“Oh.” She put down the implement in question, toyed with her napkin, and hesitated, her teeth worrying her lip. “On dates, people dance,” she said.
Surprised, he looked up. “Do you…dance?” he asked.
“I learnt how to polka when I was seven, I do a mean Virginian Wheel, and I have moves.”
Blood headed south. Fast. He liked the spark in her eye. A lot. “I’ll raise you a tango. I’ll improvise your Virginian Wheel and,” he said, leaning forward, “I’d pay to see your moves.”
They watched each other across the table, the intention behind his sentence out there in the open. She looked down at her lap, and his oxygen levels dropped. She slowly raised her gaze to meet his, stood, moved towards him and held out a hand. Her sweet jasmine scent wrapped around him and reeled him in.
He stood and pulled her to his chest, and they swayed to Dave Matthews Band’s soulful “Crash into Me.” In heels, she fit perfectly below his chin. She wrapped her arms around his waist and let out a sigh.
Yeah.
She wiggled closer, chest to chest, thigh to thigh. “What are we doing here?”
He pressed his lips against her hair and heard her soft sigh. “Just being, Billie. Just being.”
She tipped her head back and licked her lips as she gazed at his mouth. She homed in on her target, and before he knew what was happening, she pressed her sweet, sweet lips against his and kissed him like he’d never been kissed. Like she was hungry, and he was the last meal on the planet. But there was a shyness, a sweetness about her kiss. As if she was experimenting, learning how to kiss. Her uncertainty, her self-consciousness, her passion rocked into him, leaving him breathless and pounding with want. Her arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him close until only inconvenient clothes were between them. She tilted her hips against his obvious arousal. He ground his mouth into hers, and she matched him.
She pulled away and looked up at him with dark, hazy eyes. “I want you,” she whispered, biting her swollen bottom lip. “I want your mouth on me.”
He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t focus on anything but her words and her beautiful face. “Do you know what you’re saying? What that’s doing to me?”
“Say my name again.” She reached up and tugged at her dress. The halter neck slipped past her breasts and pooled at her feet.
Her cleavage spilled over a scarlet strapless bra. His eyes dropped down to the scrap of matching lace. She’d worn underwear, which he’d remove with his teeth, by God.
Shoes. Oh, her stiletto, blood-red shoes did him in.
He shook his head at the plastic bandage covered with smiley faces and taped to her knee.
He picked her up and curled her into his chest. Without a word, he walked to his bedroom and laid her on his bed.
“You’re beautiful.” His voice came from another time zone.
“I think you’d look better without your clothes.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She smiled, and it melted him. Right here, right now. He wanted her. All of her.
He shed everything but his boxers and lay beside her on the bed.
Peeling her bra from her heated skin, trailing kisses across her shoulder, sweeping into the swell of her buttery cleavage before his tongue rimmed her nipple, he reveled in her. She arched her back. Her deep, dark moan burned through him, scorching his blood. When his mouth claimed her other breast, she whimpered his name. He nearly lost it, but he fought for control because he wanted to taste her.
And he intended to taste all of her.
Her hands twisted in his hair as he kissed the swell of each breast. She wriggled and squirmed below him, panting, begging him to stop and not stop in one sentence. Her stomach muscles quivered when he swept kisses across her skin. Her hands grasped at him, but he kept his body out of reach. Tonight she was his, and he was taking his time to explore all of her. He nudged the inside of her thigh with his elbow and felt her legs lock.
He looked up into her hesitant but lust-filled eyes.
“Trust me,” he whispered.
She nodded, raised herself up onto her elbows to watch, and relaxed her legs.
He looked up at her bottom lip snagged between her teeth. When his tongue dipped into her, her head flopped back onto the bed, her hands fisted into the sheets and she moaned. He worked his tongue over her, his fingers inside of her. She tasted sweeter than honey. Her breath coming in shallow gasps, she twisted and bucked into his mouth before she called his name on a long burst and her body pulsed around him.
