ARROGANT BRIT (A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE) (11 page)

I gave it a few more twists. Silently, I
prayed to whatever entities were listening, and vehemently cursed the car with
each breath.

“Is everything alright?”

I looked up, and saw that Dalton was
wandering back over.
No, don’t embarrass
me NOW,
I rapidly thought to myself.

“Yeah, everything’s good! Car’s just giving
me a little bit of trouble. I shouldn’t be any more than a few more seconds…”

He didn’t look convinced as he paused outside
my door. Steeling myself, I put my energies into one final twist of the keys.
Come on, you piece of shit car! Don’t fail
me now!
Surprisingly, it kicked into gear – just in time for me to spot
Jeremy stepping outside to smoke a cigarette, his eyes somehow finding me with
a glance.

Goddammit all to hell,
I thought to myself.

“You’re good?” Dalton asked.

“I am. Let’s get out of here.”

He shook his head with amusement and wandered
back over to his motorcycle. A few moments later, he was revving the engine, I
pulled out of park, and we were on the road.

Of course, Jeremy appeared to watch me drive
off, following Dalton’s bike.

Dalton’s mystery locale took us down the
major roads, but I couldn’t particularly tell where we were going. For a
moment, I thought he was driving us towards the nearby mall – but he made a
crucial last turn before the road pointed us straight to the parking lot.
Instead, it wrapped through a neighborhood nearby, redirecting us towards a
nearby, major shopping avenue.

I was starting to get amused with this.

After all, I had no idea what he had in mind.

A few moments later, he made a turn down a
small road. I followed him, realizing that it extended back behind all the
stores and the local cinema, taking us towards the new, lavish hotel that had
been built back there.

Oh, this is going to be
interesting,
I
smirked.

We parked in the massive parking garage, and
he led me towards the elevator. We barely spoke a word to each other until the
lift was moving downward towards the lobby.

“…A hotel,” I observed.

“What, is that a problem?” He raised an
eyebrow. “Not a fan of hotels?”

“It’s a bit…
forced
, isn’t it?”

“Just wait,” Dalton chuckled. “I don’t think
you’ll have a problem with the arrangements I have in mind, even if they
were
a bit last minute…”

I bit my tongue, sincerely interested to see
where he was going with all of this.

We stepped off at the lobby, wandering over
the front service desk. A young, cheery clerk with fluffy ginger hair and cute
makeup greeted us.

“Checking in?”

“Yes. The reservation’s under
Dalton Carlyle
,” he casually remarked to
her, as if there was some special weight to this that I just didn’t understand.

The front desk clerk ran the name. After a
second, her eyes bugged out. “Ah, yes. You were our last-second reservation,
weren’t you? My boss mentioned something about this… could you possibly wait a
moment? I want to check on this before I hand the keys over.”

“Certainly,” he replied, clearly unperturbed
by her surprise. Personally, I wasn’t sure I knew what was going on, and I kept
drifting my attention from one of them to the other.

“Excellent. If I could have you step aside, I
just need to make a quick call…”

We did as we were asked, in case other guests
were to come up behind us and require immediate attention. Meanwhile, the clerk
lifted a telephone receiver and dialed in three buttons, waiting for the line
to pick up.

“Yes, I’m calling about the
Carlyle
reservation from today… yes,
they’re here now… I see… are you sure?... No, I understand, I just wanted to…
mhmm… yes… okay. Thanks. I’ll let them know.”

She disconnected the call and waved us back
over. “Right. Sorry about that, I just wanted to check on the preparations
first. I’m afraid that they were running a
little
behind schedule, but I’ve been given the
all clear
to let you through. Let me assign you your keys…”

The clerk took a moment to run our door keys
through the system, and quickly assembled a folder of reading material, hotel
rules, and assorted information for us.

