Almost.
Maybe it’s karma for all those times I’ve gone home with a woman and dashed out before the sun came up.
She spins on her heels, checking out her reflection in a wall-hung mirror, licking her finger, and wiping a streak of black mascara under her eye.
“So…” I feel the need to fill the silence with something, but nothing comes to mind because my brain is too busy trying to figure out the anomaly standing before me.
This girl has game. She may even have more game than me.
Her gaze darts around the room, scanning the marble buffet table and elaborate floral arrangement and zipping across the chessboard tile. Most women fawn and ooh and aah over my foyer but not her. She couldn’t care less.
“What are you looking for?” I ask.
“My bag.”
She breezes past me, her heels clicking against the marble tile, and heads into my kitchen. I scratch my temple.
Did I take her in the kitchen last night?
A smile crawls across my lips as faded fragments of our evening return to my memory.
Oh, yeah. I took her in the kitchen last night. And the dining room. And the balcony.
“Stop,” she says, returning with a black satin clutch under her left arm.
“Excuse me?”
“Stop gloating.”
Who is this woman?
My palm rakes my five o’clock shadow. This girl with the dark, fiery hair is something else. I bite my tongue, biding my time before she steps on the elevator. At least I’m spared the whole awkward exchange where I pretend like I fully intend on tapping that ass again in the near future.
“Ugh.” She rifles through her unfastened clutch. “Where’s my phone? Why isn’t it in here?”
This woman wants nothing more than to leave my place, and the universe wants nothing more than for her to stay. I’m caught somewhere in between, still standing here in my silk boxers, mildly entertained but mostly confused.
“So. Thanks for last night.” I widen my stance and fold my arms across my bare chest, refusing to let myself cringe. I never fucking do this.
I’m not that guy. I’m not the lame ass who goes from sex-on-fire to grateful chump as soon as morning comes.
What the hell is wrong with me?
She glances up from the shallow depths of her bag and rolls her eyes. “Did you seriously just thank me for fucking you?”
We fucked not once, not twice, not even three times. Four times.
“I appreciate a girl who can go the distance. Rare to meet someone who can keep up with me.”
She bites away a grin. Pretty sure she’s fucking laughing at me.
“Something funny…” My mind goes blank as I rack it in search of her name.
Odette? No.
Tessa? Nope.
Olivia…
“You don’t remember my name, do you?” Her full lips pull wide, showcasing a mouthful of perfect, white teeth. Her entire face lights, followed by an incredulous chuckle. “Classy.”
“We had a lot to drink.” Everything happened so goddamned fast.
“Yours is Beckham,” she says. “Like the soccer player. Beckham King. Truth be told, that’s all I know about you. I picked you because you were hot. I came home with you because I felt sorry for you.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I cup my chin, cocking my head. “You felt sorry for me?”
She lifts a single shoulder.
Odessa. That’s it.
“Odessa,” I say, fighting the smug twitch in my mouth. “Odessa Russo.”
I halfway remember her bragging about her Greek-Italian heritage, and I fully recall appreciating her Greek ass and the exotic Italian angles of her pretty face.
“Oh, wow.” Odessa’s brows lift, her lips puckering as she sarcastically accepts defeat.
“You came home with me because you felt sorry for me?” I refuse to let it go.
“Yep.”
Green. Her eyes are a radiant green. Lit from the inside. Hypnotic.
“I watched you hit on about four or five women before I had to come in and save the day.”
She’s lying. She’s got to be lying. I have a three strike rule, and I’ve yet to need to enforce it.
I love sex.
Correction: I love casual sex.
Carefree, uninhibited, never-see-you-again sex.
It’s what I do. It’s the way it has to be.
Page Six stopped calling me one of New York’s most eligible bachelors years ago after a failed engagement with a pedigreed hotel heiress, and they quickly rebranded me as an arrogant playboy. But I don’t mind. It’s who I am, and I make no apologies for it.
I’m the guy women fantasize about changing; the one they dream about falling hopelessly in love with.
The only thing I’m hopelessly in love with is my life – exactly the way it is. It hasn’t always been this way, but I’ll be damned if I ever go back.
“Help me find my phone,” she orders, striding into my living room. I stand back as she slips her hand between the cushions of my overstuffed leather sofa.
Did we fuck there last night too?
She retrieves a white phone, inspecting it like there’s a chance it belongs to a former conquest.
“Ugh. Battery’s dead.” She stuffs it in her clutch and snaps the little bag shut.
Guess there’ll be no exchanging of numbers.
Woe is me.
Our eyes lock, and Odessa tugs the hem of her dress into place though it’s barely long enough to hit the middle of her long thighs.
“All right, then.” She walks past me, grazing my shoulder, and heads for the elevator, hips swaying with the subtle bounces in her steps. Her fingertips reach back, smoothing loose auburn tendrils that have fallen around her nape.
My eyes trace down her back until it finds the dip just above her perfect ass and those hips I’d held onto all night.
I don’t do repeats. I don’t do booty calls or the whole fuck-buddy thing. I’m a one and done kind of man, but damn, if this sexy little spitfire doesn’t make me want a reprise.
Odessa presses the call button on the elevator and the doors part. She steps inside, our eyes meeting one last time.
This is it.
Once those doors close, I’ll never see her again.
Which is exactly the way it’s supposed to be…
I suck in a quick breath. “Wait.”
I never chase after women. I send them packing with a post-orgasmic glow and sometimes an awkward, morning-after hug. The second they close I’m never going to see this woman again. Any other time I’d be perfectly okay with that. But I can’t let her walk out of my place lugging every ounce of power from this entire exchange.
It’s not the way it’s supposed to go, and I can’t allow it.
Her brows arch, and the right corner of her fuckable pink lips pull up. I can’t let her leave with the upper hand. I can’t be left in the dust like some pathetic pity fuck.
The doors ding and slide, but I stop them, climbing onto the elevator next to her.
“What are you doing?” She backs herself into a corner, literally.
The only way to reset the power balance is to get her to want me. I need her to leave this place thinking she’d just had the best sex of her entire life, and I want her to silently plead for more with those glossy emerald eyes of hers.
And after that?
I want her calling me every night for a week, begging to come over if only so I get the satisfaction of telling her “no.”
I reach for her, sliding my palm against her jaw and cupping my fingers around her soft neck before lowering my mouth to hers. Without saying a word, I steal a tender kiss. My free hand hooks the curve above her hip, and her body melts against me for the few, short seconds my mouth claims hers.
That’s how it’s done.
Kiss them until they’re weak in the knees.