by Ellie Danes
“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes, this is better than okay. This is great.”
I brushed his shoulder with my palm and then gripped at his coat.
He smelled good — like mint, but sweeter. I closed my eyes as I felt his warm breath puff against my lips. His lips brushed mine.
The kiss was intoxicating. He was intoxicating. His tongue flicked at my lips, and I smiled against him, knowing what it was that he wanted. I opened my mouth, eagerly, desperately.
Images of him moved behind my closed eyelids. My thoughts were becoming aggressively sexual, so much that I had to shake myself away from them. I was getting way too aroused for the moment. This kiss was supposed to be brief. It was supposed to be quick. He had to get to work.
But my god, his lips were sweet. And they were so, so warming.
We were outside, and it was freezing. But because of his touch, I felt completely warm.
My hand slid down his body and landed on his lower stomach. I could feel that even through layers of clothing, there was a lot of definition there. The hard ripples of his abs caused me to shudder in excitement and moan into his mouth.
He moaned too, though, as he held my waist and pulled me closer. I was completely against him, and we were groping each other right in the middle of the busy sidewalk.
It was probably the most intense first kiss that I had ever experienced.
My body rocked against him, and I felt myself losing a battle of control.
Finally, reluctantly, I pulled back. He had to work. I had to stop the kiss before I started tearing his clothes off.
“Wow,” he panted. “So I guess after a kiss like that, I don’t have to ask if you had a decent time with me.”
He smirked. Even though it was a cocky sort of smirk, I didn’t mind. I was going to let him pat himself on the back for that. He deserved it. That was one hell of a kiss.
“I might have enjoyed myself a little,” I said coyly.
His name was heavy on my lips. I really wanted to say it, to moan it out and ask him to stay.
“Ian,” I finally breathed out, breaking my composure. “Maybe we should get each other’s numbers?” I asked. When we’d arranged this date, we had just agreed to meet up. I remembered thinking earlier that it would have been nice if I could have let him know I was going to be late — before, you know, just showing up late.
He seemed to finally catch his breath. His eyes were glazed with affection as he looked down at me. His lip was curled into a faint smirk — but it wasn’t the same one he had plastered on his face earlier. It wasn’t cocky; it was something else entirely.
“I think we should,” he said with a nod.
I felt his body move and then watched as he reached into his jacket pocket and grabbed his phone. He laughed. “I can’t believe I had to wait for you to ask me for my number.”
“Well, clearly I have more game than you do,” I joked.
“Put your number in, smartass,” he said with amusement, as he handed the ridiculously huge phone over to me.
“Is this thing a television?” I said as I held it in both hands and found the contacts. “Seriously, I feel like I’m typing on a computer.”
He laughed, clearly amused, but I wasn’t completely joking. His phone was gigantic.
“You realize you fit a computer in your pocket?” I giggled.
He burst out laughing. “Considering I fit more than that elsewhere, I think I’m doing just fine.” He winked.
Immediately I felt a blush creep up to my cheeks. What was it with men and always having to make some sort of stupid innuendo about everything? It was like those that’s what she said jokes.
“Nope,” I said loudly. “Give me the phone back. I take back my number.”
I was joking, and he knew that, but it didn’t mean that we didn’t wrestle around for the phone once it was safeguarded in his strong, muscular hands.
“Too bad. Too late.” He laughed as he held the phone above my head. But even though I wasn’t as tall as him, I was still pretty damn scrappy. I jumped and looped my arms around his extended arm and hung there like a monkey, weighing it down.
He hunched over. “You’re insane, aren’t you?”
Pressed up against him, I realized again just how cold it was outside, and I craved even more of his heat. We grew closer to one another, and then closer again until we were just inches apart from each other’s lips.
Our laughter had died away, and all that was left was desire.
“I really should go,” he said, practically gasping out the words. “I think both of us need to gain a little self-control.”
