She felt the elevator slow for another stop and stood up straight; his fingers stopped teasing her clit. Oh, she was so close. She forced her mouth closed, made her breathing slow as two teenage boys got on. She inched even closer to Tyler, and this time he stayed put, letting her feel his hot erection against her ass. Three more floors. She could make it. She had to. No way could she come without screaming now. She was too far gone.
He rubbed himself against her, thrusting his hips just a bit. She couldn’t stand it. The elevator stopped again, and she lunged for the door. He followed, in complete control. He led her down the hall to his door, wheeling her suitcase and keeping his hands to himself. How could he be so fucking relaxed? She wanted to scream at him. But if he could pretend to be unaffected, so could she. Maybe. She clenched her fingers together to stop from reaching out to caress his ass in the middle of the hallway. Who knew when his elderly neighbor would come outside with her min pin and catch her in the act?
She could feel dampness between her thighs as she shifted from one heeled foot to the other. Tyler opened the door, and she blinked. My God. His place was incredible. Dark woods mixed with cool slate blues and grays. Exposed beams dominated the high ceilings, and he had a beautiful view out four floor-to-ceiling windows taking up the expanse of one of the living room walls. The stars and lights of the city twinkled beyond the glass. What did he pay for a place like this, in the middle of New York? It wasn’t that big, really, but man, it had been beautifully done.
“I know, it’s a bit much. A present from Mom and Mandy when I graduated. Mandy came into some money and helped Mom put in a hefty down payment, since Ma was going to get it anyway. We got a good deal on it. I tried to get away with not signing the mortgage, but they wouldn’t let me. Guess Ma was tired of having me live at home. And I love this apartment. I’ve done a lot of work on it since I moved in.”
Graduating must have been some accomplishment. “This is incredible.”
He smiled. She followed him into the open kitchen/dining/living area, admiring the glass-sculpture lamps and glass-fronted kitchen cabinets. A small glass-topped desk sat in the corner of the living space, up against the windows. Square-footage-wise, it couldn’t be as big as it looked. But the high ceilings, large windows, and lack of walls made it seem huge. Her shoes clicked on the hardwood floors as she moved farther into the apartment.
“There’s a small bedroom and bathroom over there.” He pointed to a door on the other side of the room. “Would you like the grand tour?”
“Yeah,” she said. He moved past her and closed the front door, then grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the windows. He didn’t have a single curtain on them. She looked out at the city blocks below. The building across the street wasn’t as tall as this one, so he had a view of the rest of the city. He slid behind her, dipping his head to the side of her neck and kissing her there.
“You’re not wearing any underwear,” he murmured against her ear. He sucked on her earlobe, and she moaned.
“Yeah, I know.” Breathless again already. She moved her feet, opening her legs wider, letting more cool air up her dress. It did nothing to chill the heat pooling there, though. He released her hand and stopped kissing her. Damn. He’d moved away from her. He was heading back to the kitchen.
“Would you like a drink?”
If he wanted to torture her until she was begging him for release, she’d just have to play dirty.
“Sure.” He turned from her, and she watched as he grabbed two beers out of the fridge and popped them open. She pulled down the back of her dress and unhooked her bra. He glanced at her just in time to see her pull it out the top of her dress and drop it with a soft whoosh to the ground. His hands slipped on the bottles, but he recovered in a second, not dropping either. She smiled, tilting her head to the side and biting her lip. “So are you going to deliver that drink, or am I going to have to come get it?”
His tongue darted out, wetting his thick bottom lip. He walked toward her, holding one beer out. She moved closer as she took the bottle, sure to slide her fingers slowly against his darker ones.
“So, uh, this way we have the rest of the apartment,” he said, stepping to the side and sauntering to the other end of the plush couch. She followed him. The man could play a mean game of cat and mouse, that was for sure. If she walked much more, she might come just from the friction and the gravelly sound of his voice. He took a swig of beer, and so did she, the cold liquid doing nothing to calm her.
