by Lisa Suzanne
I glance up at him, and he nods toward Viv. A rush of relief darts through me.
“A couple months,” I say. “It’s new, but it’s good.”
“You seem different.” He says it quietly, almost like he doesn’t want the two ladies at the table to hear him.
“How?” I ask. The waitress drops off my whiskey, and I take a grateful sip.
Danny keeps his voice low. “The way you keep looking at her.”
The way I keep looking at her?
How am I looking at her?
I choose to change the subject. “How are the kids?”
He closes his eyes for a beat like he hasn’t slept in months—or years—and then he grins. “Amazing. You two gonna have some?”
I choke on my sip of whiskey. “It’s been a few months, dude. We’re not even at the point for discussion yet.”
“You’re in your mid-thirties, aren’t you?”
“Early. Don’t confuse me with my older brother.”
He laughs. “Don’t wait. Take it from me. I’m forty and I have three kids under six. I understand now why people have kids in their twenties.”
“Why’s that?” I ask.
“Because I’m old and real fucking tired.”
Carrie laughs beside him. “You telling him why you should’ve had kids fifteen years ago?”
He nods sagely, as if it’s a story he’s told lots of times, and she mock rolls her eyes. “I’ve heard the story a hundred times, but the ending never changes. He’s still an old man.” She elbows Danny, and he chuckles. Their easy demeanor is contagious, and it’s a natural reaction when I drape my arm across the back of Viv’s chair. Her shoulder bumps near the side of my chest, and a waver rolls down to my stomach.
The waver turns into an actual throb that darts to my cock when she glances up at me and our eyes meet. Her tongue peeks out to wet her lips, and I can’t help but watch as my cock responds with a healthy appetite for her.
It’s fake, this act we’re putting on, but there’s something real there. I see it in her eyes, too. She’s looking at me differently. She can’t possibly deny it.
She looks away first and goes right for her red wine, and I feel like that’s the signal I’m in. If she needs relief after her eyes met mine, if she feels thirsty and needs to be sated, if she’s turning to alcohol to solve that thirst...it doesn’t make any sense she’d be doing any of that if she didn’t feel it, too.
With my arm around her chair, I allow my fingertips to graze her bare shoulder. Her head whips up toward me, and this time there’s a question in her eyes. I’m not sure what she’s asking—it might be something along the lines of what the hell are you doing, or it might be something much deeper than that. A carnal question of desire, a question asking if my fingertips grazing her soft skin means more than the act we’re putting on for the world to see so I don’t have to admit the truth.
She doesn’t move her arm, doesn’t wriggle away from my hold, but her attention returns to Carrie and their conversation, and my attention returns to Danny. We talk a little business so we can make sure to write this one off. The old Danny starts to emerge a bit when our second round of drinks makes its appearance, and by the time our third round comes, Carrie and Viv are laughing like old friends and Danny isn’t hiding the fact that he wants to get his wife home to fuck her. In fact, I’m fairly certain he isn’t going to wait until he gets home.
Even as I think it, I realize how much I want that for Viv and me, too. Not marriage—that’s not something on my radar, certainly not with her, but the sex. I want her, and now that I’ve stopped denying that, it might be time to let her in on the secret, too.
The more drinks Viv has, the more I see her relax right before my eyes. Her posture sags a little, the pinched look on her face that she always turns in my direction softens, the red of her wine creeps into her cheeks, flushing her face. A wisp of hair falls over her eyes, and she tucks it back behind her ear with delicate fingers as she giggles at something Danny just said. I didn’t hear it, though, because I’m too focused on staring at Viv as the transformation takes place right before my eyes. She’s no longer the uptight, straight-laced, annoying woman sent to tell me how to do my job.
Now she’s the gorgeous woman who’s my date for the night—the woman whose bed I plan to share tonight.
I feel a little looser after a few drinks myself, and when she looks up at me with those gorgeous blue eyes, my lips tip up into a secret smile. She grins back at me, and just like that, the wall between us starts to come down a little. I don’t know her at all, but I intend to change that. Just sitting here tonight beside her, laughing with her and acting like we’re actually on a real date, it’s enough to tell me I want to get to know her.
It’s with that thought in mind I brush my lips across her temple in an unexpected and totally involuntary move.
The light scent of roses fills my nose as I breathe in her hair, and that’s when I know I’m a goner. I heard years ago that women emit powerful sexual chemicals from their hair and that men fall in love with a scent. I don’t know if it’s true, but I’ve always believed in the danger that comes with smelling a woman’s hair. Proof of the theory came when I first smelled Kendra’s vanilla hair and again when I smelled Reese’s strawberry hair.
And now roses?
I don’t know if I’ll ever look at the stupid flower the same way again without thinking of Viv and the soft scent enveloping her.
My lips drop from her temple and she looks up at me. I see the confusion written there—I see the questions.
Is this for real, or is this just part of our act?
The lines are so blurred that I’m not sure anymore, but I’m ready to drop the act.
I grab for the bill as soon as it comes, and the pinched look is back on Viv’s face. I check her wineglass to see if it came with a lemon since it looks like she just sucked on one by the way her face is puckered in my direction.
