by Vivian Wood
I answer the phone with a screech, not even glancing at the screen. “Violet Keats speaking.”
But there’s no answer.
Nothing but static and bits of silence on the other end. In the relative quiet of the town car’s back seat, with nothing but December winds to keep me company, I feel an uncertain chill run down my spine as I wait for a reply, my shoulder squeezing the tiny black square closer to my face. I frown, wrapping one hand around its base, and my heart beat picks up speed, its pace playing a rhythm that reaches into my ears. I wait a second more.
“Hello?”
A harsh breath expels over the phone line. A beat follows. Then two. A voice soon follows after.
“Oh my gosh,” it sighs, breathy and broken. “It’s me—Em, Violet. I’m so sorry. I must have butt-dialed you.”
My heart slows, finding its steady beat again. “Emily.” I clutch a dusty hand to my chest. “Shit, I thought you were…”
“Who?”
“I don’t know… I guess the new case I’ve been working on has put me on edge. What’s up?”
The most chipper secretary in the world assesses me over the phone, and I can practically sense the inquisition in her gold-green eyes. With only not so many months under her belt in her brand new role, Emily Armand is every bit of the overbearing mother I never had.
Only this “makeshift mother” is twenty-three. And loud.
I actually cower a little over the phone and under her scrutiny, putting my money on the fact that she’s probably heard every word I’ve been thinking.
I sigh before offering up an explanation.
“Want to talk about it? I can help!”
I snort softly. “God, I wish you could.”
“No, seriously.” Emily’s voice turns wistful. “I have a Juris Doctorate from CUNY. I know a thing or two.”
My heart stops. “Em,” I say, leaning farther into the phone. “How—then why are you…?”
“Just a secretary?” She scoffs on a small laugh. “An ex-boyfriend of mine told me I couldn’t hack being an attorney. Said I should stick to what I was good at: looking pretty and shopping.”
Huh. A lot like my ex-husband. A man who resented my success from the very start. I exhale slowly.
“I would, Em, but it’s been trying. I’ll figure something out. Besides, adversity only toughens me up,” I tell her, wishing I could believe it. “Otherwise, I’ll never make it through this court case unless I ditch the tender-assed, softy act.”
“Toughening?” Em asks. “Tender…? You’re a lawyer, Vi. Not steak.” Her high-pitched voice huffs, and I hear the flip of notebook pages on her end, her usual sign of frustration. “Besides…” she comments, her tone lowering. “I know why you’ve really been acting weird lately. Might it have something to do with this new slice of beef coming to the office? Or are you still crushing on that older George Clooney type AKA Daddy David King?”
I roll my eyes, soon hanging up Emily’s call, setting my bags to the side and my thoughts to David King.
Emily’s supposed “Clooney of a Daddy.”
And still my boss.
David King was a legend. Always has been.
The irony doesn’t escape me that one of the most attractive men in law works for my firm—as I’m sure it hasn’t escaped any other woman within fifty miles. A salt-and-pepper haired daydream with deep set eyes and an even deeper knowledge for the law, David King was everything I’d once wanted to be.
Fearless. Full of hard-hitting honesty and doggedness.
The man had once been considered mystical, seductively arrogant. A legend to every upcoming law school student—including me, I’d crushed on him because he was a myth—a story to tell.
I crushed on him because, like every little girl who dreams of dating her teeny-bopper puppy love, I’d wanted to believe in “something.” Something good—even if it wasn’t real.
What I’d dreamed about with David King was a fiction tale. A folklore.
What I’d wanted with Heath? Well, there was nothing fictional about it.
And every moment I spent with him, every laugh we shared, every joke, every touch was just another stack of cement on the thought that had been forming in my mind.
My stomach now twists at the thought of him. Not from daydreaming about him, no. Not that. But from the sudden understanding, the overwhelming, tiring and inexplicable awareness, that of all the things I do want, David King—fantasy that he once was to me—no longer qualifies.
