The sound of bells wakes me up from the deep slumber I was in. I pick up my phone from the nightstand and turn off the alarm. Six o’clock, unfortunately, came way too soon. With Cal taking me two more times, we barely got any sleep. I try to stand up, but immediately have to sit back down again, my legs wobbly from the overexertion.

“What was that dreadful noise?” I look over my shoulder to see Cal laying on his stomach, his handsome face turned toward me with his eyes still close.

“Sorry, my alarm clock. I have to go get ready.” I sigh and push my hair behind my ears.

“You didn’t bring your stuff here, did you?” he asks with his eyes still closed.

“No, I didn’t. Go back to sleep. I’m sorry I woke you.” I kiss him on the check and rise off the bed.

He rolls over onto his back and finally opens his eyes. “I am sorry I don’t have breakfast ready for you this morning, as I didn’t realize what time you would need to leave. Do you want me to order you a car?”

“No, I can walk. Thank you for the offer.” I am about to walk away from the bed when he suddenly lunges for my wrists and pulls me back onto the bed. He pushes me down, leans over, and pins me to the bed with both of my wrists in his hands.

“I really do not like you walking by yourself in the hotel in that hot dress of yours. I will get you a car,” he demands, his blue eyes and hard body making it hard for me to concentrate.

“Are you forgetting that I still would have to walk from the front entrance through the lobby and casino to get to my room?” I tease.

He narrows his eyes at me, knowing I am right. “I still don’t like it. What about an escort?” I shake my head no. “Maybe I will just have you followed without your knowledge.”

My mouth drops open at his shit-eating grin.

“Listen, I know you need to go, but I have zero doubts that you’re going to be brilliant today. Good luck, and we’ll celebrate you tonight.” He kisses me hard before releasing me.

I lay there for a few seconds, trying to blink back my sanity and calm my pulse that he sets a flutter. Feeling more myself, I get off the bed and head toward the door. “Have fun trying on clothes today.” I smirk at him, secretly wishing I could watch him as I KNOW what a sight that would be. The man would look good in a potato sack.

As I make my way out of the Atrium toward the main hotel, I do look over my shoulder to see if I’m being followed per Cal’s threat. Shaking my head at myself when I don’t see anyone, I continue on my way, learning that 6:30 a.m. is a great time to walk back to your room as barely anyone is in the casino and the lobby is a ghost town. Not worrying that anyone is noticing my disheveled clothing, I smile as memories from last night start to occupy my mind. I order room service for breakfast when I arrive at my room. Once the call has been placed, I undress and get in the shower. The scalding water awakens my senses, and I wince in delicious pleasure as I rub the wash cloth over my sore nipples, down my stomach and over the sensitive areas between my legs. Cal wanting to see me again tonight only boosts my self-confidence and I do a little congratulatory dance for finally having sex since my divorce. I finish my shower, get into the big, fluffy white robe that the hotel provides, and wrap my hair in a towel. I grab my phone to check the time only to see I have a missed call from Robert. I quickly check my email to see if there were any outstanding emails before calling him back.

“Sorry I missed your call, I was in the shower,” I say when he picks up.

“Did you have company?” he asks while I hear him typing on his keyboard.

“Just me, myself and I,” I confirm, as I put him on speaker phone so I can apply lotion to my face and body.

“Yuck, that is a visual I do not want to have. Anyhoo, how are we feeling about today?”

I stick my tongue out at the phone before answering. “Feeling great, ready to get the morning over with.” We go over the rest of my schedule for the conference and for the following week before ending the call.

“That’s all I have on the agenda this morning to talk about. Good luck today, go woman power, and I hate you for not taking me with you as I know today is going to be epic.”

“Love you too, Robert. I’ll call you later.” I hang up the phone just as a knock sounds on my door, indicating room service has arrived. My stomach starts to rumble as my nose gets a whiff of the delicious scents coming from the cart being wheeled in. I sign off on the check, shut the door after the delivery man, and start to read the newspaper that got delivered while I eat.

