Right. Misplaced. “File thirteen.” That’s code for trash. I deleted Cynthia’s number about thirty seconds after I found out she was married. “I can find plenty of single women to date.”
“Blow up dolls don’t count.” Oz reaches for Chloe’s plate, and she cuts him down with a laser stare. He blanches and draws back an empty hand, at which point, Oz turns his smartassery back on me. “Regardless of what the gossip columns say, I know you haven’t been out with a woman in a while. Are you sure you’re not gay?” He makes a sweeping motion to indicate my attire. “I mean, you did take to the whole metro-stylish look like a duck takes to water.” Oz hitches his chin at Magnus and Gerard. “What do you guys think?”
They look me up and down. And that’s not the least bit awkward since they’re a married gay couple, and I’m straight as a fucking arrow.
Gerard shakes his head. “Not registering on my gay-dar.” He looks at his husband, who has one arm crossed over his chest and is tapping his jaw with the other hand as he studies me. “You?”
Finally, Magnus shakes his head. “Straight.” He sighs like it’s a shame, and he and Gerard wander into the dining room to join the fray of guests. And probably to polish off the rest of the champagne. Gerard is from Appalachian moonshine country, even if he acts European. Ish.
I take out my phone and delete the contact info Oz just texted to me. “Oops. I’m pretty bad about misplacing things these days.”
“That’s why you need an assistant,” Leo says. “I’m tired of both of you using mine. She has too much on her plate.”
My longtime assistant moved to California a few months ago, and I’ve yet to replace her. Oz, on the other hand, chews them up and spits them out like gum.
“I’m not going to be around enough to need an assistant of my own,” I say.
Both of my business partners frown at me. Chloe stops chopping some sort of unrecognizable vegetable and gives me a soft look.
“That’s what we need to discuss during Monday morning’s business meeting. During the expansion, I may have to be on-site more than we’d planned.” I reach for another hors d’oeuvre now that Chloe’s look seems more sympathetic.
She slides the plate in my direction.
“You’re still going to need an assistant.” Leo shrugs. “So we hire someone who can travel with you.”
I’ve got enough to worry about. I don’t want an assistant tagging along. Maybe after things settle down, I can hire someone, but not until I figure out what the hell I’m doing overseas. Until then, I’ve worked out a plan with Leo’s assistant. It’s called email, telephone, and Skype—pretty cool inventions. And it’ll be fine. I just have to nip Leo’s determined look in the bud before it takes root and grows into an oak tree. When he gets an idea in his head, he won’t let it go until the rest of us surrender. That’s how I ended up on the cover of GQ instead of Technology Today.
It’s also the reason my parents disowned me.
“No assistant right now.” I shake my head.
Leo ignores me. “I’ll have Human Resources start interviewing applicants.” He pops a carrot into his mouth and chomps. “Maybe we should hire a guy instead of a woman.” Ava walks in, holding an empty platter at the same moment Leo says, “Otherwise, you’ll end up fucking her.”
Ava stops cold and stares at her brother, then at me. The brightness in her eyes dims. It’s hardly noticeable, but I notice everything about Ava.
Oz laughs. “Dex fucking his assistant,” he says to Chloe, since she’s our public relations account rep. “Now there’s a PR nightmare for you.”
Ava’s eyes simmer, and her face flushes. Just barely, but I’ve come to learn every movement, every gesture, every miniscule flash of emotion in her expression, and I know this bothers her.
No one else seems to notice that Ava’s usual grand entrance has been replaced with silence.
And they call me obtuse.
An ache starts deep in my chest, but my chest expands at the same time because of what I hope this means. Her feelings for me might go deeper than friendship. And doesn’t that make me frontrunner for Asshole of the Year? I mean, really. I deserve a trophy or something, because no matter how we might feel about each other, I can’t go there. But I don’t like the look of disappointment on her face, and I want to do something…anything to wipe it away.
Truth is, I know exactly what I want to do to her. I want to take her in my arms and kiss her. I want to peel that goddamn dress off of her and fuck her to the edge of heaven. All night long.
