Made for Me (Danielle Grant Book 1)

by Sarah Gerdes

  “As much as I want to be.”

  His finger tip was up at her elbow, on its way to her shoulder. “Do you remember what I told you?”

  She hummed, visualizing his lips and words moving through them. “I remember everything you tell me.” His chin vibrated against her neck as he acknowledged her reply.

  “About what happens between those who work together, in the office?” His finger was now on the skin of her shoulder, continuing its journey.

  “We’re not in the office,” she replied, wanting him to press his cheek against hers.

  She heard Lars sigh, but it wasn’t with irritation. “Do you know what you want?” he asked her, and she smiled in triumph. Even in her impaired state, she was a challenge to him.

  “Yesss,” she purposefully drawled. He was seducing her, bit-by-bit. This hormone high was familiar, and it only came with the older men she’d been with. No rush. No hurry. Lars was her senior by a decade and it showed in his manner, his words and now…his touch.

  “Can you tell me? I’d like to know.”

  Danielle tilted her jaw slightly as he now ran his finger along the edge of her face, towards her chin. “No,” she said, finding what little resolve she had left. “I can’t,” she breathed, her eyes closed, fighting the overwhelming desire to turn to him.

  “Danielle,” he whispered. “You know how I feel about you, and I know how you feel about me.” His finger was now gliding under her chin. She unconsciously opened her mouth.

  “You can’t tell how I feel about you,” she disputed, feeling the length of his finger crest to her lips.

  “You sit three seats down from me at every meeting. Never one, or two, but three. Close enough to be near me but not so close that it’s obvious.” Lars’ finger reached her bottom lip. “I know you prefer my sapphire blue ties and my burnt orange one because you look at them longer,” he continued, his finger sensually traversing her mouth, reaching the corner then moving across the soft flesh of her top lip. Danielle suppressed a groan of desire. “I know how you feel because you work hard to keep your eyes on my face, only lifting your eyes from my lips when you think you’ve been caught. And I know how you feel because just now, when we were at the bar, the look you gave me is how I feel about you.”

  His words were like a release of all that she’d bottled-up and tried to ignore and hide, neither successfully. She moved her head forward just enough to allow his finger to slip in her mouth. She closed her lips around him, drawing down her teeth to feel the texture of his skin, tasting him with her tongue.

  She felt the balance of power shift to Lars as he rested his fingers against her cheek, his thumb on her jaw, holding himself and her in place. Danielle inhaled as he used his thumb to tilt her head back, exposing her neck. She practically screamed in pleasure as he slid his lips along her neck.

  Her whole body felt alive with desire as he slowly withdrew his wet finger and slid it down her chin to her cleavage. She placed her hand on his. A part of her—a very small part—told her that she’d want to be fully present to experience his first touch on her body, not in a state of half-awareness.

  It was Lars’ turn to groan, but he accommodated, moving it back up to her neck. Danielle tilted her head back, and his lips momentarily touched hers, but she turned her head away.

  “No?” he murmured. It was too intimate, too emotional.

  “I have to look at your lips on a daily basis,” she said. “If I know what they feel like and taste like…”

  His lips vibrated against her skin and she imagined him happy with the knowledge. “Then something else,” he told her, not waiting for her reply. His right hand moved down her lower back, his middle finger finding her tailbone. He gently curled his finger, stopping just at the edge of pain, giving her a shudder as he spread his fingers out, gripping her, rotating her body towards and into him. She gasped as he pressed himself against her, his hand rocking her pelvis up and down. Danielle’s hand slipped under his arms and up his back, hesitating as her lips reached his neck.

  “I’ll have it dry cleaned,” he breathed as he kissed the fine hairs on her skin.

  Danielle bit his skin, her nails digging into his jacket. Lars didn’t let go of her as she pushed him backward and down to the bench. In one move, she lifted her other leg up, straddling him, her hands now in his hair, moving her cheek along his. Lars’ caressed her thighs on the outside of her dress and she slowly descended on him, humming with pleasure as his hands moved up and down her body.

