International Player

by Louise Bay

  “Research just hasn’t been done?”

  “There’s no material benefit if the results turn out to be good. Big pharma or even medical device companies aren’t going to increase profits by figuring out martial arts help with spinal injuries. And like it or not, those are the people who have money to fund the research—or employ lobbyists to ensure government money goes into researching treatments they can make a profit on.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “Yeah, that makes sense. Perhaps that’s something we can work on. I’m not sure if we can run a study on alternative treatments or fund kung fu classes more widely for these types of injuries.”

  “Are you thinking you’ll set up a charity?”

  I blew out a breath. That wasn’t the direction I’d thought I’d be heading, but I was keeping my options open. “Maybe. I want to look at what the impact might be of all these options.”

  My phone buzzed on my desk beside me.

  I have a proposition for you, Truly messaged.

  I grinned. She couldn’t know the dirty things that ran through my head at that suggestion. Every time I thought about her, I tasted tequila on my tongue and felt her heat under my fingers. But we hadn’t kissed again. We hadn’t talked about it. Really, we’d barely talked about anything but the foundation. I knew I wanted more of her time, attention, and touch. But Rob was right, there were serious consequences if anything more happened between us. She wasn’t a girl that would float out of my life when I moved on after a few months. She was in my world and I liked her there. I liked being able to talk to her about anything. Enjoyed the way she would put me straight if I got things wrong. I liked that she seemed completely unselfconscious around me. I didn’t want to lose any of it. But where did that leave me? Did we change gears and go back to strictly friends, and was that even possible?

  “Excuse me,” I said, my eyes locked on the screen of my phone as I typed back.

  Sounds intriguing.

  “I’ll come up with some ways in which you might be able to look at the impact of these other therapies.”

  “Sounds good.” My phone pinged again, drawing my attention away from George.

  Be at my place at eight.

  No invitation to the Harbury Foundation’s offices or Rob and Abigail’s. I’d not been into her flat since I’d left for New York. My jaw tightened. Was I about to walk into questions I couldn’t answer? Was this about our kiss . . . and would it lead to another? Perhaps she’d made a decision about what she wanted. Maybe I’d walk in there and she’d say how she regretted kissing me. I swallowed at the thought of not touching her again.

  “Anything else?” George asked.

  I shook my head, distracted. If she said she wanted more from me, would I be able to resist, or would I give in to her shy smile and captivating honesty?

  I blew out a breath. Truly was probably just freaking out about a meeting she thought she fucked up or wanted some advice on what to wear for her next lunch. I’d just take the evening as it came, pick up a bottle of wine on my way around, and fucking relax. We were friends, right? Friends spent time together over a bottle of wine. We might be teetering on the brink of something else, but right now I was looking forward to seeing her, whatever we were to each other.

  NINETEEN

  Truly

  My tiny living room wasn’t designed for pacing. I could only manage two and a half steps before I had to turn around. But that hadn’t put me off. Propositioning Noah had seemed like a good idea when I’d weighed up the pros and cons instead of sleeping, then an even better idea when I’d messaged him. But right now, with three minutes until his arrival, it seemed like the worst idea in the world.

  I needed stationery.

  Pens, paper—not pink. Not bone ivory. White would be more . . . professional. Less emotional. Black pens. White paper. Because that was what my proposition was—black and white. Take it or leave it. Head not heart. I pulled out two fresh pens and ten sheets of paper and was just about to close the door to my home-stationery cabinet when the Post-its caught my eye. Yes. We might need Post-its. Again, yellow. No fancy colors.

  This was the perfect solution—a way of getting him out of my system, stopping me from wondering if there was more to his touch or whether he meant what he said, that I was beautiful. This was my opportunity to take back control. I just needed to get through the actual proposition and then I could relax.