He opened the door to the bedroom. He hadn’t been kidding. The room barely fit a queen-size bed and dresser, though an exercise ball and a few dumbbells sat in the corner.
“This place doesn’t have a gym, huh?” See, she could keep up normal conversation while she was going up in flames.
“Yeah, but sometimes I prefer to just work out on my own in the main room. So this is it. Except for the bathroom.” He opened another door. Large shower, decorated in the same masculine grays and blues.
She took another sip of her beer, wondering how much longer she could wait before pouncing. Not long. He set his beer on the dresser and came toward her. Thank God. But then his pocket started ringing. If he answered that call, she’d have to kill him and whoever was on the other end of it.
He took her bottle and placed it next to his, then pulled her alongside the bed, ignoring the phone. Smart man. The ringing stopped. He took out his phone, shut it off, and put it on the small shelf beside the bed that housed another glass-sculpture lamp. She went to sit on the mattress. He shook his head. Oh, what did he have in mind now?
TYLER SMILED AT the look on Layla’s face. Whatever Johnson needed, it could wait. He dropped her hand and began tugging his clothes off. She was naked under that thin sheath of silk she called a dress. He could see her dark nipples pressed against the front of the material. When he’d realized in the elevator she didn’t have any underwear on, he’d almost lost his mind.
She watched with open desire as he pulled his clothes off in a rush. He sighed as he freed himself from the confines of clothing. She reached down to pull off her dress.
“No, leave it on.” His voice came out a harsh command, but she just smiled and dropped the edge of her dress. He snatched a condom off the dresser and sat on the cold plastic of the exercise ball. It sank and rolled under his weight, feeling both familiar and foreign beneath his bare ass. He covered himself with the condom, and Layla moved closer.
“So this is really what you use that ball for, huh? Well, I suppose it is a form of exercise.” She put one leg on either side of his. He slid his fingers up the backs of her thighs, caressing and cupping her ass. Her dark eyes filled with desire as he let his hands explore her beneath the dress. Already she was making moaning noises.
“Oh. Tyler… I thought I was going to go crazy in that elevator. If you’d touched me again, just one more time, I would have—” She gasped as fingers came into contact with her clit.
He wanted to prolong this buildup even more. Torture them both to the point of complete insanity and then stop, just to start all over again. But she was too far gone. Too close to orgasm. He wanted to be inside her when she came. He used his hands to spread her legs wider. She bent her knees, and he pulled her down, sliding into her. He rocked forward on the ball, holding her close, pushing in deeper.
Then her sheath clenched him. She screamed his name as he rolled back and forth, slamming into her pulsing folds faster and faster. She wasn’t the only one who’d been so close to the edge. She rocked her hips in time with his and took him in farther. He held her lower back as she arched for him, as she grabbed for that perfect angle to keep her orgasm going, spreading, until he came with her, groaning and almost toppling over. His back met the wall, and he used it to take some of their weight, boneless and spent. Sixty solid minutes of foreplay had made them both come too fast.
She lowered her face to his and kissed him. He leaned back and let her explore his mouth with her tongue. She moaned as he shifted, her body
still quivering.
“God, if you’d waited any longer, I would have had no choice but to leap on you.”
He laughed, holding her to him.
“You knew what you were doing to me the entire time, didn’t you?”
“Mmhmm.”
She flicked him on the shoulder with her middle finger. “That wasn’t very nice, you know.”
He licked her dark, salty shoulder. “It was perfectly nice, and you loved every minute of it.” She shivered under his touch, her mocha skin springing to life with bumps. He traced them with his tongue, swirling around and around.
“Okay, maybe you’re right,” she said.
“I’m always right.” He argued for a living. Now he just had to find a way to change Layla’s mind and get her to stick around, if only for a little while longer. He trailed his hands up her bare back and into her soft hair. All hers, no weave. He loved it when a woman kept her own hair. So much sexier.
