He reached down to rub the semi that was already taking shape beneath the sheet. “I really don’t have a problem with that.”
“Weston…” I warned. In support of what she called my much-needed sexcapade, Ashley had taken care of packing my suitcase, but I still had to pick it up from the hotel doorman before heading to the airport. With city traffic, I needed to leave in the next thirty minutes. “I have to go.”
He sat up and leaned against the headboard, and based on his new position, I assumed he was preparing to move the conversation in a serious direction. “But why do you have to go?”
Or not so serious.
He knew why I had to leave. “I have a flight,” I answered anyway as I unbuttoned the dress shirt that I’d snagged off the floor after my shower earlier.
“Miss it.”
“I have to go home.” I threw the dress shirt on the bed.
“Why?” He leaned forward and stroked a finger along the curve of my breast.
“I have a job,” I said, smacking his hand away.
“Quit your job.” He groaned as I put my bra on, covering up the breasts he’d spent so much time fondling over the weekend. He’d been playful, not too rough, and though it wasn’t the kind of touch that made me immediately wet, it felt good enough. It was normal and healthy and that’s what I always hoped for in a sexual encounter.
“I can’t quit my job.” I paused as I turned my skirt, finding the back of it. “I need a job. I wasn’t born of the means to not have to work like some other people.”
“Other people,” he laughed. “People like me, you mean?”
I smiled demurely and stepped into my skirt. “Maybe.”
“I have a job,” he said, somewhat defensively.
Suddenly feeling bad, I stepped toward him and hugged him to my chest. “You do,” I said, conciliatorily, stroking my fingers through his blond hair. “You do have a job. And I have a job. On the opposite side of the country.”
He clutched my ass and pulled me closer. “You could have a job on this side of the country,” he said into my breasts.
“I could. But I don’t.”
He kissed along my cleavage. “Come work for me. Quit your job and you’re hired. Who even likes L.A.? All that smog and superficiality. Quit and work for me.”
He was joking, so I laughed, but also my heart thumped harder. How long had I wanted the life that he was dangling like a toy? “You don’t even know if I have any qualifications.”
“Oh, I know several of your qualifications.” He maneuvered me around and pulled me onto his lap so I could feel his erection pressing into the curve of my back, confirming his lack of seriousness. “Shall we discuss them in detail or shall I let you remind me in other ways?”
“Weston…” I moaned, as his hand found its way up my skirt. My thighs parted automatically for him, and his thumb slid along my bare pussy until he landed on my clit. “You’re making it hard to leave.”
“My plan is working then.” He circled his thumb slowly, teasing me.
“Mm. That feels good.” My body began humming, ready to start climbing the spiral mountain of pleasure. “You have to stop,” I pleaded.
“Imagine if you stayed,” he whispered at my ear. “We could do this all the time.”
Even though I knew he was playing, I let myself think about it for the barest of moments. Weston was exactly the kind of guy who’d be good for me. He was a good guy, and our sex was good, and he made me feel good about myself.
Why didn’t good feel like enough?
It didn’t matter anyway. It was a game. He was a playboy. Everything I’d read about him said so, just like he’d been in college. I didn’t expect to be the one who could change him. This had just been a good time, a dance with the past. And all this talk was just him being caught up in the moment.
“I can’t stay,” I said breathlessly, distracted by his thumb still pressing against my clit.
“Give me one good reason,” he insisted then licked along my lobe, sending a shudder down my spine.
I smiled. “I like what I do.” I really did like my job, despite the current environment at my firm and my past aspirations to be involved in something bigger.
Weston brought his other hand up to fondle my breast through my bra. “I’d give you a similar position.”
“You can’t just boot out your current manager of strategy and marketing.” I fidgeted on his lap, trying to get him to give me more even though I knew I needed to be leaving soon.
“His title is Director of Marketing Strategy, and yes, I could. He has halitosis, and I don’t like the way he makes his graphs.”
This time I laughed. “You’re not serious.”
“I’m very serious. He has sushi for lunch every day, and I swear every time he opens his mouth, it smells like dead fish.”
I chuckled again and closed my eyes, letting myself enjoy him. He was so charming and funny, exactly like I remembered him. But over all the years when I’d thought about him, when I’d wondered about him, he’d never been the one to make me orgasm in the dark.
I had to go.
I opened my eyes. “Weston.”
“Sabrina.”
“I need to leave.”
A beat passed. “I know.”
I tried to stand up, but his grip on me tightened. “You have to let me go first.”
“If I must,” he sighed and let me go.
I stood and smoothed my skirt. Then I turned back to him as I put on my camisole.
Weston sat forward and draped his arms around his propped up knees. “Seriously, though. Come work for me.”
“Seriously, though.” I turned around to peek in his dresser mirror and ran my fingers through my hair. “You haven’t even seen my resume.” He’d take one look and offer me an entry-level position, and then I’d just be another one of those women who’d fucked their way into a job. Not what I was looking for.
“You graduated a year early from high school. You were at Harvard on full scholarship,” he said, repeating things I’d told him over the weekend. Then he told me something new. “Donovan said you were by far the person with the most potential in any of his classes.”
