by Zante, Lily
“You’re right,” he said, nodding, his eyes dancing with amusement.
“What are you two talking about?” asked Savannah, putting away her phone.
“Nothing,” Kay replied, feeling flustered. He seemed to always leave her in some sort of negative state, flustered, or empty, or just unsettled.
He was like a storm barreling into her life, and leaving just as fast, after he had wreaked havoc with her mind and body.
Chapter 13
He’d assumed she would appreciate the cocktail, but apparently Kay was still pissed off with him.
Post-coital disappointment seemed to linger around her. Yes, he had been greedy, and yes, he had failed to satisfy her, but seriously? Did she need to hold the grudge for this long?
She and Savannah looked to be deep in conversation. Twice he’d gone up to their table and twice he’d caught the tail end of their conversation. It had been worth it, though, to see the look of embarrassment on Kay’s face.
He could see right through her. Women were easy enough to read, in his experience, and, despite what Kay said, she was a romantic.
They all were.
And this was the problem.
Even his mother had been a complete romantic, right up until the end, clinging to futile hope even when his father hadn’t been interested.
Kay, for all her brash talk, for all her insistence that she could handle the type of relationship he offered—one based purely on physical needs—was not as tough as she tried to make out.
She wanted a connection, first and foremost, and then, love. Women did.
He’d had no intention of calling her after that last time, even though before he had left her, he had implied there might be a next time. The more he thought about it, the more he didn’t like the way he seemed drawn towards her. For that reason, it seemed better to cut off with her completely.
They’d fucked, and that was it.
He was over it.
Except that she had turned up in his bar tonight, and damn it if the sight of her in her smart working clothes didn’t turn him on. He didn’t understand the interest, couldn’t even pin it down to him having been celibate for a few months prior. Maybe a tiny fraction of it had been pity. He’d felt sorry for her, alone at the bar, the same way he felt sorry for her when she’d turned up here, her scent of desperation, combined with her curves, making for a tempting combination.
And now that he’d had a taste of her, now that she was back here again, now that he remembered her words, and her claim that he’d left her unsatisfied, well, he needed to make up to her.
So he spent the next hour half in conversation with some guests at the bar, and half in keeping an eye on Kay.
Now that she was here, he wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass him by.
He watched her kiss Savannah, and get her things together. Then he watched her leave. Calm as anything, he strode over to her, meeting her just as she pressed the elevator button to go down.
“You’re leaving already?” he asked.
“Yes.” Her expression registered a sliver of surprise, but the ding of the elevator made her turn her head. She schooled her expression as the doors slid open, but he pressed the button to close them.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice sharp. “I was waiting for that.”
“I need to talk to you.”
She looked at him. “About?” Those full lips tempting him.
“You’re still mad at me.”
“No I’m not.”
He didn’t believe her. “You barely said hello,” he challenged.
“That mattered to you?”
“Not too much.”
Yes.
Maybe.
He sucked in a breath, then leaned forward, his lips almost touching her earlobe. “I knew you couldn’t handle it,” he whispered, up close to her ear.
“I can handle it,” she insisted. “I work with men who are bigger dicks than you.”
Her verbal slap hit him hard and prompted a quick comeback. “Have bigger dicks, or are?”
She let out a strangled gasp of exasperation, clearly annoyed by his blatantly wrong interpretation. “Are you sure you don’t have a twin? Because this is not the guy I met at the island,” she shot back, clearly pissed at him.
It wasn’t the first time he’d heard a woman say that. Something happened to him, when he couldn’t handle intimacy. He couldn’t help but be a jerk. It was why he had his stipulations, why he wanted things to be a certain way. It was why he didn’t want a relationship long-term. He could do nice and friendly, be a good listener, a friend even, but if things went deeper, he couldn’t deal with it.
“There’s only one of me.”
“Just so that we’re clear,” she said, suddenly standing an inch taller, “I can handle it. I work with men who think that because they’re men, and because I’m a woman, that I can’t handle surviving in a man’s world. I can. And I’ve been doing just fine. “
“What does your work have to do with this? With you and me?” He found himself admiring her neat little up do, and wondered whether he would get a chance to take it out later, and see her hair fall around her shoulders.
She crossed her arms, her brown eyes cold as she glowered at him. “I’m not hurt and I’m not mad at you.”
He still didn’t believe her. “Even about me fucking you over the kitchen table?” He asked calmly.
She didn’t flinch that time. Didn’t even bat an eyelid. He swallowed, his eyes falling to her lips, and making him wonder if he could see her tonight. He’d be sure to give her an orgasm or two to make up for the shortfall last time.
“When you fucked me over my table,” she said, her red matte lipstick outlining her lips, giving him ideas. She took a step towards him, her temperament suddenly changing. Where just a moment ago she had been surprised to see him, she seemed to have overcome that quickly. “I can handle your rules, and your arrangement. You don’t do romance, and you don’t want emotional baggage. You don’t have to keep reminding me, and the fact that you do makes me wonder if you’re the one who’s having second thoughts. Maybe you can’t handle it, as for me, I really don’t have the time for all that…fuckery, as you say.” She rubbed her fingers together, as if she was flicking some imaginary dust from them.
