Forty-five minutes later I was still tossing and turning, still twisted inside from my interaction with Weston. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. About Sabrina and him, and me and him, and his cock, the way he rubbed at his pants, the way it felt underneath me all those weeks and weeks ago now at The Sky Launch. He was such a player that even when he wasn’t playing with other women, he was playing with me. Even if he didn’t mean to, even if he didn’t know he was doing it, I felt like I was always part of his game, always being shuffled around, never knowing which side of the deck I was on.
The apartment was quiet and I was sure he’d gone to bed too, but I needed to get out of my room. Just needed to be free for a moment, escape from the oppression of that closed door, anything to free myself from my thoughts. I opened the door and slipped into the darkness, quietly heading into the living room and then stopped short when I realized that I wasn’t alone.
Weston was still out there, sitting on his modern armchair by the windows that ran floor-to-ceiling like they did in his office, like they did in the bubble room. He hadn’t seen me, because he was facing out, looking into the city night. The lights were off, but the moonlight was streaming in, and I could see him clearly, could see the bottle of lube on the table next to him.
And, in his hand, was his fully erect cock.
His pants were open just enough so that he could hold it, and he was stroking himself, not too slow, not too fast. Just fast enough that he could enjoy it. And I could tell that he was enjoying it because his face screwed up into an expression of tension and release, tension and release, with each stroke. I could hear it, too. Hear the sound of his hand moving quickly over the thick shaft. The sound as the lube spread up and down underneath the palm of his hand. I could hear him grunt. The fall between the fast breaths while he worked to bring himself to climax.
I was fascinated and mortified. I couldn’t look away. I didn’t want to look away. I wanted to watch him, wanted to imagine that it was my hand rubbing along with his, my hand brushing across the top of his crown and down the other side of his shaft, up again and across the top and down and faster, faster, and faster. I wanted it to be my mouth. I wanted it to be my body. I wanted to be riding him. Wanted him to make those moans and grunts. While my thighs slapped against his.
I could imagine it so clearly that I felt my pussy clench on the verge of an orgasm. What would he do if I joined him now? He couldn’t turn me away, could he?
I took a hesitant step forward.
Just then, his breathing changed, his body stiffened. His hand froze and he shook as liquid squirted from the top of his dick all over his hand and glistened in the moonlight. A long guttural low sound escaped from his throat, accompanying his release. A sound that ended in a single word. A name. “Sabrina.”
I turned around and ran back to my room and closed the door. I crawled under the covers and pulled them up high, pulled my knees up to my chest, pressed my legs together, hoping it would calm the buzz between my thighs. I could put my hand between them and rub it away, like I had so many times thinking about him in the last several months. It would ease the ache between my legs.
But nothing I could do would rub away the ache in my heart.
Eleven
I woke up the next morning with a hangover of shame and regret.
I’d been so angry, so irritated, so annoyed.
The worst part was that I hadn’t just been upset with Elizabeth—I’d also been upset with myself. Because as every terrible thing had come out of her mouth, with every word she’d said, all I could think about was her pretty lips and her curved hips and wonder what the feel of her skin was like at the base of her spine. Wonder what sounds she’d make if she was under me.
Of all the women I could fantasize about, why did it have to be her that turned me on? It was bad enough to be celibate, bad enough to have to go months without getting my dick wet. But then for her to be the object of my horny daydreams, with her gorgeous face and her curvy body and her tight ass—even her arrogant personality showed up in my fantasies, as she argued with me and tried to boss me around while I made her come over and over again around my cock.
Whatever I’d done to piss off the universe, karma was a cruel bitch.
So when I’d finally found myself alone, I couldn’t take it anymore. All that stress and tension between us left me wound tight and needing a release in the worst way. In hindsight, I should have gone to my room to, uh, work out my frustration, but I was tired and lazy and still adjusting to living with another person. Maybe part of me even liked the idea of whacking it while she was next door sleeping. It felt defiant and provocative.
And, damn, was it a turn-on to feel like I was provoking Elizabeth.
I was already thinking about her, imagining what it would be like to sink between her creamy thighs and slip inside her, wondering if she was as hot and fiery inside as she was outside when I looked up and caught movement in the glass in front of me.
When I realized it was her reflection in the window, that she was watching me, I almost came right then.
I’d thought I was an expert in what’s-hot-to-spank-to. Nothing I’d ever thought up was as erotic as that moment. Not even close.
I’d quickened my strokes, and I could feel her shock across the room. I could feel her fascination. I could feel her want, her desire, just as heavy and untamed as my own.
But she hadn’t been willing to reveal herself or join in like I prayed she would while I focused on her image in the glass.
And that drove me fucking mad. Lunatic mad.
It wasn’t like I could make the next move. I couldn’t invite her to come sit on my lap without coming off as a perverted bastard. It had to be her. My cock was in my hand, but the cards were definitely in hers.
So as erotic as it was having her watch, as mind-blowing as it felt knowing that the woman I was thinking of was turned on at the sight of me hard and exposed, I was too pissed to give her any hint that she was the reason I was out there furiously beating off.
