Still, even she could admit her usual approach wasn’t getting her very far.
Forcing her pride down, she breathed out a sigh. “So what do you suggest?”
He leaned forward, eyes sparkling. “My way.”
chapter TEN
The office was all but empty by the time Dane got the text. After a quick reply that he was on his way, he pocketed his phone and shut down the rest of his work. Waving good-bye to the other Bellamy people still slaving away in front of their screens, he hefted his bag over his shoulder and made his way down the hall.
Surprise, surprise, the lights were all on in the conference room where Lexie had set herself up. He peered in at her through the glass as he approached.
Fuck, she was gorgeous.
And at least a tiny bit less tightly wound than she’d been the last time he’d dropped in on her. Only a tiny bit, though. Her careful composure could be seen from space, but now that he knew what she looked like when she let her hair down, it was all the more obvious. The stiff set to her shoulders and the perfect polish to her looks. The tense furrows between her brows.
He licked his lips. He couldn’t wait to strip it all away again. Tonight.
Moving to stand in her doorway, he tapped his knuckles against the wood. “Ms. Bellamy?”
“Hmm?” Her gaze flicked up to meet his, then lower to take in his jacket and his bag. Her mouth slanted downward for a fraction of a second before she recovered, smoothing her expression. The fake calm made him want to put his fist through the glass. “Did you need something before you take off?”
His frustration rose toward a boil, and his fingers twitched. Not three hours ago, he had stood in this very room and listened to her vent. She’d doubted him, and he’d thought he’d set her fears at ease.
She’d doubted herself, and he’d told her he had another way.
Swallowing his annoyance, he raised a brow. “Yes. You.”
“What?”
How much more clear could he be? “I.” He pointed at himself. “Need you.” At her. “To come.” He made little walking motions with his fingers toward the door. “With me.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I speak English, thank you very much. I just don’t know—”
“Tapas.” He cut her off. “Wine, bread, cheese. Olives and ham if you ask very nicely.”
He barely got half the words out before she shook her head. “I’m neck-deep in work . . .”
“Lexie. It’s Friday afternoon. What the hell is so important that it can’t wait?”
“You can ask me that when you’re second in command at a multibillion-dollar company.”
“Uh, no thanks.” He’d rather be dead.
Bile rose in his throat at the thought. Shit.
Forcing his fists to unclench and his mind to back away slowly, he shifted his stance. Kept his focus clear and in this room.
“Honestly, Lex. Have you looked around? The place is deserted.”
“This isn’t the only project I’m responsible for.”
“And you have a hundred minions in New York toiling away to make sure everything you left behind is still chugging along.” He wasn’t letting her pull this crap. Not when it was the root of the problem in the first place. “Here, with stuff at Escudo—didn’t you say that your way wasn’t working?”
She all but pouted. “Maybe.”
“Then come on. Let me show you mine.”
Dane would never understand how it could take so much convincing to get someone to leave work, but this was Lexie here. It wasn’t exactly a surprise. Finally, he managed to get her moving, though. As she shut down her computer and packed her things away, he crossed the room to pluck her jacket from the back of a chair. When he held it open for her, she gave him a withering look.
“Humor me,” he said.
She did, turning around, sliding her arms into the sleeves. He couldn’t resist stepping in a little closer as she shrugged it the rest of the way on, letting his chest graze her spine. Smoothing the lapels of the coat down her front.
Before she could give him any shit for it, he eased away. But when she turned to follow him out, her cheeks were pink, her breath up.
Good.
He really hadn’t meant to neglect her last night. Their counterparts on the Escudo side were his kind of people, though, working to live instead of living to work, and when they’d invited him out, he’d accepted. Lexie hadn’t seemed to mind.
He probably should have caught on earlier that she was reading it all wrong. That she was preemptively pushing him away.
Well, he saw it now. And he was going to do everything he could to show her in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t finished with her. Not even close.
Despite Dane’s protests that the Metro would be easier, Lexie insisted on having her driver take them to the bar in L’Eixample where they were supposed to meet Carlos. The whole way there, as they swerved through traffic that gave Manhattan a run for its money, Lexie kept her gaze plastered to the window, her eyes wide.
Glancing at the driver in the rearview mirror, Dane slid a little closer to her side of the car, brushing his hand against hers. “Have you seen anything besides the inside of that skyscraper and your hotel?”
She shrugged, but it wasn’t quite casual. “I’ve been busy, okay?”
No, not okay.
“Clearly.” Picking up her hand, he kneaded at the muscles of her palm, digging lightly at the base of her thumb. She kept sneaking peeks toward the front seat of the car. “Shh. He’s not paying any attention.”
“I know.”
“And even if he were. Who would he tell?”
Some random chauffeur in a different country? He was hardly a risk.
But her responding laugh was dark. “You have no idea how gossipy staff can be.”
She probably had him there. Still. “He’s not looking.”
There was hardly anything to see. But for all that he was trying to massage the tension from her palm, the chance of getting caught seemed to make her tighter and tighter. After a minute he gave up, but he didn’t move away.