Since that’s not possible, I scramble to salvage the situation some other way. “I don’t want any attachments while I’m working on the expansion, so I won’t be fucking anybody for a while.”
The shade of Ava’s face deepens to scarlet.
Shit.
She’s so still, she could be carved from marble. She’s a work of art, more beautiful than any of the famous pieces I see in the museums around Europe when I travel there for business.
I’m a founding partner of a cutting-edge company that has made me filthy rich. I have a kick-ass apartment not far from here with a killer view. I’ve been labeled a drop-dead gorgeous player in the city that never sleeps. All things that can get me laid any night of the week and much more than twice on Sunday. So why does it suck so goddamn hard to be me right now?
Chapter Two
I ease into the living room and pour myself a Macallan neat from the wet bar. I escape the crowd by hiding in the corner shadows of Leo’s expansive balcony while I sip the rich whisky. The late autumn air is crisp and cold, and it prickles my skin. The bustling city noises from below drift up to meet me as I take in the magnificence of the Manhattan skyline at night.
It’s a far cry from where I grew up. Princeton, New Jersey’s small college town charm, where both of my parents are professors, is a different world, and my childhood seems like another lifetime.
I love a party as much as the next guy. And since I’m friendly, outgoing, and usually dressed to kill—or at least maim—New York City’s liveliness is my gig. But I’m not in a party mood after seeing the hurt in Ava’s eyes.
I brace my forearms against the railing, roll the fine single malt scotch around in my glass, and brood.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, I have a yearning to go home to New Jersey. A pull deep in my chest to see my parents and the home where I grew up. Only I’ve been there and done that. Tried to reach out to them and reestablish contact after they cut me off for “wasting my gifted mind on Leo’s hair-brained folly.”
I blow out a smirk and take another drink. Even my intellectual parents, who put academics above all else, can’t deny that Checkmate Inc. turned out to be anything but foolishness. A company that started with biologically engineered cologne for men that is specifically designed to produce supercharged pheromone production in women has to be the most brilliant stupid idea on the planet.
Sort of like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Who knew it would be a worldwide success, right?
Leo, Oz, and I managed to turn that pathetic idea, as my parents called it, into what will soon be a worldwide chain that makes truckloads of money.
The balcony door slides open behind me, and heels click against the tile. I don’t turn around because I know it’s Ava. I have this super power to detect her presence. It wraps around me like a soft, velvety blanket. It warms me from the inside out, just like the Macallan.
It doesn’t hurt that her personality is bigger than the Empire State Building, and she’s impossible to ignore.
I hear her fingers slide across the patio table as she walks past it. “Hey.” She eases up to the railing and stands so close that her perfume makes my brain stutter and my dick twitch.
“Hey, Rookie.” I take another drink.
I can sense her smile through the darkness.
She’s got Leo and Chloe’s little dog tucked under one arm, and he whines. I scratch Toby’s tiny head. He strains toward me and almost wiggles out o
f Ava’s grasp.
“Whoa.” I grab him because the thought of the little guy shooting over the balcony makes me nauseous. “I think he’s safer inside.” I set my glass on the table, crack the door just enough so he can fit through, and slide it shut again. He presses his little wet nose against the glass and looks up at me. “Sorry, buddy.” I kneel down and talk to him through the glass like he can hear. “Can’t let anything happen to you.” His tongue lolls to one side, and he turns and trots away.
“You think my party’s lame,” Ava blurts.
I grab my drink and rejoin her at the railing, with my forehead crinkled. No idea what she’s talking about. “What makes you say that?”
I’m facing her, looking down at her. She lifts her gaze to mine, and the distant city lights cast a glow across her flawless face.
“Well, you’re out here alone for one.” Her breath caresses my jaw and neck.
Goddamn, I want to kiss her. I want to lift her against the wall right here and now and fuck her until her screams of pleasure shatter every window in the building. I’ve wondered what she’d look like in the throes of an all-out, mind-blowing orgasm. Dreamed of it. Fantasized about it.
