“I have to get home before the wife and kids wake up. I have carpool duty tomorrow. Thanks for a great lay.”
I’m frozen, much like I was when that orgasm hit me. I can’t move. My body is locked in place as he walks out of my hotel room. Only it’s not from pleasure. It’s not from experiencing the greatest feeling I’ve ever felt in my entire life.
How I’ve gone from the highest high to the lowest low in a matter of an hour, I’ll never know.
As if my life can’t get any worse. As if I didn’t just discover that my dad has been cheating on my mother for the last fifteen years with a woman from the office. As if my entire personal and professional life isn’t in jeopardy. Now I’ve put myself in the position of being the other woman. Granted, this sin is on John’s shoulders, not mine, but it doesn’t make me feel any less like a whore.
I’m all about sexual freedom, but it’s pieces of shit like him that make it impossible for women—or men if the tables were turned—to enjoy no-strings sex because there’s always someone in the group who fucks it all up by being a horrible human being. There are women who would sleep with married men with their eyes wide open to that fact. Bamboozling women who aren’t interested is the lowest of low.
I feel sick to my stomach as I rush to the bathroom to shower him off of me. There isn’t enough soap in this entire damn hotel to make me feel better, and despite having a serious meeting tomorrow, I know I’ll show up looking haggard. It’ll be impossible to get any rest tonight.
It’s just another way to prove I’m thirty years old and I don’t have my life together.
Chapter 3
Gaige
“What the fuck just happened?” I mutter as we all watch Jude disappear down the hall with Parker Maxwell.
I know my jaw is hanging open, but I just can’t seem to get my shit together this morning.
“Is that Hayden’s best friend?” Finnegan Jenkins asks, his Irish accent thick this morning.
“Yep,” Wren answers from near the coffee pot. “But that’s been building for a while.”
Of course Wren knows what the hell is going on. As Blackbridge’s IT specialist, he’s always in everyone’s business whether we want him there or not. It wouldn’t surprise me if he knew exactly where I went after Quinten and Hayden’s wedding last night, or who I spent the night with. Hell, I don’t even know the woman’s real name, but I wouldn’t put it past him to not only know that information but have a full workup of her entire history including pictures of her from grade school.
I narrow my eyes at him, but he seems more focused on fixing a cup of coffee than anything else.
“Weren’t you guys just giving him shit for being a virgin?” I look to Brooks for confirmation.
The man nods, a frown on his face when I expect to see the quick grin he’s known for. Something is going on with him, but it’s not really my place to grill him about his personal shit, so I don’t.
“She’s a real looker,” Finn adds. “Did you see the way he kissed her? That wasn’t a virgin kiss.”
“Nope,” Wren confirms, and leave it to the not-so-closeted-kink-master to know that piece of information.
“What are we discussing?” Kit asks as he walks up, placing a rifle case to the side of the sofa before walking toward the coffee pot.
“Jude just disappeared into his exam room with Parker Maxwell,” Finn helpfully supplies as he makes a god-awful noise moving bits and pieces of who knows what around inside a metal box. The man is always tinkering with something, but I guess as the resident mechanic and safe cracker, it’s sort of his job.
I didn’t drink enough to have the headache that seems to be hell-bent on splitting my head wide open this morning, but here I am suffering anyway.
“That sexy friend of Hayden’s? Man, the way she looked in her bridesmaid’s dress last night made me want—”
“She’s off the market, man.” Wren slaps him on the back. “Jude’s locking it down right now.”
“In his office?” Kit asks with disbelief, his eyes darting down the hall in that direction. “Impossible. The man is a vir—”
“Apparently, not any longer,” Finn says with a quick laugh.
“Women are fucking trouble,” Kit says.
“Sex is the trouble,” Finn argues.
“Great sex is the trouble,” Brooks clarifies, and it isn’t lost on me that he didn’t speak up like he normally does when Kit mentioned women being the problem.
“I can drink to that.” I hold up my third cup of coffee for the day in commiseration before taking a long swig, draining the cup.
I stand to prepare the fourth one, knowing it’s going to take a lot more caffeine to make it through this damn day. I felt like a complete ass for the first time after pulling the wedding ring bullshit last night, and I have no idea why. I don’t have to use it often, but I saw the look in that woman’s eye. She was all hearts and flowers, and I get it. The sex was earth-shattering for her. Hell, it was for me, too.