  I’d not changed out of my office wear. I couldn’t negotiate an agreement for casual sex in a comic-book t-shirt. I needed to be businesslike about this, although I’d taken off my shoes and opened a bottle of wine. I’d only had half a glass but my muscles were looser, and my brain a little fuzzy. I’d hoped it would take away my urge to pace but, no, not even pinot noir was that powerful.

  I jumped at the sound of the buzzer as if I were guilty of a crime and about to be arrested. If Abigail knew what I was up to, she’d definitely tell me I should be locked up for criminal stupidity.

  I reached the intercom just after the buzzer sounded for the second time. I didn’t speak, just released the door and began to count my breaths—in, two, three, out, two, three.

  In, two, three. Out, two, three.

  Yeah, I definitely needed liquid courage.

  I scooped up my glass from the table where it sat with the bottle of wine, stationery, and an empty glass for Noah. No one could accuse me of not being prepared.

  I opened the door to find Noah waiting.

  “Hey,” he said, his smile curling around the word like it was a secret between us.

  I held up my glass. “Hey,” I said.

  He frowned suspiciously, and before he could ask me how long I’d been drinking, I headed back to my living room, hoping he’d follow.

  “Wine?” I asked, looking up at him as I perched on the edge of my sofa, topping up my glass.

  His gaze tracked my movements. “Are you okay, Truly?”

  “Of course,” I snapped. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  He smirked as he raked his fingers through that beautiful blond hair. “No reason. You don’t normally drink on a weeknight, that’s all.”

  “Well, things change,” I said, pouring the already open wine into his glass. “You’re in a suit.” I avoided looking at him, scared that the sight of him in all that cool, navy wool would have me pawing at him, given the wine I’d now drunk.

  He sighed and shrugged off his jacket, placing it over the back of the chair that no one ever sat on.

  I held out his glass, and he took it with one hand, loosening his tie with the other. I pulled my eyes away from his long fingers and the way he always seemed so confident everywhere he went.

  “How was your day?” he asked as he sat on the other end of the sofa, one long arm stretched across the back of the cushions, almost touching me like he’d done the night we’d kissed at the tequila bar.

  “Good,” I said, nodding furiously.

  He chuckled. “What’s going on, Truly? Do you have bad news you need me to help you deliver to Abigail? An issue with the foundation?”

  “Not exactly,” I replied, tipping back some more wine. “Not at all, in fact.” I had to tell him what I was thinking, but it seemed so stupid now that he was here, all perfect and gorgeous. Why on earth would he want me?

  “I just thought we could have some wine and talk. You know.”

  His smile faltered. “Okay.” He took a sip of wine. “You said you had a proposition.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not drunk enough yet,” I replied. I wasn’t sure I would ever be drunk enough. “And neither are you.”

  “I have to be drunk to hear whatever you have to say?” He glanced around my book-lined room. “Are you going to tell me you’re MI6 and that you want to recruit me? Because I’m in. I always thought I’d enjoy a life as a spy. It just doesn’t pay enough. But I could do it part-time.”

  I fixed him with a glare. “I’m not trying to recruit you into MI6, Noah.” I rolled my eyes. Men. Why did they always think they were
a step away from being the next James freaking Bond?

  He grinned. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. You’d make a terrible spy.”

  I leaned back into the sofa. “There’s no way I could do that job.”

  “For one thing, they look for people who don’t stand out—you’re way too beautiful for people not to notice you.” He twisted my hair in his fingers, and I closed my eyes, forgetting for a few seconds how that wasn’t normal behavior between us.

  My eyes flew open. “That’s a perfect example.” I shifted to look at him properly. “Things like that. The fingers. The telling me I’m beautiful. I need you out of my system. And Jesus God and a banana, I need some sex.”

  He chuckled and grabbed the bottle, topping himself up. “I’m cutting you off until you tell me what this is all about,” he said.

  “I just told you. I need to get laid, and you, with all your tequila kisses and unzipping dresses and that thing you do with my neck—you’re the man for the job.”

