Pulse - Part Three (The Pulse Series) (2 page)

A woman's voice flows over the speakerphone. "Nathan? Is that you?"

"It's me." His tone is unreadable. "How are you, Sarah?"

What. The. Fuck.

"Horny." She giggles. "Are you in town?"

"No," he says gruffly. "How did that issue with your sister turn out?"

"What?" He's caught her off guard. She's not going to be part of his rouse. He's about to get busted.

"Sarah," he exhales harshly. "That advice I gave you last week, did you take it?"

Silence fills the air and then she finally speaks again. "I got her to call your lawyer friend. It helped her a lot. Thanks again for arranging that for her."

He cocks a brow at me. I don't respond. So what if he helped one of his fuck buddies with something? There's still that small issue of his tongue and her body.

"When's the last time we fucked, Sarah?"

She practically moans. "Do you want to do it now? I can come to wherever you are. Just tell me where."

"When is the last time we fucked?" he repeats, stringing out every word.

"The last time we fucked?" How many goddamn times do I need to be reminded that he fucked the woman on the other end of the phone? "I don't know." Her breathing stalls for a few seconds. "It was before Labor day last year, so I guess a little more than a year ago?"

He ignores her response and stares straight at me.

"Do you want to meet up or not?" I can hear the expectation in her voice.

"No."

"Maybe tomorrow then?" she asks quietly.

"Never." He looks down at the screen. "Don't call my office again and forget this number."

"What?"

"Forget you ever knew me." He ends the call with a quick tap of his thumb. "Happy now?"

"Enough." Why the hell was he doing this? He'd now called three more women and grilled each of them about the last time he'd had his dick in them. "I don't want to hear anymore."

"Do you believe me that I'm not fucking anyone else?" The question is meant to challenge me. "If you don't, I'll call every woman on this phone. I have all night."

"Why do you still have it?" I stand and cross my arms over my chest. I wish I hadn't worn such a low cut dress.

He straightens so he's sitting upright, his arm casually thrown over the back of the couch, his legs crossed. He looks so at ease. "I told you I rarely look at it."

"It's almost fully charged and it was turned on when I found it." I'm not backing down from this. I refuse to. He thinks that by calling a handful of the hundreds of women on that phone and asking when he last banged them, that he's off the hook. Not so fast, Mr. Moore.

"So?"

"So?" That's his retort and he calls himself a lawyer. "If you didn't care about any of those women and you weren't planning on sleeping with them, why keep the phone?"

"Your number is in there." He means it as a compliment. It's a backhanded, disgusting and degrading reminder that I'm just another random fuck.

I swear I almost physically recoil from the comment. "Why isn't my number in there?"  I point to the other smartphone, the one that he showed me earlier that has my picture on it.

"Jessica." The calm exterior that he's trying to maintain is quickly melting away. "You're taking this all wrong."

"I'm taking this at face value." I try and stay composed. I have to. I can't fall into a driveling mess at his feet. I refuse to even though everything inside of me is breaking into pieces.

"You're the one who broke into my room." The amusement skirting the statement pulls at my anger.

I dart my hand towards him. "Give me the phone."

"What?" He cradles it in his hand. "Why?"

"Give me the goddamn phone, Nathan."

He leans forward to offer it to me. "What are you going to do with it?" The question irks me even more.

"Does it matter?" I step out of his reach, pulling my thumb across the screen.

"No, it's…it's just that I," he stammers as he stares at my finger tapping.

"Cat got your tongue, Nate?" I glance up from the phone. "Or maybe one of these women has a tongue you can't resist?"

"No," he scoffs. "I told you I'm done with them."

"You're done with me too." I toss the phone at him and it bounces against his chest. "I deleted my number."

"What?" He's on his feet now, his voice husky and edging anger. "Why?"

"Why?" I parrot back. Is he seriously asking me why I don't want anything to do with him anymore?

"Jessica." He takes a step towards me and I teeter on my heels in an effort to get out of his reach. I grab for the bar, holding on to the edge to get my level footing back.

"Leave me the fuck alone." Any barrier that I've had up until now is gone. It's crumbled beneath the slew of half-truths and realizations about how many women he's actually slept with. "I'm going home."

"I'll take you." At any time before tonight, that would have been an offer I saw as sweet and endearing coming from him. I would have jumped at the chance to take him home into my bed.

I shake my head. "No." It's all I can manage. I just have to get out of here.

"You can't just leave," he pleads. "We can talk about this."

I hold my hand up as he approaches, warning him off. "I'm done."

I can't believe you just bailed on him." Rebecca flips her damp hair back as she pulls the hairbrush through it. 

My lips twist into a scowl. "What was I supposed to do?"

"You think he's still screwing them all?" She almost visibly winces when she asks the question.

I shrug my shoulders. "Don't know and don't care."

"Oh, you care, Jess." She pulls herself up off my bed and throws the towel she had her hair wrapped in, into my laundry hamper.

"I don't," I scoff. I can't, I want to say. When I held that phone in my hand and read all those messages I felt devastated. I can't explain to her that I was falling for him. Who the hell falls for a man they met in a club who fucks women in a room right above it? I'm too humiliated to admit I was developing feelings for Manhattan's biggest man whore. Correction. Boston and Manhattan's biggest man whore.

"Liar." She leans back down on the bed. "So you're done with Fingers for good?"

"Don't call him that," I whine. I don't need the constant reminder that Nathan fingered me to orgasm the first night I met him. My fate was sealed then. Why did I ever let Rebecca convince me to go back to that club the next night? "This is all your fault."

