Rapturous (7 page)

I shiver from the memories that are already seared onto my mental hard drive, permanent reminders of a night that will never be forgotten. What is he thinking about today? Does he want more of me the way I want more of him? Was our encounter as life changing for him as it was for me?

I sink deeper into the tub, submerged to my chin. When I close my
eyes, sexy, sensual images of the man I love are all I can see. I can’t wait to be with him again, to touch him and kiss him and make love to him. I wonder how long it’ll be before we can do it all again.

Sleeping with Addie is the biggest mistake I’ve ever made, and it will not happen again.
 

Sleeping…
That’s the least of what I did with her after promising Flynn I wouldn’t touch her. Sleep was the last thing on my mind when she took me by the hand and tugged me into her apartment to have her wicked way with me.
 

Toothpaste, mouthwash and two coffees later, I can’t get the taste of her off my tongue. Her taste haunts me, as do the images that flood my brain regardless of my desire never to
think again about what we did. If I go there, if I allow myself to wallow in the thoughts of her, it’ll ruin everything.
 

She and I are friends. We’re business associates. We have many friends in common, people who are important to both of us. People such as Flynn, who would have me killed if he knew what I did with his Addie and how I snuck out in the wee hours of the morning without a word
to her, like she was just another random hookup.
 

I’m a heartless douche to have touched her in the first place, knowing I have nothing at all to give her. I shouldn’t have kissed her at the Oscars, let alone everything I did with her later.
 

I’ve never been more thankful for my work than I am this morning as I sit in the quiet of the editing room, doing what I do best while trying not to think
about how massively I fucked up with Addie. Nothing will ever be the same again now that I’ve touched her and tasted her and fucked her, now that I know how she sounds when she comes and how hot and tight her pussy is. How will I look at her now that I know those things about her?

I won’t. I won’t look at her or talk to her or do anything with her unless I have to. I’ll keep my distance until
she gets the message that last night—or this morning, I guess it was—was a one-time event never to be repeated, no matter how badly I might wish otherwise. There’s simply no point to pursuing a relationship with Addie when I want none of the things she does.

She’s the kind of woman a man settles down with. She wants a husband and babies and a white picket fence. I want my work and my friends
and my ropes and Club Quantum and a life unencumbered by the sort of promises a man would have to make to have a woman like her.
 

Of course, I knew all this before I kissed her, before I fucked her, before I fucked up with her. I knew it, and I did it anyway, and that’s what makes me a world-class asshole for letting things get so out of hand. But when she touched me and kissed me and let me
know what she wanted from me… I’m not made of fucking stone, despite how it might seem sometimes.
 

I’m known for being cold and ruthless and relentlessly ambitious when it comes to my work, but I do have a heart, and that heart beats for her. It has for a long time. If my chaotic upbringing taught me anything, it’s that we don’t always get what we want out of life. So I want her. That doesn’t
mean dick when stacked up against all the reasons why I never should’ve touched her in the first place.

Why am I thinking about this shit when I’ve got a film to finish? A fucking film that still needs a fucking name. One-word titles are my signature. I love the way the right word can sum up so many things. Take
Camouflage
, for example. That’s the perfect title for a film about a man trying to
find out who he is without the uniform that has defined him. In this new film, Flynn plays an addict who hits rock bottom before scraping his way back to life where he discovers that everyone he loves has turned their back on him. We wanted to call it
Addict
because that summed up the story in a way that would be relatable to audiences around the world.

But the studio rejected it as too simplistic.
Like that’s not the whole fucking point. I fought for our title to no avail, and we’ve spent weeks trying to come up with something better. Flynn and I are so married to our original title that we can’t see our way to considering anything else. Just what we need so late in the production, and now we’re under tremendous pressure from the studio to name the fucker so marketing can do their thing.
 

Name the fucker. As if it’s that easy. Snap my fingers and solve a problem they caused by rejecting the perfect title for no good reason.
 

I scroll through images on one of three massive screens that I use to do postproduction work, usually in close collaboration with Jasper, my cinematographer, and a team of editors and sound technicians who add polish to what I give them. I’ve still got a lot
to do, but I can’t find my usual zone. I do my best work after filming is completed, and a lot of people are counting on me to get it right. Yet all I can think about is the taste of Addie’s sweet pussy and the way it gripped my dick in a tight, hot fist of pleasure.

My cock hardens as these thoughts pass through my mind, one on top of the other until I’ve checked out completely from what I was
doing. As much as I might want to forget it ever happened, my brain refuses to go along with my plan, torturing me with images and memories and sounds I’ll never forget. I’m already picturing her in the playrooms in both of my homes. Oh, the things we could do…

No. Stop. Not happening.

I’m sorely tempted to whip out my cock and take the edge off. Only the possibility that I might not be completely
alone in the Quantum building stops me from acting on the sharp pang of desire. I had her five times, and it wasn’t enough, not nearly enough.

