Entangle Read online

  “What's wrong with ‘Alexis’? You don’t like the name your parents gave you?”

  “I don’t like it for exactly that reason.”

  I'm glad that he doesn’t seem to catch the meaning behind my words. Instead, his expression teeters between polite interest and bemusement. He doesn’t seem fazed in the least by the silences following our speech. Anyone else would be twitching in discomfort and itching to return the conversation to a comfortable zone. But not Leo, not this blue-eyed specimen of a man.

  God, why am I silently counting down the time it’s been since I last felt a man’s body pressed to mine?

  Stop it, Lex.

  It’s been a while. A long while.

  He pours out the rest of his coffee in the sink and I cringe inside, seeing my favorite substance circling the drain. I look down and notice my own cup is all but empty. How long have I been standing here, avoiding his questions but basking in his intense gaze?

  He reaches for my cup and asks, “May I?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  I let him take it and place it in the sink.

  “Well, Alexis.” He pauses, waiting for my objection. The fact that he insists on using my full name isn’t lost on me, but I don’t take the bait of bringing attention to it. He tilts his head forward, and with a quick clearing of his throat adds, “Nice chat.”

  I get it. He’s being sarcastic and finds speaking to me to be a lot like pulling teeth.

  He begins to walk forward and I, anticipating he is going to move to the right, go left. We almost collide. I have to put my hands up in front of me to prevent his chest from pressing into mine.

  “Whoa there,” I say.

  In the fraction of a second my palms feel his chest, I make contact with firm muscles through his shirt.

  We lock eyes again. He’s close enough for me to smell his cologne. It’s a subtle smell, but sophisticated and masculine. Notes of leather and the faintest traces of spearmint trickle through my nostrils. The scent caresses my senses and stirs the impulse to envelop myself in it. In him. On him.

  “Sorry about that,” he says respectfully as he looks down at me. His tone is detached, but he makes no effort to pull away. In those short seconds, I don’t want him to. I nearly blush again.

  This is ridiculous. I can’t remember the last time I wanted to intimidate someone. A familiar competitiveness roars to life within me; I don’t like to feel like someone has something over me. Even if that something is the mere effect of their presence. I want—no, I need—to get a reaction from him. Any reaction. Simply because I do.

  I have barely a second to react, but a second is all I need. Leo is a man and if I know one thing about men, they are fickle and predictable.

  We separate and, as I walk past him, I lean into him and whisper, “Don’t be sorry.”

  My voice is smooth and suggestive.

  When I reach the door, I turn back to see him rooted to the spot. “Goodnight, Leo.”

  I walk away, feeling a delightful rush of energy run down my core. Seeing him finally react to me in a tangible way makes me feel like I’ve won.

  Won what? I don’t know, but it hardly matters. Still, something unexpected happens in the process. Something in my own reaction takes me by surprise. My excitement seems to coil down where my thighs turn into an ache.

  I realize I do like Leo. I want to do things to him I shouldn’t even allow myself to consider. It’s just that, I can’t remember the last time a man’s presence stirred me this way. My imagination is already running wild. I tell myself that’s okay.

  The scenarios I entertain in my own head are none of his business.

  II

  Leo

  I’m having a hard time with Tom, the Director of Construction. My issue with Tom is two-fold. For starters, Tom is an enormous asshole. Well, I guess my issue with Tom is one-fold. Because that pretty much sums it up.

  The guy’s mind is as stiff as a board, comfortable doing things a certain way and threatening to break in half if he even tries to consider a different scenario. The other day, Tom came into my office to tell me my specs won’t hold up. That my blueprints bring him some sort of conflict on the installation end of things. It’s all bullshit. He just wants me to do things the way he’s used to seeing them done.

  We get along for appearances, we keep things civil, but I find the guy incredibly irritating. In the mere weeks I’ve been here, Tom has tried to stonewall me each step of the way.

