by Amy Brent
“Olivia Hart, Real Estate. How can I help you?”
“So professional. I like it.”
“Wesley?” I asked.
“Who else would it be, beautiful?”
“One of my many other suitors, I suppose,” I said.
“Ah, am I vying against other men for attention? We shall have it out in the catacombs!”
“Such a drama king,” I said. “I do remember that about you. What can I do for you this morning, Mr. Fox?”
“I was wondering if you would enjoy partaking in an afternoon meal with me,” he said.
“I believe us locals around here call that lunch.”
“Ah, I thought there might have been a name,” he said. “Would you care to accompany me to this lunch you speak of? Strictly to talk about the property, of course. I assume it’s been on your mind?”
“A great many things have been on my mind, yes. But the property is one of them.”
“That’s the downside to having multiple suitors, I suppose,” Wesley said. I could practically feel the smirk he had on, dripping through the phone, and I had to pull it away from my ear. I was enjoying the banter a bit too much, so I slung my legs over the side of my bed to help me focus.
“Still not a morning person?” he asked.
“Now, how could you possibly know something like that?” I asked.
“Because it’s ten-thirty in the morning, your voice is still coated in sleep, and that deep sigh meant you’ve probably just sat up for the first time.”
“And you remember all this from high school?” I asked.
“I remember you falling asleep repeatedly on my shoulder during our first-period English class our junior year.”
“Holy hell, I hated that woman,” I said. “She was always so loud and cheery. Morning people piss me off.”
“How about coffee to accompany lunch?” he asked. “Strictly talk about the property, and if you’re still interested, we can get going on that offer.”
“Where would you care to meet?” I asked.
“How about Duke’s Malibu? Right there on the ocean, and we could take our time eating. You know, so you can wake up and all.”
“Duke’s Malibu sounds perfect,” I said. “They have this incredible crab sandwich I’ve been meaning to try.”
“And it’s close to where I work, so it’ll allow for me to spend as much time with you as possible. How about we meet there, say, around twelve-thirty?”
“As much time as possible, huh? Sounds perfect. See you then, Mr. Fox.”
“Looking forward to it, Miss Hart.”
I hung up the phone before I stumbled into the shower. It would take me at least the next hour to truly wake up, especially since it was a Saturday. I ran the water as hot as I could, trying to soothe my aching muscles from the night before. It hurt to even turn my head, but the memories it brought back caused me to smile before my nipples began to pucker.
“Nope. Not this shit. Not this morning.”
I whipped the water over to cold and settled out my body. I shivered as I woke up before I cleaned myself up. Then, I stepped out and grabbed a towel. While Duke’s Malibu was close to his work, it was about a twenty-minute drive for me, and that was if there wasn’t any traffic. That meant I didn’t have a great deal of time to get ready, so I set to work.
I put on a splash of makeup before I went to my closet. Then I threw open the doors to survey my outfits. Many of the things hanging up had only been worn once, used for various attitudes and personas I’d taken on in my line of work in order to wiggle my way close to the people in question. I wasn’t quite sure what a real estate developer would professionally wear, but since we would be talking about the property, I pulled out a pair of black slacks and a sleeveless blouse.
The blouse flaunted enough of my cleavage to keep him hooked while giving off the impression that I was being professional. If I could keep Wesley on the edge of his seat, salivating just enough to slip up even once, I knew I would have him. I knew I could keep my guard up with him, especially in a public place, but I was all too familiar with what public places did to Wesley.
They made him cocky, and that was always when he fucked up.
I grabbed my purse and keys before I headed to my car. By the time I got to the restaurant, I was already five minutes late. I walked in and saw Wesley sitting by a window that overlooked the ocean, and I took a moment to just stand and watch him. His attention had been captured by the waves, and he looked as if he was thinking about something.
I’d never seen Wesley deep in thought before, and it was a bit disarming.
He turned his head and looked at me before he got up and waved. The smile that ricocheted across his cheeks fluttered something in my stomach, and by the time I got to the table, I was already having to take deep breaths. I sat down with him just as someone came up to set a glass of wine in front of me, and at first, I thought about sending it back. Was it professional for me to drink in the middle of the day? I was usually cooped up in an office. Maybe this was a trick or a trap to try and lure me out. To try and prove to him that I wasn’t who I said I was.
But Wesley took a sip of his wine, so I grabbed the glass and settled back into my chair.
“Such a shame,” he said.
“What is?” I asked.
“A body like yours being contained within those paltry fabrics people call clothing. I much prefer what you wore last night.”
“I wasn’t wearing anything last night,” I said.
“Exactly,” Wesley said, smirking.
“So much for professionalism, hm?”
“I thought we set the base tone for our professionalism last night,” he said.
“No,” I said. “We set the tone for who’s really wrangling this show last night.”
“How do you figure?” he asked.
