His brow creases. “Blow Pops? Those gum-filled lollipops?”
I tell him the story of my first real gig, and he laughs. “I bet you drove all the boys crazy when you licked the sour apple ones.”
“How did you know I liked sour apple?”
“Good guess?”
“Fine. I liked sour apple. But seriously, who do you know in Anguilla?”
“Taylor’s sister. She’s one of my clients. I basically got her dickhead husband’s lawyer to curl up in a ball, quivering like an elephant does when it sees a mouse, after I told him how things were going to work.” Zach blows on his fingernails, pride practically wafting off him.
“Congrats.” Now that I understand him better—his motivation—that seems less like seeing who lands bloodier punches in the ring, and more like fighting for someone who needs a knight with a sword. “That’s great.”
He lifts a hand and pats his own back. This Zach is the one I’m used to. The man who stood in my doorway in London seems long gone.
But something is different about this Zach too. He’s not needling me. He’s not shooting arrows. Does that mean he’s lost all interest? Will he turn me down if I ask him out for soup and crackers?
My chest tightens, and nerves scurry up and down my arms. I don’t know what he’ll do or say. That’s the issue. The hairy, thorny, scary issue.
But that’s why asking someone out is taking a chance. It’s stepping off a cliff without a safety net.
He tips his forehead in the direction of his office. “Want me to ask her if she can grease any wheels?”
“That would be great.”
“Give me five.”
Five minutes later he returns, handing me a sheet of paper with a number and a name on it. “Chellize at the Heyward Grand Ocean Suites says to give her a call in an hour.”
Gratitude and glee are like silver and gold flowing through my veins. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” The enormity of how much he’s just helped me has me riding a rush of endorphins that makes me brave enough to try laying a bridge to asking him to dinner. “Also, this is nice,” I say, pointing from him to me.
“Nice?” The word comes out like he’s drunk acid. “This is nice?”
Quickly, I explain, “Getting along like this. I’m glad we can.”
But my throat is clogged with too much anxiety to say what I truly want.
Have dinner with me.
Have a drink with me.
Take me out.
“It’s nice?” He steps closer to my desk.
“Yes. Nice. Us talking like this is nice.” Why is molasses coating my tongue? Years and years of arguing with this man have made the fear of rejection strong in me.
His eyes narrow. “You like being friends?”
My stomach swoops with worry. Oh God, is he setting me up? Is he prepping for a dig? Have we gone back to fists up, guns ready, dueling officemates?
“I like getting along with you,” I say, choosing honesty, even though it’s gut-wrenching. This is like turning my heart inside out and hoping it still beats properly.
“You do?”
“I do.” My voice wobbles. I don’t know what he’s getting at, why he’s firing all these questions my way.
He comes around my desk and sits on the corner, closer still. I can smell him. Like cedar and sex and the man I want to lick.
“Listen . . .”
That word pierces me, making me crumble. That’s the word he used in London. Is he going to let me down again?
“I’m listening.” My tone is even, giving away nothing, as I don my armor once more.
His eyes meet mine, and he holds my gaze. “I don’t think I said everything that needed saying in London.”
Tension flares inside me, chased by a dash of hope. “You didn’t?”
“First, I should have said something to you the next day, and I didn’t.”
I hold up a hand, grabbing his, absolving him. “Don’t think twice about it. Don’t apologize. We’re good on that.”
“But I should have said something. Should have reached out to you sooner. I’m new to all this and figuring it out.”
“It’s fine,” I say, reassuring him. “I swear it’s fine.”
“Good.” He looks down at my hand, then back into my eyes. “But you need to know, I’m still replaying that night. It’s on a loop in my head, I swear.”
I’m warm all over. Please, please, please let him feel the same. “Is that so?”
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he says, not looking away.
My skin tingles. “Your mind must be an interesting place.”
His eyes darken. “Very interesting.”
For a second, I fear he wants only a rebound screw. But it’s time to vault past fear. I can’t take it anymore, this not knowing. I draw a deep breath and step off the cliff. “Have dinner with me,” I blurt out.
Scrubbing a hand across his jaw, he groans low and growly. Maybe in frustration? I tense for a second.
“You don’t want to?” I ask, quieter.
He stares at me, his eyes intense. “Oh, I absolutely want to. But I was planning on asking you. And you beat me to it.”
My lips curve in a wicked grin. “Guess you need to be faster, then,” I taunt.
He arches a brow. “Do I now?”
He moves off my desk, plants his hands on the arms of my chair, and stares at me. I heat up like a star.
He leans in close, his face near mine, his voice demanding. “Go out with me.”
I can’t stop grinning. “Yes.”
“Good. Because I want to see you again. I want to take you out. I want to date you. I don’t just want to fuck you.”
I’m buzzing with happiness. “It’s the same for me.”
He clasps my jaw, holding me tight. “But right now, I’d really like to fuck you.”
The way he says those words sends heat to my core. A pulse beats between my legs. I grab for his tie, but this time he is faster. He stands, lifts a hand, and slowly, deliberately unknots it, loosening it. Zach like this, in his tailored slacks and crisp shirt, his green silk tie slightly undone, poised to take me, is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.
