Hello LAlaland (Lost in LAlaland) (8 page)

All at once, I was lifted into his arms and his long, thick cock filled me. I was so lost in my pleasure, I didn’t even realize that he’d divested himself of his pants.

I clutched his shoulders as Tony turned us toward a formal dining room to our immediate left, carrying me over and depositing me on the table. The shock of its cool surface against my heated skin made me arch in surprise, and the movement drove him deeper into my body. I clawed at the beautiful bronzed skin of his forearms, but he refused to hear my plea for mercy, thrusting relentlessly into me until I offered up a second orgasm.

As I milked his length with my body, Tony grunted in pleasure but refused to give in. Instead, he lifted me from the table and withdrew his length.

“Stairs,” he choked out in a husky cough. I shook my head, presenting my last and final defense to him. But he ignored the weak opposition and pushed me forward until my toes hit the first step. “Bend down.” Tony’s voice was commanding and arousing, sending goose bumps over my flesh, and I did as he bid.

On my hands, with my ass in the air, Tony took me from behind. The angle allowed him deeper access to my body. His groans of desire sent more arousal rushing to my core, and I tried to snake my hand down to rub another orgasm from my clit, but he brushed it away.

“You ran, Wini,” he seethed between thrusts and slapped my ass. Hard. “This is mine! I’ve wanted you since we were in the fucking eighth grade, goddammit, and I’m sick of the bullshit. I know you wanted me—I know you want all of me—so let me have you! You’ve gotten what you wanted and whatever you needed. Take me deep and don’t you dare touch yourself. Just feel. Me. Inside. You.” His words were emphasized with each deep plunge of his cock.

I knew that my arms would soon give out on me, and my knees were already buckling, though Tony was holding me up. He dug deeply into my hips with a bruising force, and a growl erupted behind me. I felt his heat seep into my body in long, hot spurts as he continued to drive against me until he was spent. When he finally slipped out of me and collapsed on the stairs, he pulled me down onto his lap.

Semen slid down my thighs, dripping over Tony’s legs and onto the Italian marble floor beneath us. I vaguely registered his hands and lips moving against my skin. I was too distracted by my own thoughts.

“I’ll be back in a minute, Wini,” he promised. “I’ll get something to clean you off with. Just have to find wherever the new housekeeper puts the towels . . .” He trailed off as he went off on his search. Minutes later, he returned with a warm, wet washcloth. Sinking to his knees before me, Tony gathered the fluids from my legs and wiped me clean. “I’m sorry,” he murmured.

“You didn’t even ask if I was protected,” I mumbled, keeping my head down and watching his hands travel a path over my body with the damp cloth.

He stopped, placing his palm under my chin and curling his fingers over the curve of my cheek to lift my eyes to his. “Are you protected?” Tony asked softly. Nodding, I tried to look back down, but he kept my chin tightly in his grip. “That’s not what I was apologizing for.” My eyes flashed back to his.

What did he have to say sorry for? I was the one who’d run out on him. I was the one who had refused to listen when he’d wanted to talk. I was the one who had wanted to take all I could from him and then turn away without looking back.

“I shouldn’t have stopped you from coming again. After all the shit in the past four days, I was just frustrated. I’m so, so sorry.” Tony’s words begged me to understand. He deserved to take from my body exactly what I was trying to take from his, but that didn’t mean we’d be finding any kind of peace in our situation. “Come on,” he instructed. “I’ll draw us a nice hot bath and open a bottle of wine.” He tugged me to my feet and held tightly to my hand as we ascended the stairs.

I followed numbly, mutely—a stoic woman grasping at the tethers of control.

Chapter 6

The bath perfectly combined with the wine to relax me, helping me let go of the restraint I’d been concentrating on. Tony had massaged all the knots out of my aching muscles and used his fingers and tongue to draw yet another orgasm out of me as I sat perched on the side of the white tub. Sated and content, we settled onto a king bed.

