Kari pushed up on her tiptoes to peek through the windows slotted into the doors, then shrugged when she lowered herself down and met my eyes again. “He’s gone. It’s too bad. He was pretty darn hot.”
“Urg. It’s probably for the best that he’s gone then. A hot guy who puts down that amount of money for a dessert for someone he’s never even met is bound to be trouble.”
“Hot and obviously loaded doesn’t necessarily mean trouble.” She grinned and brought her hands to her hips, thrusting obscenely as she let out a soft, pretend moan. “He might’ve been good for a little afternoon delight.”
I swatted at her upper arm, not wanting to giggle at her antics but also not able to suppress the urge entirely. “Stop that. You’re at work and you look ridiculous.”
“Got you to smile, didn’t I?” She batted her lashes innocently but thankfully dropped the act. Her expression sobered somewhat as she glanced toward the office. “You shouldn’t be so hard on Eliot. He’s a nice guy. You could do a lot worse.”
“He’s a perfectly good guy but for someone else,” I said firmly. “I’m focused on my career right now, remember? I’m not looking for a relationship. It wouldn’t be fair to even think about it while I’m so stressed about my job possibly being on the line.”
“Love is what happens while you’re busy making other plans,” she said before nudging my ribs with her elbow. “Even if you don’t want to date him, you don’t have to be so stressed about your job. You’ve got options. If you wanted to, you could even come work here at the restaurant with me. I bet Eliot would hire you in a heartbeat.”
Sighing, I rolled my eyes at her and shook my head. “I wouldn’t take advantage of his feelings that way. It just wouldn’t be right. Plus, I’d be a terrible waitress. I can’t balance a tray to save my life. You’ve got real skills.”
“You could learn,” she said but drew in a deep breath and nodded. “I understand why you feel like it’d be taking advantage of his feelings, but you’ve been clear and honest with him. Maybe not in the nicest way, but he knows his feelings aren’t reciprocated.”
“Sure, for now, but if he gives me a job, he might expect something in return. Plus, it wouldn’t matter if he said that wasn’t why he was hiring me. It’d still feel like I’m taking advantage, and I couldn’t live with that on my conscience.”
“I get it.” She reached out to squeeze my arm, then moved the dessert from her tray before tucking it under her arm. “I’d better get back out there. I asked Erin to cover my tables for a minute, but it’s been much more than that. She’s bound to be getting swamped by now.”
“Go for it.” I gave her a quick hug. “I’ve got to get back to work too. I’ll see you at home later. If you speak to him again today, please tell Eliot that I’m sorry. I feel like an ass.”
“But a very cute ass. I’m sure you’re forgiven by now.” She winked before pushing through the doors and back into the dining room. I followed her out, leaving the restaurant and my mortification behind.
I didn’t have time to be hung up on my mistake or on anything Kari had said about Eliot, the hot guy, or the possibility of going to work with her at the restaurant. I needed to concentrate on my job and strategies about how to keep it.
No man—Eliot or the hot apparently rich dessert sender—was going to distract me from my goals. As for the afternoon delight, well, I had a battery-operated boyfriend who took care of my needs just fine. There would come a time when orgasms mattered again, but this wasn’t it.
As much as it pained certain parts of me to even think it, finding a man to replace my trusty vibrator would just have to wait. I wasn’t interested right now, no matter how hot the guy or how big his wallet—or even other things of his—might be.
Chapter 6
BEN
After spending sixteen straight hours working, sleep was still eluding me. I lay on my back in my bed, my blackout curtains drawn and all my lights off, but no amount of counting sheep in the dark was yielding a result.
Instead of being welcomed to peaceful slumber before starting all over again tomorrow morning, I kept thinking about the brunette from the restaurant earlier. It was a little disturbing that she’d had such a profound effect on me that, hours later, I still couldn’t get her out of my head.
