Chapter 5

~Emma~

 

I’m jolted awake by a thunderous racket echoing aggressively through the house.

What on earth?

I roll over, my body groaning in protest. I eye my alarm clock. Three in the morning? Holy hell. The noise doesn’t stop as I climb out of bed. Right now, the normal anxiety that’d be coursing through me, because someone is clearly at my door, is completely transcended by how pissed I am that someone is knocking this late, in the middle of the night. Argh! Unbelievable.

I slide my feet into my slippers and grab my fluffy white bathrobe off the back of the door to conceal my nakedness. I hate sleeping in clothes. I find them far too constricting. I tie the robe securely and then I angrily haul open my bedroom door and stalk down the stairs towards the front door. The knocking has not let up at all, not even for a second. Rat-a-tat. Thump. Rat-a-tat. Thump. An infuriating beat.

I’m so pissed off that I don’t even bother to look through the peephole first. I throw open the door, ready to give whoever the hell it is a piece of my fucking mind.

My breath hitches in my throat as I see him standing there. The same guy who’s been the star of every erotic dream I’ve enjoyed in the last week. His back is to me and I watch him wave to a limo. The limo takes off and he just stands there waving, swaying and stumbling to maintain his footing. Oh, he’s smashed. Wonderful.

“Dan!” I snap.

He spins around unsteadily and a huge smile lights up his face as he sees me. God, that smile really affects me. I push it down and focus on my anger.

“What the hell are you doing here at three in the morning, asshole?” I fume, my nostrils flaring and threatening to spew forth fire and burn the cocky bastard to a crisp on my doorstep.

His eyes flick down my body, resting on my thighs. Before I can react, he grabs the hem of my robe. “Are you naked under here?” he asks, his voice husky, his gaze locked on the corner of my robe that he’s slowly starting to lift.

I bat his hand away. “Yes. If you must know, I am. I wasn’t expecting some drunk asshole to show up on my doorstep at this time of night.”

“Aww, you missed me, babe,” he slurs back.

The sight of him threatens to melt my resolve. I don’t know what it is about a guy in a leather jacket, but it really does it for me. His silky, silver shirt is only done up at the middle, exposing his rock hard chest. I can see the start of his abs and part of me wants to trail my tongue all over them. And, holy hell, he’s wearing leather pants. They do absolutely nothing to conceal his…package from view. In fact, it’s as if they were made to draw attention to that specific area.

I don’t know how I manage it, but I step back and grab the door. “Go home,” I order, moving to shut it in his arrogant face.

He wedges his foot against the door frame, preventing me from closing it. “I can’t. The driver’s gone.”

“Then call him back. I’m sure a guy like you has people on call twenty-four-seven to do your bidding.”

“Not my driver, babe. He’s J’s.”

Who the hell is J? Must be a friend of his. “Then call a cab.”

He snorts out a laugh. “This is Harlson. There are no cabs. We’re not in the city now, Em.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Em?” he asks, amused.

“Yeah. No nicknames. You don’t know me well enough.”

“It’s not a nickname. It’s a shortening of your name. I let you call me Dan. Same thing. But, now that you mention it, I like the idea of giving you a nickname.” His eyes flick to my hair. It must be a real sight right now, seeing as though I just rolled out of bed. He looks from the porch light to the top of my head. “Angel. Yeah, I was right the first time,” he announces.

What the hell? I can’t be bothered to ask. I’m too pissed to care. I cannot believe he thought it was okay to come here knocking on my door at this time of night, especially when he’s drunk off his ass.

He steps closer, pushing against the door, so that he’s standing half in and half out of my house. “Look, either you let me in, or you drive me home.”

Drive him home? Into the town center? Outside? Shit, no. I can’t do that. I can’t…I can’t go out. I’m not…I’m not…prepared. I can’t just walk out like that. I have to build myself up for that. It can take days to get to that point and to resign myself to the fact that I need to go out to run an errand or something.

I move back and open the door wide. “Fine. Get in here.”

He grins triumphantly and sidles past me into the house. I roll my eyes and lock the door. By the time I turn around, he’s made himself at home on the living room couch.

I stalk over there and glare down at him, my arms folded across my chest. “Why did you come here?” I demand.

“To fuck you,” he says, leaning back and crossing one leg over the other, making himself comfortable.

I cannot believe the brash statement that just flew out of his mouth. Who the hell does he think he is? Who the hell does he think I am? Some slut who will spread her legs for an asshole like him who shows up out of the blue like some goddamn booty call? I don’t think so.

“Never going to happen.”

He grins, actually grins. “You want me.”

“I’m not going to be a drunken fuck of yours.”

Infuriated beyond belief, I close the distance between us and pat down his jacket, searching for the thing I know will drive my point home to him. He laughs. “A little more aggressive than I was expecting, but I can work with this.”

I feel his hands on my thighs suddenly.

“Mmm…so soft,” he says, sliding higher, underneath my robe.

I shake my head. “Dan, don’t.”

“Sure that’s what you want, babe?” he asks, starting to rub my thighs up and down in a sensual, slow rhythm.

He groans as he reaches the apex of my thighs.

I bite my lip, trying to get a grip and summon the strength to break his spell on me.

“Yeah, you like my hands on you, don’t you, Emma?”

I shake my head.

“Oh, you do, angel. Just a little scared, aren’t you? But the truth is, you light up so fucking bright whenever I touch you.” His hands slide around to my ass and he groans with appreciation and then pulls me closer to him. “You want me to take this further. You want me to push you, because you know I can make you feel so fucking good.” He cups my pussy in his hand and then starts tracing feather-light circles over my clit. “You’re dripping for me, wanting my fingers, my tongue and my hard cock to own this sweet body of yours, Emma.”

