he fell in step.

Dancing with Wade was a carefree experience. He had rhythm in addition to everything else, and we danced right through the next number.

He led me off the floor and back to the table where Dee was standing talking to her ‘cute guy’. I introduced them, and when he wasn’t looking, Dee mouthed, “Wow-zowie.”

I took a sip of beer to stop myself from cracking up, looked up at my Mr. Hottie in his black long-sleeved T and jeans, and asked him, “What are you doing here?”

“Taking in the local band,” he said and shrugged. “A flyer was left at my door. Thought maybe
you
left it there.”

“Oh … I never …” My hand waved involuntarily.

He laughed. “I saw the kid on the bike dropping off flyers up and down our road.”

“
So you didn’t know
I was here?” I didn’t quite believe him. Had he come here for me? My heart was leaping.

“I knew,” he said softly.

I decided to say nothing to that. He put a glass of wine in my hands and said, “You’ll like this better than the beer.”

“Oh, I’m driving … I only have the—”

He cut me off. “No,
you aren’t
driving. I have the limo
.”

He was a control freak. I got it, but at that moment, I wanted to go home with him. I wanted to have that glass of wine, let go, and end up with him.

Dee leaned into me and said, “Going down the road with Tony to JB’s. Wanna come?”

“Uh … three is a crowd.” I beamed at her. “But we need to talk.”

“About Jeff? Come on, you had to have an idea,” she said. “I’ve been telling you he likes you. Always asking me about you.”

“No. None,” I answered. “He never even called all the time he was in the city. How could I guess such a thing?”

She laughed. “Not now. Look, why don’t you and Wade join us? Four isn’t a crowd—it’s a party.”

I didn’t want to ask him. I didn’t think he would want to go, but I did want to stay with him for another dance. “Not tonight, Dee … but go, have fun.”

I watched her and her new cute guy, Tony, leave as Wade took my hand and led me out for a ballad. He held me tightly against his body, and we moved together in a way that made me blush. I could feel his erection against my belly and wanted to touch and be touched by him.

My world started to float around my head. I didn’t see anyone else in the club. Rockets exploded above me, and then he whispered, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Charlie. I don’t do this … I never do this.”

“Do what?”

“Follow up on a woman,” he said on a hard note. “I don’t do that.”

“Then stop,” I told him.

“
I can’t
. I needed you tonight. I never need anyone, but I need you. I wanted to hold you … like this. Dance with you … watch your green eyes light up. Hear your beautiful laugh. I like moving with you to the music.
I like you
, Charlie.”

“Wanna be friends?” I teased.

He almost snarled
. “
No
.”

“What do you want, then?”

“
To fuck you
, every minute of every day …” He sounded harsher than he needed to be.

I was hot and pressed against his hard-on. “Yes,” I said. “I want that too.”

“Come on.” He took my hand and led me out back and into his black limo. He saw me seated and leaned in for a kiss, a long, hot kiss, before he slid in and told the driver, who I recognized as one of the men I often saw around his house, that our destination was home.

We rode the first few moments in silence, which was okay because I was trying to calm myself.

When he spoke he said, “I don’t know
what this is
, Charlie, so don’t read too much into it. I am not the kind of guy that falls for a girl and settles down. If that’s what you want … then you’ll get hurt, and I don’t want to hurt you. So don’t read anything into this.”

“Not reading,” I answered, but that was a lie.

He glanced at me in the dark and said, “What are you doing, then? Because you don’t do this sort of thing. You don’t do one-night stands. You dated only one guy for three years, and even though he wasn’t right for you, you didn’t cheat, you didn’t fool around with anyone else. Charlie, you are too good for me, so what are you doing?”

I gave him the answer he wanted to hear, or at least I thought it would be what he wanted to hear. “Having fun.”

He pulled me into his lap and kissed me long and hard. He broke away, and his voice was hoarse as he said, “
Don’t, Charlie
. Don’t. Don’t be who you think I want you to be.
Just be you
, and now, answer the question.”

“I can’t. I can’t tell you what I’m doing because I don’t know. What I do know is that I want you … that is all I know. Will this … eventually hurt me?
Probably.
Can I stop?
Not yet
.”

He looked away and evidently decided not to respond as he turned back and kissed me long and hard. When he let me up for air, we were already turning onto his private drive.

I stared up at the house that had once been mine. Could I enter there and see all the changes?
I so hate change.

“What are you doing?” I asked and heard the tremor in my voice.

“Showing you my place … my bedroom.”

“Er … why?”

“Because I have never had another woman in my bedroom here, and I want …
hell,
Charlie, I want you in
my bed
,
in my house
. I want to hear your laughter in
my halls
, on my stairs …
I want you, Charlie
.”

Then, before his driver could open the door, he was out of the limo and taking my hand to help me out. He put his arms around me, and his kiss this time was sweetly gentle and then suddenly deeply, wildly desperate. It was as though he were kissing me against his will.

What was happening here
?

He whispered, “Tonight ended up mine.”

