Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Faina

Dex’s words sit heavy on my chest, and I don’t like how they make me feel. Guilty. Guilty when I shouldn’t be. He’s an asshole. I hadn’t seen him since high school, where I’d always harbored a ridiculous crush on him. I wasn’t alone in that. Every girl did. He was tall and gorgeous and broody, and carried that rock star mystique about him even back then.

Then I overheard him at Ava’s wedding talking to Will shortly before the ceremony. He referred to me as a beastly, snotty little princess who he’d have to suffer through during the ceremony and reception.

It hurt. Actually, it broke my heart a bit because I never knew he didn’t like me, and high school crushes are the types of crushes that stick with you. All I had done was complain about how hot it was in the church in my dress, and then he said that. His girlfriend—who later became his cheating fiancée—laughed, and he smiled at her for it.

Even today, he’s still calling me princess.

So yeah, Dex is an asshole. I shouldn’t feel bad about staying here and kicking him out.

But as I get dressed—trying not to blush or think about the fact that he saw me naked—I can’t stop thinking about it. About his situation and how closely it mimics my own, though thankfully I was only embarrassed in front of a hundred and fifty people while his trash has been dragged across the world.

I spend an extra few minutes pacing around the bedroom, and with a room this size, there’s a lot of ground to cover. When I can’t delay it another second and curiosity takes a firmer hold, I creep to the door, open it as quietly as I can, and listen.

I didn’t hear the front door slam earlier, and with a hiss of a curse coming from the great room below, I know he’s still here. While part of me expected him to already be gone, I suppose I’m not surprised he isn’t.

Where else could he have gone?

My plan for today was to drink spiked Christmas drinks and eat my weight in chocolate and sugar cookies while depressing myself further by watching sappy holiday movies. In short, it was set to be a magnificent pity party, and if he’s here, I can’t do that. Can I? Would he want to join?

A weird twinge hits me, and I quickly brush it away as I pad down the stairs, awkwardness creeping in at how we left things. He’s sitting at the counter in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee and helping himself to my cookies as he scowls at his laptop screen, and for a moment I watch him unobserved. Even sitting in the chair, he’s much taller than me, with broad shoulders and a trim waist. The sleeves of his navy-blue sweater are pushed up to his elbows, showcasing his muscular forearms covered in colorful tattoos. His longish on top, sandy-blond hair is a disheveled mess, brushed back from his face as if he’s been running his hands through it. A few days’ worth of stubble lines his angled jaw, and when he mutters a slew of curses to himself, a dimple sinks into his cheek.

No doubt, Dex Chapman is a gorgeous man. Even for an asshole.

The floor creaks beneath my feet, and his green eyes slingshot over to me. Busted . I push away from the wall and saunter unbothered into the kitchen. I help myself to a cup of coffee and then spin, leaning back against the island so I can face him as I hold the warm porcelain between my hands.

“More problems?” I quip, doing my best to maintain my sharp edge.

He grunts and takes a sip of his coffee. “There’s nothing available nearby.”

I’m not surprised by that. It’s Christmas week. Hell, I couldn’t even find a room to stay in last night in Boston. I ended up settling for a red-eye flight to Denver before taking a five a.m. jumper to Jackson, only to discover there were no rental cars available. I had to Uber here and then pay a fortune for grocery delivery.

I open my mouth to say something awful like, It sucks to be you, when my phone rings on the counter beside him where it’s plugged into the wall. He snatches it up before I can get to it and then holds it up for me to see.

“Is this the bloke who broke your heart and had you fleeing to the middle of nowhere?” he taunts, wiggling the device back and forth.

The screen reads Brooks, and I sigh. It’s the third time he’s tried calling, though what he could possibly have to say to me, I have no idea. “Just hit ignore.”

Only I should have known better because Dex gives me a shit-eating grin and then swipes his finger across the screen.

“Princess’s phone,” he answers.

