by Melissa Blue
“Why?” she asked, wary.
“It’s like going to America and never having a Coca-Cola.”
“Then I guess I will have to try it. Can’t go home from Scotland without partaking in the national drink.”
“Incorrect. Whisky is our national drink. Irn-Bru is just a close second.”
She had to laugh at the matter-of-fact way he’d said that. He looked away. She was literally putting her pussy on the table, and he was acting gun-shy. Something had happened— she didn’t know what—but she hated it. She wanted flirtatious and charming and doing his best to climb into her panties Grant.
She sighed. “Okay. What is bothering you?”
His brows lifted. “Are you worried about me?”
“At this point, yes, to my utter annoyance.”
He settled back in his chair then blew out a breath, sounding frustrated. “I’ve disappointed the Baird, and I don’t like the way that feels. It’s distracting.”
It took her a minute to put two and two together. “He knows about Davina?”
“He’s known. I shouldn’t be surprised. He would have hunted her down to find out why she quit.”
“And he didn’t say anything to you until tonight?”
“Aye.”
“Why?”
Some dark emotion flickered in his gaze. He managed to keep it out of his tone. “Aren’t you so full of questions?”
She took another sip of the drink, trying to read between the lines of everything he’d said. The obvious was that he didn’t want to answer why the talk with the Baird troubled him. Again, it was only her problem because she was sitting on a table within grabbing distance and Grant was keeping his hands to himself.
If he no longer wanted to ravish her on sight—No, he still wanted to. That was obvious in the way his gaze had eaten up every inch of bared skin tonight.
But if he stopped acting on that urge, wouldn’t that quell her complicated feelings of wanting him to jump her bones?
Tasha almost slid from the table. Get out now while you can kind of thing. But she wanted him. That…that emotion was so pure, if not simple. When was the last time she wanted anything just for her?
There wasn’t an end goal at all. She hadn’t even gotten engaged without reasons bolstering her decision. She’d done it because she was in love and the man she loved loved her right back. She was at a good age. Her career was somewhat stable. Marriage was something to check off her I’m-being-an-adult list. He was a catch, or so she thought.
She wanted Grant.
That was it. Wanting him was complicated, foolhardy, and likely, a bad idea. She still wanted him. There was something almost freeing in accepting that truth. So he really needed to get over whatever emotional turmoil keeping them from fucking.
She offered him the drink. He waved it away. She put the glass aside, since it had done the job of getting him to pay attention to her.
“We can do the next part the easy way or the hard way,” she said.
He narrowed his gaze. “Hard way.”
She almost kissed him for that. He didn’t choose easy, all the time. He chose hard because it was likely to be the more interesting option. He did what he wanted. It should have been selfish and a turn off, but he so often did things because he loved his family. “Are you not used to the Baird being disappointed in you?”
He put a hand to his chest like the words had sucker punched him. “Fuck that. Easy way.”
“Too late now,” she said on a laugh. “Answer the question. Once you’ve unpacked why his disappointment is distracting, it will stop being a distraction.”
“I know why, lass.” He sounded tired and she hated that. “But you want to know.”
“A little, if I’m being honest.”
“How about a question for a question? If you don’t answer, neither will I.” He offered his hand for the deal.
She should have seen that coming. Still, she took his hand. His palm was warm, rough and big. She dropped it before she directed the appendage up her dress. “Your answer?”
“I am used to parental apathy. I’m alive, in good health, and need for nothing. I’m lucky if I get a text or a call within six months of time.”
“I can’t imagine that. Had I not answered my mother’s phone call, after forgetting to let her know I had arrived here, my mother would have likely called Scotland Yard, reported me missing, and taken the next flight to Glasgow.”
“Sounds like you have a good mum.”
And he hadn’t. She never knew what to say in moments like this. Should she apologize? What was the right way to say that fucking sucks? “I wish you’d had the same, Grant.”
“Sometimes I do, too.”
She swallowed down a lump of…gah. She didn’t know. Emotions. Pain for him. “So the Baird, I’m guessing, if he had simple concerns that would also distract you?”
“Less so but aye.”
Given the conversations she had with Mia over the past few months, and now this one, Tasha knew his parents’s lackadaisical…everything was a problem. She couldn’t even recall if Grant’s parents had talked to Mia yet, and that included a phone conversation. She considered that then Grant. “Do you want the Baird to stop caring about you?”
“Not necessarily.”
“And that’s what’s bothering you?”
He shook his head. “How to navigate the relationship is bothering me. I haven’t wronged him, exactly, but I think he expected better of me. I want to be better so he never looks at me like that again. I’ll figure it out. The solution is likely a simple one, but until then…” Some of the somberness fell away when his mouth quirked into a smile. “I now have three questions banked.”
She should have known he would consider those separate, new questions instead of clarifying inquiries. The man was slippery and complicated and kind and...Oh, hell. She should have left well enough alone, but she hadn’t.
“Ask away,” she said, in defeat.