My hand slowed at the mention of the one person who could always get my attention. Like I was a paper clip buried in the ground, and his name was the most powerful metal detector around. “Donovan talked about me?”
“Once.” Weston climbed out of bed while he spoke. “The day you and I had lunch, I think. He gave me shit about hanging out with you because you were the brightest student with the most potential, and you didn’t need to be dragged down and distracted by the likes of me.”
Donovan had been Weston’s friend and roommate, but he was older than us and had also been the teacher’s assistant for our business ethics class. And he’d been so much more to me.
But that hadn’t given him the right to try to keep Weston and me apart. It was ten years ago, and the mention of it now irked me. It also made me a little bit smug, and that made me even more irked.
“That doesn’t seem like something that was any of his concern,” I said as Weston reached in front of me to open a dresser drawer and pull out a pair of red boxer briefs. “What did you say to him?”
“That it didn’t seem like something that was any of his concern.” He stepped into his underwear, tucking his cock into place. “As your teacher, he seemed to think it was. If I remember right, it caused one of our bigger arguments back then. In the end, we agreed to disagree. His mention of it in the first place made me all the more eager to see you. And that made me all the more disappointed when you didn’t show up.”
Weston began gathering his clothes from around the room, and I sank onto the edge of the bed, taking this in. I’d had lunch with Weston and then he and Donovan had argued about me. After which, Donovan had given me an F that I hadn’t deserved leading to our own fight, and before I knew it, I’d ended up losing my virginity to a man who’d been both a hero and a demon to me.
/>
It remained the single most erotic moment of my life.
But the whole thing had been fucked up. And, afterward, he’d turned cold. From then on, I stayed away from men like him. Every man I’d dated had been fun and kind and good. Like Weston. Good guys who never worked out. Every relationship felt lacking, and if it was a sign that I needed to have a fucked up sex life to feel truly complete, then I was prepared to never be whole.
Because I didn’t think I could get swept into a cyclone like Donovan again and survive.
“I’m sorry I didn’t find a way to get a hold of you back then,” I said, watching Weston straighten the room. My date with him had been the last thing on my mind after my father’s death, but I could have tried harder. I probably could have tried harder with any of the good guys I’d dated.
“I’m just glad you found me now.” He winked. “Come work for me.”
I let out a huff of exasperation. “You never quit, do you?”
“I’m tenacious. It’s one of my best qualities.”
What if he really was serious? Not about a relationship, but about a job? Could I come work for him? Entry-level was at least a start. I was years behind, but I could gain some ground, couldn’t I? Still end up where I was meant to be, playing hardball in the big league.
It was something to consider…
From where I was seated, I spotted the heel of my shoe poking out from behind the window curtain. “What made you and Donovan decide to go into advertising together?” I asked as I headed over to grab it. “Why didn’t you join your father’s investment firm?” King-Kincaid was one of the biggest investment firms in the world. Both Weston and Donovan were wealthier than I could ever imagine. Neither of them had to work at all, and they’d started a business in a completely different field.
“There were a lot of reasons. We wanted something that was just ours, you know? Something that we built ourselves. I didn’t want to be handed everything. I wanted to know if I could do it on my own. Donovan also had a problem with some of the ethical choices that our fathers’ firm has made in order to increase profits.”
“Really?” That had been the topic we’d argued about in my class assignment. “The Donovan that I remember had little regard for ethics.”
“He changed his mind about a few things since college for whatever reason.”
Was it vain of me to wonder if I had contributed to his change of mind?
“As for advertising, that was Donovan’s idea. We knew Nate, who was also interested, so he came on board. Then we found Dylan Locke and Cade Warren and we had a team. At first, we planned to all stay in New York, each of us running a different department, but after our first year, we decided to go international. Donovan volunteered to open the Tokyo office with Cade. Dylan went to London, and we’ve been operating like that for the last four years.”
I found my other shoe at the bottom of the bed and slipped it on while I thought about Donovan all the way on the other side of the world. I felt safer, somehow, knowing that that’s where he was. Far away. Far from me.
Yet, even from that distance, I could feel his pull. Did he have that same pull on Weston?
Slipping a foot into my shoe, I studied the man who’d given me an incredible weekend. “It must be hard to be so far from Donovan. You thought of him like a brother back in college.”
Weston bent to his knees by the side of the bed. “It’s not fun. We Skype a lot for work, but I won’t lie. I miss our poker games.” He lifted the bed skirt and looked underneath. “If I brought you on as an employee, he’d be super impressed. So.” He peered up at me. “What do you say?”
I crossed behind him and picked up my earrings from the nightstand. “I can’t tell anymore if you’re being serious or if you’re just trying to get me to give you another blowjob.”
“Can’t the answer be both?”
I fastened my earrings and wondered again if I should be considering his offer. Because there were things that were tempting about it. There were things that were tempting about him.
“Aha!” he exclaimed suddenly. He stood, dangling a pair of black lacy panties from his finger that he’d apparently found under the bed.
“Those aren’t mine,” I said.
