The only problem is I don’t belong anywhere else, either. And of all the hats I’ve tried on in the last fourteen months, of all the people I’ve tried to be—or not to be—this is the one I like best. The one I might actually like to wear around for a while, just to see how it fits.
I don’t know if it’s that realization or if it’s the picture my panties make in his trash can or if it’s just that I’m able to think clearly for the first time since Sebastian told me to put my hands against the window last night. But whatever it is, I’m suddenly completely freaked out again. Completely terrified of what is. What was. What could be.
And once I acknowledge that emotion, all the rest of them come rushing back into me, too. Everything comes rushing back.
My sister.
My father.
Carlo.
My mother.
The choices I made fourteen months ago and the choices I continue to make today.
The look of disappointment, of disgust, of rage on my father’s face this morning, right before I turned to flee.
I try to keep it together, to keep the seething, roiling mess of my thoughts from showing on my face, but I must not succeed, because Sebastian reaches for me. “Do we need to talk about this?” he asks in an obvious echo of his earlier question.
My answer is the same now as it was then, as well. “No.”
He looks unimpressed, his smile rueful and his electric green eyes anything but amused. “Yeah, well, now that my dick isn’t actively involved in the conversation that answer isn’t going to cut it.”
“It’s going to have to.” I nod toward the black chrome clock hanging on the opposite wall. “I need to clean up. I’m supposed to be on the floor in fifteen minutes.”
“Fuck the floor,” he tells me, and outside of sex, it’s one of the few curse words I’ve heard Sebastian use. It gives me pause. Or maybe it’s the tone of voice he says it in—firm, no-nonsense, absolute, that stops me in my tracks. He usually doesn’t talk to me like that unless he’s fucking me and judging from the fact that he’s yanking his own clothes back into place—and putting distance between us as he does it—an instant replay really isn’t an option right now.
But standing here, hashing over my feelings and my past, isn’t, either. Not now. Maybe not ever, but definitely not now. And definitely not with him.
“I don’t really have any desire to do that,” I say, going with flippant to get me out of this mess, because everything else is too complicated and hurts too much. “God only knows where it’s been.”
The look he shoots me is distinctly annoyed. After-sex humor definitely not for him, then. Good to know. Especially since that’s about the range of emotional depth I have to offer him right now. If he doesn’t want it, that’s not my problem.
“Do you mind if I use your bathroom again?” I ask, already striding across the lush executive carpet to the even more lush executive bathroom in the corner. “I’ve got to clean up.”
“Of course. Go ahead.”
“Thank you.” But when I step into the luxurious room, Sebastian won’t let me close the door in his face like I did yesterday. Instead, he nudges me deeper into the bathroom and then follows me inside. It’s a good-size room, but right now, when my emotions are so out of control, it’s nowhere near big enough for the both of us.
“What are you doing?” I demand, suddenly shaky. I came in here because I need a minute to regroup, a minute to get my head on straight and my emotions under control. I can’t do that with him around—if I could, I wouldn’t have asked to use the restroom in the first place.
“I would have thought that was obvious.” He’s crowding me now, pressing me up against the sink.
“I need to clean up!” I squawk at him, too freaked out at this point to worry about being polite. Everything is pressing in on me—my family, my life, Sebastian and the kind of sex we have—and I need a minute to process it. To get control so I can get my shit together once and for all.
“Who’s stopping you?”
“You are, obviously.”
I’m facing away from him now, and our eyes meet in the mirror. His are calm and steady and absolute and the look on his face flat-out says that he will not be denied. Not now, not in this.
I jerk my eyes away, duck my head. I can’t look at him anymore and I sure as hell don’t want to look at me right now. Not when I’m so disheveled and out of sorts and clearly—clearly—not in control. Which is bogus, because that’s the one thing Sebastian promised me and it’s the one thing I’ve wanted all along. The control that comes from having sex like ours.
But here I am, shaky and freaked out and anything but in control while Sebastian is doing exactly what he wants when he wants. How is any of that about me gaining control?
I’m just angry enough to ask him, but then he’s right there, arm wrapping itself around my waist and pulling me back against the hard planes of his chest. He rests his cheek against the top of my head on one side, and then uses his other hand to tilt my chin up so that I have no choice but to look in the mirror. No choice but to see just how out of control I’ve gotten.
“Look at yourself,” he whispers. “Look at how strong you are.”
It’s like he’s inside me, like he knows my every weakness and vulnerability. “I’m not—”
“You take me on like it’s nothing. Demand what you want and refuse to give until you get it. You racked that bastard with the grabby hands to protect that girl, no matter the cost to yourself, and I’ve seen the way you are with the customers. Seen the way you keep them in line with just a glance.”
He thinks I’m strong because I talk a good game, because I can fake it with the best of them. But if he knew what was inside me, knew how scared and worried and hurt I am—
“Look, Aria,” he tells me again, his shoulder knocking against mine for emphasis. “See what I see.”
