“Oh, Zar. That can’t be right. That man loves you. Can tell by looking at him when he looks at you.” Cara leaned against the pantry cupboard door. “Always could.”
“That’s what makes this messy. He does love me. But there’s not a lot of him left over and he’s happy. I’m the one with the problem.”
“Everyone who knew Reid before his meltdown says he’s changed. He’s still as obnoxiously up in everyone’s business as before, just as annoying and intimidating, but he’s more considerate, has more of a sense of humor about it. Sure, he learned his lesson losing Plus, but I think it’s having you that’s mellowed him. Fight for him. Give him an ultimatum. He makes more time for you—”
“Or what?”
“I do like the color they used. I see your point. You’re miserable, aren’t you?”
“The towel rails in the bathroom are cute.”
“Zarley.”
She sighed and jumped to sit on the countertop. Her feet were sore from her shift, standing for hours on a concrete floor. “I am miserable. It’s like we’ve come full circle. We were all about the sex when we started, because I didn’t want anything serious, now we’re all about the sex because we’re addicted to it. He needs the outlet and I’m too weak to say no, and there’s no time for anything else.”
“Reid is using you for sex.” Cara buried her face in her hands. “Na, na, na, nana. I can’t hear that. Work for the man, live in his apartment till I sign a new lease here.”
“He’s not using me anymore than I’m using him. But it’s like living with us isn’t enough for you, what we have isn’t enough for me.”
Cara eyed the bench. It was the only place to sit except the floor. She eased her backside onboard with a wince and a grunt. “Hmm, sturdy. Want to know what I think?”
“Not really.”
“Excellent, so I’ll tell you. The Zarley I trained with, the one who was around when I had my accident, who worked harder than any other gymnast I knew, was good at getting what she wanted.” Cara put a hand up. “Don’t say anything. I’m trying to be profound, but I opened my mouth a little ahead of my brain figuring out what I was going to say. Anyway. That Zarley chased what she wanted hard and apart from a few years where she was wobbly, that’s what she’s good at. So the way I figure it is you have to work out what you want and then go hard.”
“Is that it for profound?”
“Wasn’t my best ever piece of advice. I’m distracted by the shiny.”
“Sometimes you don’t get what you want.”
Cara shuffled her butt closer and laid her head on Zarley’s shoulder. Zarley rested her cheek on Cara’s hair. Both of them had wanted more from their gymnastics careers, and not getting it because their bodies weren’t in sync with their ambitions and their spirits still hurt. It would physically hurt Cara for the rest of her life.
“The part about figuring out what you want, that’s profound, so what do you want, Zar?”
Wishes and dreams, unicorns and rainbows. Her own business her own way. “I can tell you what I don’t want.”
“Slippin’ zippers, I always get second best with you.”
Zarley straightened up and Cara reacted. “Sorry, bad choice of words.”
“But that’s the thing. I don’t want to be second best with Reid, or with any man I love enough to live with.” To have contemplated forever with. “I don’t want to be what exists in the gaps he makes when he’s not working. He’s doing what he loves most. For a while I got to be that thing and it was wonderful. I don’t want to go on like this, half resenting him for not being there for me and yet clinging because I’m too scared to step away. I don’t want to put my ordinary life on hold because his is more amazing.”
“Because you could be amazing too.”
“Because I want to be amazing and I don’t know how many chances you get at that and I’ve already blown one.” And because you only deserved approval and respect when you got things right and not before. Every coach ever. But Reid had it all out of order—and she hadn’t done anything to continue to deserve his respect.
“So do what you need to be amazing and if you think that means leaving Reid I might not need a new roommate.”
Zarley looked at the new kitchen floor. It was white and would be hard to keep clean. The new lease had a special rent break so Cara wasn’t in a hurry to find a roomie. “Maybe when you’ve gone it will be different.”