He looked at me, looked at the panties, then back at me. The color drained from his face as he realized what I must have been thinking. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“I know,” I said, my voice steady. “You have lots of girlfriends.” And that was exactly why I couldn’t take his offer seriously. Because he was always going to have another woman and there was always going to be another offer.
He knew I understood without having to say it.
“I’m sorry,” he said, because Weston King was nothing if not a gentleman.
It wasn’t disappointment I felt—not exactly. But there was something that now felt lost that had almost been found. Like the thread of a thought that can almost be grasped but not quite and then it’s gone.
I let out a small sigh. “I didn’t think this was anything other than what it was, Weston.” That was honest. Too honest, maybe.
Then it was Weston who seemed disappointed. “But what if it’s something else?” His tone was disoriented, but hopeful. He didn’t know if I was the woman he wanted. He was a man taking a chance.
I didn’t want to be a chance. I wanted a man who knew.
“But what if it’s exactly what it is?” I reached my hand out and stroked his cheek. “I’ve had a good time. Can we leave it on that note? And not ruin it?”
He put his hand over mine and brought it to his lips and kissed it. “It’s not ruined already?”
“It’s not. It’s been a special weekend. I needed this. Thank you.”
He kissed me goodbye, and I went my way, leaving behind the what if that I’d carried around all those years and a mauve pair of panties that I never did find.
And whatever thoughts had been stirred up about Donovan, I buried under the thoughts I always had about him. The thoughts that I’d had since college. The thoughts I pretended only had life when I was alone with my nightmares in the dark. If I’d thought Weston might have been the one to chase them away, I’d been wrong. If anything, he was the one to bring them into the light.
Eight
“And another thing...”
I stirred my coffee and nodded while Ashley continued with her rant about inner office politics. Though I was in full agreement, I didn’t need to go over every detail of my indignation.
I raised the back of my hand to my mouth and stifled a yawn. I’d had another one of those nightmare filled nights when I’d woken in a sweat, convinced I’d been pinned down and forced to do things I didn’t want to do by a terrible man. As usual, the only way I’d been able to fall sleep again was to imagine that the man forcing me wasn’t Theodore Sheridan but instead was Donovan Kincaid.
Those dreams had been recurrent over the years since my near rape by Theo in college. They didn’t happen as often as they had in the beginning, but they still happened regularly. It had become so normal that I’d stopped thinking about them in daylight, stopped worrying that the wicked things I fantasized about Donovan had anything to do with the real me. The “awake” me. The me that didn’t have dirty thoughts and didn’t want filthy men.
But since my weekend with Weston, that had changed. For whatever reason, he’d triggered something. It was as though the past, which I’d done so well to hold down, had resurfaced, and now I couldn’t push it back where it belonged. The bad dreams had become more frequent, and barely a day passed when I didn’t sit in my office remembering the naughty things I’d thought about Donovan in the dark the night before, having to press my thighs together because the buzz between them was so great.
What was he doing now? Did he ever wonder about me? Was he ever sorry for how we left things? Was he ever sorry that he saved me?
Ashley stopped pacing my office and plopped down in the chair facing my desk, pulling my attention to her. “I�
�m not shitting you, Bri, Monahan is on a rampage. He is blaming everyone but sales for everything that’s gone wrong on every campaign this year. It’s a nightmare.”
Interesting choice of words. I could tell her a thing or two about nightmares.
But I was frustrated with our boss too. “I know what you mean about Monahan. He asked me to redo the strategy sheet for Dove. Again. This will be the third time. The strategy sheet was good the first time. There was nothing wrong with it.”
Monahan, our new president, had turned our friendly office into a war zone. He was keen on showing favoritism to teams he’d worked with before he’d been promoted. Lately, it had been hard to find the motivation to keep giving my all, and a few times I’d even considered looking elsewhere for work.
“You know why he’s doing this? Besides the fact that he’s just an asshole, I mean.” Ashley seemed buoyed to have me join her in her complaints. “It’s because he won’t get his promotion bonus if he doesn’t find another ten percent in revenue this quarter. I don’t think it’s possible.”
“I don’t either. I love this job, but if he doesn’t calm the fuck down…” I trailed off.
But though I wasn’t ready to be that bold, Ashley was. “Time to get our resumes ready.”
My phone lit up then. It was the line from my assistant. I pushed the intercom button. “What’s up?”
Kent’s voice filled the room. “There’s a phone call for you from Mr. Weston King on line two. Want to take it?”
My stomach knotted at the mention of Weston’s name. I hadn’t heard from him since our weekend together in May. It was almost August.
“He’s just now calling you?” Ashley whispered loudly. “It’s been three months!”
“Yeah, Kent,” I said, simultaneously glaring at Ashley. “I’ll take it. Thanks.”
I clicked the intercom button off and stared for a handful of seconds at my friend. “It can’t be what you think,” I said, finally. Even though I wasn’t exactly sure what she was thinking, I could guess it had romantic notions. “We didn’t leave things like that. We didn’t even start things like that.”
Dirty Filthy Rich Men Page 7