  “Do you want me stop?” he asked clearly, his voice low.

  Danielle bit his shoulder, moving herself up, towards his belt, and then down again, all the while feeling him against her. “No…” she murmured. “Please…” she began, and then paused, unwilling to verbalize what she wanted. Instead, she raised herself up slightly on her knees, his fingernails now going down the back of her thighs.

  “Please what?”

  Danielle moved her lips within his dark hair, gasping as she felt his lips traverse the exposed skin of her neckline. She felt his tongue in her cleavage and as he gripped her legs tighter. “Please…can you…let go, a little?”

  Lars pulled her down into him. “Yes, a little.”

  He opened his lips, allowing her to hear his jagged breath: the hard, short spurts coming out as he rotated her left and right, and then around, on top of him.

  “You are…so…unbelievably sexy,” she breathed, revealing one of her closely-held feelings towards this man.

  Lars’ strong arms went up her back and hooked onto her shoulders, pressing her down into him hard. She inhaled, lost in the dizzying effects of his touch. He inherently knew where to move her, how hard to press and then, after she’d given into her body, softly rubbed his lips against her cheek, kissing her, slowing his movements, as though he knew she were sensitive. He was all she had hypothesized him to be, refined while strong, expert and focused.

  “Danielle, you are so stimulating…on so many levels.”

  The sound of Lars’ uneven breathing nearly seduced her again and she swayed, feeling another round of lightheadedness. She gripped his shoulders.

  “We’re dropping,” he told her.

  She tried to think clearly enough to express herself. “I’m not unbalanced by the drop,” she murmured.

  As her heartbeat slowed, Danielle felt Lars slide his hands along her back, adjusting her dress, smoothing the material. She tenderly bit his neck, running her tongue down to his shirt and then back up to his chin, where she stopped, looking into his eyes. She knew that it was time to come down to Earth.

  CHAPTER 34

  Lars gently lifted up her right leg and moved slightly so she could sit beside him. It took a moment before Danielle realized Lars was assessing her, and she lifted a hand to her hair. He brought it down softly.

  “Let me do that.” Danielle irritably batted his hand away. “Look at me,” Lars firmly requested. The lights of the approaching gondola station illuminated the carriage. “I’m doing this for both us. I need to get you home, but frankly, you can’t ride the train by yourself. Do you understand?” Danielle was still annoyed, but heard the concern and worry in Lars’ voice. She nodded, touching his neck with her fingers. “The drop in elevation was very steep and I didn’t factor that in. It’s amplifying your already intoxicated state. Can you focus on me?”

  She tried. “I just want…to keep kissing and touching you…” she said, reaching for him, annoyed when he took her hand and placed it in her lap.

  “Danielle, you can do that in the car.”

  “Promise?” she said weakly.

  “I promise,” he told her, sounding sincere. “We’ve arrived. Here we go.”

  Once the gondola stopped, Danielle felt Lars’ take her hands, helping her stand. He put her arm through his, asking that she place her free hand on him for stability. “More steps ahead. Go slow.”

  Danielle didn’t register the crunching of the pebbles under her feet, only that it caused her to wobble sl
ightly as Lars led her in the semi-darkness. “You’re doing great,” he told her in an undertone. She started to complain about the length of the walk when he chuckled. “It’s only across the parking lot,” he said comfortingly. “We’ll be there shortly. Hang on.”

  “Lars, I can take her home.” Danielle recognized the voice and immediately gripped the hand that held her.

  “Nooo,” she said, trying to keep her eyes open.

  “I’m afraid not Andre. Danielle just refused your offer.”

  “I don’t think Danielle knows what she’s saying.” That sounded mean, a part of her thought. That man I used to love was never mean. Well, except when he threw me out of his apartment for not marrying him.

  “Tell him…he’s stupid,” mumbled Danielle, working hard not to trip as Lars helped her walk. He chuckled at her comment, and to Danielle’s irritation, didn’t pass along her message.

