“I just realized,” he said, turning to her. “If you live with your mother, you didn’t have to go out. Why’d you offer me a ride?”
“Just being my usual selfish, obnoxious self,” she said. “I wanted to pry into your personal life.”
“Now you’re the one who’s being too hard on herself.” The streetlights flickered across his face. His hair was mussed, his eyes slightly unfocused.
“And I felt like I should scare you away from coming to the family wedding,” she said.
“Why?”
“To save you from my crazy family, I suppose.”
“I like your family,” he said. “A lot.”
“Really?”
“Really,” he said. His low voice seemed lower in the dark, small car.
Her heart started beating faster. She had to remind herself he was just being polite. “Well, that’s nice of you.” She shifted her gaze to a double-parked taxi across the street.
She waited for him to open the door, to say good night, to leave.
He didn’t move. “I like you, too,” he said.
The air squeezed out of her lungs. She opened her mouth to suck in a breath but made the mistake of turning toward him at the same time, which moved her face near his.
He had beautiful eyes, dark as a twilight sky. Knowing the shadow of melancholy came from a profound loss intrigued her, softened her toward him.
He wasn’t like other guys she’d known. What would it be like…
His gaze flickered to her mouth. She could hear the raggedness of his breath as she drifted closer, drawn to the desire she read in his face.
He wasn’t going to do anything. He wanted her, but he would need her to make the first move.
It was wrong. It wasn’t part of her plan. It was a mistake.
Oh, hell. Since when had she been any good at following the rules?
She put her hand on his cheek and closed the gap between them.
Chapter 11
WHEN HE FELT HER LIPS press against his, Zack suffered a moment of full-body paralysis. Arms to chest to toes, he turned to granite. Even his lips were numb, useless.
For a moment.
She’d kissed him. She was still kissing him. Her hand was warm and soft against his cheek, and she smelled like the spiced molasses cake they’d had for dessert.
His blood heated, shattering the icy prison that had captured him; he tilted his head to deepen the kiss and felt her fingernails dig into his jaw.
The evidence of her desire drove him to lick the seam of her lips and move his tongue between her teeth, where everything was as hot and wet as his favorite dreams about her.
A soft, high-pitched sigh escaped her throat. While his tongue slid against hers, he found her face with his hands and held her in place. He wasn’t thinking about anything, he wanted her and he was having her. Her curls felt as springy as he’d imagined, her skin silkier, her kiss sweeter.
So many years he’d wanted to feel this way. Life rushed into him. His nerves shuddered with a sudden, electrifying current.
She moaned. Her hands moved over his body to his shoulders, down his chest, then up to the back of his neck, where she caressed him, opening her mouth wider for him, giving him everything.
She was more than a fantasy. He could hear and taste and feel her. She was real. How could he have lived so long without this? Instinctively he thrust his tongue deeper into her mouth, moving his hand over her chest to her stomach. He lifted her shirt and found her breast, then cupped it, rubbed his palm against the silky fabric of her bra until he felt her nipple harden.
A bus roared past them. Just past April’s cheek, he glimpsed a trio of men walking past the car window with a pizza box and a case of beer.
What the hell was he doing?
He went still. Heart pounding in his ears, blood racing through his veins, his attention narrowed to the feel of her mouth under his lips and her breast under his right palm.
You can’t do this.
The effort of not moving made him tremble.
What would be the harm? She was obviously interested, a consenting adult, the most attractive girl he’d met in a string of long, lonely years…
No. He’d just had dinner with her family. One brother was his current client, the other (if Zack behaved himself) a future one. Connections like Mark Johnson didn’t come around often. He wanted to break into high tech. She was their baby sister. He saw how they looked at her, watched over her.
And he was feeling her up in the goddamn front seat of a late-model economy car on a busy street.
Exhaling loudly, he yanked her shirt down and pulled away. The space between them grew wider, colder. “I can’t believe I did that. I’m so sorry.”
She stared, touching her mouth.
“I shouldn’t have drunk so much. I hope you understand—it’s not you, it’s—I never get involved with anyone at work. Never. I just—I’m sorry.” He leaned back in his seat. He could still hear his heart pounding in his ears.
She’d given him a little friendly peck and he’d mauled her. She’d probably felt sorry for the poor guy who’d lost his wife, and then he’d thanked her by shoving his tongue down her throat.
She still hadn’t said anything. He didn’t blame her. How embarrassing. How fucking embarrassing.
He straightened. “It won’t happen again.”
“Yeah?” Her voice was rough.
“Yeah.”
“What if I kiss you again?” she asked.
He clenched his teeth. God. “I’d rather you didn’t.”
She turned away and laughed. Not the happy kind. “Okay. Got it.”
“I really am sorry.”
“Got that too,” she said.
A charged silence filled the car. He wanted to say something to heal the damage, but after a few long seconds, he opened the door and stepped out. “Thank you for the ride.”
“No problem.” She gripped the wheel with both hands.
“See you around,” he said, shutting the door, berating himself for yet more inadequate words. He zipped his jacket up to his throat, realizing from his unsteady legs that he was still a little drunk, and didn’t walk across the street until he was in the crosswalk with a green light.
