“Me too.” She looked down at the perfect white turkey and rich, golden stuffing. “Yum.”
“So what made you have a change of heart?”
“What makes you think I didn’t plan on coming?” she shot back.
“Because you didn’t call until 7:30.”
She relented. “I didn’t want to impose. But I went to this buffet and….” She shrugged. “It made me miss my family.”
“I understand. I miss my dad terribly around the holidays, too.”
“Yes, so do I.”
“I thought you never knew your father?”
Jessica recoiled, staring at him. “You must have me confused with someone else.”
Evan realized that he had given away a little too much. But maybe this was what he needed to pry the truth out of Jessica. “I believe that’s what you told me.”
“No. My father died when I was twelve. My mother died when I was sixteen. All I told you was that I entered foster care at sixteen.” She seemed shaken. Her hand even trembled as she cut into her turkey.
“Sorry to bring it up. I just understand that you have a lot of pain regarding your family.”
“Yes, well, it hurts but I have survived. I’ll be fine.”
“So will I. But it’s always better to have a friend who listens.”
“So that’s what we are? Friends? I thought we were just associates.”
“We can always be more.” He tilted his wine glass toward her. “Of course, I like to keep things professional.”
“Sure. I am sure that you bed everyone in that office.”
“Why do you think that of me?” Evan set his glass down. “I don’t understand why you have that impression of me.”
“I know how guys like you are,” Jessica responded.
“But you don’t clearly. You don’t even know me. I think you’re mad at me for some reason. Could you tell me why?”
“I’m not mad. There’s nothing personal between us. Look, this dinner is great but I really think I should leave.”
Chapter 6
Jessica hated how Evan seemed to be hounding at her, fishing for information. And she didn’t like how he knew about her father when she had never told him that. She was very talented at lying and remembering her stories. She felt disconcerted as she attempted to gobble her plate of Thanksgiving food and leave.
Alone in her apartment, she had decided to spend Thanksgiving with someone. The life of a con artist didn’t allow for many friends and she had no family, at least not in the city. Her mother’s brother lived somewhere in Indiana but they didn’t speak. Besides, for some reason Evan had really made her want to come. Something about his dopey smile and love for cooking and Santa Claus appealed to her. So she had come over, but obviously that was a mistake. Evan appeared to have an ulterior motive for having her here.
Jessica suddenly felt overcome with loneliness. If only she had someone to talk to.
Evan moved over to her and wrapped a reassuring arm around her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She faked a beautiful smile. “This was delicious, but I had better go.”
“Are you sure? I made sweet potato pie and I have an excellent wine to pair it with.”
“It’s okay. I need to go.” She pushed away from the table and tried to disentangle herself from his arms. Then she saw his lips, so close to hers, so perfect and shapely. He leaned over her, and his passion was tangible.
Suddenly she found herself pulled into his warmth as if she had been caught by a tractor beam. Jessica could not tell if she’d made the first move or if he had; they locked in a passionate embrace at the same time, as if sucked together by a magnetic force. His body felt so good against hers. It had been so long since she had been held. She eagerly locked lips with him, drinking in the feeling of him, the way he smelled, the sweetness with which he kissed her. He let out a little moan in the back of his throat as he clasped her body tighter, one hand on the small of her back, the other grasping a handful of her blouse where her back curved into her ass. The sensation of his fingers just barely touching her ass exhilarated her as she arched her body into him, pressing every inch of her skin against him that she could manage.
This was so wrong! Yet so right. She didn’t want this moment to end.
Evan picked her up as if she were a feather and set her on the table. She pushed her half-eaten plate back with her hip as she cinched her legs tight around his waist. With a hard thrust, he jammed his hip bones against her inner thighs and she felt herself grow sopping wet. Now they kissed with tongue, their arms, tongues, and lips all tangled as if they were one being.
The sensation of closeness and intimacy made Jessica lose her mind. She wasn’t even fully aware of what she was doing, yet at the same time she was totally in the moment. There was nothing in the world except right here, right now, kissing Evan Davis passionately. Everything about him, his body, his cologne, his hair gel, the way he held her and the way he kissed her, tantalized her and filled her being with a crazed desire. She almost felt rabid. All she wanted to do was claw his back and suck on his neck and feel him inside of her.
“Should we do this?” Evan suddenly asked, as he pulled away. His brow was wrinkled with concern.
Jessica was surprised as he snapped her out of her daze of passion. “Well,” she replied, “why not?” She tried to pull him close again.
“Look, I am a man of honor. I don’t like doing things that…I may later regret. Not that I would regret you,” he added hastily when Jessica looked hurt. “I just mean that I don’t believe office affairs are a good idea. I honestly didn’t expect this to happen – I don’t want you thinking that I invited you here to take advantage of you.”
“I don’t think that,” she responded. Then she began to gather her wits, which were temporarily shot by her proximity to Evan. “I suppose this is a bad idea. I don’t know why I started doing this….”
“If you like me, then I don’t see anything wrong with it,” Evan replied gently. “Honestly, I want this to happen. I just don’t want any bad repercussions. I want to make sure that you understand that this – that I am not like this. Normally.”
