Freefall (The Indigo Lounge Series, #5) (13 page)

His brows clamp together. “
Christ
, of course I do. I believe I’ve said so very explicitly several times.”

“Okay, how about I go and rub myself all over one of the bodyguards on the upper deck? Maybe throw in a hand job, let him blow his load all over my—” A low, deadly growl rumbles from his chest and I swallow. “Then I present myself to you. Would you still want me?”

“That’s not going to happen, because I anyone who touches you, dies.”

I roll my eyes. “Says the man who’s standing in front of me, sporting a hard-on from another woman.” Something squeezes in my chest as I say that, but I ignore it.

“I didn’t get a hard-on until I turned and saw you,” he states with a brisk snap.

“You really expect me to believe that?”

“Yes, because it’s true.” He continues to eye me like I’m keeping him from his meal. A meal that involves me and only me.

“You made another woman come right in front of me.” I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about that.

“I was testing the equipment. I told you I’d be doing that today.” His voice still holds that dangerous edge that has my nerves jumpy, and his eyes are sweeping me from head to toe, as if searching for a weakness, something he can latch onto and attack. When his gaze stops on my chest and his hands twitch, I don’t need to look down to know my nipples are at full attention and craving his touch. I feel every nerve in those hard buds as if he’s setting fire to them.

I gulp in air and try to think my way through the muddle my emotions have made of my head. “Regardless, I’m not letting you touch me. Not tonight.”

His jaw clenches hard, and he exhales. “Tomorrow morning, then. Come and have breakfast with me.”

I interpret that correctly as
come so I can have you for breakfast
.

I shake my head. “I’m interviewing all day tomorrow, no thanks to you and your intervention with your
prima donna
French chef. Oh yeah, I’d thank you not to interfere with my staff hiring, please.”

His head drops forward, and I’m freed from his penetrating gaze. Free to let my eyes devour his beautiful body and the tensile energy whipping around him so thickly I can almost reach out and touch it.

His erection hasn’t subsided, and I start to believe that he meant it when he said whatever he’d been doing to Mae Ling hadn’t turned him on.

“Consider it done. When can I see you, then?” he breathes without looking up.

“I’ll be done by six, we can have dinner at my hotel at—”

“Six-fifteen,” he bites out, his voice ferocious and final. “But I pick the place.”

Alarm stiffens my back, but I accept that I’ve already trampled on the danger signs and there’s no turning back. “Okay. I’m cool with that.”

He raises his head and spears me with that intense gaze again. “There will be no backtracking from you,” he says as if he has direct access to my thoughts and wants to reiterate what I’ve just acknowledged. “Not any more. You want this. Tell me you want this.”

I swallow. “I want this. After we lay down a few more ground rules.”

His mouth compresses, but he exhales and jerks out a nod.

I turn toward the door and sense him take that final step. I reach for the door, but his hand slams against it, preventing it from opening. He steps closer and cages me in with both arms although his body never touches mine. “I want to kiss you so fucking badly,” he growls against my ear. “I want to lick your pussy again, find out if you taste as glorious as you did in Montauk. Don’t leave, Keely. Stay. I’ll take a shower if that’s what you want. Hell, I’ll take a dozen showers.”

I suppress a shudder as he leans even closer. The scent of sweat and arousal engulfs me. I want to say to hell with the showers, that I’ll take him raw and earthy and dirty. I force my eyes shut for a heartbeat and pray for strength before I pry them back open. “Tomorrow.”

He inhales and exhales slowly. Then I feel him move away. I look over my shoulder and see him shadowing my body with his hands, an intense, deviant light in his eyes. When he looks at me through his lashes, I feel a pulse of electricity fire through me.

“Tomorrow.” His voice is a steely promise. He steps back and reaches for the door.

I stumble through it and have very little recollection of leaving the yacht and walking back to my hotel.

I fall into bed sometime later and finally let the events of afternoon in.

For the first time in six years, I’m risking handing over a portion of my control to someone else. One slip is all it takes. One misguided decision, especially with a man who seems to smash through my every barrier to reach a place I don’t want touched, could be the end of me.

Telling myself that this time whatever I choose to give will be with my permission, doesn’t stop the cascade of fear pouring through my soul. Nor can I stem the flood of memories that swamps me as I lay there in the dark, gripping my pillow.

