The Perfect Plans Series [Box Set] (80 page)

“Agh…stop,” I mange to pull my lips from his, pushing him away with all my might. Quickly skirting around him, I run back towards our booth.
I need to get out of here. I need to get away from him
.

“Aby, wait,” he calls after me, catching up as I reach the table to grab my clutch.

“I’m leaving, sorry about your night, Stace,” I offer the rushed apology as she stands in alarm, her gaze ricocheting between Alex and I before I turn for the door.

“Aby…”

“Let her go, Alex,” I hear Stacey interrupt him.

“The hell I will,” he spews, quickly on my tail at the front doors. “Goddammit, Aby, stop.”

“Leave me the hell alone,” I slur, making my way to the curb to flag a taxi.

“Let me take you home.”

“Are you serious?” I lash, spinning on my heels to face him dead on, the motion throwing my drunk-ass off kilter.

He reaches to steady me and I tear my arm from his supportive grip.

“Don’t. Touch. Me,” the order is firm, my eyes screaming a clear warning.

Raising his hands in a sign of surrender, he continues in a calm plea, “Just let me see you home.”

“I have a better idea,” I begin, waving down an oncoming taxi, “Since you really enjoy the view of my ass,” I continue as it pulls to the curb, turning to look him straight in the eye, “…how about I let you watch me leave.”

FUMBLING FOR MY keys, the screeching tires of Alex’s car jar me in a wave of rushed panic, sending them tumbling to the step. He’s out and standing before me in the time it takes for me to scoop them up.
He fucking followed me home? Fuck!

The view of the length of him as I straighten to stand is impossible to resist, and after two weeks without him, I struggle to hide his effect on me. Away from the crowded club, the distance between us at this moment allows me to take him in. The beauty of him is like the calm before a tidal wave, but even my drunken rationale tells me that if I give in I’ll drown.

“Wow,” I muster a surge of confident indifference, “…to what do I owe the pleasure of this quick second visit? And more importantly,” I continue quickly, ignoring his sexy clenched jaw, “Are you having trouble hearing? I said LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE.”

“Aby, as much as your drunken little temper tantrum is trying my patience,” he pauses for a second round of panty soaking jaw clenching, “…we need to talk.”

“My
little temper tantrum
?” The need to slap him across the face flashes quickly through my mind - the fury merely adding to the well of lust flooding my system. It’s an overload of primal ravage need, and I fight the urge by turning away to unlock the door. “Well,” I begin, composed restraint returned as I step inside, preparing to close the door in his face, “…I guess whatever it is you think we need to talk about can wait, since I’m clearly not in
your
required state of mind. You’ve seen me home now,
sweetheart
, you can be on your merry way, back to wherever you came from.”

“Aby…” he makes a move to halt the closing of the door.

“As a matter of fact,” I interrupt him, “Where the hell
did
you come from? It was very sweet of you to suddenly show up out of the blue,” my sarcasm is biting, a desperate shield against the gnawing desire to simply bite
him
, devour him.

“Out of the blue, Aby? I told you I would be back from L.A. in two weeks.”

“Oh, has it been two weeks already? I hadn’t even noticed,” I lie with bitter contempt, cursing my sorry, drunken ass for possibly impeding my performance.

“No? So it was just a coincidence that I received your messages on my way home from the airport. I must say, they were rather…intriguing - for lack of a better description - and they certainly got my attention. Is that not that what you intended of them?”

“So sorry to disappoint, but there were no intentions behind my silly drunken texts - tequila is a chatty bitch. And, yes, it was absolutely a coincidence. Does that make you feel better? You and your guilty conscience can go home now,” I slam the door quickly, leaning back against it, attempting to catch my breath from the adrenaline and alcohol cocktail I’m suddenly spinning in.

“Aby, open the door,” his order is firm.

“I have nothing else to say to you,” I manage, cursing the aphrodisiac effects of the damn tequila coursing through my veins.

“You can open the door, or
I
can - the choice is yours.”

Are you kidding me?
I spin around, pulling the door open to face his audacity head on, “You have some nerve threatening…”

My words are no match to the speed with which he wraps his arm around me, lifting me off my feet as he steps inside, closing the door behind us.

The feel of his evident arousal pinned against me is intoxicating.
Damn him
and
the alcohol.
“Let me go,” I demand, hammering his chest, each pound of my small fists against the sculpted mass echoed in the clenching of my core.

“I couldn’t do that if I tried,” he whispers huskily, setting me down on my feet against the wall before grabbing my face in his hands. His kiss is paralyzing.

I ache to touch him, to feel him again, but I can’t move. I’m lost in the dizzying, slow, erotic brushes of his tongue, the delicious taste of him. I want him. Need him.

Gravity twists at my spiraling haze as he pulls back to look into my eyes, his cradling of my forced gaze in his hands seemingly holding me upright. I brace my hands back against the wall in desperate search of support, afraid that if he let’s me go I’ll fall.

“God, I’ve missed you…” he grabs my hands, pinning them up in his hold, his lips crashing back to mine.

I moan into his kiss, my body arching against his, the erotic pull too strong for my will. I couldn’t fight it if I tried.

Releasing my hands, he grips my thighs to lift me, groaning as I wrap my legs around him, his arousal brushing my core in the movement. “Fuck, Aby,” he whispers, wrenching me against his erection with a repeated sensual, rolling grip of my ass.

“Oh, God,” I moan. The absence of his lips is too much, and I grab his nape to force the return of his tongue as he carries me effortlessly to the sofa. I grind into him, our bodies unlinking as he lays me down. I can’t get enough of him. My primal need to feel him inside me is savage at the hands of my drunken arousal. I’m drunk from the consumed alcohol. Drunk from the love I feel for this man.

