She glared at him, outmaneuvered.
“You always wake up this grumpy? There’s coffee too.”
She felt herself weakening as he moved closer. He tugged the sheet out of her grip and pressed her back into the mattress. His lips were warm and his mouth tasted minty. “Have breakfast with me.” He nuzzled her neck.
Crystal’s body swelled to his touch. “I can’t.”
“You keep saying that. Why?”
Because she wanted to stay. “Because it’s pumpkin time.”
“What?”
“Clock strikes twelve—it’s time to go. Although I’d say I’m a little more Pretty Woman than Cinderella at the moment, but same difference. Either way, I’ve got to go,” she babbled.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ryan asked, looking down at her with a frown. “Do you have to work?”
“No, I’m not working today, but we agreed on one night,” she reminded him. “I’m going home now.”
He rolled to the side and sat up. “That’s it? We have sex for hours on end, barely sleep, you have a total of,” he counted on one hand, added a few more fingers, “nine orgasms, and now you’re leaving?”
“Remind you of anything?” she couldn’t resist asking. She slid out of bed and walked naked into the living room. Damn, that coffee smelled good. So did the bacon. She picked up her dress and slid into it, ignoring her bra and underwear for the moment.
“Is this some sort of joke? Some kind of revenge for what happened in college?” His face was incredulous.
“Don’t put this on me, Ryan. You came back to New York. You propositioned
me
. I think I’ve been more than accommodating, considering.”
“Considering what?”
Considering what happened last time.
But she couldn’t say that, so she just stared at him, trying to figure out what she could say to convince him to leave her alone. Their connection was still hot. His emotions were strong, stronger than she could handle on zero sleep and less food. She had to focus on what was best for her, not his confusion or disappointment, not his anger, and certainly not his damn loneliness.
He poured a cup of coffee and placed it in her hand. “Talk to me, Crystal. You can deny it all you want, but I know you want me. I want you too. I don’t see a problem here. Let’s eat.”
“It isn’t that simple. Last night was amazing, I’m not denying that. But I can’t stay.” Her heart grew cold at the thought of what she was about to say. She hated to lie. Lies always came back to bite you on the ass, but she didn’t have a choice. She steeled herself. “Ryan, you let me in. I told you, I can feel your emotions. You wanted me so badly. It was so easy to be swept along…”
“You faked it?”
His pain was hers, and she decided he deserved the truth, if only half of it. “Of course not. There’s no way I could fake nine orgasms. You are a wonderful lover, but wonderful is not enough to make me want to change my life,” she explained. “I like my life. There’s nothing I want to change.”
He shook his head and poured himself a cup of coffee. “It can’t possibly be this good with your girlfriend, Crystal. You left her at the wedding with a hot blond and a stiff drink and never even glanced back on your way out the door.” He took a sip of coffee. Her mouth watered, but she set her cup down on the table and went back into the bedroom to get her shoes. She sat on the bed to put them on and ignored Ryan, standing in the doorway.
The emotional overload of the past twenty-four hours was wearing on her last nerve, and her composure was fraying. She was hungry, tired and she wanted nothing more than to sit down and have breakfast with him like a normal person, but she wasn’t a normal person. She was an empath and she needed distance in order to function, distance she couldn’t get from him. She wasn’t sure which was worse, the fact that she couldn’t keep him out of her head or the fact that he made her want things she couldn’t have. Either way, she had to get out of here before she did something stupid, like crawl back in bed and lose herself completely.
She stood and walked toward him, keeping her eyes on the center of his bare chest.
He blocked the door.
“Please move.” When he didn’t budge, she froze, not wanting to touch him.
He crossed his arms. “Not until you tell me why you’d have to change your life to have breakfast with me. You spent the night, after all. I’d say breakfast is downshifting.”
