Chapter One

Jordan

If a picture was worth a thousand words, any image of Chloe was worth at least double that. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, as she worked at the desk in our hotel suit.

Her hair was swept into the same messy braid she put in before we got on the plane from Salt Lake to L.A. this morning, and loose tendrils of black hair with blond roots cured around her long neck.

She was one of my favorite subjects to draw, and had been since I met her more than a decade ago. Smutty fan art didn’t hold a candle to Chloe in any way.

A knot formed in my chest at the thought. We needed to fix things on this trip. Whatever else happened, business, pleasure, sight-seeing… She and I needed to fix whatever the rift was between us.

“If you draw a picture it’ll last longer.” She didn’t look up from the last minute prep she was doing on her laptop, but teasing lay under her words.

That was a better response than I expected, I’d take it. “I thought you liked to be watched.” I’d keep the mood like as long as I could.

She’d seemed… off since we left the apartment this morning. Not angry, but not quite here. “I do, I’m just…”

Then again, it felt like that more and more in recent months. We’d been dating for more than ten years, and here at E3–one of the largest trade shows in the world for video game companies—for almost as long.

But this was the first year it felt like Chloe and I were falling apart.

Or maybe we’d never noticed the cracks in our foundation before. I wouldn’t—couldn’t —believe that. “What’s on your mind?” I crossed the room to brush her hair aside and dance my fingers up her neck.

Even though this trip was business, we’d agreed that while we were we’d take a little time for ourselves, to figure out where we wanted to go next as a couple. Even a hint that I might lose her hurt like fuck, but that hadn’t brought me any closer to figuring out what was at the heart of one spat after another.

Maybe she was just sick of me putting the toilet paper on the roll in the wrong direction, but I suspected there was ore to it.

She leaned into my touch with a light sigh, tilting her head enough that I saw a ghost of a smile on her gorgeous lips. “Nothing’s wrong. But everything is. I can’t stop thinking about everything this weekend, running it all through my head, looking for possible failure points, figuring out what we need to do to fix them. There’s just too much—”

“Stop,” I said kindly. This was a tension I could deal with. “We’ve got this. We always have this. No one is better at this than you and me.”

This show was a huge deal for any video game company, but Rinslet Enterprises had turned it into a ritual. Chloe and I had turned it into a ritual.

Years ago, when our employer had a different company name, a presentation gone bad led to a hostile takeover that cost us our flagship game and intellectual property.

Our owners rebuilt from the ground up, taking those of us with them who were loyal to the people not the money, and the next year, Chloe and I spoofed the failed presentation here, as a way to announce to the world Rinslet was back and better than ever.

Since then, we were expected to have a better showing every year than the year before. We’d tried to ease off a few times, but the industry wasn’t having it.

This year, it was our turn to deliver again. Chloe and I would be in the spotlight and reminding the world how epic our titles were. Our presentation was solid and rehearsed dozens of time. Stressing about it now wouldn’t make things go more smoothly.

I wouldn’t tell Chloe chill, we’ve got this, but I was happy to distract her. I dipped my head and kissed along the soft skin of her neck, loving the way her chest heaved with a sudden breath. The faint honey of her shampoo teased my thoughts.

“I know the perfect way to take your mind off things,” I murmured against her skin.

Her soft moan and the curve of her neck when she leaned into my touch made my blood roar with anticipation and tugged at my cock.

“What did you have in mind?” She asked breathlessly.

So many things. Words were her medium, the visual was mine, but I could dabble enough to draw her into a fantasy A little verbal foreplay with some interactive teasing.

“What do you think of the new sales rep at DM?” As I spoke, nibbled on her earlobe.

Most people wouldn’t open a seduction talking about someone else, but some of our favorite fantasies involved a third person in bed with us. We’d never done it. Unlike our public personas, unlike most of the people we’d worked with from the start, we’d only ever been with each other, but the verbal play was a fun alternate universe.

“Can’t say I’ve talked to him long enough to form an opinion.” Her tone was light and playful, but her words implied her mind was still working.

I gilded my fingers along her collarbone to dip between her breasts and tease. “He’s handsome. Kind of cocky, but I bet he’s half talk.”

“Rumor is, he’s coming off a bad divorce.” Chloe’s response wasn’t as enthusiastic as I’d hoped for.

I wasn’t giving up, though. Desire coursed through me each time I touched her. Heard her voice. Tasted her. At least one of us was distracted. “Which means he’s single.”

“Yeah, but I’m not.” She pulled away from me with a sigh.

One of the little hearts on my mental life bar flickered and vanished. I kept my hand on her shoulder, tracing my thumb over the exposed skin. “Of course not. You and me, forever.”

She stood as she turned to face me, breaking all contact between us as she crossed her arms and settled her butt on the hotel desk. “I’m just wondering if you were thinking we—you and I—might have sex, oh, any time in the near future, without you needing to think about someone else in order to get off.”

“The fuck?” I stared at her in disbelief and raced to catch up with the accusation. Why was she putting this entire thing on me? We’d both always been willing participants in the let’s share with someone else fantasy. Unless she’d been lying about it all this time. “You know I’m here with you.” I couldn’t unclench my jaw when I spoke

“Do I?”

Seriously? “Where the hell is this coming from?” I was fine with talking through our problems, but an accusation out of left field? No.

Chloe dragged her fingers through her hair, growling in frustration when they snagged on braid. “I don’t know. It’s been there for a while.”

Wonderful. How long was for a while? At least this argument was different from any other we had. “You should’ve said something.”

“Maybe I didn’t think I should have to. Why would this be okay?”

This—me being expected to read her mind—wasn’t okay in any way. “Because you’ve said it is. Over and over, for years, you’ve said you enjoy the naughtiness in the daydream.”

“What if I want something else?”

“Then tell me.”

“What if it’s boring and simple? What if it’s something like just the two of us being here, with each other, and without needing someone else as stimulus. Or what if it’s that I’m tired of pretending that my boyfriend, Mr. Master-of-Tentacle-Porn, is anyone other than a guy who’s ever only seen one pair of tits in person.”

I ground my teeth so hard I felt it in my ears. That was hitting below the belt. And two completely contradictory statements. Did she want more kink or less? I was slipping from where did this come from to what the hell are we talking about real fast. “Sorry to be so hands-on boring. Which do you want? Sex that’s just us, or something wild and crazy and real-life kinky?”

“I don’t know.” Her sigh radiated frustration and mingled with my own. “I just know whatever we’re doing now isn’t working.” She brushed past me.

I grabbed her arm and forced her to face me. “We don’t walk away from each other. Not like this. We talk things through.”

Except, apparently what we actually did was pretend to talk things through, leaving me thinking everything was fine with Chloe let the wound fester.

“Talking is all we do. We talk and talk and talk and talk,” she said.

“And fuck. And have fun. And enjoy each other’s company. And make an amazing team. How is that not enough for you?”

She yanked away from me. “It’s not. I’m sorry, but… I can’t be here right now.”

I twitched my fingers as I watched her walk out of the room, and barely checked the desire to say anything to have the last word. I didn’t have a response. I didn’t know which frustration that she’d voiced was the one I needed to focus on.

And if she was so insistent on ending the conversation, I didn’t have anything new to say if I chased her down.

The door closed behind her, closing me off from her.

She’d never done that before. More than a decade together and neither of us had ever walked away in the middle of a disagreement.

Fuuuuuuuck. The scream echoed in my head, clawing to be released.

This’d give people something to talk about when it came to Rinslet and E3. Media Darlings Jordan and Chloe Finished?

Chloe couldn’t write a more viral headline than that.

To be continued…

~*~

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