“There are no conditions. You can leave whenever you want. But you’re not going to want to. I’m going to show you the best time you’ve ever had.”
I don’t know what’s happening or how I could be falling this fast for a man I hardly know—even though it’s true that he knows me better than maybe anyone ever has.
It scares me, like so many things do. Of course I’m second guessing all of it. The moving to New York when I have thirty-five dollars in my bank account and no job. The lofty assurances he tosses out like raindrops to a piece of dirt that’s too parched to drink it in. The promises to rely on him … when attempting to rely on people has never worked out for me and in fact has caused me more heartbreak than anything else ever has. The feeling that I’m getting in way, way over my head.
But all those concerns are going to have to wait. Because Dallas Wilder is not only making me come again—hard—he’s kissing me like I’m the most beautiful thing that’s ever happened to him.
A little bit like he’s the most beautiful thing that’s ever happened to me.
But what happens when he breaks my heart, like everyone always does?
26
It’s Monday,I can tell by the sounds of the morning outside the open French doors before I even open my eyes. The trucks of the clean-up crews are more businesslike on a Monday morning than they are at any other time of the week. New Orleans parties non-stop, with the exception of the four-hour lull of a Monday morning. The drunks are still asleep in some tucked-away doorway, the tourists left last night to make their way back to wherever they came from and won’t be replaced until noon, and the street musicians are recovering from the weekend. The vivaciousness of the city is momentarily at rest.
Cruelly clear-eyed and unromantic, Monday mornings are entirely immune to whatever logic the weekend convinced us might have been a good idea at the time.
Speaking of good ideas versus am-I-going-to-live-to-regret-this ideas, my eyes open to find Dallas’s side of the bed empty. I can hear that he’s outside on the balcony talking on his phone.
Even though I’ve always hated Monday mornings, I know I won’t regret this weekend. Whatever happens later, I still won’t. It was a perfect moment in time with a perfect dream man who may or may not evaporate into thin air like dream men tend to do. Still, I’ll always have it in my memories.
Monday morning does its usual thing, instilling a cold ordinariness to the light. It’s the only time of the week that New Orleans feels like a regular place. Not that I’vebeento many other places, but it’s how I imagine they would feel. Dull. On a schedule. Empty of music and eccentricity and fun.
My stomach swoops as I remember a very important detail of what’s happening today.
I’m moving to New York today.
Jesus H.
I agreed to move to an entirely different city that’s very far away from my home and stay with a man I’ve known for three days.
I sit up a little. Our love-nest is an absolute den of iniquity. It looks very much like a scene in which two people got as sexy and debauched as it’s possible to do and spent the weekend thoroughly throwing every caution under the sun into the proverbial wind. The duvet is balled up and wrapped loosely around me. Our clothes are strewn over chairs or have been left on the floor. Several trays of empty room service platters are over near the door, along with their empty bottles of champagne and now-melted ice buckets full of room temperature water.
My hair might as well be dreadlocks and I have bruises on my arms and thighs—which are smeared with the remnants of all manner of wanton behavior. I’m sore, I’m sated, I’m enlightened,and I am not the same Amelie Esmé Sabine Anaïs Thibodeaux who started her bartending shift on Friday night.
I’m in love.
My subconscious insists on attempting to be the voice of reason.I’ll remind you again that this random billionaire you think you’re “in love with” is someone you’ve known for less than the duration of three shifts.
Either way, there’s one thing I can confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt. I’m definitely no longer a virgin. Not even close.
My stomach does that swooping thing again. Because I’ve agreed to do things today that are so far outside my comfort zone, I might has well have booked a ticket to fly to Mars on an alien spaceship this afternoon.
But his words echo through my mind along with the fear.I’ll protect you. I’ll take care of you.
And I know Sadie was right about it being time. The hotel is nothing but a ball and chain to me at this point.
It’s all too much to think about.
I roll over, stretching, testing all my sorenesses, reveling in the sheer comfort of the bed. Displacing the duvet in the process.
I don’t really realize that I’ve arched my back in way that completely exposes me in a coy, bare-ass-naked invitation until I hear Dallas behind me. “You tryin’ to seduce me again, Amelie Thibodeaux?” comes his husky drawl, mimicking my accent.
I’m on my stomach, my ass raised and my knees apart and I glance behind me to see the towel dropping and Dallas’s big, buff body. His giant cock is fully, hugely hard and upright as he grips my hips, raising them higher.
“Good mornin’, Dallas Wilder,” I coo. Because to hell with it. I can’t control how easy it is for this man to tune into my most primal cravings. They don’t seem to turnoffaround him. I just want him, plain and simple.
“It sure is a good mornin’, with you in it. You want more of my big cock, don’t you, you greedy girl. Let me give you what you need.”
