“Close.”
Whatever she needed, Patrick was compelled to find it for her. But he had moments left, if that. He took one of her hands and urged it between her thighs.
“Get yourself there, Cassie.”
Her fingers brushed against him as they circled her clit, and the idea it afforded was too much. Cassie rubbing herself because he’d told her to, the two of them working together to get her off.
“I’m gonna come,” he rasped.
“Me—” Cassie clenched, her orgasm stealing her breath before she could finish the sentence. Burying his face against her breast, Patrick groaned through his release as she shuddered beneath him. Her climax lasted, pulses that drew his out even more, her body tightening around him again until he sagged against her, his brow to her shoulder.
It took longer than usual for him to catch his breath. A lot longer.
When he’d finally recovered, Patrick lifted his head and asked, “Still don’t like me?”
Her giggle was a sweet, tinkling sound. He eased out of her and tied off the condom, tossing it into a trash bin beside the bed. She’d stretched out when he turned to look at her. Propping himself up on one arm, he explored things he hadn’t gotten to see before. A beauty mark at the base of her neck. The light golden tone of her skin. The soft crease of her navel. God, he could look at her for hours.
“Isn’t this usually your cue to make something up?” she asked.
He glanced up. “I’m sorry?”
“When the sex is over. Isn’t that when you usually find an excuse to cut out?”
“Usually.”
“Well, let me save you the trouble.” She sat up, reached over to her nightstand and retrieved an oversized T-shirt. “You don’t have to make up an excuse.”
“So I don’t have to pretend I have a tennis match in the morning, or a work obligation? Sweet.”
“Well, I know how you roll. You never sleep with the same woman twice, so what good would it be to hang on you?”
“None at all.”
He was mostly joking. He’d thought she was kidding too, but apparently not. She drew the shirt over her head, stood and went to her dresser. “Well it’s a good thing I’m not then.”
Stepping into a fresh pair of panties, she ran her fingers through her hair.
“Then I’m free to go, I guess,” he said, watching her.
“Totally free.”
She was giving him an out. Hot sex, with no pesky emotions required in the aftermath, no requests for a repeat performance. It shouldn’t have bothered him.
So why did it bother him?
“We’re on the same page with this.” She turned toward him. “Right?”
A sudden discomfort gripped him. For once, he didn’t want to run out the door, but he wasn’t about to admit the sudden change in his pattern now. “Totally on the same page.”
“And we’re not telling anyone about it.”
“Not a soul.”
“Perfect. Then we can go back to hating each other and no one will be the wiser.”
Patrick stood, and Cassie walked him down the hall. His clothes were scattered everywhere, and awkward didn’t begin to describe it as she helped him retrieve them.
“Thanks for coming over,” she said when he was fully dressed. “I had a nice time.”
“That’s usually my line.”
She stuck her tongue out. “Beat you to it.”
He laughed at her playfulness, and told himself to get with the program. He didn’t have to worry that he’d taken advantage of her, and Cassie definitely didn’t seem like her feelings were hurt.
No, she was making this easy for him.
Patrick checked his pockets for his keys, phone and wallet, and flashed her a laid-back smile. There was no reason for him to feel anything other than relief. Commitment wasn’t his thing, and now that he’d had her, he’d be able to move on.
“I had a nice time too.”
“I’m glad.”
Cassie opened the door. “Good night.” She didn’t reach in for a hug or a kiss. Which wasn’t strange, considering her behavior. What was strange was that he felt the urge to.
Patrick shoved his hands in his pockets. “Night.” He went down the stairs and out into the evening, ready to leave this night, and his lust for Cassie Allbright, behind him.
8
Cassie stared at her phone in disbelief. “I did not just get another email from Hudson.”
Gabe glanced up from his computer. “You’re shouting.”
“I’m not.”
A drawer in his filing cabinet rolled open. Lilly stuffed a folder inside it.
“Yeah, you kinda are,” she said.
