Three Hot Wishes (Fantasy Come to Life - Magic in the Real World Novel) (21 page)

Angel

I was dreaming. I knew I was dreaming, because Sloane was going down on me, and I figured she was the type of girl who'd need a couple of drinks before that happened.

Drinks. Shit, even halfway submerged in sleep I could feel the funk on my tongue and the terrible taste in my mouth. Last night's bender was going to cost me, that was for sure.

But not yet...

I willed myself back into the dream, concentrating on the silky feel of Sloane's wet, hot mouth as she bobbed her head down onto my cock.

I couldn't help but moan as I reached out for her, winding my bruised fingers into her wild red curls and guiding her.

Not that she needed it. In my dream, Sloane was a sexy little beast, and she quickly taught me that all I had to do was sit back and let her do her thing.

I was getting close. Hell, was I going to cum? My wet dreams had come and gone a long time ago, but I had that same feeling now that I used to have then.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I wanted to finish, but all of a sudden I didn't have a choice in the matter. Sloane turned to smoke and blew away on the wind as I woke up in a hideously bright pool of sunshine spilling through the window onto the bed.

"Mr. Angelino, sir?"

I opened my eyelids a crack and immediately regretted it. "Who is it?"

"It's Marcus."

Right. The doorman.

The suite I lived in was huge, but his voice was right outside my bedroom door.

"Yeah?" I asked, unable and unwilling to take the irritation out of my voice. My family didn't pay this hotel the sort of money they did for the privilege of having doorman wake us up from sex dreams on a whim.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, sir. Please forgive the intrusion, but I took the liberty of letting myself in."

That explained that, I suppose.

Marcus cleared his throat. I felt for the poor guy, obviously in fear for his job. "The front desk sent me up. They've been calling you for half an hour without an answer, and they're worried."

I sighed, sitting up in the bed. I was still in my clothes from last night, and the dream had left me with blue balls and a uselessly stiff cock to go along with my hangover.

Had I really missed a bunch of calls? When I turned my head to check on the phone, it was clear why the ringing hadn't woken me up. It looked like I'd tripped on the nightstand trying to make it into bed. The cord was pulled from the wall, and the lamp was in pieces.

I was probably lucky that I was still wearing my shoes, or else I'd have cut my feet up pretty bad.

That would have been a disaster. A boxer with cut feet is a boxer that can't get out of the way of the punch that's coming to finish him off.

"I'm fine," I called out.

"Yes sir," Marcus said. "I'll leave the note that the front desk sent me up with under the door."

I watched him slide it inside, then heard his footsteps pad away and the main door close and lock behind him as he left.

Once he'd gone, I got out of bed. The lamp was a total loss, but I bent down and plugged the phone back into the wall and then checked my mobile for texts. I'd gotten a few, but nothing important.

Sloane hadn't called.

I frowned, images and snippets of last night coming back to me all at once.

I knew she'd driven, though I couldn't for the life of me remember telling her where I lived.

Wait a minute... I felt my heart bang in my chest as I checked my contacts on my phone as fast as I could. Had I given her my number? More importantly, had I gotten hers?

Knowing where she worked was on thing, but after the events of last night I knew there was no way she was going back to that dive, no matter how badly she needed the money.

And, since it looked like I hadn't put her details in my phone, that meant I was screwed.

I should just give up on her. I knew I should. If she was any other woman, I would have.

Hell, I'd had enough one night stands to know that it was better to cut ties and walk away while you could, no matter how hot the girl was.

But there was something about Sloane that didn't let me forget her quite that easily...

Pissed off at myself for getting drunk and ruining last night and angry at Sloane for abandoning me at the Ritz, I walked over to the note Marcus had left and picked it up.

It was from the Valet, asking if I would please come and inspect the Jag. Apparently, the woman that had dropped me off in it had been in too much of a hurry for their liking. They'd threatened to call the cops unless she provided them idea, which she had.

I threw open the door and headed down without bothering to shower or change. If they'd seen her idea, they'd know more about how I could find her again.

Sloane

Saturday. Even if I still had my job at the bar, which I didn't, I'd have spent the day doing exactly what I was, bending copper wire around crystals and crafting jewelry for my Etsy store.

They sold, at least. I made enough online to pay for my lunches and some of my dance classes, a welcome addition to the tips and wage I'd made at the bar.

Without that job, I didn't know what I was going to do. Ballet ate up so much of my time that the only job that I could really spend enough time at to earn decent money was something having to do with New York's night life.

That wasn't an option anymore. I'd seen the look on Frank's face. He was too afraid of Angel, for whatever reason, to do something to me directly, but he'd badmouth me to every other bar manager and club owner he could.

I was probably already blacklisted even now, which meant that rent was going to be an issue this month and probably an impossibility next month.

With a heavy heart, I finished up the necklace. There'd be time to mail it on Monday. In the meantime, I had to head off to school.

I had class at noon, and when I got to the University a few minutes early I headed for the library of NYU, folding my legs up beneath me in the comfy chairs in the east wing and letting the flow of other students go past me.

I didn't know what to do. I was lost, stuck between a rock and a hard place.

If I tried to lighten my class load I'd lose my scholarship. Without it, I couldn't even afford the books let alone tuition.

"Shit," I whispered, letting my head fall forward into my hands and rubbing at my temples hard enough to make stars appear beyond my shut eyelids.

How did the other students make money? I frowned, looking up and studying the people that meant by, mentally ticking off my guesses at their levels of employment.

Rich kid, rich kid, rich kid, my mind told me, even though I knew that statically that couldn't be true. However they were making their money, I either didn't have the credentials or the time to devote to making what they did.

