Covet (8 page)

W
hat originally started
as fucking had turned into an entire night of lovemaking around his office and then an entire weekend in his mansion by the water. Hours of pleasure, of sweat, of confessions. Every position they could arrive in, every fantasy they’d ever had they replayed on one another, pausing only to sleep and occasionally eat.

He’d gone down on her as she sat in the leather chair behind his desk for an hour, eating her with such relish, the taste of her something that couldn’t be described, and one he could never tire of. She begged him to keep going until more than an hour had gone by and they were both covered in sweat as they collapsed on the plush carpeting of his office.

After midnight they made love in the traditional way, in his bed, her riding him for a long while as he watched her luscious body move up and down on a cock that never seemed to get tired of her. He had resisted finishing in her again that day, wanting only to enjoy her and watch her get enjoyment from him.

They slept a few hours, him waking to fuck her again, hard and aggressively, as she cried out with pleasure, begging him to come inside of her again.

“I need to feel it,” she said. “I need to have you deep inside me all of the time.”

He had kissed her passionately, “Not yet. We have all weekend. Some things are better when you wait. Just enjoy this.”

She’d gotten on all fours for him while he plowed her from behind, the sensation of it and the view of her perfect, plump ass almost making him finish sooner than he wanted. She writhed on the Egyptian cotton sheets of his bed, crying from ecstasy, turning over after her orgasm and pulling him on top of her.

“Barrett,” she whispered. “Is this a dream? Is this really happening?”

He smiled. Curiously, she sounded so innocent then, like the 19-year-old Scarlet that he’d first loved so long ago. He kissed her neck and worked his way down to her amazing breasts, the nipples as hard as ever. He sucked them and she groaned. With his hand he slipped a finger inside of her, his thumb on her clit, gently massaging it until she came. As soon as she was there he kissed her- hard.

“Seems like it’s happening to me,” he said. “Though as fantastic as you feel, it does seem dreamlike.”

They made love again, this time while looking into one another’s eyes for a good half hour, pausing momentarily when their lunch was delivered by the concierge service Barrett had called that morning.

They put on robes and ate out on the rooftop deck, looking over at a view of the coast. He was famished but he couldn’t help but think about what he wanted to do to Scarlet next as he ate his Kobe beef short ribs. She sat across from him, cutting into salmon, her legs tucked under her. Part of her robe had slipped down her shoulder, revealing her collar bone. Barrett became hard underneath his own robe, just looking at even a glimpse of her golden skin.

“You know I’m going to fuck you right here after we eat,” he said matter-of-factly, biting into his red skinned potatoes. “I want this whole state to hear you scream my name.”

“I would expect nothing less from you,” she replied, a cheeky grin appearing on her face. “As long as you make me come, I’ll scream your name from every damn rooftop in the world.”

“I’m holding you to that,” he said. He imagined taking her from behind on top of the St Regis in New York City. Going down on her at the Mandarin Oriental in Shanghai. Fucking her senseless in the royal suite at the Plaza Hotel Athénée in Paris.

And even beyond that, he imagined marrying her in a small village outside of Florence. Conceiving their first child on their honeymoon in Bali. Kissing her on their tenth anniversary on a jet across the country to visit his parents for Christmas. As far as he wanted to see, all he could think of was her.

What was happening here? This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. His every thought since picking her up had been about sex and only sex. Taking from Scarlett what he could so they could both heal their wounds, the wounds they’d carved into one another. But as soon as he was around her, as always, all he could think about was how he could possibly ever let her go again.

* * *

S
carlet knew
she was letting it all go too far.

She watched him sleep that second night after hours of fucking by the pool under the moonlight. It was hard not to tell him everything, to explain what had happened. She knew that with each time they were physical, it was just going to make him think all could be like it was again.

And it couldn’t. Not because she didn’t want it to be, but because of what he didn’t know; what no one knew.

She’d quietly gotten dressed once she knew he was deep asleep. She knew Barrett well enough to read his breathing patterns. He wouldn’t be awake for a while.

As she slipped out the door and out to the town car she had called, she wept. Nothing killed her more than doing this to him again. There was nothing Scarlet wanted more than to stay in that bed with Barrett Evers for the rest of their lives.

But Scarlet Bloom had to leave him again. Both of their lives depended on it.

