ARROGANT PLAYBOY (12 page)

“I’m getting close,” she
breathes after a while. I’m not sure how long it’s been. My mind is colored
with vivid urges that drown out all illusions of space and time. Her
declaration brings me back to the moment, and I rise, licking her from my
tongue. “Why’d you stop?”

She brushes thick strands of
hair from her flushed face, gasping for air.

I press myself up against her,
teasing her with my hardness. “You’re coming on my cock, not my tongue.”

Unzipping my pants, I pull a
condom from my wallet and sheath my swollen girth. Hoisting Odessa against the
wall, she wraps her legs around me again, her heels digging desperately into my
back.

Readying myself at her
entrance, I plunge myself into her as deep as I can go. Hands gripping the
flesh of her curved hips, I bounce her up and down, thrusting harder and faster
with each push. Her fingers press into my shoulders as her tongue runs the
length of her bottom lip.

I fuck Odessa Russo.

I fuck her like my sanity
depends on it because it absolutely does.

I have no intentions of
stopping until her pink lips are screaming my name and begging for the one
thing only I can give her.

Time doesn’t exist inside these
four walls. The rest of the world can wait until we’re good and ready.

Odessa’s warmth consumes me,
fills me in and out. Her pussy clenches around my cock with each throbbing
plunge. I’m deep inside her, yet I need more.

In a moment of divine release,
our gazes lock. We’re transported to a place outside of Manhattan and far away
from the bullshit of our current situations.

But it’s not a moment for satisfied
smirks and victory laps.
 

I lean in and deposit a
punishing kiss, dragging her full bottom lip between my teeth. She deserves to
be punished if only because she’s a smart woman who knew better than to let me
fuck her all over again.

She collapses against me,
gasping for air, and I hold her in my arms until her thighs relax and slide
down my hips. Propping her against he wall, I take her by the chin and taste
her lips one more time.

“You shouldn’t have done that,”
I half-whisper.

“What?” Odessa tugs her skirt
down and finger-combs her wild hair all while wearing a delirious grin.

“Let me fuck you again.”

ODESSA

I smell like him.

Leather
and reckless intentions.

His taste still resides on my
tongue hours after the fact.

Spearmint
and dangerous desires.

Every inch of my body is alive.
Reeling. Buzzing. Temporarily satisfied yet hardly satiated.

Beckham made everything go
away.

An indulgent distraction.

I slip my key into the lock at
precisely five-thirty, and the key slips right in. A metallic scent lingers in
the air as if it’s just been greased. The lock clicks, and I push the door
wide, my heart pounding and rightfully so.

“Hey,” I say, planted in the
doorway.

Jeremiah rises from the sofa,
his lips curled enough to show off the deep dimples I used to kiss in better
times.

“What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here?” He
drawls, placing his arms open wide. “What kind of question is that?”

“I called you.” I take a step
inside, resting my bag on a nearby console. “You didn’t call back. You didn’t
text.”

“I wanted to surprise you.” He
points to the kitchen table where a handful of paper bags rest. “Good eats.
From the test kitchen. I made them bag it up so I could have dinner with my
fiancé tonight.”

His declaration sucks all the
air from my lungs.

Fiancé?

Jeremiah’s eyes search mine,
and I’m sure he’s wondering why the hell I’m not grinning ear to ear.

I’m sort of wondering the same
thing…

“We’re engaged again?” My
delivery is slow, enunciated, as if that could help me to understand what’s
going on. “Did I miss something?”

“Do you want to be?”

I don’t know anymore.

My hesitation must concern him,
because before I realize what’s going on, he’s rushing across the room and
falling to his knees.

With my engagement ring
delicately locked between his thumb and index finger and his blue eyes
crinkling, he peers up at me. He must’ve found my ring by the bathroom sink,
which makes me wonder how much of this was forethought and how much of it was a
random-act-of-Jeremiah.

