by Lauren Wood
“Calm down,” I huffed, rolling my eyes. He really was being the biggest drama king about it all.
“Calm down!?” he roared. “Cat. Your father has helped me build my career from the ground up. I was no one before him. I talked a good game and was just waiting, hoping…praying for someone like him to give me a chance.”
“Okay, okay,” I groaned. “I got it. He’s fine. He just gave me a big speech about how proud he is of me. Believe it or not…not everything has to do with you, you know? He’s not on to that blip from the other night.”
“Blip?” his face scrunched up.
“You’re impossible,” I groaned. “One minute, you think I’m making too big of a deal out of it. The next, I’m not making it big enough of a deal! What the hell do you want from me!? If anyone’s going to mess this whole thing up…it’s not me, or us, or my father. It’s you.”
With that, I stormed out of the office. I couldn’t stand to be around him anymore. I managed to find enough paperwork and research to keep myself busy for the rest of the day, but I was still tense by the time I made it home.
It would have been a great time to come home to a loving, adoring fiance. But of course…he was pissed at me too, which didn’t help my tension one bit.
“You said you’d call or text when you were going to be this late,” he barked from the kitchen table. The typical empty takeout boxes were still scattered around him as he flipped through the paper.
“I lost track of time,” I defended, and this time it was true.
“Is this how it’s going to be?” he asked, shooting his eyes over his shoulder at me with a disapproving glare.
Oh boy, here we go. I knew the exact lecture I was about to get, because I had been at the brunt of it quite a few times before.
Drew wanted to settle down, get married, and have kids. We were the same age, but he had managed to accomplish a lot more during his life because of his chosen field and because his goals were, in my opinion, not set too high.
But my career was only just beginning. I was in no place to start playing wife and mother, sacrificing everything I wanted for the sake of it. He knew it because I had told him plainly. He insisted we get married anyway. He said he couldn’t live without me. Yet it didn’t stop him from being surprised and angry over everything I had warned him about.
“Yes, this is how it’s going to be,” I defensively reminded him once again. “At least for a while. I’m not where I want to be yet. I have different priorities. If you want someone who’s going to be at home waiting for you every evening, or someone who you never have to wait on…then maybe you better find someone else. Because it’s not going to be me any time soon.”
I saw a hard lump slide down his throat. He slammed the paper down to the table, then screeched his chair across the floor as he stood up.
“Maybe I’ll do just that. Find someone else,” his voice cracked.
Suddenly, I realized…This was not going to be just another one of our fights. This was the fight. The one to end them all.
9
Jordan
My hands gripped the edge of my desk as I thought about the vixen who was the reason I hadn’t been able to get any sleep the night before. How was I supposed to get anything done when she was constantly on my mind?
I was supposed to be looking over the spreadsheets, but how was that going to be possible? Instead, my mind was wandering to the wildly vivid dream that I’d had about a certain redhead the night before.
“Harder,” she screamed, as my hands gripped her waist, so tightly that I knew she would be bearing my marks the next day. Her fingers were gripping the desk so hard that I could have sworn that I saw it splinter. But the desk was the least of my concern.
Fucking Cat was a feeling that was basically indescribable. But beyond that it was addicting. And, as I plowed into her, the loud gasps that were escaping her plump, pink lips fueled me on. I wanted them loud, just for me. I wanted the entire world to hear how much pleasure I was giving this woman.
“Jordan, yes!” she screamed, and I withdrew from her hot little hole. Which was much easier said than done. “What do you think you’re doing!” she growled at me, which wasn’t surprising, considering how sassy she tended to be. She really was different from other women I’d been with, in the past.
“Whatever I want,” I answered her and flipped her body so that she was facing me. Her little eyebrows were knitted together, in frustration, and the worst part was that I found it cute. Why was everything about this woman so damn attractive? If she was ugly then I wouldn’t have these feelings.
I gripped her hips and plunged my dick back inside of her. Cat hadn’t been expecting it and threw her head back, as a loud moan left from between her lips. Her perky breasts were rising and falling in time with her deep and uneven breaths. She was breathing so heavily, and I liked that. I was giving her a workout. Just as I should have been.
My pounding was relentless, but I knew it wasn’t hurting her. Cat’s screams were too loud. Without a doubt in my mind, I knew I was the best fuck that she’d ever had. It wasn’t me being cocky or arrogant. It was me simply stating the facts.
She moved her hands to my hair and pulled on it, without a care of whether or not it was hurting me. Thankfully it wasn’t, although I doubted that I would have cared even if it had. To get her back, I wrapped my lips around her nipple and sucked it, using my teeth to bite ever so gently before licking her to relieve any pain she may have felt.
And Cat was loving it, writhing against me, her hands moving to my shoulders to try and make me move faster inside of her. So, I obliged. I pummeled into her, just like she wanted me to. In and out. Over and over again. I could feel when she was getting close, which was exactly what I wanted.
