Burn Me Once / Boardroom Sins

And then...?

Do I give him my number and wonder if Ethan I-have-won-a-million-Grammys Ash will call me? Worse, do I take his number and then call him? Agonising over what to say and whether he wants to see me again?

‘So, Alesandre, when you’re not being impossibly sexy in tacky bars what do you do with yourself?’

‘Alesandre is just the Italian version of Alexandra, you know.’

‘Mmm. So that’s a no. Altona?’

I laugh and shake my head. The lights switch to green and we move across the street, each as swiftly as the other, our mutual anxiety to be in privacy barrelling towards us.

‘My flatmates chose the venue.’ I wrinkle my nose. ‘They like it.’

They like the prices, really, but loyalty keeps me quiet on that score. Cassie’s a Broadway actress, but roles are few and far between and she’s forever auditioning and waiting for her big break. She’s an incredible performer, though—I have no doubt she’ll hit it big. Eliza is a primary school teacher, and while she works hard she seems to spend almost her entire salary on stuff for her students. New supplies, craft projects, science experiments...

Maybe if she didn’t insist on doing that we’d be able to drink in slightly more salubrious accommodations.

‘You’re not from New York?’

‘How can you tell?’ I look up at him, surprise obvious on my face.

He draws us to a slow stop just before moving down East Twenty-Second. ‘Your accent.’

‘You can pick up on that?’

He grins. ‘Is that weird?’

I bite down on my lip to stop myself groaning at how damned sexy the twist of his lips is. Ahead of us, the retro light installation above the Gramercy Park Hotel leads a path to our immediate future. Beneath it there’s a huddle of people. I’m not sure, at first, why they’re just standing there—and then I make out the shape of a long-lens camera.

‘There’s paparazzi at your hotel.’ My eyes lift to his face.

A muscle throbs against his jaw, like he’s clenching his teeth or thinking dark thoughts. My insides clench.

‘You go ahead of me,’ he says.

‘Will that work?’

He looks at me for a long moment and then nods. ‘Yeah. Wait for me at the lifts inside.’

It’s easy enough for me to slip past the paparazzi. One photographer lifts his camera and holds it poised at my face. But then, when he sees through the lens that I am nobody, he drops it once more.

I am glad I am nobody.

I am glad I am not her.

The woman who ruined a family.

Guilt sledges through me.

Ethan Ash isn’t Jeremy, and this isn’t a big deal.

It’s just...sex. Fun. Easy. Nothing serious.

Nonetheless, my heart palpitates furiously as I turn and look over my shoulder, catching sight of him as he saunters—yes, saunters—across the street, hands in the pockets of his well-worn jeans, head tilted at an angle that shows the hard lines of his face.

Desire whips me.

I move quickly across the foyer, wanting to be well beyond the paparazzi’s point of interest by the time Ethan joins me. I catch a brief impression of sumptuous red carpet, black and white tiles, enormous crystal chandeliers, animal skins and a fire that would, in winter, create warmth and cosiness with stunning ease.

The elevators are simply shining doors submerged behind wood panelling. I wait beside them, staring straight ahead. I hear the rush of lenses clicking and buttons being pressed and I don’t look. There’s the rustle of a doorman moving outside, and then he is beside me, his finger jabbing at the button of the lift with obvious impatience. We don’t look at one another.

After only a few seconds, the doors ping open. It’s empty.

We step in and Ethan swipes a key card before pressing one of the old-fashioned radio buttons on the panel. It whooshes upwards and my tummy whooshes with it.

I have never wanted a guy this badly.

The atmosphere is heavy with that feeling, that need. It practically hums around us, so that it takes every ounce of my willpower not to press the stop button and beg him to fuck me then and there.

I dig my nails into my palms as extra insurance.

The doors ping open—finally—and even as we step out of the lift he’s reaching for me. Now, in the privacy of the hotel corridor, he lifts me off the ground, his arms tight around my waist as his mouth moves over mine, and he walks like I weigh nothing, and carrying me is nothing more than a minor inconvenience. His lips are punishing and I am submissive, taking the kiss, begging for more even as my legs lift, needing greater purchase, more intimacy, closeness—everything.