  Earlier in the week, he and I go into Alexis’ office, along with Andrew, my Head Engineer, to discuss our opposing directions. Alexis listens to Tom, tapping the tips of her fingers together, her face unsmiling but not antagonistic. And when Tom finishes, she allows a noticeable pause before she begins to speak. The lull leaves the distinct impression she is allowing Tom’s words to sink in. When she speaks, she is concise and never wavers from her points. Then she turns her sights to me. Having her full-blown attention takes me off-guard. Her eyes linger over me as I speak, watching me with the same undivided attention she watched Tom.

  I can’t be the only one who feels distracted by her. I know I can’t be the only one who notices she is a striking woman. Not necessarily in looks. Though she is attractive, her beauty is subtle, that of a woman who does not rely on her appearance to command attention. Her presence speaks for itself. An energy permeates the air around her, a confidence she exudes that falls short of arrogance. It dares you to come closer and warns you to keep back, all at once.

  I suppose I’m a multi-tasker because as I speak, I find my mind wandering to places far from my present points. I am undressing her, running my fingers over the buttons of her blouse, grazing the skin of her breasts. I almost lose my train of thought, when Andrew cuts in to add something.

  When my gaze slithers back up, I find her looking right at me. She is speaking, but her eyebrow twitches in an unrelated way. I feel myself go still, sensing her expectation for me to glance away. My blue eyes hold onto hers, refusing to let up. Until she looks away and I’m sure I see her flush.

  That was all earlier in the week. Now, today, she comes on to me in the break room. It’s interesting to me. By all appearances, she goes out of her way to be unsociable. I’m new and I can already tell most of the people in the office find her unlikable and unapproachable. I see it myself in her interactions. She is curt, avoiding questions and never lingering long enough to become familiar.

  Yet there she was this afternoon, leaning into my ear to whisper in a seductive tone. Don’t be sorry. I’ll go ahead and add what she didn’t: I liked it.

  It came out of nowhere. One second she’s cold as ice, the next she’s an inch from my face. I guess that’s what happens when you are as wound up as she is. She risks snapping back in an unexpected way. All her confidence can’t seem to mask it. I can almost feel the sexual vexation tensing up inside of her, tugging at her body language in tangible ways. I’m not sure how a woman who looks the way she does doesn’t already have a man taking care of her needs. It’s a shame.

  I’m certain she has no idea how much she reveals in the way her green eyes dilate when they meet mine. The way she takes in a small sharp breath when we get too close, or her body tenses up when I smile at her. I can even feel the way she grasps around to maintain the upper hand.

  As enticing as this is to me, as much as it stirs a craving that makes my dick stir in my pants, I’m not interested in fucking Alexis. Not because I wouldn't enjoy it. I'm sure I would. If the circumstances were different I may even feel compelled to try. But there is of course a problem, an obvious one. She’s my boss. I don’t want the type of drama that comes along with that type of encounter. It’s not worth it.

  I can’t drop her off at her house after a wild night with a kiss, and go on like nothing happened. I’d have to see her every day at work. Even if she could pretend to remain casual about the encounter, it’s bound to end badly. She will develop unrequited feelings, eventually become bitter toward me, and make my li
fe hell. That’s the natural cycle of these things. I’ve seen it too many times to question its existence.

  Fuck. Bitterness. Hell.

  I do what I can to keep the cycle from going into the bitter part. I’ve slipped up as of late and I’m paying for it.

  I plug my cell phone into the charger. The battery died earlier in the day while I was at work. When the phone reboots, I see I have three voicemails. The first message starts playing and the sound of a raspy female voice comes through my speaker.

  “Fuck you. You asshole.”

  There it is, my reminder of what happens when I let the cycle get too far. Katy sounds drunk. I sigh and rub my eyebrow before I select the next message. I’m not sure why I bother. I know things are only going downhill from here.

  The same voice plays in my speaker, more energetic but less angry. It occurs to me as I let out a humorless laugh that I am listening to the messages in reverse order.