I’m angry that he’s doing this, forcing me to see what I’ve spent so much of my life hiding from. But if I don’t look, if I don’t listen to him, something tells me we’ll end up standing here until hell freezes over. I’m stubborn, but Sebastian is beyond belief.
Except, when I finally yank my gaze away from him long enough to take in my own reflection, that vulnerability, that weakness, isn’t what I see. In its place is a more colorful, more kickass version of myself.
My hair’s a little messed up—strands tousled and sticking out in different directions—but whose wouldn’t be when their lover just spent the last half hour running his hands through it? My skin, though. My skin looks ridiculous. Bright and flushed and glowing, I look like I’ve just spent the last hour being fucked senseless in the best possible way. Combined with my dress, the straps of which are falling off my right shoulder, there’s no hiding what’s been going on in Sebastian’s office.
Not that I want to hide it, exactly—I’m not ashamed of what we’re doing. But I don’t want to broadcast it, either. It’s nobody’s business but ours.
“What do you see?” he asks again, his breath hot against my ear.
“What do you mean?”
“When you look at yourself in the mirror every day. What do you see?”
I don’t know how to tell him that I don’t look at myself in the mirror, that this is the first time I’ve done so beyond a cursory hair or makeup check in months.
“I see you,” I finally tell him after long seconds have passed us by.
“That’s a cop-out answer.”
It is, but also it isn’t. Because I do see him—from the moment I first walked into this office and he told me that I was getting my job back, I haven’t been able to see anything—anyone—but him. “It’s also the truth.”
He studies me in the mirror, his eyes running over my face, my body, trying to catch and hold my own gaze. But I won’t let him do it, won’t lock eyes with him now when I’m already so vulnerable that it hurts just to stand here with him. Hurts just to breathe.
“Do you want to know what I see???
? he asks.
Yes. God, yes. “No.” I turn then, push past him. And try to figure out where my shoes ended up. “I need to get to work.”
“I checked the schedule. You’re not working today.”
“Christina asked me to cover for her.”
“Well, they’re just going to have to find someone else to cover for her.”
“Oh, really?” I turn to him, eyebrow raised inquiringly. “And why is that?”
“Because you’re going home.”
“No. I’m not.”
“You’re dead on your feet, you’re obviously upset—”
“That didn’t stop you from fucking me.”
His teeth snap together and he stares at me, jaw clenched, for long seconds. “No, it didn’t. And maybe that’s on me. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to make the same mistake twice. You’re in no condition to work.”
“You know, I think it’s interesting that the rich get to make that distinction. You’re in good enough shape to work. You’re not in good enough shape to work. For regular people, those lines don’t exist. You work because you have to.”
“Playing the you’re-rich-so-you-just-don’t-understand card isn’t going to work on me, Aria. I know a hell of a lot about regular people trying to make ends meet under extraordinary circumstances. I do what I can to make things easier for them, too, whenever I can. But you aren’t just some random person to me. You’re the woman I’m fall—”
He breaks off in the middle of the sentence, in the middle of the word. But it’s still enough to have my heart stuttering and my stomach dropping to my toes. We’ve only known each other three days. Albeit, they’ve been a pretty intense three days, but still it’s only been three days since I walked into his office and he thanked me for hitting that whale in the balls with my drink tray. He can’t possibly be falling in anything with me in three days. Just like I can’t possibly be falling for him. Not yet.
Not now.
“Look, I can’t stand here arguing for much longer. I still have to get downstairs and get changed. My shift starts in less than fifteen minutes.”
“You’re not listening to me. You aren’t working—”
“No, Sebastian. You’re not listening to me. I am working, because I said I would work. Because I’m perfectly capable of working. And because, damn it, I want to work tonight. So stop trying to give me special treatment—it won’t go well for either of us—and get the hell off my back about this. Okay?”
“And if I said it wasn’t okay with me?” he asks, one brow raised inquiringly.
“Then I’d tell you to suck it up and I’d go to work anyway.”
“It seems like that whole diatribe you just gave was you essentially telling me to suck it up.”
“That’s why they pay you the big bucks,” I tell him, tongue firmly in cheek. “Because you’re so smart.”
And then, because he seems more resigned than angry, I take the risk of reaching over and patting his cheek. He lets me, then grabs my wrist and tugs sharply enough to have me slamming into his body, hard.
“You aren’t always going to get your way, you know,” he tells me as his hands slide down my back to cup my ass.
I shove all my baggage down deep inside of me, refusing to let it ruin this moment. Instead, I smile sassily and say, “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see about that, won’t we?”
“I guess we will.” He squeezes my ass hard enough to have a whole new heat blossoming inside me. I yelp a little at the pain, and the pleasure, of it.
Sebastian smirks at me, then drops a quick kiss on my mouth. “Don’t let the whales push you around down there.”
It’s my turn to lift a brow. “Do I ever?”
“That’s my girl.”
He says it like he means it. And though everything else in my life is a mess, though I’m screwed up and confused and still trying to recover from everything that happened fourteen months ago, I can’t help smiling as I walk out his office door.