It wasn’t. Cara moved out and Zarley worked nights at Sports Pro and came home with an aching back from standing for hours. She earned a third of what she’d taken home from Lucky’s.
Reid wanted her to quit, got annoyed with her for being stubborn about paying her own way and then disappeared into work again. She could’ve told him about her idea for a new Lucky’s but she didn’t, and struggled to understand why, except that it was the last piece of herself she’d not given him.
And still they came together in the dark and loved each other as if there were no barriers between them. Until the night Zarley knew if she kept coming second, more and more of herself would disappear until she self-sabotaged any chance she had coming first for herself.
She met Reid in the living room that night, even though he’d called to say his plane was late and not to wait up. He’d not had a great day. Owen’s recovery was stalled, and Reid worried for him, he’d had an argument with Dev who made Reid anxious because their friendship was still tenuous, and the major customer he’d gone to see had spent hours complaining about technical issues that had nothing to do with Plus.
He looked tired, but he lit up when he saw her. “Damn, it’s good to see you awake.”
And right there when he smiled, dropped his bag on the floor and shrugged his coat off as he came across the room to her, she knew she couldn’t tell him with words.
He’d argue, he’d persuade, he’d make a strong case. He’d leave her with no easy way out. He’d win because he loved her exactly as she was and she didn’t understand why that wasn’t enough.
It should be enough. There was something wrong with her it wasn’t.
She stepped onto his shoes and stood on her toes. “Did you eat? I could heat—”
His arms banded around her. “I ate. I had a nap on the flight. I don’t care what’s waiting in my messages.” He glanced toward the office. He had to will himself not to care. “Looking at you makes a bad day better.”
“Imagine what kissing me can do.” She’d left a sex lesson or two off their list and tonight she’d play them out, complete his education, and take one last lunge at pleasure for herself.
He lowered his head, his voice going honey-dipped. “Rewrite the code that runs the universe.”
He kissed her as if that was the case, with a devotion that made her heart seize. Had she taught him that, or had the capacity to make her feel so loved always been in him? How was she supposed to leave a man who could relate to her body so well? With Reid she could fly in ways a sprung floor, a springboard, a vault or a pole had kept her tethered.
He walked her to the sofa, she broke away and jumped to its seat. “I don’t understand why you’re still dressed.” She was inspired. “But I’ve decided it’s because my big bad warrior boss is too tired from slaying all those corporate thugs and narcissists that he can’t even undo a button.”
Reid quirked his head. “Okaaay.”
“My big bad warrior boss needs his little secretary to help him get ready for bed.”
He laughed. “They’re called team assistants.” She reached for his shirt. A regular pale blue business shirt, the collar undone, the cuffs rolled back and tucked in his jeans. She undid the top button, taking her time as if it was microsurgery, keeping her eyes on his face. “Ah, see where you’re going with this.”
She placed a kiss at his throat and Reid’s hand came up to tangle in her hair. “My boss needs some tender loving care.”
“I like where you’re going with this.”
She undid the second button, pressing a k
iss to the underside of his jaw. He stepped closer to the sofa so more of her body grazed more of his. She undid the third and fourth buttons and slipped her hand over his pec. “My boss is the best boss in the whole wide world.”
He grunted. “There are witnesses against that.”
“Hush.” She pulled his shirt aside and dipped her head to flick her tongue over his nipple.
“Ah, Zarley.” His hand moved through her hair and cupped her skull.
“Miss. Halveston,” she corrected, moving out of his hold and pulling on his shirt so it came out of his jeans.
He laughed softly, “Miss. Halveston is attempting to corrupt me.”
“No sir.” She pushed his shirt open, stood back and looked at him a moment before her hands went to his belt buckle. “I corrupted you a long time ago.”
“Best night of my life.”
He reached for her but she avoided his hands. “It’s a good secretary’s job to make her boss comfortable at all times.” By comfortable she meant aroused and he was, it showed in his eyes and his want to touch her, and in the way it deepened and thickened his voice.