“Why are you doing this now, then?” Jessica challenged him. “If you really aren’t a man whore and you don’t like office affairs, why are you making out with me?”
“Honestly?”
Jessica nodded, glaring into his eyes. But all she saw there was kindness and love.
“Honestly, because I am falling hard for you.”
Jessica had to suppress a gasp of surprise. That was not at all what she had expected him to say. She had expected some corny playboy line, or some comment about how hot she was. “Really?” she stuttered.
“Really. I’m crazy about you. I can’t get enough. That’s why I wanted to spend my Thanksgiving with you. That’s pretty special, don’t you agree?”
“Well, yeah…” Jessica shook her head. “But you’re actually falling for me?”
“Here. Can I show you how I feel about you?”
Jessica nodded slowly, uncertain what to expect.
Evan scooped her up off of the table. Her heart hammered in her throat with exhilaration when she realized that he was carrying her to the bedroom. His hands shook a bit as he laid her down and began to pop the buttons down the front of her frilly champagne-colored blouse. When he reached the last button, he hesitated, then stooped down to plant a kiss on her stomach. He kissed his way up her front, lingering with his lips above her skin, letting his breath tickle her skin. When he reached her chest, he took each of her nipples in his mouth for a gentle suckle. Jessica felt herself getting hotter and hotter. She grabbed his hair and ruffled it, before burying her fingers into his locks and pulling.
“Ah,” he groaned, rolling his head to release the pleasurable pain.
“Will you eat me out?” Jessica asked shyly. While she was not a shy girl, she was inexperienced in this way and unaccustomed to asking for what she wanted in bed. It see
med so vulgar to ask Evan to eat her out, yet she wanted it so badly.
Evan grinned, then happily obliged her. He eased her slacks down, exposing her perfect, shaved pussy, and began to kiss her. He gently flicked his tongue against her flesh and she reflexed excitedly. Each touch of his lips, as he gradually became more and more forceful and passionate, made her heart swell and her blood pound in her ears. She curled her toes and gasped as she climaxed in his mouth.
“You taste wonderful,” he told her as he came up for air. He planted a kiss on her lips and she giggled because she could taste herself.
“I’m not bad,” she joked.
Then she began to explore under his shirt. She had unwittingly imagined what he looked like disrobed, but she had not really imagined that she would one day find out. With some trepidation, she began to pull his clothes off, delighting in the smooth firmness of his muscular body. She kissed down his chest and found the spot where he sprayed his cologne. Then she licked him down to the waist of his pants, which he was already unbuckling. Together they struggled to get his pants over his hips and Jessica took his swollen penis into her mouth. He leaned back on his knees and moaned as she pulsed up and down the length of him, flicking her tongue over his tip.
Suddenly he pushed her down on the bed and thrust into her. She gasped as she rose her hips up to meet him. Locked together, they began to rock in perfect tandem. Jessica could feel him swelling inside of her, pushing up into her stomach, filling her. He was certainly well-endowed and the pleasure was almost unbearable. “Oh, God! Evan!” she cried out.
He grinned as he clapped a hand over her mouth. “Let’s not disturb the neighbors,” he whispered. “I love how you moan, but you are loud!”
“It just feels so good,” she panted back.
“Yes,” he closed his eyes and nodded his head as he laid over her, propped up on his elbows. “It feels amazing. You are so tight. And so beautiful.” He kissed her. She kissed his neck.
For nearly an hour they rocked each other, trying various positions all over Evan’s room. Finally, they collapsed together, sweating and panting. Jessica meant to get up and get dressed, but she couldn’t leave the comfort of Evan’s arms yet. Sleep overcame her before she could help it.
Jessica’s internal alarm clock woke her early the next day. Gingerly, she slipped out of Evan’s arms. She really wanted to lay there for hours, reveling in the warmth radiating from his body and the comfort his muscular arms offered. But it was time to go. She still had to prepare for another scam that she was running that day. A Black Friday scam. It would be a while before she got her money from Evan’s company, and she still needed to make a living.
For a second, she lingered at the door, watching Evan’s sleeping face. He was beautiful in repose. His eyelashes fluttered with his exhalations. What a success. Clearly he was falling for her and her mission would work out favorably. But she was also concerned because she had never slept with one of her marks, even when she was pretending to be a prostitute. Besides occasionally allowing some groping or even kissing, she never went too far with her targets. This surprised her. Not just because she had slept with a mark, but because…she had wanted to.
And that fact scared her to her very core.
For though she had not had a romantic relationship with Gary, she had vowed to never trust or love another man again after what he had done to her. She had to stop this with Evan before it became more than she could handle. She would have to shut the door to her heart and steel herself up again. For she knew one of life’s most painful truths: Love was weakness.
Chapter 7
Evan could not believe what had happened the night before. He woke up and reached over for Jessica, only to find emptiness and cold sheets where she had been cuddled up against him just a few hours before. Sleeping with her had given him a fantastic sense of peace; he had slept like a baby, unperturbed by the usual worries that swirled through his mind at night. But he had thought she felt the same, and he felt a bit stung to find that she had slipped off without letting him make her breakfast with French press coffee and fresh-squeezed orange juice.
