CALLIE (The Naughty Ones Book 1) Read online

  He lifted his glass to me, and I clinked mine against his delicately. “Thank you for already making my birthday special,” I said, smiling shyly.

  “To tell you the truth, I really wanted someone to come with me to check this ruddy place out,” Peter said, looking around. “I never have anyone to go with.”

  “I find that very hard to believe,” I said, drinking more of the cocktail than I meant to. “Geez. These things are really easy to drink. Dangerous. Tastes like no consequences.”

  “There are never any consequences for the birthday girl,” he said, giving a devilish look that almost made me believe him. “Down the hatch, then. Let’s do a proper tour of their citrus drinks, shall we?”

  I laughed, dumping the rest of my drink down my throat. It tasted good, like a delicious fruit drink I might’ve had during my childhood to ease the hot days of summer. I couldn’t taste the alcohol — a dangerous feature for a cocktail, I knew. But part of me didn’t care that much as Peter followed suit and signaled the very attentive server. It was going to be my birthday. I deserved to have fun. Tomorrow was going to be immensely stressful, so I wanted to make tonight a treat.

  Only it was a virtual stranger making it a treat for me, one who had sat patiently through my life story and rewarded my honesty by listening and ordering me drink after drink.

  A girl could get used to this.

  “Grapefruit juice and gin,” Peter observed as the next round of cocktails arrived. “Glorious.”

  “Perfect for a muggy summer night,” I said, smiling and toasting him.

  “For a birthday eve,” he said. “Not very much longer now, Gemma, and you’ll be on your way to your mid-twenties.”

  “God, don’t say that,” I groaned. “Mid-twenties sounds so old. Let me be in my early twenties for just a little bit longer. I feel like I only just got here.”

  “Bugger me,” he grumbled good-naturedly. “You think mid-twenties sounds old? Just wait.”

  I blinked at him as I took a tiny sip of the new cocktail. The bartender had added fizzy club soda, making it even more delicious and drinkable.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  “That’s not very polite.”

  I laughed. “Really? You can’t be much older than me. What are you, twenty-five?”

  “Try almost thirty-five.”

  “What?” I studied him anew, that delectable blond stubble, the smooth plane of his forehead. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not!” he spluttered. “Well. I’m thirty-three. I said almost thirty-five for dramatic effect. Since you’re practically twenty-five already.”

  I gave a low whistle. “You’re ten years older than I am. That’s a pretty big gap.”

  “Oh, thanks a lot,” he said. “You wait and see. It sneaks up on you. You think your twenties are endless, but they come to a crashing halt right at thirty. Then, it’s all downhill from there.”

  “You look like the years have treated you very kindly,” I observed.

  “Now you’re just kissing arse.”

  “Not in public I’m not.” I leered at him, then slapped my forehead. “Oh my God! I have absolutely no filter tonight. What is wrong with me?”

  “I imagine it’s the high alcohol content in these drinks,” Peter said, laughing hard. “Oh, please don’t be embarrassed. I think it’s darling.”

  “I’m not embarrassed; I’m horrified. There’s a big difference. Now, please. Help me put myself out of my misery.”

  We marched through the menu together, me puzzled at my own behavior. It would’ve been one thing if it were the alcohol that was loosening my tongue. But it had started long before I’d tasted my first cocktail of the night. I’d started regaling Peter with my long list of problems and worries right as soon as my shift had ended at the bar, and I hadn’t touched a drop while working.

  What was it about Peter that was drawing the truth out of me, for once? It was almost frightening just how normal lying had become for me. Telling the truth — now, that was abnormal. I would’ve been sad about it if I hadn’t been having such a lovely time on this, the eve of my birthday, with a beautiful British stranger.

  “Damn!” he exclaimed, looking at his watch. “My jewel of a girl! You’ve been a ripe, old twenty-three for thirty whole minutes and we missed it!”

  “I don’t feel any different,” I remarked, examining my hands as if I’d expected them to turn blue or something.

