I shook my head. “I was the one who suggested that I cook,” I reminded her. “That means this is all my responsibility. Now, you go relax again.”
Bailey finally managed to wrestle the pan away from me, her fingers curling around my wrist. I froze and then looked slowly over at her. She tugged me off balance and into a kiss.
For a moment, I couldn’t help but kiss her back. It was Bailey, after all, and even though I knew logically that I shouldn’t be kissing her, that didn’t mean that I didn’t want her. I moved my lips gently against hers, my tongue twining with hers. But as she pressed herself up against me, I suddenly pulled back.
“Bailey, you know this isn’t a good idea,” I sighed, but it was hard to really pull away from her. I found myself resting my forehead against hers, my fingers resting against her hip, thumb rubbing small circles against her bare skin just above the waistband of her jeans.
Bailey sucked in a quick breath and looked like she wanted to say something, but then, she shook her head, looping a hand around the back of my neck and kissing me again. This time, I didn’t protest. She needed this, and I knew that I did as well. It might be a mistake, but it wasn’t like we hadn’t already crossed that line.
And besides, it was Bailey. How was I really supposed to say no to her, when her lips were pressed against mine and her scent was in my nostrils? I wanted this too damned badly to tell her no. There was no logic involved.
39
Bailey
I was surprised when Adam suggested that he come over to my place and cook dinner for me. I couldn’t help but feel touched by the gesture. He clearly could tell that there was something wrong, and he wanted to be there for me. Suddenly, I wondered if he really had been avoiding me all week or if that had just been my imagination. Maybe he really had just been busy.
Or not. But either way, he was here for me now, and that was all that I could ask for.
I couldn’t seem to think of a way to bring up the Ian conversation, though. At first, I’d thought that Adam could help me figure out what to do in that situation, but the more I thought about it, the more absurd it seemed. Ian had been downright mean to Adam when he had caught us kissing. He and I might have been alone and behind closed doors when Ian said that thing about Adam not being good enough for me, but it made me wonder how close of friends they had ever really been. Maybe they had just been friends because they liked to pull the same kinds of pranks. Maybe they had never really known one another that well at all.
And besides, I couldn’t help but think that the Ian situation was something that I needed to figure out on my own. He was my brother, after all. It was my fault that he was causing trouble for the resort. As the owner of the company, I had to figure out a way to deal with that. If I couldn’t handle those sorts of problems, I didn’t deserve to be running the company.
Not only that, but there was a part of me that felt ashamed for Ian. He should know better. Dad had trained us to be so much savvier as businesspeople. The mistakes that Ian had made were pretty basic; it was like he didn’t understand anything about running a company. Which damned well wasn’t true, I knew. He had a good head on his shoulders, and he had plenty of experience. He just had a little too much pride. He had tried to change too many things too quickly.
I didn’t want to tell a near-stranger all about Ian’s problems. There had to be some way for Ian to get things back on track, the way that things were meant to be. I should talk to him about it before I went blabbing about the family troubles to everyone else at the resort. I owed that to Ian.
So when Adam finally asked about it, I brushed him off. It really wasn’t important. I had managed to send back most of the stuff that he had bought for the resort, so really, this wasn’t an issue with the resort. It was more an issue with Ian’s employment and the casino business. I should keep it that way.
I was glad to have Adam there with me, though, even if I didn’t want to really talk about any of it with him. I knew that I didn’t want to be on my own tonight, thinking about all of this. And Kayla would have wanted to talk things to death. She would never have let me get away with saying that I would handle things on my own. It was one of the things I loved about her, but it was also something that made nights like this difficult; I just didn’t want to talk about it with her.
So it was good to have Adam there, a rock-solid presence. Couple that with the fact that his simple dinner had been delicious, plus he had come out of his shell even more and actually talked to me about his week and everything that was going on in his life? Well, it was a pretty good evening in the end, I had to admit.
Maybe not the evening that I had planned for us. I had planned to talk to him about why he was so uncomfortable and awkward around me now. But I could see, now, that it really was just about being out in the resort, where anyone could see us. In here, in private, he was just as charming and friendly as ever. So maybe we didn’t need to have that conversation after all.
Of course, it threw me a little when he told me that this was a bad idea. I wanted to say something, to explain all the reasons why he was wrong. But then again, if he really didn’t want to be here, he wouldn’t be here, my mind insisted. He would have stepped back away from me, or even left. He certainly wouldn’t have kissed me back.
So I went in for another kiss, and even though I could still sense a slight hesitation there, or a nervousness maybe, Adam leaned into me, his fingers touching my bare skin and sending a shiver shooting down my spine.
To be honest, I was nervous as well. The last time had been so good but so overwhelming at the same time. I didn’t know if this could live up to the same again. Maybe last time had been a fluke. Or maybe it had just been the newness of it all. It had been a while since I had had sex before, and it had been a while for Adam as well. The first time back was bound to be incredible and amazing and overwhelming.
