One Night Only: An After Dark Standalone in The Extravagant Series Read online

  “And he hasn’t been here since. No one has gotten near me. Your team is amazing. You’re amazing. I don’t even get creepy emails.”

  “Good. That’s how it should be. That’s how it needs to be.”

  She draws a breath, her tone heavy. “You don’t think we should do this again.” She takes a beat. “Do you?”

  She looks at me, so vulnerable, so open, and I want to rip off my shirt, shed my pants, get in there with her, and take her in my arms.

  Hold her.

  But I don’t want to slip.

  Mistakes are deadly.

  Mistakes cost lives.

  My father taught me that. If you can’t do an important job at 100 percent, don’t do it at all. There is too much risk.

  He worked in security too. There is always risk in our field.

  I bring her hand to my mouth, kissing her knuckles softly and tenderly. “Ivy Carmichael, there is nothing I want more than to have you again. To be with you every damn night. But my mission is to keep you safe. I don’t want to cloud my judgment. I need to focus to do my job.”

  She seems to absorb this, her lips quivering for a second, then she nods, fierce and tough. “And we’re friends too. I’ve come to see you as my friend. You know what? I want you as my friend.”

  My heart squeezes. I don’t deserve her sweetness. “You’re my friend too.”

  “So, tonight was like Stone’s concert. One night only. We won’t let it happen again,” she says.

  “Exactly.”

  I stay there for a few more minutes on the edge of her tub, making small talk about Stone, laughing about him, talking about music and her sister and this city, and it all feels so natural, like we can slide right back into the way we were.

  As if tonight never happened.

  But if I don’t leave soon, I never will. I stand. “Do you want a towel?”

  “Yes, please.”

  I cross over to the towel rack, grab a fluffy one, and return to her. She nibbles on the corner of her lips. “I guess you better turn around.”

  Nothing pains me more than looking away when she rises from the tub. Nothing. All I want is to wrap this around her, carry her to bed, and kiss her everywhere.

  Then take her again.

  I want to make it hurt and then make her feel good.

  Instead, I tear myself away. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I leave, and it’s like I’m leaving a piece of myself behind. Because there is no way I’m getting her out of my system.

  Ever.

  9

  Ivy

  This is how we return to normal.

  By being . . . business as usual.

  And business as usual includes morning to noon to night meetings.

  The first week is the hardest—the memories are the freshest. Every time I see Callum, I’m plunged back into a reel of images of him taking me on my desk, owning my body.

  In the morning, I wake thinking of his smile, his laughter, his big, warm heart.

  The idea of him lingers with me, floating around me all day long—both sides of the man I want.

  I try my best to stay in the moment with each person I meet. Finalizing menus, organizing cocktails, and confirming our PR.

  Exactly seven days after soul-shattering, mind-bending sex, I finish a breakfast meeting with my floor manager, Jen, patting myself virtually on the back for having only thought of Callum three times during the meeting.

  My daytime bodyguard, Russ, waits outside Jen’s office. The hulking six-foot-seven tree of a man follows behind when we leave, then when I say goodbye by the craps tables. “Have fun at the musical this weekend. I know Madison will be the best Wednesday her high school has ever seen,” I say, since Jen’s seventeen-year-old daughter is performing in The Addams Family this weekend.

  “I can’t wait. I don’t know who’s more nervous. Her or me,” the pretty brunette says with a smile.

  “I’ll send her flowers.”

  I wave, then head to the stairs, making my way to my offices, as Russ walks next to me, earpiece in, saying something I can’t make out.

  For a fleeting second, I wonder if he’s talking to Callum back at the office.

  But I try to flush the thoughts of the man I want from my head.

  When we reach the corporate offices, Russ opens the door, and I step inside.

  “Thank you, Russ.”

  “You’re welcome, Ms. Carmichael.”

  He is all business, as a bodyguard should be, I suppose.