Crystal raised her gaze to his teasing grin. His dark eyes were shining with laughter, smile lines fanning out from the edges. The man was infuriating. And relentless. They weren’t just talking about breakfast and he knew it. And because she’d read his heart last night, she knew his desire for her was underpinned by hurt and anger. She couldn’t blame him for feeling betrayed by what she had done ten years ago. From his perspective, she’d gotten out of bed with him and climbed into the sack with the Alpha Sig brothers. He didn’t know she’d had no control over her actions. He didn’t know it wasn’t her fault. He had no way of knowing unless she told him, and she wasn’t going to do that.
If thinking she was a tramp had kept him away then, it would probably work now too. But, oh, it was going to hurt. It was one thing to cultivate the image of a freewheeling sex guru—it was another thing to brand herself a heartless slut. However, she was running out of options. She couldn’t risk the emotional hell she’d barely survived ten years ago.
She kept her voice light. “Staying for breakfast isn’t really my style. I would have left last night if you hadn’t worn me out. You have the energy of a dozen men—and I would know, remember?”
She moved forward and he drew back, probably to avoid touching her. Lord knew she felt dirty. She quickened her stride as he followed her into the other room.
“No, actually,” he said. “I remember a sweet girl who gave me her virginity. That girl would have stayed for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She wasn’t just in it for the sex, and she wouldn’t have jumped into a frat house orgy—but she did, right? What happened, Crystal? Why did you do it?” The air held curiosity, not scorn or judgment. “If you’re not going to stay, at least tell me that.”
She kept her back to him as she snatched her purse from the desk and composed her expression. She turned toward the door, wishing for the first time that his emotions were more volatile. The cool calculation in his tone was dangerous. Bonita was right. Nothing less than a baseball bat was going to get him to leave her alone.
She could almost feel his brain sifting through the pieces of the past, shifting them around in his mind. She had to make sure she didn’t give anything away. Ten more steps and she’d be out the door. Safe. She would never see him again.
He kept talking as he followed her. “When I called the frat house that night, I was too young and too hurt to think any further than the obvious. I assumed our night together meant nothing to you. Now you’re trying to skate out the door after another great night, which should convince me I was right, that sex means nothing to you. I mean nothing to you. But I just don’t buy it. I’ve had meaningless sex, lots of it in fact, and it was never like last night. We connect, Crystal, and now that we’re together, I can’t imagine stopping at just one night.”
She reached the door and turned to face him, forcing her lips into a smile. “And I can’t imagine having anything more. The girl you knew might not have tackled a frat house, but the woman she has become can handle a fraternity and a sorority too. Sex is my business and my pleasure. I work at Come Again and I make a very good living telling people how to improve their sex lives, for God’s sake! I don’t do relationships, and if I did, it wouldn’t be with you.” She pressed the handle down to open the door.
He reached up to hold it shut. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“The concierge will call me a taxi.”
“That’s not what I meant.” His eyes gleamed.
She took a deep breath. “A goodbye kiss?”
Please God, no.
He shook his head and pointed over his shoulder. “Your underwear.”
“Keep it.”
“I don’t collect souvenirs.” He left her standing at the door and returned with her lingerie.
She took it from his hand. “Thank you.” Her panties were scraps of ribbon and lace, but the long ties made stuffing them into her purse feel like a parody of the clown scarf trick in reverse. Her purse was tiny, too small to hold her hefty underwire bra, so she had to tuck it under her arm. “Goodbye, Ryan. It was—” She paused.
Terrifying. Spectacular. Unforgettable
. Memory drifted in the air between them, a hot breeze, an unacknowledged truth. “It
was
nice to see you.”
She opened the door and glanced back at him from the safety of the hotel hall. His eyes were mesmerizing—the laughing eyes that had stopped her in her tracks at the fraternity party so many years ago, the tender eyes that had watched her become a woman, the blind eyes that hadn’t looked back to find her for ten endless years. She couldn’t look away.
