So now I’m in my apartment, curled up on the couch with a few glasses of wine in me. I’m “Netflix and chilling” without having anyone to chill with. The wine is dulling the anger, but not that weird sickly feeling in my chest. I go through nearly an entire season of New Girl, hoping Schmidt and Nick will make me laugh, but finding myself getting sadder. More pathetic.
This is bullshit.
I lie back on the couch and stare at the ceiling. I want to rewind the last few weeks and pretend I never went to the Lion that one night, that I’d never seen Lachlan McGregor because before that, I was doing fucking fine. Then I had to see his goddamn stupid beautiful face and become an obsessive, desperate horndog. How could this man, how could any man, do this to me, render me so bare and vulnerable? That was never part of the plan. I wanted to get under his skin, not the other way around. I was supposed to come out of this game on top, fighting through the challenge of it all and getting what I wanted.
I was supposed to be the player here.
I want to pull up the edges of my black heart and pull it around me like a blanket. From now on, the moment I feel myself being lured by anything other than the physical, I’m out. I’m sticking to my damn vow, and if it ever does break one day, it’s for just sex and nothing more. Anything more than sex isn’t Kayla friendly.
I start to drift off, feeling better about my new plan, my new resolve. I want the dreams to take me away and tomorrow I’ll start a new me. The old me.
The apartment buzzer goes off, making me jolt. I inhale sharply and look at my phone for the time, but I turned it off a while ago, not wanting to be disturbed. It’s probably Steph coming to check up on me. I could have used her earlier in the night when I was a ball of rage, ready to bitch and ramble on, but now I am more subdued, sleepy, and kind of drunk, and not in the mood to talk about anything.
I walk over to the buzzer and press the button.
“Steph?”
“Uh, no,” says the deep Scottish brogue over the speaker. “It’s not.”
I freeze. My heart hammers.
Oh shit. Lachlan?
“Hello?” he says again. “Kayla? Can I please speak with you?”
No, no, no. Definitely not. Think of your plan, the new old you, I tell myself.
But I still press the button to let him in.
Fuck.
I look down at what I’m wearing. The fucking t-shirt he lent me and nothing else.
Oh god. I need to change. I need to fix my face, my hair. I need to not let him in.
But seconds later he’s knocking at the door.
I breathe in deeply, trying not to let those dumbass, unwanted, unwarranted emotions get the best of me. Be cool, girl, I tell myself. Like ice.
I slide the chain across and open the door.
Lachlan is standing there. In a fucking suit and tie. Hair slicked back, just enough stubble on that angular jaw. Perma-frown. Towering over me like some well-dressed god.
Oh my god. I am so doomed.
“Just come from a wedding?” I attempt a joke. My mouth is drier than a desert.
“Can I come in?” he asks, his shoulders hunched up. “Please?”
Be cool, be cool.
“Sure,” I say, opening the door wider with a shrug, pretending I’m not hurt, not mad, and definitely not wearing just his t-shirt.
He walks past me and all I want to do is breathe in his scent. Well, that’s not all I want to do.
I shut the door behind him, resting my forehead briefly on it and gathering courage before turning around to face him.
He’s standing in the middle of the room, staring right at me. Jesus. He’s so beautiful to look at it almost hurts. It does hurt.
“I need to explain something.”
I cross my arms. “What?”
“I know what Stephanie told you,” he says. “About me and Justine.”
I shrug, trying to play it off. “Oh well, that’s cool.”
His frown deepens. “I heard you were upset.”
I give him a tight smile. “I don’t get upset,” I tell him and walk over to the kitchen to busy myself with something.
“Yes, you do,” he says, eyes following me. “I’ve seen you get upset. I know your voice when you’re upset.”
I want to challenge him, to tell him that he doesn’t know me at all. But I don’t want that. I want him to know me. I want him to think he does.
“And so I’m upset now?” I say. “Why?”
He chews on his lower lip for a second and finally looks away. “Because. You want me.”
I can’t help but let out a shocked laugh. Obviously it’s true, but I can’t believe he has the audacity to just say it so bluntly.
His eyes slide to me again, feverish and hard. “Don’t you?”
Suddenly it’s not so funny anymore. I lean against the counter, my hands gripping the edge while my mind tries to think of what to say, how to possibly answer that. Finally I tell the truth. “Yeah,” I say quietly. “So?”
“So,” he says, voice low, almost delicate, “last night was something I’ve needed…for a long time. It may have been just a walk in the park and a kiss to you, love, but to me…it was far more. And I want to know if it was more to you.”
I can only stare back at him, locked in the intensity of his gaze. He’s looking at me like he’s peeling back the layers, determined to get to the core.
My throat is dry and my heart pounds with excitement and anxiety. What is he doing? What am I doing? There is so much space between us, and I don’t know how to bridge the gap or if I want him to, because if it happens it’s going to be so much more than I can handle.
“You’re leaving on Sunday,” I tell him. “That’s less than a week.”
“So?” he says. “What does that have to do with anything?”
I cock my head. “It means…well, what can happen between now and then?”
“I can fuck your brains out,” he says gruffly. “That’s what can happen.”
Holy shit.
Did he seriously just say he could fuck my brains out? I stare at him with wide eyes, dumbfounded and turned on in an instant. It’s hard to swallow. It’s hard to think. “Uh…”
“But before I do,” he says, starting to loosen his tie. He takes a step forward. Oh god. “I need you to know that tonight I was helping Bram. Justine was never anything other than a favor, and no, I didn’t fuck her. Not even close. Whatever it was though, it’s done. And for the next week, the only thing on my radar is you.” He takes another step toward me, pulling off his tie and tossing it at my feet. “On this counter, in your bed, against the wall. Whatever way I can.”
Oh Jesus.
My legs start to tremble and I tightly grip the edge of the counter. I’ve wanted this more than anything, and now that it’s slowly walking toward me, like I’m the prey, I’ve turned into a mute chicken shit. It was so different when I was chasing him. Now that he wants me, he actually wants me…I’m terrified that I won’t survive it.
He’s only a foot away and I can feel the heat of his presence as he begins to eclipse me. He shrugs off his suit jacket and tosses it on the counter, his eyes never leaving my body. My skin smolders under his gaze as he slowly looks me up and down. “You’re wearing my shirt,” he says, his voice soft and rough at the same time.
He reaches out, grabbing the end of it, rubbing the fabric between his fingers. He’s so close now. I’m still a statue made of throbbing blood and a wildly beating heart, and I can’t move an inch. I can’t do anything but watch him, every movement, every breath, every look. He’s so physical, immense—he’s become my world.
His eyes drift lower. He leans down into me, his mouth at my ear, his hands moving down my thighs. “Another no pants party?” he murmurs. I shiver, goosebumps from his breath and the bass of his voice. His large, warm palms trail back up my bare skin, lifting up my shirt and skimming over the lace of my underwear.
“Depends what you mean by pants,” I manage to say.