Weston had taken off his jacket earlier. Now, he loosened his tie and stretched his arm out across the top of the bench. “Some people think that makes those of us who choose this field crazy.”
His choice of words stung at something that hadn’t bothered me in a long time. I’d wondered if I’d been crazy back then, when I’d been younger and the thoughts and feelings I’d had were strange and unusual and hard to grapple with. The people and fantasies that had turned me on had been frightening and dark.
But I’d grown up and realized that my time at Harvard had not been the norm. It had been a period of dalliance and in no way defined what I was to be for the rest of my life. My thoughts were normal. My fantasies weren’t strange. I wasn’t crazy.
Sometimes I worried I had to work a little too hard to convince myself of that.
But I was out with Weston King, and if that was crazy, that was exactly the kind of crazy I wanted to be. The kind of crazy I hoped I was. So I said, “Probably so. But what’s wrong with that?”
Our eyes met and held. As the night had passed, we’d moved closer and closer to each other. Now we were tilted in toward one another, our bodies only inches apart. Either this was going somewhere or…
“You’re still in the marketing department then?” Weston asked, picking up his manhattan and swirling it around before taking a swallow.
“Started in research, and now I’m the manager of strategy and marketing.” I sighed inwardly. Thinking about my job was depressing. While I loved the actual work, the president who’d come on in the last year had been a nightmare to work with.
Besides, what I was interested in was Weston’s firm—Reach, Inc. The business was only five years old and yet was already one of the leaders in the industry. It was the kind of career I’d hoped to have if I would’ve finished school at Harvard. “Your job, though…” I paused, hoping my jealousy sounded more like admiration. “What you’ve done is incredible.”
Weston shrugged dismissively but somehow beamed at the same time. “It’s been quite a ride. I can hardly believe it’s my life.”
This surprised me. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth—I’d thought he’d expect everything he touched to turn to gold. It was harder to resent his success when he was humble about it. “This is going to sound naïve, but what exactly do you do? How do you split everything up?”
“Not naïve at all.” He set his glass down, and now we were close enough that my knee touched his. Warmth spread throughout me, gathering in my belly. “I actually have no idea.”
I chuckled with unexplained nervousness. “Be serious.”
“Well. We’re set up in a traditional agency structure with a board of directors that consists of five people.” Five men, from what I’d read. Talk about a world of the patriarch. Donovan was the only other one I knew by name. “There’s two guys in Tokyo, a guy in London, and Nathan Sinclair and I run the New York office together. Nate oversees creative and account services, and I run everything else.”
“Which is a lot.”
“Which is a lot,” he repeated.
“So operations, marketing, research, finance…that’s all you?” I was surprised. Our office had three bosses overseeing all the areas and it was a smaller firm.
Weston shrugged. “Mostly I hide in my office and read Buzzfeed all day, but somehow the checks keep coming in.”
“You do more than that.”
“We’re growing. We’ll have to change the structure soon.” Abruptly, he altered his tone, dismissing the previous subject and growing serious. “This is boring, though. Let’s talk about you.”
I lowered my eyes, suddenly shy. “I’ve already told you everything about me.”
“Let’s talk about our brief encounter in college.”
“It was so brief, it could barely be called an encounter.” We’d had a class together, and once we’d shared a lunch. Then he’d asked me out, and I’d said yes, but I’d had to go home because my father died before the party had actually happened.
“I’d never been stood up before you. That hurt.” He reached out to adjust my necklace, a simple cross that had belonged to my mother before she’d died. His fingers felt hot on my already too warm skin, like adding fire to fire.
We sparked.
“And yet you didn’t even remember who I was when you first saw me.” I put my hand on his thigh, lightly, cautiously. His muscle flexed under my touch, and a thrill shot down my spine.
He tugged lightly on a piece of my hair, and I could imagine him pulling it harder. “I didn’t recognize you without the ponytail.”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
His face grew somber. “I really was into you, Sabrina.”
The soberness of his declaration was hard to believe. “For all of five minutes. Literally five minutes.”
“There were a lot of girls at that school. It took me a while to notice you.” He put his hand on my bare knee and stroked the skin on the inside of my lower thigh. “Not my fault.”
“Uh-huh.” It was hard to refute him when my body was swimming in this dizziness. I’d wanted him so much back then. Not just him, but all that he stood for—his school, his money, his future. That want lingered into the want I had for him now.
“If you’d have come to that party…” He trailed off, his voice thick and seductive.
“Then what?” I’d thought about it from time to time over the years. Wondered what could have happened between Weston and me if we’d had the chance.
He leaned in and told me now. “I would have tried to get you into bed.”
I inhaled his words, taking them in all the way before responding. “I would have gone.”
At least I would have if that other thing hadn’t happened. When he’d invited me, I’d hoped for that. After the incident with Donovan, I wasn’t sure anymore what I’d wanted.
“You would have?”
I nodded. “You wouldn’t have even had to try very hard. I had a major crush on you.”
