by Parker, Ali
Blake brought one of his hands to my head and pulled me down, bringing my lips to his. He nipped at my bottom lip when his eyes suddenly glazed over. He started shaking, moaning loudly.
His orgasm poured into me, and I felt his cock twitching deep inside me. It was the most exquisite feeling, catapulting me into an orgasm that exploded through my body like a firework. Pleasure sparked in each and every part of my nerve endings, lighting a fire that lit me up from the inside out.
It felt like it lasted seconds and hours all at the same time. I didn’t know how long it took us before we started catching our breath, but when I came to again, he pulled me into a long, deep kiss and looked at me, concern coloring his eyes. “You okay? I’m sorry I lost control a little towards the end. I couldn’t help it.”
I set his mind at ease by wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling him in for another kiss. “I’ve never been better. Seriously. That was awesome. I think I’m going to become addicted to that feeling.”
“Happy to be of service anytime.” Blake grinned and gently rolled us over so we separated. He bent down to smack a playful kiss to my lips. “Let me take care of this, I’ll be right back,” he said, referring to the condom.
“Okay.” He was gone just a moment, then he jumped back into bed with me. I rolled onto my stomach, resting my head on his chest and staring out over the dark balcony. Reality was creeping its way back into my consciousness.
I hated to shatter the moment between us, but the words were out before I could even think about holding them back. “What am I going to do about the cuts?”
“I’ll help you, but we’ll start first thing tomorrow. For tonight, I just want to fall asleep with you. Let’s worry about tomorrow, tomorrow, okay?”
I released a contented sigh, snuggling against his warm skin. “Deal.”
Chapter 19
Blake
The first rays of sunshine crept over the horizon when I opened my eyes. I blinked, catching sight of a sea of auburn spread out on the white pillow beside me. Aston.
My lips curled into a smile. She was still here. I half expected to wake up to find her gone. In the heat of the moment, I worried she would regret what happened as soon as it was over.
But she looked serene in her sleep. A soft smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, causing the slits on her eyes to curve up.
Christ, she was fucking gorgeous. I made it a rule not to be with virgins, but I couldn’t resist her. I nearly started crying when she told me, sure she was going to put a stop to things. I really hadn’t expected her to ask me to be the one to do it, but I felt strangely honored that she placed that amount of trust in me.
Today, it was time to return the favor. I was going to do everything in my power to help her raise the branch’s numbers. I wanted California to do well. To be on top. For her. Because I knew what it meant to her.
Burrowing my head into the pillow, I watched her sleeping form. I didn’t generally go for sleepovers. Then again, I usually had to run to my next flight.
With Aston it was different. I liked having her here. I liked waking up to her sleeping beside me. But that was probably just because I liked her in general. She was a phenomenal woman. Beautiful, smart, funny, confident. The full package.
When she stirred, I rolled out of bed and fixed two cups of coffee after pulling on my underwear. As the aroma of the fresh coffee spread through the room, Aston woke up.
A shy smile spread across her face when she saw me and she arranged the sheet so she was fully covered. “Good morning. Please tell me that is coffee I’m smelling.”
I held up the two mugs. “Am I your hero?”
Giggling, she nodded. “Coffee and orgasms? What more could a girl ask for?”
My head tilted as I pretended to think. “To wake up in Paris?”
“Good point,” she laughed. “But you’ve just removed yourself from hero status.”
“Damn.” I carried the coffee over to the bed and handed her a mug. “At least I made the list for possible hero status.”
“Better luck next time,” she smiled, sipping her coffee. “So, almost hero, we have work to do. You promised you would help, so where do we start?”
“With a shower,” I told her. Seeing the look of disbelief on her face, I grinned. “I can’t think before coffee and a shower.”
The light streaming into the bedroom hit her in a way that made her look almost angelic. For a second, I considered going for round number three but she was right. We had too much work to do.
“Another good point,” she said, taking a big gulp of coffee. “I’ll have to go get changed at home and meet you back here.”
“Sure thing. Give me a buzz when you get back and I’ll meet you in the lobby.” Aston finished her coffee and went home to get dressed for work. After I showered and did the same thing, I went over the list of ideas I had for the branch and started prioritizing them in my head.
About two hours later, I got a call from Aston, summoning me downstairs. She looked radiant when I walked into the lobby. A surge of pride hit me right in the gut, because I was taking credit for some of that radiance after the night we had together.
Her damp hair fell in loose waves past her shoulders. She wore another black dress, as she was required to do for work, but this one was short and flowing, and showed just enough cleavage to get my blood pumping again.
Later. I promised myself. For now, I had to get my head in the game. And I would, just as soon as I let her know where my head was at right now. “You look good enough to eat.”
And fuck if I didn’t want to do just that. Blood rushed to her cheeks. “Thank you.”
I could fucking kick myself for not getting a taste of her while I had the chance to do it, but I was too desperate to get inside her and I hadn’t had the heart to deny her when that was all it seemed she wanted. There would be a next time though. I would make sure of that. And then I would get my taste.