When they arrived at the bar, it was the same thing. As if by some unspoken agreement, she stuck by his side, too close to get separated but not so close that anyone could get the wrong right idea. He gritted his teeth as he led her through the space toward the table in the corner where Carlos and the rest of the guys were already well into at least their first round.
It took a second for Lexie’s presence to register, but when it did, a sudden hush fell on their corner of the bar. Lexie stiffened, but he refused to be deterred. No way he was letting her back out of this now.
“Hey,” he said, in English, summoning all the easy charm he could manage. “You all know Lexie.”
Her first name now. Not Ms. Bellamy. She might give him hell for that later, but for the moment she’d have to deal.
Tight smiles and muffled greetings were the only replies.
“Lexie . . .” He introduced everyone in turn.
But after that, he came up blank. Fuck. Maybe he had made a mistake. It was all awkward silence and idle shuffling. Lexie was standing so ramrod straight even his shoulders hurt to look at her.
And it was weird. He’d seen her uncomposed a handful of times now, but never like this. In a group of people, she took over. She took command.
Here, though, she looked . . . Well, nervous. It wasn’t a look he’d ever seen on her before, and it made his heart give an unfamiliar squeeze.
After a minute, she opened her mouth, though, and he held his breath. Even odds she’d dig her heels in or turn around and flee.
In a surprise twist, she did neither.
“So,” she said, visibly forcing herself to relax. “What’s everybody drinking? This round is on me.”
These people were completely insane.
The streetlights wavered only a little as Lexie tromped along after the crew. Apparently, their entire plan for the night was to hit as many tapas places as they could
. Tiny plates of olives and cheese and bread were all well and good, and maybe a ratio of three bites of actual food to every one glass of wine was a reasonable one for the natives, but her liver couldn’t handle it. She’d switched to seltzer and lime and actually ponied up for some real food at the last place, and that had helped clear her head, at least.
But now it was almost midnight and the streets were packed with people just . . . wandering around, it seemed. Old and young and even families with kids were still out. The energy of it all had her buzzing from more than just three glasses of wine; it had her going strong even though she should be running on fumes.
She’d always been the first one into the office back home in New York, but usually it was only by an hour or two. Here, she was lucky if she saw anyone besides her employees before nine, and she was starting to get an inkling as to why.
She was also starting to see why they looked at her so strangely and didn’t seem to want to help her out.
Well, they were making progress on that now. It’d taken her picking up the tab at two different places, but they’d started to warm to her, slowly letting down their guard.
Now Carlos walked beside her, talking animatedly about someone she was pretty sure was his cousin and some sort of international incident he’d caused in Greece. Lexie let her head tip back in laughter, and just a little bit more of the tightness seeped out of her spine.
Dane turned, glancing at her over his shoulder, an amused smile curling his lips. What? She could laugh. She could let go.
She just . . . didn’t. Not often.
It felt good to here, tonight.
When they arrived at whatever bar had been next on the list, with a groan she pulled out a stool at one of the high-tops they managed to commandeer. Dane stepped into the space beside her while the rest of the guys filled in around them.
He hadn’t exactly stayed glued to her side all night, but he’d never been far away. Still, this was the closest he’d stood since they’d first arrived. All her reasons for keeping him at a distance had seemed so important at the beginning of the night, but with every hour that passed, it became less and less of a concern.
She’d already let loose more than she usually did. How much worse would it really be to lean into him a little? Tip her head until it rested against the broad strength of his chest or bury her nose against his throat and drink the woodsy maleness of his scent?
A lot. It would be a lot worse.
Fighting the temptation, she plunked her elbows on the table and dropped her head into her hands.
Dane’s warm chuckle brushed her skin like a caress. “You holding up all right, Ms. Bellamy?”
“Lexie,” she insisted, the word muffled by her hands. Slurred. “And I’m fine.” Flexing her feet, she shifted her head, twisting her neck to the side so she could slot open her eyes and look at him. “If I’d known we’d be walking between bars, I’d have changed out of these heels, though.”
“Well, that would be a pity.”
His gaze flashed dark, and for half a second, she was back on the plane, stripped down to her bra and panties, Dane standing over her and growling at her not to take off her shoes.
She gave a full-body shudder. “Sadist.”
“Sometimes. Yes.”
Oh, hell.
She had to look away or all her efforts at keeping this under wraps were going out the window.
Around them, the night was just as lively as it had been since they’d arrived, but it was as if a cozy little pocket had formed itself around their corner of the table. She wasn’t really drunk, but she wasn’t quite sober, either, and things felt soft and warm. Through the haze of her vision, she watched as if from a distance as Carlos and one of the few women from the office got into it about . . . football, maybe. It didn’t really matter. They all seemed at ease and happy, and a lonely little pang fired off in her heart.
“So.” She kept her vision trained forward and her voice soft. “This is what your weekends are like, huh?”
The only quirk of Dane’s dedication to his job had been his dash out the door at exactly five p.m. on Fridays and his late arrivals on Monday mornings. The entire rest of the week, he was at her disposal, but there was this other whole part of his life he kept for himself.
