The scowl stays fixed on his face even after he’s settled on the couch. “I could’ve cleaned it up myself,” he informs me.
“I know.” I shrug. “But I think we made the right call sneaking out of there. For such a tiny little thing, your daughter sure is terrifying when she’s trying to get her way.”
His lips curve ever so slightly. Holy shit, did I almost make him smile?
But whatever shred of humor I might have induced disappears before I can blink. Mr. Hayes lowers his voice to a deadly pitch and asks, “What do you want with AJ?”
I shift in confusion. “I don’t understand the question.”
“I see the way you look at her, too.” His jaw begins to twitch, but I don’t know if it’s from anger, or the disease he’s battling. “You like her.”
“Of course I do,” I say awkwardly. “We’re friends.”
“Don’t feed me that bull. I’ve been alive a lot longer than you, pretty boy. You think I can’t tell when a man is in lust?”
And I thought the dinner conversation was uncomfortable.
“I get it. AJ’s a catch. She’s smart, pretty like her mom. She’s caring—too damn caring sometimes,” he admits. “If she loves you, she’ll always put your needs ahead of hers.” And I know he’s talking about his own relationship with Allie now. It’s obvious that because of his MS, she puts his needs first, not to mention coddles him more than he likes.
“She needs a man who will take care of her.” His voice goes soft for a moment, but then it sharpens. “You’re not that man, kid. You’re incapable of that.”
Insult prickles my skin. Who is he to make that sort of judgment?
He notices my frown and chuckles. “I was a hockey scout for more than twenty years—you think you’re the first cocky SOB I’ve met in my life? Cockier, too, because you grew up with money. You already have that entitled sense of importance that comes after a player signs his first seven-figure contract.”
I force my hands not to clench into fists. “Just because my family has money doesn’t mean I’m a bad person, sir.”
“Not saying that.” He shrugs. “But guys like you, you know nothing about real world problems. And if shit does go wrong, you throw a little money at the problem and poof—all fixed.” Blue eyes, a shade darker than Allie’s, sweep over me from head to toe. “You’re not what she needs, Dean. You wouldn’t step up and be there for her if it came down to it.” A pause. “I don’t trust you to take care of my daughter.”
With that final cutting remark, he shifts his gaze back to the football game.
22
Dean
Allie calls me at noon the next day with an update about her ETA. “Hey, I’m in a taxi. I’ll be there in fifteen or twenty, depending on traffic.”
I just stepped out of the shower, so I’m in a towel as I stride past the floor-to-ceiling windows in my bedroom, balancing the phone on my shoulder. “Why didn’t you take the train? Woulda been faster.”
“I felt like treating myself to a cozy backseat instead of a cramped subway ride.”
“Right on.”
“Any special instructions for when I get there? What floor are you on?”
I absently enter the walk-in closet and grab a pair of sweatpants off a shelf. “Just tell the concierge who you are and someone will bring you up. The elevator requires a key to get to the penthouse.”
She sighs. “You live in the penthouse of the Heyward Plaza Hotel?”
“Yup.” I drop the towel on the polished hardwood. “Hey, what do you think—will that make your dad hate me less, or hate me more?”
Her laughter tickles my ear. “Oh shut up. He doesn’t hate you.”
Yeah right. She’d be singing a different tune if she’d heard the shit he said to me in the living room last night.
I don’t trust you to take care of my daughter.
Fuck. MS or not, the old man is still delivering blows that sting days later.
I shove the angering exchange out of my mind and say, “I’ll see you soon.” Then I wander around my room collecting random items of clothing.
The cleaning staff already tidied up the place this morning—they show up twice a week like clockwork, whether or not anyone is staying at the penthouse—but I have a mystifying habit of accumulating a mess even if I’ve been somewhere for only a couple hours. Our housekeeper Vera calls me the Accidental Slob.
Twenty minutes later, after the front desk buzzes to let me know my visitor has arrived, I head for the elevator that opens directly onto the living room.
Only my prep school friends have visited me here before, and since their homes are equally…luxurious…none of them had ever batted an eye when they came over.