  “I meant to give you a kiss exactly at midnight to mark the passage from early twenties to mid-twenties,” he said, sighing sadly. “I suppose I missed my window.”

  “It’s only my birthday, not New Year’s Eve,” I laughed. “I don’t need a kiss at midnight to tell me I’m a year older.”

  “Needs are different from wants,” Peter reasoned.

  “Then maybe I’d want a birthday kiss at 12:30,” I said, squaring my shoulders and puckering up mockingly.

  I didn’t expect him to take my chin between his fingers and thumb and kiss me right on my lips — soft, at first, then deeper, more insistent, sending a roll of fire down my spine not unlike the one I’d experienced when he was checking me out earlier.

  I came up breathless.

  “There,” he said, smirking. “Now you’re a proper twenty-three-year-old. Didn’t count until now.”

  “Oh, really?” I was laughing and laughing like I’d never stop, flushed with desire and triumph and happiness that, for once, something seemed to be going well for me. Maybe this, my twenty-third year, was going to be a good one after all.

  “Really,” Peter confirmed, nodding wisely and signaling the server.

  “I know something else to do to make it official,” I said, feeling daring, leaning forward and perching my fingers on his knee. He looked at my hand, and a grin spread over his face, slow and delighted.

  “My dear, I like the way you think,” he said, taking my face in his hands again and kissing me, our drinks arriving unnoticed on the table between us.

  Chapter 4

  There were some mornings when wakefulness was a long time in coming, and this was one of them. I was encased deliciously in fluffy pillows and a warm duvet, keeping me comfortable in the chill of a whirring air conditioner, and sunlight spilled over my face, making my retreat from reality even more complete. My eyelids felt thick, as if I were submerged in a sticky syrup, unable and unwilling to surface completely. I was so comfortable, and the growing ache in my head told me that a hangover was upon me, and that I should enjoy this comfort for as long as possible.

  But that puzzled me. A headache? A hangover? What had I done last night? It had been the middle of the week, and I wasn’t prone to going out during the weekends, either. It was a stupid thing to waste my hard-earned money on, especially when I could buy a cheap bottle of spirits, send it through a water filter a couple of times to purify it, and make perfectly good discount cocktails at home.

  Though I would probably be hard pressed to come up with a decent recipe for blood orange martinis. That was just way too fancy.

  I gasped and sat straight up in bed, practically having to peel my eyes open with my fingers to assess my surroundings.

  I wasn’t in my bed. That was my first discovery. I didn’t have the wherewithal for a down duvet, for one, and it would have been silly to splurge on that to complement my rickety futon that protested so mightily when trying to fold it up into a couch position that I’d given up and let it remain in the bed position for months. Who needed a couch, anyway? I never had people over to my tiny place.

  But where was I this morning? What had I done last night?

  My tired, puffy eyes fell upon my panties, on the floor right by the bed, then proceeded to my bra, a few paces away, then my black skirt, another few paces away, and my button-down shirt, almost all the way by the door, crumpled over what had to be my flats. It was a trail of clothes leading to the bed, and with a sudden shock bolstered by the emergency exit information emblazoned on the door, I realized that I was in a
very nice hotel.

  The reason I was in that very nice hotel was because I’d had blistering hot birthday sex with a man I’d only met the night before.

  It came back to me the instant I realized I had a sweeter, more welcome ache between my legs to distract me from the one building in my brain. I touched myself, felt the wetness, smelled the musk, and knew that my foggy memories were much truer than a vivid sex dream.

  If I tried hard enough, I could still feel Peter’s hands coursing down my sides, making me moan in places that should’ve tickled, forcing me to make a litany of sounds I didn’t know I was capable of. My face flushed hot against the pillow, remembering that truth. The man had coaxed sounds out of me like he was drawing water from a well. I hadn’t been able to stop crying out thickly for him, especially when he replaced his hands with his hot mouth, that tongue just as musical when it was looping around my clit, delving deep into my body, bringing me to the very cusp of completion and then well beyond in just a few simple beckoning motions.