I squawk, shooting forward like someone just hit my ass with a cattle prod. As I leap for him, my hip slams painfully into the side of the counter making me yelp, and nearly spill my coffee all over me. Unfortunately, it gives him enough time to jump out of his chair and move away from me.

“Give me the phone,” I snap in a hushed murmur, not wanting Brooks to hear me. I set my mug down and glare furiously at him.

He shakes his head, his green eyes taunting. With a devious lick of his lips, he turns the phone to face me and then makes me watch as he puts it on speaker, all the while he continues to inch away from me toward the living room.

I give chase, leaving the kitchen and following him into the huge family room, only I take the other way around the sofa to cage him in a bit.

“Who the hell is this?!” Brooks yells, and I make a move, swiveling around the ottoman he just put between us and capturing his waist since he didn’t even try to evade me. The jerk wanted me to catch him.

I jump up for the phone, and Dex smirks at me, holding the device high over his head and way out of my reach. His green eyes blaze into mine, that smirk curling up into a crooked grin. He makes a tsking noise at me, angling down until we’re practically nose to nose, and then says with a mocking laugh, “Who am I? I’m the man currently with your ex-girl.”

My eyes round, and I jump on him, making him oomph from the impact and stagger back a step. He stares down at me in shock as I practically climb up his chest to grab my phone, using his shoulders for leverage and wrapping my legs around his waist.

Dex belts out a laugh, his free arm banding tightly around me, refusing to let me move up higher to get to my phone even as he slams into the wall and then spins, walking us back toward the Christmas tree on the other side of the room.

“Where’s Faina? Put her on the phone!”

“Not gonna happen, mate. I’m having far too much fun with her right now.” He smiles deviously at me, my face inches from his once more, his green eyes glowing.

“Who the fuck are you? Where is Faina? I need to talk to her right now. Put her on the fucking phone!”

“Give me the phone,” I mouth, and Dex shakes his head, squeezing me tighter as I attempt to spring up and grab the phone. He has me locked against his chest now, my boobs squished and pushed up practically to my chin. I can’t go up, and I can’t go down. I’m trapped against a brick wall of muscle that smells irritatingly sexy and spicy and dangerous, like leather, musk, and fire.

“Oh, princess. It may have been years, but you should still know me better than that,” he whispers, his warm breath fanning across my lips before he speaks louder toward the phone. “Brooks, I have to tell you, you gave up one hell of a feisty woman. In fact, she’s climbing all over me as we speak. How daft are you to let this minx go? Have you seen what she looks like naked? Bad move, mate. Bad move.”

“Oh, my God! I can’t?—”

Without warning, Dex’s mouth slips to my neck and blows a raspberry, cutting off my words and making a high-pitched squeal tear from my lungs instead.

“Yeah. That’s it. You love it when I put my mouth on you like that.”

“Dex!” Only now I’m laughing too hard to speak as the hand crushing my ribs starts tickling me. “Ah! Stop! I’m ticklish there!” I’m laughing so hard I can hardly catch my breath as my legs flail and my arms push against his chest, trying to free myself.

“Oh, I know, princess, but I love when you scream my name like that. It makes me so hard. Come on. You can take it. Just a bit more. Give it to me just like that.”

Brooks lets out a roar, and for a second, with Dex tickling me like this, I almost forgot my mission. Dex bellows out a yell as I sink my teeth into his shoulder. His grip slackens, and I use his pain and surprise to scoot up higher, shoving my boobs in his face along the way, but sacrifices must be made. Only as I reach for the phone and smother him with my chest, he’s not only blind, but my movement and weight throw him off balance, and he trips over the foot of a chair.

A scream lurches from my lungs as we both go tumbling down to the floor in a heavy, hard heap, just narrowly missing the Christmas tree by inches.

An oomph careens from both of us, and my phone goes flying out of his hand and skidding across the floor where it smacks into the stone hearth. Dex is flat out on his back with me on top of him since he graciously broke my fall with his large body. He groans so I know he’s not dead, but then I hear Brooks still yelling through my phone, and I move to climb off Dex to hit the end button once and for all when I feel something hard dig into my hip and freeze.

