by Julie Cannon
She swiveled her chair and once again looked out her window. Martin was months ahead of schedule, and she was going to be a very wealthy woman. But that didn’t matter to her. She already had enough money. There would be articles written about her, the Harvard Business Review was already chronicling her achievements and planned to use this turnaround in one of their published case studies. Emery Barrett would be an even more familiar name in business across the world. Going forward she could have her pick of opportunities. They were already starting to come in. Executive headhunters called her several times a week, trying to lure her away with offers of complete control, an open checkbook, and tens of millions of dollars in her bank account. But she wasn’t interested in any of them. She had a job to do at Martin and had been committed to finishing it. And now it was done.
The stars were high in the sky when she turned her chair back around. She heard the cleaning crew in the outer office and was surprised when her clock read seven thirty-four. Dana had entered her office just after lunch, and by some quirk of luck she had not been interrupted for the remainder of the day. She made a note to thank Adam.
Ignoring her briefcase and the stack of colored folders on her desk, she picked up her wallet and keys, said good night to the lady emptying Adam’s trash can, and stepped into the empty elevator.
Chapter Twenty-six
“What’s on your mind, Emery?” Julia asked after filling Emery’s wineglass. They were sitting outside on Julia’s patio, a blanket covering their legs, an empty wine bottle on the table in front of them. “We’ve talked about the weather, my patients, my new car, and the new neighbors down the street. All important, yet superficial crap.”
She looked at Julia. She thought about lying, but Julia was her best friend and sometimes knew her better than she knew herself, so that was out of the question.
She had no idea how to answer that question. She liked Dana, respected her, even admired her. But was that professional or personal? She knew Dee, but connecting her to the Dana in the office was a blur. She was having too many sleepless nights again, this time due to Dana. And when she did finally fall asleep she dreamed of her. She’d been debating whether to confide in Julia but then Julia’s phone had rung. She’d been relieved when Julia had to dash off to the hospital because if she herself hadn’t figured it out, how would she talk to Julia about it?
Now Julia was back, sitting upright and leaning on the edge of the couch cushions. “Does this have anything to do with Dana?”
Emery must have had her thoughts on her sleeve because Julia immediately snapped her fingers, pointed at her, and said, “I knew it.” She settled back on the couch and crossed her legs. “Okay, spill. I let you get away with not telling me anything about her when you put her in charge of that acquisition. But now I want every single detail. Especially if you’re still thinking about her.”
She fought the need to get up and move. Or was it to get up and run? She had no idea what to say to Julia and she told her as much.
“Bullshit,” Julia said. “I’ve known you for over twenty years and I’ve never seen you at a loss for words. Just open your mouth and it’ll all come tumbling out.”
She wanted to tell Julia. God, she had to talk to someone about it, other than herself. She wasn’t much help to herself, and she certainly needed someone, especially after Dana had stormed out of her office last week. Julia kept silent.
“I need to have my head examined,” she said. “Dana is everything I knew she would be. She’s by far one of the best people I’ve ever hired.”
“And?”
“And I can’t get her out of my mind, or out from under my skin,” she added dryly. “She’s all I think about. I mean not just when I’m at home or have some free time, but almost every second of the day I’m not unconscious. If she’s in the room with me, in a meeting or something, I can’t concentrate and I can’t take my eyes off her. If she’s not, then I’m wondering where she is and what she’s doing. I’m constantly getting caught not paying attention, and even my staff is starting to look at me as if I’m losing my mind. I feel like I have mush for brains.” This time she didn’t fight the need to get up and move around.
“I’m distracted, unfocused, and in worse condition than I was before I went on that stupid cruise. Jesus, I was supposed to relax, not get all wrapped around some woman who then comes to work for me.” She sat down again, feeling like a jack-in-the-box. “What a cluster fuck my life has become.” She dropped her head into her hands and ran her fingers through her hair.
“I’m happy for you.”
“What?” she asked, not sure she’d heard Julia correctly.
“I said I’m happy for you. Admit it, Emery. You have effectively cruised through life skirting any chance of being bitten by the lovebug. Or even the smitten bug. You’re thirty-eight years old and have never had a serious relationship with a woman. You’ve never let yourself get that close. You hit-and-run women.”
“Hit and run?”
“Yes. You don’t stop long enough to exchange anything important with a woman except her phone number and how many times you can make her come in one night.”
“That’s not true!” she said defensively.
“Honey, you can bullshit me and you can lie to yourself, but I’m your best friend and with that comes the ability to see right through you. Now, I love you and wouldn’t do anything to intentionally hurt you, but I’m telling you the truth. And you know it.”
She didn’t say anything. Julia was right. Rarely had she given any woman more than a few hours or, in several rare cases, more than a few days of her attention. She was focused on her career and needed her relationships to be brief, easy, and unencumbered. If the women she met met those criteria, they would spend time together with nothing more than pleasant, if fleeting memories. If not, she quickly moved on.
But where did Dana fit in? That was the problem. She didn’t fit anywhere. The time she had spent with Dee had been brief, easy, and unencumbered. Her relationship with Dana, however, was anything but. It was urgent, emotional, unsettling, consuming, demanding, and like nothing she had ever experienced before. She was completely out of her element.
