JACE (Lane Brothers Book 3) (96 page)

“That will be the paparazzi,” Thomas said. He stood and threw down his napkin.

“You’re leaving?” Sasha said, alarmed. “Just like that?”

“We both are,” he replied. He held his hand out to her, palm up. Sasha couldn’t help but see it as an invitation. Such a simple gesture but, like a butterfly’s wings causing a tornado a thousand miles away, taking his hand could change everything.

“Come on,” Thomas barked. “Unless you want to be the talk of the internet?”

Sasha clasped his hand and stood. Thomas pulled her after him, and together, they wound their way through the tables of gossiping diners.

“This way,” he called behind him.

They headed for the back of the restaurant and into the steaming kitchens. Smells and heat assaulted Sasha. She couldn’t help but laugh from the exhilaration of it all. It felt so theatrical, to be running from the paps with a dashing action hero.

“Mr. Lloyd,”—a man in a crisp white suit said, startled by the appearance of the actor in his kitchen—“is everything okay?”

Sasha noticed his name tag:
Hunter Hill. Manager
.

Thomas narrowed his eyes. “There are paps here.”

Hunter Hill blanched. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Lloyd,” he said. “One of the diners must have alerted them.”

“It’s not your patrons who are the problem,” Thomas replied. “It’s your staff.” He pointed to the waiter who’d served them, the one who hadn’t been able to take his eyes off Thomas. “I’d question him first. All it takes is one picture uploaded to Instagram.”

And with that Thomas shoved open the double doors at the back of the kitchen and pulled Sasha after him, leaving the manager standing there flabbergasted. 

She emerged, breathless and laughing, into the cold evening air. Thomas, on the other hand, was agitated.

“These bloody kids with their phones,” he said. “My every movement is documented. One tweet here, another picture uploaded there, and the world and his dog are chasing me down the streets.” He began punching numbers into his cell phone. “Pick us up from the back entrance,” Thomas said, and Sasha assumed he was talking to his driver.

They were in an alleyway at the back of the restaurants and shops. It was lined with dumpsters, a far cry from the glamour of a moment earlier.

“I’m sorry about this,” Thomas said.

Sasha leaned against the wall to catch her breath. “Don’t be. I’m having fun.”

              “You might not be so jovial when your face makes it into the magazines.”

              She reached out a hand and set it on his arm. “I can handle it, Thomas,” she said. “I’m not as fragile as you think I am.”

              He looked at her hand then drew his face up level with hers. He moved forward at lightning speed and planted a deep, hungry kiss on her lips. Sasha’s mouth opened, inviting him in instantly. She arched her back against the bricks as ripples of excitement washed through her. She pulled him closer and closer, reveling in the sensation of his strong body against hers. Her fingers explored his back, his broad shoulders, before winding into his hair.

Thomas ran his hand down from her hip to her thigh then hitched her leg up in one fluid movement. Sasha let her legs open for him and breathed heavily as his body moved into the space between them.

Thomas reciprocated her intensifying passion by widening her mouth with his, deepening their kiss. His hand moved from her thigh to her ass, his fingers squeezing the flesh and causing spasms of excitement to course through her. She couldn’t help but let a small moan escape from her throat. She was rewarded by the sensation of Thomas’s erection hardening between her legs.

Thomas pulled away. His eyes were bright. “Here’s my prediction,” he panted. “I’ll be waking up tomorrow morning in your arms.”

“Why?” Sasha said coquettishly. “Because when you want something, you don’t stop until you get it?”

Thomas shook his head. “No. Because when
you
want something,
you
don’t stop until you get it.”

A sudden flash of light made them both turn their heads. The paparazzi had found their way to the back of the building and were advancing
en masse
. At the same time, a black car rounded the corner. It had tinted windows.

“There’s our ride,” Thomas said. “Come on.”

He grabbed Sasha’s hand and led her to the awaiting car. With a tremble of anticipation, Sasha entered it willingly.

              It turned out that Thomas had an apartment in Gold Coast—a swanky part of Chicago—overlooking the lake.

“I have houses all over the place. I hate hotels,” he’d said in the car as an explanation. He went on to say that he hadn’t actually been to this specific house in over two years until his film promotional schedule had brought him here. “Two years?” Sasha had exclaimed. Turned out that was nothing compared to his Kolkata apartment. He hadn’t been there for a decade. He’d bought it when he was filming a movie on location in India but had never had a chance to return. It was the sort of flippant thing a man like Thomas Lloyd could do.

His Gold Coast house was everything Sasha would expect from a multi-millionaire—lavish decorations, sweeping staircases, and far too many bathrooms. Sasha briefly wondered how many women he’d showered with here, how many of the guest bedrooms he’d made love in, whether he’d ever done it on the sparkling-clean, granite-topped kitchen work surfaces.

“Drink?” Thomas said.

“Don’t you have a servant to do that for you?” she mocked.

Thomas smirked and set a couple of wine glasses onto the kitchen island. “I think you’ll find I’m actually very humble.”

Sasha laughed and picked up the freshly poured glass of wine. “Oh really? How many houses do you have precisely…?”

