Page 9 of Free to Run
Alison. What am I going to do about Alison?
My mind drifts back to the moment I tossed my keys to the valet at the Plaza Hotel where I was staying until my condo remodel was done. I’ll never forget hearing someone shout, “I dare you, Ali!” followed by a husky laugh of acceptance.
I saw two women dressed in bridesmaid dresses, both gorgeous in their own unique way. But it was the leggy blonde who captured my attention. She shot a dazzling smile at the petite brunette, then walked the perimeter of the fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel in her pencil-thin heels. Just as the valet was about to go put a stop to their antics, I stepped in. “I’ll handle it,” I murmured quietly, absorbed by the look of nonchalance, daring, and unfettered amusement the feisty blonde gave me.
The valet was busy with a line of cars pulling in. “Thank you, Mr. Marshall. The two sisters are part of a wedding party inside. I’m sure they’re just having a bit of fun, but I wouldn’t be doing my job…” He had trailed off before he made his way to the next vehicle.
I walked slowly to the fountain so I wouldn’t startle the two women. I watched Ali finish her lap around the fountain and stop, trying to figure out how to dismount without breaking a heel or a leg.
“Maybe I can be of some assistance?” I offered smoothly.
Devastating blue eyes locked onto mine. Stunning—the entire package. From the top of her head, to her athletically built legs that seemed to go on for miles, she was a knockout. She smiled, and I had to stop myself from taking a step back at the impact. “I think you can—maybe in more ways than one,” she purred.
Game. Fucking. On.
There was a soft laugh from behind me, but I never turned around. I barely heard her speak as Ali reached out and grasped my shoulders to steady herself on the side of the fountain. I felt her hands through my shirt, all the way to my cock. Hell, it still gets hard whenever I think about that moment.
“Hello, Ali.”
She nodded. “Hello, handsome.”
“Keene.”
“Hello, Keene. Thanks for rescuing me from the fountain. I would’ve ruined my new prized silver Choos.” She cocked her head and smiled.
I’d never even asked for her last name, and I didn’t see her again until I walked into the kitchen of Amaryllis Events, my sister’s family’s event planning business. She was sitting at the counter in a business suit that hugged every inch of her body, showing off her crossed legs. I was overcome by her teeming anger, even as she laughed with her family.
Standing in front of my kitchen sink, my fingers tighten on the lip of the countertop. Alison Freeman is a complication I’m going to have to figure out, but I have no idea how.
I need to remember my boundaries, of what I’ve always considered right and wrong. Unfortunately for me, Alison Freeman is the worst kind of wrong there is. The kind that could actually be good for me.
I need to focus on dinner and strategize how I’ll handle tonight. If past experience with dinners at the Freeman farm are anything to go by, I’ll need eye bleach, Xanax, or a bottle of the best Scotch money can buy to make it through the impending shit show. And that’s not counting my constant pull to interact with the knockout blonde lawyer.
Walking into my bedroom to change, I decide I have enough time to shower DC off me. I make my way to my bathroom, and as the steam builds, my mind drifts to the last time I saw Alison, which was after Caleb and Cassidy’s wedding…in Alison’s kitchen.
Her dress was somewhere, as were my clothes. I had licked her, sucked her, and fucked her on her kitchen island. I was so damn hot to get my hands all over her body.
We were both so demanding about what we wanted.
Harder. Faster. Deeper.
If I close my eyes, I can still feel her juices flowing down my legs. That’s how hot it burned.
Then she kicked me out. Still glistening from where she came, she showed me the door.
Her extraordinary blue eyes were vacant, unlike that night at the Plaza.
I never got to tell her I’d been thinking I wanted one more thing.
More.
5
Keene
Inavigate my Audi as I make my way into Collyer from New York. My tension increases as I approach the farm, the ten-acre piece of property where my sister and her siblings each restored a hovel to make their individual homes set around a lake a few years earlier.
Although I acted disinterested when he first talked about Cassidy, I never told Caleb I thought he was crazy when he started spending as much time as he was in Connecticut when they first started dating. The company Caleb and I own is in the heart of Manhattan, near Rockefeller Center. On a great day, the commute is an hour and ten minutes’ drive from the farm.
