by Carrie Lomax
“Work. I’m consulting on a pitch due Monday.” It was fun to say. True, too. Olivia kept saying she could make a career out of consulting, if she wanted to. And if Trent was right, she had some talent for spinning bullshit into gold. This was her test case.
“All that guy does is work.” Sean shook his head and fumbled with the lock again.
“And work out. Your fuckhot neighbor’s ripped,” Hannah giggled. Janelle’s cheeks warmed.
“Must be why you’re moving in with me, not him.” Sean managed to get the door open, not exactly sober himself, judging from how much trouble he’d had with the key.
“Other way around. You’re moving in with me, toots.” Hannah patted Sean’s rear and held open the door. “Do you want a beer? I don’t need any more.”
“Sure.” Janelle turned the lock on Trent’s apartment door to prop it open and followed Trent’s neighbors into a cozy studio. Sean’s apartment furnishings were a step up from the cheap crap Trent favored for personal use, but the aesthetics were college dorm room. An unmade full bed was partially hidden behind a pullout couch that faced a huge TV. The only wall hangings were sports team posters and jerseys. “When are you moving out?”
“Next week. I’m looking for a subletter for the last two months on my lease, if you know anyone who needs a short-term rental.” Sean moved around takeout containers in the refrigerator until he found a bottle.
“I might,” Janelle lied. Temptation. If she’d had a job lined up…
Great idea. Move in across the hall from Trent so he can politely ignore you all the time. Genius. Almost as good as the time you made your sister play The Bachelorette in a dating contest, but less entertaining.
“Here’s my card. I’ll post it Monday, when I’m back on computer. I can send you a link then.” Sean fished in his wallet.
“Thanks. Nice to meet you, good luck with the move. I hear dinner arriving.” Janelle held up the bottle in salute, and scooted out the door.
Trent came out of the elevator and did a double take. “Where’d the beer come from?”
“Your neighbor across the hall. Looks like you had the same idea.” She nodded to the six-pack cradled in the crook of his arm.
“I’ve lived here eight months, and he’s barely said hello. How’d you get so friendly?”
Janelle held the door to his apartment. “I said ‘hi.’ It was that easy.”
Trent brushed aside a stack of discarded edits and set the beer and the plastic bag of food on the granite counter. He handed her a takeout container and a plastic fork.
Janelle hopped down from the counter and went into the kitchen. Opening the cabinets one by one, she found plastic cups, plastic utensils, cleaning supplies and paper towels. “Don’t you have any dishes?”
Trent reached up to the top shelf of the first cabinet she’d opened.
“Paper plates?” Janelle cocked her hip. “No wonder they call you a monk.”
“Who does?”
“Sean and Hannah. Across the hall.” Resigned to eating out of a plastic tub, Janelle returned to her seat.
Trent ate standing up, next to the sink. “That’s not nice.”
Janelle shrugged. “I’d say you’re more caveman than monk. At least monks sit down to eat. I bet they use real dishes, too.”
Trent laughed. “I don’t have time for cleaning.”
True. The man barely had time to shave. She imagined how his three-day scruff might’ve felt on her inner thighs and shivered. Too bad about Penny still being in the picture. Or whatever was going on between them. It was weird her jealous streak hadn’t kicked in, but then again, it was hard to feel envious when she was the one who was still able-bodied and in full control of her faculties. Janelle tossed her garbage in the trash can and popped two new beers, crossing the three-foot invisible barrier he’d maintained all day to hand him one. She tapped his bottle with hers.
“Cheers.” She turned to pick up the stack of edited printouts on the counter. “Hannah had a nicer word for you.”
“Yeah?”
“Fuckhot.”
So why the hell do you live like this?
Janelle threw the word over her shoulder as she went to the living room and folded her body onto the white leather couch. The furniture in the front of the apartment was clearly where Trent had spent his budget. Like her, he’d buried himself in work.
