Stuck On Them Novel – Paige POV Midtown Manhattan on a Friday night was nuts, and I’d never been so simultaneously giddy and anxious. There was something about all the different people and the noise that made me feel alive. My driver skillfully navigated us through the streets, past hordes of pedestrians and vehicles. We turned into the entrance of the hotel and a man in a suit opened my door for me and got my bag out of the back. I didn’t know what Nora was thinking booking one of the most opulent hotels in the city for me. When I made it into the lobby through the biggest glass and gold doors I’d ever seen, I stepped into a different world. There were so many twinkling chandeliers and golden columns that I almost needed my sunglasses. It felt like everyone was staring at me as I walked to the check-in desk in my jeans and an oversized t-shirt. People were dressed in business attire, and I looked like something the cat dragged in.
After checking in, I found my room and immediately went to stare out the window at the city below. It was so much different from the view of a brick wall out of my apartment’s tiny window that was just big enough to escape out of. My phone buzzed for what felt like the hundredth time, and I sighed as I sat in an armchair and opened my messages. Daniel had called me at least ten times since last week and texted me ten times as much. “Don’t do it, Paige. Don’t you dare,” I muttered with my thumb poised over Daniel’s name. I’d packed my bags and left while he was at work. Most of the furniture in our shared house he had already, but I left a few things behind like my wall of books and things I never used. A few boxes went to the storage unit I had gotten before I’d moved in with him, and that was that. He hadn’t bothered to check on me when I no-showed to work and only cared when he got home to find me and my stuff gone. The prick should have cared the second I found out he was cheating, but instead, he’d taken my silence as acceptance.
What did he think would happen? My willpower evaporated, and I pressed his name, pulling up the string of one-sided messages over the past week. I skimmed through them, most just repeating the same thing. Daniel:Where are you? Call me. Daniel:You can’t just leave and not tell me when you’ll be back. Daniel:Are you moving out? Daniel: You quit? What, Paige? You’re blowing this way out of proportion. Me:I’ve moved. I didn’t have time to pack my books. I will send Nora to get them at your earliest convenience. I didn’t expect him to answer back immediately since he was most likely still working at the law firm he worked at with his father—the same law firm where I’d met him and fallen for his charms. There was no way I could show my face there again after breaking up with him. Especially if the woman he cheated with was still working there. My phone buzzed several times, and I was almost too scared to look. Daniel had always had a quiet calmness about him, but with all the texts and messages, I’d say his calmness was long gone. Daniel:We’re getting married in two months.
Me:Definitely knot. Ha. Get it? We won’t be tying the knot. Daniel:Don’t make jokes. Come home so we can deal with this like adults. People make mistakes. Me:Should have thought about the consequences before you drilled someone else. Besides, what did you say? Oh, that’s right, I’m too “vanilla.” I’ll show you vanilla. I stood, going to my bag and flinging it open. Things had been weird between us for the past few months, but I just thought it was a combination of wedding and work stress. It hurt to know it was because of his perceived boredom in the bedroom. There had been no sign he was bored with ou life. Granted, we had a total of three basic positions we rotated through, but he was the one that initiated them, and maybe if he’d been better with preparation, it would have naturally progressed to more adventurous. Or he could have just talked to me. Daniel:What do you mean you’ll show me vanilla? I shouldn’t have said that… I was upset. We can fix it. Me:It’s over. I’m getting ready to go out. Have a lovely evening. He tried calling me, but I rejected the call. I didn’t know how I could make it any clearer to him we were over. We had been the second he started sleeping with someone else.
