“Let me inside you, Jessie,” he whispered against her skin.
“Let me make love to you again.”
She closed her eyes and nodded, unable to speak.
In one move, he gingerly lifted her over the mountain of organza, and pushed it aside with his foot. Then he swirled her around and backed her into the mirror.
She couldn’t think about the dress, the room, the possibility of getting caught. All she could comprehend was the sudden cold surface against her back and the power and size of Cade confining her against the glass.
He trapped her there with his body and gaze and amazing, delicious hands. He lowered his head and captured her with a furious, openmouthed kiss, and a deep moan torn from his chest.
“Nothing,” he murmured into her mouth. “I have thought of nothing but you for forty-eight hours.” He pressed against her, his hands roaming her body.
She turned her head as he trailed his lips over her cheek and teased the edge of her ear with his tongue, opening her eyes to see the vision of Cade in his jaw-dropping black T-shirt and sexy blue jeans, all hard and muscular and touching every inch of her naked body. The reflection in two mirrors, in a million dimensions, seemed to go on forever and ever.
“It’s magic, honey,” he whispered, seeing where she looked.
“It’s madness,” she responded. “And I hope it’s—”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Not a mistake,” he finished for her. “Believe me. I’ve made a few. This isn’t one of them.”
It might be tomorrow, she thought. But she just sighed and closed her eyes.
Then he started kissing his way down her body. No force of nature could close her eyes and stop her from watching the endless reflections of him crouching before her, adoring her breasts with his sweet mouth, dragging his hands over her ribs, licking her navel, kissing her womanhood.
He tasted the flesh of her inner thighs as he lowered the thong over her knees, her calves, and then carefully guided it over her high-heeled sandals.
Glancing up, he gave her a wicked grin. “The shoes can stay.”
When he straightened to his full height, he looked down at her, his pewter eyes intense and focused, his jaw clenched, his breathing tight and quick. “Absolutely not a mistake,” he said again.
“You’ve been wrong before.”
“Not this time.” He rocked into her. “I’m not wrong. This isn’t a mistake.”
“Even if it is.” She tugged at his T-shirt to free it from his jeans. “I want to make it.”
In one move, he swiped the T-shirt over his head and threw it to the floor. He pushed her higher up the glass, nearly lifting her feet from the ground. Fire and moisture mixed between her legs as she arched into him, moving in an unstoppable, natural beat, riding the ache and his hardness.
She reached to the snap of his jeans, yanking at the zipper with a soft laugh under her breath. “Come on, Cade.”
“Wait,” he insisted, reaching into the back pocket of his jeans, yanking a condom package out. “Hold this for a second.” He stuck it between her teeth. “But don’t take your hands off me.”
She laughed around it as he finished undressing and she raked her free hands through the rough hairs of his chest. He flipped his jeans and boxers to the side, and they landed incongruously next to the minty mountain of designer fluff.
He snagged the condom and ripped it open, barely taking his eyes from her. Sheathed, he slid his erection between her legs, urging her naked body up the slick glass as she opened her thighs to take him.
Kissing her, he penetrated her mouth with his tongue at precisely the instant he entered her. Everything was hot and wet and excruciatingly right. She clung to his broad shoulders and wrapped her legs around his hips, as he thrust in to the hilt. She sucked in the scent of sex that filled the little room, grinding out his name with each movement. Sweat and friction heated their skin, as they slid against the glass, against each other.
Again and again he plunged into her, his face dark with the intensity of the pleasure and the helpless, mindless charge toward satisfaction.
“Look at us,” he demanded, using his chin to turn her face toward the side mirror. She gasped at the vision, at the sight of this glorious man’s body making love to her.
The beauty of it, the realness and the rawness sent her right over the edge. As her body coiled and tightened and screamed for release, she closed her eyes. But when she quaked with pleasure over and over, she finally opened her eyes and watched. In the mirror, she could see him grit his teeth and let out a long, low groan of ecstasy and satisfaction as his orgasm took over, thrusting into her with sharp, hard strokes as his backside tensed and his arms squeezed her.
Finally, spent, he dropped his head against her shoulder, closed his eyes and then she saw his mouth move, saw him say the same words ringing in her blood-drained head.
I love you.
But then, he didn’t know she could see him. And saying it out loud might be the biggest mistake of all.
“I feel like a vagabond.” Jessie curled into Cade’s side, wrapping her silky bare legs around his thighs, the lingering scent of lilac and sleep all over her.
He stroked her skin from throat to navel in one long caress, loving the way she felt as smooth as polished marble and as soft as air. “I don’t think a vagabond ever felt like this.” He nuzzled in to kiss her neck and she shivered as his tongue touched the little dip in her throat.
“I mean, I haven’t slept at home in days. I spent Friday and Saturday night at Fin’s, and last night I came here to your place.”
“Sorry, but I wasn’t about to sleep on The Closet floor and my apartment was closer, and empty. Anyway, you’re no vagabond. You have a toothbrush here.”
“I have one at Fin’s now, too. See? I’m a drifter.”
He eased her a little higher on top of him, his morning erection already anticipating the warmth of her body. “Drift up here for a while. I don’t have to leave for work for an hour.”
