He rested his hands on his knees and leaned forward, causing one lock of thick blond hair to fall forward onto his forehead before he pushed it back with one hand. I finished my tea and kept the now-empty cup in my hands, if only to keep them from shaking. I didn’t know whether I should slap him, sue him, or jump him. I was so completely out of my league.
“Um, yes,” I replied slowly. “But—so what?”
“You’re direct,” he observed. “That’ll make this easier. My point is, I sympathize with your busy life. I’m a founding partner of a top twenty law firm and the CEO of Sterling Ventures. My jobs are very, very demanding of my time.”
I stared at him, waiting.
“When was the last time you went on a date, Skylar?”
I frowned at the sudden change of subject as he took a seat close to me on the couch again and smiled that feline smile that was starting to become unnervingly familiar. One big arm slid around the back of the couch behind my back, the other crossing my lap to rest a hand on the couch arm, effectively caging me with his body.
“I—I don’t understand,” I stammered. “Do you want to date me or sleep with me? Because they’re not the same thing.”
“No, they’re not. I’m glad you know the difference,” he said dryly. “I think it’s clear that neither of us have any time for that kind of nonsense.”
“Nonsense?”
“Drama. Attachment. All of it takes too much time. But it’s clear that this…whatever this is…isn’t going away. So, the best thing to do is probably to nip it in the bud, don’t you think?”
“You want to—” I could bring myself to say the word “fuck” in the middle of my boss’s office. “—you know…it out of our systems?” I twisted around to set my cup on the side table, unable to hold it steady any more. I was finding it hard to breathe properly.
“I’d probably use a different word, but yeah. Pretty much.”
I exhaled out a long, slow sigh—of relief or disappointment, I wasn’t sure.
“You get this really cute crease on your chin when you frown, Red,” he said, releasing the cage of his arms to touch the tender spot just below my lower lip.
He traced his hand down my back, causing me to arch indelicately against his chest. His lips moved over my cheekbones, and I found myself leaning into him without consciously having decided to do so. He rightfully assumed I was giving him the green light to move his hands up the sides of my waist until his thumbs grazed beneath my breasts. What might he be able to do when there wasn’t anything impeding his touch?
“It could be amazing, you know,” he murmured into my ear, the rumble of his deep voice causing every hair on the back of my neck to stand up in want. “Fucking unbelievable. You know it just as well as I do. Look at what just my simple touch does to you.”
“When?” I murmured, half hoping he would say “now” after all and continue his onslaught underneath the fabric of my jacket instead of teasing me over it. Instead he sat back again, and crossed his arms against his broad chest, considering the question. I practically wilted in the absence of his touch.
“You’ll come over Friday nights, always. A standing appointment of sorts. Every other Saturday as long as my schedule permits, and that may include attending the occasional dinner meeting or benefit as my date. You’ll have an allowance for whatever clothes and salon services you need. You’ll benefit too—the contacts alone from these things will make your career in whatever field of law you want. And we’ll both get what we need badly. No strings. No sleepovers. Nothing to get in the way of both of our very busy lives. You can stay in the guest room or my driver will take you home right away.” He shrugged. “The choice is up to you. If things progress further, I’ll get you an apartment near campus, a car, whatever you need. The idea is to make this as convenient as possible.”
My eyes popped open as he spoke, the haze of his touch wearing off quickly with every distinctly unromantic phrase. Apartment. Convenience. These things might sound better if there was even an iota of the kind, thoughtful man I’d met that first night, but that man wasn’t anywhere in this room. As for this guy, there was a word for what he was asking for.
“You want me to be your mistress.” It was not a question. In the harsh light of clarity, what I saw was not good.
“Well, no,” Sterling said uneasily, his confident façade visibly fading. “You can’t be a mistress if I’m not with anyone else.”
