No Excuses

by Nikky Kaye

  I still didn’t know what to say when I woke up a few hours later. After two cups of coffee, my nerves had increased to downright jitters, but she hadn’t yet emerged from her room. So I went down to the hotel restaurant to find some breakfast. Our first activity was due to begin at nine, and this one I was looking forward to.

  The sight of Aaron and Bobbie laughing together at a table for four stopped me short. Bobbie’s head was close to his, her inky hair stick straight in contrast to Aaron’s ridiculous Fro. I’d forgotten that of course they’d met each other before. Bobbie had even tried charming her way into a keg party back in the day. Aaron would have let her in, despite her being underage. I didn’t. But I couldn’t remember when they had run into each other since then.

  I filled my plate at the buffet and joined them, effectively throwing a wet towel on the conversation. Literally—I knocked over a water glass when I put my plate down, soaking the tablecloth.

  “Way to go, bro.” Aaron shoved his chair back.

  Bobbie gave me a perplexed look as she stood. “I’ll take care of it,” she said. “You okay, Brain?” We might not be the best of friends, but my sister still knew that this kind of clumsiness was not normal for me.

  “I’m fine,” I ground out while unwrapping my roll-up. I placed the fork by my plate and the napkin over the puddle. “I just didn’t sleep well.”

  “Me neither,” Aaron said.

  I heard Bobbie let out an amused snort before she headed to the back of the dining room, where the kitchen was likely located.

  My grunt was smothered by the scrambled eggs I was shoveling into my mouth. Next, I started on the pancakes. Slowly I began to wake up, at least enough to jab my fork into Aaron’s hand as he reached for a piece of my bacon.

  “Dude!” He snatched his hand back, dramatically cradling it like an animal with a wounded paw. He might have begun to whimper if I hadn’t shot him a dark look.

  “You should know better, bro.”

  “Bacon is always fair game.”

  “Not today.” I shoved a strip into my mouth.

  “I know we’re out in the woods, but you didn’t need to find a bigger tree to stick up your ass, man.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “You sure you’re okay?” My groove in my friend’s forehead deepened.

  I scowled and stabbed a sausage. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

  Relatively certain that the small flood I’d created wouldn’t drip onto his lap, Aaron scooted his chair back in and waved at my plate. “Usually you’re a fruit and egg whites kind of guy.”

  “Plus,” Bobbie added as she dropped a small stack of bar towels on the table, “You’re wearing a sweatshirt.” Aaron scanned me, nodding in wide-eyed agreement.

  “So?” I’d dressed casually before; I didn’t know why they were making such a big deal of it.

  “And you tucked it in.”

  I looked down to see that I’d shoved the hem of my faded college hoodie into the waistband of my jeans. I must have been on autopilot while I was dressing, or still asleep. The latter was more likely.

  “I’m hungry, since I didn’t eat much last night,” I said peevishly.

  Aaron chuckled. Bobbie blushed, which made me wonder just how much she’d had to do with the Devil’s Dinner. When I passed over the last sausage to narrow my eyes at her, she merely blinked and smiled beatifically. That shit worked on our mother all the time, but it didn’t work on me. I was smarter than that, and had a longer attention span than a fruit fly.

  “Bobbie’s doing a great job here, huh Gage?”

  Aaron’s sidelong glance at my sister seemed to unnerve her. Interesting.

  Now I felt unnerved, with a hard lump in my stomach—but that could have been the unhealthy amount of cholesterol I’d just inhaled.

  “Good morning.”

  I jolted at the sound of Madeline’s voice behind me.

  “Good morning! Miss Jones, right?” Bobbie smiled.

  Madeline rounded the table to approach the last empty seat with a silent “may I?” gesture. Aaron jumped up to pull out the chair for her, giving me a weird look. My legs didn’t seem to work very well at that moment.

  “Please call me Madeline,” she said. She was polite and friendly, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes. Nor did her eyes reach me.

  Despite being dressed in black yoga pants, a fitted blue Henley and soft hiking boots, she looked about as relaxed as a Red Sox fan at Yankee Stadium.

