by Anne Marsh
The house’s previous owner transplanted Morocco to California. Dark blue tiles surround an enormous copper soaking tub beneath teak shutters overlooking the ocean. More patterned tiles are set into the red stone floor—and they’re heated. Lying down and napping merits serious consideration. The fluffy white towels rolled up in baskets beneath the vanity would make excellent blankets.
“What are you thinking about?” That’s Dev’s voice, just outside the shower.
Don’t tell him the truth.
Hot water pours down around me as if I’m in some kind of exotic, heated rain forest. I half expect birds to sing or the sun to magically come up and turn the drops to rainbows. Frankly, it’s hard to believe I have any higher brain function, but apparently I do—and it’s all focused on one man. Devlin.
“Can I come in?”
The devilish grin painting his gorgeous face warns me there’s a dirty joke hiding in his words, but all I manage to squeak out is a yes.
That’s Dev’s fault because Dev naked is something to see. For starters, there’s so much of him. His penis probably has its own page in the record books. Or its own zip code. I giggle-snort because when I do tear my eyes away, his dick points up toward an equally phenomenal set of abs. Talk about your abundance of riches.
“If the whole business entrepreneur thing fails to work out, you should totally consider underwear modeling.”
“Lola?” Laughter fills his voice. Not at me but with me. Dev always invites me to share the joke.
“Hmm?” My gaze is stuck on his nipples when I should be making eye contact. I force myself to look up. Ooh, brown eyes. That’s good, too. That’s—
“I think your magnificent good looks fried my brain,” I admit.
“Christ.” I think I’ve stunned him, which is weird. I’m sure plenty of women have admired him, so I have no idea what his problem is. He opens the shower door and steps inside. The stall’s big enough for half a dozen people. “I think you should absolutely tell me what you were thinking.”
He lifts me up effortlessly, as if I haven’t just devoured my weight in chips and margaritas. Since drunk me is feeling helpful, I wrap my legs around his waist. The tip of his amazing penis brushes against me in a very sensitive, happy spot.
“Show or tell?” His mouth is so close to mine that I feel the words on my skin.
“Definitely show.” I nod agreeably and the world spins slowly around me.
He cups my face with his big hands, angling my mouth for his kiss. He kisses the corner of my mouth, my lips, the line of my jaw. So many kisses. I close my eyes, a whole lot in lust and there’s—no. No thinking beyond this moment.
Beneath me he’s hard and needy. I think I love this man. The thought whirls away, lost in the world’s spin, and the growly sound he makes as his kiss grows deeper and fiercer. I love that Neanderthal sound. It shouts mine and right now. It makes me feel sexy and beautiful, as if I’m exactly, perfectly what he needs.
“Is this okay?” he whispers. His fingers slick over my soapy skin, setting me on fire.
“Let’s play house,” I whisper back as I open for him. “Welcome home and come on in.”
“I missed you today,” he says as his penis nudges against me, slipping that first delicious half inch inside me. I squeeze him tight and he rewards me with another, rougher sound. No condom, I register dimly, but it’s okay. I’m on both the Pill and the celibacy train. I think I must say that out loud because he says something that sounds like Christ, Lola, you’re killing me but all I can think is Oh as he slides in farther.
The walls of the shower stall have fogged over, cocooning us in our own, small world. I lean back in his grip, taking him another inch, and trace my finger over the steamy glass. I could make a list. The letters flow beneath my fingertip, appearing before slowly filling in with steam and vanishing.
“What are you doing?”
“Making a list.” I trace new words on the glass.
“Now?” His hands grip my hips, easing me downward.
“It’s a very important list. It’s all the ways I want you to kiss me and me to kiss you.”
Kiss my hand as if I were your princess
Kiss my cheek as if we were friends and happy to see each other
Kiss my forehead because you feel close to me
Kiss my neck
Kiss my shoulder
Don’t not kiss me
My list can’t last. The words dissolve as fast as I finish them. Right now, I don’t care. Instead, I write and rewrite my list on slick, wet skin. Kiss me. Touch me like that. Play with me. Don’t rush to the end. I think I could love you.
We kiss and kiss. There are so many things I could pretend. That we’re lovers in the rain is a favorite. That we’re standing here, entwined while the skies open up and the water rains down on us and washes away the regrets and the fears, leaving everything else new and fresh.
When the dreamy, slow pace of his thrusts starts to pick up a faster rhythm, he walks me out of the shower, wraps a towel around me and carries me to the bed. We spray water droplets everywhere as we sink into the white duvet, but I don’t want to be practical. Tonight I don’t want the foreplay or the games. I just want him.
“Is this okay?” He pushes deeper inside me.
Shit. Did I say all that out loud? I need a rewind button on life. The silence stretches out between us. I can hear the waves hitting the shore close by.
“Lola?” He says my name against my mouth, his lips brushing mine. Tears prick my eyes, so I close them. We don’t do tears or feelings, so he can’t see.
“Never better,” I whisper back. “Show me, okay?”
His hands dig into my hair, smoothing, holding me closer. Whenever we have sex, I smell of him for hours afterward. When our summer is over, I’ll miss that.