He went to reach across to his nightstand, but her hand on his arm halted him.
She ran her fingers across his shoulders causing a shiver that vibrated down to his dick. “I love to feel you, all of you.”
He hitched her legs around his hips, and she wrapped her legs around him. He slowly eased into her. She was still so tight, and her sex beat around him as she drew him into her. Her eyes never left his. He locked his elbows until he was inside of her. A glazed look clouded her eyes, and she pushed her hips up.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he grated out. It took all of his self-control not to take her at the level he wanted to, but he held back.
“Please,” she said, her fingers digging deep into his shoulders, her breath coming in short gasps.
He could do nothing but stare down at her and feel her, every sweet inch of her, as he gave her what she wanted, what they both wanted. Her skin flushed with heat. Her eyes closed and her head thrashed from side to side. He could feel it building inside her. He thrust higher, and her mouth formed an O when he hit a spot she liked. Sweat covered her skin and his dripped down his chin and landed on her. Her eyes flew open and she pulled her legs higher. Her back arched and her fingers bit deep into his shoulder. Then her spine locked and she convulsed around him. She called his name, tears at the corners of her eyes held him captive. Unable to last a second longer, he came in thrust after thrust until they were spent and panting.
They stared at each other. Mason was unable to tear himself away despite the emotions moving across her face. She looked at him with a smile so tender it ripped his soul. She curled into his side, her head on his chest, doodling on his skin with her forefinger. He pulled her closer, running his fingers through her hair, loving her sweet touch.
“Do you think we should talk about what’s happening?”
His shoulders tightened, and a cramp took hold in his stomach. He tugged his fingers through her hair and stilled. “What?”
She looked up at him, a smile lighting her face. Her skin was dewy and still flushed, her eyes all dreamy.
“I think we need to talk about what’s happening right here.” Her palm landed over his heart.
A cold sweat covered his body, and he couldn’t help but flinch at her words. Yeah, he had good-time feelings for her, but that was all. She was fun to be around, but that was it. Wasn’t it? Yeah, it fucking was. “I’m not a long term guy.” His heart slammed hard against his chest wall. “The reality of the situation is that we’re here to do a job, and in a few short weeks, we won’t see each other again.” His chest burned, but he had to do this, had to make her see he wasn’t the guy she wanted him to be. He lifted the hair from her shoulder, hating himself but relieved at the same time. “You’re looking for roots. You moved around when you were young, married out of high school. You’ve never lived, Billie. You need to get out there and taste life. I see what you’re doing with me. You’re a nurturer. You like being close. Do your sidle thing. That’s you. You looked after your mum. Stayed with your husband when you weren’t obligated to. And now you want to nurture me, fix me. I’m not up for fixing. I’m fine just the way I am.”
She stared at him, her face blank.
“Sorry, babe. I enjoy your company and all, but…” He ran his hands through his hair. At that she jerked away, her face impossibly white, her lovely hazel eyes wide and swimming in glistening emotion.
His gut curled into a painful ball. “That’s all we’ll ever
be.”
She snatched the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around herself, leaving him exposed. He snagged the quilt from the floor.
“Right,” she said, anger and hurt mixing in her large eyes. “We have so overstepped the appropriate boundaries, which will never, ever happen again.” She looked away and wrapped her arms across her chest. “I thought… Never mind. What I thought was wrong.” She looked at him as if he were a new species and she had naming rights. “You live in the past, Mason. Holing yourself up in an emotional wasteland that you won’t let yourself be free of. I understand. I do. Your whole life, everyone that meant something to you has left, but what kind of life will you have hiding behind that pain and never letting another person in?” She wrapped the sheet tighter. “There’s probably something to what you said about me wanting roots. I do love to feel anchored. I see I was so wrong wanting to anchor myself to you. I will see out the terms of the contract because I will be going to culinary school and because I gave my word. But now that I’ve had my date—and it was wonderful, thank you—we won’t do this again.”