  “And you know what else? I would’ve done anything for you. How could you treat me like this? It’s like you never even—”

  I end the message before her words could assault my senses further.

  Here’s the thing. I won’t lie, the way things ended between Katy and me was not ideal. She’s sensitive. I didn’t know it in the beginning and I hurt her in my carelessness. I don’t love her the way she loves me. I don’t love her, at all.

  I like her. She’s a nice girl and I enjoyed her company. She has a tight little body and an insatiable appetite for sex that drove me crazy. But the truth is that she was a one-night stand that never ended.

  When I first met Katy, she intrigued me immediately. I thought she was gorgeous and bright. It didn’t hurt that she let me fuck her however I wanted, wherever I wanted. It’s not that my sexual tastes are particularly off-beat, but it's surprising how many women are turned off by rough sex.

  Katy seemed to be what I needed at the time, fun without commitment. She never even hinted at wanting us to be exclusive and didn’t seem to take what was going on between us seriously. Which I liked. It's obvious to me now that I was an idiot.

  I realized soon enough that the list of things she pretends to not take seriously is extensive. Katy is a perpetual party girl who wants to go out drinking every night of the week. Part of me can’t exactly blame her. She is young, twenty-three years old and still in college. I’m thirty and somehow, as sick as it sounds, feel old enough to be her father.

  Katy managed to attach herself to me in a way that makes me uncomfortable. I didn’t realize until it was too late. I’m not sure if there is a specific event that felt like too much. It was more of the fact that she felt more for me than I could manage. I didn’t even realize it was happening. She shrouds her emotions in her raw sexuality and it’s enough to confuse any man. It’s hard to walk away from a one-night stand when it lasts six months.

  I haven’t even spoken to her in weeks. Hearing her voice again, even tinged in bitterness and dripping insults, is nice. A sick part of me misses having her around. My apartment feels so quiet without the sound of her laughter. The counter in my bathroom is bare without her countless beauty products sprawled across it.

  But it’s for the best that the relationship ended when it did. The emotionally unstable side the breakup brought out in her is a little concerning.

  A knock on my door jars me into the present. I don’t move right away because I’m not expecting anyone.

  Another knock.

  I open the door to see Katy standing on the other side. Somehow, I’m not surprised. She sways as I watch her and I have to grab hold of her shoulders to steady her. Irritation plows through my veins and the muscles in my jaw tense.

  “You’re drunk. What are you doing here?”

  Her reaction is slow. First her brown eyes gape at me, unblinking, her mouth parting a bit. Then she shrugs. “It’s Halloween.”

  She says it like it’s reason enough to show up to my place uninvited and wasted. I realize what she’s wearing, some sort of nurse’s getup. As if nurses wear tiny, skin-tight latex dresses, fishnet stockings, and hooker heels. The next thing I know she's walking past me to enter my condo. She stumbles through but somehow manages to graze her body to mine in the doorway. I pinch the bridge of my nose to compose myself. She knows how much it pisses me off when she gets this intoxicated. I follow her inside and the door closes behind me.

  “Did you drive like this?”

  Katy stands halfway to my living room, looking around like she's trying to see what's changed in the time that she's been gone. “No, my friends dropped me off. They’re going out. But I didn’t want to.” She turns to face me. “I wanted to see you.”

  I stare at her. “You already drunk dialed, Katy. Why do you have to drunk visit?”

  She seems to hesitate, then bites her lip and says. “I thought that maybe you missed me and…just didn’t know how to say it.”

  It’s hard to take anything she says seriously when the words swirl around her tongue before leaving her lips. She looks at me eagerly, as though expecting me to close the distance between us at her words. I cross my arms over my chest.

  “Katy—”

  Before I even finish speaking, she comes over to me and hugs me around the middle. I catch the familiar scent of her shampoo. She looks up at me again and I recognize the longing in her expression. It stirs something inside of me.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I say.

