Play Me Hard

  She sighs, relaxes against me. “Yeah.”

  “Go to sleep. I’ll stay for a while.”

  She nods, squirming around so that her head is resting on my chest and one of her legs is draped over both of mine.

  She doesn’t speak again. Neither do I. And in only a few short minutes, I hear her breathing even out as she slides headlong into sleep.

  I’m not sure how long I lie there.

  Long enough for the minute hand to turn a full circle on my watch and then some.

  Long enough for dawn’s ruby red fingers to come poking around the edges of the mini blinds meant to block them out.

  More than long enough for me to figure out that, even after only a couple of days, I’m in a hell of a lot more trouble with Aria than I ever anticipated.

  It’s that knowledge—combined with the guilt that’s pressing down on me like bricks—that finally drives me out of bed. I rummage through her kitchen looking for a spare set of apartment keys. I find them in what looks to be the beginnings of a junk drawer next to the sink and use them to lock up after myself as I head out.

  It’s only when I’m outside, leaning against the wall next to her door and taking huge gulps of air, that I finally let go of the stranglehold I’ve had on my emotions since I turned onto this street and realized which building Aria lived in. I’ve kept the memories, the self-loathing, under wraps for the past two hours because she needed me. But now that she’s asleep, now that I have nothing to focus on but the dark and seething past I’ve worked so hard to reconcile, I’m on the verge of losing it.

  That old Casablanca quote plays through my mind. Of all the gin joints in all of the towns in all of the world, she walks into mine. Of all the apartment buildings in all of Vegas, Aria has to live in this one. It’s a goddamn cosmic joke. A giant fuck-you from fate. A hard knee to the balls that has me reeling, disoriented, lost and in pain.

  When I can breathe without feeling like glass is slashing through my windpipe, I push off the wall. Walk slowly down the steps toward the first awakenings of dawn. But instead of heading through the parking lot to my car, I turn right. Walk down four doors. And stop in front of apartment 109.

  It’s been ten years and she probably moved away a long time ago, but still I feel the need to knock. Just to check. Just to see if she’s still here. Just to see if she’s okay.

  Like she could ever be okay again. Like either of us could be.

  For years, I sent money—guilt money, blood money—but the checks went undeposited. I wised up after a while, or so I thought. Started sending cash. Then the envelopes would just come back, unopened and marked “return to sender.”

  Eventually I gave up. Tried to move on. Hoped she’d done the same.

  And yet, here I am, standing next to her old door with my fingers itching to knock.

  But it’s only five-thirty and whoever is in there probably won’t take kindly to being disturbed. And I have better things to do than stand here reliving the past, hoping for a different outcome. Especially when I thought I’d given up wishes like that a long, long time ago.

  Pocketing Aria’s keys, I take one last look at apartment 109 before finally heading across the parking lot to my car. It’s still in one piece—a lucky surprise—so I climb in. Start it up. And force myself not to look back as I turn onto the eerily—finally—quiet streets of Las Vegas.

  Chapter Three

  Aria

  I wake up alone, groggy and cold and more than a little disoriented. I’m lying on top of the covers, the afghan my grandmother crocheted for me years ago wrapped around my legs. My bare legs.

  It takes me a minute of concentrated effort to remember, to figure out how I got here. And when it hits—all the memories of last night flooding through me in one fell swoop—I nearly fly out of bed.

  Sebastian bringing me home.

  Bathing me.

  Making me come. Again.

  Talking with me about stupid, inconsequential things.

  Holding me while I slept.

  Sebastian.

  I call his name as I stumble across my bedroom, still half-wrapped in the stupid blanket. There’s no answer—of course, there’s no answer, what did I expect? But there is a note, written in a bold, distinctive scrawl and taped to the inside of my front door.

  Your car is in the parking lot. I borrowed your extra set of keys and let myself out—they’re in your glove compartment. Have a great day. And thanks for last night. Sebastian.

