Love, Chloe

  “Chloe.” There was such torture in his voice, such unexpected pain, that I opened my eyes. I could see his whole face, the tight line of his jaw, the piercing stare that had pinned me from the first moment we’d met. “Chloe,” he repeated, so soft it was almost air.

  “Yes?” I should have said something else. Vic, get off me. Vic, you’re an ass. Vic, I watched you fuck her and our future, all in that minute in time.

  “I need you to want this.”

  I wanted it. I wanted it so badly that I was already wet. I wanted it so badly that my fingers twitched against my side, wanting to reach forward and grip his suit. I wanted it so badly that I looked at him and said nothing. Prayed he would turn and walk away because I wasn’t strong enough to just say no. I closed my eyes, knowing he’d see desire in them. “Please, Vic. Don’t.” It was the best I could do, the best my weak voice could manage. And still … it sounded sexual. A plea for more instead of for less. Please, Vic. Don’t. Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop chasing me.

  My skin jumped when the soft skin of his lips trailed down the side of my neck, a light skim of pressure, hot breath floating out between his lips, his journey occasionally punctuated by a kiss. Then, he moved from my mouth and to the place that always weakened my resolve, a hand settling on my hip as he pushed a gentle kiss on my forehead.

  “I need you to want this,” he whispered through the kiss, his hips against me, showing me exactly how much he wanted it.

  And that was the other problem. He didn’t need me to just want hot passionate trailer-shaking sex. He needed me to want forever, too.

  I lifted my fingers, running them up his arms, across his broad shoulders, and dug my hands into hair I had missed. His eyes met mine for one last moment of hesitation, and then his mouth crashed down onto mine. And there, in that frantic collision of tongues, I found my Vic. A man who took the lead, his fingers greedy as they ran down my body and up my legs, pushing my skirt up, my ears registering the sound of his belt as he yanked at its buckle.

  “Wait,” I gasped out the word in between kisses. “We can’t, not here.” It was a waste of words. This was the man who finger-banged me in a crowded theater, then threw enough cash at the manager to have the auditorium cleared so he could do a better job with his cock. This was the man who bent me over the kitchen sink at his parents’ house during Thanksgiving dinner, the faint sounds of conversation floating down the hall as his hand covered my mouth and his hips pounded against my ass.

  “Are you kidding? Joey Plazen would get down on his knees and suck me off right now if I told him to.” He gritted out the words as he yanked down my panties, his mouth greedy on my neck when I turned my mouth away from him. “No one’s coming in.”

  My response died when he got past my panties, his fingers pushed inside causing my knees to buckle. Two years of sexual history had taught the man exactly how, when, and where to touch me. In the last months of our relationship, that had felt like a problem. Too formulaic. But now? When his other hand got his belt loose and his pants unzipped? It didn’t feel like a problem. It felt like Pompeii: no point in running, no point in fighting. I slid my hand under his jacket and gripped his shirt, spreading my feet slightly and tilting my pelvis, his mouth lifting off my neck, his eyes hard on me as he pulled his fingers out and pushed the full length of himself inside.

  I cried out his name on the first thrust. Let him lift up one of my legs and wrap it around him on the twentieth. Ripped an expensive button on his shirt off when I came. Sank in his arms when he followed suit. He lifted me, our bodies still connected, and laid me down on Joey’s couch. Pulled up my panties as he kissed my thighs, then my stomach, then my neck.

  I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. I couldn’t bear to see myself reflected in those eyes. I curled onto my side, and wanted to take it back. I closed my eyes, my cheeks against the cool leather of Joey’s couch, and prayed he would just leave.

  Then, when he did, the door quietly shutting behind him, I wanted him back.

  Life might be a bitch, but love? She kicked that bitch’s ass.

