“Not a problem, babe. Maybe another time.”
“No. No other time,” Oleksander said.
I lingered, only taking a step or two in the direction of the couch, wanting to hear the rest of their conversation, when Oleksander turned those icy eyes on me again. “I said go sit down. Now, Sydney.”
Nothing about that should be hot, and yet it was undeniably sexy as hell. I felt the unmistakable sensation of my pussy growing wet at his command and I nodded, a lump in my throat. For once, I was speechless.
And I obediently walked back to the living room, sat down on the sofa next to a woman I didn’t know, crossed my legs, and sipped my drink.
Had I just signed myself up for a tutorial on how to be a submissive?
I watched Oleksander get right up in JJ’s face.
No. He was just alpha.
But I wasn’t sure I would object to unit one of our class being spanking.
Oleksander
“What’s your problem?” JJ asked, looking bored now that Sydney had left.
I’d been shocked she’d actually listened to me, but then when she had, I had gotten a serious hard-on. The vision of her ass had reappeared in front of me. Only this time it involved me cracking the palm of my hand on all that firm roundness to teach her a lesson about going off into bathrooms with strange men. The bathroom, for fuck’s sake.
“Stay away from Sydney.”
He shrugged. “Sure, no problem. But your jealousy is embarrassing right now.”
Now that pissed me off. I got right in JJ’s face. “Why would I be jealous when she asked me first?”
Unfortunately, JJ didn’t take the bait. He just shook his head and gave a scoff. “You need to get laid a lot more than me, Train. You’re wound really tight.”
He wasn’t wrong. “I’m sorry, man, I can’t help it. That is a girl who doesn’t know what she’s getting into, that's all.”
JJ clapped me on the shoulder. “Take her to your room and have a good time, bro. Or don’t. Do whatever you want to do. Just lighten up a little.”
There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot I could say to that. I just nodded and moved past him. I was surprised to find Sydney on the couch, talking to a woman sitting next to her. I wouldn’t have been shocked to find her hedging her bets and hitting on Cash or Miles again.
When I approached her, she stared up at me, smoothing the front of her tight dress down. If I were shorter, I would have been able to see up that short skirt, and the thought made my mouth go dry.
“Are you done yelling at your friend for no reason?” she asked, her tone reproachful.
“I had my reasons.”
“It wasn’t his fault. You’re the one who changed your mind.”
That made my jaw clench, but before I could explain the reasoning behind changing my mind, she spoke again.
“You did change your mind, right?” She tried to stand up, but the couch was low slung and her heels were too high, or she was too short, or both, but her butt barely got two inches up before she wobbled and plopped back down.
I held my hand out for her and she took it. I pulled her up with ease. She barely weighed anything.
“Thanks,” she said, breathless.
The placement of the coffee table meant I was standing close to the couch, so close that when she stood up, we were brushing against each other.
I had changed my mind in some noble-ass gesture that may or may not have made sense.
All I knew was that I was now officially her tutor.
Not exactly how I had seen tonight going.
“We need to talk,” I told her. “In private.”
“Is that code for something?” Tentatively, she reached out and put her small hands on my chest. She looked up at me under her eyelashes, unintentionally coy.
The light brush of her touch made me very aware of my extended time without sex. I covered her hands with mine and pulled them down, though I kept our fingers laced together. “No. I mean we have to talk. Let’s go to my room.”
She sighed. “This isn’t going to end well for me, is it?” She looked defeated and a little vulnerable.
I felt a wave of both tenderness and raw desire. She had no idea what was coming for her.
“This is going to end very, very well for you, I promise you that.”
Her mouth formed an “o” and her eyes widened.
“Now go tell Eloise and Dak we’re leaving and I’ll meet you by the door in a minute.” I stepped out to give her the space to move and went over to the bartender. “I need a Grey Goose and a dirty martini delivered to the room next door as soon as possible. 1601.” I pulled two one hundred dollar bills out of my pocket and passed it to him. “Make that martini extra dirty.”
“Of course, sir. We’ll have it right over.” The bartender gave his assistant a nod and reached for the vodka.
I wasn’t a big spender like JJ was, but damn, was it nice to have money. I had grown up working class and I appreciated the ease and comfort my twenty-million-dollar rookie contract had provided. I was up for free agency after the next season and I was excited for the possibilities to both play at the top of my game and to pad my bank account.
Snagging my jacket off the back of the chair where I’d tossed it, I took in the suite. There were about fifteen people there. My absence might be noticed, but no one would care. The view of Times Square from the suite was sick. Music was pounding and there was laughter, lots of conversation.
Sydney was in front of the door, pacing back and forth. “Let’s go,” I said. I opened the door and figured I had about thirty seconds before she started questioning me.
She lasted only ten.
“What did you say to JJ? I feel bad. I think I accidentally misrepresented my needs and wants to him,” she said as she walked into the hallway.
“Beckett will be fine,” I told her, shortly. We weren’t talking anymore about Beckett.
“Do you have a room in this hotel or a different one? I didn’t bring my coat.”
I swiped the key card over the room next door, thinking if she had literally waited two seconds, she wouldn’t have had to ask that. But Sydney clearly liked having all the information she could get her hands on.
“After you,” I told her as I opened the door.
She gave me a look I couldn’t interpret, pursing her lips together. Then as she walked in, she glanced back over her shoulder. “What did you want to talk about?”
That amused me. She couldn’t even wait until we were in the room. “I wanted to make sure you understand if we do this, there are going to be some parameters. Classroom rules, if that’s what you want to call them.”
“Like what?” She instantly got distracted, heading straight to the windows. “Oh, wow, you have the same view as Dak’s suite. This is so amazing, Olek.”
What was amazing was the way I felt watching her stand in front of that window. Her legs were slightly apart in that short-as-sin dress and high heels, palms and forehead pressed on the glass as she stared down to the street, and suddenly all I could think about was all the ways I could make her scream with pleasure.
I wondered what name she would choose to call me when she was coming.
Damn, I had not expected this. Not at all. But whenever I made a decision to do something, I committed myself to it one hundred percent. I had told Sydney I was in, and oh, hell, yeah, I was going to be fully fucking in. I threw my jacket over the desk chair and adjusted my cock in my pants. I didn’t have a suite like North did, but it was still an impressive room, and of course, the view made it spectacular. I’d been to Times Square at night before, but never on New Year’s Eve, and I had never seen it from this particular perspective.