"My fault?" She smiles. "How is it my fault that your boyfriend is trying to set a world record for banging?"

"You're the one who dragged me to that club."

"I didn't throw you into bed with him. He's the one who worked his magic on you." She leans her shoulder on me. "You're spending too much time mourning the loss of him and his big dick."

"What?" I smirk.

"Get back in the saddle." She props herself up on her knees and whirls her hand above her head as if she's casting a lasso in the air. "Go out and find a new guy. Once you fuck him, Fingers will be a distant memory."

"It doesn't work that way." I laugh.

She flashes me a smile. "You won't know until you try. When you have a night off, we're going out dancing and I promise we won't go near his club."

***

"What's going on with you, Jess?" Drew taps me on the shoulder as I'm walking out the employee's exit after my evening shift.

I turn to briefly glance at him. He really is attractive, in a cute boy next door kind of way. Why hadn't I met him first before I fell into Nathan's bed that night? "Nothing. I'm good," I lie. I wasn't good. It's been almost a week now since I had my face -off with Nathan in his hotel room and he hasn't come looking for me. Why did I care? Why did I want him to? It wasn't as though I wanted to climb back into bed with him. I just wanted the satisfaction of knowing he still wanted me.

"You're feeling okay?" That’s never a good question to ask a woman. Obviously, he thinks I don't look okay.

"Sure." Sure? You need something better than that, Jessica. He's cute, he's interested and some time with him would help erase Nathan from your mind. Just listen to Rebecca. Live a little.

His face comes into full view as he takes a step around me. "I want to kiss you."

I didn't hear that, did I? "Did you say you want to kiss me?"

His lips glide across mine in response. His hands jump to cradle my cheeks, tilting my head. I open my mouth, and a small moan filters out. He groans in response and pulls me tighter into his body. He's aroused, already. This sweet, uncomplicated man wants me just from a kiss.

"You're beautiful, Jess." I hear the words as I feel them on my lips.

"I'm not," I whisper back. I'm really not.

"Take me home with you." It's a breathless request that will chase away not only the ache in my heart, but the one that's consumed my body for the past week. I want to feel him. I want to know what it's like to be with a man who isn't focused on so many others. I just want to forget Nathan.

"I can't." The words betray my body. I can. I really can I want to say. I want to.

He lunges for me again and this time his kiss is heated, wanting and aggressive. His hands glide down my body, cupping my ass, pulling me into him. I try not to react to the feeling of him pressing against me. His cock is so hard. It would be so easy to just take him by the hand, and pull him into my bed and my body.

"Soon." It's a promise in a kiss. "I'll take you to dinner on Friday and then you'll decide."

I run both my hands up his lean, muscular chest, grabbing onto the collar of his chef's jacket. "It's a date."

"Explain to me how you can be in Manhattan less than two months and have two hot guys falling all over you and all I get are the geeks from the tech department at work chasing after me?"

"Tech guys have mad oral skills," I offer. "You should check them out."

"It's your tits." She squeezes her breasts together and stares down at her less-than-ample cleavage. "If I had your tits, I would be beating men away with a stick."

"If you can afford this apartment," I begin as I swing my hand around her spacious bedroom. "You can afford big tits."

"You didn't buy those." She nods towards my
breasts, which are on full display at the moment in a pink lace bra.

"True, but everything has a price." I point towards a short red dress she has hanging in her closet. "Maybe that one?"

"That's not your color." She bounces off her bed. "Blue is better."

"Blue it is." I hold the short, blue halter dress she hands to me in front of myself as I look in the mirror. "He'll like it, right?"

She pulls my hair back over my shoulders as she stands behind me. "Use him, Jess."

I turn around quickly. "Use him?"

"Drew." She raises both brows. "Use him to forget about Fingers."

I frown at the mention of not only his nickname, but of him. "This has nothing to do with Nathan."

"It has everything to do with him," she corrects me. "You need to wash the taste of him away. This is your chance. Don't fuck it up."

***

"Do you always open your door dressed like that?"

I can't respond. What am I supposed to say? I swung the door open without checking who it was because I'm waiting for Drew to pick me up.

"Where are you going?" He pushes past me and darts into the apartment before I have a chance to stop him.

"Nathan," I say his name knowing it will hurt when it leaves my lips. I know that he's going to take some satisfaction in hearing it.

"Jessica, why are you wearing that?" It's too personal and harsh. I feel assaulted by his presence. I feel exposed. I didn't want to see him again. I sure as hell didn't want to see him when I'm wearing a dress like this.

"You need to go." My voice is so faint. "I have plans."

"Are you fucking someone else already?" There's no mistaking the frustration in his tone.

I start to move towards the door. I need him gone before Drew comes up to get me. "It's none of your business." I want him to believe the words. My life isn't his concern anymore. It never really was in the first place.

He catches my wrist in his grasp. "Like hell it's not my business."

I can't do this. I can't deal with him right now.

"I need to be inside you, Jessica." His eyes sweep over me. "I'm aching for you. Tell me how I can fix this."

"You miss having sex with me?" I ask, not because I need to know the answer, but I need to hear it, from him. I need the confirmation that all he misses is fucking me.

"More than I've missed anything in my life." He steps closer and touches my shoulder. "I think about the way my cock stretches you as I'm fucking you. I think about your beautiful mouth and what it feels like to shoot down your throat."