Perfect Partner

by Kate Stone

  “Yeah. I haven’t figured out what to do about them yet.” He looked down at his feet, shaking his head.

  “Do you want me to handle it for you? It’s kind of my job, right?” I put a hand on his arm. He turned to look into my face.

  “Would you? I mean, I can’t ask you to, not after my operations manager put your name all over the news like that.”

  “Former operations manager,” I reminded him, “and furthermore, Owen, I’m here for everything.”

  “You didn’t mean that now with work, did you?” He turned and took both of my hands in his.

  “Not really.” I allowed a grin to play across my face. Watching him learn how to let someone else in was adorable, like watching a child take their first steps. My heart swelled when his eyes met mine and I could see that he had just noticed what he’d done, and he did care, so he was trying to work out in his mind how to transition to where I needed him to be.

  “I’m sorry. It’s really weighing on my mind right now.”

  “I know. I understand.”

  “I know you do, but I’m still sorry. I should be more considerate. As for us, I think we should keep moving forward. I’d like you to be my partner, number one by my side.”

  “Are you still talking about work?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I mean in everything.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, though I wasn’t sure what I planned to say. He quickly stopped me, though, his lips sealing themselves around mine. I closed my eyes and leaned into him. I’d found my place in the world, right by his side, in his arms. My questions would answer themselves as our lives moved forward together.

  CHAPTER NINE - Owen

  I’d found the partner I hadn’t even realized I’d been looking for. Jesse Morgan was the perfect fit for my life. She proved to be a solid companion in the office and a loving partner in the bedroom. After only about a month, I couldn’t imagine my life without her. How had I made it this far? How did I function before she came along? Everything with her was far better than it had been without. And that was the reason things moved as quickly as they did after I fired Ivy.

  I went off to handle public relations and deliver my story to the press. Jesse tackled the clients whose confidence had been shaken by the company. Our goal was simply to reassure everyone that everything was fine, business would continue as normal or maybe even a little better than that. Creative, at my direction, went after some of our slumping markets, pulling their numbers up out of the dump and earning us more business. We got back on track.

  I convinced Jesse to let go of her townhouse and move in with me. My humble home offered more room than I needed by myself, and with the two of us living, and sometimes working, there together, it felt like a home – cozy and warm. Like myself, she wasn’t interested in sinking all our money into a large mansion where half of it or more would sit in cold silence while we only occupied a small portion of the house.

  She became my partner at work. We didn’t make a big deal out of it. I simply moved her up in pay and assigned her a new title. I’d never been so sure of anything in my life, but I had known almost right away that I could trust her instincts when it came to my business. She wasn’t one to try to squeeze me out. Everything she did, she did so that we could have more time together, more time to enjoy each other.

  Working with my lover, the love of my life, I had found a balance that many people only dreamed of. She brought the same level of passion to work that she delivered every night – and some mornings and afternoons – in bed, in my office, the backseat of the car in the shadows of the parking garage, and on one memorable night, the supply closet. When I looked in her eyes, even from across the room, I saw the promise of a future richer than just the financial success we were securing together. I could have lost everything, as long as she was there at the end of the day.

  The day I created OBM, I vowed never to go back to the way I’d been living before, on the street, scrounging for money or food. The day I met Jesse Morgan, I knew none of it meant anything without someone to love, someone to share in the life I created. I vowed never to go back, never to focus so hard on making a living that I ignored my heart, or the heart of the woman I loved.

  I knew I loved her the moment I saw her. I just didn’t know how to say it. And I didn’t say it for some time. She knew I loved her. And I knew she loved me. I saw it in her eyes, felt it in her touch, her patience and forgiveness when I neglected us for the job. But I didn’t know how to say it. I couldn’t even remember the last time someone said it to me, and maybe that was the problem. I didn’t have anything to model it after, other than movies or TV shows.

  I had to say it. I had to find a chance, and I knew that one day I would. I didn’t want to rush it, though, because I didn’t want to alter the love we shared every day. I didn’t want to change anything, but it finally dawned on me what I needed to do, almost a year later.

  I began planning months in advance. I wanted to surprise Jesse with something special. I made the arrangements myself, made phone calls, booked flights, booked hotels, made sure everything was in place. I told her I was in meetings the whole time I was actually planning. It was going to be something worthy of her, worthy of her love and her time. Then, we had to prepare for the time off, had to have a plan in place at work so that our absence wouldn’t cause ripples throughout the company.

  I didn’t want to have to worry about fielding calls or emails while we were away, didn’t want her to have to perform any OBM-related tasks. Work was so completely integrated into our relationship, I wanted to give her a month away from it – a whole month! That meant doing a lot of work beforehand to make sure the company could run on its own without us for a little while.

  CHAPTER TEN - Jesse

  “Let’s get dinner out tonight,” Owen said. “It’s our first night in Paris. We’ll have plenty of time to worry about work, but I want tonight to be about us.”

  I’d been told there was a French client who wanted to meet with us in person, so we’d flown out to stay for a few nights. He wanted to show us around the city he called home, but I could tell Owen was excited just to be in the City of Lights, the City of Love. I’d never seen him so ready to make it about us and not about work.

