by Alice Ward
“Shh.” She looked at the other panelists, annoyed, then turned her back on me.
Okay. If that’s how she was going to play it. I leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Thank you. I appreciate that view of your fantastic ass.”
She jumped forward as if I’d stuck a cattle prod down her pants.
I loved it.
She was here. And she fucking hated me. It didn’t bother me in the least. Because she was here. And it definitely didn’t bother my cock. Memories of her touch, her scent, teemed inside me, and my cock pulsed with each one as we were led to the long table. I sat down beside her, thinking about those sweet, primal sounds she’d made as I pleasured her, wondering how much she’d object if I put my hand on her thigh under the skirted table.
When she turned to me, her lip curled in a snarl, I figured she’d object a lot.
I knew just how to make her squirm. When we were situated in our chairs, I lifted my briefcase onto my lap and opened it. From it, I pulled all my favorites. Color Bombs, Twinkle Toes, Cream Crinkles, and of course, the pièce de résistance, the Heigh-di-Ho. I arranged them in a nice pyramid in front of me. Heck, never miss an opportunity to advertise, that’s what my dad always said.
Jewel made a clucking noise with her tongue. She purposefully ignored me, not even turning my way as the forum got underway. The auditorium was packed, standing room only, and I had my typical rebuttals to the presentations prepared, but they all went along the wayside as my thoughts turned to Jewel. Juliana.
Sitting right next to me.
Close enough to touch. To take.
I’d get her in my bed tonight if it killed me.
From the snarl on her face, that was a very real possibility.
But it would happen anyway.
After the first doctor spoke, in a dull monotone that nearly put the audience into a coma, Greer came up to the podium. She smiled at the audience. “Our next presenter has devoted her career to tackling the very real problem of obesity in children. As a nutritionist in this very city, she deals specifically with eating disorders in young people and has a very special viewpoint to lend to this discussion. She is passionate about this cause.”
I rolled my eyes. Special, whatever. Okay, her devotion was impressive. And she looked sexy as hell in that pink sweater. But come on. If she wanted a cause to be passionate about, I could give her some ideas.
“Please welcome, from the Healthy Steps Nutritional Center, Miss Juliana Hurley.”
I moved slightly to give her room to step out, but she didn’t need my help. She pushed away from the table and skirted around me like I was infected. She reached the podium and began to speak.
Meanwhile, I sat behind her, my eyes fastened on the S of her curves, the way her waist spread out to an ass that perfectly filled out her smart gray slacks. God, she was a gorgeous woman.
“I, um, was not just an overweight child. I was morbidly obese, and it affected my health, both physical and mental,” she stated.
Morbidly obese?
I looked over my shoulder to the PowerPoint presentation. On the slide was an old photograph of a girl with Juliana’s big blue eyes and blonde hair, surrounded by a mass of extra flesh. She wasn’t kidding. She had been obese.
Still beautiful, though. Those sparkling eyes. Who could resist them?
Well, what did you know? Now, the mystery of my Jewel was starting to come into view. Her shyness. Her self-consciousness. The reason she was a slave to the gym. The reason she looked at snack cakes like they were the devil.
She continued. Nothing very revelatory. Obesity epidemic… children need healthier choices… blah blah blah. She was intelligent too, clearly, and though I understood why she had her opinions, I wasn’t going to agree. She didn’t say anything I didn’t know or present a perspective I hadn’t heard at least a thousand times before. When she went on about how schools needed to provide healthier lunches to low-income people, I raised my hand respectfully.
Of course, she wasn’t facing me, so Ms. Greer had to point out, “I believe Mr. Vaughn, behind you, has a question?”
Again, she jumped like I’d hit her with a cattle prod. She turned. Horror filled her eyes. “I believe, um,” She looked at Greer for confirmation. “We were going to wait until the end of my presentation?”
Ms. Greer nodded, but I interjected, “It will only take a moment of your time.”
