by Leslie North
He smiled as he pulled back, his heated gaze on her pussy. God, it was so hot to be seen by him. To be the object of his desire right now. He swiped his thumb over her clit, which made her entire body jerk, and then he eased his middle finger inside of her.
She inhaled sharply, and Grayson grunted as he brought his head between her legs once more, easing another finger inside of her. His hot mouth found her swollen nub, and he eased his fingers in and out, in and out. It was lethargic and teasing and oh-so-sinfully hot. Every nerve fiber in her body vibrated alert and wanting. God, she needed more of him. She needed all of him.
Grayson flattened his tongue against her one more time, but it was all she needed. Paired with his fingers filling her and the tender but sexy attention of his lips, she couldn’t hold out any longer.
“Ohhh, Graysonnnnn.” A long, shuddering moan escaped her as the pleasure made her limbs languid and warm. For a moment, she couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t do anything other than feel this perfect orgasm.
But he didn’t stop. He licked and prodded and slurped at her while she came, prompting her to come again, and again. And when he’d wrung her dry, he sat up, fingers dancing over the buttons of his shirt as he opened it up, and she realized that he’d given her more pleasure than any other man she’d ever known, and he’d done it while still fully dressed.
“Oh, yes,” she whispered, her legs shaky as she recovered from the multiple orgasms this man and his lips had given her. “Please take all of your clothes off now.”
He chuckled, undoing the last button of his shirt. He shucked the shirt he’d bought from her earlier that day, revealing washboard abs and a healthy sprinkling of dark chest hair. She bit her bottom lip, suddenly desperate to see more. To see everything.
“Come on,” she urged, wanting to sit up but not physically able to move yet. “I’d help but you made me useless.”
“That’s good,” Grayson said, coming off the bed so he could stand and push his pants down. Powerful thighs greeted her, as well as an impossible-to-ignore tenting in his boxer briefs. Her fingers curled into the comforter, mouth parting as he pushed his briefs down. His cock sprang free a moment later, fatter than she expected, with a swollen, bulbous head that caused an unsanctioned moan to fly past her lips.
Grayson grinned, plucking the glasses from her face before folding them up and placing them on the nightstand. Then he fished out a condom from the drawer. And then suddenly the condom was on and he was easing on top of her, the heat of his body such a welcome sensation that she wanted to cry, or scream, or both.
God, she’d missed this. The heat and attention of a man. The mind-drugging effects of a perfect cologne. The way it felt to come together with someone. Her eyes fluttered shut as his fat cockhead slid into place at her slippery, wanting entrance. She could get really used to this.
A sexy groan slipped out of him as he nudged himself inside of her. Her breath caught as she acclimated to the thickness of him. She dug her fingernails into his biceps as he sank into her, his bright blue eyes somehow more vivid and commanding in the moonlight.
“Jesus, Grayson,” she moaned, unable to look away from him as he thrust deeper. Every inch of her body came alive under the weight of his body. Her legs splayed open even further, inviting him deeper. Down to her core.
“You feel so incredible,” he said, his voice jagged. He wet his bottom lip, sinking further, until he couldn’t claim any more space inside of her. And then he scooped his arms around her, bringing her body up against his and rolling them over. “I want you to sit on top of me.”
She gasped as he lifted her into a sitting position, without breaking the seal their bodies created. Without his cock ever slipping out of her. He grunted as he adjusted his position beneath her, carefully maneuvering to the edge of the bed so he could swing his legs over the side. She clung to him, giggling and drunk on the heady sensations.
And over his shoulder she could see the sparkling lights of the Bay Area, glittering like her own personal art installation while Grayson started a slow but fierce rhythm beneath her. Her breasts jiggled each time he thrust upwards into her. Breath evaporated. Mind went buzzing and blank.
Her head tipped back, a low moan ripping out of her. This man. He was too good. Too sexy. Too attentive. And worst of all? His cock filled her in a way she hadn’t known was possible. Jesus, Mila, it really has been too long.
