Chapter Ten
The rest of the suppliers looked legitimate to Cassie, but she did find a few cash withdrawals against the corporate credit card that seemed suspicious. Historically, the company had paid its invoices by check and charged expenses out in the world with corporate credit cards—but those expenses tended to be meals, plane tickets, that kind of thing. Why would someone withdraw two grand in cash, given the sky-high rates cards charged for cash advances? And the bigger question was, where was that cash going? Cassie worked all afternoon on the files Jack had couriered over on a memory stick, quitting only when it was time to head to Edward’s.
Setting up the bar was surreal. After the insane weekend she’d had, Edward’s felt like a fragment of the distant past, a place she’d been once when she was a different person entirely. Hopefully the evening would go fast, and she’d be able to call Jack tomorrow with a progress report. She wanted to get her hands on receipts to reconcile against the company’s credit card statements.
Her phone buzzed a few hours later, when the bar was in full swing.
Come over when you’re off.
A frisson of excitement drew goose pimples on her skin, even in the hot bar. After parting this morning—her cheeks heated at the memory—she had assumed they would talk tomorrow, since he never said anything to the contrary. Maybe he wanted to talk about whether she’d found anything. Glancing around, she huddled to type her response. Even though no one here knew anything about Winter Enterprises and its cheat of a CFO, she wanted to make sure her texts were not seen.
I don’t find any other questionable suppliers, but there are some cash withdrawals I want to ask you about.
I don’t care about the withdrawals. Come over. Take a cab.
She’d be lying if she didn’t admit his response was just a tiny bit gratifying. Though she hadn’t wanted to presume they would get it on every night, she was all too aware that their “to hell with the rules” time was slipping away. She paused. Did “no relationships” mean no flirting? Oh, screw it. If you couldn’t flirt with your friend-with-benefits-for-three-nights, what was the world coming to?
Is this a booty call?
Ah! She almost dropped the phone, flustered by her own boldness. The reply came almost immediately, and it made her gasp.
18 Linden Street
She’d been assuming he was texting from the office. The idea of going to his home seemed strangely intimate. And hugely exciting.
I get off in an hour.
I’ll try my best.
She was unable to hide her stupid grin at the innuendo, clicked off the phone, and proceeded to start counting the seconds until it was time to go.
When the taxi pulled onto Jack’s street a little over an hour later, Cassie was practically thrumming with tension—mixed up with a heck of a lot of curiosity. Jack lived in Corktown, a neighborhood tucked in between the high-rises of the city’s financial district and more solidly residential swaths to the east. Home to some of the oldest row houses in the city, the neighborhood was slowly gentrifying. Somehow, she’d pictured Jack in a penthouse condo. But then, he had the killer view at the office, so maybe he had the whole luxury-nest-in-the-sky thing covered there. Alternatively, she would have expected he’d live in one of the city’s swanky mansion-filled neighborhoods, at an address with status. The houses in his neighborhood were lovely in their own way, old bay-and-gable Victorians, but they perched on tiny postage stamp yards, and were in varying states of repair.
Unlike many of its neighbors, the narrow semi-detached house where they rolled to a stop was immaculately restored from its clean red brick to its bright white-painted trim, visible even in the dim glow of the streetlights. She didn’t even have a moment to marshal her courage before Jack, wearing a parka, came jogging down the walkway and opened her door. Handing the driver some cash, he waved off her attempt to pay. Figuring it was useless to argue, she made her way up the path and onto the porch. He must have been waiting for her outside, because she spied a tumbler of scotch and a lit cigar.
“You smoke?” she said as he mounted the steps behind her. “Gross.” She smiled inwardly. One benefit of this whole “rules” situation was that she didn’t have to worry about what she said. If you weren’t doing that “getting to know you” thing with the hope a relationship might result, you didn’t have to worry about making a good impression.
So she followed that with, “I would never have expected you to live here.”
Stubbing out the cigar, he said, “I don’t really smoke. Maybe once every couple of months when the mood strikes.” He opened the front door and gestured for her to precede him inside. “And as for the house whose honor you’ve just insulted, I love this place.”
“I can see why,” she said, registering, as she took in the amazing interior, that this was the first time she’d ever heard him express an unreservedly positive opinion about something. “It’s beautiful.” And it was. The place must have been gutted back to the studs and rebuilt—it looked like a spread in Architectural Digest. They’d stepped into a living room with a huge roaring fire at the far end. The wall that adjoined the attached house was exposed brick and sported an enormous black and white photograph of the Toronto skyline in a rainstorm. The house was narrow but deep, and at the back of the main floor she could see across a gleaming marble island into a small, but no doubt, luxuriously appointed kitchen. “It’s just that I was expecting more…”
“Rosedale?” he supplied, naming the city’s wealthiest neighborhood.
“Yes. Or some kind of luxury condo.”
“I wanted to be able to walk to work. It’s less than twenty minutes from here.”
“And Edward’s is about halfway in between.”