  Thanks for last night? It’s classic, cavalier. A total one-night-stand thing to say.

  Thanks for last night. I had fun.

  Thanks for last night. I’ll see you around.

  Thanks for last night. Maybe we can do it again sometime.

  Thanks for last night.

  My hands are shaking as I rip the note off the door and crumple it into a ball so tight that I can’t see any of the writing at all. Shaking when I walk into the kitchen and pour myself a cup of coffee from the fresh pot sitting on my countertop. Shaking when I cross to the refrigerator and pull out a carton of yogurt for breakfast.

  Which is stupid, right? I knew all along what this was. I knew yesterday afternoon when he fucked me up against the window in his office and I knew last night when he sat at the bar watching my every move. It was after that that things got jumbled in my head and I got confused. Somewhere between the bath and the comic book stories I began to think that this was—

  I freeze, spoon of yogurt halfway to my mouth when it hits me. Then I’m turning around, crossing my tiny kitchen in a single bound as I rip open the refrigerator door and stare into it in total and complete astonishment. Because yesterday, when I left for work, there was almost nothing in it. Yogurt, a small pack of cheddar cheese, ketchup. But today it’s practically bursting with food—fruits and vegetables, cheeses and lunch meats, milk and three different kinds of juice.

  If you added up all the food I’ve bought in the last six months, I don’t think it would equal what is in the fridge right now. It’s insane.

  Barring a visit from the refrigerator fairy, there’s only one explanation—that Sebastian went shopping for me while I was asleep, stocking my kitchen with enough food to last through a zombie apocalypse.

  Still unable to believe my eyes, I rip open my freezer, stare at the neat stacks of organic chicken breasts, steak, tilapia, plus a few frozen dinners.

  It takes a minute for what he’s done to sink in and when it does, I’m filled with such a huge anger that my vision literally shifts, changes, and I suddenly understand what it means to see red.

  I feel like a whore.

  Oh, I know that probably wasn’t his intention, know that he saw the meager state of my cupboards and probably just wanted to help. And while I’m sure he was well-intentioned—Sebastian is nothing if not a gentleman—that still doesn’t make this okay. I’m not sure it would be okay if we were in the middle of a relationship. I know it’s not okay when that note of his made it very clear that he considers us only a one-night stand.

  Not giving myself a chance to think, I stomp back into the kitchen, pull my cell phone out of my purse. I don’t have his number—one more sign that whatever this thing between us is, it isn’t real—and dial the Atlantis’s main line. When a friendly voice answers a few seconds later, I demand to be put through to Sebastian Caine.

  Except it doesn’t exactly happen like that. Of course it doesn’t—he’s currently the acting CEO of the most popular casino hotel in Vegas. Now that I think about it, there are probably a hundred crazy people who call him every day—maybe more. Of course his secretary screens them out and it’s not her fault that she doesn’t know who I am. That she thinks I’m just another whack-job and as such brushes me off.

  But it is Sebastian’s fault, and just one more piece of evidence that proves I mean nothing to him. If I did, he would have said something to her—given her my name, told her to expect a call from me, something. Because surely he had to know it was coming, right? You don??
?t just do this to a person’s kitchen—don’t just do this for them—without expecting a thank-you. Or a fuck you. Something.

  I’m stewing when I hang up, and there’s a part of me that wants nothing more than to throw all the food away. But that would be cutting off my nose to spite my face—in the extreme. Not when for so long I’ve barely had the money to buy a loaf of bread and the cheese to go on it. Not when the average salary of cocktail waitresses in Vegas—mine included—is barely fifteen hundred dollars a month.

  And so, while it grates, I force myself to reach into the fridge and pull out a pear he left for me. I love pears and it’s been a long time since I’ve had one—of course I can’t resist. But I’ve barely washed the thing when my phone rings. A quick glance down shows that it’s coming from one of the Atlantis’s bigwig offices—we all know those digits—and my stomach clenches. Because it’s him. Of course it’s him, and now that he’s on the other end of the phone, I have no idea what I’m going to say. Thank you or fuck you? I appreciate it or you made me feel like a whore?

