by Ryan, Emma
An extremely handsome predator who wore a suit like nobody’s business.
All my embarrassment over the damn coat and the damn elevator melted away as desire flooded my body. I tugged my bottom lip between my teeth, and that simple movement broke the tension between us.
Before I could register that he’d moved, Walker’s hands were on me, hauling me toward him. And then I was being lifted off my feet as he tossed me over his shoulder literal caveman style. I shrieked as my legs dangled down one side of his body and my arms dangled down the other. He held me in place with large, firm hands as he spun and strode purposefully down the hall.
It was hard to get my bearings upside down, but I recognized the tasteful office where I’d first seen Walker when I showed up to clean. I heard a loud noise as the door slammed shut behind us, and suddenly, his large palm slipped under the hem of my coat, squeezing and massaging my ass cheek.
He slapped it lightly, and I yelped in surprise, another surge of wetness flooding my panties.
“Jesus, Macks. I can fucking smell you.”
His voice was tight, and he slapped my other cheek before setting me down on my feet. Still wearing the same intense look, he stepped back, raising his eyebrows in a challenging gesture.
Ah. He wanted to see what I’d brought him.
The elevator mishap was so far from my mind now that I could’ve sworn it’d happened to someone else. I didn’t feel silly or awkward at all. I felt powerful and sexy as hell as Walker’s gaze devoured me. I undid the belt on the coat, opening it slowly before letting it drop to the floor.
An agonized groan rumbled from Walker’s throat, and he walked toward me with deliberate steps. Cupping my face in both hands, he leaned down to kiss me, the gesture surprisingly tender given his recent cold shoulder.
Our kiss deepened and lengthened, going on and on until I was gasping for breath, every nerve in my body tingling. Maybe Alex had been right. Maybe this was exactly what we needed to shock us out of the recent awkwardness.
The fancy lingerie I’d worn didn’t last long against Walker’s raw, unfiltered desire. The torn pieces ended up strewn over his chair, over his desk, over a lamp, as his lips worshipped every inch of my body.
We ended up sprawled on the floor behind his desk, and when I finally tore Walker’s clothes off and pulled him closer, he sank into me as though it was a homecoming.
And it felt like that to me too. Him buried inside me, nothing between us.
This was how we were meant to be. Wasn’t it?
He fucked me for a long time, switching from hard and fast to slow and deep, circling his hips as he ground against my clit, never letting either of us reach our climax. As if he never wanted to stop, never wanted this to end.
But it was too good, the feelings sparking between us too intense for either of us to hold them off forever. When I couldn’t hold back anymore, I clutched his shoulders, digging my heels into his ass as I convulsed around him, sobbing out my release.
“Fuck, Mackenzie! Oh, God!”
I saw—I felt—the moment when he lost his battle too. His cobalt blue eyes darkened, his lids drooping as his face contorted with an almost pained look. He slammed into me with hard, uneven thrusts, and the tendons on his neck stood out as a deep groan spilled from his lips. His warmth flooded me, sending me spiraling into another orgasm that rose up on the heels of the first.
Our bodies both seemed to melt as the tension bled from them, and Walker collapsed on top of me, his deep, heavy breaths stirring my hair.
I kept my legs wrapped around him, brushing my fingers gently up and down his back, relishing the relaxed feel of his shoulders. When he finally rolled off me with a satisfied groan, he flipped over onto his back and pulled me too him, tucking me into the crook of his arm.
And if I was honest with myself, there was nowhere else in the world I’d rather be.
18
Walker
We lay on the floor beside my work desk, sweaty and satisfied. I held Mackenzie in my arms. My mind was a torrent of chaotic thoughts.
This felt so fucking right.
It shouldn’t.
We shouldn’t have done this here—but it was hard to keep my hands off Mackenzie when so much of her already occupied my mind and my heart. When I’d walked into the hall and seen Macks bent over near the elevator, her perfectly round ass on display like that, the skimpy black g-string only highlighting the curves and dips of her form, my cock had sprung to attention so fast I’d almost passed out from blood loss to the brain.
And when I’d realized what was going on—both that Mackenzie had come the office dressed like that to see me, and how she’d managed to get herself completely twisted up in her own coat—my heart had swelled almost painfully in my chest.
Goddamn, she was funny, even when she didn’t mean to be.
And she was sweet.
And so fucking sexy.
Mackenzie rested her head in the crook of my shoulder, drumming her fingers against the beat of my heart. I buried my nose in her hair. The scent of sex and fruit filled my lungs. I could drown in that scent. I’d never smelled anything more perfect.
Grant’s words echoed in my mind, and my arm unconsciously tightened around the gorgeous woman sprawled next to me with her leg hooked over mine. He was right. This was more than sex. Wasn’t it?
Mackenzie started to giggle. I kissed the top of her head.
“What’s so funny?”
“Well, isn’t it just so cliché? Boss Man having sex with his partner in the office where they shouldn’t be? I don’t think this is what your father had in mind when he handed over the reins.”
And just like that, the afterglow was gone. The comment, honestly harmless, hit me in the gut like a full-force sucker punch. I let out a breath and sit up, pulling myself out of Mackenzie’s embrace.