  “So when did you start banging the finance guy?” Joey’s voice boomed out, and I rolled over on his couch and lifted my head, meeting his eyes, ones that twinkled in amusement. “He’s not the finance guy. He’s my ex.” I said tartly, sitting up and pulling down my skirt, my panties still damp when I crossed my legs. Thank God I was on birth control. One thing that hadn’t changed about Vic—he always did like to leave his mark. Vic. Oh my God. I closed my eyes in shame.

  “Your ex is also the movie’s newest investor,” Joey remarked, leaning against the same wall where I had lost my common sense.

  “Of course he is,” I responded dully. “Was that the reason for your fawn session?” I smirked.

  Joey raised his eyebrows at me, and I shut my mouth. It really wasn’t the time for me to be throwing jabs. “I must say,” he remarked, a grin taking over his handsome face, “you’ve got a hot fuck-me voice.”

  “A what?” I glared at him.

  “You know … the moans, the screams, the way you called his name?” He winked. “It was hot.”

  I groaned, pushing to my feet. “Please tell me you’re joking.” I wasn’t that loud. I couldn’t have been that loud.

  “Don’t worry. Nobody else heard.” He moved off the wall, scooping my purse off the floor and passing it to me.

  I thought of the calls from Vic over the weekend. “When did he sign on to invest?”

  “Friday. Twenty-five mill.” He raised his eyebrows. “First, he drilled me over whether we were dating.” He smirked. “Your ex must have some liquidity, Chloe. Investing in the movie just to keep tabs on you.”

  “My ex’s dad has liquidity. Vic just has … access.” When I had dated him, he hadn’t yet turned twenty-five. But now, he had full access to his trust. The Vic I’d dated had thrown cash around like confetti. I couldn’t even imagine a Vic with the coffers opened wide. This investment was probably interest on his bank balance. I stepped toward the door. “Sorry about the whole…” I waved my hand in the generic direction of our activity, not sure how to put it into appropriate words.

  “This trailer has seen worse.” He laughed, then grew serious. “Chloe, I really need this movie to work. We need his money to make it work. Nicole needs it too.”

  I laughed. “Nicole is the last person I care about, Joey.”

  “What about me?” he asked. “Do you care about me?”

  “We’ve been friends for a month, Joey,” I shot back. “I dated that asshole for two years. Do you know what he—”

  “Oh please, Chloe,” he cut me off. “There’s obviously something between you two or you wouldn’t have been howling his name within five minutes of me leaving.”

  I bit my lip and looked toward the door.

  “Just … please.” His voice dropped. “Don’t do anything to piss him off.”

  My hand was heavy when I pushed on the trailer door, my exit done without a response. I didn’t know what to say, a hundred different emotions coming as I wove around cameras, stepped over cords, and slunk through the shadows of trailers. I climbed the steps to Nicole’s trailer and said a silent prayer of thanks that she was shooting in Brooklyn. At least I’d have a place of privacy, a moment to recover.

  I opened the door to her trailer and stepped inside, my eyes hitting the giant vase of flowers, a mountain of roses and orchids. My hand grabbed the card before my brain had a chance to stop it.

  It’ll always be us, Chloe. Our souls are connected for eternity.

  I love you.

  I sank onto the floor, leaning against the door, the card dropping from my hands, and cried. Wondered, through the tears, how early in the day Vic had ordered the arrangement. Wondered if he had known, placing the order, that I was going to let him touch me, let him inside of me.

  Of course he had.

  He was Vic. I was Chloe. It was done.

  Confession of the gu
ilty party brings a certain amount of trust to a situation. Being caught doesn’t have the same effect. If Vic had come to me during our relationship, and told me that he had slept with his maid—I would have forgiven him, believed his regrets and trusted him not to do it again. It was the deception that killed me, that had carried me through so many weak moments. The affair had only stopped because I had caught him, and forced his hand. If he had stopped it on his own, un-coerced, and been honest … that would have made all the difference.

  We would have never broken up. And I wouldn’t be here, working for her, and struggling with this guilt.

  I could tell Clarke. I could mail him a letter spelling out his wife’s deceit.