He shook his head, disgusted with himself. Such a good citizen. The type to follow the rules, do what was right.
Screeching her wheels, April pulled an illegal U-turn from the curb and sped through the intersection. Fearless. Passionate. Alive.
He stood on the curb and watched her fade away into the night, telling himself it was for the best.
* * *
Work.
She was going to work.
Work, work, work.
On a Friday morning two weeks after whatever the hell had happened in her car that night with Zack, April picked up her morning’s work from the printer and jogged out of the art room to catch the elevator.
Rita had been out for a few days. One of her children was really sick, and she’d had to stay home with her. April had been doing her best to manage without her, but the pressure was building. All of Rita’s work had fallen into her lap, which was an effective distraction from unrequited lust, but exhausting.
The design assistants were crammed into the top floor near a row of women at sewing machines and men at cutting tables. It seemed like April spent an hour every day running back and forth between her second-floor cubicle and theirs on the fifth, but she wasn’t going to complain. She didn’t want to rock the work boat.
Unlike her years of temping assignments, designing graphics for exercise clothing was actually interesting. With her earphones on, engrossed in a project, she forgot to watch the clock and routinely forgot to take breaks. Twice that week already, she’d run out of Fite after the lunch hour, which made her late getting back to Oakland and baby Merry. Bev was nice about it—she still was on official leave, and didn’t plan on going into Fite full-time yet anyway—but April felt terrible. She loved Merry, but work was rew
arding in a way it had never been.
All those rewards, however, came with a price. As a temp, she’d felt invincible. Who cared if the cold automatons at the multinational investment company in Belmont hated her? She simply got another assignment.
Now she cared. She was vulnerable. When she designed a jagged stripe logo for a woman’s running pant, she cared—actually cared—what happened to it. Would the design assistant pass it along to her boss? Would it make it into the line? Would an actual human being buy it in a store, wear it outside, and April might see her galloping down the sidewalk some day?
Caring was hard. It meant she hurried through the building to find the design assistant (who looked even younger than she did) with butterflies in her stomach, knowing the girl might curl her lip, tell her it sucked, and make her do it again—like she had yesterday.
But it was a real job, and she was going to make it work. Getting derailed with thoughts of clean-cut widowers with big sad eyes and hot lips was not an option.
She’d managed to bury the trauma of his rejection pretty well, although her pride stung, and she would never think about him the same way again.
He’d moved into the business offices on the ground floor, Virginia had told her, which she hoped would keep him busy and away from her indefinitely. Bev’s grandfather, with the former CFO’s help, had made a mess of the books before he died, and the company was still digging out of the hole. April didn’t pay much attention to the business side of the family gossip, but she’d learned that much. He’d have plenty to do.
She hoped the books kept him warm at night; it certainly wasn’t going to be April Johnson keeping him company. She’d heard the cliché recoil in horror before, but witnessing the dismay from a few inches away after sharing a kiss had stung. Her face burned just thinking of it.
She never should’ve kissed him. She had no idea why he responded the way he had, whether because of the generalized lust of a man in his prime, the reduction of inhibition from too much wine, or his physical attraction to her specifically. It didn’t matter. When he realized what he was doing, he shoved her away with even greater enthusiasm than he’d pulled her close.
It was just the slap in the face she needed to focus on her job. Thank God she hadn’t slept with him.
Yeah, right.
The elevator came, finally, and she got on. She looked over her design for a women’s tank top and thought it was excellent. Stripy yet zigzagged. Great contrast between the electric blue and silver. When she reached the design assistants’ floor—they were one down from the designers, who were at the top—she strode down the hallway, feeling confident and almost cheerful. Teegan would like it. It was just what she’d asked for, after rejecting the last three tries.
Teegan had her back to the entrance to her cube when April approached. Her hair hung down her back in a glossy brown curtain that came to a slight point at her spine, a shimmering arrow pointing at her skinny little butt. She wore Fite today, though it was all black synthetic stretch without any of the big color logos, just the tiny silver F.
Kind of boring, really. So many of the designers wore all black. It was depressing.
“Teegan?” April asked.
Teegan didn’t move. April peeked around to see if she was on the phone, but no.
April took a step closer. “I’ve got that stripe design you wanted.”
“Give me a minute,” Teegan said, still not turning. Then she picked up a pen, made a note next to her desk, and turned. Hostility shot out of her eyeballs like automatic fire from a first-person shooter video game. “What?”
Now, in the old days, April would’ve had no problem with girls like Teegan. Teegan was younger, she was stressed out, she wasn’t particularly bright—who cared what she thought?
But these days, girls like Teegan could do actual damage. April found her hand shaking slightly on the printout as she handed over the blue-and-silver stripe design. “I made the changes you requested.”
Tilting her head, Teegan looked at the design without touching it. Then she tilted her head the other direction and wrinkled her nose. “No. Try again.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s still not right. Try again.”
April was finding it difficult to speak. Perhaps because her teeth were clamped together. “Did you have any specific suggestions?” She pitched her voice high to overcome the urge to snarl.