As we lay facing each other, Tony told me stories about his life over the years. He had dated Francesca Bellini, an Italian supermodel, for quite a while, but the poor girl had struggled with anorexia for over a decade and refused all attempts at help. She was hurting them both, and he eventually had to break it off. I felt a ping of jealousy snake its way through me as he spoke of her, because he had loved her, but I quickly trampled it down. There was nothing for me to be jealous of—he wasn’t mine, and I would never be his.

I didn’t offer any details on my ex, but I talked a lot about Walt, and I felt myself letting Tony into the personal side of my life, which I usually kept tightly under wraps. “He’s such a sweet little boy,” I told Tony with a proud grin. “Walt’s obsessed with drawing right now. I’m convinced he’ll want to design things like his mama, but Kris thinks he’ll be an architect. We’ll see.”

With a soft smile, Tony studied me for several moments, tracing lazy circles over my arm, shoulder, and breast with his fingertip. “When we were sixteen—the first time you tutored me—I remember going to your house and setting everything up on the kitchen table while your mom went to get you. You walked down the stairs wearing the shortest pair of shorts I had ever seen. God, your body was curvy in all the right places, and I couldn’t look away. I had a hard-on the entire time we sat there, and I kept hearing a Viagra commercial in my head that said, ‘If you experience an erection lasting longer than four hours, seek immediate medical attention.’ ” Laughing loudly, I covered my face with my hands and snorted. “Honest! I thought I’d have to go to the hospital!” he exclaimed, his own chuckle breaking through his words and somber story. “And I wanted to ask you out so badly, but you were always so . . . perfect  . . . and I knew you wouldn’t want anything to do with me.”

Controlling my laughter, I rolled my eyes at that statement, but he continued. “The very first time I saw you, you were trying out the combo on your locker, but it wasn’t working. That was in eighth grade. You were the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, with your blonde hair and dark brown eyes. Do you remember that I came over and helped you open the damned thing?” Nodding, I smirked lightly at the memory. “I did absolutely everything I could that year to be around you. I went out with one of your friends, just so I could sit near you at lunch. I even had Ashley find out which classes you were going to take freshman year, and I went to my guidance counselor and signed up for as many of the same ones as I could.”

I had no idea how he’d felt about me back then. It was fascinating to hear him speak of what we’d experienced from his perspective. After all,
There are no facts, only interpretation
, as Friedrich Nietzsche said. If only he’d had confessed his feelings for me, things may have turned out so differently.

Tony took a deep breath, and the movements on my skin stilled. He met and held my gaze. “I haven’t thought about it in years—we’ve lived our own lives—but the night of our senior prom was the night I fell in love with you.” I gasped, sucking in a strangled breath. “You felt so right in my arms. Even as a stupid eighteen-year-old boy, I could recognize that you were perfect for me, Wini.”

Fuck. I couldn’t listen to any more of this and turned onto my other side as tears threatened to spill from my eyes. “Too bad you fucked it up at the graduation party, huh? Not that I had any idea that you wanted me, anyway.”

Tony wrapped his arm around my middle and pulled me tightly to his chest, kissing my shoulder and the back of my neck as he murmured words of love and endearment against my skin. “I was drunk and stupid. Samantha had me all confused.” He took a deep breath filled with regret and continued. “I’ve loved you for a long time, Wini Chapman,” he confessed. “And meeting you again just reminded me of what I’ve always wanted. You’ve become this fascinating, beautiful woman, full of ambition and drive, and I’m counting myself the luckiest man alive to have you beside me right now.”

There were no words for me to return. I couldn’t force out something like that. If he had asked me ten years ago, I would have happily fallen into his arms and taken whatever life he had to offer me, but things were different now. I’d enjoyed his body, fulfilling fantasies I’d had for so long, and had taken what I wanted from him. Now I needed to step back into the real world, away from Tony and the way he made my head spin and my power fumble, and get back to work and to Walt.

The sound of his breathing became steady and deep, alerting me to his sleep. I slid quietly from under his arm and made my way downstairs. Picking up my scattered clothes, I called a cab before dressing. This time, I wasn’t going to give him the chance to catch up to me.