Weston’s hand moved higher up my leg, and he leaned in to whisper near my ear. “I’m going to try to get you into bed now.”
He was a special kind of catnip. Not only was he someone I’d wanted in the past, but he’d also achieved everything I’d ever desired for myself. There was something unexplainably attractive about that.
But I didn’t have to use words to tell him trying wasn’t necessary. Weston King had this one in the bag.
Chapter 7
I picked up Weston’s slacks off the floor, shook them, then dropped them again when nothing fell out. Circling, I scanned the room for the third time. “I can’t find my panties,” I said with a sigh.
Weston watched me from the bed, his head propped up with his hand. “You don’t need them.”
“I do. I have to get dressed.” I looked again through the skirt, bra, and camisole I was holding, in case I’d missed my underwear clinging to one of them. Not there. I dropped the clothes on the bed and sighed again.
“No, you don’t. Stay here,” he beckoned. “Stay in bed with me forever.”
“I can’t. You know I have to get back.” After drinks on Friday night, Weston had taken me to his penthouse and fucked me until the sun came up. We’d stayed in bed all day Saturday and most of today, leaving only to eat on occasion. Now it was Sunday afternoon, and I had a red-eye to catch.
“Where did you put them after dinner last night?” he asked, stretching so the sheet fell down his body, exposing his bare torso and the beautiful happy trail that I’d become so familiar with in the last couple of days.
I dragged my thoughts back to the evening before. We’d gone to an Asian fusion restaurant. Weston had fingered me on the cab ride home. “I didn’t wear them to dinner last night.”
“Oh, yeah.” He grinned, his eyes lighting up with hunger.
My belly tightened. “Stop looking at me like that, or I’m never getting out of here.”
He reached down to rub the semi that was already taking shape
beneath the sheet. “I really don’t have a problem with that.”
“Weston…” I warned. In support of what she called my much-needed sexcapade, Ashley had taken care of packing my suitcase, but I still had to pick it up from the hotel doorman before heading to the airport. With city traffic, I needed to leave in the next thirty minutes. “I have to go.”
He sat up and leaned against the headboard, and based on his new position, I assumed he was preparing to move the conversation in a serious direction. “But why do you have to go?”
Or not so serious.
He knew why I had to leave. “I have a flight,” I answered anyway as I unbuttoned the dress shirt that I’d snagged off the floor after my shower earlier.
“Miss it.”
“I have to go home.” I threw the dress shirt on the bed.
“Why?” He leaned forward and stroked a finger along the curve of my breast.
“I have a job,” I said, smacking his hand away.
“Quit your job.” He groaned as I put my bra on, covering up the breasts he’d spent so much time fondling over the weekend. He’d been playful, not too rough, and though it wasn’t the kind of touch that made me immediately wet, it felt good enough. It was normal and healthy and that’s what I always hoped for in a sexual encounter.
“I can’t quit my job.” I paused as I turned my skirt, finding the back of it. “I need a job. I wasn’t born of the means to not have to work like some other people.”
“Other people,” he laughed. “People like me, you mean?”
I smiled demurely and stepped into my skirt. “Maybe.”
“I have a job,” he said, somewhat defensively.
Suddenly feeling bad, I stepped toward him and hugged him to my chest. “You do,” I said, conciliatorily, stroking my fingers through his blond hair. “You do have a job. And I have a job. On the opposite side of the country.”
He clutched my ass and pulled me closer. “You could have a job on this side of the country,” he said into my breasts.
“I could. But I don’t.”
He kissed along my cleavage. “Come work for me. Quit your job and you’re hired. Who even likes L.A.? All that smog and superficiality. Quit and work for me.”
He was joking, so I laughed, but also my heart thumped harder. How long had I wanted the life that he was dangling like a toy? “You don’t even know if I have any qualifications.”
“Oh, I know several of your qualifications.” He maneuvered me around and pulled me onto his lap so I could feel his erection pressing into the curve of my back, confirming his lack of seriousness. “Shall we discuss them in detail or shall I let you remind me in other ways?”
“Weston…” I moaned, as his hand found its way up my skirt. My thighs parted automatically for him, and his thumb slid along my bare pussy until he landed on my clit. “You’re making it hard to leave.”
“My plan is working then.” He circled his thumb slowly, teasing me.
“Mm. That feels good.” My body began humming, ready to start climbing the spiral mountain of pleasure. “You have to stop,” I pleaded.
“Imagine if you stayed,” he whispered at my ear. “We could do this all the time.”
Even though I knew he was playing, I let myself think about it for the barest of moments. Weston was exactly the kind of guy who’d be good for me. He was a good guy, and our sex was good, and he made me feel good about myself.
Why didn’t good feel like enough?
It didn’t matter anyway. It was a game. He was a playboy. Everything I’d read about him said so, just like he’d been in college. I didn’t expect to be the one who could change him. This had just been a good time, a dance with the past. And all this talk was just him being caught up in the moment.
