Chrysalis: Gilded Love, #2

Prologue

I’ve got to stop this.

It’s the one thought that’s repeated itself in my mind since I walked into the suite. That I can’t let this be the end. That I shouldn’t put her through a scene like this. What right do I have if I can’t even bring myself to say it out loud? Snapdragon is the safe word either of us can say to instantly end our arrangement. Instead of speaking it, I’ve gotten us the Presidential Suite at the Drake, crystal vases on every surface, overflowing with hundreds of snapdragon blooms.

I’ve got to stop this, I think again. But I’m paralyzed, staring inertly at the general manager’s card on the nightstand while my hand palms my phone. I’m keystrokes away from making the call that will put this all in reverse. What we’re doing still has to end but it doesn’t have to be like this. I can find a different way.

My mind hurtles to think it all through. First, I’ll have the hotel disable her key, and I won’t answer the door when she knocks. That way, she’ll be forced to go back down to the front desk. When I’m sure she’s back in the elevator, I’ll leave the suite and meet her downstairs. I’ll stall her with a drink at the bar for an hour or however long it’ll take. That’s when I’ll have the staff remove all traces of snapdragons from the room.

We’ll make it back up here eventually and have the romantic weekend getaway she thinks she’s walking into. I’ll call Dale with my resignation on Monday, extricating myself from the job transfer I’ve just accepted and the promotion I’ve worked tirelessly to achieve for more than two years. I’ll still have to travel to Sydney for a while—long enough to wrap things up. In the meantime, I’ll figure out how to have a different talk with Darby, about a different ending for us.

Then I hear it. The door closing. And I know she’s arrived. A look back at the clock on the opposite nightstand confirms that I’ve let time slip too far. I close my eyes for just a moment, half steeling myself for the inevitable, half ruing the day I ever dreamt up this plan. A clean ending to our arrangement was what she said she wanted, but nothing about this feels right.

When I hear a dull thud, my stomach plummets. But I have no right to be gutted. I agreed to this, too. Friends with benefits with absolutely no strings. So I stand on legs far braver than my heart and walk from the bedroom to the grand entryway of the Presidential Suite. A lump forms in my throat as I see her first tear fall.

When do you leave? She asks it so calmly that I know she knows about Sydney. Though, by the rules of our arrangement, I needed no excuse. Snapdragon was our exit hatch. I hadn’t actually said it, but a room full of snapdragon blooms was my not-so-subtle means of invoking it, the safe word either of us could use to put a stop to us.

Tomorrow…how did you find out?

Andrew. He didn’t mean to tell me. He thought I knew.

I’m walking toward her when another tear falls. I begin to apologize, because she deserved better than to find out the way she did.

It’s better like this. She shakes her head, sniffling some of her tears away.

All I want to do right now is hold her, but I can see she doesn’t want to break down. Neither do I.

No messy breakups. That’s the shitty part, right?

She’d spoken those words over a year ago. This whole scene was about sticking to them. I hate this, but I owe it to her.

So we have tonight? I can see her try to strengthen her resolve.

I nod as I take her hands in mine.

I missed you when I was gone, I choke out. I’ve never spoken these words to her before.

I missed you too.

I miss you every time I go, I say, because if the agreement is really over, I’m throwing the rules out the window.

So do I.

I tuck her under my arm and pull her close as I coax her inside. I don’t let myself think about how different things could be if we hadn’t lied to each other for so long.

Five minutes later, we’re in the bedroom and Darby’s undressing me. The imperative is unspoken, but somehow, we both know. If these are our last hours together, we should spend them intertwined. She’s walked me backwards until my thighs are up against the edge of the bed. I look between us, watching her hands as they disappear beneath my shirt. When her warm fingertips fan out above my navel until they settle on my waist, I feel it all begin.

My eyelids lull as her palms slide their way up either side of my torso, her thumbs tickling my armpits before skating upward until I bend my elbows to let her pull off my shirt. My eyes are back on her the second my head is through, but she’s not looking at my face. Her hands are back on my chest, and her fingers are taking their time as they explore my skin. Her thumbs skim my nipples seconds before her palms settle over the muscles between my neck and my shoulders. When her fingers fan upward once again to caress the base of my skull before grazing behind my ears, I nearly purr.

