“Relax. No one heard a thing. These walls are practically bombproof.” His grin turns wicked. “Though your enthusiasm was duly noted.”
I return a sheepish smile. Easy for him to say “relax.”
“I can see you freaking out behind those beautiful blue eyes. We’re doing nothing wrong here.”
“Sorry. Overthinking’s my second nature. You’re the boss, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Do you trust me?”
His question gives me pause. Do I trust him? After all the stories I’ve heard? I’m not convinced he won’t smash my heart to smithereens-therein lies the problem. For him, this is likely a seven-day fling.
To me, I know he’s got inside my head now. And he can’t find that out.
“Sure,” I lie.
“Good. Will you spend the night with me, in my bed? I have unfinished promises to deliver on.”
My eyes almost pop out of their sockets. The idea of waking up beside JP is… beyond amazing.
My fingers slide down his wet skin, exploring his shoulders, chest, and abdomen. I trail a slow path above his pubic line, and his stomach muscles twitch in response.
He’s already getting hard again.
Ugh, the temptation.
“I can’t,” I groan as the hot water cascades over us. “Matty will know if I’m not back in my room soon. And if I go MIA, Dwayne will probably have the SWAT team knocking at your door.”
He exhales heavily, his breath mingling with the steam rising around us. “Okay, okay. But I want to see you again, in New York. Not just at work.”
My heart goes full Usain Bolt. “You do?”
“Of course I do,” he says with a smile, droplets clinging to his eyelashes.
“But why?”
“Why? Who asks ‘why’?”
I return his jest with a serious look. “Honestly, JP. I’m not naive. You have it all. Billions, looks that would make a nun reconsider, and, of course, that big, beautiful dick. You could have any woman you want. I’m not saying I’m ugly,” I tell him. “But I’ve got a healthy amount of self-awareness. There’s a reason why I’m not America’s next top model, and I’m fine with that.”
“Hey, I don’t want to hear you putting yourself down, sweetheart,” he says, his tone serious. When I nod, he grins and adds, “So my wealth and my… ‘assets’ are my best qualities? And here I thought my charm might be a winning factor.” He chuckles, the sound echoing around the shower.
Something about the sound makes me jolt.
It’s a jolt when you knock your funny bone and there’s a white-hot flare shooting through your nerves. It’s intense, startling, a strange mix of pain and surprise, and you don’t quite know why you want to cry.
Was that even real? Did he just laugh or was that in my head?
“Lucy.” JP is looking at me. “What is it?”
“What?” I gape at him. “Nothing.”
That was weird, like deja vu. Like I had with smarmy Derek this evening.
“You sure?”
“Just the champagne talking. I’m good.” I give him a smile to reassure him. “And yes, your charm is pretty incredible too, except when you’re being a slave driver with deadlines.”
His demeanor changes, his gaze softening. His hand cradles my face, his thumb tracing my jaw. “You really don’t get it, do you?” he murmurs.
“Get what?”
“I want you, Lucy. Just you.”
Before I can react, he reels me in for a kiss that blows every other kiss I’ve ever had out of the water. It’s the kind of kiss that changes things, that forever shakes up your world.
And in that electrifying moment, one terrifying truth crash-lands: I’ve fallen. Fallen hard and fast. And there’s no safety net in sight.
Lucy
Here we go again. The familiar scene begins to play once again. I’m little Lucy, my childhood home a backdrop, fingers itching to stroke Buddy through the faded picket fence.
Buddy’s dark, clouded eyes meet mine, and a ripple of unease courses through me. Uncertainty gnaws at me: will he greet me with a wagging tail or teeth bared?
His paws rake against the ground, like he’s in some unseen agony. It’s an unsettling echo of reality, a deja vu I can’t quite place.
I want to reach out to him, comfort him, but I’m scared of getting hurt.
Summoning my courage, I slide my fingers through the gaps in the fence. And just like that, Buddy becomes the good boy, succumbing to my touch, and I breathe easy. He whines and leans into my strokes.
But then Buddy’s playful growl morphs into something out of a Stephen King novel.
And then, bam! The bite. Pain, like slamming my fingers in a car door, only worse. I open my mouth to scream, but all that emerges is a mousey squeak.
My tears, hot and salty, race down my cheeks. I should have trusted my instinct. He lured me in and gained my trust, only to throw it back in my face.
Then, as if someone flips a switch, the nightmarish world bleeds into soothing light.
There’s the chilly kiss of the AC, the silk sheets on top of me, the familiar scent of JP’s mansion.
I whip my head around, following the source of a guttural noise. Matty’s sprawled out, his head hanging off the edge of the bed. I can already hear his incessant whining about his stiff neck in the morning.
My heart’s still going a mile a minute as I sit up, wiping damp hair from my forehead.
I’m no shrink, but it feels like my subconscious is practically shouting at me.
Swinging my legs off the bed, I pull my dream journal from the bedside drawer. I scribble down the bizarre fragments of the dream. What the actual hell is my brain trying to tell me?
There’s definitely a hidden note in there, a message tangled up in the madness. Some buried memory trying to claw its way out. Is it about Dad’s death? Or is it some deep-seated bullshit about my inner child that Libby loves yammering on about?
Would waking up wrapped in JP’s arms have changed anything about this bizarre dreamscape?
Dangerous thoughts. It took all the willpower in the world to leave his bedroom in the middle of the night to come back here.
It’s the final day of the hackathon, so I really need to get my act together and focus on work.
I tiptoe across the room and gently reposition Matty’s head back onto his pillow. He mutters incoherently but remains dead to the world.
This dream is like a cryptic crossword puzzle that I need to solve, but it makes absolutely zero sense. Maybe it’s just some silly dream and means nothing at all. And maybe, I should stop looking for meaning in everything.