Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (200 page)

“Did you like the way I nuzzled your nose?”
Chad was asking, sounding proud of himself.
 
“I thought that was a nice touch, you
know, very intimate.
 
By the way,
that guy looks like a tool.”

Kenley nodded, lost in her thoughts.

“Hey,” Chad said.
 
They still weren’t back at the table,
and he stopped.
 
He put his hands on
her shoulders.
 
Kenley looked down
at the floor, unable to meet his eye, and he reached down and tilted her chin
up.
 
“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”
 
She shrugged, not really wanting to get into it.
 
“It just sucks, seeing your ex.”

“Yeah.”
 
He sighed, but Kenley knew he probably didn’t get it.
 
A guy like him was definitely not used
to having a ton of broken hearts.
 
But Chad surprised her by asking, “You want to get out of here?”

“No.”
 
She shook her head.
 
“I’m
fine.”
 
It was halfway true.
 
She wasn’t freaking out or anything, but
she wasn’t really in the mood for socializing, either.
 
Damn Jeremy and his stupid, boring
face!
 
She’d been in such a good
mood before he got there, and now she’d been forced back into thinking about
all her problems.“You’re not fine,” Chad said.
 
“Let’s get out of here.”

“But Jay and Alyssa… ”

“Please,” he said, and rolled his eyes.
 
“Jay and Alyssa don’t care.
 
It’s the least rude thing I’ve done to
Jay in my life.
 
Besides, they’ll
probably be thankful that we’re leaving them alone.
 
They can make out without feeling
embarrassed.”

“What will you tell them?” Kenley asked.

“That you’re not feeling well.”
  
He rubbed her shoulder.
 
“You wait outside, okay?
 
I’ll tell them and then call the car.”

She nodded, thankful that he was taking care of
her.
 
“Thank you,” she said, and
then turned around and walked out into the cool night air of New York City.

Chapter
Eight

“Do you want to order food or something?” Chad
asked as he unlocked the door to his apartment.
 
Kenley had been quiet on the ride back
to Brooklyn, and he was starting to get worried about her.
 
There was no way she could be that upset
about that Jeremy dude, could she? He seemed like such a douche, with the dumb
suit he was wearing and the way he was so obviously trying to hide his receding
hairline by cutting his hair so short.
 
Kenley was way too good for a poser like that.

“That sounds great,” she said.
 
“I’m starving.”

Chad relaxed a bit.
 
If she was starving, she couldn’t be all
that upset.
 
“Great,” he said.
 
“We can get Thai food if you want,
there’s a great place down the street.”

“That sounds amazing.”
 
She dropped her purse on one of the
chairs in the living room.
 
“You can
order me pad thai,” she said.
 
“I’m
going to go and change.”

“Okay.”
 
He picked up the phone and ordered a bunch of food – pork
dumplings, pad thai, crispy friend noodles and two orders of vegetable spring
rolls.
 
His stomach grumbled as he
hung up the phone.

Kenley came out of the bedroom, looking
sheepish.
 
“Hi,” she said shyly.

“Hey.”
 
He sat up on the couch and swallowed hard.
  
She’d changed into a pair of loose
gray pants and a soft gray hoodie.
 
Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and she’d scrubbed off the make
up she’d been wearing earlier, leaving her skin looking smooth and radiant.
 
Jesus. He’s have figured there was no
way she could have looked even better than she had when they’d left for dinner,
but she did.
 
He wanted to reach
out, to grab her, to keep her close and kiss her all over.
 
The urge to do so was so strong that he
was relieved when she chose to sit on the chair across from him instead of next
to him on the couch.

“Sorry,” she said.
 
“I feel really stupid.”

“No,” he said.
 
“You don’t have to apologize.”

“Yes, I do.”
 
She twisted her hands in her lap, and
the gesture was so adorable Chad could hardly take it.
 
“You’re paying me a lot of money to be
out and about with you, and I couldn’t even do that.”

“It was fine,” Chad said.
 
“They got their pictures.”
 
It didn’t even matter if they did.
 
Right now she could do anything, and it
wouldn’t matter as long as she was here with him.
 
He looked away and tried to clear his
head.
 
Jesus, this girl was turning
him into some kind of character in a cheesy romantic comedy.

“I know,” she said.
 
“It’s just so stupid
 
I mean, Jeremy, he…I’m not even… I don’t
even
like
him.
 
So to get so upset about him is
ridiculous. ”

“Ehh,” Chad said.
 
“It doesn’t matter if you like someone
or not.
 
Sometimes certain people
just get under your skin.”
 

She looked at him.
 
“What do you know about that?”

“About people getting under my skin?”
 
He sighed, ran his fingers through his
hair and then leaned back on the couch. “Honestly, not much.”

“Exactly,” she said.
 
She turned sideways on the chair and
dangled her legs over the side.
 
Her
feet were bare.
 
She had adorable
feet.
 
Feet had never been Chad’s
thing, but he could appreciate cute feet when he saw them.
 