She knows how much I get off on this. She hears the helpless sounds I make and notices my stuttered breathing. To her, this is foreplay—a quirk of mine that she indulges—a sexy, teasing gift. She still doesn’t understand how much I need to be touched for reasons that have nothing to do with sex. She has no idea that no woman’s hands on my body have ever bound me in rapture like this. I’m on the brink of whimpering in ecstasy and I’m barely even hard.

That changes the second her hands slide down my shoulders and she leans in to bite my ear. Her teeth on any part of my body always goes straight to my dick. By the time I feel her nipples graze my chest through her sheer dress, my hands are already sliding around her middle. With one hand cupping her waist and the other palming her ass, I roll her sex against mine. I could lie and say I do it because I want her to feel how hard she makes me, but she needs no reminder of that. I do this once, twice, three times because the friction feels so, so good.

She still has me in the in-between place—my skin tingles from the touches she is delivering to my shoulders, my neck, my back. But my kitten is getting frisky and I know she wants to play. Now her every calming stroke is punctuated with a hint of sex—her nails on my back as she traces my tattoo, a rough grab to the back of my neck as the pad of her bare foot snakes beneath my jeans and sneaks up my calf. These hybrid sensations are the ones I love most of all.

But it doesn’t last. She’s awakened my baser instincts—and my primal being wants to use every part of me to claim every part of her. My balls are getting heavy and my pants are getting tight and it’s all I can do not to rip off that hot little dress she’s wearing, but I finally get both of our clothes off. The second we’re naked, she jumps up to wrap her legs around me, and I know what she wants.

With my hands holding her up by her ass, I walk her to the wall. Her wet heat makes me throb and I can’t wait to be inside. We both moan as I enter her in one long stroke. She craves me doing her like this. It’s been more than two weeks since we’ve seen one another, and our reunions always carry fierce urgency. We have a rhythm—slow and constant and oh, so deep. It’s as natural as breathing to us. Coming together like this is so perfect. So desperate. So right.

But her tightness around me isn’t even the best part—the best part is the magic that passes between us. Our eyes say everything we won’t. Truths that we know better than our own names are easily exposed in this sacred space. The agreement has never existed here. That some of these truths have been whispered aloud a time or two may not be my imagination.

And, God, her kisses. When her lips find mine for the first time, I whimper at the contact, the softness of her mouth mixing deliciously with the hard intensity of our screwing. When I feel her coiling tighter around me, it spurs me to bite her lip. She moans helplessly and digs her nails into my bicep. I dip down to bite her neck and she curses. We love to one-up each other like this.

Somewhere inside me, my heart is broken. But I’m miles away from that place. Nothing exists right now but us. Not the snapdragons in the other room. Not the red-eye I’m out on tomorrow. Not the out we said we’d give to each other if one of us walked away. Right now, there’s only togetherness—a divine intertwining. In this moment, we are what we were always meant to be. We are one.

Part One

Ordinary World

Chapter One

Leaving on a Jet Plane

C an I bring you something to drink, sir?

I recognize the flight attendant. I know them all by now. She’s never offered her name, but I’ve heard the other one call her Kim. Everything about this flight is a facsimile of the same leg I’ve taken a dozen times before. Flight 187 from ORD to YVR. I’m seated in 3A. Left side window. The last row in first class. I usually decline Kim’s offer, content to wait until dinner is served before I order a beer.

This time, I do need something before takeoff. Though, it will be a lot stronger than a beer. This flight is different from all the earlier flight 187s out of O’Hare. This time, my ticket is one-way.

Just water, please.

Her face falls a little when I barely make eye contact. I’ve always gone out of my way to be warm with people who others treat as nameless, faceless help. But I’ve been dismissive. I fish the pill bottle out of the pocket of my jeans. If I don’t take a valium soon, I might get off this plane. And what would that achieve beyond doing more to fuck up this already-fucked situation?

