RISK (10 page)

Ellie

"You're sure you don't mind, Nolan?" Tilting my head back, I look up at him. "You'd tell me if this wasn't a good idea, wouldn't you?"

"Why would I mind?" His blue eyes sparkle as the headlights from a taxi turning a corner in our direction cast a glow over his face. "I told you I was up for drinking old coffee and eating dirt. I trust that this is better than that."

"They make the best burgers in Manhattan." I gesture toward the street cart. "I missed these so much when I was out in Vegas. I've been craving one since I got back."

"What are we waiting for?" He takes a measured step toward the long line as his gaze darts up to the concise menu printed on a white board near the cart's window. "They've got a few different burgers. What are you in the mood for?"

I smile at the question. Obviously, he's talking about the menu, but ever since Nolan picked me up, I've been in the mood to ditch dinner so I can be alone with him. He's dressed just as he always is, impeccably. Tonight it's charcoal slacks and a light blue button down shirt in the same shade as the sundress I'm wearing. He had a suit jacket on when he knocked on my door, but he slid it off after I asked if I could change our dinner plans.

He tossed the jacket to his waiting driver along with instructions to stay put. He didn't hesitate for a second when he fell into step beside me as we walked the three blocks to this spot.

"We can split a cheeseburger," I suggest. "The fries are amazing. Can you get an order of those too and maybe a bottle of water?"

His eyes flick over my face. "I got paid last Friday. I can spring for two burgers."

I laugh. "I usually only eat half. I save the other half for the next day."

"I'll get one cheeseburger, two fries and two bottles of chilled water." He holds up two fingers in the air. "Fries are my weakness."

"Fries and blue bubble gum ice cream are your weaknesses."

He reaches forward, resting his hands lightly on my bare shoulders as he leans down so his lips are level with mine. "Fries, blue bubble gum ice cream, and a beautiful redhead are all my weaknesses, but not in that order."

"The ice cream trumps the fries?"

"No." He skims his lips over mine in the softest kiss. "Ellie trumps everything. You're proving to be my biggest weakness."

"Me?" I draw in a deep breath, my lips craving another taste of his. "How am I your biggest weakness?"

"I gave up a table at my favorite restaurant and a bottle of the best wine I've ever had to eat half of a burger on a street corner with you."

"You said you didn't mind." I tilt my head to the side. "You won't regret it after your first taste. I promise."

His eyes fall to my lips. "I have no doubt about that."

***

"Adley invited a few people from the clinic she works at over for drinks." I sigh as I rest my phone in my lap. "Unless you want to eat ice cream with an audience, my place won't work for dessert."

He takes a healthy bite of what's left of his half of the burger. By the time I'd finished my meal, he was just digging into his.

After he had picked up the food, we'd sat in two white folding, wooden chairs next to a small table in an area set up to accommodate patrons of the different food carts. While I bit into a fry, he talked about the man who had served the food to him. He's the same man who used to work this cart when Adley and I were fresh out of high school. His smile is infectious, and if you spend just a minute or two talking to him, he'll add a homemade butter cookie wrapped in cellophane and tied with blue ribbon to your tray at no charge. Nolan got two.

When he suggested we go back to my place to eat some of the ice cream he brought over last night, I eagerly agreed. It might have been an easy way to get me to ask him to hang out after dinner, but it was my intention all along. I sent Adley a text telling her to get lost for a few hours. That's when she clued me into the last minute party she's hosting.

"I have a place we can go to," he offers just as he brings the water bottle to his lips.

He didn't say it was
his
place. He said it was
a
place.

Tad had a place he took women to. All the women he fucked that weren't engaged to be married to him. I found out about his secret hotel suite two months after he stopped talking to me. It was completely by chance, and if things hadn't worked out the way that they did, I would have dumped him myself after realizing that he wasn't spending his Tuesday and Thursday nights playing basketball with his buddies. He was in a luxury suite in the Lunar Hotel, just off the Vegas strip, with whatever woman caught his eye that day.

His assistant had been on maternity leave when Tad unilaterally decided that our engagement was over. The day she came back to work, she called me, thrilled that Tad had continued the tradition of ordering a dozen red roses each Tuesday and Thursday for me while she'd been away. A quick check of the delivery address and the name of the florist was all the information I needed from her. I spent the next hour fitting together the pieces of Tad's double life.

My fiancé had a standing order in place to have a bouquet delivered to his suite at the hotel at eleven o'clock two nights a week so that the woman that he'd spent the evening screwing would have a memento to take home with her. By the time she got the flowers, he'd be on his way to our condo to get into bed with me.

The florist told me that the flower deliveries had started just a month after we moved to Las Vegas. I wouldn't have uncovered that fact if the florist herself hadn't just realized the day before I stopped at her shop that her husband had been unfaithful to her. She was emotional. I was pushy and it ended with her breaking the shop's promise of privacy to tell me all about Tad's deliveries.

My intuition told me never to stop using condoms with Tad even when he insisted. I'm grateful I listened to it.