  In my office I find Sage, Kate, and Raphael waiting for me. Sage and I are fraternal twins. Both blonde and blue-eyed, and both a little taller than average. We look close enough that some people ask if we’re identical, but different enough that most don’t.

  Kate waggles her fingers in a hello. She runs a marketing firm The Extravagant contracts with and is also president of the book club we’re in. “Hey there. Good to see you in between fiction and memoirs.”

  “Yes, we must keep meeting like this,” I say, with my best cheery grin.

  “I’m psyched to get to work on planning this concert,” Kate says.

  “It’s going to be amazing,” Raphael chimes in. He’s on the events team here at The Extravagant.

  “We have our work cut out for us,” Sage chimes in.

  They’re on a soft, plush couch. I sit across from them in a comfy chair. “We do indeed. I spoke with Stone’s manager, and he wants to do the show in exactly five weeks. So, we will be busy, busy, busy.”

  The next thirty-five days will be more like an all-consuming storm. Perhaps that’s a good thing. I’m grateful for both the opportunity and the distraction from thoughts of Callum.

  His hands on me.

  His hands all over me.

  His hands everywhere.

  Squeezing, kneading, grabbing.

  Giving me the hottest, dirtiest sex of my life that freed my mind, that relaxed me, that made me feel like all my wishes weren’t . . . base.

  My late-night desires have always felt a little inappropriate.

  A bit too naughty.

  As if something might be wrong with me for promoting luxury, sensuality, and beauty during the day, and wanting filth at night.

  “Earth to Ivy.” Sage waves from her spot on the couch. “You kind of zoned out there.”

  I blink, trying to center myself. “Sorry, I was distracted for a second.” I fight like hell to shake away the thoughts of Callum.

  After all, I should be this woman. The one I am now. The co-CEO who envisions gorgeous lobby displays, who embraces music, art, luxury.

  Not the woman who loves porn, filth, and muscular men who take matters into their own hands.

  God, I watch too many dirty videos at night.

  My internet is getting to know me far too well.

  And I’m getting to know two-dimensional men far too well.

  But right now, I have to be the public face of this gorgeous hotel, not the freak in the sheets.

  “Anything in particular?” my sister asks, a little coyly. “Don’t make me use my twin mind-reading powers to figure it out.”

  “You wish you had mind-reading powers,” I fire back, praying she never develops such abilities—anyone who could see into my mind would be shocked.

  The woman in Louboutins likes it rough. Likes it to hurt. Likes to be . . . dirtied.

  “I can read you, and I bet you have a crush on Stone,” Sage says, with a glint in her eye.

  I laugh, then cough. If she only knew who all my feelings were for, all my lust, though admittedly Stone is empirically handsome. “A crush on his music,” I say, clarifying.

  “But you have to admit, he is wickedly handsome,” Raphael says.

  “And mega-talented,” Kate adds.

  “What’s he like?” Raphael asks, leaning forward, eyes wide and eager. “I’m dying to know. Is he the playboy they all say he is?”

  I cut that off at the knees. “I don’t think we should be discussing whether he’s a
playboy or not. His private life is just that—private. But I will tell you this—he’s a great guy. A wonderful friend. And he has a big heart,” I say. Funny, how I met him once, for only a short while, but I already feel protective of Stone too. There was such vulnerability in him, and it was thoroughly endearing.

  What was even more endearing was how Callum looked out for his friend. The memory of that makes my heart thump.

  Makes it thump wildly.

  Apparently, it’s not only my basest, naughtiest parts that Callum claims, but the safest, squishiest ones too. Had it always been that way? A sexual tension but also an emotional one that maybe runs deeper than friendship, deeper than just a close confidante?

  We work our way through our to-do list, dividing and conquering our plans for the next several weeks.

  When Sage and Raphael leave a little later, Kate lags behind. “You okay? You’ve been so intensely focused the last week you’re like a machine.”

  “Busy, busy, busy,” I say, trying to keep everything light.