S
carlet nervously tapped
her nails against the leather seat of the town car. Everything seemed to be moving so slow. It was the middle of the night, should there really be this much traffic? Even in a city the size of San Diego, she hadn’t counted on it taking this long to get her to the airport. She needed to get as much distance between her and Barrett as possible. And quickly.

Tears spilled down her cheeks and she tried her best to wipe them away, but they still kept coming. Being with him had been such a mistake. As soon as she’d seen him at Elixir she should have turned straight around and boarded the next flight back to Atlanta. She’d let it go much too far. And now she was reliving the hell of the past again, leaving the man she loved more than anything in this world, and breaking his heart yet again. He would never have believed it, but breaking his heart broke hers even more.

She could never be happy without him. It was something she’d tried to make peace with years ago. Plenty of people lived their entire lives knowing the love of their life got away. But they usually didn’t see them again and have the kind of weekend she’d just experienced.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, leaning towards the driver, “But what’s taking so long? Is traffic usually this backed up?”

“They’ve been doing some construction at night,” he said, no other explanation offered. She sighed and sat back, her hands still trembling.

* * *

B
arrett had heard Scarlet leave
. He was a light sleeper these days, one of the many things that changed since Scarlet had been with him last. Once he’d experienced the destruction of his heart, he’d never been able to sleep deeply and blissfully again. So when he heard the front door close behind her, he’d immediately run to the window just in time to see the town car pull away.

Fortunately his own driver, Mark, was also one of his many bodyguards. He’d advised Mark to keep an eye out for just this sort of thing. Barrett was disappointed she was doing this again but he also wasn’t going to make it easy for her this time. No way.

“Mark, tail her,” he said, pulling on his pants. “I’ll follow you. Is my Audi in the garage?”

“Yes, sir,” Mark said. “I’m on it.”

Barrett was dressed in less than a minute, and pulling out of his driveway in less than two.

“I don’t know what’s going on, Scarlet,” he said to himself as he glided down the silent roads of Rancho Santa Fe, “But it’s time to find out.”

* * *

“
E
ight-hundred dollars
?! For coach? To Atlanta?” Scarlet exclaimed. “Okay. How much to Las Vegas?”

She was at the Delta counter, attempting to buy her ticket out of this mess. Her preference was Atlanta, although it would put her parents in a bind. They’d have to return her rental for her and ship her stuff; not that she’d brought much. They’d be confused and hurt but Scarlet had a gift for that anyway.

“Our Las Vegas flight leaves at nine this morning. It’ll be-“ the pretty Delta clerk paused, waiting for her computer to reply to the clicking and clacking of the keys under her manicured nails, “-two hundred and sixty-two dollars for roundtrip. Two hundred one-way.”

“Okay,” Scarlet sighed. “I’ll take it.”

“Which one? The roundtrip or the one-way?” The woman gave Scarlet a large toothy smile and for some reason it made Scarlet want to punch her.

“One-way. Thanks.” Scarlet handed over her dilapidated Visa card and waited for her ticket. Her head was throbbing and her heart was beating fast. All she wanted to do was hide under the large comforter on the bed at her parents’ house and not come out for at least a decade.

“I’m sorry, Miss Bloom,” the woman said, embarrassment-by-proxy in her tone, “Your card has been declined. Do you have another one?”

Scarlet wanted to throw up. She did not have another card.

“Seriously?” she said out loud, tears stinging her eyes. “It didn’t go through?”

“Miss Bloom won’t be needing it anyway.”

Scarlet turned to see who had the nerve to comment on her current situation and there was Barrett.

His face was a cross between angry and concerned. He was already showing a 5 o’clock shadow (he’d always been the guy who needed to shave daily) and he still smelled like the sex they’d just been having hours before.

As much as she wanted to scream at him to leave her alone and as much as she needed him to, she didn’t have the strength any longer. It had been the longest five years and she was tired of trying to forget him.

So instead, Scarlet Bloom collapsed against his chest and cried.

P
atricia Evers was halfway
across the world from her family, spending yet another perfect day of an incredible month in Paris. It was the only city that could hold her attention for any length of time these days. She’d been investing a lot of her money in art, and some of the best pieces were in the City of Light. Her husband liked to sink their fortune into real estate. She liked to invest in something she could look at on the walls of her many homes. It made her feel powerful.