He leaned forward on the table, his forearm brushing her leg. She had to force herself to breathe evenly. His smile turned up a wattage, probably because he knew how his touch affected her.
“Tell me about your parents.”
An open-ended question that could so easily dig up a lot of information. Of course. “I would ask what evil ways of interrogation they teach at CFO school but that would give you four questions.”
The smile that split over his face broke her heart a little at how open and fun it was. It was a relief to see after the deep and complicated answers to the questions she’d asked.
“There is no such thing as CFO school. You learn all the evilness on the job. Now answer.”
“My dad is like most dads who have been married to the same woman for many years—he keeps his head down and goes with whatever my mother says, occasionally putting his foot down to remind everyone he exists. I love him. He’s so solid, funny and kind.”
“Not much said about your mother in that little speech.”
He didn’t frame it as a question which gave him two more. She had to learn that trick. “She’s very straightforward. She worries, a lot. She’s always fucking right. I love her.”
Grant’s gaze narrowed, and it was too late for Tasha to take back her words. Dammit. She added more in hopes the information would distract him, “I have two siblings—Lashawn and Augustus—Don’t ask about that name. I’m somewhere in the middle. Loads of aunts, uncles and cousins. My grandparents passed away when I was a kid, so I never had that, and I wish I had.”
“Me, too. On the last front. My parents were only children, which probably explains why their attention wandered after their first few kids.”
Her heart twinged. “Would things have been easier if you had grandparents while raising your siblings?”
“It’s what I always imagined on the hard days.”
She balled her hands into fists to keep from cupping his jaw. Why did he just rip off the
scabs of his wounds so easily? Most people needed therapists to browbeat them for a few months or years to talk about things like this. He just said it, to people he practically just met.
She dropped her gaze from his. “Next question, while I’m in a good mood about you.”
“Do you paint?”
Tasha’s head popped up and she stared at him, surprised. “Not anymore. How often were you eavesdropping on conversations with Mia and me? She couldn’t have told you that about me.”
“You underestimate how much she’s missed you. She talked about you often, about you being an artist. But to answer your question, every single time I was in earshot.”
She wasn’t sure if she believed him, and she didn’t want to touch the implications if he was telling the truth. If he heard just three conversations then he knew a lot about her monotonous lump of a life. He’d know tons about her relationship with Mia. “Next question.”
“Why not? As in why don’t you paint anymore?”
See. This is what she got for trying to help a man sort through his emotions. When would she learn to leave that shit up to therapists? “I lost the passion for it.”
“You might as well tell me the full story because I have a question left, and it’s going to be a follow-up.”
“You’ve asked three.”
“But you asked one more in the middle of my turn.”
She thought back and, ugh, she had. “The long story is I had a fiancé.” She waited a moment to see if he’d react to that but nothing. She knew for a fact John hadn’t come up during her and Mia’s conversations the last few months. So this…his reaction to a bombshell meant bombshells didn’t shake him. He rolled with them. Any other time, she’d be impressed, maybe even turned on he was unshakeable.
“Love inspires you creatively and blah, blah,” she said. “When the relationship ended, so did my interest in painting. Looking back, I can see I kept doing…old school painting because he respected that medium more. He didn’t think digital painting was real. Definitely didn’t respect digital graphic artists—too commercial.”
“You don’t sound like you miss it.”
“Sometimes I do. There is nothing like holding a paint brush or the smell of paint. It’s such a tactile ritual, but the drive isn’t there anymore. Him aside, I think that’s something we never really talk about as adults. You can love something deeply when you’re younger. It can be the only thing you see yourself doing for the rest of your life. There can be a fire in the pit of your gut because how much you love that one thing and want to do it. And over time, that drive, that love… can just go poof.”
He leaned back, his gaze intent. She couldn’t describe his expression but he so looked like she’d sucker punched him. He swallowed before he asked, “Then what do you do?”
She wished she had a better answer. “Find the next thing that puts a fire in you.”
He scratched at his jawline and nodded. “And have you found the next thing?”
She had to laugh. “No. So maybe I’m not a good example.”
“Aye. Maybe. I think you have a passion for mixing brews. A passion for the people—strangers who come through that door. It’s not lofty and ephemeral like being a painter.”
“Maybe.” She fiddled with the hem of her skirt as his words settled on her. “You think that’s just as important, Mr. CFO? For the record, not one of my questions. Just an aside.”
“I can’t do what I do without people like you.”
“That…That’s going over my head. Explain.”
“There hasn’t been a single business that I’ve bought or sold that didn’t have some sappy origin story.”
Despite his words, he didn’t say it with a sneer. “Give me an example.”
“About a year ago, there was a company that a big corp wanted to buy outright. Smallish town where it was located but this corp, a grocery chain, couldn’t sell a biscuit with this bakery. Not in this town.”
“Please tell me now this story has a happily ever after.”
His mouth quirked up. “The story was this man had a wife he really loved. She’d bake for him, all the time. She always dreamed of owning a bakery. She died.”
“No.”