I felt my eyes open wide. Was this all about control? Did he maneuver all this because I wouldn’t cancel my plans with Dee? Had no one ever refused him before? That made me frown. “Careful, Wade Devon …”

He grinned and took my hand.

Butterflies scurried inside my tummy. Shivers shot up my spine. Need made me wet between my thighs.
What the hell are you doing, Charlie Wells? What the hell?

~ Six ~

SEX WITH WADE was mind-blowingly erotic.

Whatever he did, however, he did it, kept me on the edge, and then afterwards I was amazed at how he liked to cradle me, hold me, feather my face and neck with sweet little kisses.

I woke up to coffee. I sat up, and he actually put it in my hands.

I eyed him through half-shut lashes. “Don’t you ever sleep?”

“Not much, actually,” he answered. “Now up and get showered. We have to rush to make our appointment.”

“My car is at the club parking lot
 …
?”

“Leave your keys with me. I’ll have someone bring your car home.”

“Oh.” I’d forgotten—he was Mr. Rich Guy and could arrange almost anything. Then I realized what he had said before that. “
Appointment
?”

“Sothers in Greenwich,” he explained over his shoulder.

“Sothers?” I scrambled all over his bed. “Appointment with Sothers?” I was too excited to do more than babble now. “Wait, I have to go. I have to figure out what to wear
—
”

He stopped in the doorway. “I laid out everything you’ll need in the dressing room. I’ve already worked out on the treadmill and showered, so it’s all yours.”

I glanced at the clock. It was only seven in the morning, and although that was when I used to get up and grain all the horses for my parents so they could sleep in on the weekends, I didn’t do that anymore. But this, this was different. This was for Sother’s Art Gallery.

He returned and gave my butt a slap through his white T-shirt. “Up, Charlie.”

I looked at him and laughed. “Control freak.”

He chuckled. “You are tempting, you know. If you stay like that in bed, I may just call off this meeting and crawl in with you
 …
”

“Ho-no.” I grinned. “No way am I missing out on this.” After all, we were talking about Sothers. This could make my career. But did I really stand a chance with such a prestigious firm?

I was up and on my feet. He reached in and pulled me in and against himself. But all he did was surprise me by kissing my forehead. “Today will be a big day for you, baby.”

“Will it? We don’t know if they’ll like my paintings.”

“Oh,
they will
.
I selected the very best you have.”

“Wait, what?
You selected?
”

“Yes. When I was with you the other night, I couldn’t sleep, so I went out and studied every single painting and made a selection of six.”

That rubbed me wrong. Maybe it shouldn’t have—I knew he was only trying to help—but I am very ‘funny’ about my work. Some paintings are private. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

He looked bewildered. “Why?”

“Wade—don’t you see that was invading my privacy? If you wanted to select some paintings for today’s showing or wanted a say in my selection, you should have told me, not just gone in while I was sleeping and taken what you wanted.”

He stiffened and then almost immediately relaxed again. He sighed and cocked his head. “Okay, okay
 …
I’m used to doing things my way—it’s how I operate. I’m sorry. I think, however, you’ll like what I selected for the showing. I put in the canvas of Spike, as well.”

Now I was angry. “
Spike is not for sale.
”

He put up his hands. “Okay, okay. We’ll leave Spike out of the collection.” He took my shoulders and gave me a little shake. “Charlie, this is all new to me. I want to do something special for you, and I am used to
 …
well, if I overstepped, forgive me?”

Those blues pleading into mine made me waver, and the anger was suddenly gone. “Sure, okay, but listen up, Mr. Control Freak. No invading of privacy allowed in this
 …
whatever it is
.”

“Not a relationship,” he said quickly.

I laughed. “No, it definitely is not a relationship. We
 …
understand the fact that you are a free agent,
and so am I
.”

He frowned, evidently not liking the sound of that, because he said,
“
What does that mean?
”

“I am assuming you are free to be with other women. That leaves me free to
umm
, date. After all, it is only fair.” I twinkled at him.

His eyes narrowed. “For the moment,
I don’t want another woman
—for the moment. And I thought
you
were
 …
satisfied.”

I laughed and started for the shower. I wasn’t answering that one. Why should I?

* * *

Looking at his limo in daylight was an eye-opener. To say ‘stretch limo’ was an understatement. It was a black house on wheels.

Between the drink, the kissing, and the night, I hadn’t realized how luxurious his limo actually was. In addition to that, I was in the company of Wade Devon, male extraordinaire. I stole a look at him and thought that Wade in his white silk shirt and cool gray Armani suit was almost as hot as when he was stark naked. It was difficult not to stare at him. Finally, he laughed and said, “It’s not polite to stare.”

“Well, then, if you’re looking for polite, don’t look so darn gorgeous.”

He laughed again and helped me inside the limo.
Oh my
, if money had a scent, it was this limo.

Wade saw me comfortably seated before he dropped in beside me. I smoothed the fashionable, well-fitted black silk pants suit over my lap and wondered when he had had the time to pick it out. Under it I wore the soft white angora sweater, which had a narrow cowl at the neckline. I glanced up at him.

Well, talk about staring, that was what he was doing. He said, “Charlie
 …
you are so beautiful.”