Thomas chinked his glass against hers. “How about I take you to them all and you can do the maths?”

“The
math,”
Sasha corrected, finding that humor was the only way to cope with a situation that was quickly making molten hot lava pump round her body.

Thomas took a sip of wine then set his glass down. He reached into his pocket. Sasha was half expecting him to pull out a pair of handcuffs or something else kinky. Instead, he produced his phone.

“Here,” he said, holding it out to her.

“What’s this for?”

“Google. You can see if you’ve had any impact on the internet.”

Sasha frowned, as she took the phone from him and went online. She tapped in Thomas Lloyd’s name and got a million hits. It took her less than a minute to find a photograph of them together in the restaurant from earlier. The image was grainy but clearly taken from inside by the waiter.

“He could’ve sold that for a couple of hundred dollars,” Thomas said.

Sasha raised an eyebrow. “That much for a photo? I’ll remember that....”

Her joke faded into the ether, as she scrolled through the pages. She saw there were already articles speculating about her identity. One said she was an extra on his last film. Another said she was a crew member. A third even claimed she was his long lost daughter suing him for lost child support payments and emotional damage.

“Wow. There’s so much garbage written about you.”

“This is my life,” Thomas said a little sadly. “Maybe you can understand now why meeting someone like you is such a big deal to someone like me?”

Sasha nodded, her gaze transfixed with the seemingly endless streams of speculation. She made the mistake of reading the first comment on one of the articles.
‘Whoever that bitch is, I’m going to cut her head off with a rusty chainsaw. Thomas is mine.’
The comment was signed off
‘Mrs. Lloyd’
.

“Yikes,” Sasha said.

Then she spotted something else on the screen that caught her attention. An article by Alicia. She clicked on it and the words,
‘My Night of Passion with Hollywood’s Bad Boy’
flashed up on the screen.

She exited the page immediately, but the damage was done. Remembering Alicia made her stomach drop. They’d just been about to talk about Thomas’s fling with the rival Atomic journalist in the restaurant before the paparazzi interrupted them. Thomas had got as far as saying Alicia was nothing compared to Sasha, but there’d been no elaboration. Why should she believe him? How did she know he hadn’t said exactly the same thing to Alicia about some other journalist he’d bedded? Just because he didn’t sleep with prostitutes didn’t mean she could suddenly trust everything he said. His little-boy-lost routine could easily be another weapon to render her defenseless. He could still be driven to bed as many women as possible. She could still just be another notch on the bedpost.

Thomas approached her and slid his hand up the inside of her dress. Her body responded by quivering.

“What happened to delaying gratification?” she whispered a little wryly.

He pulled his hand away. “I just love the feel of you.” He turned away. “I’m sorry.”

The absence of him created a physical yearning inside of her. Did she really care about just being a notch in his bedpost? She’d already concluded that casual sex was something she wanted to explore. She didn’t think that there was anything shameful about it at all. She just had to make sure she didn’t get sucked into anything emotional. Thomas was a professional actor and a master manipulator, with a devastating ability to make her believe whatever he wanted her to believe. She reminded herself not to get attached. She was here for sex. For another one of those mind blowing orgasms she’d had that morning. Nothing more.

“I wasn’t telling you to stop,” she said in a sultry manner. “I was just teasing.”

He shook his head. “No, you’re right. I was being an arse.”

Sasha frowned and decided against making the arse-ass joke again. Was this a part of Thomas’s kinky needs? Did he put himself down so women like her would be compelled build up his ego again? Or did he play vulnerable in order to persuade her into bed with him? The latter was certainly unnecessary since she was already more than willing. That meant it was the former. Well, she could certainly see the appeal of a little role play.

“Come back here,” she said. “I want you, Thomas.”

He looked over his shoulder at her. His expression wasn’t playful or mischievous. It was downcast.

“Why? You were pointing out a home truth. A painful home truth. I turn every meaningful experience into sex. I rush straight to it. I….”

Sasha walked up to him and reached for his hand. She maneuvered it to her left breast. “And what’s wrong with that?”

She kissed him, and he yielded to her advances. But something wasn’t right. He pulled away.

“I shouldn’t have bought you here. You don’t belong in this world.”

“I came here of my own free will,” Sasah replied. “I know what I’m getting myself into. I can do casual sex. I already told you I can handle the media. Hell, I
am
the media. I don’t need you protecting me from my own industry.”

Thomas looked at her with that same hurt expression. “That’s all this is to you? Casual sex?”

Sasha was taken aback by his statement. She’d been under no illusions that there was anything going on here beyond sex. Thomas knew how to get a naïve woman like her into bed, and he’d used every tool in his arsenal. Yet, something about what he said now seemed so genuine. It was like she was glimpsing the real Thomas, the one behind the façade, the vulnerable part of him that the rest of the world never got to see.

“It isn’t for you?”

“I was hoping it could be more….” He swirled the wine in his glass.

“We barely know each other,” she contested.

“I was trying to change that back in the restaurant. I want to get to know you, Sasha.”

