Only For Tonight, page 7
“Yeah, go ahead,” I say, instead of asking her why she bothered to come here instead of her house.
She leans up and kisses my cheek as she turns to walk toward my bedroom. The minute she’s out of my view, I close my eyes before my head falls back and I open them to look up to the ceiling. She called a week ago, asking if we could talk. I should have said no, but I didn’t. I said yes for the simple reason that maybe if I saw her again, I could see if she was the one. You know, the whole thing with not seeing someone and then you see them and it all makes sense. Or at least that is how it plays out in the movies. I thought if I saw her, it would click something into place inside of me. But it didn’t. It just made it even more clear that she is not the one for me. I should have said something, but I left to go on a road trip for three days and, somehow, she thinks we’re going to get back together.
Forget the fact I haven’t been intimate with her, or even kissed her, for that matter. I’ve not called her, or even asked her to come over, she just simply shows up. It’s blatantly clear she isn’t the one for me. It’s also blatantly clear I’m not the one for her, and no matter what I say, she isn’t getting the message. It’s time to pull on my big-boy pants and just come right out and say it. She’ll be hurt now for sure but she’ll get over it in time and, who knows, maybe she is going to thank me.
I shake my head, knowing she is definitely not going to thank me, instead she’s going to literally want to burn my house down with me in it. “You have no choice,” I mumble to myself, “or else she’ll never stop coming by.”
I put the chicken in the oven before turning and deciding to make myself a protein shake while I wait for it to be done. I’m gathering all the items I need to do this when the doorbell rings. I walk out and head toward the door, only seeing the silhouette of a person standing there. I pull open the door, and never in my wildest dreams do I expect it to be her. Her back is to me, but when she turns around and I see her face, I can’t help but smile when I see her looking at me. “Ariella!”
eight
Ariella
I walk toward his white door, not sure what I’m thinking, but for the last week my head has been all over the place. I think I’ve gone through every single emotion that you can possibly go through. I have nothing to compare it to, but, in that moment, I felt like the world was crashing all around me. Finding out I was pregnant was one thing, but then it was like, wait a second. Not only am I pregnant, but I’m pregnant with Jaxon’s baby and it was a whole different emotion. It took me a week to come to terms with flying out here and telling him. Something I almost chickened out of doing by being the last one to board the plane. Fuck, even arriving yesterday and going to the hotel, I kept having to remind myself this isn’t news one hears on the phone.
In all honesty, how do you break the news to someone you had literally one night with that you are having their child? It’s actually insane. I press the doorbell before I can chicken out, and the minute I do, I feel like I’m going to yack all over the place. I turn around, looking at the car I parked next to and then suddenly wonder if I should maybe have called him before I just showed up at his house unannounced. I close my eyes, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth to calm down the nerves and also to push away the nausea.
“This is a bad idea,” I tell myself and I’m about to take off when I hear footsteps coming toward the door. “He probably has a Ring cam and he’s going to watch this after and be like this bitch is One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” I mumble as the door opens and I start to turn around to face him.
I can’t help the smile that forms on my face. He’s wearing basketball shorts with his team’s logo on them with a black T-shirt, with the team name, Warriors, in purple also with his number 13 on the shoulder part of the shirt. A black baseball hat is backward, hiding his hair. “Ariella,” he says my name, shocked that I’m standing here on his doorstep. If the roles were reversed, I would probably be as shocked as he is right now.
“Hey,” I reply, lifting my hand in the air, “I was in the neighborhood.” The minute the words come out of my mouth, I want to bite my tongue. How the fuck would I be in the neighborhood if I live in New York and he lives in California? “I mean, not the neighborhood, but I was in town. I was in the area is more like it.” I laugh nervously.
“Oh, come in, please,” he invites, moving away from the door so I step in, standing in his entranceway right next to him. The smell of his aftershave brings back memories of that night that I have forced myself not to think about.
“I should have called,” I state when I hear the click of the door behind me. “I was out for a drive and—” Stop talking, my head yells to me, for the love of God, stop fucking talking.
“Come in, come in.” I take a second to look around the living room. It takes me a second to know that either his mother designed this room, or he hired a decorator to do it. Everything matches, and as a bachelor, this doesn’t make sense. Unless his girlfriend decorated the house and my stomach lurches for a whole other reason. “Do you want something to drink?” he asks me as we walk past the staircase. I look up to see the glass ceiling showing you not a cloud in the sky. He steps into the family room and I stop in my tracks when I see the back wall that faces the ocean.
“Oh my,” I gasp, my feet walking on their own toward the glass as I watch the water in the distance softly roll to the shore, “this is stunning.”
“It’s the main reason I bought the house,” he says and I chuckle.
“It would be the only reason for me,” I admit to him as he stands side by side with me. The smell of him makes my mouth water for a whole different reason. “I love the ocean,” I tell him for reasons unknown to anyone, myself included. My mouth is just nervously speaking and I would like it to stop before it blurts out things that should be said rationally. However, how does one rationally say you and your super sperm got me knocked up after one night?
“And yet you live in New York City.” He chuckles.