I smiled and then began fidgeting. This was big. Sother’s was a big deal.

“Just sit
 …
relax, baby.” He pressed a button, and the privacy window went up between us and Nugent, the driver. I supposed Nugent was his last name; at any rate, it was how we were introduced.

Now it felt as though we were all alone in the limo. I began to play with the different drawers and buttons.

He reached over, cupped my breast under the black silk jacket, and asked, “Comfortable?”

Our eyes met, and he made a primal sound that got me edgy. His voice was husky when he said, “Damn, hot damn, you feel so good
 …
and, Charlie, those green eyes of yours drive me crazy.”

I wondered what he had in mind. Had I gotten all dressed up just to get undressed?

Not exactly
. He bent over and gave me a chaste kiss on the lips.

He had told me our appointment at Sother’s was the first on his agenda. I wondered where else we were going and asked him. His answer?

“You’ll see. I have a few things set up for us that I am fairly certain you’ll enjoy attending with me.”

“Will I? Like give me a hint.”

He kissed me again, this time not so chaste.

I laughed and repeated my plea. “One little hint about one little excursion?”

He took my hand and held it in his lap. I moved it lower and took hold of his crotch. “Please
 …
Wade?”

“Oh, baby 
…
you have such delicate hands, even through the material.
H
oly hell,
if you keep doing that, I am going to rip off your clothes and have at you.”

“Well, isn’t that what we are supposed to be doing?” I teased. “Sex, just sex, no relating?”

He frowned and seemed to chew on this suggestion before he said, “I don’t see why we can’t have a little, um … fun in between the sex.”

My heart stopped beating, and when it started up again the rate was so fast I thought I wouldn’t be able to breathe.

He looked at me, chucked me under the chin, and said, “I love your laugh. I have this need to hear you laugh as much as possible
,
and I
always attend to my needs. Remember that—I am selfish. Remember that because, Charlie, I don’t want you hurt.”

“No hurting, but tell me what need are you attending to today?”

“I told you, this is all foreplay. I want to give—to pleasure you … and in return you will want to do the same for me.”

There was more to it than that. He might be fooling himself, but although I didn’t try to argue the point, I saw the lie in the words. He wanted to be with me outside the bed. I was elated but kept it to myself. I knew I could be headed for a major fall. This big, beautiful man would leave, but for the moment he didn’t seem to want to—
for the moment
. I hung onto that thought.

“I already want to pleasure you.” I was surprised at the huskiness in my voice.

“Careful, my self-control is waning,” he said on a low note. All at once he began asking innocuous questions about my parents, friends—about my education, about Sassy and how I trained her to jump. Some silly questions.

I found myself answering and laughing as I told him the different anecdotes that went with the different answers. But when I asked about his family and friends, he grimaced.
Uh-oh
. Sore spot?

“It’s complicated,” he said.

“Complicated. Okay,” I said. Wasn’t any of my business so I didn’t pry. “Life is complicated.”

He eyed me. “My dad is a bit of a bastard. He thinks a lot of himself. He was gone more than he was home, and my mom got lonely.
Same old story
. They split. I guess I was angry at both of them.”

“Yeah, growing up is tough enough when you have everything you need,” I said softly. “When parents split, it is harder than hard for their children caught in the middle.”

He eyed me and took my chin in his fingers. “
I like you, Charlie
. I like everything about you. The way you smile, the way you think, your delicious laugh, your face, your eyes—so warm, so bright with expectation—your rocking body. I want you to know that … but I am a cold-hearted man who will leave.”

“Sure, got it.
You cold
 … leaving. But for now you feel warm, and you’re here.” I laughed out loud. It just struck me funny. Who was he trying to convince?

He eyed me and burst out laughing but shook his head. “I just wanted you to know that … because I like you so very much.”

“Good. Sex is probably more fun when you like the person you are … er … sexing,” I said and felt as though I were twinkling all over with my tease.

“And how would you know that? You’ve had only one boyfriend, and he didn’t seem to do the job for you,” he teased.

“Oh.” I heard my voice, and it was small. Didn’t I please him? Was I not good in bed? Because he was phenomenal. What was he saying here? You didn’t need to like someone to enjoy sex? That was probably true for some, but not for me.

He laughed. “I loved … teaching you, showing you what to do when we made love. I liked that you had never done some of those things with anyone else.”

I studied my pretty heels. My first Jimmy Choo heels. I wondered how he had known my size and how had he gotten the clothes for me so quickly. And he had just said ‘made love’—not ‘fucked’
but ‘made love’
.

He put up my chin with his finger. “What are you thinking?”

“I was wondering how you knew my size … clothing, heels …? How did you manage to shop in the city and get back so quickly?”

He laughed, and it was a boyish sound.
“Charlie, I do have
assistants, and one of them did the shopping for me. I saw your shoe size the other night when I was in your apartment. Your suit size was a lucky guess. I had everything delivered to me.”

“You really do get whatever you want,” I said, amazed.

“Usually, I do,” he answered and again dropped a kiss on my lips.

This was way more than sex. No one in that moment could have made me believe otherwise.