“I can’t stay,” I said breathlessly, distracted by his thumb still pressing against my clit.
“Give me one good reason,” he insisted then licked along my lobe, sending a shudder down my spine.
I smiled. “I like what I do.” I really did like my job, despite the current environment at my firm and my past aspirations to be involved in something bigger.
Weston brought his other hand up to fondle my breast through my bra. “I’d give you a similar position.”
“You can’t just boot out your current manager of strategy and marketing.” I fidgeted on his lap, trying to get him to give me more even though I knew I needed to be leaving soon.
“His title is Director of Marketing Strategy, and yes, I could. He has halitosis, and I don’t like the way he makes his graphs.”
This time I laughed. “You’re not serious.”
“I’m very serious. He has sushi for lunch every day, and I swear every time he opens his mouth, it smells like dead fish.”
I chuckled again and closed my eyes, letting myself enjoy him. He was so charming and funny, exactly like I remembered him. But over all the years when I’d thought about him, when I’d wondered about him, he’d never been the one to make me orgasm in the dark.
I had to go.
I opened my eyes. “Weston.”
“Sabrina.”
“I need to leave.”
A beat passed. “I know.”
I tried to stand up, but his grip on me tightened. “You have to let me go first.”
“If I must,” he sighed and let me go.
I stood and smoothed my skirt. Then I turned back to him as I put on my camisole.
Weston sat forward and draped his arms around his propped up knees. “Seriously, though. Come work for me.”
“Seriously, though.” I turned around to peek in his dresser mirror and ran my fingers through my hair. “You haven’t even seen my resume.” He’d take one look and offer me an entry-level position, and then I’d just be another one of those women who’d fucked their way into a job. Not what I was looking for.
“You graduated a year early from high school. You were at Harvard on full scholarship,” he said, repeating things I’d told him over the weekend. Then he told me something new. “Donovan said you were by far the person with the most potential in any of his classes.”
My hand slowed at the mention of the one person who could always get my attention. Like I was a paper clip buried in the ground, and his name was the most powerful metal detector around. “Donovan talked about me?”
“Once.” Weston climbed out of bed while he spoke. “The day you and I had lunch, I think. He gave me shit about hanging out with you because you were the brightest student with the most potential, and you didn’t need to be dragged down and distracted by the likes of me.”
Donovan had been Weston’s friend and roommate, but he was older than us and had also been the teacher’s assistant for our business ethics class. And he’d been so much more to me.
But that hadn’t given him the right to try to keep Weston and me apart. It was ten years ago, and the mention of it now irked me. It also made me a little bit smug, and that made me even more irked.
“That doesn’t seem like something that was any of his concern,” I said as Weston reached in front of me to open a dresser drawer and pull out a pair of red boxer briefs. “What did you say to him?”
“That it didn’t seem like something that was any of his concern.” He stepped into his underwear, tucking his cock into place. “As your teacher, he seemed to think it was. If I remember right, it caused one of our bigger arguments back then. In the end, we agreed to disagree. His mention of it in the first place made me all the more eager to see you. And that made me all the more disappointed when you didn’t show up.”
Weston began gathering his clothes from around the room, and I sank onto the edge of the bed, taking this in. I’d had lunch with Weston and then he and Donovan had argued about me. After which, Donovan had given me an F that I hadn’t deserved leading to our own fight, and before I knew it, I’d ended up losing my virginity to a man who’d been both a hero and a demon to me.
It remained the single most erotic moment of my life.
But the whole thing had been fucked up. And, afterward, he’d turned cold. From then on, I stayed away from men like him. Every man I’d dated had been fun and kind and good. Like Weston. Good guys who never worked out. Every relationship felt lacking, and if it was a sign that I needed to have a fucked up sex life to feel truly complete, then I was prepared to never be whole.
Because I didn’t think I could get swept into a cyclone like Donovan again and survive.
“I’m sorry I didn’t find a way to get a hold of you back then,” I said, watching Weston straighten the room. My date with him had been the last thing on my mind after my father’s death, but I could have tried harder. I probably could have tried harder with any of the good guys I’d dated.
“I’m just glad you found me now.” He winked. “Come work for me.”
I let out a huff of exasperation. “You never quit, do you?”
“I’m tenacious. It’s one of my best qualities.”
What if he really was serious? Not about a relationship, but about a job? Could I come work for him? Entry-level was at least a start. I was years behind, but I could gain some ground, couldn’t I? Still end up where I was meant to be, playing hardball in the big league.
It was something to consider…
From where I was seated, I spotted the heel of my shoe poking out from behind the window curtain. “What made you and Donovan decide to go into advertising together?” I asked as I headed over to grab it. “Why didn’t you join your father’s investment firm?” King-Kincaid was one of the biggest investment firms in the world. Both Weston and Donovan were wealthier than I could ever imagine. Neither of them had to work at all, and they’d started a business in a completely different field.
Need you Now (Top Shelf Romance Book 2) Page 7