Villain (Hero 1.50)

“If I wanted out, I would have been gone as soon as we had sex last night. Were you not listening to anything I just said?” He gestured to the bed.

He didn’t seem angry. More amused by me. “Henry…”

I didn’t know how to articulate what I was feeling, or if I even really wanted him to know what I was feeling, but he pulled out his cell and called someone before I could make up my mind. “Henry Lexington. A Town Car, please.” He gave the person on the other end my address. “My apartment first. I need the driver to wait. I have an eleven o’ clock flight… Logan.” He ended the call. “I have a flight.”

“So I heard.” Some of my uneasiness dwindled a little now that I knew he had a legitimate reason for leaving. “Business trip?”

“To the Caymans.”

“Nice.”

Henry didn’t seem like he thought it was nice. Instead he sat down on the bed next to me and reached over to tug playfully on the sheet I had wrapped around me.

“Stop.” I swatted away his hand.

He pouted playfully. “Please. I need a visual to get me through the next few days. From the Caymans I fly to Panama, from Panama to Seattle. I won’t be back until next Monday.”

The news that he would be gone for over a week disturbed me. It was ridiculous! I would not be one of those women. “You have plenty of visuals from last night,” I reminded him, “to get you through forever.” I swatted his hand away again. “Henry, this was a one-time deal.”

He got by my swatting, fisted a huge chunk of sheet in his hand, and used it to haul me up against him. His arms wrapped around me, trapping me. “I thought we came to an understanding a few hours ago… when we came.”

I would not laugh.

He saw my lips twitching and grinned. “Nadia, I like you. You like me. Let’s not overcomplicate this. Let’s see where it goes.”

That was the problem. I did like him. And I liked that he liked me.

I wanted to see where this went, despite my reservations.

I think I wanted it more than anything. Which meant I had to hope he never found out the truth. With an exaggerated huff, I withdrew and lowered the sheet. His eyes immediately dropped and heated at the sight of my naked breasts. “Enough to see you through?” I quipped.

With a long, drawn-out groan, he dropped his face between them and mumbled, disgruntled, “It’ll just have to be.”

“Something is bothering you,” Barbara said as she sat her pert butt on my desk and crossed her arms. She gave me an “I’m not moving until you tell me” look.

It was Wednesday.

And I hadn’t heard a thing from Henry. At all.

I don’t know what I’d been expecting but when he took my phone and programmed me into his before he left me Sunday morning, I assumed that meant I’d at least get a “I arrived safe and sound” text. Or something.

But nada. Zilch. Zippo. Nothing.

And I was back to feeling like an insecure high schooler.

I resented the hell out of him for it.

“Is it about Lexington?” Barbara asked.

Feeling vulnerable and stupid, I didn’t want to explain. Barbara was so together about men. She was always the one in control. She surprised me by saying, “They have a way of fucking with our heads even when we think we’ve done everything to protect ourselves from it.” She saw my surprise and nodded. “There was someone in my past I developed feelings for. Even when I meant not to.”

“What happened?”

“He married someone else.”

“Jesus.”

She shrugged as if it didn’t matter anymore. “It happens. So what’s going on with Lexington?”

I found myself telling her all about our one-time-deal agreement, the charity ball, his mother, and in not great detail, our night together and the morning after. “Now he hasn’t called and I’m feeling the way I promised myself I’d never feel. Insecure. Stupid. Vulnerable. He’s… God, Barb, he’s such a flirt. And it’s so natural to him, he wouldn’t even know how to stop. So how do I know he’s not in Panama with some beautiful Panamanian woman saying all the same things to her that he said to me?”

“You don’t.”

I winced at her bluntness.

“You don’t, sweetie. I’ve known Henry Lexington longer than you and I can tell you that the man bores easily. You should not, I repeat not, be waiting around for him to call you.” She stood, having no idea how much she’d trampled across my hopes. “Instead, I think you should do what you were doing. Have fun. Play the field.” She grinned. “I’m setting you up on a date for tomorrow night.”

“No.” My stomach dropped at the thought.

“Yes, and not just any date. I’m setting you up with Micah.”

“Who is Micah?” I asked warily since she’d said the name with sex in her voice.

“Micah is my young friend. He’s gorgeous and he is never looking for anything but fun.”

Understanding dawned. “You’re setting me up on a sex date?”

“Yes. The only way to get over Henry is to have sex with someone else who is fantastic in bed. And trust me… No one will blow your mind the way Micah will blow your mind.”

“Wait… you’re setting me up with your fuck buddy?” I hissed.

She shrugged. “I don’t mind sharing.”

“Barb—”

“Sex is a high.” She grabbed my shoulders, giving me a little shake. “You had amazing sex with Henry and it has clouded your judgment. Having even better sex with someone else will put you back on the right course.”

Joe’s warning echoed in my head. He wouldn’t think this was healthy. Or at all like something I’d do. “I don’t know.”

“I’m older and wiser. You’re doing this.”

* * *

Micah was a lawyer but I’m pretty sure he could have been a model instead.

I had never been on date with a man who was more beautiful than most of the women I’d met. For a while I could only stare at him, marveling at his chiseled jawline and his aqua eyes framed by the longest, thickest eyelashes I’d ever seen.

To be fair, Micah was doing his own share of staring.

It was Thursday and we were sitting in a hotel bar on Beacon Street. We’d tried conversation but it was stilted, and he didn’t get my nervous jokes.

He studied me over the rim of hi

s soda water and lime.

I studied him over the rim of my glass of wine.

“Barbara said you were luscious. She wasn’t lying.”

I flushed at the compliment. “She said you were gorgeous. She wasn’t lying.”

He nodded, taking the compliment as his due. Of course he knew he was gorgeous. Still, the man never smiled. Or cracked a joke. Or teased.

Flashes of a boyish grin flitted before my eyes and I almost groaned at the intrusion. I did not want to be thinking about Henry right now.

“I’ve slept with all kinds of women, all different shapes and sizes,” he continued, his eyes drifting over my body. “But not one as happily proportioned as you. You have outstanding curves in all the right places.”

If Henry had said that to me, I’d pretend to want to smack him while truthfully enjoying the compliment. Because he would have said it in a teasing way, with a provocative grin, meant to flare my temper and turn me on.

Micah said it like he was a scientist analyzing data.

“Has anyone ever told you, you look like that actress out of Mad Men?”

“Yeah.” I threw back a huge gulp of wine.

“Do you prefer rough sex or gentle?”

And I nearly choked on it. “Excuse me?”

His aqua eyes narrowed. “I like to know a woman’s preference before sex. I want to make sure you get what you’re looking for tonight. Barbara didn’t specify.”

An ickiness crawled over my skin. God! This felt like a business transaction. It wouldn’t have surprised me if after we had sex, he’d turn around and say, “That’ll be four hundred dollars, please.”

“I can’t do this.” I slammed my wine glass down on the table, grabbed my purse, jumped off my stool, and hurried out with the image of his befuddled expression in my mind. As I stalked down Beacon Street, keeping my eye out for a cab with its light on, I fumbled for my cell phone.

Twenty seconds later I heard Joe’s voice in my ear. “I think Barbara might have set me up with a prostitute,” I said loudly enough to draw stares. I didn’t care.

“What?”

“Micah. This lawyer who may as well have been a prostitute.”

“Wait,” my friend huffed. “Start at the beginning.”