 
“Samantha Odessa Russo, I am a foolish
man. I am an idiot, and I don’t deserve you. I may have been absent the last
three weeks, but my heart was right here, with you, the whole time. There’s no
one else on God’s green earth better suited for me than you. I want you to be
my wife, Samantha. I need you to be mine again. Will you please make me the
luckiest dumb ass in all of Manhattan and agree to marry me again?”

My throat swells shut, blocking
words before they have a chance to be uttered. There’s a slack in my jaw and my
stomach balls so tightly I’m certain I’m going to be sick.

This is what I wanted.

“Sam, you’re making me worried
here,” Jeremiah drawls, his lips pulling into a half-cocked smirk. He’s extra
tan today.

I focus on his radiant blue
eyes, the only part of his exterior that’s remained the same in the last year.

“You still love me, Sam, don’t
you?” Jeremiah rises. “God, I can’t believe I’m asking this question.”

“Of course.” I’m certain I do if
only because love isn’t something you can shut off.

He slips the ring into his
pocket, before his hands glide into mine, and he threads our fingers together.

“All this champagne and fancy
food I’ve been eating lately must be going to my head,” he says with a quiet
chuckle. “I don’t like me without you. That guy’s an asshole. That guy thinks
he’s hot shit. I can’t do this whole fame thing without you by my side,
Samantha. You keep me grounded. You keep me real.”

“So you only want me back
because of what I do for you?”

“God, no. No.” Jeremiah takes
my face in his hands, leaning down. For a moment, I hold my breath and purse my
lips. My lips are still hot and flavored with Beckham’s kiss. He deposits a
kiss on my forehead, and I exhale softly. “That came out all wrong, babe. I’m
sorry.”

He pulls me in, his fingers
tangled in my hair. With my cheek against his chest, I hesitate before wrapping
my arms around him. He feels smaller than I remember, and I don’t recognize his
new cologne.

“I let my head get a little
big,” he said. “That’s all. Forgot my roots for a sec. Had a talk with Mama,
and she put things into perspective for me.”

“What’d she say?” I always did
like Susannah Crawford. The mother of four boys, she treated me like the cherished
daughter she never had.

“She told me I was a damn fool
for letting you go, and that if I wasn’t careful, someone else would come along
and snatch you right out from under me.” He kisses the top of my head. “It was
the thought of you with another man, Sam. It hurt in ways I never could’ve
imagined. Probably ‘cause I’d never thought like that before.”

There’s a weight on my chest. I
draw in a deep breath but feel no air. My entire body constricts.

“I slept with someone,” I
blurt, squeezing my eyes tight. “Twice.”

Jeremiah doesn’t move despite
the fact that I fully expect him to push me away. It’s only after a minute that
I realize I’m snug in his arms. His desperate squeeze sends an ache to my chest
no amount of words can rectify.

We stand in silence. A minute
passes. And another. I breathe him in, attempting to wrap myself in his energy,
his warm embrace, his familiarity.

I feel nothing.

His hold loosens after a bit,
and he sucks in a ragged breath. His eyes are glassy, and he wears the
expression of a man falling apart at the seams and trying desperately not to
let it show.

Crawford men are raised not to
cry.

“It’s okay, Sam.” He pulls his
shoulders back. “We weren’t together. It wasn’t cheating. You had every right
to do whatever you wanted to do. I’m not going to judge you for anything.”

Really?

Well in that case, I may as
well come completely clean. “The last time was a few hours ago.”

I expect him to pull away, like
I’m tainted, but he stands firm, his hands capturing mine.

“Who was it?” He breathes harder.
“I have to know, Sam.”

“Just some guy I met at a bar
last week.”

“That you reconvened with a
second time?”

“I’m also working for him. It’s
a three week contract.” I wince, though I don’t know why. I don’t feel guilty.
I didn’t cheat. And we’re not back together yet, so it doesn’t matter that I’m
still working for Beckham. Jeremiah’s jaw tenses. All of this is so unlike him,
and I can’t resist the urge to throw another tack-strip down in the road. “I’m
going to Vermont with him next week for a few days. It’s a work trip.”

His eyes shut, and his tongue
drags forcefully across the inside of his mouth.