Because Sebastian Caine called me his girl.
And because I stood up to him—and won.
—
Seven hours later, I’m standing up to him again. After all, it’s ridiculous for him to keep giving me rides home when I have a perfectly good car that I’m paying perfectly good money for—and that has to be delivered to me in the morning if I do accept his offer.
Which I have no intention of doing—in fact, I’m making a good, logical case against it, but it doesn’t matter. I can tell from the look on his face that this time around, I’m out of luck. Sebastian isn’t going to budge.
“You know, you really don’t have to do this,” I tell him as he holds me gently by the elbow and escorts me to his car.
“I really do,” he answers, holding the door open for me. “Besides, I want to see you tonight and you’re dead on your feet. This might be the only time we’ve got to spend together.”
“So you aren’t planning on coming in, then?” I try to keep the disappointment out of my voice. No use letting him know how much I was looking forward to making love with him again, and then just hanging out for a while.
“I’d love to come in,” he says with a grin. “I just didn’t want to assume I was invited.”
“Wow. Sebastian Caine, international man of mystery and lover extraordinaire, is feeling insecure. I like it.”
“I’m not insecure. I’m polite. There’s a difference. And I’m not an international man of mystery or anything else.”
“That’s not what the Us magazine in the break room said about you,” I tease. “And I notice you didn’t deny the lover extraordinaire part of the statement.”
He lifts a brow at me before helping me into the car and slamming the door shut behind me.
“Those eyebrows of yours are very expressive,” I tell him once he’s settled in the driver’s seat. “You can say whole sentences with them. How do you do that?”
“More like paragraphs, really. And I spend hours in front of the mirror practicing.”
I burst into laughter at the deadpan delivery. “Someone who doesn’t know you as well as I do might think you were serious, you know.”
He glances at me out of the corner of his eyes. “So you think you know me?”
“I—” My brain shuts down for a second as I scramble to figure out if I’ve made too many assumptions, if I’ve gotten too relaxed with Sebastian too quickly. But a quick look at his eyes tells me he’s fighting a smile, so I end up saying, “I think I know you better than I did three days ago, yeah.”
“Fair enough. I’m pretty sure I know you better, too.”
That’s what I’m afraid of. But I don’t say that to him. Instead I concentrate on keeping things light and easy between us for the rest of the drive. Once we get to my apartment complex, Sebastian pulls into my spot without having to be reminded which one it is. No surprise there. He notices everything, remembers everything. It’s one more reason why I shouldn’t be with him, but as he comes around to help me out of the car, it doesn’t seem to matter. Nothing does—not my past, not who my father is, not even the mistakes I made fourteen months ago that are following me still. All that matters is the warmth in Sebastian’s eyes when he looks at me and the way he makes me feel good about myself and my life.
As we cross the parking lot, I spot Janet sitting on the steps. Even from this distance I can tell that she’s drunk, and I turn to warn Sebastian that I’m going to have to try to wrestle her into her apartment.
But he’s not paying attention to me at all. Instead, he’s staring at Janet like he’s seen a ghost. Or the Antichrist. I can’t tell which.
“Sebastian?” I ask, stopping dead. “What’s wrong?”
He doesn’t seem to hear. Instead he keeps walking and I have two choices—to let go of his arm or to let him pull me along.
I let him pull me along, watching him carefully as he stops in front of my neighbor. “Janet.” His voice is harsh, broken, nearly unrecognizable in its intensity.
r /> My neighbor grins at him for a second, looking back and forth between us like she wants to be in on the joke. “Thanks for the food this morning, Aria. I appreciate it.”
“Anytime,” I tell her.
“Are you going to introduce me to your friend here?”
I’m not sure. Not when Sebastian is pale and shaky and looking like he just got hit by a semi. But I know he’s following the question because he answers for me. “We’ve already met.”
“Have we?” Janet asks, climbing shakily to her feet. “Well, let me get a look—”
She freezes then, her voice breaking apart. “Sebastian? Sebastian Caine?”
“Yes. Janet—”
He reaches a hand out to her but she’s fast, faster than I’ve ever seen her. She ducks away from him and then her hand flashes out and slaps him hard across the face. Once, twice. And he does nothing to stop her.
“Murderer!” she screams at him. “Murderer, murderer, murderer!”
Don’t miss this continuing series, five installments available now from Loveswept
Play Me #1: Play Me Wild
Play Me #2: Play Me Hot
Play Me #3: Play Me Hard
Play Me #4: Play Me Real
Play Me #5: Play Me Right
BY TRACY WOLFF
Play Me
Play Me Wild
Play Me Hot
Play Me Hard
Play Me Real
Play Me Right
Ethan Frost Novels
Ruined
Addicted
Exposed (coming soon)
Extreme Risk Series
Shredded
Shattered
Slashed (coming soon)
Other Books
Full Exposure
Tie Me Down
PHOTO: © KEVIN GOURLEY
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author TRACY WOLFF lives in Texas and teaches writing at her local community college. She is married and the mother of three young sons.