“It’s not what I think? Not what I think?” Alex’s voice came out dangerously quiet.
“Because from where I’m standing, you seem to be having a really good time with your old friend here.”
Lena tried to crawl down the bed.
Kingston grabbed her waist and angled her back against his cock.
“We are not done, bitch! I need my release, hehehe.”
He thrust back in and started fucking her again.
“A-lex… please…” Lena’s mouth fell open on a silent cry, her hand stretching toward him.
“That’s it. Keep moaning his name while I pound your greedy flesh. Makes it ten times better!”
Alex couldn’t look away.
Kingston’s cock disappearing inside her again and again.
His best friend, bent over for one of his biggest business headaches.
What possible explanation could there be for this?
He turned on his heel and walked out.
Lena’s broken scream of his name chased him down the hallway while Kingston kept fucking her without mercy.
“Fuck you, Lena.
Fuck the day I met you.
Fuck the day I grew hard for you.
Fuck your pretty face and everything you made me feel.
You are exactly what I said in that car… just a hole for everyone to take a dump.”
He drove with hot anger in his veins, repeating “I don’t care… I don’t care anymore… she can do whatever she wants” until the words lost meaning.
Then he called Megan and re-terminated Lena’s employment without pulling over.
He blocked her number.
Then drove straight to her apartment.
He broke in and scattered everything.
“Fuck you, Lena! Your body belongs to me!!” He screamed until his throat burned, knocking things off shelves, putting his fist through her corkboard.
Her smell was everywhere.
Coconut shampoo and faint vanilla lotion.
It made everything worse.
He found her whiskey, downed more than half the bottle, and dropped to the floor among the wreckage.
“Lena…” The image of her with Kingston wouldn’t leave no matter what.
He somehow made it to his car and drove to his penthouse without being stopped.
“You took every…thing… soft I had… and ran a truck… through it, ha…” he slurred as he stumbled into his bedroom.
“Stupid girl… very, very stupid… I am a rare man… to find… ah, she’s so stupid…”
He crashed onto the bed, his voice dropping to almost nothing.
“I just want my best friend back… I should have kept my hands to myself…”
***
“I have never been this satisfied,” Ian Kingston said from the bed, watching Lena get dressed.
“You really know how to make a man go crazy.”
“Just keep your end of the deal,” Lena said flatly.
“And what if I don’t?
What if I want another five rounds?”
“Oh yeah?” She walked to the dresser and picked up her phone, which she had positioned to film everything.
Kingston’s eyes went wide.
“Buh-bye!”
None of them slowed her down.
She had more important things to deal with.
Like getting to Alex and explaining herself.
What was he even doing there?
How did he know about the room?
How did he get a keycard?
Something was wrong here.
She called Alex, and the number came back as non-existent.
“The fuck?!”
She went straight to his penthouse and let herself in.
“Alexi? Baby?” Silence.
When she stepped into the bedroom, she found him sprawled across the bed in the same clothes from earlier, one arm hanging off the edge, an empty whiskey bottle on the floor beside him.
Lena’s chest tightened as she watched him.
The room was quiet except for his breathing.
She stepped closer and the smell of alcohol hit her immediately.
“How much did I hurt you… that you drank this much?”
She sat on the edge of the bed.
His face, usually so composed, looked wrecked.
Lines pressed between his brows, lips slightly parted.
She reached out and stroked his cheek with the back of her fingers.
He stirred, muttering without waking.
“Hole… just a hole for everyone…”
Lena froze.
“Tch.” She gave his cheek a light slap.
“Idiot.”
She filled a small bowl with warm water and found a soft napkin.
She wiped the dried sweat from his face first, then the faint tear tracks she pretended not to notice.
She opened his shirt buttons and cleaned his chest slowly, her fingers trailing over him without permission to linger.
Then his shoes, his socks, his feet.
All of it unhurriedly.
When she was done, she showered under hot water until the night stopped sitting so heavily on her skin.
She pulled on one of his oversized shirts and got into bed beside him.
She draped one arm over his waist and listened to him breathe until sleep pulled her under too.
Alex woke to a headache that felt like his skull was caving in.
He groaned and sat up.
The room tilted.
Lena, brown hair spread across his pillow, sleeping in his shirt with her lips slightly parted.
“So beautiful,” he thought, before last night came flooding back all at once.
His mood collapsed.
He swung his legs off the bed and stood, groaning again at the dizziness.
The small sound woke Lena.
She sat up fast and reached for him.
“Alex? Are you okay? Let me—”
He pushed her hand away.
She fell sideways off the bed and hit the floor with a soft thud.
“What the hell are you doing here?” His voice came out hoarse.
“Actually.” He turned toward the bathroom.
“Leave my house.
I have to go to work.”
“Alex, wait.” She scrambled to her feet.
“Can you not skip today? Just once?”
He stopped at the bathroom door.
“Why? Because you’re sex-starved? Even after fucking the entire country last night?”
Lena flinched but didn’t back down.
“Alexi… please don’t say that.
What you saw, I need to explain it.
We need to talk.”
“I saw enough.” He shut the door.
“Just listen!” She knocked hard.
“I did it for you. Kingston agreed to partner with VossTech. When I found out the Kingston who had been making moves on me at Zen was the same one giving you grief at work, I decided to use it. I was trying to fix things for you. I wanted to—”
The door swung open.
Lena went quiet.
Alex’s eyes were swamped in fury.
“You did what… for who?” His voice was a flat, deadly thing.
He took one step forward.
“Alex—” She took one step back.
“Answer me.” Another step.
“Tell me how I’m supposed to be grateful. Tell me how this is somehow about me, when you were in that room chasing the same cheap thrill you always chase. That’s all I was too, right? A cheap thrill. Same as Kingston. Same as every other man.” His hands found her shoulders and gripped hard.
“Say it.”
“Alex, please…” Tears broke through.
“You’re hurting me.”
“You don’t care about anyone but yourself!” He shook her.
“You use people and move on.
Men have feelings too.
I have feelings, and you just—”
“WELL DON’T!” The scream came out of her raw and ragged.
He stilled.
She was shaking, tears running freely, her voice cracking at the edges.
“Do you have feelings for me, Alex? Do you… love me?”