But as I led Adam to my bedroom, his fingers on my body still sent electric currents of pleasure pulsing through me. He stripped me down carefully, his eyes hungry as they roved over my skin. He pushed me down on the bed and climbed on top of me, laying a trail of kisses down the entire length of my body.
I groaned as he tugged my panties off with his teeth, the same teeth that he raked lightly across my skin moments later, raising goosebumps. He kissed my folds, making me arch against the sheets, desperate for more of the sweet sensation. His tongue flicked out, sliding across my clit and then darting inside of me. He began to work me open with his tongue and his fingers. I gasped and tangled my fingers in his hair.
He spread my legs open even wider and settled between them, giving me barely a moment of warning before he thrust fully inside of me. But I was slick and ready, my body needing that pleasurable intrusion more than the very air that I breathed. He rocked into me in a frenzied manner, unable to hold himself back.
And as for me, I clung to him, letting him use me, wordlessly begging for more and more. Things between us had been so shaky ever since Ian caught us kissing, but right now, they felt utterly right, as my world narrowed down to just the two of us, him and I. How could I possibly want anything else?
He pushed my legs up and back, until I was practically bent in half, giving him even deeper access into my pussy, until it felt as though he was impaling me on his length. It was all too much and yet so perfect at the same time; he somehow knew exactly what I needed and gave it to me beautifully.
I screamed out his name as I climaxed, my whole body jerking as my brain got trapped in an endless loop of pleasure, pleasure, pleasure. I might even have blacked out for a second, because when I came back to awareness, Adam was pulling out of me, lowering my legs back to the bed, collapsing at my side.
I groaned and reached for him, barely cognizant of where I was. I curled into his warm side, still trying vaguely to piece together how we had ended up here again.
Right, dinner. A dinner where I had meant to ask him, more as a friend than anything else, what he would do about the Ian situation. I
didn’t regret that things had ended up here, but now that I was thinking about Ian again, I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about the casino business.
I didn’t want to spoil the moment. I wanted to lay here and appreciate Adam’s warm, bare skin as it was pressed against mine. To appreciate the way that I could hear his heartbeat beneath my cheek. To appreciate the way he lazily swirled his fingers across my lower back.
But instead, I kept thinking about how frustrating that afternoon had been. I could feel myself getting tenser and tenser.
“Adam?” I asked suddenly, as I lay there pressed against his chest, his arms wrapped loosely around me.
“Hmm?” he hummed in response, sounding almost as though he had been half-asleep there in my bed.
“If something was wrong with one of your siblings that they kind of deserved, would you still help them out?” I asked. Maybe not the best way to word things, but I didn’t know what else to say.
“I don’t have any siblings,” Adam said.
“Well, imagine that you did,” I said impatiently. “If you had a sibling and they had done something that they should have known not to do and created a whole mess for themselves, would you leave them to deal with the consequences or would you try to help them out?”
Adam shifted against me. For a moment, I thought that he might ask something about Ian. I hadn’t exactly been subtle in my inquiry. But then, Adam just shrugged. “Family comes first. Always. Of course I would help my sibling.”
He said it as though it was just that simple. And even though I knew that it wasn’t, I also knew that Adam was right. Ian might deserve the consequences of his actions. He should never have made all those changes and spent all that money. And I was still a little mad at the way that he had tried to interfere with the resort. But at the end of the day, he was my brother, and I couldn’t turn my back on him and leave him to his fate. I had to help him.
Now, I just had to figure out how.
40
Adam
I knew that I couldn’t avoid Bailey for another day. She had realized that I was avoiding her before; of course she had, she was smart enough to figure it out, and it wasn’t like the resort was that big. And besides, I knew that she and I had to talk. Better that we do it here, while we were at work, rather than in private.
Put the two of us in private and things seemed to keep happening between us. It was like we were magnets, both just unbelievably drawn to one another.
I hadn’t meant to let last night go where it had ended up going. I just wanted to cheer Bailey up, because I could tell that something had happened during the afternoon to put her in a sour mood. I had meant to stop her when she first kissed me. But I just couldn’t hold myself back. And the sex had been just as good as before. Maybe even better.
But it couldn’t happen again. I couldn’t let her start thinking that she was getting attached to me, because she and I just couldn’t be together. I had to make sure that she knew that. We needed to have a talk about things.
I was still trying to figure out how to broach the subject with her, though. For now, I figured if I stuck to the dirtiest tasks on my list for the day, she wouldn’t come looking for me. So here I was, in the dusty room that housed the resort’s water heaters, plugging away at a little drip that I’d noticed a few days prior. I was up to my elbows in grease when Ian walked in.
His look said it all; of course I could never be good enough for his sister, looking like this. But he didn’t mention Bailey at first. Instead, he said, “You don’t have to worry about those.”
“Uh, it’s kind of my job,” I said, unable to keep the confusion from my voice. “There’s a drip; I’m the maintenance person. Unless you’ve hired someone else to look at this?” I didn’t mean to say that last, and especially not in such a snide tone of voice, but I just couldn’t help it.