  “I can’t stop wanting you.” She starts unbuttoning my shirt. Her voice has a hypnotic quality about it, a soft hoarseness that glazes over my annoyance just long enough for me to remember how she sounds when she moans out my name.

  Taking in a sharp breath, I hold her hands to stop her from moving down my shirt. I pull away from her and walk into my kitchen. She tries to follow me but her heels and her overall state make her clumsy.

  By the time she reaches me, I’m holding out a glass of water. I have to coax her to drink it, telling her she will thank me in the morning. She can barely stand up by now.

  There’s no use in even trying to reason with her at this point. When she gets like this she only wants one thing. And that’s not going to happen. She needs to sleep it off.

  I bring her to the room and she seems to sober up as I lay her in bed. She tries to pull me with her but I manage to slide out of her grip. As I pull the covers over her, she asks for more water. I bring her a second glass. She gulps it down loudly and blinks at me for a few seconds, her eyebrows wrinkling together.

  “What is it?” I ask her, feeling the residual irritation still prickling away at my skin.

  “I know why you don’t want to be with me.” She lays her head down on the pillow.

  “Go to sleep, Katy.”

  She closes her eyes.

  “I’m a mess,” she whispers. “I ruin everything good in my life, like I ruined things with you.”

  I run a palm over my forehead to iron out the headache growing between my temples. This is heavy shit. I’m just not in the mindset to get into this discussion with her. Neither is she. Still, I feel the need to say something; I’m just not sure what. I open my mouth to speak, but I close it again as I realize that her breathing is now rhythmic. She’s finally fallen asleep. I watch her for a few seconds longer before I leave her, realizing that not only do I not love her, I never wanted to, and I never even knew how to start.

  III

  Alexis

  “Okay, this isn’t fair,” I say to Julia, hugging her and taking the seat across the table. “How do you look this good pregnant?”

  “Oh, shut your skinny pie hole.” Julia runs a hand over her large belly. “I’m a cow. And I hate you.”

  I smirk at her feigned outrage. She’s always been beautiful, but this morning she glows from the inside out. Her thick, black hair is longer than the last time I saw her, rippled in neat waves that drape over one of her shoulders. We catch up for a few minutes. I haven’t seen her in almost two months.

  “Have you heard from
Jacob?”

  “Yeah…” I let the word drag out as I read over the menu. “He called me. We made plans for next Friday. He sounds...nice, I guess.”

  “Wow. Try not to seem so excited about it.”

  “You know I’m only agreeing to it because he’s your cousin. You say jump and I say please don’t stab me.”

  “Don’t be dramatic. I’m not a stabber.” She waves away my statement. “It’s too messy.”

  “Okay—let’s not talk about blind dates or stabbings. They make me equally nervous. How are you? How are the kids?”

  “Let’s just say I’m glad you called. I can’t remember the last time I got to leave them home with Giles on a Saturday. He’s probably going nuts right now. When I get back, I get to belittle his exhaustion by pointing out it’s a little taste of what I go through every second of every damn day.”

  “Those kids are angels, quit your complaining.”

  I watch for her reaction and she throws daggers at me with her eyes.

  “I will cut you where you sit,” she says.

  “You’d have to reach me first.”

  She flings her arms out over the table, but her belly doesn’t allow her to get too far. We laugh.

  “By the way—don’t forget Blair’s birthday is coming up,” she says.

  I nod. “Don’t worry, I’ll be there.”

  “Please come.” She cups her hands together. “The other moms hate me because I’m still hot.”

  “You are still hot,” I shake my head to demonstrate my disbelief. “Two kids later and pregnant. You’re a freak of nature.”

  The waiter takes our order and as he heads away, I see a blond man walk past our table. I recognize the haircut, the build of the shoulders.

  “Leo?” I burst out from surprise.

  The man’s head snaps in my direction. It isn’t Leo. It’s a much older man; he doesn’t even resemble him. I look away, pretending I didn’t call out for his attention.