CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Will
I lift my hand to knock on the doorframe of Teresa’s room, but I pause in the action, literally unable to do anything but stare at her and breathe. God, she’s fucking beautiful. The lamp glow highlights her sun-reddened cheeks, her hair has dried messy from her dip in the river. She’s sitting cross legged on the end of her bed—which she hasn’t and won’t be sleeping in—still wearing the tie-dye dress I bought her today. After we played with Southpaw in the park until late afternoon, we came back to the hotel and now I’m focused on feeding her. But she seems more focused on the laptop she’s holding.
She looks up when I clear my throat. “Hi.”
“Hey.” I walk into the room, noting the way she watches me with an air of anticipation. As if she’s wondering if I’ll push her backwards on the bed and take more of what she gave me in the woods. Make no mistake, after she wrecked me for every other woman today, I want back inside her as soon as possible. Want her bucking and twisting and scratching. I’m more than a little obsessed with this woman, actually. But I have one more night to make my mark, and that requires more than fucking. “I came to ask what you want for dinner.”
I set the room service menu down in front of her and she picks it up, setting it on her laptop keyboard. “Mmm.” She looks up at me through a squinted eye. “Want to get a bunch of appetizers and share them?”
“Read my mind—”
“And then…maybe I can show you some of my work over dinner?” She slaps her hands over her face. “Oh my God, that sounded like a bad pick-up line.”
Laughing, I sit down beside Teresa on the bed and pry her hands off her face. “It would have. If we weren’t well past that point.”
“Are we?” Her face is scarlet. “I’ve got that nervous first date feeling all of a sudden.”
The mere implication that she’s been on dates tightens my skin all over my body. “You don’t seem the type to get nervous about dates,” I manage.
“I would with you, I think,” she says slowly, easing my strain. “If we’d met and gone through that whole process of exchanging numbers and feeling each other out…I think I’d be nervous on our first date.”
She’s hedging because she doesn’t want to show me what’s on the laptop and I’m perfectly content to let her get there in her own time. “Do you really think we could ever go through a patented dating process?”
A beat passes. “No.”
“No.” Leaning in, I drop a kiss on her shoulder. “I couldn’t date you, Teresa. Dating implies I don’t have you locked down. Until we were solid, the gaps between us seeing each other would drive me crazy.”
“Yeah?” She turns her head, bringing our faces an inch apart. “So you would just take me hostage until I agreed to be your…”
“Girlfriend. Yeah.” I’m not sure I’ve ever said that word out loud. It sounds pretty damn good when I’m looking at Teresa. “You wouldn’t realize I was holding you hostage. I’d simply keep inventing reasons for you to stay.”
She tosses her hair back, feigning only mild interest, but I can tell she’s interested as hell. Might have something to do with the pulse going wild at the base of her neck. “What kind of reasons?”
A series of images flips through my mind. Bringing Teresa a glass of champagne while she soaks in my bathtub. Fucking her on hands and knees in front of my fireplace. Stuffing dozens of drawers with ridiculous French underwear for her to wear. This desire to treat someone like a queen is new. It’s specific to her. “If I talk about spoiling you, baby, I’m going to get turned on. And if I get turned on, we’re not going to talk about what’s on that laptop.”
As if on cue, the computer tilts and almost falls off her lap, but I catch it, forcing myself not to look at the screen. Teresa chews on her lower lip, splitting glances at me and what she’s clicking on, until I finally sense her turning the device in my direction. “Okay. Okay, so I work with this girl at the parlor. Mara. She’s kind of an unofficial manager. Doesn’t say much, but her word is law, you know? She’s a single mother with two kids and she takes three buses to get to work.” Her expression warms. “I admire her a lot. She’s tough, but this…good just kind of pours out of her when you least expect it. Once, a customer was giving me a hard time because I cut him off. He owed the house too much already. But he wouldn’t let up. Kept demanding I change his money into chips and he was getting belligerent. Mara grabbed a bag of Lays out of her purse, ripped them open with her teeth and dumped them on his head. ‘There’s your chips, asshole,’ she said.”