But I couldn’t keep thinking about it now. “Are you ready to get started?”
“I’m ready when you are. Should we go to my office?” Without waiting for me to reply, she started turning and curled a finger for me to follow her into the back.
We rounded the front desk, drawing a curious glance from Tiffany. Aston waved her off and pushed through the doors that lead to the staff area.
We walked down a narrow passage with grey carpeted walls. There was nothing opulent about this part of the building. It had grey walls and rectangular lights that hummed with electricity overhead.
Aston stopped at the door about halfway down and produced a single key on a keyring with a small teddy bear on it. “This is it. Be prepared. It’s not exactly big.”
I already knew that. We tried to ensure that the staff was comfortable, but hotels were hotels and the majority of the space belonged to the guests.
“Don’t worry about me. At least you have an office. I have a laptop bag on the plane.”
She cocked head. “You have your own plane?”
“You know what I mean.” Well, the company had its own plane. But it wasn’t mine and since I never used it, I didn’t feel the need to clarify.
Aston unlocked the door to her office and let me inside. It really was small. Plain and simple, with no clutter or heaps of photographs on the walls.
She sat down behind a desk and motioned for me to have a seat too, then she fired up her computer and looked at me expectantly. “Well?”
“We need to start by looking at ways to draw in more customers. Pictures on social media, ads in local papers, running promotions on longer stays and organizing a couple of events that we can pull together quickly to attract people are some of the things we need to get started immediately. The sooner the better.”
Aston’s eyes narrowed. “How much sooner?”
“Within the next couple of days.” It was a big ask, but we had reinforcements in the staff and frankly, no other choice. As it was, this was a ‘Hail Mary’ pass on my part. If we di
dn’t get this done, the jobs in California were on the chopping block.
“Okay. I’ll organize a staff meeting later today and get all hands on deck, but we may still need more than a couple of days to pull together and advertise even one event,” she said. I liked that she wasn’t being overly optimistic or pretending that this was going to be a breeze. She was being realistic and wasn’t making promises to try and impress me, even though she now knew I was a stockholder.
“What else do we need to do?” She jotted down a few notes on a pad in front of her, then looked up at me again. I also liked that she used an actual notepad to make notes, and not the app on her phone or computer. It was turning out that I liked pretty much everything about this woman.
Focus, Blake. “The furniture in the lobby is outdated. We need to—”
“I’m already on that. I’ve had some new couches delivered with a few other odds and ends. We just haven’t had time to swap it out yet.”
I nodded slowly. “Couches are a start, but the lobby needs to make a statement and the one that it’s making right now isn’t helping.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that we need to speak to some of your colleagues to ask them to stay late or come in early so we have enough hands to make the changes that need to be made.”
She made another note. “Done. I’m sure we’ll get enough volunteers. People want to help if it means saving their jobs.”
“We can hope.” Because without their help, we were dead in the water. “We need to change things around in the lobby to make it look new and inviting. Fresh.”
Again she jotted down what I said, but then she looked at me questioningly. “How do you know so much about all this stuff?”
“We don’t really have time to talk about me right now. Just trust me, can you do that?”
She paused, but then nodded. Biting her lip, she looked down at her notes. “I think we’ve established that I trust you.”
“Yeah, I guess we have.”
“Right. Okay. I’ll send out the email about the staff meeting now.” She wheeled her chair closer to her computer and started tapping away at the keys. “What’s next?”
“We’re going to need temporary signage out front. Advertise stays at the hotel, meals at the restaurant. Anything you can think of to draw the attention of people passing or driving by.” Marketing was really more Danny’s strong point than mine, but I’d put in some calls and gotten a few ideas we could get started on immediately.
“Our budget is going to be tight. We didn’t have much money allocated to this kind of thing to begin with, never mind the kind of drive you’re talking about right now.”
Shit. Of course this was going to come up. “Don’t worry about that. Let me take care of it.”
She gave me a strange look but didn’t ask any questions, even though I could see she had many and desperately wanted to. “Okay, but later we talk about you. Deal?”
Chapter 20
Aston
Blake and I walked around the lobby. Every so often, he would point out something we needed to do or change. Being the dutiful manager I was, I noted down all of his suggestions in the spiral notebook I used to manage and document staff meetings.
He was pointing at a flower arrangement, telling me we should look into cutting costs by ditching the fresh flowers we had delivered weekly. But I’d already made a note of it. I would bring it up at the meeting later.
I couldn’t really concentrate on what he was saying anymore. Not because he didn’t have good ideas or because I didn’t appreciate his help, but because I was too wrapped up with second guessing myself and the choices I’d made.
While I didn’t regret sleeping with him, I was really starting to question what exactly it was he did at this point. Whenever we talked about it, he was intentionally vague. A finance guy who did quality assurance when he had to, that was how he explained it to me on our first date.