“Now then, you’ll be in Room 4B. Let’s see…
I’ve got the wifi password right here, written up here at the top…” She quickly
pointed out the information with a fingertip, “and beneath that is the code you
type in to request room service. If you have an emergency, please type in
Pound Sign, One
into the phone, and wait
three to four seconds. That should be on a sticker on your phone but, you know,
just in case…”

We quickly signed the liability and
reservation forms she presented to us, and the clerk smiled chirpily at us.

“Excellent. Welcome to the Rasidion Hotel,
Mister Carlyle and guest. I hope that you
do
enjoy your stay, and please don’t hesitate to contact us if you need
anything at all.”

“Splendid,” Dalton smiled, taking the folder.
“You’ve been a delight. I apologize for any inconvenience in my reservation
tonight.”

“I’m just happy you managed it,” she shrugged
happily. “It was canceled early this morning. You usually need to book that a
month in advance, unless you’re one of our Premiere Club guests…”

“Maybe it’s my lucky day,” he smiled, and we
departed off down towards the elevator. After a moment, he keyed in the top
floor, and we began the ascent.

“What did you do?” I asked curiously, peering
at him. “That didn’t seem like any old hotel reservation to me…”

“Tonight is meant to be special,” he casually
shrugged. “I called around to see if I could land a room befitting the
occasion, and it just so happened that this one was open.”

“What kind of room?”

“You’ll see,” he smiled warmly.

We rode the rest of the way in silence. After
a moment, the doors pinged open, and we stepped out into a particularly
extravagant hotel floor. It was as if Natalie had just decided to talk her
parents into
buying part of the hotel
.
The crown molding
alone
looked like
it went for a premium, and the décor seemed to favor crystal.

“Whoa,” I murmured to myself as I took in my
environment.

“A little better than you were expecting,
isn’t it?” Dalton smugly whispered into my ear. “Just wait until you see our
room…”

He led me down the hall, looking for the
right place. There were only a couple of rooms up here – maybe half a dozen,
maximum. I could barely keep my eyes off of how the lights bounced off of the
crystal and the silver, filling the entire area with a sort of otherworldly
glow.

Finally, we stopped at a door marked
4B.
Grasping his keycard, he squeezed my
hand and slid it down the reader alongside the doorknob.

“I just want you to know that I understand
what you told me over the phone earlier,” Dalton smiled. “
No promises
. I get it. I didn’t do all of this to break that… so,
keep that in mind when you see everything.”

I nodded hesitantly.

Dalton opened the door, motioning
for me to step inside… and my jaw practically dropped straight to the floor.

Chapter 11

What I had walked into wasn’t just some
decent guestroom in the middle of a nice hotel. This was the most hysterically
lavish room that I’d ever been in. This was the kind of room I thought belonged
in the middle of some Northern European palace, and certainly not anywhere near
where I lived.

The room was decorated from top to bottom in
lavish tapestries, premium antique furniture, pristine crystal décor, and lush
carpeting that was soft to the very touch.

The king-sized bed that dominated the center
of the main room bore a lush mattress that was probably more expensive than
half of Natalie’s apartment…

A premium wine cooler, tucked away neatly
into the fully featured kitchen, came stocked with ample red wine of a
particularly historic vintage, at over a hundred years old.

It even came stocked with all the amenities.
The luxurious, oversized bathroom hid a large hotel shower chamber, with glass
walls and a stunning array of showerheads in all directions.

But perhaps the most stunning aspect of this
incredible hotel room was the view. Much like the apartment I shared with my
rich best friend, the far wall offered an incredible view. However, the
differences were that a) the wall was a solid sheet of glass, with expensive
drapes ready to draw together for privacy, and b) the view was
much
better, giving a jaw-dropping
glance over the city, the park, and the river nearby.

“How… how did you do this?” I asked him,
barely able to coherently string thoughts together, either in my head or aloud.

“I pulled a few strings,” Dalton chuckled,
watching me take in my surroundings with warm and reflective affection. “I had
to pay a little more for this one, but as soon as the opportunity was
available… I knew I had to have it.”