She sucked in and then let out a great big breath. “Yes?” she muttered but she looked terrified in a way I couldn’t understand.
“I was just wondering how you plan to fund those healthier choices you’re speaking of.”
“Well, it’s simple,” she said. “If we penalize the school district for not offering—”
“Yes, but you see,” I said, leaning back in my chair, owning this. “Vaughn Industries, as well as my colleagues in the food service business here, are responsible for providing more than sixty-percent of the free lunches offered in the city out of our own pockets. We don’t benefit in any way from that. The three of us are responsible for the most sizable donation to public education and welfare that exists today. And you’re saying you want to throw us out of the deal. What will happen when these kids don’t have school lunches, period?”
The crowd murmured. Our eyes locked. Ordinarily, I never would have interrupted her presentation.
I just wanted to see that cute little ass of hers squirm.
She narrowed her eyes at me. Her voice was cool. “Free does not have to be subpar when it comes to nutrition, Mr. Vaughn.”
“Perhaps, but the fact remains that we have so many mouths to feed,” I went on, watching her cheeks turn a sweet shade of pink. “And we can feed more people, more economically, with—”
“Bullshit!” she burst out, then covered her mouth as she looked back at the thousand or so people staring wide-eyed at her. A flush had begun to appear on her neck, the same flush that had been there when I’d put my tongue in her sweet pussy.
She cleared her throat. Her hand went to her neck, almost as if there was an invisible button there she was playing with. “What I mean is, there are farmers who will work with us. Co-ops. I’ve run the numbers. I have put together a proposal where I can put just as many healthy meals in the schools as we currently do, for even less of the cost.”
I snorted and crossed my arms. “Miss Hurley, I’m sure we all would like to see that.”
“I’m sure you would not,” she said, her words clipped. “Because my plan involves taking your nutritionally empty foods out of the schools, for good. Including the ones you’re attempting to place into vending machines across the city. It’s the only way we can curb this epidemic.”
Suddenly, the crowd burst into applause. She turned around, jarred by the sound, almost surprised to see the people there, agreeing with her. Then she turned back to me, waiting for my rebuttal, but I had none. All I had to offer was a grin, even though she’d beaten me. She was too fucking sexy to get too mad at.
She ended her presentation to thunderous applause, and after thanking the audience profusely, started to walk around the end of the podium.
Before she could, I stood up. “What do you have against pleasure, Miss Hurley?”
She stopped. “What?”
The crowd’s noise died down, eager to hear me. I was wired to a microphone, so my voice rang through the auditorium. “You heard me. You must have something against pleasure.”
She narrowed her eyes at me.
I lifted a package of Twinkle Toes up, then opened my phone to a page I’d bookmarked. I started to read, one by one, the testimonials we’d gotten from people. A little bit of heaven on earth… The sweetest part of my day… I look forward to going home after dinner and having my Heigh di Ho… The list went on and on.
She shrugged, and I wanted to sink my teeth into her shoulder. “So?”
“So?” I repeated, shaking my head at her. “It seems that our foods have brought a great deal of happiness to a number of people. And
you’re out to deny people that particular pleasure, is that it?”
She shook her head. “No—”
I bulldozed on, striding out from behind the table. “Let me guess. You’re all about exercise. Drinking water. Eating good food. Heigh-di-Hos do not play a part, is that correct?”
She nodded. “They most definitely will never play a part.”
“I see. I also have a list of people who have died from doing things that you would have deemed healthy. A woman who died from drinking too much water. A man who exercised himself to death. An overweight child who, obsessed with eating healthy, ended up dieting herself to death. So would you agree that anything, done to excess, could be dangerous?”
She pursed her lips. “Obviously, moderation is the—”
“Yes, moderation!” I took another step closer, looking deeply into her eyes. “Moderation is the key. Not denial. We should not deny ourselves pleasure, Miss Hurley.”