Who knew how many other women there’d been? My stomach turned in disgust, and I grabbed a pair of underwear and a nightshirt from my bag. Staring down at them, I thought about what Nora had said about an climax relaxing and clearing my mind. Shutting my eyes, I tried to relax my shoulders that were bunched up by my ears. Could I go on the prowl and find a man? I’d never been hit on in a bar or club before, but I also had never gone out alone or intending to find a one-night stand. I’d always gone with a group. If I was safe, it would be fine. Nora did it all the time. The odds of me finding someone to hook up with were slim, but I dug to the bottom of my suitcase and pulled out a blush pink cap-sleeved dress with a purple and green floral design. It had a deep V neckline, an A-line skirt that went to just above the knee, and a fitted waist. It was the flirtiest thing I owned, and there was a small sliver of satisfaction knowing Daniel hated it. With butterflies swirling in my stomach, I went into the bathroom to get ready. It might be a complete waste of time, but the alternative was moping in my hotel room and thinking every noise was a rat. What trouble could come from a little fun?
Ryker POV Friday nights were both the best and worst nights to go out. On one hand, there were a lot of opportunities to find a woman, but that also increased our chances of being recognized. As we walked into the Diamond Lounge at The Bella Grand Hotel, we split up—Luca and Garrett heading to the far end of the bar and me to the other. If any of us were going to be recognized and draw attention, it would be Luca since his family owned The Bella Grand along with other locations across the world. The bar was busy, but there were still seats since there was a lull between the happy hour crowd and the late-night partiers. With dark wood and strategic lighting, the atmosphere was the perfect romantic backdrop. I slid onto a barstool next to a pair of blondes who were both drinking something pink. I nodded to the bartender, who nodded back, acknowledging he was getting me my usual. The two women looked over at me and then whispered to each other, giggling. Giggling wasn’t really my thing, but they were both attractive. Until the one next to me spoke. “Hi, I’m Sarah. This is Megan.” Her voice was nasally, and I knew without a doubt it would be an killer. “What’s your name, daddy?” The urge to roll my eyes was so strong I had to look away. Garrett met my gaze and subtly shook his head.
Luca was laughing into his whiskey glass, obviously having heard her say the word daddy. The whole bar practically had. I looked back at the women, who were both smiling at me. “I’m not your daddy.” I grabbed the drink the bartender had just put down and slid over to the empty barstool next to me. Both women scoffed and pinned me with dirty looks before the one named Sarah turned to give me her back. Shaking my head, I picked up my bourbon and took a drink while scanning the room. I felt out of practice since I’d been using an exclusive dating app for hookups for the past year. In a way, it was cut and dry with what both parties wanted, and an added benefit was the non-disclosure agreement automatically in place. It wasn’t the same as meeting someone in the wild, though. On the app, there was very little flirting, no anticipation, and only physical attraction. So far, the bar wasn’t much better thanks to the giggling blondes. Someone gently touched my elbow, and I turned my head back in the direction of the blonde, ready to make it abundantly clear I wasn’t interested. She might have been attractive, but I was bored with carbon copies of the same woman. “Is this seat taken?” A woman with brown hair smiled sheepishly, her cheeks tinged pink. “It’s not.” I glanced at her mouth, unable to resist as she bit into her bottom lip.
“It’s all yours.” Tucking her hair behind her ear, she scooted the stool out, turning her body toward me as she sat. Her knees brushed against my thigh as she swiveled forward, and my skin tingled with awareness. She drummed her fingernails against the bar and then reached forward to grab the drink menu. “What’s good?” “You can’t go wrong with any of the drinks here.” I swiveled in her direction, one of my knees settling against the side of her leg. She didn’t move away from the touch, but her hands subtly tightened on the menu and she looked over at my glass. “What are you drinking?” “Bourbon.” She scrunched her nose, and I scooted my drink toward her and reached over the bar to grab a cocktail straw. “Try it.” “Out of your glass?” She took the straw from me and put it in the amber liquid. “What if you have cooties?” “What if you do?” I put my hand on the back of her chair and leaned in to whisper in her ear. “If I have it my way, the last thing on your mind will be my cooties.”