“Why are you two ganging up on me?” Cassie’s phone buzzed. “And why the hell is he emailing me again?”
“You’re still shouting,” Gabe sang.
Cassie tossed her phone onto his desk in frustration, then bent over and covered her eyes. “I can’t help it. He’s a sniveling little crybaby, and I’m already sorry I took him on as a client.”
Two days into the week, and he’d emailed her over a dozen times.
“Do I have to sell my desk?”
“How am I supposed to run a publishing house out of my home?”
“Can’t you do all this for me?”
Those were the highlights, and they’d been nonstop since Saturday. She’d spent most of the weekend with her phone off drafting a restructuring plan. She’d researched her ass off, ascertaining what made a publishing house fail and succeed, figuring out where his debts were and what his potential future earnings could be. But her computer had dinged once an hour with a barrage of complaints from him.
“You won’t regret taking him on when you’ve made partner,” Gabe reminded her.
Cassie kept her hands firmly in place. Maybe she wouldn’t regret Hudson. But she did have one regret: sleeping with Patrick.
She totally regretted it. Mostly.
Sort of.
She couldn’t believe it had actually happened. Analytical to a fault, Cassie always thought everything through, so the fact that she’d impulsively kissed him wasn’t her normal behavior. She’d spent half the weekend wincing at what she’d done, half savoring the way her body felt—her lips tingling from rasping over his mustache and goatee, her body pleasantly tender, stretched and slightly raw. She’d scold herself for the thought, then catch herself staring off into space, recalling the way he’d forced her on her back, demanding she take the pleasure he was going to give her.
And he’d given it. With the right number of inches and damn near perfect girth.
He was a lot bigger than she’d imagined, and she didn’t only mean his cock. His perfectly tailored clothes hid the sheer size of his broad chest and muscular arms, but once she’d gotten the jacket off him, those suspenders he’d worn made his chest look even bigger. Like it was behind bars.
It should’ve been illegal, what they’d done. She half wished it was. Then she wouldn’t be wanting it so badly again.
The drawer Lilly was working in squeaked shut as she searched for another file.
“I thought you’d love bossing around a spoiled brat like Hudson Grant.”
Cassie’s phone buzzed again. She couldn’t bear to look at it. “I am, but he’s acting like I’m his therapist.”
“Didn’t you know that’s what you went to law school for?” Gabe asked. “It’s a juris doctor degree.”
Cassie uncovered her eyes and sat up. “You know, you two can besa mi culo.”
“Oooh,” Gabe said. “We know she’s mad when she tells us to kiss her ass in Spanish.”
Cassie reached for her phone and unlocked the screen. Yes, she was disgusted by Hudson’s attachment to money, and she was enjoying telling him what to do, because that’s what would save his company, whether he liked it or not. This was part of the fun in being a lawyer. Handling the impossible. Getting. Shit. Done. But if he didn’t stop whining, she was going to start sending his email
s directly to her spam folder.
She scrolled through her notifications and sighed. The last message hadn’t been from Hudson. It was a text from her sister.
“I’m gonna head to my office. Elísa wants to FaceTime.”
Lilly checked her watch. “At two thirty on a Tuesday? Doesn’t she know you’re at work?”
“She does. But family is more important, right?”
Lilly made a face. “Hey, you’re not off the hook about this weekend yet. We still have to figure out what we’re doing for our birthdays. And to celebrate my acceptance into the Massachusetts Bar.”
She was beaming on the last part. She’d been promoted from paralegal to associate, and would be sworn in in November.
“It’s so cute that you guys have almost the same birthday,” Gabe said.
“Yeah,” Cassie agreed. “Plus ten years.”
Lilly’s birthday was on Friday, Cassie’s the day after. She’d put off planning anything, because thinking about turning thirty-nine wasn’t high on her priority list. Lilly, however, was excited about hitting the last year of her twenties and wanted to do something special.