One hour later, I am fully dressed, with hair and make-up done. I place my laptop in my bag, grab my phone and key card, and leave my room to go to the conference center to check out the layout of the room, and to test the audio-visual equipment for my speech. I am grateful that the walk to the conference center is less than ten minutes, since I am wearing six inch black peep toe Christian Louboutin heels. I know by the end of the speech, my feet will be on fire, but I’m well aware how short I am without the heels, plus they make me feel more confident wearing them. I need all the confidence I can get, as this will be the largest crowd I’ve ever spoken in front of.

One of the organizers greets me at the front of the ballroom and shows me where they prefer I enter and exit. I hand over my USB drive that contains my entrance music, my speech and power point presentation to the audio visual director. We go through everything, making sure all equipment is working and ready to go. With rehearsal done, I’m escorted to one of the waiting rooms. Since I’m there before the doors open, I take advantage of the silence, and go through the copy of my speech one last time. I start to hear murmurs of voices in the hallway that soon escalates to hundreds of voices waiting to get into the ballroom. Fifteen minutes later, an assistant comes to escort me. I walk with her to the side doors of the ballroom, over four hundred people inside waiting for me to inspire and motivate them with new practices that they can use in their businesses. As I hear the MC say my name and my music cues, I take a deep breath, say a little prayer, and smile as the doors open for me to enter, all eyes watching me with anticipation.

* * *

“You were amazing,” one of the organizers whispers in my ear as the doors behind me shut to block out the thundering applause and the standing ovation I so graciously received. I nailed my speech, letting my emotions of my journey flow, showing them my appreciation and sincerity that I wouldn’t be here without them. I then dove right into analytics of my business, and how they can apply some of my general methods to their own. It was by far one of my most successful speeches, and as I look around at the strangers congratulating me, I get a little whimsical of the fact that I’m here all by myself. Maybe I should have brought Robert. A doubt I can never reveal to him. I take a little comfort in knowing that I’ll have Cal to celebrate with tonight. I look at the photos on my phone that the assistant took for me while I made my speech and text them to Robert for him to post on our social media pages.

“How did it go?” he immediately calls as soon as he received the texts.

“I fucking rocked it!” I scream, thankful that no one else was in the waiting room at that moment. “Robert, it was truly amazing. They were up dancing at the music you picked out, nodding their heads in agreement with things I was teaching them, lots of them were even taking notes. Most of them even laughed at my jokes!”

“Now that in itself is amazing since you aren’t even that funny!” he laughs. “Seriously, I am so proud of you and can’t wait to watch the replay!”

“I have to go, I only get an hour break and I have got to get out of these shoes. I’ll call you later.” I hang up with Robert and grab my bag. I normally would have brought a pair of flip flops to wear between sessions, but with so many people around, I didn’t feel that would be professional. I quickly make my way to my room, mentally reminding myself to grab a protein bar just in case I am not a fan of the food they are providing for lunch. I open the door, go to the bedroom, and open the closet doors to find it completely empty. Where is all of my stuff? I start to panic, and pull open the dresser drawers to find those empty as well. I go back into the living room, and look around in complete disbelief that my things are gone. How can this happen in such a reputable hotel? I pick up the phone to report my items stolen, when it suddenly dawns on me that Cal might have had something to do with this and had my belongings taken to his villa. Hoping this is the case, but still mad as hell at the idea of him not talking to me about it, I hang up the phone and leave as fast as my heels will let me.

I storm towards his place and let myself in once I arrival. I hear noises coming from the media room and I stop in the doorway to see Cal playing a video game.

“Did you move my belongings out of my room?” My voice is surprisingly calm.

“Hey, you’re back early! How’d it go?” he pays attention to his video game while asking me.

“Cal, answer my question! Did you move my stuff out of my room?”

My tone of voice catches his attention and he pauses the game to look at me.

“Yes, I did. Everything is in the master bedroom. What’s wrong?”

I ignore his question and run toward the bedroom. Sure enough, my clothes are hanging in the walk-in closet, my undergarments and pajamas in the drawers, toiletries in the bathroom with my jewelry case. I open the case to make sure all of my jewelry is accounted for and sigh with relief to see that it is. I walk back into the bedroom, where Cal is leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed.

“What’s the problem, Jenna?” he raises his eyebrow at me.

