Текст книги "About That Night"
Автор книги: Julie James
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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
Twenty-one
WHEN RYLANN WOKE up and felt the warm, hard body next to her, for a split second she thought she was back in San Francisco with Jon.
But as her eyes fluttered open and she took in the scene—shades pulled down over floor-to-ceiling windows; plush, taupe covers and oversized pillows on the bed; enormous plasma television on the wall—she suddenly remembered.
Kyle.
As the soft morning light filtered in through the shades, the reality of the situation hit her.
She’d slept with an ex-con.
And not just any ex-con—she’d slept with the Twitter Terrorist, one of the most famous convicted felons to be prosecuted in recent years by the very office she worked for. A man who, just one day ago, had been her witness.
I’m not going to be a good girl tonight.
Safe to say she’d accomplished that goal.
She lay there in Kyle’s bed, not feeling guilty, just perhaps a bit…out of sorts. Meth Lab Rylann didn’t mix business with pleasure. She didn’t do office romances, she didn’t sleep with ex-witnesses, and she sure as hell didn’t have sex with ex-cons. Three times.
Quickly, she scrolled through her memories of the night before.
Those were some damn steamy memories.
A very clear, erotic image popped into her head of her straddling Kyle during round two, her hands running over the hard muscles of his chest as he murmured her name while she rode him. Then another one, of the two of them in his steam shower, the multiple jets beating a sensual massage against her skin as Kyle kneeled before her, pressing her against the warm marble and teasing her with his mouth as her moans echoed through his gigantic bathroom.
Rylann paused suddenly, remembering that one.
Oh crap, the shower.
Her hand flew to the mess of unruly curls tangled around her head and shoulders.
Lovely.
Time to make her getaway.
She peeked over her shoulder at Kyle, who slept facing her, with one arm tucked under his pillow. Seeing the rugged stubble along his jaw and the slight upturn of his lips, she had to fight the urge to snuggle against him, run her hands over his amazing body, and wake him up for round four. Unfortunately, such actions were directly contrary to her plans to: (a) make sure the sexcapades, though spectacular, remained a one-night deal, and (b) get the hell out of Dodge before Kyle noticed that she’d mysteriously sprung a Chia Pet from her head.
Slowly, she eased out of the bed, fully naked. She found her panties on the floor by the foot of the bed and quietly slid them on. Then she tiptoed across the room to the armchair, where she’d done her striptease for Kyle the night before—very fun and naughty, but there was no time to linger over more steamy memories—and found her bra, shoes, and dress. With her back to the bed, she hurriedly put on her bra, then realized the zipper of her dress would make too much noise and might wake Kyle up. Deciding to put the dress and her heels on in the living room, she bent over to pick them up and—
“Very nice.”
Rylann stood up, clutching her dress against her chest, and looked over her shoulder.
Kyle lay in bed, propped up on one elbow while watching her with an amused expression. “Fleeing the scene of the crime, counselor?”
This man could read her like a damn book sometimes. “No,” she said defensively. At least not for the reasons he likely assumed. She had no problems with the sex—all three scorching rounds of it. It was the ex-con part that had her somewhat agitated. “I just have this…thing I need to go to.”
He glanced at the clock on his nightstand. “At seven thirty on a Saturday morning?”
“It’s an early-morning thing. And I have to go home and shower first, obviously.”
“Of course. Here’s a tip, counselor: plan your getaway excuses the night before.”
Right. She’d forgotten that she was dealing with a pro. “I’ll keep that in mind for next time.” Since there was no need to sneak around anymore, she stepped into her shoes and was about to put on her dress when she noticed the way Kyle was staring at her in her underwear and high heels.
His eyes went all warm and dark, taking in the sight. “Maybe you really should stay a little bit longer.”
The lure of those blue bedroom eyes was tempting.
Then his gaze shifted to the wild bush sprouting from her head. “Wow. Did I do that to your hair?” He looked oddly pleased at the thought.
Rylann made a mental note to throw a flat iron in her purse the next time she had sex in the shower with a billionaire ex-con. Not that there was going to be a next time. “Not all of us are lucky enough to have freakishly perfect, shampoo-commercial hair. This is what happens when I get wet.”
His expression turned wicked. “I know exactly what happens when you get wet, counselor.”
Yep, she’d walked right into that one.