He could see her building a wall, shutting down, kicking him out of her life. He wanted it and he fucking didn’t want it.
A pain started in his gut, radiated up and slammed into his barely beating heart. He struggled to breathe. His eyes burned from staring at her as she walked away. Words that were too big for his body squeezed out of his burning throat. “I had a daughter,” he rasped, raw.
She turned, clutching the sheet tighter, her eyes dazed before they cleared. “What?”
“I had a baby daughter. Ruby. She died of SIDS when she was six months old. The best thing that happened to me left six months later. You get one shot. I had mine.”
She blinked, her face softened, and she went to move toward him, but he held out his palm. He jolted back. Fuck no. This wasn’t happening. “I can’t do this.”
She stilled and stared at him. Her chest rose and fell like she was sprinting, and she spoke so quietly he struggled to hear her. “There are no guarantees in life, Mason. It’s terrible what happened to your daughter, and I couldn’t even imagine the pain, but that shouldn’t mean you shut down and stop living. Maybe there’s another type of perfection out there.” A single tear hovered at the corner of her eye.
“There isn’t.” He blinked and the guilt he carried around every day that kept him from sleeping swelled in his body. “I wasn’t there,” he ground out. The acid-lined words burned. “I didn’t check on her. If I had, I could have caught her last breath.” His throat closed. “I wasn’t there.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” she whispered, advancing into the room.
“Stop.”
She kept coming.
“Enough. I’m done. We’re done. Done. This is over. This is fucking over.”
At his tone she jolted back and blinked, her face pale before color hit her cheeks.
Heartache, pain, and such infinite sadness cut through her eyes. He flinched.
With a click of the door, she was gone, and not just left-the-room gone. By the look in her eyes, the deep determination, she was done with him, which was exactly why he wanted her to walk away. And she had. Completely. So why did his skin burn? Why did the pain in his gut drill so deep, he wanted to pound the wall until he was numb enough to bandage it all and watch it heal? He sat naked on the side of the bed, feet on the floor, elbows on knees, staring at the floor. Their mingling scents taunted him. He sat there until dawn streaked across the world in a wave of a pink-hued sky, and he felt the strength and stability return. There it was, his fortress that, in a few short days, Billie—no, Forty-Two—had started to break down. He buried Billie deep behind the walls and resurrected Forty-Two, the person she should have remained all along.
…
Billie stood in the shower until her skin wrinkled. Pain and tears leaked out of her until her throat ached. He’d had a daughter who’d died. The best thing that had happened to him had walked away. The agony leaking from him stained the room when he talked about Ruby and his wife leaving. The man wasn’t just in pain, he lived it every second of every minute of every day. She’d do anything to help him see that there could be light after dark, but from his words, the look on his face, it wouldn’t be her.
She’d thought she’d somehow gotten through to him that there was more out there than just ticking days off the calendar until the inevitable end. The way he looked at her, really looked at her, when he moved inside her had brought tears to her eyes. She’d thought he might be feeling the same. Seemed she’d read that wrong. Way wrong. He’d made it clear they weren’t worth the risk.
She crawled into bed, too wired for sleep. A headache that she’d been fighting since this morning beat out an SOS at the back of her brain. There was no way she was going to risk running into Mason by going to her desk and getting pain killers. Tomorrow she’d be the consummate professional. She was done.
She’d changed the bandage on her knee and put on more antibiotic cream, but the stupid thing throbbed, which at least helped her concentrate less on the throb in her heart. God, had she been fooling herself that there was a crack in the armor he wore so proudly? He’d called her Billie, after all. Maybe it wasn’t her that he needed or wanted. Maybe he needed the familiar and the perfect. Yeah, maybe he needed to make that connection back to his ex-wife.
Pain swelled in her chest, and her breath hitched. It was time for her to step back. She’d hopefully planted a seed that would bloom and grow within him. But tomorrow one thing was sure: the employer/employee boundary was firmly drawn in the sand. The chess pieces had been set out, and it was his move.
