Eight Ways to Ecstasy (6 page)

“Damn.” He shook his head. This was the stuff Kate feared, maybe. The detachment from reality. The waste. All of a sudden, his throat threatened to close. He coughed, then drained his drink.

Chase quirked a brow.

“You ever stop and think about how ridiculous our lives are?” Rylan asked, voice dark. When Chase didn't answer, Rylan motioned with his hand as if he could encapsulate the whole of it. “The who's-sleeping-with-who and the”—he gestured at Chase—“the suits.” He didn't know what this glass of whiskey cost, but he could guess. “Even going to a place like this.” One you needed an invitation and a trust fund to get access to, all dark wood paneling and crystal. “The games.” Bitterness flooded his mouth.

Kate would hate it.

For a long, long moment, Chase sized him up. Then he tipped his own glass back. Setting it down, he tapped the rim.

As if she'd been waiting for the signal—because she had been, of course she had—the bartender swooped in, silent and efficient as she refilled them.

Once she'd retreated, Chase turned to Rylan again. “You always did have a shit way of looking at things.”

Rylan just about choked. “Excuse me?”

“You remember how we met?”

What did that have to do with anything?

“Because I do,” Chase said. “Christ, you were a little shit back then. It was our first year at Exeter, wasn't it?” At Rylan's nod, he continued on. “I was heading out of the locker room after soccer practice, minding my own business, when I stumble upon this kid. All of, what, fourteen years old? Five foot three and a hundred pounds, and beating the hell out of a punching bag, and do you remember why?”

Rylan did. Even though it was the good stuff, his next pull at his whiskey burned.

“Because your daddy got you a nice room without a roommate, and you were
convinced
you were missing out. Like there was some lifelong connection you weren't going to make or something.”

It seemed so ridiculous now. But he'd been told by the sons of his father's friends that going off to boarding school meant roommates.

It meant not being alone.

“Only you.” Chase shook his head. “Any other guy would be thrilled to have a safe place to jerk off without some mouth breather snoring in the other bunk. And nothing's changed, has it?”

“Because I still get to jerk off in private?”

Chase wiped the condensation from his glass and flicked it at Rylan's face. “Poor little tiny teenage Bellamy. He has a rich daddy and has to go to a fancy school and have a room all to himself. What a burden.”

Rylan grabbed a cocktail napkin from the bar and dabbed at the droplets on his cheek. “Fuck off.”

“Poor grown-up, stick-up-his-ass Bellamy. His life is so terrible he has to run off to Paris for a year—”

“I said
fuck off
.” It had been a mistake coming here. Reconnecting with the people from what had used to be his life. They didn't understand.

“Rylan. Dude.” Chase caught his arm and gave him a shake. “Our life is
awesome
. I mean, there's shit in it, don't get me wrong. We keep a lot of therapists in business. But we can afford to.”

Rylan snorted into his whiskey. “Great.”

“Stop acting like it's such a tragedy, having nice stuff, or access to nice places. Just enjoy it, for fuck's sake.”

And something inside Rylan snapped. Guilt had been eating at him for so long, he wasn't sure there's was anything left to gnaw. He'd fucked up with Kate, and he'd left his sister to fend for herself as she kept his damn birthright afloat. He'd let Kate's reaction to who he really was turn from guilt to shame, let her kick him out of her bed because she couldn't handle it. Couldn't handle
him
, even when he'd given his all to her.

When she'd decided the real him wasn't enough.

His glass made a cracking sound as he slammed it down too hard against the bar. “Fine.” He looked to Chase. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was time to let it all go and enjoy himself, at least for a little while. Time to stop letting his own life weigh him down. “And how, precisely, would you suggest I do that?”

The corner of Chase's mouth twitched up. “I have a couple of ideas.”

Chase's first idea was another, bigger glass of liquor, and after that, all of his ideas started to sound good. From the car service that took them to the other side of town to the even more exclusive club, the hundred Chase tucked into a greeter's palm and the velvet booth they slotted themselves into. The music thrummed, and there were girls. Beautiful girls, and there'd been a time, not that long ago, when they would have seemed like good ideas, too.

With a particularly busty one perched on his lap and another drink in his hand, Chase shot Rylan a raw, sloppy smile from across their booth. “See?” he shouted over the roar of the club. “Tell me this isn't awesome.”

And Rylan took it all in. The girls were nice as hell to look at, even if he wasn't going to touch. Big tits and tiny skirts. The cushions were soft against his back, and the whiskey so damn smooth.

