by Sasha Burke
A soft smile graces her lips. “My grandfather used to say that all the time.”
“Not surprising. Never got the chance to meet the man, but he had a helluva reputation.”
“That he did,” she says proudly before the light in her eyes dim a bit. “That’s the only reason so many folks took a chance on me when I was starting out. Because I was the little granddaughter of John Davis. If not for him, there’s no way I’d even be where I am right now in this business. I’m practically the poster girl for nepotism.”
“Nothing wrong with that. I can say the same thing about me. My dad paved the way, and I’m thankful for him for it.” I shrug. “Besides, your grandfather may have opened some doors for you, but you’re the one that showed them why you deserved his backing. I remember hearing about you a long time ago. Folks talk when a girl kicks ass in the trades. Especially back then. And believe me, I heard a number of times how good you were.”
“Yes, well, I was a novelty then.” She avoids my eyes and gets up to go fiddle with some old photos of her grandfather on the fireplace mantel. “I bet the stuff you’ve heard about me recently haven’t been quite so glowing.”
It makes me pissed that she even has to deal with this crap. “That’s just your competitors trying to tear you down because you’re so good. I called around before I hired you. Your clients had nothing but praise for your work.” Well, most of them anyway.
A knowing look crosses her expression. “We both know that a few of my clients are the ones talking about me as well.”
Hell, I fucking hate gossip. Hands down one of the stupidest human traits, if you ask me. “I’m sorry you have to put up with folks talking about you behind your back.”
She lifts a dismissive shoulder. “It’s not really a big secret. I am who I am. So why hide it?”
I stare at her. Clearly, I’m missing something.
“What?” she asks, staring back at me, too.
I frown. “Are we talking about the same thing?”
“The rumors that I’m weird?”
“No, the rumors that you were your boss’s mistress in the city.”
Her jaw drops. “WHAT?!”
Shit. I shoot up from the couch. “It’s just something I happened to hear.” From a lot of friggin’ folks. “Could just be a small circulating rumor.” Yeah, not likely.
For the first time ever, Summer looks…vulnerable. Hurt. And that makes me want to beat the shit out of everyone who ever repeated the rumor. “Summer…”
“It’s not true,” she bursts out vehemently. “I don’t even know who they could possibly be talking about.”
I should just drop the subject. But I figure she has a right to know. “It was some high-rise project you did early last year.”
A repulsed shudder shakes her small frame. “Ugh. The client on that one was Chad Harrington. The guy was a jerk, and pretty sleazy if you ask me. Never did see how he had such a sweet wife.” She scowls. “Why on earth would anyone be spreading rumors about me and Harrington? I barely talked to the guy.”
Yet another instance of where her surprisingly naïve innocence worries me. “Honey,” I say gently, “from what I heard, it was your client that started the rumor.”
Her look of disgusted shock makes me wish I knew who the hell this Harrington jackass was so I could fucking ruin him.
“But…why would he do something like that? He’s married. With a kid.” Her arms wrap around her middle as if she’s literally in pain. “Do you think the rumors got back to his wife? His kid? His daughter was like ten—old enough to be damaged by this.” She looks close to tears over the thought.
Hell, she’s such a sweet, gentle thing.
Definitely fucking ruining the asshole.
“I don’t know the answer to that. All I know is that he bragged about it to a bunch of guys and…well, you know how rumors go.”
“I mean I went to dinner with him a few times, but it was just business meetings. Like the kind we have in your penthouse.” She frowns. “I guess he did get a little handsy once when he was tipsy, but I never really thought much about it because a lot of the construction guys I go drinking with get the same way.”
“Which guys?” I growl. They’re fucking fired.
She jumps. “None of them on this crew.” Her shoulders sag and she looks deflated. “Do folks really believe I’d do that? Sleep with a married man?” She looks up at me, eyes brimming with anger, humiliation. “Wait… You said ‘mistress in the city.’ Do you mean he was telling folks that he was like my…sugar daddy or something?”
I don’t want to tell her that her description is far milder than some of the rumors.
She nods at my silence. “So, my colleagues don’t just think I’m a slut, but also a whore.”
I grip her chin and grit out through my teeth, “Don’t ever fucking say that about yourself.”
She looks down. “It actually explains why I heard some guys I’ve fired in the past call me that. Just thought they were being asses. Now I know.”
Her expression is so defeated, I want to yell at the universe. Men never have to worry about shit like this. It’s fucking unfair. I know how good she is. But the fact that all three of the contractors I’d called to find out more about her lead with her ‘reputation,’ and followed up with crass jokes about how she might give me the same deal as Harrington is totally fucked up. If I’d been asking around about a male project manager, no one would even mention shit like that. And crew members would never disrespect a man for something like this.
“Oh, no,” she whispers, her gaze flying up to meet mine. “You think the guys might end up saying the same thing about us?” She backs away from me, shaking her head. “W-we should do damage control. We’ll stay away from each other as much as possible; I can get another trailer on the other side of the lot. And no more meetings outside of the jobsite.”
