Overexposed: The Complete Boxset: A Virgin Meets a Bad Boy Romance (16 page)

T
he phone rings
seven times before it goes to voicemail, and each of those seven rings is like another stab in the ribs. By the time my uncle’s pre-recorded voice comes through, my entire body is coursing with adrenaline, and I can barely find the words to speak to him.

Beep.

“Uh, hi, Uncle Jim,” I say, my voice shaking. My uncle is a busy man, and in the five years since my parents died in a car crash and he unofficially adopted me, I must have left him thousands of messages. But for some reason, I have no idea what to say today.

No…not for
some
reason.
One
reason.

I avoid looking at that reason, which is now sitting innocuously on my kitchen counter, and instead refocus on the voicemail. “I really need to talk to you,” I whisper. “Something’s happened. Something bad—well, bad isn’t really the right word, I guess, but I don’t know the right word and I feel like this is the kind of thing I would have called Mom and Dad with, so it felt right to call you, but maybe it wasn’t…”

I realize I’m rambling and stop talking until I can gather my wits. “Just call me back,” I beg. “Please. Love you.”

My hand is shaking as I press
end
on the call and set my phone on the counter. I wanted Uncle Jim to pick up today, even though he’s rarely available the very second I need him. But he always comes through for me, like that time I drank too much as a college freshman and didn’t have a ride home, or those first months living on my own when he made sure my fridge was filled with groceries when all I could afford were ramen noodles. I miss my parents terribly, but if I have to live without them, I couldn’t have asked for a better surrogate than my uncle.

He’ll call me back. He’ll help me figure out what to do.

You shouldn’t need help figuring this out. You’re twenty-three. You graduated summa cum laude and you’re working at the most prestigious corporate law firm in the region. You should handle this all on your own and not drag your poor uncle into it.

Taking a deep breath, I grab my phone and do what I should have done in the first place. I grab the thick gray business card off the front of my fridge, glancing once at the name before I dial the number below it.

Matteo Moretti

Moretti Investments, CEO

Matteo. I can still taste his name on my tongue. I thought he left me with nothing more than a sore pussy and his business card, but it turns out I was mistaken.

He left me with one other thing.

The phone rings twice, three times, and I steel myself to leave another awkward voicemail, but instead the phone stops ringing and an impatient male voice says, “This is Matteo.” His voice is clipped, brusque, and I remind myself that this is his office number. He probably isn’t used to three-week-old lays calling him here.

Although maybe he is, if he leaves his card with every random fuckdoll he meets.

I clear my throat. “Um, hi, Matteo.” I wince at how girlish my voice sounds. I’m not normally this uncertain or hesitant—I’m not brash by any means—but I’ve definitely learned how to communicate in a high-powered business world led (mostly) by men. I try to summon up that Jessica now, the Jessica who is currently rocking the corporate world by managing one of the largest investment fraud suits in American history.

“This is Jess Simmons,” I try again. “We—ah—
met
a few weeks ago at the Tom’s Town bar?”
Met
is nicer than
stupidly invited you back to my loft and let you come inside me five times.

“I remember,” he says warily.

The wariness in his voice makes me queasy and nervous, because of course no man actually wants to hear back from a one-night stand. It smacks of clinginess, of attachment, of the kind of female emotional hysteria that suit-wearing manwhores like him hate. But the wariness also makes me defensive and angry.
Fuck you, dude,
I want to snarl into the phone.
Do you really think I’d call without a damn good reason?

I ignore the part of my mind that reminds me that, why yes, I
have
wanted to call for no good reason. I’ve looked longingly at that card every day since we fucked, my body pining for that broad, masculine body, those talented fingers and that thick cock. My new favorite hobby has become fantasizing about him, to the point where even my boss has asked about my spaciness at work.

It’s natural to feel that way about a rebound fuck—especially when you’re rebounding from a two-year relationship. Now move the fuck on and tell Matteo!

I straighten my spine, even though he can’t see me, and say, “We need to meet.”