His new kiss is sweeter, slower. This is different from the way we’ve kissed before. It feels good, too, the way all of his kisses feel good.
Gently, he peels back the towel, patting, rubbing, running the luxurious cotton over every bare inch of my skin. He tells me how beautiful I am, how badly he wants me, how dirty and perfect I am.
“You’re beautiful. I’m not one of them, okay?” He presses the words into my throat, punctuating his question with kisses. Not one of who? I want to ask. But I know. Not a hot boy, not my hot boy, not mine.
When he finally reaches between my legs, I whimper. Waiting is a painful anticipation. I’ve never craved anyone’s touch like this, holding my breath, imagining what might come next and then willing it to happen because my imagination isn’t enough, isn’t Dev. His first touch is soft, almost tentative.
I tell him how he makes me feel. How he makes me wet and achy. How hearing his voice teases me and makes me feel good. I cover his hand with mine and together we touch me.
He tells me how beautiful I am there, too, how fucking beautiful all over, and that I make him feel so many things. He craves me, he says, and I think he steals my words.
I come before I mean to, my body tightening, bearing down on our fingers even as I reach for him, not wanting to be alone. Somewhere he’s found a condom anyhow because he brushes my fingers gently away and rolls it on before pushing slowly inside me. I’m wet, but between the ocean, the latex of the condom and far too much sex, I’m tight. He has to nudge his way in, coaxing my body to open for him, and it’s perfect. Slow has its own magic.
I hang on to his broad shoulders, legs tight around his hips, as he rides me toward his own happy ending. It feels so good, even just the little, accidental touching bits, like when I run my fingers up his shoulders and draw little circles in the hollow of his collarbones. Nobody feels as perfect as he does.
He comes quickly, as if now that I’m done, he thinks he should be done, too. I wouldn’t mind if it took him longer. I love the soft, sleepy feeling of him working himself
inside me while I just relax in my happy place. Then I can just feel him and pay attention to the thousand and one Dev details that I lost sight of when I’m coming. Like how he smells, the perfect blend of man and sweat and salt. Or the sounds he makes. And definitely how his eyes always drift shut right before he comes. I wish I could take a picture of his O face because I’d look at it when we’re apart. He collapses against me briefly and I run my hands up and down his back while he mentally puts himself back together and zips up all the pieces that he keeps so tightly under control.
His arms around me afterward are even better than the sex, although I’ll never admit it. This is why I’ve always chosen to live and love in my head. He’s so painfully real. I’d think about it more but I’m drifting off now into the arms of my best friend Margarita. I feel his palm stroke over my head, followed by a rough chuckle. I don’t mind amusing him, though. I mind even less when he slips out of the bed and comes back with a comb so he can painstakingly detangle my hair. I don’t have to do a thing but lie there, basking in the delicious scratch of the comb against my scalp. He talks, though, a soft flow of words. I’m too tired, too drunk, too...something to pay much attention, but all the talking is strangely comfortable. Maybe he needs to fill the silence as much I need to hear his voice.
“Lola?” He whispers my name by my ear.
“Yes?” I think I’m smiling, although I might be smiling in my sleep.
“I’ll take you around San Francisco and show you the sights, okay?” His voice is husky.
“Okay,” I say quietly. “It’s a date.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Dev
MY APP SHOWS no coffee orders. Zero. Zilch. A quick visual inventory of Calla confirms bodies are present. The Wi-Fi works, too, so we haven’t gone abruptly bankrupt. I know people who have come back from lunch and find themselves locked out of the office because the business went belly-up with no notice. I take myself and my questions over to Cara. “Are you dead?”
She eyes me. “Not unless I’ve died and gone to heaven. Nice suit.”
I have an evening meeting I can’t get out of, so I’ve traded my jeans for suit pants. My car is parked in forty-dollar-an-hour parking a few blocks away for a quick getaway.
“Why no coffee?”
Cara pats me on the shoulder. “Boss girl said you had a meeting downtown and she hereby relieved you of the fetch-and-carry portion of your job description.”
Something has shifted in my relationship with Lola in the last couple of weeks, and the change is bigger than my no longer believing she could’ve had anything to do with my stolen software. It’s even bigger than just where we have sex. There’s talking involved now. And overnights. And yes, I’m terrified that this woman I’ve met by accident will march out of my life when she discovers the truth about me. I’m not ready to give her up yet.
I don’t need Jack to know that Lola won’t react well to learning that she hired me under false pretenses. Right now, though, all I can think about is sex—sex and getting inside Lola as fast as possible. I do a quick run-through of the best hotels in downtown San Francisco, mentally starring the ones we haven’t visited yet. There’s one right on Market Street that Lola would love. They have the most amazing suite bathrooms.
I rap on the door to her office. “You need me?”
She’s bent over her desk, fiddling with something on her laptop, and she’s wearing a skirt. My brain turns off and my dick takes over. The skirt is vintage, a gray pinstripe with ass-hugging fabric. She’s wearing a discreet button-up white blouse beneath a rather sassy suit jacket. The best part, though, are her heels—slim stilettos with delicate straps that wrap around her ankles. We need to have sex while she’s wearing those heels.