Chapter Nine
The next day, Billie stared at the flash drive she’d transcribed. Instead of using talk to text for some reason, he must have spent the last night just talking. He used the MP3 when he wanted to rattle off words and not wait for the speech to text converter to change his words. But manually transcribing his thoughts and then editing them into some semblance of a document was exhausting.
Lord, she was tired. She could lay her weary head down and sleep for an hour straight. She was having a hard time kicking a headache, and it felt like her heart was using her knee to measure its beats, the pounding worsening it. She made a mental note to change the dressing again at lunch.
Mason had barely glanced in her direction all day. He acted as if nothing had ever happened between them, which suited her. For hours, she’d listened to his monotone voice when he downloaded the files from his MP3 dictation machine to a flash drive. Somewhere in the middle of his rambling ideas, something snagged in her brain. She’d transcribed enough that she knew his moods as he spoke. When he’d had a steely conversation with the council, frustration cut through his words. If he’d found something amusing, there’d be a lightness to his tone. But on this drive? Nothing. It was like the automated voice she heard when she phoned the bank, asking her to punch in one for account information or two for an operator.
Her phone pinged with a text from Sarah, and she half-smiled.
Get your man-hunting attire on, girl. Tonight we’re out.
She so didn’t want to go out tonight. She’d rather be in bed by seven, but when she’d spoken to Sarah earlier in the day, her hopeful and excited voice had hummed over the line. Sarah had worked hard to get her business up and running, and she needed this night as well.
Billie went to the kitchen to start lunch. Instead of typing out the menu each day and delivering it to Mason in black and white perfection, she’d found a little chalkboard, and today’s lunch menu of a roasted pepper, brie, and roast beef Panini with potato salad and fresh fruit was written in blue, pink and orange chalk. On a whim, she’d drawn happy suns and clouds. So not what was going on inside her, but it gave her a nice façade to hide behind. Like Mason’s pity party, only with smiley faces. This little chalkboard made her smile, and today she needed that.
She carried his plate into the formal dining room and set a place. She pulled her p
hone, found his number, and sent him a text advising him lunch was ready. A short time later, he arrived in the kitchen, plate in hand.
“Why aren’t you eating in there?” He indicated with his hand the room he’d just left.
“I prefer here.”
“Stretchy pants and slippers,” he murmured.
Her head shot up. “You heard me back then.”
He glanced at her. “I always hear you.”
“Not sure that you do,” she said under her breath. He blinked then stared at the chalkboard, his eyes skimming over the words. He looked positively confused at the flowers and smiley faces at the bottom of the board. “What’s that?”
“The printed menus suit the dining room, not this room. This room is about happiness and love, where people come and talk about the day, share their meal. It is deserving of a blackboard.”
He took a bite of his sandwich then sat across from her, shoulders back, looking anything but relaxed.
She squinted as the hammer in her head knocked against her skull. She picked at the potato salad. “Why are you eating here?”
“Stanley’s in here, and I enjoy his company.” He flicked his gaze at Billie and then looked at the doggie pillow where Stanley pretended to sleep. Poor pup. She had no idea how he was going to deal with them leaving here. Mason quickly finished his meal and made his way to where Stanley lay, now fully awake and eyeing him.
“I’ll take him out for a bit.”
She nodded without looking at him and abandoned her meal to search for a headache killer.
Hours later, she’d gone to Mason’s room to put away his laundry and then hightailed it out, avoiding the bed and the memories.
Her summons came hours later. “Forty-Two!”
Billie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Why couldn’t he just have the decency to text her like she did him? She found him in the office.
“Keep your hair on, Herman. What’s up? Why are you angry?”
He looked up in surprise. “I’m not angry. You finished everything?”
“Yep. Done for the day. I’ll be taking some time off tonight.”
Winning the Boss's Heart Page 12