There’s a moment of quiet on his end of the call. I wonder if he’s calculating how exactly to tell me
no
, how to tell me to back off, because I know powerful men, and the last thing they want are young paralegals desperate for time and emotional attention.

But he surprises me. “Okay, Jessica,” he says, and boy, I forgot how much that voice affects me, the way his deep, assertive tone sends shivers from my head to my toes and then right back up again to my clit. “When and where would you like to meet?”

I glance at the clock. Ten in the morning.

“Today,” I say firmly, because it really can’t wait. “And I’ll meet you anywhere but downtown.” I used my first ever sick day at Lindemann and Associates this morning, and I don’t want to risk someone from work catching me in a cafe or restaurant and assume I’m playing hooky.

“Come to my office,” he says, and the way he says it is part order, part invitation—and there’s something else in his tone that’s impossible to pinpoint. Caution, maybe? A warning to me? The man is so hard to read—was hard to read even when he sucked on my clit, and even when he pulsed inside of me, growling like an animal. “It’s downtown, but it’s private.”

“Okay,” I agree, my voice starting to shake, because holy shit, I am really about to see him face-to-face again, and under these fucking circumstances.

“Come now,” he says, a little silkily, and despite everything, despite
fucking
everything, my cunt clenches with a tight heat.

“Okay,” I repeat, but this time it’s a whisper.

“I’ll tell my secretary you’re on your way,” he says, and then he rattles off the address and instructions on how to get to his office once inside the building. I promise to be there in twenty minutes, and then I hang up the phone, my heart pounding.

What will happen when I see him? What will I say?

And I hate it, but I also ask myself: what will I wear?

Seven minutes later, I’m in a black pencil skirt and ivory silk blouse, the kind of expensive but modest clothes I wear to work, and my makeup is freshened up and my teeth are brushed again. I grab my favorite pair of heels—bright red Gucci open-toes made of satin and lace—slip them on my feet and start for the door.

At the last minute, I turn and swipe the pregnancy test off the counter.

Missouri is the Show Me state, after all, and I want to be more than ready to show him the fucking truth.

M
oretti Investments is
on the top floor of its building, and when I make it to the office’s lobby, the long elevator ride has made me queasy and dizzy. I desperately wish I thought to grab a banana or granola bar or
anything
to stave off the hunger-nausea I’ve had since my puking marathon this morning, but then again, maybe I just would have thrown up some more. I take a few deep breaths, will my stomach to settle down, and step into the sleek lobby.

As lead paralegal to a senior partner in a corporate law firm, I’m at least passingly familiar with most of the major investment firms and corporations in the region, but it occurs to me that I’ve never heard of Moretti Investments once in the last two years, not even a stray mention in a newspaper article or during a business luncheon. That alone would be strange enough, but as I’m walking through the lobby, I notice something else odd.

The entire floor seems empty.

This is premium real estate in the skyline, the kind of office companies get on waiting lists for, but there’s no corridor of doors leading to senior financial advisors, no hum of copiers or fax machines. Instead, the lobby opens up in a massive reception area overlooking the city. I count three, maybe four office doors, not including the double glass doors that presumably lead to Matteo’s inner sanctum. I stride up to the wide reception desk in front of the doors.

“Jessica Simmons to see Matteo Moretti,” I say. In the hushed quiet of the mostly-empty space, it sounds like an announcement.

The receptionist glances up at me, her face a mask. But despite her lack of expression, resentment clouds her eyes. She’s irritated that I’m an unscheduled appointment, irritated that Matteo has told her to let me in. Maybe because she likes control of his schedule, but more likely because she wants control of his dick, and I can’t blame her for that. Matteo has the kind of dick that incites wars.

“You can go on in,” she says curtly, moving her eyes back to her computer. “But be quick. He’s got appointments right after you, appointments that can’t be rescheduled.”

“Sure,” I say, keeping the antagonism out of my voice because I get it. Who wouldn’t be jealous of women visiting their boss when their boss was a human sex god?