“Walker?” She frowned, the light in her emerald eyes dimming.
“We should probably get cleaned up. It’s getting late.”
I didn’t look at her, because I didn’t want to see the look of disappointment that I knew would be on her face. She said nothing as we started to redress, but the air in the room had shifted from content sexual satisfaction to an awkward silence. I could practically feel the trepidation crackle and fizzle in the air around us.
The trip home was fucking worse.
Smelling like sex and regret, we piled into a cab together. I was painfully aware of her state of dress. The smudged make up. The tousled hair. Her still-flushed skin. It just served as a greater reminder of what we’d just done, and how I was flopping back and forth inconsistently when it came to Mackenzie and me.
We arrived at the house, and still, we said nothing. Mackenzie made a straight line upstairs, and I caught her lip quivering as she ducked past me. A door on the second floor closed, and a few minutes later, I heard the shower running. For a few long heartbeats, I considered following her. I wanted to follow her into the shower, hold her under the hot spray of water, wash her hair, and kiss her tears away. But instead, I left her to her privacy.
Goddamn it.
Three weeks was closing in on me fast.
An uncomfortable mixture of guilt, anger, and confusion churned in my gut as I did everything I could to take my mind off the situation at hand. I fed and watered Bruno. I went out on to the balcony, hoping some fresh air would clear my head. I rearranged the cabinets and the fridge. Mackenzie still had yet to get out of the shower, and I wondered if she, too, was killing time. Trying to get her mind off things.
Or trying to avoid me.
We shouldn’t have had sex in the office. It was reckless and stupid. I had always prided myself on separating my work and home lives, and for so long, it’d been easy. Part of that was because there’d been almost no home life to speak of, so there weren’t many things to get in the way of work.
But now?
I’d been trying to buckle down this past week, to get back to that place where I lived and breathed my job.
Mackenzie kept creeping back into my thoughts no matter what I did though. My feelings were teetering where they didn’t need to be, blurring lines where they shouldn’t be blurred. I’d known what this was going to be when I made the marriage offer to Mackenzie. I had promised her it would be simple. Temporary.
So why was it so… hard to wrap my head around actually following through with it all?
Absorbed in my thoughts, I looked up, startled, when I heard a loud thud come from the bathroom, and a pained string of curses follow. I didn’t even think when I beelined to the bedroom then the en suite bathroom, throwing open the dark wood door.
“Mackenzie—!”
I paused, blinking at the sight in front of me.
The bathtub was partially full, suds floating on the top. Mackenzie was half in the tub, half out, with one leg over the edge of the tub and the other covered in shaving cream. It looked like she’d slipped… sitting on the edge of the tub.
I shouldn’t find this funny. This was the least opportune time to be amused, but the sight of her lying spread-eagle over the side of the tub only reminded me of her earlier mishap, which made me think of the multitude of other times Mackenzie had gotten herself into strange and awkward positions. She wasn’t a klutz, more like a magnet for disaster, and it was hard to not laugh at the fact that she was a slippery, ungraceful mess.
“Ass munching unicorn farts. This is so not funny,” she huffed.
Her arm was bent at a strange angle, holding her body up. She moved to try to stand again, and genuine worry made my heart jump. Between the suds and the shaving cream, I imagined she’d be more likely to slip and crack her skull open than make it out of the tub without assistance.
“It is, a little.” I chuckled, stepping forward. “You want help?”
“Yes, please.”
I strode over to her quickly and put a hand to her elbow, pulling her up and getting her—safely—settled back on the rim of the tub.
“Thanks.”
“Mm-hm.”
I stepped back, watching as she got her bearings again. When she finally did, she swallowed and looked up at me. There were questions in her eyes, and I could tell she was trying to figure out how best to word whatever was on her mind. Feeling like the world’s biggest asshole, I decided to break the ice for her.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” I offered. “I don’t know what was wrong with me; I shouldn’t have been so… tense, I guess? I’m certainly not the first guy to have sex in his office, and there’s no denying it was hot as fuck. I’m glad that you came by. I’ve been spending a lot of time caught up with work…”
“Yeah… I just wanted to loosen you up a little.” Her wary eyes softened slightly. “It’s okay, Walker, it really is. I understand.”
We stared awkwardly at each other for a moment before I cleared out to let her finish her bath, leaving the door cracked just in case disaster struck again.
What was it that she understood, I wondered? Was it the work? Or was it the fact that we weren’t going to be married for much longer?
* * *
One Week Later
My lawyer’s voice grated in my ears, and I pinched the bridge of my nose as I leaned my elbows on the desk in my home office, fighting back the migraine that threatened.
It wasn’t his fault every word he spoke pierced my brain—or my heart—like a dagger.
“It’ll be very quick,” he intoned. “Just signing a few documents, making sure that you’ve got copies of your marriage license and both your IDs, and then the inheritance in its entirety will be all yours.”
“Thanks Vincent.”
“Of course, Mr. Prince. Looking forward to seeing you later.”