“Usually there’s a lot of moaning and heavy breathing,” he continued. “Although my favorite part is the way you say my name—”
“Kyle,” she interrupted, glaring at him.
“Nope, not like that. A bit more fiery and enthusiastic.” He patted the bed next to him. “Let’s work on it until we get it perfect.”
“I’m going now,” Rylann said.
“Are you? Because I see you fighting back a smile there.”
Well, maybe she was. But she was still going. “Since you mentioned the hair—do you have a rubber band anywhere?” It was bad enough she had to do the walk of shame through his lobby wearing the red dress. No way was she letting anyone see the full extent of how mussed she was after one night with Kyle Rhodes.
“I’ll find something,” Kyle said.
He threw back the covers, giving her the perfect view of his delectable body, erect penis and all—seriously, did that thing ever go down?—and strode around the bed. He grabbed his gray boxer briefs off the floor and pulled them on. “I saw you peeking.”
Busted. “I was just noticing that you have really impressive…thighs.”
“I run a lot.”
Rylann could picture him, all sweaty and slick, peeling off his clothes when he got back to the penthouse after a jog.
Hmm.
“Counselor, if you want to leave, I wouldn’t look at me like that when you’re standing in my bedroom in your underwear and heels.”
She blinked. Right—the getaway. “Sorry. The rubber band?”
While Kyle went to look in the bathroom, Rylann slipped on her dress and left the bedroom. In the hallway, she found her purse—a small clutch that held her cell phone, keys, and, thankfully, mints. She popped one in her mouth and stole a look in a large framed mirror in the foyer.
Great. Crazy hair and no makeup.
“Try this.” Kyle came up behind her in the mirror and held out his hand.
Rylann looked down and saw a black hair band in his palm. “Something one of the models left behind?”
He threw her a look. “No, it’s mine. The freakishly lustrous, shampoo-commercial hair is a pain in the ass if I don’t pull it back while running.”
With a smile, Rylann took the band and began combing her fingers through her hair. “I can’t picture you with a ponytail.”
“It’s not a ponytail. I just pull back the sides and top.”
“Ah. Like a partial updo.”
“Remember the thing I said last night? About being a burr up my ass?”
Indeed, she did. He’d said it right after giving her two of the best orgasms of her life. And then had followed it up with two more.
Pushing the memories from her mind, she pulled back to inspect her hair, which she’d wrangled into a bumpy, messy ponytail. “Probably not as fancy as your updos, but it’ll have to do.”
Then she met Kyle’s gaze in the mirror. “Last night was great.”
His expression was uncharacteristically unreadable. “That’s supposed to be my line.”
And she had no doubt he’d said it plenty of times. But that was neither here nor there. She managed a coy smile. “You should feel free to say it, too,” she joked.
He turned her around, lowered his head, and softly kissed her lips. “Last night was great.”
Since there was nothing more to say, Rylann stepped back and headed toward the front door. She noticed now that he’d thrown on a pair of jeans after looking for the hair band, and she realized that this would probably be her last image of Kyle Rhodes—sexy, bare chested, and barefoot in his jeans, standing in his foyer as they said good-bye.
She turned and grabbed the handle, about to open the door, when he stopped her.
“Rylann—wait.”
Her heart skipped a beat as he crossed the foyer with a serious look in his eyes, reaching his arm out to—
–pull up the zipper of her dress.
“I just noticed that,” he said.
“Right. Thanks.” She unlocked the door and opened it. “So we’ll…talk.”
“You know where to find me, counselor.”
Then Rylann stepped out into the hallway and walked to the elevators. As she pushed the down button, she heard the soft click of the lock behind her.
Twenty-two
“AND THEN YOU just left?”
Rylann shrugged at Rae’s question. “What else was I supposed to do?”
They’d scored an outdoor table at Kitsch’n, a popular neighborhood brunch place a few blocks from her apartment. Naturally, she’d called Rae that afternoon for the post-sexcapades debriefing.
Rylann drizzled syrup over her coconut-crusted French toast, continuing on as Rae took a sip of her mimosa. “It’s not like we were going to run out for coffee and pancakes. Last night was fun, but that’s all it was.”
Rae raised an eyebrow. “How much fun?”
Rylann grinned mischievously. “Three rounds of fun. Including one in the shower.” She cheekily took a bite of her French toast, saying nothing further.
