Unfinished Seductions

by Raleigh Davis

  January stops me there. “Don’t even worry about it. Mark is wonderful and I love him, but he’s also…” She shrugs and then grins. “Well, he’s a Bastard. You’re married to one, so you know all about it.”

  “Yes, those guys are definitely intense.” I don’t smile, because I don’t find the rest of them as charming as January does. “And Julian doesn’t bring out the best in them.”

  January hooks her arm in mine. “But you’re friends with him, and it sounds like he helped you when you needed it. Anyone who can set those guys off must be intriguing.” Her expression is a study in delighted mischief. “Want to grab coffee and tell me all about it?”

  Chapter 21

  “What do you think the two of them did all day?”

  Mark doesn’t look up at my question, keeping his attention on the three fingers of scotch the waiter has brought over. “I don’t know.” He’s clearly not as concerned as I am.

  The bar we’re in is at the top of a forty-story hotel, with a view of Union Square to our left and the rise of Nob Hill before us. There are no tourists here since this place isn’t open to the public. It’s only for exclusive guests of the hotel. Very exclusive guests.

  Mark used to stay here regularly, back when he was having one-night stands on the regular. Now that he’s with January, that’s all done, but it looks like he’s kept the other perks of his account here.

  “What did January say?” I ask.

  “That she and Callie were out together and we should meet them for drinks and dinner.” Mark stretches out his legs.

  “And she left the office at noon?”

  Mark and January share an office at her company more days than not. I’m sharing an office with my wife, but I hardly saw her at all today. She was out with January, doing I don’t know what.

  The house felt incredibly empty without Callie there.

  “Left at noon, said she was going to say hi to Callie, and didn’t come back.” He takes a sip of his whiskey. “What, are you afraid they spent the whole time shit talking you?”

  He doesn’t have to look so goddamn smug. “If they’re shit talking me, they’re shit talking you too, genius.”

  Mark snorts. “No way. January thinks I’m perfect.”

  Now I snort. “Oh yeah? I’ll tell her you said that.”

  “Oooh. Someone’s pissy because they can’t use their office.”

  “That’s not—” I take a slug of my own scotch, because yeah, maybe I am a little on edge. “It was fine.”

  It wasn’t. I got plenty of work done, sure, but I felt like I forgot something or left it behind at the office. And I couldn’t figure out what the fuck it was.

  I also couldn’t stop thinking about Callie’s insistence that I worked too much. I didn’t, but I was home all day today and she wasn’t there. She was going to be my one consolation for being exiled from my office, and she took off.

  Of course, I was also worried she was going to distract me. And then she wasn’t even there to do it.

  I take another long drink, the scotch setting my throat on fire. I need to get back into my office and get my mind right again.

  Then Callie walks in, and I’m tipped upside down all over again.

  “Oh shit.”

  When Callie and January come across the room toward Mark and me, their heads so close they look glued together, it’s all I can think to say. They both gleam among everyone else in this room. If I’d never seen Callie before this, I still wouldn’t be able to take my eyes off her. The long fall of her hair, the lean elegance of her body, the light in her eyes all make her irresistible.

  The twist of Callie’s mouth says she’s got mischief planned. January is wearing the same expression.

  “That looks… not good,” Mark says. “What do you think they’re talking about?”

  “Us. Of course. And they’re laughing.”

  January catches sight of us, wriggles her fingers in greeting, then whispers something to Callie, which makes Callie dissolve into laughter.

  “What did she say?” I ask Mark out of the side of my mouth.

  “Probably some embarrassing secret about me. Or a joke about you. Or both.”

  “They’ve united against us.”

  “Yeah,” Mark says, his smile widening. “Isn’t it great?”

  I don’t have time to answer him because Callie and January arrive at our table. Mark and I both stand up because women that beautiful deserve a tribute.

  “What were you two up to today?” Mark asks.

  January kisses him, then smiles. “Coffee. And shopping. Callie has the best taste in shoes.”