Lola straightens.
“Oh, good. You came.”
Not yet.
I grin. She’s wearing my tie threaded through the loops of her skirt and tied in a jaunty bow.
“Follow me.” She grabs her phone and a messenger bag and heads for the door. It’s not until we’re in the Uber that my brain works enough to ask where we’re going.
“Since you’ve kidnapped me,” I say. “I really think you should tell me where we’re headed.”
She laughs and pats my shoulder. “I thought I’d give my intern an opportunity.”
“Specifics, Lola.”
“I’m pitching to a VC firm. I thought you’d like to come along. You can meet some useful people and see how a pitch works firsthand.” She beams at me like she’s just offered me the choice of having her blow me for an hour or allowing me to lick crème brûlée off her gorgeous, naked, tied-up body.
I panic. I know all the tech VC guys worth knowing; Jack’s the king of VC and his backyard barbecues are a prime networking spot (plus he serves awesome beer). There’s no way I’m not going to know these people—and that they’re not going to know me. Brazen it out. This is just a pitch event.
Pitching to VC firms isn’t like the TV shows. You can’t go in cold and expect to walk away with a million bucks. Lola’s already proved she has skin in the game by investing heavily in Calla, but she’s exhausted the crowdfunding angle. She needs to secure additional capital and this is the only feasible way to do so.
Sure enough, as soon as I follow Lola into the bland office suite where we’re pitching, I spot familiar faces. Trey and Ben are savvy investors with an eye for spotting new companies that need additional seed money. They’re not unicorn chasers—they’re not looking for a billion-dollar payout—but they get results. Their companies make money.
They nod at me, clearly curious. Lola is already introducing herself and then she gestures to me. “This is—”
“Devlin King.” I cut her off. “I’m sitting in.”
I’ll pay for that interruption later, but it buys me some time. Trey and Ben settle back in their seats while Lola runs through her pitch deck, making the case for Calla. She covers management talent, the financial forecast and Calla’s product. Yes, she’s showing pictures of tampons to three guys. VC isn’t a loan scenario; Lola won’t be paying them back with interest. Typically, the VC guys get their return on investment when you either IPO or sell the company.
I’m reluctantly impressed. She’s done her homework. Still, if she were pitching to me, I’d tell her she was too early. She hasn’t gone to market yet, so even though she has a warehouse of product, she also has no customer traction despite promises from fifty thousand starry-eyed do-gooders claiming they’ll beat down her doors to purchase ethically manufactured feminine hygiene products. It’s interesting, but not something you can bank on, at least not yet.
There’s certainly not enough in it for Trey and Ben, and the three of us know it. In dating terms, she’s offering a cup of coffee and a chance to chat when they’re looking for a hot hookup and huge immediate gratification. So I interject and point out it’s not just about tampon access. It’s also about the underlying order and delivery mechanism—developing a working software prototype that can be repackaged and resold for other products. That makes Trey and Ben start thinking.
When we’re done, Lola hightails it out of the conference room like her gorgeous ass is on fire.
“Are you—” Trey stops me on the way out. He’s actually a decent guy.
Sleeping with Lola? Yes.
In way over my head? Hell, yes.
“Working with Lola Jones? Yes, I am. I think it’s important to give back to the community and her software design is top-notch.”
Trey nods. I have to hand it to him—he keeps a straight face when I suggest my motivation is charitable. My reputation is the perfect red herring to distract from my feelings about Lola. “If you’re backing her, I think we can get on board. I’ll review her deck and have my assistant send her an invitation to pitch to our management team.”
I nod, thanking God when the elevator doors slide open. I’ve avoid
ed lying outright, but Trey clearly assumes that I’m mentoring Lola and have given her the King seal of approval. He probably also thinks we’re sleeping together and that’s why I’m taking an interest. For a shot at my network, he’ll take a small chance on Lola. It sucks that’s how Silicon Valley works because she’s got a great product vision. It’s just her timing that’s off.
Lola isn’t in the lobby; I find her standing outside our pitch venue, foot tapping impatiently while she waits on the curb and glares at her phone. She doesn’t glance up when I look over her shoulder. Our Uber is just around the corner, but with San Francisco traffic, that means minutes at best. Her phone dings; Trey has sent a request for a follow-up.
I glance at her. “Congratulations.”
“What were you doing in there?”
“Our meeting?”
She nods. Tread carefully.
“Pitching?”
She gives me the bird. “Let’s try again, Mr. King. That was my meeting and I was pitching. You were observing and learning.”
“You’re unhappy I stepped in.”
“You didn’t step in,” she hisses. “You took over. You decided that you had a better plan and so you just went ahead and executed it—like you always do.”
“And it worked,” I growl, waving off the Uber when it pulls up. “You got your follow-up. Trey’s going to fund you unless you burp the alphabet at your next meeting. I was helping.”
“You took over. And you just did it again.” She gestures at the departing Uber. “This is my life, my business, my choices. You are my intern. I am your boss. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