He leans over, running his nose along my neck, setting me to flames. “Just like I remembered. Just like I think about every goddamn night.”
“Every night, you say?”
“Every night. Every morning. You’re in my head and under my skin.”
I’m on fire. “Please,” I beg.
He pulls back and smirks. “Since you asked for it.”
He claims my mouth. He owns me. Owns my lips. Owns this kiss. He kisses like a man who won’t be denied. Like he came in here with one intention: to have me.
It’s a dominating kiss. A kiss he controls as he holds my jaw, angles my face, and devours my lips. It’s a kiss that won’t stop at kissing, that can only be a prelude to fucking.
He’s hard and ruthless, and I swear it’s like he’s making up for the way we’ve both been lost since we returned.
I don’t feel lost anymore.
I don’t know where we’re going. But I feel found.
The only issue is my door’s wide open. I slide a hand up his chest and push him away.
“Door,” I pant.
He stands, walks around my desk, and closes it. Locks it shut.
He returns to me, moves my laptop to the side of the desk, then sets me on the wood. Exactly where I want to be right now.
25
Zach
This is so much better.
This is light years better than the alternative—the alternative of having said nothing, having done nothing.
Because I spoke my mind, I get to have this. I get to have her the way I want her: craving me as intensely as I crave her.
With her legs spread, her palms digging into the edge of the desk, she’s ready, and once I unzip my pants, I slide inside her.
Sparks rain down my body, crackling across my skin as I close m
y eyes. An obliterating wave of pleasure rolls through me. It’s instant and electric, and fucking fantastic the way it knocks down everything in its path but my desire.
“You feel amazing,” I groan, opening my eyes again.
As she curls her hands around my shoulders, she draws a shaky breath. I don’t know her noises yet, but I want to. I’m not sure if I was too fast, if she needs it slower to start or something else. I meet her gaze. “You good?”
She nods. “So good.”
I’m learning her cues, learning her. I want to know everything. “How do you like it? Fast? Hard? Rough? A lot of dirty talk? Tender and gentle?”
“All of the above, depending on my mood.”
I kiss her roughly, quickly. “Good. Same.”
“Right now, though, I want to feel like you can’t get me out of your head.”
I groan from the sheer sexiness, the utter confidence of her words. “Right now, I can’t fuck you any other way.” I slide my hand down her back, cupping the top of her ass and yanking her closer as I drive deeper into her in one swift move. I shudder once I’m all the way in, and she trembles, and it’s the perfect symphony of sensations: her reaction, my reaction, our pleasure.
We’re in sync once again. Maybe in a whole new way.
Everything feels so fantastically dirty and so perfectly right at the same time. She wraps her legs around my hips, hooking her heeled feet over my ass, urging me on as she arches into me.
I stroke into her, hard, deep, as I bury my face in her neck, getting drunk on her scent. Oranges again, and it drives me insane. My nerve endings come alive, and my mind unravels as I growl, “You smell so fucking good, feel so fucking incredible.”
She lifts her face up and nibbles on my earlobe. I shudder, loving the rough side of her. “Do that again,” I tell her.
She obliges, biting this time, whispering, “I like biting you.”
“I love it when you do.”
She travels down my neck, sucking on my jaw, dragging her teeth over my skin.
I’m wild inside, wild from this. “You drive me so crazy.”
“Same. I’m so turned on.”
“Then let’s get you coming on my cock.”
She whispers in a broken pant, “It’s been a week, and I want you. It’ll be fast.”
I laugh lightly as I thrust into her, loving the way she talks to me. Talks back to me.
It comes as no surprise that she gives as good as she gets.
There is no need to linger. This is an afternoon quickie, not an afternoon delight where I can savor every second, every touch.
The deliveryman might knock, my assistant might come looking for me, the phone could ring. I need to move us around the bases and get the woman tagging home.
I squeeze the side of her ass tighter, and she responds with a luxurious gasp, letting me know she likes my hands on her, likes what I have to give.
She tightens around me, her body gripping me. Lust ricochets through me, running rampant in all the thoroughfares in my body. With each thrust, with every single grunt and moan, the pleasure builds and coils.
I don’t want to think, but one thought won’t be still. And it’s not about my dick. It’s not about how immensely good fucking her feels. It’s about how much I need this. Not sex in general, but sex with her. I need this intimacy. I need her in my arms.
I need . . . the word brands itself into my brain.
I set it free.
Grabbing her ass tighter as I drive deeper, I whisper, “I need you, Piper. Need you so much.”
Something heavy inside me becomes lighter. Telling her frees something that weighed me down, that I was so used to, didn’t even know was sinking me.
Her lips dust over my jaw. “Need this too. Need you too.”
I’m even lighter now at hearing her words. I’m letting go of old hurts, saying goodbye to a persistent ache that doesn’t need a home inside me anymore.
I shake off the emotions, homing in on the physical. I meet her gaze, slide one hand between her legs, and rub my finger against the delicious rise of her clit. She lets out the sexiest groan I’ve ever heard in my life, then gives me a dirty, sexy smile.