  Bobbie stuck her hand out over the table. “I didn’t get a chance to properly introduce myself last night. I’m Brian’s sister, Roberta—Bobbie.”

  “Sister?”

  Maybe only I heard the breath whoosh out of Madeline’s mouth. But it made my mouth curve up nonetheless, and I raised my coffee cup to hide my amusement.

  “What’s the ‘Pinky’ for?” she asked.

  Bobbie threw me a grin. “We watched too much TV as kids. Our favorite was Pinky and the—”

  “Brain.” Madeline smirked. “Obviously. Or, obvious now,” she said, her gaze volleying between us.

  “Yeah, sorry for any confusion. I realized later that you might have gotten the wrong impression.” Bobbie looked meaningfully between Madeline and myself. “I, uh, didn’t mean to step on any toes.”

  I choked on my coffee. Aaron reached over to hit my back, which didn’t help anything.

  “What?” Madeline gave a nervous laugh. “No, no toes! No problem! It’s all good. It’s a lovely suite.”

  “Okay, I just wasn’t sure if you’d need both bedro—ow!” Bobbie yelped as Aaron and I both kicked her hard under the table. He shrugged at me when our feet met, as if to say “Sorry, dude. But she’s your sister.”

  Madeline looked down at the wet tablecloth, clearly embarrassed.

  “You want some breakfast?” Aaron asked her.

  “No, I’m good. I had a granola bar from my suitcase. Thanks, though.”

  I cleared my throat. “Uh, did you sleep okay?”

  Finally, she looked at me. Well, looked through me, really. “More or less. I think I was a little nervous about what we’re doing today. What are we doing today?”

  “The ropes course,” said Bobbie. “I’ll be on site to supervise.” There was pride in her voice, and I had to grudgingly admit that she seemed to be genuinely into this job. Maybe she’d keep it for more than a few months.

  “Ropes?”

  The expression on Madeline’s face was unreadable as she stared out the ceiling-to-floor window framing the mountains. Maybe she was remembering tying me up the night before.

  I was beginning to regret my unusually heavy breakfast. Not only was I worried that the weekend was already ruined, but that she would be filing a harassment claim the second we got back to the city.

  There was no point in trying to convince myself that I wasn’t attracted to her. I wasn’t an idiot. Madeline Jones fascinated me, from her wild hair to her inability to be on time. She was everything that irritated me about women and most people in general, but yet… the way she blushed when she was with me, the way she teased me in private, the way she reacted when I touched her—all indicated that she wasn’t totally oblivious or disinterested.

  Yeah, it would be a pretty fucking dumb idea to get into bed with my employee. But it didn’t have to be a bed. The couch would do. My car, my desk… I groaned inwardly, and when I rolled my eyes I realized that I was starting to pick up Madeline’s habits. Acting on any mutual attraction would be a very bad idea indeed, and not one a rational, intelligent person such as myself should pursue.

  It’s not that I was impulsive, exactly, but I had a tendency to commit first and ask questions later. One of these days, it was going to get me into trouble.

  Or wedlock.

  No. It would be better to keep her as an assistant and Happit guinea pig, then jump into a relationship that would be—at the least—unpredictable. My brain knew this. My blue balls were still processing.

  While I was obs
essing and squirming in my chair, Aaron and Bobbie had gotten up and said something about heading out to the course. Given the state of my jeans, I was thinking about “accidentally” dropping a glass of ice water in my lap.

  It wasn’t until Madeline shifted in her seat beside me that I realized she’d stayed behind, and we were alone. Even the rest of the dining room had almost emptied out. I checked the time on my phone. Hell. We were going to be late to the retreat activity—again. I took a deep, steadying breath.

  “Madeline?”

  At first, I thought she hadn’t heard me, so I opened my mouth again. Then she lifted her head to look at me—really look at me, and my unspoken words shuddered out with a sigh.

  There were bags under her eyes and her smile was weak, but genuine.

  I wasn’t normally a man who waited, unless it was strategically necessary in negotiating a deal. But Madeline Jones seemed to have the ability to stop me in my tracks yet also make my brain and heart race at the same time. So I waited, and gave her the room to say what she wanted to say.

