“Really? I thought you matched pretty well.”
“Oh, please.” He snorted. “And let’s not forget that she’s never going to forgive me.”
“You’re both old to hold grudges for long.”
“Will you stop calling me old? I’m not old. I’m middle-aged.”
“Same difference to a teen,” Carla said. “Anyway, I need to get back home soon. Let’s talk about my YouTube video now.”
“Not this week.” Grant scratched his earlobe.
“But you’ll do it?”
“Only because I feel responsible for leading you down the YouTuber path.”
“And because you’ll get to see my mom again.”
“Maybe.”
“Adults,” Carla said. He could sense her rolling her eyes. “They’re so obvious.”
*
Grant didn’t stay late at work very often. But today was one of those days when he had to.
Since he’d missed dinner, his stomach was jumpy, so he headed to the break room—which took him a while to find, since he never went there.
As he pushed the door open, he spied Eve sitting on the counter beside the sink, nursing a cup of coffee. When she saw him, she ended up spilling coffee on herself.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.” He’d have left her alone, but he really needed something for his hunger. Doing his best to make it quick, he pushed the buttons like they were on fire.
Behind him, she quietened. The stillness made her presence inescapable.
Since last week, things had gone back to normal at the office—as normal as they could be while he still loved her. He’d expected Eve to snap at him twice as much as normal, but she’d become completely detached, like she didn’t see him anymore, didn’t recognize who he was, who he had been to her. Grant wished he could be that detached, because everywhere he looked, he only saw her.
“It’s nine. Why haven’t you gone home yet?” he asked, restlessly tapping the machine. Her presence making him charged.
“I had work to do.” She crossed the room, hips swaying seductively. He cursed her mentally. “I should get to it.”
It was damn hard to break his gaze from her. She looked so fucking beautiful, it was like stabbing his sore heart with sharp toothpicks. How had he ever thought her ugly? He must’ve been hallucinating.
He knew for a fact by now that he’d made a terrible, stupid mistake that night.
It had been his ego talking that night. It had been his ego talking the entire time. He didn’t want to lose his place in the world, didn’t want to lose the shallow feeling of superiority that he felt over other men because he was still desirable to younger women.
The entire week, he’d been trying to find the perfect words to apologize, a grand gesture to revert things to the way they had been. But no words were good enough, no gestures grand enough to apologize away the horrible, mean things he’d said to her.
He could either keep his ego, his shallow sense of desirability and live in the emptiness he’d been living in. Or he could swallow his pride, accept that he was no longer Eddie Mans, and reach for something more. Something new. Something scary. Something lasting.
“Shoot!” he mumbled, realizing that his candy bar was stuck in the machine.
“It does that from time to time.” Coming close to him Eve checked the machine, pushed a few buttons and waited for a miracle to happen. “Here. It’s working now.”
The vending machine made a whirring sound, and spat out his candy bar. She held it out to him.
“Thanks,” he muttered.
The proximity to her made sweat bead on his skin. Coconut scent from her hair tempted him. Her eyes shone like jewels in the darkness. He itched to reach out his hands and stroke her skin.
If things had been different, they could’ve been cuddling in the corner of some bar, kissing like careless teens.
“How’ve you been?” He asked because he wanted to know.
“Okay.” That coffee mug was still in her hand. She brought it to her lips. “You?”
“Same as usual.”
It was awkward pretending to be colleagues again, when every stolen glance, every extra-long exhale indicated that there was more.
“I was an ass that day,” he rasped. Not the pretty apology he’d been hoping for, but it was a start. “I’m sorry.”
“As long as you know.” Coffee gurgled in her mouth. She didn’t betray any emotion.
“Eve, I—”
“Don’t apologize for being honest. I always suspected you thought of me that way. I wanted to believe you didn’t, but thanks for waking me up from that dream.” For the first time that week, she met his eyes head-on and he wished she hadn’t. “You told me in Montana that a man gets tired of illusions. A woman gets tired of illusions, too.”
His throat clenched so tight, Grant was momentarily rendered speechless. “I still want you, baby.”
“You think I can’t tell? You look at my ass fifteen times a day.” A little laugh stumbled out of him. Was he that obvious? “When’re you planning on stopping the sexual harassment?”
“When I stop finding you desirable.” Desperation swayed his voice.
She bracketed her head with her hands. “I swear; you flip-flop more than Donald Trump. First, you tell me that I’m an ageing dinosaur and I need to get Botox, and now you find this ageing dinosaur desirable. Pick your side.”
He saw her heels hover dangerously close to his foot.
“You have no idea how much I regret what I said that day. It wasn’t my finest hour. Just ignore that whole night. I was being…I don’t know what I was being.”
“You need to do better than that if you want me to take you seriously.”
“That was my ego talking. I couldn’t admit that I’d fallen for a woman who didn’t live up to my standards—or rather, Grant Star’s standards.” His voice was frayed. “I’ve been a celebrity, a sex symbol for so long, I forgot there was actually a man beneath the mask. I forgot I had needs and desires that are not the desires the world expects me to have. They’re so new, they even confuse me.”
Eve blinked, and he sensed a softening of her expression.
