Look at Me, page 16
He released her. “No, I’m glad you took some time to think it over. I know it’s not an easy decision. Not at all.” He glanced back at the huge white wheel turning slowly behind them. “Why don’t we take a ride? We deserve a break, a little fun, I think.”
“You want to?” she asked, uncertain.
“I do.”
The line was short, and in minutes, they’d gotten their own car, sealed from the elements by glass windows on all sides. Jackson and Chloe sat across from each other, gazing into each other’s eyes. There was a bit of sadness about her, but at the same time, Chloe was the kind of woman who’d be the partner he needed: fearless. Most women would’ve run away and kept running after they’d heard the news of the pregnancy. Not Chloe. Jackson knew beyond a doubt this woman was the one. If he had a ring in his pocket, he would get down on one knee right there in the Ferris wheel car and propose. As the car moved higher and higher into the sky, giving them a breathtaking view of the city skyline and the glistening blue lake, Jackson allowed himself to actually feel hopeful about the future.
“You’ve changed my life for the better, you know that?” he told Chloe. “Standing by me, it’s brave. And I’ll never forget that. I’ve never trusted anyone like I trust you, and I hope you know that you’re my partner. Now and always.”
“I trust you, too,” Chloe said. “Thank you for telling me about Laurie. About what was going on. You could’ve kept it all from me, and...I mean, I was mad at first that you didn’t tell me right away, but I also get you were hoping the DNA test proves it’s not yours.” Chloe glanced at Jackson. “Do you think it’s possible it’s not yours?”
“Well, Kent had been sleeping with her before me, and he’s had a vasectomy. Told me all about it.” Jackson rolled his eyes.
“He—what?” Chloe frowned.
“Oh, yeah, and actually Kent is the one who told Laurie she ought to date me. So, small world.”
Chloe’s mouth dropped open. “You can’t be serious.”
“Unfortunately, I am. Kent hates me, always has, and has had this chip on his shoulder ever since I outmaneuvered him on a parkland deal. He’s been after me ever since, and looks like he finally got me.” Jackson glanced at the tiny white sailboats dotting the water of the massive lake far below them.
“No,” Chloe said, grabbing Jackson’s hand. “He hasn’t won. Because you have me, and we’ll get through this together. One way or another. I know we will.”
Jackson squeezed Chloe’s hand, feeling his heart swell up with love and admiration for her. She was a good woman, through and through. “Come over here,” he said, grinning. He patted the seat next to him.
“Can I?” She glanced around, clearly worrying about the balance of the car.
“Then I’m coming over there.” He made a quick move and then was beside her, pulling her into his arms. The car swung a bit, but righted itself soon enough. He kissed her long and hard, their tongues meeting in a promise of more kisses to come.
He felt her hand wander down to the front of his pants.
“Looks like you might need to open that zipper,” she purred in his ear, and he felt a shiver run down his spine. She was like a drug, a powerful aphrodisiac, one he was powerless to resist. He wanted her.
“Naughty girl! We’re in a bubble. The whole city can see us.”
“You were the one who turned me on to exhibitionism,” she pointed out. He had to laugh.
“True. But then we were photographed and blackmailed.” He quirked an eyebrow. “See how well that turned out?”
“That does put a damper on the mood,” Chloe agreed.
“Then again,” Jackson said, squeezing her bare knee, “maybe I should take you right here. Right now.” Somehow, he knew he’d find her wet and ready.
The phone in his back pocket rang. Reluctantly, he glanced at it and saw Diane was calling.
“It’s my lawyer,” he told Chloe. She nodded. “Hello?” he said, and put the call on speakerphone. “Diane? I’ve got you on speaker. Chloe is here with me, and anything you say to me, you can say to her.”
“Good. Because I’ve got news. The DNA test results came back.”
“And?” Jackson braced himself for bad news. He felt like he’d been zapped into a Maury Povich episode. Chloe squeezed his hand.
“And you’re not the father.”
Jackson stared at Chloe, feeling a mix of emotions: relief, joy, shock. Chloe clutched at his arm.
“He’s not?” Chloe could barely contain her glee. “For certain?”
“Nope. One hundred percent not Jackson’s. Actually, we ran two DNA tests, since she admitted to sleeping with another person around the same time, and that test came up positive, so you’re off the hook.”
