He kisses me softly. “Oh yeah.”
“This is the first time I’ve ever invited a delivery guy to wear my cat slippers.”
“So you’re nervous.” He grins and kisses me again.
I’m not nervous when he kisses me. “But that beast thing is totally a go, if you’re into that.”
His eyes flare dark. “Yes. I’m into that.” He presses harder against me, pushing his cock into my palm. “But I like it even more if it’s your fantasy. Whatever makes you hot, makes me hard. Feel that?”
Instead of answering him, I squeeze his erection. I’ve never before thought, hey, this dick feels really good in my hand, but his does. Like…really good. Thick and heavy. Promising.
And as I touch him, the air between us shifts again. From playful back to intense, like it was in the kitchen, where a kiss got out of control in the best way possible.
He’s got a tool belt of sorts on, so I can’t just start undressing him, but there’s enough play to the fabric of his pants that I can jerk him off a bit. He leans in and catches my lower lip between his teeth, making something hungry inside me lurch. Yes. Now. Right here.
He gets my pants off, then his hand is in my panties and that feels like an excellent plan because his fingers are touching me and that’s incredible…but it’s so squirmalicious that my legs start shaking, and that’s the flaw in the awesome standing-in-the-hall sex plan.
The standing up part is hard when someone is playing my clit like a fine violin.
“You’re so soft,” he whispers. “Perfect.”
And whispering dirty, sweet, melt-me words in my ear.
I whimper, and somehow—does he have a third hand?—he picks me up and carries me the rest of the way to my bed.
“I’ve got you, wild thing. Trust the beast.” His fingers are wet as they trail over my thigh and find me again, slick and ready for him, and he kisses me. Rough and reckless, this kiss feels like. Rough and perfect.
How can something be so random, so almost-impossible, so totally reckless…and still perfect? Still totally, completely, stretch-out-naked-for-a-stranger right?
I tug his shirt out of his pants, and he pauses stroking me long enough to pull his belt off and shove it toward the foot of my bed, the heavy holsters on it clunking together. A cell phone tumbles out of one of them, but he doesn’t seem to care. As I work on his fly, he starts touching me again, and I don’t care about anything else, either.
He uses two fingers this time, and two Jake fingers are significant. They’re long and thick, and the stretch is enough to make me gasp. Plus he knows just what to do with them. Where to stroke and where to push. When to crook and curve and reach until I’m shamelessly riding his hand to my second orgasm.
And that’s when his phone rings.
Of course it is.
When my thighs are sticky and I’m half-naked and I still haven’t seen his cock up close and personal.
He swears under his breath.
“Do you have to…?” I trail off, because off course he has to. Otherwise he’d have turned it off or just ignored it. “It’s okay.”
It doesn’t really feel okay, but that’s the right thing to say here.
He shakes his head. “It’s fine.”
But then another phone starts ringing. Who has two cell phones? He hesitates, his knuckles turning white as he grips the blanket next to my head, and I push him lightly toward the end of the bed.
No way am I messing up this guy’s job just so I can get laid. “Answer it,” I say gently. “You can use the living room if you want.”
A look passes over his face, the skin around his eyes getting tight for a second, and I can’t read it. Is he embarrassed about his job? Or is he in trouble, and he doesn’t want to get dressed down by his boss in front of me?
“Or…”
He grimaces and finishes my thought. “Yeah. I gotta go. I’m sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am.”
I laugh weakly. “Well, I got mine. Twice. So…I’m sorry for you.” I look at his erection, still thick and heavy against the front of his boxer briefs, bulging out through the open fly of his uniform. So close.
He tosses the phone he’d picked up aside and leans forward, catching me around the back of my neck. He kisses me hard on the mouth. “I got my fingers wet, Jana. And it was the best thing I’ve ever felt. My tongue is fucking jealous. No way I’m not finishing this with you. I’ll be back.”
Chapter Ten
Jake
I call my chief operating officer back as soon as I’m outside.
“This better be mission fucking critical,” I grind out, leaping into my truck. It’s cold and dark outside now, and as soon as the voice activated speaker takes over the call, I pull on my gloves.
“Did I interrupt something important?” Neil asks in his endlessly cool drawl. Nothing ruffles his feathers, which is why he’s in charge of operations—but it’s also why I rarely hear from him outside of scheduled meetings.
“Everything is important.” I take a deep breath. That’s disingenuous. Jana’s special on a different level than my standard mantra. Everything is important. Every task, every person, every part of the process from the bottom on up to the top. It’s what sets Aston Corp apart. I’ve said that so many times it comes out by rote now. And it’s true. Even if I was simply delivering packages, I would be doing a job worth doing with all my attention.
Not that I was doing that.
I was doing something else. Someone else. And when Neil takes a deep breath, a sinking feeling tells me I’m not coming back any time tonight. “We’ve got a problem. A need-you-back-in-New-York-now kind of problem.”
Twelve hours later, I stride out of the early morning frost and into the lobby of the Aston Corp building wearing a black Hugo Boss suit. Fitted, always. My real uniform. It’s still dark out, but my assistant meets me at the elevator with a cup of coffee and the latest brief the lawyers have put together for me. I grabbed two hours of sleep in the middle of the night, while my options were being investigated for legal minefields, but even though she’s changed, I’m not sure she got any rest.