Or maybe he was just that good. The perfect man to fill and excite her, the man that she hadn’t known she was even looking for.
Either way, it didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was the special rhythm they’d developed. The bump and grind of their pelvises; the breathy moans and the way their mouths met, over and over again.
It didn’t take Mila long to reach climax again. With him controlling the deep, almost punishing thrusts from below, she was helpless to resist. The pleasure built slow and steady until it cascaded over into a prickly heat wave of bliss and groans. Grayson’s arms cinched tight around her waist and he stilled, his abs jerking as he found his own release.
She drooped against him, useless and spent, forehead pressed to his chest as she struggled to find her footing on the world again. Two—no, three, maybe four—orgasms in the past hour. Was this man real?
He just smiled lazily at her, contentment written across his face, and then guided them back onto the bed to snuggle. Once their breathing had calmed, he cleaned himself up and pulled back the covers, inviting her into his arms.
He was asleep before the clock reached midnight. And Mila herself allowed herself to drift off into a pleasant but light sleep.
But it didn’t last long. Once she roused around daybreak, still tucked into his comfy bed, wrapped in his arms, she realized the perfect fantasy of the night had to come to an end sometime.
And that sometime was now.
She slipped out of his embrace as carefully as possible, so as to not wake him. And then she padded quietly toward the living room to hunt down her clothes. Everything hung eerily silent and still, like his penthouse was a museum instead of a home.
In the light of day, without the distraction of Grayson’s presence, she could actually take in her surroundings. Abstract art hung in expensive looking frames with their very own showcase light. The burgeoning dawn filtered through the windows, casting a gray-bright hue over everything.
The only thing out of place in his living room was her scattered clothes: discarded dress on the back of the couch, her panties flung into the foyer.
And if she was smart, she’d take it as a sign. Almost like a play on “Where’s Waldo”? She was the thing in the picture that didn’t quite fit.
She hurried to redress, and then scribbled a note for him on a pad of paper by the door.
This romp had been fun, but Grayson’s life wasn’t where she belonged.
4
The first thing that Grayson noticed the next morning was the brilliant sunshine.
It seemed different than usual, somehow. More golden, maybe. Definitely higher in the sky, which was odd for reasons his pleasantly, if uncharacteristically, muzzy brain wasn’t ready to figure out just yet.
A yawn ripped out of him and he stretched, bits of his amazing, sex-filled night returning to him. A smile covered his face as the aches of a body very well used slowly made themselves known. He rolled onto his side, ready to wake up Mila along with him, maybe with small kisses along her jawline until those pretty eyelashes fluttered.
The smile on his face evaporated.
Mila wasn’t there.
He jerked to sitting, looking around like maybe he’d simply overlooked her. He listened carefully to try to catch the sound of water running in the bathroom, or maybe her quiet footsteps as she walked through the penthouse to get a snack from the kitchen.
Nope.
Nothing.
He rubbed at his eyes, disappointment coursing in slow waves through him. Facing what definitely seemed like a ghosting the morning afte
r an incredibly fun and sexy night with a woman he very much wanted to see again? Not the best start to his day.
His phone vibrated on the nightstand. A text message. As soon as he picked it up, he groaned.
Holy shit, it’s nine a.m.
Thoughts formed a log-jam in his brain as he grappled with the information. No wonder the sun looked different. He was used to seeing it at five thirty in the morning. How the hell did you oversleep?
Yet another testament to how good his night had been. Most nights, he was a restless sleeper—his thoughts racing too quickly to settle down into deep sleep. But last night, he’d enjoyed the pure coma that followed rare and heavenly sexual connection. He was fairly certain that if it had been anyone else in his bed beside him, he would have woken up at five fifteen per usual to nudge the woman out the door. But Mila?
She’d made him sleep straight through the night for the first time in five years.
Which in theory was great. But a major marketing meeting had been scheduled for eight thirty, which meant a long string of texts and missed calls glared at him from his phone.