  “The job?” he asked, his eyebrows retreating into his hairline. “The job of getting you laid?”

  Oh my God, it sounded like a disaster when he said it like that. “Not that it’s a job. Just that you’re single—” I paused. “Are you single?”

  “Yes, Truly, I’m single. Remember the tequila kisses? They wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t.”

  I nodded. Good. So, he was single. That was a start. “And I’m single. Hence, me tequila kissing you back. So, we should just have some casual sex.” There, I’d said it. Put it on a platter for him and stuck an apple in its mouth.

  I stared at my wine, waiting for a response.

  “Truly,” he said, his voice gravelly and so delicious that if I could eat it, I’d lick it so slowly it would last an entire year.

  I peeked at him, shifting my head as little as possible.

  “Is that why I’m here? Your proposition is . . . casual sex?”

  Oh God, did he have to say it out loud like that? “But we can’t tell Abigail and Rob. Way too messy. That is a hard rule.” I eyed the paper and pen, ready to get down to business if he said yes.

  He chuckled again, and I winced.

  “You’re laughing at me?”

  He paused. “No, not at you—I . . . This is unexpected.”

  I blew out a breath. “Unexpected.” This was a terrible idea. I sat forward, leaning my elbows on my knees, my head in my hands. Even though I’d been casual about people I’d had sex with, I’d never done casual sex. But with Noah? I just wanted him out of my system. I’d been kidding myself pretending my crush wasn’t back with a vengeance. I was so aware of him whenever he was around, so ready to sink into his smallest touch. I wanted to reframe what I felt and move on to a different stage. Travel from love to convenient sex.

  “But not unwelcome,” he said. “I just don’t think I’ve ever had a woman call me over to her flat to suggest . . . whatever you’re suggesting.”

  He slid his hand over my back, and my body and mind began to dissolve. That was exactly what I was talking about. I wanted to thicken my skin. Realize it was no big deal when he touched me.

  “We won’t tell Abigail or Rob,” he said. “What else?”

  I turned my head to find him staring straight at me. Was he saying yes?

  “What else, Truly? I can tell you’ve thought about this.”

  “I thought we could write it down so nothing gets forgotten or misinterpreted,” I mumbled in a small voice.

  He tried his hardest to stifle the grin that burst from his face. “Hence the stationery.”

  I shrugged.

  He cleared his throat and picked up a pad of Post-its, frowned and then tossed them back on the table. Maybe the Post-its had been a step too far.

  Over on my side table, he grabbed my beaten-up copy of The Fellowship of the Ring, folded his paper in half, and pulled the cap off his pen. “I won’t mark it,” he said.

  “I know.” He knew how much I loved that book. I had a couple of hard-backed versions, too, but the book he had was the one I read to preserve the others.

  “So,” he said, nodding toward the stack of paper. “Are you going to make your list?”

  I rolled my eyes as if it had been his idea all along and I was just going along with it. “If you insist.”

  “We’re writing down rules,” he said, as if to confirm we were on the same page.

  “And what we don’t want to happen.”

  He fixed me with a stare. “And what we do.”

  I began my list, and tried to ignore him, tried to forget that Noah was sitting on my sofa, inches away from me. That we were talking about having sex. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to erase the images of my sister yelling at me, telling me I was an idiot.

  Noah was right. I had thought about this list. I figured six rules were appropriate. And then if he added six, twelve would be an acceptable number.

  “So,” I said, shifting back into the cushions and bringing my feet up so I could rest my papers against my legs. “Who’s going first?”

  “Well, given this is your idea, I think it should be you.”

  I’d been hoping he’d say that. “Okay,” I said, putting a black circle around the number one. “The first one is no telling anyone—especially not Rob and Abigail.”

  I looked up at him from under my lashes, and he nodded. “The second one is condoms at all times.”

  “At all times?”

  “Like, when we’re doing it. Not, you know, when we’re not.”