He was laughing, and I knew he was joking — but man was he right. I had basically just ravaged him on the sidewalk.
My hand was still warm, and I realized it was because it was once again underneath his coat, clutching onto his shirt and flesh. Good god, that stomach…that sexy, sexy stomach.
“I’m so sorry,” I said with an embarrassed laugh, finally letting go.
He chuckled. “I really don’t mind.”
He took a step back, and I felt cold again all of a sudden.
“I mean, how can anyone resist this?” He grinned ear to ear and used his hands to suggestively gesture up and down himself.
I rolled my eyes. What an adorable and cocky idiot.
“Oh, god,” I scoffed as I clutched my arms in front of my chest, hugging myself, hoping to preserve some — any — of the body heat that I had left. “I really hope you don’t believe that.” But I was pretty sure that he did.
“Are you saying that I’m resistible?” he asked, his mouth open in a sort of mock outrage.
“Oh, it definitely means some variation of that.” I wished that I could have looked more serious as I said it, but I couldn’t stop smiling.
“Well, damn,” he said. “I guess my charms are no match for gingers!”
I scoffed. “Puh-lease, you can’t tell me you’ve never been with a woman with red hair.”
A guy like him — he had been around. It grossed me out a little to think about, but it was obvious. Hell, he had probably been with every type of woman imaginable. And I couldn't help but have thoughts about my past. They caused a tinge of worry for liking Ian so much.
“Not one like you,” he said in perfect player fashion.
He smirked. I smirked back, almost unable to help myself. Like he had me in some sort of trance, where I wasn't actually buying it, but was definitely impressed by it.
He raised his hand up in the air with a powerful confidence and placed one foot almost in the street. His stance reiterated everything that I already knew just by talking to him. That he was strong. That he was fearless.
My heartbeat thudded against my chest, and I felt my pulse quicken again. I could feel an intense and heated arousal begin to rise in me once more
I bit my lip and tried to stifle the desire as much as I could. The things this guy did to me—it was incredible.
A taxi pulled up, and Ian grabbed the door handle. “Hey, which way are you heading?” he asked. “Did you want to share a cab or something?”
I shook my head and smiled. If I got in that damn cab with him, I would probably maul him. Mauling sounded like a great idea, but maybe our first time mauling each other shouldn’t be in a taxi. And probably not in a Starbucks bathroom, either, despite what my overactive imagination gave me in my dreams.
“No, that’s okay, you really need to get to work.”
He looked at me, a small look of unease on his face — almost like worry. “Are you sure?” he asked.
“I’m close enough to walk,” I said. “I’m really okay.”
He laughed. “I’ll see you soon?”
I smiled. “Definitely.”
I would have swooned if it hadn’t been so ridiculous. I watched him jump into the backseat of the cab, and I couldn’t help but smile.
As the cab pulled away, my coat buzzed.
I smiled, a sense of knowing washing over me, as I pulled out
my phone and looked at the screen. It was a text from Ian. Wanted you to actually have my number, he’d written, along with a little winking emoji.
I grinned.
I had been hoping throughout lunch that I hadn’t missed any texts from Claire’s school or from Claire herself. But when I looked at the rest of my alerts, there was nothing else listed, only a few emails.
Now that Ian was gone, I was a little sad that I didn’t have anyone else trying to get in touch. Not that I wanted to hear from Claire per se — but it would have been nice to hear from someone…anyone. I could have told them about my awesome date with Ian. I could have gushed like I used to with my girlfriends.
I’d had tons of friends when I was an undergrad student. It was crazy how that the number dwindled down to just a few for grad school. Apparently, it dwindled down even more after grad school, at least for me. Other than the text from Ian just a second ago, I hadn’t had a text from a friend in days.
I sighed and glanced up from my phone in just enough time to see a familiar man approaching me on the sidewalk.
“Hey!” I shouted out to him. I smiled brightly and squealed out like a little school girl. See? I wasn’t totally alone in the world. Of course, I wouldn’t be gushing about romantic dates with this guy. “Ben! I haven’t seen you in forever!”