I swallowed hard, finally letting my mind crawl back to the one thing I'd been avoiding thinking about ever since I'd dropped Angel off at his enormously expensive, terribly pretentious hotel.

There was always stripping. More than a few of the other girls in my dance classes were making damn good money working less hours than I ever had, and all they were doing was strutting their stuff with basic, cheesy moves on shitty stages across New York.

They were always bragging about how easy it was, how great the tips were, how they really were doing that thing that all strippers claimed to be - 'putting themselves through school'.

I could do that, if worse came to worse.

Except I couldn't. I knew there was no way I could bring myself to let those men see me like that, dragging their sweaty gazes up my naked body, leering at me like they owned me.

Not after...

No! I shook my head, unwilling to let those memories resurface.

The worst thing would be seeing their faces as they watched me. The lust in their eyes, the way they'd view me as nothing more than a gyrating piece of meat paraded in front of them for tips and gropes and pickup lines...

I felt sick just thinking about it.

Even if it meant I'd be homeless, there was just no way I was going to let myself be put in that position.

Even if it means you give up your scholarship? Asked that little voice in my head, the one that always had questions I never had answers for. Even if it means crawling back home with your dreams in pieces?

Home. Now there was a place I hadn't thought of in a while, and I sure as hell didn't plan on doing it now.

I pushed myself to my feet. The twenty minute break in my schedule was almost gone.

I left the library and crossed the quad. At least it was a Saturday, which meant that the only students between me and the dance studio were the ones that were pushing their schedules to the limit, just like me.

I passed the notice board, idly scanning the handwritten notes and computer printouts. There was a whole section made up of nothing more than notes to lost loves, full of stuff like 'I saw you on the train, you were wearing a red beret and had a purple bag' and 'you and I shared a laugh and a drink, and then the rain drove us apart before I could get your name.'

In each case, the guy or girl looking for their star-crossed lover left their mobile number.

It was just so sad, and I found myself thinking of Angel. Would I ever see him again?

Did I want to?

I was about to turn away when I saw another paper, bright yellow and flapping enticingly in the wind. Any other day I'd have ignored it, but not today.

Today, I yanked it off the cork board and folded it up in a hurry, intent on reading it more thoroughly after I finished ballet.

Angel

I wrote it all down. Everything he said.

Everything.

There was no telling what part of the valet guy's encounter with Sloane would turn out to be important, and I'd be damned if I let her slip through my fingers once again.

"Alright," I said to him, going down the list. "She dropped me and the Jag off around three in the morning. I was passed out drunk, and she didn't want to say who she was. You thought she might be a criminal who'd gotten me wasted and swiped the car, then maybe got cold feet and dropped me off. So, you made her show you her ID. Right?"

The guy nodded, then pulled out his phone and showed me. Thankfully, he'd had the presence of mind to take a picture of her student card, just in case the police needed to get involved.

I took his phone from him and had a look. There she was, smiling in the picture on her ID. NYU only printed the photo and the students first and last name, but at least now I knew the chick I was starting to obsess over was called Sloane McKenzie.

Maybe that would be enough.

Maybe not.

"Thanks, man," I said to the valet, handing his phone back to him.

What was I going to do now?

I friend of mine was awesome with computers. If she could be found online, he'd probably be able to find her. I got into the elevator and sent him a quick email with her name and what I wanted to know about her.

Once that was done I went back to my penthouse suite and drank a couple of glasses of water. The booze from last night was still making my body feel shitty, but it would hardly be the first time I pushed through a hangover and went down to the gym to train.

Shower.

Shave.

Dress.

That done, I checked my phone. Cole had sent me a text telling me he'd do what he could to find Sloane's address online.

Good. At least things would be moving in the right direction, now. I headed back downstairs and went to the valet.

Once the guy had pulled the car around, he got out and gave me a sheepish smile. "She's short," he said.

I nodded blankly and accepted the keys, sliding a fifty dollar bill into his palm for having the foresight to take a picture of Sloane's NYU ID but not really knowing what he was talking about.

Once I slid behind the wheel though, it all became clear.

All good valets will do whatever they can to not adjust the seats or the steering wheels or whatever, and Sloane had moved the seat just about as far forward as it could go so that she could reach the pedals.

She might be leggy, but that didn't make her tall.

I slid the seat back so that my knees weren't pinned against the steering wheel and turned the key in the ignition.

If I concentrated, I told myself I could smell her perfume in here, and for a moment I did just that, leaning back and closing my eyes as I savored her scent.

Christ, I was getting hard just sitting here thinking about her.

I didn't believe in love. That sort of crap was on the same level as the Tooth Fairy and Santa Clause. I'd certainly told my share of girls I loved them, but that was just to get into their pants.

I sighed, opening my eyes and pulling out onto the busy New York street. The gym wasn't far, but this sort of traffic was going to give me way too much time to think about Sloane.

Was it love?

No. Not yet. That's what I kept telling myself, but I was beginning to worry that my feelings where well on the way.

I reached over and cranked on the radio, trying to use the loud music to chase her out of my mind. I had a fight to get ready for, and last night's drinking was going to make it hard enough to concentrate on jabs and uppercuts, let alone my always problematic footwork.

Ever since I'd thrown my first punch, my coaches had been harping on about my footwork. Dancing in and out of reach of an opponent's fists wasn't my style. It just didn't feel right to me.

I'd always been one to plant my feet and launch bombs, willing to weather the other guy's storm and do as much damage to him at the same time.

It had gotten me into trouble in the past, but that was just me.

I didn't run away. Every poor son of a bitch I'd ever fought knew that I was going to come after them with everything I had.

I suppose that was the same way I was chasing Sloane.

All or nothing.