Patricia despised the term “privileged.” As if her life was something that just
happened
. The term made her feel like she hadn’t done anything to deserve her great fortune in life, when if anyone bothered to do their research, they would find Patricia had worked incredibly hard to forge this life that others coveted so much. She would not apologize for it. She would certainly not be made to feel guilty for being able to attain what everyone else wanted. She would not suffer fools.

Patricia Evers didn’t have a lot of respect for most people.

After all, it needed to be earned, right? And no one wanted to earn anything anymore. People thought because a woman was incredibly wealthy that she should give all of herself away. They always felt entitled to a piece of her, as if just because she had more than they did that she owed them something, be that her time or her charity. As if she should feel embarrassed by her walk-in closets that were the size of the average American’s home. Or ashamed of her private island she escaped to in order to avoid dreadfully wet Manhattan winters. Patricia felt no guilt that she and her husband had bled money into all the best colleges to ensure her children’s entry. (Even with her daughter Clementine’s abysmal high school record, she still got into Yale. Thankfully.) She was proud of the yearly “wife bonus” her insufferable husband Rhett awarded her on their wedding anniversary each year. She’d earned every damn penny of it making sure their family had stayed out of the public eye for anything that wasn’t completely positive and above reproach. She’d tolerated his affairs, his drinking, and his impotence in the bedroom.

So no, Patricia Evers wasn’t privileged. She was just extremely great at being rich.

She’d been born to old southern money in Atlanta. Gone to cotillion, had a coming out party, the whole nine yards. She’d been sent to boarding school at Miss Porter’s when she was fourteen- her own mother had gone there with Jackie Kennedy, years before. Despite the wishes of her parents to marry a rich man straight after graduation, she’d defied them by going to not only college but a Yankee school at that- Smith College in Massachusetts.

Her parents didn’t understand the modern rich man. He didn’t want some pretty, doe-eyed, dumbass. They might fuck girls like that, but they’d never marry them. Those girls were a dollar a dozen. Powerful men wanted cultured, sophisticated women. The kind that can host a gala and give a proper tour of a historically registered mansion. The rich became bored easily, as did Patricia, and the worst thing she could ever do was be boring. So she attained her degree and shortly after, her man- Rhett Evers. He was also a southerner and a Duke graduate. They were married the summer after she received her bachelors in art history. Two former presidents attended their reception at the Biltmore, where their wedding was held.

She was pregnant with Barrett by the fall.

Out of her three children, Barrett was the one all of her ambitions were pinned on. If she’d ever come close to loving anyone, it was Barrett. He reminded her so much of her own father, with his commanding presence and handsome features. Barrett was square- jawed and dense with charisma. Like Patricia, he never had to try very hard at anything and was a naturally gifted person, even without the money. The one thing she and her husband agreed on was that Barrett was the future of the Evers family. The Kennedys had their time, then the Bush family. Barrett had the potential to gain them the sort of influence and power that even money couldn’t (always) buy. Barrett could give the Evers a place in the history books.

Which is why Patricia kept such a close eye on him. Throughout his life, Barrett had been watched. He’d probably be horrified to know how closely. Nancy Sanderson had been forced to write up weekly reports of even the most mundane events in order for Patricia and Rhett to know how he was progressing in his studies and social life. All friends were vetted, all people who came into contact with any of the children went through extensive background checks. Patricia had almost fired Nancy when she’d found out she was taking Barrett over to her sister’s house to socialize with the Bloom children. Rhett had to convince her not to, something she still saw as a huge mistake.

Especially once Barrett fell in love with Scarlet Bloom.

But Patricia had handled that whole thing. Why, she hadn’t thought of any of the Blooms in years! They had melted into the other faceless people who kept Evers Holdings running. They didn’t matter on any sort of personal level.

That is, until her phone rang later that afternoon.

“Madame,” Pierre, her assistant spoke on the other end of the line, his voice tense.

“What is it, Pierre? If it’s Rhett, tell him I don’t give a hoot where we spend the holidays this year, as long as it’s not north of the damn equator.” Patricia glanced at herself in the mirror of her powder room. She noticed lines in her forehead and made a mental note to make an appointment with Dr. Lurme. Thank God for fillers and Botox.

“It’s not that, Madame,” he said slowly. “I don’t know how to tell you.”

She rolled her eyes, “Just tell me. Get on with it.” Was it Clementine again? Ugh.

“It’s Barrett,” he said. “He’s with Scarlet Bloom. In San Diego.”

Suddenly Patricia Evers’ perfect day wasn’t so perfect anymore.