“Exactly, which is why I got into the habit of coming for dinner on my way home. Except, of course, for Tuesdays, when I used to have dinner with my betrayer. You know, the Judas Iscariot of the real estate world.” He made a self-deprecating face and took her coat, and she couldn’t help but admire his ass as he turned to hang it. “Anyway, those mansions in Rosedale are too big for one person.” She couldn’t disagree, but still, this beautiful but cozy place made her wonder if the impression she’d formed of him wasn’t entirely correct. She’d been surprised by how non-sterile his office had been, too. “Not to worry, though,” he said, taking her hand and drawing her farther inside. “I have this place tricked out.”
She followed him to the kitchen and took a seat at the island as he indicated.
“You hungry?”
“I ate at the restaurant,” she said, taking in the smooth dark wooden floor-to-ceiling cabinets lining two walls, concealing, she assumed, dishes, food, even appliances, for none were visible.
“Scotch?”
“Had one of those before I left Edward’s, too.” She grinned. She’d needed the liquid courage to get into the cab.
“Want another?”
“No, thank you.” She hoped she wouldn’t have to explain why she rarely had more than one drink at a time—he’d seen her mother, after all.
Standing on the other side of the island, he turned and lowered his elbows to the counter, propping his chin in his hands and gazing at her with those ice blue eyes. He was wearing a long sleeve navy V-neck T-shirt, and she could see a few golden hairs peeking out of the neckline. Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to lick them. But probably she was here to discuss the finances. Not to lick his chest. Or at least not until after they’d discussed the finances.
“Heard from your mother?”
“Huh?” That was the last thing she’d expected him to say.
“You said the usual pattern is that you hear from her a few times after she reappears until she really goes.”
“Yes. I mean, no. That’s right, but I haven’t heard from her. Haven’t been home, though, since I left for work mid-afternoon. For all I know she’s sitting outside my door right now.”
He nodded. “I think you should stay here tonight. Just don’t be home wh
en she comes.”
She was touched he would offer, but it felt weird. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who looked after people like this. There was probably a rule about it. “That’s nice of you, but I can’t avoid my apartment forever. Or my mother.” She summoned a wry smile. “Alas.”
“It’s not nice of me.” His eyes narrowed. “I’m not a nice person.”
“Um, okay.” Those eyes—they were wicked blue sapphires.
“I’ve broken the rules for you, Cassie.”
She raised her eyebrows. She’d broken a few for him, too, but refrained from saying so. “Which rule would that be? You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“No relationships.”
“I told you we’re not having a relationship. We’re having an—”
“Entanglement.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Whatever you call it, we are having a kind of relationship. One that has an expiration date. Thursday morning, to be precise.”
None of this was news, so Cassie just kept her eyebrows raised.
“Today is Monday,” he said.
“You have a talent for stating the obvious.”
He acted as if he hadn’t heard her. “Tomorrow is the company Christmas party, which is a drag, but my presence is required. The next night is Wednesday. That leaves two more nights.”
“Until we’re off to Muskoka,” Cassie said, leaving the rest unspoken. And then it’s over.
“That leaves two nights,” he said, still acting like she wasn’t part of the conversation, “for sex.”
She recoiled a little. He was only saying what she’d been thinking, but it was a little offensive to hear it stated so plainly and mercenarily.
“Two nights of the most mind-blowing sex imaginable.”
Well, okay, maybe not so terribly offensive. She bit her lip and ducked her head, no longer able to withstand the icy-blue heat of his gaze.
“And you have a tiny bed and a crazy mother.” He tipped her chin up. She wanted to grab the finger that was currently burning her chin and stuff it in her mouth. No, strike that—she wanted to vault over the island and jump him.
Forcing her to look at him, he didn’t change his expression. It was still that neutral blue ocean. “I rest my case.”
She swallowed. “I suppose you have a big bed.”
One corner of his mouth quirked up. “I have an extremely big bed.”
She feigned a casual shrug. “Well, if you’re going to break a rule, you might as well be as efficient as possible and break it thoroughly.”
“Thoroughly and often.”
“Where is your bedroom?” He started to get up, but she held up a hand. “Don’t show me, tell me.”
“Third floor.”
He stood on the kitchen side of the island, so she was closer to the stairs. She leaned back slowly as if considering, lazily stretching her arms.
Then she turned and bolted for the stairs, shouting, “First one to the top gets to be in charge!”
…
The nice thing about “losing” to Cassie, thought Jack, while he still had the ability to string together a coherent thought, was that it always managed to work in his favor. The two times she’d won control in this silly but crazily erotic game they played, he’d ended up with her lips wrapped around his cock. She seemed to like winning on principle more than she cared about how things played out afterward.
Knowing he was going to lose their little race, he’d given her a few minutes’ head start, and damned if he hadn’t come upstairs to find her naked inside his shower.
“I love this shower,” she said, somehow managing to make herself understood with his cock in her mouth.
He wasn’t in the mood for talking, so he just let his head fall back against the glass and lost himself in the sensation of her lips gliding up and down his shaft as her hands played with his balls.
“It’s so big,” she said a few seconds later.
She stopped moving then, though she still held him in her mouth, and there was a delay while they both processed the double entendre, which he was pretty sure had been unintentional.