His neck didn't want to hold itself up, but it wasn't like the last time he'd gotten himself wasted. Everything felt good.

He let his head loll backward and stared up at a ceiling made up in blue velvet and stars. “It does not suck.”

Chase jostled the girl and his drink both with the force of his laughter. “Finally.” He kissed the girl's cheek. “My buddy admitted something doesn't suck.” He pulled back, his hand drifting higher on her thigh. “I bet you do, though.”

Shit, but the girl was eating it up.

Chase caught Rylan's eye. “What do you say?” He bounced his knee, and the girl bounced, too. So much bouncing. “For old time's sake.”

It had been a long time since the two of them had shared a girl. It had been good, though. It'd be good.

But his gut turned over. He shook his head and his vision swam. He closed his eyes. “I don't think so, man.”

Time went sideways on him then for a while, and the next thing he knew, Chase was leaning forward across the table, his entertainment for the evening gone. He pressed a bottle of water into Rylan's hand, already open, thank fuck. Rylan got it to his mouth and sucked the cool, cool liquid down. It made his stomach feel worse but his head a little better.

“Come on,” Chase said.

Chase got him out the door—how? He'd had almost as much to drink as Rylan had. They didn't have to wait long for the car to collect them, and about a second after Rylan's face hit the plush leather of the backseat, he was drifting, imagining soft fingers in his hair.

Fingers that couldn't be there. A sharp stab of panic had him lifting his head.

He hadn't done anything, but she wouldn't like this. Not any of it.

He scrambled, looking around, but it was only him and Chase. “Don't tell Kate,” he managed to get out, and even that was the wrong answer, wasn't it? He was supposed to tell her everything now.

Chase laughed. “What happens in Vegas, buddy.”

He set his head back down. The next time he opened his eyes, the world was a bit less blurry, and the car had stopped. Chase opened the door and coaxed Rylan along. “Pretty sure you should bunk with me tonight. Lexie'd have my head if I let you go back to her place now.”

Ugh, Rylan wasn't going to argue him on that.

Chase's apartment at least was still more or less the same as Rylan remembered, open and airy, with rock album covers on the wall and the sleekest, prettiest baby grand in a corner. Flagging, Rylan dropped himself into one of the bar stools set up by the counter. He caught a glimpse of the time and groaned. “Shit, is it really that late?” Another hour and late would officially be early. Chase was hardly going to get any sleep at all.

“Yup. Coffee?”

Rylan nodded. “I'm sorry, man.”

“We've done worse.”

Chase didn't stop at coffee. He got some eggs and toast going, too, and by the time Rylan'd gotten all of that and a handful of Advil down, he was almost feeling human again.

“So,” Chase said, leaning back in his stool. “You want to tell me what that shit show was about?”

“Not really. If you want to go try and grab a couple of hours…”

“Better just to stay up at this point.” And he wasn't wrong; already, the sky was starting to lighten through the window. Then his face was in Rylan's. “Now stop avoiding the question. Talk.”

But Rylan's breath was frozen. He'd been alone for what felt like so long, living in this self-imposed exile, and maybe he hadn't had to. Chase had tried to show him tonight, hadn't he? This life he hated didn't have to suck. He didn't have to be alone.

“Fuck.” He dropped his head into his hands. “It's just…It's all so messed up.”

“What's so messed up?”

“I…” Finally, he looked up. And the frozen piece of him cracked. “I met this girl.”

After that, it all spilled out. He kept the details to himself—what Kate felt like in his hands and on his tongue, how his whole body quaked at the triumph of bringing her to a new height. But in generalities, he laid it out. Meeting this woman who'd seen through so much of his bullshit and through the emptiness he'd surrounded himself with. Who loved art and who'd made him want more.

How it had all come tumbling down as soon as she'd found out who and what he was.

“She says she wants to know who I really am, but she hates the money. She doesn't care about the company or my family or any of it.”

That had been the appeal, at the beginning. It'd been such a relief to have someone like him for
him
, and not the trappings. But now the trappings were keeping them apart.

“What the fuck does she even want from me, you know?”

“Take it from me,” Chase finally chimed in, clinking his mug against Rylan's. “The exact opposite of whatever the hell you seem to think she does.”

“What?”

“It's how girls work. You know this.”

He didn't. He was starting to think he didn't know anything.

“How many times have we picked up chicks with a round of drinks or a ride in a fancy car? They turn to butter in your hands, man. Don't you remember?”

“Those girls were different.” He'd never felt like this about any of them.

Chase's mouth flattened, a grim line. His voice went eerily cold. “Girls. Are. All. The. Same.”