I push past the glass doors, pass through a smaller, more enclosed lobby area with an aquarium and a few armchairs, and then knock on the solid wood door at the end. I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror hung over a table: petite body, lean with my tri-weekly dance classes, hips a little too wide, breasts a little too small. Long hair, blond and silky, a pert nose and cupid’s bow lips, framed by high cheekbones and a heart-shaped face. I’ve long since reconciled myself to looking perpetually nineteen, since I know I’m cute enough to draw men in, but suddenly I feel childish, silly, walking into an office like this with my girlish face.

My purse feels heavier with the pregnancy test inside, as if the inert plastic rectangle was suddenly made of lead and uranium. But I forget all of that once I hear Matteo’s strong voice call out, “Come in,” and my body ripples with goose bumps.

Fear?

Lust?

Both?

I open the door before I can talk myself out of it and walk inside.

He’s sitting behind his desk, massive windows framing the skyline behind him, the late morning sunlight throwing shades of gold in his dark brown hair. Stubble dusts his wide jaw—I shudder, remembering the way that stubble scratched the inside of my thighs—and his bright blue eyes stand out against the rich olive tone of his skin. A sharp, strong nose and thick eyebrows are balanced out by full, plush lips—a mix of the masculine and the beautiful—and he’s so stunning in his bespoke suit with the skyline glinting behind him that it takes me a minute to remember why I came here and what I wanted to say.

Luckily, he speaks first. “Jessica,” he says, getting to his feet. I like the way he says my whole name, even though I introduced myself that night as Jess. It sounds so proprietary coming from his mouth.

“Matteo,” I say, and then I awkwardly extend my hand to him as I step forward. I inwardly curse myself for my lack of experience in smoothly handling former lovers. The two boys in college and the young hedge fund manager who cheated on me with a barista constitute the depth and breadth of my history with sex, and I’m sure my lack of expertise in this area is stamped all over my face and body as Matteo walks forward to meet me.

He takes my hand. It’s a handshake for sure, but the way he looks at me, like he’s vividly recalling how my pussy tastes, makes the handshake feel like so much more.

“Have a seat,” he says huskily when he finally releases my hand, gesturing to a seating area in the corner of his office. I sit in on a cushy loveseat, and he sits on a sofa facing me.

I’m grateful that he didn’t ask me to sit in front of his desk like one of his employees, but it’s also strange to sit across a glass coffee table from him as I haul my purse onto my lap and fish for the pregnancy test.

And fish.

And fish.

Where is that fucking test?

“Jessica,” he says as I dig in my purse. “Look at me.”

I pause my rummaging to glance up at him. He’s tugging at the knot of his tie, his pupils dilated. He looks like a starving man. “Yes?” I manage in a whisper.

“I want to fuck you again.”

My hand stills in my purse at the same moment my heartbeat stops entirely—then picks up again with a vengeance, hammering against my chest.

“I—”

“I was an idiot not to get your number that night. You have no idea the number of times I wanted to show up at your door, but I thought ‘No, I should wait for her to call.’ I think you waited fucking long enough, don’t you?”

I literally have no words. I expected him to be dismissive or distant, annoyed even, but now he’s telling me that he wanted to see me again? That he wants to fuck me again? And while my mind can’t summon a response right away, my body can, my nipples tightening into hard points, my pussy suddenly feeling so hot and swollen that I know my panties will be soaked soon.

“Say something,” he orders, leaning back and crossing his legs.

“I—” What the hell to even say to that? Especially with what I originally came to tell him? “I’ve thought a lot about that night too.”

“You let me come inside you,” he says, his jaw clenching. “Five times. You screamed my name so much your voice was hoarse. Now you’re telling me that not only did you wait three weeks to call, but that you’ve only
thought
about me?”