Allie bats an eye.
The second she emerges from the elevator, her jaw is on the marble floor and her eyebrows are higher than the fifteen-foot ceiling.
“Sweet mother of Moses,” she breathes. Her awed gaze travels around the parlor, living room and north-facing terrace, before returning to me. “Okay. I demand a tour.”
I offer a self-deprecating laugh. “It’ll be a long tour,” I warn her.
“I don’t care if it takes five hours. I want to see every inch of this palace, your majesty.”
As I show her around the penthouse, I find myself viewing it through her eyes. Every room we enter makes her gawk and gasp and curse in amazement—the walnut-paneled library, the modern chef’s kitchen, the gym, the wine cellar…okay, I guess this place is a wee bit over the top.
“Where are the bedrooms?” She looks confused when we wind up back in the living room and stop near the hand-carved mantelpiece of the massive fireplace.
“Oh, that was just the first floor,” I say sheepishly.
“This place has two floors?”
I mumble, “Three.”
“Three floors?” She stares at me as if I just stepped off an alien spaceship. “I think I want to punch you right now.”
“I think I want to punch myself.” I don’t like this unwelcome pang of self-consciousness. Or rather, I don’t like feeling like I’m the most overindulged prick on the planet.
Allie’s father’s voice suddenly buzzes through my mind. Disparaging and cold, mocking me about how I know nothing about “real world problems.”
Damn it. Why am I letting that man get under my skin? So what if I grew up with money? I still know the meaning of struggle and hardship and…fuck, who am I kidding? The Life of Dean is pretty sweet. It always has been. But I can still empathize with people who’ve been less fortunate than I am. I can still “step up and be there” when someone fucking needs me.
We climb the sweeping marble staircase and she stops to admire one of my mom’s favorite abstract paintings. For all the pomp and circumstance of this place, my parents didn’t go overboard with the décor. The penthouse has a clean, modern design, and most of the art on the walls is by no means expensive. Mom is all about supporting local artists.
“Is your room on the second floor?” Allie asks.
I shake my head. “Master bedroom is down there.” I point to the left. “Guest rooms are there.” I point to the right. “You want to see any of those or can we skip this floor?”
“We can skip it.” She’s already bounding up the stairs again.
I lead her into my bedroom. She admires every inch of the enormous room, from the custom-made oak bed to the built-in bookshelves to the wall of gleaming windows.
“No curtains?” She sounds a bit dazed.
“Automatic shades,” I admit. “Remote-control operated.”
“Wow.” As she wanders around exploring, the sunlight flooding the room catches in her golden hair, which is loose around her shoulders. She studies the endless rows of titles on the bookshelf, then whirls toward me. “Okay. Admit it.”
“Admit what?”
She points an accusing finger at me. “You’re smart.”
I snort loudly. “Of course I’m smart.”
“You sure as hell do
n’t act like it.” Allie crosses her arms over the front of her loose striped sweater. “In fact, I feel like you go out of your way to make everyone believe you’re a dummy. With your ‘baby dolls’ and foul language and the way you throw ‘ain’t’ into a sentence every so often.”
I flash her a grin. “Nope, that’s just how I fucking talk, baby doll. Ain’t nothing wrong with that.”
Her eyes dance with amusement. “Uh-huh. So how come you never talk about law school?”
“What’s there to talk about? I’m not in law school yet.” I sit on the edge of the bed that I hastily made right before she got here.
“But aren’t you excited about it?” she presses.
“Eh. Not really.” At her frown, I chuckle softly. “I’m sure I’ll be excited when I’m there. I’m a live-in-the-moment kinda guy, remember?” I pat the bedspread, then crook a finger at her. “Get over here already, will ya?”
“Give me one good reason why I should.”
I slide my hand into my crotch and cup it. “Little Dean is feeling ignored.”
Laughing, Allie climbs into my lap and rests her hands on the back of my neck. She brings her mouth close to mine. “Poor guy. Does he need an afternoon delight?”