Most women didn’t talk back like this, most women were just glad he had showed an interest in them at all, and he had assumed, wrongly now that he was getting to know her, that Kay would be the same. But here she was, twisting his balls, telling her he’d treated her like a piece of meat, and that the experience had done nothing for her. More than that, she was turning him on, throwing back at him the crap he threw at her. He suddenly had the urge to take her in to his office and do unspeakable things with her. Things she would enjoy. Of that much he was sure.
“We’re on the same page then,” he managed to say, marveling at the way this woman had managed to give him an erection by just talking. It wasn’t even dirty talk.
“In case you’re in any doubt,” she said, chewing her bottom lip and running a perfectly manicured fingernail over his lapel again. “I like sex as much as any man, it’s the being treated like a piece of meat part that I have an objection too.”
“I heard you the first time,” he said, clearing his throat.
“Maybe what you need,” she said, grinding her words out slowly. “Is a call girl. One of those high-class escorts, the ones who offer massages with extras. I’ve heard there are places for men with money, if you don’t want to get caught in a strip-joint.”
This was not the whimpering, whiny wreck of a woman he had first met. If she’d been like that, he could have given her another pity-fuck, and be done with her. Instead, she seemed to have the upper hand, and he didn’t like that.
A part of him still wondered if it was her bravado talking. Sometimes women put on an act because they liked to manipulate the situation. He still wasn’t sure what to make of her, and despite her bravado, her saying
she could handle the way things were between then, he knew that most women weren’t okay with it.
Maybe there was a truth to what she’d said. She probably had balls because she needed them to survive in the line of work she was in, but when it came to matters of the heart, women were soft, and he was sure Kay was no different. In fact, he had yet to meet a woman whose heart was made out of stone. There was only one woman who’d had that title, and it was the bitch he had later discovered was his father’s mistress.
“You’re not a piece of meat,” he said, reaching for her hand and rubbing his thumb over it gently. His other hand slid to the small of her back, and he tugged her towards him, a stirring in his briefs causing his brain to short-circuit. There was something about a woman with red lipstick implying that she had no problem using him just for sex. She was going to give him another boner and all without even touching him. The urge to kiss her overrode his thinking, and he wanted to taste her sweet mouth again. He wanted to lead her into his office and take her on his desk; pleasure her with his tongue first, because women always loved that shit.
“It won’t happen again,” he said, moving closer but fighting the desire to claim her mouth. His lips were a few millimeters from hers, giving her an out. “If you don’t want any of this, I understand.”
“I never said I didn’t want any of this,” she replied. He turned her wrist over and lowered his mouth to it, inhaling orange blossom and jasmine. She didn’t flinch, or retract her hand, and so he dropped a kiss there, then another, further up, and another.
Taking her silence as a sign of her acceptance, he lifted his mouth to hers and claimed it. Her lips parted and he kissed her, softly at first, then, when he felt her hands snake up behind his back, he drove the kiss deeper. She was soft, and warm, and she had forgiven him. Looking into her eyes he saw softness again, and relieved, he buried his face in her neck, inhaling, and breathing in her scent, her essence, her everything.
She moaned, and pressed against him, making him hard again. This was what she wanted, what most women wanted, and he gave it to her. Slow, sensual get-ready-to-fuck kissing, with his hands sliding gently over the fabric of her work suit.
He pressed against her, until she broke the kiss.
“Now that we’re clear,” she said, moving towards the elevator again. “Let me know when I can pencil you in. Not tonight. I’m busy.”
The elevator dinged its arrival, and she got in, then disappeared, leaving him annoyed, and as horny as hell.
She might as well have poured a bucket of ice over his dick.
Chapter 14
Savannah’s advice had worked.
It had actually, truly, definitely worked.
Who knew?
It had given her courage when she had been sooooo tempted to give into Luke that day. She’d been ready to go to his place or hers. Whichever was the nearest. He had kissed her long and deep, and pressed his body against hers, making it obvious as to what he wanted.
Ordinarily, she would have given in. She would have easily succumbed to a man whose need for her was so great that it intoxicated her.
Ordinarily.
But she had heeded Savannah’s advice well. The playing-hard-to-get part, if not the man-free diet advice, and it had worked. She was determined to do more of it.
Walking away from Luke that day had been tough, because his need for her had been unexpected. She had no idea how she had managed to walk away and go home.
She had somehow also managed to go through the next few weeks without calling him. But he hadn’t called her either.
Luckily for her, work kept her busy. She didn’t have time to think about Luke. So when Erin suggested going to The Oasis one evening after work, with a group of friends from the Legal department, she tagged along, even though she didn’t know Erin’s friends that well.
The Oasis was quickly becoming a Friday night go-to place for after work drinks.