Her mouth parts in an O, her back bows, and she’s crying out, reaching the edge. Her sounds are so spectacular, so mind-bendingly good that they’re rattling loose the pleasure inside me. They’re pushing my own orgasm to break free.
I don’t want anyone in the hallway to hear her. “You’re so fucking loud, and I love it. But I don’t want anyone else to hear you.” I clasp my hand to her mouth, and her eyes squeeze shut. She bites my palm as she shudders and then lets go, her moans stifled as she comes hard on me.
That’s all I need. Because all I need is her.
Pleasure bursts inside me, my brain going blank, my mind nothing but white-hot electricity as my body thanks me for having come down to her office and talked to her.
I barely understand what’s happening, but I also understand it so fully, so deeply. It’s terrifying, and it’s wonderful at the same damn time.
* * *
After we straighten up, she settles on her pink couch, all glossy eyes and tousled hair. She eyes her desk. “Never have I ever had sex on a desk.”
Smiling, I sit next to her, running a hand over her hair. “Never have I ever had sex on a desk either.”
We both grin. Her eyes are twinkling, and I bet mine are too. She arches a brow. “Really?”
I stare sternly at her. “I just gave you the Never Have I Ever promise. That’s like a blood oath.” Then I soften. “This is a first for me.”
She nibbles on the corner of her lips, and she looks younger in that instant, delighted almost. Like a light illuminating a darkened room, I understand why. She wants to have some of my firsts. Even if it’s sex on a desk.
And I’m learning I want to give them to her. I search in my mental files, hunting madly for another one, for something else that can be only ours. I find it, and a smile tugs at my lips. “This is going to sound kind of crazy, but would you want to do something super ridiculous like go play shuffleboard with me?”
She cracks up. A deep belly laugh.
“Okay, so that’s a no.”
She sets a hand on my leg. “Should I get my cheaters out? We can go in the Buick. Maybe have an early-bird special for dinner.”
“See if I ask you out again.”
Another laugh rumbles from her chest. “I think it sounds great. I’m presuming you mean in lieu of dinner.”
“I don’t know that I’m having dinner with you now. Mocking me and all.” I cross my arms in faux indignation.
She grabs at them, batting her eyes. “Please, please forgive me for teasing you about shuffleboard. I think it sounds great. Even though I grew up in Florida, I’ve actually never played, and I heard there’s a new place in Brooklyn.”
“I’ve never played either. That’s why I suggested it.”
She freezes and then a smile spreads across her face. “I definitely want to play, then.” She leans in and brushes her lips over mine. “Thank you.”
She doesn’t say why she’s thanking me.
But I know, and she knows, and I’m glad we don’t have to explain why we both want to find some firsts for us. There’s a shorthand to Piper and me, and it’s not simply from having run in the same circles. It’s because we connect. She’s emotionally astute too. She picks up on cues without needing anything spelled out. She gets what she’s dealing with.
I have baggage. Hell, I am the baggage. But she doesn’t seem to mind, and she doesn’t seem to need to poke at the rips and the tears in the luggage. She accepts that I’ve come to her after I’ve been around the block.
She accepts, and she doesn’t try to turn me inside out on a mad hunt for every little difference, every possible comparison.
I’m so damn grateful.
I take her hand, threading my fingers through hers, looking down at how our joined hands look. They fit. They look right.
I raise my gaze. “I don’t know when I can go. I have to get a sitter. I have to do things the right way this time.”
“Of course you do. I totally understand.”
“I’m pretty sure my sister will watch them. She knows about you.”
Piper grins, a confident look in her brown eyes. “So she knows how awesome I am?”
“Exactly. She knows you’re awesome. I told her how I feel about you,” I say, and that word—feel—should weigh a ton. But it doesn’t. I’m not afraid of how I feel for her anymore. I’m only afraid, I suppose, of messing it up. This is a brand-new path for me, and I’m driving in the dark without headlights.
“How do you feel?” she asks, her tone a little nervous.
Shrugging, I smirk. “Oh, you know. I think you’re . . . delightful.”
She swats my elbow, and I catch her hand, hauling her in for a kiss. A fierce kiss that says how I feel. Roughly, I answer, “You know how I feel.”
“Do I?” Her voice is gentle.
I press my forehead against hers, searching for words that capture this wild mix of emotions claiming the real estate in my heart. “I want to know you, Piper. I want to understand who you are. And I want to spend more time with you, both in clothes and getting you out of them.”
She shudders against me, looping her hands around my neck. “I like you in and out of your birthday suit too,” she says, then whispers in a smoky, sexy voice, “And I like it when you bite me too. Makes me feel marked.”
If ever there was an invitation, that’s it. Curling a hand around the back of her head, I draw her close and nip her neck.
She groans, a sound that turns me on.
What a shock.
But I still want to talk to her, so I pull back, lifting an eyebrow. “And the rest of what I said?”
She smiles, looking coy. But her answer is all pure, honest emotion. “Yes. Yes to everything. Also, I think I love your sister.”
“You would like her. She’s very straightforward. I just have to check with her on her schedule, but I think she’ll be willing, and then we can go out on a date.” I laugh at that last word.
She stares quizzically at me. “Why are you laughing about asking me out on a date?”
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