“Babe, this was all my fault.
All of it.” He looks at me again, his hands sliding up my hips and resting at
the curve of my waist. “I sent you running into the arms of another man. I left
you all alone. I blame no one but myself.”

“You’re particularly gallant
today.” I trace the buttons of his shirt and offer a smile to lighten the mood.
The unsettled pit in my stomach is difficult to ignore. This isn’t like him. At
all.

The Jeremiah standing before me
is an imposter.

“Shouldn’t you be throwing
chairs and shouting?” I tease. Kind of. Back in college, he suspected me of giving
my number to another guy at a party once. I’d never seen a real life Hulk until
that night. Needless to say we were permanently banned from the Kappa Theta Phi
house due to his destructive outburst.

He shakes his head, his fingers
digging into my hips. “From now on, I’m going to be the man you deserve. The
man who makes the others pale in comparison.”

He might have that one nailed
already. Literally.

“I want us back,” he continues,
his eyes closing. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes. Just tell me I haven’t
lost you, Sam.”

BECKHAM

“One sixty-two Clinton Street.
Apartment four.” I verify Eva’s address to the nanny agency first thing
Saturday morning. “They’re discharging tomorrow. You’ll send someone as soon as
I call, correct?”

The agency director confirms my
request, promises she’ll send her best available nanny, guarantees full
discretion and privacy, and promises to email me the paperwork the second we
hang up.

“Perfect. Thank you.” I end the
call and toss my phone on the foot of my unmade bed, holding my head in my
hands. My fingertips trace across my brows, pushing hard, and slide toward my
pulsing temples to relieve the headache that’s going on day two.

With scattered thoughts, I hit
the shower, cranking the water as hot as I can stand it. My phone rings a
minute after I step out. With a towel snug around my waist, I grab the phone
off the bed.

“Beckham King.”

“Mr. King, this is Anita. I’m a
nurse at New York General.” Her words make my heart stop cold. “Everything’s
okay, but Ms. Delgado is refusing to cooperate with staff until you sign the
birth certificate, and also the baby can’t leave the hospital without a name.
It’s hospital policy.”

I know Eva, and she’s not going
to leave the hospital without that baby. She’ll have to name her eventually.

“Ms. Delgado is well aware of
my stipulations. It’s not going to happen. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”

My thumb hovers over the ‘end
call’ button until I hear her say, “Wait.”

“Yes?”

She sighs into the phone. I can
only imagine the unflattering thoughts running through her head. Perhaps she
assumes I’m some deadbeat father. An irresponsible philanderer. A loser.

“Will someone be picking her up
tomorrow? She discharges at eleven, and because of the C-section she can’t
leave without another adult present to assist her.” Her once cordial tone has
become unmistakably flat.

“I’m sending a nanny and a cab.
I’ll call later with her name, so you can put it in Ms. Delgado’s file. She and
the baby will have around the clock care for the next thirty days.”

Primarily to ensure the safety
of the baby who may or may not be mine…

I should feel bad about leaving
them with a difficult patient, one childishly refusing to name her own baby,
but Eva is a grown woman. I won’t be strong-armed into Eva’s manipulative
tactic.

“Anita?” I say. “Please remind
Ms. Delgado that she is not allowed to contact me again, per the terms of the
restraining order.”

Anita is silent.

“Let her know that the nanny
I’ve hired will contact me if there is an emergency concerning the baby,” I
add. “I’m willing to communicate directly with Eva if – and only if
– she will agree to immediate paternity testing.”

The nurse clears her throat. I
can almost see her rolling her eyes and slamming her pen down at her station. “Um.
O-okay then.”

With that, I end her call. I
don’t expect her to understand the circumstances of my decisions nor do I need
her pity. Ninety-nine percent of the people I’ve met in my time are assholes
hiding behind judgmental eyes, good deeds, and artificial smiles.

I don’t need them.

I don’t need anyone.

I’ll do what I always do:
figure this out on my own. The number of people I care about in this world, I
can count on one hand. Everyone else can fuck off.