His gaze softened. “To feel close to her, he would use her recipe journal. He became pretty good. He opened up a bakery.”
“Okay. I absolutely need to know this ends in a happily ever after.”
Grant went on, “We sent so many people to convince him to sell. Every time, he would say fuck off. Those exact words. And what could we do? I’d seen the numbers. His business was pretty solid.”
“You know, telling me you went all soulless corporation will make me not want to hump you.”
He grinned. “So we came up with a solution. We’d give him an obscene amount of money, and he’d sell his bakery goods in that local chain. In the end, the bestseller was the cake she’d make them every anniversary. It’s sold in every chain the month of.”
OMG. She was slayed. “The month of their anniversary?”
“Aye.”
She squinted at him. “You used a royal ‘we’ and ‘they’ that whole time. I’m guessing you helped make this happen.”
“Is that a question?”
That was as good as any confirmation. “No. I still have two questions.”
“You do.”
She searched his face for the turmoil from earlier. It was gone, but he didn’t look like the seemingly uncomplicated man he usually was. She couldn’t unsee him as that man, anyway. That was good enough.
She shifted and put her weight on her palm to recline a little on the table. “Do you like my dress?”
He absently licked his top lip and then bit his lower lip. She knew that tell with every cell in her body. Tasha picked up the edge of her dress near her thigh and let it flutter back down.
Grant pushed his chair back. Confused, she frowned until he dragged her in front of him. “That answer your question?” he asked.
“I didn’t know we were accepting non-verbal replies.”
Wood scraped along the floor as he pushed his chair forward, nestling between her legs. “I really like your dress. It’s bonnie.”
His hands were warm and rough as they slid up her outer thigh.
She wanted to purr like a cat being petted. “Do you want me to take off my underwear?”
He flipped back the skirt of the dress. His gaze trailed down to her panties. His fingers flexed then dug into her ass. “Lift up.”
His focus remained on her pussy as he helped her pull off her panties. Every inch of her felt hot, achy and yet vulnerable. Could he be considered a gentleman because he discreetly pocketed her undies? Maybe not, especially when there was nothing gentle about the way he gripped her thighs and spread her wider.
Finally, he looked up. Intent was the watch word again. His gaze wouldn’t miss a damn thing. There was no point to hide how much she wanted him to lower his mouth. Her hips arched up almost on their own accord.
“Is it my turn, lass?”
She had no idea what he meant, but the answer any way was clear. “Yes.”
“Do you want me to—”
“Yes.”
His eyes lit. “To read you a Shakespearean soliloquy?”
The tease was so unexpected, she laughed. “I almost want to dare you to quote him at this very moment.”
“’Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry, stray lower…’”
And he did stray lower with a lick of her slit, mapping her pussy with his tongue. Her toes curled, and she managed to keep back a moan—until he sucked her clit into his mouth. She would have employed some quote that was very vague at the moment about dying in a lap, but his fingers dug into her thighs deep enough to hold her still.
Pleasure took over, rippling through her. She speared her fingers into his hair. He grunted, and the deep sound was nothing but approval.
His tongue rubbed sl
ow and deep along her clit, so…intent she could damn near feel every drop of blood rushing to her pussy. He had to have noticed the swelling because slow and soft exploration turned into fast and hard flicks of his tongue. The urge to both push him away and tug him closer built.
When had her legs started to tremble? And god. She wanted to moan long and loud, but there was enough awareness in her mind left to remember only a floor of stairs separated them from the Baird. Grant didn’t seem to mind because he hummed every time she squirmed against his mouth. She could almost understand his thoughtless impulse. She had never felt so slippery against someone’s tongue. That knowledge turned her on, and all she could do was grind into his face and let him enjoy her.
When he relentlessly began to circle her clit in hard strokes, she had to pant to keep from screaming. It was an assault on her body she welcomed. And god, so intimate. The stubble of his five o’clock shadow was the best friction against her inner thighs. His face, his mouth, his tongue were not only pressed against her most vulnerable parts but would be stained with the scent and taste of her.
That thought slammed through her, and she rode that hard pleasure until she couldn’t contain the sobbing moan. The very sound, unbidden and thoughtless to their situation, seemed to break her into a million pieces.
A rippling tension and heat gripped her every limb, leaving her battered. No surprise an orgasm followed. She held onto his head with both hands, his strands clutched between her fingers, and he let out a long, satisfying groan. Could he taste a difference in her come, or was he just turned on? Oh, gawd. It was too much.
Grant gently ran two fingers over her pussy folds. Took her a moment to realize he was wetting the tips with her arousal and not just letting her come down. Her next breath, he teased her entrance with those same fingers. Entered her. Found a spot inside that made her toes curl from him just brushing his fingertips against it. He put his mouth back on her clit, and that’s really all she could process for a little while.
10
S
he didn’t protest when Grant pulled her into his lap and began tongue-kissing her. Later, he might feel utterly satisfied—downright peacock preening—he’d finally found the way to make her go all soft.