I put my phone down and sighed. It was almost done—my inheritance was so close I could taste it.
That also meant my divorce was, too.
It was a strange thing to be facing. It left me in a place that had me reeling, back and forth. This had been my goal, the promised reward at the end of the line, and yet… I didn’t feel good about it. I didn’t feel like I was accomplishing something. If anything, what I felt in this moment that should’ve been full of triumph was instead a feeling of absolute, unequivocal loss.
My thoughts went to Mackenzie. I heard her walking around in the art room, but her movements sounded intentional, like she was hard at work on something. Only a single wall separated us, and wondered if she’d overheard my conversation with my lawyer.
Then I wondered which one of us was going to bring up the inevitable conversation first.
It didn’t help that we’d been distant since she’d visited the Royal Tech office that night. I couldn’t tell if it because we’d had sex in the office, or the aftermath, or just a combination of all of it.
I sighed. Fucking hell, this was a thousand times more complicated than I’d thought it was going to be. Grant had warned me from the beginning, that insightful bastard. Even having spoken to him recently and gotten Mr. Love Doctor’s advice, I felt like I was no closer to understanding where I stood on the matter.
I knew what I should do.
What I wanted was far less clear.
I went to the kitchen and started digging around the liquor cabinet. A stiff drink sounded like the answer to at least half my problems right now.
I’d just pulled a bottle from the cabinet when Mackenzie joined me.
“Heard you on the phone,” she said evenly. “Um, I take it everything’s going well with your inheritance?”
Her words were chosen carefully, but there was a measure of tension in her tone. I didn’t look at her until I’d filled my glass with two fingers of whiskey. When I did, her face was far less controlled. Her brow was drawn together, her lips turned down. There was a pain in her eyes that I wasn’t quite prepared for, and I faltered a little before I spoke.
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Yeah. Vincent just wanted to let me know that everything’s gone through, been approved. I should be home free by the end of next week.”
“I see.”
“It was a lot smoother than I thought it would be.”
“Mm-hm.”
I swallowed.
“Mackenzie—”
“That’s good, then,” she said with false brightness, not letting me get a word in. “That’s great. Means you’ll be able to get out there and be a single man again. And the company will be lucky to have you at the helm.”
Silence.
She kept her eyes on me, her gaze holding mine. What was that expression on her face? Was it a challenge? Was it defeat? I couldn’t tell. I only knew I was put on the spot and put there hard, and my heart pounded in my throat.
That’s great. Means you’ll be able to get out there and be a single man again.
Single. Not married. Not with Mackenzie. The thoughts ran through my brain like a movie reel, repeating over and over and over again.
It wasn’t what I wanted.
But it was what I should do.
I remembered all those years ago, the way Mackenzie had sounded when I’d told her I was leaving. The disappointment and hurt had hit me in the heart just as pointedly as they did now. I had done that to her. In some small way, had a part of me hoped that maybe through this ‘marriage’, I could atone for hurting her the way I had back then? That we could have a second chance?
But the longer the silence between us drew out, the harder Mackenzie’s eyes became. Whatever spark of… something… I’d thought I’d seen in their depths faded. I could see her steeling herself, rebuilding the walls around her heart brick my brick. A memory of the last phone call I’d made to her back when we were just kids flashed through my mind, and I gritted my teeth against the pain it caused.
She had made up her mind back then, and she’d made it up now.
The least I could do was not drag this out. It would be easier for both of us.
I lifted the whiskey to my lips, tipping it back quickly. I kept my eyes on her while I set the empty glass down
and nodded.
“Yep. Returning to bachelor life. Been married so long though, I don’t know how well I’ll integrate into single society again.”
My joke was dry, and the reaction from Mackenzie was even dryer. She just looked at me, and in the second after I spoke, I regretted it. Fucking Christ, Walker.
Her throat worked as she swallowed, and then she nodded. Her voice was distant and cool when she answered, almost unrecognizable.
“Yeah. Yeah—totally.”
19
Mackenzie
My mom used to say that testing a man—being indirect with him just to see his reaction—wasn’t the best way to approach a situation. I used to believe her, except for now. Sometimes you needed to see what kind of choice a man would make if he didn’t know where the conversation was going. You needed to see what was going on in his brain. You needed to see what he would do when you led him to water but didn’t force him to drink.
This was it. The end. I should’ve known from the distance that’d sprung up between us this was where Walker and I were headed. It was stupid, and made me more desperate than I liked to admit, but when I had congratulated him on his soon-to-be-single status, a huge part of me had hoped he would say he didn’t want that. That he wasn’t ready to give up what we had.
I shouldn’t have expected that, though. Walker had come to me so that he could get money, after all. He hadn’t come to me because he missed me. He hadn’t come to me because he had seen my art.
Nope. I’d fallen ass-first into a cleaning cart, and he had seen an opportunity to get what he needed from his father’s will.
So damn romantic.
Preemptively packing up my art room the day after our last heart-breaking conversation, I thought back to the first time I had faced losing Walker Prince. The unbearably long silence that’d followed after he moved to Tokyo with his dad had left a huge crater in my overall outlook on love.