And, instead, I was an asshole. An asshole that refused to say her name—the name that had burst like fireworks in my head while I’d stroked myself, up and down—and instead chose to say another name. The one that I knew would make her turn around and walk away.
Afterward, sitting in the dark with my Elizabeth-inspired orgasm fading into memory, I’d felt like shit.
I’d wanted to run after her to tell her I was sorry for the lie, and for all the rest too—for the fighting and the pushing. I’d wanted to tell her how crazy she made me, and how crazy she was for pursuing this dream of hers, but also how fucking much I admired her for not giving up and for actively trying to be a better person than the person her father had been. Wanted to tell her how inspiring it was to know someone with integrity these days, especially in this fast-paced, rat race business world where it seemed like no one had integrity.
But I didn’t.
Instead I’d tucked myself away and went to bed like the good fiancé she wanted me to be.
I hadn’t expected that I would still feel so shitty in the morning. It wasn’t the first or fiftieth time I’d woken regretful after having been a jerk since the beginning of our courtship. It wasn’t the first morning after I’d jerked off to her, even, but it was the first morning I’d woken up and truly wished things were different between us.
Most days, we hit the building’s gym together first thing, and not because I tried to go at the same time she did on purpose. It just worked out that way. Today, however, I couldn’t stand to see her. If I did, the guilt would double and the knot in my stomach would tighten with the terribleness of the lie I’d told, mixed with the weight of the want I had for her.
So I skipped my workout and waited until I heard her leave the apartment before making my way out to the front room. I made my breakfast quietly and alone, drank my coffee, staring out the window at the street below, hating how silent the apartment was without her. Hating how used to her movements and no
ises I’d gotten in the last several weeks. She’d left a coffee mug and a spoon in the sink. Normally I’d leave those, but today I washed them out and put them away. Then I unloaded the dishwasher, thinking it might help unload some of the regret weighing on my spine.
All it did was make me late enough to still be there when she walked in after her workout. So much for slipping out without seeing her.
I picked up my briefcase and brushed past her heading toward the door. “Slept in,” I said gruffly. “Running late.” I couldn’t even bring myself to talk in full sentences to her.
Her voice came casually from behind me. “I need a copy of your health records. Can you get that for me?”
The request was out of the blue and her tone flippant. As though she hadn’t seen something so intimate the night before, as though she hadn’t participated by staying in the room to watch.
I turned my body toward her and tried not to stare at the vee of her sports bra’s neckline. “I don’t see why you would need that.”
She wiped at the sweat on her forehead with her towel then draped it around her neck. “I need to know if you’re clean. A woman would want to know this about the man she was marrying.”
The tension that had stretched taut between us the night before pulled tighter, as though any moment it would snap.
Shit. She was pissed.
Well, so was I. “Did you forget we are not actually sleeping together?” It hurt in my gut to say it. More than it likely hurt her to hear.
“I don’t want any STDs biting me in the ass later. If someone else found out you had something and leaked it to the media and then Darrell found out, I’d be screwed.” A single rivulet of sweat drew down her gorgeous neck and over her collarbone. “Besides, I should have some insurance that you aren’t fucking around.”
I took a step toward her, my empty hand opening and closing reflexively at my side. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to wring her throat or swipe the drop of sweat off of it with my thumb and suck it off. Or watch her suck it off. “No one’s finding out anything, because I’m fucking clean.”
She didn’t budge. “Then it will say so in your medical records.”
Goddamn, I wanted to bend her over. Wanted to pull down those tight Lycra yoga pants and show her all the things that she’d likely imagined while she watched me last night.
It was because of what she’d seen last night that she was demanding this now. It was because of what I’d said. I was sure of it. I considered confronting her. She couldn’t deny it—I’d seen her, and God, it would be so vindicating to hear from her own lips how much she’d liked it. I’d make her admit how chickenshit she’d been not to have joined me.
But I was chickenshit too.
And stubborn.
“I’m not getting you my medical files, sweetheart,” I said, staring at her one last long second. I straightened my tie, opened the door and, with more strength than I knew I had, walked out.
* * *
I hadn’t forgotten about her at the office. How could I? She was foremost on my mind as I tried to dig myself through the hectic morning.
But when Nate suggested the plan for the evening, I decided to pretend everything was cool at home and I texted Elizabeth, hoping that she’d forgotten our latest fight.
The office is going to Red Farm to celebrate landing Phoenix. Significant others invited. Meet at eight.
I was slammed on all sides with the new contract. Things were coming at me nonstop, but she responded immediately, so I was still holding the phone when the text came in.
No.
Goddammit. I really didn’t have time for this. I shot her a quick text back. Everyone’s going. You need to go.
Wasn’t that what our whole scam was supposed to be about anyway? Being seen together?
I dropped my phone on my desk and tried to catch up on the emails I was frantically sorting through. The phone buzzed less than five minutes later. Are you going to get me what I asked for? the message read.
Obviously she hadn’t forgotten anything.
I’m not getting you shit, I typed back, instantly fired up.