I no longer want him at all. It’s a frustrating reality in spite of everything.
Because Heath Sparrow was right in all the ways that felt most wrong. Handsome. Devilish. Charming. With a smile that sent a lightning bolt between my thighs and the easy walk of a man with a golden cock, Heath Sparrow doesn’t just put people at ease… He seduces them into it.
And I’ve been seduced by him from the moment we met.
It wasn’t enough that David was considered the phenom at the firm. The second Heath walked onto the floor, he had shown that it was his to take. And the firm wasn’t all that belonged to him…
Every day, I give more and more of myself to him.
To the seductive playboy. My CEO. My boss.
And every day, I fight—like hell—with myself not to want to give him more. Bouncing between the urge to tear him limb from limb and tear his clothes off, I battle with my body not to do both, a small tidbit I would never share with anyone.
Not even my closest girlfriends.
I’d had to choose between career and love before…and lost a bit of both in the process. As a woman in charge of her own life, I still struggle with one or the other all the damn time, and what is most frustrating to me is that at the moments I least expect, life comes along and spits all over my perfect plans.
“Why Heath?” My body wants to scream. “Why now?”
He was supposed to be a fuck. A fling, at the most. So why couldn’t I get this fucked-up fling out of my head? And more importantly… my heart.
Both my head and my heart are still hammering by the time Heath slides back into his seat. I’m a veritable mess when he returns, his body still chilled as he swings in beside me, his warm, minty breath blowing over his freezing cold hands. He rubs them in front of me with a laugh, glancing at the driver up front.
“Where to next, Rudolph?”
“It’s up to you, sir.”
Heath’s face is full of joy, sprinkled with tinsel and glitter as he grins in my face, his thin nose red at the tip as he questions me. “M’lady? Where would you like to go?”
My heart beat slows as I stare at him. And as I reach up to swipe the shiny strands of Christmas sparkle from his sandy hair, my chest squeezes from the sudden emotion, the unexpected gift I didn’t know I needed from Heath giving me pieces of my battered past back. Pieces I’d forgotten felt so good.
All in the span of one evening.
I glance up at him, knowing what my answer will be. His eyes widen when I answer.
I lick my lips, grinning. “Your place.”
Chapter Twenty
HEATH
I needed to be with Violet Keats again tonight. For reasons I don’t even want to admit.
I had to see if she was as sexy as I remember her being. Was her voice really that low and husky? Were her eyes really that goddamned blue?
Couldn’t have been.
She can’t be as irresistible as I remember. She just can’t. The booze, the engagement party, the ambiance—it all had to have been playing a trick on my mind.
I never fixated on a woman … Until now.
She’s been the hardest to shake. And a part of me—stubborn and sick—was in desperate need to get rid of her. To shake her out of my system.
The poisonous parts of me needed to nix the disillusionment that I’ve been having about her so that I can get back to being the Heath I was always comfortable being—the Heath who didn’t have mid-day fantasies about a woman he doesn’t know, the Heath who
only has a hard-on for one wily woman.
She wasn’t my first one-night stand. Not by a long shot. I just needed my cock to remember that so I could go back to making him normal again, and when we step out of the heated car and into the chilled night air, when Violet bunches in closer as we cross the curb outside of my apartment building, I can’t help but to put my arm around her—to pull her tiny body into mine and take in her fragrance.
The scent of sweet strawberries and cream.
I can practically taste it—taste her.
The rising elevator to my penthouse seems to take forever. With Christmas bags over one arm and Violet cuddled closely under the other, we walk slowly to the front door of my luxury apartment, each step agonizing, the long walk nothing but a wake-up call that this—what I have with Violet—is real.
Realer than anything I’ve ever had with any woman.
I insert my key into the entry’s opening, turning the lock. But before I can push the door open, I spin Violet in my arms, brushing thick auburn-red strands off her shoulders, my fingers sliding down her back to follow. I gaze into her gorgeous face, finding lust.
Finding all the answers I need.