Her skin broke out in goosebumps as I brushed my lips just under her ear before returning to my space. It was a bold move, but if I wanted this to happen, I couldn’t tiptoe around what I wanted. She stayed silent and nodded as she swirled the straw. She put her finger over the end of it and lifted it from the glass, placing it in her mouth. My manhood stirred as her pink lips closed around it, and she met my eyes as she removed her finger. Her hazel eyes dilated, and she slowly pulled the straw out, her cheeks hollowing as she sucked the liquid from it. Heat spread down my spine as I imagined her doing that to me. “Was that good for you?” I moved my hand off the back of her stool and trailed my knuckles down her arm. “It was.” Her face twisted a bit, and she coughed. I chuckled and gestured for the bartender to bring me two more. “It gets smoother the more you drink it.” She brought a hand to her throat. “Wow. That’s strong enough to grow some hair on your chest.” “Oh, yeah? You have experience with that?” The juxtaposition between what she’d just done to the straw and what came out of her mouth was amusing. I grabbed my glass and tried to hide my smile as I took a drink.
“And if I do? Body hair is natural. You wouldn’t let a random papilla hair distract you from the goods, would you?” I choked on my drink, and my eyes watered as the beverage went down the wrong pipe. I didn’t even have to look across the bar to know Luca and Garrett were laughing their asses off; I could hear them. She slapped my back a few times before rubbing it in circles. “Oh, God. I can’t believe I said that. That is not cute. Not cute at all.” Sensing she was about to flee, I mustered up the strength to speak. “Do you have papilla hair?” I asked in a strangled voice. Her hand left my back to my dismay, and she covered her face. “I’m horrible at this.” The bartender put our fresh drinks in front of us, including a glass of water. He even put ice in her bourbon to make it easier to drink. He was going to get an extra-large tip for being so observant. I gulped down some water and braved a glance at my friends. Their eyes were on us, but they were whispering to each other like two schoolgirls discussing their crushes. I raised an eyebrow and both of them subtly nodded.
My attention returned to the woman next to me, who still had her face covered. “Hey.” I trailed my fingers up her forearm to her wrist and gently circled it, pulling it away from her face. “You aren’t horrible.” She leaned closer to me. “I just brought up papilla hair to a very attractive man that I want to um… you know,” she whispered. I didn’t let go of her wrist and lowered her hand to my thigh. “Do I seem bothered by that?” Her breath hitched and she squeezed lightly. “I’ve never done this before… I mean I’ve done it, but not with someone I don’t know.” She bit her lip again and I cupped her jaw, brushing my thumb across her lip to free it. Her hand moved to my inner thigh, so close to my manhood that I could feel the heat of her skin. She might have been too innocent for what I had in store for her, but if things didn’t happen the way I wanted them to, I’d at least have her to myself for the night. “What’s your name?” I moved my hand to the side of her neck, resisting the urge to pull her closer and take her mouth with mine. She was naturally a stunner with smooth skin and wavy brown hair that made me want to bury my fingers in it as I drilled her full lips. Her eyes were so expressive, and I could tell she was turned on but a little apprehensive. “Paige.” Her voice was lower as I stroked her throat.
“What’s yours?” “Ryker, but you can call me Ry if you want.” I hoped I didn’t regret giving her my name. “Do you live here in the city, or are you just visiting?” “Here on business.” She shivered as I slowly removed my hand from her neck, my fingertips lingering. “Me too.” The lie felt bitter on my tongue, but the less she knew about me, the better. “Shall we?” I gestured to the drinks in front of us. Her hand still on my thigh, she lifted her drink and watched me over the rim as she took a drink. For never having picked up a guy before, she was doing a good job of it. I swirled my drink in my glass and then gulped it down, ready to get this show on the road. And what a show it would hopefully be. — Paige And now there we were, after some flirting and not-so-subtle conversation, heading up to his room. Was this how it was supposed to go? From the first moment of contact to now, it couldn’t have been more than fifteen or twenty minutes.