“Do you do that often?” I asked slyly.

“What’s that?” He asked, setting our to-go
plates of dinner into the premium refrigerator. He quickly withdrew a bottle of
red wine and a pair of wine glasses from the attached wine cooler.

“
Take
opportunities
as they arise.”

“I don’t like to let things pass by,” Dalton
shrugged, setting the glasses on the counter as he began to uncork the wine.
“Call me what you will, but even before the Marines… I acted on instinct.
Followed my gut. It even saved my life a few times.”

“Is that so. Like when?”

Dalton went quiet, staring into space. For a
moment, I thought he was thinking about how to answer the question, but then I
realized that the bottle of wine was being to shake slightly…

I took it from his hand, setting it beside
the glasses, and took his trembling hand in both my own.

“Dalton? Are you okay?”

He blinked a few times.

“What? Yeah. I’m fine.”

I wasn’t convinced. “Are you… sure?”

“Yeah, just a, uh, a flashback,” Dalton
chuckled as he shook his head. “Lately, I’ve been having a few flashbacks to a
particular moment during my time in the desert…”

“Do you want to talk about it? I asked.

He looked strained for a moment. As he
resumed uncorking the bottle, he poured us a pair of glasses of wine. “I was a
ground trooper in the United States Marine Corps, placed into combat zones in
the Iraq War. There are things that I’ve had to do … things that I’m not
necessarily proud of, and things I’ll take to my grave. But never,
ever
have I done something unless it was
to save my life or those of others.”

I nodded carefully, taking the glass of red
that he handed me.

“One particular time, there was this
insurgent… I was trying to save another member of my platoon, an older Marine
by the name of Darren. Darren was wounded by mortar fire. I was trying to drag
him out of the rubble of a building when an enemy trooper got the jump on us…
he knocked my gun away, but I managed to keep him away from it. It came down to
him versus me, both reduced to our combat knives, and I was just trying to save
my friend…”

“You don’t have to say any more,” I reassured
him, running my hand along his. “Whatever happened out there, it doesn’t matter
to me. You were saving a life. Did he make it?”

Dalton looked up.

“Yeah. He made it. He retired a couple of
years later. We got him to medical, patched him up… lost a leg, but he wears
that prosthetic proud now.”

“Then you did the right thing,” I told him.

He nodded. “Yeah. Sorry about kind of zoning
out about that.”

“No! God, no. Don’t apologize for a thing,” I
whispered, setting the glass of wine down and throwing my arms around him.
“Listen, Dalton… you were in
war
. You
had to fight for this country… and you had to save your people.”

“That’s right,” he nodded thoughtfully.

The thought of him out in the desert with a
knife, protecting wounded warriors, tugged at my heartstrings… but it also made
him look even tougher, ever stronger than ever.

It ignited something deep inside me.

I took him by the hand and led him towards
the bed, then tried to weakly push him down.

“Oh, is that how it’s going to be then, huh?”
He chuckled, amused by my reactions. “Didn’t know war stories did it for you.”

“Shut up and get into the stupid bed.”

“Yes ma’am,” he winked, kicking off his shoes
and climbing backwards onto the bedding. I did the same, curling up next to
him, feeling the lust begin to burn deep inside me.

I knew then that I had to have him.

Dalton pulled me up against himself, his
fingers threading into my hair to pull me into a deep and passionate kiss. I
submitted to his demands, returning his zealousness with my own – I tugged his
bottom lip between my teeth, slid my nose across his as I slightly adjusted my
positioning, and flicked his lips ever so lightly with the tip of my tongue.

He grinned into this last part, and our lips
parted together to allow our wet tongues access to one another.

I loved the strength and the cunning of his
tongue against mine. With the warmth and power of his broad body pressed up
against me, and his fingers tenderly stroking the contours of my jaw and my
throat, I lost myself in that deep, carnal kissing of ours.