Truth was, I really had missed Ben, even with the ups and downs of our relationship. I pulled his lean body into a bear hug as soon as he got close enough, but he tensed. My brows furrowed and I pulled away. I looked at him curiously. Why was he so tense?
He threw what I could only imagine was supposed to be a smile at me. But he wasn’t really smiling. I knew his smile. This forced approximation wasn’t it, not by a long shot.
“What’s wrong?” I could feel my eyes narrowing in concern.
“Were you having lunch with Ian Cross?” His voice was stern, and his tone was serious — almost accusatory.
“Yes?” I answered, my voice almost cracking. I didn’t know Ian’s last name, and I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to answer that, but I didn’t want to lie to Ben. I wanted to ask how he knew Ian, but he looked too irritated.
His eyes shifted to look at the sidewalk for a moment. A small, but visibly sullen look appeared on his face, just before it was replaced with a pissy scowl.
“Ben,” I said, touching his forearm. “What is it?”
His jaw clenched for a moment and then he cleared his throat and looked up. “Nothing.”
He smiled, and this time, it was his actual smile. And I wondered if he had gotten that good at bullshitting since becoming a head honcho at Bio-Research because something told me it wasn’t just ‘nothing.’ Even if he could somehow pull off a real smile, going by what he was like just a few seconds before — there was clearly something bothering him.
But I wasn’t in the mood to go through the process of twisting his arm to figure it out. If he wanted to shrug his pissy behavior off and act like nothing was wrong, I’d let him.
He put his arm over my shoulder and pulled me close to him.
I smirked before edging closer to the warmth he offered. That was it, I decided; I was going to shrug off whatever sort of issue Ben had with me having lunch with Ian and just enjoy seeing him. It had been a really long time.
And even though I didn’t want to miss Ben like I did, I couldn’t help myself.
Chapter 14
Ian
The ray of sunlight that shone in through the window didn’t even bother me. I looked over at my clock.
10:30 a.m.
Holy shit. I had actually slept — and I’d slept well at that.
I smiled as images of Kate came rushing to my mind. Then I remembered I had been dreaming about her.
I yawned and closed my eyes again. I took a deep breath, relishing the fact that it was Sunday. For once, I didn’t have to do anything even remotely resembling work.
Sunday. I grinned. I had actually gotten through another week of work.
For the first Sunday in what felt like fucking ages, the day was mine. All fucking mine.
At that moment, it felt like the world was my oyster. Because I — for what seemed like for the first time in forever — knew exactly what it was that I wanted to do.
I was going to laze around in my underwear. All day. I was going to drink tons and tons of coffee. And I was going to read the Sunday Times.
I laughed and extended my arms out to look at them, and then shifted my eyes to my bare stomach. "I'm going to fucking work out."
God knew I needed it. "Maybe even a protein shake for lunch."
I had it all planned.
And after all that, I was going to nap.
My eyes fell to look at the en suite bathroom at the other side of the bedroom. I couldn’t help but wonder if I should put the energy into actually taking a shower. The walk seemed too far to muster and in all honesty, it wasn't something that really had to be done.
It was the weekend, and I sure as hell didn’t plan on seeing anyone…although I wouldn’t mind seeing Kate at some point. Today, though, I’d take some much needed time to just veg. Today was definitely going to be a lazy day.
I climbed out of bed, my back still stiff from sleep. My deep, restful sleep. I must have slept hard. I stretched my arms above my head, stretching my back for all that it was worth and twisted to the side. A shitload of cracks sounded and rolled up my spine as I turned. “Fuck yeah,” I moaned, almost sexually. That felt amazing.
It also felt so fucking good not to have to worry about work.
Yesterday I had done enough worrying. Hell, all week I had done enough worrying. It was enough worrying to last a lifetime, let alone a week.
