Authors: Leighton Riley
She was currently lying on my lap while I played with her tits in one hand and her hair in the other. She had the silkiest brown hair that would be perfect for pulling. She was almost asleep and kept mumbling about how much she wanted me and needed to leave early in the morning. I didn’t want to wake her up and I was content lying on the couch with her. It was the closest I had felt toward a woman in a long time. I was strangely at peace when I laid my head back on the couch, closed my eyes, and hoped the feeling never ended.
I jerked awake when I heard my cell phone going off. I must have dozed off at some point. Getting up and finding my phone in the jeans that are in a pile on the floor, I noticed I had two missed calls from the office. I wasn’t too worried about that at the moment, they could handle whatever the problem was. Where did Payton go? I remembered her being in my lap last night but didn’t hear or see her anywhere.
Then I saw a piece of paper next to the bottle of tequila. Notes were never good.
Ryder,
I had a blast with you last night. I’ve never felt the way I feel when I’m with you and it scares the hell out of me. I feel like a 16 year old with a mad crush on you but I know it’s crazy. I think about you constantly and want to jump you every time I see you. I decided to head out of town for a few days to get away from everything and think. I don’t know how long you’ll be in town, but I’ll text you when I get back. By the time you read this, I’ll probably already be lounging by the pool or hitting up the tables.
Sinfully,
Payton <3
I am pretty sure I stared at that fucking letter for a good five minutes, just rereading it over and over. Lounging by the pool. Hitting up the tables.
“Sinfully, Sinfully,” I said to myself out loud. Who signed a letter that way?
It seemed familiar, but I was more concerned about the fact that she said she wanted me but left. She didn’t even tell me where she was going or how long she’d be there. With having no more clues of finding Reece and not yet ready to spend day after day around Tristen, seeing Payton was a highlight of my day.
Wait.
Oh my fucking hell, what the fuck? No. No. No. Really? No.
Sinfully. Reece signed her emails with ‘Sinfully.’ Payton said she wrote children’s books and
My Lips Are Sealed
is definitely NOT a children’s book. I mean, hell, I had a hard-on from just
thinking
about the book. How did it not come up in conversation? Did I ever tell her what my business trip was for? I can’t even remember.
Reece had been so adamant about not meeting, was it because she was really Payton? Why would Payton want to hide such amazing work and not put her name to it? Oh fuck, was Payton going to Vegas to get away from me and find a different random guy to pleasure her for a night?
My head was starting to hurt and the more I thought it out, the more pissed I was. She lied to me. Well, I guess she just failed to mention her other type of writing, but still, I would have liked to have known Reece was fucking in front of me the whole time.
I thought we were just having fun with each other, so why would she feel the need to run off? Did I just let my prospective author slip out of my hands because she didn’t want to be around me? Yet another confirmation that I can’t involve my dick when working with authors; it never ended well for me, or him.
I needed a drink. Looking over at the nearly empty bottle of tequila, I poured what was left into my mouth before realizing it was definitely more than a shot or two. I felt like I should go for a workout to clear my head but I didn’t want to go to the same gym Payton goes to. I know she wouldn’t be there but I just didn’t want to be around it right then.
The beach.
I could go down there again, I think.
I know I’m going to have to tomorrow to celebrate my and Cami’s birthday, but that’s a little different. I had avoided the beach like the plague for so long, I missed the comfort I felt when I’m there.
I threw on some black cargo pants and a green V-neck shirt and headed out for the beach. I had yet to surf again after Cami’s accident and sure as hell didn’t plan to start again. The furthest I’d gotten was getting chest high in the water with Payton. She seemed to relax me and I wasn’t consumed with thoughts of Cami when I entered the water.
I stopped by a taco truck in the parking lot before heading down near the water. Cami loved shrimp tacos and I hated them; I always went for the grilled fish with the special sauce on them. I ended up getting two fish tacos and one shrimp taco. Not quite sure why.
Being in San Diego had brought up so many emotions that I had hidden away. For twenty-seven years, I had my best friend and partner in crime right by my side. Even when we got older and weren’t always in the same place, I never felt alone because I had my sister to go to. She was the one who cheered me on while playing soccer and helped me get my first girlfriend by playing up how awesome I was. She was one of the guys when we were out in the water surfing and she grounded me when I was being an idiot.
I wished she was there with me. I needed her advice on Payton. They would have loved each other. Cami was calm and down to earth while Payton was a little more feisty and mysterious. I tried to think of what Cami would say about the situation I had gotten myself into. She probably would have told me that only I would chase after an author who I didn’t know a damned thing about and end up falling for her and making her run within a matter of days. She’d probably also tell me not to give up so easily and to go with my gut and find her.
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t upset with Payton. Granted, she didn’t know who I was and didn’t have a reason to tell me she secretly wrote about her sex adventures in her spare time. I am pissed that she left. From what I had read from her book, she didn’t like relationships and just wanted to have fun. I thought we were having fun and never said anything about a relationship so I wasn’t quite sure why she would run.
I watched the waves roll in and it instantly calmed me. I was feeling better about going down there and felt like I had been making progress with dealing with the loss of Cami. I just needed to figure out what to do about Payton. Although she left me abruptly, she didn’t make it sound like it was a ‘forever goodbye’, so I took that as good news. She would never expect me to follow her to Vegas because she hadn’t even told me where she was going. I was, again, going off a hunch that I felt had to be correct. So far, I hadn’t been wrong about where I would be able to find her.
How long would she be in Las Vegas? Was she planning on being intimate with other guys? The thought made my stomach churn. I hated that I was falling for the chick but felt the need to be close to her all the damn time.
Fucking pussy.