  He chuckled. “Okay, good. Number three?”

  “I don’t want to hear about any other women you’re dating.”

  His eyes narrowed slightly. “So, no monogamy on either side?”

  “I don’t expect that, no. And I won’t tell you about my dates, either.”

  “I thought the whole point of this was that Jesus God and a banana you needed some sex? If you’re fucking other people—”

  “I’m not. But, you know . . .” I lifted a shoulder. Why should it be a one-way rule? “If it did happen with someone else, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “Good to know,” he responded sarcastically.

  “Four, we get tested regularly for STDs.”

  He rolled his eyes like a bored teenager at the back of the class.

  “Five, all meetings are arranged in advance. No just turning up.” This one was more for me since I didn’t want to run into some six-foot, rail-thin model coming out of his penthouse.

  “Okay, so we schedule the sex.” His grin replaced the sarcasm.

  “Six, the sex has got to be good.”

  He grabbed my ankles and pulled me toward him, then crawled over me. “You think it would be any other way?” he growled.

  His hard body, over me, blocked out everything but him. The same way he was all I saw whenever he was around. He dipped his head, pressing his lips into the skin just above my collarbone. But we hadn’t finished. I pushed at his chest. “No, Noah.”

  He pulled away, his gaze dipping from my eyes to my lips and back up. “No? Do I need to sign something first?”

  I poked his hard abs. “I haven’t heard your rules yet.”

  “I don’t have any. We’re going to have hot, uncomplicated sex. Perfect. I’ll sign whatever you want me to.”

  He went to kiss me, and I pressed my fingers against his lips. “I’m serious. We need to be clear about each other’s expectations before we start this thing.”

  “I’m serious, too. I’ve heard your expectations. I agree with them. I don’t have any others.”

  “So, just like that, you’re ready?”

  He lowered his body against mine, his erection pressing against my thigh. “I’m more than ready. I’ve been imagining this for a very long time.”

  And I was done. There was no more fight left in me.

  TWENTY

  Noah

  The fresh coconut scent of her was enough to get me hard. But sitting there with her carefully arranged stationery as she proposed we
have a casual sexual relationship? Fuck, my erection pressed against my zip so painfully my eyes watered. She didn’t have to ask twice. I’d have agreed to pretty much anything to kiss her again. I didn’t quite understand the pull I had toward her, and I still didn’t know how this was going to turn out. Yet even though I was risking something important to me for sex, it was a gamble I had to take. There had always been something about her that was different and totally confounding, and I wanted to explore that.

  I groaned into her neck, breathing her in. I just couldn’t get enough. Her fingertips crept over the top of my shirt and pressed into my neck in the most perfect way. I wanted to savor this, draw it out, to kiss for hours, but I was too impatient to get more of her, to have all of her.

  I popped open the buttons of her blouse. Jesus, the silk and skin and her perfect scent—I was in sensory overload. I buried my head between her breasts, trying to drown in her. I couldn’t remember struggling to hold back with anyone before. It was as if Truly ripped sounds from my throat like some kind of witch. She stole my control—made me dizzy with need for her.

  I reached for the hem of her skirt. What the hell were all these clothes still doing on? There were too many barriers between us. I pulled back and removed my shirt. Her gaze dipped to my torso and suddenly all those hours in the gym had been for her.

  She pressed her thumb against my nipple, and the sensation was as potent as if her mouth was around my cock. Sweat gathered at my brow as I stopped myself from just pulling out my dick and shoving it in right there. I needed more than that. And I knew she deserved more.

  As I stood to pull off my trousers, she lifted her hips and rucked up her skirt, displaying her black lace knickers. I fought between the urge to kick off my trousers and get a closer look at her pussy. I freed myself of my clothes and sank to my knees.

  “Oh yes, you’re already so wet for me.” I examined the patch of darkened material, then yanked the lace to the side.

  She sighed and parted her legs, and my blood pumped louder in my veins.