But it has to be. I can’t do this to her, to our friends, to myself, not when I can never be what she wants, and she can never be what I need. It’s pointless and fruitless to have let this happen in the first place, but to continue it would be a recipe
for disaster. I’ve had enough disasters in my life. The last thing I need is another one.

My phone chimes with a text that I glance at, double-taking when I realize it’s from her.

Where’d you go?

Such a simple question with no simple answer. I stare at those three innocuous words on my screen for far longer than I should with everything else I need to do. Where
did
I go? I came to work, one
of two places in my life where everything makes sense. The other being Club Quantum, where I’m allowed to be my authentic self, the man the rest of the world has never seen—the man Addison York has never seen and will never see, if I have my way. And I always have my way. I lead my life by my own rules, and no one, not even precious, beautiful Addie, is going to change that.

It’s better to put
a stop to this before it gets started. It would be better still to have put a stop to it before I fucked her, but that ship has sailed now. There’s no going back to who we were to each other only yesterday.
 

Ignoring her text, I put the phone on my desk, telling myself it’s better this way.
 

I don’t hear from him at
all on Monday, even though I know he received and read my text. I get up for work on Tuesday still aching and more than a little heartsick that he’s blowing me off. I’m disappointed in my friend Hayden. At least, I think we’re friends. If so, my definition of friendship and his differ wildly.
 

This, right here, is why smart people keep business and pleasure separate. Clearly, I’m not as smart
as I think, because today I have to go to the office we share. I’ll have to see him and possibly talk to him and act like nothing happened, when
everything
happened. I’ll have to pretend in front of Flynn and the others that I’m fine when I’m not fine. I’m not fine at all. I feel broken inside, permanently changed in ways I’ve yet to fully process.

I finally got what I’ve wanted more than anything.
I didn’t expect to feel so hollow afterward, but then again, I didn’t expect him to leave without a word either.
 

“What
did
you expect, Addison? Hearts and flowers and sonnets?”

Now he’s got me talking to myself. I didn’t expect any of those things, but is it crazy to wish that he’d at least said good-bye before he left? Was it too much to hope for that he might check on me yesterday after turning
my world upside down in the course of a few sensually charged hours?

Or maybe what we did is so commonplace for him that it didn’t occur to him that he needed to check on me. Maybe silence afterward
is
his routine. If so, his routine sucks donkey balls.
 

I turn the key to engage the dead bolt on my front door and take the elevator down to the parking garage to the sleek Audi R8 that my wonderful
boss surprised me with for my birthday last year. Working for a total “car whore” has its advantages, and I still can’t believe that this amazing car is all mine. Flynn being Flynn went all-out with a top-of-the-line V10 in a gorgeous metallic blue with black wheels and features I’m still discovering months later.
 

The biggest issue I have with the car is keeping an eye on the speed limit when
I’m on the highway. I’ve already been stopped once for speeding and given a warning. Thank goodness, because that ticket would’ve been beastly.
 

I slip into the black leather seat, wincing at the dull pain that still resonates from between my legs. Closing the door, I breathe in that new-car scent that still lingers. That scent reminds me to count my blessings. I have a great home, a hot car
and a job that make my high school and college friends green with envy. I’m friends with or acquainted with most of Hollywood’s A-list thanks to my connection to Flynn, Hayden, Marlow, Jasper and Kristian.
 

My internal pep talk, while a nice reminder of how blessed I am, doesn’t do a damned thing to assuage my wounded pride or aching heart. How can he do this to me? I’m not just any random hookup.
It’s me. Addie, his friend, his colleague, his…
 

The biggest mistake I’ve made is thinking that I matter more to him than I do. I thought there was something special between us. I thought what we did the other night was special. It was to me, anyway. I guess it wasn’t to him. I have the time it takes to drive from home to the office to convince myself that I’m okay with that. So what if it didn’t
mean anything to him? It meant something to me, and I can hold on to that while I try to put my infatuation with him in the past.

Thank God I managed to contain those three little words that were on the tip of my tongue during every cataclysmic orgasm the other night. I cringe at how close I came to saying them more than once. But I didn’t, and now he’ll never know how I really feel about him.
His loss.
 

My chest tightens and my eyes fill with tears I refuse to indulge. No matter how heartbroken I might feel, I’m not going to cry over Hayden Roth. I wanted him, I had him and now my feelings for him are in the past, or so I tell myself. Through rush-hour traffic, I focus on driving and the day ahead that will include a board meeting for Flynn and Natalie’s new childhood hunger foundation,
as well as training Marlowe’s new assistant, Leah.
 

Everyone is excited to welcome Natalie’s former roommate from New York, who recently relocated to LA to work for Marlowe. As soon as Marlowe offered Leah the job—and offered to buy her out of her contract—Leah resigned from her teaching position at the Emerson School.