“I’m not in love with her,” she said, surprised at how shaky her voice was.
“I didn’t say you were,” Julia said calmly. “I’m just saying that from where I sit you’re all messed up over this woman. It’s bad enough you can’t get her out of your head, but that, plus the stress of getting caught pulling your hand out of the proverbial cookie jar, is making you crazy.”
“My hand is not in her cookie jar,” Emery said.
Julia looked at her, sighed, and rolled her eyes. “You are such an engineer, so exact and precise. You know what I’m talking about.”
“So what am I supposed to do?” she asked, mentally exhausted.
Julia emptied the wine bottle into their glasses. “I’m afraid I can’t help you with that one.”
“What kind of friend are you?” Emery asked, feigning fear.
“One who will listen to you bitch and complain, be your sounding board, and offer my two cents’ worth of advice. In other words…the best kind.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
When would her hands stop shaking? They shook as she gripped the steering wheel, when she locked the car, and when she tried to push the doorbell. While she waited Emery remembered the end of the cruise.
Tomorrow it would be over. The sense of contentment EJ felt with Dee in her arms frightened her. This trip, this woman was unlike anything she had ever experienced. Why was it so different this time? She had had brief affairs before, but none left her with a sense of dread when it was time to leave. She wanted to see Dee again, wanted to ask her for her phone number, take her to dinner at her favorite restaurant, eat pizza in bed and watch Humphrey Bogart movies. If she was lucky Dee lived on the other side of the country, which would make the continuation of this relationship difficult at best. With her luck Dee probably lived on the nex
t street over in her neighborhood.
But that wasn’t part of their deal. They had both agreed that when the ship docked their affair was over. Their sex these last few days was almost extreme, a force so powerful neither one of them could get enough of each other. Last night their lovemaking reflected the realization that this would be the last time they would kiss, touch, feel each other’s bodies join in the dark. Even after hours of demanding kisses, insistent caresses, and breathless release, she’d barely slept. She’d wanted to savor and memorize every moment with Dee. After Dee walked out of her suite, her life would never be the same again.
An instant of panic seized Emery. What was she doing here, at Dana’s front door at midnight? But then she remembered how it felt just being with her. It was more than the sex. She felt alive, interesting, challenged, thought of, and cherished. She didn’t have to impress Dana or be anyone but herself with her. Other than Julia she had no one else like that. That used to be okay, but no longer. She’d let Dana get away the first time. The second time would kill her.
“Emery?”
Her heart jumped at the sight of Dana standing in front of her. One hand clasped the edges of a silk robe together, and the other ran through her hair. It was obvious she had been sleeping.
“What is it?” Dana asked again. “Has something happened?”
She didn’t allow herself to think. She’d done enough thinking to last a lifetime. She wanted to feel. For once in her life she wanted to do what she wanted to do, not what she should do. But with Dana this wasn’t what she wanted, it was what she needed to do. There were no second thoughts, no doubts, no hesitation.
She stepped forward, intending to kiss Dana. Then she lifted her gaze from Dana’s lips to her eyes and saw surprise.
“Emery, what are you doing?”
Slowly, savoring the anticipation, she lowered her head and lightly kissed Dana. Her lips were softer than she remembered and the kiss made her head spin.
She fought the urge to pull Dana to her and smother her with kisses. She wanted Dana so badly it hurt. Kissing her felt like she had come home. Funny, she thought, she’d never realized she was anywhere but home. To hell with convention, this was so right. How had she ever thought her life was complete without this? Without Dana?
Dana slowly responded and kissed her back. Tentative at first, Dana’s desire soon turned into much more. Their tongues dueled, fighting for control, surrendering to pleasure.
Suddenly Dana pulled away, her hand at her mouth. “Have you lost your mind?” She looked around and behind Emery, as if expecting the flash of cameras in the darkness.
“No,” she replied, her eyes never leaving Dana’s. “I remember everything. I remember how you loved me. I remember your touch, your scent, your taste. I remember how time stood still when I was with you. I remember how it felt to fall asleep in your arms and wake up to your touch. I remember the way you knew just what I needed. I remember making love under the moon. I remember every moment we spent together. And I want to have more than just memories. Something’s going on between us. I can’t think, I can’t concentrate, I can hardly breathe without you. It scares me to death to feel this way, but I can’t live any other way. I don’t want to. I’ve been so lost without you. I don’t want to be lonely anymore. I won’t survive losing you again.”
Emery’s words slid around Dana’s heart. It was as if they were reading off the same page in a book. Emery’s words had been scripted from her own heart.
Emery’s eyes, hungry with desire, exposed her deepest thoughts and fears. Emery was offering herself, all of her, risking everything for her.
She didn’t need any more conversation. Words couldn’t convey what she was feeling. She only needed Emery in her arms. She took Emery’s hand, pulled her through the door, and threw the deadbolt. As she stood there watching Emery she had a moment of panic.
“You could lose everything.”
“I don’t care.”
“Martin—”
“Will be fine.