Janelle pretended to focus on the papers in her hands, but the ink markings made no sense. She shouldn’t have gone there. This was a business trip. You and your big mouth.
But there was the picture of them together. It was frameless now, but Janelle intended to earn one. Her romantic streak had kicked in, hard. She wouldn’t force him into a relationship. Even if it were possible, it didn’t work in the long run. She’d learned that lesson all too well, with Ben.
“That’s not a nice word, either, Janie.” Trent joined her, but as far away as possible, on the other end of the couch. No amount of money was going to salvage her pride if he kept on ignoring her.
“Kinda dirty,” she agreed, placing an unread page face down on the empty seat between them. They worked in silence for a while, the question she needed to ask on the tip of her tongue. If they lapsed into flirting, there was a high probability they’d fall into bed again. She wouldn’t do it unless she knew the truth.
“Are you married to Penny?” she asked quietly, holding her breath against the answer.
Trent rubbed his stubbled chin with one palm. “No. I’m her financial trustee. My agreement to release the video was conditional on my having a supervisory role over the distribution of the money. Penny has a guy she’s worked with since her early days in the business who handles most of her accounts, including the royalties from her work. Her mother manages day-to-day spending. I guard the guardians.”
“I thought…The only reason I could come up with for your celibacy and for the way you ended things was if you were married and couldn’t divorce for financial or guilt reasons.”
“I shouldn’t have let you leave, thinking that.” He placed the stack of papers on the floor beside the couch and faced her. “I’d never have made you complicit in adultery.”
An avalanche of relief coursed through her. She’d carried so much guilt since Las Vegas, wondering if she’d been the other woman, like Crystal had been. Even though Trent had said as much, it had been hard to know for certain, and it had weighed on her more than she’d realized.
“Hey. Janie.” At last, Trent bridged the distance between them, turning her gently to face him. “I was twenty when I met Penny. She was twenty-three. She looked angelic, but she was wild. I bagged my junk with her. Always. I hated the fact that she was screwing other men. It felt like shit. Even when there’s open communication, it’s not easy to know your partner is having sex with other people. I’d never put you or anyone in that position.”
Kiss me, you fool. Janelle’s eyes fluttered half-closed.
Silence. Stillness. He let go.
A bang against the wall behind her sent her heart rate into overdrive. A distinctly porn-sounding moan echoed through the vent. Trent exhaled and collapsed back against the couch as the sound of Sean and Hannah getting it on—loudly—echoed through the wall.
Giggles bubbled up through Janelle’s chest and out her mouth. “Do you put up with this regularly?”
“More often than I’d like.” A rueful smiled tugged at the corners of his mouth.
Say it. Janelle opened her mouth, but Trent got there first. “We could give them a run for their money.”
Paper scattered as Janelle scrambled across the couch. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Janelle threw one leg over him and moaned as she ground against the ridge of his erection. Trent’s hands were under her shirt as she flattened her palms on either side of his face and kissed him.
“We shouldn’t do this.” He tugged her shirt up and over her head.
Janelle sat back on his thighs. “Is Penny going to be upset?”
“Fuck it, then. We are doing this.”
Trent squeezed her breast so hard Janelle’s nipple edged over the lace as she ground her hips against him. Her back arched and a sound rivaling anything from next door came out of her mouth.
“Don’t hold back, Janie.” Amusement. It turned his voice from whisky smooth to smoky hot seduction.
“I’ll scream your name so loud they’ll hear it on the roof deck if you keep doing that.”
Trent tucked a finger inside the lace up and popped her other nipple out. He sucked the tip between his teeth and bit gently. Janelle moaned, loud even to her own ears. Her fingers were buried in his hair, the texture tickling against her chest.
“Too hard?”
“Do it again. Harder.”
He anchored her hip with one hand to grind her pelvis harder against him, sucked and bit while squeezing her other breast. Janelle let go of his head long enough to reach behind her back and flick the clasp of her bra open. Trent feasted on her breasts: sucking, licking, squeezing, biting.
