"Absolutely." I throw my hand into his and he leads me onto the floor.
The one glass of wine I had earlier at the apartment is now warming me from the inside out. I feel free and liberated.
"I'm Drew," he says into my neck as he pulls me closer. "You're beautiful."
"I'm Jess," I whisper back. I can be Jess with him. I want to be. Jessica is gone. I left her back in that hotel room.
He hand slides across my back and I shiver at the touch. I push myself into him. I need this. I need this distraction from everything. I don't have to sleep with him. I can just enjoy being close to a man. Being close to someone who isn't as fucked up as Nathan is exactly what will get me through this night.
"What do you do?" I love that he asks me that. He's interested. I don't care if it's small talk or if he's just asking to be polite.
"I'm a personal chef," I say with a grin.
"Seriously?" He stops and pulls back so he can look at my face. "I'm a chef too. I work at Axel NY. Do you know it?"
My mouth falls open at the mere mention of that restaurant. It's only the best dining experience in all of Manhattan. "Are you kidding? I have been dying to go there."
"You'll come." He pulls me back closer, his warm breath flowing across my neck. "You'll be my guest."
This is what it's supposed to be like. This is what it feels like to be with a man who sees me as an actual person and not just someone to fuck in a hotel room one night a week.
"I want your number before you drift away." He stops mid step to pull his smartphone from the pocket of his jeans.
I start to call out the numbers and he pushes the phone into my hand. "Put the number in yourself. I don't want to mess it up."
I feel giddy as I punch each of the digits into the phone and save my name in his contact list.
"I'm calling you tomorrow morning, just so you know." He runs his tongue over his lips. I soak in how striking he is. He's got a boyish charm that reminds me of home.
"I'll be waiting." I feel my heart leap at the fact that he didn't assume I'd jump into bed with him. He wants to get to know me.
"Jessica." I hear his voice to the left and my stomach drops.
I turn slowly. He's not more than three feet away, his hands tucked into his pants pocket. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
Chapter 18
"Did you fall asleep again?" I spit the words out him as I pace the floor in the lobby of the hotel.
"What?" He raises both his hands in the air.
"You had to have been asleep the last time we talked because you agreed to not interfere if you saw me with another man." I run my hand across my forehead in pure and utter exasperation.
"That didn't include you looking for a new fuck buddy right in front of me." His tone was hard and unyielding.
"You were doing the very same thing." I motion towards the entrance of the club. "When I got here, you were all over some brunette."
"I work with her, Jessica." He shakes his head slightly. "I was passing through the club on my way upstairs when I saw her."
"It's not Wednesday," I glance at the clock on the wall. "It's eleven o'clock which means it's fuck time. Why aren't you naked and in bed with someone else?"
"I was going up to get something before I went home."
I pause at the mention of his home. It always seems to escape me that he doesn't live here. He just stays here to fuck women. I wonder what his home looks like. I wonder what his last name is.
"I was just giving him my number." I know I sound bitchy, but I don't care.
"So he could call you?"