And for a second, it was like that awful night a few years ago. The night Chase had driven all the way back to New York, hardly seeing straight, blowing off his classes, ready to blow off law school entirely, because his fiancée—his ex-fiancée had jumped into bed with someone even richer…

Rylan swallowed. “Not all of them.”

A long moment passed, but then the harsh lines to Chase's face smoothed out. He let out this echo of a laugh and turned to gaze at his mug. “Enough of them.” When he twisted around enough for Rylan to see him again, the deadness to his eyes was less jarring, his tone more even. “They just. They're raised on Disney princesses, you know? You joke about all the bullshit drama with heiresses, but the rest of them? They all want their prince to show up in his carriage.” He glanced at Rylan with a sad, flickering smile. “They want the fantasy.”

“You think?”

“I bet you. She may say she doesn't want it, but I dare you. Give her the rich guy cliché experience. If she doesn't swoon I'll…I'll…” He searched for a second, then snapped his fingers. “I'll give you a weekend with Betty. A week, even.”

“Betty?” Rylan sat up straighter at that.

There was nothing—absolutely nothing—Chase was more protective of than his car. As crazy as his advice sounded, he was serious.

“Betty.” Chase nodded, like that was that. “I keep trying to tell you, Ry. It's like everything else with this life. You can wallow in the parts of it that suck, or you can embrace the good parts.” He gestured around at his apartment, and the contrast with Lexie's took Rylan off guard, now that he was looking for it.

Lexie had spent her money paying someone to make it look like she had taste. Chase had spent his exuberantly, with relish, on things he loved. His cars and his piano, his view of the city and his books.

He enjoyed it.

“Embrace the money,” Chase said. “Show her how good it can be. And I promise you. She'll change her tune.”

The cynicism behind that promise was a thickness at the back of Rylan's throat. Kate had entranced him because she was different. If Chase was right, it would mean she was really the same.

But what other choice did he have? If they were going to make this work, she had to know him in and out.

The good. The bad.

And was it really all that wrong? Wanting to show her the best parts first?

Wrong, wrong, wrong, it was all
wrong
. Kate didn't actually throw her paintbrush across the room, but it was a near thing.

With a huff, she dropped the brush into a jar of turpentine and turned away.

Sacred spaces. She'd been working all week to home in on that theme, had even gone out and scouted more locations, filling up the memory card of her crappy camera with photographs of Brooklyn churches. The scene she was working from now had so much potential—gorgeous, ethereal light slanting down through leaves onto old stone. She'd had all these ideas for layering thin washes of pigment on the canvas to make the space shine. To make it look sacred. Reverent.

She blew out a sigh. Maybe the result wasn't as bad as she imagined it was.

Holding her breath, she spun back around. And tears welled up in her eyes. Damn. It was even
worse
. The proportions and the perspective were fine, but there wasn't any heart to it. Lifeless and flat, the image stared back at her, evoking no emotional reaction from her at all.

She clenched her hands into fists. Fine. She'd set it aside for now. She'd been working here in her apartment for hours now, and she wasn't thinking straight anymore. Tomorrow, she'd be able to come at it with fresh eyes.

But first. Tonight.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she leaned against the wall, letting her head drop back to rest against it. Exhaustion fell over her, and she closed her eyes.

Rylan had waited forever to call, and it had been a relief and a disappointment. Until finally, exactly three days after he'd turned her life inside out, he'd invited her to a night on the town, dinner “someplace nice” and a show. He hadn't volunteered any more details, and she'd been so close to throwing her hands up in the air and calling the whole thing off. His ridiculous, pointless plan for them to try again—to really get to know each other this time. It'd never work.

But then she'd remembered the weight of his hips pressed to hers, the warmth of his breath on her skin, his lips at her ear, the hot fullness as he'd eased inside. The way he'd looked on a hotel bed in Paris, smooth skin lit up by the dappled sun.

She'd said yes.

Two hours from now, he'd be showing up at her doorstep. And yet here she was, still in her painting clothes, hair in a ponytail. Two hours—that was how long she had to fix this.

No way he was catching her unawares this time. He'd had the upper hand at every turn, but tonight she'd be prepared. She'd let him take her out, show her “his New York,” whatever that meant. She'd follow him home to his place, or maybe she'd bring him here. Then she'd ask him to put his mouth between her legs again, because the thought, the sense memory of it alone, had her clenching up inside. They'd—

They'd fuck, and it would be amazing. That part didn't scare her anymore.

And after, they would each go home. Alone. She wouldn't fall in love with him again. She had it all planned out.