But I can’t get sideways with my business partner over his sister. Not with Checkmate’s expansion at stake. It could ruin us. And I’m one hundred and fifty percent certain Leo wouldn’t appreciate either having to replace all that glass or me fucking his sister. Especially since he regularly makes Oz and I renew our vow to cut the balls off any douchebag who tries to make a move on his baby sister.
His words, not mine. I often wonder if Leo has actually looked at his little sister lately. It’s pretty apparent to anyone with eyesight that she’s not a baby. My stare brushes over her mouth-watering cleavage. Nor is she little.
“I needed a minute alone.” My voice is gravelly. Hopefully, I sound tired and not sexually frustrated. Truth is, I’m so fucking both. I’m tired and sexually frustrated from not being able to have the woman I want. “Jet lag is a bitch.” Still facing her, I lean against the railing again. “Plus Leo and Oz can be dicks sometimes.”
“Not wanting you to fuck the help is kind of dick-ish,” Ava deadpans. She takes my drink from my hand without asking and sips it.
She’s probably the only person who can get away with that. She can drink from my glass, eat from my plate, lick anything from my—
She takes another sip and traces her lips with the tip of her tongue as she sets the glass on the railing. “Maybe this will warm me up. It’s cold out.” She shivers and rubs her arms with both hands.
In a flash, I’ve shucked my jacket, and I drape it around her shoulders.
“Thank you.” She snuggles into it. “What you said in there…you know…” She takes another sip, then pulls a plump bottom lip between her teeth like she’s nervous. “If you stop sleeping around, New York’s gossip rags might go out of business. You’ve been their favorite bachelor for a few years now.”
“It’s called gossip for a reason. My image is blown way out of proportion.” I gotta be honest, though. A few years ago when my mind, my heart, and my prick started to notice Ava as a woman, I tried to fuck her out of my system by shagging a different woman every weekend. I was a perfect gentleman about it and never tried to hide my aversion to long-term commitment. Every woman I was with went in with her eyes wide open. That fuck-athon lasted about six months, but the reputation stuck, and I’m still labeled as one of the Big Apple’s most eligible bachelors.
And my attraction to Ava only grew stronger because no other woman can compare.
Ava pulls the jacket closed in front and snuggles deeper into it like it’s the most comfortable thing she’s ever worn. My jacket looks good on her. I bet the tailored dress shirt I’m wearing would look even better. I picture her in nothing but my shirt. She’s riding me like a Harley, her full tits bouncing with each thrust.
Shit. I run a hand through my black, wavy hair. “I meant what I said in the kitchen. I’ve got to stay focused on the expansion. We’ve got a lot riding on it.”
And shit again. When I say the word riding, my dick strains against my pants, begging to get out and take Ava for the ride of her life.
I try to regroup. Refocus. Re-fucking-anything to keep my mind from going to fantasyland with Leo’s sister. “I’ll be spending a lot of time overseas. Maybe for the next couple of years.” I shrug. “I just don’t know how long it will take. The wheels turn much slower overseas than they do here. This is my responsibility and my idea, so I can’t drop the ball.” The financial risk is also much bigger than our market analysts anticipated. I don’t want to let my partners down, so I’m going to work twenty-four-seven while I’m overseas to make sure this venture works. And so I don’t turn out to be the loser my parents expected me to be once I joined forces with Leo. “Looks like I’ll pretty much be living abroad until this project is finished and stable.”
It’s probably my imagination, but Ava seems to stop breathing. Finally, she asks, “When do you expect to leave?”
“A couple of weeks from now. Three at most. I’ll come up with a plan with Oz and Leo, and hand off as many of my stateside responsibilities as I can. Then I’m gone.”
“I’ll miss you.” I swear her voice is a soft, sad whisper.
I shake it off. “I’ll miss you too, Rookie.” I can’t help the gloom in my own voice. I’ll miss her so fucking much that my chest already aches, and I’m not even gone yet.