“I won’t ask you to change yourself again. Never. I love you as you are.”
Her neck curved. She strode towards the door.
Blocking her path, Grant planted his hand on the blade of her hip. “Eve, please talk to me. I want to make things right. Tell me what to do. What’s the price you want me to pay so we can forget about Saturday night?”
Her fists clenched. “You can’t afford it.”
“Try me. I’m rich. I have money stashed away in places you don’t know.”
Slitting her eyes, she growled, “This is not about money.”
“If you want me to grovel in front of the board and declare that I’m a sexist bastard, I’ll grovel. If you want me to write you one thousand words of apology every day, I will. Just say it.”
“Leave me alone.”
“That isn’t an option.”
“I don’t want to see you again.”
“Not fair. You’re all I see these days.”
A vexed sigh parted her lips. “What would get you to stop chasing after me, Grant?” Her gaze fell on his chest. “Wait, I already know the answer to that.”
She paused, as if considering. Placing her coffee mug on the counter, she smiled. He didn’t like that smile. It was too suggestive. It did too many things to his heart.
“This is what you want, isn’t it? This is what you’ve always wanted from me.” Dexterously, she unknotted his tie. Unbuttoned his shirt. Caressed his chest. Suckled on his shoulder. He went steel hard.
Grant wanted to be honorable. As honorable as an aroused man could be, anyway. “You’re letting me off easy.”
“No, I’m letting you go. And I’m letting you let me go.” His cock had been twitching, but when her hands reached down there and stroked it, it went hard as steel. “In your own words, all you’ve ever wa
nted from me is sex. Once you get that, you’ll lose interest in me. That’s why I’m giving it to you. To free us both from each other.”
“It’s not that simple.”
Lord, she was good. Her hands were magic, drawing pleasure from the core of him. She stole his senses with her touch, and they responded to her manipulation much better than they responded to his commands.
“It is.” She shimmied out of her skirt. “I won’t forgive you, but I’ll fuck with you.”
“Did you say fuck?”
She speared his chest with a pointed nail. “So what?”
“Nothing. I just never expected you to say the word.” His hand met her soft, round, ass. Grant froze.
Don’t let her do it. Be a man. Get her forgiveness first. Oh fuck…
He went still when she smoothed his pants down. He tried to grip her hands with whatever weak self-control he had—tried being the keyword here.
It was like striking a matchstick to the side of the matchbox and praying for no fire.
Since he wasn’t a religious man, his prayers weren’t answered. It caught fire.
“To hell with it all,” Grant murmured.
Let guilt slay him tomorrow. Tonight, he was going to make love to the woman he loved. The only woman he loved.
Not being in the mood to fuss with buttons, he tore her shirt. Unhooking her bra, he let her breasts pour out and then fondled the bare globes. They panted to his touch; soft, beautiful, hot. Her perfectly hard nipples were puckered, calling out to be sucked. He pinched them between his fingers, gave her a little taste of pain, before erasing it with his tongue.
She had succeeded in stripping him down to nothing but briefs. When he discarded his briefs, she gasped. “You manscape?”
“Gotta keep all the twenty-year-olds going down on me happy.” Grant grinned sardonically. “And we should close the door.”
His body was already holding the door closed. Bending a hand backwards, he turned the lock. Click!
Now that was taken care of, he had no reason to hold back. Ripping her panties, Grant skimmed her clit. Eve’s lips crashed on his and she bit him hard. Every time he flicked her, he felt her teeth dig deeper into his lips. Maybe he bled. He couldn’t tell. He was too engrossed in in the moisture growing under his fingers. It wasn’t as much as he was used to, though. Still, he dared to circle her entrance with a finger.
“Tell me if it hurts.” His finger thrust in and her magnificent softness clamped around it.
Sliding her tongue in and out of his mouth, she stopped to draw a breath and said, “It hurts so bad, I might come.”
“I’m serious. This is uncharted territory for me. I’ve never…” He fought the embarrassment. “…never done this with a woman over thirty-five. You, honey, are definitely menopausal.”
“Wait a second.” Eve peeled herself away from him and bent down under the sink. An instant later, she was holding up a tube of K-Y Jelly. “That’ll help.”
Cocking an eyebrow, he inquired, “Why is there lube under the sink?”
She slapped his chest. “We’re not the first people having sex in the break room.”
“Lord, I love my employees.” His laughter was so throaty, it vibrated between the walls.
“Here.” She handed him the tube, mortified.
“No. You do it. I’ll watch. I’ve fantasized about this. Seeing you stick a finger up your uptight ass.”
She blinked. Swallowed. Grew a little tense. “I…I’m not sure…”
He didn’t immediately understand her hesitation. But when she became squeamish, he figured it out. “Sweet Jesus. You’ve never touched yourself before.”
A furious blush bloomed on her cheeks. “I grew up in the sixties, Grant.”
“You’re almost sixty, too. Time you learnt some self-love, no?”
“Teach me.” Her eyes shimmered with fear. She sounded so vulnerable, like a young girl, who was scared of doing something improper.
She was such an interesting contradiction. Grant felt privileged to peel back one more layer of her.