“Look at who ended the fight on top.” I wrapped my lips around the edge of the glass, and I was painfully aware of how Wesley was staring. His cock was probably already throbbing underneath his pants, and I praised myself for wearing a padded bra to lunch. I could feel my nipples slowly puckering up as we bantered back and forth, and the last thing I needed to do was give away my weakness.
My weakness for what I knew his body could give me.
“Have you given any more thought to that deal?” Wesley asked.
“Between the conversation this morning and now? Yes.”
“Would you care to talk about it?”
“Is that something you’re capable of doing without referencing last night?” I asked.
“It pains me that you think so little of me, Olive,” he said, grinning. “I figured you would’ve known me better than that.”
“Which is why I asked the question, Mr. Fox.”
“Ah, such coldness with the professionalism,” he said. “Your body was quite warm last night, even with you establishing your dominance.”
“I’m willing to offer you two-hundred thousand for the property,” I said.
“I could easily get double that with any other offer,” he said.
“Not when people find out you fucked someone in it.”
Wesley stared at me from across his glass, and he snickered before he shook his head. In Malibu real estate, reputation was everything. If you were selling a piece of property, you had to treat it with decorum and respect. It was obvious he tended to the split property on the beach, but it would be obvious he didn’t have any respect for the shack on the property. That would get anyone to easily lower their price to three-hundred and fifty thousand, but if it began to circulate that he’d screwed someone in the house? It would be easy for a rumor like that to morph into him running some sort of a private sex club out of it, reserved for those who wanted the thrill of having sex on the beach without actually being on it.
“It would be hard to push a rumor like that,” he said. “Not without destroying your own reputation in the community.”
“And I suppose that’s the risk you take. Do you
want to pit my reputation in my community against your reputation in yours? Or do you simply want to take the two-hundred thousand, invest it wisely, and have me take the property off your hands?”
“Two-hundred thousand, as well as three percent of the resort,” he said. “Think of it as a return investment on my account.”
“Investments require monetary exchanges,” I said.
“And I’m pretty sure handing over a piece of property for lower than floor price constitutes more than a monetary investment,” he said.
“Two-hundred thousand and two percent of the resort, and you’ve got yourself a deal.”
I saw the glimmer in his eye as his grin reached the rest of his face, and I knew I had him where I wanted him. I’d made him a deal he couldn’t refuse, which meant I had more to hold over his head when the time came. I had more than enough information to dig back into the files of his past. I simply had one more move up my sleeve in order to have everything I needed.
“Would you care to take a picture to commemorate this occasion?” I asked.
“Certainly.”
I dug around for my phone as Wesley got up and walked around to my side of the table. He crouched behind me and laid his cheek against mine, and I faltered. I had to bite back a sigh of relief, and I had to prevent my eyes from fluttering closed. His skin felt warm against mine, just like he had last night.
“Ready?” he asked.
“One, two, three!”
I snapped a picture of his face and saved it to my phone. Now that I had a full-on shot of what he looked like, I could run him through the database. I could pull up pictures from the internet of people who looked like him and see how far back these cons went.
Yep. I had him right where I wanted him.
At least, I hoped so.
Chapter 9
Wesley
I couldn’t get the lunch I’d had with Olivia yesterday out of my mind. I’d tried everything I could to convince her to come see me at work. I’d tried getting her to come back to my place before I tried going to hers, but she simply wasn’t having it. Olivia told me she was currently in a hotel because she was having an addition put on her home, but all I did was try to reassure her that I didn’t care about any of that. If anything, taking her back to a hotel should make her feel safer because that meant I still didn’t know where she lived.
But she kept refusing, and I found myself disappointed.
I wanted to have sex with her again. That much, I was sure of. From the moment she sat down at the table and wrapped her fingers around that wine glass, my cock had started to twitch. The sexy banter between the two of us had throbbed my cock, but the moment we started talking about the building, I caught a glimpse of a woman I didn’t quite know. Back in high school, Olivia was reserved. She always walked with her shoulders slightly slumped, and she never really looked people in the eye.
But during that lunch, she’d been anything but the girl I knew from high school. She was sexy, confident, and had no issues staring me down. She’d grown and blossomed into a woman whose pussy I simply couldn’t get enough of, and I couldn’t get her off my mind. I was mesmerized by her, like my cock craved more of her than any other woman I’d ever been with. It was unlike me to be so entranced with someone like this. Usually, I was in it for the money. I had a plan, a fake name, colored contacts, and a different hair color. I got to pretend to be someone else before taking what I wanted from them, but this was different.
Olivia knew me in ways that made me uncomfortable, and yet, her body was just as magnetized to mine as I had been to hers.
I decided to surprise her. I was familiar with the hotel she was staying at, so I drove on over to surprise her. A quick flirtatious conversation with the lonely front desk attendant provided me with her room number, and soon, I was heading up the elevator to the fifth floor.