I had been puzzling all morning about what Bailey had said the night before about a sibling that was in trouble. I had been half asleep when she had said it, my brain scattered in the wake of some serious bliss, but thinking back now, I recalled every puzzling word. Was Ian in some kind of trouble? It had to be something back in Vegas; that would explain his extended trip here.
But I couldn’t imagine what kind of trouble he could have gotten himself into. Maybe drinking and partying, or something like that? But there were plenty of CEOs who were like that, who barely did any of the work for themselves. That wasn’t necessarily trouble, that was just bad business. And anyway, I didn’t know how Bailey could possibly help him out with that.
I was starting to wonder just what the hell he was doing here in Park City, though, and how long he would be staying. My job was difficult enough without having to deal with his interference. I had enough stress without worrying that he was going to replace me as soon as he had a chance to.
Like now, apparently.
Ian narrowed his eyes at me. “Watch your tone,” he snapped. “I can get you fired.”
I wanted to say something about how he didn’t own the business and how he couldn’t really fire me, but then I realized that that wasn’t what he had said. He hadn’t told me he would fire me, he told me that he could get me fired.
And I was sure that he could, when it really came down to it. Bailey might be interested in me for the moment, but Ian was her brother, and she would never go against him, even if she thought that he was in the wrong.
“Anyway, you don’t need to worry about these things,” Ian repeated. “I’ve got new water heaters coming in. Ones that don’t leak.”
I stared at him for a moment, flabbergasted. I knew we were turning a decent profit that winter, but that still didn’t mean that new water heaters were something we could afford. Especially not since the old water heaters were perfectly fine. In need of a little fixing up, maybe, but still plenty serviceable.
“Ian, I don’t think we need new water heaters,” I protested. “Seriously, I can get these things fixed in an afternoon. The only reason I haven’t gotten around to them yet is that I didn’t think it was a very pressing issue in comparison to some of the other things that I’ve been working on.”
“I don’t think this resort pays you to worry about whether or not things need to be replaced,” Ian said loftily. “If I tell you not to bother fixing these, then you don’t need to bother fixing these.” He paused, glaring meaningfully at me. “I’m not asking you to stop. I’m telling you.”
I stared at him for a moment and then pushed away from the water heaters, wiping off my hands on a rag. “Fine,” I snapped, throwing my hands in the air. “You want to replace something that’s working perfectly fine, then you can be my guest.”
“Tone,” Ian reminded me condescendingly.
“What the hell is your problem with me?” I finally snapped. “Look, I get that you don’t want Bailey to end up with someone like me, but I’m just trying to do my goddamned job. And last I checked, you aren’t the owner of this resort, so you don’t really have a say in how I do that job. If Bailey doesn’t want me working on the water heaters, then she can tell me that. But it’s honestly none of your goddamned business.”
I couldn’t help exploding like that. Of course, I remembered that he could still get me fired, but I was starting to wonder if that would be for the best after all. I didn’t know how much longer I could stand to have him lurking around the resort, ready to call me out for just about anything, making me feel like I was somehow doing everything wrong.
I had had this job for years now, and I didn’t exactly need him telling me how to do things, especially not if it meant that two days later, Bailey might turn around and undo everything that her brother had done. It was all starting to be too much.
Between my stress over my job and my stress over the conversation I had to have with Bailey later that day, I just snapped. I couldn’t help it.
Ian stared at me for a moment, a scowl on his face. Then, “Find something else to do,” he said, speaking slowly and enunciating clearly, as though
he thought that I might not understand him otherwise, as though I was an idiot. “And if I see you talking to my sister again, I’m going to make sure that you don’t work in this state again.”
I blinked in surprise at him. At first, I wanted to laugh off his threat. Make sure that I didn’t work in this state again? How could he possibly do that? But then again, this was Ian Peters, who headed up a very powerful company that drew in a lot of rich clients. Rich clients like the ones who owned the ski resorts here in Utah. If he wanted to use his connections to make sure that I couldn’t get work as a maintenance man anywhere else in the state, he damned well could do that. I would bet on it.
I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to move at all, let alone move out of Utah. I had lived here for my whole life, and this was home. But if I couldn’t get work, I would have to move. I didn’t want to do that to Ethan. I didn’t want to do that to myself.
So I nodded curtly at Ian and grabbed my toolbox, mentally scratching the leaking water heater off my list. And adding ‘install new water heaters’ to my list for later in the week. That was sure to be a nightmare at this time of year, with the condos nearly full with guests, all of whom probably wanted to take hot showers at some point. But hey, if that’s what Ian wanted me to do, then I guess that was what I was going to do.
I nearly ran into Bailey as I stomped off towards my office, deciding to take an early lunch just so that I could calm down a little.
“Whoa,” she said in surprise. “What’s up? What happened?”
I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it,” I managed to grit out through my teeth.
“Did Ian say something to you?” Bailey asked worriedly.
I laughed bitterly, unable to help it. “So what, you realize that he’s a problem, but you don’t want to do anything about it? Fucking typical.”
One Shot At Love: A Billionaire Single Father Romance Page 23