  Instead I watched, hoping that Nicole would do the right thing. And I prayed that when he did find out, that I wouldn’t be there to see the moment. I couldn’t stand the thought of looking into his face and seeing that pain.

  “This is stupid.” That encouraging comment came from Benta, who was using her iPhone’s camera as a mirror to apply mascara.

  “It’s not stupid. It’s smart. If Carter’s there, he’ll see Chloe looking smoking hot.” Cammie winked and handed me a lipstick. “If he’s not, no harm no foul. Just another night out.” Cammie reached over to rub Dante’s arm. He nodded noncommittally.

  “Dante?” I pressed from my spot behind him. “Is this stupid or smart?”

  His eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “His friend owns the place?”

  “Yeah. I saw him headed that direction, dressed like he was going out.” I repeated the same facts we’d already dissected ten times.

  He shrugged. “Fifty-fifty chance he’s there.”

  I sighed. “I know the odds. I want to know if I’m going to look pathetic showing up there.”

  He laughed. “Right now? Yes, you look pathetic. But he’s not going to know all this underhanded plotting you guys got going on. He’s only going to see you there, partying. He won’t figure it out.”

  “Puh-lease.” Benta had moved on to lip-gloss. “He’ll figure it out.”

  “No,” Dante said, stronger. “He won’t. We don’t think like you do. He will see you, want to fuck you, and that will be the end of that.”

  “Well that’s just stupid,” Benta grumbled, tossing her phone and her gloss into her bag.

  “Men are stupid.” Dante laughed, running his hand up Cammie’s thigh as he made a right turn. “We focus on sex, food, and how to have more sex. That’s all we are about.”

  “And love,” Cammie said pointedly.

  I drowned out whatever sappy response he gave, rolling down the window and tossing out my gum. Love was what got me into trouble in the first place. Love should be less stubborn. It should listen to red flags and reason. It should learn from past mistakes and guard itself from future ones.

  I loved Vic. I thought I would always love Vic. But I couldn’t be with him. Pure and simple, no matter what my libido said—I couldn’t do it. It was stupid of me to fall into his traps, to let him buy his way into BLL, into my daily life, in hopes that he could win me back. Despite what happened last week, I was not winnable. I would not come back. I was single and happy, and tonight, I was moving on. Hopefully with ridiculously hot superintendent sex. Now those were four words I never expected to say.

  The prior night, I’d stood at Carter’s door like a total stalker and put my ear against it, listening for a hint as to what was going on inside. Silence. That was what was inside. I almost knocked. I was horny and trying to ignore thoughts of Vic and wanted something, anything. Even if it was just someone to talk to. But I didn’t knock. I stood there for a full ten minutes debating, then I returned to my apartment. Pulled open my top drawer and reached for my vibrator. Wasted forty-five minutes on something Carter could have knocked out in five.

  I didn’t want another vibrator night.

  Hopefully Dante was right, and boys were naïve, and if we did see Carter, it would seem random and fated—not like the devious plan of three girls and a lot of tequila shots.

  Benta pushed at my hand and I glanced over, seeing the flask she offered. I took it with a smile, twisting off the top, quietly stealing a strong sip. Her arms wrapped around my neck and she hugged me. “It’s a stupid plan,” she whispered in my ear.

  “I know,” I whispered back.

  “But we can be stupid together.” She giggled, giving me a last squeeze and then let go, crawling over the center console to twist the radio dial, blasting hip hop through the car.

  The music was loud, their energy infectious, and neither distracted me when my phone rang. I fished it out of my pocket and looked at the display. Vic. I silenced the phone and considered, in a moment of tequila-fueled insanity, rolling down the window and chucking it out. It would have been deliciously dramatic. A clear sign to my subconscious that I was done with Vic. It also would have been as stupid as me chopping off my right arm. I tightened my grip on my cell and stuffed it back in my pocket. Pasted a smile on my face and looked away from the window.

  Benta stared at me, her eyes narrowed.

  “What?” I gave her an innocent face.