“Wait...was that other person Kent Roberts?” Jackson asked. Chloe’s mouth dropped open in shock.
“I’m not technically supposed to know his name,” Diane replied, “but I happened to look at the file, and the other DNA sample was labeled Roberts, so it’s fairly likely.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Jackson barked a bitter laugh. “Looks like he has a malpractice suit on his hands.”
“A...what?” Diane asked, sounding confused.
“He had a vasectomy, but clearly it didn’t take. He thought the surgery would mean he could sleep with whoever he wanted without protection. He didn’t care about disease, apparently, or anything else.”
“Oh, I had a case once like that,” Diane said. “It’s rare, but it happens. One in one thousand men regrow the tube or whatever, and then...well, the highway is open for business again, I guess.” She coughed uncomfortably on the line, but Jackson didn’t care. He laughed, a full-bodied laugh. Nobody deserved that nightmare more than Kent. Looked like the player got played, by his own body. Instant karma.
He felt a bubble of excitement and relief grow in his chest. He wasn’t the father. He still couldn’t believe it.
Jackson shook his head. “So this means I don’t owe Laurie anything?”
“That’s right. And if she tries to release any photos of you, we’ll hit her with everything we’ve got. I’ve already served her a cease-and-desist on the photos she has, and if she releases them, we’ll take her for every penny she has. So you and Chloe should rest easy. Plus, I’ve got Chicago PD looking into filing burglary and trespassing charges as well.”
“Good,” Chloe said.
“Thank you, Diane. Really,” Jackson said.
“Anytime.” Diane clicked off the line, and Jackson hugged Chloe.
“God, can you believe that?” Jackson said, shaking his head. “It’s Kent’s!”
“Well, looks like she’s got her rich daddy after all,” Chloe said, laughing a little. Her face shone with happiness and relief, and she looked so beautiful. “I can’t believe he did that just so he could...you know...go without a condom. What if he decided one day he wanted kids?”
Jackson shrugged. “I guess he doesn’t have to worry about that now.”
The two of them laughed a little.
“They kind of deserve each other,” she said.
“Hell, yes, they do,” Jackson said slapping the cushioned armrest.
Chloe laced her fingers between his. “I’m not going to lie, this makes me very, very happy. Does that make me a bad person?”
“Not at all,” he said. “I love you. So much.” Jackson drew Chloe into his arms for a kiss. “You’re the only woman I want, now and forever.”
“You’re sure?”
“Beyond positive.” Jackson lifted Chloe up so she was sitting in his lap. He kissed her gently, and she returned the kiss. The Ferris wheel spun back by the platform slowly and then began its ascent once more to the top of the wheel. He broke the kiss and stared into her dark eyes.
“Now, where were we before we were interrupted?”
“About to break about a dozen public indecency statutes?” Chloe ran her long nails through his thick hair. He closed his eyes, loving her touch, eager to have it for many months and years to come.
“Oh, yes, that’s right.” Jackson slipped his hand up the side of her skirt, feeling her soft skin, thrilled with the knowledge that one day, maybe she’d be the one to carry his baby.
“I love you,” she murmured, even as he worked his hand up higher, rubbing her outer thigh and squeezing.
“I love you,” he said, nuzzling her neck as she turned, straddling him in his seat. He could feel her warmth, her readiness, even through the fabric of his pants. This was exactly where he was meant to be.
Yes, he thought, I’m coming home.
* * *
If you liked Look at Me,
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Unleashed
by Caitlin Crews
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by Nicola Marsh
and
King’s Price
by Nicola Marsh
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Unleashed
by Caitlin Crews
CHAPTER ONE
“I’M SORRY,” THE overly polite receptionist said from behind the polished surface of the gleaming marble desk in Hotel Viking’s iconic lobby. “The weather has turned foul. There will be no possibility of returning to Reykjavík tonight.”
Professor Margot Cavendish squared her shoulders as if the woman had taken a swing at her, and forced a smile. It wouldn’t do to let her irritation get the better of her, especially when she was mostly—okay, entirely—annoyed with herself.
She’d seen the weather with her very own eyes. She’d known that coming all the way out to this remote village was a risk, especially when there’d been no indication that the man she’d come to see would take a few minutes out of his busy schedule of sin and temptation to meet with her. He hadn’t condescended to answer her emails or bothered to return her calls. And yet she’d gone ahead and come all this way anyway.