“There is water all around me.” I shake my head. “Not this kind of water”—I point to the aqua ocean—“but still.” My eyes roam the balcony in front of me, a firepit in the middle of it with two couches on one side, and then on the other a square table sits with six chairs. I could literally see him eating outside.
“Let me get you something to drink.” He turns and walks away from me, and it gives me a chance to look around. The big plush couch is so deep it’s almost as big as a double bed. To the right of me is a big, long wooden table with a white bowl in the middle. Ten chairs are all around the table, and I wonder if he’s ever had ten people over to have a meal with. “I have Gatorade or water.”
I shake my head. “I bet you have chicken in there also.”
“You would be right,” he confirms and I shake my head, walking over to the island that separates the kitchen table from the fridge.
“Shocking. I’ll have water.” He grabs the bottle of water and then comes back and hands it to me.
“This is a surprise,” he says as I twist open the cap.
“You have no idea,” I mumble and take a sip of the water. “There was actually another reason,” I start to tell him, but something catches my eyes from the side.
I look over and see a woman walking down the steps wearing one of his white shirts, her blonde hair swaying side to side. Her eyes are on me and not in a friendly way at all. “What do we have here?” she says once she gets to the last step and walks into the room.
“Tiffany,” Jaxon says her name and I feel like I’m going to be sick, and the only thing now going through my head is getting the fuck out of here.
“I was just leaving,” I reply quickly, taking one look back at Jaxon. “Thank you so much for the water.” I hold up the bottle. “I’ll let myself out.” My feet move so fast I’m practically running out of the house, the door closing behind me. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.” I open the driver’s door to the rental car, tossing the water bottle onto the passenger seat while I get into the car and press the button to start it. I pull out of his driveway and head down the road, not even knowing where I’m going but needing to get the fuck out of there.
I drive for five minutes before I pull over to the side of the road. With the water on one side and mountains on the other, I put my head on the steering wheel. “Well, that went well.” I turn my head to the side, looking at the water in the distance. “That didn’t go at all like we planned,” I say, putting my hand on my stomach. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, little nugget.” I take a deep inhale before I sit up and put the hotel name in the phone.
I make my way to the hotel, my head spinning as I pull up to the hotel by the fountain in the front where people drive in. I stop in front of the valet sign, my door opens as soon as I put the car in park. “Welcome back, Ms. Weber,” the man from this morning greets me, “I hope you had a fun afternoon.”
“It was eventful.” I smile at him. “I won’t need the car the rest of the day,” I tell him as I grab my purse from the passenger seat and the bottle of water. I walk around the car as he gets in and head into the lobby before going to the elevators. People bustle around in the lobby while other people lounge in the area in front of the check-in desk.
Once I’m standing in front of the elevators, I glance to the back where the restaurant overlooks the pool area. Half of the tables are empty while the other half are filled with people enjoying their lunches. The elevator doors ping and I step in before I press the number twenty-two.
Only once I’m inside the room do I lean back against the door and close my eyes. “What the fuck am I going to do now?” I turn my head and look at the couch in the room, tossing my purse on it before heading to the bedroom and collapsing on the bed. “Well, the plan to tell him I’m pregnant did not look like that,” I say to myself. “There was never a girlfriend anywhere in the scenarios I had in my head.” I turn on the bed and reach over to the bedside phone.
Pressing the room service button, I wait for them to answer. “Good afternoon, Ms. Weber, how can we help?”
“Hi, can I please have some french fries,” I tell her, “some chicken tenders, and then do you have burgers by any chance?”
“We do, we have smash burgers or regular burgers.”
“Oh, I’ll have a smash burger, fully loaded, with extra ketchup on the side.”
“Is that all?”
“No, I’ll have a strawberry milkshake and also a piece of carrot cake and raspberry cheesecake.” I close my eyes, knowing there is not even a chance I’ll finish all of that but knowing it’ll be here in case. “That will be all.”
“We’ll be up in thirty-five minutes,” she replies as she disconnects the phone. I place the phone back in its cradle before I tuck my arm under my head and curl my feet up.
“He has a girlfriend,” I say to the room. “You have to tell him,” I remind myself. “You can’t not tell him, it’s not like you don’t know him or his entire family. He’s going to see you’re pregnant or hear that you are.”
I close my eyes and I’m suddenly back to that fateful night.
The minute his lips touched mine, it felt like my body was on fire. Every single nerve needed to be touched. I’d never been kissed with so much passion before. I mean, I’d been kissed before, but never like that. Like if he didn’t kiss me, he wouldn’t be able to take another breath.
He shut the door with his foot as one hand was cupping my ass, the other my face. His tongue invaded my mouth and it was hungry. It got deeper when he pushed my back against the door, my arms wrapping around his neck while my leg hitched over his hip. I felt his hardness all over me. And I meant all over me. I moved my head to the side, the kiss going even deeper.