  Too bad Hallmark doesn’t make a card for this occasion.

  For now, I settle on a grudging hello.

  “Aria, sweetheart. Sorry my secretary didn’t put you through. I was on a call.” They’re the first words out of his mouth and they are completely unexpected.

  “No problem,” I find myself answering. It’s hard to be churlish in the face of his obvious warmth and concern.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  “Yes.” Better than I have in years. “Thank you.”

  “I’m glad. So what are you up to today?” His voice is low and warm and intimate and I feel like I’ve just dropped into the twilight zone. His note made it sound like he had no intention of ever seeing me again and yet right here, right now, it’s obviously on. If he got any more blatant, he’d have his face buried between my thighs.

  Which, now that I think about it, isn’t a wholly unpleasant thought. Not when he’s so good at getting me off.

  “I’m going to see my sister.”

  “Lucy? I’m sure she’ll be excited to see you.”

  “You remember her name.”

  “I remember everything you’ve told me so far.”

  It’s the last straw. “Why do you say things like that? You have to know it confuses me!”

  “What’s there to be confused about?” For the first time since he called, he sounds as wary—as bewildered—as I feel.

  “Nothing! Everything. I mean you leave me that awful note, but then you go grocery shopping for me. Your secretary doesn’t know who I am, but you call me back as soon as you get the message. Do you not understand how all that makes me feel?”

  “What was wrong with my note?” he asks.

  “The note isn’t the point!”

  “It must be at least part of the point,” he tells me. “Or you wouldn’t have brought it up.”

  “No! I mean, the note was fine.” I’m tripping over my tongue at this point and have no idea how to stop. “It got your point across, which is all that matters.”

  “I’m not sure it did,” he answers coolly. “What did you think when you first read the note?”

  “That you were brushing me off. Which is fine,” I tell him, even though it really isn’t. “I know how these things go. But you can’t just tell a girl that you’ll see her around and then buy her hundreds of dollars’ worth of groceries. It confuses things.”

  “You’re confused because you mistook how I intended the note. I had to get to work—I had a meeting at nine that I just couldn’t miss—but the last thing I intended was for you to think I was playing with you yesterday.”

  “Weren’t you?” The words are out before I know I am going to say them.

  “Did it feel like I was playing?”

  “It felt…” Intense. Terrifying. Important. But I can’t say any of those things so I settle on, “Good. It felt good.”

  He snorts. “Talk about an insipid description of one of the most powerful experiences of my life. We’re a lot of things when we’re together, Aria, but good isn’t the first word that pops to mind.”

  I know exactly what he means. “You can’t just buy me groceries.”

  “Why not? You obviously needed some.”

  “I’d planned on going to the store today,” I lie. “After I deposited my paycheck in the bank.” It’s not a total lie. I’d hoped to have enough money left after paying rent and my car payment to buy some sandwich stuff. Maybe a couple of cans of soup. Nothing like what Sebastian did.

  “We both know that isn’t true,” he tells me.

  It isn’t, but I bristle anyway. “You don’t get to say things like that to me!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s rude. Because we’re not together. Because I’m not some charity project for you to take care of!”

  “I’m not sure who you’re insulting more with that diatribe—me or yourself. But let’s get one thing clear, Aria. I don’t think you’re a charity project. I think you’re a strong, beautiful, exciting woman who I am thrilled to have in my bed.”

  “You’ve never had me in your bed.”

  “That’s an oversight I plan on remedying as soon as possible.”

  “Don’t I get some vote in that?”

  “Let’s be honest. You’ll be the first one racing to my bed and we both know it.”

  For a second, the jaw-dropping arrogance of that statement freezes me. Has me standing in the middle of the kitchen, mouth flapping open as I gape like a fish and search desperately for a comeback. Any comeback. But my brain is as frozen as the rest of me and all I can do is stare at the phone in my hand like it’s actually come alive.