“You’re the artist,” Teegan said. Long pause. “Right?”
April’s face burned. Stay cool. She rolled the printout between her fingers. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“And please be quick about it,” Teegan said. “This is taking you way too long. It’s just a little stripe. I was hoping you’d be able to do more for us.”
The burning moved to April’s neck. Her head was engulfed in shame flame. “Oh?” she managed to ask. “Like what?” Her voice was miraculously polite. And no flames shot out of her eyeballs. Another miracle.
“Well, for one, we needed an all-over floral for this T-shirt idea Jennifer has,” Teegan said. Jennifer was her boss, the creative director for the Women’s line. “But we’ll find a real artist for that.” Then she got up and walked out of the cubicle.
After thirty seconds or so, April realized she wasn’t coming back. Teegan had just ended the conversation in as charming a style as she’d begun it.
April had to hold her hands against her sides to stop herself from tearing up the stripe and sprinkling it over the take-out salad open on the desk. When she had regained some of her composure, she marched down the hall to the stairwell, as mad at herself for having tears in her eyes as she was at Teegan for being a spiteful she-prick.
She let the door to the stairwell bang behind her. She jogged down the stairs, clutching the cold handrail for balance, squeezing her eyes shut to stop the tears. Hold it together. She’d lock herself in a stall in that bathroom on the first floor that nobody ever used until she was her tough, sassy self again.
It was stupid to get upset. Teegan wasn’t the global authority on artistry. She didn’t hold an official seal or have any real power—she was a little person in a little job in a little company in a huge universe. April was an artist and was immune to the slights dished out enthusiastically by unhappy, unfeeling women in low-paying creative fields.
Biting her lip, she stopped on the landing. She wasn’t going to make it to the bathroom. The storm was coming, like it or not, and rain was gonna fall. Better just let it strike, clean up quickly, and carry on.
With a long exhale, she let herself cry. Not loudly, but deeply. She let the humiliation wash over her from top to bottom, up from her toes and down her cheeks.
It was good, just what she needed to continue. A little endorphin rush. A system reboot. And the dark stairwell was just fine. She didn’t need to waste time huddled in a smelly bathroom—she’d be back at her desk in two minutes, good as new.
A low voice shocked her out of her sniffles. “April?”
Chapter 12
OF ALL THE PEOPLE TO find her crying on the job. Stretching her damp cheeks into a smile, April lifted her chin and looked down the stairs at her darling, overbearing brother. “Hey, Liam, what’s up?”
“What’s the matter?” He jogged up the stairs to reach her, brushing the blond hair off his forehead as he neared. He kept moving until he was on the same stair as she was, no doubt so he could scowl down his nose at her.
“Nothing.” Wiping her face with the back of her hand, she continued down the stairs. “Relax, all right? I’m fine.”
He caught her arm. “Are you crying?”
“Not anymore,” she said. “Could you please let go? I’ve got work to do.”
“You never cry.” He loosened his grip but maneuvered around her to block her way down. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Seriously. I’ve got to go.”
“Who were you just talking to?” He looked her up and down, saw the printout rolled up in her hand. “One of
the designers?”
When he made a move to take the paper from her, she lifted the waistband of her Fite high-performance travel trousers and shoved it underneath. “None of your business.”
He frowned at her crotch. “I can’t believe you just did that.”
A sharp edge of the paper was poking her in the inner thigh. She wiggled involuntarily to get more comfortable. “I’m surprising, aren’t I? Now, let me go on my way. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of real work to do.”
“You might as well tell me,” he said. “I’ll find out what happened on my own.”
Her left thigh stung. The paper must’ve cut her skin when she shoved it under her pants. She put her hand in her pocket, caught the edge of the paper roll, and moved it sideways. “Nothing happened,” she said.
“Then why were you crying? You never cry.”
“Sure I do,” she said. “I did just now. It was very refreshing. Now I’m done and I’m going back to my desk.”
He grimaced, looking as if he, too, had a paper cut in a delicate area. “If somebody is going around making the support staff cry, I need to know. Bev made me promise. She has this thing about people crying in bathrooms.”
“I wasn’t in the bathroom, was I?”
“Just tell me, Ape.”
“Nothing’s going on.”
His face hardened. “You may be my sister, but you’re also one of my employees. If you want to continue in this rewarding occupation, I strongly suggest you answer my question.”
Anger flowing into her, she wrenched her arm free. “If you want to fire me, go ahead. Until then, I’ll be at my desk. Working. Until you fire me, which would be really stupid with Rita out.”
Swear to God, the next time he threatens to fire me, I’m quitting. Steaming with anger, she ran down the stairs two at a time, dislodging the paper under her pants. It slid halfway down her left leg and jabbed her in the back of the knee.
She stopped and made sure Liam hadn’t followed her before kicking the paper out at her ankle and shoving it into her pocket. She would redo the design. She didn’t know how, but she’d make several different stripes in different colorways and present Teegan with a blizzard of options before she went home this afternoon. No. This evening. She’d stay as long as it took.
Not Quite Perfect (Oakland Hills Book 3) Page 11