“He’s dying for it,” I murmur. Our lips meet in a kiss at the same time I ease my hands under her shirt. I groan when her bare breasts fill my palms. I frickin’ love it when she doesn’t wear a bra. Makes it so much easier to lift up her shirt and pop one sweet nipple into my mouth.
“Ohhh,” she moans. “That’s nice.”
“About to get nicer, baby.” I work my other hand between our bodies so I’m cupping her over her leggings. “Fuck. We need to get these clothes off.”
Allie’s gaze darts toward the windows. “Should we close the shades? Where’s the remote?”
I’m wholly focused on the delicious task of suckling her nipple, working my tongue over the hard bud.
“Dean,” she protests. “We’re pretty much in a glass box! What if there’s someone with a telescope watching us from one of the other buildings?”
“Then they’re going to get a helluva show.” I pinch both nipples, and I’m rewarded with a throaty noise.
Her objections die off as I lower her onto the mattress and proceed to peel every stitch of clothing off her body. She pushes my sweats off my hips and I kick them away, and then we’re naked and kissing and rolling around on my huge bed until we’re both breathless.
“Cool if we save foreplay for later?” I whisper against her neck before dragging my tongue back to her tits again.
“Mmm-hmmm. Just get inside me already,” she whispers back.
I grab a condom and fit myself against her soaked pussy, thanking God, and any other deities who care to hear my gratitude, that Allie’s as turned on as I am. Our sexual compatibility is off the charts. We both hiss out pleasure-laced breaths as I slide home. Home? I halt mid-thrust.
“Don’t stop.” Allie’s husky command makes my balls tighten. I’m developing a Pavlovian response to her catalog of sounds. Breathy moans, raspy sighs and I’m semi-hard, if not at full mast. Happy noises, laughs and I’m grinning back. It’s…different.
She taps me on the shoulder impatiently. “Need some instruction? Because Little Dean isn’t all the way in yet.”
I muffle a chuckle against her luscious tits and thrust home. There. I said it. Home. This is sex, for chrissake. I don’t need to overthink this. Not with Allie. She wants me balls deep, fucking her mindless, and that’s what I want, too.
“Oh he’s in, baby. He’s in so far and so hard you’re going to feel it for days.” I jack forward hard enough that she skitters halfway across the mattress. She braces her hands against the padded headboard and stares at me from under heavy-lidded eyes with a come and get me look.
Yeah, she rocks my world. And I’m going to return the favor.
The walls of her pussy convulse around me, squeezing me in the most erotic hug ever invented. I fight off my orgasm. No way am I coming yet. I want to see those gorgeous eyes rolling back in her head. I want her mouth falling open and her face to take on that totally-lost-in-the-moment glazed expression she gets when she’s so into the fucking that I know nothing is in her head but me.
I push her hair back, tangling my fingers in the thick strands and tugging her head so I can kiss her properly. She attacks my tongue, sucking it into her mouth, letting me fuck her with it while I hammer her with my dick.
We’re both getting sweaty. Our slippery bodies move against each other in a perfect rhythm, one that makes me dizzy with excitement.
“You feel so good. Like a goddamn dream,” I tell her through gritted teeth. The effort not to come is testing my last bit of control.
“Yes. There. Fuck me right there,” she cries, punctuating her orders with claws in my shoulders. I brace myself, elbow near her head, knee digging into the mattress for leverage, and give her everything I’ve got. In measured, powerful strokes, I work her into a mindless state of pleasure until she’s shaking and screaming her satisfaction into the empty rooms of this penthouse.
She’s still trembling when I flip her over and ram into her from behind. My balls slap against her thighs, and the tightness of her pussy from this angle nearly makes my eyes water from the pleasure. She makes these incredibly sexy sounds that include the words “Dean” and “oh God” and “yes” until it’s a strange sort of song, her moans the melody, our bodies banging out the sex beat, our hearts getting mixed up in all of it until I’m the mindless one. All my senses are filled with her—her sounds, her smell, her touch. Her.
Bare ass pumping into her, I don’t care if there’s a telescope out there watching. Let them see how much I love being inside this girl.