  “I hope you bought the store out,” Mark says.

  “Ha. Wait until I take over your closet.”

  “I’ll just build you another one,” Mark murmurs.

  The affection between them is so strong it makes my heart ping with wistfulness. Callie and I used to tease like that. But right now I’m not thinking about teasing her.

  She’s been gone all day, and I’ve been going crazy all alone in the house, smelling her perfume in the air, finding her things scattered around but not having her to grasp.

  If we weren’t with one of my best friends and his girlfriend, I’d drag her to a hotel room and show her how crazy.

  “I missed you” is all I say right before I kiss her. Her eyes widen like she wasn’t expecting that, but she kisses me back, first with gentle hesitation, then with more urgency.

  I break it off before I lose my head even more.

  When I help Callie to her seat, I lean in to breathe in her scent. There’s her perfume, light with a hint of flowers and something grassy, but beneath is her. I brush my nose against her neck, too quick for anyone else to see, but enough to get a deeper whiff of her.

  Her lips part on a short gasp, her cheeks darkening. There’s no woman half as gorgeous as her here, no woman even a one hundredth as sexy. She’s the single blooming blood-red rose among them, and they’re only tiny white flowers included to set off her beauty.

  “Did you miss me?” I ask, dark and low. I already know the answer, but I want to hear it.

  She turns her head, her hair brushing my cheek. “Of course.”

  I want to wrap my fingers in her hair, tilt her face up to mine, and kiss her until we’re both drunk with it. Instead, I take my chair, letting my legs fall apart so that my knee is against hers.

  That’s my space there, and I’m going to take it.

  “Callie’s office is right next to mine,” January says. “I’m so excited to have her right around the corner.”

  “What did you think of it?” I ask.

  Callie blinks and tears her gaze away from me. I can’t be certain, but I think she was staring at my mouth. “Um… it was great.” She focuses on Mark and January. “And the neighbors are friendly.”

  They laugh, and that starts off an entire conversation about the new office and how to set it up.

  I don’t give a damn about the office except that Callie is happy with it. Instead, I watch my wife, how her hand curls around the base of her throat as she talks, the easy grace in her arms as she takes her drink from the waiter, the flash of her eyes as she laughs.

  Something inside my chest, dark and crouching, eases at the sight. When she’s with me, I feel… freer. Like I can stretch my soul and let it relax.

  Things in my life have been unbearably cramped since she left, my world too small for me to move around in.

  “…and we wanted to ask what you think, Logan?”

  January’s been talking the entire time, batting words around with Mark, but I haven’t heard a thing she’s said. And I’m supposed to be the details guy.

  I take up my scotch and salute her and Callie. “I think Mark and I are the luckiest Bastards in this bar, thanks to you ladies.”

  Mark drapes his arm over January’s chair, then loudly whispers, “He wasn’t paying attention.”

  There’s a wicked spark in January’s eye. “Yes, he was. He was p
aying attention to Callie.”

  A glorious blush sneaks up Callie’s neck, painting her skin in pink. Her bottom lip disappears between her teeth, and I want to bite that exact spot myself.

  “Can you blame me?” I ask. I press a kiss to the back of Callie’s hand. Again, the scent of her skin fills me, and my pulse leaps.

  We are in a hotel. I could carry her out of here, demand the penthouse suite for the night, and fuck her until we pass out.

  She’s thinking the same thing—her dark eyes, deep inhales, and sudden stillness tell me exactly what’s on her mind.

  Mark wouldn’t mind if we excuse ourselves, but January and Callie probably would. Women like this double date crap.

  January tucks her chin into her palm. “Aww. That’s so sweet.”

  “I’m sweet,” Mark says with mock hurt.

  “Actually, you’re not.” The way January looks at him says that she likes him that way.

  “Now who’s being sappy?” Callie asks. Her smile is small but true, and it hits me—she’s enjoying this.