“Off,” she demanded. He let go and sat forward. Janelle tugged his shirt over his head and flung it away. They were naked from the waist up. Trent tipped sideways, pulling her down on top of him as they crawled onto the couch in a writhing, grinding bond of shared physical need. She maneuvered beneath him so Trent’s body crushed her into the leather. Skin-to-skin. Pure sensation.
Trent ground against her. Janelle squeezed his cock through his jeans.
“Off.” She fumbled with the button.
“You first.” Trent pulled her up. Wordlessly, they stripped off their remaining clothes. Hannah and Sean were still making porny noises through the vent. Competition.
Janelle closed her hand around him. I love your cock. And everything that comes with it.
“Condom. Now,” she ordered breathlessly.
No questions. No protest. Trent yanked his jeans off the floor and produced one. He tore open the package and rolled it on. He rubbed the head of his dick against her clit, slid down and inside her without resistance. Janelle’s entire body relaxed.
“Janie.”
Trent’s low moan reverberated through her body. His body shook with the effort of holding back. Janelle kissed his jaw, tasting his rough stubble. Neither moved.
I love you.
“Fuck me,” she whispered. “Make me feel it. Give me something to take home tomorrow.”
Trent pulled out. Wordlessly, he moved her onto her back, head propped against the opposite arm of the couch. He scissored two fingers into her and opened her wide.
“More,” she gasped. “Is that all you’ve got?”
Trent knelt on the white leather, pushing her legs apart. He chuckled, the warm sound flooding her body with desire. “Are you in a rush, Janie?”
Son. Of. A. Bitch. “You kept me waiting all day. Yeah. I want you to get me off, right now.”
“Anything for you, sweets.” He inched his way out. Then ground into her, hard. Janelle’s mouth dropped open.
“Yes. Like that.” She groaned.
Slow out. Fast in. Trent’s control was incredible. His skin was damp where it met hers. Pleasuring her like this came at a cost, one she was more than happy to make him pay. Trent picked up momentum. Janelle had no room to move, ratcheting up the sensation exponentially. He braced himself against the wall, his arm solid above her shoulder. She was thoroughly trapped. All she could do was take him, over and over.
Janelle forgot to care whether Hannah and Sean could hear them. The sounds coming out of her mouth were senseless and explicit, half coaching and half begging but mostly incoherent. Trent got the gist or didn’t care, seemingly lost in his own storm.
They came down slowly, riding the high. Spent, he gently pulled out, leaving her wistful at the loss.
“Shit.”
Janelle laid her forehead on her crossed forearms. “Something wrong?”
“The condom broke.” The panic in Trent’s voice was unmistakable. Janelle rolled over and eyed the split condom hanging from his fist. A milky droplet fell onto the white leather. She wiped it away with her finger. “So what?”
A beat of astounded silence. Janelle rolled over and stood up, sated and content for the first time since they’d parted in Las Vegas.
“I just dropped a payload of cum straight…” He broke off, clearly terrorized. “You could get pregnant.”
“I’ve been on birth control for years, Trent. If you’re clean, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Why the hell, if you weren’t having sex?” His confusion was almost endearing.
“I use it to skip my periods. Hormonal contraceptives. Not just for sex anymore.” Janelle blew a kiss over her shoulder and went to clean up.
“You could’ve said something when we were in Vegas.” When she came back, Trent had pulled on his boxers and jeans, and he sat with half his tight ass hanging off the side of one of the counter stools. Naked, Janelle went to him and kissed the head of the tattoo in the middle of his back.
“I wasn’t going to screw a guy I’d just met without a condom. No matter how many medical records he had on file.” She let go of him slowly, sliding her hands over his still, tense muscles. “What are you thinking, Trent?”
He almost spoke, then stopped himself. Her shoulders tensed. Give me something to work with. Let me in.