Dex freezes too as I lift my head up and peer down at him. “Is that?”

His eyes are shut and he’s breathing hard, but he’s smiling like a fool. “A pencil in my pocket? No. I’m just very happy to see you.”

“What?” I snap, and his eyes slash open, twin emeralds nearly eclipsed by fat, round, black pupils.

He laughs at my appalled expression. “You were climbing me like a tree and wrapped around me like a monkey, princess. I told you it made me hard. I wasn’t kidding. You may not have been aware that your pussy was grinding on my dick and that your tits were rubbing all over my chest and face, but I sure as hell was.”

I flush like a fireball as heat shoots across my skin. Unexpectedly, my core clenches and my nipples harden, and that only feeds my embarrassment because I can’t be sure he isn’t aware of that last one. In fact, I think if the twist of his lips and the dark flare in his eyes are anything to go by, he is.

Shit.

I press my hands into the floor and push myself up, crawling off him while doing my best not to touch him or press more of my body against his—not so easily done from this position. I go for my phone, only Dex is quick and grasps my foot, sliding me back as he dives for it, snatching it and holding it up victoriously.

A shrill growl of frustration blows past my lips as he picks it up and then chirps, “Bye, Brooks. Don’t call her again. It’s my turn with her now.” He hits the red button, disconnecting the call.

Foolishly he hands me my phone, and I’m tempted to bludgeon him with it. As it is, I shake it at him threateningly. “I can’t believe you did that. You had no right.”

“Were you interested in getting back together with him? Is all this, “I have no place to go and I’m hiding out in my sister’s rental cabin” just a ploy to make lover boy come and chase after you?”

He sits up, leaning against the stone side of the fireplace, his long legs extending out as he casually adjusts his clothes. Meanwhile, I’m flat out on my stomach, my damp hair like a blonde curtain over my face. Bastard. I flip over and sit up, swooshing my hair out of my eyes and glaring at him.

“No,” I seethe. “I’m not getting back together with him, and I don’t want him to chase after me. He cheated, and as far as I’m concerned, we’re over.”

He tilts his head, giving me a crooked grin that makes his dimples pop and his green eyes sparkle. “Then what harm is there in torturing the chap a bit? He clearly has it coming, and now he’s jealous, stewing in his own juices.”

I fall back onto the carpet, staring up at the tall ceiling and dark wood beams. Inhaling a deep breath, I release it slowly as tears prickle my eyes. “I suppose you’re right. I should make him suffer. I should seek revenge on him for what he did to me. He embarrassed me. Last night we were at our office holiday party. A hundred and fifty colleagues and clients, and his affair was broadcast to all of them.” I turn away, my face scrunching up. Thinking about him gives me a hangover that has nothing to do with that massive martini I drank half of.

Dex is silent and still as he listens, and that only spurs me on.

“He told me he loved me. We’d only been dating a month when he said it. I thought I had everything. I had a guy who loved me. I had the best job, one I loved doing and was very good at. I loved the people I worked with. I felt important and smart and successful and fucking loved. He stripped all that from me in the blink of an eye.” A tear rolls down my cheek and then into my hair. “He called me horrible and boring, and everyone heard it.” I hiccup out a sob.

“What do you mean by that? Horrible and boring how?”

Fury and humiliation tear through me. “He told the woman he was screwing he thought I was horrible in bed. That I was so bland and unadventurous I even made vanilla bored with me. Or something like that. The only reason he didn’t want to end it with me was because I’m good at my job and he didn’t want to lose me in his firm. He used me and cheated on me without an ounce of remorse, and I didn’t even know that’s the type of man he is.”

I sit up and wipe at my face, meeting Dex’s serious expression. “How can I go back to Boston? Those clients…” I trail off, shaking my head. “They’re big players, and they heard everything he said. What happened will be all over the city. He humiliated me, and that sort of thing follows you. It’ll always be whispered about behind my back no matter where I go or what I do.”