  I am too. Yes, I want to drag her to the nearest bed as soon as I can, but enjoying her in this setting is a good second choice.

  “Mark’s allergic to sappy.” January’s eyes twinkle.

  “Not true,” he counters. “I got you that ridiculous overstuffed bear you wanted last weekend. The pink one that was holding a heart.”

  “And broke out into a rash when you did.”

  “So that’s what was on your ass,” I say.

  A laugh bursts out from Callie. She looks shocked that she did that. “Why were you looking at his butt?”

  “Have you seen my butt?” Mark says. “He can’t help himself.”

  January shakes her head. “I’d be jealous, but you guys are just too ridiculous together.” She turns to Callie. “Did you hear what Finn did last week?”

  Mark and I start laughing as we both remember.

  “No.” Callie curls her hand around her neck. “Do I want to hear?”

  “No,” Mark and I say together.

  January rolls her eyes. “They’re only saying that because they were the target of it.”

  “What happened?” Callie asks.

  January leans forward, eager to tell it, but then she catches my eye and stops. “You know what? Logan should tell it.”

  “Oh yes, definitely,” Mark says.

  I’m tempted to flip him off, but I decide against it. Callie is watching me too eagerly, waiting for this story. She’ll laugh at me once it’s done, but maybe it will be worth it.

  “So Finn decided he was going to play a prank on me. And Finn’s pranks… they go way beyond normal pranks.”

  “Wait.” Mark holds up a hand. “Tell her why Finn wanted to get you back.”

  “Me? You were involved too.”

  “Okay.” Callie is already laughing. “Now I really need to hear this story.”

  I clear my throat and shift in my chair, settling in to tell it. “I need a drink before I start this.”

  She watches me so closely as I drink her intensity could shatter my glass. I have to take a moment to get myself back under control.

  I set my palms on the table and think about where to start. “Okay, so Wired wanted to do a story on us and asked if we could do a photo shoot. I replied back that we didn’t have time for a shoot, but we could send them some good pictures.”

  Mark starts laughing behind his hand.

  “We sent a picture of all of us, but we, uh, altered Finn’s tattoos in Photoshop before we did. And um, his beard.”

  Callie covers her mouth. “Oh no. What did you do?”

  “Just gave him a shave,” Mark says. “Nothing big.”

  “A shave?” Callie asks.

  “More than that.” I’m smiling as I picture it. “We found some old pictures of him in high school, before he could grow a beard—he hates those pictures—and photoshopped his old head onto his new body.”

  Mark snorts. “It looked so ridiculous. And his tats…”

  “Yeah, we replaced all his tattoos with trains from Thomas & Friends. And then we sent it off to Wired.”

  Callie’s eyes are wide but sparkle with humor. “They didn’t print it though?”

  January shakes her head. “Of course Wired did. The Bastards could tell them to print nothing but pictures of kittens in teacups with their articles and Wired would do it. They don’t want to piss them off.”

  “Finn only found out when he started to get all these emails about his ‘new look,’” Mark says.

  “Was he angry?” Callie asks.

  I stumble mentally over that because if she knew Finn, really knew him, she’d never ask that.

  “Finn never gets angry,” I say on quieter note. “He only gets even.”

  “Oh, and did he ever,” January says.

  Although January is joking, worry creeps into Callie’s expression. “Revenge sounds bad.”

  “Would you avenge me?” I mean it as a joke, but when it comes out, it’s somehow gotten serious.

  She holds my gaze for a long moment, long enough for me to almost forget Mark and January are there. “I’d try,” Callie says finally.

  “I’d help,” Mark says.

  Suddenly we’re all laughing again. I feel like I haven’t in so long—perfectly in the moment, nowhere else I need to be, nothing else I should be doing.

  “So what did Finn end up doing to you?” Callie asks.

  “He changed the traffic signs.”

  Callie’s brow furrows as she tries to figure that out, while Mark busts out laughing again.