We share a quiet laugh. “If she made you feel more safe in that place, I’m grateful for her.”
“Yeah. She did. More than once.” On the screen, the arrow hovers over a movie, Teresa’s finger shaking where it gets ready to click. “I asked if I could follow her around for a day. She took my best shift as payment, but…I—it was worth it.”
She clicks, and images roll. Mara getting her children dressed. Making breakfast. Sitting on the edge of her bed staring into space. Transferring buses. Arguing with a man outside a supermarket. Cursing over a rip in her stockings. Counting poker chips. Rolling her eyes behind a customer’s back. Picking up her children from the babysitter and fawning over artwork they present her.
The film is only about five minutes. Just bites out of a woman’s life. But that’s part of what makes it so poignant. It’s like I know Mara—everything about her—because Teresa found this way to introduce her in a careful, realistic and sensitive way. “Did you edit this, too?”
Teresa snaps the laptop shut and nods, seeming to chance me a look. “Yes.”
I could lead with how perfect and wonderful the short film was, but I want to hear her talk about it first. More than that, I’m interested in her answers. “How did you know which angles to shoot from? Do you try more than one?”
“Sometimes.” She sits up a little straighter. “On the bus, I—”
“She sat in the back. But you shot from the very front.”
“Yeah, I…wanted whoever’s watching to see how easily someone who’s struggling, but so important to their family can just blend in. And seem not important to the casual observer. That’s why I included all the other passengers in the shot.”
“And you almost hid behind the doorframe when she was on the edge of her bed. It was kind of like we weren’t supposed to be there.”
“Yeah,” she breathes. “Exactly.”
“I could feel through the camera what you were thinking.” I shake my head. “Teresa, I’m not an expert, but I doubt there’s a lot of people who can accomplish that. You’re fucking good, baby. Really good.” She ducks her head, but I bring her chin back up. “I can remember every second of it. You did that.”
There’s hope in her eyes when she looks up at me, and I never want to see her looking any other way. “This is the film I sent in with my application.”
“Then you’re as good as accepted,” I respond, with total conviction. “You did mention they have a campus in New York, right?”
We both smile, slowly gravitating toward one another. “I might have.”
I growl, stealing a quick kiss from her mouth. “Go shower. I’m going to order.”
“Second thoughts on the tie-dye ensemble?”
Garnering my will, I climb off the bed and pick up the hotel phone. “Second thoughts about you being dressed at all.” Before I can dial, Teresa bounds off the bed and throws herself into my arms. I don’t even have to think. I just drop the phone and hold her against me, wondering if she can hear my heart hammering.
“Thanks,” she whispers. “Thank you.”
My raw throat won’t let me do anything but nod as she floats away, closing herself in the bathroom.
*
We eat dinner outside, Teresa sitting across from me, framed by the stars and swallowed up in a giant, white hotel towel. When we finish, I leave to take my own shower, and when I return, Teresa has moved inside. She hasn’t seen me yet where I stand in the hallway entrance, drying my hair with a towel. There’s one around my waist, too, but my thickening cock is about to dislodge it. I don’t just want Teresa again. I need her with a vengeance. One quickie in the woods with this woman and my definition of sex has changed, never to be reverted.
We’re at such ease with each other since this afternoon, I’m having a hard time believing she could say no to us flying back to New York together. But I’m not taking any chances. I’ve bought myself some time. She’s not going anywhere tonight and I’m not going to push for answers right now when the mood between us is relaxed. Trusting.
Yeah, she’s sprawled out in a shit-load of pillows on the living room floor, wearing nothing but the white hotel robe, her hair still a touch damp from a shower. She’s got a glass of wine in one hand, scratching Southpaw’s belly with the other while he rumbles with delight.