What she hadn't planned for was the buzzer going off while she was still cleaning up.

She swore beneath her breath and finished rinsing out the last brush before scrambling for the intercom. If this was Rylan and he was two full hours early, she was going to strangle him.

“Delivery for Ms. Reid?”

She wasn't expecting a delivery. “Um. Okay.” Usually, she'd buzz the person up, but this was weird. “I'll be right down.”

It wasn't Rylan standing beyond the entryway, but it didn't take a genius to figure out he was behind it. She opened the door to find not your typical bike messenger or UPS guy, but a…a…She wasn't even sure. He wore the sort of hat chauffeurs did in movies, and a suit.

When she cracked the door open, he presented her with an armful of flowers, too many red roses to count. Perfect blooms. Gorgeous and generic, and she tried not to let that disappoint her. Rylan had brought her a single rose on their second date, had twirled it between his fingers as he'd waited for her in a sculpture garden on a Parisian afternoon, and she'd been charmed by it. This wasn't quite so charming.

Then she registered the other item in the man's grip and frowned. A garment bag?

He held it up. “Compliments of Mr. Bellamy, ma'am.”

Right.

She somehow managed to take it all from him and wrestle it upstairs. She draped the bag across her bed and set the flowers down beside her palette. With uncertain fingers, she combed through the blooms until she came up with a card, printed on thick ivory stock. The good stuff. She couldn't remember if she'd ever seen Rylan's handwriting before, but the bold black strokes of ink looked like him.

Her blood went to ice. Mechanically, she walked away from the flowers and toward the garment bag. Sure enough, inside were dresses. Three of them, none with price tags. She probably couldn't have borne it if they had.

She squeezed her eyes shut tight. He was trying to be nice here. He wasn't making a comment on the awful work jeans he'd peeled from her body with such disdain, or about the rest of her wardrobe. He was taking her out to see
his
New York tonight, and of course that meant dressing up. If she hadn't had anything appropriate, she would've felt just as uncomfortable as she did now, only she would've had to feel it in front of him.

Scrubbing at her eyes, she laughed. There was a cocktail dress she'd bought at a secondhand store for a gallery reception last year, buried somewhere in the back of her closet. She might even still have her prom dress in there, if she really went digging. But that was it.

He'd been right, sending her these. And it made something deep inside of her echo even more hollowly to acknowledge it.

This was him changing her. Improving her. Recognizing that she didn't have what it took, literally, to pass in his world. Her stomach churned, but she wrestled hard against the rising tide. This wasn't her father telling her she wasn't good enough, or Aaron implying she'd never be as successful as him. This was Rylan being
nice
. She opened her eyes and sighed.

A week and a half ago, Rylan had been on another continent, had given her no sign of his intent to ever return. And yet he'd never felt farther away than he did right now.

Dread sat like a stone inside her, but what else could she do? She got herself into the shower and washed up mechanically, then blew her hair out and did her makeup with a towel wrapped around her chest.

Finally, with half an hour to go and no more excuses to delay, she faced down the dresses. Pulled them from the bag one by one and looked them over.

A little bit of the heaviness in her gut eased. There was a simple black number, and a strapless gray one. One in midnight blue that was a little showier, clear crystals sewn into the hem, but all of them were things she could at least imagine wearing. If she were a millionaire.

He'd known her taste, more or less, and he'd guessed her size. He'd misjudged who she was entirely, but at least the details he'd gotten right.

She laughed, sad and wry, then let the towel fall. She tried on each dress in turn. They were all gorgeous, all beautifully made. When she looked at herself in the mirror, wearing the blue one, she sucked in a breath.

Maybe it was the cut of it, the fitted bodice and the floaty skirt that came to just above her knees. Maybe it was the neckline, ever so slightly asymmetrical and lower than she would usually dare. She looked taller and slimmer, her chest more full.

It was a good look. Like a princess.

A princess who couldn't get the ink out from under her nails.

Decided, she turned away.

By the time the buzzer went off downstairs, she'd picked out a pair of kitten heels, a wrap, and a little clutch purse. Heart in her throat, she made her way to the entrance of her building, and…

Oh God.

At least it wasn't a limo. But the car Rylan was leaning against was one of the biggest, shiniest, blackest ones she'd ever seen, its windows tinted, and yup. That was a driver sitting behind the wheel.

Rylan stepped away from the door of the car, crossing the space toward her, and her eyes stung. He looked too good, too handsome in another, somehow even more elegant suit. The fabric faintly shone in the dying light. His hair was slicked back.