“And I’m taking this week off, so there.” She climbed up and slid her legs around his hips, and cradled his head in her arms. Her russet-colored hair spilled over his face and neck.
“You may never have to work again,” he said, inhaling the dizzying scent of her as his hands cupped her bottom and positioned her on him. “You’re the editor-in-chief’s daughter, your supervisor’s cousin and…”
She arched up, her eyes slit in demand. “Say it.”
“Okay.” He laughed and lifted his hips and let the burn begin. “You have a special relationship with management.”
Her pretty smile faded and, without warning, she tumbled off him to the side. On her back, she draped one arm over her face and moaned quietly. “This was so not supposed to happen.”
“Baby, don’t worry.” He turned, tucking her closer. “It doesn’t change anything.”
She lifted her arm to peer at him. “It changes everything.”
For a moment, he just let her think about it, while he worked to resist the urge to drop a kiss on the sweet underarm she exposed.
“What exactly changes because we’re lovers?” he finally asked. “The situation with Fin, well, that will rock the EPH boat just for sheer gossip and shock value. And, yeah, it sounds like you have some hurdles to overcome with Patrick and Maeve, but we’re…” We’re what? How did he tell her that this wasn’t just sex, that this felt so much bigger, so much better than that?
“I didn’t plan on any of these new complications when I came here. I just wanted to meet Fin.”
“So, I’m back to being a complication.” He wasn’t sure if that disappointed him or not.
“And work is a complication.”
“What do you mean?”
She let out a long, slow breath. “I want a job.”
“You have a job. And the way you’re working on the shadow assignment virtually guarantees you an editorial assistant position when the internship ends. You know that.”
She t
urned on her side to line up with him. “I want it fair and square,” she said, a determined glint in her eye. “Not because you wanted to sleep with me—”
He opened his mouth to protest and she put her hand on his lips and continued, “Or because you wanted to figure out why I was avoiding Fin. Or because of the circumstances of my birth. I want it because I’m good at what I do.”
“You are,” he assured her. “You would have been picked for shadowing even if you hadn’t gotten my attention for avoiding Fin.” He couldn’t resist. He traced a single line over the sweet skin of her arm. “Or even if you hadn’t got my attention, period. Scarlet had already given you rave reviews.”
She regarded him for a moment. “Will everyone know that?”
He shrugged. “Cube chatter is part of work, Jess, and you have to rise above it. You prove yourself on every issue of Charisma and I want you on the staff. To me, that’s the end of the discussion.”
“Until we break up.”
He froze and stared at her. “We won’t.”
She scooted higher and challenged him with a look. “How can you be so sure? You know, I proofed an article on this very subject. The lower person on the corporate ladder invariably loses the job and references when an office affair ends. This might not impact your career, but it could wreck mine.”
“First of all, you’ve been reading too many magazines.” He leaned closer. “And second of all, this is not an office affair.”
“A ‘closet’ affair?” she laughed.
He moaned at the memory. “I love that closet.”
“Seriously.” She nudged him. “These are the facts. And coupled with the revelation that I’ve got Elliott blood in my veins, no one will believe that I earned my spot.”
He couldn’t argue that she had legitimate concerns. “I understand you feeling that way,” he said. “But what can we do? Hide how we feel? Pretend it’s not real? Act like we aren’t in…interested in each other?”
“Yes.”
His chest knotted. “I don’t want to hide this. I mean I don’t want to flaunt it, but, Jessie, I don’t want to hide.” He let a slow grin cross his face. “Unless it’s in The Closet.”
“I want it kept secret,” she said, ignoring his teasing remark and grasping his shoulder to make her point. “Please, Cade. I don’t want anyone to know. Let me get through this time, through this hurdle, as you call it, with the Elliotts.”
How long would that take? “Can I see you in the meantime?”
“Secretly.”
“I’ll take that, then. I guess I have to.” But he didn’t have to like it.
Twelve
Jessie dialed her dad’s phone number as soon as she emerged from the subway station. The week had flown by as she juggled her days with Fin and a few select members of the Elliott family whom Fin invited to lunch and dinners with them, and stole away for long, blissful nights with Cade.
Friday evening, however, she’d begged out of dinner with Fin or Cade for a much-needed stop at her apartment and an evening at home in preparation for the party the next night. She still couldn’t believe the power of the Elliott name.
She’d been certain Shane couldn’t find a location for the grand party he wanted to have, but through a business contact, he’d learned that a cold-footed bride had pulled out of a wedding in the ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria, leaving the venue available. Invitations were sent by e-mail and half a dozen administrative assistants were tasked with handling the RSVPs.
“Hey, Dad,” Jessie said as she rounded the top of the subway station steps and started the walk through the Upper West Side. “Remember me?”
“I don’t know,” he teased. “Aren’t you my best ranch hand who ran off to New Yawk City?”
She giggled at his lousy accent. “Oh, Daddy, I’m sorry I’ve been scarce. This has been an unbelievable week.”
“I’m getting that impression. Still enamored?”