I wrap them around him and groan as I hear the unmistakable tearing of my skirt—which was definitely not designed to be spread-eagled around a rock star’s waist. Whoops. Somewhere in my mind I discover another consequential path of this coming together—some makeshift outfit assembly will be required in order for me to get home, whenever it is I do go home.

Without releasing his grip, without lifting his lips, he fumbles the key card against the door. The first time is unsuccessful and he swears into my mouth as the door remains resolutely closed. Second time it springs open and we burst through it. The door slams shut and Ethan drops the key card to the floor like litter, striding deeper into the suite.

I have a brief impression of more luxury, more red, more chandeliers made of beaded crystal—and an enormous bed that is like an oasis in the midst of a never-ending desert. But he turns sharply, propping me against a table instead.

The second my butt connects with the tabletop his hands reach for my blouse and he pulls at it, ripping every single button so that they pop and fly across the room like angry little witnesses to my thwarted needs.

It’s a damned nice blouse—one of my favourites—but I don’t bemoan its demise. I am as eager as he is to be naked and touching all over. I arch my back as he pushes the fabric down my arms, his fingers tracing my flesh as he frees me of the garment before they lift higher, finding my bra. He traces a thumb over the lace and I swear I whimper as though I’m about to come. I think I am about to come.

My eyes skittle to his face, shock in all my features. He understands. I know he does. He curves his hands around my butt and drags me to the edge of the table, so that I can feel the hard, aching heat of his cock through the fabric of his jeans, straining at it, practically breaking it. My fingers seek it—seek him. They fumble at his button and then a noise of triumph erupts from my lips as I find the zip and push it downwards.

But he’s moving, pushing at my bra, freeing my breasts in one moment and claiming them with his mouth the next. His tongue lashes my nipple as his fingers roll the other, and his dick grinds against me through the fabric of our clothes.

Perspiration sheens my skin. I lift my fingers from his jeans, from their futile mission of cock-hunting, and curl them around his hips instead, digging my nails into him, lifting my feet to the edges of the table and crying out as his teeth press into my nipple with enough pressure to make me see stars.

I’m at the edge of the world. Ethan’s there too, but I’m the one who’s stepping off...who’s being flung off! I dig my nails in harder and he rolls his mouth to my other breast, bringing his fingers to tease where his teeth have just been. It’s too much. The sensations and juxtapositions. The heat of his mouth and the coldness of the air-conditioned hotel room. The softness of his fingertips and the hurt of his teeth.

I cry out loudly as an orgasm crashes over me, sucking me under, rendering me the opposite of mute. I am loud and I am desperate and I have no grasp of control. No grasp of time, space or date either, to be honest. If you’d asked me where I was, I would have needed a shot of black coffee to wake up and remember.

I am doused in more sensations than I was even aware existed and yet I’m not done. He’s not done. This is just the beginning.

‘I want to fuck you.’

‘Isn’t that what you’re doing?’ I smile up at him, my body singing.

‘Hell, yeah.’

He pulls at my butt, jerking me closer to him, and then he rolls his cock against me so that I cry out again.

‘Please, Ethan...’ I groan hungrily.

Apparently he doesn’t need to be asked twice. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet, then slides a condom from within its folds.

There is a small part of me that is consciously cheering what is about to happen—unlike my body, which is so in the moment. This isn’t just sex. It isn’t just relief. It’s release—it’s an exorcism. I am going to fuck another man, and with every moment and motion I am going to blot Jeremy further from my mind.

I am going to reduce his importance in my life.

With sex.

‘I’ve never been happier to see a little foil square.’ I grin, reaching for it. ‘Now. Let me see what I’m dealing with here.’

His grin is like warm treacle on a hot day. ‘You’re mighty impatient... Alicia.’

Hearing him say my real name is the biggest turn-on yet. And that’s saying something.

My eyes meet his and he knows.

‘Alicia.’

Even better than Ally. My name tastes wonderful on his mouth. He pushes at his jeans and I take over, sliding my hands into his grey cotton boxers, feeling the curve of his ass—of course it’s a fantastic ass. I hold his eyes as I bring my hands to the front, feeling for his long, hard dick. As I enclose it in my fist, wrapping my hand around it hungrily, he lets out a hoarse groan.

‘How do you feel about being fucked fast?’