I’d seen my fair share of beautiful women after the divorce, and while I’d chat or flirt with them on occasion, it had always been because they’d approached me. This woman hadn’t even looked at me, and yet for some reason, she was the one I couldn’t stop thinking about.
Nic had done a real number on my heart, and my bank accounts for that matter, and I wasn’t looking for anyone after all that. Even though it had been a few years since she’d put me through the wringer, I was still angry, still hurt, and in no position to be in a relationship. Because of that, I preferred to keep my distance.
As if thinking about the devil had summoned her, my ringing phone pierced the silence in my room. I grabbed it from the nightstand, immediately knowing it was Nic even though the number was unknown.
It didn’t matter how many times I’d blocked her, she always just popped up with a new number. As much as I’d rather eat my own foot than speak to her, I knew she wouldn’t give up until I answered. Waiting until late at night before she called had become her thing, since she knew that during the day I didn’t have time to listen to her rants.
Unfortunately, I was also pretty sure that she took some kind of perverse pleasure in knowing that she was robbing me of the few minutes of quiet time I had to myself on most days. Calling at this time of night didn’t only mean I probably wasn’t at work. It also meant that she got to invade my personal space in the only way she could nowadays.
My ex, the gem, ladies and gentlemen. The only thing I could do to keep her intrusion to the bare minimum was to pick up, take whatever bullshit she was peddling today, and then hang up. And Carl thinks the life of a single billionaire is glamorous.
It was sad that the only action I ever got nearing midnight was scathing phone calls from my ex-wife. Maybe I had to give those nightclubs another go. Anything had to be better than staring at my phone, hoping that it stopped ringing and didn’t start again. No such luck.
When I finally answered, I was greeted by her breathy voice shooting an accusation at me rather than a hello. “My lawyer says he thinks you’ve been hiding assets in the Caymans. If you’ve stashed a pot of money there, Benjamin Reed, so help me I’ll lay claim to half of it.”
“The Caymans, huh?” I chuckled. I knew it would only infuriate her, but the shit she and her lawyer came up with was just so out there sometimes that the only way to deal with it was to laugh. It was either that or allow it to drive me nuts. “He won’t find anything, and even if he does, you signed a pre-nup, Nic. It stipulated your payout and you’ve gotten more than you were entitled to.”
I could practically hear her bristling over the line. “Might I remind you that I’ve contested your bogus pre-nup, and when I find a judge to overturn it, I’m going to take half of everything you own?”
“I don’t think that’s quite how it works.” In fact, my lawyers had assured me that pre-nups weren’t an easy thing to bypass. If they were, there wouldn’t have been any point in ever signing the damn things in the first place. “Why are you even bothering with this? I set you up with properties, jewelry, cash, and a whole bunch of other perks. Why are you hounding me for more?”
“Because I deserve it,” she snapped. “I took a lot of crap from you, and I don’t appreciate that you’re trying to throw me out on my ass with nothing.”
“Nothing?” I scoffed. “Jesus. Your idea of nothing is a lot different to mine.”
“It’s nothing when compared to what I should’ve gotten. I deserve more than what amounts to pennies to someone like you.”
My frustration boiled over when she kept harping on about what she deserved. What she really deserved was a massive cramp in her butt, and perhaps to invest in a scheme that wo
uld lose her everything over and above what I should’ve paid her. Maybe if she was left with only what she’d been entitled to, she’d realize how generous I’d been.
Knowing that it was a pipe dream, I hung up and blocked her new number instead of listening to her any longer. I knew now what her latest play was, and I figured I had already let her waste enough of my time this evening.
My lawyers already knew she was contesting the pre-nup. I would give them the heads-up that she intended on following through with her earlier threats, but there wasn’t much else I could do for now. We couldn’t swing the bat when there wasn’t a ball coming at us yet. We had to wait for them to pitch and then do what we could.