I glare at her like she’s out of her mind, even as I feel something in my chest tug hard over her trying to protect me. “Summer, cut it out. There’s no fucking need for any damage control.”
She freezes in place. “Oh crap! This apartment. I need to start paying you rent.” She rolls her eyes. “What the heck am I talking about, I can’t possibly afford this place. I’ll move. Asap.”
“You aren’t fucking moving,” I all but bellow.
“But what if folks—”
“It was part of your employment package,” I cut in, feeling myself unraveling at the thought of her leaving. “No one will say shit about the loft.” I know that’s probably far too optimistic to be true, but if someone does make a comment, I’ll just kick their ass to clarify the situation.
“Even if it was part of my hiring contract. To be safe—”
“I said no. You aren’t going anywhere. Now calm the fuck down.”
I make a concerted effort then to take my own advice.
“I promise, Jason. I won’t let your reputation get ruined along with mine. I promise, nothing like what happened today will ever happen again.”
Goddamnit. No fucking way I’m going to be able to calm down now. I close the distance between us in two steps. “Don’t say shit like that, Summer. Just hearing it makes me crazy.”
When she backs up a step and looks at me like she’s going to repeat that fucked up promise again, I pull her into my arms. “You’re special, Summer. I’m not going to let stupid male chauvinistic shit stop me from seeing you.”
Her eyes soften, and she says with a gentle smile, “I think you’re special, too.”
Thank fuck. “So, nothing changes. We just…need to be careful.”
She looks skeptical at best.
“It’ll be fine,” I insist. “I just have to learn to keep my fucking hands to myself when we’re at work.” Easier said than done.
“Or,” she says, in a way that makes it clear I’m not going to like her suggestion. “We could just wait until the project is finished.”
Sometimes, I hate when I’m right. “You’re sug
gesting we wait almost a year to pick this up again?” I’m man enough to admit that I’m not strong enough to do that, not after having had her come in my arms already.
She mutters something under her breath that I don’t catch. The look on her face tells me it’s important. “What was that?”
“I said, ‘what’s one more year?’ For me, anyway.” She shoots me a meaningful glance like I’m supposed to know what she means.
I truly don’t.
“Summer, I know you’re wanting me to get something right now, but it’s going over my head. Spell it out for me, sweetheart.”
“I’ve never…done…that before. Not that I don’t want to. Well, I didn’t. Before. But now I do. With you, I mean. But I can still wait,” she rambles on for a bit before cutting herself off and biting her lip nervously.
It takes me a bit to process it all. When I finally get what she’s saying, I’m admittedly not very smooth about it. “Holy. Fuck. How the hell is that even possible? You’re so damn beautiful.”
She shrugs, embarrassment clear on her features. “You’ve met me, haven’t you? I’m weird around guys outside of my own crew. I’ve barely even been kissed before you came along.”
I somehow manage to keep another ‘holy fuck’ in. But I do want to make sure I get clarification on a few major details. “So, in the trailer, that was the first time a man ever…”
She blushes and nods.
Jesus. “And you really mean it when you say that you want your first time to be with me?”
More blushing, and more nodding.
Just like that, I feel something unlock inside me. It’s fucking freeing. Her admission has a humbling, territorial, primal feeling growing inside me and I don’t fight it. No, I revel in it.
And then I start advancing on her.
I see the question in her eyes, and I feel the answer to her question pounding away in my chest.
“W-what’re you doing?” she asks, eyes wide with curiosity.
In a thick, barely recognizable voice, I tell her exactly what I’m doing: “Not waiting.”
14
* * *
| SUMMER |
WEDNESDAY
(Time: 2:01 a.m. And I think my clock stopped.)
I swear the old grandfather clock in my living room just stopped.
Like in the movies during those dramatic moments frozen in history.
I watch him get closer and closer. Feel my heart attempt to burst right out of my chest.
“Tell me the truth, sweetheart. Do you want to wait?” he asks, his big, calloused hands holding my face so gently I find myself rubbing my cheek against his palm to take more of him in. “Because if you want to wait, I will. I’ll wait however long you need, baby.”
Well, that just makes my decision that much easier. “I don’t want to wait.” It comes out far bolder than I expected. Go me. Taking charge of my sexuality like a boss, I go up on my tiptoes to touch my lips to his.
The second his lips meet mine, sizzling hot sparks of heat rush through me. My hands find their way under his shirt to touch the hard, chiseled planes and edges of his body. As always, his skin is like a furnace. And touching him sends a tingling jolt of awareness straight to my core, lighting up every sexual nerve ending in my body until soon, even the brush of his thumbs over my nipples has me close to orgasm.
“No coming yet,” he says gruffly, somehow knowing my body better than I do. His tongue flicks over the hollow at the base of my throat. “No coming until I taste you first,” he murmurs against my racing heartbeat, now thudding even harder against his lips.
As was the case that morning all those weeks ago, I respond simply with, “Okay.”
He chuckles roughly against my skin. “That fucking word. Do you know how many times I’ve come in my shower replaying you say that word?”
I really hope he’ll tell me.