“Come for me,” I whispered in her ear, continuing the pumps of my hip. As if I’d pressed a magic button, Cat did exactly as I asked. She threw her head back, her grip tightened, and she screamed, as the orgasm rippled through her entire body. It was more powerful than even I had anticipated.
Her tightening and exploding around me caused me to reach my own climax. I gave her a good few more pumps and then released, my body sagging against her from the pure relief of it all. Sex, especially with Catherine, had a way of relaxing me like nothing else could. She was like my drug, now. I wanted her constantly, even when I knew that I shouldn’t.
My phone ringing brought me out of my daydream, the reminiscence of the dream that I had about her the night before. I picked up my cell and answered it.
“Jordan.” It was Mark.
“What’s up?” I asked him, closing the lid of my laptop. It wasn’t as if I was getting anything done anyways. My thoughts were too occupied by a certain redhead who I definitely shouldn’t have been thinking about then, not when I was on the phone with her father.
And what would Mark think if he knew about the dirty thoughts in my mind, about his daughter, no less. He would have killed me, plain and simple. And, I couldn’t risk sacrificing the relationship that I had built with this man. Not only would it feel like I was losing a father, but I would lose every single thing that I had worked so hard for. And that wasn’t something that I was willing to do. Not for anyone.
Although even I would be the first to admit that Cat was different.
“What are you doing?” Mark asked me, and his voice sounded tense. I had a feeling that he was dealing with something that was being rather difficult at work. It was a voice that I recognized. And, I didn’t dare question him what was going. First, he would try to avoid it then he would go on a rant about how incompetent everyone around him was, just as he always did. And, I wasn’t in the mindset to hear it, at the moment.
“Looking at spreadsheets,” I answered evenly.
“How very business-like of you.”
“If I’m not a businessman, then I don’t know what I am.”
“Well, I made sure of that.” There was silence on the other end of the phone, and I could picture Mark yel
ling at someone about something that they had done wrong. “Cat is on her way to your office. She said that there was something that she needed to talk to you about. By the tone of her voice it was important. Did something happen with Heartstring?”
My heart began pounding against my chest. What was it that Cat had to talk to me about? My hand clenched into a fist, and I felt the anger and annoyance growing inside of me. She, obviously, hadn’t said anything to him about the deed that we’d done together. But, if it wasn’t that, what did she want to talk to me about?
Well, we did own a company together, after all.
“Not that I’m aware of,” I answered him, honestly. Cat had made it obvious that she wasn’t going to mix our personal and business lives together, and I highly doubted that she was going to go back on her word.
“Well, whatever it is, fix it.” He paused. “Don’t you know how to work a damn document, Neely, I mean, seriously, come on!” Mark roared past the phone, at his secretary. I’d told him several times, in advance, not to hire her, but in pure Mark fashion he’d done it anyway. She’d been incompetent since the beginning, and he’d thought he could teach her. To say that he was wrong was the understatement of the century.
“I’ll talk to you later, Jordan.” And then the line ended. He had more important things that he had to worry about.
I put my phone, face down, on the table, and opened my laptop back up, this time insistent that I was going to completely read these spreadsheets and not let my mind wander. It was a hard task, but one I was getting through, nonetheless. My eyes ran over the screen of my laptop, as I made notes, diligently. There was nobody that could make better notes for me than me.
Just as I was really getting into the groove of things, my door slammed open and Cat walked in like she owned the place, her auburn hair flowing behind her. And she looked like an absolute snack. Her beautiful crystal blue eyes were staring into me. Her tan skin was glistening. And her outfit, although it was meant to be professional, was seductive in its own way.
This woman was going to kill me with how good she looked. I was sure of it.
“Thanks for knocking,” I said sarcastically, my frustrations beginning to become obvious. It wasn’t her fault that she looked so damn good, but she also didn’t try to downplay it. This was the reason that I was completely unable to resist her. And there was nothing that I could do about it. So, I just allowed myself to be angry about it.
Why did she have to be Mark’s daughter? Why did we have to have a business relationship together? Why couldn’t she have been born absolutely horrifying to look at? Why couldn’t I stop wishing that we could have a repeat? Maybe if I just fucked her one time, I could get rid of the itch once and for all.
No, I had to stop thinking like that. It wasn’t going to help matters.
“I wasn’t under the impression that I had to knock,” Cat stated, as she walked over and took a seat, the one in front of my desk.
There was something different about her that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Maybe, there really was something wrong with her. Usually, she would have fired a response back at me like it was nothing. Instead, she was, almost, acting defeated. Like someone had popped her magical bubble.
“Well, you do,” I told her and rolled my eyes. “You would have thought that Drew would have taught you about that.”
Cat’s face screwed up. “I wouldn’t know,” she said simply, her voice low. “Drew and I broke up like a week ago.”
So, that was the reason that she was so gloomy. She had finally broken things off with that stupid financial analyst. It was about time. I didn’t understand why she was so upset about it. If anything, she should feel free. Chances were he was way below her standards anyways. Unlike me.
