Then seeing him get dressed had been such an unexpected punch to the gut that I’d rushed to get dressed too—just to remind myself that I too was an adult. One who was perfectly capable of having casual sex.
I had pretended I didn’t hear Iain say my name as I trotted stiffly outside, and I was haphazardly dressed by the time he reached me in the living room, removing my MetroCard from my hand and setting it aside as he said, “Sleep here, Holland. You need to rest.”
And he’d been right about that.
I could barely stand straight let alone keep my eyes open. He could see that, and that was the reason he was telling me to stay. Repeatedly, I told myself that.
Yet I still let those three dumb words blurt out of my mouth.
“What about you?”
He had studied me for a moment before saying, “My driver will be here shortly.”
Which stung.
But it was expected. After all, that was our agreement.
And now you get to check crazy hot one-night stand off your All Grown Up checklist and move on with your life, because that’s what you agreed to, and that’s what emotionally mature women do, I reminded myself, hugging the down pillow under my stomach as I finally opened my eyes to look at the room in the light of the day.
And right away, I had to squint, because through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the lustrous sun poured in, spilling directly onto the bed, and spotlighting it like a heavenly white island in the middle of the room.
It made me wonder what our bodies had looked like on this bed. What the lines of muscle in Iain’s backside had looked like when he’d had me nailed to the mattress by my wrists while fucking me absolutely senseless.
“Goddd,” I groaned aloud, rolling my head back as I got up to go to the bathroom.
My expectations for last night had been high and still, he’d blown them out of the water. Completely annihilated them, because New York Iain was polished and cultured, and a man of restraint.
But that wasn’t at all the case in the bedroom.
There was clearly one area where he was still the Iain I knew. The Iain who had a need for speed. Who got into bar fights alongside my brother, and indulged his love for all things fast, hard and a little bit crazy. Yes, he was the head of a big, fancy company now, and yes, he boasted the most impeccable grooming and utterly stoic efficiency. But there was still an animal under that three-thousand-dollar suit.
And something about that turned me the fuck on.
It had me feeling hot all over again, as well as desperate to know who this new Iain really was. How exactly he’d changed since the day he abandoned his old life to start over in the city.
Long story short, I wanted more of Iain.
It felt like I needed more of him. Thanks to last night, I’d opened up the floodgates of my crush on him again, and this time, it was a million times worse because this time, I knew so much more.
I knew what his hard cock felt like in my hand. How it tasted in my mouth.
I knew what it was like to come while he had me filled to the hilt, and all that knowledge fed my fascination to absolutely dangerous levels. Levels that were going to cause me a world of pain, because as ruinously fucking good as last night was, I wasn’t going to let myself ask for more.
I was hellbent on being an adult about this.
I’d given Iain my word, and the last thing I wanted was to come off as an inexperienced child who was emotionally in over her head—who’d gotten herself foolishly attached to the first man to give her a dick-induced orgasm. Even if there was a shred of truth to that—which, okay, there very possibly was—I wasn’t going to let anyone know it.
Least of all myself.
So after I peed, brushed my teeth, and wiped off last night’s smudged mascara, I went out to the living room, where all my stuff was. I prepared to take the A train home so I could hop in the shower, change into work clothes and head to the office, because dammit, I was determined to make this day as ordinary as any other.
But when I unzipped the front pocket of my backpack and slipped my fingers inside, I felt nothing.
Right away, my eyes bugged wide.
“No!” I hissed, suddenly frozen.
And to anyone watching it would’ve seemed like a serious overreaction, but one, I deliberately kept my MetroCard in the same place every day, and two, it was a thirty-day unlimited. It cost me a hundred-thirty dollars and I’d just bought it two days ago, which meant it was brand spanking new with an entire month’s worth of rides left on it.