I’m not going anywhere, she replied.
I stood up from my desk quickly, wanting to flip it. Or kick something. Or at least throw some darts, but I didn’t have time for that because we had an emergency morning meeting to celebrate landing such a big account and to announce it to the staff. I gathered my things and went downstairs to the conference room.
Thankfully Nate was making the announcement to the team, so I didn’t have to be friendly and boisterous. While he did his stuff, I tried once again to get Elizabeth to come with us.
It’s going to seem weird if my fiancée isn’t at the celebration, don’t you think? I typed.
I made sure my phone was on silent so as not to interrupt the meeting, then stared at it, waiting for her reply. Seconds ticked by feeling like hours, but she replied not too much later. At this short notice, I don’t give a fuck. I’m not at your beck and call.
I bit back the urge to curse loudly and stuffed my phone in my suit pocket, noticing Sabrina eyeing me from the seat at my side. I sat back in my chair wondering if she’d seen the conversation on my phone.
Probably not.
She was likely only looking at me because we’d had a Thing once. And we still might when this farce was over. If I was smart, I’d focus all my fantasies on her now, for real. She didn’t drive me mad like Elizabeth did. Didn’t make me want to rip my hair out. Didn’t make my eye twitch.
Didn’t consume my thoughts and make me want to tear off all her clothes and then mark up her creamy white skin before telling her all the ways that she made me think the world was a better place because she was in it.
Yeah. Focusing on Sabrina definitely didn’t make me want to do that.
I kept thinking about the two of them through the rest of the meeting, about Elizabeth and Sabrina. Or rather, I kept thinking about Elizabeth, and wondering how I could force my thoughts to the beautiful brunette sitting next to me instead. Even when I tried to muster up memories from the weekend we’d spent together naked, it all turned into Elizabeth.
What kinds of sounds would Elizabeth have made if I’d fucked her against the wall like that? What expression would she have made? How would she have felt around my cock when her pussy tightened and came?
I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to get her out of my head.
And the only way I knew to get a woman out of my head was to get another woman in it.
When the meeting was over, Sabrina stood quickly, eager to get back to her work.
I called after her, feeling guilty as her name crossed my lips. She was my subordinate, someone I worked with on a daily basis, and after what I’d done last night, saying her name at the worst time, for the worst reason? I’d poisoned it.
And here I was using it again for my own selfish reasons. I was such a fuckwad. But I was also unrepentant.
She turned back to me, tugging on her hair. “Yeah?”
I didn’t know what I was doing.
But I gave her my widest smile and winged it. “I wanted to let you know that Phoenix was particularly impressed with our marketing objectives. It was one of the main reasons we landed the account.” All of that had been true, and it was a good idea as her boss to praise her for it. If I were more focused on my job, I would’ve done that earlier.
Maybe.
“I inherited a very qualified and talented team,” she said, modest as always.
I shifted my weight on my hip. “You did. I know you did. Tom Burns also let me know a few things.”
“Like what?”
I looked up and saw Donovan watching us. There was nothing that I’d said that was inappropriate, but with the thoughts I’d been having about her—or rather the thoughts I hadn’t been having about her but had been pretending to have about her—plus the tension I was having at home, it was seeming more and more like maybe doing something reckless was my only way out of the spell
Elizabeth had over me.
And Donovan never approved of recklessness.
“We should talk about it privately,” I said to her. God, I was such a dick. Was I really doing this? “Meet you upstairs in my office in fifteen?”
She blinked a couple of times, and I wondered if she understood what I was getting at. “Sure. I’ll be there in fifteen.”
By the time I got up to my office, I was having second thoughts about using Sabrina as a source of distraction. It was wrong on so many levels.
I needed to confront my real problem, head-on.
I took a deep breath and tried once more to reason with my fiancée about the evening’s plans. It’s Friday. We were going to The Sky Launch anyway. Just go to Red Farm instead.
I sat in my chair and rocked onto its back wheels while I waited for her reply. When it came, I almost fell over. We don’t usually go to the club until later, and I already told you I didn’t want to go out tonight because I have to pack and get up early for my trip with Mom. Did you forget?
Trip? What trip?
I picked up my office phone and called my assistant, Roxie, too lazy to walk out and talk to her in person.
“Do you know anything about Elizabeth going on a trip?” I could hear how terse I sounded.
Roxie’s throaty Hungarian accent sounded both through the receiver and from outside my office. “It’s her mother’s birthday. She going on a spa trip in Connecticut with her for the week. It’s been on your calendar for weeks. Did you forget?” Her echo of Elizabeth’s words just riled me up more.
“I didn’t forget, thank you,” I snapped. I’d totally forgotten. “I just didn’t know it was this week.” I hung up before she could say anything else.
I bounced my foot rapidly up and down. Elizabeth still had to eat. I sent another message. We’ll be home early enough. Just go to the fucking dinner.
I’ll be home early enough because I’m not fucking going.
I could feel my face getting hot with anger as I read her reply. I was still staring at it when a second message came in on its tail.
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