  “Well, don’t forget to unwind now and then. And if you need to chat about anything, you know where to find me.”

  “Thanks, Kate. I appreciate that.”

  I’m grateful to have good friends like Kate. Friends who get me. Friends who can tell when I’m elsewhere. I resolve to do better. To keep my eye on the prize. Focusing on this part of my life—friendship and business. “By the way, I saw that you gifted me a very naughty book.”

  She feigns surprise. “Oh, did I?”

  I laugh, rolling my eyes. “Yes. When I turned on my Kindle the other night, it popped up. What was the name of it?” I tap my lip playfully. “The Tryst. It had a pair of shoes on the cover. I read the first chapter.”

  “And?”

  I give her a knowing grin, remembering the steam rising from the very first page. “It was . . . illuminating.”

  “And by ‘illuminating,’ you mean it’s going to be a fantastic exploration of the boundaries of kink and trust?”

  “I believe it is.”

  “Well, I hope it gives you a great escape,” she says, then turns to leave.

  I shut the door after her, alone now in my office.

  A great escape.

  That’s what my night with Callum felt like.

  A great and absolute escape, and what I wouldn’t give to take her up on her advice to unwind into that kind of escape with him again. With a pull of my hair, a bite on my shoulders. Better yet, he could put me on all fours, press a palm between my shoulder blades, and shove my face against the pillow.

  Tell me to raise my ass for him.

  Oh God, I would.

  Then, after he took me to the edge of my desires, he’d lift me in his arms, carry me into the bath, and sink down into the water with me.

  Tenderly slide his hands all over me.

  I slump down on my couch, wishing for all those things.

  Every single one.

  All the things I can’t have.

  I center myself, focusing on the other part of who I am. The businesswoman. The one who takes care of her employees. I call my favorite florist and arrange for a gorgeous bouquet of tulips to be sent to Jen’s daughter’s school this weekend along with a note of congratulations.

  There. This is me now.

  By the end of the second week post epic sex, the longing starts to normalize. But only in the sense that wanting Callum is like breathing, and somehow the wanting becomes a part of the fabric of my life. When I talk to Callum as he escorts me to dinners, to events, and to a gala fundraiser I’m hosting for the children’s hospital, I sometimes imagine he’s not only the man watching my back, but the man by my side.

  I pretend that people whisper about us. Oh, that’s Ivy Carmichael with that gorgeous man who only has eyes for her.

  I crave those whispers. Because they’d mean he was mine. That we were more.

  When he takes me home, I hope he’ll ask again to come inside.

  He never does.

  After the third week, I stop pretending. But I don’t stop thinking of him when I’m alone in bed at night. I want to, but I can’t. He invades all my midnight thoughts.

  Trouble is, I have to hold all those thoughts at bay when I see him. We are a rubber band that snaps back to bodyguard-client, as if we never engaged in any other kind of relationship.

  At the end of a long day in the fourth week, he escorts me to my suite. I slide off my pumps in the elevator, sighing with relief.

  Exhaustion gets the better of me.

  “Getting a little risqué, aren’t you?” he asks, and that—that teasing again—feels good. I’ve missed it. So damn much.

  I laugh. “Nothing you haven’t seen before.”

  “True. Though if memory serves—”

  He stops himself. But I know where he’s going. “I didn’t take them off that night,” I say, finishing for him.

  He draws a sharp breath, taking a beat, like he’s considering whether to speak at all. When he does, his voice is low, controlled. “No, you left your shoes on,” he says, as if it costs him everything to keep his tone neutral. But it’s hardly neutral. I can hear the lust in it. Thick and heavy.

  I want to revel in it. Wrap myself in it. But he needs to make the move. He needs to take the step toward me.

  We reach my floor and walk down the hall, my shoes in my hand. The door seems to loom larger, like a tantalizing invitation into another world.

  Into a daring, dangerous world pulsing with nighttime desires.

  A world I should avoid.