“With my expert instruction, you’ll be getting yourself off in no time,” he boasted.
Instructing her to go and sit on the counter, where she’d be on a higher surface and he’d be able to see her clearly, he started barking out his orders.
“Go harder. Two fingers.”
“Isn’t one finger enough—”
“Follow instructions.”
It turned him on to watch her red-tipped fingers ride over the seam of her vagina and make it wetter. But what turned him on even more were the stunning expression on her face, as she discovered herself for the first time.
His cock panted with need. He was desperate to enter, to finally penetrate the impenetrable Eve Rosenberg. But he had to make sure she was okay first. After all, this was a new experience for him, too.
“Three, now,” he called out.
“You’re a tyrant.” Sticking her tongue out like a petulant child, Eve refused to obey.
“Come on,” he pushed.
A faraway look crawled up on her face. “Grant, I find myself having stupid thoughts these days.”
“Such as?” Grant laid his chin on the inside of his palm, expecting her to narrate a sexual fantasy. It should be interesting to get into her mind.
“I imagine a life where I’m your lover. One of the many you have. I’ve been judging your kind of life too harshly. Maybe being a little more open won’t kill me.”
“Eve, you’re mad.”
Sniffing, she said, “Evidently.”
“And, for the record, I am monogamous. I sleep with only one intern at a time.”
Her fingers stopped wriggling inside her vagina and she drew them out. “That’s enough watching. My hands are aching.”
His mouth went dry. His cock made the decision. “Get ready, then.”
Fishing out a condom, he spotted her flush when he slipped it on.
“You were carrying condoms?” She knocked her heel against a cabinet.
“Stop being judgmental, woman. I practice safe sex.”
Pulling her off the counter, he allowed her to suck in one quick breath before plunging into her. She yelped, her chin meeting his shoulder, her nails knifing his back. Her breath all but disappeared.
“It hurts?” Grant brushed back her hair, which was clinging to her damp face.
“No, I was surprised, that’s all. I haven’t been filled in a long time. I forgot what that feels like.” Angling her hips, she tried to get him deeper inside her.
He pulled in and out, wild, unapologetic stroke after wild, unapologetic stroke. For most part, she adjusted to his rhythm and accommodated. He should be going easy, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t know if he’d ever have her again. He had to take everything today.
“Sex in your fifties is so much nicer.” Her voice was tired, but he heard the note of anticipation in it.
“The fact that you’re having sex with me probably helps.”
“I’m sure it does.” She laughed. Her stomach clenched at that laugh and sent him shooting like a rocket.
He’d imaged this moment a hundred times in his head—the moment when he came inside Eve—but when he finally tumbled over the edge, it triggered something completely unexpected.
Tears.
*
Clambering to the top of the stairs of his father’s townhouse, Jamie paused briefly before knocking on Grant’s study. Today was the first time in weeks he’d made time to meet with Grant. Between his awkward schedule and Grant’s, there had been no opportunity to get together, but he owed his father at least one visit per financial quarter, so here he was.
Grant might forget him if he didn’t manage to remind his father that he had a son at regular intervals.
The door was ajar, and through the slit of space, Jamie spotted Grant’s head bent over documents, his glasses sitting low on his chiseled nose.
No alcohol or woman at his side. Judging from the way Grant’s at
tention didn’t flicker despite the rap on his door, he must have been seriously absorbed in whatever he was reading.
About to push through the door, Jamie got distracted when his phone buzzed with a message.
Bella: Where r u?
Jamie: With my father.
Bella: Oh, OK.
Jamie: Did u want something?
Bella: Nothing. Come by my apartment later.
Jamie: Why?
Bella: No guy asks why when a woman invites him to her apartment.
A smile slid up his lips.
Jamie: Will be there.
Bella: I’ll keep my pussy warm. J
Damn it. Why did she have to write that?
Now, he wouldn’t be able to keep his mind on anything but getting to her as fast as he could. She was both a curse and a blessing that way.
The last time they’d made love was still in his mind, though it had been five days ago.
Made love.
They’d not fucked. They’d not had sex. They’d made love.
He was still feeling it now. It would be days before he heard back from NYU about the job, but by this point, he didn’t care. Whatever happened with the position, he wasn’t going to leave New York. No way. He wasn’t leaving his heart behind here.
Yeah, the winters were crap, and the summers worse, but he could survive. Grant had adapted, after so many years of living on the opposite coast. He could, too.
Gingerly, he tiptoed in, careful not to startle Grant. Concentration unbroken, Grant continued doing what he was doing.
He’d always regarded Grant as a sort of friend-father figure, but now, as the dim lamplight laid bare, the smattering of deep lines on the old man’s skin, he could finally see that Grant was no longer the young, heroic figure he’d once been.
Gray hair clung to his temples, scattered into the cap of dark brown at the crown of his head. Ejecting a frustrated hiss, Grant dropped the pen in his hand and tossed up his head.
Then when he spotted Jamie’s form, surprise forced his eyes wide.
“J, I’m so happy to see you.” For a startled second, Jamie stayed put where he was, unsure what to make of the ashen hue of Grant’s face. “I was just thinking about you.”
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