“But you essentially want me to be your weekend call girl.” Two throw pillows fell off the couch as I stood up forcibly. Blood rushed from my head in a way that only provided increased clarity. “Should we establish a rate, Mr. Sterling? A Harvard body like mine doesn’t come cheap, you know. What’s the going rate for summa cum laude, huh?”
“Well, to be clear, it’s not really your brain I’m after right now, Red.” His words were playful, but his tone was sharp, bordering on cruel.
I smoothed down the sides of my pants before facing him. “Fuck. You,” I said slowly and clearly, my cheeks suddenly blazing for a very different reason. “I’m not some goddamn object to be used at your beck and call. You’re lucky I’m already leaving this firm; otherwise I’d file a sexual harassment suit so big this firm would collapse from bad press alone, you utter. Fucking. Pig.”
I strode past him with as much indignation as I could manage, despite tripping briefly over the red shoes splayed about on the carpet. Their color, a vibrant shock against subdued brown and burgundy of the carpet, only reminded me further how insulting his offer was, from start to finish. Their red—the same red I had painted on my lips before coming up here—seemed garish. Whorish.
I reached to open the door, only to have it firmly held in place by a hand that slammed onto the wood over my shoulder.
“That’s quite a mouth you’ve got there, Red,” Sterling hummed into my ear. I could feel his chest touching the edge of my shoulder ever so slightly, and I did my best to ignore that unique scent that had me so titillated moments before. “But fair warning: a little spitfire only turns me on that much more.”
“Let me go,” I gritted through my teeth.
“No.”
With his other hand, he spun me around so I was effectively trapped between his arms against the door.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
Despite my best efforts not to, I couldn’t help but follow his order. I hated that just his proximity could eat through the rage and disgust over what was fundamentally an offer to prostitute myself. His expression echoed the same pent up longing and lust that I had also felt for the past three nights—and something more. Maybe it was just the strain of how badly we both clearly wanted each other, but I thought I saw a note of pain in his fathomless eyes.
“Tell me you don’t feel what’s between us.”
His forearms, fencing either side of my head, flexed with tension. Was he holding himself back or bracing for my resistance?
“Can you tell me you didn’t feel it the second I walked into the house?” he demanded through clenched teeth. “I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t fucking move. Can you really tell me you don’t want to see the inevitable fireworks that would come out of this?”
He leaned in close enough that our cheeks were almost touching. His minty breath whispered across my skin, and I fought the urge to slip a hand into his thick hair and pull his mouth into the sensitive skin at the base of my neck. All my righteousness was quickly, traitorously fading all over again.
“Can you tell me you didn’t want me to strip you down right here and take you in front of that fire?”
He grazed the tip of his nose down the line of my neck, eliciting goosebumps in its wake and a small, traitorous moan from the back of my throat. He growled back, low and fierce. His lips traced lightly back up my neck and paused over my mouth, just a few scant from a kiss.
“Let me make you feel good,” he rumbled as he slid one hand from the door down to grab me tightly around my waist. He pulled my body ti
ghtly against his, suggesting just how he intended to accomplish his request. “Please.”
“Ahh…” I moaned again, and without any further thought, both of my hands threaded into the thicket of hair at the base of his neck and yanked.
He needed no more invitation. His lips conquered mine completely as he pressed me hard against the door with the entire length of his body. He was an amazing kisser, sucking on my bottom lip like candy, tongue tangling over and over against with mine as if he couldn’t taste enough of me. His hands dropped and gripped my backside so hard I yelped, a sound he quickly stifled with his lips. I was starting to fumble with the buttons of his shirt when we were suddenly interrupted by the loud, alarming ring of the telephone on his desk.
I froze, suddenly hyperaware that his secretary was just on the other side of the door behind my back. The phone rang three more times and fell silent again, but Sterling broke our kiss, visibly regretful at the interruption. His breath smelled of tea and mint, and I now knew he tasted even better. A few seconds ago, I was ready to tug the rest of my clothes off and mount him right there. Except.
