Obsessed. Obsession.
Since Rachel, I’d worked hard to make sure I never became that again. A long line of women I kept around solely for the purpose of sex was supposed to help me avoid becoming this man again. I didn’t want to be this way. Who would? What man would want to become so focused on a woman when the ending was never in doubt?
Rachel had taught me that lesson well. Devoting yourself to one woman—trusting your heart to her even when all the signs said you shouldn’t—was a mistake I never wanted to make again. Until Olivia, no woman had given me any reason to doubt I’d be able to keep that promise to myself. Each one came and went as I wished. If I enjoyed their company, they stayed around. If they became too clingy or began to act like they felt anything more than I did, I got away quickly.
Women to sleep with were plentiful, the way it should be. They gave me what I wanted, and I did the same for them. No harm, no foul. I wined and dined them, and then I fucked them. Money gave me the power to have who I wanted, and power gave me control.
And control meant I would never again feel the pain of love.
Now Olivia had invaded my thoughts, taking control of my days and nights. And me.
After staring at my bedroom ceiling for nearly an hour, I rolled over and looked at my alarm clock. 4:12. I picked up my cell phone and swiped the screen to get to my contacts. Scrolling through name after name, I finally threw the phone on the bed next to me. I didn’t want to be with anyone anyway.
How the hell had Olivia weaved herself into my brain like this? The woman wasn’t even my type. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. I already loved her reaction to me in our fantasy room. How even my touch brought out a side in her I didn’t believe existed underneath that professional woman who worked next to me. Not that I didn’t like that part of her too. Olivia was smart, sexy, and gorgeous in ways no woman I’d ever met was.
I covered my eyes with my forearm and tried to push all that out of my mind. Any other night if I couldn’t sleep, I’d just call someone and in a few minutes, insomnia would be a thing of the past, replaced by sex. It may not have been sleep, but at least it was better than staring at the ceiling or counting sheep.
Or thinking about some woman I shouldn’t even dream of touching. Again.
In less than twenty-four hours, that was exactly what I intended to do. Olivia had upped the ante by reserving a gold fantasy room. She obviously knew it was me and planned on us sleeping together. Every fiber of my being said not to do it. Don’t shit where you eat. But for every time that maxim repeated in my head, another chimed in to drown it out.
She could be the one.
As if that was something I needed or wanted to hear. There was no such thing as “the one.” That was the kind of nonsense romantic comedies traded on to convince women to accept assholes in their lives so they didn’t have to remain single. As if being single wasn’t the best goddamn part of being an adult.
I could tell myself all that until I was blue in the face, but the thought that Olivia was something special, someone I should want in my life, just wouldn’t go away. That didn’t mean I had to act like some mopey lovesick boy. All I needed to do was sleep with her and the man I’d worked so hard to become would kick in. She’d be just another one of my conquests and within a few weeks, she’d be out of my system.
That’s what had worked with every woman since Rachel, so why wouldn’t it work now? Rachel. It hadn’t necessarily worked with her. But she was different. It took more than just fucking to get a woman like her out of your system, even after she tore your fucking heart out.
I squeezed my eyes tightly and tried to push out the thoughts I knew were about to parade through my mind, but it was no use. They were there to stay just like they’d been for nearly five years. I’d tried to drink them away. I’d tried to fuck them away. Nothing worked. They were always right there in my brain making sure I never forgot what happened the one time I trusted another person.
My father, the quintessential player, would have a field day with me about this if he was still alive. Married to my mother for nearly twenty years, he fucked around more than any man I’d ever heard of. Fuck, even at the rate Stefan was going, he might never reach my father. Kane’s mother was just one of possibly dozens of women he slept with. I remembered catching him with one of them, some cheap waitress at one of his restaurants who thought he was her dream man come to rescue her from a life of drudgery and too little pay. Little did she realize he was just a cheating bastard who believed having a cock gave him carte blanche to sleep with as many woman as he could before he died.
She’d found out like all the rest of them that they were there for his pleasure alone. What they wanted or needed was irrelevant. I’d always admired my father for his ability to have whatever he wanted. That kind of power impressed me growing up. My mother never left him for his cheating, so I thought that’s what being a man meant.
Then I met Rachel and my entire world turned upside down. Nineteen and wealthier than I should have been to stay out of trouble, I fell hard for her. Drop dead gorgeous, smart, and manipulative as all fucking hell, I saw nothing but an angel sent from heaven when I looked at her. Long black hair, eyes as dark as onyx, and a desire to please me unlike any other female I’d ever met seduced me to believe she was the one for me.
And for a while she was. Against everyone’s advice, I married her a month before I turned twenty-one. She was twenty-four and in love with me. Or so I thought. While I lived each day for her, she had other plans. By the time I realized her idea of love was closer to my father’s than mine, it was too late.
I swore that night I found out the truth of who she really was I’d never spend another second thinking about anyone’s needs and desires but mine ever again. I’d lived my life by that basic principle, fulfilling my wants and not worrying about others. My cock was happy, and I enjoyed everything life had to offer.
And then Olivia showed up and all those feelings I’d pushed down for so long were back in full force. Nothing like Rachel, she somehow had gotten under my skin and made me want to know her. I never wanted to know any woman any more than how their cunts and mouths felt around my cock. Now that had all changed.
I dreaded the thought of becoming that Cassian again. That man let himself be distracted once and paid dearly for his mistake. Who was I kidding? I was still paying for it and would for a long time coming.
Reaching across the bed, I grabbed my phone and went back to scrolling through my contacts. Cheri. Rachel. Trina. Stopping on Trina’s name, I tapped on the picture of her lying naked and spread-eagled across her bed and lifted the phone to my ear. She answered seconds later without a trace of sleepiness in her sultry phone sex voice.