This was what she got for being spontaneous, she told herself darkly.
“It was snowing on the way here,” she said, as if she could argue her way back to the little flat she was renting in central Reykjavík during her semester sabbatical. “It was a little slippery, but fine.”
That wasn’t entirely true. The road over the mountains had been treacherous. The snow had been coming down much harder up high than it had been in the city. But her taxi driver had been undeterred. And Margot was used to blustery Midwest winters at the University of Iowa, where she’d taught in the humanities department since completing her doctorate a few years back.
She wasn’t afraid of a little snow. But she’d never spent a winter this close to the arctic, either.
“It’s a developing storm, I’m afraid.” The woman typed ferociously on her keyboard as if she was transmitting that same information to the public as she spoke. The tag on her chest read Freyja. “These winter storms are so unpredictable. It might very well clear up by morning.”
“By morning?”
Margot’s voice was too loud in the hushed, expensive lobby, which made her want to cringe. There was something about this place that got under her skin: its epic pageant of ice and fire on display wherever she went; elves and trolls and sagas wherever she looked, in one form or another. Like this hotel, a monument to sin that its reclusive owner somehow made seem attractive when Margot thought it should all be seedy. She could imagine the sort of things that must go on here, even if she hadn’t seen much of it besides this damned lobby.
She forced her shoulders down an inch from where they’d crept up toward her ears. “You can’t be suggesting I stay here overnight?”
She might or might not have emphasized the word here a bit too much.
The previous owner of the famous Hotel Viking, larger-than-life Daniel St. George, had died in a dramatic car accident in Germany some months before. His will had divided up his boutique hotel properties to the sons it had always been rumored he’d littered about the globe, though he’d never acknowledged them while alive. One of those assets had been Hotel Viking, the remote Icelandic hotel and resort that billed itself as the first and last stop in international fantasy. And it was only a couple of hours outside Reykjavík in good weather, so Margot had decided she had to go see it for herself.
Her current research project was all about Iceland and its reputation as the most feminist country in the world. Specifically, she was interested in sex and how Iceland’s famous and highly alcoholic hookup culture intersected with those feminist principles—because to Margot’s mind, those things didn’t go together. She’d been in Reykjavík for almost a month already, consulting with colleagues at the University of Iceland and conducting interviews with as many locals as she could convince to talk with her on any given late night out there on Laugavegur—the famous street where so much of Reykjavík’s nightlife happened—as they stumbled from bar to nightclub in the cold.
The name that kept cropping up was Thor Ragnarsson, the brand-new owner of the iconic Hotel Viking and the eldest of Daniel St. George’s sons and heirs. Thor, who they whispered personally practiced all the many wicked things his guests got up to at the hotel. Thor, who seemed to embody all the things Margot liked least about men—in bed and out.
Overtly sexual. Too physical.
Not that it mattered what kind of sex the man had in his private life, of course. Margot wanted to know what he thought about sex in general, that was all.
Of course that was all. Even if she was trapped here.
His secretary had politely refused all requests for an interview when Margot had started calling instead of emailing. So she’d decided to just show up today and see what happened.
But she hadn’t gotten past the lobby. Freyja had been polite but firm. The hotel proper was accessible only to its guests because complete privacy was its central promise, and Mr. Ragnarsson was unavailable for even a five-minute chat. It had been foolish for Margot to come here.
And now she had to pay for it.
“There are worse places to be snowed in,” Freyja was saying. “After all, we’re a hotel. There are those who get stuck in the snow out on the roads in these conditions and must hope for rescue.”
“Yes, but...”
“Why don’t you go and sit in our bar,” Freyja suggested. “Have a drink. Relax. And I’ll see how we can accommodate you tonight.”
It wasn’t as if Margot had a choice. She could see the way the snow was beating down outside. It swirled around on the other side of the glass entry doors with visibility of about an inch, leaving her well and truly trapped. She’d let herself grow complacent this past month in Reykjavík, clearly. She’d imagined that she could handle the snow the way the locals seemed to so easily.
And it had certainly never occurred to her that she could find herself stranded in a sex hotel. The whole building felt swollen with dark passions, with an undercurrent of sensuality weaving in and around everything, even the cheerful flower arrangements that adorned all the tables.