He nuzzled her neck. He didn’t want to let her go, but they needed to get cleaned up. It was late, past midnight. He’d have to wake up early to go to the office, and he wanted her at least once more before morning. Layla shifted back, slipping off his lap. She held out a hand and helped him to his feet. He tossed the condom in the garbage and wiped up with a warm washcloth. He threw it in the hamper and brought a clean one out to Layla. She was lounging on his bed, looking sexy as all hell. He handed her the washcloth and kissed her on the lips.
“I’m going to go make a snack. Want anything?”
She shook her head and yawned. He’d tired the poor little minx out. Maybe he should let them both sleep and wake her up early for a good morning romp. He grabbed a robe and slipped it on. No one had a direct view into his apartment, but ever since things had started with Ms. Marietta, he’d been leery of strutting around buck naked in front of his windows, just in case. The hardwood floors were warm beneath his feet as he walked to the kitchen. He started making two sandwiches when there was a knock at the door.
What the hell?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Layla reclined on Tyler’s comfy bed, only semiconscious when she heard the sound of rising voices.
“Well, kid, I don’t know what the hell’s been going on with you as of late, but if you don’t get your life in order, I’m pulling you off this assignment. It’s too important. You volunteered, convincing myself and Williams you could handle it once we knew what we’d gotten into, or don’t you remember?”
“Yes, sir. I do. And I understand how vital my focus on this is.”
Shit. His boss was making a home visit—not good.
“So, would you like to tell me what’s gotten you so fucked in the head?”
“Nothing, sir. Honestly. I’ve just been very tired. The last few weeks haven’t left me much time to sleep.”
“And yet here you are, at almost one a.m., making a sandwich. Taking it back to your home office to work?”
“No, sir, I’m not.”
“You alone, kid?”
Silence.
She was distracting him. She had to get out of his life. And fast. Bosses didn’t make home visits for nothing, especially in the middle of the night. He must have tried calling first. Which Tyler had ignored.
“Right. Well, I hope she’s worth your career. You’re young, son. I understand that, as well as the need to have a personal life. But if you can’t keep it out of the office, I have no place for you. Find a nice girl, one who can wait at home for you when the work week gets too much. Not someone who’s going to keep you up all night on a Monday when you need to have your head in the game.”
“Yes, sir. I understand that.” She waited for the “but.” For Tyler to tell his boss that he deserved the night off and had taken it. Layla shook her head. At least she’d found the line in the sand he wouldn’t cross. He would defend her to her mother, to his, even to herself, but not to his boss. Not for his career. And she refused to play second place to anyone’s job. She’d done it for her mother, watched her father do it for her as well. It could destroy your soul, waiting for someone you cared about to put you first instead of their profession.
“Seven a.m. In my office. You sure as hell better come in with something solid we can use, or you’re done. I’ll give the spot on my team to Williams.”
“Yes, sir.”
What a son of a bitch. Layla fought the urge to go out to Tyler’s defense, even though he didn’t seem inclined to do it for himself or for her. She wanted to tell his boss to go screw himself. Stick up for Tyler the way he had in front of her mother. But in this case it would make things worse. She wouldn’t embarrass him like that. She’d done enough damage. She heard the door close with a loud click and then silence from the kitchen.
Did she go out and try to talk to him or leave him to deal? She had no idea, other than the fact that she had to leave. If she tried now, she knew he’d throw a fit. She’d have to wait until morning when he left for work, though she didn’t know if she could hold out that long. The more time she spent with him, the harder leaving became.
She heard Tyler opening and closing those glass-fronted cabinets. She got up and went to meet him in the kitchen. He didn’t turn to look at her. She moved closer and wrapped her arms around his middle, resting her cheek on the soft fabric of his robe.
“So…your boss sounds almost as much fun as my mother.”