Tossing my phone down somewhere on the tangled sheets of my California king-sized bed, I shut my eyes and tried again to get some sleep. The brunette popped into my mind once again, and I was reminded that I’d been thinking about her before Nic had called.
Maybe the stranger is the exact distraction I need right now. Where earlier I’d been wondering why I couldn’t stop thinking about her, I now allowed my mind to wander into the territory I’d subconsciously been keeping it away from.
I wasn’t one to fantasize about complete strangers on a regular basis. There had been a time I’d watched porn as much as the next red-blooded, unattached person, but that time had long since passed. When I’d been younger, I used to see a pretty girl at school or at the office, and she’d inevitably star in my fantasies from time to time.
These days, though, it didn’t happen very often. When I felt the need, I jerked off to errant memories or a few well-imagined body parts of unnamed, faceless women that got me to where I needed to be as fast as I could get there. There wasn’t often time for much else.
Since I was awake tonight anyway though—and thinking about a girl who made me hard as steel just by thinking about her lips or the way her ass swayed when she walked—I figured I’d make an exception. It wasn’t like I was ever going to see her again, so I didn’t think it mattered what I did to thoughts of her.
The floodgates opened, and my brain called up a picture of her with almost perfect clarity. Those minutes I’d spent mesmerized by her were coming in useful now, since I could remember just about every detail about her.
Her red lips, shaped like something between a bow and a heart, wrapped around my hard cock in my imagination. She was on her knees in front of me, uniquely blue eyes hazy with lust when she looked up at me. I hadn’t been close enough to her to tell for sure, but there had definitely been a lilac hue to her irises from a distance. For purposes of this fantasy, I was keeping them exactly like that.
My eyes closed when I imagined her wrapping her silky tongue around my tip, sliding down my shaft as she took me deeper. Her long, brunette locks were loose and fanning out over her shoulders, shifting as she withdrew slowly before sucking me in farther than before.
I groaned into the darkness of my bedroom, my hips arching just slightly off the bed as if rising to meet her mouth. Still without touching myself, I allowed my mind to go further down the rabbit role.
In the next scene, I imagined that her prim and proper clothes were lying in a pile next to my bed. Her luscious curves were completely exposed to me, her breasts heavy in my hands and her dusky nipples tight under my thumbs.
She sat on top of me, her heat radiating into me as she tucked her hair behind her ears and flashed me a coy smile. There was mischief in the sparkle of her eyes before she ducked her head to slam her mouth against mine.
My hands burrowed into her thick hair, bunching it up in my fists as I devoured her with the same fervor she was using on me. It had been so damn long since I’d had a truly satisfying sexual experience that my cock was already throbbing, my breathing coming out in shallow pants.
I could tell that my impending orgasm was going to blow my mind, but I didn’t want to rush it. If I was going to take the time to do this properly, I was going to take the damn time.
In my mind, the sexy stranger ground her slick pussy against me, a husky moan falling from those full lips as her eyes drifted closed. I moved my hand between us, sliding my fingers between her wet folds and reveling in the mewling sounds she made.
Of course, I had no idea what she sounded like in real life, but my brain was filling in the blanks. Her clit was swollen and hard when I dragged the pad of my finger around it. My gaze locked on her head falling back as she rocked into my hand.
A low, strangled sound escaped me when I imagined how her muscles would tremble as she got closer. Finally too desperate for friction, I wrapped my fingers around my shaft and moaned my relief out loud.
Stroking slowly, I gave myself a breather by focusing on the elegant curve of her neck to her shoulder and her shiver when I ran my fingers down her side. The imagined stranger bit out my name between gasps as I tightened the circles the fingers of my other hand were drawing around her clit.
Since I considered myself generous in the bedroom, I made her come twice in my head before I couldn’t hold back much longer. I’d never been one for making love. Taking things slowly didn’t always mean it wasn’t still just fucking.