I bite my lip and look at this man I barely know. Barely know and yet also know all the most intimate things about, just as he knows all the intimate things about me. But as for anything other than who he is in the bedroom, I have no clue. He’s a businessman, obviously, but he said nothing about his company or his business background the night we met. In fact, he said barely anything at all, merely signaling to the bartender to get me a drink when I stepped up to the bar, flushed and glowing from trying to drown my recent breakup in gin and flirting with co-workers. He watched me drink the martini with hungry eyes, and then he pinned me against the bar.

“Want to get out of here?” he murmured in my ear. And despite the fact that I’d just been cheated on and dumped, despite the fact that I’d had three martinis and probably wasn’t in the best place to make judgement calls, despite the fact that I didn’t even know his name at the time…I said yes. Thirty minutes later, I was bent over my dining room table keening as he rubbed my clit, and right before I’d orgasmed, he leaned down and said, “Matteo. That’s the name you say when you come.”

And said it I had. More times than I could count.

Matteo regards me now, his arm slung over the sofa, his blue eyes unreadable. His massive frame stretches the seams of his jacket; his tailored pants do little to hide the sculpted muscles of his thighs. Everything about him screams power and wealth; he can have any woman he wants, but for some reason he still wants me, and I can’t help the little glow that kindles in my chest at that. Even though I should, because I’m about to rain on this sexual tension parade.

I finally answer his question. “I’ve thought a
lot
about you,” I clarify.

“Did you make yourself come thinking about that night? Thinking about me?”

I’m not a prude by any means, but I just got out of a relationship where my boyfriend was repulsed by me even owning a vibrator, and so such a direct question sends heat to my cheeks. Especially since the answer is yes—almost every night…and every afternoon after work…and those two times in the law firm’s private bathroom. Matteo has dominated my fantasies like he dominated my body that night, dominated both so thoroughly that my pussy was still in his thrall, responding to the idea of him even when I thought I would never see him again.

He smirks at my flushed cheeks. “No need to answer. It’s written all over your face.”

I force myself to tear my eyes away from him and look back down at my purse. A white plastic edge is poking up through the tangle of earbuds, keys and loose gum pieces. The test.

But before I can bring it up, Matteo says suddenly, “Have you let any other men fuck you since I had you?”

I glance up to see a dark expression on his face, and the cold fury in his eyes sends pings of fear dancing down my spine.

“N-no,” I stammer, shocked into honesty before I can consider how inappropriate that question is. But, given the circumstances, it would have come up anyway, so I might as well address it now. “No, there hasn’t been anyone since you.”

“Good,” he breathes. “Good girl.”

I should bristle at this,
I should
, but for some reason this possessiveness from a near-total stranger has me squirming in the loveseat, my breasts heavy and my cunt aching.

“I didn’t expect this to happen,” he confesses, smoothing his tie and buttoning his jacket as he stands. The thick bulge of an erection strains at his pants. “Forgive the bluntness, but I’m not in the habit of thinking much about the women I take to bed. And that you of all people…” He trails off, his eyes raking my body, lingering on the red heels and my long blonde hair.

“Me of all people,” I echo, not sure to be insulted or complimented. Really, there isn’t room for anything other than my arousal, not with his rigid cock at eye level, but I have to focus. He can’t steer the agenda because he doesn’t even know the fucking agenda.

“Yes,” he affirms, leaning down and bracing his hands on the back of the sofa so that I’m caged in by his arms, his mouth close to mine. “You. Of all the fucking people. You are the one I can’t stop thinking about. You are the one I can’t stop thinking about having bent over my desk and moaning in my bed.”

I shiver and a wolfish light enters his face. “Now,” he says, pressing his lips to mine. “I want to fuck you again right now.”

His lips are soft and warm and firm, and I want them on my neck, on my stomach, on my thighs. I want to fuck him right now too, not just because the sex I had with him is the best sex I’ve ever had, but because something about him is so raw, so damn magnetic, that mating with him seems as necessary as breathing.

I can’t though. Even with as much as I want to…I came here to tell him something, and I would be a terrible person if I didn’t tell him before things went any further.

“Matteo,” I say with a swallow, pulling away to meet his ice blue eyes. “I’m pregnant.”

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