It’s not just a write off, it’s a habit. I always foot the bill, and besides, we talked business, so it’s a business meeting. I forgot for a minute I’m not supposed to be paying for shit like this, and as I catch sight of the total on the bottom of the bill, I realize why.
I pull out my personal credit card again since the black one is dead to me. With the way Viv’s eyes are glued to me, I almost think she’s going to pull the check out of my hands and pay for it herself, but she doesn’t. In fact, she doesn’t say a word at all.
“She seems like a keeper, Brian,” Carrie says quietly to me as we hug goodbye. “Treat her right. I’m happy for you.”
I press my lips together in a small smile and nod.
I don’t know if she’s a keeper. I don’t know if we’ll have anything beyond the rest of the ninety days she’s with me to fix my company.
But what I do know is if she’ll let me, I’ll treat her right for tonight.
chapter twenty
“Can we walk by the boats again?” she asks. I’m ready to take her back to the hotel and get her naked once we leave the bar, but it appears she has other plans. “It’s just such a nice night and I don’t know the next time I’ll be back in Miami.”
“Sure.” We make our way toward the marina. It’s in the upper seventies, but it’s dark and the air cools the closer we get to the water. We walk and look at the boats in peace, neither of us talking but neither of us wanting to break that silence, either. It’s comfortable and tranquil, and I have the impulse to show her just how romantic this city really is.
I don’t, though. I’m trying to work out the best way to play this to move past the professional relationship and let her know I’m interested in something more. I usually have so much more confidence when it comes to women, but this one throws me off my game.
“Do you live by the marina in Los Angeles?” I ask, finally breaking the silence once we find ourselves halfway down the pier.
She shakes her head. “Landlocked in Tarzana.”
“I don’t know where
that is,” I say. “My brother’s place is in Malibu.”
“San Fernando Valley. An hour northwest of LA with no traffic, like that’s a real thing.” She gazes over at the boats, and I battle the instinct to toss an arm around her shoulders. “My sister and I used to love my dad’s boat when we were kids.”
It’s the single most revealing sentence she’s given me since I met her. She has a sister and a dad and they had a boat.
“Do you have any other siblings?” I ask, suddenly curious about every aspect of who she is.
She shakes her head. “I did.”
“You did?” I ask before I can stop myself. It comes out more insensitively than I mean for it to.
“I had an older brother.” Her voice gets quiet as she slips into her memories. “I was only seven when he passed away.”
“Oh.” It’s all I can think to say. “I’m sorry,” I add.
She stops in front of a huge yacht and we both stare at it. “Thanks,” she murmurs. “It’s been a long time now.”
This time I don’t fight the urge. I wrap my arm around her shoulder and pull her closer in to me.
She doesn’t wrap her arms around me, doesn’t give into the comfort. Instead, she simply allows me to comfort her for a few seconds before she turns and starts walking. I drop my arm back to my side once she ducks out from under it. “He was ten and shouldn’t have been riding his bike in the street.”
“God,” I murmur. “That’s horrible.”
“It was hard, but I was seven, you know?” She doesn’t stop walking as she muses quietly beside me. “I didn’t really get it. I always sort of thought he’d come walking back in someday. Even now, I let myself think that sometimes. I wonder what sort of relationship we’d have today.”
“You’d probably be bossing him around,” I tease, trying to lighten the mood.
She looks over at me and I prepare for a glare, but instead I’m met with the tip of her lips and just a touch of merriment in her eyes. “He always hated playing school with me. I’d always get to be the teacher and he’d always go whining to our parents that I was being too bossy.”
I raise a brow, and she looks back out over the boats. “Some things never change,” I murmur.
She chuckles. “When do you think kids develop those qualities that stick with them the rest of their lives?”
“I think they’re born with them,” I say without missing a beat even though I have no real idea. I’ve never even thought about it before.
“Sorry for getting philosophical on you.”
“Don’t apologize,” I say. “I’m enjoying this side of you.”
She glances over at me and moves her gaze quickly back to the boat in front of us, and I wonder what that was all about. Is she enjoying it, too—but she doesn’t want to admit it? Or is she scared to ride the line between business and pleasure?
“Do you have any siblings other than Mark?” she finally asks.
I nod. “A sister. Mark’s the oldest, then Lizzie, and I’m the youngest.”
“Ah,” she says. She moves away from the boat in front of us and stops in front of the one next to us. “That explains a lot.”
“What does?”
“That you’re the baby. You’re so reliant on Mark to get you out of trouble that it’s no wonder he cut you off.”
My brows furrow. “We were having such a nice time and then you had to go and say that.”
She lifts both shoulders. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m simply restating the facts. I ran a study for a course in my master’s program and found a lot of stereotypes to be true.”
“Like what?” I brush aside the fact that she has a master’s degree for now, though I’m curious what exactly her degree is in.
“The youngest learns through imitation. You’ve seen your brother spend without limit, and so you’ve learned that behavior.” Before I can interrupt to tell her she’s wrong even though if I dig deep enough I can see the truth in her words, she continues. “The youngest is generally well-liked and has a big social circle. True of you from what I’ve seen, though I can’t say I really like you all that much.”