She had been at the office since 6.30am, and had managed to complete a milestone in the Pembroke deal. Remington—he’d been in the office from the start of the day—told her to go home and enjoy the weekend.
So she did.
Returning to the familiar bar made her slightly anxious again. She caught sight of Luke a few tables away, talking to a table full of flirting women. Seeing him all dressed in his familiar black, looking too-damn handsome for words, made her insides flutter like falling autumn leaves.
She observed him unknowingly. He had a gorgeous side profile, and big, beautiful inked biceps. He walked over to the same old table in the far corner and sat down, then looked through his folder, occasionally checking his cell phone from time to time.
He must have sensed her staring because he looked up and smiled at her. She couldn’t help but return the smile.
There was a danger that tonight, if he so willed it, she wouldn’t be able to walk away. He had wanted her that day near the elevator, and he would want her now. All she had to do was agree. Any guilt she had about not following any of Savannah’s advice, immediately disintegrated as she knew it would. She had never intended to follow it through, for she had needs, as a woman, and this man, even with his rules and stipulations, ignited a fire in her that nobody had ever been able to. Not even Dean, and he was someone she had fallen in love with.
She got up and walked over to him, not caring what Erin and her friends made of it.
“Hello, stranger,” she said, smoothing her hand down her pencil skirt. “Mind if I sit down?”
“Go ahead.” He closed his folder, eyeing her with an amused expression. “Long time no see, no hear.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“I gathered. Is that a business meeting?” he asked, nodding at the table she had vacated.
“Does it look like it?” Erin and the girls had a table littered with cocktails. It was happy hour, and there wasn’t a business folder or pen in sight.
“You’ve been avoiding this place,” he asserted.
“Maybe.”
“You left me hanging, that last time.”
The twinkle in his eyes made her heart stop for a second. Was there a hint of flirtation in that sentence? “Maybe.”
“And now you’re here again, turning up when I least expect it.”
She smiled sweetly.
“I can’t figure you out,” he said, tapping his fingers on the table a few times.
“I could say the same for you.”
“We’re not so different, after all,” he said. “Sit down,” he motioned to the seat next to him. “I don’t bite.”
She did as he asked, but left a good-sized gap between them.
He lifted his eyebrow at the gap. “I promise you, I don’t bite. Not unless you want me to.” He patted the empty area, and with a roll of her eyes, she moved closer, but still left a few inches between them.
“So, what brings you here tonight?” he asked.
She waved her hand towards the table she had vacated. “My friend Erin suggested we come here.”
“It wasn’t because you needed to see me?”
“No.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes.” The heat of his stare was making her cheeks turn pink.
“Because,” he whispered into her ear, leaning in so close that she could smell his cologne, “sometimes when you turn up, I start getting ideas.”
“Ideas?” she asked, moving her head away so that she could get a read on his expression. “What sort of ideas?” She blinked and made out as if she had no idea what he was talking about.
“I can’t tell whether you’re in or out with regards to our arrangement. We seem to talk about it more than we do anything.”
“And we both know you’re a do-er, rather than a talker.”
He gave her a devilish smile. “Exactly.”
But it was true. They hadn’t signed anything, hadn’t discussed anything, apart from his freaking rules. Her showing up at the bar wouldn’t have meant anything, but her coming up to hi
m as she had done just now might signal intent. She could see why he was thinking what he was, and now that she was in close proximity to him again, that same buzz, the pull of that familiar connection between them, heightened things further.
She wasn’t sitting here having a conversation with Luke, as much as she was having an experience. The neurons in her brain fired off, putting all sorts of visuals in her brain. He was intoxicating, and as she breathed in his scent, felt goosebumps crawling along her skin, and the familiar throbbing between her legs, she knew it was impossible to walk away this time. Being around Luke was like falling into a raging torrent and getting carried away. She was powerless to stop herself, to save herself and knew that it would not end well.
He was not like the others, not even like Dean who had managed to reel her back a couple of times, much to her detriment.
And sensing things, knowing the warning in her gut, she wouldn’t have stopped now even if she could, because she hadn't yet had her fill of this man.
“So,” he said, shifting a little closer to her. “Are you in, or are you out?”
She wrinkled her nose up, considering his offer, and surprised also, by his forwardness. “I’ll need to think about it.” But right now, she was hungry. She looked around for a menu, because there were none on his table. “Does this place do food?”
“Of course, but it’s mainly finger food. Canapes and that type of food.”
That type of food wasn’t going to fill the hole in her stomach. She was starving. “Do you want to get dinner?” she asked. “I haven’t eaten all day.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I was at the office at six this morning and I didn’t even have lunch.” It had been another long day in a week of long days, and it was starting to take its toll. “I had a chocolate bar, on the go, and three cups of coffee,” she continued, knowing that something was wrong, but not understanding what.
“That’s not healthy.”
“I know. Erin keeps telling me I need to get some fruit snacks, or some seeds, and nuts.” She sat back, wondering. “So, what about dinner?” she asked. A painful silence followed and it made her wonder. “Or is that one of your rules?”