  As beautiful as the city was, and it was beautiful, I was struck by how the modern city existed alongside the historical Paris, the Paris I figured everyone saw in their mind’s eye when they imagined the place. It only made it more beautiful.

  We started our evening at a small French restaurant with outdoor dining within view of the Eiffel Tower. We sipped wine with a light meal and watched other tourists wander the streets. We watched lovers holding hands, kissing when the streetlights came on as the sun set behind the city. We enjoyed the flavors of dishes we couldn’t pronounce in French – I had a salmon dish, and Owen ordered a steak. We played it safe with foods we recognized since neither of us had been to France before.

  “Come with me,” Owen said after dinner, standing from our table and holding his hand out like he was asking me to dance with him.

  I took his hand and walked with him. We walked through a line of trees to get a clear view of the tower standing tall above us. The lights along the streets added to the allure of the city. The entire world could have been bathed in their warm glow.

  We walked to where we could get a clear view of the full tower and the grassy parks in front of it – much like the National Mall in our own nation’s capital. Owen stopped and turned to face me, taking both of my hands in his. He planted a gentle kiss on my lips and pulled away slowly.

  “You know we didn’t come here for work, right?” he asked with a clever look in his eyes.

  “You’re kidding,” I said. I couldn’t believe it. His company was his life.

  “No, I’m not kidding. I wanted us to get as far away as possible, so I brought you here to the City of Love so that I could show you how much I appreciate everything you are to me.”

  His tone changed.
Gentle but firm, I’d never heard him speak this way before. There was a seriousness in his voice similar to when he played his part in the office but different, softer somehow. Then, he said something I hadn’t expected, something that made my heart melt.

  “Jesse, I love you, and I want to show you how much I love you.”

  He let go of my hand and reached into his coat pocket. As he did, he began kneeling on the ground in front of me. I put my hand to my face, covering my mouth in awe as it dawned on me what he was doing, why he’d brought me here. Everything had been calculated so that we would stand in view of the Eiffel Tower under the caress of Parisian light when he finally said he loved me and asked me the question that came next.

  “I want to show you every day what you mean to me, for the rest of our lives. I brought you here, Jesse, to beautiful Paris, the only city in the world I could imagine even comes close to matching your beauty, inside and out; I brought you here to tell you I love you and to ask for your hand in marriage, my love, because I can’t think of a better way to spend the rest of our lives than by sharing the love we have for each other.”

  He opened the box and revealed a large sparkling diamond surrounded by several smaller twinkling diamonds in a band of platinum.

  For the past year, our life together had felt like a dream, like I would wake up one day and realize none of it had happened. Wealthy, powerful men surrounded by other powerful people, gorgeous people, didn’t fall for plain, normal people like me, people who only did what they could to survive. Before Owen, I had never believed I would have the kind of money we had together. All I had known of places like Paris was what I’d learned watching TV or looking at images online.

  I knew in my bones that I would wake up and go back to my normal job, living in my townhouse, renting my life with a meager paycheck every few weeks. It had been too good to be true. I didn’t belong. I didn’t fit. I was far from being perfect in any way, shape, or form. Yet, I woke every day to the warmth of his love. I went to bed every night staring into his eyes. And I went to work every day with the love of my life, my world. I worked at his side to help him continue building his empire, our empire.

  When he said we were going to Paris to meet with a client, I didn’t think twice. I packed, hoping we would get some time to ourselves in this amazing city, this hub of art, culture, and history. Little did I know an important part of our own history would occur. I didn’t know what to say. How does one prepare to receive a proposal? So I said the only thing I could.

  “Yes,” I blurted out, tears springing from my eyes as I said it. “Yes, Owen. Oh god, yes!” My tears turned to laughter as he slid the ring down my finger and stood to take me in his arms as I wrapped mine around him.

  We were greeted with a light applause from the small crowd that had gathered around us. He held me tight, and I could feel his joy as I felt my own. He held my head to his shoulder with a hand buried in my hair.

  “I love you,” he said again. “I’ve loved you for so long. Forgive me for taking so long to say it, Jesse. I didn’t know how.”

  “Oh, I love you, too, Owen. I’m glad you waited until Paris to say it. I can’t think of a better place and time.”

  “Me either.”

  We kissed, and there were whistles, cheers, and more claps from the people who had surrounded us. We laughed and waved as we started to walk away, ducking back through the trees lining the street, separating the cafés and bistros from the bustling foot traffic of tourists. We kissed again, hidden now from prying eyes.

  “I love you,” he said again, filling the word with hot, breathy desire.

  “I love you, too,” I told him, kissing him again.

  “You’ve made me happier than I ever thought I could be. I figured only the City of Love would be appropriate for someone who taught me how to love,” he told me.

  “You’re the most loving person I’ve ever known,” I told him. “I can’t believe you’ve never taken the chance to share your heart with anyone else, but I’m glad you wanted to share it with me. Now,” I continued, taking his hand in mine, “let’s go back to the hotel. We’ve talked enough today. I don’t want to waste any time before we have to go back.”