Rae laughed. “Wow. Clearly, I need to find myself an ex-con. Since prison is probably the only place in this city I haven’t looked for Mr. Right yet,” she added dryly.
“What about the guy at the bar last night?” Rylann asked. “You were talking to him for a while.”
Rae sighed. “He was nice, I don’t know…” She shrugged, discouraged. “I keep waiting for this magic moment where I meet a guy and just know. But maybe that’s not what my story’s going to be.” She looked at Rylann and waved this off. “Ignore me. I don’t want to talk about my nonexistent love life today.”
“Are you sure?” Rylann asked. Actually, she had an idea on that front—she’d been trying to come up with a sneaky way to introduce Rae to a certain single, good-looking, all-American male prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney’s Office—but she didn’t have the details worked out yet. She needed to tread cautiously on that front, since Rae hated setups.
“Very sure.” Rae said emphatically. “Let’s get back to the part where you hightailed it out of the multimillion-dollar penthouse of the gorgeous billionaire heir who obviously has the hots for you big-time. You bitch.” She smiled. “Whoops. Did I just say that out loud?”
Rylann pooh-poohed this with a wave of her own. “That gorgeous billionaire heir is doing just fine. Trust me, Kyle Rhodes is not pining away in his penthouse for me. The guy goes through women faster than I go through legal pads.”
“Yeah, but you heard what his friend Dex said. About how Kyle was grinning like a fool after walking you home the night you met.”
Rylann paused at that. That was a really cute story. But still. “That was nine years ago, Rae. A lot has happened since then. He’s not some unknown, charmingly irritating grad student in a flannel shirt and work boots anymore.” She looked around, lowering her voice. “He’s the Twitter Terrorist. And I’m an assistant U.S. attorney. There’s only so far this can go. My office prosecuted Kyle just six months ago. Called him a ‘cyber-menace to society.’ Do you know how awkward it would be at work if anyone found out that he and I were sleeping together?”
“It would be weird. No doubt,” Rae said in complete agreement.
“Exactly. And I don’t want things to be weird. I’ve got plans for that office—like kicking butt and making a name for myself. And that name is not going to be ‘That New Girl Who Boned the Twitter Terrorist.’ “
“Uh-oh.” Rae grimaced. “Then I hate to be the one to break this to you…but you and Kyle are in this morning’s Scene and Heard column.”
Rylann’s heart stopped. “What? No.”
“Not your name,” Rae said quickly. She took out her iPhone and pulled up the gossip column online. “I’d been waiting to mention this, thinking you were going to get a kick out of it. Guess I called that one wrong.” She began reading out loud. ” ‘Kyle Rhodes, Chicago’s Twitter Terrorist and son of billionaire businessman Grey Rhodes, made his return to the social scene at the much-anticipated opening of Gold Coast hot spot Firelight, where he was spotted cozying up to an unknown brunette bombshell wearing a knockout red dress. Sources say the couple shared several drinks and appeared to have eyes only for each other as they left the nightclub together…’ “
Stunned, Rylann said nothing for a moment.
She cursed the red magic boob dress.
“On the bright side, they did call you a brunette bombshell,” Rae said.
And under different circumstances, Rylann would’ve preened shamelessly for at least two or three minutes over that, but right now she was too busy panicking. Back in March, there’d been that picture of her and Kyle in court, the one that had been blasted all over the media. If anyone connected the dots between that and the “brunette bombshell” he’d been seen with last night…
Not good.
“They don’t have any photographs of Kyle and me at the club, do they?” she asked anxiously.
“Just another one of him staring at your boobs.” Rae put down her phone, seeing Rylann’s face. “I’m kidding. Take a deep breath, Ry. You’re fine. No one will know this is you. It’s a big city, with lots of brunettes.”
“Right.” Rylann exhaled, slowly climbing down off the ledge and thinking how close she’d come to carelessly blowing her cover.
Too close.
ON HER WAY home from the restaurant, Rylann’s cell phone rang. For a moment, as she dug around in her purse to find it, she wondered if it would be Kyle, calling her about the Scene and Heard column. She could practically hear his low, teasing voice already. Just calling to check up on my favorite brunette bombshell, counselor. Thought I’d see if you’d be up for round four tonight.
Rylann finally found her phone.