His laugh is borderline apologetic, and there’s a vulnerability that makes me ache for more than just this. But only for a moment.

‘I feel really, really good about that.’

I rip the top off the condom with my teeth and then slide it over him as he steps out of his jeans. For a moment I wonder at his size—I haven’t slept with anyone in a really long time. Is it possible I’ve forgotten that dicks do this when they’re hard? But it’s big. Really big. And beautiful.

A shiver swirls through me. He pushes his shirt off impatiently and then he’s lifting me up once more, carrying me against his chest, cradling me, into the bedroom. He throws me on the bed and reaches for the remains of my skirt, tearing it off me and then pulling my thong down my legs.

It’s not slow, like he was with the bra. His hands graze my legs, my calves, my thighs, but that’s accidental. He needs me now as much as I need him. There’s no sense denying it. No sense in pretending.

As he brings himself over me I push my palm against his chest, knocking him so that he is on his side, next to me, and we’re face to face. I kiss him as I hitch my leg over his hip, and then push up on my knee so that I’m straddling him.

I don’t know why having control is important to me, but I suppose if I had to analyse it I would probably say that I feel so utterly out of my depth in what I’m feeling that I need something to make me have a sense of agency.

Choice is my agency, though, and I choose this. I choose to move on. I choose to forget. I choose not to let Jeremy make me cower any more. I choose all of what we’re doing.

And my choice has nothing to do with anything other than desire and need and everything to do with Ethan Ash and me—Alicia Douglas.

We are two chemicals, mixing together, swirling, swarming and about to explode.

‘Fuck me,’ I whisper as I lift up and lower myself over him, taking his length deep inside me slowly, letting my muscles adjust to this strange newness. To his size and his needs.

I almost can’t bear the perfection of that moment. The haunting rightness.

He lets out a long, slow grunt and his fingers dig into my hips. He holds me down, low on his length, and he throbs, pulses. I feel every jerk of his desire deep inside me. I hold my breath, chewing on my lip as my nerve-endings quiver in response. His cock is whispering secrets within me and my body is listening intently.

It’s but a moment. A magical moment. And then he’s moving, holding my hips low as he thrusts, his abs rippling with each movement. I drop lower, my mouth chasing each ridge of his chest, my tongue flicking his hair-roughened nipples, my body pressed against his.

His fingers roam my flesh again, like an object, like he owns me, and I love the feeling of being owned by him. I roll my hips and he swears, moving his hands to hold my face, dragging me up to his mouth, to kiss me. And he pushes up, flipping me onto my back while barely breaking the kiss.

Oh, God. It’s bone-meltingly perfect. Like this, he is deep, so deep, and he thrusts harder and faster and his tongue echoes the movements. I lift my legs and his hands grab my ankles, pushing them higher, moving them over his shoulders so that he has complete access to me. It breaks the kiss but I don’t care, because now his lips are moving over my leg, and every thrust is waving me on, nearer to explosive release.

I dig my fingers into his shoulders and there it is!

I cry out as the orgasm shreds me, my hand lifting to his chest to still him, to implore him to wait, so that I am able to feel every tremor of the earthquake he’s created. He knows. He waits. He is patient. The only sound in the room is that of his breathing, loud and hoarse, his control almost at breaking point. But he watches me, watches the effect of pleasure on my face, my skin, and then, when he knows—because he knows me—that I can take it again, he moves once more, slowly at first, letting new sensations build up, before he drops my legs back to the bed and brings his mouth to my mouth, kissing me, making me groan under the weight of the rightness of that moment.

The next time I come it’s with him. We are both on the edge of the cliff, stepping off it together. My fingers seek his and I lace them together again, and that act of intimacy means everything and nothing as our bodies sing in unison.

We are entwined. Him, me, and the luxury of the Park View Suite. I fear that I am lost. Or is that I’m found?

CHAPTER FOUR

IN AND OUT. In and out. I breathe slowly, trying to calm my racing pulse, my raging nervous system, but still my body is part electrical current, part hurricane.

‘Okay,’ I murmur softly, more to myself than anything else. I’m processing it. Or trying to.

What just happened?

He pushes up onto one elbow so that he can look down into my eyes and I spy the galaxy in his.

‘Okay.’ He grins. ‘That was...’