This is what contentment feels like. I’m not giving it up.
Haven’t I learned throughout my life that actions speak louder than words? I’m going to spend the rest of tonight showing her what we’d be like together. Show her what I do with the trust she gives me.
Like that little fantasy of hers she confided.
Anticipation sends blood rushing south to my dick…and as if she can hear my flesh stretching and growing swollen, Teresa looks at me over her shoulder. Just as quickly, her gaze falls to my towel and the full salute I’m giving her beneath.
“Has dessert arrived?” She sips her wine. “I’m usually more of a chocolate girl.”
Woman, you are locked down. I watch the way her robe gapes, teasing me with a sexy view of her right tit and lust begins to expand my lungs, my blood. I’d like to knock the wine out of her hand, flip her onto her stomach and take the razor’s edge off my need, but I’ve got a plan for tonight. One I hope will satisfy her and convince her she can trust me. She can. So I only allow a smile to play around my mouth as I join her in the living room, sitting on the edge of the couch. The position puts her eye level with my lap, and it doesn’t escape my notice how she squirms a little, wetting her lips.
So I lean back and grip myself through the terry cloth. “I could take this down to the bar and have a drink. Wait for you to arrive.” Cataloguing her reaction, I slide my palm over the curve of my cock. “You could be the girl I ordered.”
“Could I?” she whispers.
“Only if you want to be.” Adjusting myself to one side, I lean forward and reach out to cup Teresa’s chin. “Teresa, you already know I’d rather everyone in the room—in any room—treat you with respect. I’d rather walk in with my hand on your back and hold out a chair for you. But acting like we’re something else in front of strangers we’ll never see again…in order to get you off good and hard? Woman, I’ll do what it takes and enjoy the fuck out of it.”
A few beats pass and she drains her wine, which would make me laugh if my cock wasn’t throbbing like a bastard against my stomach.
“What if I want to stop?”
“Then you tell me to stop. I will.” My thumb traces her cheekbones, my heart booming when she leans into the touch. “And I’ll bring you upstairs for chocolate cake.”
She blows out a breath. “With ice cream?”
“A gallon of that shit.” Her mouth opens and I let my thumb tuck inside. “We don’t have to do this, Teresa. I could lay you down on that carpet and sink my tongue in so deep between those thighs, you’ll scream your throat raw.”
“God, Will.” Her eyes glitter. “The way I let you speak to me.”
“Let me?” I ease off the couch and drop to my knees, putting me a good foot above her. “If I stopped speaking to you how I do, you’d hate it.”
“Maybe. Let’s not find out,” she murmurs, head tipping back to look up at me. “I always thought this would stay in my private thoughts. Playing it out in real life never occurred to me. Not until you.”
“I’m telling you, baby. Chocolate cake and—”
“Your tongue. Believe me, I remember.”
“I was going to say ice cream, you pervert.”
A laugh breaks free of her lips and hits me right in the stomach. “No, I’m not backing out. I…oh my God.” She slaps a hand over her eyes. “I think I’m excited.”
I lean down and laze my tongue into her mouth, rubbing it against hers until she moans, her fingers climbing my bare abdomen, like she’s unconscious of the action. “How far do you want to take it, Teresa?”
Thoughts zoom behind her eyes. “I trust you to know how far to take it.” A crease forms between her brows. “I…trust you.”
My pulse goes fucking wild. Not throwing her down on the carpet is growing harder by the second, so I stand up, helping Teresa to her feet. “I’ll get dressed. After I leave, give me fifteen minutes before you follow.” I tip up her chin, waiting until she’s focused on me, our breaths matching. “You come straight to me. As far as you’re concerned, there are no other men in the room. That’s my only rule.”
She goes up on her toes, her eyes steady on mine. “I think…you being the only man in any room where I’m standing is a given, Will. It’s just you.”
I’m left with my heart lodged in my throat as she goes to change.