Oh. Just her mother.
“Mom…hi,” she answered.
“Looks like I was right to warn you about that Kyle Rhodes.”
Rylann stopped at a four-way intersection, immediately on high alert. How could her mother, down in Florida, possibly know anything? So she played it cool. “Not sure what you mean, Mom.”
“I was just reading the Trib online,” Helen said. “The Twitter Terrorist made the Scene and Heard column again.”
“You read Scene and Heard?” Rylann asked.
“Sure. How else am I supposed to keep up with all the local gossip while we’re down here for the winter?”
And by winter, she meant early May. “I haven’t seen this morning’s column,” Rylann said. And technically, that was true—she’d only heard it. “I was busy this morning, then went to lunch with Rae. I’m just walking home now.”
“Apparently, he was spotted at some hot new nightclub. Leaving with a mysterious brunette bombshell in a red dress. Probably some skank he met that night.”
Then her mother changed the subject, cheerfully moving on. “Anyway, what’s new with you, sweetie? Did you do anything exciting last night?”
Yes. Kyle Rhodes. “Um, nothing special. Rae and I went out for a few drinks.” Rylann figured it was best to gloss over the rest of the details, seeing how her mother had just called her a skank. “Out of curiosity, what’s with all the animosity toward Kyle Rhodes? You don’t even know him.”
“I told you. I didn’t like the way he was looking at you in that photo,” she said. “Who looks at a woman, a perfect stranger, like that in a courtroom of all places? My firm used to represent men like him all the time. Wealthy, charming, think they own the world and can get away with anything.”
“It’s not like he killed anyone, Mom. He shut down Twitter,” Rylann said. She knew she sounded a bit defensive, but her mother’s words bothered her. She’d seen firsthand the real Kyle Rhodes—the guy who, despite everything, had voluntarily helped her in the Quinn case. Yes, he had his flaws, but there were good parts, too. And not just the naked parts.
Quickly, she changed the subject, not wanting to talk any more about Kyle Rhodes, the Scene and Heard column, or anything else related to last night. The message had been received, loud and clear: going home with Kyle had been crazy. And Meth Lab Rylann didn’t do crazy.
Starting now.
Shortly after arriving home, she hung up with her mother and dropped her purse on the floor in her bedroom. Stuffed to the gills with coconut-crusted French toast and thoroughly exhausted after her night of debauchery with Kyle, she kicked off her shoes and crawled into bed for a nap.
Over three hours later, Rylann woke to the sound of her cell phone ringing. She sat up in bed, foggy-headed with sleep and disoriented by the fact that it had begun to get dark outside. She leaned over and reached for her purse, grumbling to herself as she rooted around for her cell phone. Somebody had better be dead—and she meant that literally. If there wasn’t an FBI, a DEA, a Secret Service, or an ATF agent on the other end of the line with a major case-related crisis, heads were going to roll.
She pulled the phone out of her purse and saw “Blocked” on the screen.
“Rylann Pierce.”
A familiar male voice spoke.
“I can’t believe how good it is to hear your voice again.”
Rylann rolled back on the bed, unable to conceal her surprise.
“Jon.”
Twenty-three
RYLANN LOOKED OVER at the clock on her nightstand and did the math. Rome was seven hours ahead of Chicago. “It’s after two o’clock in the morning for you.”
“So it is,” Jon said cheerfully. “I just left a friend’s party. There’s a woman in the Rome office, also an expat, who introduced me to some locals. We were celebrating…well, come to think of it, I have no clue what we were celebrating. It’s a fun group.”
“I’m sure it—”
He kept right on talking. “One of the guys has a brother who owns a vineyard in Tuscany where we hang out on weekends. You’d love it, babe. The main house is gorgeous. It’s this eighteenth-century villa that’s been renovated and is set right into these green, rolling hills. Molto bello.”
Rylann blinked.
Oh, boy.
Putting aside the fact that Jon was babbling and suddenly breaking out the Italian, she’d caught the “babe” he’d slipped in there. As she knew well from the three years they’d dated, that could mean only one thing.
She’d just been internationally drunk-dialed.
“It sounds like Italy has turned out to be everything you’d hoped it would,” she said, still trying to shake the sleep from her head. This conversation had suddenly become very surreal.