There it was again, her name. The most intimate thing that Thomas Lloyd could say to her.

“Thomas, what are you asking me?”

“I’m asking you to give me a chance to show you who I really am. I want to tell you about me in my own words, have you make your own impression of me. I want to see you again. Over and over again.”

“Like…date? But how am I supposed to trust you? I know all about Alicia.”

“Alicia sold me out,” he said bitterly. “She went to the press to cash in on me.”

Sasha frowned. “But you still would have slept with her if she’d gone to that interview instead of me.”

Thomas’s gaze darted up with shock. “What gave you that impression?”

“You said you were looking forward to seeing her.”

“To give her a piece of my mind!” he cried incredulously. “Look,” his voice softened, “I know I’ve given you no reason to trust me, but can you just take a leap of faith? Can you just take a chance on me?”

Sasha turned away. She could hardly believe this was happening. If she saw Thomas—if they dated, whatever that meant—she’d open herself up to heartache. She’d make herself vulnerable. She’d inevitably end up in a situation where she had to choose between her job and her heart.

“It’s not just that,” Sasha said, thinking of the scathing article she’d written at work. “Why should you trust me? I’m a journalist, too. I’m just like Alicia.”

He took her hand. “I’ve already taken the leap of faith. I trust you, Sasha. I trust that when I wake up tomorrow morning, you’ll still be here, that you won’t have sold my story to the press.” He looked into her eyes with a powerful intensity. “So? What do you say? Stay with me? Take a chance on me?”

Sasha stared back, her mind a swirl of confusion. Thomas couldn’t be playing her. He just couldn’t.

Suddenly, she heard her own voice flowing from her lips. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Thomas took it as invitation to take her face between his hands and kiss her. She reciprocated, and they kissed deeply, passionately. The sensation was all-consuming, more than just desire, something stronger, something beyond lust. Sasha had scratched the surface of that emotion once before with Chris, but it hadn’t felt like this. She’d never lost sight of where his body ended and hers began. She’d never felt so perfectly in tune with him that every touch of his tongue or movement of his lips was exactly what she needed in that moment.

Thomas swiped his arm across the work surface to clear a space and edged Sasha back onto it. He hitched her dress up to her hips.

“Promise you won’t leave,” he said, burying his face into his neck.

“I won’t leave,” she gasped.

“Tell me there’s nowhere else you want to be.”

“There’s nowhere else I want to be. Nowhere.”

“Tell me there’s no one else for you.”

“There’s no one else for me.” She whispered the words automatically, her body filling to the brim with desire.

Thomas dropped to his knees. “I’ve been wanting to taste you again all day.”

A thrill of anticipation ran through Sasha’s body, as he pulled her panties down to her ankles. Then she felt his tongue on her clit and let out a moan. He licked her with such gentle precision she couldn’t help but cry out and shudder. She ran her fingers through his hair, feeling the sensation of his head moving as he licked and sucked her.

Thomas picked up the pace, licking faster, harder. His tongue moved to the rhythm of her body, as though dictated by her noises and movements. He was amazingly intuitive.

She panted hard and felt a head rush come over her. She closed her eyes to stop her vision from swimming and allowed herself to immerse in pure sensation. There was nothing in the world but the feel of his lips. Then she felt his fingers circle her entrance and gasped. She’d never felt anything so amazing.

Her skin was on fire with pleasure. She could feel the moisture trickling from between her legs, and the wetness of his tongue as he lapped at her.

His fingers slid into her, and she gasped, tightening her grip on his hair, pulling her knees up so that her feet were hooked over the edge of the worktop. She flopped backwards, her back resting on the cold surface. Thomas shifted his position, raising himself up so that now he could glance over her pubic mound and along the length of her body. The look in his eyes was one of such intensity that it pushed her even closer to the edge.

She leaned up on her elbows and curled her toes. Thomas kept his serious gaze locked on her, and she couldn’t help but move her hips in rhythm. She groaned with desire. She’d never seen a man as gorgeous as Thomas Lloyd, and seeing his face between her thighs was beyond amazing. She felt herself racing towards climax.

For the second time that day, white light burst across Sasha’s vision. She threw her head back, cried out, and basked in the powerful orgasm. This one was even more intense than the one earlier. It felt like he’d primed her body for it, like the first orgasm was just preparation for this one. And it was going on and on and on....

She tipped her head back, shaking her hair.

Her orgasm began petering out, but Thomas wasn’t stopping. He slowed as she did then rose to his feet, his fingers still inside of her, still moving to the rhythm of her pulsating pelvic floor muscles. He slipped another finger inside, widening her, creating more pressure. She gasped at the sensation. With his thumb, he began massaging her clit.

Sasha’s arousal inflamed again. She had no idea her body could do this. She’d only ever had one orgasm at a time. Chris always came as soon as she did and that was the end of sex. She’d had no idea that she could keep going, that she could feel something even more powerful and intense than she already had.

She clutched him by the shoulders and stared intently into his eyes. He never took his attention away from her. Everything was focused on her face, on her emotions, on how he was making her feel, as though his only goal in the world was to make her come harder than she ever had before.