I bend down to her, my fingers grazing across her tiny waist. My gut tightens.
“You don’t have to do this, Keats,” I probe. “You know that, don’t you?”
She smiles slowly. “Call me Keats one more time and I’ll have to kill you.”
I return her smile. “I’m trying to be a goddamned decent person here.” I raise an eyebrow. “From what you’ve seen since I’ve been back, you must now know how hard that is for me…”
She laughs softly. “Yeah, I definitely do.”
“It’s just… I don’t want to rush you into anything you’re not fully ready for.”
“Is that you talking or is that Mr. Tequila talking?”
“Unfortunately, it’s me,” I say, shaking my head. “Definitely me. If it were up to Mr. Tequila, he’d be taking your panties off with his teeth right now.” She scoffs on a laugh, and I hug her close, wrapping her in my arms as I stare down at her. “Mr. Tequila doesn’t like to do a whole a lot of talking if you haven’t noticed.”
I watch as Violet’s grin falls from her pretty face. Her stare turns serious. Glancing up at me with a gleam in her celeste-blue eyes, she talks to me without words, and as my gaze travels the length of her body—up her stilettos, over the pencil skirt that’s a perfect fit on her sensuously curvy figure and over the blue blouse covering her breasts, I know that I want her more than I’ve ever wanted a woman.
No, not want. Need.
God fucking help me, I need this woman.
And she knows it.
She clutches me back, her gaze sinking to my lips as they grin at her. I smile at a sudden memory.
“Do you think I didn’t hear you in your office that first night?” I eye her carefully. “You were whimpering.”
I hear Violet’s breath hitch. “My feet were hurting from being in heels.”
“Your clothes were disheveled.”
“They usually are after a sixteen-hour work day.”
“You moaned my name.”
She grabs me as soon as I say the words, crushing me to her in a tight hold. Finishing our conversation with a kiss, Violet’s embrace gives me the answer I have no right to expect, no right to receive, and I decide to show her exactly what she deserves by back-walking her body inside, lavishing her lips with tender kisses as I drop the bags and press her—heels and all—towards the kitchen. I slam the front door behind me, moving Violet farther inside.
Lifting her off her Louboutin shoes, I set her sexy ass on top of the quartz-covered kitchen counters, my mouth trailing between her cotton-covered breasts. Placing my mouth over one tender nipple, I tug it between my teeth, ignoring the interfering blouse, prodding the nub hard enough to make Violet whimper where she sits. I spread her taut, toned legs under her skirt.
“Now if we’re going to do this, Violet…” I continue kissing across her beautiful tits. “We’re going to do this the right way. No mistakes this time.”
She exhales softly. “Depends on what you mean by mistake…”
“I mean, no regrets tonight. No fucking rules.” I start to unbutton her blouse. “I’m not your boss tonight. And you’re not my employee. We’re just two people…” I undo one button. “Who like bad tequila…” There goes the second. “And taking each other’s clothes off. No more. No less.”
She leans her head back. “Is that an order, Mr. Tequila?”
“If you want, it can be an edict.” I stop, staring at her once again. “I mean it, Violet.” I watch as she opens her hooded eyes. “I’m not going to fuck you senseless unless we’re both prepared. We’re gambling here, Esquire…” I trail off. “And we should plan on letting the chips fall where they may.”
It’s a lie…and I know it. I’m risking everything by rolling the dice to have Violet Keats in my bed, but I can’t fucking stop myself. My body is begging to sink itself inside of her. As soon as possible.
I almost want her to tell me no… because it would give me any excuse not to be better. To go back to being the stubborn, give-no-shits, thick-headed Heath I’ve always been.
But when the sexiest woman alive looks up at me, her thighs spread for me, her face full of longing, I know I’ll never go back.
She opens her sensuous mouth, pressing it into an oval before grabbing my face with a small nod. Her voice is as strained as I feel.
“I’ll take that bet, Heath.” She lifts her chin. “And anything—and I do mean anything—else you’d like to give to me.”