There was maybe a one percent chance he was a serial killer, and I was just another one of his victims. He had an unwavering confidence and charisma I’d never encountered before. I didn’t know how else to explain how I’d ended up on his arm so easily. “I’m in one of the executive rooms on the fortieth floor.” Ryker laced his fingers with mine as we walked toward the exit. His grip was strong but gentle, reassuring me as we made our way to the door. I trailed behind slightly and tugged on his hand, looking back over my shoulder at the bar. “Don’t we need to pay?” “He’ll charge it to my room.” He fell into step beside me and let go of my hand, opting to put his hand around my waist and pull me against his side. I leaned into him, our strides syncing together in a comfortable rhythm. There were so many questions I wanted to ask him, but we were headed upstairs to have relationship and I didn’t want to kill the mood. Although, if my papillae hair word vomit didn’t scare him off, asking him what he did for a living and where he was from probably wouldn’t. I should have asked Nora what the typical protocol was for hookups. Was I supposed to give him my number when we finished? Did I spend the night?
Were we supposed to discuss what we liked and didn’t like first? Even without those worries, I had the unease of wondering if there might be something wrong with me in the bedroom. I hadn’t had slept with my ex for at least six weeks before I caught him with someone else, and even before then, it wasn’t anything to shout about from the mountaintops. We walked past the bank of elevators to a small reception area with a security guard at the desk. He smiled at me and Ryker and then a large ornate door next to him automatically opened. The door led to a sitting area with leather couches and chairs, and a massive chandelier hanging in the center. We approached a bank of four elevators, their golden doors gleaming. I gulped as my chest tightened and my palms started to sweat. “Wow, this is fancy.” I looked at each of the elevators since the one he scanned his card for was taking its sweet time. “Can’t we use one of the other ones?”
“The other three go to the penthouse floors. This goes to the two executive levels.” He brushed his lips against the shell of my ear. “You’re trembling.” I blew out a shaky breath. “What if-” I was saved from the embarrassment of confessing my worries by the elevator sliding open with a ding. He led me inside and before I could get more nervous, he had me against the cool mirrored wall, his lips meeting mine for the first time. His peck was gentler than expected, and I slid my hands from where they’d landed on his biceps to his waist. My touch was the catalyst he needed to dig his fingers into my hair and tilt my head to deepen the peck. I didn’t think I’d ever been pecked with so much passion. I opened my mouth when his tongue pressed against my lips. There was no going back now. All of my nerves went out the window, and I was left with a burning ache between my legs. If his peck was any indication of his skills in the bedroom, by the end of the night I was going to forget all about my show of a life. He broke the peck and I groaned, not wanting to stop, but also grateful for the break to breathe. His lips traveled down my jaw to my neck, and my body thrummed in appreciation. “The elevator.” I gasped as he nipped at my sensitive skin. “Room.” “Mm.” He didn’t reach for the elevator button.
Instead, he lifted me, my legs wrapping around him of their own accord. My purse slid off my shoulder and hit the floor, but all of my thoughts were on how soft his sweater felt on my thighs and his hands on my hip. The elevator doors started to close but then popped back open as two men walked in. I attempted to unwrap myself from Ryker, but he held me tighter, “What floor do you two need?” A man with tattoos covering his forearms and running under his rolled-up sleeves pressed a button and the doors slid closed. “Forty.” Ryker pecked me again, distracting me momentarily from the fact that we had an audience. Heat raced across every inch of my skin, not just from feeling the warmth of his body through my increasingly wet panties, but from the eyes I knew were on us. One of his hands let me go, but I didn’t attempt to escape again. I was too far gone with my lust to care about our very blatant PDA. My thighs squeezed around him as he kneaded my chest through my dress. He pecked down to my neck again, and I opened my eyes to find the two men watching us with lust-filled gazes.