“Well…” She shifts and closes the small space between us. “…if you’re leaving me…”
Like I said, her presence is like a blanket that wraps around me and pulls me in until my skin burns hot for her touch. I want to bury my face in her hair, then kiss her until she’s too breathless to say anything but my name. I so could because we’re standing in the shadowed corner of the balcony where the guests inside can’t see us.
“And since you’re my best friend and it’s my birthday and all, I need a favor.” Honest to God, there’s a purr in her voice. “Think of it as a special birthday present.”
“’Course,” I say. “You know you can count on me.” Truth is, I’d do anything for her. All she has to do is ask.
She stays silent for a beat, then she draws in a breath that’s heavy. Almost wistful. “I’ve always been able to count on you as much as I can count on Leo.” Her voice is low. “I’m sort of the sister you never had, right?”
I guess that’s true, seeing as how I’m an only child. Except I don’t look at Ava the way I’d expect to look at a sister. In fact, I’m positive I don’t see her through the same lens as her brother.
“What’s the favor, Rookie?”
“Promise you’ll say yes?”
“Anything. Just name it.” I pick up the glass and pull in a mouthful of whiskey. It singes my throat as it glides down to warm my insides.
She pulls that lip between her teeth and nibbles again. I can’t fucking help myself. I almost come unglued right here and now. I’ll get down on my hands and knees and crawl across broken glass if that’s what she wants. And that glass I’d be crawling through? Even better if it shattered during the multiple ear-splitting orgasms I’d have just given her.
“You’re a great lay, right?”
I sputter single malt scotch over the balcony, choking and coughing and gasping for air. I set my glass down on the railing again before I drop it.
“Jesus, Ava,” I say when I can finally speak again. I should be used to her boldness and the way she constantly catches me off guard. No, that’s an understatement. The way she constantly barrels through my guard, storms the gates, and takes no prisoners is a more accurate description.
“I need a date next weekend, and it needs to be someone impressive.” Her tone takes a teasing turn down Naughty Lane. “And if you weren’t a great lay with the looks and image to go with it, you wouldn’t make it into the gossip magazines, right? I mean, look at you, Dex.” Her hand sweeps my length. “With your black-as-sin hair, dark brood
ing eyes, olive complexion, and playboy smile, you obviously don’t have any trouble getting laid. Women love you. Your whole look screams ‘I’m great in bed.’”
Fuck’s sake.
I take my Armani glasses off and pinch the corners of my eyes. “I haven’t had any complaints in that department.”
“I bet you haven’t.” The words roll off her tongue like velvet. “Which is why you’re perfect. Everyone at my high school homecoming reunion will think I’m sleeping with a stud, but there won’t be a big public breakup with tears or tantrums…” She taps her chin, and she’s back in classic Ava mode. “Or one of us getting a sex change, which the gossip rags would probably love, but anyway…” She hauls in a breath. “So you’ll do it?”
She looks up at me with big, blue eyes. They’re begging me to say yes. I shouldn’t. I really fucking shouldn’t. A guy only has so much self-control, and this could ruin so many things. My business, my friendship with Leo. My friendship with Ava.
I fully intend to tell her I can’t. It’s a bad idea.
Imagine my surprise when I open my mouth and out pops, “Sure, I’ll be your date.”
Chapter Three
How can a smart guy be such a dumbass? Agreeing to be Ava’s date isn’t the most intelligent thing I’ve ever done. Not when I already want her so much, and she’s completely off limits.
“Thanks, Dex.” Ava throws her arms around my neck and kisses my cheek.
I scan the wall of glass to make sure none of the guests inside have discovered us lurking in the shadows of Leo’s massive balcony. Swear to God, he could host the state fair on this patio.
She lingers against me, and my hands instinctively slide inside my jacket that is draped around her shoulders. My palms encase her hips so perfectly it seems like she’s made for me. My fingers flex into her flesh to hold her in place for a few seconds more. I don’t want to let her go.
In fact, I’d love to leave a bite mark on top of one of the hip bones pressing into my palms. Okay, I’d like to leave marks on both hip bones and a few spots in-between.
Rookie Moves (A Checkmate Inc. Novel Book 2) Page 2