  A world I can’t reconcile with my days.

  Just like I don’t know how to exist with wanting a man I see every day but can’t have.

  When I reach my door, I turn to Callum, my heart pounding, my chest aching.

  “Callum,” I say, desperate to add more, to say, Take me to bed tonight.

  “Ivy.” It comes out raspy, needy.

  My fingers twitch. My body aches. I want him to jerk me against him, slam his pelvis to mine, drag his hands through my hair. I want him to toss me on the bed, flip me onto all fours, pound into me, come on me.

  Then hold me all night.

  I draw a breath, wishing it would erase all the conflicting images.

  He’s staring at my shoes still. His hands are clenched in fists. “They’re great shoes.” He looks up, meeting my eyes, his brown irises glimmering with a thousand fires. “For the record, you wore them the last few nights when I was home alone too,” he says in a hot, dirty whisper, then he turns to go.

  I nearly moan in frustration as he leaves me with that naughty thought. Him getting himself off.

  That filthy, sexy-as-hell image.

  I head inside, my skin sizzling, my breath coming fast. I lean against the door, wanting desperately to yank it open and tell him to get his fine ass in here and bend me over the bed.

  Resisting him is not easier.

  It’s harder.

  So much harder.

  10

  Callum

  I stop at the elevator, but I don’t enter the key code to call it back up. Scrubbing a hand over the back of my neck, I weigh my choices. I’ve done this every single night.

  Ever since that night.

  On the one hand, I could turn around, rap on her door, and crush her in a kiss that would turn into everything we want it to be. Into her spread out on the bed, bound and begging.

  And the corollary to all that too—me staying the night. Because I would. I absolutely would. That’s the problem with the first choice. It doesn’t end at sex. It can’t end at sex. I want her deep in my bones, down to the marrow, and I want her with my soul too.

  I wouldn’t leave her after sex this time.

  I’d stay.

  I draw a frustrated breath, curling my hands into fists. The tension reminds me to stay the course.

  And I choose the same choice I’ve made every night since then.

  Resist.

  It’s what I have to do.

&n
bsp; I squeeze my eyes shut, fighting off the images of Ivy behind that door. Opening them again, I enter the code, and I leave.

  Once I’m gone, I go to the gym, work the weights for an hour, then do cardio, and as the clock ticks past midnight, I’m as spent as I can be.

  Maybe spent enough to go to sleep without thoughts of her tempting me all night long.

  A man can dream.

  Trouble is, Ivy is under my skin. She’s in my head. She’s in my goddamn heart. And, for all intents and purposes, once I’m home, she’s there with me in the shower after I strip out of my clothes and turn the water to scalding. I tip my head back under the stream, and imagine what I’d do to her here.

  What she’d want me to do.

  I’ve gotten off to Ivy every night for the last year.

  But now that I know what she tastes like, how she feels under my hands, the fantasies are different. They’re hotter, more specific. They’re all about her wishes. I take my length in my hand, sliding my palm down, squeezing it over the head. She’d be on her knees before me, mouth open, begging for a taste. I’d run my thumb over her lips, tease her, listen to her moan as she tasted that first drop of arousal.

  I curl my fist tighter, gripping harder.

  She’d stare at me with those wide, lust-drunk eyes and parted lips, water from the shower sluicing down her face.

  I’d rub the head of my dick over her lips, watch her eager mouth draw me in.

  Fuuuuck.

  I close my eyes, shuttle my hand faster, stroking harder. I swear I can hear her moans as she wraps those lush lips around my length, as she draws me to the back of her throat. I can see her shoving her hand between her legs, rubbing herself, faster and faster still, seeking that blissful release.

  A jolt of pleasure rushes down my spine, and I grunt out loud.

  A sound I know she’d want to hear. A sound that’d make her hotter, wetter, needier.

  I pump faster, seeing my woman on her knees, sucking me hard, relentlessly, all while stroking her sweet, perfect clit.