“Jesus,” he gasped. “That really is quite a mouth on you.”
I didn’t say anything, just chewed on my upper lip and avoided his searching gaze.
“Say yes,” he said as he buried his face into my neck. “Come to my house on Friday. Let me show you what I can do for you, Red.”
I almost said yes. I almost moaned again as his lips touched jaw and started to nibble their way up to my ear. But in moment of returned clarity, my eyes caught the edge the file still sitting on the couch—a reminder of just how businesslike he wanted this endeavor to be. All I could envision was a stack of bills left on a nightstand, like he might treat a cheap hooker. I saw myself rearranging my schedule to meet his needs. Lying in bed, waiting for his phone calls until odd hours of the morning. Being pushed away the next day, treated like I was nothing. Made to feel like I was crazy for suspecting the worst. Arrangement or not, I had been here before.
I pushed him away forcefully, ignoring the confusion that clouded his handsome features and the way my skin yearned for his touch once it was gone.
“No,” I said quietly, with more assurance than I felt. “And not in the kind of way where you should think I mean yes just because you kissed me. I just mean no. As in never.”
“Skylar, please, I—”
“I’m sure there are a number of convenient escort services you can call to get what you want,” I said woodenly as I ducked under his arm, and grabbed the doorknob behind me. “You should have HR burn my file along with those goddamn shoes. I’d rather you didn’t have a way to contact me after I’m gone.”
I didn’t bother to wait for a response or even shut the door behind me. My blouse had come untucked and there was no way that my hair looked anything short of a disaster, but I still managed to smile politely at Margie on my way out. She watched curiously as I passed, but somehow I suspected that you didn’t become the assistant of one of the most powerful men in Boston without being able to keep your mouth shut. I barely registered the slam of a large, heavy door as I continued back down the hall, back to the bottom floor where I belonged.
~
Chapter 7
“Why not?”
Jane’s reaction to the meeting with Sterling was not at all what I expected. She shrugged and went back to eating her ramen at the small kitchen table. It was Jane’s version of comfort food, which told me she hadn’t had a very good day either. We had both come home and changed straight into our pajamas and bathrobes. Since she had spent the day at the library working on her reading, I had a feeling her woes were also related to men, which made me scared to ask. Jane’s love life often wasn’t easy to follow.
“It’s not like he suggested a monthly rate or anything,” she said through mouthful of soup. “He made some good points. You’re busy. He’s busy. Maybe he’s right. Neither of you have time for the relationship parts of sex. What’s not to like about hot, weekly sex with a gorgeous billionaire, some new clothes, and a driver in a city with some of the worst traffic in the country? Isn’t the Red Line down again this week?”
She shoved another forkful of noodles in her mouth with satisfaction, as if to say “the prosecution rests.” I grimaced as I pulled a container of matzo ball soup out of a paper bag. Jane wasn’t wrong, but he had just been so damn business-like about it all. I felt more like some kind of acquisition than a person.
“Do you even remember your last relationship?” Jane interrupted my thoughts, gesturing with her fork for emphasis.
“No, not if I can help it. It’s why I don’t like talking about him, Jane.” I tipped my soup into a bowl and padded around the kitchen counter to sit next to her at the table, spoon in hand.
“Patrick was supposed to be your boyfriend, and he treated you like shit. He was jealous and clingy, and at the same time he was off nailing every easy piece of ass in Manhattan so he could give you VD as a parting gift,” she continued, disregarding my comment. “And I saw how freaked out you were by the idea of dating a guy like Jared, who is so safe he’s practically a blow up doll. So maybe Sterling’s got the right idea. We—and by we, I do mean you—can’t afford right now to get wrapped up in a shitty relationship, and we clearly can’t handle a decent one. Maybe it’s better to define clear parameters. You’re good at business stuff, Sky. You could do this.”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” I said as I scooped up a bite of dumpling and broth. It wasn’t as good as my Bubbe’s, but it still reminded me of home, which I badly needed after a day like this. “But still, J, I’d at least like the invitation to stay the night, you know? So, you know, I feel like a person, and not a movie rental. Jesus.”