Her phone buzzed. Hudson. Again. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to do anything this weekend. I’ll be spending it chained to emails from my favorite client.”
Lilly giggled. “I spent most of last weekend chained up, but for different reasons.”
Gabe covered his ears. “T.M.I.!”
Cassie would’ve laughed, but another image of Patrick popped into her mind, this one of his hands on her wrists keeping her immobile. His naked body moving under hers as he thrust up into her. How it had felt when he’d growled and flipped her over, brushing the edges of the fantasy she’d kept under lock and key. She’d been surprised at how strong he was, and it had thrilled her, even frightened her a bit.
The way she’d always wanted it to.
Her cheeks rushed with heat. She needed to stop thinking about him.
“Well,” she said, recovering her composure. “I might need to borrow one of your toys to whip this idiot into shape.”
Satisfied they hadn’t suspected anything, Cassie headed out, texting her sister as she walked. She’d just sat down at her desk and propped her phone up when the FaceTime request came through.
Elísa’s smiling face filled the screen. “Hey, sis.”
As teens, Cassie and her sister had looked like twins, despite their eight-year age difference. But Elísa had kept her hair long, and her south Florida tan highlighted the azure color of her eyes, so now they barely looked alike at all.
Cassie rubbed the back of her neck. “Please tell me you’re not calling about me getting a date for your wedding. Mom hounded me about that last week.”
“No, I’m calling to wish you an early happy birthday.”
“You, doing something ahead of schedule?” Elísa lived on Latin time and then some. Early wasn’t in her vocabulary.
“I know. But Hector and I are going away for a pre-wedding getaway, and I’ll be busy. I didn’t want to forget.”
“Right. Because of all the sex. It does things to your memory,” Cassie said. “Mom and Dad are letting you guys do that?”
“They don’t have a say in what I do.”
“They did when I still lived at home.”
Cassie hadn’t even been allowed to date until she was eighteen. Her mother had dragged her to church, drilling the concept into her that women shouldn’t sleep around and that she should be pure for marriage, while her father sat on the sidelines and nodded along.
It was a complete load of shit too. Elísa had been sleeping with Hector long before they’d gotten engaged, a fact easily forgotten once there was a diamond on her finger. And her brother had never gotten a lecture. Alejándro was livin’ la vida well into his twenties, bed-hopping until he settled down and was absolved from his sins in the form of two grandchildren. But hey, he was a boy. Boys were allowed to be like that. If Cassie acted the same, she’d be seen as an object, losing all respect.
“Well, you’re not at home anymore,” Elísa said. “What are you doing for your birthday?”
“Probably nothing. I’ve got a ton of work to do, and—”
“Nothing?” Elísa’s squeak made Cassie flinch. “Come on, Cass. You can’t be doing nothing.”
“Why? Because the neighbors will gossip when I come home without a man on my arm?”
Cassie could hear the astonished whispers now.
“Can you believe it? Cassandra is here by herself, again!”
“Dios mío, I’ll bet all her eggs are dried up!”
“No, dumbass. Because you work like crazy, and you should go out and have some fun.”
Elísa’s scowl was a mix of earnest concern and exasperation, and Cassie felt bad for going on the defensive. But that was how she dealt with the world, always ready for a fight, which was another difference between them. Elísa was the baby, the most sheltered and free, allowed later curfews, and more at ease with who she was. As the eldest, Cassie had the most expectations thrust upon her. Work hard. Become something important, do something worthwhile, but keep your heritage close.
But now the culmination of all her hard work was finally in sight—the carrot at the end of the stick she’d been following for nearly two decades. Maybe she didn’t need to work the whole weekend. Hudson’s emails could wait a day.
“I guess I could go out. It’s my friend Lilly’s birthday too. Maybe we’ll go dancing or something.”
“That’s the spirit! Get your salsa on for the big three-nine,” Elísa said. “And maybe find a sexy guy to spend the night with after.”