  “We have a month,” he admitted.

  “We’re going to be in Paris for a month?”

  “Not just Paris. We can go wherever you’d like, my love. This is for you. There is no one more deserving.”

  He swept me into his arms, my lover, the man I would soon be calling my husband, and he whisked me away. Before I knew it, we were back in our hotel, overlooking the city, kissing, our bodies pressed together. He made love to me, took me in the City of Love as her beautiful lights sparkled through our window.

  As centuries of history surrounded us, we made our own history in that bed. He entered me, kissing my shoulder, my neck, his hands planted firmly in the mattress on either side of me. He thrust into me, filling me once again with his desire. I wrapped my legs around his waist, threw my arms around his neck, holding him close to me so that his skin rubbed against mine as his hips worked him back and forth inside me.

  We didn’t speak. There were no words for what we felt. Our bodies became one, moved in unison. Ecstasy poured over me through the window above my head. I felt myself twitching, quivering, trembling. My breath came out shakily as waves of pleasure built themselves up inside me.

  Owen grew thicker, harder as he drew closer to his ecstasy as well. I felt myself tightening around him as filled me more, more. He thrust hard, deep into me, his motions changing from slow, deliberate, measured strokes to furious, fast, driving pumps. With each thrust, as he sank himself deeper into me, he pulled me closer and closer to the edge, until finally, my fingers digging into his back, my eyes shut tight, whimpers escaping my pursed lips, I came.

  I cried out. It felt as if I would explode, as the pleasure I felt turned into a glorious, light-filled rapture that roared through my entire being. I shook. My body tensed around him, going as rigid as his shaft, but then I slowly relaxed, my muscles releasing their grip, and as they did, I felt him.

  Owen grunted and groaned above me, completely filling me and holding himself there. His hips trembled, and he put an arm behind my shoulders, holding me up to him. He pushed deeper, deeper still, his shaft straining and trembling inside me. I felt his orgasm as it rose up along his shaft, knew what was about to happen, and I tightened my grip on his waist, his shoulders as his warmth erupted inside me.

  His entire body released as his sex did. I felt his muscles loosen and unwind as he emptied himself in me. He began thrusting again, finishing himself off with my grip instead of his hand’s. Then, slowly, he pulled back and rolled over next to me.

  “Baby,” he gasped, the first word out of his mouth since we’d come down onto the bed.

  “I know, baby.” I ran my hand along his firm chest and stomach. “You just gave yourself to me,” I whispered, kissing his steamy body.

  He didn’t say anything else, but he held me close that night as we drifted off to sleep. I knew already that in a few months, I would be showing. It was something to consider when we started planning for the wedding. I imagined how I would look in a wedding dress, imagined how I would look in different settings, already planning everything in my head as sleep took over, dragging me into the restful dark with the only man who had ever loved me by my side. I was the luckiest girl alive.

  Excerpt of Kyle: Starke Private Security Book 1

  CHAPTER ONE - Kyle

  I stared at the amber liquid in the glass in front of me.

  I’d already had one drink and I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea for me to have a second. Then again, part of the reason I was in the bar in the first place was because I needed to get drunk, needed to forget everything for a little while.

  Actually, I didn’t need to get drunk. I wanted to get drunk. That way, I might be able to stop thinking about Vicki.

  Who the hell was I kidding? There was no way I was going to put her out of my
mind. I’d been trying for the past week and it was an exercise in futility. She was in every thought I had, and it was getting harder and harder to push her away. She pulled no punches when she broke up with me and made damned sure I realized that I was not good enough for her. The way she said it, though, I knew she really thought I wasn’t good enough for anyone.

  My phone vibrated and I took it out of my pocket. I didn’t recognize the number on my Caller ID, which meant the phone went back into my pocket. I didn’t want to talk to anyone I knew – let alone someone who was probably trying to sell me an extended warranty on something I didn’t even own.

  I hated this – hated myself for acting this way. I’d never obsessed over a woman who had broken my heart before. Somehow, Vicki West had managed to get through every one of my defenses and I’d stupidly thought she and I might have a future together. Even when everyone warned me she wasn’t who I thought she was, I’d been certain they were wrong.

  I thought I saw something in her no one else could.

  I took a long swallow from the scotch, letting the liquid fire spread through me, taking some of the edge from my thoughts.

  “I thought I’d find you here. Why didn’t you pick up your phone?” asked a familiar voice behind me.

  I turned around and saw a tall, imposing figure, smiling broadly. Before I could even react, Gary Starke pulled me into a tight bearhug.

  “Kyle Montgomery,” Starke said, pointing at my drink and nodding at the bored-looking bartender. He held up two fingers. “I can’t believe it.”

  Starke and I went back to our college days. He’d been my roommate and we’d hit it off immediately, discovering a mutual love of martial arts movies, heavy metal music, and dark-haired women who weren’t good for us.

  “Gary, how the hell are you?” I asked, surprised and pleased that he was there.