Instead, he guided her to stand between his knees and kissed her. Janelle opened and gently bit his lower lip. Trent nipped and licked the spot on her neck below her ear that was like an on switch for her girly bits. With a shuddering exhale, she pulled away and sauntered down the hall toward the bedroom. “It’s a different story; now we’re acquainted.”
His chair scratched against the floor.
Trent caught her as she opened the door to the bedroom. He spun her around and picked her up, her legs locked around his waist. The room was pitch dark and silent, the only light coming from the kitchen. His knees hit the edge of the bed and they dropped together in a tangle.
With great deliberation Trent pulled out a condom package and rolled it on. Janelle’s vision clouded until she looked away. Message received. He wasn’t going to fuck her bare, even with an outright invitation. It was probably better that way, even if it hurt now.
13
“I don’t think you should come to New York.”
Trent’s words slashed through Janelle’s sleep-addled brain. He could’ve at least let her put some clothes on before going there. “You’re firing me for sleeping with you?”
“No. I still need you to help with the pitch. I don’t…you’re a distraction, Janie. I need this contract.”
“I need it, too.” Janelle wasn’t talking about the contract. “You’re telling me this now, why?”
He rolled away, stood up and pulled on a plain white t-shirt. Even as he cut out her heart with a butter knife, Janelle couldn’t help but admire his body. The man was gorgeous, extravagant, maudlin tattoo and all. Mine.
If he thought he could brush her off now, Trent had underestimated her. He’d fucked her as if desperate to pour everything they felt for one another into a single night. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t given her a preview of this conversation once before. Janelle hadn’t expected it so soon, but ever since he’d made clear that all boundaries were still in place, she’d known this was coming. She pushed. He let her in a step or two, then Trent closed down.
Nothing about their pattern had changed.
“We should’ve stuck to the clean break.” His jawline hardened. Though he visibly strained to project calm control, the straight line of his shoulders and his refusal to meet her eyes gave him away.
“There wasn’t a clean break. Not on my side.” Why couldn’t he see it? Janelle kicked away the blanket. The airless room reeked of sex and sweat, of his body and hers. She wondered if it could be turned into a perfume. If so, she’d bathe in it. “You’re
the one who called me. Not the other way around.”
“You’ll still get your money, Janie. I’m not gonna stiff you.”
Flippant replies on the tip of her tongue stayed caged by her clenched teeth. Jagged wounds never heal right. “I’m taking a shower and a walk. When I get back, we’ll finish the last section of the proposal. Olivia’s picking me up for lunch at eleven. You’re on your own after that.”
“You’re quitting?” Trent demanded.
Janelle chuckled humorlessly. “I’ll never quit on you, Trent. When’re you going to figure that out?”
* * *
We advanced. Trent hit send, the buzz of his employees drowned out by the turmoil in his mind and body. Janie was so far under his skin, it physically hurt to be separated from her.
Sixteen days. More than two weeks had passed since he’d fucked her on the couch two of his developers were currently sitting on, arguing over a snippet of code. On the wall above, a faint smudge where he’d braced himself and driven his cock into her like a jackhammer.
Give me something to take home, she’d demanded.
Bad enough he’d mixed business and his personal life. The live-work space had been a good solution when he’d been starting up eight months ago. Now, it was a mess of too many interconnected threads.
Work was inseparable from Janelle.
Janelle was inseparable from his heart.
His heart was in his work in a way that hadn’t been true a few weeks ago. They’d beat out five other companies to get to the final round. They had a fifty-fifty chance of winning. Losing was unthinkable, and very possible.
Trent’s phone vibrated in his palm. Congratulations.
He’d fucked up. Massively. He couldn’t exist in the same room as Janelle without being one hundred percent focused on her. Olivia had been right that she had a knack for this work, but she’d been completely wrong about their ability to work together. Trent knew, had known it before he’d called Janie. If he were being honest with himself, he’d used it as an excuse to contact her when he’d known damn well it was a bad idea.