Talk is cheap.

My mother’s mantra repeats itself in my overcrowded mind. This time I believe it. What good would it do for me to tell Darby what I really want for us if sacrifices are out of the question? She’d never stand for me giving up my promotion in Sydney. And she’s just been through hell to earn Chief of Psych. So I’d traded a pointless confession for an open-ended goodbye.

Thank you, I say to Kim, and this time, I make eye contact, but I waste no time after she sets down the glass to pick it up and swallow my pill. This may be unwise. The flight to Vancouver is only four hours and I need to be coherent if I want to make my connection. I hate medication. But I need something to quiet the cacophony of thoughts inside my mind, something to stop the voices screaming that I’m making the biggest mistake of my life.

It’s too early to recline my seat, so I slip my padded headphones over my ears. I start to queue up the Iron and Wine album I usually like to listen to—the songs play like whispered lullabies that soothe me to sleep—but Darby loves this album and it’s more than I can handle. Unable to think clearly enough to choose an alternative, I flip the music off but keep the headphones on and pull a black mask over my eyes. I’ll settle for noise-cancelled silence instead.

Sleep comes quickly, and is mercifully deep, and I might have slept for hours had Kim not coaxed me awake with instructions to place my seat upright for descent. I’m dazed as I walk through the Vancouver airport, absently content that the valium is keeping me numb.

I take another half a pill after boarding my flight to Sydney, even though you’re only supposed to take one at a time. I’m still out of it when I meet my driver at the airport, but the winter air outside baggage claim sobers me. By the time I let myself into my apartment, it’s midnight, I’m lethargic but not tired and I feel the dreaded stretch of a sleepless night.

What I should do is work. I’ve been ignoring my job for days. As shitty as the past forty-eight hours have been, I worked hard to make them perfect. It may not have been the right time to tell Darby the truth, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t leave her clues. I gave her as much as I could handle of the ending we agreed to, but made absolutely sure she knows this isn’t over.

We both know what this is, even if we’ve never said it. But what kind of dick would I be to say it a second before I walk out the door? It needs to be confessed in its own time. Not because of some job transfer. Not like this. And when it comes, it won’t come easily. We each kept secrets. We both told lies. And each of us knew the other one was doing it.

It’s beautiful, are the only words written in the text I awake to on Wednesday morning. The vibration of my phone on the marble countertop my cheek lays upon rouses me. Her text is accompanied by a photo of her wearing the necklace I had made for her, an exotic mixture of rubies and yellow diamonds that make up the leaves of the pendant. Set in platinum on a delicate white gold chain is the bloom of a multi-colored snapdragon.

The photo doesn’t show her full face. Somehow, she’s framed herself from her nose to her décolleté with the butterfly painting I gave her in the background. I drink in her slender neck, her elegant jaw, her kissable lips, her soft hair falling in waves over her shoulder, and the necklace, quite beautiful, as it sits just below her clavicle.

Girls love shiny things, too. They’re called diamonds.

I text back the words she’d once said to me offhandedly when we’d been talking about men and their cars. Even then, I’d thought about a ring.

You’re never getting the painting back.

She thinks I gave it to her because I know she loves it. Darby can’t yet comprehend what the gesture of giving it away means to me.

It’s been yours since the moment you laid eyes on it.

Do you work today?

I have to be there in an hour. I stayed in Chicago for as long as I could.

I’ll let you go, then. Have a good day, she returns simply, with an emoticon of the sun.

Have a good night, baby.

I want to say something more, but I love you is out of the question and everything else I think of sounds lame. So I drag myself off of the bar stool in my lonely kitchen, knowing I have to hustle if I want to make my first meeting.

Chapter Two

It’s Not Easy (Superman)

Icatch a glimpse of myself in the mirrored back wall of the elevator as I step inside. The worn boots, distressed jeans and fitted jackets that Michael likes to wear have been traded for the custom-tailored suits of Mr. Blaine. Beneath today’s navy jacket is a slim-cut herringbone shirt in ivory, and cufflinks that match the fastening on my Italian leather shoes. The suits have always felt like a costume, but I wear them well. I excel at looking the part.