Cassie glanced away as Patrick hijacked her thoughts once again. The heat, the passion. His moans of pleasure when she went down on him, the way his hips had kicked toward her mouth. But she couldn’t get back into bed with him. She still didn’t even like him. Not as a person, with his arrogance and player ways. After all, he’d been picking up another woman before he’d seen her on Friday. For all she knew, he could’ve gone back out on the prowl when he left her apartment.
No. One mistake was bad enough. She didn’t want to make it a second time.
But he wasn’t the only man out there.
“I think I might.” An idea percolated in Cassie’s brain. “Have fun with Hector.”
They hung up, and Cassie began searching online. After a few minutes, she dialed Lilly’s extension.
“I’ve got a plan for this weekend.” She clicked on a link and smiled. “You might need Jack’s permission though.”
9
Thursdays were Patrick’s least favorite day.
It wasn’t only because they were usually crammed full with meetings. A conference call at eight a.m. with the Rio de Janeiro and Dubai offices. A midmorning video chat with the London and Vancouver branches, then a planning session with his team to review their presentation for Friday’s bimonthly Global Sales and Marketing meeting. A board meeting rounded off his day at four. That all sucked, but those weren’t the only reasons.
It was because every Thursday at two, he had a late lunch with his mother.
Always at two. Always at the same place, a French restaurant on Boylston, right after her AA meeting. It was a ritual they’d started after he’d marched her into her first meeting and stood guard outside until she was out. Lunch at La Lutte was a bribe in exchange for good behavior, to make sure she skipped the wine and went straight for the caviar.
She’d been sober for a decade, but things remained awkward. Not that they ever weren’t. For as long as he could remember, his mother was emotionally absent, his father physically so. She, at least, was there most of the time. The only memory he had of Reid at home was the banker’s lamp he read by when Patrick was a child, a green glass shade with a touch of old-world elegance. The warm glow stopped coming from his office when he stopped coming home much at all.
It hadn’t been hard for Patrick to figure out what was going on. Watching his father traipse into the house la
te at night with his clothes askew was clue number one. Watching how he interacted with his secretaries and other industry professionals on the occasions Patrick had to follow him around closed the deal. Reid was wealthy and powerful and bored with his wife, and went rampantly through women because he had the means to get away with it. So in theory, Patrick understood why his mother drank. In practice, a visceral, boyish feeling of abandonment remained, even all these years later. He cared what happened to her—only someone totally heartless would let their own mother become destitute. But he’d always felt she’d turned a blind eye to Reid’s cheating so she could remain in the lap of luxury, not so she could be there for her son. Whatever her reason, they’d never found a way to talk about it, and he’d come to dread the meals that were nothing more than perfunctory check-ins.
As he left his building, stepping into one of the company’s town cars, Patrick wished he and his mother were meeting someplace else for once. Because La Lutte was steps away from the bar where he’d kissed Cassie the other night.
Six days since he’d left her apartment, and he’d barely been able to think about anything else.
What happened with her was still a mystery. With other women, he talked to them first. Watched their mannerisms, asked them questions until he figured out what made them tick. He never went in cold with their desires a mystery.
But he’d been so wrapped up in what was happening with Cassie he’d forgotten his usual routine. He’d been spinning off being nasty and flirting, and it had followed straight through into her bed.
It was the only time he’d been “off script” in years, the only time he’d been driven by his own needs and hungers. He wasn’t detached, wasn’t filling a role so he could escape. He was one hundred percent present, focused and turned-on as fuck. And so was she. No matter how much she barked at him, he knew she liked it—the proof of her pleasure had doused his fingers. And her taunting had both turned him on and made him angry in a way he couldn’t explain.
He couldn’t explain any of it. He shouldn’t have liked the idea that she hadn’t been with anyone else lately, shouldn’t have felt that possessive urge he never felt for anyone. And he sure as hell shouldn’t want to have her again either.
Her Claim: Legally Bound Book 2 Page 8