“But—”
“But nothing. I’ve already let you go once, I’m not going to let it happen again.” She had come too far, had too much at stake to stop now. This time when she kissed Dana she wasn’t gentle but demanding. To her joy and relief, Dana’s response was just as powerful.
Dana broke the kiss only to take her hand and lead her upstairs. She stopped and turned around when Emery didn’t follow.
“Emery?”
Dana was two steps above her, her body shadowed by the light in the hall. “You are so beautiful.”
“I’ve waited so long to hear you say that again.” Dana’s voice was soft and sensuous. This wasn’t her nine-to-five voice, and Emery had thought she would forever hear it only in her dreams. After months of anxiety and edginess, she was finally calm and slowly followed Dana to her bedroom. A lone lamp beside the bed cast the room in a soft, romantic glow. Dana had thrown back the covers on one side of the bed when she had gotten up to answer the door. Like on the cruise, she slept on the left side of the bed.
Dana went to the other side of the bed and pulled back the other side, exposing deep-red sheets. She lay down in the center and waited.
Emery knew Dana was giving her a choice, but ever since she’d seen Dana on that deck the first day of the cruise she’d had no choice. She had always scoffed at sappy romantic phrases, things like she was a vision, a soothing cloth to her parched existence. But suddenly they all made sense. That was what people said when they were in love. The world looked different, brighter, cleaner, purer when you were in love. Words like crave, yearn, and ache were now real.
Dana held out her hand. With each step toward her, Emery gave a little more of herself. Why had it taken so long for them to get here? Logically Dana knew why, but her body told her it had been a complete waste of time. Dana was speechless. She had never heard anything as poetic in her life as Emery’s declaration. Emery had held her in the palm of her hand and taken her to immeasurable heights. Not wanting to squander any more of their precious moments together, she pulled Emery into her bed.
Shock waves of delight coursed through her every nerve ending. At this moment, she knew they would be together forever. They would have tough times, but Emery would never leave her. She was too good, too decent to take the easy way out. They’d started the cruise as separate individuals and were now one.
Her body heated when Emery kissed her and explored her mouth with her tongue as if it were undiscovered territory. Her hands were busy too, and Dana quivered when Emery stroked her face, her neck, her shoulders. Emery’s familiar weight pressed on her.
Emery’s mouth slowly followed the trail of her hands and she could only gasp as warm, wet lips circled her nipple. It grew harder, and with each flick of Emery’s tongue Dana slid one stroke closer to orgasm. Emery knew her body like no other lover and exploited that knowledge to the fullest.
Finally she couldn’t take it any more. “Emery, love, touch me, please. I need you now, fast and hard. It’s been too long. I don’t want to wait. I can’t wait. Please.” At this point she had no pride. She’d never begged for anything but she would beg for Emery to let her do this. She needed it now, couldn’t wait for the preliminaries or the removal of clothes. She had to touch Emery, breathe in her scent, taste her come.
The time for making love would be later, much later. What she needed now was to feel Emery inside her driving her to climax. She needed to release, to explode, completely lose control in the safety of Emery’s arms. She didn’t have to ask twice.
Dana’s cry of surrender echoed off the walls and Emery couldn’t hold back her own orgasm. The sensation of Dana willingly giving herself and coming in her arms like this overwhelmed her.
Dana’s body was a wonderland of peaks and valleys, curves and soft angles she could explore forever, but right now she was content with Dana quivering from aftershocks in her arms. Her life was now complete. An overwhelming sense of rightness settled over her. She and Dana had be
en in this exact position many times before, but it never felt like this. Before, they had been intimate strangers, purely physical, merely sharing their bodies freely.
“This feels like the first time,” she said softly. She was still inside Dana and felt her tighten around her fingers.
“Hardly,” Dana said breathlessly. Emery held her tighter. After several more minutes she slid her fingers out of Dana’s warmth and cupped her. She lifted her head and looked at Dana. “Open your eyes.”
“I don’t think I can.”
She flicked her thumb over Dana’s clit.
Dana inhaled sharply. “That’s not going to help,” she said breathlessly.
“If you want me to do it again you’ll open your eyes and look at me. After another few seconds she did. Emery could barely see, residual passion clouding her eyes.
“Not fair,” Dana said.
Emery sat up and looked down at Dana lying spent and naked on her bed. A fine sheen of sweat covered her flushed skin. “You are the most beautiful woman in the world. You’re smart, funny, intriguing, and very, very sexy. I want to spend the rest of my life seeing you just like this. I want to go to sleep with you in my arms every night. I want to argue with you and have hot make-up sex with you. I want to hold your head when you’re sick and your hand on the beach. I want to get a puppy with you and introduce you to my mom. I love you, Dana Worthington.”
Dana sat up and kissed Emery, pushing her onto her back. “Now it’s my turn to show you just how much I love you.”
“I can’t say no to you, Dana,” Emery said, her voice hitching with desire.
*
Much, much later Emery dozed as the ceiling fan rotated overhead, cooling the sweat that coated their skin. “God, I’ve missed you,” she said. Dana was back in her arms where she belonged. Life was perfect.
“You see me practically every day,” Dana replied, tweaking her nipple.