Her heart jumped. “With Fin? Of course. We’re having a great time.” Her fist tightened around the two Bloomingdale’s bags she carried. “She’s quite a shopper, and a talker and, well, she’s becoming a good friend.”
“I’m glad, sweetheart. Now, when are you coming home?”
She paused as she reached Amsterdam, gauging the traffic pattern for a quick cross. “My internship lasts until next spring.” She swallowed hard and blurted out the next sentence as she stepped confidently into the street, beating a cab by a good three seconds. “And I hope to have a full-time job at Charisma after that.”
Someone behind her earned a honked horn, and that filled the silence on the other end of the phone.
“Dad? You still there?”
“I’m here,” he assured her. “Just thinking.”
Only a daughter would catch the tiny hitch in his voice.
“But I’ll come and visit before that, I promise.”
“Or I’ll come to New York. I miss you, Jessie.” There was no hitch that time, just raw, fatherly love.
“Oh, Daddy. I miss you, too.” Jessie stood at the next corner, staring up at the red bricks of her studio walk-up and blinking back a sudden tear. Was this home now? This aging, metropolitan building with thirty-six stairs up to an apartment the size of Oscar’s stall?
Yes. It was. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t visit the Silver Moon. That was home, too. “Why don’t I come back for a long weekend next month?”
“I’d love that,” he replied, his voice rich with relief.
“Pick a date.”
And then an idea took hold. Fin had told her just that afternoon that she wanted to meet Jessie’s father. Quid pro quo, she called it, for all the time Jessie was taking to get to know the Elliotts. “I’d like to bring Fin there, Dad. To meet you.”
He snorted. “That city woman wants to come out to a cattle ranch in Colorado? Does she know there’s no shopping here?”
Jessie bit back a smile. Was he intimidated by the idea of Fin Elliott on his ranch? Her big, tough cowboy of a dad?
“You know, I think you’ll like her,” Jessie mused. Maybe that was a stretch, but Jessie clung to the hope that she could make everyone happy with this impulsive offer. “How about Columbus Day weekend? We’ll have closed the February issue and Fin and I can come from Friday to Tuesday.”
She could be away from Cade that long, couldn’t she?
“That’s perfect.”
As she opened the lock to the front door of her building, her attention was drawn to the floor. And the steps. And the landing to the first floor. “Oh my…”
“What is it?” her father asked.
“Lilacs,” she whispered.
“Lilacs?”
Everywhere, as far as she could see, every square inch of the ground and the stairs was blanketed in a snowfall of lilac petals.
“Oh, Cade.” Her heart just folded in half from the pressure of how much she loved him.
“What are you talking about, honey?”
“Oh, it’s nothing, Daddy.” Well, it was something. She just didn’t know what. “Someone left something for me at my apartment.”
Gingerly, she tiptoed over the petals and turned the corner at the next floor. More lilac petals.
“Who is Cade?”
It must be a father’s job to assume the “never miss a thing” responsibility when a mom was gone. “He’s, uh, a guy I work with.”
“The executive editor,” her father said knowingly. “The one you had drinks with a while ago. About the shadowing job.”
The stairs to the third floor were no different. A blanket of lilac petals. “Wow, this is unbelievable.”
“What is?”
She suppressed a giggle of delight. “That you really pay attention, Dad. To everything I tell you.”
“Of course I do. Is he there now, this Cade?”
Sort of. She climbed the last set of stairs to the fourth floor.
“Uh, no. I’m home, at my apartment. Oh, there’s more!”
At the door
was a giant bouquet in a glass vase, with a card tucked into the green fronds between the puffs of lilacs.
“More what?”
“I’m sorry, Dad. I have to go. I just got home and…there’s a message here.”
“Honey, are you being straight with me about this Cade?”
She lifted the card and leaned on the door, her gaze traveling over the bed of petals all around the hallway. “Well,” she said, “I am sort of…”
“You’re in love.”
She let go of the laugh that had been caught in her chest.
“Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Well you better bring him along next month,” Dad said softly. “I’ll want to see how he does on a horse.”
“No, I can’t,” she gasped. “He can’t come back to Colorado with me.”
“Why not?”
“Because I want to keep it secret. We work together. He’s my boss, sort of.”
Her father cleared his throat. “Angel, I can guess who will take the brunt of this thing if it doesn’t work out. I don’t want to see your heart broken.”
Jessie slid the card open and read the words.
Make no mistake about it, the outside read. She didn’t open the card, but answered her father. “I’m watching my heart, Dad.”
“And, you know, an affair with a co-worker, especially your boss, well, it can be career suicide.”
Affair. The word cut through her. “I’ve heard that, too.”
“So what’s more important to you? This guy or this job?”
She flipped open the card.
I’ll miss you tonight. Love, Cade.
“Can’t I have both?”
“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I wish your mother were around to ask. She’d know what you should do.”
Jessie’s gaze fell on the lilacs, the familiar, comforting scent wafting up from the bouquet.
“She’s around,” Jessie whispered.
Everything in the Starlight Roof ballroom high above New York City sparkled. The crystal champagne flutes, the tapered candles on the tables, the tiny white lights that floated above the room named for them. But most of all, Fin sparkled.
The Intern Affair Page 14
