Not In My Wildest Dreams (Dream Series) (14 page)

I studied her. Her skin was an alabaster. Flawless. Clean, clear, and bright. No tanning. No wrinkles. I couldn’t place her age. Her eyes were alluring. Her delicate cheekbones didn’t need any makeup to enhance them. Classic jaw line. Her attitude said “I’ve been around, I know how it goes,” but she seemed younger, as if she was trying to find her way, and excited about the possibilities that lay ahead.

When she smiled at her server, my heart swelled. That smile was genuine. Her smile reached every part of her body. Yes, I worked with models all day; models who would smile but you could tell it was an act.

As she ran her fingers along her neck, I wanted to run my tongue along the same path. I wondered if she’d spritzed with Chanel No. 5. Or did she even wear perfume? I wanted to know what she tasted like. When she caught me staring at her, I didn’t look away. I held her gaze. I knew at that moment that I was a goner. She was mine. I was going to do what it took. I would sacrifice everything. Bachelorhood be damned.

She ate her salad quietly, while scrolling through her phone. Was she texting or emailing her lover? My blood boiled. I didn’t want her to have someone else; I wanted her to be mine. Her tongue darted out to catch a drop of dressing left behind on her full lip, and I imagined that tongue doing all sorts of things. Those lips wrapped around my dick. That tongue licking slowly up and down my shaft. My cock twitched and throbbed in my slacks. He wanted to be buried balls deep in her.

As I continued to study her, I watched her grow a little unnerved. Why? Didn’t she know how amazing she was? There was a little something about her that seemed familiar, but that was probably because I looked at women all day. It wasn’t that she was a model, I was sure about that. I wanted to get up and walk over to her, but just as I was about to, her server went up to her table. The two chatted a bit, My Beauty paid her bill, and then nearly ran out of the restaurant, avoiding looking in my direction. I started out of my seat to go after her.

“She’ll be back,” Shelby called to me, as she set lunch down in front of where Peter and I were sitting. Shelby was the best bartender I knew; trustworthy and had a good heart.

“Who?” Peter asked.

“The pixie cut. She’ll be back.”

“What would make you say that?” I asked. Leave it to Shelby to not miss a beat.

“Just a hunch.” She winked at me and I knew it was more than a hunch.

“You care to elaborate?”

“No,” she said, suppressing a smile.

“So,” Peter interrupted. “Any word on a new bartender to replace David?”

“Funny you should ask, we hired someone new today.
Her
first shift will be at lunch on Thursday.” Shelby wagged her eyebrows at me and nearly burst out laughing.

She? Could it be the same she? My she? “Thursday? Really?” I smiled back. “I may have to stop in and welcome the new team member.”

“That would be nice,” she said. “Can I get you anything else?” she asked, glancing at our lunches.

“I think we’re good. Thanks,” Peter replied. I was already planning out my Thursday.

Returning to the office, Becca handed me the files for the agreements to be finalized for the upcoming shows and shoots for next week.

“All right. Out with it,” she said following me to my office.

“Out with what?” I replied, smugly, taking my seat and pulling off my tie.

“That was no ordinary lunch. Lunch with Peter usually sends you back to the office ready to fire some poor girl. And I happen to know that the latest shoot gave Peter more than a couple of grey hairs and wrinkles. What happened at lunch?”

I regarded her carefully before I spoke my next words. I trusted her implicitly, but sometimes her cynicism got to me. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”

A laugh exploded from her. She knew me well. Too well. “Jack Stevens! Once-and-Done-Jack. A romantic!” When I didn’t join in on her laughter, she grew quiet, leaned in, and studied my face like a doctor. “I never would have bought it. But looking at your face, and knowing you better than you know yourself, you’ve got it bad.” She sat back and crossed her arms. “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s her name? Who does she work for? How did you meet her?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. And I saw her eating at Ed Scott’s.”

She stared at me, stunned. “What do you mean, you ‘don’t know’? Didn’t you talk to her? Since when does Jack Stevens not talk to women, especially a chick he wants to bag?”