He fumbled with the lock screen, trying to see past the just-woke-up haze. Shit, shit, shit. Anxiety burned through the last of the languid, fully-sated feeling that still lingered in his body, replacing it with a strained tension that was much less pleasant—and much more familiar. When he called the head of his marketing department, Brandon picked up on the first ring.
“Jesus, there you are,” Brandon said with an exaggerated sigh. “We were about to start calling hospitals and police stations.”
Grayson squinted as he tried to roll out of bed. The sheets tangled with his legs and he reached down to free himself. “I overslept.”
“That is a more shocking excuse than if we’d found you in police lock-up,” Brandon said. And the man wasn’t wrong. Grayson never overslept, to the extent that he didn’t even use an alarm anymore. Hadn’t for a year and a half. Because for him, waking up early was as automatic and inevitable as brushing his teeth every day, or chugging water at the gym. Grayson had thought himself physically incapable of sleeping past six a.m., due to the stresses of running Finlay Technologies. With the added load of prepping for his IPO, it was a miracle that he was able to sleep at all.
But Mila made you forget about all of that.
Grayson rubbed at his face, still tangled in the sheets. This day had really not started off the best. “Can I use my get out of jail free card here? Just this once?”
“I guess, since you’re the boss,” Brandon said with a laugh. “How about we reschedule the meeting for this afternoon? I’ll let everyone know so they’ll stop checking news updates to see if you’ve been found facedown in a ditch.”
Grayson tugged at the sheets, struggling to find the words for the thick, churning hesitance inside him. This meeting was the highest item on his agenda for the next few weeks. The most pressing. The most important. Because this meeting was his plan to make the app go viral.
Except he didn’t have a plan. Not a good one, anyway.
And while Brandon and the rest of the team were gathering for the meeting to help with that exact thing, Grayson still wasn’t ready to show up and admit to everyone that he had zero ideas for moving forward and making the world—or at least the United States—go gaga for his app.
“Uh,” he began, finally freeing his legs from the sheets. But not without a grunt. He stumbled out of bed, nearly clipping the nightstand. His body wasn’t used to getting this much sleep—wasn’t used to waking up feeling lazy and sated. Mornings usually started with him feeling driven to immediately go and move and do. In the absence of that momentum, it was surprisingly hard to feel steady on his feet. He righted himself and staggered out of his bedroom, heading for the kitchen. There was still a chance that Mila was here…quietly eating toast at the kitchen island. Maybe thumbing through a magazine on his couch.
“Grayson?”
“Right. Yeah. You said this afternoon?” He cleared his throat, barely able to focus on Brandon’s words as he scanned all the surfaces of his penthouse for some trace of Mila—a note, a phone number on a napkin, anything.
And then he spotted it. On the notepad tucked into the alcove in his kitchen. Hastily scribbled. No phone number in sight, just the words “Thanks for the amazing night.”
“Right,” Brandon said, the shit-eating grin audible in his tone. “You know…later today.”
Grayson stopped searching the house and deflated, letting the truth sink in. Mila was gone. He had no ideas for marketing the app. And after this ridiculous start to his morning…he was ready to give up on today altogether.
“Let’s push it to tomorrow morning,” Grayson said. “Check with my secretary—anytime we can squeeze it in tomorrow is fine. I’m actually going to be taking the rest of the day off.” The words burned through him. He’d never said them…possibly ever. Definitely not since he’d started his business. But there was something urgent pulsing through him. He needed to slow down and figure out what it was.
“All right, boss,” Brandon said. He sounded shocked, but he didn’t try to argue. “I’ll get with your secretary. Enjoy your day.”
Grayson stared at the phone for a moment after they hung up, wondering what the hell had gotten into him. The day didn’t feel quite real yet. There was definitely a possibility that he was dreaming. In fact, it had all the making of a nightmare—waking late, missing an important meeting, being ghosted by a sexy woman. Part of him wished this was something he could wake up from and find his life undisturbed, on the same trajectory as always.