“I was totally talking about you!” she squealed as he pulled her up to standing.
“You little minx,” he growled, falling to his knees in front of her. “I’m going to make you stop talking.”
“Though this is a big shower,” she said, laughing. “It’s almost as big as—”
He licked her like an ice cream cone, which had the desired effect of halting her speech. He was a little sorry the shower diluted her musky sweet taste. Swirling his tongue around her clit, he stroked her impossibly soft folds with his fingers, eventually letting one of them slide inside her.
She stayed quiet for a while then. Well, that wasn’t exactly accurate—she stopped using words at that point. And he didn’t count it against her when she started gasping his name. No, he loved hearing his name on her lips. Every “Jack,” she breathed seemed to ratchet up the tension in him another notch. He was restless and hot, and not from the shower. Consumed by her but distracted by her at the same time.
Enough. He’d been intending to make her come in the shower, but he couldn’t stand it anymore. “I have to be inside you,” he said, turning off the twin shower heads as he stood. When she opened her mouth, he placed his hand over it—not hard, but enough to convey that he wanted her to remain silent.
Throwing a bath sheet over her shoulders, he used it to pull her to him—so they were both wrapped in the white cotton—and nipped the side of her neck, which was reddened from the heat of the shower. She grabbed his ass and he kissed her, hoping she could taste on his lips how delicious she was.
“I thought you were going to—”
“Shut up,” he said, kissing her again but propelling her so she walked backward into the bedroom, both of them still wrapped in the bath sheet. He reached for a condom as he tipped her back on the bed, displaying the whole mass of her pink, damp skin. Kneeling over her, he picked up where he’d left off in the shower, licking her clit as he unwrapped and rolled on the condom. When she raised her knees to her chest, he kneeled, hooking her legs over his shoulders, and slid inside her.
Maybe it was the residual heat of the shower, but she was a furnace. “Oh, God,” he choked out, fearing that once he began to move, it would all be over. But he couldn’t not move. Something inside him took over, forcing his hips to move faster and faster as he slammed into her, losing himself in the unbelievably hot sight of her moaning and shaking her head from side to side, dark damp hair whipping through the air.
She screamed then, and the wave of sensation he’d thought was going to crush him became almost unendurable when she began clenching around him. Then she went silent, her head stilled, and she focused the shattered gemstones of her eyes on his. It was as if there was a silent command in them, and his body responded, sending sharp surges of pleasure through him that went on and on.
“That wasn’t fair,” she whispered when he was finally done coming. “I was supposed to be in charge.”
He was glad she was competitive, he thought a few minutes later, when they were sprawled out across his king-size bed, staring up at the sky visible through his skylight. He’d never had a lover per se, meaning a woman he’d slept with repeatedly. He’d always wanted to avoid that kind of…entanglement, to use her word. But he did pride himself on being skilled in the bedroom, on making sure his one-night stands left their one-nights with smiles on their faces. But this playful tussle for control with Cassie helped their…thing feel like a game. And it was important to remember that that’s what it was—a little exercise in breaking rules. A temporary suspension of what experience had taught him was the optimal way to structure everything. She was skeptical of his rules, he knew, but without them he never would have had the discipline to build Winter Enterprises. Without them he’d probably still be trying to please his father.
She sighed. A sweet, satiated sigh that stroked his masculine ego. He loved the way she l
ooked after he fucked her senseless. She flushed so easily, and her hair looked like she’d been in a monsoon. Damn, she’d been right about one thing. If the rules were going to be broken, they might as well blow them to smithereens in the time they had available. His dick stirred. Jesus, with her he was like a teenager.
She turned to him, catching her bottom lip with her top teeth. She looked like she wanted to eat him. Damn, he was lucky, if only for two more nights. “Do you have a printer?”
“Huh?” She might as well have thrown a bucket of cold water over him. He shook his head. It was hard keeping up with her sometimes.
“A printer.” She scrambled to sit up, and he struggled to wrest his eyes from her spectacular breasts and pay attention. “Those files you sent me—it would be easier if I could print them, spread them out, and look at them all side by side. Mine at home is out of toner.”
He tried to hide the fact that it took him a second to catch up to the radically new topic. Leaning over, he scooped up an iPad from the floor next to the bed. “You can print from this if you want. But you sure you want to do this now?”
“I’m too wired to sleep.”
“I can think of other things we could do to pass the time.”
She shook her head. “I’m like a dog with a bone with this.” She grabbed the iPad. “Carl is going down.”
He hopped out of bed, went to his dresser, and tossed her a T-shirt. “At least put this on.”
She rolled her eyes. At least he hadn’t said what he was really thinking, which was for God’s sake, cover yourself, woman. He left her pulling the shirt over her head and ran downstairs to retrieve her papers from the printer and to throw together some snacks. She might have eaten at Edward’s, but that was hours ago, and surely someone so dedicated to vanquishing his enemies deserved snacks.
Back upstairs, he hopped into bed with a book, leaving her alone for the next hour, aside from feeding her the odd almond. But when three o’clock rolled around, he set his book aside and rolled into her line of vision.
“Time for bed.”
Saving the CEO Page 11