I try to move back, but he holds fast. “Dan,” I protest weakly.

“Admit it. You want me to make you come, don’t you, Emma? Right here, right now.”

“I…no,” I choke out. I step back quickly. “Where’s your phone?” I demand, trying to hide how much he’s getting to me. Shit. He almost had me there. Stay in control here.

He struggles to his feet and points at the bulge in the right side pocket of his leather pants. He cocks an eyebrow in challenge. “Feel free, babe,” he says holding his hands out to his sides.

Argh! Bastard! “Give it to me.”

He shakes his head. “You want it, come and get it.”

“Are you a teenager now?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“Well, you’re acting like a high-school kid right now.”

A smile quirks at the corner of his mouth. “Maybe you should set me straight, make me feel like a man, angel.”

I roll my eyes. “Keep your hands where they are.”

He chuckles, but does as he’s told while I reach into his pocket and retrieve his cell phone as quickly as possible. I’m more worried about me right now, rather than him. I’m so turned on. He smells too good. Sandalwood mixed with soap, a whiff of cigarette smoke and the most enticing scent of cologne I’ve ever smelled in my life. God, right now I wish I wasn’t a smoker, or that smell alone would have won out over all else and turned me off. But, as it is, it’s something we have in common. Shit. Why can’t I catch a break with this guy?

“Fellatio,” he says suddenly.

“Excuse me?”

“My password.”

“Seriously?”

He just shrugs his shoulders.

“God, you are a fucking teenager,” I mutter as I enter the password and start scrolling through his contact list. It’s not long before I see what I suspected I would. Several entries that will do nicely to prove my point to him that nothing is ever gonna happen between us.

Brunette—good head.

Coatroom girl.

Hot blonde receptionist at accountant’s.

Mini-dress from Hell’s Hound.

I reel off the entries to him and he bursts out laughing. “It’s all jokes, angel. No need to get upset.”

“I’m not upset,” I snap, harshly. Am I upset? Crap. I quickly pull myself together and tell him, “My point is that you have plenty of women at your beck and call. You don’t need me. So forget about it and the next time you want a quick fuck, you call them. You don’t show up here. You got me?”

He stares at me for a while, his expression unreadable.

I push his phone into his hand. “I’m just glad you don’t have my number in there,” I mutter as an afterthought.

“I do.”

“What?”

“I left you mine. Figured I should have yours.”

“Left me yours?”

“I wrote it on the back of the business card I left on your table. My personal cell.”

“How did you get my number?”

“It was on a post-it taped to your fridge.”

Shit, it is. It’s a new number, so I wrote it on there to memorize it.

“What is it?” I ask, unable to contain my curiosity, even though I know I should.

“What name did I put down for you?”

“Yes,” I sigh. Why do I want to know? What the hell is wrong with me?

“Come here,” he says, gesturing with his free hand as he scrolls through his phone.

And the idiot that I am, I do. He turns the phone so I can see it. A single word: Angel. The same nickname he’d given me outside on the porch earlier. I snort out a laugh. “Really? I call bullshit.”

“You do, huh?”

I nod.

A second later, I hear the faint hum of my cell phone coming from the coffee table. I glance down at it and, sure enough, my phone is buzzing away.

I look back at him, hating the blush that I can feel creeping across my cheeks. Expecting to see a smug grin of victory on his face, I’m surprised when it’s not there. His eyes are intense as he gazes into mine. There’s emotion there. Caring. And, dare I say it, tenderness.

No. I can’t get sucked into this, to feeling things. Uh uh. I’m not equipped to do that. It will just end like it always does, with him wanting more from me than I can give. Hell, I can’t even go on a date like a normal person, so how could this work? It can’t. It never does with any guy. They just grow frustrated to their breaking point and walk out, leaving me heartbroken and consumed by the same three crippling things I always am: embarrassment, shame and weakness.

I step back, breaking the moment between us. I turn from him and head towards the stairs. “I’ll get you a blanket. You can crash on the couch.”

“How about a pillow?”

“Spoiled rich kid,” I mutter under my breath.

I hear him chuckling as I head up the stairs. He heard me. Oops. Well, it’s true.

As I enter my bedroom, I gaze longingly at my bed. I’m so tired. I need to sleep. That bastard. I’m going to be exhausted tomorrow and I won’t be able to write for shit. Just because I work from home, doesn’t mean I don’t have deadlines to meet, just like everyone else.

I walk into the bathroom and open the linen closet beside the door. I need a blanket for him and a damn pillow. I stop as I hear heavy footsteps in the bedroom. I peer around the door and see Dan stumbling into my room and hoisting himself onto my bed. He makes himself comfortable on my side of the bed. His eyes find mine and he flashes that smug smile of his.

“No. Get up. You’re not sleeping there.”

“Come on,” he whines. “I’ll be a perfect gentleman. Just don’t make me sleep on that thing trying to pass for a couch downstairs.”

Oh, so now he’s insulting my furniture? “Couch! Now!”

He grumbles something that sounds like an agreement.

Assuming he got the message, I return to searching for a blanket and a pillow. My linen closet is a mess. I need to organize it at some point. After God knows how long, I finally manage to find a blanket and the pillow he wanted. I head back into the bedroom.

I’m shocked at what I find.

Dan is sprawled out on his stomach, his face buried in a pillow over on my side of the bed. He’s sound asleep. The asshole passed out on my bed! Argh!

I’m too tired to continue this back and forth with him, so I drop the blanket and pillow on the floor and cross to the bed.

I cast a quick glance at him to make sure he really is asleep.

He is. Phew.

I tighten my robe self-consciously and then I climb into bed beside him. At least it’s king-size, so there’s enough room for us both to sleep here without us touching.

I close my eyes and welcome some much-needed sleep.