There was no denying it.

This just felt so absolutely right.

I don’t recall exactly how my dress came off,
but soon I was in just my bra and thong against him, tugging off his blazer and
diving for the buttons to his button-up.

As I slowly revealed his abdomen, I gasped in
surprise; not only was he built broad and strong, but he bore a
panty-drenchingly firm six-pack under his clothes.

“You like what you see, huh?” He cockily
asked, grinning confidently.

“Duh.” I shook my head, taking in his heavily
sculpted build. “Good god, you’re buff.”

“Yeah, it turns out that a few years in the
Marines will do that for you,” Dalton shrugged. “I was already in fairly good
shape before, but all those drills and marches really helped me hone my
physique…”

“You’re telling me,” I nodded. I wanted to
lick the contours of his abs…

Instead, I settled for kissing along them,
feeling the taut skin beneath my lips. Whatever resistance I might have still
put up to this idea was now
long
gone.
 
The rest of the world was an
afterthought… it was just Dalton and myself, alone in this lavish room with the
stunning evening view of the city…

His shirt came off, leaving me in my
underwear and him in his jeans. I could already sense the frustrated erection
beneath, but I wasn’t ready to make that move yet.

Sensing this, Dalton didn’t skip a beat in
shifting me onto my back into the bedding. His hungry lips found their way to
my throat, and I slipped my arms around his neck as he began kissing beneath my
jawline, eliciting a string of quiet moans from me.

I felt the chill of nervousness glide down my
body, but I did my best to ignore it. The anxiety crept up slowly, gradually
working its wicked magic against my pleasure.

He must have picked up on that, because he
pulled back after a moment.

“Is something wrong?” Dalton asked
hesitantly, watching me carefully. After a moment, recognition flared across
his eyes. “Is this your first time?”

He started speaking at a thousand words a
minute, his English accent blending his words together. “If we’re going too
fast, it’s fine, I mean we can slow things down a little, I just don’t want you
to be hurt—“

“It’s
fine
,”
I smiled serenely, sliding my hand to palm his cheek. “This isn’t my first
time, it’s just that… well… I didn’t have so great of an experience last time,
is all.”

Dalton bit his tongue, but I pushed him on.

“Go ahead. Ask, if you want. We don’t keep
secrets from each other.”

Quietly, he pressed: “Were you raped?”

My palm paused against his cheek. “No,
nothing like that,” I answered calmly. “But the guy was… controlling, in a lot
of ways. Some were subtle. Some… weren’t.”

He remained quiet, listening to me.

“Jeremy, the guy from the restaurant earlier…
he was my ex-boyfriend. I spent two years with him. He was my first…
everything. And I gave him that, willingly. He seemed like such a sweet guy.”

“What happened?”

“Well, I caught him cheating on me,” I
shrugged. “People were telling me that he was, but I just didn’t want to
believe it. He was always so convincing. I wanted to take him at his word for everything
he said, and he started pitting me against my friends… which is why I don’t
really have many of them anymore.”

“So, what broke the spell?”

I smiled in recollection. “He tried that shit
between Natalie and me.”

Dalton chuckled knowingly. “Yeah… I can see
that going belly-up for him. The two of you are
incredibly
close.”

“Right. That’s when I realized what was
happening, and I found the strength to kick him out of my life. I hadn’t seen
him since, not until tonight…”

Dalton slid his thumb against my chin, his
index finger curled beneath it. He lifted my eyes to meet his.

“And he’s not here now,” he smiled. “Only me.
You don’t have to worry about him now. But I’m glad that he didn’t hurt you…
not physically, at any rate.”

“No, Jeremy was
all
psychological,” I clarified. “But you’re right.
You’re
the one who’s here… and the one I
want to spend my entire night with.”

I leaned upwards and planted my lips against
his again, murmuring softly as I tasted him.

All the way down to my bones, I could feel
it: