Crash - Part One Page 5

  I opened the door to see Carter standing there in jeans and a tight t-shirt, holding a bag of food in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. He had gone a little more casual than me, but that just meant I would have a great view of his arms all night.

  “You look gorgeous,” Carter said as he placed the food on the table. He kissed me on the cheek and left me blushing. Carter had never been in my kitchen before, but he immediately took control, finding the glasses and corkscrew to pour us some wine. We elected to eat directly out of the containers and Carter handed me some chopsticks.

  It had been a while since I had even attempted to use chopsticks and I had forgotten how bad I was with them. I ended up piercing the food with the end of the stick, but eating the rice was nearly impossible.

  “You can use a fork if you like,” Carter said.

  “Then I’ll never learn, will I?” I forced a smile, and it actually helped me feel a little less embarrassed.

  “Here,” Carter said, “let me help. You are holding them all wrong. Copy me.”

  I tried to mimic where his fingers were placed, but the chopsticks just fell out of my hands whenever I moved them. Carter got up and stood behind me. He took hold of my hand and gently moved my fingers into the correct position. It felt a little like a scene in a cheesy movie, but I didn’t care. If this were a movie, then his help would have worked, but instead I dropped rice everywhere at my first attempt at picking anything up.

  Carter made no attempt to hide his amusement, but his eyes contained genuine affection. He wasn’t laughing at me, he was laughing with me.

  “How about we both eat with forks?” he said, going back to the counter and grabbing some utensils from the drawer.

  “Thank God for that,” I said. “This food will be cold by the time I get to it otherwise. How did you get so adept at using those things?”

  “Lived in China for a bit,” Carter replied, as if he had just mentioned something completely ordinary.

  “Oh, that’s interesting.”

  “Not really. It was for work.”

  “I didn’t realize that investing could take you all over the world. It almost sounds like a dream job.”

  “Hardly,” Carter said with a smile. “But it did bring me here to meet you, and for that I am very grateful.”

  “So what you’re saying is that you move around a lot?” I asked.

  “Less now than I used to,” he replied. “But yes, I still move a bit. Now I just travel internationally when there’s a big sale to manage like this one.”

  “A sale?” I asked. “I thought you said you were doing due diligence?”

  “Same thing, really. Listen, do we have to talk about work?”

  “What else do you want to talk about?” I asked.

  “Who says I want to talk?” Carter held out his hand and I placed my fingers on his palm. He lightly pulled me up and led me into the living room. Flashbacks of my first boyfriend ran through my mind, not because he been anything like Carter, but because the nervous feeling he’d given me in the pit of my stomach was almost identical to the one I was feeling now.

  Something caught Carter’s eye and he wondered over to the bookcase. He picked up a photo; my favorite one of my brother William.

  “Is this your brother?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Just a few weeks before the accident. He was always that happy; real bubbly kid, you know? I’m pretty sure he would have ended up in show business if he’d managed to avoid getting dragged into the real world.”

  Carter’s hand shook slightly as he placed the photo back down on the bookcase, and once again I recognized the emptiness that comes with losing someone so close. Who had Carter lost?

  He turned back and pulled me down onto the sofa. He placed a hand on my thigh, just inches from the stub on my leg just below the knee, but acted like there was nothing out of the ordinary. Like there was nothing wrong with me.

  Now he would take what he wanted, just like he had told me he would.

  The fingers on his other hand wove their way into my hair and he pulled me firmly toward him. When our lips touched I felt the same thrill I had just a few days ago. Would it always be like this? I couldn’t imagine ever losing the spark when he touched me, no matter how long we kept it up.

  Except we would not keep this up for long. There could be no relationship with Carter.

  He drew me in close, but I pulled my lips from his, placed a hand on his chest and tried to push him away. I might as well have been pushing a brick wall, but Carter had the decency to back off anyway.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t do this. I don’t want to be just a one-night stand. I’m not just trying to be prudish or frigid. I’d love to fuck you. I want to pounce on you right now and feel you enter me.”

  “Then let it happen,” Carter insisted, moving his hand up my leg.

  “But as much as I want it now,” I continued, “just think how bad it will be when you go back to England.”

  Carter backed away and took a few slow breaths. “Emily, I can’t promise you that we will last more than a month, but why kill this before it has even started? Look, I’ll make you a deal. If we are still going strong when I have to leave, we will keep it going. I don’t know how yet, but we will.”

  “Really?” I asked. “But why? Why are you doing this for someone like me?”

  “Because you are quite possibly the most amazing person I have ever met. Because when I look into your eyes, I see someone who is scared and vulnerable and just needs help to let out her true self. And one other thing.”

  He had me already, but it couldn’t hurt to hear more. “What’s that?”

  “I have a thing for pert little tits,” he said, grinning.

  I gave him a playful slap on the arm and let him push me onto my back as he slipped between my legs.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I surrendered to him on the sofa. My good leg wrapped around him, pulling him toward me as I pressed his body up against mine, his eagerness burning against my sex. Our lips crashed together as his tongue explored my mouth.

  He pulled his shirt over his head and for the first time I could see the sculpted body underneath. His pecs held firm under my touch and his abs glistened with a hint of sweat as our bodies writhed against each other.

  “I need you so much,” I moaned. “Please, take me.”

  Carter responded by moving his lips down to my neck, then my chest, ripping my top down to free my bosoms. He sucked hard on my right nipple before taking it between his teeth and pulling hard. I gasped and bit my lip as I absorbed the pain and transformed it into pleasure.

  Carter’s head continued down my body until he was between my legs. I cringed as my plastic leg swung against his body. Carter grabbed my right leg and planted kisses on the knee, right next to the stump. He didn’t seem disturbed by it at all as his lips worked up my thigh toward my sex. He stopped when his lips were whiskers away from my dripping wet panties.

  I felt his breath on my sex until he moved his lips away and started kissing my left thigh, once again working his way up. The wait was torture and I thrust my opening toward his mouth as it approached. Carter’s strong, muscular arms kept me under control, but I writhed under his grip, desperate to get his lips on mine.

  “Maybe I’ll just stop now,” Carter said.

  “No,” I moaned. “Don’t stop.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Carter asked.

  “Eat me,” I yelled. I’d never said that before. It sounded so naughty, so unromantic. But I needed his lips between my legs.

  “You’ll have to beg me for it,” Carter said. “You made me wait for you, so now you’re going to have to beg. Really convince me that you want it.”

  I writhed under his grip. His arms still had me locked down tight so I couldn’t move.

  “I need your tongue on me. Please, I need you to lick my pussy.”

  “Not enough,” Carter said. “I don’t believe you.

  �
��Aahh!” I screamed. “Stick your tongue inside my cunt and eat me, you son of a bitch!”

  Carter grinned. “That’s better.”

  He placed his fingers under my soaked panties and ripped them off, tearing the cheap cotton as if it were paper. He shoved his head down between my thighs and I felt his strong tongue move up and down my lips.

  Carter moved his tongue slowly into my hole and then worked up to my bud in one long, slow movement. I rocked my body into his face, moving in time with his strokes, eager to feel every part of his mouth on me.

  He placed a finger at my opening. Then a second. As his lips pursed around my clit, his fingers slid inside me, stretching my tight pussy with his thick fingers.

  His fingertips aggressively rubbed up against the rough skin on the top of my tunnel while his mouth sucked my clit gently. I could feel it throb between his lips as blood rushed through my body.

  “I’m coming,” I moaned as I used my hands to force his head harder against my slit. My legs locked tight around his body and my back arched into the air as I came hard in his mouth.

  Carter kept kissing my lower lips while my body convulsed and shook against him. I’d never come with a man before, and a feeling of shame and embarrassment threatened to engulf me until Carter lifted his head up and looked at me with hunger in his eyes.

  He moved back up to my face; so close I could smell my sex on him.

  “You taste so fucking amazing,” he said as he planted kisses on my neck. I grabbed hold of his head and brought him toward me, pressing my lips against his. I tasted my juices as we locked in a passionate kiss.

  “Thank you,” I said as Carter pulled away. “That was amazing.”

  He collapsed on top of me as I panted, desperate for air and clammy in my clothes. I needed to get naked, but first I wanted to return the favor. I wanted to taste Carter.

  “Get on your back,” I said, trying to push him off me. “It’s my turn to show you a good time.”

  “No,” he said. “Not tonight.”

  All the self-doubt came flooding back. I’d never known a man to turn down a blowjob before. What the hell did that say about me? I tried to close my legs and cover up my bad one, but his tight body was still firmly between them.

  “Tonight I just want to savor the taste of you in my mouth,” he said. “And I don’t want to give you all the goods tonight.”

  “You want me to beg you again?” I asked a little irritably.

  “You made me wait. Now it’s my turn to do the same.” With that he sat up and picked the remote control up off the table. “Want to watch some TV?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “He slept on the sofa,” I told John the next day.

  “Are you shitting me? And you slept in your bed?”

  “Yep. Best night’s sleep I’ve had in a while.”

  “I bet,” John said. “I mean, I’m a bit disappointed you didn’t get laid, but I guess him eating you out is a pretty good second place. And you’ve been grinning like a Cheshire cat all bloody morning, so I’m guessing he knew what he was doing?”

  “He taught me a thing or two about my body,” I said. “So yeah, you could say he was good.” I knew why he was good at oral, of course—practice. No doubt he had gone down on countless women before me, but I was trying really hard not to let that bother me. After all, I was no virgin either—just—and his past experiences should not be held against him.

  “Are you sure he slept on the sofa?” John asked. “Because you don’t need to keep up that frigid persona with me.”

  “Look,” I said, grabbing John’s hand and dragging him into the living room. “You can still see the mark made by his body where he lay.”

  John lay down on the sofa and pressed his body into the spot where Carter had been just an hour earlier. “Sorry, Emily, but this is the closest I am ever going to get to laying with him, so please let me enjoy this moment.”

  I rolled my eyes and walked away, still smiling.

  “Wait, what’s this?” John said. I turned round to see him digging something out from the back of the sofa.

  “That’s his phone,” I said, stating the obvious. “Shit, he’s bound to need that during the day. What should we do?”