  “Mister Gage?”

  “Madeline,” I repeated.

  She cocked her head. “Why don’t you ever call me Maddie?” she asked. I didn’t think it was what she had planned to say.

  What? I looked at her helplessly. “Because everyone else does.” She was special. She knew that, right? She must have known that.

  Her smile widened and warmed. My chest felt like a big pine log had caught in the lobby’s giant fireplace, cracking and sparking from all the sap. It could have been the pancakes, though.

  She reached out her hand. I waited.

  “Can I eat your sausage?” With her gaze still locked on mine, she pinched the end of the fat breakfast link and drew it into her mouth.

  The little tease sucked it into her mouth the same way I had caressed her finger the night before. Her lips shimmered with grease, as I imagined her tongue was sucking its juices and rolling over the crisp fried casing.

  She bit down gently, making me flinch. Then carefully she chewed.

  Her hair, woven tightly at the back of her head in a French braid, left her neck totally exposed. The movement of her throat as she ate my sausage made me swallow at the same time she did.

  Fuck, I was a dead man. Her communication was confusing and her message unclear. Either she was going to quit and sue me, or she wanted to suck me off under the table. But she was still beaming at me, which was a really good sign. My head was spinning.

  “You owed me a meal,” she said.

  I cleared my throat. “I owe you more than that.”

  “The sausage will do. For now.”

  My mouth opened and closed. Then she rose from her chair, turned, and bent over to grab a small daypack. My eyes closed and opened as I said a silent prayer for yoga pants.

  “Your turn to get me on the ropes, sir.”

  Then she walked away—again. I untucked my sweatshirt and pulled it down over my hips as far as it would go, then went after her.

  CHAPTER SIX

  MADDIE

  It took all my strength not to look back to see if Mister Brian “No Excuses” Gage was checking out my ass. I kind of assumed he was. To be honest, I wanted him to. I didn’t have to wear yoga pants, after all.

  At least with my back to him he couldn’t see my face go hot at the thought of his gaze on me.

  As it was, one of the reasons I stole the last of his breakfast was to stop myself from drooling onto the table at the sight of him in a well-loved college hoodie. It was such a departure from the suit and tie I was used to seeing him stalk around in.

  Nobody would ever assume that Gage was a college student now, but I could see the remnants of his younger self in that sweatshirt. I imagined him pulling it on after a session at the gym, sleeping in it between cramming for exams, and sharing the snuggly warmth of the big pocket, his fingers mingling with mine. Oh wait—did I just insert myself in that little fantasy? Oops.

  A brisk autumn breeze hit my face as I left the building in the direction that Bobbie and Aaron went, cooling my flushed cheeks and waking me up a little more. I desperately wanted to go back to bed.

  I still couldn’t believe that I was brave—or insane—enough to abandon my hogtied boss in a conference room, smeared with spaghetti. It was also unbelievable that the man could still look so… so… fuckable like that. I was chalking it up to the sheer foreignness of him being messy, frustrated, and not in control.

  It was a relief to lose my clothes once I got up to my—our—suite, particularly as they were stained with marinara sauce. I thought about putting on my PJs, until I remembered that I hadn’t brought any. My usual habit was to forgo them if I was going to be in a hotel room by myself. The terrycloth robe I found in the closet would have to do.

  I spent a long time in the shower, baptizing myself with hot water. It beat down on the crown of my head as I faced away from the spray, sluicing down my back. The sheets of water in my hair warmed my back and shoulders, lifting the fatigue I’d been feeling and letting it run down the drain.

  Then I wondered what Gage would be like in the shower, and my body tensed again.

  Would he put his face in the spray or step away to let it pound his lower back? Would he wash his hair when he first got in, or stand planning his empire and then grab the shampoo as an afterthought? Did the crisp hairs I felt at his sternum go all the way down his chest, and further?

  If I were there, would he follow the water’s trail over the curve of my ass and down the backs of my thighs? If he did, would he chase it with his fingers or his tongue? Would he wrap his arm around me right under the showerhead, or push me aside and press me to the cool tiled wall? Would he wedge one long hard thigh between my legs and curve his hands under my ass to haul me up, or—

  Oh, shit. My reverie had gotten away from me. I found myself panting, my breath coming shorter and faster like trying to whisper while running. Something in me clenched and rippled. It was time to turn down the temperature.