Keely

Six Years Ago

F
reshman year has been an epic bust. I’d arrived at UCLA believing my academic journey was going to take a U-turn from complete joke to crazy awesome. Instead, I’d found the cool kids still don’t want to hang out with me because my brain is too big to fit into one hundred and forty characters or Instagram shots of my breasts.

Only the nerds want to hang out with me. I pretend I’m cool with that. But deep down I wonder why the cool kids
still
hate me. My body has changed a lot in the last eighteen months. I’ve grown a couple more inches, and the sunshine in California has done wonders for my previously pasty skin. I’d never pass for a bombshell, but with my dark blonde hair and good enough legs, I should be able to hold my own in the pretty stakes. Instead, the moment I open my mouth, I can see the cool guys slowly recoiling. Fuck, I can virtually see the speech bubble pop out of out their ears, fanatically detailing various ways to get the hell away from me, fast.

This has bothered me to the point where I’ve contemplated dressing provocatively just to get some action. Which is pathetic because I’m nineteen in three weeks and as an almost adult I should know better. My parents are proud of my straight A grades. I can be literally anything I want to be. My self-worth should be boundless. Instead, all I want is to be invited to
one
party, one trip to the beach. A movie. Anything.

Fuck my life.

“Hey, is the sci-fi newsletter ready yet?”

I jump and quickly slam shut my laptop, hiding the pictures of Leo Brummer I’d been ogling, as Jake Schimansky, my co-head of the debate and science fiction society plunks down next to me on the grass in the campus park. A quick glance at Jake doesn’t show signs that he saw what I was looking at. I sigh inwardly.

Leo
.

I’m one wet dream from doodling his name on my notebook and drawing a fluffy pink heart around it. I don’t even care that he’s a little shallow, and wears T-shirts one size too small to emphasize his amazing body. He’s got it, and he makes no bones about flaunting it. And since I’m enjoying the fruits from
that
tree, I ain’t complaining.

I dwell instead on the fateful way we met.

Although he’s majoring in film, TV and media, he’s a psychology minor and had fallen behind because he’s also an actor and had missed most of last semester’s classes because of shooting some action movie in Russia.

I hadn’t even planned on going to the coffee shop that night. I was fed up with the guy behind the counter ogling my breasts and sneering every time I ordered green tea.

But I’d been super thirsty. And I’d needed a quiet place to brush up on my psych paper before the end of term test. My dorm room was out of the question since my oh-so-considerate roommate, Ashley, had decided to invite people over for an impromptu party without telling me. Or inviting me.

Whatever. I was deep into dark, suggestive powers of one’s Id, when Leo walked in and sat down on the next table.

His glance swept across the almost empty coffee shop, reached me, and kept going. Twisting in his seat, he reached into his skintight jeans, pulled out his phone, and stabbed the numbers with annoyed fingers. From where I sat, I could hear the ringing and the female voice that answered.

“Where the hell are you?” he rasped.

Yeah, don’t even get me started about Leo’s voice. The only way I can describe it is to think of dripping wild honey over tiny smooth pebbles and rolling them all over your skin.

Fuck.

I jump when he snaps, “What the hell do you mean you’re not coming? I don’t have time for this shit, Tammie. You promised you’d help me with this paper. I’ve already paid you five hundred for your time, goddamn it. So get your ass over here right now and earn it, or I swear to God—”

I hear a bitchy rant and a crude suggestion before the line goes dead.

I’m embarrassed for him. So embarrassed I want to hug him. Slide my fingers into those waxy blond spikes. Pet that fine body of his and make all his troubles melt away.

“Fuck! Fuck, fuck,
fuck!
” His scowl deepens as he presses the number again and listens to the endless ring tone. Another round of swearing ensues before he yanks his books off the table.

I know this is my one and only chance. So I clear my throat. Loudly. He doesn’t even look my way. “Hey, umm, listen, if you need help with the mid-term paper, I can, you know...help you?”

Jesus, fuck. I’m the co-captain of the debate team, for God’s sake, and I can’t string three words together to form a simple sentence?