  “Call him?” John suggested.

  “Very funny,” I said. I wasn’t about to fall for that one.

  “No, seriously. Call him at work. You know his firm and it won’t be hard to find the number for their San Francisco office.”

  “Oh, yeah. I suppose I could do that. You don’t think it would be a little too creepy, do you? I don’t want to be one of those clingy women.”

  “No, not if you have his phone. Just give them a call. You remember the name of the firm?”

  “Yeah, it was Chadwick Ellis,” I said. “I remember because a friend of mine interviewed with them a few years back.”

  “Okay, I have the number.” John read out the number for the local office and I dialed.

  “Hello, Chadwick Ellis,” came the chirpy, but clearly bored voice on the other end of the line. “How may I help you?”

  “Oh, hello, I was hoping you could put me through to Carter Murphy.”

  “We don’t have anyone here by that name, ma’am.”

  “Ah, well, he is actually from your London office, but he is working from San Francisco at the moment for a big deal.”

  “Just give me a minute,” the secretary said before putting me on hold. You’d think she would keep vaguely clued up on which partners were working out of the office, but clearly that was too much to expect.

  “Hello, ma’am. Sorry to put you on hold.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “I’m afraid we don’t actually have anyone by the name of Carter Murphy working for the firm. He does not work for any of our offices. I checked the international directory.”

  “Oh.”

  “Is it possible you got the wrong name?”

  “No, that’s the right name. Never mind, perhaps I misheard the name of the firm. Thank you.” I quickly hung up and told John the other end of the conversation.

  “That’s a bit weird,” he said. “Why would he lie about the name of the firm he works for?”

  “I don’t know.” The two of us sat there in silence for a few minutes until we were interrupted by the vibration of Carter’s phone on the table.

  John quickly picked it up and read the screen.

  “What does it say?” I asked, conveniently forgetting that reading someone else’s messages was a big no-no in my book.

  “It just says ‘we still on for tonight?’ from someone called Joanne.”

  My heart sank heard in my chest. Once a player always a player, or so the saying went. I had hoped I would never find out, but it looked like I was about to get firsthand experience.

  “Could be nothing, Emily. Another business meeting, perhaps?”

  “Could be,” I said, but didn’t believe it. Business meetings were arranged via email, not text messages.

  “You’re jumping to conclusions, aren’t you? Come on, there could be a million and one different explanations for this.”

  “Like?”

  “Well say this is a date—maybe he arranged it weeks ago and never got round to cancelling it. The two of you only really became official last night, and he hasn’t had a chance to tell her yet. Or maybe he doesn’t think the two of you are exclusive yet. You haven’t exactly dated a lot in the last few years, but it’s quite common now to play the field a bit until you come to an agreement otherwise.”

  John was trying, bless him, but he wasn’t helping. Even if I had no legitimate reason to be mad at Carter, that didn’t mean I wasn’t pissed at him anyway, regardless of what the dating rules were these days. He went down on me last night, but tonight he might have his tongue in someone else’s pussy—some skinny bitch probably, and definitely one with two legs. Logical or not, I couldn’t help but feel like utter crap.

  There was a knock at the door. “Emily, it’s Carter. I
think I left my phone there. Can you let me in?”

  “Shit. John, I can’t face him right now. You give him the phone back. Ask him what he’s doing tonight.”

  “Emily, I don’t think—”

  “Please John, just do it.”

  I ran into the bathroom and quietly shut the door. I heard John open the front door and greet Carter.

  “Emily just popped to the bathroom,” John said. “Here’s your phone.”

  “Thanks, John. Don’t know what I’d do without this thing. Say hi to Emily for me. Tell her I’m looking forward to seeing her again.”

  “Sure, will do. Oh, speaking of which, Emily and I were going to grab a few drinks tonight at a cool little bar near here. You want to join us?”

  “No, can’t tonight, I’m afraid. I’m going to be holed up in my apartment going over some papers. Tell Emily I’ll be in touch soon.”

  “He’s gone, Emily,” John yelled a few moments later.

  I didn’t reply. I just locked the bathroom door and collapsed onto the floor in a sobbing, sniffling mess.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I’m here to see Mr. Murphy in the penthouse suite,” I told the receptionist at Carter’s apartment block. I still had no idea why I’d agreed to his invitation. I blamed John for talking me into it.

  I’d cried for a solid thirty minutes after Carter left on Tuesday, and after plucking up the courage to leave the bathroom, I promptly resumed crying on John’s shoulder. He took the tough love approach and told me to stop being pathetic. Apparently, Carter was a single man and therefore entitled to see women in his free time. That was not exactly what I wanted hear, but it was what I needed to hear.

  When Carter invited me over to his place for dinner on Friday night, I replied with a quick “okay” before my brain had time to take over and remind me that I hated him right now. I made a plan in my head for how to approach the evening—I would be pleasant, eat dinner with him, and then politely decline to let him kiss me again. Simple as that.

  Formulating my plan helped clear my mind and for the rest of the week I focused on work, emailing investors back and forth. By the time Friday night rolled around, my entire calendar was full of appointments for next week—that would make it even easier to resist any more invitations from Carter.