  “That didn’t come out right,” Sebastian says after a second.

  “You think?”

  “What I meant to say—what I should have said—is you are a beautiful, vibrant woman and there is little in the world I like more than making love to you. And because I like it so much, I plan on doing it as often as humanly possible—in and out of my bed. And based on your response yesterday, I think you feel the same way about me.”

  “That you’re a beautiful, vibrant woman?”

  He sighs. “That you want to spend as much time as possible fucking me.”

  “You know, in the grand scheme of things, that really wasn’t much better than your first attempt.”

  “Can you cut me a little slack? I’m not exactly running on a plethora of sleep here.”

  “That’s because you snuck out in the middle of the night and went grocery shopping.”

  “I did. And I’d do it again, even knowing that it upsets you.”

  “That’s a shitty thing to say.”

  “Maybe. But it’s also the truth. You need someone to take care of you. I want to be that someone.”

  “I don’t need anyone to take care of me. Just because I enjoy sleeping with you doesn’t mean you suddenly have carte blanche over my life!”

  “That’s exactly what it means and you know it,” he snaps. But then I hear him take a deep breath, can all but see him rolling down his sleeves. Putting away the alpha guy and pulling out the suave businessman instead. “But you’ll have the same kind of control over me. Over what I do and who I do it with. It’s a two-way street, Aria.”

  “Is it?”

  “Of course it is.” His voice is lower now, dark and aching and so, so seductive. I can feel my body responding to it even when I try to stay strong, stay aloof. “You have a lot to learn about being the master of your own destiny, Aria. Control is a funny thing. The tighter you hold on to it, the less you actually have. It’s only after you loosen your grip that you come to understand what it means to truly be in charge. Of your lover, of yourself. Of your life.”

  Suddenly there doesn’t seem to be enough air in the room. I pull at my nightgown, try to unstick it from my sweat-soaked body. “I suppose you’re the one who’s going to teach me that?”

  “We’re going to teach each other, I
think.”

  It’s the right thing to say when so much of what has come out of his mouth this morning has been wrong. But still, I’m more hesitant, unsure. What he’s saying sounds an awful lot like BDSM and I don’t think I’m into that, don’t think pain and collaring and orders will do anything for me.

  “I don’t know what you want from me,” I finally tell him. My voice is little more than a whisper.

  “You know exactly what I want,” he counters. “It’s the same thing you want from me.”

  “What’s that?” I ask, because that doesn’t sound like what I know about the lifestyle. Not that I know much, just Fifty Shades of Grey stuff, but still.

  “Everything you have to give. And then more.”

  His words echo, going around and around in my head like they’re on some kind of unstoppable loop. “I…”

  “What, Aria?” His voice is achingly soft now but I don’t know what to say, how to feel.

  And so I don’t say anything. When I disconnect the call a few seconds later, his words are still all I can hear.

  —

  I leave my apartment about an hour later, after a shower and a much more substantial breakfast than I’ve had in quite a while. I still don’t know how I feel about the groceries or Sebastian’s words or even Sebastian himself. But it’d be stupid to let all that food go to waste, so what else am I supposed to do with it except eat it?

  I don’t even make it down the stairs before I run into Janet. She’s sitting on the bottom couple of steps, leaning against the rickety banister and rocking back and forth. She’s drunk, of course. She almost always is at this time of the morning.

  “Hey,” I say as I crouch down next to her. “Can I help you to your apartment?”

  She looks at me through bleary eyes. “Aria?”

  “Yeah, Janet. It’s me.” I take the lit cigarette that’s dangling from her limp fingertips, stub it out on the ground. Then put an arm under hers and pull her to her feet. It’s not exactly hard—she’s little more than skin and bones, has been for as long as I’ve lived here. Of course, she’s pretty much been drunk as long as I’ve lived here, too. Which is a shame. She’s only about fifty, maybe a couple years younger, but she looks like she’s lived a hard, cold life.