Chapter Twenty-One
VIOLET
I was always shit at gambling.
Risk was never my friend, and beneath the business skirt suit? I was as straight-laced as they came. It was one of the reasons my ex told me he strayed, and two years later, the flaw haunts me like a fucking phantom.
I feel it even now.
And if it weren’t for the cheap tequila in my system, the supremely sexy moonlight that shines through Heath Sparrow’s penthouse windows and the even sexier man himself, I wouldn’t take the wager—to sacrifice my heart and head on the altar that is Heath’s bed.
But I can’t stop myself.
I want him more than sanity.
The grin he gives me at my answer is enough to make me melt on the spot and when he puts his full mouth back on my body, his touch is no longer a caress, his tongue no longer gentle at all.
There’s a need in him I hadn’t seen until now. A release that he now relishes in.
He crushes his mouth to mine, devouring my needy kiss. He presses the length of his long body against me, and under his rigid muscles, I writhe on the kitchen counter, wanting more, getting it as soon as he slides his slacks between my legs, pressing an impressive erection between my thighs.
He is unyieldingly hard.
Excitement I’d forgotten how to feel blooms beneath my breast, and I grip him harshly, squeezing his solid biceps. My fingers fly to his collar, pulling at its top button. The little knob pops and as soon as the fabric parts, I latch my mouth to the skin it exposes. Sucking hard. My teeth sinking into every inch I can find.
He smells so good. Tastes even better.
A heady, smoky mix mingles on my tongue, and as I stroke my tongue at the base of his neck, Heath groans, his fingers sliding to my own blouse which he unbuttons quicker than the law should allow.
My blue blouse falls open, exposing my bra, and I exhale from the chill that hits my skin—a chill that’s stopped immediately by Heath’s pressing against my hot skin, his palms cupping my suddenly tender breasts hard enough to hurt.
I whimper his name.
With a rough chuckle—a rumble against my cheek, the beautiful beast of a man whispers in my ear, words that are so raspy, so drippingly damned sexy that I fear I might climax right there on his counter.
I bite my bottom lip, squeezing my eyes shut as he grazes my earl
obe with his teeth, his touch rough and tenderly raw. His laugh licks against my skin.
“Fucking you was the best thing I’ve ever done, Keats. I don’t know how it took me so long to do it twice.”
I exhale, my body sagging from its sudden aroused weight. I sink into his touch.
“You haven’t fucked me twice yet,” I hiss.
“Haven’t I?” He chuckles again. “Hell, talking to you is fucking foreplay, getting a peek into your mind another base. Just being with you, Keats, is already a goddamned homerun. The actual intercourse? Shit…” He sighs. “That’s just one part of the fun.” His kisses sink once again between my breasts, his bite surprising as his mouth travels. He takes one taut nipple into his mouth, massaging it with his tongue, and just when I can’t take anymore, he lowers the silky fabric, exposing my aroused blush-colored areoles to the open air.
He plays with me as he laps a path across each one with his talented tongue, his mouth moving slowly as he speaks between sweeping strokes.
My head falls back, my clit throbbing as his fingers move. He removes my blouse, throwing it to the floor, and it is all I can do not to moan immediately, my skin coming alive underneath his rough caress, the rigid tips of his practiced fingers.
He is every bit of a fantasy. And more.
He shrugs out of his suit jacket, letting it fall to the floor, and before I can reach for him and remove the rest, his knees sink to sit next to the discarded garment, his gaze going to the space between my thighs. I close them instinctively, and he pries them apart with his thumbs, his hands gripping each of my slightly scarred knees.
His stare—hot and steady—returns to my barely-there panties, and as I squirm, unable to take the intensity of his scrutiny, he places one finger under my skirt, sliding the fabric covering my most sensitive skin to the side. My heart thrums a frantic rhythm, and I glance down at him, soaking in the sight of his furrowed face.
I inhale slowly.