“That’s just the red wine talking.”
She laughs.
“What else?” I ask.
“The youngest is charming but also a manipulator, and he almost always gets his way,” she says. She moves onto the next boat while she leaves me wondering what that’s supposed to mean.
“Do you see me that way?” I ask when I catch up with her.
“Abso-freaking-lutely,” she says, and I chuckle at the closest she’s ever come to cursing in front of me.
“Give me one example,” I say as I glare at her.
“Charming the pants off women since the day I first walked into your office, manipulating everyone around you by lying about the two of us, and getting your way...yeah, you tend to just power through to get whatever—”
I can’t help it. She’s so passionate as she talks about all my worst qualities that it’s a total turn-on. I cut her off mid-sentence when my mouth comes crashing down to hers.
She gasps at my sudden movement, like she’s in total shock I’d kiss her. The gasp gives me an opening into her mouth, and suddenly my tongue is dancing with hers in a violent tango of aggression, like we’re kissing each other for our very survival. I give her the kind of kiss she can live off forever as I thrust my hands into that gorgeous rose-scented hair. It’s softer beneath my fingertips than I imagined. I keep one hand planted in her hair as I hold her face to mine, and the other hand trails down and lands on her hip. She relaxes into me as our bodies meld together on a pier in Miami, and I jerk my hips against hers to let her know just how fucking wild she’s driving me.
I need more. I need all of her, need her naked body beneath mine, need to sink myself into her warmth, need to feel her soft skin. I wish she wasn’t wearing a dress so I could trail my hand under her shirt to feel the warm skin of her back. I wish we were naked at the Ritz together. I wish for so many things, but right at this moment, the one thing I seem to have been wishing for since the day she dropped into my office—that she’d just go the fuck away—seems to have disappeared from my list.
When she moans softly into me, that’s when I stop everything. I can’t keep kissing her on a pier like this and hold it together. So instead, I back away from her. She gazes up at me from hooded eyes, her lips red and swollen in the soft light of the moon and coming from the boats around us. She’s always beautiful, but like this she’s simply stunning as her chest heaves from exertion like she ran a marathon, not like she was just kissing me.
“Jesus, Viv,” I exhale as I try to catch my own breath back, too.
“It’s Vivian,” she says through gritted teeth, and she’s angry with me.
Because I called her Viv after I kissed her?
“What the heck was that?” she hisses.
“It was a kiss,” I say flippantly as I find myself back in control.
Control with this one never lasts for very long, though.
“Well it was inappropriate. Take me back to the hotel,” she spits at me.
I’ll take her back to the hotel, but I’m afraid that in her anger, she’s forgotten one important detail.
We’re sharing a hotel room.
The Uber ride back to the hotel is silent. The stalk through the small lobby and subsequent elevator ride is quiet. She doesn’t say a word to me, just silently fumes, and I’m not sure if it’s because I called her Viv or if it’s because I kissed her. Either way, the cut of rejection is fresh in the air.
“I’m sorry,” I finally say as she rummages through her purse for the hotel key outside her room.
“For what?” she mutters. She finds the key and shoves it into the door, and the green light lets us in.
“For calling you Viv. For kissing you. For whatever got you so mad at me.”
She sighs and tosses her purse on the dresser with deep scratches on its top. “Look, I’m not mad at you. I’m
mad at myself. And a little bit at you. I don’t mix professional with personal, and we crossed a line. And now I can’t even be mortified in peace since we’re sharing a room.”
“You don’t have to be mortified. I kissed you. It was wrong of me, but it didn’t feel very wrong, Vivian.” I use her full name to try to get back into her good graces, and then I take a step toward her. I seem to lose control of my limbs as my arm reaches out toward her and I tuck some hair behind her ear. “Sometimes these things are beyond our control.”
She takes a step back so she’s out of my reach. “This isn’t one of those things. I’d like to get ready for bed. If you’ll excuse me, I just need ten minutes.”
I nod. “I’ll give you some privacy.” I pick up the key she dropped on the dresser and head down toward the lobby as disappointment sits heavy in my gut.
chapter twenty-one
I’ve never really considered myself an angry person, but suddenly I feel like punching a hole through the wall.
Even though I’m short on cash and it’s eleven miles back the other way, I call up an Uber to take me to the beach. I need a walk. I need to feel the sand between my toes and breathe in the salty ocean air. I need it to clear my mind and help me figure out what the hell I’m doing.
The driver is close by and traffic’s light, so I’m back near the Ritz in no time at all. I’m not sure what I’m doing here, not sure why I came here—something called to me, and just like that, here I am.
As I walk through the familiar lobby, I think about the toad back at the roach motel and the woman I’m sharing a room with. I wish we were here together—this feels so much more like my home turf, like I might actually have a chance of getting on her good side in a place where I’m comfortable.
I walk through the hotel and out to the path I know leads to the beach, and I walk like I belong here. I do belong here.
I kick off my shoes and leave them on the sidewalk just before the beach. The sand is cool in the moonlight, and I make my way through the sugary softness down toward the water.