“Well, now he thinks you’re having hot, wild sex. That show we just put on sounded anything but horrible or boring.”

I shrug. “I suppose, but it certainly wasn’t real, and it doesn’t help me with my job or those people.”

“I look like an asshole to the world.” He pans a hand out toward me. “You proved that earlier. No one believes me. It’s one thing for musicians to fuck groupies—hell, it’s expected of us, revered even as part of our bad boy mystique—but the world thinks you’re a slimy piece of shit when you cheat and a total creeper when you make a sex tape. Plus, I was arrested for assault. My endorsements are threatening to pull out. My label is furious, and I know they’re talking about doing the same. The truth is, I knew something wasn’t quite right between us. She kept pushing for marriage, and something inside me just couldn’t pull the trigger. She fucked around, ruined my name, and came out looking like the sad victim in all of this. The only clever thing I ever did with her was not give her access to my money, which she tried for several times over. That should have been a red flag.”

“He spent dozens of late nights ‘working’ on the party with her.” I put air quotes around the word. “She was the event coordinator. He’d come over sometimes after and shower, and I didn’t even put it together.” I shake my head, staring down at my hands in my lap. “So stupid. And so awful. Sometimes we’d have sex after his shower… after he was with her that same night.”

“My ex is the reason I said what I said to Will about you on his wedding day.”

My eyes shoot up to his. “She is?”

He shrugs, looking sheepish. “She was jealous of you. You walked in looking like a princess in your pale pink gown, and I stared for a few seconds longer than I likely should have. She caught me and was angry, and I told her I thought you were a cow.”

“A cow?” My eyes grow bigger than the moon. “Is that because I’m…” I trail off, unable to say the word, but gesture to my breasts, hips, and thighs so he gets my meaning all the same.

Horror strikes his features. “Fuck no. And don’t you dare say or think anything of the sort. Your curves are fucking sexy, Faina. You just felt the proof of that, so don’t say it isn’t true.” He chuckles and gives me another shrug. “She didn’t buy that excuse, but then I heard you complain about it being hot in the church, which it was, and then later, when Will asked me about you in front of her, I had to say something disparaging. Then I spent the rest of the night ignoring you. It was a shitty thing to do, and I’m sorry. I regretted it the rest of the evening and well beyond. You had every right to hate me for it. You were always sweet and kind to me when we were in school, and I was anything but to you that evening.”

“She’s a bitch.”

He chuckles. “Thank you. Agreed.” He pulls his knees up and rests his forearms on them. “And your ex is a wanker and a daft fool. I wasn’t lying when I said that to him.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry she’s making you look bad while getting away with what she did to you.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry he embarrassed you publicly and ruined a job and career you love. If I had known all that he’d done prior to that phone call, he would have gotten a lot more from me on that. He never should have spoken badly about…”

“About how boring I evidently am in bed?”

He gives me a diffident smile. “Yeah. That.”

I bluster out a sound, playing self-consciously with the sleeve of my sweater even as I nod in gratitude. We both have it pretty rough right now.

“The couch doesn’t look so bad,” I murmur under my breath, wondering if I’m crazy for even suggesting this.

“Oh? You’re willing to sleep on the sofa. That’s quite generous of you.”

I snort, rolling my eyes at him. “Fat chance of that. You’re the one without options on places to stay.”

“The king bed looked accommodating. I have no doubt it could fit both of us perfectly.”

I squint at him. “Not a chance in hell.”

“Oh, come now. I’d be happy to help you prove your ex wrong.”

I glare at that, even as my insides flutter. I know he doesn’t mean it. “It’s the couch or nothing for you.”

He tilts his head, scrutinizing me. “Are you genuinely offering for me to stay then? As in we’ll spend the holidays here? Together?”

Am I? “Horrible idea?”

He rubs a finger along his bottom lip, his green eyes dancing with a mischievous glint. “Not as horrible as the one I’m having.”