“Oh, relax. It was just for fun,” she answers, giggling. “Don’t you have a wild side buried somewhere deep down?”
“Deep, deep down,” Jess snickers.
“Hey! I have a wild side. Maybe,” I argue fuzzily.
“Sure you do,” Arianna says as we reach out suite door. She goes to unlock it, and it takes her several tries to get the key and the keyhole lined up. She nearly falls into our living room when the door opens. “The wildest you ever got was wearing my clothes tonight!”
“Hey, Carson Slate said he liked me in this,” I quip. This isn’t something I’d reveal if I weren’t drunk, but hell, whatever. I pause for a moment, remembering how he scanned my body when he said that, the way he looked when he called me “beautiful”. That really happened, didn’t it? It seems impossible now that we’re away from the pounding bar music…
“Well, I’d have let Carson Slate do way more than Luca, I’ll tell you that much,” Arianna is saying, giggling and prodding at Jess. “Next time we go, I’m wearing that romper, Astrid. I want Carson Slate to call me beautiful. Too bad he doesn’t hook up anymore, huh?”
“I didn’t say he wanted me, just that he thought I looked good in this,” I mumble. Arianna is falling onto the couch, Jess is stumbling her way to her bedroom. We’re all way drunker than I thought— I think the music and noise and smell of alcohol masked just how much we were drinking. Now that we’re in the quiet of our own suite, it’s painfully obvious that we’re a mess.
“That means he thought you’d look good out of that,” Arianna shouts after me as I head toward my own bedroom. I don’t bother turning on the lights— I just collapse into my bed, shimmying the top of the romper off my shoulders but lacking the energy to pull it the rest of the way off. I roll over and stare into the darkness, exhausted and awake at once. Carson’s words replay in my head, followed by Arianna’s. He said I was beautiful, so…is it so crazy to think me might have wondered what I’d look like undressed? God knows I’ve been wondering what he looks like without clothes on.
I flush as if someone might be reading my mind. I’ve wondered about guys before, but not the way I wonder about Carson. I don’t feel curious, when it comes to him, I feel…wanting.
I want to see him naked, I want to know what his cock looks like, how long it is, how thick. I want him to take my clothes off. No one’s ever done that before, a fact that I never really cared about until this moment. Suddenly, though, the desire to be undressed by Carson Slate is overwhelming. My fingertips dance across my waist, slide down the front of my panties, and I shiver when I realize how wet I am and how quickly it happened.
No, no, no. This is a bad idea. I can’t lie here and touch myself over the subject of an article, no matter how badly I want to. I pull my hand away and turn over, hugging my pillow tight to my chest, trying to think about anything but what it would feel like to be beneath Carson Slate. He’s so overwhelmingly big, and tall, and muscular, and the idea of being underneath him…of having him hold on to me, of having him enter me—
My phone chimes and I’m relieved for something to snap me out of my haze. I fumble for it, and my breath catches. It’s an unrecognized number, but the text can only be from one person.
Unknown Caller: Where did you disappear to, Bowen Blaze?
4
I stare at the message for so long that my eyes burn, then blink myself back to life. Obviously, I’ve got to respond, but I feel completely lost as to how to continue. I swallow and type back.
Astrid Tyler: We left a half hour ago.
Unknown Caller: That’s no way to get a big story. I thought you wanted an interview.
I frown. What, did he want me to hang around and irritate him until he gave me an interview? I thought we left things in as good a place as I could hope for, but now I’m second-guessing myself.
Astrid Tyler: You want an interview now? At 1:27 in the morning?
It’s a real question, even though I suspect it might read as sarcastic. But really— what the hell is going on here? I can’t decide if it’s Carson Slate I can’t sort out, or myself. I jump when my phone buzzes, and my throat dries. He’s calling. Carson Slate is calling.
Holy shit.
“Hello?” I answer, trying to sound not drunk and probably failing.
“Bowen Blaze,” Carson says, sounding not the tiniest bit drunk. He does, however, sound a little tired, like he’s calling me after a long day. I hear rustling that makes me think he’s at home, maybe on a couch or in a chair— he’s not at Reign anymore, I’m sure.