Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (178 page)

***

Jay’s cell phone rang at six the next morning, and he rolled over
and saw it was Steve, his agent.
 
Jay groaned.
 
Agents were
never out of bed before ten in the morning, and if they were, it was because
something horrible was happening.

“Hello, Steve,” Jay chirped into the phone, even though he felt
like being anything but chirpy.
 
“How are you this fine morning?
 
Me, I’m fine, thanks for asking.
 
Just enjoying a lovely cappuccino at an outside café. The birds are
singing, and – ”

“Save it, Havens,” Steve said.
 
“I’m not in the mood for your bullshit.”

Jay sighed and settled back into the pillows, deciding the best way
to handle this was to just take his beating.
 
It usually seemed to work.
 
Like when he’d married that stripper in
Vegas.
 
Steve had had a fucking
coronary over that one.
 
Jay grinned
at the memory.

“So what’s going on?” Jay asked.

“What’s going on?” Steve repeated.
 
“What’s going on is that Billingsley
read what that reporter wrote about you, and he’s not happy.”

Oh.
 
Jay relaxed.
 
“Is that all?”

“Is that
all?
 
That’s a really big fucking deal,
Havens.
 
The only reason Billingsley
even let that girl hang with the team was because he needed to do some damage
control.
 
Unfortunately, you’re
creating even more damage.”

Jay sighed.
 
“Don’t
worry,” he said.
 
“I’ll fix it.”

“Fix it!
 
How do you
plan on fixing it?”

“I’ll go find her, I’ll hang out with her, I’ll change her mind.”

“Yeah,” Steve said.
 
“Well, you better do something. They’re not going to renew your
contract, Jay.
 
Definitely not for
the money you want, and maybe not at all.”

“Don’t worry,” Jay said.
 
“I’m handling it.”
 
He hung
up the phone.
 

He showered, changed into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, and
then headed out of his apartment and toward Alyssa’s hotel.
 
The city was quiet at this time of the morning,
and Jay moved through the street quickly, stopping off at the bodega on the
corner to grab two coffees and a bag of freshly baked muffins.
 
It was only when he was a couple blocks
away from Alyssa’s hotel that he saw it.
 

The New York Post.
 
There
was a huge picture on the front page of Dax Reynolds.
 
And Alyssa.
 
They were dancing.
 
His arms were around her, and she was
leaning in, grinding on him, laughing at something he was saying.
 
She was wearing a short black skirt and
high shoes, and she looked hot.
 
And
like she was really enjoying herself.

~Chapter Six~

There was a knock on the door, and Alyssa opened her eyes, her
hotel room blearily coming into focus.
 
Shit, shit, shit.
 
She’d been
up at five, but she must have fallen back asleep.
 
Her computer was open on her bed, her
column almost done being written, but not quite.
 
She needed to get it into Isobel before
nine if it was going to be posted on time.
 

The knocking came harder this time, and Alyssa said,
 
“No thanks, no housekeeping today.”
 
There’s no way she’d be able to
concentrate with a vacuum cleaner going, and she’d gladly sacrifice fresh new
sheets and towels so that she could get her work done.

The knock sounded again, and Alyssa sighed.
 
She pulled herself out of bed and
shuffled toward the door, then peered through the peephole.
 
Oh, God.
 
It was Jay Havens!
 
Jay Havens was standing outside her
door.

“Hello?” he said, and pounded on the door.
 
Alyssa turned around and put her back
against the door, wondering if she could just let him stay out there and
pretend she wasn’t here.
 
Isobel
would be pissed that she’d missed a chance to interact with a player, but
Isobel would never know.
 
Unless Jay
somehow told someone, but why would he do that?
 
And if he did, Alyssa would just say
she’d been out early, at a coffee shop, working on her column.
 
Or going for a stroll in Central
Park.
 
Isn’t that what people in New
York did?
 
They were always going
for strolls in Central Park, it was like a rule, they –

“I hear you in there,” Jay said cheerfully.
 
“So you might as well open the door.”

“Go away,” Alyssa said.

“Well, that’s not very friendly.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Came to talk.”
 
He
still sounded cheerful.

“About what?”

“Lots of things, but mostly this picture of you on the front of the
New York Post.
 
Now, I wouldn’t have
advised you wear such a short skirt, but –”

Alyssa pulled the chain off the door and quickly let him in.
 
“What are you talking about?”
 
She grabbed the paper out of his hand
and scanned it, her mouth dropping.

“Good morning to you, too,” Jay said.
 
He moved past her into the room and set
two cups of coffee down on the desk.

Alyssa looked at the paper, her heart starting to beat fast, bile
rising up in her throat.
 
There she
was, splashed across the front of a New York City paper.
 
Whoever’d taken the picture had caught
her mid-move, her hair whipping around in front of her face.
 
Dax’s hands were on her hips, and she
was leaning into him.
 

She looked like some kind of crazed banshee.
 
What made it worse was that the patrons
of the bar were all looking at them.
 