All the worrying was starting to give me a migraine, and I was pretty sure the five gray hairs I found sprinkled through my hair last night were directly correlated to work stress.
The worst part was that work had seeped into my time with Kate. Everything about yesterday had been wonderful until my head of research had called and interrupted our date.
I was informed that my damn weasel of a Vice President, that dickhead Jerome Pfeiffer, was trying to make me look bad. Not that I was surprised by that. He always wanted to make me look like an idiot. But this time, he had really pissed me off.
He was making it look like I was the one who’d stolen the blood imaging technology from BioResearch — when I clearly hadn’t. Why the hell would I put myself through the piercing fucking headache of a lawsuit if I had done it? We had plenty of tech—we didn’t need to steal theirs. And the truth was, I believed my dad. If he said BioResearch stole it from us, then by God, they stole it. When he said it was our research all along, then it was our research all along.
I was sick of the Cross name being dragged through the shit.
There was no way in hell that I was going to allow Pfeiffer to ruin me. I still hadn’t figured out what I was going to do about him, but I wasn’t going to think about it. Not today. I wasn’t going to let it get me down. I was going to enjoy my Sunday. And the first thing I needed was sitting in a small jar in the kitchen. Coffee. Lots of it.
My feet slapped roughly against the heated floor as I raced toward the kitchen. It was my favorite room in the entire penthouse, yet probably the one I used the least. It was large, with shiny stainless steel appliances — gorgeous to look at, but too pristine, almost like something out of a catalog.
Same with my white cabinets, and marble countertops — which reached all around the kitchen. They were gorgeous, but they were bare except for some expensive dishes my dad had stocked the shelves with. In the center of the room was a large dark wood butcher’s block. Which also was never used. Hell, there wasn’t even any real food in my place, I was pretty sure. I had a few protein bars that I had stuffed into a cupboard weeks ago, but that was pretty much it.
I wasn’t sure if there ever had been food in this place, even when Dad was alive.
I didn’t usually notice the lack of food because I was never home to
cook. But unfortunately, no food in the house meant that I couldn’t lazily eat and lounge around on that rare occasion that I was off, not unless I ordered take-out.
I sighed, taking a look at my stomach. The muscles were still there, but I had lost so much definition. I remembered a time when I actually cared about the food that went into my body. Hell, I remembered a time when I obsessed about the food I fueled my body with.
Not that I’d do much better with my food choices today. I wanted to sit around and eat junk. There was something about sipping coffee early in the morning, working out, and then cracking open a beer and cooking weird shit. I really enjoyed that kind of day, that kind of cooking. It was something I had always enjoyed. To me, it was a good way to unwind.
Before taking on the role of CEO, I used to have most weekends off, and those were my cheat days. Those were my days to eat like a pig. But that wouldn’t be happening — not only because I had eaten out every day this past week, but because I was almost positive that I didn’t even have milk or eggs in the fridge. If I did, they were surely long expired by now.
I couldn’t remember the last time that I’d gone grocery shopping.
My stomach grumbled and rolled almost angrily as I thought about food. I really was hungry…but first things first.
Coffee.
I walked over to the coffee pot where it stood just beside the refrigerator. As I scooped the grounds, I smelled a ridiculously pungent smell wafting from my pits. Fuck. Maybe I did need a shower.
I started the coffee and made my way back to my bedroom and through to the bathroom.
As I lathered shampoo in my hair, I heard music begin to ring out. The beat was loud as it blared and echoed throughout the bathroom. It was catchy, and it was a song I knew by heart. But it was one I hadn’t heard in a while…a long while.
It was a small indie number that I’d first heard at a local festival with my ex-girlfriend. I began singing along with the words, almost absentmindedly, in probably the most tone-deaf way imaginable. But that didn’t matter. I was into it.
I loved that song…
I stopped abruptly, finally realizing that music didn’t just start playing randomly on its own. This song meant only one thing…