I looked at her sternly. “I do not want to simply
bag
this
woman
. Becca. She. Is. It.”

“So why didn’t you talk to her?”

“I have no idea. I was enraptured? But I’ll see her on Thursday.”

Becca fell into a fit of giggles. “Enraptured. Oh, Jack. What are we going to do with you? And what’s happening on Thursday?”

“Just a hunch.”

April 23, 2013

Three weeks later

I
listened to her graceful steps softly descend the staircase. I heard her reach the foyer, her delicate heels, softly tapping on the marble. I strained my ear. The door wasn’t opening.

Go to her!
I shouted in my head. But I couldn’t walk. I slowly dropped to my knees. I was defeated. I poured my heart out to her, and she still left. I showed her who I was. I begged and pleaded. I didn’t even remember all of what I’d said, only that every word was true. I looked at the clock on my bedside. It was only four thirty-four. I’d planned on cooking dinner for her, but then she showed up early, too early. I hadn’t even gone grocery shopping. She upended everything. She said that she was going back to Napa. I begged. I wasn’t proud of it, but for Beth I’d do whatever it took. I pointed out why she should be with me, but my stubborn, strong girl had made up her mind.

I heard a couple steps in the foyer over the pounding in my head. I looked to the bedroom door. Was she walking back? Please let her be walking back. I can’t move without her. I can’t function. I looked at the clock again.
Four thirty-eight
. She’s still here. She hasn’t left. Why?

I started to get angry. Why wasn’t she walking back? Does she want me to chase her? I’d just been chasing for the past weeks, and with more gusto this past hour. Kissing her. Telling her how much I treasured her and that I saw us together until the end of time, or something like that. But she walked out, and now she won’t leave. Is this some sort of game? I was honest and not one word was a line.

She cried. My words meant something to her.

Four forty-one
the clock displayed.

I had begged her not to go. I kissed her. She pushed me away. I told her that we were always going to be together. I told her I would wait. I’m waiting. She hasn’t left yet. She’s coming back! That’s why the door hasn’t—

The distinct clicking of the brass knob of the front door screamed from downstairs. I heard the roar of traffic on Third Avenue. “NO!” I cried out. Did she hear me? I tried to stand. Tried to get my legs to function. And then the door closed. The place was silent again. Had she walked through the door or was she still standing there? I saw it clearly in my mind.
She’s leaning on the door, eyes looking up the stairwell to find me.

I leapt to my feet and raced to the hallway and the balcony that overlooked the foyer. What I saw didn’t compute. It was just the door. The floor. The artwork. Beth was nowhere. I stood there staring. It felt like only seconds or minutes passed until I could get my brain and legs to function. I ran down the stairs and flung open the door. I looked up and down Thirty-eighth. And up and down Third. And then I realized that it was dark. How did she disappear so fast? I checked my watch; it was already six-forty. When did it get to be so late? Why was time so out of control?

I staggered back into my home—no, my house. Without Beth, it was a house. I went to pour myself a glass of Scotch. The last time I was standing here, she told me she was leaving. I picked up the glass and hurled it against the wall, watching the crystal vessel explode and send shards of glass everywhere. I picked up the bottle of Macallan 18 and pulled a long swig from it as if it were simply a bottle of beer, willing the burn from the brown liquor to replace the burning in my heart.

I was lured to the oversized velvet chair like a siren. She loved this chair. She had been sitting in it only hours earlier. My eyes rested on the wine stains still on the carpet from the first night she was in my home.

*     *     *

“W
hen was the last time he made love to you and made you scream his name in ecstasy?” I asked. I’d caught her completely off guard with the question and I was immediately sorry, but then she was on her knees in front of me.
On. Her. Knees.
She had to stop or I was going to shove her against the wall and fuck her right now. But I didn’t want to just fuck her. I wanted to own her.
Baseballs. Grandmothers. New York City subways,
I told myself to get my raging erection in check.