  By the time I got out, I was profoundly turned on and shivering like a Chihuahua in the snow. Pajamas would have been really good right about then—fluffy, fleecy, flannelly pajamas. The utterly sexless, baggy, wearing-a-hug, chastity belt kind of pajama. Instead, the starchy sheets enveloping me only heightened my arousal, abrading my sensitive skin.

  I burrowed my head back into the pillow, wiggling down with pointed toes until my chin touched where the flat sheet was neatly folded over the comforter. Oh yeah. I was so, so comfortable now. And so, so wet and aching, my chest almost burning from the effort to breathe properly around Gage.

  My eyes were burning too, from the long day and maybe the pressure of the silk blindfold. What I needed was something to take the edge off, something to relax me and lull me into peaceful, dreamless slumber—like a spine-melting, toe-curling orgasm.

  I closed my eyes, just as sightless as I was behind the blindfold Gage that had tied on me, remembering the feel of his hands in my hair, his breath on my face, his tongue memorizing my fingerprints.

  Oh, fuck.

  At the same time that I broke down and dipped my fingertips into the dampness at my center, I heard a noise outside my bedroom door, like a door closing. I froze. How long had I been in the shower?

  When Gage hummed softly, almost sighing, I realized that the intruder was not Housekeeping with turndown service. I bit back a whimper as my thumb slid over my clit. Holding myself as still as possible, I keened inwardly until I heard the muffled snick of the door to the other bedroom close.

  Only then, did I close my eyes and let my orgasm go, like a balloon tugging free and floating up into the sky. Five minutes later, I was fast asleep.

  Now I looked up at the bright blue sky, the taste of Gage’s sausage still rich in my mouth, I contemplated the ropes course I was approaching. It was beautiful here, majestic even, the horizon studded with craggy mountains and patches of trees turning colors as it got colder.

  But there was nothing majesti
c about trying to get across a giant spider web in an adult size Jolly Jumper. The small crowd of my officemates gathered at the base of a tall tower with giant staples in it for footholds, chattering amongst themselves. I paused about twenty feet away and wrapped my arms around myself.

  This was all going to go very, very badly. I was five seconds away from pivoting on my heel and running back to the lodge before anybody saw me.

  Then a warm hand landed at the small of my back, and I knew Gage had caught up to me. There would be no escape now. My arms dropped to my sides as I stared at the winding paths of taut climbing rope, suspended logs, slippery looking walls, and Bobbie showing Nikhil how to put on a harness.

  I could do this. Yes, I could do this. The fact that I didn’t want to do this was totally irrelevant.

  So was the fact that I was afraid of heights.

  Gage’s hand slipped into mine and squeezed twice, like a beating heart. He tilted his head down toward mine. “I’m almost at the end of my rope, Madeline.”

  Was that a warning? A promise? A cheesy joke? My own heart stuttered as he walked ahead of me.

  “Okay, everyone!” Bobbie clapped her hands loudly. “Welcome to our High Anxiety ropes course! Before we get going, I think your illustrious leader would like to say a few words.”

  Gage nodded and stepped out in front of the small group. “Thank you, Roberta.”

  I coughed to hide my laugh at the mocking formality in his voice. Now that I knew she was his sister, the family resemblance was clearer. She had the same blue-black hair, the same pale blue eyes. Black Irish, maybe? Was that the term for it? She and I were about the same height, a good six inches shorter than Gage, but where she shared her brother’s angles… I had curves.

  “Good morning! I hope everyone slept well?” His gaze took in everyone, but lingered on me as I joined the back of the crowd. I could see his eyes narrow on me where I hid behind Nikhil and Susan.

  There were about a dozen of us, covering all the major arms and legs of Gage’s company. Some people had brought his or her assistant or second in command of the department, but as I looked around, I realized that I was easily the most junior person there in every regard. I stayed at the back of the group, peeking between people.