‘Perfect,’ I supply, lazily tracing a drop of sweat as it runs down his chest. He leans forward to kiss my fingertip and his dick, still strong inside me, makes me groan anew.

So far as exorcisms go, I think we might have nailed it.

‘Yeah.’ He nods. ‘It was.’

He kisses me again, but this time it’s slow. Gentle. A kiss of curiosity that I welcome. Damn it. I’m back at those paths, looking at each of them, wondering, wondering, and uncertainty is making my knees weak.

Do I want his curiosity? Do I welcome it? Or does it speak too strongly of wanting other things than this bed, this man, this night?

‘Are you hungry?’

‘Hungry?’ I blink, the question not at all what I expected.

He nods against my lips, then braces his forehead against mine. ‘Yeah. You know, that thing people get? It generally involves needing food. Eating. Maybe conversation.’

‘I’m familiar with the concept.’

My own little divot forges between my brows and his eyes lift to it. His grins, and that makes me smile, erasing the similarity.

He rolls his hips luxuriantly, slowly throbbing warmth through me, and desire surges like a wave at high tide, rolling inwards towards the shore. I lift my hips to meet it, to welcome it.

‘Room Service,’ he murmurs. ‘Definitely Room Service.’

Still inside me, he stretches, reaching for the phone on the bedside table, and my whole body stretches with his, reluctant to relinquish even a hint of connection.

He brings his mouth back to mine, the phone hooked casually under one ear.

‘Ethan Ash,’ he says, and my eyes lift to his, surprised until I realise he’s speaking to someone else.

That surprise, though, is nothing compared to what shoots through me when he pulls out of me, leaving me instantly bereft, before inserting a finger deep into my core. I can’t help the moan that escapes my mouth. It falls out like a waterfall, slumberous and urgent at the same time.

His finger swirls around already-over-sensitised nerve-endings and I arch my back as he brings his mouth to my breast at the same time.

‘Two crab linguine. Some fruit.’

‘A peach,’ I whisper.

‘A peach,’ he repeats, then drags his mouth across my chest, his stubbled jaw making the raw, aching, sensitive flesh tremble beneath him.

His mouth is an instant relief. And as he rolls my nipple with his tongue he speaks into the phone. The words are husky against me. I feel his voice a baritone on my skin. And he feels me inside.feels my heart and my core.

‘Definitely champagne. Lots of champagne.’ He draws his lips lower, to my navel, and then, still with the phone under his chin, to my clit.

‘Oh, my God!’ I squawk as his tongue finds the cluster of nerves and flicks it punishingly.

‘Ice cream,’ he adds, his fingers curling around my ankles and pushing my legs apart on the bed.

There is a tiny part of me that is embarrassed by this intimacy—but only a tiny part. The rest of me is way up on cloud nine, wondering if any woman has ever felt this good. If any person has ever known this pleasure.

I presume he’s done ordering, because he drops the phone to the ground. The cord is still stretched across the bed but I don’t ask him to hang up. Nor do I attempt to do so. I’m not moving, and I’m not going to encourage him to do anything that might bring an end to this sweet, sensual invasion.

‘A peach, huh?’ he murmurs against me.

I dig my nails into the bed, trying to breathe, trying not to fall apart.

‘Yeah.’

‘A favourite?’

‘Mmm, yes...’ I don’t think I’m talking about fruit any more.

‘You taste fucking amazing.’

Even that doesn’t embarrass me. I groan in response, reaching above me for a pillow, which I drag down, holding it over my face as I cry out and he continues to run his tongue over me with the kind of skill that should win him a gold medal. Seriously. If oral sex were a competitive sport then this guy could hang up his microphone. He’s that good.

His hands lift up, finding my breasts, and he knows what I love already. He’s learned fast. He tweaks my nipples and palms the roundness of my flesh, and his mouth lifts me up and carries me away until I can stand it no longer, and I give in to the euphoric relief that has been building and bursting.

I feel it drop over me and whimper into the pillow. Which is no help, actually, because it smells intoxicatingly like him. So like him that I want to take it with me. Uh-oh. Another road opens up before me. I resolutely shut all paths out and surrender to the sensations of this. This very, very, very delightful everything.