“The problem is that you didn’t ASK me if I was okay with complete strangers having their hands on my personal items. Which I’m not! Strange people touching my jewelry, my underwear.” I shudder at the thought of dirty, grimy hands on all of my belongings.

“First off, they were wearing gloves when packing your items and secondly, we talked about moving your stuff here and since you have been busy, I thought it would be helpful to have it done for you. I never intended to upset you, but I told you I didn’t like you walking through the hotel by yourself, going back and forth between my place and yours. This was an easier solution.”

“I think this solution was easier for YOU so I can be at your beck and call whenever you want to fuck,” I angrily say without thinking clearly.

He moves off the door frame swiftly and with two long strides, is in front of me, gripping my biceps roughly. “Don’t do that. Don’t degrade yourself or what we have been doing. We are two consensual adults enjoying each other’s company. Am I wrong?” He intently stares into my eyes, daring me to argue back.

Of course he is right, which irritates me even more. I shake off his arms and turn my back to him to look at the pool. The issues have nothing to do with him, but my guilt for sleeping with someone I just met, and loosing that feeling of control. I haven’t had anyone take care of me since my ex-husband and I have a love/hate relationship with it. Love it because there is nothing sexier when a man can take control without direction and take care of his woman. Hate it because when my husband stopped taking care of me, it left me feeling completely worthless, and I never want to feel that way again. These are my issues, not Cal’s, and my reaction was unfair to his good intentions. I count to ten, take a deep breath and turn back to look at him.

“Can we start over, please?” I ask.

He gives me a questionable look and nods.

“Cal, did you move my clothes from my room without asking me?”

“Yes,” he answers with narrowed eyes, wondering if this is a trick question.

“Thank you so much for thinking of my well-being and organizing the move. If there is any instance of something similar to this happening again within the next couple of days, please feel free to ask me what I think first.” I move toward him, get on my tippy toes, and kiss his cheek.

“Is that it?” he asks skeptically, not believing that I am going to drop the conversation.

“That’s it, unless you feel we need to talk about it more.”

“The only thing I think we need to talk about is how fucking hot you look when you get angry.” His eyes rake over me and stop to appreciate my legs in this short dress. “I need those legs with your heels still on wrapped around me, NOW!” He lifts me up, and I have no choice but to obey his command. He kisses me hard and plunges his tongue into my mouth. I kiss back with equal demand, our emotions from our argument pouring into our kisses.

“Wait,” I eventually break our kiss as he settles me onto the bed. “I don’t know if I have time for this. I am supposed to be on a panel session in ten minutes.” The travel time between rooms ate up most of my lunch break.

“We will be done in five minutes.” He takes off my thong and drops it to the floor. He unbuttons his jeans and releases his massive erection. My mouth goes dry, and my hunger for food dissipates as all I want right now is him inside of me. He slips on the condom, moves my hips closer to the edge of the bed, and plunges into me. I gasp at the slight pain of not being wet enough to accommodate him. He slowly starts moving in and out while fingering me. The combination of his rough hands on me with the slow thrusting builds my desire.

“Harder,” I pant, as I place my hands on his ass to bring him deeper. He removes his fingers from me and places both hands on my hips, bringing me back and forth against his cock. I replace his fingers with my own and continue to rub, my fingers matching the faster pace of his thrusts. I watch him watch our bodies come together, and I completely come undone at the sight of him throwing his head back and yelling out his release. He collapses on top of me, and I wrap my arms around him, not carrying that he is crushing my dress. When our heartbeats start to slow down to their normal pace, he lifts himself up to his forearms and moves my hair off my face.

“If this is what make-up sex with you is going to feel like, then we are going to argue all the time.” I giggle at him, not knowing what we would even argue about after this. He pulls out of me, gets up, and brings his pants up to his hips.

“See, five minutes.” He points at his watch and winks down at me. He grabs my hand to help me get up and hands me my thong. I make my way to the bathroom to freshen up, choosing to ignore the wrinkled state of my dress since I don’t have the time to iron. I give him a quick kiss goodbye, grab my purse and a protein bar to eat on the way, and run back to the conference center.