“Comfortable is not how you’re making me feel.”
She took her hands away and cast her eyes down. “If I’ve made you unhappy, you should discipline me.”
He put his finger under her chin and brought it up, eyes data-mining hers. “Like that is ever going to happen. You have me caught in every breath you take.”
He wasn’t playing. It made her hands shake. She put them back on his belt and yanked it, pulling it around his body, out of the loops. Though she’d started this, it wasn’t a game to her either, it was the foam pit where she’d learned to tumble. It wouldn’t matter how high she soared or how badly she fell, she’d be protected from injury.
“My big bad boss is a huge softie and nobody knows that like me.” She jumped down from the sofa and circled behind Reid, needing to avoid his scrutiny. She tucked her fingers in the collar of his shirt and pulled it down his back, keeping his arms imprisoned. He turned his head to watch, so she kept her eyes up to his while she explored his shoulders with her hands and her lips.
“Zarley.”
“Miss. Halveston.” He would turn and hold her. And ruin her. She stepped back, pulled on his shirt and he let it come off his arms. By the time he turned she was on her knees ready to deal with his shoes. She knew he watched. He helped, shifting his weight, lifting his feet until he was barefoot. Kneeling up she reached for his jeans. His stomach jumped when she undid the stud. His chest heaved as she drew down the zipper.
None of what she did to him was new but he reacted as if it was the first time she’d kissed his belly, the first time she put her teeth to his hip and dragged her open mouth down his dick as she freed it from his pants. He trembled, his hands moved on her, he let her hear what he liked with indrawn breaths and low moans, from harshly coughed praise and stuttered gasps.
She could take him apart with her mouth and put him back together with her hands and when she used both, she made him lose his mind.
He swore, he grabbed at her, his breath labored and he shook. She pushed him back to the sofa and knelt between his legs to finish him, watched him watch her, until he couldn’t keep his eyes open, his head fell back and his hips took over.
When she pulled away and sat back, the effect of her work made her smile. The tension he’d carried into the room was gone, but she’d woken the hunger in him.
“Why are you still dressed?”
She needed another bit of secretary talk to fill in the role-play, because much as he’d thought it was fun, she needed it so she didn’t give herself away. She wished she’d thought this through, worn a skirt and a shirt with buttons, put her hair up, looked like she was business instead of leisure, before stripping it all away.
“An oversight, sir.”
She knew what he wanted, and could give it to him so easily because it cost her nothing and it made her feel everything.
Except tonight, it might cost her heart.
She pulled her sweatshirt off without ceremony, then gave a lot of wiggle to losing her yoga pants, going back to her knees at his feet in her underwear.
“Miss. Halveston, off those knees and onto mine.” He held a hand out and she took it, grateful he’d taken control, coming to her feet then taking his lap sideways.
He traced her lips with a finger. “Those smart lips are mine.”
“Yours.”
Hand to her throat, he flattened it across her chest, smoothing down till she opened her legs and he tunneled his hand into the hot gap between them. “This body is mine.”
She leaned back on the arm that circled her shoulders. “Yours.”
His hand moved to her thigh, making the muscle jump, to her knee where he squeezed, then down her shin to her foot where he covered her instep. “These legs and feet.” He grabbed for her hand and brought it to his lips. “These hands.”
She’d taught him too well. He could inflame her body and devastate her emotions. “All yours, tonight.” And after tonight, memories and fantasies.
He kissed her temple. “But what’s in here. The ziggurat of Zarley, I’ll never know what comes next, never find all the secrets, and I’ll never have enough of that.”
Don’t think about all the pretty things he says. Don’t think about the fact he means them. “My big bad boss is a huge flirt.”
He flicked her bra catch open. “Your boss has a huge urge to give you dictation.”
She smothered a laugh. “I take excellent dictation, sir.” She emphasized the take.