He slows down as he feels me come apart, still touching me, tasting me, but no longer driving me to insane heights. I have exploded and now I am recovering. I am trying to catch my breath. He stays close and I’m comforted by his closeness—until he pulls back and stands in one fluid moment.

He’s still wearing the condom—but not for long. He rolls it off and wraps it in a tissue, tossing it carelessly into a wastepaper basket before reaching for the phone and replacing it on the cradle. Then, hands on hips, gloriously naked, he stares down at me, where I’m hiding behind an organic Italian cotton pillow.

‘Alicia?’

I can’t speak. Maybe not ever again. It is quite possible that he’s erased my voice, like some kind of kinky Little Mermaid scenario.

‘Come here.’

I can’t speak, but I can move, and I will move as he demands because he’s offering me a whole new world of pleasure and I am anxious to enjoy it, and with it to erase Jeremy’s significance in my life.

I stand. My legs shake and my skin is raw—pale pink, I see, as I look down at my breasts. The sight of his marks on my body makes me soar. An ancient feminine power rocks me to the core. He did this to me. His passion did it to both of us. And the passion was bigger than either of us could control.

‘You never answered my question.’

‘What question?’

He links his fingers through mine and pulls me gently away from the bed. For the first moment since entering the suite I notice the view.

‘Holy shit.’ I stand completely still—naked, uncaring. ‘Wow...’

Manhattan glistens before me. It is high-rises and high dreams, lights and lives, lows and loves.

‘Yeah.’

His voice is hoarse and it draws my attention. I stare at his profile again, and it’s so different now. I see all his lines and marks and strengths, and somehow I feel that I know him so much better than even an hour ago.

‘I’ve always loved the contradictions of New York,’ I say.

I am drawn to the view and step towards the window, relinquishing his hand without realising it. I press my palm to the glass. It is darkly tinted and I am confident in the privacy it affords.

‘So much beauty...so much despair.’ My smile is crooked as our eyes latch on to each other in the reflection. ‘Nowhere in the world can you find such wealth and poverty in the same city block.’

‘It’s a unique place,’ he agrees. ‘Where are you from?’

‘Wisconsin, originally. I moved here five years ago—right out of college.’

‘What did you study?’

‘Fine art and art history.’

I’ve surprised him. I see the way he nods, but it’s speculative. Funny, because I’m well-known and well-respected in my field, and it’s been a long time since I’ve met anyone who doesn’t know what I do.

‘You’re an artist?’

‘I wish...’ I sigh wistfully, turning to face him with mock sadness on my face. ‘I always wanted to be. My mom says I spent so much time clutching paintbrushes I practically deformed my fingers.’

I lift my hand up and we both stare at it in the silence of the room. They’re normal to look at now, but I remember the claw-like grip they manifested after days and days spent hunched at a canvas.

‘But...?’

‘Can’t paint to save my life.’ I grimace. ‘I’m a buyer now. And an appraiser by appointment.’

‘So you take other people’s cash to choose fashionable art?’

I shrug. ‘Fashionable, abstract, classic. I spend a lot of time with my clients and in the spaces the art will inhabit, making sure it’s going to work.’

‘That’s a job?’

‘Hell, yeah.’ I gesture to the room we’re standing in. ‘This whole hotel is fitted with contemporary American masterpieces—testaments to the modernist movement. You look around and you see the art and maybe you don’t realise the effect it creates. But we’re standing in a movement, Ethan!’

I hear the enthusiasm and passion in my own voice and wince. I adore my job. That’s a good thing, but it can be a bit bizarre to people who don’t feel the same way.

‘I know what you mean.’

I exhale. ‘You do?’

‘Well, not exactly...’

He turns and cuts through the suite, disappearing through a door. I follow.

‘But the first time I recorded at Abbey Road I just about shit myself. I mean...’ He shakes his head as he reaches for the faucet and turns on the water. The bath is around the corner, half hidden by a dark wood-panelled wall. ‘The history is thick in the air at that place. The microphones, the carpet, the pictures. Legends—so many, a list as long as my arm. Not just the Beatles—though that’s everything. But all the bands, musicians, songwriters. It’s impossible to explain—except I guess it’s like you just said. I was in the middle of something so much bigger than me. It took me three tracks to get the jitters out of my voice.’