As I said that, I swept my eyes over her body. Her nipples were once again poking through the fabric of the sweater, and she was breathing hard, her nostrils flaring. “It all depends on how you define pleasure.”
I knew how she defined pleasure. At least one kind. I’d been there when she’d experienced it. I’d been inside her when she’d experienced it. Or had she forgotten?
No. I knew by the way she trembled that she was thinking of it too, of us, locked together, coming as one.
“Right.” I met her eyes again. “And what gives you the right, Miss Hurley, to define pleasure for another person? Whether they derive it from a trip to the gym or a nutritionally void snack cake? The great thing about this country is that we have a choice. That all these options are available to us, and we get to choose what to put into our bodies.”
She stared at me, daggers shooting from her eyes as I strode across the stage, a grin on my face. Her cheeks were now aflame, and I relished it. I wanted to bring her close to me, to kiss her right there.
“Something tells me,” I said, moving behind her so that she was forced to look over both shoulders in quick succession. Maybe she was afraid I’d push her off the stage, but I had something far more delicious in mind. “That you’ve denied yourself pleasure for far too long, you’ve forgotten what it feels like. So allow me to help fix that.”
In horror, she opened her mouth to protest, to tell me to back off. I imagined her saying that I was the last man she’d want to help her with that. But I knew it would be a lie.
I knew I would probably end up regretting it, but I lifted a spongy, cream-filled Twinkle Toe to her lips. She glared at me, but I saw the desire burning behind the anger.
“I—”
Her eyes went wide as I stuffed it between her lips before I could tell myself this was a bad idea. I regretted the act immediately and reached for the sticky treat.
But she got to it first.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Juliana
How. Dare. He.
The sweetness dazzled my tongue, momentarily blinding me from right and wrong. It brought back memories of days gone by when cakes like that were a source of great comfort to me. It tasted good, I couldn’t deny it.
But it was also impossibly horrible for me. The source of all my teenage woes.
It was bad enough that I’d had to deliver a presentation with my one-night stand right behind me, a one-night stand who’d just revealed himself to be the enemy. After my horrible sex dream, I kept expecting to feel his hands on my waist, lowering my pants before sinking into me from behind.
No wonder I stumbled over my words like an idiot.
And then? Then the bastard had to go and question me, attacking me from all sides, relentlessly, without mercy.
Asshole.
Before the yellow, sticky sponge of cake could get comfortable on my tongue, I was already pushing it out of my mouth and into my hand. I’d never been an athlete, never played a game of softball in my life, but I landed that damn cake right in the center of his forehead.
A clump of it fell off, right on top of his gleaming shoes, and it took everything inside me not to laugh. The crowd laughed for me, cheering for him or me, I wasn’t sure. Either way, I felt like a total idiot. As gracefully as I could manage, I turned on my heel and walked off, grateful I didn’t fall down the steps or break into a run before I shoved the door open.
Before it even slammed shut behind me, I broke into a run down the hall, moving as fast as my clip-cloppy smart heels would carry me. I needed to get away, to go back to Healthy Steps and lick my wounds and pray to wake up from this nightmare.
“Jule!”
I knew it was him. His low, deep voice had a way of hitting chords all over me, in even my most secret places. I steeled myself to keep running because I knew if I stopped and those eyes caught me, I’d be captured. His prey.
I tried to speed up, but he caught me a second later, whirling me around.
“Jule,” he repeated as I looked anywhere but at those hypnotizing eyes. “Hey, Jule. I’m sorry. I got a little out of hand there.”
I let out a short laugh. “You think? I think you got a lot out of hand.”
His hand pushed into my hair, circling the back of my neck, holding me in place. “Yeah. A lot. I’m sorry. How about a little peace offering?” He took my hand and placed a package of Heigh-di-Hos on my palm. It was so stupid of him, I did something I didn’t think I’d ever do again after my humiliation. I laughed. “And there’s more where that came from, if you play your cards right.”
I stared at the package of cakes like it was a grenade before groaning, shaking my head miserably. “I thought you sold toilet paper.”