*
We spend the whole day in bed. Well, not just in bed. We also fuck in my enormous walk-in shower under the spray of four showerheads and multiple body jets.
And I go down on her in the kitchen while she’s sprawled on the marble counter.
And she blows me in the game room.
And we sixty-nine in the private sauna.
Did I mention this is the best day ever?
By the time nine o’clock rolls around, I’m legit spent. Drained. There isn’t a drop of semen left in my body. Allie Hayes sucked and fucked it all out of me.
“You’re a sex fiend,” I grumble when I feel her hand stroking my thigh. We just finished eating dinner—burgers and fries delivered by room service and consumed in bed—and now we’re lying on my million-thread-count sheets, recovering from the most intense sex marathon I’ve had in a long time. Or ever.
“I can’t help it,” Allie protests. She sits up, and I’m floored by how gorgeous she looks right now. Flushed cheeks, tousled hair, hazy eyes. “The Life of Dean gets me all hot and bothered.”
My phone rings, and I groan in relief. “Oh thank Jesus. Hopefully whoever this is will save me before you break my dick.” Turns out my savior is Beau, and I pick up with my usual, “What’s shaking, Maxwell?”
“We are,” Beau answers cheerfully. “As in, we’re shaking our asses on the dance floor tonight.”
“Um. Are you asking me to go out dancing with you?” I pause. “And shouldn’t you be in Wisconsin with your grandmother right now?”
“Grams bailed on us—went on some seniors’ cruise instead of spending the holiday with her family. How dare she, right? That bitch.” Beau snickers, which I take as an indication that he’s joking. If not, I feel bad for his grandmother. “Joanna and I are in the city with our folks. Let’s meet up.”
“How do you know I’m in the city?” I ask suspiciously. I have a Boston cell number and I hadn’t told him I was coming to Manhattan, so there’s no reason for him to think I’m here.
“I’ve got that friend finder app. Shows you where all your friends are at all times.”
Awesome. I’m being stalked by one of my best buds.
“We’re going to a club in SoHo. You down?”
&nbs
p; “Hold on a sec.” I cover the mouthpiece and look at Allie. “Feel like going out? Beau and his sister are in town and they’re hitting up a nightclub.”
Reluctance creases her forehead. “Beau, as in Briar’s quarterback?”
I know exactly what she’s thinking and I’m quick to squash her fears. “He won’t say anything if he sees us together. Seriously. Maxwell knows how to keep his mouth shut.”
After a very long beat of hesitation, she finally nods, a tiny smile lifting her lips. “I haven’t been to a club in ages.”
I lift my hand from the phone. “We’re in.”
“We?”
“I’m bringing a friend.”
“Nice. Meet you there in an hour?”
“Sounds good.” I hang up to find Allie in distress. “What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t bring anything clubby to wear.” She chews on her bottom lip. “Can we stop in Brooklyn first so I can change, or is that too much of a hassle?”
“No need,” I say, tugging her off the bed. “You can borrow something from my sister. You’re about Summer’s size.”
“Are you sure she won’t mind?” Allie frets as I usher her across the hall into my sister’s room. “Some girls get super touchy about lending out their clothes.”
“Trust me, she won’t care.”
Allie’s face fills with astonishment when we enter Summer’s closet. And by closet, I mean the cavernous room that’s almost the size of Allie’s brownstone.
“How is this a closet?” Allie exclaims. She moves forward and squeals. “Oh my God. She’s got an entire wall of shoes. Now I want to punch your sister.”
I chuckle. “I wouldn’t try it. Summer plays by schoolyard rules. She’ll claw your eyes and rip your hair out.”
Allie examines another rack overflowing with hangers. “If I check any of these tags, am I going to see words like ‘Prada’ and ‘Kors’ and ‘Lagerfeld’?”
“Yup.”
“Then please direct me to the cheap section so your sister doesn’t kill me if I spill something on her precious Versace.”
“Babe, you really need to trust me when I say she won’t mind. Or notice, for that matter. Summer left all this stuff behind when she went to Brown,” I remind Allie. “Not to mention all the clothes in her closet in Connecticut. Just pick whatever you’d like.”