I’d never felt so uninhibited and desired in all my life. Ryker moved up to suck my earlobe, his warm breath tickling my skin as he breathed heavily. “Do you want me to stop?” His fingers brushed the swell of my chest at the V of my neckline. “Don’t stop.” The elevator was just about to its destination, so how much further could it really get? I quickly got my answer when Ryker pulled the top of my dress and bra down and took my papillae into his mouth. The man without the tattoos on his arms brought his hand to his lips, rubbing his bottom one with his index finger as he watched. Was I into this? My body certainly was as my hunger ratcheted up another notch, my core aching to be touched. The elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open. Both men hesitated for a moment before stepping out. Tattoo man looked back over his shoulder and gave me a smoldering look and wink before the doors shut. “Oh, God,” I moaned. I’d been holding it in the whole minute we’d been in the elevator. “What just happened?” The elevator ride to the next floor was short, and Ryker put my dress back in place and lowered my legs to the ground.
“I hope that was okay. I couldn’t wait to get my hands and mouth on you.” He picked up my purse before guiding me out of the elevator with his hand on the small of my back and down the hall to his room. I didn’t speak because I wasn’t sure how I felt about what had just transpired. I’d never been big on pecking and showing affection in public, but had that just been because of the men I’d been with? “Paige?” Ryker opened his door, stepping to the side to let me enter. “That didn’t cross a boundary for you, did it?” I trailed my hand across his chest as I walked past. “No. I kind of liked it. We got lucky they didn’t pull out their phones and record.” The room was double the size of a typical hotel room with a sitting area and a small dinette area. The king-sized bed looked like a dream, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. Two sides of the room were floor-to-ceiling windows with views that made my heart flutter. Momentarily forgetting the wetness between my thighs and the man who caused it, I went to a window overlooking Central Park. “This is breathtaking.” After growing up without a lot of money and then focusing on school and my career, I hadn’t had the time or money to travel yet, but this was my sign to start. It was everything like the pictures I’d seen, yet nothing like them at the same time.
I felt so small compared to the spread of lights reaching into the horizon. Ryker stood behind me and wrapped one arm around my upper chest and the other around my waist, leaning his head against the side of mine. With heels, my five-foot-eight-inch frame was only a few inches shorter than his. “You’re breathtaking.” His hand grabbed a handful of my dress, slowly easing it up. “I want to see how wet you are for me.” He slipped a finger under the side of my panties and groaned against my neck. “Paige. You’re soaked. Is all of this for me or is some of it for the two men in the elevator?” At the mention of the onlookers, my thighs squeezed together, trapping his hand. I couldn’t control it, and with this man, I didn’t want to. “For all three.” His finger ran up and down my slit, teasing me with a promise of what was to come. “We could have stopped the elevator.” I bit my lip and put a hand against the window, bracing myself. “And then what?” He peppered pecks underneath my ear. “I would have turned you just like this against the mirrored wall so they could watch me finger drill you.”
Two fingers plunged in, and I gasped, my legs squeezing even tighter as he bit down on my ear. There were no languid strokes or teasing; he thrust into me like he was using his manhood. I could hear how wet I was, and that only turned me on more. “Oh, God. Please, Ryker.” I had to put my other hand on the window to steady myself. He met my eyes in the reflection on the window. “Are you imagining them watching us? How turned on they’d be from hearing how wet you are?” I could picture everything in my mind. The man with the tattoos leaning back against the wall and adjusting himself. The other man showed no emotion on his face besides his darkened eyes and the bulge in his pants. They couldn’t take their eyes off us. The tingling sensation of an cherry rippled down my spine and my cherry burned with the need for more stimulation than the occasional press of his palm. “I’m almost… there.” His fingers slowed and my knees nearly gave out.
“Your climax belongs to them just as much as to me.” “What?” My chest heaved and I briefly considered reaching between my legs and rubbing my cherry. “Do you want them to watch you come on my hand?” He removed his hand that had been locked against my chest and turned my head, so I was looking at him. “Do you want to let them watch us intercourse?” Oh. My. God. My lips parted but nothing came out. Was he for real? Was I actually considering the idea? “But… what? How?” I craned my neck to look past him at the door where I could see a sliver of light from the hallway peeking in. He hadn’t shut the door. “Ryker…”