His arms wrap me up, positioning me on my side and pulling my back into his chest. “Holy fuck,” he says, breathing heavy from the exertion.
I feel like I will never get enough air in my lungs. My whole body shuts down as I gasp for air, and understanding, and stillness.
But then I just give in and enjoy it. I meld against him. His heart is beating as fast as mine. I can feel it against my back. His hand comes up to my breast, but he doesn’t squeeze. He places it flat. Like he’s searching for the beat of my heart too. So we can feel each other in this moment. Feel the excitement we created and the aftermath of calm.
“I could get used to this, Miss Rockwell. I could do this every night.”
I push away all my hesitation from earlier. All the fear, and the talk, and the negotiations.
And I just enjoy it as we fall asleep, wrapped tightly around each other.
Chapter Twenty-Seven - Nolan
A buzzing phone wakes me and I sit up in bed, wondering what time it is. Ivy is still asleep, her face awash in yellow-orange light from the setting sun that makes her glow.
I get up and look around for my shorts and find them in the bathroom. The buzzing has stopped but another buzz tells me there’s a voicemail. I pull the phone out of my pocket, tab it, recognizing Claudette’s number.
“Nolan,” her message says. “Where is that girl? Did you take her home? Where is she? This is bad news. I need to talk to you now. Now, Nolan. I’m not joking.”
I end the message and go back into the bedroom. Ivy didn’t wake up so I go out into the hallway, walk along the catwalk that overlooks the living room, and hop down the stairs two at a time.
I grab a water from the fridge and I’m just about to call Claudette back when the doorbell rings. When I get to the foyer I can see Claudette through the glass doors, standing on the step, hands on hips, looking very pissed off.
I open it and say, “Jesus Christ, Claudette. I was just going to call you. No need—”
“Is she here?” Claudette cuts me off.
“Yeah, why?”
Claudette pushes past me, ignoring my question. “Where?”
“Upstairs. And keep your fucking voice down, she’s sleeping.”
Claudette shoots daggers at me with her eyes. “You fucked her.”
“What the fuck do you want? And why the hell did you follow me here?”
“I need to tell you something. But I don’t want her to hear. Let’s go into the kitchen.”
She doesn’t give me a chance to object or agree, just walks off to the kitchen. I follow, helpless to derail her when she’s in a mood like this.
The kitchen is open to the living room, so it only offers a little bit of privacy. “What?” I ask her.
“What do you know about this girl? Ivy Rockwell? How did we get her résumé?”
“Corporate sent it. Why?” My sister is agitated. Which is not uncommon. She’s about as high-strung as those horses down on the racetrack. Her hair is blonde, but not naturally. And it’s short and has a soft curl that that makes it look bouncy. How the two of us are related is beyond me. My hair is dark, my eyes green. And even though she dyes her hair, it’s not really dark, so the blonde looks good on her. Her eyes are blue though. My mother’s eyes, I suppose, though they are more gray than blue.
“Well, he’s fucking with you then.”
“Why?”
“Do you know who Ivy Rockwell’s father is?”
“Some pastor up in New England. Why?”
“Because he’s a little bit more than that, Nolan. He was on the board at Brown.”
“So?” I’m not following. And my sister likes to make her points in dramatic ways that I have no patience for. “Just tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“He was on the board when you were expelled, Nolan.”
“Hmm. Is that weird?”
“Don’t you think it’s weird?” Her eyes are wide in surprise. “I mean this girl shows up practically uninvited, with a fake résumé, and now we find out her father was on the board when you were kicked out?”
The five of us weren’t technically expelled. We were ‘asked to leave’ by the administration with the understanding we could return if we were found not guilty. None of us thought it would take two years to clear things up. And by that time, college was nothing but a dead end in the rearview mirror.
“Did you forget Amy, Nolan? The girl who tried to sue you six months ago?”
“Shit.” Amy was a manager at one of my clubs. She and I had a similar affair. Not the fantasy stuff. We never got that far. But the whole, I’ll fuck you before I hire you thing. We did fuck. And then I hired her and fired her all in the span of a few months. She was totally incompetent. We didn’t do anything while she was actually working for me, but we did before. And after. Which is why she tried to claim sexual harassment.
But Match did some digging for me and found out she was an outspoken advocate for the girl who accused us of rape. Some blogger who wrote the most vile things about us online. I don’t know what Match said to her, but the sexual harassment threat disappeared a lot more quietly than it appeared, and I never heard from her again.
“I think this Ivy girl is in on it.”
“In on what?”
“Trying to take you down. You know I was convinced that you were the reason the whole thing blew up.”
I was the reason. But I never told anyone. Match came and called his friend. And then we were told to shut the fuck up and not say a word, not even to each other.
So she doesn’t know what I did that night. No one does. Just me and that girl. And she’s dead.
I sigh and lean against the counter. “For what purpose though? I don’t get it.”
“Trying to milk us for money, Nolan. How stupid are you?”
I squint my eyes at my sister. “Don’t call me stupid. I don’t need a college degree to understand your paranoid reasoning, Claudette. I’ve gotten to know Ivy. She’s not like that.”
“You’ve gotten to know her? In twenty-four hours?”