“Hmm?”
“This.” She gestured vaguely at the rest of the bar. “This is what you do when you’re not at work.”
“Sometimes.” He seemed to mull the question over a bit. “Sort of. Not really.”
“Oh?” She tilted her head to the side again, her gaze catching on his profile. The strong lines of his nose and brow. The sharpness of his jaw.
“A night out with friends is nice. But when I leave the office . . . I’m looking for an escape, you know?”
She wrinkled up her nose. “No. Not really.”
He laughed again, low and warm. When he turned to look at her, the softness to his eyes made her breath catch.
“I suppose you wouldn’t,” he admitted. “Believe it or not, an office job wasn’t my first choice in life.”
She paused. Had he ever talked about himself before? The closest he’d come had probably been when he’d tried to beg off going on this trip at all, but that had been different. It’d been him throwing excuses at her.
This felt like him opening himself up.
“Oh?” She tried to keep the eager interest from her voice, but it didn’t work that well.
“Nope.”
They were interrupted by the arrival of a tray of drinks. Lexie hadn’t even noticed the order being put in, she’d been so wrapped up in Dane, but a glass of white wine and a little plate of cheese and toast magically appeared in front of her. She smiled in thanks before glancing at Dane again, hoping the moment hadn’t been broken.
Tentative, she asked, “What happened?”
Dane picked up his own drink, a pale beer, and brought it to his lips. He took a long pull at it, Adam’s apple bobbing. When he put it down, it was with his shoulders braced, his gaze off somewhere far away.
“My brother died.”
“Oh my God.” That . . . was not where she’d been expecting this to go.
“It’s fine. I mean, it’s not. It never will be. But. It was a long time ago.”
What the hell was she supposed to say? “I’m so sorry.” She hesitated. “Were you . . . close?”
Shrugging, he took another sip of his beer. “He was a lot older than I was, but it still felt that way to me. Probably as much hero worship as anything else.” He cut a glance at her before looking away. “It devastated my mom. She’s still a mess about it. Pretty sure my dad thought it was his fault.”
“How?”
“Jake was a firefighter, just like the old man. Got hit by a back draft in a house that was going down. Whole place collapsed underneath him. He didn’t have a chance.”
“Jesus.”
“And that was the end of life as I knew it.” The distance to his voice receded. She could almost see him visibly extracting himself from the past. “My folks never got past it. Their marriage fell apart. I was barely sixteen and had never left Montana before. Then bam, my brother’s gone, my dad’s stopped talking, and the next thing I know, my mom’s packing the two of us off to go live with her parents in Queens. My life has been nothing but safety, safety, safety ever since.”
Ah. “Thus the office job.”
It brought them full circle. He nodded, a bitter set to his mouth. “Thus the office job.”
“Well, you’re really good at it.” It was small consolation, but it was something.
“Thanks. Still doesn’t make it what I wanted from my life.”
He didn’t mean it that way, but she felt it right between her ribs.
She regrouped, picking at the nail of her thumb. “Which was?”
He flashed her a wry, wistful grin. “To be just like my old man. Like my brother. A big damn hero.”
Oh. Speechless, she dropped her gaze. She fiddled with the sweat on her g
lass.
The funny thing was that she’d always sort of known it. From the very first day, when this gorgeous, rough-hewn mountain of a man had stepped through her door instead of some reedy office boy, she’d guessed. The sleek high-rise of Bellamy International wasn’t where he belonged.
A hero. Yeah. He looked like one.
“I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “Not your fault. But you’ll excuse me if at the end of the day I’m looking to be somewhere else.”
“Kind of makes sense, actually.”
It wasn’t something she could entirely relate to. Her work was her life, and when she went home, it was usually to do more of it. But if she didn’t love it, if she were constantly itching to be somewhere else . . .
Well, then that would make her a little more like everyone else in her life, wouldn’t it?
With a thickness in her throat, she took a long sip of her wine. It was good—crisp and just a little bit sweet. Setting her glass down again, she rolled her next question around on her tongue.
“So. If you’re not hanging around in bars all weekend, what do you get up to?”
The first real smile in a while cracked his face. All too quickly, it turned into a leer. “You know some of the things I get up to.”
Did she ever. A hot flush swept across her chest and over her cheeks. Her mouth went desert-dry. “Women, then.”
“It’s a hobby.”
She couldn’t quite hold in her snort. He said it so casually, but he wasn’t kidding anyone. “A hobby.”
He looked at her, gaze dark. “Maybe a little more than that.”
With intention, she plucked her finger from her glass and brought the dampened end of it to her lips. She dragged it along the bottom one, then lower, down the line of her throat, only stopping just short of the neckline of her shirt.
He huffed out a breath, nostrils flaring. “Maybe a lot more than that.”
“Is that all, then? Kinky sex? That’s your escape?” She ran her fingertip across her skin, dipping just beneath the fabric, toward the swells at the tops of her breasts.
In a flash, he reached out. His hand closed around her wrist, and it was a shock of lightning burning through her.
Nine Kinds of Naughty Page 11