“Have you been here the entire time?”
She shrugged. “Vince brought me a change of clothes and a bagel an hour ago.”
“Your husband is a good man. But you need some rest. Today’s going to be a long day.”
“You’ll make it up to me by approving an extra day of vacation at Christmas.”
True story. “Who’s upstairs already?”
She gestures for me to flip the paper over. I drain the last of my coffee as I read the list of names.
“They’re all here?”
“When you say jump, they all say how high.”
I give her a scathing look, because if that were really true, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
She shrugs. “Well, at least they pretend to.”
I take another sip of coffee as the elevator rises past the eighteenth floor. Another few seconds. “I’ve missed your coffee, Cath.”
“And my biting sarcasm?” she asks hopefully, trying to make a joke. Cath’s too sweet for sarcasm, but I don’t bother to burst that bubble.
“You still need to work on that. Put that in your next performance review for me to sign.”
“Will do.” She hesitates. “Sorry this happened while you were in Baltimore.”
I grimace. I know it’s not logical to worry that it happened because I was away—it turns out the SwiftEx executive team had been corrupt for years, at a bone-deep level—but yeah…playtime is over. “That’s life.”
“Good luck in there. I’m going check in with security, then I’ll be at my desk.”
I hand her my now-empty coffee mug as the doors open, then stride away from her, cold, hard anger pumping through my veins.
Waiting outside the boardroom is my legal team. I give them a curt nod, then they fall into place behind me.
There’s nothing like the chill of a boardroom full of assholes who think th
ey’re alpha. And for years, these smarmy fuckers were bullet-proof. When nobody is looking too closely at your books, you can get away with a lot of shit.
Hell, we had looked closely at the SwiftEx accounting during the takeover and we’d still missed it. Shell corporations and more than a decade of layering lies…
But this is Aston Corp. This is the towering citadel in the sky that I built. In this building, in this room, I’m the fucking alpha.
I give one hard, unyielding look around the room before saying, “Gentleman. Thank you so much for coming in at this early hour. You’re all fired.”
Chapter Eleven
Jana
After he left last night, Jake sent flowers.
Really nice flowers, too—hydrangeas in early December aren’t cheap, and I don’t think orchids are ever cheap. I really wanted something else from him, but he had to go. Something urgent’s come up, the card on the flowers said. Below it was a phone number with a New York area code.
I sent him a thank you text with a picture of the flowers, and he sent one back promising to let me know when he was back in town.
I’d gone to sleep filled with a weird, bittersweet happiness. My spontaneous hook-up had gone from uncomplicated and hot to super-complicated and sweet. But this morning…I don’t know, but something feels different.
My phone chirps at me from the bedside table and I grab for it. I ignore the irrational stab of disappointment when it’s Nina and not Jake.
Nina: When are you coming to the city again? I need to go to Belgium the week before Christmas.
Jana: Not until the first week of January now. My meeting keeps moving.
Nina: Oh, phew. I was worried I’d be away.
Jana: It’s all good. Hey…you can stop sending me cat toys now, by the way. Hot Delivery Guy went out of town.
Nina: What cat toys?
Jana: Shut up.
The next text message is just a cartoon of a cat on its back, laughing. I roll my eyes and climb out of bed. The phone rings as I’m brewing my first cup of coffee.
She’s still laughing. “I’m surprised it took you that long to call me out on it.”
I look at the flowers, tucked carefully in the corner of the counter so the cats won’t knock them over. “I was busy.”
“In a knockin’ boots kind of way?”
“In a none of your business way. What are you going to Belgium for?” I open the pantry door and pull out the cat food. Breakfast for everyone, and they know it. I feed them while Nina tells me about her work trip, then I put on toast and turn the TV on, keeping the volume down.
“So yeah, it’ll be kind of a whirlwind trip, but I get to go through Paris, and that’s fun.”
“Sounds like it. I bet—” I stop mid-sentence, because something caught my eye on the TV. I’m not sure what at first. There’s a newscaster talking about the CEO of Aston Corp, and the photo over her shoulder is the company’s logo. But then it changes as she talks. SwiftEx. Maybe that was it. “Hang on, Nina.” I turn up the volume. “Sorry, there’s something on the news about SwiftEx.”
She giggles. “And just because your crush delivers for them…”
“I’m just staying current on the news, that’s all. Shush.”
Apparently most of the executive team from SwiftEx was fired this morning by the parent company that recently bought them. The newscaster recaps those details, then says, “We’ll go now to the lobby of the Aston Corp building here in New York where founder and CEO, Jake Aston, is holding a press conference.”
“What channel?” Nina asks, but I can’t answer her, because Jake is on TV.
My Jake.
Of the flowers and orgasms and pretending to be a regular Joe at my doorway for the last three weeks.
Jake Aston knows what I look like mostly naked.
Oh my God. Jake Aston knows what I look like when I come.