  “Which traffic signs?” she says.

  “The electronic billboards all along the 280,” I say. “The ones that report on travel times. He changed all of them to say… something unkind about Mark and me.”

  I was both furious and impressed on my commute that morning. And yes, laughing my ass off too by the time I made it to Palo Alto and realized Finn had probably hit every traffic billboard in the state.

  “All of them?” Callie’s mouth is hanging open. “How did he do that?”

  “Finn is a very gifted hacker. I’d imagine it was like taking candy from a baby for him.”

  Callie tilts her head, a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth. I haven’t seen that expression of hers in so long—fond, happy, glowing with affection.

  Keep it together, Martell. Don’t break down like a damn wimp.

  “Are you going to tell me what it said?” she asks.

  “Trust me, it’s not for polite company.”

  “You should ask Finn,” Mark says. “He might tell you.”

  That would be hilarious, watching Finn trying to explain to my wife the obscene things he wrote on a traffic billboard for all the peninsula to see.

  “You definitely should,” I say. “I’ve always wanted to know exactly how red Finn can get when he’s embarrassed. Try to get a picture for future blackmail too.”

  “Oh, I will.” Callie looks almost sincere. Like she’d love to be in on a future prank on Finn.

  The conversation shifts to other things, but the easy glow lingers. After a while, January and Callie get up to use the bathroom together, probably so they can talk about Mark and me in private. Mark signals the waiter for two more scotches, then turns to me. “Callie’s not like I remember her.”

  I tense up. “How do you mean?”

  “She’s… easier somehow.” Mark looks up briefly, searching for the right words. “Before when she’d hang out with us, she’d hardly talk. Like she was pissed at us for something.”

  “No, she…” I don’t finish that, because it would be a lie. Callie never has been easy with the rest of the Bastards. Except tonight she is, at least with Mark.

  And with January.

  I let my head fall back. “She was always the only woman,” I say with dawning realization. “She’s comfortable with January, so she’s opening up.”

  Mark frowns. “It’s not like we were mean to her.”<
br />
  “No, but you weren’t welcoming, were you? We’d talk about work, the industry, everything important to us. But she never cared about that.”

  Mark goes still. “Are you blaming me?”

  “No.” I’m not going to take the coward’s way out here. “I’m at fault too. I was…” Holy hell, but this is difficult to say. My jaw is tight as a fist. “I was too focused on work outside the office.”

  “That’s what you get for marrying a civilian.” But Mark’s tone is sympathetic.

  I still bristle, mostly to do with Callie’s criticisms of my work schedule rather than Mark’s words. “I’m not fucking deployed. I come home every night.”

  He raises his palms. “Look, I know. I work the same hours you do.”

  Before I can reply, Callie and January come back to the table. They both look so happy I force myself to smile.

  “We need to head out,” January says. “We made reservations for all of us.”

  I set aside all my worries about work so I can enjoy the rest of my evening with my wife.

  Chapter 22

  The warm glow of the evening lasts all throughout dinner and on the car ride home. Callie is just… luminous. Like she was when we first got together.

  “Hypatia,” I call as we walk into the entryway of the house. “Dim all the lights.”

  Instantly we’re both bathed in a soft glow. Callie turns to me, her lips parted.

  “How will we see to get to the bedroom?” she asks.

  “I’ll get you there safely.” I reach out and wrap a strand of her hair around my finger. It’s so long now I wrap my forefinger entirely and the strand still isn’t taut. I’ll have to pull harder if I want to bring her near.

  I tug, gently. She resists, not pulling away but not coming closer.

  I don’t let go of her hair. I’m not letting go of her that easily, not after everything we’ve been through.

  Finally she leans in. Her mouth brushes mine, soft at first, then more urgent. I cup her jaw, her hair tangling in my fingers. It’s finer than silk and twice as soft, and it smells like roses.

  I want to go slow tonight, to rediscover each other one heartbeat at a time.