I placed a foot on the towel she was using to blot the spray. “Don’t. It’s an old carpet. I’ve been meaning to replace it anyway,” I offered, hoping to calm her down.

“It’s a beautiful carpet, Jack. I’ll clean it. I’ll pay for it if I have to work doubles all month. I’m sorry,” she said, still attempting to clean the mess.

Dom mode kicked in full boat. She was on her fucking knees! “I. Said. Don’t.” She stopped. My cock twitched at her clearly submissive tendency. “Look at me.”

She raised her head enough to see me through her lush eyelashes.
Oh fuck!
I was done for. I reached out and pulled her chin to fully look at me, the way a good sub would. I searched her face, and felt it. We were meant to be.

*     *     *

I
stuffed my face into the seat back to smell her shampoo. It was there, faint, but there. I gulped again at the Scotch, seeking healing. But it didn’t help. I slid off of the chair and planted my face into the seat bottom, where her pussy had been, hot and wet—for me. I did that to her.

I replayed the unexpected afternoon in my head over and over, while sucking on the bottle of Scotch.

I woke to something cold and rough on my face. My eyes didn’t open. I couldn’t open them. My head ached. I smelled something rotten. I groaned and curled up on the cold hard floor.
Where in the hell am I?

“Uh-huh, you keep groaning, pretty-boy. At least you’re moving now,” a muffled woman’s voice bellowed. “I was getting ready to call an ambulance.”

“Shhhh,” I managed through the hangover-cotton that coated my mouth.

The cold continued to press all over my face. It was cold and wet.

And then it hit me. I opened my eyes and looked around. Becca was sitting next to me holding a cloth, but Beth? Where was Beth?

“Did she come back yet?” I choked out.

“Who? What the fuck happened here Jack? You didn’t answer my calls or texts or emails for three days. I get back into town this evening and Shannon said you’ve not been in the office for three days. I come to your house and find you passed out in your own vomit wreaking of a whisky distillery. Several empty bottles of very expensive Scotch and others. You have a guardian angel with you, you know that?”

“Where’s Beth?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

My mind raced. “What time is it? You said how many days? What day is it?”

“Eleven-thirty. Friday night,” she answered. She looked confused. I tried to get up, but the room spun around me and I started to heave, puking up air and bile.

Pain washed through me. Physical and emotional. “I need a shower and get to her apartment. She said she was going home. But she couldn’t have. What we had was real. It was powerful. She couldn’t just leave us. She has to still be here. I have to get to her apartment. Can you take me?” I pleaded. I felt tears burn at my eyes and stream down my face.

“Jack. Look at me,” she ordered in the voice that I’d needed. I looked at her. “When did you last see Beth?”

“Tuesday,” I answered, my heart pounding.

“Have you been drinking since Tuesday?”

I was shaking. My heart ached. I nodded, looking around me.

Becca took me into her arms. “Shhhh….” she soothed. “The only place I’m bringing you right now is the shower. And then you will eat.”

“But—” I protested.

“But nothing. We’ll figure this out when you’re clean and fed.” The look in her eye was full Domme mode, but not in the whips way. In the
I’m-your-best-friend
way.

By four o’clock in the morning, I was showered, fed and feeling mildly human. I watched Becca gather the bottles of booze, Scotch, vodka, rum…
Shit!
from all over the living room and kitchen. I stopped counting after she collected eight.

“You’re lucky to be alive, Jack,” she scolded.

“It just hurts so bad, Bec,” I said, holding my head.

“Badly,” she corrected. I
wanted
to laugh. Even when I was feeling my worst, she wouldn’t let me be my worst. “Listen,” she said, putting the last of bottles in the recycling bin. “Go to her. I can’t believe
you,
of all people, let her walk out. Go to her, get on your knees, and beg, grovel, and-or seduce. Do what you have to. It’s been as plain as day since that first day that she’s your heart, Jack. Go get your heart back. Fight.”