“Why did I do that?” he asked his reflection in the mirror as he splashed water on his face to wake himself up. The sex the night before had left him a bit groggy now. How he wished that Jessica had stayed, so that he could’ve stayed in bed holding her, sleeping in. His Christmas shopping was done; there was no reason to head out into the Black Friday madness. He also didn’t have work till Monday, and had let all of his employees have a four-day weekend as well. So he had no pressing responsibilities. He fantasized about just lying in bed with her all day, running his fingers through her silky brown hair.
Then he shook his head to clear his thoughts and return to reason. Maybe it was better that she had left. Not only had he failed to accomplish any of his goals last night, but he had ended up in bed with her. That was not part of the plan! She was apparently dangerous, so why did he find himself slipping deeper and deeper in love with her?
Evan was not the playboy that Jessica seemed to think he was. He had only been in two serious relationships in his twenty-nine years on Earth. The first, his high school sweetheart Carla, was the love of his life, or so he thought. He’d planned to marry her. But halfway through college, she got into a fight with Linda and left him, saying that his mother was insane and she couldn’t do it any longer. Then, just when he had given up on love, he met the lovely Mona Andrews in his final year of business school. She was getting her MBA too. She was chiseled, smart, and a cutthroat businesswoman who put logic ahead of feelings. Really, she was just like Linda, which is probably why they imploded shortly after he’d proposed to her. She and Linda had always butted heads and Mona’s interest in Davis Enterprises led to his mother doing all sorts of manipulative things, even leaving an earring in Evan’s bedroom to make it look like he was cheating. Linda would never admit to doing that, but Evan recognized the earring, and besides, he had not had any women in his room besides Mona so he knew it had to be his mother who’d planted it there.
Now he was falling for Jessica, and his mother had filled his head with poison about her already. His mother was dooming them before they even began. But could he count on this relationship turning into anything? Or was Jessica just a temptress, bent on stealing his money and also his heart in the process? What could come of this relationship, where she was constantly deceitful and only interested in him for what she could con out of him?
He just didn’t understand. But he did know that he loved her. And he didn’t want this to end.
He hesitated before calling her. “Hello?” she answered after the third ring.
“You disappeared on me.”
“Did I? I didn’t know you wanted me to stay.” There was some noise in the background. “Hey, can I call you back? I’m at the orphanage right now.”
“Why didn’t you go last night?” Evan asked. “I would always be there to have Thanksgiving.”
“I did,” she said hastily. “But I’ll call you back.”
“Okay. Talk to you later, gorgeous.” Rebuffed, he hung up. He was perplexed. What was she doing? Why was she keeping up this charade? And how should he get to the bottom of the truth?
That afternoon, Evan finished playing squash with one of his gym buddies when he heard his phone going off. It was his mother.
“Fancy seeing you at my party last night,” she said crisply as soon as he answered.
“Sorry, Mother, but you know how I hate those big parties. Thanksgiving should be….”
“Family, yes, I know. But since your father has left us, we haven’t had much family, have we?”
“But you’ve always had those parties, even before he died.”
“Hush. Now I want to know what you are doing about the Jessica Collins situation.”
“I have it handled,” Evan groaned. He didn’t want to talk about this now. His mom was not going to boot yet another woman he cared about out of his life.
“If
by handling it, you mean sleeping with her, I don’t think that’s a good way to handle the problem, Evan.”
“What… How–” Evan was stumped.
“Your doorman reports everything to me,” she replied, a haughty note of satisfaction in her voice. “Are you surprised, dear? All he requires is a little tip and a wink.”
“I’m going to fire him,” Evan declared. He would not actually do that, not without first making sure the doorman had another job, but he was miffed.
“No, dear, he’s only doing his job.”
“His job is to spy on me for you?” Evan demanded.
“No, he’s looking out for you. I wanted to make sure that hussy wasn’t going over there. I have been proud of you, Evan, for keeping it in your pants thus far. But last night you apparently lapsed in judgement. Did you forget that this girl is a criminal, like her mother, trying to scam you? We’ve worked too hard to build this company just to give millions away to this hussy.”
“Stop calling her that,” Evan snapped. “And stop worrying about it. I’m the CEO. This is my company now.”
“It’s our company. Never forget that. I helped build it. I brought you into this world. You wouldn’t have any of this if it weren’t for me.”
“You’re right. Because I’m not cut out for the CEO position. You should have given it to someone else. Someone who wouldn’t let you run the show,” Evan replied resentfully. Then he hung up. He was so disgusted with his mother.
His squash partner, Tony, was sitting across from him on a bench in the steamy locker room. He peered at Evan, shocked. Evan was normally so cool and collected. He had never seen Evan mad. “Wow, man. You all right?”
“Fine,” Evan sighed.
“Was that your mother, or what?”
“Yeah, it was.”
“You really just need to tell her what’s up. Put her in her place. You did good.” Tony clapped him on the back and grinned. “Good job.”
Daddy Plus One: A Single Dad Secret Baby Billionaire Romance Page 4