“Every single morning you’ve barged in, Summer,” he says. “I’ve imagined taking you at least a thousand different ways.” He punctuates the confession with a deep, hot kiss, somehow managing to undo all the buttons on my shirt without me even realizing it. “Usually, we’re in my living room, and you’ve got your hands and tits up against the door you love knocking on so much, one leg hooked over my arm, and me driving into you so fucking deep from behind.”
Good lord, at this rate, I may very well come before he even touches me.
“My favorite fantasy lately,” he continues, his voice a gritty, raspy rumble, “is of you laid out on my countertop taking my cock into your mouth while I fingerfuck a half-dozen or so orgasms out of you.”
His lips crash onto mine then, with an all new heat, a new intensity, that just blazes hotter when he parts my shirt and palms my breasts. Pinching both of my nipples, he groans and pushes his tongue past my lips, making me near mindless and seconds away from coming.
And then he stops.
Leaving my entire body on fire.
In the spirit of taking control of my de-virginizing, I reach over to unbuckle his belt. The jarring clink of the buckle echoes in the quiet room like an opened shackle.
His arm wraps around me like a steel band, stopping me from going any further. “No, baby. I won’t have the strength to stop if you touch me.”
When I frown in disappointment, he makes it up to me by winding a fist in my hair gently, tugging it. Just enough. The perfect amount of strain and tension, pull and pressure to make my pussy throb in time with my speeding heartbeat.
That’s when he slides his hands over my ass and lifts me, pressing my core right up against his massive hard-on as he carries me over to the bedroom.
The new pressure between my legs sends shockwaves of pleasure through me with every step he takes. And he knows it, the evil, evil man.
By the time he lays me down on my bed, I’m panting and already parting my thighs for him. Smiling in a positively wicked way, he kneels down and grazes his lips against the top of my mound as he says, “Open wider for me, sweetheart. Let me see you before I taste you.”
Oh, god, I have a hard time believing I’ll ever be more turned on in my life.
I open wider.
His fingers gently stroke over the seam of my panties, but instead of putting his mouth on me just yet, he pulls the cloth of my panties tight. And blows on my clit.
My legs start to shake.
Eventually, he puts me out of my misery and slides a single finger along my pussy, muttering roughly, “Fuck, you’re wet.” That he sounds ragged and strained is the only balm easing my frustration.
“Jason, please.”
Apparently, that word really is magic, because I feel something pretty freaking magical bursting through me when he slowly slides two fingers into me while rubbing my clit with his thumb. The relief I feel is almost overwhelming. The pleasure all-consuming.
“Jesus fuck, you’re tight.”
His face dips between my legs and I very nearly pass out when I feel his tongue start lapping away at my wet heat. “You’re almost ready for me to take you,” he whispers against me. “But first, I’m going to suck on you here.” He licks my clit. “Until you come on my face.”
I feel his lips wrap around my swelling clit as he lifts my legs and puts them both over his shoulders. “Grab onto the sheets, sweetheart, because I’m going to fuck this tight, wet little pussy with my tongue for a little while.”
His mouth latches onto my pussy and I immediately see stars. It’s all I can do not to black out, the pleasure is so intense. A whole-body mass of sensations.
Honestly, I’m not sure how much more I can take, how much more I need.
Thankfully, Jason does.
He starts pumping a third thick finger deep inside of me before sucking my swollen clit into his mouth, hard.
And every last one of my thoughts goes scattering into oblivion, his name wrung out of me over and over as I go flying over the edge.
15
* * *
| JASON |
WEDNESDAY<
br />
(Time: T-minus zero if I’m not careful.)
Jesus, watching Summer come apart is without a doubt, the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
And I’m now well and truly addicted.
Gently cupping her soft mound, I press the heel of my palm against her clit as I move my mouth over to nuzzle the curve of her neck.
Just as sweet as the rest of her.
“Ready for round two, baby?”
Her eyes fly wide open when I slide two fingers inside her. Hell, she’s even tighter now that she’s come once, her pussy walls swollen, wetter and hotter than before.
Once I have her full attention again, I begin whispering the dirtiest, filthiest fantasies I’ve been having in her ear, detailing it all for her while she squirms. I meant what I said, I want to take her in every possible way, every possible position.
I want her to crave me as much as I crave her.
“You’re coming for me one more time,” I tell her.
At her incredulous gasp that sounds part moan, part grumble, I chuckle and wrap my hands around her ankles so I can pull her to the edge of the bed and spread her thighs apart. I want to bury my face in her until she comes in my mouth one more time. Until I have her wet enough so I can take her without hurting her.
Not today though.
But soon.
Even as I make that vow—which I’m going to goddamn hold myself to if it kills me—the reminder that I’m the first man to touch her this way, that I’ll be the first man to slide into her perfect virgin pussy makes me fucking leak precum again.
But I stay the course.
I work my tongue in teasing little circles round her clit, forcing her moans to a higher decibel, wilder, less restrained than those quiet, breathy little moans and whimpers she was making earlier.
This is what I want. To break Summer of that tameness she uses to keep herself in check.
She’s the same way on the jobsite. Tempered at all times, even when I know there’s a whole bunch of cute craziness teeming inside of her.