God, he wanted to reach over and massage
her foot.
 
The thought surprised
him, and he quickly tore his gaze away from her toes. “You’re the type of
person who wouldn’t let themselves get all caught up in something that’s so
obviously not working,” Kenley said.
 
“You have more self-respect than that.”

“Well, yeah,” Chad said.
 
“I mean, I don’t get caught up in those
things.
 
But it’s not exactly the
best way to live.
 
And it’s not
really because of self-respect.”

“Then why is it?”

She was looking at him, and he could tell from
her tone and the look in her eyes that she really wanted to know.
 
He hesitated.
 
“Mostly it’s because I’m afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Rejection.”

“You?”

“Yeah.”
 
He took a deep breath.
 
“My
family wasn’t exactly stable growing up. My mom left when I was young, and it
destroyed my dad.”
 
He
shrugged.
 
“I guess I just became
determined that would never happen to me.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, and sat up in the chair.
“I didn’t mean to start bringing up-”

“No, it’s okay.”
 
He smiled .
 
“It’s really not that big of a
deal.”
 
It was a lie, of course.
 
It was a big deal, mostly because it was
the reason his relationships with women never lasted that long.
 
And it was also a big deal because he’d
never spoken that thought out loud to another person.
 
Ever.

Kenley got up and crossed the room, then sat
down next to him on the couch.
 
Chad
felt a burning need inside of him when he looked at her, the magnitude of which
he’d never even come close to experiencing.
 
It was physical, but it went much deeper
than that.
 
It terrified him and
excited him at the same time.

“I know it’s not a big deal,” Kenley said.
 
She pushed her hair back from her
face.
 
The shoulder of her
sweatshirt slid down a bit, and her skin was so lovely that Chad wanted to
reach out and run his thumb over her collarbone. “But it’s still hard to talk
about this stuff.
 
I know that when
I --”

But he couldn’t concentrate on what she was
saying.
 
All he could think about
was how bad he wanted her, how smooth her skin looked, how full her lips were.
He tried to calm himself down, but he couldn’t take it anymore.
 
The desire for her was building up
inside him, stronger and stronger, until finally, he snapped.
 
Before he even knew what he was doing,
he reached across the couch, pulled Kenley toward him and kissed her.
 

***

Kenley was surprised by the kiss, but not in
the same way she’d been surprised when he’d kissed her in Siesta Key.
 
This time, she was surprised by how soft
the kiss was, how gentle Chad was being.
 
And yet she could feel the need behind it, the intent that was pulsing
under the surface.

They fell back on the couch, Chad on top of
her, their limbs entwined, his fingers in her hair.
 
They kissed for a long time, their tongues
swirling against each other in ecstasy.
 
She felt his hands stroking the skin underneath the back of her shirt,
exploring, and she moaned softly.

“Kenley,” he whispered, and then kissed her
again.
 
He pulled away and she
tilted her head back as he peppered kisses onto her collarbone, down to the top
of her sweatshirt.
 
He unzipped it
slowly, his tongue trailing down her skin as he went, over her cleavage, his
other hand still behind her back, holding her in place.

Heat exploded through her body, and she prayed
to God that he would just pull her shirt off.
 
But he took his time, moving slowly,
unzipping slower and slower until the zipper was completely undone.
 
They he kissed her stomach as he ran his
fingers up her body, moving his hands over her bra, cupping her breasts through
the fabric.

Her body was on fire.
 
She had never felt like this, never
wanted someone so bad in her life.
 
And when Chad slid the fabric of her bra down over her nipple and
brushed his finger over the tip, she thought she was going to combust.

He moved back up to her mouth, this time
kissing her hungrily.
 
She could
feel his cock against her, hard in his pants, and she rubbed against him.
  

“Not yet,” he said huskily in her ear.
 
She could feel his breath on her skin,
the slight stubble on his face rubbing against her neck.

“Please,” she said, hearing the want in her
voice.

He kissed her again, this time to silence her,
and then she felt his hands unclasp her bra.
 
Her breasts spilled out, and he cupped
them, his fingers flicking over the nipples, slow then fast, ebbing and flowing
in rhythm with his kisses.
 
She slid
her hand down his stomach and felt the bulge in his pants.

The spot between her legs was dripping wet.

“I want to feel you inside me,” she
whispered.
 
“Please.”

He grinned, then sat up and pulled his shirt
off.
 
She ran her hands down over
his arms, over the muscles of his chest, over the smoothness of his
stomach.
 
He pulled her toward him,
and she sat up a little as he slid her shirt off her shoulders.
 
She let her bra fall down, and he tossed
it on the floor.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he said.
 
He ran his fingers over her shoulders,
then pushed her hair back, looking at her, taking her in.
 

She blushed at the way he was looking at
her.
 
She felt suddenly self-conscious.
 
He’d dated freakin’ Jessica Alba for
Christ’s sake.
 
There was no way her
body was going to measure up.