Of course they’d been looking at them, Dax was an ultra-famous baseball
player. But the picture made it look like they were being watched because
people couldn’t believe what they were seeing, like Alyssa was some kind of
crazy sexed-up vixen or something.
 
She peered closer at the picture.
 
Was that Jessa in the background?
 
Yes!
 
It was!
 
She was sitting at the bar, her hand
wrapped around her martini, looking at Alyssa with a scandalized look on her
face.

Oh, God.
 
She rested her
forehead against the door.
 
She felt
sick.“Crazy, isn’t?” Jay said.
 
“Being in the press?”
 
He
crossed the room and took the paper out of her hand, and Alyssa turned
around.
 
She felt faint, and she
walked over and sat down on the bed.

“Are you okay?” Jay’s face suddenly went from jokey to concerned,
and he sat down next to her.
 
“Eat,”
he commanded, taking a muffin out of the bag he’d been holding.

He held the muffin out to her, and Alyssa took a bite.
 
As she did, her mouth brushed against
his fingers, and her whole body was suddenly aflame.
  
He was looking at her again, the
same way he was looking at her the other day in the alley.
 
Her breath caught in her chest.

“Are you okay?” Jay asked.

“Yeah.”
 
Alyssa pulled
her eyes away and tried to calm herself down.
 
“It was just a little shocking, seeing myself
like that.”

Jay looked at the picture.
 
“Tell me about it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alyssa asked, suddenly indignant.

“Nothing.
 
Just that you
don’t seem like the type.”

“The type to what?”

“The type to go out clubbing with a guy you’re supposed to be
working with in a professional capacity.”

“Is that what you think I was doing?”
 
Alyssa stood up and glared at him.

“Isn’t it?”

“No.”

He stood up then.
 
“I
didn’t like it,” he said.

“You didn’t like what?”
 

He took a step toward her, getting so close that his chest was
pressed against hers.
 
She could
feel the muscles in his chest even though he was wearing a sweatshirt.
 
He smelled like soap and shampoo and an
expensive cologne.
 
His scent made
her want to gasp, that’s how sexy it was, and she loved that he was wearing a
sweatshirt while smelling like an expensive cologne.

“I didn’t like that you were with him.”
 
He pushed even closer to her.
 
“I didn’t like that he was taking care
of you yesterday, and I didn’t like seeing you dancing with him.”

“You didn’t see me dancing with him,” Alyssa said.

“Good thing, too,” Jay said.
 
“Because I would have punched him.”

Alyssa felt heat starting up from in between her legs and radiating
through her body.
 
She wondered what
it would feel like to reach up under his sweatshirt, to run her hands over his
torso, his chest, his skin.
 
No, she
told herself, he’s playing you.
 
All
he wants is for you to let your guard down, he’s mad at you for what you wrote,
he’s trying to get close to you so that you’ll write good things about him.

 
“I wanted to kiss you
the other night,” he said huskily.
 
“I did, and then you went and did that with him.”

“I didn’t do anything with him,” Alyssa said.
 
Her voice was weak, because his
closeness was making her head spin.
 
But Jay must have taken it to mean that she
had
done something with Dax, because he grabbed her around the
waist and pulled her close to him.
 
She got crushed against the hardness of his chest, and her nipples
hardened under her t-shirt.

“I hope not,” Jay said.
 
And then he knelt down, his lips just a centimeter from hers.
 
He was still looking into her eyes, and
his lips were this close,
this close,
to
hers.
 
She wanted to kiss him, she
did, but it looked like he was asking for permission, waiting for her to make
the first move.
 
But before she
could let him, he decided on his own.

He pulled her closer, harder, and pushed his lips into hers.
 
His tongue slid hungrily into her
mouth.
 
He tasted sweet and minty
and the kiss surprised her, as it was rough and yet tender at the same time.

She felt like she wanted to be swallowed up by him, and when his
hands moved up under the back of her t-shirt and stroked her skin softly, she
moaned.
 
He pulled back, softly
biting on the bottom of her lip, teasing her gently and then, just when she
felt like she was going to explode, he kissed her again.

She kissed him back, letting his hands roam under her shirt.
 
He ran his fingers up her sides, causing
shivers to run through her body even as a scorching heat was building up between
her legs.
 
He got closer and closer
to touching her breasts, but every time he did, he backed off at the last
second.

Alyssa wanted to feel his hands all over her more than anything,
and she kissed him harder, hoping he would get the message that she was his,
that he could do whatever he wanted, that she just wanted him, she wanted him
to take her and --

Her cell phone rang then, the special ring she reserved for Isobel,
and it broke the spell immediately.
 
Alyssa felt like a bucket of cold water had been thrown on her, and she
bit back a gasp, realizing that if she’d been left to her own devices, if she’d
allowed Jay allowed to do what he was about to do, it would have been very,
very bad.

She reached over and grabbed her phone off the bed.

“Alyssa!” Isobel barked.
 
“I’m looking at my inbox, and I have nothing from you.”

“I know,” Alyssa said.
 
“I’m sorry, I’m just putting the finished touches on my column.”