He laughed aloud, gripping her by the waist, lifting her and tossing her on her back on the sofa. He pulled her bra away, her panties. “You’ll take it, Miss. Halveston.”
“Take it till I get it perfect.”
His hand over her breast, eyes locked on. “Already perfect.”
The kiss she launched at him wasn’t perfect. It caught his lips on a smile, it grazed his cheekbone with her knuckles as she grabbed for his neck. All her confusion and longing, the game that hid her feelings, and need to pull away from him was in that kiss. When it centered on his mouth and opened into pure heated desire with licks of her tongue and the taste of him, she moaned in grief and ecstasy.
Her breath caught but so did his, the kiss breaking but merging again. Reid’s arm was under her back, his thigh braced beside her hip, securing her against him as if he knew the risk of losing her. With hands and lips she found the places on his body that gave him joy and was merciless in attacking them, using her body to tease and tempt and draw him on; losing the sense of cause and effect in the mad rush of sensation that rippled through both of them.
His fingers inside her were sweet relief but he had the touch of a torturer she’d never taught him and loved all the more. He bit her earlobe, used a well-placed thumb and other evil insanely good tricks to make her try to climb over his back to get away and dig into his skin to stay.
“Miss. Halveston, I want to hear you scream.”
Now the game was making him work for it, because he craved that, buzzed to know he could tear away her discipline and wreck her control. She’d begun to live for it; for the moment it was all blurred, the sharp and soft, the give and take, the part where she ended and he began, where they breathed through each other’s mouths and absorbed each other’s quakes. Where her scream was his doing and his shout was her triumph.
This time it wasn’t what he did but what he said that made release thunder through her body and rip free. Not her name. Not I love you. Nothing dirty or mindlessly erotic.
It tripped from him like shock. “You’re the beginning of me.”
She screamed.
Because loving him too much would be the end of her.
Eventually they made it to the bedroom, settled curled around each other. Reid fell fast and heavy, his arms going loose over her. Zarley didn’t want to sleep, didn’t want to waste being with him sooner than she had to.
She whispered
the thoughts in her head to his sleeping form. I love you. It wasn’t meant to happen. You snuck under my guard. You’re not to sulk. Okay, maybe for a few days. But no drinking to excess and don’t forget to eat. I love you. Don’t miss me. You have everything you need to know. You don’t have to be alone.
He didn’t see the tears so she let them come and her eyes were full of grit when he woke her. It was early, he was dressed to go. He generally let her sleep.
“What’s wrong?” It seemed the right question and his answer was a threat.
He shook his head. “Wanted. Last night, you were.” He shook his head again as if his gears hadn’t meshed. “You were beautiful.” He smoothed a hand over her hair. “Always are. Have a good day, Flygirl.”
She sat, reached for his face and rubbed her thumb over his cheekbone. If she kissed his lips he’d read every distress she felt. She’d shift his suspicion to knowledge before she was ready to face that consequence. She kissed where her thumb had traced. “You too.”
At the bedroom door, he turned back, a half-smile, half-puzzled look on his face that he shook off with a wave and left.
It was early but she didn’t go back to sleep. She got up, showered, dressed, packed and sat at the dining table to write him all the things she couldn’t say before she left.
Dear Back Booth
I’m sorry to run out on you. I’m not usually a coward but this is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Maybe in a few weeks I’ll be able to tell you face to face what I’m going to say here, but right now I’m afraid if I see you, I’d give in to you and in the end I’ll have learned to hate you.
I don’t ever want to do that.
I love you.
I know you love me.
But I can’t be with you anymore.
You’ll find this hard to take. But when you clear your head and think about it, you’ll see I was right. Yes, you’ll hate being wrong, but I promise, this is for the best.
Remember that one big fight we had. Remember the shirt tearing angry forgiveness sex. I know you do. I told you I was going to need you to need me? I’m sure you believed it when you said you needed me more ways than you could count.
Offensive Behavior (Sidelined #1) Page 32