She felt his body relax against hers one muscle at a time. He laughed, a short sound wrought with disdain. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t you dare apologize for that idiot. I should be the one apologizing to you. Maybe it’s best for both of us that I’m leaving in the morning. I could go now, if you’d like. I’m sure you’ve got work to do.”
“No. If you’re going to leave in the morning, I’m not going to ask you to go now. Or spend the rest of the time working. It’s not that important.”
Right. That was why the other man came knocking at his door at one o’clock in the fucking morning. Why Tyler hadn’t told his boss off. What did he do that his superior was so hands-on? It didn’t matter. She shouldn’t ask. They had no hope of a future because she was the kind of woman who would keep a man up all night in the middle of the week just to make love or play cards or jump on the bed and have a pillow fight.
She’d never be the wait-at-home spouse or the one who let her man’s work get in the way of their relationship. If his job was important to him, she shouldn’t stand in the way of that. She wouldn’t be put in the role of coming second again. But she let herself hold him, unsure if she wanted to comfort him or herself. She wouldn’t even suggest they stay in contact, though something told her he’d ask her to call him anyway. She wouldn’t so he would be able to move on with his life. And so would she.
She breathed in the musky scent of his cologne and placed a kiss on the fuzzy fabric, right between his shoulder blades. He didn’t say anything else, just let her hold him there in the kitchen. As if he knew she would only give them a few more hours and then walk out of his life forever. Or maybe he’d be the one to break things off. Maybe if she went “home” and called him in a few days, he’d tell his secretary to screen his calls and never return them. Maybe he’d be the one avoiding her as she pursued him. Because try as she might, she didn’t think she’d be able to stop thinking about Mr. Times Square, even if she moved as far from this city as possible.
TYLER LET HIS shoulders lower as Layla embraced him. She was like a wall of living support behind him. She’d heard the entire conversation he’d had with Johnson. And of course, now she was more convinced than ever that she had to leave. He wanted to tell her that his job didn’t matter, but that wasn’t true. He needed it. His family was counting on him. Not to mention that if he left now, no one else would fight for Paulson the way he would.
But Layla wasn’t distracting him, not really. She’d helped him see even more clearly what he never wanted his life to be. He didn’t want to work for a prick like Williams any longer, even if he needed t
o. He didn’t want to defend guilty clients. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself, even though the firm defended white-collar criminals and not murderers for the most part. If he left now, Williams might not have the skill set to keep an innocent man out of prison.
He grabbed Layla’s arms and turned around, looking down into her warm brown eyes.
“You hungry?” It was all he could think to ask. He couldn’t ask her to leave, but he couldn’t ask her to stay either, at least not past tonight. She had it in her head that she would screw up his life. And maybe that was true, but it was his life, and if he wanted her to screw it up, damn it, then it was his choice, not hers.
“Yeah, sure. What did you make?”
He picked up half the turkey sandwich and handed it to her.
“Thanks,” she said. They ate the sandwiches in silence. She took a glass from the cabinet and filled it with cold tap water.
“Well, make yourself at home,” he said.
“Oh, shit. Sorry. I—”
He laughed at the look on her face. “I was kidding.”
She dipped her fingers in the glass and flicked water at him. The cool drops landed on his face and chest.
“So, does your boss drop by in the middle of the night very often?”
“No. I didn’t even know he knew where I lived. He’s just worried.” He sat down at the high-top counter. “But let’s not talk about work right now. Deal?”
She looked like she wanted to press for more information, but then she nodded. “Yeah. Sure.”
Damn Williams for this. He no doubt had urged Johnson that Tyler wouldn’t listen to reason, that something was preventing him from doing his job. This stupid awkwardness lay in the air between him and Layla now. She sat down across from him.
“Except that I’m sorry I’m causing issues for you. I guess it’s a good thing I’m leaving tomorrow.” Her smile was forced. He could see her tense face beneath the attempt to make light of the situation.
An Affair Across Times Square Page 21