U dead yet? Or RU coming back to Shitago?
Luke hadn’t even been able to think of something sharp to say back, which was very unlike him.
Oh, man, he couldn’t wait to get back to his life. Because this wishy-washy shit was not him at all.
The old Luke would have sent the picture of Peyton’s lovely butt to all three of his best male friends, saying: Blow me! I’m going to tap that if it kills me, jealous fucks.
The old Luke would be right now hitting on one of his flight attendants, or both.
Heck, the old him wouldn’t have slept with Peyton even twice, much less twenty-four times. They’d fucked like rabbits all weekend and the worst part was, with every time he came inside her, he wanted to come another twelve. He wanted to brand her and fill her up to her throat, every part of her. God.
This was nothing. Just a stupid affair.
So why did it feel like she’d just walked out on him?
He searched for her picture in his phone, and his stomach sunk when it illuminated. Fuck, she was lush, those butt cheeks perfection itself and round as melons and just as juicy. He almost wanted to fucking lick his phone screen. What in the hell was up with him? This was not Luke Preston!
He’d probably been a good boy for too damned long after this damned murder attempt. He’d been way too good lately. Sober and monogamous and shit. Yeah, that was it. He felt some of his depression lift as he assured himself that as soon as he got home and threw a party or two, he would feel like himself again.
Pretty soon, he’d be asking, “Peyton who?”
And he’d be golden.
Chapter Five
Peyton’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when she saw Luke Alexander on the plane on her way back to Chicago.
In an underwear advertisement, no less! The picture was a tasteful black-and-white and his perfect, familiar body shone more beautifully than ever, his gaze serious and seductive as he looked straight into the camera lens. Peyton’s heart flipped when she got a peek of the bulging male package barely held within the confinements of that underwear, and then she furiously slammed the magazine shut.
“This and that.” “Nothing that important.” The man was a model! What the hell?
She’d known he had a “familiar movie star look” about him and couldn’t believe she hadn’t pressed for more.
Oh, God! To think that she’d opened up to him and shown him a part of Peyton Lane that no one else knew while he’d merely shown her what he’d wanted her to see made her heart wring inside her chest. What a bastard. Was his name really Luke Alexander? He must have found her naïveté so funny, a supposed “woman of the world,” partner in a global investment firm, and yet he’d fed her his lies and she’d eaten them all like a silly, ignorant…
No. There w
as no point in these negative thoughts. He hadn’t wanted her to know too much about him? That was fine. It didn’t even matter. It was over now and in the past. She had been honest and forthright with him, which was important to her, and the “affair” was now over. The affair.
It had been so good, so beautiful, so tender and erotic at the same time, and well…so unexpected. And yet as much as she tried to shake it out of her head, the mere possibility of this wonderful weekend having been a joke to him and an Oscar-worthy act on his part made her seethe inside like she had never, ever seethed before.
No matter how many times she told herself during the flight that it didn’t matter, suddenly it did. Because Luke was in a fucking magazine, for crying out loud. And what was she supposed to do now that she’d seen it? Throw it away?
But then if she kept it…she didn’t want to be staring at him and remember that she’d had him once. Damn him!
“Hmm, nice,” Deena, her assistant, said when Peyton flung the magazine over her desk as soon as they reached her office the next day.
“Oh! That’s Luke Preston,” said another assistant as she walked over to study the magazine. “He slept with my sister once.”
Peyton’s heart seemed to have stopped beating in her chest. “Preston?”
The woman nodded, coffee mug in hand. “He slept with my sister’s friend, too. They had this huge catfight over him.”
Blankly, Peyton stared at the woman as her mind struggled to comprehend.
“He’s quite the ladies’ man. He’s slept with a lot of girls. Every time I see him he’s got a new one in his arms.”
“You mean he lives here in Chicago?” Oh, she could just die. Of all the places in the world, her one-time fling had to be a famous model from Chicago, no less.