The Lovers: Cards of Love Series

by Cole, Fiona

  The Lovers

  Cards of Love Series

  Fiona Cole

  Copyright © 2018 by Fiona Cole

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Designer: Lori Jackson, Lori Jackson Design

  Interior Design: Indie Girl Promotions

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For anyone who has been scared to

  admit who they really are.

  Even to themselves.

  Never forget you’re a limited edition.

  Contents

  Playlist

  1. Jake

  2. Carina

  3. Jackson

  4. Jake

  5. Jackson

  6. Jake

  7. Carina

  8. Jake

  9. Jackson

  10. Jackson

  11. Jake

  12. Jake

  13. Jackson

  14. Jake

  15. Jackson

  16. Jackson

  17. Jake

  18. Jake

  19. Carina

  20. Jackson

  21. Jackson

  22. Jake

  23. Carina

  24. Jake

  25. Jackson

  26. Jake

  27. Carina

  28. Jake

  29. Jackson

  30. Jackson

  31. Jake

  Epilogue

  The End

  Cards of Love Series

  Review

  Acknowledgments

  Voyeur

  About Fiona Cole

  Also by Fiona Cole

  Playlist

  Dancing On My Own - Callum Scott

  Like I Can - Sam Smith

  Love Love Love - Of Monsters and Men

  The Cure - Lady Gaga

  Happily - One Direction

  Unconditionally - Katy Perry

  Love In the Dark - Adele

  Born to Be Yours - Kygo & Imagine Dragons

  Let Me Go - Hailee Steinfeld & Alesso (ft. Florida Georgia Line & watt)

  All I Ask - Adele

  Stand By Me - Florence + The Machine

  Happier - Marshmallow & Bastille

  Promises - Calvin Harris & Same Smith

  Rewrite the Stars - Zac Efron & Zendaya

  1

  Jake

  "You up for a quickie in your office over lunch?"

  "Jake Wellington." Carina pretend-gasped with her hand to her chest. "How scandalous." Her parted lips tipped up into a delicious smirk. "It's a good thing I didn't wear panties today."

  I groaned and fell back into the office chair of the meeting room just as five other employees entered to grab their seats. A moment later, David Russo walked in and I knew the chance of slipping my hand up Carina's skirt to confirm her claim had passed.

  She didn't look directly at me but smiled when she saw me adjusting myself under the table. I considered checking anyways just to watch her squirm but figured it wouldn't be the best call to finger your boss's daughter right in front of him. Didn't matter if she was your fiancée or not. Or that your last name was on the building.

  "Morning, everyone. Grab a file and pass it around. We have a new client. Daniel Witt, owner of Voyeur."

  When the files made their way around to our side of the table, I reached past Carina to grab them, ensuring to rub the back of my hand along her breasts. Her little gasp shot straight down my spine and into my cock.

  "I've already received everyone's NDAs I sent earlier in the week," David continued. "I have to stress that your discretion is of top priority. While we are being hired to set up a new bar for Mr. Witt, his other business holdings will be disclosed to us for informational purposes. The bar, Voy, will be separate from his club, Voyeur, but he still wants the two to run in a similar fashion and has agreed to allow us access to Voyeur to study what protocols he already has in place and work from there."

  Looking over the basic front page, I saw that there wasn't much description of Voyeur at all. It was only explained as ‘Private Club’.

  "Will we get more information about Voyeur than what is presented to us here?" Carina asked.

  "Yes. You and Jake will be taking the lead on this project. You'll do the visual marketing, and Jake will analyze the types of markets and see what will work best for Daniel. Once you and the team have had time to set up, Daniel will answer any questions you will have. He was very tight-lipped and wanted to keep information on a need-to-know basis."

  The meeting continued as the others asked questions about the roles they would be playing in the process. Businesses hired us as a full marketing firm, whether they were just beginning or needing to update a failing aspect of their company. Wellington and Russo created an eight-man marketing team designed to meet the specifications.

  When Carina's father left the room, I squeezed the tight muscles of her shoulders. She worked harder than anyone to prove herself to her father—who believed in her, but also had an archaic, jaded belief about how men viewed women in business settings.

  "This is going to be a great opportunity to prove what a lady-boss you are."

  She chuckled at my use of ‘lady-boss.’

  "Maybe someday I'll be able to run a project by myself."

  I kissed her temple. "Well, we are Wellington and Russo, and I kind of have to uphold my end of Wellington. Promise not to leave me in the dust."

  "I'll try not to."

  Carina's father and mine merged marketing companies when we were both young. We'd run and played in the empty hallways at the office while our fathers worked late. She'd always been my friend in some sort of way, whether it was when we were little, or through the occasional email as we went through different high schools and colleges, or when we began working full-time post-college and became best friends.