When I was with Zoe, what I thought was love was really just lust and acceptance of the other. We had grown up together and after college we were still friends. One night of drunken sex was what started our relationship. We were both attracted to each other and knew everything about the other person so it just kind of worked. I was never
in
love with Zoe and her heart had always belonged to someone else. Apparently she had met her soul mate in college and I was the consolation prize. I found them in our bed together and wasn’t really all that angry about it. I was angrier that the man was in
my
bed getting
my
sheets dirty than where his dick was.
I had been without Payton for a total of two conscious hours and I already felt the need to be with her. I knew I was going to end up going to Vegas to try to find her, and in her book, she hinted at two bars which she frequented. I had to stay in town ‘til the next night so that Tristen and I could pay our respects to my sis. I could leave afterward and the flight was only an hour or so. I may still be able to catch her at a bar depending on how her night was going and how long it took me to get to her.
I wasn’t going to just swing by and let her know that I figured out who she really was. That would be too easy and I wanted to see her in action to really see how “Reece” was when she was in Vegas. Payton and Reece were two very different individuals and I was curious to see which side I liked more.
Chapter 6
Payton
The drive to Vegas usually involved me being overly excited and singing girl power songs at the top of my lungs. While it was a particularly boring drive with mountains surrounding me the majority of the time, I knew it would only be a few hours before my escape from reality started.
I knew I had to get away from Ryder. I was starting to feel too much for him. There was something about him that told me there was more to his story than he was letting on.
I hated that I wanted to get to know him better. I wanted to cook dinner with him and wake up next to him after having mind-blowing sex and snuggling together as we fell asleep. I wanted to know who his friends were and what he did on Saturday mornings. That scared the hell out of me.
The drive usually helped clear my mind, but that time, I kept thinking more and more about a man I shouldn’t be with. I had only had one relationship before but it shouldn’t even be labeled a relationship. I wasn’t close to loving him but felt like I should try out dating just to see what all the hype was about. I wanted to be normal. After Ryan, I never felt the need to get into another relationship or have any of the guys from Vegas become more than flings. They were sweet but I rarely thought about them after I got back to San Diego.
It wasn’t about sex with Ryder. Let me rephrase…it wasn’t JUST about sex with Ryder. I knew I was falling for him and had no idea what I should do. I had been so good at being independent without having to think about anyone else. What scared me the most was that I wanted to let him know about me and my past. I wasn’t about to tell him about the non-children’s book I wrote, but I wanted him to know where I come from. The only other person who knew was Chloe and I hated when friends asked about my parents or my childhood.
Growing up for the first seven years of life, I never once felt wanted. When I was around four, I realized all the other foster kids were going away to permanent homes but I was still there. My foster parents weren’t bad people, but they didn’t
love
like parents should. I watched kid after kid get picked and I was left wondering when it would be my turn.
I didn’t find out why until I was twelve, when my adoptive parents told me that my mother was a murderer and my father was the victim. I was three weeks old when my birth mom caught my dad cheating on her and shot him and the girl he was with in their bedroom. I always assumed she didn’t really love me or else she wouldn’t have taken her own life the next day.
Neighbors heard my wails and found me in my mother’s limp, lifeless arms. She had taken a bottle of pills and held me while she waited for her life to come to an end.
That information was supposed to be secure, but somehow all the prospective parents knew about me, while I was clueless. When my adoptive parents finally adopted me at the ripe age of seven, they were loving, but always had that look of pity in their eyes. Being lawyers, they were always working and had help to raise me. I had assumed the help didn’t know about my past because my parents were the only ones to look at me that way. I always kept to myself since I was scared they would leave me one day. It kind of made sense that they were taken from me when I was thirteen—everyone else had been.
My adoptive parents said they felt the need to let me know in case some stranger ever brought it up. They didn’t want someone else to break the news to me and leave me alone to process what they had revealed.
It wasn’t hard to do the research to find the news articles and I soon knew all too much about the baby found in the hands of her dead, murderous mother. I couldn’t believe the details that they had written in the papers. My last name had been changed to that of my adoptive parents but we still lived in the same city. As I got older, people had seemingly forgotten about who I was and I was able to get by with telling people I didn’t know anything about my birth parents since I honestly didn’t, except for what the articles said.
Before my adoptive parents passed away, Chloe and I were best friends without a care in the world. We rode our bikes around the neighborhood, went swimming at the beach, went to movies, and had fun without having to think of how cruel the world around us was. After the car accident, I had come to the conclusion that I would lose Chloe one day. She was the only one left in my corner and fate had a shitty way of reminding me of that. I changed that day. I freaked out if she didn’t answer her door when I went over to her house, assuming the worst had happened. When we would go swimming, I only let us get waist deep for fear that something would happen to her.
It drove her crazy. She tried to convince me that she was going to be just fine and made a point to show how safe she was. Slowly, I became more accepting that she was there to stay but I always kept a close eye on her.
It was illogical, but I feared that something would happen to Ryder if he got close to me. I felt cursed. I knew I was damaged goods and no amount of rain could ever clean me of my past. I didn’t deserve to be with someone as normal and genuine as Ryder.
I wasn’t going to allow myself to fall for Ryder anymore than I already had. It was scary to think I wanted him to know everything about me and that I wanted to let him know the real me. He would run, anyway. Either way, I lost, so getting myself more invested would only hurt more.
By the time I arrived on the strip, I was exhausted. I usually couldn’t wait to hit the poker tables or a bar, but that night, I was so emotionally drained and I just wanted to be alone in my room. I took a nice, steaming hot bath and read the newest book in a motorcycle club series. I was finally starting to feel better when I heard my cell phone in the room alerting me of a new text message. I hated that I hoped it was Ryder.