Everything skips a few beats when I stride into the office. Five years ago, so much attention would have made me uncomfortable. Dale’s mentorship has been key. He taught me how to master the art of charming intimidation—of doling out rations of the sex and charisma that draw people in, but sheathing it in a layer of gravitas thick enough to warn them not to get too close.

My training has served me well. I’ve metamorphosed from an introverted collaborator to a quietly effective leader. I love the complexity of managing so many things at once. I spent most of my life catering to the shy comic book geek, but this has been inside me all along.

Not that leadership hasn’t come at a price. The higher I climb, the less time I get to spend on meaty problems. Apart from an astonishing number of HR issues, there’s ass-kissing and political posturing now that I’m the boss. I remember what Darby said to me when I told her about the strange new feeling of everybody looking to me.

You know what they say, she’d said. Climbing the corporate ladder is like monkeys climbing a tree. When you’re on the top looking down, all you see are a bunch of smiling faces. When you’re on the bottom looking up, all you see are a bunch of assholes.

I spent so many years as a monkey, forcing my grimace into a smile as I clambered my way up. And I’d started lower than any other monkey I’d ever met on that tree. I’m grateful for where I came from—few people understand the gifts that come from growing up poor. But I didn’t want to stay that way. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been driven to achieve.

And I’d done it. I’d hand-washed the one uniform at a time my mother could ever afford every single night. Each morning, I’d put it on a little damp before I took two buses and a train to reach my posh private school. I changed the way I talked, depending on which world I was inhabiting. By the time I got to college, I sounded like a prep school kid al the time.

It wasn’t cool to be younger, or smarter, or to be on scholarship, but I made it through. I got what I needed in terms of book study, but the real calculus I’d learned was getting people to like me. The difference between what I came from and what I’ve become is hard to fathom. But the saying is true—you can take the boy out of the South Side, but you can’t take the South Side out of the boy. Even now, in $6,000 custom-tailored suits, some part of me feels that I don’t belong.

It’s nice to see you, Michael. Alicia smiles hopefully as I walk into my private conference room. As always, she’s on time. She looks to be in her late twenties, wears her blonde hair in a smart, shoulder-length cut, and is the object of many an office crush.

She’s been cold to the advances of other men but she’s interested in me. She’s offered to show me around the city four times in the nine months since I started spending more time in the Sydney office. I politely decline each time, but she’s not taking the hint.

Morning, Alicia.

I pretend not to notice how she’s pulled out the seat next to her at the conference table. She has her laptop open, and papers out, but I don’t take the bait. I sit across from her and pick up the TV remote.

Why don’t you put what you’ve got on the monitor?

Experience has taught me not to sound like too much of a dick when I’m trying to give off the don’t even think about it vibe. Acting like a pompous jackass is a turn-on for some women.

I’ll just lower the lights, then, so that we don’t get glare.

Alicia hits the button that lowers the blinds a second before she turns down the dimmer on the overheads. She then closes the door that I intentionally left ajar.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Before the door clicks shut, my finger is on the speakerphone button of the Polycom and I’ve dialed my assistant Kat’s extension. She transferred from Chicago, too, though she’s new to working for me.

Would you mind coming in to take notes, please? I ask evenly while avoiding Alicia’s questioning eyes.

Kat sails into the room a moment later. She sits silently but gives Alicia a look that says she’s got her number before training her eyes to the TV. As the supervisor of the admins, there’s nothing Kat doesn’t know.

We spend the next ninety minutes poring over Alicia’s designs. She’s talented, and normally I would be thrilled to work with her. The project we’re talking about is exciting, and, professionally, this has been a good move. The aesthetics of architecture in this part of the world are different, and I’ll learn a lot, even in a role as hands-off as mine.

The rest of the day is more meetings, more feedback to give to juniors, a call with a client, and a late afternoon call with