  We'd both come from college with something weighing us down, and it was like once we started talking, it fell away, and we were left with each other, someone to forget the past with and find our future in.

  And even now, after I'd asked her to marry me, she would always be my friend first. I loved her for it. Loved how she was always there—always would be.

  Which had made our parents beyond happy since they'd formed a long-running joke about merging families as well as the company. Unfortunately, my dad hadn't been around to see our relationship form. He'd died almost two years ago from a sudden heart attack. Carina had been my rock more than ever then and I couldn't imagine losing someone so important to me.

  I'd already lost one best friend in college—one I did my best not to think about—and I wasn't prepared to lose another. Feeling that desperation to keep Carina had been the driving force behind me asking her to marry me. I couldn't imagine spending my life with anyone else.

  If it wasn't that all-consuming passion that my mother raved about from her romance books, that was fine. Carina and I had a healthy respect for each other and an overly healthy sex-life that made a future with her all the more desirable.

  Carina addressed the team members and brought me back to the meeting. "Jake and I will be the main contact with Daniel as well as his partners on this project. We'll have meetings here every Monday to touch base and compile our information."


  "Connor, I'll need to meet with you more often to go over the research and analytics," I said. "But we can discuss that later. I'll send you an email once we have more information."

  "Are there any questions?" Carina asked.

  A few people spoke up, but the meeting was over before we knew it, and everyone piled out heading to lunch.

  I stepped up behind Carina and dragged my hands down her back to cup her delicious ass. "So, I'll meet you in your office?"

  "Yes, let me make some copies of these files and I'll meet you there." The last words came out on a breathy moan as I kissed and bit down her neck. "Would it be too much to ask for you to be naked and tied to my desk when I got there?"

  "How about when you get there, I'll tie you to the desk and spank you before fucking you?"

  She rubbed her ass against my aching length. "Deal."

  She quickly turned in my arms and pecked my lips before walking out of the room. I took a moment to let my erection go down before I followed. But when I saw her disappear into the copy room across the hall, an idea struck me.

  Making sure no one was looking, I pushed through the door and closed it behind me, the lock clicking in place, announcing my presence behind her.

  "Jake? What are you doing?"

  I didn't say a thing, prowling across the small space, the whir of the copy machine the only sound. Once I reached her, I demanded, "Turn around."

  She complied like she always did. I liked to push the limits, and she ran to the edge with me every time.

  Pressing myself against her, I gripped her hands and rested them on the copier. "Remember the first time we fucked?"

  "How could I ever forget?"

  "Well, if you did forget, I figure I could remind you."

  "Then, no. I completely forget the first time I ever felt your cock stretch my pussy."

  I pressed my fingers against her thighs and slowly dragged them up and down her soft skin; chills electrifying across my skin as I remembered stumbling in the copy room, panicked from encountering a past I tried not to think of. I saw her there—my best friend, a woman—and I attacked. After her slight shock in the moment, she gave as good as she got and attacked me in return.

  "I always wondered how I was so lucky to have you that day. We'd never really been like that with each other and yet, when I stormed into the room and went after you, you let me."

  "Well, I'd hardly call myself unlucky. Just because I never thought about fucking you before didn't mean I was going to turn down a good thing. Besides, my father had said something or another to piss me off. I can't even remember what it was now. You came in looking like a good distraction."

  I had to pause a moment because while she may not remember her reasons why she decided to let me attack her that day in the copy room, I remembered what drove me there. I guess we both were looking for an escape in each other almost three years ago.

  "Why didn't you ask for more? I knew you enjoyed it." I bit up her neck and whispered in her ear. "At least three times."

  She moved one of my palms to her breast and I complied, massaging and rolling her nipple between my fingers.

  Her breathy explanation had me on edge. She could have recited calculus in that voice and I'd be ready for her. "We weren't in a place for a relationship then." Her moan vibrated against my lips as I worked her skirt up over her ass. "I'm glad we waited so we can have this. A future."

  This was much better than losing someone else.

  "Now fuck me before I decide to give you the ring back."

  Freeing my cock, I pushed all of my past aside like I usually did when I was with Carina and obeyed my fiancée.

  "Yes, Ma'am. One hard fuck coming right up."

  2

  Carina

  I loved lazy Sundays. Especially when I spent them with my fiancé inside me.

  My hips dug into the back of the couch as Jake thrust roughly, groaning his orgasm behind me. Aftershocks of my own release shot through my limbs.

  Sex with Jake was always off the charts.