I simply couldn’t believe it. Olivia Hart was back in my life again. Out of all the people I’d ever encountered in my life, I never expected to have another encounter with her. I never thought in a million decades I’d ever come across her path again, much less have the ability to please her. I never could persuade her to have sex with me in high school, but I sure as hell persuaded her to do many other things.
The juice between her legs tasted sweeter than I remembered, and just the thought of tasting it again clouded my mind as the elevator doors opened.
I wanted her again, and that was exactly what I would get.
I walked down the hallway to her suite before I raised my fist to knock on the door. I rapped lightly before I listened to any sound behind the door, and then I knocked again when nothing happened. The confidence I had been walking with soon drained between my toes, and I felt another wave of disappointment roll over my body.
Why the fuck do I want to see her so badly?
I knocked one last time before I gave up. Raking my hands through my hair, I strode back to the elevator so I could head home. She obviously wasn’t here, and I honestly didn’t care to track her down anywhere else. I didn’t have to work today, which meant the entire day was mine. If I wanted to, I could go down to the beach and have someone piling into my bed within the hour. Someone who wanted to be with me. Someone who wanted to roll around in my sheets instead of tossing every advance I could come up with back in my fucking face.
But even as I slid into the seat of my car, my mind wafted back to only one thought.
The fact that I had to have her.
I headed back to my house and flopped down onto the couch. I fell asleep with her on my mind and woke up with my cock standing tall and proud and tenting my pants. I slid my pants down my legs and groaned at the pain coursing through my pelvis. I wrapped my hand around my thick dick, precome already oozing from the top as Olivia’s body wafted back to my mind. My hand slowly began to pump as I reminisced at the feeling of her tits on my face, but before I could even set a decent pace, my phone buzzed on the floor.
“Fuck!”
I leaned down and grasped it before answering the call.
“What?” I asked.
“Mr. Fox?” my lawyer asked. “I just wanted to let you know the contract will be ready to go by tomorrow.”
“Oh, hey there. Um, thanks. I’ll give Miss Hart a call.”
“I’ll drop it off at your place in the morning,” she said.
I hung up the phone and immediately dialed Olivia. This was the exact in I needed, professional so I could get in front of her once again. I knew if I could see her one last time, I could convince her of what she needed. I knew she had been wearing a padded bra at lunch. I knew she’d been trying to hide how her own body was reacting. That made her a smart businesswoman, no doubt about it. But she didn’t understand the way I could now read people.
I had to for the line of work I indulged in.
“Mr. Fox,” Olivia said.
“Miss Hart. I take it the rest of your day was delightful?”
“Busy,” she said. “Once I get going, I have a million things that I have to get done.”
Ah, so she really hadn’t been there in her hotel room. That brought an odd sort of comfort to me, and I didn’t really understand why.
“I wanted to call and let you know my lawyer phoned me.”
“A lawyer, huh?”
“Yes,” I said. “She’s helping me negotiate this contract. Anyway, she said it would be finished by tomorrow, so she’s dropping it off in the morning. Care to meet and sign the details then?”
“You know, drawing up the contract is usually my job, Mr. Fox,” she said. “Are you that insecure about me commanding this deal?”
“Not a bit. But you did seem a bit distracted at lunch, so I thought I might take something off your plate. Less to worry about. The deal can be executed quicker, and we can all get on with our lives.”
“How very considerate of you,” she said. “I’d be more than willing to meet up tomorrow and sign it. Did you have any particular time or place in mind?”
“Well,
the lawyer’s dropping it off in the morning. Why don’t I cook us lunch here, and you can simply come on by?”
“Lunch won’t be necessary for a second day in a row,” she said. “I’ll only be stopping by to sign the papers before I get on with my day. I can take them with me and get them officially processed so you can wash your hands of everything.”
“Don’t worry about such foolishness,” I said. “I enjoy being a part of the process.”
“Shoot me your address, and I’ll see you around eleven tomorrow morning?”
“Choosing to meet in the morning?” I asked. “Bold move.”
“Not particularly. Just a long day ahead of me. I’ll see you then.”
“I’m counting down the minutes.”
Chapter 10
Olivia
“Holy hell, Olivia,” Destiny said. “Please tell me you’ve got something.”
“I’ve actually got quite a bit. I’m sending you a photo over to your phone. I want you to tell me if this guy looks like the man you were trying to describe to me.”
I sent the picture I’d taken of the two of them and waited for Destiny’s reaction. I heard some clicking over the phone before Destiny let out a gasp, and that was when I knew I’d done well. Granted, I wasn’t going to tell Destiny I’d known him, much less slept with him. It wasn’t any of Destiny’s damn business when it came to how I ran my investigative services or how I got the information I did.