He raised his hand. “I don’t know what I did that was so awful you won’t even consider giving us a second chance, but it’s only fair to warn you. I’m going to change your mind. What we have is special, Crystal. Rare. Real. I lost you once, but I’m not going to lose you again. Go ahead and run. I’ll catch you later.”
Her throat felt tight and her feet felt heavy as she moved down the hall toward the elevator. She knew she was doing the right thing but she felt like a coward, slinking away with her underwear in her purse and her bra under her arm. The breeze beneath her dress gave
walk of shame
a whole new meaning.
Ryan hadn’t listened to a word she’d said. He was going to keep charging, keep pushing, and she was afraid he would discover her secret. If he knew her heartless slut act was all for show, he might not leave her alone. How long before her defenses crumbled completely? How long before she gave in to her own desire to keep him close? And how long before he got his fill and left her again?
Ryan lifted a silver plate cover, trying to decide if he still felt like having breakfast. His stomach growled but he didn’t feel hungry. Still, it was a shame to waste good food, so he sat and poured himself another cup of coffee. What the fuck had just happened?
He picked up his fork and took a bite of an omelet. It was delicious. Salty feta, sweet tomatoes and spinach really hit the spot. Crystal didn’t know what she was missing. Or maybe, after spending the night with him, she did know what she was missing—and she didn’t want it anymore.
He lifted more plate covers until he found the bacon. He’d ordered one of everything, just to make sure she’d have something she liked for breakfast. He chewed a piece of crispy bacon and stared at his plate, replaying their conversation in his head. Something about the way she had looked reminded him of that old joke about lawyers.
How do you know when a lawyer is lying? His lips are moving.
Going by what she’d said, she was just out for a good time. However, if that were true, why wouldn’t she stay for breakfast? Breakfast was good. Why didn’t she want to crawl back in bed and have more sex? The sex had been better than good—it had been unbelievable. Her lips had shaped those blasé words, but her eyes had held fear.
Every instinct told him she was afraid of him, but why? In business, he kept moving ahead until he outpaced the competition or rolled over his opponent, but Crystal didn’t fight or give in—she walked away. Brute force wasn’t going to get him what he wanted from her, but he wasn’t sure what else would do the trick. He needed information, pieces to the puzzle. Perhaps if he could gather enough information, he could learn what made her tick and she would confide her fears in him instead of running away from him.
What was it that made her such a puzzle? He sipped his coffee and pondered. She was confident—at least, he assumed it took confidence to rock black leather and thigh-high boots when surrounded by women wearing knee-length skirts, low-heeled pumps and pearls. Either she didn’t feel the need to fit in or she liked to make a statement. He stared into his cup, thinking about the past weekend. For someone so self-assured, Crystal sure did have a lot of people watching her back. The girl from Come Again, Destiny, had threatened his balls in the receiving line in a tone of voice that made him dead certain she knew how to do things to the male anatomy that most people had never considered. Mark’s wife, Alisa, had clearly been concerned for her friend, and Crystal’s hot blond date at the wedding last night had given him the once-over so hard he still felt like he had something to prove. If Crystal was so secure, why did she need so many protectors?
He grabbed another piece of bacon and went into the bedroom to retrieve his cell phone. Mark was either in the air or in an airport. No harm in giving it a shot. He dialed.
Just when he thought it was going to voicemail, Mark picked up. “You better have a good reason for interrupting my shot at the Mile High Club, buddy.”
“Screw you. Your cell phone would be off if you were in the air. I’ve got a question.”
Mark laughed. “Shoot.”
“Does Crystal LaRusso sleep around?”
Silence. “Hang on,” he said.
Ryan heard talking in the background, then a loud, female exclamation.
“What the hell kind of question is that?” Alisa blasted in his ear.
“Hey, now, settle down. I’m not trying to be an asshole. Crystal just left me all by my lonesome in a beautiful hotel room with eight different breakfast choices spread out on the table. She said she was just here for one night of sex. I don’t buy it, and I was just looking for another opinion.”