  He slipped from my core and walked to the kitchen for a towel to clean up. "You want Chinese or pizza for dinner tonight?" he shouted over his shoulder.

  It was everything between our heated romps that seemed to be less than exciting.

  Maybe because we'd been friends before we were more. It gave us a level of comfort with each other that didn't add to the pressure to try so hard to woo and cuddle.

  "Chinese is fine," I answered, tugging my dress down over my hips.

  With the order placed, he walked up to me and pressed a kiss to my forehead. "I'm gonna go shower."

  Holding him close when he went to move away, I tugged his head down and whispered against his lips, "Want me to join you?"

  He nipped playfully but pulled back. "Nah. I'm just going to rinse off. You worked me over hard." Another kiss to the forehead, followed by a wink, and then he was gone.

  I watched him move down the hall and snag a towel from the linen closet before disappearing into my bathroom. He moved around my apartment as if it was his own.

  Not surprising, considering he was here almost as much as his own apartment, three floors up. I couldn't wait for the day when his lease was up, and we moved in together.

  It'd been almost three years since our romp in the copy room the first time. It'd been almost two since we'd fallen into each other's arms again. His dad had just died, and he'd sought comfort in my body, comfort I'd so freely given. However, the difference between our first time three years ago and the next after his dad's funeral was that we were ready. We were ready for more, and more is what we gave each other.

  Then about three months ago he popped the question. It had lacked all the romantic gestures as we sat there on the couch watching a cooking show. He'd turned to me and said, "Marry me." Of course, I'd said yes, and we consummated our engagement right there on the living room floor. He'd woken me two mornings later by sliding a two carat, round diamond on my finger.

  My phone rang from my briefcase, pulling me out of my thoughts. Seeing "Dad" on the screen, I took a deep breath and prepared myself. I loved my dad, but sometimes our expectations didn't mesh and created tension.

  "Hey, Dad."

  "Hey, sweet girl. How are you?"

  "Good. Just about to sit down for dinner with Jake."

  "Oh, good." He sounded happier than I was that Jake was over, which was saying something. "Tell him I said hi. I feel like I haven't seen him all week. I don't know how the hell that happens with us working in the same building," he said with a chuckle.

  My dad loved Jake. When our fathers merged companies, a running joke began that Jake and I would have an arranged marriage. Somewhere along the way, the joke became less of a joke and more of a hope from our fathers.

  I always rolled my eyes when my dad hinted at it, telling me Jake would be a good husband and a perfect man to run the company. And with me as his wife, the Russo name would remain in the company until we had boys we could pass it on to. Sometimes his dreams were archaic.

  However, Jake was a sexy man, who made me laugh and fucked like a freight train. A girl could do worse. And as much as I hated my father being old-fashioned, I'd always yearned for his approval. And marrying Jake would be the best thing in his eyes. Jake and I would end up running the company together, side-by-side, and my father would be forced to admit how wrong he was as I brought in a whole new clientele and took Wellington and Russo to new marketing heights.

  "Okay. I'll pass along the hello."

  "Good, good. Also, I wanted to remind you that Jake will be joining you at the meeting next week. You'll want to review your points with him before you go in."

  Of course he would. Because a woman couldn't attend a meeting alone according to my father. For a man who grew up with four sisters, he was very old-fashioned in believing business was a man's world and a woman couldn't handle her own in it.

  "You know I can do it on my own," I reminded him defensively. It was a useless argument, espe
cially because I'd already confirmed the meeting with Jake.

  "Carina." My name came out on a sigh filled with exasperation. "This has nothing to do with you being a woman and everything with Jake needing to be there. He will end up working more closely with them than you, so I want the relationship built early."

  His explanation took the wind out of my sails, and I felt like a petulant child for assuming. At least I did until he spoke again.

  "Besides, all the deals have been made. No negotiations will be happening for you to worry about. They just need your womanly touch to make their marketing pop."

  I ground my molars together, barely holding back a growl. I'd graduated the top of my class and was a highly sought-after marketing analyst. I was damn smart and knew that no man in the company could hold a candle to me. I hadn't just been given the lead position at the company because of nepotism, I'd earned it.

  I was about to lay into him, letting my frustration fly, until Jake came strolling from the steamy bathroom in a pair of sweats hanging low on his hips. I swallowed my anger and figured I had much better things I could do with my mouth.

  "Well, I have to go, Dad. I'll see you at work next week."

  After I hit the red button, I tossed my phone next to Jake's on the counter and stared at his muscles flexing as he ran the towel over his hair. Fuck, he made my body ache and my heart jump.

  "Like what you see, Russo?" he taunted from the hall, coming toward me.