  I covered my face with my pillow. How was it that I’d gotten so lucky? Never in the history of my birthdays since I’d become sexually active — a misbegotten night in the middle of the woods with a boy I knew from my English class in high school, cold and damp, on the ground, utterly crappy — had I ever had sex like that. I’d had to cajole previous boyfriends into reciprocating oral sex, but it was Peter’s first inclination: to get me into the room, undressed, and thoroughly undone by his fingers, his lips, his tongue, and, yes, even his teeth, gently, oh-so-carefully raked over my labia, enough to make me shudder even now, recalling the surprisingly provocative move.

  And then, it was only after I’d come that Peter had guided his dick to my pussy with his hand, kissing me with my taste still on his tongue as he entered my body, swallowing the moans I made with his own mouth, the two of us breathing for each other.

  The thought of that coupling made me so horny I mustered the strength to look around the room to see if there was any evidence left to suggest that Peter was still in here with me — in the bathroom, perhaps — so I could get a little remedy for this hangover that didn’t come in a bottle.

  If Peter could bottle up what he had to offer in the bedroom, he’d be a billionaire.

  So, in my experience of being a grown woman having consensual sex, never in my life had I been with a lover so gentle, so attentive, so insistent that I should come not once, but twice — the memory of his hips pumping against mine, of my legs wrapped around his waist, of his fingers in my mouth, making me suck and scream at the same time, overwhelmed by the sheer kink of the situation, the way my climax was building yet again inside me, inexplicably, then crashing down, harder than it ever had in my entire life.

  It was enough to make me touch myself, tentatively, and groan. I was sore from our hotel room session last night, but not so sore that I’d say no to a repeat performance this morning.

  “Peter?” I rasped, grimacing at my voice and torn-up throat. I’d screamed myself hoarse, apparently.

  I rolled over to the bed and found a glass of water already poured, a pair of pills laid out on a saucer, a note scrawled on a pad of paper beside it.

  “Happy birthday,” it read. “Figured you’d need some aspirin. Cheers to twenty-three. It only gets better from here.”

  He was gone. I pulled a pillow over my face and pressed it, hard, at the realization that he had left me here. Alone. On my birthday. To contend with a hangover and soul-crushing arousal from last night’s sex.

  I hadn’t even gotten his number.

  I shuffled to the bathroom, wincing at the amount of mascara and eyeliner that had accumulated on my face, and knew I had to get ready to leave. God only knew what the checkout time was in this place, and I hadn’t forgotten that I had a dinner date with my mother and her soon-to-be husband.

  If only I’d gotten Peter’s number. Maybe he wouldn’t have been averse to going to dinner with me. That really would’ve pleased my mother — the fact that I had some kind of romantic prospect in my life. Peter was someone I would’ve readily introduced to my mother, and that was saying something.

  I showered and toweled myself off, the water sapping what little energy I’d had, and I fell back down in the bed. This was ridiculous. At this rate, I was never going to get out of here.

  I reached for the phone and dialed for the front desk.

  “Good morning, Ms. Ryan. What can I do for you?”

  My mouth worked in surprise. Had I given my name at the front desk? Had Peter given them my name? Was service here that good?

  “I was wondering what time checkout was,” I said, my voice still hoarse. I’d have to invent some kind of lie to explain it away over dinner — maybe an impending cold. Or talking too long with an old, fake friend, catching up over a meal.

  “Checkout is whenever you’d like,” the receptionist informed me. “Mr. Bly has the room through tomorrow, just in case, but he said you did have a dinner appointment. We had a wakeup call scheduled for you in a couple of hours.”

  “A couple of hours?”

  “The room is yours, Ms. Ryan, for as long as you’d like to stay,” the receptionist said warmly. “Can I send up some breakfast from our restaurant? An early lunch, perhaps? Mr. Bly also said that you should have anything you want.”

  I had died and gone to heaven. That’s what had happened overnight. I had somehow died, and room service and a hotel room as long as I wanted it was my version of heaven. I’d take it. The bed itself was heavenly — like a soft cloud that held my body perfectly.