“Not everything.” He sighed dramatically. “The party was at an apartment not far from the Piazza Navona. I left before the others and just started walking. Before I knew it, I was standing at the Bernini fountain, looking at the trattoria with the yellow awning that we loved so much when we came here together. Do you remember?”
Yes, she did. After a two-day sightseeing whirlwind that had included the Roman Forum, the Vatican, the Spanish Steps, and the Coliseum, they’d decided to take a break. The following day they’d slept in, found a restaurant for lunch, and sat at an outdoor table for hours while talking, people watching, eating good food, and drinking wine. Afterward they’d gone back to the hotel and made love. “I remember. Although that seems like a long time ago now.”
“Yeah. A lot of things seem like they were a long time ago.” He changed the subject. “So? How have you been?”
First an e-mail, now he was drunk dialing her. No clue what was going on with her ex these days, but it was probably time she figured it out. “Jon. No offense but…what are you doing? Are we really going to have this conversation at two o’clock in the morning?”
“We are not having this conversation at two o’clock in the morning. It’s only seven p.m. for you,” he said cutely.
Rylann thought it was best not to mince words. If for no other reason, the economically frugal government-salaried lawyer in her was very conscious of the fact that this call was costing him a pretty Euro per minute. “Why are you calling?”
“Can’t a man say hi to an old friend without it being a federal offense?”
She assumed the pun was intended. “I got the e-mail, remember? We’ve already done the ‘Hi’ thing.”
“I just wanted to see how you’re doing, Ry. From your response you seemed okay, but who can tell anything over e-mail?”
Rylann ran one hand through her hair. Perhaps, because she and Jon had agreed not to talk after the breakup, it was inevitable that this conversation would occur at some point. People liked to have closure. “I’m doing well. I think Chicago is going to be a good fit for me.”
“I’ve kept in touch with Keith, Kellie, Dan, and Claire,” Jon said. “They tell me that they’ve only traded a couple e-mails with you since you left San Francisco. When I heard that, I got a little worried.”
Ah, now she had a better sense of what was going on here. She’d gotten so swept up in her new life in Chicago that she’d pushed aside, perhaps too quickly, her old one. This had not been entirely unintentional. Keith, Kellie, Dan, and Claire had been their “couple” friends, and after she and Jon had broken up, the whole dynamic had been thrown out of whack. Sure, she’d given it the college try, she’d even met the girls for drinks a few times during the four months she’d still lived in San Francisco after the breakup. But mostly, Kellie and Claire kept asking if she’d talked to Jon after he’d left for Rome—a subject she hadn’t been keen to revisit umpteen times. Especially since the answer had been no.
“I’ve been busy with work, that’s all,” Rylann said. “But you’re right—I should give them a call.”
“They’re worried that you’re sitting in Chicago, wallowing in misery.” Jon chuckled. “They even have these romantic notions that you’ve been pining away, thinking about me. So I can e-mail them and say that you’re officially a-okay?”
His tone was light and jesting, but Rylann wondered if she heard an unspoken question there. “I’m fine. Truly.”
“They’ll be relieved to hear that. You remember how nosy those guys can get.” His tone remained casual. “And of course the next thing they’ll ask is whether you’re seeing anyone. So the answer to that would be…?”
“That they should probably stop asking questions while they’re ahead.”
“Of course.”
There was a long pause on the other end.
Jon’s voice turned serious, and suddenly, the whole conversation changed.
“And what if they said that they miss you?” he asked quietly.
There it was.
Rylann took a moment to answer, wanting to see what effect, if any, the words had on her. She felt nostalgic and perhaps even a little sad. Her tone was gentle. “I’d say that they are obviously having this very sentimental, Italian moment with the Bernini fountain and the wine, but that they will undoubtedly wake up in the morning and regret this call.”
“That was a really good day for us, Ry.”
She assumed he was still looking at the trattoria with the yellow awning. “It was. But that day is over, Jon.”
“I don’t know…”
“We can’t do this,” Rylann interrupted. “I want you to be happy, I really do. But talking makes things too confusing. I think it’s better for both of us to just…move on.” She paused, finding this harder than she’d expected. But still, it was the right thing to do. “Good-bye, Jon.”
She hung up the phone and exhaled deeply. Then she turned her cell phone off and stared at it for a long moment.
Beyond a doubt, one of the strangest weekends she’d ever had.