Back then, he explained the ins and outs of his job and I didn’t question him. I wanted to, but in hindsight realized he always changed the topic back to me. I chalked it up to the fact that he thought talking about his job would be boring and since we were literally at my job on said first date, it made sense to talk about mine. About the hotel.
I was starting to wonder if it was really all that simple though. A finance guy who did quality assurance on the side wouldn’t know this much about the hotel business. He wouldn’t have so many ideas for marketing and drawing in guests, and he certainly wouldn’t be spending so much time helping me improve numbers I didn’t even realize were quite so dire to begin with.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one getting suspicious. Tiffany approached us earlier and was helping move things around in the lobby. My ears perked when I heard her confront him. “What did you say it was you did for a living again? You sure know a lot about the hotel industry.”
“I just want to help.” It felt like that was his standard response. That and ‘I want to get to know you.’ More recently, he’d added ‘just trust me’ to his repertoire. For some inexplicable reason, I did trust him.
Hell, he was officially the only person on earth who had intimate knowledge of my damn vagina. But this wasn’t about trust.
It was about the undeniable knowledge that despite what I’d done with him, there was a lot about the man I didn’t know. He promised we would talk later, but I wasn’t sure I could wait.
Blake shrugged in response to Tiffany’s question. “I practically live in hotels, and business is business. At the very heart of things, most industries are fundamentally alike.”
“I disagree.” Tiffany flipped her hair over her shoulder and followed him when he tried to walk away, presumably to the next piece of furniture he wanted to move just so. Or maybe to finally move the rack of pamphlets advertising local attractions. He mentioned wanting to move it closer to the door earlier. “You know too much about this industry for it to be just because business is business. As for living in hotels, most of our guests are frequent flyer businessmen. None have ever offered to help us like this.”
“Maybe it’s because none of them have been here when the company announced some pretty big changes were coming,” he replied dryly, heading over to the pamphlet rack. Tiffany followed, and so did I.
“Maybe.” She didn’t look convinced, and sure enough, she stuck to her guns. “But I think it’s more than that.”
Buzzing sounded from Blake’s pocket. Deftly, he pulled out his phone and motioned for us to give him a minute. Frustration and exasperation mingled on his features when he checked the caller id. “This better not be about Dustin.”
I only heard his strange greeting to whoever was on the other end of the line before he walked out of earshot. Tiffany mumbled beside me. “Saved by the bell.”
“Would you ease up on him?” I was dying to hear his answers to her questions, but above all else he was still a guest at our hotel and she was being rude. “He’s just trying to help.”
“So he keeps saying,” she mused, narrowing her eyes on his back where he stood facing the windows at the far end of the lobby. “Wanna pretend we’re moving that couch next to him so we can hear what your mysterious guy is up to?”
“He’s not my guy,” I protested. “And no, we’re not eavesdropping.”
She shot me a look. “Why not? We have a much better chance to learn something real about him from hearing that conversation then by having one of our own with him.”
“Maybe, or maybe we’ll just end up hearing one side of a conversation we can’t make sense of and piss him off in the process by listening in on a conversation he clearly doesn’t want us to overhear.”
She started for where he was standing anyway. “That’s exactly my point. He doesn’t want us to overhear it, which is why we should be trying to.”
Hurrying to catch up to her, I put my hand on her arm. “What if he gets so pissed off he stops helping us? Whether we know why he knows so much or not, he’s go
t good ideas. We need him.”
“Yeah, but why is he giving us this kind of help? And for free. People get paid a fortune to consult on jobs like this,” she argued, glancing in his direction.
He hadn’t turned around, but as if he could feel us coming he moved all the way to the corner. Away from any furniture we could’ve been pretending to move. “He told me he has stock in the company, that’s why he wants to help.”
“Stock in the company means the McAllen Group as a whole, not our branch. If we really are the smallest of the big branches, that means our numbers probably don’t even make the tiniest ripple on the kind of money the group shareholders make from the company. He still shouldn’t care this much.”
“He cares about me,” I said quietly. “That’s what he told me the other night.”
For the first time since her tirade started, Tiffany paused. “Now that makes more sense. A lot more.”
Her girly side reared its head when she leaned in closer to me. “Those are the kind of details I want more of. I can’t believe you won’t just tell me all about it.”
“I told you this morning, we’re at work. For whatever reason, Blake chose to share those numbers with me and I think we’re in real trouble. The kind of trouble that could cost us our jobs if we don’t figure it out.”
She sighed. “True. Fine, I’ll wait for the juicy details. For the record, you’re going to pay for making me wait—with very specific details. Nothing is off limits, got it?”
“Got it.” I wasn’t looking forward to it, but I also needed her to drop the subject. Right now, since Blake had turned around and looked like he was getting ready to end his call. “For now, can we please focus on using the help he’s offering to try and save jobs?”
“We can,” she agreed. “But I’m telling you, his offering to help us is about more than him having stock in the company. Caring about you makes more sense, but it still doesn’t bring all the pieces together.”