He let go of my lips, but that was only for him to trail the kisses down to my throat and then moved them up to my cheek. His hot, heavy breath was in my ear as he stuck his tongue out and twirled it around my earlobe, and I shivered as he sucked the lobe into his mouth. My tits tingled, as well as other parts of me. When I pushed him off of me, he looked at me confused. “There is something I have been dying to do.” I turned and pushed him against the door. “Watch.” I kissed his neck; my hand fell on his chest. The way his heart sped up under my hand showed me he was as into this as I was. I squatted down in front of him, my hands at his belt.
“Ariella,” he said my name, actually he hissed my name out. Teeth clenched together, eyes trained right on me as his pants fell to the sides of his hips and I got his cock out. I had never felt more powerful in my life. My eyes locked into his as I took him into my mouth. My head bent, which covered his cock in my mouth, but he quickly remedied that as he moved my head with both his hands by the side of my jaw .
“Fuck,” he grumbled as I took him even deeper. My hand wrapped around the base as I took him as deep as he could go. “That’s it, baby,” he urged. “Going to fuck your mouth.” His hips thrusted as he used my mouth. I had spit running down my cheek, but I was so hot for him, I didn’t even care. Nothing mattered but making sure I gave him what he wanted. “I’m going to—” He tried to pull away from me, but my grip on him tightened, making him plant himself in the back of my throat as he came on my tongue.
The knock at the door has me opening my eyes and the memory of that night is again just a memory. I get off the bed. “Coming!” I shout to the closed door, pushing the door handle down and opening it to the room service guy, trying not to think that this isn’t the way I thought today was going to go.
I’m sitting in the middle of the bed when I get the courage to call Lexi. She answers after one ring, “Hey, where have you been for the last two days?”
“Funny story,” I start to say, “I’m in LA.”
“What?” she shrieks. “What are you doing on this side of the world?”
“That’s why the story is so funny,” I tell her, dipping one of the fries in the ketchup. “So, you know when I was in Dallas?”
“For that celebration for your father,” she replies.
“That would be the one. Well, I sort of…” I trail off. “Perhaps had a one-night stand.”
She gasps out, “And you didn’t tell me? Wow.”
“It was a one-night thing and we said in the morning that we would kind of forget it happened.”
“But then he called you?” she asks me, sounding a little hopeful.
“Nope.” I laugh nervously. “He had no idea I was here.”
“So you just showed up at his house unannounced?” Even when she says the words, I have to close my eyes at how crazy it was to just show up at his house.
“Basically, it was a ‘do now, think later’ sort of situation.”
She laughs. “And how is that working out for you?”
“Right now, I’m sitting in the middle of the king-size bed in the hotel with about five hundred dollars of room service food.”
“Why would you go all the way there without calling him first?” Her voice is soft.
“Well,” I say and swallow, “I didn't think telling him over the phone that I’m pregnant was a good idea.”
“You’re what?” I have to move the phone away from my ear when she shrieks again. “Oh my, Ariella, what did he say?”
“Well, I didn’t tell him.” I close my eyes and tell her what happened.
“You showed up there unannounced and then his girlfriend was there, so you left?” she recounts the story.
“Pretty much.”
“You know you have to tell him, right?” She tries not to laugh. “I mean, you can’t keep it from him. He knows your father, don’t you think it’ll come up?”
“I know, which is why I’m here,” I groan. “I’m going to go and take a long bath and then rethink my plan.”
“You need to call him and ask him to come over to your hotel room.”
“No,” I snap. “What if he thinks I want him to come here and do me?”
“Okay, fine, not to your hotel room, but you have to tell him.” I close my eyes. “Go take a bath and then we’ll think of something.” I hear the door shut on her end of the phone. “I have to go, talk to you later,” she says and disconnects before I can say another word.
I look at the phone, knowing she’s right. “Okay, nugget.” I look at my belly. “Tomorrow we will try again.”
nine
Jaxon
The door slams shut, and I stay frozen almost in time. More time than I should stay frozen, that’s for sure. But my head is reeling, ever since I opened the fucking door and saw her standing there. Her hair was different than it was that night, not curled and perfectly styled. No, this time it was still flowing loose as it blew softly in the wind, and my thumb and forefinger rubbed together as I remember how silky it felt in my hands. My eyes went straight to the best feature on her face, her eyes. Fuck, her whole face could be covered and I would know her just by her eyes. “Jaxon,” Tiffany calls my name, and I look from the empty doorway to her. Her arms are folded under her chest. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Her voice comes out shakily.
I know just by her tone that a drama fit is coming, and I know it’s about to get a whole lot worse by the time she leaves here. Especially with what I’m going to tell her. “I have no idea what you are talking about.” I turn to the side when the sound of the oven beeps as I try to calm down. Ariella was here, in my house. The only thing going through my head is how the fuck did she find me? Not only that, but she also just ran out of the house and I didn’t fucking chase her. What is up with that? The first thing I should have done was call her name and tell her to stop and come back. But I had to handle Tiffany first, and I don’t think Ariella needed to see this.
“You can’t honestly be fucking serious right now!” she shrieks as I grab an oven mitt and take my meal out of the oven. “Who the fuck was that girl?” Her voice goes so loud that if we were in one of the cartoon movies, the glass would crack and the steam would be coming out of her ears as she rocked from side to side.