The cab pulled up to the gate where I was waiting, and I hastily climbed inside. After a stop at my hotel to gather my clothing and check out, I climbed back into the cab.

“LAX, please.”

Chapter 7

New York City, New York - Four Months Later

“Walter Ian Jensen, let’s go!” I called through the apartment. My little man was going to make me late to my meeting. “We’ve got to get you to Daddy’s so that I can make it on time.”

“Sorwy, Mom,” Walt apologized as he came out of his room, lugging a backpack filled with toy dinosaurs and race cars bought by Marci. “I haftta get my carws and dinasarws.” I smiled lovingly at my little boy. He’d been in speech therapy for two weeks, and I could already hear the little pieces of the words he was trying to improve.

“It’s all right, buddy,” I reassured him. “I have to meet with Auntie Mars so I can make her wedding dress. Are you excited to be a little groomsman, kiddo?” I watched in amusement as Walt’s eyes lit up, and he nodded with the excitement.

“I wuve Annee Marws,” he stated as a matter of fact. Smiling at his sweet words, I ruffled his blond hair and led him toward the door.

Though I had left Los Angeles in a rush and without a goodbye to Marci, she’d flown in to see me two days later. After she spent the day with Walt, Marci and I had stayed up late, eating frozen yogurt and cold Chinese food. I confessed my conflicted feelings for Tony.

“I lose parts of my control when I’m with him,” I’d told her. “Just the thought of him is this daunting, advancing army on the horizon ready to take every piece of territory I’ve conquered.”

Of course, she’d been all for slapping me upside the head and forcing me to look him up and beg his forgiveness. “Is that what he is? Has he given you any indication he wants anything from you besides . . . well, you?” she’d asked, and I shook my head. “You’re creating a battle in your mind based on preconceived notions of what he’ll do to you.”

There was nothing left for me to say to her, so I sipped wine and allowed my body to relax into the sofa. When had Marci become an oracle?

Tony had only tried to contact me once since I returned to New York City. Two weeks after I’d arrived home, he had a box of cannoli and a bouquet of pink peonies delivered to my studio. Through tears, I’d eaten all four pieces of the delicious Italian dessert, but never read the included card. Feeling guilty as hell after noshing down all the treats, I rushed straight to the gym and busted my ass for an hour on the treadmill. I hadn’t heard from him since that day. Maybe he’d received the message that it was time he moved on. I certainly hadn’t, and I had no one to blame but myself.

“Have you thought any more about what I said about Anthony?” Marci asked as I tucked another layer of fabric into the bustle of her dress and secured it. I shot her a pointed glare through the mirror.

While he hadn’t left my thoughts once in the time I’d been back in New York, I could never find the right way, or the courage, to approach him. I constantly reeled with regret over my actions. I often wondered how bad it really would have been if I had just given in and accepted his feelings for me—if I’d returned them. A life could not be made with a person after only two days? I hated to remind myself that I’d known him for years.

“We don’t even know each other, Marci,” I told her, evading the real question. “We’re different people now, and there’s no point in pretending that I can love a man I knew as a teenager.”

She spun around, causing me to snag the silk of her dress with a straight pin. “You’re right, you are different people than you used to be, but you’re the same—cut from the same cloth, Winn. He’s a successful, talented, gorgeous man, and you’re a successful, talented, gorgeous woman. The only difference is that you refuse to give up even a little bit of your dominance.”

“Marci, don’t even go there with me. We aren’t good for—”

“Don’t give me that, Winifred. Now, tell me. Have you thought about what I said?”

Shrugging, I finally relinquished. “It might not have to be a battle with him, but it would be now if I approached him. I’m sure I’ve blown it anyway.”

She regarded me for several long moments before a sly grin crept over her face. “I know what we can do!” Marci exclaimed. “Get yourself into that sexy maroon bandage dress you showed me, and let’s go!”

Shooting her a skeptical look, I pushed another pin into her gown. “I have to finish your dress, silly girl.”

Instead of listening to me, my free-spirited friend jumped off the podium and rushed into her changing room. “Just go with me on this, Winn. I know what I’m doing.”