  “She’s under company protection Andre. I don’t think this is any concern of yours.”

  “I disagree.”

  Mean…and angry, thought Danielle. She heard a beep and then another set of footsteps crunching on the gravel. “Soon now,” Lars murmured.

  “Mr. Egle,” said a deep voice Danielle didn’t recognize. She caught a silhouette in the dark, a wide, block of a man who she sensed could easily hurt things with his hands.

  “Please start the car Dominic.” A click and a rumble followed, giving Danielle the impression of a large machine.

  “Lars, I’m serious,” Andre said, his voice growing even louder.

  “Andre, as much as you are a respected client, and I would hate anything to interfere with our working relationship, you won’t be taking her anywhere. Not with another person in your car and not when Danielle has made it very clear how she feels about you.”

  “I have dropped my guest off at the hotel. I am alone.”

  Danielle felt Lars bringing her to a stop. “Then you are free to ask her yourself what she wants.”

  Focus. Stand straight.

  Danielle smelled Andre’s cologne before she heard his words. “Danielle, as your business partner, I want to take you home. Will you come with me?” For a split second, Danielle thought she detected a miniscule amount of actual caring.

  It took a herculean effort to stand straight and cast a narrow look on the man before her. She found his blue eyes, feeling the love for him that alcohol couldn’t keep away. And yet he’d rejected her. He wouldn’t wait for her, and tonight, he’d gotten her back in the one way designed to inflict the most damage. She thought her words through before she said them.

  “Andre. Go. To. Hell.”

  “Dominic, if you would please,” Lars said politely, which was not how Danielle wanted him to be. She wanted him to be rude. Fire Andre now. Make him go away. She didn’t care.

  “Wait,” Andre said, and Danielle was pulled up short. “Her neck is red. Her lips…” silence then and Danielle felt a finger on her cheek turning her until a slap knocked it off.

  “Sir, you may back away from Mr. Egle’s guest.”

  A low, rough scoff followed. “I can now see why you wouldn’t make an exception for her to continue seeing me.”

  “Andre, let me be clear on one thing. I have not done, nor will I do, anything that is not with Danielle’s express permission, and that’s all I’m going to say on the subject. She explicitly told me she doesn’t want to be released into your care. Whatever you did to deserve that was of your own making.”

  Danielle was being helped into the car, but she heard Andre’s response.

  “You’re suggesting that I caused her to do this?” he asked, his voice tight.

  “I’m suggesting that I don’t believe she was entirely over you until what she, and the rest of us observed tonight between you and your date. You did that to her Andre, not me.”

  Ouch, Danielle thought.

  “Goodnight Andre.” The car door shut, and Danielle relaxed into the lush, burgundy colored leather seats.

  “You may want this, Miss,” the driver said from the front. She felt a warm, fur wrap draped across her legs.

  She mumbled a thank you, closing her eyes against the thought that this man was seeing her in a drunken state.

  The opposite door opened again and a breeze entered with the smell of Lars’ cologne. She felt the seat next to her depress, heard the door shut, and then experienced a new sensation of warmth under her legs and behind her back.

  “Tell me if it gets too hot and I’ll turn the seat heaters down,” Lars said to her. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Not your fault,” she whispered. She heard the click and turn of a bottle opening.

  “Here, drink this. Just a little at a time, and then take this aspirin. We don’t want you to have a headache in the morning.” Danielle struggled with the ice-cold liquid, much preferring the Mexican coffee, but drank down as much as she could, taking the pill Lars offered her. “I explicitly told you to take sips, but no. You had to drink everything in sight.”

  “Whatever I do, I do with vigor…” she said quietly.

  “That you do,” he said with unexpected emotion.

  Lars leaned her back against the seat, and she tried to look out the window and breathe deeply, visualizing the poison that was in her body, willing it to leave. She’d enjoyed the gondola ride, but didn’t like being unable to think clearly or communicate what she was thinking. Even her hands felt heavy. This must be the downside of drinking; first, the cresting of passions and excitement followed by the fall and then lethargy.