My hands devour his strong back, reaching for the hem of his shirt, pulling it up in desperate need to feel his flesh. His assistance in leaning up to grab it from behind and pull it off gifts me with the delicious view of his incredible abs and chest, my fingers greedily consuming every ripple. The perfection of him is sinful.

I’m unable to contain my moans as he grinds into my core, my legs gripping him, begging for more as he glides my shirt up, bending to lick along the exposed flesh. He palms my breast through the lace cup of my bra, massaging it in his grip as his lips find mine once more.

“I’ve been thinking about this for two long weeks,” he mutters, moving to lick and nip along my neck, his words clipping the aura of my euphoric daze.

I’m suddenly falling, crashing down to earth, shattered reality rearing its ugly head. The image of him leaning into Julia’s ear, the flirty smile his whispers evoked flash repeatedly behind my closed eyes, forcing them open to escape the nightmare of what I’ve lost, only to see it head-on laying over me. “Why are you doing this?” the question escapes in my desperate plea to understand.

Confused pain fills his gaze as I attempt to push him off of me.

Tugging my shirt down into place, I sit up, my hands reflexively crossing my chest in protection of my heart. “I know about Julia,” the admission escapes on a whisper.

“What?” he pulls back to look into my eyes.

“I know you chose her.”

“
Chose
her?” his body recoils as though stung by the words. “Aby, there wasn’t a choice to make. You think that after everything that’s happened, knowing how I feel about
you
, that I...”

“Don’t…” I stand to distance myself from him. “I saw the pictures.” I shiver from the visual, from the pain of knowing that even after the choice she made, I lost him to her anyway. “You were holding her closely at your side, smiling at each other…” I look away from him, the images in my mind morphing into the reality of his presence before me.

“You see a few photos of Julia and I, and you draw the conclusion that we’re back together? Aby, that’s ridiculous.”

Ridiculous
? The word slaps me, his use of it reigniting the heat of my alcohol infused blood. “Oh, it was a lovely collage that led to said
conclusion
, particularly the one of you leaning into her ear - the smile she wore from the
sweet nothings
you were whispering may have sealed the deal.”

“And what is it that you think I was saying to her, exactly?” he asks, standing, gripping my arms gently to force my gaze.

“You left the door open for me to think anything my breaking heart wanted to.
Perception is everything
, right?” I bite.

“Jesus, Aby, how little do you think of me?” he searches my held gaze. “It was a peace offering - a negotiated agreement to save face with Julia and the agency before the announcement of my new publicist. Fuck,” he releases me, turning away, running his fingers through his tousled curls before retrieving and donning his shirt.

Feeling suddenly lightheaded, I turn to make my way back to the sofa.

“You
were
with Andrew,” his realization stops me in my tracks.

Oh, God
.

My ambiguous exaggeration of the silly, meaningless kiss jolts through my hazed memory, and I brace myself to face him. “It wasn’t like I made it out to be,” I cringe at the image I portrayed at the club, my body wracking with an extra shiver at the realization that he didn’t believe me at that moment - he would never believe I would do that to him.

“You thought I was with Julia, so you ran to
him
?” The pain in his gaze almost breaks me. “To get back at me?”

“No! It meant nothing.”

“It means something to me,” his body jerks as though I’ve stabbed him with the need to remind me. “Jesus, Aby, what the hell?” he turns to pace the room.

“I haven’t heard from you in two weeks! What did you expect me to think? The photos, the lack of contact…Alex, you didn’t even
try
to call me.”

Guilt flinches in a ripple through his body before he replies, “I
should
have called. I was wrong not to, but I thought I was protecting you from all the shit I was dealing with.”

“Protecting me?” I snicker. “From what? You making a choice between Julia and me? You know what? You’re right, I wouldn’t want to
deal with
that shit
with you.”

“I can’t believe you even thought there was a choice to be made, Aby! After everything we’ve been through,
now
there’s a question of trust? I’ve never once made you question my love for you.”

“You mean, up until the day you left me on the curb?” I question, seething despite his flinch of anger or pain - possibly both.

“Ironic, I know exactly how that feels,” he pauses to take a calming breath. “The difference is, I came back.”

“You’re right, you did come back. However, I remember very clearly how you weren’t able to confirm whether you did, or didn’t still love Julia.”

“Fuck, Aby. I didn’t know what I was saying that day…I could barely think straight. I was emotionally battered. And do you think I couldn’t see the hurt in your eyes? I was trying so hard not to pull you down with me. I was trying to protect you,” he searches my eyes. “Clearly, I failed, and for that I’m sorry,” he looks down, running his fingers through his hair. “My natural instinct was to protect…was yours to
hurt
when you went to Andrew?” his gaze rages a war between anger and pain.

“It wasn’t like that. It just happened. It was a kiss, just a stupid silly kiss...” my words trail off as I witness the pained twist in his gaze at the hands of the visual I’m unintentionally painting.

He can’t even look at me, his jaw clenching, his eyes closing on an intake of breath. “You have no fucking idea the hold you have on me. The last thing I ever thought, with all the shit that I was dealing with, was that you wouldn’t be there at the end.”

Oh my God. How did this get so twisted?
“Alex, I…”

“I have to get out of here before I lose it,” he turns to leave.

“Alex,” I call, chasing after him. He doesn’t turn to face me when I reach the door. “Please, try to understand, I thought we were over. I was hurting…there was alcohol involved,” I mumble the latter, not sure this is the best time to include my current, identical state. “I don’t know what else to say. It was a mistake. I thought…” I trail off.
What did he expect me to think?
“You left me, Alex…”

“You were always mine, Aby,” he spins on his heals, shaking his head. “A short break in time to deal with my shit doesn’t constitute leaving you.”

“A
break
? This isn’t a Goddamn sitcom. I thought I’d lost you!” I scream, my defenses taking over.