"Are you one of those millionaires that have a hotel suite that you only use for sex?" I ask because I have a right to know if I'm going to share my body with him.

His mouth twitches. "Is that how you see me?"

I can't tell if the question is serious or not, so I err on the side of caution and put a different spin on it. "You seem like the type of man who would have a neutral and safe place to take women to."

"No." He shakes his head firmly. "I was talking about you thinking I'm a millionaire."
              I try to hide my smile behind my hand. "Millionaire. Billionaire. What's the difference?"

"Hard work and a good accountant."

"Are we going to a hotel, Nolan?" I blurt out, wanting this part of the conversation to be over. It doesn't matter where he's taking me. I'll go. I want to go. I just don't want to get there without having the chance to mentally prepare myself for what I'm stepping into.

He reaches for my hand, scooping it into his. He lifts it to his mouth. His lips feather over my palm in a touch that sends shivers down my spine and arousal to my core at the promise of more. "Trust me, Ellie. We're not going anywhere near a hotel tonight."

Nolan

Ellie threw a wrench in my plans as soon as she brought up fucking
.
Not only was it a wake-up call to my already semi-hard cock, but it was also a moment of clarity.

After she had told me her roommate decided to throw an impromptu party, I decided we were going to my suite at the Bishop Hotel. It's the only place I've taken a woman to in years. It's fully equipped with everything I need. A box of condoms, a bottle of lubricant, a change of clothing for me and most importantly, an unspoken understanding with the staff that I require and expect discretion, always and completely.

I saw the anxiety marking Ellie's expression when she asked me about a hotel. There wasn't a trace of the playfulness that I always see on the faces of the woman I pick up at clubs or bars. Those women know when I tell them where we're headed that my expectation is clear. I'm not taking them to a luxury suite at one of Manhattan's premier hotels to do anything other than fuck.

Those experiences are empty. They've always been a way to quench the thirst for pleasure. I give, I take, and then I say goodbye. It's fleeting and final. It fits perfectly into the spot I've carved out for it.

I fuck at the Bishop Hotel. I feel in my apartment.

"Is my jaw on the floor?" She runs her fingers over her chin. "Is there a better view in Manhattan than this?"

I take a spot next to her in front of one of the large windows that overlook the city. The views of the city are spectacular, but right now they can't hold my attention. I stare at Ellie. Her hair is loose tonight, a cascade of long red curls down her back. Her dress is simple, but flattering. The straps thin enough to showcase the subtle curves of her shoulders, and the smooth skin of her arms. "I have the best view anywhere right now."

She tilts her head up at me. Suspicion wrapped in doubt is there in her eyes, but a faint smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. "Have you always been this charming?"

"It's not charm, Ellie. I'm telling it like it is."

Her gaze drifts across the room. She kneads her hands together, her top teeth pulling at the corner of her bottom lip. I want to feel that. I want those teeth on my lips, on my skin and after I've felt her come on my mouth, I need to feel the scrape of those teeth on my cock.

"Do you always tell it like it is?"

"I try to," I admit with a nod of my chin.

"I guess that means I should tell it like it is too."

There's a subtle challenge woven into her silken words. She narrows her eyes as if she's studying me with the intent of finding the most vulnerable part of me. Right now, it's my cock, hard as nails, aching from tip to root.

"Tell it like it is, Ellie," I volley back because I like the game. I like that she's not in a rush to fuck. She's biding her time, setting the pace. It's an experience I'm not accustomed to.

"I know your secret," she whispers with a lift of her brow.

I try to retain my composure, but it's a battle I can't win. I stare at her, in silence, dumbfounded by her words.

She knows my secret. One of my secrets. I have many, too many.

"There are clues all over your apartment." Her mouth quirks.

"Clues?" I scratch the back of my head. This game of cat and mouse would be infinitely more enjoyable if I were the cat and she played the role of the mouse, but that doesn't suit her. She's the one tugging on the string waiting for me to take the irresistible bait. "What clues?"

She leans closer so the seductive scent of her hits me. My body's response is feral. A fierce desire burns inside me to push her against the window. I want to fuck her until her secrets are mine. I want to punish her for playing with me. I need her as bare and exposed as I feel.

"There's a picture on top of your piano of Crew holding a small baby in a pink blanket. It looks like it was taken in a hospital room. It must be his niece in his arms." She flashes a smile at me. "Crew looks younger in it. I'd say it was taken a few years ago."

A few years ago, indeed. Five years, three months, twelve days.

"I saw a black marker on the table in the foyer." Her eyes drift past me to the hallway that leads back to the door she followed me through. "It's permanent, but not really. The ink fades once water hits it."

The dots she's connecting make perfect sense to her. The scattered unframed pictures on the piano I never learned how to play, the black permanent marker left near the door by a delivery man with a tight schedule and an absent mind. He handed me the pen. I signed for the package and by the time I was pulling a ten dollar bill from my pocket to offer him, he was back on the elevator.

"You said that the person who wrote on your hand wasn't a woman or a man. That only leaves the possibility of a child."