  “You…were wrong about one thing,” she said slowly, hoping to get her words right.

  “In what way? What I said to Andre? Tell me,” Lars encouraged.

  “You said…implied…it was his fault I drank tonight.”

  “That was incorrect?”

  She nodded, trying to concentrate on his eyes. “I didn’t do it to get back at him. I wanted…to experience something new with you. It…was important to me.” Danielle caught his smile, glad she’d made him happy with her words. Lars’ held her eyes, then found her hand, holding it on top of the fur covering.

  “It still hurts, doesn’t it?” Lars had spoken so softly Danielle barely heard him. She wanted to lie and say no, but the alcohol acted like a truth serum. She nodded, grateful his warm hand didn’t leave hers. “To hurt means to still love, did you know that?” Danielle didn’t, but it made sense to her. “Danielle, do you still love him?”

  Danielle’s chest rose, held, and then fell with a long sigh, damning the toxins inside her that didn’t allow her to retain any private emotions or personal thoughts.

  “A little,” she admitted, expecting to feel a lightening streak of pain through her chest. But it was absent, like a memory without the emotion.

  “You know what that means?” he asked, watching her. “If you love him a little, it means you have a lot of room left to love someone else.”

  Danielle gazed into those deep eyes, feeling the pull of his hand, wanting very much to allow herself to be drawn in, emotionally as well as physically.

  “You wore the cologne,” she murmured, watching him smile.

  “I knew you’d notice.”

  Danielle hummed. The idea that he’d planned it, knowing—or guessing—that she was free from an old relationship, ready to start a new one, hit a deeper line of emotion within her.

  Lars lifted his right arm, inviting her over. There was no hesitation. She turned to him, sitting across his lap, savoring how he lifted the fur over her shoulders. He adjusted her legs and bunched more of the fur behind her, making a comfortable pillow. Danielle’s head was tilted up, allowing her to watch the passing light poles shine on Lars’ gorgeous face. She lifted her hand to his cheek, tenderly stroking his lips with her thumb. It registered that she’d seem him engaged, interested, angry, passionate and protective. Now she saw another side of this intriguing man. The part that made her want to hold him and feel him close, to understand all that he didn’t express wit
h his eyes or his clever comments.

  “You promised,” she whispered, watching him.

  His eyes, usually so penetrating, were now softened with humor. “What do I kiss if you won’t let me touch your lips?”

  Danielle smiled. “Everything else.”

  To her delight, Lars kept his word. All the way home.

  CHAPTER 35

  Lars steadied Danielle in the elevator then took to the task of finding her keys inside her purse, unlocking her door. He followed her in, removed her shoes and ensured she could lock the door behind her, waiting to say goodbye until she had done so. He’d not told her he would call, or be in touch, but this didn’t dawn on her until the next morning. She slept late, skipped the lake and studied her research reports, ate a light meal and went to bed early. When Lars did enter her mind, she told herself it had been a wonderful experience, and that would likely be all. She needed to concentrate on what she did best, and that was work.

  Danielle visited Stars & Stripes briefly on Tuesday and Thursday, calling thirty minutes in advance to ensure Andre wasn’t present. She saw Lars at one management meeting and she kept to her usual seat. She wanted him to see that she was calm and professional. She’d always enjoyed the banter they’d shared and assumed it would continue unabated. On that, she was wrong. He usually stopped by her office a few times each week, but hadn’t visited her once since the gondola ride.

  Well, she told herself, this might be new to him as it was to her—at least she hoped so—and this was his way of compensating. Saturday night, after the restaurant closed at eleven, she and her best friends went dancing.

  “You, Danielle!” called one of the big bouncers Danielle recognized but didn’t know his name. “Bring your friends.” He motioned them over, much to the disgust of those waiting in line. Danielle thanked him, but told him once again that she was no longer with Andre. “No problem,” he said, winking at her and lifting the brass hook so they could pass through.