  “I would love some breakfast, please,” I said. “And thank you.”

  There was no better hangover than a pampered hangover. I dressed myself in an oversized robe I found in a closet, treated myself to cable television, and gorged myself on waffles topped with mounds of berries, fresh cream, and a pot of coffee.

  And when it was time to exile myself from this paradise so I could get home and get dressed for dinner, I enjoyed one last romp in that heavenly bed, my own hand replacing Peter’s, my eyes squeezed shut to better imagine him pleasuring me, the ache in my groin spreading warmly in my body, one last sweet memory to help mark my twenty-third year.

  Chapter 5

  Dressed in my most posh outfit, I made my way across the city, precariously perching on the edges of bus seats, hurrying to stand when someone tried to sit next to me, and wishing I’d set aside some money for a taxi ride instead. A taxi would’ve been exorbitant, though. I was traveling to Manhattan proper, running late for dinner at one of the nicest hotels on the island.

  It was my fault. I’d told my mother that I lived in a neighborhood not too far from the hotel — a fib that had made her preen with pride.

  “Nothing but the best for my Gem,” she’d crowed, making me feel guilty and glad at the same time, a hot mixture of emotions I’d grown used to. If she knew I didn’t even have my own bathroom, she’d probably wither away into an inconsolable mess.

  But now that she was visiting me, for the first time since I’d moved to the city, I needed to look the part of the reality I’d peddled to her over the past year. I’d gone over the notes I’d taken in my journal to keep my facts straight, tried to swallow my anxiety, and reminded myself that it could always be worse — I could still be sporting a hangover to go with the vintage pieces I’d arranged into what I considered to be a nice outfit.

  I’d found the gray blazer in a bargain bin at a fine retailer, and it dressed up everything I owned. A subtly sequined tank top I’d plucked off the rack of a secondhand shop added some pizazz, and the black tuxedo pants I’d literally pulled out of a dumpster near my night job completed the quirky but surprisingly elegant look. I felt invincible in this outfit, polished off with a topknot and smoky eye makeup. This outfit looked like it belonged to a young woman who was confidently coming into her own in the big city, not a girl frightened of the future and unsure of her place in it.

  “Look at you!” my mother exclaimed, making me glow
with relief. “Look at my gorgeous girl in her gorgeous threads! Oh, just look at her, Frank!”

  “Geez, please don’t let my mother bully you into gushing over my appearance,” I said to the man who stood up from the table with her at the same time. “This is embarrassing.”

  “No need to be embarrassed,” he said, his British accent making me blanch, then shake my head at myself. What was this? Was it a British invasion here in the Big Apple? The injustice of the situation definitely wasn’t lost on me — I’d hooked up with a British sex angel last night, and my mother had netted one to marry.

  “This is Frank,” my mother said, beaming, and I tried to put my twilight moment behind me. It was good to see her so happy. She deserved to be happy.

  “I hope it is,” I said, smiling as I held my hand out for him to shake enthusiastically. “It would’ve been weird if you were just sitting here with a stranger.”

  “Oh, Gemma, stop it.” My mother chortled like a schoolgirl, and I allowed a waiter to pull out my chair for me as I gaped in undisguised shock. I’d never seen my mother like this in my entire life — practically giddy with excitement. There were days when she could best be described as dour, other days when she lorded her will over me with precise and exacting cruelty. I didn’t blame her for anything. She’d had tough moments in her life, and she did her best to protect me from them. This was just a side of her I’d never been acquainted with, laughing loudly in public with no concern for appearances, a slight blush covering her cheeks, making her look younger than her fifty-five years.

  “I’m going to run out and make a quick call,” Frank said. “I hope you two will excuse me.”

  “You’re fine, Frank,” my mother fussed at him, waving him away and giggling as he kissed one of her flailing hands. “You’re impossible. Get out of here. Make your phone call.”

  My mother watched him go, then leaned over to me eagerly.