Jane stood up to clear her bowl, having demolished the entire to-go container within five minutes. Despite eating like a linebacker, the girl was a rail, blessed with a high metabolism that was aided by an occasional cigarette habit, unending coffee consumption, and a penchant for late night activities.
“He did give you the invitation to spend the night,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, to sleep in separate rooms!” I cried out, flinging my spoon and droplets of broth on the table, causing Jane to chuckle. “Or an entire separate apartment. You know, whatever’s most convenient!”
Jane stood on the other side of the counter, waiting patiently for me to quiet down.
“You finished?” she asked when I had dropped my spoon back to my bowl.
I glared at her. “Yes.”
“Good,” she said. “Now listen. He’s a businessman. He was just opening the first round of negotiations. You can always say no to whatever you like. No one sleeps well when they have to share a bed anyway.”
“But—”
“Just think about it,” she said as she started to clean up her dishes. “You ignore that part of yourself way too much, Sky. It might be just what you need before real life starts.”
~
I did think about it. For the rest of the week my thoughts would stray to Sterling’s warm lips and deft touch when I wasn’t carefully focused. But every time I walked into the building bearing his name in silver lettering above the entrance and across the glass doors, I scowled in recollection of the transactional manner with which he had approached me. I deserved more than to be some guy’s Friday night booty call. Negotiating sex might work for Jane, but it wouldn’t work for me.
By the end of the week I had all but managed to put Mr. Indecent Proposal’s mouth out of my mind, caught up with the busy tasks of finishing the final days of my internship and before leaving for the weekend. At the end of the day on Friday, the junior associates rewarded the interns and temps with Dunkin’ Donuts and coffee. Eric and Steve both stayed and kept working while they rest of us ate a donut or two and got ready to go. I gobbled mine in a hurry, since I had plans to take the eight o’clock bus from South Street Station to see my dad for the weekend before classes began.
“Skylar!”
&
nbsp; Ben approached me with box bearing the last of the donuts just as I was pulling the overnight bag I’d packed for the weekend from under my desk. I shook my head at the offer.
“Thanks,” I said. “But I’ve already had two. Gonna have to spend an extra hour in the pool just to get rid of them. They were good, though.”
Ben smiled and pushed his glasses further up his nose. “Couldn’t hurt to try. Hey, listen, Laura and I wanted to say that we appreciated your hard work over the last several months. You really stood out among the interns. If you change your mind about working for Sterling, we could probably find a place for you here.”
I smiled. “Thanks, Ben. I really appreciate that. Let me know if you ever need a full time public interest associate. I’ll let you know if something changes.”
He winked and went to solicit the rest of the donuts to others. I hauled my bag over my shoulder and said my farewells.
“You know, this doesn’t have to be good bye if you give me your number,” Steve said. “Although since I’ll be working with your buddy the chick-magnet over there, maybe I’ll still get to see your pretty face.”
“Maybe,” I said, accepting an awkward hug. “See you, Steve.”
“Hey Skylar,” Eric called from across the room, where he was chatting up one of the legal assistants who had stopped in to say “hello” in a familiar way. I sighed. Since he’d accepted a junior associate position, Eric was really going to have to stop dipping his pen in the company ink if he ever planned to make partner at Sterling. Or wanted to avoid a harassment suit. From the looks of the girl’s face, it looked like he’d already started to cut those ties anyway.
Chocolate donut in hand, he jogged over to where I stood by the door. “See you in class on Monday? You’re taking the family law clinic, right?”
I nodded. “Yep, bright and early. You’re doing that too?”
He nodded back. “Yeah. They say I need more diverse electives before I take the bar since this is a full-service firm. Have you talked to you-know-who since Monday?”
Legally Yours (Spitfire Book 1) Page 7