But there was something about Mila that threw him off balance in a way that he couldn’t bring himself to regret, even if it disordered his usually tidy life. And maybe it had something to do with how badly he wanted to see her again. Even though he was shit at relationships and had less time than an out-of-sync clock, their brief encounters left him wanting more.
Way more.
Slowly, clarity returned to him. With the entire day stretching ahead of him, he vowed to do something very out of the ordinary. Even though his first instinct was to simply work from home on his sudden day off, no—he should take this weird day as a chance to shake up the routine.
The only thing that called to him was getting outside and into the sunlight.
Grayson opted for a quick shower to finish brushing away the sleep clogging his limbs and his mind. Instead of his usual business clothes, he tugged on a pair of chino shorts and grabbed his favorite shirt from the closet: the cardinal red Stanford tee from his alma mater.
As soon as it settled over his shoulders, he realized what today’s game plan should be. Revisiting the place that started it all.
Even though it was over a decade since he’d first entered the campus as a freshman, he could still remember the awe and excitement he’d felt, the certainty that his life was heading in a new, amazing direction that would lead him to everything he wanted. And he’d been right. Four years of undergrad and two years of grad school had shaped and molded him into the man he was today—the man who had the training and preparation necessary to build a company from the ground up and make it into a massive success. Stanford had been the start of it all, and he would always be grateful, would always enjoy visiting and reminiscing.
He and his two best friends still visited the campus regularly to convene at their favorite diner and catch up on life. But today, he thought he might take a different approach. It had been years since he’d really visited campus, checking out the buildings, walking around like he was a student. And for some reason, that seemed like just the medicine he needed today.
If the goal was to clear his head and really find the best path forward to be 200% positive his app went viral, then he should start from square one. The school where he met his best friends. The place where the idea for Finlay Technologies was born. The campus where he realized they weren’t just going to find jobs after grad school and be done with it, they were going to find success
beyond their wildest dreams.
And Grayson was poised to reach untold levels of success with this new clothing-matching app. If he could make it soar, then everything else would fall into place. Having a publicly-traded tech company still sometimes seemed like a pipe dream to him. But no. He was so close to the dream that he could taste it. There was no stopping now.
Grayson called for his driver to pick him up, and five minutes later he was tucked into the backseat of his sedan, watching the business district of San Francisco blur by. The forty-five-minute car ride gave him plenty of time to mull and think back on his night with Mila. His fingers twitched, wanting to send her a text, wanting to ask when he could see her again.
But without a phone number left behind, there was no mistaking that Mila wasn’t overeager to continue what they’d started. She’d executed a perfect wham, bam, thank you, sir.
And he was no stranger to the approach. Hell, he’d practically invented it. He’d never had any trouble walking away from a one-night stand before. But there was something about Mila that had him hooked. Maybe it was her kooky, trendy glasses, which she was always pushing up higher on her nose with her index finger. Maybe it was the way she’d fucking unraveled in his grip, those soft, feminine sounds wafting out of her like she was the kinkiest sort of angel. Or maybe it was the unexpected tenderness they’d found that night in his bedroom. The way she’d felt more like a longtime lover than a stranger.
Once they finally reached the distinctly Californian campus, awash with Romanesque architecture and tons of tucked away fountains, Grayson had his driver drop him off at Knight Management Center, the home of the Graduate School of Business.
He spent an hour or so walking the area, enjoying the rolling hills and the foliage, until a rumbling belly forced him to grab lunch. He headed for a little campus-area pizza joint that hadn’t been there when he was in school. Inside, the air was warm and doughy, and small pockets of people stood around, waiting for pick-up orders.
Grayson didn’t need to study the menu long to know that he wanted the fattest slice of pepperoni pizza available. Once he ordered and sat around a small round table along the wall of windows overlooking the campus, the conversation of a nearby table drifted his way.