“I gotta go,” I whisper, then hang up the phone, because there’s no way I can explain this without sounding like a crazy stalker.
I look at the flowers again, then the television screen. I move closer, my hand shaking as I try to find Jake’s text message again.
Jake: I’ll let you know when I’m back in town.
I hadn’t replied yet, because I was playing it cool and thanking him for the flowers was enough.
But what do I do now? Do I tell him I’ve seen him on TV? Do I…not? Can I keep pretending that I don’t know who he really is?
I sit down on the ottoman in front of the TV. A cat leaps into my lap and I absently scratch Larken behind the ears as I devour Jake-in-a-suit with my eyes.
I like him in his uniform, but this? This is off the charts hot.
And then I feel a crazy pang of guilt. He doesn’t want me to know who he is. He wants to be just Jake, at the door. If he wanted me to know who he was, he’d have found a way to tell me.
The next thought to slam through me is…he doesn’t want me to know for a reason. Anonymous hook-ups followed by a generous bouquet of flowers is probably his modus operandi.
I look down at the phone in my hand. Right. No replying to his text. Maybe he’ll be in touch, maybe he won’t. But he’s not really SwiftEx driver who lives in Baltimore, so does it really matter?
Chapter Twelve
Jake
Christmas Eve
“Should I even ask if you’re doing anything for the holidays?” Cath asks as she sets the leather folder of letters for me to sign at the right-hand side of my desk.
I don’t look up. “I’m going to my mother’s for dinner tomorrow.”
“And tonight?”
“I don’t want to have dinner with you and Vince.”
She laughs. “Vince is working, and I’m going to Mass with his parents. I assume you’re not interested. It was more of a general reminder that tonight isn’t a night to be working.”
I glance up. “Of course not. I’m heading out soon.”
It’s a lie, but she lets it go.
Once I sign everything, she disappears again, and I reach for my phone. I’ve only texted Jana once since I came back to New York, after she thanked me for the flowers. Something’s held me back from reaching out again. I don’t want to make any false promises to her. The reality is I’m needed here. I’m probably not going to be able to return to my undercover boss routine, ever. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to find a way to see her again…but it hasn’t happened this month and I feel like shit about that.
But I’d feel even worse if I didn’t reach out to the one person I’d actually like to spend tonight with.
Jake: Merry Christmas, beautiful.
She replies almost right away.
Jana: Hey! Merry Christmas to you as well. I wasn’t sure if I’d hear from you.
Jake: Sorry about the radio silence.
What do I say next? I miss you? You’re the first person I thought of when my assistant pointed out how sad and lonely my life is? I settle for something way less emo.
Jake: I’m still out of town.
Jana: Me too, actually. Flew to my parents’ for a week.
Jake: Where’s that?
Jana: Vermont. They’re ski nuts.
Jake: Do you ski?
Jana: Sometimes. I brought work with me.
I laugh. Maybe I miss her because for all our differences, we’ve got a lot in common. Both workaholics.
Jake: Sounds about right.
Jana: I’m being summoned for a rousing game of Monopoly. But…you should text me again soon.
Jake: I will. Drink some hot apple cider or something for me.
I wait until the building is empty, then I call and place an order for Chinese food to pick up on my way home. I go to sleep thinking about playing strip Monopoly with Jana. Trading railway properties for sexual favors. That morphs into a fantasy of a Christmas Eve not spent in a sterile Upper West Side co-op, but in Jana’s cozy apartment in Baltimore. Stockings hung for cats and kittens and humans alike. Cookies for Santa and over-the-to
p Christmas decorations everywhere.
Never in my life have I been a sentimental man.
But my last thought as I drift off is that I should probably find an evening to fly up to Vermont this week.
Chapter Thirteen
Jana
Four days after Christmas
I’m trying to decide between a fuzzy sweater and a cute plaid shirt—both Christmas presents to myself that I bought in the village yesterday—when my sister yells up the stairs. “Jana, you’ve got a delivery!”
Ugh. Sometimes I hate how accessible I’ve made myself to my company. There’s not even anyone really there this week. A skeleton staff answering phones and fielding emails, but my editor and director and the VP they report to are all on vacation.
That didn’t stop me from agreeing to proof a couple of card designs so they could go into production the first week of January.
Almost everything we do is digital these days, but as the artist with my signature in the corner of the design, I have it worked into my contract that I get to sign off on a physical proof of the final copy before they go into the full print run.
It’s important, and a quality assurance step I wouldn’t want to give up. But it means that I need to have a quick turnaround on my approvals, and be accessible wherever I am in the world. When I went to Italy for my birthday last year, clearing those two weeks from my schedule was surprisingly difficult.
I need to get better at the whole work-life balance thing or I’m never going to have a social life.
And no, almost banging a billionaire doesn’t count, because after the almost-banging, he disappeared from my life—which just proves that I’m attracted to workaholics just like myself.
It’s so freaking unhealthy.
What I should do is check these cards out, approve them online, and then get out there on the ski hill. Meet a ski bum and find a way to drop the hint that I’m an easy lay.
Personal Delivery: A Billionaire Secrets Story Page 4