“And you didn’t tell me?” I joked. Although she wasn’t feeling too happy, I was quite the opposite. Without her fiance in the picture, that left things, well, open. Did that mean that we could get together? No, it didn’t change the fact that, not only, was she Mark’s daughter, but she was also ten years my junior.
She frowned at me. “It doesn’t change anything between us,” she told me, stubbornly.
“I wouldn’t expect it to.”
“Good.” She let out a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter how sad I am. We have business to attend to.”
“No.” My words made her eyebrow knit together in that way that I thought was totally adorable. Before she could say anything, I continued. “We’re not doing anything until there’s a smile on your face.”
10
Cat
Why was Jordan so intent on making me happy? Did he think that it was a good way for him to get into my pants? I had seen the way that his lips curled into a smile when I told him that Drew and I were broken up. I hope he didn’t think that it was an invitation to, pound town because it was quite the opposite, in fact.
With Drew out of my life, as sad as it was, it allowed for me to put my complete and utter devotion into this project and make Heartstring amazing. After all, I was sticking to my original plan. In five or ten years down the road, I wanted to be able to sell it for two or three times what we had bought it for. Which was already quite a bit of money.
But sitting there in front of Jordan, the last thing my mind was thinking about was the business. Instead my eyes were taking in every inch of him. His beautiful dark hair was pushed back with what I presumed was gel, otherwise it would have been hanging in front of his eyes, like that one time at the pool. A shiver ran down my throat, as I thought about that day and how good he looked to my fifteen-year-old self’s eyes.
His grey eyes were as beautiful as they were intense. I felt like I could stare into them for the rest of my life. His muscular arms were obvious in his suit. I could practically feel my mouth watering at the sight of him.
And all I could think about was how he would look if I peeled him out of that suit and ran my tongue down his pecs. And then how would it feel if he returned the favor and wrapped those lips around my nipple, tugging against them, and…
“Cat.” The sound of my name leaving his lips made me look up, and my thoughts dissipated, which was quite a disappointment. Jordan was looking at me, raising an eyebrow, and I realized that he must have been calling my name continuously, and I hadn’t heard because of my slight daydreaming.
He probably thought that I was thinking about Drew. What would he do if he knew that he was the object of my affection, instead?
It was a good thing that he wasn’t going to find out.
“Yes?”
“Get your head out of the clouds,” he commanded me, that grin still on his face. “Let me take you out. Then, maybe you can stop thinking about Drew and actually get some work done.” I had a sarcastic remark, in my throat, before I decided to swallow it. In his own, twisted way, he really was just trying to help me.
He didn’t know that I was over the whole thing already. Drew had never been able to make me feel the way that Jordan had. But, none of that mattered.
“And, where do you propose we go?” I asked him and leaned back in the chair. “Definitely not drinking, for obvious reasons.”
“Because it’s still light outside?”
“Because of what happened the last time we did so together,” I corrected him.
Although if it were up to me, we would be repeating the actions of that night, constantly, anywhere and everywhere. But, that wasn’t an option. I’d been the first one to say that it was just a one night stand. But, how was I supposed to keep my word when everything about Jordan was so mouth watering?
I had him once, now I wanted him again and again.
“What about the zoo?” he suggested, raising an eyebrow at me. “Or, the fair. Isn’t that in town for a week?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I think so.”
He stood up. “Then, let’s go.”
I crossed my arms against my chest. “What makes you think that I want to go with you?”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“Connect the dots.”
Jordan sat back down and rolled his eyes. “Look, I know our past is a little bit rocky,” he admitted. “But, I’m not taking you out to seduce you or get into your pants. I’m taking you out because you need it. And, it’s my way of apologizing.” He shrugged. “I feel like this is all my fault. So, if you won’t go for you then go for me and let me feel better about myself. Besides, it’s the fair. There’s no way it won’t be fun.”
I let out a deep breath and conceded. “Fine. Then, let’s go.”
A huge smile spread across his face, and he led me out of the office. The sun actually felt really nice, on my skin. I was all work, no play, and this break was something that I needed and didn’t even realize. Thankfully, my outfit happened to fit the occasion.
We paid to get in and strolled through the fair, taking in the sights and sounds and smells that always accompanied a carnival. It was fairly empty still, not yet full of after-work thrill seekers.
“Do you think that you can do it?” He challenged me suddenly. I cocked my head at Jordan before looking back at the strength machine. I was sure that I could get it at least halfway and get the stuffed animal that was about a quarter of the size of me. The teddy bear was large and pink and I wanted it.
“Of course I can do it,” I told him easily. I picked the hammer up and slammed it down against the platform. It took a great bit of strength from me and I watched as the meter hardly went up. I was actually surprised. I’d really been sure that I would have been able to get the meter higher, much higher. And, I hadn’t.
Jordan was basically choking on his laughs, and I wrinkled my nose at him and rolled my eyes. I punched him gently, in the shoulder. “Don’t laugh at me,” I snapped although my voice was amused. “What? It’s way harder than it looks. Do you think that you could do better than me?” I cocked my head at him.