He glances up and my breath squeezes in my lungs. Shit, he looks even better wearing that adorable scowl!

“And you are?” he enquires in a couldn’t-care-less tone.

I try not to be crushed by the fact that we’ve been in the same psyche class for a semester and a half and he hasn’t noticed me.

“I’m Keely Benson. I’m in Professor Harding’s class.”

His face de-scowls a little, but he keeps fiddling with his phone, obviously still annoyed that his tutor has abandoned him. I mentally shake my head. Who would deliberately do that? I guess they’re both stupid
and
blind.

A pinch in my pinkie and a sharp tingle on my scalp alerts me that I’m tugging on a strand of my hair, a nervous tic I’ve never quite been able to master. I hastily move my hand to the table as his gaze flicks from his phone back to me.

“I have a shitload to catch up on,” he says, then shakes his head. “If Harding wasn’t threatening to flunk me despite my agreement for time off with the dean, I’d tell him to go fuck himself.”

“Yeah, I bet a few of his students would like to tell him the same thing,” I reply, and attempt a smile.

He smiles back and my heart jackhammers like an over caffeinated robot. “So,” he draws out the word after another glance at his phone. I pray bitch-face stays silent and doesn’t call him back. “You think you’ll be able to help me catch up?”

My shoulders lift in a
hey, trust me, I’ve got this,
shrug. “Depends on whether you’re a quick study or not.”

His blond brows shoot into the air, and I curse inwardly. “Uh, I’m sure you are. Seriously, it’ll be a breeze.”

His blue eyes turn speculative. “How much is this gonna cost me?” he asks.

I bite my tongue to keep my endless list of Leo-centric wants and needs from spilling forth. “We can talk about that later.” When his gaze turns skeptical, I wave him away. “It’s no big deal, really.”

And thus began the sure-to-lead-to-happily-ever-after story of Leo Brummer and Keely Benson.

I’ve tutored him for going on six weeks now and have developed something of a super major crush on him. I tell myself it’s because he’s not relying on just his looks to get him through life, but I know I’m lying to myself. He’s bright not brilliant. I’m not crushing on him because of his brain, but because of his super fuck-hot body. And because at nineteen, I’m super eager and more than ready to rid myself of my virginity and experience what sex is all about. From the moment I set eyes on him, I knew Leo would be the recipient of said unwanted virginity. I’ve even written a mini-thesis on ways to get him to bed. So far, I haven’t been able to put theory to practice because the right opportunity hasn’t presented itself.

But it needs to happen in the next three weeks because I want to head back east to New York for the Easter holidays minus my virginity. I don’t know why it needs to happen, but that’s the date I’ve set for myself, and I always meet my deadlines.

“Umm...earth to Keely!”

Heat shoots into my face as I pull myself from my erotic daydream. “What?”

“I asked if the newsletter was done like, five minutes ago.”

“It wasn’t five minutes ago, and yeah, of course it’s done. I said it would be, didn’t I?” I reply and avoid the quizzical glance Jake sends my way.

“Okaaay, can I see it?” he presses.

“Why? I’m the editor, don’t you trust me?” I throw back sharply. I don’t want to open my laptop because Leo’s googled semi-naked body will be sitting there.

Jake holds up his hands. “Hey, you asked for my help with what questions to use for the end of semester poll, remember? If you’ve changed your mind about wanting my help, just say so.”

I remember asking for help and bite my lip. “Yeah, sorry, I didn’t mean to snap.”

Jake shrugs. “It’s cool. I know Professor Harding’s been riding your ass pretty hard this semester. What’s his beef with you anyway? You’re by miles his top student.”

I turn away from Jake under the pretext of rummaging through my backpack to hide the heat crawling into my face. No one knows about my encounter with my psychology professor last semester, when I mistook his interest in me as a sexual one instead of an academic one.

The whole encounter freaked me out big-time, and I don’t even want to think about it.

“I dunno,” I mumble. “I’m lucky, I guess,” I add snarkily.

“Well, my sympathies and all, but better you than me,” Jake laughs and launches into the neuropsychopharmacology of emotion and cognition module Professor Harding has asked us to memorize before our next class. Relieved to shove the subject to the back of my mind, I concentrate and counter Jake’s rapid fire argument with my own.