For some reason, however, once I imagined burying myself to the hilt in her, the picture changed. I was no longer interested in fucking her six ways from Sunday until she walked funny the next day. I’d intended on having her on all fours, that perfect fucking ass begging for my handprint on it as I plowed into her.
That wasn’t how it happened, though. As my strokes grew faster and more urgent, chasing the climax that I wouldn’t have been able to stop if I wanted to, I was suddenly on top of her. Her lilac eyes were on mine, her fingers curled around my hands next to the pillow as I thrust into her.
Her mouth was open in a little ‘o’ and I dropped my forehead against hers when I felt the first familiar stirrings of the fireworks about to happen. Too close to wonder about why my fantasy had gone in this direction, I went with it.
It was only when my mind conjured up what it might feel like when she came apart underneath me, around me, looking into my eyes while breathing my name, that I lost it myself. Completely unexpectedly, I came while fantasizing about the end of a long, slow lovemaking session with a complete fucking stranger.
And I came hard. Coating my stomach and my chest with my own seed, I breathed hard and blinked my eyes open when every last drop was eventually drained out of me.
Lying there panting by myself in my bed, there was only one thought playing on a loop in my mind. What the fuck was that all about?
Chapter 7
TORI
Things were finally going to start coming to a head today. It was going to be a big day, and I was already on edge even though I’d only been out of bed for about thirty minutes.
As I got ready for work, I tried to calm my nerves by preparing as best I could. I paid close attention to every detail of my outfit, choosing a navy pencil skirt, nude heels, and a neat shirt beneath a matching jacket.
I knew my clothes wouldn’t save my job, but I also subscribed to the theory that one had to look good to feel good. In this outfit, I felt professional, comfortable, and as if I was projecting confidence.
Using dark coal eyeliner, I drew a thin line on my lower lids and added just a touch of mascara. I didn’t want my makeup to look like it had been painted on. I didn’t have anything to hide, and I wanted that message to come across the second I walked into the room.
A part of me felt silly to be analyzing every aspect of what I looked like, but I was dressed for success because I would only get one shot at making a good first impression. The new owner of the company would be onsite today, apparently making staffing decisions personally. If I could give myself any advantage, even if it was just being meticulous about the first image the new boss would get of me, I’d take it.
Thoughts had been consuming me about why it was so important to me to keep this job, and I’d come to the realization that it wasn’t just because of the fact that I had debts to pay. The
truth was that I truly enjoyed my work. My boss might be a stick in the mud and my salary wasn’t exactly huge, but I was good at what I did, and I really liked my co-workers.
Our company culture suited me, and I didn’t want to have to find another job. Especially if the only thing that paid well enough at the moment was being a half-nude candy delivery service. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and if I had to do it, I would. I was just going to do whatever I could to prove to this corporate shark who loved firing people so much that he could keep his favorite pen capped—he wouldn’t be needing it to sign my marching orders.
When I got to the office, I walked to my desk and put away my purse before heading to the conference room where we’d been told to meet. The atmosphere in here was thick, and I could practically taste the bitterness and nerves with every breath I took.
People shuffled around to make space for every new employee that entered, and there was a low murmur as we greeted each other, but no one seemed to be in the mood to chat. A large, oval table occupied the center of the room, the chairs around it occupied by the executives and others in the higher levels of the business.
My boss was seated near the front, but I preferred to keep a lower profile. I could probably have gone to stand behind him, but I found a seat near the back. I doubted using him as a human shield would work anyway. It would just make it easier for him to turn around, grab me, and throw me under the bus.
Once the room was so full that some people were halfway into the hallway outside, the murmuring abruptly ended when two men entered the room and a hush fell over the crowd. My co-workers parted for them like they were warm knives cutting through butter, and it took them no time at all to make their way to the front.
Both men were tall, well dressed, and built like they definitely knew their way around the gym. The one in the front was partially obscured by the other employees from my vantage point, so I focused on the second one.
Love Your Moves: A Billionaire Valentine's Romantic Comedy Page 4