And that was the thing that made her pause.

He'd always worn his hair casually distressed, and she had loved it. Loved running her fingers through its thickness, or raking her nails across the scalp. Holding on to it for dear life, tugging hard at the roots as he showed her yet another new thing her body could do.

Her skin crackled with electricity as he closed in on her. He held out a hand, and she followed it up, past the crisp lines of his jacket to his face.

His jaw was firm, the space between his brows smooth. But his eyes…

Her heart sped, ramming hard against the cage of her ribs. Those warm blue irises contracted. Like—like he was scared. Fully in control of it, but terrified.

And then all at once, he blinked and the fear was gone, replaced by calm command. He reached his arm the rest of the way out, curling his fingers in to brush his knuckles down the side of her cheek. Sending licks of warmth blooming outward from his touch.

His fingertips grazed along her neck and came to rest at the open neckline of her dress. His throat bobbed.

“You look ravishing.”

Her voice came out breathy, and her knees shook. “As good as you'd hoped?”

“Better.” Something in his expression softened. Went more real. “But then again, you have a habit of blowing my wildest dreams out of the water.”

He didn't lean in to claim the kiss that kind of line all but demanded. Just stood there, thumb stroking beneath her collarbone, gaze intent to the point of searing.

Then the moment broke, and he pulled away. Nodding toward the car, he held out his open palm. “Shall we?”

It wasn't as big of a leap as following him to a museum, or back to a hotel room. Or letting him inside her. She took a deep breath. And placed her hand in his.

Rylan was
not
doing this just for the chance to make Chase watch him cruise around in his Bentley. He was doing this because the money had been coming between him and Kate since day one, since the first moment he'd looked her over and seen her pride and decided not to bring it up.

Well, he was bringing it up now.

The rich guy cliché experience, Chase had called it. Rylan was set to do him proud.

Yet a sick feeling kept twisting his gut.

What if this was Versailles all over again? Something he'd thought she might enjoy—something he'd imagined any girl should like. But she wasn't any girl.

Getting the door for her, he pushed his nerves down. She scooted across the leather seat like any good New Yorker accustomed to cabs would. Instead of going around to the other side like he would've otherwise, he folded himself in beside her, pulling the door closed and nodding at their driver.

As they coasted off, she looked around, keen gaze taking in all the details of the car's interior. Then, at last, it came to rest on him.

“So.” She was sitting on the other side of the seat, practically as far away as she could get. But her body language was open, for all that her shoulders were a fraction too high. Relaxed but guarded. Ready for this to go south.

He wouldn't let it, goddammit all.

He slid a hand toward her, letting his knuckles graze the bare skin of her knee, right below the hem of the dress. “So.”

She lifted a brow. “Thank you for the dress. And the flowers.”

“You liked them.”

Her mouth did something complicated before smoothing into an uncertain smile. “I did. You didn't have to, though.”

“But I wanted to.” He licked his lips. “Only the best.”

“Of course.”

For a long moment, they stared at each other. He wanted nothing more than to move into her space, to kiss her and feel her warmth all along his side. To hold her.

That summer, he wouldn't have resisted, but rejection still stung him. She'd left him in Paris, and she'd turned him out last week. He'd been the one to come back for her, and he still had apologies to make, but this was a grand gesture he was in the middle of.

And a deep, proud, hopeless place inside his chest wanted her to reach for him for once. She'd acquiesced and gone along with what he wanted so many times.

He wanted her to want him, too. For her to touch him because she wanted to. To make the first move.

She dropped her gaze, broke their stare. And turned toward the window.

Voice tight, she asked, “Any chance you're going to tell me what we're doing tonight?”

He pulled his hand from her leg. Settled it on his own and jostled his knee up and down. Outside the car, the city rolled by, gray streets giving way to brighter thoroughfares as they approached the bridge. “Thought I might let it be a surprise.”

She hummed but didn't argue. Didn't tease.

He second-guessed himself a hundred times before they arrived at the restaurant he'd picked. It was just right for a romantic evening, all candlelight and quiet booths, excellent food. But the closer they got, the more his gut told him it was entirely wrong.

Her posture got stiffer as he led her inside. The maître d' recognized him on sight and greeted them with a smile. They were led to a cozy corner, given menus and a wine list, and left alone. Rylan swallowed hard, hating the silence. Hating everything.

Then Kate opened her menu, scanned it over once, jaw ticking, and he held his breath. But she didn't explode, or break down laughing the way he'd half expected her to. The way he'd been waiting for her to maybe this entire time. She closed the menu and set it down. Looked to him.