  “Do I need to take your phone?”

  My hand tightened on my cell for one weak moment. Then I pulled it out and handed it over. “Yes. Please.”

  I wouldn’t have listened to his voicemail. Wouldn’t have let, whatever he said, influence me or affect the night. I wouldn’t have, a few drinks later, huddled in a corner of the bar and called him. Told him through tears and alcohol, that I still loved him. That I still missed him. That I wanted him and our old life back.

  I was sure I wouldn’t have done any of that. But, just in case, I let Benta hold on to the phone. Sometimes we all needed protection from ourselves.

  I’d been to Whiskey Bravo before, knew the relative location of the ladies room and deck, but we got pulled in by the crowd and ended up upstairs, in a dark corner that I’d never seen. There was an open table there, and we pounced on it. My clutch stuck in between my knees, the stool cool against the back of my thighs, an air vent blew right down, flattening my hair in a manner that couldn’t be attractive. But it was a table. And in a hot bar, on a Friday night in New York, you took a seat, wherever it was.

  “HAVE YOU SEEN HIM?” Cammie yelled across the tiny table at me, her voice barely audible over the music and the wheezing air vent.

  I shook my head, saving my voice.

  “WE’RE NEVER GOING TO FIND HIM HERE,” she continued, Benta covering her right ear as she shot Cammie an irritated look. The poor woman. Stuck in the middle of us, she’d be deaf by dawn.

  “Who are you looking for?” The voice didn’t have to shout; it spoke at my ear, the tickle of breath delicious against my skin, and I craned around, looking up into Carter’s face. I smiled.

  “Hey.” My greeting got lost in the noise and he lowered his head, putting his ear to my mouth. “Hey,” I repeated and wanted to bite into his neck and suck him into my soul. Someday, when we were babysitting grandchildren, this would be the story I’d tell. The day eloquent Grandma said “Hey,” while stuffed into the corner of a crowded club.

  “Been here long?”

  I shook my head and my cheek hit his mouth. His hand reached out and settled on my bare knee, the touch electric. I tried to draw in a breath without shaking. God … his touch. It brought to mind his push of me back on his dining room table. The moment during the night when he trailed his fingers across my arm. His mouth, buried between my legs…

  “Who are you looking for?” He repeated the question from earlier and I pulled back a little, tilting my head up and looking into his eyes.

  I opened my mouth, and honesty fell out. “You.”

  His eyes smiled, and his mouth twitched. I gripped the edge of the table and kept myself from reaching for him. “Want to get out of here?”

  “Yes.” He couldn’t have heard me but he read my lips and squeezed my knee, running his hand up to my hip, and h
e helped me off the stool. Leaning across the table he shook Benta’s hand, then Cammie’s, introducing himself while never letting go of me, his hand at my back, keeping me in place at his side.

  “I’m stealing Chloe,” I heard him shout to them. “Is that okay?”

  “FOR TONIGHT?” Cammie hollered back.

  He looked at me and grinned, a moment of silent connection, a moment where the din of the bar faded and we had—in that brief second—something. He looked back at Cammie and the connection was broken. Then he leaned into her, whispering something in her ear, and her eyes widened slightly at me, her hand passing over my phone.

  I snuck a look at it as Carter shouldered through the crowd, a text from Cammie coming just as I dismissed the missed call alert from Vic.

  He said “for as long as she’ll let me.” He’ll steal you for as long as you’ll let him. I think he’s a keeper.

  I almost missed her second text, it coming through right as I went to lock my phone, and I smiled when I saw it.

  P.S. Use protection. Hopefully Magnums.

  49. Heartbreak Red

  We stepped away from the club, his hand settling on my back, the slow caress of his fingers against my exposed skin sending shivers up my spine. He took on the role so easily, the Gentleman Who Behaves While Driving Women Crazy. I looked over at him and he spoke.

  “Joey called me.”

  “He did?” I frowned, my heel catching on an uneven part of the sidewalk, and I gripped his arm tighter.