He gave me a quizzical look. “What?”
“You said fast moving consumer goods, so…” I wrinkled my nose and reached up to wipe some cake from his forehead, “I thought that meant toilet paper.”
“So, you’re upset that I don’t sell toilet paper?” he asked and wiped something from my chin. My stomach twisted when he lifted the crumb covered thumb to his lips and licked it. “We actually do have a division that sells—”
I turned from him, found a garbage can, and dropped the snack cakes in. “You don’t understand. Those Heigh-di-Hos are pretty much the bane of my existence. They destroyed my teenage years.”
“They’re fucking snack cakes. Not heroin.”
I laughed, but it sounded bitter to my own ears. “To some people, they’re just as bad as heroin.”
“What do you mean? Oh, you mean…” He pointed back toward the auditorium, where I’d revealed my childhood shame in front of my one-time lover. I’d thought about going without it in the presentation, to spare myself the embarrassment, but it was too late. It’d already been loaded. “That? You were still beautiful.”
He had to be kidding me. Even if he was serious, did it matter? “But I was unhealthy.”
He nodded, and I was glad he didn’t try to contradict me. “Jule. Juliana…” My full name came off his tongue in a drawn out, unfamiliar way. It hit me like a shot in the heart. “I have a proposition for you.”
I clenched my teeth. That sounded dirty. Even though we’d slept together, he was a stranger. And he was my enemy. Now. Forever. Everything in my world had just shifted and then shifted again, and I had no idea what was up and what was down.
Fate, that bitch, kept throwing us together in the most excruciating ways and throwing up all over me.
“I wondered if you’d present in front of my R&D department,” he said, his expression serious. “They’ve actually been looking into developing a line of healthier snacks. They haven’t come up with anything new on that front since our fat-free line bombed in the nineties. Maybe having you talk to them will… I don’t know. Light a fire under their asses.”
I blinked. That was definitely not the proposition I was expecting. I looked at him, just in time to be captured by those emerald eyes, so earnest and sincere. He meant this.
“What do you say?” he asked, hunching himself over a bit
to be level with my eyes. “Come on. You’re perfect for the job.”
I nodded. Even if he and his snack cakes were the devil incarnate, how could I possibly turn down that opportunity? It was the chance to actually make a difference, even if it did involve consorting with the enemy.
An enemy who smelled amazing. Who looked just as tasty as his devilish snacks.
Ugh. Stop it, Jule! Focus.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I need to think about it. You just stuffed a…” To my horror, my eyes began to burn.
His hands moved to my shoulders, and he pulled me to his chest. “I know. I’m sorry. Please, let me make it up to you.”
I pushed away, looking down, noticing the glob of snack cake still on his shoes.
Who knew, maybe it would change the way they did business. Maybe he just wanted to get in my pants again, or maybe he felt bad for treating me like dirt, but it was an in. And that was what I needed.
“We can talk, but I won’t make any promises.”
“All right,” he said, handing me his phone. “Give me your number.”
I rolled my eyes as I took it from him. “Again?”
His brow knitted. “What do you mean, again?”
“I left my number for you at the hotel.” He just stared blankly at me, so I elaborated. “On a piece of paper, near the coffeemaker?”
“Coffee…” he murmured, and then snapped. “Shit. I spilled the coffee, then I had to clean it up, and I must have… shit.”
I stared at him. So wait, Leah was right? “Are you telling me that you really lost my number?”
He pressed the heel of his hand to his eye. “It appears so.” A smile lit up his face, and he laughed. “Holy shit. I thought you never wanted to see me again. I mean, I thought you left without any contact.”
“I didn’t. I don’t do that,” I said, feeling stupid. Like, of course, I didn’t do that. Didn’t he see what a wreck I used to be, only a few short years ago? I rarely had the chance. I mean, beautiful? I looked like I ate half the city! He had to know this was all new to me. “I thought you just ditched me.”