My chest expands. The air in my lungs stalls as I wait for her next words.

"Crew's niece wrote it when she came to visit you." She smiles. It's obvious she can't help it. I see the relief on her face. I hear it in her voice. The uncertainty about the message on my palm was her last thread of resistance. "That ladybug earring you had on belonged to her, didn't it? Little girls love pretty things."

Seconds pass and I don't say a word. I've never discussed this with a woman. Not even with Shelby and the two other women I saw more than once. I kept everything neutral, only giving meager details about my life as I dressed after rolling off the sheets and away from them.

This is why I only take women to the hotel. I need that barrier between my world and them. I don't want them stumbling into my real life. I'm not looking for impromptu deliveries of home baked goods from a woman I fucked and forgot. I don't want the complications that come when a woman shows up at my place in lingerie expecting a repeat.

There was a time when that worked for me, but no more. Not now.

I'm giving Ellie more of a glimpse into who I am than I have with anyone else, yet it still feels trivial. I should explain everything before I have her. Tell her who she's really sharing her body with.

"Can I tell you one of my secrets?"

"Yes," I say hoarsely, as eager to hear her confession as I am desperate to move the conversation away from me. "Tell me."

She looks up at me, her mouth curving into a small smile. "I'm relieved that a woman didn't write those words on your hand."

If she thinks that's a secret, I need to explain the meaning of the word to her. The relief that she felt was written all over her face. It was there in her body language.

She shakes her head. "I'm not saying that I think this is an exclusive thing. I don't. I know that we're probably going to have sex tonight and that doesn't mean you won't be having sex with other women tomorrow or that I won't be having sex with other men this week or whenever."

"What men?" I cock my head to the side, the bitter unfamiliar taste of jealousy coating my tongue, forcing the question out.

"It doesn't matter," she answers quickly on a sigh. "I was trying to say that I won't sleep with a man if he's in a serious relationship with someone else. If a woman loved you enough to brand your hand, even temporarily, you might love her back. I'm glad that it wasn't a woman who wrote it."

"What men, Ellie?"

"I don't know." She shrugs. "I wasn't talking about a particular man, Nolan. I was talking in general terms about having sex with other men."

I swear to God my vision is blurring from frustration. Why can't she give me a straight answer, and more importantly, why the hell do I care?

I've been in bed with women I know for a fact were fucking other men the night before I got my turn and I never gave them another thought. One of my friends from college married a woman he screwed an hour after I did at a frat party. I didn't think twice about it. I went to their wedding with a gift from their registry in my hands. I've never given two shits about what guy a woman fucked before or after she's been with me.  Right now, the only thing I want is Ellie to tell me who the hell else she wants.

"Are you planning on fucking River?" I ask in an even tone. This is an adult conversation and I can act like a goddamn grown-up when I have it.

"Why are you bringing him up?" Her hands jump to her hips.

"I'm bringing him up because that son of a bitch couldn't keep his eyes off your ass last night."

"He was looking at my ass?"

How the hell is this conversation even happening? My face should be firmly planted between her thighs by now, my hands all over that ass. Instead, we're discussing another man's fascination with her body.

I rub at my forehead. "Are you going to sleep with River or not?"

"I haven't even said yes to his dinner invitation yet."

Fucking hell.

"He asked you out?" My voice sounds strangled. It's a reflection of how my cock feels.

She tucks her hair behind her left ear. "He sent me flowers today and on the card there was a cute poem. He made up a rhyme about taking me to dinner in the form of a poem."

"A poem?" I repeat back, trying to absorb the idea that he wrote her poetry. I bought her half a burger and some fries. "So you're going out for dinner with River after you've had dinner with me?"

"Are you talking about actual dinner?" She purses her lips. "Or are you using dinner as a euphemism for sex?"

I lost my virginity when I was a teenager. Since then, I've never once met a woman I craved this much who I spent this much time talking to before I fucked her. Ever.

"I don't use anything as a euphemism for sex." I cross my arms over my chest. "When I talk about fucking, you'll know it. There will be no doubt."

"In that case, I haven't decided if I'll have dinner with River or not," she pauses. "The poem he wrote was very sweet."

"I'll write you something too."

"You'll write me a poem?" She laughs. "I can't wait to read it."

I've never written a woman a poem. I wouldn't know where to fucking start.

"I told you that I'm nothing like River. It's not poetry, but it's something."
I turn on my heel and head to the foyer. I pick up the black marker, unsure if it will even work after all this time. As I approach Ellie, I catch sight of her against the backdrop of the view of Manhattan.

My city, the very first love of my life, is there paling in comparison to the beauty of this woman. This woman who fell into my lap and my life and who I can't stop thinking about even though I've never really kissed her.

I reach for her hand and she gives it easily. I turn it over, pulling the cap off the marker with my teeth. I let it drop to the floor. I write on her skin while she watches my every move.

When I'm done, I toss the pen onto the piano.

Ellie looks down at her palm. She swallows hard and then, without a word, she grabs the front of my shirt, rises to her tiptoes and brushes her lips over mine.